I started using Chitika eMiniMalls a few days ago on Free Horoscope Daily, as well as on the tools pages of this site. So far so good, it seems like a very promising ad service. The ads can be contextual like Google Adsense, but I suspect you can get them to perform better by specifying keywords to bring up the product you want.

Very recently, Chitika added a JavaScript variable to allow for Channels, ch_sid. Instead of having a Channel management area on the website, where you set up channels and get a numeric ID to use for the channel, they allow you to specify any string at all. This makes testing out different ad styles and keywords very easy.

To test out keywords, that is, to see which keywords bring up products people are actually buying, we can create the Channel name dynamically using Javascript:

ch_queries = new Array("ipod", "camera", "dvd player", "etc.");
ch_query = ch_queries[Math.floor((Math.random()*ch_queries.length))];
ch_sid = 'Channel Prefix ' + ch_query;

This will give you channel names like "Channel Prefix camera" or "Channel Prefix ipod", etc. Of course, you can change Channel Prefix to include more information on the type of ad or location of the ad.

You could also experiment with different ad colors or sizes in a similar way, and build up the ch_sid variable to include all the variables. For example:

ch_colors = new Array("red", "blue", "green");
ch_color = ch_colors[Math.floor((Math.random()*ch_queries.length))];
ch_sid = 'My Website ' + ch_color + ' ' + ch_query;

You get the picture. Of course you can do all this with Adsense too, you would just have to set up a channel manually for every color / size / location combination, then dynamically associate the combination with it's channel ID. Quite a bit more painful though.

Chitika also allows you to test out searches on their website. They actually recommend you go to Amazon or Shopping.com and find best selling products, then try to create keywords that bring up that specific product. And with this Javascript, you can determine what the best selling products really are for your visitors.

Have fun optimizing your ads!

Working with designMode="on" or contentEditable (what can we call this? I want to say Rich Text Editors or Midas Editors Web-Based HTML Editors or something. We don't really have a nice buzzword for this..), a common problem is dealing with pasted content. The user can paste any HTML into these areas, and more often than not, web applications don't want form elements or IFrames or other HTML included in the content.

It's not so difficult to process the innerHTML of a document to strip out bad HTML using regular expressions. The problem is, when can this cleaning happen?

Mozilla has no paste events at all. Internet Explorer has onBeforePaste and onPaste events, but no onAfterPaste. onPaste fires when the user pastes, but before the HTML actually goes into the editor. The idea is that the developer has a chance to look into the clipboard using window.clipboardData.getData(). Unfortunately, you can only retrieve the contents in URL or Text format, not HTML. Instead, it would be easier to allow the HTML to be pasted, then process the editor contents afterwards.

To accomplish this in Internet Explorer, we can simply set a timeout in the onPaste event. This works by allowing the browser time to finish its internal onPaste event before executing the code in the timeout. The onPaste event needs to be attached to the BODY of the editor IFrame using designMode, or the DIV element when using contentEditable.

function onPasteHandler(e) {
     setTimeout(function() {
          // editor cleaning code goes here
     }, 1); // 1ms should be enough
}

In Firefox, we can't use paste events. However, probably the best we can do is set a keypress handler and look for CTRL+V or SHIFT+INSERT and then do the same thing with a timeout. The keypress event handler needs to be attached to the document element in the IFrame.

function onKeyPressHandler(e) {
     if ((e.ctrlKey && e.keyCode == e.DOM_VK_V)
      || (e.shiftKey && e.keyCode == e.DOM_VK_INSERT)) {
          setTimeout(function() {
               // editor cleaning code goes here
          }, 1);
     }
}

This should only work with Mozilla/Firefox because e.DOM_VK_V and e.DOM_VK_INSERT are not defined in Internet Explorer.

Also note that there are still other ways to get HTML into the editor through Drag-and-Drop, or by using Edit>Paste on the Firefox menu. If you are serious about stripping HTML you will need to do it at other times as well. At least this way it will happen quickly enough that the editor won't misleadingly contain these elements, only to strip them out at an unpredictable time in the future.

Just for fun, I added a few simple JavaScript powered conversion tools, and PHP powered "geek" tools. There are just a few, but I will probably add more in the future. I don't know if they will be of use to anyone (except me perhaps), but feel free to steal the JavaScript for your own purposes.

• What is my IP Address?
• What is my Host Name?
• Celcius to Fahrenheit
• Fahrenheit to Celcius
• Kilometres to Miles
• Miles to Kilometres
• Kilograms to Pounds
• Pounds to Kilograms

For a long time now, since I was in high school, I've had an itch to start my own business. I've had many ideas, most based around the idea of a web design company. I've never followed any of them through though. I've always felt like I would in the near future, but it was never the right time.

Lately though, I've started to think about this a lot more. I guess I always need to have some kind of goal to look towards. Over the past year, a lot has happened. I moved from Canada to Germany. But now that the dust has settled, I guess I feel like I need to be doing something new. I need a challenge in my life, and the clearest way to do this seemed like starting my own business.

I say seemed because that was before I read the sex & cash theory. In a chapter of his excellent piece on How to be Creative, Hugh Macleod says, "The creative person basically has two kinds of jobs: One is the sexy, creative kind. Second is the kind that pays the bills. Sometimes the task in hand covers both bases, but not often. This tense duality will always play center stage. It will never be transcended."

This really struck a chord with me. I've often thought that starting my own business might be a bad idea. If I did, I wouldn't want to do the marketing. I would hate doing sales. I would want to get someone else to do the designs. I wouldn't mind doing management and support, but it would distract me from what I really love doing: developing software. So, then, what's so bad about being a software developer in a larger company?

Hugh made me realise that I could have the freedom to be creative in my spare time, while still being able to pay off my massive debt by working during the day. And it's not like my work is a bad place. It's a really interesting job and a great company too. I get to do exactly what I want to be doing. I might not have the sort of control I would have with my own business...but then again, if I had my own business I would have to do what clients wants most of the time (if I want to get paid!) So it's really the same situation.

By keeping my day job, I also don't have to worry about making money. If I had my own business, I'd have to find ways to make lots of money with my talents. By letting my day job take care of the steady flow of money, I can feel free to contribute to open source software, volunteer for organisations, or work on web sites with my mom and dad. I can do anything I want! Being self-employed, I wouldn't have this freedom because I would be trying to focus on paying the bills.

I feel a real desire to do something big with my life. I'm really excited about the potential of the Internet (ie., The Future of the Web :) and the ways it is beginning to grow and evolve. I love the way it is transcending hierarchy and reshaping the social structures of the human species. It has already changed so much and we can't even imagine what the impact will be a hundred years from now. I think being a software/web developer in this era might be the most exciting job in the most exciting time period ever.

But, I now realise that there are millions of ways to participate without starting my own business. I just want to be able to continue to work on exciting projects that let me push the envelope of web technologies and web application development. I leave the business-starting to those who are passionate about business, and I'll focus on doing what it is I'm passionate about.

How do you express your creativity and passions at work and at home, or is there even a distinction between the two for you?

I finally got around to adding comments to the site. Feel free to test them out if you like. No html is supported..that is, everything will be converted to HTML entities. There is no preview or edit. It's pretty basic stuff. I guess that's the problem with writing my own blog code.. I never get around to adding the most basic of features. At least now you can comment on the lack of features :)

And on an unrelated note, I put the design back to the original one. The new one was a bit too boring I think. I'm not sure when I'll change it again...