Affiliate Marketing Blog » Personal

LOL @ Amazon.com

Christoph — Tue, 17 Aug 2010 18:08:58 +0000

Amazon.com is one of the most sophisticated online shopping websites built ever. Not many merchants put that much effort into streamlining and optimizing the user experience and to make stuff just sell. Amazon rocks … except for kicking me and thousands of other associates out of their affiliate program due to law makers messing around with sales tax. By the way – Amazon is apparently secretly complying with Colorado’s Internet Taxing efforts which sucks big time because it shows that they do not care about their associates really. Oh, well … enough ranting. So, here is what I am really writing about – a problem on Amazon’s website.

Hey Amazon, I am trying to ask a question about your kindle device. I don’t have one yet, but might buy one actually. However, I am trying to ask a question through their contact page for Kindle support and an order ID is required. For one I do not have an order ID yet and second, Amazon’s form says that the order ID is optional … aka not required.

So, I went onto a different machine that has never ever been used to visit Amazon.com and tried to ask the question again – without being logged in. I am getting the same error message. I tried different subject line options, but the result was always the same.

So, is Amazon just faking their customer support? My question is not answered in the FAQ by the way and I really like to know the answer first before placing an order.

If anyone knows – I would like to know if I can buy books in other languages from let’s the German or French Amazon site and load them onto my US Amazon Kindle?

HTC Incredible

Christoph — Fri, 30 Apr 2010 03:35:30 +0000

This morning I upgraded my cell phone from a LG Chocolate to a Verizon Wireless Droid Incredible. Man, I love this phone. This is the snappiest phone I have seen up to this point. I did not have a smartphone up until now (unless you consider the crappy Moto Q that I owned 4 years ago a smartphone) and so this is awesome.

Verizon Wireless’s network is really fast (at least in my opinion) and this phone has such a powerful processor – things are flying. I showed it to a friend who owns a Droid (Motorola) Smartphone and he was instantly excited about this phone. He stated that his phone was much less responsive and limited in memory, too. Another friend had an iPhone and this phone puts the current iPhone to shame.

I will still need a few days to set everything up and to try a few apps that I need. Still looking for a Twitter app, too. If you can recommend one first hand, please leave a comment. I’d love to hear from you. I also need to buy a hardcase to protect the phone from getting damaged, but the ones Verizon had – I was not too sure about it. Have to check online to see if I find a better deal.

I read in the news today that the phone is sold out in most locations + online as well and that it will take 5-6 days for the next shippments to go out. Crazy.

Google is creepy (sometimes)

Christoph — Thu, 15 Apr 2010 03:44:38 +0000

This evening before I continued to work on one of my websites I did some research about central air conditioning since I do not have it in my house I moved to. At a quarter to 9 PM an AC retailer calls me to discuss an estimate he gave us earlier (I was aware he would call and happy that he called). I finished up the call and then get back to work. I am working on a fitness related website and are adding a new article. I do display Adsense Ads on my website and when I preview the article all I see is ads for air conditioning.

While I am interested in air conditioning I am not interested to see those ads on a fitness related website. I also checked the Google toolbar and the browser search box and nowhere in my search fields is anything shown about AC. The article does not talk about AC. I know Google monitors things through the toolbar as well as when you are logged in with your Google Account, but it is still creepy that a) they display ads for something I was working on earlier and b) how fast these guys are. However, I think they are going overboard, because this completely destroys Adsense for content in my opinion. Even if I am interested in something, if I “switch” topics and move from AC to fitness, the ads should do the same in my opinion. On a fitness website I would be enticed to see ads related to the content and NOT to a search I did 30 minutes ago.

Something to think about especially if you make money from Adsense how this could affect your long term earnings with Adsense ….

People are Stupid

Christoph — Wed, 24 Mar 2010 13:55:16 +0000

Ok, this is a personal rant against people who drive like maniacs in the snow. Don’t read if you are looking for affiliate marketing related information.

So, we had this major snowstorm since last night and this morning I had about 14-16 Inches of snow in my driveway. It took me an hour (!) to shovel all the snow and by the time I was done another half inch was already back on it. So, I had to drive somewhere (unfortunately) and all I have to say is – some people are like idiots when the roads are icy and full of snow.

I was driving on a 2 lane road and saw an accident in the distance (small accident – nothing crazy). It was on the right lane and so I considered it safe slowly driving towards the accident scene. Suddenly I was passed on the right by a small Dodge Pickup Truck. The guy driving was way too fast and put everyone at risk. He came extremely close to my truck and so I honked the horn and tried to move a little more to the left. He stayed on the right lane and slowed down for the accident – apparently he was related to one of the people involved from what I can tell. But he was way too fast and of course (duh) crashed into one of the cars (WTF). He got out, showed me the finger (thank you very much) and then walked around his truck and started talking to a woman. I had stopped right behind him because his truck was partially blocking the road. I took a wild guess and decided that my truck would fit through the remaining gap and slowly drove by. He looked at me and I just smiled at him and shook my head slowly. I felt sorry for the woman and the other person involved. I can understand that you are under shock and stress when an accident happens, but why put your own life at risk when trying to help your wife or friend and why risk hitting innocent people driving the same street as you are?

Later on I had to go on the highway for one exit and the roads were really bad. Well, not bad enough because I was passed by a big semi truck with a 53’ trailer. I saw him in my mirror and saw the trailer swerving. Not good. I slowed down and pulled as far to the right as I could. The truck just kept on going way too fast and I am still surprised that the trailer stayed under control …

What is it with people and snow? This is Colorado and we get that stuff quite often. You would think people like to get home safely, but ….! Another reason to stay home the next time. It’s not me going somewhere, but people around you that put everyone at risk.

Google Finance has broken Links

Christoph — Thu, 18 Mar 2010 14:22:11 +0000

Jut tried to create a new stock portfolio at my favorite financial website (Google Finance), and had to find out that the Google team missed either a function or a file. I cannot create a new portfolio at the moment. Does anyone know how to notify Google about this?