1. K9-Mail – I wasn’t a fan of the default Android mail. Blackberry really was great about one thing; email. With K9-Mail, it gets a little closer as you can set how often you want email pulled off the server, whereas I believe the default Android mail system only does that for Gmail.
2. Google Talk – If you don’t have unlimited texting for your Android, the Google Talk app is a great alternative. You can text all you want w/out incurring any overage fees for texting too much. The only drawback is that the other person needs Google Talk as well.
3. Facebook – I’m hardly addicted to it, but it’s become a standard app. It’s so easy to take pics, upload to Facebook, tag people, reply, send messages, etc.
4. TweetCaster – I think this is, by far, the best Twitter app for Android. The primary reason is how it handles multiple accounts. I’ve tried others and almost switched to TweetDeck, but there were definite pros with TweetCaster that I couldn’t find elsewhere (i.e. autofill for names, quick follow, etc.)
5. WordPress – It’s just like it’s Blackberry counterpart, but as with most apps, it’s improved over time. I’m able to take a picture with my phone, share it via the WordPress app (like Facebook) and it will upload it into a post.
6. Reddit Is Fun – If you like Reddit, but want something better than their mobile site, this app makes surfing Reddit, well, fun.
7. CraigsNotifica – This handy unofficial Craigslist app makes searching and tracking items on Craigslist a breeze. Plus, as the name implies, you can set up notifications to alert you when a new item that matches your query is added.
8. Pandora – With a new phone, I tried a new service and even paid for Slacker. It didn’t get along with my phone and I’d frequently have to relaunch it, which is a pain while driving, or mowing the lawn. Pandora, even though you can’t cache stations, works much better.
9. Gas Buddy – As gas prices continue to rise, I’m finding that I use this app more and more. It serves a singular purpose, and that is to help you find the lowest gas prices in your area.
10. Google Sky Map – The coolness factor of this app is off the charts! Turn this app on and you instantly have in front of you a map of constellations and planets, wherever you point your phone. My son was learning about planets in preschool & he loves this app too!

Obviously, there are a lot of other apps I use and some I would include based on frequency of use, but, like Droidin (the best LinkedIn app I could find), they just aren’t that great. I also use Tapatalk for a few forums I frequent, but many forum scripts have their own built in mobile versions that are just as good.

What are your favorite Android apps?

• WordPress – This free app from WordPress has allowed me monitor and update all of my blogs from just about anywhere.
• Pandora – There are several free streaming music apps for the Blackberry. With Pandora I can enter favorite bands or songs and channels with similar music is created.
• Facebook and MySpace – I’ll just lump these together, since they pretty much do the same thing – updating the social networking sites.
• Google Sync – Blackberry has its own calendar, but I already use Google Calendar. This app syncs the two, as well as you contacts.
• Google Mobile App – Sometimes it’s too time consuming to bring up a the Blackberry browser and manually typing in your query. With this app, you can speak your question, or keywords and it will search for you. (Apparently, this does not work on the Blackberry Storm)
• UberTwitter – This is pretty much the king of Twitter apps for the Blackberry and retains most, if not all, of the functionality Twitter.com offers. Of course, it’s no match for a PC client like TweetDeck.
• PayPal – There’s not too much to this one, but being able to send payments and check your acct history while traveling is pretty cool.
• The Weather Channel – I prefer this weather app over others, like WeatherEye, because it offers a longer forecast and has less intrusive advertising.
• Poynt – From locating businesses, restaurants movie times and gas prices near you, this app does a lot!
• Blackberry Messenger – This one is pretty muck a given. It’s a quick and easy way to chat and share pictures with friends and famiy.

Most of the Blackberry apps listed above can be found at BlackBerry App World and the CrackBerry App Store. Enjoy!

1. Google calendar (personal & important work stuff)
2. My desk calendar (record time off)
3. My Outlook calendar (appts  & project due dates)
4. Shared Outlook calendar (appts & vacation)
5. Printed calendar (appts & vacation)

I guess I need to consolidate some of these, but the only one I can really give up is the desk calendar, but that comes in handy when all I need is the time I’ve taken off, so I can quickly update my time sheet at the end of the month. It would be nice if all of our Outlook calendars were synched, so there would be no need for a shared calendar, in turn eliminating the need for the printed version. Gotta love redundancy. Gotta love redundancy.

Here’s an abridged version for those who don’t want to read the article…

Apparently, Aaron Greenspan, founder of Think Computer Corporation, who has also sued Facebook, decided to use Google Adsense on his site, which, from what I understand, had no content. Based on the following quote, I think it’s pretty clear that he failed to comply with the Program Policies he agreed to when he signed up with Google.

