This is icing on the cake. I mean no not literally. The cake is a metaphor for your Android phone. I’m referring to DropBox’s new Android application.

Weeks ago I wrote about DropBox, a relatively new online storage synchronization service. In short, DropBox allots you a certain amount of digital space on their servers (2 GB free, or you can pay for more). Once installed on your PC, you can share any folder automatically by synchronizing it with your DropBox folder.

Now, we are seeing DropBox expand to our mobile devices. DropBox for Android was released quite some time ago, but only recently has it undergone some major upgrades and improvements for mobile devices. For example, the DropBox app allows you to upload and share any of your mobile files to your DropBox space. This in turn allows you to share your files synonymously across any of your internet-capable devices. The conclusion is that you should never have to worry about backing up your files ever again.

Admob is still a revaltively new advertising network. That didn’t keep Google from purchasing them in 2009. Admob is completely taken care of financially, which means everybody wins at the end of the day. Focusing on mobile traffic primarily, Admob is continually providing publishers like you and me with tools to increase our margins. The most important number you should pay attention to is your eCPM (i.e, the amount you earn per 1,000 impressions).

One of the best ways to manipulate and hopefully INCREASE your revenue is through the use of Admobs ad filters Once you have an accepted mobile website in the Admob publisher program, you will see Reports, Setup, and Tools links on your Admob dashboard homepage. Click ‘Tools‘. On this page you will be able to manipulate a series of filters that ultimately determine which advertisements are displayed on your mobile website. Many people disagree with “Age-Orientated Ads”, which is why it is turned off by default. But that didn’t keep them from having the Gambling or their own Affiliate Ads from showing up by default. Personally, I like to remove any categories that would not seem relevant to my website to any degree. I recommend that everybody turns image ads on.

Be careful not to go crazy filtering your Admob ads, however. Though it might makes sense to remove categories that have nothing to do with your website, you would be surprised the kind of products there are in the free market that might interest one of your visitors.

At the end of the day, the advertisers through Admob determine the value of your mobile traffic. By filtering categories, you are telling certain advertisers that you don’t want anything to do with them. Your ultimate goal is to deliver the most relevant advertisements to your mobile visitors and increase clicks and your revenue. And since you own the website, you typically know what your visitors want.

Do you have an Admob tips or tricks on how to increase revenue?  Feel free to comment.  I may start a list if I get some quality contributions.  I’m not trying to promote Admob; just dish out ideas on how to make more money

This is me using Wordpress’ new Android app. Snazzy.

I bought my Nexus One Friday afternoon around 3 o’clock central time. Without hesitating, I chose the FedEx Overnight shipping option. Because Google hates me, my phone was not shipped on Friday. This means I won’t be getting my phone until Tuesday because it won’t ship until Monday. Damn this infernal wretched bastard world. I’ve been waiting half a decade for this moment. I WANT MY GOOGLE PHONE.

This post is actually about mobile processors believe it or not. The Nexus One uses the newly-released Android 2.1 operating system. That’s all fine and dandy, but everybody knows that software is useless without decent hardware that supports it. Like with any computer, the CPU (or processor) is the most important hardware component in the phone, hands down. In fact, almost every single indentifiable issue with your mobile phone can most likely be traced back to your CPU capabilities. Is your video lagging? You have a crappy CPU on your phone. Do you have low battery life? Crappy CPU. Slow wireless connections? Your CPU may be made of crap.

The Nexus One phone was manufactured by HTC. HTC has been integrating Qualcomm processors in their mobile phones almost since inception. The Nexus One uses the Qualcomm QSD 8250 1 GHz (aka “Snapdragon“) processor. Ok, now we are getting somewhere in this post. After researching Qualcomm some more, I discovered that they are in the midst of accelerating their CPU production line for mobile hardware (phones). Additionally, they’re improving the speed of their Snapdragon processors. In fact, they have already publicly announced that by the end of 2010, they will release their 1.3 GHz processor, as well as their DUAL-CORE 1.5 GHz mobile processor.

Big deal, what does this all mean you might ask? Well, despite the obvious fact that your phones will boot-up and process applications much faster – you can expect many new innovations in mobile computing. For example, with a dual-core 1.5 GHz processor in your PHONE, you can decode 1080p/720p video files. Even if you don’t need this, it gives you a very good estimate as to how powerful these processors really are. And to do this while saving as much battery power as possible… that’s an accomplishment. Looks like the mobile industry is evolving nicely. I’m looking forward to a world with less lag.

Admob is a mobile advertising company I’ve been using for the last six months.  It is the Adsense of mobile internet.  Admob typically only approves publishers that have a mobile-compatible website (like this for example).  Admob was recently acquired by Google.  The FTC is now asking for more details on the acquisition, as Google is starting to become more and more suspicious of monopolizing the mobile advertising industry.

Some other .mobi Advertising companies include:

• Third Screen Media - http://www.thirdscreenmedia.com/
• AdMob – http://www.admob.com
• Google AdSense - http://google.com/adsense
• Jumptap - http://jumptap.com/
• InMobi - http://inmobi.com/
• Unanimis - http://www.unanimis.co.uk/

Dropbox is a relatively new online file backup service tool.  It allows you to create shared folders so you can universally share files across any internet device.  Say for instance you wanted to outsource a programming job to a programmer in India.  You and your employee can both have dropbox installed, and share a folder on your computer that contains all the database and web files needed for the job.  Dropbox gives you the ability to give shared file access to you and groups.

Dropbox is handy for webmasters for two reasons: 1. it gives you the ability to easily share large files (of any type) with others. 2. it gives you peace of mind knowing that your valuable files are backed up on an independent, third-party server.

Yes it’s free.

Yes it works really well.

Join.

I decided to reformat my Dell M140 because my Asus laptop won’t stop giving me the Blue Screen of Death. So before I did this I backed my files up. I came upon this small .swf file that me and a friend made as juniors in high school, for Biology class. The flash movie demonstrates the process of Mitosis, which is the process of cell division (simply put).

For the actual flash project, I used a program called SWF Studio, using a trial version. Trust me, this program is a lot easier to use than Adobe Flash Studio. I own Adobe Flash Studio, and it is overkill if you’re only looking to create simple flash projects like this.

As you can see, there is very little actionscript in the movie. The Start/Stop feature, text transformations, and then the movements of the shapes inside the movie are the only objects using actionscript. Do you remember using Photoshop for the first time? For most people, the program looks intimidating when you first glance at it. But after you mess around with the tools for a day or so, you start to get a hang of it and on you go. Same thing with Flash and SWF Studio and Adobe Flash Studio. Try making a flash movie tonight using some simple animations or controls.

OpenTable.com is one of my favorite websites today because you can book almost any Chicagoland restaurant in about one minute. Additionally, you can read hundreds of real reviews about a restaurant before you decide to dine there. I recently took my girlfriend out to a very nice restaurant called Catch 35, in Naperville, Illinois – and used OpenTable to book my reservations. Great dining. Very elegant…romantic… you know, that crap. But the obvious point I’m trying to make here is that OpenTable.com revolutionized the restaurant industry by making it as easy as pie to book reservations.

Just like the banking industry and ATMs, OpenTable.com provides the transition to the digital age for the restaurant industry.

Of course you can’t give OpenTable.com all the praise. It’s not like they invented the technology to book restaraunt reserverations online, but they certainly seized the opportunity – and succeeded.

[flickr]

Happy 1st birthday, Android.

Oh look… your first tooth.