How Smart are You?

I’m trying to determine the education level of the average PixelWit.com visitor so I can write tutorials that contain the most relevant information. Please select the option best matching your last level of formal schooling.

[poll id=”8″]

Intelligent Youth on the Rise

It’s a rare occasion, but every now and then I actually pay attention to what’s happening on this blog. It was during one of these moments of heightened awareness that I noticed a recent trackback from a young whippersnapper (he ~claims~ to only be 16) linking to my Text Link Ads Needs Improvement article. With my curiosity piqued, I decided to visit his site and see what Mr. William Montanaro had to say about TLA.

I must admit I was quite impressed with what I saw
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BlueHost Affilliate Random Ad Code for WordPress

BlueHost Affiliate Program members can place BlueHost ads on their WordPress blogs using the standard code on BlueHost’s Affiliate Links page, but what if you’d like to show a variety of images to help combat ad blindness? The following code selects a random ad image from a list and then injects that advertisement into your WordPress blog
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Text Link Ads Marginally Improved

Shortly after writing my previous article Text Link Ads Needs Improvement which documents my poor experience with Text Link Ads (TLA) I received a generic e-mail from them which explained that, as a current member of TLA, I was invited to try their new ad program. A new ad program? I guess they thought they were doing so well that it was time to branch out and repeat their failures in new markets.

Anyway, the thing I found most interesting about the e-mail from TLA was that it was signed by the president of TLA himself AND it listed his e-mail address. Hmmm… maybe the President would like to hear about my less than stellar experience with his company. So I wrote him a letter
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Flash CurveTo Visualization Code

If you’ve ever wondered how Adobe Flash draws a curve when issued a “curveTo” command this article will help you visualize the process.

As you probably know, Flash requires three points to draw an exponential curve.

  1. A Starting Point. Wherever the Flash drawing pen is currently located. If you have not previously moved the pen with “lineTo”, “curveTo”, or “moveTo” the pen defaults to the origin (0, 0).
  2. A Control Point. A point which the the Flash drawing pen will head toward before changing direction and heading toward the end point. The pen generally does not go through the control point unless your “curve” is nearly straight.
  3. An End Point. Where the Flash drawing pen will come to rest when the curve is complete.

But how exactly does the control point “control” the shape of the curve? How does Flash precisely map the vague concept of heading towards a point and then land precisely at another point? Take a look at the SWF file below
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Text Link Ads Needs Improvement

I’ve been trying to get Text Link Ads working on my site on-and-off for the past few days now and I’m ashamed to admit that it hasn’t gone well. Why ashamed? Well it seems so easy when I watch blogging pros like Darren Rowse of ProBlogger.net and Aaron Brazzell from B5 Media describe their TLA experience in a video on the TLA Publishers front page. And the TLA site itself looks so simple that a toddler should be able to use it… yet I keep failing. Damn You Public Education!

Here’s some background
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Flash Images (Squeegee)

The blog was looking a little too plain so I decided to brighten things up a bit with these images created with Adobe Flash ActionScript.

© Sean O'Shell 2007-2024