In anticipation of a new product, Think had acquired a brand new domain name that was unexpectedly receiving a high volume of internet traffic. Instead of paying Google for Think’s ads, I thought it might make more sense for Think to get paid for displaying Google’s.

Further on in the article, Greenspan explains that his domain name needed a domain parking service, such as Google Adsense for Domains, which wasn’t available to him when he decided to break the Adsense Program Policies.

Unlike normal AdSense (“for Content,” as it was then re-branded), AdSense for Domains was designed to be used by web sites that were effectively blank. When I had tried to sign up for it previously, given that my domain name needed exactly such a service, it had been “closed”–code for “available to a limited number of companies with large numbers of domain names.”

As if that wasn’t enough, Greenspan goes on to show how he tried to legally skirt the Adsense policy violation by using another service that would be less profitable for him.

I found Sedo, a European company that had a contract with none other than–you guessed it–Google AdSense–to display advertisements on placeholder web sites. By signing up with Sedo, I could once again use AdSense

So, there you have it. This guy shows that he is 100% at fault, chooses to ignore the Adsense Program Policies, complains that he wasn’t able to use the domain parking service before it was available to him and then feels even more wronged when he can’t get in contact with someone at Google who will listen to his petty complaints. He lost $721 that wasn’t his. Get over it.

Where did this go wrong for Google?

Fortunately, for Mr. Greenspan, he filed in small claims court, which means that Google could not send their experienced (and very expensive, I imagine) attorneys to fight this frivolous lawsuit. Instead, Google sent a paralegal named Stephanie Milani, who couldn’t provide the right answers. Mind you, these are answers that thousands of Adsense users could have answered in their sleep. It took me all of a minute (at the most) to find the applicable information…

Google Adsense Program Policies regarding Ad Placement (emphasis added):

Ad Placement

AdSense offers a number of ad formats and advertising products. Publishers are encouraged to experiment with a variety of placements, provided the following policies are respected:

Up to three ad units may be displayed on each page.

A maximum of two Google AdSense for search boxes may be placed on a page.

Up to three link units may also be placed on each page.

Up to three referral units may be displayed on a page, in addition to the ad units, search boxes, and link units specified above.

AdSense for search results pages may show only a single ad link unit in addition to the ads Google serves with the search results. No other ads may be displayed on your search results page.

No Google ad or Google search box may be displayed in a pop-up, pop-under, or in an email.

Elements on a page must not obscure any portion of the ads.

No Google ad may be placed on any non-content-based pages.

No Google ad may be placed on pages published specifically for the purpose of showing ads, whether or not the page content is relevant.

Whether or not those exact Program Policies were intact when Greenspan signed up for Adsense, the general policy regarding the requirement of content was always included. I just don’t get it. The proof of the policy violation was provided to the judge and it was obviously ignored. Somehow they focused on the idea that Google had no reason to terminate the account. Yes, they did. They told you the reason. The reason is firmly and clearly stated in the Program Policies. But, perhaps is wasn’t presented correctly by the paralegal, or it was completely ignored by the judge. They also focused on the term Google used for the termination, such that Greenspan posed “a significant risk to advertisers.” The risk is that your ads do not provide any value because you do not have content on your site. Regardless, you violated the policies. Case closed.

I had to laugh at the following statement by the judge, where he equates what happened to discrimination based on eye color.

“But you couldn’t terminate my account because of the color of my eyes, could you? I have brown eyes. You couldn’t terminate my account because of that.”

Are you kidding me? There was no discrimination. None.

In the end, $721 + $40 court fees isn’t anything for Google to worry about. The implications, and suggestions by Greenspan for others to sue; however, are much more severe. You can use your imagination as to the number of lawsuits this could bring to Google, or any company, in the future, where policies and terms of service can be completely ignored with no consequence. Some speculate that this could cause Google to pull the plug on Adsense, which is absurd. Paying out all closed accounts would probably be a drop in the bucket for Google. But, such a thing could easily destroy a smaller company.

Important!

Google has recently taken over FeedBurner which means
your feed URL has changed. CommentLuv stores your
feed URL from the first time it sees your site so if
you are using Feedburner be sure to log in to
CommentLuv, go to the "claim your site" link in the
menu and enter your new feedburner URL in the field
marked "Feed URL"

This will fix any problems you may be experiencing
where the posts returned when you comment on
CommentLuv blogs aren't up to date. Once you update
your feed url to the new one then everything will go
back to normal.

Please be aware that the new site and back end script
are being developed this and next month so there may
be some intermittent access and responses while the
new server takes over from the old one.

