Web Cash

Over the past year, I’ve been spending a lot of time learning and experimenting with digital cameras. I got a Nikon Coolpix P80 last spring (you can read review of the Coolpix P80 on Associated Content), and I recently upgraded to the Canon t1i and purchased a variety of lenses to go along with it.

I wrote up a series of short articles on Associated Content explaining the basics of exposure. If you’re starting out with photography and feel that you’re ready to break out of the “auto” mode on your camera, they’re a good read. The more you read about photography and how everything works together to create an image, the better you’ll be.

What Does the Aperture Setting of a Camera Do? The aperture is the size of the hole that lets light into your camera. Bigger hole = more light, smaller hole = less light. But, this also affects the depth of field – how much of an image will be in focus. Read the article for more details.

What Does the Shutter Speed Setting of Your Camera Do? The shutter speed is how long light is allowed to shine on your cameras image sensor (or film, if you’ve got a film camera). Keeping the shutter open longer allows in more light, and keep it open for a shorter period of time allows in less light. But… this also affects whether your picture will be blurry or not. Read the article for more details.

What Does the ISO Setting On Your Digital Camera Do? The ISO rating determines how sensitive your camera’s image sensor is to the light coming in. Turn the rating up, and your sensor will be more sensitive and create a brighter image. But, this also creates more “noise” – little pixelly speckles that can ruin your photo. Read the article for more details.

Recently, I had a couple Dell Inspiron laptops donated to me to refurbish and use in my classroom. One of the machines gave me no trouble, and within a couple hours I had a fresh install of Xubuntu on the machine and it was ready to go to school.

The Dell Inspiron 2600, on the other hand, was troublesome. I finally have it working now, and I’ve written a couple articles on my other blog about the process. These aren’t in depth tutorials, but they’re meant to help point people in the right direction if they have similar problems.

Installing Ubuntu on a Dell Inspiron 2600. This seemingly simple task was complicated by the fact that the integrated graphics card doesn’t seem to work with most Ubuntu installations. I found some suggestions that Ubuntu 8.04 worked, and eventually it did after I modified the settings and specified the correct graphics driver. Read more about this in the full article.

Adding RAM to a Dell Inspiron 2600. This should have been simple, but it wasn’t. The machine reported 320mb of installed RAM, but I could only find one memory module – a 256mb memory module located underneath the mother board. After skimming through the documentation a couple times, I found that there was a second location to install a memory module located on the other side of the motherboard (underneath the keyboard). I followed the Dell documentation to disassemble the laptop and install another 256mb chip (which replaced the presumably original 64mb RAM chip).

Recently, I haven’t been doing a lot of work online. Real life is plenty of work.

I have been updating my other blog a bit, but its mostly inconsequential posts about my training as a runner.

I have, however, been doing some writing for Associated Content. I’ve amassed a decent amount of pageviews there (170k), and I’m close to hitting the second highest ranking on the site – Clout 9. If I keep writing articles, I’ll hit that benchmark in a month or two. The next goal would be to hit Clout 10, which would require 3-400k pageviews. These are fun goals, but they also bring with them higher pay-outs per pageview… so there’s a point.

Anyhow, here’s a quick rundown of some of the articles I’ve written recently.

Where Can I Find a Replacement Lens Cap for My Nikon Coolpix P80? I lost the lens cap for my P80, and I had a hell of a time finding a replacement. Nikon doesn’t seem to manufacture the part anymore, but I found a third party vendor on Ebay. Very useful article, if you happen to have the same model camera.

What is the Derivative of a Function? I’ve been working with some kids at school on Calculus, so I thought it would be interesting to try my hand at explaining math concepts online. I might expand this work into a larger site in the future, but for now I want to get some thoughts on paper, as it were.

How to Remove an Autorun Virus from Your Flash Drive. We had a nasty infection on our school network recently, and I spent a lot of time cleaning autorun viruses off my flash drive. I found a quicker way to handle it, through a basic DOS batch script, explained in the article.

As I mentioned before, Helium is another great place to publish your writing online. It ranks up with Associated Content as one of my favorite writing sites.

So how do you get started? Is it hard to publish your first article at Helium? Not at all.
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This site has kind of strayed from my original intent – to explore and report on ways to make money online. For a couple months now, I’ve focused almost exclusively on the development and design end to working the web for cash.

I think it’s time to take a step back and look at a site where you can write for profit – without requiring any tech, design, or development savvy. I’ll be working on a complete section about Helium, but in the meantime here’s a quick overview.
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I’d seen this idea suggested on a forum, and it’s about time I got around to it. I created my first lens at Squidoo.

Why? I was able to work in a few nice backlinks to my site and my articles. I’ll earn some cash if it gets traffic of its own.
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An old web design adage is, “Content is king.” All the SEO and fancy design in the world won’t help you if you don’t have any content.

So how do you keep on writing? Where do all the new ideas come from?

Everybody’s got their own tricks, but here’s one that I love to use when I’m short on ideas. Go through your search engine logs and see what people are searching for – and not finding.
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You may have stumbled upon the section on writing for Associated Content – for money.

But even if you’re not interested in being published on someone else’s site, AC can be a great tool for you as a webmaster. You can use it to get optimized backlinks and targeted traffic.
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The main two sites that I write at (besides my own) are Helium and Associated Content. Lately I’ve been looking around for other similar sites, so that I could test them out and review them.

The other day I came across something truly disturbing in the way of online writing. I stumbled on the website Senserely.

It was kind of like a train wreck – it was horrifying, but I had to keep looking around just to see if it could get any worse.
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I signed up at Associated Content quite some time ago – last December. I was lured in by the prospect of earning up to $20 per article that I wrote – the advertised top upfront payment.

I didn’t actually write an article until September of this year. For some reason, I never got around to it. I was quite pleased when they offered me an upfront payment of $10 for my first article.

Since then, I’ve written another 30 articles and published them at Associated Content. I’ve gotten a better idea of what to expect, payment wise. The initial $10 seems to be a high payment to entice you to write more… and it definitely worked.

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