Monthly Archives: October 2010

Less is More: BuySellAds Launches AdPacks

Instead of having a bunch of banner ads, wouldn’t it be better to have just one high quality one in a prominent place? That’s the premise of networks like Fusion Ads and The Deck. Now BuySellAds, the large ad marketplace that I use here on Webmaster-Source, is launching a side network that works in the same way.

AdPacks is an exclusive invitation-only ad network split into three topical categories. Publishers display a single ad zone that randomly cycles through the network’s banners. Advertisers pay $399-$599 to advertise network-wide and each site in the network gets a cut of the money.

The basic idea is “less is more.” Instead of bombarding users with advertisers, the advertisers pay more to be the center of attention. If their product is the only one being advertisers, there’s less to distract from the one ad.

I would love to get in on this, but I’m probably not cool enough. It seems like AdPacks would pay better as well as creating less on-screen clutter.

Generate QR Codes On-the-Fly With the Google Chart API

You’ve probably seen a QR code before, even if you didn’t know what it was at the time. It’s a little square matrix barcode that can be read by either a specialized scanner or a cellphone with the right software. UPS puts QR codes…

BlogBuzz October 9, 2010

Design Spotlight: New Twitter

Twitter is slowly rolling out their new, more application-like interface. Some of you may already have had a chance to give it a test drive, but there are still plenty of tweets along the lines of “I want New Twitter! Why does everyone have…

Top 10 CSS3 Button Tutorials

Cats Who Code has posted a useful list of CSS3 button tutorials. There are some really nice ones, such as the “Google Buttons” and “Super Awesome Buttons.” It’s nice to finally see an alternative to the somewhat tedious “sliding doors” method that has been…

What is the Best Comment in Source Code You Have Ever Encountered?

Here’s a fun Stack Overflow thread from last year: What is the best comment in source code you have ever encountered? It’s eighteen pages of code snippets with amusing comments, ranging from simple warnings like “// Magic. Do not touch.” to cleverly-named objects: It’s…

BlogBuzz October 2, 2010

What are Some Good Places to Find Linux Server Tutorials?

Are you planning on moving from shared hosting to a more robust hosting platform, such as a VPS? It’s easy enough to find a provider, such as VPS.net, Linode or Slicehost. But that’s just the beginning. You have to learn how to set up…