…about favicon.ico.

In his free eBook on how to make money online, John Chow recommends creating a custom icon for your blog.

I have done this for years for some (but not all) of my websites, and I did the same for this blog.

This past week, though, is the first time I’ve put favicon.ico to good use. In visiting different blogs, there were a couple I had forgotten to bookmark.

But, I remembered what their favicon.ico looked like. So, I was able to skim through my History and find the blogs I was looking for simply by looking at the favicons.

I am glad I created one for my blog and will be doing it for more websites and blogs in the future. Consider adding a favicon.ico to your blog or website too!

Babylon 5: The Lost Tales, a direct-to-DVD movie was created with some help from fans of the show.

According to SciFi Wire, “the disks [from the original series] containing the computer-graphic information were lost.”

So, they turned to fans in the 3D modeling community who had made 3D models based on the Babylon 5 TV series.

J. Michael Straczynski is right: there is some nice “symmetry” there.

From Reuters, by way of Yahoo! News: “Fishermen in Zanzibar have caught a coelacanth, an ancient fish once thought to have become extinct when it disappeared from fossil records 80 million years ago, an official said on Sunday.”

I remember the original story from when I was back in school. Scientists had thought the coelacanth were extinct, until one was caught off the coast of South Africa.

But, the natives weren’t unfamiliar with it. It was a fish they occasionally caught by mistake. Not sure whether they ate them or tossed them back. Wikipedia describes them as being “nearly inedible.” So, I guess you can eat it, but maybe you wouldn’t really want to do so.

They themselves eat a variety of other fish and ocean life, including small sharks. But, I’d bet they’d never eat a Great White Hunter!

Anyway, it was interesting to read the story of a more modern day catch, which confirms they are still out there.

I found out about this story by way of yesterday’s A Blog that Lies post on “Fisherman Catches Ancient Fish.”

Would you buy a powdered iPhone? Next question, would you pay more for a useless iPhone than you would pay for a new one?

The website, Will It Blend?, has put an iPhone in the blender to see what would happen. View the video here.

It ends up being a bent up frame and a lot of black powder and small chunks.

If you just have to have that for your collection, you can buy the pulverized iPhone on eBay! They also include a t-shirt, a DVD and a blender. Act now!

As of this writing, the bidding is up to $1,126.00 with 52 bids. Don’t miss out!

UPDATE (2007-07-21): Auction has been cancelled and relisted with a new title to avoid confusion. Click here for the new listing. Currently at $777.77.

Inspired by John Chow, there are a number of people starting blogs with the intention of making money doing it and documenting it as they do it.

Nothing wrong with any of that.

Unfortunately, some of these blogs seem to be the equivalent of MFA (Made for Adsense) sites, in terms of appearance if not content too.

Take a look at John Chow’s blog. There are a number of ads that you’ll see, as well as a number of ads that aren’t immediately apparent.

But, if you look at the overall presentation of the site, it is not unattractive. The ads are not too obtrusive.

Now, compare that with One Man’s Blog. I have been following his blog, so I have nothing against him, but look at how the ads dominate the page. It puts the emphasis on the ads rather than what he is writing. As such, I think it may turn some readers away. It looks like a big ad, rather than a blog.

A blog can have ads, but it also needs to have a friendly, approachable look to it.

Now, have a look at Michael Kwan’s blog. This is more in line with John Chow’s site. It has ads, but they are not too obtrusive that they dominate the page.

Now, I’m not the blogmaster that John Chow is, but from a reader perspective, what I am looking for is content. The content is what the blog is all about and it is the reason I visit the blog. If the content gets lost in the ads, if the ads are too obtrusive to my reading experience, that’s not a blog I am going to spend a lot of time visiting, if I return at all.

One Man’s Blog is not alone in having a blog dominated by the ads. Examples are plentiful. Just click on the links of the commentators on John Chow’s blog, and you’ll find a good number of them.

I will have more ads on this site than there are now, namely TLA once I figure out how to get the plugin to work. But, I intend that the ads will not dominate the appearance of the site, nor will they overrun the content. And, I’m sure readers will point it out if I do!

I took this photo yesterday of one of the maple trees in the backyard. I thought it would be a little bit different perspective than most tree photos. At least, different from most of my tree photos anyway.

Then, I was browsing Matthew Laznicka’s blog, and rediscovered the photos he had posted two months ago. Black and white.

I thought it might be interesting to put my photo in black and white, and put the emphasis on the texture rather than the colors. So, I adjusted it and then added some fancy edging. Posted here is the finished result.

This is my first post on this blog, set up on the Ides of July!

I’d write more, but I’m off to finish setting this up…