Visit the link below to log in to CommentLuv and
update your feed url.
http://www.commentluv.com/settings

you can contact me any time by replying to this messge

Kind regards

Andy Bailey
http://www.commentluv.com

I guess I need to contact some blog aggregators like IpsoSacto.com and have them update the feed URL. I think the original one still works, but I wouldn’t be surprised if, at some point, it gets turned off.

As you may know, Google bought out Feedburner in June of 2007. Good for them, bad for us. For the past month, Google has been allowing publishers to try out the new system if they want. Now, they’re forcing us to migrate over to their new system, which requires us to change links and code on our sites.

It wasn’t much more than a few minutes to transfer the feeds for drivelocity.com over from the original Feedburner to the new Google Feedburner and I only needed to update a widget, change two links and upload one file. But this is one site, and probably the easiest one to update.

For those sites with multiple feeds, or links to feeds on multiple pages, the migration will be much more involved. Not only do I use feeds for blogs, but I also use them for forums. Updating each of these, individually, is going to be a major chore, but thinking about doing them all in one day is extremely daunting. I’m going to have to plan this out so I don’t get overwhelmed. I have a tendency of trying to work on numerous sites at the same time and can easily overlook a link or two.

Another concern is that while using the original Feedburner, I created separate accounts for each site. Now this may be my chance to consolidate my accounts under one Google account, but this will have to wait until I get all of my feeds migrated over. I see that there is an option to transfer your feed to another Feedburner publisher by entering their email address. I assume this will work for consolidating accounts… But, I’ll wait to do this until I’m done with the migration.

As I haven’t delved too deeply into the Adsense for Feeds option, it looks like this will require me to consolidate all of my feeds under my main Google account. My main Google account was initially set up for my Adsense account, thus creating my GMail account, tied into my Google Calendar and will likely soon be used for my Feedburner account.

If anyone has any Feedburner migration tips, I’d love to read them!

Click here for the drivelocity RSS feed.

Take a look at Google’s new Favicon below and compare it to the logo for a company many people love to hate. What do you think?

Notice that the pattern of colors in the new Google Favicon is identical to the pattern of colors in Microsoft’s logo… Turn the MS logo 45 degrees clockwise and it’s even more clear. I’m not saying Google would ever rip off a logo, especially the logo used by one of the world’s largest software developers, but it seems as though Google could have tried to match the color pattern of their own logo.

Going clockwise around the Favicon and the Microsft logo, the pattern of colors becomes blue, red, green, yellow. However, the color pattern of the Google logo is blue, red, yellow, blue, green, red. If you eliminate the second blue, since it’s repeated, the pattern would be blue, red, yellow, green. Even if you take off the first blue and red, or start from the other side and work backwards, the pattern would be different.

So, why the similarity? Why not take that extra step?

