If you know anything about being an affiliate you probably know that there are datafeeds available from the affiliate centres like RegNow and ShareASale.

The question is, are these feeds any good? What do they look like?

Now I am well aware what is the common sense advice from anybody who has experience as an affiliate. The advice is: don’t expect that you can just paste some code onto your site and instantly have a good-looking, useful shop that people would actually want to visit.

But still, we all have to start from somewhere, so I decided to try out a php feed from RegNow to see what it would look like.

It certainly was easy to implement!

That’s actually why I chose the php feed. There are others available but the php looked like the one that would involve the least work. Other formats include javascript, csv and XML.

I had a specific category of software in mind: all to do with video converting, downloading and converting youtube videos, and a general AV topic. I inserted the appropriate options and categories at installation and let it run.

So if you are interested you can see what that looks like at the installed shop here.

Not too pretty. Here’s why:

1. The method used to identify a specific category of products is not perfect. If you want to ensure that ONLY relevant products are in your datafeed you will need to do some tweaking.

2. I suppose that just about all of the product vendors using an affiliate centre can make their product available for inclusion in automated datafeeds. (I don’t really know how that works: I’m not a vendor.) But, evidently, not all of them are equally conscientious about providing a nice picture, useful product description and a price to be included with the datafeed. So again, if you want your shop to be good-looking you will need to do some editing and tweaking.

Now, about that editing and tweaking. It is not really possible with the php feed. That’s why RegNow also offer the javascript, csv and XML feeds.

I was just too lazy to implement the XML feed, which is the most flexible. (It would involve some learning before it was successfully integrated with the website.)

The php feed from RegNow was very easy to implement and immediately placed nearly 300 more pages on my site here. However, I have noticed that, in a month, nobody has actually visited those pages. Mind you, until today, the pages have no metatags and no external links to them. Also, until I writ this post they had no internal links to them neither. Like I said, it was an experiment.

But this actually contradicts my usual experience, which is that any page will get some visitors in a month.

So that was my experiment. Just shows: on the internet it is much more important to be relevant than to have a lot of pages.

By the way, I don’t mean to be critical of RegNow in any of this. In my experience with them I have no complaints. If I sell some software they send me a cheque.

Next step for me? I suppose if I want to have a big shop I should use the best datafeed - the XML. Then I can edit and tweak until it really is a useful shop.

Another next step? I have not tried out the datafeeds from ShareASale yet. I see from the forums there that some users are happy with their feeds.

It seemed to be very fast and has some interesting features.

Click for bigger image in separate window.

I normally use a Linux system: as of today Chrome is not available for Linux, but it will be some time soon. I am trying it on a Windows machine just because I’m curious.

What is the Chrome Browser?

I won’t use much space here for a full description of Chrome and what it is aiming to do.
You can read all about that at Google, in comic book format
That’s a detailed description, 38 pages.

The short version: main points:

These days web users access a lot of web applications rather than static web pages, so it would be good to have a browser optimized for that kind of usage.

Some of the things Chrome developers want to achieve:

(Pop-up pages will be confined to the tab they originated from.)

Processes run with restricted rights - they cannot just read and write anywhere on your hard drive. Also Chrome will know a blacklist of bad websites so it can warn about potential threats.

In this mode Chrome does not record any of your browsing history or keep the cookies

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People seem to have a lot of questions and opinions about this.
For example:
What exactly Google is planning by way of a business strategy, and future applications?
Why do they really want to develop a browser?
Should Google even be getting into browsers?
How much control of the web does Google want?
Will there be another browser war?

Well, I can’t answer those questions. What I have here are some notes and impressions about what it was like for an ordinary user to download, install, and give Chrome a quick trial.

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Downloading and Installing Chrome

First,just a niggle: I didn’t like the look of the terms and conditions: there was something about keeping Google up-to-date with my personal details. But it’s not really any different from many other license agreements. Also there was a suggestion that I might want to print the terms and conditions for later reference.
Does anybody actually do that?

When I continued to download and install Chrome it did not ask for my details anyway. I suppose that would come if or when I actually want to “access services” that they mentioned.

The installer offered to import bookmarks, passwords (!!) and other settings from Firefox.
No Thanks.
I do not like keeping passwords in any browser’s password utility.

Here’s why: Page about password security at ComputerSecure.net.

So, in summary:
Installation: Fast and easy. Pretty much a one-click download, one-click installation.
Start-up of Chrome browser: Fast.

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Configuration Options

Let’s check the options.

Options in the ‘Under the Hood’ department.

