Category Archives: This Blog

As some of you may have noticed, several weeks ago I started an experiment and added Google AdSense to this blog.  You can see the ads at the bottom of the sidebar.  I am not allowed to ask you to click on the ads or draw attention to them or I will be violating the Terms of Service.  So please don’t look at them or click on them unless you’re really, really interested in the product.  So far, no one has clicked on any ad here, so I’m safe for now.

Briefly, the way this works is, Google scans your website, does an analysis of its content, then automatically feeds context-sensitive ads to your web page.  The premise is that people visiting the site will be vulnerable — I mean, will be likely to click on ads that are closely related to the content of the site.  After all, you are here to shop, right?

I have found it mildly amusing to see what type of ads Google decides to serve up to the readers of The 100 Billionth Person.  It reveals Google’s idea of what my blog is about and what kind of audience Google thinks it attracts.  I guess I will keep displaying the ads until I tire of their limited entertainment value, or until Google tires of the lack of response.

We are approaching the one-year anniversary of this blog.  And this is the 100th post on the blog (including the one written by Charley).

Yesterday, September 9, also happened to be the 10th anniversary of chcollins.com.  In 2001, it was a big deal to have your own domain name.  Back then, my website included personal details, interests, humorous features, poetry, and so on (a sample page is at left).  I had the naive notion that a person might use the internet to connect and make friends with like-minded people.

Then that miscreant Mark Zuckerberg stole my idea, created Facebook, and made billions.  Lawsuit is pending.

Update (see below):

It is time to renew (or not) this website.  The introductory price for www.chcollins.com was $3 a month, less than the cost of your proverbial double latte at Starbucks.  But to continue service beyond this first year is $7 a month, $84 a year.

I have to ask, is this worth it?  I suppose there are more expensive indulgences, but that is hardly a justification.

Update 8/11/2011:  I have moved the website to Hawk Host, for half the price (including domain registration).  No reason not to save $120 over 3 years.  Surprising how easy it is to change hosts these days: the new host copied all the files from my old host, and all the internet address pointers got updated within 18 hours.