Adsense Current Balance Reset to 0 After Being Moved to the New Payment System

This morning, I was notified that I was moved to the new payment system, where a couple of words have been changed (Unfinalized payments changed to Current Balance, etc...). The problem? My current balance is now showing 0.00!

I had money on my account and was actually close to the redemption. I hope this is a bug and my current balance will show soon. I have also notice that the form of payment is missing. No more bank account information.

I will update this post as soon as I get more information myself.

*Update*

After I wrote this post, I  posted the question in the Google Adsense forum and the Current balance got fixed after a few minutes! Either it is a coincidence (most probable) or a tech admin or something was lurking in the forum and fixed it for me. In both case, I know have the proper amount shown on my Adsense account. My bank account info was still missing though and I had to re-verify it.

Getting a Wireless Router

I just thought I would let you guys know that a few weeks ago, I got fed up with the "Turn on Internet connection sharing" option missingproblem and I decided to buy a wireless router.

How does it work? It is actually quite simple. Instead of cabling the internet to your PC, you do it to this box and then this box will create a wifi zone. You can then connect to the internet through this wifi zone.

Here is the router I bought (NetGear WNR 1000, I see a v3 on my box, not sure if it is relevant):

I am happy with it, it cost me 30 bucks and I have not had any problems with it.

I would recommend thought to:

- update the software on it as soon as you install it (takes about 5 minutes and after that you are set)

- change the default password (to the web interface). You don't know how nasty some people are and how easy it is for them to get access to a box with a default password

If you are comfortable with internet configuration, wireless options, etc... then it is straight forward. If you PCs and you don't mix well, then you should probably ask a friend but really don't believe anyone would need more than 1 hour to set it all.

Problem with Asian characters in Skype (Chinese, Japanese,...)

Yesterday (16 October 2012), the problem happened again to me and I was actually happy about it as I was able to test a bit more about the solution I wrote here:
http://smallittips.blogspot.com/2012/09/how-to-solve-skype-japanese-characters.html

Here is an updated version of the solution.

1) Make sure you log out of the active user who has the problem. I tried by simply closing all the programs and going to the admin account but the problem was not solved. I really had to log out with the current user.

2) Log in as the admin user of the computer.

3) Delete everything in: C:\Users\user-with-the-problem\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Internet Explorer
(change "user-with-the-problem" with the username of the user having the problem, ie the user you use when you have the problem)

This may be a bit tricky. First, why Internet Explorer? You may not even use this browser. Well, it seems that Skype is using some shared folders with Internet Explorer. Then, you may not see the folder AppData. Just type it after the username of the user with the problem.

4) Log back on the user you were using and launch Skype. The problem should be solved.

If the problem is not solved, please check the original solution here: http://smallittips.blogspot.com/2012/09/how-to-solve-skype-japanese-characters.html.

How to solve: Skype displaying Japanese characters as boxes

Problem with Skype not displaying Japanese/Chinese/Korean characters? Here is the solution that worked for me.

Today, when I started Skype, I had something strange happened. The name of the contacts in Japanese were replaced by squares, ie Skype was not displaying Japanese correctly anymore. I could still type some Japanese text in the message but the name of the contacts were not supported. The menu was gone too (choice between square-square-squre and square-square-square).

The problem was only with Skype, the rest of the computer was working fine: notepad, the name of the directories and folders were fine etc...

I tried to reinstall Skype: did not help. I tried to Google the answer: did not help. Most websites would simply ask you to use another font (under settings, IM and SMS etc... and change from Tahoma to Arial Unicode MS) or to change the settings of your new PC). I still could not read Japanese characters! Just a bunch of boxes/Squares or whatever you want to call them.

Incredible test

I logged off the user I was using, logged on with the admin user and ... Skype was working! Completely fine, with Tahoma (?!!) and with the global settings of the computer set to Norway/Norwegian. How come. I logged again to the user that had the problem: it was still failing. So the problem was only happening for 1 user. It does make sense as many websites were saying that they had problems with some users only or some PC only.