• A place for a proxy setting.
• Option for DNS pre-fetching for fast browsing.
• Phishing and Malware protection.
• SSL settings.
• Cookie Settings.
• Something about “Gears”.

I did not know much about Gears. When I went to gears.google.com, using Chrome, the page told me that Gears is installed.

In case you don’t know either, here is a quick note about Gears is (description from Google):

“Gears works with a select group of sites that are specifically designed for compatibility. When you visit a site that’s configured to work with Gears, you should see a message stating “The website below wants to use Gears.” If you’d like to allow the use of Gears on this site, simply check the box next to “I trust this site. Allow it to use Gears.” and click the Allow button.”

“Gears was designed to be used on both Google and non-Google sites. A number of web applications currently make use of Gears, including two Google products: Google Reader and Google Docs.”

I won’t explain it more here: check it out at gears.google.com.

The Browser

There is no Title Bar. In my book that’s a good thing. Top marks for not wasting vertical screen space. Even what little there is can be hidden so you can have more space for the work you are doing without irrelevant browser toolbars.

Click for bigger image in separate window.

There is no status bar. Well, there is an information bar while a page is being loaded. But then it goes away. It comes back when you hover over a link.
Personally, I find it slightly disconcerting to have no status bar (I mean, one that is always visible).

I could not see how to bookmark a page. I had to go and look that up. (Click on the star icon by the address bar.) But having confirmed that, it’s very easy and handy to use.

Chrome Process Manager.

Chrome has its own process manager. You can identify and shut down a problem site/page/tab/script - e.g. a CPU hogging page, memory hog, hanging script or other web page bugs.

Chrome browser’s process manager.

The idea is that each tab in the browser uses a separate process. So although one buggy page might freeze up it does not mean that the entire browser will crash or need to be shut down.

This is a great idea as far as I’m concerned. I await the Linux version of Chrome because on Linux, with Firefox, Flash frequently causes trouble. Then the browser has to be stopped. This interrupts work-flow if the user had a number of pages open.

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New Tabs

When I open a new tab or new window I want it to be BLANK. I hate it if it has something in it already.

But Chrome has something else: a new tab is full of links to recently visited or bookmarked pages.

Opera has something like this, which it calls ‘Speed Dial’. Personally, I hate it. Ands I objected to the fact that there was no one-click option to turn it off for good.

Chrome’s version of this utility is a bit more fancy. Here is what a new tab looks like after a bit of browsing and bookmarking.

Click for bigger image in separate window.

To me this is not good: a new tab should be an empty page. Here is what a new tab should look like:

A new tab in Firefox.

But Google have thought about this. They mention it in the comic. They say they are well aware that users might find a ‘new tab’ full of information a bit unusual. But they are taking the Green Eggs and Ham approach to this: “Try it! Try it! You will see…”

To me this is like the Apple attitude: we put a lot of thought into this - just try it, you might like it…

And it works for some people.

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Also in the options:

“Notify me when a pop-up is blocked.”
Yes, as long as there is an option to ALLOW pop-ups.
I always allow pop-ups. Otherwise I feel I don’t know what is going on.
I know, I’m just odd like that. Most people would want to block them.

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Tabbed Browsing

Chrome is very much about tabbed browsing: I hate that. I know I’m just odd like that. Most people like it.

But I have been spoiled by Opera’s multiple-document interface.

Opera’s multiple-document interface.
When I first discovered Opera (many years ago) I thought this was just the best thing to ever be offered in a browser.
Of course I was a Windows user then. I suppose if I had been brought up in Nix I would have thought it was silly.

But I still just cannot understand why no other browsers do that MDI thing.

Something tells me it is one of the reasons why people are loyal to Opera.
On the other hand, I might be the only one. I live in fear of the day when it is no longer an option.

Also, just thinking about Opera some more: I absolutely HATE bars and panels. There is only one way I want to see my bookmarks - that’s descending from a menu item, like I have always had them.

Other Thoughts
With Chrome, here is yet another browser in which we need to check our new web pages and worry about cross-browser compatability problems.

But I’m not really expecting any problems with Chrome since it aims to be standards-compliant.

Of course the great majority of visitors to any website are using Windows and Internet Explorer. So there is a limit to how much we should worry about browser compatibility when we make pages. But I can’t help noticing that on my sites there are always visitors arriving with Opera and Safari and even Konqueror.

Browers are Specialists now.

Despite my proclivity to moan about each browser, I will definitely use Chrome when the Linux version is available.

From one perspective, I feel that each of the various browsers I use is trying to bully me - get me to agree that its way of doing things is a good idea that I should like. Operating systems can be like that too.

