The Computer Zone

Recently, my friend and I, launched our newest site. Its called Devjargon, and its about software development, managing programmers and things along those lines.

Here are a few of our best articles:

• 6 Tips for Programming in a Group
• How to Become a Great Developer
• Processes are for the team
• The Importance of Taking a Break
• There’s always a solution
• 5 Ways to Make Sure your Project Fails

Whether your an experienced developer or a novice manager, these articles will hopefully help you. Head on over to devjargon, or subscribe to our feed to get free updates on our content. We update the content every few days.

As you may or may not have noticed I have been very absent from this blog. Lately I’ve been writing for a great new blog called Digit Geek. This blog as you could probably get from the name reviews different pieces of hardware such as Desktops, Laptops, MP3 Players, and many more different categories. I’ve written a number of different reviews and they’re all genuine.

Here’s a look of the site

The site gets it unique look from its owner John of JohnTP.com. There are 3 other writers along with me and I think the reviews are of top notch.

Check out DigitGeek.com to get your latest fix of gadget reviews.

Today I wrote a post and emailed it to Ben at Bloggingexperiment.com. When I logged back in to my computer I was happy to see that he posted it on his blog. The post is entitled “Maximize Your Guest Posting Efforts“. For those of you who are coming from that page I’d like to welcome you to my blog. Here are a few of my most popular posts

• Why you should post on the weekends
• Five tips to being a better guest poster
• Encouraging comments on your blog
• 10 things to do with your old computer
• Five things every blogger should have near their desk

If you like any of these posts feel free to subscribe to my feed or subscribe via email.  If you have any questions feel free to email me at adam[at]thecompzone.com or via my contact page.

As you may or may not have noticed there has been a few changes here at The Computer Zone, the biggest of which is the 4 shiny 125×125 ad spaces on the left hand side. I’ve finally decided to try to monetize this site since I’ve put so much work in to it.

Currently there are a few different advertising options available and they all offer something a bit different. However, the first question advertisers often have is about the size of the audience their ad will appear to.

Links to the site: 1,765 (reported by Yahoo!)
Average number of Visitors: 4,000 / month
Average number of Pageviews: 6,500 / month
Average number of RSS subscribers: 46
Estimated PageRank: 4
Audience: Bloggers, Web Developers, Programmers

Site Wide Ad Block
The first advertising option is to purchase one of the 125 x 125 ad blocks on the left hand side of the blog. There are currently 4 spots available although more may be added in the future. Payment will be due prior to the ad being placed on the site. The ad will run for exactly one month starting from the beginning of next month (so if you buy in the middle of the month the actual time won’t start until the start of next month). You have to supply the image for this option.
Price: $20 per month

Sponsored Post
The next option available is to sponsor a post. A sponsored post will be at least 300 words in length and will become a permanent addition to the site’s content. The post will be exclusively about your chosen topic (your site, product, service, etc.) and discuss the features as well as my opinions and impressions. The review may not be a positive review of any site or product, however, I will guarantee that I give my honest opinion in each and every post, just like every other post that appears on this site. Advertisers can also choose up to three different links as well as the anchor text for those links. Sponsored posts will be completed no later than 7 days after receipt of payment.
Price: $50 per post (Have the price you’d pay from Sponsored Reviews)

Sidebar Links
The final option available is to get a link on the sidebar. These links will be located underneath the categories and will be site wide. Same as the ad blocks, these links will run for exactly one month starting from the beginning of next month (so if you buy in the middle of the month the actual time won’t start until the start of next month).
Price: $5 per month

The links will NOT include rel=”nofollow” tags. If you are interested in pursuing and of these advertising options, please send an email to adam[at]thecompzone.com. Please include the URL of the site or product you wish to advertise. I’ll get back to you as quickly as I can.

Starting at approximately 4am EST on December 1st, The Computer Zone was offline.  This outage was due to a failed storage segment, and then a failed rollback attempt.  MediaTemple has been feverishly working on the problem and they’ve finally resolved it.  I’d like to thank everyone over at MT for working so hard getting my site (and many others) back up in a quick and timely manner.

This month represents the first full month of The Computer Zone and I’m pleased to announce that it went really well. I wrote 17 great articles this month and unlike last month where I was just porting them over from the old site, all of these articles were written during this month. I also received more page views this month than I did visitors last month. Here are my statistics for the month of November:

Visitors: 1717
Page Views: 2112
Visitors / Day: 57
Page Views / Day: 70
Avg Feed numbers: 20 subscribers

Here are a few of my favourite posts from this month:

• 10 Things To Do With Your Old Computer
• Tips For Improving Your Programming Skills
• Desktop Buyers Guide
• Technology In Our Lives series

November was also a milestone in my blogging career because it was the first month where I made any money from blogging. I been paid over $40 from PayPerPost alone and I’ve aleady written a number of articles which will mean I’ll get paid over double that for this up coming month.

The beginning of December will be a slow start because I’m in exams for the first two weeks. After thats done I hope to release a number of quality articles. Here are a few goals I’m setting for this month:

Visitors: 2000
Pageviews: 3000
Money made from blogging: $100
Avg Feed Subscribers: 25 people

Stick around this month and see if I can complete this goals. It’ll be an exciting ride nonetheless

Last night I went to the Air Canada Center in Toronto and saw the Trans-Siberian Orchestra play live. I have to admit, at first I really didn’t know what to expect. I was a little reluctant to go because the tickets were $60 and I just don’t have that much money coming up to the Christmas season. Am I ever glad I went.

The show was absolutely amazing. There were amazing musicians, a great light show and in general, probably one of the best concerts I’ve ever been to in my life. If anyone hasn’t ever seen them live I would totally suggest doing so. Here’s a link to their tour dates.

On a much different note, posting here at The Computer Zone will be a lot less frequent over the next couple of weeks.  I’m starting into exams next Monday and I know I won’t have much time to post.  For all my loyal readers please stick around.  I promise I’ll be back up to full swing in December.  If anyone would like to guest post send me an email at adam[at]thecompzone.com