Monetizing my blog

Or not. It's mostly an experiment. I'm working on the second edition of my Blogger book, and I'm trying to figure out how to help people make their blogs a money-making proposition. Of course, Google/Blogger have this AdSense program that places supposedly-relevant ads on a blog, but every time I see a page filled with those ads, I automatically think they're trying to scam me. So, I'm wondering a couple of things. Are there real blogs with useful content that include Google AdSense ads? And do the ads generate income for these folks? If you know the answer, I'd sure love to hear it.

Back in February, I wrote a Web site documenting every possible layout of an iPhoto Book.  At one point, it got mentioned in TidBITS, and I was getting several hundred hits a day, quite a lot more than normal. It's leveled off quite a

A Year in Barcelona: Hardware Stores par excellence

So, I'm testing backlinks as I update my book on Blogger. If a regular link goes outward to somewhere else, a backlink is a link from another site to your site.

It seems like backlinks are activated by default in Blogger. If you go to the Settings | Comments page, you'll see two options for backlinks that are on by default. But where do you find them? The answer is that you have to go to the

Random tip: Mousing Leftward (Updated)

Some of my most useful tips (to me anyway) come from mistyping or being clumsy on the keyboard. The other day there was something leaning on my shift key while I was using the roller on my mouse and lo and behold, I scrolled sideways instead of up and down. Cool! I'm not sure if that's mouse-specific (mine's a wireless Logitech), but I thought I'd pass it on.

Updated!!
Hmm. It looks like the left-right mouse scrolling is at least application dependent. In Firefox, Shift makes the mouse scroll wheel go left and right (instead of the default up and down), but in InDesign CS4, the Shift key super-charges the scrolling wheel so you scroll faster, but still up and down. The Option key plus mouse scroll zooms in and out, and the Command key finally makes the mouse wheel scroll left and right. I can't find a place where you can change these mappings.

Logging into multiple accounts at the same time

The other tip I've been wanting to share is about dealing with multiple accounts. For example, for this new version of my Blogger book, I've created an example blog written by the fictional Sarah Cookwood. She has her own Google/Blogger account. But if I'm blogging from her point of view and blogging my own blog at the same time, I end up doing a lot of logging in and out.

Another situation where this might be an issue is if you share a computer with a partner or sibling. You log into your Gmail account and check your mail. Fine. But then the other person comes along and wants to log in. Again, there's a lot of logging in and out.

My solution is to use two different browsers... for example, Sarah can log in with Firefox and I can log into Safari. We can both stay logged in and let the browsers keep our accounts separate. If you're on Windows, one of you could use Firefox and the other Opera, (OK, or Internet Explorer).

You could do the same thing with Facebook, Twitter, or any other site that you need to log into with more than one account.

Cousin Gonna

My great-grandparents came to this country from Spain in 1907—landing first in Hawaii where they worked in the sugar plantations for 15 years—and then to California. Though my grandparents were born in Hawaii, they grew up speaking Spanish, dancing with castanets, and playing Bresca. But because my parents divorced when I was little, I barely got to know that family. So about five years ago, I started a blog to collect stories from them. I wanted to hear what it was like when they first got here, how they worked, how they played.

That's how I first reconnected with my Cousin Bob, who I hadn't seen since I was about 3. He thought the Spanish Family blog was a great idea and was one of its first, and most enthusiastic contributors. He had lots of stories to tell