But from another perspective - it just means that each browser has its own aims and strengths.

I already use three different browsers regularly, for different purposes. That’s Firefox for general use, Opera for reading and Konqueror for the few times when I think it would be handy if the browser and shell/UI/window manager, and OS, were closely related. (You know what I mean? - that’s the thing you don’t get any choice about with Windows/IE.)

As soon as it’s available for Linux I will probably use Chrome to log on to Google Docs, Google Analytics and things like that. The kind of usage it aims to specialize in.
I’ll probably end up using Chrome for my (infrequent) visits to YouTube. Because I know very well that YouTube will eventually cause Firefox to crash on Linux.

Opera, despite its virtues, is not a good browser on Linux if you want to use sites that have a lot of video, audio and Flash.

I haven’t even bothered testing Konqueror on multimedia sites lately - because I know from experience that Firefox + mplayerplugin is the most painless option for that.

And it’s Wrong to Moan about Browsers

I love to moan about software. Especially about operating systems and browsers. But it’s churlish. With the exception of IE, browsers are generally open source and/or free. So if I feel very strongly about something I am free to get the source code and make my own personal version that’s perfect for me.

Why is this information here?

Because I live in a noisy place. I do use my own concoctions of white noise a lot. I went looking for something else to improve my aural environment. I thought ambient music might be the answer, but I found lots of other interesting things.

I knew I had collected a few links to good sites where we can find free music. But, when I had good look at all the sites I had noted, it turned out I also had quite a few links to sites with other sounds, e.g. loops, environmental sounds, field recordings and so on.

The list below includes (what I think will be) less well known sites, not just the obvious ones that you would quickly find on any search engine.

(Links open in a new window. )

Free Music

Songs, ambient, mp3 downloads etc.

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Free Music Archive

Still in development, but already on the nets… at FreeMusicArchive.org

… and there is already some music available.

From their description:
“The site will combine the curatorial approach that stations like WFMU have played for the last few decades, and the community generated approach of many current online music sites.”

You can find lots of music - i.e. free, legal, Creative Commons etc., - just by looking around the site: e.g. check the comments on the ‘About’ page.

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Opsound.org

OpSound.org

Music is available under a Creative Commons license, the “Attribution-ShareAlike license”.

Musicians and sound artists are invited to add their work.

Everybody is invited to listen, download, remix etc.

There is a huge list of genres to choose from: as far as I have checked, there is a good selection within each genre.

It has taken me a long time to write this post because sites like this are so distracting. I can’t stop myself looking (or listening) around.

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Anisform

A net label, free music to stream or download. Genre: Ambient music, “subtle soundtracks”.

Ansiform.

All Creative Commons.

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Dreamstate: free ambient music.

Dreamstate.

Just some people, their ambient music, you can listen and download for free.

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we7.com

I suppose most experienced web-shoppers and frequent music buyers will not be needing my help to point them to this one. So here it is anyway.

We7 is one of the serious attempts to work out new ways for the music industry to operate.
That is, instead of the old way - which was big corporations + everything copyrighted.

We7 has a variety of ‘music delivery’ options, e.g.:

• Free streaming music,
• Free ad-supported MP3 downloads
• DRM-free MP3 downloads you can buy

And…

It’s all DRM-free music, whatever options you use.

Unlike some of the other sites mentioned here, We7 has commercial music from well known musicians and bands.

We7 prides itself on being a safe place to download and share music - i.e. without the spyware and malware that infests the free-for-all and illegal download neighbourhoods.

I found streaming and downloading speeds were particularly quick from We7.

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Wikipedia Creative Commons Music List

For a large list of mostly classical music that is public domain or Creative Commons licensed see this collection at Wikipedia.

Well, it was mostly classical music last time I looked. But it’s Wikipedia - there is no telling how it will develop over time.

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Lovefingers.org

Lovefingers.

Here there are MP3’s available for a limited time to be used for sampling purposes only, not with the intention of profit or to violate copyright.

There is recent, commercially produced music here. But each one is only available for a limited time.
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Free Music, Samples and Sounds

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Mashable

Again, frequent music users will not be needing me to tell them about Mashable.

But anyway, here is a link to their creative commons section.

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Legal Torrents

Legal Torrents offers, as the name suggests, legally available and creative commons material that can be downloaded by torrent.

There is much more than just music.
It is all organised in categories.

There is:

Music (of course)
Including:

• Netlabel Music
• Sounds, Samples and Loops

Movies
Including:

• Animations
• Short Form Video
• Television

Books
Including:

• Audio Books
• Graphic Novels

AND

• Games
• Podcasts
• ‘Other’ (e.g. wallpapers, images)

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Free Samples, Loops, Film Foley Sounds etc.

