So... I am wanting to make more money off of Google adsense (I love to help people and I am a Capitalist! :).... a poor capitalist because I am making hardly anything off of adsense at this point...) For those of you who have been around for a while, you may remember the days I required people to fill out a survey before they could download the files. I made quite a bit more money off of that... BUT... it was a major headache for many people because A.) You had to fill out a survey (duh)... and B.) a lot of people STILL couldn't download the file. I really do want to help as many people as possible with their WDTV frustrations so I opted to try out Google adsense instead. But it isn't working real well. A lot of people come through the site, but hardly anyone clicks on the ads.

SO... What could I do? First of all, I AM NOT GOING AND WILL NOT EVER GO back to survey based downloads. Those simply were too much of a pain for everyone and the last thing I want to cause is more frustration.

Instead... I did another site redesign. I was going for LESS CRAP and LESS CONFUSION... I would like to hear your thoughts as to whether or not I succeeded :).

Here are the changes:

1. New Header - New Graphic up top, less "busy", only the picture of the WDTV (because I don't really talk about very many other devices, and I want people to immediately realize that is what this site is pretty much all about). I also added in some "Roman" helmets for kick :), yeah, cheesy I know...

2. Menu Design - Easier to read, nicer to look at, more obvious on the page. it is now the primary and central means of site navigation ... (see next point)

3. Ditched the "Site archive" that used to reside on the sidebar - why do I need a site archive? Everything you care about is in the top menu, there wasn't anything in the "archive" that isn't in the top menu that was worth reading... I want to get you to your intended information as quickly and easily as possible. Hence, no more site archive, all primary navigation is done from the top menu...

4. The "SideBar" is now on the Right-Hand side and is a bit wider - Why? Simply put, you read from left to right... So the main content should be on the left and you should only ever focus on the right hand side of the page if you need something from over there... like

5. Improved "Search This Blog" function - Find crap faster, you can use the almighty powers of Google to search within this blog quickly and easily from the top-right of the screen...

6. LESS ADs - But you thought I wanted to make more money? I DO! So, now there is ONLY an Ad on the right hand side of the screen. It will commonly appear to the right of in-site youtube videos. The theory is that I WILL make more money because A.) Hopefully Ads in this spot will get clicked more often & B.)Pay-per-click tends to be higher when there are less ads per page. I am toying with putting a banner ad at the bottom of each page but i will leave things as they are for a month and see what happens...

7. Will possibly remove the "PayPal" donation button in the future - I have never received a donation! :) lol... If people arn't using it, there is no need for it to take up screen real-estate and drag your attention away from the content (and the ads :)...)

SO - I think that touches on all the major changes. Tell me what you think! I really do want to know :)... Do you like things as they are now, or would you prefer a different design?