AdesBlog.com

I have added six more new icons to my project UserInterfaceIcons.com. For those who are not familiar with UII, it’s a website that provides high quality user interface icons for free. No strings attached.

Latest Icons are: Podcast, Newsletter, Dialog Box, Notice Board, Vacancy and Forms. You may see them at what’s new page or download them here.

Feedbacks: Since the project launch, I have received tons of feedback. Most of them are emails thanking for the free icons. I have also received some feedbacks on the theme of the icons. They said while they liked the icons, the blue and yellow theme was not suitable for their web application. I have noted about this, and for the next icon-pack I will release realistic type of icons. Realistic type of icons are the ones, like you see on your Windows Desktop, each icon having its own unique colors. That way everybody will be able to use the icons. www.userinterfaceicons.com

Thanks to you AdesBlog readers, now my blog is through to Semi-Finals. Now, I am up against Pointless Banter, he has over 700 readers and I am anticipating a tough competition. Currently he is leading with two counts 2:0.

So guys, do cast your votes and support AdesBlog, thanks in advance. And thank you for supporting AdesBlog all the way to Semi-Finals. Please vote here (scroll to the bottom of the page).

KL Blogger Gathering

On another note, there will be first Kuala Lumpur Blogger Gathering in KL Sentral, Kuala Lumpur, MALAYSIA.

Event details are as follows: Date: 17th Nov 2007 (tomorrow), Venue: KL Sentral - Starbucks, Time: 2pm - 5pm.

You can confirm your attendance here, but I am not sure if there is any seats left.

Unfortunately I won’t be coming for the gathering, tomorrow I will be busy till afternoon - will be out of KL. After that, at 3pm I have my MBA class, which will span til 6:30pm. So, I don’t think I can make it. But if I can, I will drop by to say “hi” to my fellow bloggers. If not, hopefully I will make it the next time. Hafe fun!

P.S I know there is two topics in this post, but don’t forget to vote huh? ;)

Remember the icons project that I mentioned earlier? Well, it’s launching tomorrow (Inshallah). Now it’s 99% done and I am doing some final checks.

Guess what?!

Good news is that, I have decided to make the icons totally free! You will be able to download 140 icons in four sizes: 80×80, 48×48, 32×32, and 24×24 pixels. All of them are in PNG format with transparent backgrounds.

These icons are primarily designed for software and web application interface usage. It will be distributed under Creative Commons license.

If you are new to this blog, don’t forget to Subscribe to RSS.

The long awaited PageRank update is in process now. After many blogs being penalized by Google (most probably manually), now the real PageRank update is on the way. So far, up to now, we have only seen PageRank downgrades, last being the worst, which took the whole internet by storm. Now everybody is talking about PageRank only. Darren has a confirmation (from 2 sources at Google) on reasons for the latest PageRank penalty, it’s all about text-link selling.

The Real Update

Many blogs have seen different PageRanks in their toolbars over the last few days. In order to know if the real PageRank update is in process, do look at the PR0 sites of your own. Many PR0 blogs have seen updates, one of my own project www.web2bookmarks.com was a new site launched few months back with PR0, today it received PR4. That means the long awaited PR update is here.

Should you submit your blog for reconsideration?

Now that we know the penalization was for purely text-selling. If you have been penalized, should you submit your blog for reconsideration? That’s totally up to you, if you want to get your PageRank back. You can go to Google Webmaster Tools and click on Request reconsideration link (see below).

You need to be signed in, to be able to see above Google Webmaster Tools dashboard.

As for me I don’t think I will apply for reconsideration. If I do, what I will get back? My PR7 and almost zero income from this blog. Because almost all my income from AdesBlog comes from text-links. So, no thanks Google! I will pass…

How about you? Have you experienced a new PR? For those who have been penalized, will you apply for reconsideration?

I think that will be a great feature, in few weeks time you will be able to change the look and feel of your ads, remotely from your AdSense account. You just select the new colors and ad types then press “save” and all your ads which use the same “channel” will be automatically updated.

This new ad management feature means that your ad unit settings (such as colors and channels) for new AdSense for content ad units will be saved in your AdSense account every time you generate ad code. Then, if you’d like to change any of these settings in the future, all you do is make the update within your account — you’ll no longer need to manually replace the ad code on all of your pages. AdSense Blog

This feature might not be a big deal for bloggers, because blogs use themes and it’s quite easy to change pretty much anything in the themes. However it will be a big welcome feature for websites, especially websites that are running on static pages.

Here is a preview (and here) on how this feature will look like.

Amazon introduced its own mp3 download center (Amazon MP3), where it sells mp3s for 0.89 cents. Unlike Apple’s iTunes Store, Amazon’s mp3s are compatible with any media player includeing iTunes. While most of the songs cost less than a dollar in Amazon MP3, some of the songs are free too, for example like this one

Amazon affiliate program goes Web2.0

On another note, Amazon has introduced many ways to display Amazon products.

For example like this widget to the left. This is just one of the Web2.0 style widgets that Amazon is using now. Some other Web2.0 style methods include Product Cloud, Unbox Videos, Quick Linker, Context Links..etc. There are total of 16 ways to display Amazon products now.

If you are not Amazon dot com affiliate, then you can sign up at associates.amazon.com and start making money. It’s worth to note that Amazon affiliate is one of the lowest paying affiliate program on the net ;) So good luck.

Try to sell something expensive, that way you can maximize your earnings. I think the current rate for affiliate earnings is 4% from every sale you make.