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Below here we depart from ‘music’ in a narrow definition, and branch out towards samples, loops, grooves, etc. - and then, a bit later, we get well away from music and towards other recordings, Foley for your film, environmental sounds, phonography…

Soungle

“Soungle is a free site, developed by Southern Codes, for finding all kind of sound FX and musical instruments samples on our mega online library.”

When you get to Soungle it just looks like a search engine type-in form. And it is. So just type something: search for the sound you need.

However, as they say, Soungle is not a web search engine. It only searches in the Soungle database.

The point here is that their database is full of sound effects and samples that are royalty free for downloading.

Last time I used it a search for ‘rain’ and ‘drum’ both got results, but ‘blues’ and ‘chant’ got no results.

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Free Sounds: Sound Samples

From the “One Laptop per Child” project (O.L.P.C.)

Free Sounds: Sound Samples - OLPC

Offered under a Creative Commons license.

7000+ samples, 16-bit, WAV, Mono, normalized.

A huge collection of new and original samples.

Includes:
Loops, Grooves, Licks, Stings, Hits, Pads, Melodic Motives/Themes/Phrases, Sound-Effects, City and Country Soundscapes, Motors, Machines, Toys, Guns, Explosions, Swords, Armor, Cars, Jets, Pot & Pans, Acoustic and Synthetic Noises, Acoustic and Electronic Drums, Voices, Western and World Instruments, Real and Human Animals, Industrial and Natural Ambiences, Film and Game Foley.

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SoundTransit

SoundTransit is a collaborative, community dedicated to field recording and phonography.

This is a great searchable collection of environmental sounds.
Sounds can be used according to the Creative Commons Attribution license.
Files are mp3.

There are sounds here that I think would be extremely hard to find anywhere else. E.g. a 17th Century water mill, 1890s steam tractor.

And all the usual: birds, rain and other weather, trains and planes, ships, cities, clocks, alarms, markets, habours, riots, bells from around the world, underwater recordings, etc.

Some of my favorites:
A whole lot of Buddha Machines sounding simultaneously.

The engine of a bridge.
Sound of rain heard from the end of PVC pipe.
A weaving factory.
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The Freesound Project

FreeSound.org

Very possibly this is stating the obvious to anybody with an interest in this kind of thing, but anyway…

The Freesound Project is a collaborative database of Creative Commons licensed sounds. Freesound has its focus on sound, not songs.

While SoundTransit seems to attract field recording enthusiasts and the values of phonography, the Freesound Project has more variety: the sounds you find there could have been created/recorded in many different ways. I.e. it’s not just about field recording at the Freesound Project.

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And, a bit off to the side of the topic…

Midi Reggae Riddims

From BaroqueDub.

It’s Reggae, it’s rhythym: it’s MIDI. You can use these with your sequencer.

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Old 78s on the Web

A man known as CDB recorded a great many 78s and made them available via his website, 78records.cdbpdx.com.

Until…
He found out that:
1. His hosting provider did not like him offering a free-for-all unlimited download site.

2. There were already other copies of a lot of that music on the internet (e.g. on the torrents).

So what does that leave us with? It leaves us with his huge list of 78s transferred to digital. If you are looking for something in particular, check out his BIG list of 78s - it includes album names, musicians and record labels.

If what you are looking for is on his list then you can probably download it from somewhere on the web. (You might have to hook up with the torrents.)

If you can’t find any place from which to download your heart’s desire you can send Mr. CDB an email. He probably still has his own recording on his own system.

Well, where else are you going to find all that 1930’s-1950’s Arabic Pop and Swing music?

Seems to me it was entirely a labour of love from Mr. CDB. He never asked for anything in return. He didn’t even have one solitary advertisement on his site. (Just like the OLD internet we knew and loved.)

Now that he has these hosting issues, if you want a swag of his transferred recordings on a CD he will have to ask you for postage.

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But if you don’t get along with these young people today and their rowdy 78s…

Wax Cylinder Recordings.

At UC Santa Barbara.

A project of the University of California, Santa Barbara, Library.

Including a wax cylinder radio feed (Cakewalks and Rags).

Get your fix of turn-of-the (previous) century music there.

The wav files of the cylinder recordings are not protected by copyright and can be used for either noncommerical or for-profit use.

The mp3s that the project has made are under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial license. But you can even make commercial use of those too: just contact the library about it.

