Monetizing your website. (also known as "how does i shot webmonies lol")

Here's something I've been wanting to write up for a while but haven't had much chance to do so. I'll be covering three different money-making programs with their advantages and disadvantages.
*Well, four...but two of the companies are owned by the same group.

First off, you'll need some sort of tax id (SSN works if you're a US resident), a mailing address, and a website of some sort. Then, you'll need the next set of things: time, and content.


First up- Adsense! 
It's Google's powerhouse for advertising on search and on other websites. It's good for just about anything, as long as your content is considered "safe for work". The minimum threshold for cashing out is $100USD (rates are different for other currencies), and when your account hits that amount for that month, it'll be processed and sent before the end of the next month. That can be seen as a disadvantage for people that might be looking for a quick payout.
Adsense has a good amount of customization for ads to be displayed on your site, from various sizing options, to color customization to match your site desgin.


Next- Linkbucks.
This one is a bit different in the way it serves ads: in-line ads, or commercial-style (intermission) ads. It allows safe for work content and non worksafe content. You'll have to setup your links as Adult or Clean when you do make the links so you can generate better money for relevant content. This ad system requires PayPal, and has a minimum payout of $5.00, so this can be seen as the quick-and-dirty way of trying to make some quick money. Be careful though, intermission ads can get on people's nerves really quick, so unless you have something like an established gallery or the like, it may not be the best idea to do.

Finally- Adbrite and Black Label Ads
I call this the "Adsense Alternative", the interface is different, but the concept is pretty much the same. Adbrite is the "safe for work" component, whereas Black Label Ads is the adult component of the ad network. Accounts between the two are shared, but your ad campaigns are not. You have the option of setting your minimum payout, to as low as $5.00. At the end of the month, your earnings go into a waiting period for two months to "mature" and then your payment is processed and you'll usually get the check by the middle of that month it's been processed. This is the longest of the three, so you will *really* need some patience for that first check.

I currently use all three on different websites, and earlier in the month, I finally received my first check from Black Label Ads for $14.25. For my Linkbucks account, I've withdrawn a total of $45 so far. Adsense on the otherhand...I just hit the half-way point for the payout, so it's taking a _long_ time. Hope someone found this informative~

Day in the Life of a Vocaloid Contest

Something for Mikuchan, it's a little writing contest to win a whole bunch of Vocaloid stuff.

Rules, info, and entries can be found here.

While you're there, take a listen from the music player, I'm sure someone will appreciate the tracks.

20 posts later...

...and this is still a small blog. (not that I'm complaining anyways)

I wanna thank everybody who's been lurkin, commentan, an followan because it makes me want to post moar. I'm at a cool 38 followers now, something I really didn't expect when I decided to make this blog, and it's meeting my exptations of what I want to write about. WHATEVER THE HELL I WANT. So I do hope you guys enjoy reading my incoherent thoughts at times, it's fun making entries.

With that said, as I mentioned yesterday, the Sacrifice Comic, part 3 for Left 4 Dead was released today. I haven't had a chance to read it, but it goes a bit into Francis' backstory. Should be an interesting read.

That's all from me tonight, hope you all have a good night.

Grabbin Pillz

Four Survivors, looking for the next safe zone and eventual escape. Between them: hordes and hordes zombies.

Left 4 Dead begins in Pennsylvania, following an outbreak of so-called "Green Flu", a highly contagious virus causing extreme aggression and loss of higher brain functions.
Two weeks after the infection of Patient Zero, four immune survivors of the outbreak (Francis, Zoey, Bill, and Louis) make their way through the city of Fairfield, only to discover that the virus is creating new, even more dangerous mutations. After narrowly avoiding these new infected, along with hordes of others, the survivors are alerted to the presence of an evacuation point at the nearby Mercy Hospital by a passing news helicopter. Fighting their way through the city's streets, subway and sewers, the survivors are rescued from the hospital's roof by the pilot, only to discover that he is succumbing to the infection. ("No Mercy") With Zoey forced to kill the pilot, the helicopter crash lands in an industrial district outside the city. Finding a delivery truck that has been armored by other survivors, the group decides to use it to make their way to the town of Riverside ("Crash Course"). Before arriving in the town however, they find the road blocked, and are forced to travel the rest of the way on foot. Following an encounter with an infected madman in the local church, they discover that the town is overrun, and decide to head to a nearby boathouse for possible rescue. Contacting a small fishing vessel, they manage to reach the city of Newburg on the other side of the river, only to find much of it in flames ("Death Toll").
Seeking cover in a large greenhouse, their rest is interrupted when a military C-130 Hercules passes overhead, leading the survivors to travel through the city's business district towards Metro International Airport. Upon arrival, the group is shocked to see that in an attempt to contain the infection, the military had bombed the airport; the runway however is largely intact, allowing the survivors to fuel up and escape in the waiting C-130 ("Dead Air"). Despite this apparent rescue, the survivors once again find themselves alone on the outskirts of Allegheny National Forest. Following a series of train tracks through the area, the group find themselves at a functioning, but abandoned, military outpost. After answering a radio transmission, the survivors make their final stand against hordes of infected, before a military APC arrives to transport them to Northeast Safe Zone, supposedly the only location in the area yet to be overrun ("Blood Harvest").

