Minimalism - Online Income - ESL - Japan
Internet and technology-related posts. Earning money on the internet, etc.
Update: When I got Windows Vista, I switched again. Now I’m using Windows Mail (Dec. 2nd, 2007). The last few weeks had seen my spam-count sky rocket. I think the extra exposure I gave my sites with some pretty heavy advertising campaigns must have pulled in as many spammers as honest visitors. I guess I’d been averaging about 60 spam emails a day and ‘delete’ had become the most overused […]
Earlier this year I started on ESL-Kids.com, a website that offers printable flashcards and worksheets for teachers like me – ESL teachers on the front lines everyday, faced with an army of children and only a few ABC cards to defend ourselves with. It was a slow start, but recently I’ve given ESL Kids a facelift, added a lot of new flashcard sets and made a worksheet generator. Just today […]
I’ve been using Google Adwords to advertise my websites for over a year now, but I’ve kept my advertising budget as low as possible. However, I’ve been experimenting this month with different sized advertising budgets to see what effect it has on the number of visitors to my sites, and how much I earn through Google Adsense. What I’ve noticed is that if I spend more on advertising, I make […]
I’ve been writing a lot of posts about Japan since I started this blog and not enough about English teaching or making money on the internet. Today, I’ll focus on the internet side of things. The first thing I do every day is check my email (read ‘delete spam’) and then I log straight into my personalized Google homepage to check my favorite blogs. I’m still surprised so few people […]
I woke up this morning to find an email from one of my best childhood friends – talk about a pleasant surprise! We last made contact about ten years ago, so it was great to hear from him. It got me thinking about how people maintain long-distance friendships. When I first came to Japan on a homestay, my great Scottish aunt asked me to track down her pen-pal, Kubo Hide-san, […]
I’m starting to get really fed up with email. I get over 200 messages a week and usually only a handful of them are not spam. Cleaning out the spam has become a daily part of my routine, much like brushing my teeth, taking a shower and washing the dishes. If I don’t do it every day, my inbox will just grow ugly stuff. So I was surprised to read Nate Anderson’s article called “Teens: E-mail […]
I didn’t come to Japan for the money. No, really! I’d love to say I came to experience the culture, learn the language and teach English, but if truth be told, I came for a girl… but that’s another story. So, although I wasn’t here for the money at first, it has become a big reason for me to stay. Contrary to popular belief, I find the cost of living […]
One of my students wanted to write an English translation of an interview she found in a magazine, and not an easy one at that. Her final translation came to seven pages, and she asked me to check it. “Sure, no problem, let me have a look” I agreed. Although this student’s English level is pretty high, when it came to translation, she threw her conversational ability out the window and reverted […]