Well I haven't blogged lately and I figured I would get things rolling again by warning readers about my troubles with Google Adsense. I ran Adsense for almost three years and earned several hundred dollars and guess what? They never sent me a check.

When I contacted them they gave me very vague canned responses and never gave me a precise reason my funds were being held and Google never ever responded to my written letters requesting release of my payments.

So much for Google's evil policy!

27-year-old Adam Vitale of New York was sentenced to 30 month's in Federal Prison on Tuesday for his part in spamming AOL users. In addition he was ordered to pay restitution in the amount of $180,000.

He was sentenced in U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York in Manhattan. Vitale and his partner in crime, Todd Moeller, were busted after they offered their spam services to a government informant, according to an indictment filed in May 2006.

The two sent around 250,000 spam messages to more than 1.2 million e-mail addresses belonging to AOL subscribers, the indictment read.

The spam messages contained false "headers," or the set of information contained in an e-mail that identifies where it has been sent from. The information can be faked. The two also routed the spam through open proxies, or other computer servers, in order to make it more difficult to trace.

Atleast a dozen Internet Service Providers have been collaborating for a few years now on new technology to better prevent spam but there is some much separation with companies failing to agree on any specific solution.

Moeller pleaded guilt to two counts of e-mail fraud and one count of conspiracy to commit e-mail fraud. He was sentenced in December 2007 to 27 months, court records show. He also was ordered to forfeit $183,000 in profit gained from spamming.

Adam Vitale is currently being held at the Metropolitan Detention Center in New York until he is transferred to U.S. Marhsals custody for transportation to his designated prison.

The Arecibo Observatory has been troubled with budget problems for years now, but now the future of the observatory is being called into question. The question at hand is whether U.S. Congress will provide funding that is needed badly.

Seti@Home relies on The Arecibo Observatory and without the observatory the UC Berkeley project would cease to exist. I personally have participated in the Seti@Home project for years and I believe the project is a great contribution to science and technology.

You can donate directly to Seti@Home by clicking here and going to their site.

I had the opportunity to interview Jeremy Schoemaker of ShoeMoney.com today and I asked him just a few brief questions and here is what he had to say. Jeremy is one of the most successful bloggers around.

Benjamin: Do you see ShoeMoney.com as still successful 18 months from now and if yes, what kind of stuff will you need to do in order to keep ShoeMoney successful?

Jeremy: Being I run 6 companies (soon 7) and blogging is something I do "when I have time" I would guess that bloggers who are devoted to blogging full time will surpass the popularity of shoemoney.com. Course I said that 2 years ago too. I just try to have fun with the site.

Benjamin: If you were to give a beginning blogger a tip what would be the most valuable tip you could give them?

Jeremy: Just write about what you are passionate about. If you start a blog about a subject you are passionate about odds are you will like doing it and if you can keep up the passion could possibly make it big.

Benjamin: What is your favorite hobby (not to include blogging) ?

Jeremy: For fun I really like to program. I am a O.K. programer and always enjoy writing programs.

Benjamin: Tell me about some of your favorite places that being a successful blogger has taken you?

Jeremy: Blogger specific pretty much everywhere in the US. I have also been invited to speak at conferences in other countries but have not been able to yet.

Benjamin: What are some of your favorite blogging communities if you have any? (such as BlogCatalog, EC, etc.)

Jeremy: I really do not have a favorite community... I joined and even paid for blog catalog but still am not sure what I even get for paying ;)

Benjamin: Has your blog helped out any good causes such as a charity or any kind of disaster?

Jeremy: Sure we have had a few fundraisers.

http://www.shoemoney.com/2007/01/25/i-am-selling-domains-for-charity/

http://www.shoemoney.com/2006/07/31/help-marcela-devivo-aka-2_much-wmw-mod-2_much-fundraiser/

- End of Interview -

We would like to thank Jeremy Schoemaker for taking time out of his busy schedule to do a small interview with us. If you would like to learn more about Jeremy Schoemaker and ShoeMoney.com click here

In case you didn't know EntreCard and SezWho have entered into a partnership which was announced today. This partnership will be beneficial to blogger's who currently use EntreCard and those who signup to use EntreCard.

Basically, you get EntreCard Credits for any comments you leave on other EntreCard user's blogs if they have SezWho installed through EntreCard and at the same time other EntreCard users will get credits for posting comments on your blog too.

Now I bet you are thinking that this is going to unleash a load of comment spam right? Perhaps not.... Essentially the community will police comments by rating them.

Now I am not exactly a major supporter of EntreCard although it is a decent service and have perks and such.

I have had some issues with Graham Langdon but in all honesty this partnership will benefit users of EntreCard and will probably generate more interest in EntreCard.

I have installed SezWho on Syndicated Elitist for a test run as apart of this new partnership and I will test it out myself to see what results from using it.