Also…10^th anniversary of website.

Dear Amazon Associate -
Greetings from the Amazon Associates Team! We have noticed that it’s been over three years since you last referred a unit to Amazon. We are writing to notify you that on July 1, we will be applying a $10 account maintenance fee to your account. Please review this email to learn more on how you can reactivate your account or avoid this fee by making new payment method choices.

So far, there’s been only one purchase through my links earning me a total of—hot damn…a whopping $0.75! That was earned back in 2003 and the only time they fork over the earnings is when the total is at least $10. Looks like I’ll have to say bye-bye to the $0.75 (or will they give me a credit/Gift Certificate towards a future purchase?). Update: I sent an e-mail inquiring about my situation and was able to get my $0.75 deposited to me.

It’s really bizarre even having the 1 referral/purchase considering that what was actually ordered by the person had nothing to do with anything I was reading at the time. They must have gotten side tracked so I ended up earning the referral as a click through and not a direct buy link.

Oh, well—There’s really no chance of any of my links generating a commission before July 1^st so it’s bye-bye associates links. There goes my PHP project of putting together my own script to automate my reading lists. Now I have to re-edit my code again removing the referral links. Sure I can still link to them without the referral code if I wanted to, but I’m sure you have to be an associate in order to log-in to get and use the pictures of the book covers. Now I have to think of another PHP learning project to take up my spare time.

	.com	.ca	.co.uk
ISBN-10	0060513551	0823025810	0060513551
Cover
By	Comickers Magazine (ed)	Design Exchange	Design Exchange
Publisher	Collins Design	Watson-Guptill Publications	HarperCollins Design International

In this case, if I was to remain using my script as is, the page link to the Canadian site would be wrong because the link would be pointed to “0060513551” and not its correct pointer at “0823025810”
Strangely enough, the book I’m reading has the UK site information but the .com cover showing the full extended title, Japanese Comickers: Draw Anime and Manga Like Japan’s Hottest Artists.

I have been thinking about rewriting my script so I could include links to other non-Amazon affiliate sites. Looks like this will be a required change even if I just stick with links to Amazon.com locales. Changing it would mean I can provide separate if needed links. Especially if I had to reference a book that a site didn’t carry. This way only places that carry it would show links. Currently my script only uses the one reference point (ISBN-10) to access the three affiliate sites I now use. I’ll have to create a new table in my MySQL database for different affilate sites, their ISBN/GTIN numbers or product page locations and create a reference link to the table with the rest of the book info.

A bit funny too with the lost in translation and incorrectly spelled items that can be found. Like the front page of one of the Books subsection has a graphic and link to Eight Million Wags to Die. Yes, it read “…Wags…”.

Is this the scientific average life span of dogs in terms of tail wagging? Is it a dog book about a 007 canine. Is there even a dog in it? I have no idea.

Turns out it should be Eight Million Ways to Die by Lawrence Block.

Starting 2:12pm EST, the planet Mercury will be traveling between the Sun and Earth. Viewable, (in parts of the world), as a little speck that will take about five hours to glide across the lower part of the Sun. If you miss this one live and in person, don’t worry the next time it will happen will be just around the corner in 2016.

There are several websites out there giving details on how to view the event safely. More info at Discovery Channel, NASA, and NASA‘s 2006 Mercury Transit Live Broadcast.

As always kiddies, don’t look directly into the Sun.

Something happened to a letter carrier who was on her delivery route. She walked up to a house to deliver the mail. She saw an animal, and an animal saw her. She goes about her own business and puts the mail in the mailbox. As she turns around to leave and continue her route, she gets attacked… wham! Kung pow—enter the squirrel!! The full story: Squirrel goes postal. Another evil squirrel related story: The Bushy Tailed Rat.

The company Universal Tube & Rollform Equipment Corporation (utube.com) is seeking to sue YouTube (youtube.com) for an increase in web traffic the Ohio based company claimed that it is now getting (100 times more) is due to similarities in spelling and sound of domain names. UTube wants YouTube either change its name or YouTube should pay UTube so it can buy a brand new domain name and create a whole brand new company identity. They most likely want the money option since Google bought YouTube for $1.65 billion.

Here’s how to tell the two apart:

• From UTube site: “…specializes in buying and selling Used Tube Mills, Used Pipe Mills and Used Rollforming Machines”
• From YouTube site: “…a consumer media company for people to watch and share original videos worldwide through a Web experience”

I wonder why the Ohio company didn’t go after NBC before since the Tonight Show would occasionally do segments of things they found on YouTube. I think even the Today Show (also on NBC) highlighted videos before, so surely, the Ohio company had to see some traffic spikes in the past.

Yesterday, YouTube announced that within a year it wants to provide a service for wireless devices. More $$ for the video based site (and parent Google).

Now since this lawsuit has gone public, looks like UTube got itself even more traffic coming.

I have an idea why not keep the identity of Universal Tube & Rollform Equipment Corporation and just go under UTREC.BIZ? Last time I checked, (as of this posting), that domain was available.

For your reference (in the US), next year Daylight Saving Time will be March 11—November 4. In 2008 March 9—November 2. Starting next year it will begin a month earlier and end a week later.

2.0 will also address an issue that I’ve had to deal with in the 1.5.0.7 version. It was a serious memory resource hog (partly due to some extensions installed). Not good when you have multiple tabs open in addition to other files and programs. Talk about stall and crawl. Well, stall and crawl no more.