Warning: there is something slightly odd about the site. It crashes Firefox on Linux. (Site is a bit heavy with Flash maybe.) Works fine in Opera. I expect there are no problems in IE/Windows.

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The Internet Archive.

At Archive.org.

There is a section just for open source/Creative Commons audio.

Other music you might find on the site MIGHT be freely available.

There is a lot of out-of-copyright material at Archive.org. It is a well arranged site that is easily searchable.

The archive has categories for music, movies, literature, software and more.

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Don’t forget: downloading files from the internet is a risk to your computer security. Equip yourself with anti-virus and anti-spyware tools.
Since there is reputable free software available there is no reason be without the basic protection.
And watch out for rogue software: only use reputable brands and trusted free tools.
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Image Credits: Images on this post are by dmytro.

Creative Commons license, Attribution-NonCommercial.

So I had to go and look it up. I was mainly concerned that there was a limit on how long a cable could be and still be reliable. We have a long house and six computers on the network.

Which reminds me of another thing: 25 years ago, when I was just starting a family, nobody told me that part of being a father was being a network administrator.

And they didn’t teach me anything about it at school. I thought school was supposed to prepare us for life.

Anyway it seems that most cable at the local store is Cat6 these days, and I have no complaints. Last time I bought a new computer (in late 2007) I transferred a LOT of data across my network and I have no complaints about the speed.

I tried making up my own cables for a while - with a packet of connectors and the expensive crimping tool. The problem with making my own was that it is easy to waste connectors by making bad joints.

The answer to that problem is to buy yet another device - a tool to check the cables electrically. But at some point it gets cheaper to just buy quality cable (with connectors) off the shelf.

Anyway, in case anybody is wondering about Cat6, here are some details.

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There’s a New Cable in Town: CAT-6 Ethernet Cables

By Roberto Bell

CAT-6 is an Ethernet cable standard which was defined by the Electronic Industries Association and Telecommunications Industry Association (known as EIA/TIA).

Category 6 cable, which is commonly called ‘Cat-6′, is a cable standard for Gigabit Ethernet and other network protocols that is backward compatible with the Category 5/5e and Category 3 cable standards.

Cat-6 features more strict standards for network crosstalk and system noise. The Cat-E cable standard provides performance of up to 250 MHz and is suitable for 10BASE-T/100BASE-TX and 1000BASE-T (Gigabit Ethernet). It is likely to suit the 10GBASE-T (10Gigabit Ethernet) standard also. CAT-6 is the sixth generation of Ethernet cabling standards.

CAT-6 cable contains four twisted copper wire pairs, similar to earlier network cable standards. Although Cat-6 is sometimes made with 23 gauge wires, it is not a requirement. The ANSI/TIA-568-B.2-1 specification states the cable may be made with 22 to 24 AWG gauge wire, as long as the cable meets the specified testing standards.

Attenuation and Crosstalk are significantly lower in Cat-6 cables compared to the Cat-5/5e standard. CAT-6 standard supports Gigabit (1000 Mbps) Ethernet and network communications at more than twice the speed of CAT5e. As with all cables defined by ANSI/TIA/EIA-568-B, the maximum acceptable length of the Cat-6 cable is 100 meters (330 ft) in length.

CAT-6 cables come in two main varieties, solid and stranded. Solid CAT-6 cable supports longer distance and works best where fixed wiring configurations are used, like office buildings. Stranded CAT-6 cable, on the other hand, is more flexible and better suited for short distance, movable cabling such as temporary cables.

CAT-6 standard cables are significantly costlier than the CAT5 or CAT5e cables and today’s applications can’t take advantage of CAT6’s better performance. However, if you are wiring a home or building for long term use, you may consider using the CAT-6 cables.
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Article Source: http://www.orbitaloc.com/

See Articles about Cat 6, Cat 5 and Cat 3 in The Tech FAQ.
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By the way, I think that last paragraph is rapidly getting out-of-date: where I shop, Cat 6 cable is NOT a lot more expensive. As for ‘today’s applications’ - I don’t know what the software issues might be but as of 2008 even cheap Ethernet cards CAN take advantage of the high data-transfer rates available over a Cat 6 cable.

The writing itself is here: A Traveller Lost His Way.

The writing itself is here: One Night Stan.

This is a WordPress installation. I am still working on it and probably will be for a long time yet.

If you are thinking about using WordPress… I can can tell you that I found the installation very easy.

I originally installed WordPress so that, when I put a page on this site, visitors could add comments.

Now I have to make decisions about things like using WordPress as a ‘content management system’,  a simple way for visitors to add comments, a blog, and how to integrate it with the rest of the site.

We’ll see what happens.