1. Google Search – I have the Google bar installed, which not only provides an easy way to search, but also displays Page Rank. I can also type an address directly into the search and quickly locate an address on Google Maps. Another feature I use often is “define:” – put that before a word to get definitions from several sources, or to check spelling.
2. Google Calendar – My wife and I were having a hard time getting our schedules in order and since I only use web-based email accounts I can access from anywhere, Outlook was out of the question. Google Calendar lets us add our appointments and repeating events like birthdays, and then sync our calendars together.
3. Digg / Reddit – They’re essentially the same thing being news aggregators. I use each to get the latest news and, while I’ve used Digg longer, I tend to open both at the same time and peruse each equally. One thing I don’t like about Reddit is how the news on the front page can be stagnant throughout a day.
4. Woot – While I think most of the crap on Woot is… well… crap, I try to check it daily. I have gotten some good deals on some mp3 players and a Roomba. And, I got a DVD player that turned out to be a complete piece of junk, but they took it back. I have yet to get a Bag of Crap…
5. Snopes – With the amount of junk that spreads quickly around the Internet, everyone should have this bookmarked or on their start page. Most recently I used it to learn that Mr. Rogers was, in fact, not an ex-Navy Seal, nor are his arms covered with tattoos.
6. NetFlix / RedBox – Together, these two resources make a great combination. I never thought we got our money’s worth out of the 3-DVD package on NetFlix, so we dropped it down to one-at-a-time. And if we ever need a movie quickly while waiting for NetFlix to deliver, we can dash over to a RedBox and rent it for $1.00 per 24hrs.
7. NewEgg – Whenever I need, say, a new flash drive, the first place I turn to is NewEgg. The reviews are usually accurate and well written. Even if I read reviews elsewhere, I’ll return to NewEgg for low prices and because I’ve always had a great experience.
8. Facebook / MySpace – I started, reluctantly on MySpace and never did much with it except keep in touch with some family members. Unfortunately, it seemed like most of the people I went to school with missed the social networking bandwagon. It turns out many of them were on Facebook. I prefer Facebook’s clean GUI and faster speeds, but keep both accounts open.
9. Consumerist – This is, by far, one of my favorite blogs. It’s a great blog that deals with poor customer service and shady business practices, and it’s not rare that something can stir up something in my emotions. I recently linked to two of their articles involving McDonald’s.
10. SlipperyBrick – I’m sure there are a zillion gadget blogs out there, but this one stood out and made it to my bookmarks first. I think I originally found it on Digg or Reddit with a link to a “Lego safe.” From then on, I’ve been hooked. I even posted about a cool tool I found on that site.
11. ABestWeb – This is a wonderful resource for anyone interested in, or involved with, affiliate marketing. There are also sections devoted to other forms of revenue generating and general design and promtion discussion. The owner, Haiko, is a real stand up guy who doesn’t take crap from anyone.
12. Firefox – I’ll admit that I haven’t tried Opera, or Chrome, but I don’t think I need to, other than for cross browser compatibility testing. Firefox does everything I need it to and then some. I’m always finding something new and great about it. Best of all, it’s not Internet Explorer.
13. WordPress – With this blog, I’ve become quite interested in new plugins, widgets and themes. There are many resources related to WordPress. Too many to list. It amazes me, to this day, that it provides so much for free, yet is so well supported.
14. Picasa – We recently moved most of our family photos over to Picasa from being hosted on our own site. Picasa offers numerous options to users and visitors, including allowing people to print your photos. There are also several WordPress plugins to display your Picasa albums in your own blog’s photo gallery.
15. CPSC Recall List – I strongly suggest that people sign up for the US Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) subscription lists for recall notifications. Through this list, I found that our son’s crib was being recalled. These lists also provided information regarding recalls for pet food and toys made in China. Don’t wait for this stuff to show up on the news!
16. My Start Page – There are so many resources I utilize, not to mention links to my sites, admin panels, stats, etc., that I have a fully loaded custom start page with everything I use on a regular basis. I’ve also added feeds for some other sites I track, as well as having the Google Calendar embedded.

Other blogs have created similar lists as you can see here, here, here, here, here and here.

What’s on your list? Do you see anything I use that has a better alternative?

It’s not a bad starting point, but moving beyond that with a newer site can be difficult. I am now interested in obtaining more quality backlinks, so if you have a similar page rank and would like to exchange blogroll links, please let me know.

Here’s a great graphic from Smashing Magazine to explain Page Rank:

1. Affiliate Marketing – Some of the big networks in affiliate marketing include Commission Junction, Linkshare, ShareASale, among many others. Don’t fall into the trap of believing that you can throw up a page full of banners and generate an income. Having too many ads is a sure way to drive away your visitors. Tailor your ads to your posts and you can not only provide a service, but make more money than having random, un-related ads on your blog. For more information on affiliate marketing, I strongly suggest you join ABestWeb.
2. Paid Posting – There are several options available for bloggers who wish to get paid to post. One of which is the recently redesigned PayingPost.com which will, if approved, present opportunities to you that you can choose to accept and blog about. If your post meets the requirements, you can earn a few bucks per post. Keep in mind that your blog will need to be somewhat established first. What’s great about this option is that you can earn while doing something that you’d be doing anyway, blogging. If you wish to post an opportunity for bloggers, click here.
3. In-house Ad Sales – Many people overlook this option, opting only for affiliate ads or adsense for banner and link advertising. By offering site sponsorship directly (see 125×125 ads to the right and the advertising page), you can control the price, the ads and it can be a much more guaranteed form of income. Some advertisers can also help you by sponsoring, or providing prizes for contests. If you think it’s too hard, look into OpenX, formerly phpAdsNew, to serve the ads and PayPal to handle subscriptions. It can be fairly automated. If that’s still too hands-on, check out Bidvertiser and PerformancingAds.
4. Contextual CPC Ads – Contextual ads are those that display depending on the content of they page of your site on which they reside. There are many pros and cons of using Google Adsense (see sponsors ads to the left) or Yahoo! Publisher Network to serve contextual CPC (cost per click) ads. If done correctly, they can generate substantial revenue. But there are many marketers out there looking to swindle new bloggers out of their money by offering them the road to quick cash. Your success with contextual CPC advertising generally depends on the traffic to your blog, whether or not they have a high level of ad blindness, and the content of your blog.
5. Contextual Links – Rather than having CPC banners and ad blocks on your blog, you can have CPC links directly in your posts. These ads are usually set to appear differently (i.e. two underlines) so as to not confuse the visitor. Once the link is moused over, an ad bubble pops up. One such network is Kontera – you can run this in addition to Adsense and not be in breach of terms.