Step-by-step solution

Update 16 October 2012: I have had the problem again and wrote a new post about it. Check it here:
http://smallittips.blogspot.com/2012/10/problem-with-asian-characters-in-skype.html

Of course, I was still not happy, as I wanted to use Skype for both users (admin and the one failing), so here is what I did:

1. logged in with the failing user
2. closed every program including Skype
3. logged off this user (not just switch user, completely log off)
4. logged in as admin
5. opened a directory and went to C:\Users\failing-user
6. added \AppData at the end of the address: C:\Users\failing-user\AppData
7. deleted everything in
• C:\Users\failing-user\AppData\Local\Temp (mind the "Local")
• C:\Users\failing-user\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Internet Explorer (Skype uses Internet Explorer)
• C:\Users\failing-user\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Windows\Temporary Internet Files (you have to type this one too)
• C:\Users\failing-user\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Windows\Explorer
• C:\Users\failing-user\AppData\LocalLow\Microsoft\Internet Explorer (mind the LocalLow instead of Local)
8. logged again as the failing user
9. it was working

I really hope this will also solve the problem you have with Skype not displaying Asian characters properly (only squares/boxes).

1000 thanks to Servermin for a post he wrote about Chinese characters not being displayed by Skype (had a hard time finding it but it was mostly the solution I described here).

Linking Adsense to Analytics: updated howto with screenshots of the new interface

Want to link Adsense to Analytics and you are stuck? You don't find any "get started" link or have no idea where the "data sources" is? Welcome to this article! It took me forever to manage it by myself and I spent literally hours looking on the Internet without finding any good article on this topic.

This article supposes that:
- you have an Adsense account
- you have an Analytics account
- you want to link both
- you don't do anything stupid (delete stuff) and accuse this article afterwards for having done it. This is just some info to help you, you are 100% responsible for what you do on your computer

Before, we get started, please note, that you can only have 1 Adsense and 1 Analytics. Google mentions some multiple account possibility in its help guide but forget about it, it simply won't work. If you have linked to the "wrong" Analytics account, follow this link to unlink it.

1) Go to your Google Analytics page

2) Select the Analytics account you want to link to your Adsense account

3) Click on Admin on the right

4) Here is what you should have:

OK, then what? Where is the Data Sources button? Why is it so hard to place a button "Link to Adsense" here? Arghhhhh... Don't panic, I am here. Continue reading...

5) Click on the name of your domain/website (here Mysite) on the top, to go back two steps:

I am really sorry if this is obvious to many people or if many websites/blogs/official Google help pages mentioned it, but it was NOT obvious to me and I did not see it mentioned anywhere precisely.

6) Magically, a tab called Data Sources should appear:

7) Click on Data Sources, then on Adsense

8) Click on the link account button

9) Thank me on the comment section below, click on the Google +1 button below, give a 1 dollar donation to this blog (paypal donation button on the right) and enjoy your day :-)

"Your browser does not support all features of Google drive": Google and Internet Explorer compatibility issue

I wrote an article recently about how Opera had some compatibility issues with Google services and how I was afraid that in the future Google will try to force people to use their browser. I could not have been more right.

The warning message is now present with Internet Explorer too:

The complete message:
"Your browser does not support all features of Google Drive. If you are having problems, try Google Chrome. Dismiss"

On the other hand, Google seems more tolerant towards Internet Explorer than it was towards Opera: when you dismiss the message, it does not appear again and again.

Anything to do? 2 possibilities:
- you ignore this message and continue using your favorite browser in the hope that the functions you need are fully supported (I don't think Internet Explorer is a good choice, though)
- download and use Google Chrome

I even found a third solution. I did not want to use Google Chrome as it seemed a bit "forced" to me, so I am using the Comodo Dragon browser. It is based on Google Chrome, so it worked fine with Google services.

What's your opinion on this? Don't hesitate to share it in the comments section.

Blogger widget that shows all posts

I just had a stupid problem: I couldn't find the Blogger widget to show all the posts of my blog ordered by date. I knew it existed but did not know the name. I tried looking for history, all posts, ... and couldn't find anything. Just a recent posts widgets.

First, there is no search bar in the Basics section of the widgets:

Then, in the "More Gadgets" section, there is a search bar BUT it only search in the third-party developed widgets. So don't even think about using it to find Google widgets.

Finally, it is not easy to find something specific when you don't know its name. What you are looking for is called Blog Archive. It is in the second page of the basic gadgets (notice the next button):

And here was the widget I wanted:

Just thought I would share it in case someone is looking for it too one day.