Now that the previous tidbit of information is out of the way, it's a perfect game for co-op or vs online with friends. You can go at it yourself, but you won't get full support of the AI since it doesn't use throwable items, or the usefulness of communication with others.

The infected can get pretty brutal when there's a horde running at you and it gets worse when special infected show their ugly mugs to reign down terror on your fellow survivors, especially with Hunters trying to pounce you and tear you apart, Smokers trying to entangle you to death, or even the malicious Tank that will crush anything in it's way.

To help you out along the way, you'll get weapons like Molitovs, fully automatic M16A3 assault rifles, and scoped Ruger Mini-14 hunting rifles. In addition, you can blow stuff up like propane tanks to give additional damage to the infected. Health packs and pain pills can go a long way to keep your team going.

Having five campaigns to go through, it can take a a short time or well over an hour to go through each one, depending on the difficulty and the effectiveness of your team. If you've ever joined a game with a shoddy team, it'll may take quite a while, and this is speaking from personal expierence. This game came out probably at (my guess) the start of the big zombie craze of this time and it became a hit.

For those who are looking for information that bridges Left 4 Dead and Left 4 Dead 2, there's the upcoming DLC The Sacrifice, but there's also the free comic that can be found here! Tomorrow they're releasing Part 3 of the comic and I can't wait. While I was writing up to this part, I took a look at L4D's site and saw that they just posted information about the The Sacrifice

“The Sacrifice” is the prequel to "The Passing," and takes place from the Left 4 Dead Survivors' perspective as they make their way South. You may read the comic to find out the official version of events or this October 5th you may play the game to choose your own ending.

In "The Sacrifice" for Left 4 Dead, gamers receive the complete Sacrifice campaign with maps playable in Campaign, Versus, and Survival. There are 5 new achievements, a new style finale and plenty of places for devastating Hunter pounces.

For Left 4 Dead 2, gamers receive “The Sacrifice” campaign and L4D1’s “No Mercy” both playable with the L4D1 Survivors. This version also offers 5 new achievements. In the L4D2 version of “The Sacrifice” each campaign is playable in Campaign, Versus, Survival, and Scavenge modes, and both "The Sacrifice" and L4D2 version of No Mercy feature the Left 4 Dead 2 Special Infected, items, and weapons. Yes, Zoey with a chainsaw!

"The Sacrifice" will be available as two separate packages on Xbox Live for 560 Microsoft Points each and free to all PC gamers.

 Now for those who may not understand why PC gamers are getting the DLC for free while X-Box 360 users have to pay for it, it's because the Microsoft corporation is a group of moneywhores, that's all. Hope you enjoyed reading this update~

Tsukihi.me is now alive once again!

Launched today is the restart of my *chan hosting service, TsukiBoards. I also redid my old backup portal to reflect this and the new-ish irc network, TsukiIRC. The hosting services goes as such, if I like the idea and it's unique enough, I'll likely pick up hosting for it. If not, try to rethink your ideas a bit. Currently listed are my main site boards with a link to the portal, and Negimachan

As for IRC, I mentioned it a few posts back and it's turning into a nice little network. The popular channels are linked on the main page, along with the servers and current staff.

For those who want to check it out, head over to Tsukihi.me

MEEEEEDIIIIIIIC!!!!

 Click to enlarge :3

So anybody here play Team Fortress 2? It's been a while since I've played, but it's so damn fun! For those who don't play the game, it's a class-based online first person shooter where you can play as characters such as Medic, Demoman, and Engineer. There's also several different gametypes like Arena, Capture Points, and Capture the Flag (or intelegence in this case).

Here's a current listing of classes: Pyro, Engineer, Spy, Heavy, Sniper, Scout, Soldier, Demoman, Medic. From what's listed, it's somewhat obvious as to what they can do. Pyro burns things, Scout has mad speed, and Demoman blows shit up. I started out as Pyro and eventually moved on to Engineer. I alternate between the two, but most of my logged time is with the Engie. Engies are good support roles and I've fit in with the class pretty well. As for the picture to the left, any Medic knows this situation quite well, because Soldiers cannot be healed when they're holding the Equalizer.

There's a considerable amount of weapon and item customization with the character Loadout screen and Crafting system. Once you find stuff through random generation during matches, you can change your primary and secondary weapons, along with a hat and a misc item. If you get enough of the same items, you can start crafting to eventually get metal and tokens to craft different items and weapons. It's pretty neat once you get into it.

I do have a few complaints though. The 360 version is sorely in need of a new release so all the customization and new maps can be used to play, it seems so...beta-ish for a person that's used to playing the PC port. With the PC version, it doesn't autoload controller settings for a 360-based controller, you'll have to make one yourself. The little trick I did was import the 360 controller settings from Left 4 Dead and then had to reconfigure more than half of the button mapping. If I can find it, I'll post it when I have the chance.

Blogger IRC chatroom!

As a few of you may know, I am currently running an irc network on one of my servers. On one of them, we've got a channel dedicated for discussing various blogs and design.

For irc, here's the information:
irc.tsukihi.me #blogspot
(for those who want to connect securely, we offer SSL on port 6697)


Please note that it might take me a while to get back to reading and following your blogs due to all the stuff I help maintain, I hope you understand.