The number of visitors to the main page broke half a million for the first time in September 2008, with 535,523. We also recently set a new one-day record (33,065), a record for a Saturday (19,111, yesterday), and a record for people making cash donations using the tip jar (23, more than in the whole rest of 2008! With the average September donation being $11.63). Again: THANK YA! This is not the biggest site in the world but I do have the best readers. I'm amazed every day at how fortunate I am to have such a large and good readership.
Briefly, a base, grasping, greedy, self-serving plug (is that enough of a warning?): People do help the site most if they buy something big and expensive from our Amazon links (or the B&H or Adorama ones), but in the case of Amazon, you also help out when you buy something very small and very inexpensive. The reason is, the percentage we earn for everything goes up with the number of things people buy. So even buying a lenscap or a roll of film or a CD or a wrist strap—the leastest, littlest item—helps out more than you might think. End of plug.
Thanks also to the TOP Brain Trust, a.k.a., those who comment. Lots of people find the comments fun to read, and they mean that I learn stuff from my own website, too, which helps keep it interesting for me, and for which I'm grateful.
—T.O.P.'s Major Factotum and Chief Functionary
I'd like to second your choice of "Recommended by M.J." books. Mountain Light is one of the best landscape books in print. After reading it, I notice light in ways I had not noticed in the past.
Posted by: Dwight | Sunday, 05 October 2008 at 05:24 PM
I'm happy to support the various web pages I read regularly, but I've run into a snag wrt T.O.P.... Or maybe it's something I'm not understanding...
On the right bar, I see a heading "Recommended by M.J." with a graphic underneath it for an ad from Adorama. If I hover my mouse over the ad, I see something like "http://www.adorama.com/?kbid=62935".
On several occasions you've mentioned recommended books and indicated that I can find them under that link. (I remember the books, 'cause I *likes* books).
But if I click the ad link, it takes me to the main adorama page. Not to any specific item.
What's up with that? Something isn't working... I use firefox for my web browsing, if that helps.
Posted by: Doug | Sunday, 05 October 2008 at 05:30 PM
Doug,
The "Recommended by M.J." is an Amazon product link, usually linking to a specific book. Right now it's "Mountain Light" by Galen Rowell. If you're not seeing it, it's probably because you have some sort of ad blocker activated in your browser. See if you can turn the ad browser off, and you'll see the link. I'm not saying you might not want to turn it back on again eventually--you can do whatever you like, of course--but that will allow you to see the link as it was intended.
Mike J.
Posted by: Mike J. | Sunday, 05 October 2008 at 05:34 PM
Yup, that's it... I have an adblocker running... hmmm... I wonder if I can figure out how to disable it for certain websites...
Posted by: Doug | Sunday, 05 October 2008 at 05:46 PM
I did an amazingly stupid thing last week -- forgot to find somebody with a B&H link for a big purchase. But having been reminded, you should get a cut of a pretty big purchase I made today. So reminding us must sometimes do some good, anyway!
Posted by: David Dyer-Bennet | Sunday, 05 October 2008 at 06:52 PM
Firefox also has a "Noscript" add-on which allows you to globally forbid scripts (makes starting pages pretty lame when the java doesn't work) and then with a right mouse click allow the page or part thereof to execute.
Check this out under Tools/add-ons. Ctrl-Shift-A
Posted by: Mike | Monday, 06 October 2008 at 12:36 AM
If I click on Amazon on your page it brings me into Amazon.com which doesn't suit me living in Ireland as I do. Amazon.co.uk is my portal.
When the Amazon.com page opens I get a flashing link asking me to shop in Amazon.co.uk. If I click on this link do you still get brownie points ?
Incidentally Amazon.com will happily supply books to Ireland and they are quite often cheaper than Amazon.co.uk despite postage charges.
One last gripe. If I click on your "email me " link it attempts to open up M.S. Outlook. I use Gmail. The problem with your link is that it gives no way to pick up your email address unless Outlook is opened and as I don't have Outlook setup, and don't want it set up, it leaves me in limbo. This problem is not unique to your site. It doesn't appear to happen with Vista which is quite happy to open up Gmail as me email prog.
Posted by: Paul Mc Cann | Monday, 06 October 2008 at 07:05 AM