So we're back down at my parents for a couple of days and within minutes of booting up the computer the other day I was already getting frustrated over the poor wireless connection. I discovered last time I was here that the Wireless Modem/Router I bought last year is fine for the Modem but the wireless connection puts out about 50kb speed! Despite resetting it, it's deteriorated back to how it was before. So the solution to this was to buy a new wireless router and just use the modem off the old unit.

Today I went into town and after seeing prices of £80+ for wireless routers, I finally found a Belkin G+ Wireless Router for £40. Bargain! The range is meant to be further too which means that the whole house should be covered by it now hopefully. I got back to the house and set to work setting up the new router, wires everywhere! After an hour I was getting pretty frustrated and fed up as it just didn't want to work. I figured I'd do a hard reset and start from scratch again. Picking up the unit I noticed pen already on the reset button. The whole system had already been sold and returned in the past! So after dinner we drove back out to the shop (thankfully open until 8pm) and got it exchanged.

Take Two! I plugged everything in, within seconds it found the internet connection and worked instantly. Clearly the difference between a faulty unit and one that works! So now I've disabled the wireless broadcast on the old unit and just have the modem running on that, then connected that to the new router via a network cable and the new router is putting out the signal. So far so good. I've got a pretty strong connection where usually I would keep dropping it, which means I get to sit on the couch with my feet up instead of in the dining room, directly below the router

Am away at present, down at my parents for a couple of days, so this is just brief. Today has been a fantastic day for earning. We have madenn$12 via Template Monstern$22.20 via an affiliate account for a software salennPlus a new Text Link Ad worth $8.50 a month (about $3.70 for the rest of the month).nnIt's not a massive amount, but will account for probably more than 10% of the final month's earnings, and sure I made more the other week ($50+) in one day, however this all actually came in during a one hour slot! If only every hour could make that much nnEdit: I just found an eBook sale in PayPal that never got sent through for some reason! Being away doesn't help as I've still not had time to sort out my new (well a few months old now!) laptop with all the products we sell. However, Secure Delivery to the rescue! I'd set this product up to sell via Secure Delivery a while ago and never got around to adding the code (which I will be doing ASAP now!). Despite already being paid I can still generate a Free download link for the buyer, put their email address in and leave Secure Delivery to do the job for me. I'll be doing a review on this service (something I've meant to have done a while ago) from Jason Chance and his business partner, once things have settled down a little.nnSo that's a further $9.35 to the total for the day

I first started using Google Reader as my main Feedreader soon after it first came out. My reasoning for first using it was because I used two laptops and a PDA to read my feeds. Before that I used the free program Omea Reader. Of course with offline software it doesn't synchronise whereas via Google Reader it's updated online, the feeds are stored online (so no disk usage on my part) and the feeds are checked throughout the day (at a guess). Since using it I've found a few more reasons to use it which I thought I'd share, perhaps help give anyone who's considering using it a bit more info.

The first feature is the look, the style of it. This can be controlled by you, if you have the time and knowledge. Using the Firefox extension Stylish, you can create your own CSS stylesheet for it, change the way it's laid out, change what is displayed and hide anything you don't use etc. Alternatively I highly recommend Jon Hick's stylesheet for it, which can be found at UserStyles. This is a really nice change in the design in my opinion.

Google has recently added some new features to the reader, such as a search box, allowing you to search the feeds for specific information. It's not something I've used or would necessarily use, but it may prove handy in the future. You can also star/favourite a particular post for future reading which is handy as I see some posts that look good but I may not have time to read and pay attention there and then!

A new feature that I really like (which may not be new but I've only just found it!) is that you can just display your unread posts. You can display all posts from a feed if you want to, but if you only have time to look at say a couple of feeds then you can read those and happily close the browser down. When you return it will know what you've read and only show you what you've not seen. This was always a problem for me before as I'd get a build up of posts for a particular site, and start reading the first few. If I closed the site down I would lose my place, so I've often leaving the browser open for up to a week, with the reader undisturbed, allowing me to try and catch up (and often just hit the Mark All Read instead!). Now I don't have to worry about this which is fantastic!

Of course you have standard features such as organising into categories, renaming feeds to suit yourself etc. If you're considering trying it out then I honestly urge you to. It saves so much time, looks good and is great to use.

Title's bad, I know. Didn't know what to call it…! I signed up with ReviewMe a month or so ago, to have a nose around (I'm very nosey me!), see what was behind the login screen and maybe see if I could make a little cash with the occasional review for my Food and Drink blog. It's taken a while but I finally had a review turn up for my approval. I took a look at the site and then suddenly wondered, what do I review? The site was selling something called Absinthe Alcohol. Apparently something very strong (probably why I've not heard of it!). However this is a physical product, so how can I review a physical product that I'll probably never see?nnSo this brings me to my question. When a site offering a type of service or digital product is asking for a review, you can review the service usually (not always, I realise this). But if a site is simply selling a product what do you review? The product from your own experience, the website? Surely a review of a website should come from a developer type blog/site as opposed to a site that chats about gardening and recipes?nnAs it happens I declined the review. Besides being offered £5/$10 for it, the site itself was horrific and then when I went to try and add something to the cart I got the notice 'This store's cart has been suspended. If you are the store owner please contact XYZ.' I don't know what the minimum word limit is on a review but I can't write much about a product I've never heard of, a site that is out of the 1990's and a shopping cart that is suspended!nnI guess these sites that ask for reviews are simply looking for a potential customer's opinion on the site. But for $10 (which I realise is the price set by ReviewMe), how much time would you spend writing a review on a site that doesn't work?

It's already everywhere so I'm not going to go into details! BlogRush is simply a way to potentially get more exposure on your posts for your blog. I was invited in by another blogger and have added the widget in on the sidebar just above the footer. It displays a few posts from other blogs, could be of interest to people (I'm guessing most posts will be technology based initially). In return I get my latest posts displayed on other people's blogs as well (it comes down to page views). I have read a few concerns over whether it could violate AdSense TOS however this specific blog doesn't run adverts (there's no point, you're all already members of Google AdSense!). I'll give it a try and see if it's worth it. I'll let you know how it goes.nnIf anyone fancies signing up under my Blog Rush account, feel free to use my link – http://www.blogrush.com/r18636165