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How to “FTP” a file on a Mac
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Every week I get asked from one person or another “how do I FTP a file” so while this is not a super technical update to NoHeat I thought I would make something that other technical people can forward off to other FTP newbies. This week the FTP question was for the Mac so I chose to showcase CyberDuck. CyberDuck is a opensource and free program that can easily manage many FTP accounts. While its true that OS X has software built in that can connect to your FTP the easy of use for a novice in setting up would take longer than just downloading CyberDuck. Also note that I am a fan of Transmit for the Mac but since it is a shareware title and CyberDuck is free I will cover CyberDuck instead.
CyberDuck is a especially easy program to install. Simply go to CyberDuck’s website. From there you will see a download link with a blue arrow. Click the link and your download begin. When you finish downloading the file your Mac OS will inform you that the file is a application and ask you if you are sure you want to launch, say yes. From there it will decompress the .DMG which is a disk image format, just pretend there’s a CD in your drive for now. Once the .DMG file has been decompressed you will need to drag the icon of the duck to your application folder which may be in your dock, you may optionally drag the application to your desktop.
Once installed on your computer double click on the yellow CyberDuck icon. It may present you with a option for updating, for the purposes of this instruction we will assume you have the most up to date version of CyberDuck.
Once open you will notice a “open connection” button in the upper left corner of the window. Click on this button.
Insert your server name in the “Server” field (your server name will usually look like ftp.yourservername.com) in the picture the field is highlighted green. Insert your user name, your username may be one word or look like a email address, in any case enter this in the field, in the picture it is highlighted yellow. Then enter your password, this is highlighted blue in the picture. Then press “Connect”.
Your CyberDuck FTP program will now show you a directory of files that you can download or upload. You download by dragging files that show up in the CyberDuck window to your desktop or to whatever folder you choose to locally store your file. To upload you will drag your file in.
Thats it, now you are able to “FTP a file”.
Google Adsense CPC vs Referrals 2.0
So for a few days I have been testing the new referrals platform that Google is testing inside Adsense. Lucky Adsense advertisers get the chance at making extra revenue from Cost Per Action instead of CPC. The bounty can be high, instead of making a few cents off of the click you could make anywhere from $1.00 to $20.00 (from my experience) and it can look very attractive.
CPA is also an publishers dream in the internet world. They get to pick the price per lead and so they can factor in an advertising budget right into their margin that never changes.
The problem with CPA for advertisers though is that people have to actually click, and then do something which usually requires some kind of purchase. My experience the last few days has been one of disappointment. Replacing several of my ad blocks that were high paying CPC ads previously with Google Adsense Referral ad blocks made my adsense revenue drop like a rock. Keep in my mind click through rate stayed about the same but my ad revenue from the inventory that Google gave me just plummeted. It could be that it takes a while to trip the revenue back to the affiliate (in this case Google) but I doubt it. My guess is that the ads simply weren’t compelling enough to get a purchase out of the click or that the buyer is taking longer to respond to the click. Now obviously with Google Adsense TOS we can’t get into specific revenue and clicks but we are in the neighborhood of a 90% drop in revenue.
This may not be news, Google’s own Firefox with Google Toolbar referral seemed to disregard clicks my tracking showed were there. On the install end I imagine I also was loosing some of my credit for Firefox installs. In the case of Google Referrals you have to wonder what assurances you can have about getting ad revenue whether CPC or CPA when you put the power into the publishers hands.
Simple code updates could kill the mechanisms that report back to Google, and while I believe Google would do nothing sinister you have no idea what the publisher’s intentions are.
So what do they look like? Do they look the same as regular ads? Yes they do in fact for the purposes of this article I have left some ads on the left of this article. You can see that it clearly says “Referral Ads by Google” but other than that there is little to distinguish CPC ads from CPA.
For us here at Noheat there just seems to be too many variables and too little revenue coming from the Adsense Referrals, we’ll keep you posted if the numbers change but for now CPC seems to be the way to stay if you are a Adsense Advertiser.
Script window size and placement with Sizer
If you have a large resolution screen you know as well as anyone that sometimes windows management can be a real task. With Sizer you can uniformly resize your windows and tell them where to reside by script. Simply enter a description, select the size, and tell the application where you would like the window to be located at. This creates a script that will show up when you right click on the windows resize handle.
Just select your script and your window will be moved and sized for you.
Check it out
Eye Dropper tool on Steroids
If you spend any time creating graphics or websites your mind revolves around color and color codes. Visual Color Picker is a color picker on steroids. It is able to retrieve color information from just about anything that shows up on your screen even moving objects with a designated key that captures any color your cursor touches. Visual Color Picker can acquire color information in RGB, HSV, CMYK and HTML HEX values which makes it handy for whatever application you need the color for.
Funny - Install Vista in 2 Minutes
So you want a link back to your site?
Everyone is looking for a link back now a days. The problem is giving one is a pain in the rear, so in a quest to find the perfect way for someone to get a link back from my site I got a little carried away. I created 15blogs.com. What is it you say? Well basically its a self serve site for promoting your blog. You simply go there and put in your link, where you’ll see yours and 15 other people who wanted a link back. Wait you say I wanted a link back from your very awesome PR4 or PR5 website. The links are mirrored and crawled by Google at a few of my most popular sites. So go ahead give your website or blog some shameless self promotion and toot your own horn.
