When writing this Wordpress Easy Ads review I thought I would begin with what it claims it can do for your Wordpress powered website or blog.

The strapline for WP Easy Ads is “Making Money With Wordpress Just Got Easier”.  Hey, that is quite a claim.  However, it didn’t take me long to realise that it is a claim, which is totally justified.

This Word Press plug-in is a cinch to set up and allows you to add money making ads to your niche website in no time!

By the way, the WP Easy Ads Wordpress plug-in has actually been used on this WP Easy Ads Review.  What better way to review Wordpress Easy Ads than to show it in action.

Flexibilty of WP Easy Ads

Wordpress Easy Ads works with just about any type of monetisation strategy and ad network, giving you unlimited freedom when it comes to trying to monetise your blog or Wordpress powered Niche Site.

As well as Google Adsense, you can easily integrate ads from ClickBank, Commission Junction and a multitude of CPA Networks, such as Hydra and MaxBounty.

WP Easy Ads is tremendously flexible. You can set up default settings for Google Adsense, ClickBank and any other affiliate code, which can then appear at the top, middle or bottom of your article. However, you have complete control of all your individual articles, so you turn ads on and off as you please for each ad position.

Ease of Use

I originally looked at Word Press Easy Ads not for myself, but for my Dad, who is just getting into Niche Marketing.  I thought that it would be a good way for him to monetise his niche site, without worrying about adding code, so he could concentrate mainly on writing articles.

However, I soon realised that this Word Press plugin was going to save me a lot of time as well, so I find that nowadays I am using it with the majority of my own sites.

Not that you’ll probably need it, but Wordpress Easy Ads also comes bundled with a very detailed manual. For those of you that like step-by-step videos, you can find these on the support site.

Excellent Value

First and foremost, WP Easy Ads is great value in that the price is right.  So often we see similar Wordpress plugins priced at 60, 80 or even more than one hundred dollars.  Okay, they may be good plugins, but come on not at that price!  Word Press Easy Ads is yours for less than thirty bucks and at that price we are talking a genuine bargain.

However, it is not the price alone that makes this such a great value plug-in.  The fact is you can use this Word Press plug-in over and over again on any new blog or niche site that you create.  If you are a niche marketer who makes money or plans to make money through Google Adsense, Click Bank products or affiliate agencies such as Commission Junction, then this is a must-buy WP plug-in.

Wordpress Easy Ads Top Tip

For specialised niche sites, consisting of a few articles, I tend to set up the default settings and let them ride on the articles, tweaking them here and there (e.g. perhaps turning the middle advert off on a short article).

However, on a web site like Point of Review, which has many articles covering lots of different topics, I tend to switch the default settings to “Disabled – show nothing” for each ad position and then enable them for each individual article as and when I need them.

Oh and I nearly forgot, when you purchase WP Easy Ads you get a neat little widget free of charge. Sidebar Image Ads does exactly what it says and makes adding affiliate image links in the sidebar a breeze.

Click here to read another great Wordpress Easy Ads Review

Since our daughter M was born we have always opted for the easy option of holidays in the UK. We’d pack half the house in the car and be safe in the knowledge that we had all we could possibly need.

This summer we decided to be a bit more adventurous and try out a European Villa Holiday. We had quite a long list of requirements though:

- Flight not too long
- Villa with private pool
- Separate room for M
- Not too hot in June
- Walking distance to the beach
- Walking distance to bars/restaurants
- Not too far from airport
- Child friendly
- Cots and car seats available
- Not too expensive

The main problem was the last one. Most places that come up when you search on child friendly holidays are ridiculously expensive, and I was starting to think that we wouldn’t find anywhere. Then I discovered Bininuria, a Binibeca Villa in Menorca and amazingly it fulfilled all our requirements.

Villas in Binibeca

The villas in Binibeca are private villas in Menorca that are only a 20 minute transfer away. Our Binibeca villa had 3 beds, a private pool, only a 15 minute walk to the beach and a 10 minute walk to the bars/restaurants. What’s more it was 27 degrees in June and very reasonably priced – perfect!

We booked through James Villas’ – they have hundreds of places to choose from, flights, car hire, car seats, cots and many more options are all available at the click of a button during the booking process. We were sent detailed information on our holiday and directions to the villas in Binibeca from the airport – everything we needed.

The first thing that you notice when you arrive at Mahon airport is that it’s so calm and peaceful, it also looks brand new, clean and welcoming. We were soon out in the glorious evening weather, collecting our hire car, another easy process. 20 minutes later and we were exploring our gorgeous little villa Bininuria. We headed straight out to the pool area and were delighted to discover we could also see the sea in the distance from our terrace (as well as two of the three bedroom windows).

Private villas in Menorca

The Binibeca had everything we needed, 3 bedrooms (one with a cot provided), 2 bathrooms, a kitchen and a lounge leading out onto a covered terrace and the garden and pool area.

We were soon out exploring the local area, a 10 minute walk away was Binibeca village where you can find bars. restaurants and gift shops surrounding the picturesque harbour. With small boats moored in the turquoise blue sea it looks quite idyllic.

The very pretty beach was a 15 minute walk in the other direction and has a bar that claims to be the only one on the island where you can have a drink whilst dangling your feet in the sea.

Family holidays in Menorca

We had a very relaxing, peaceful holiday and M had the time of her life swimming in the pool everyday. My top tips would be to buy your food in the supermarket on the way from the airport instead of in the village as it is much cheaper. Go to the beach in the early evening, there are less people and the temperature is much more pleasant.

Finally, if you are eating out go to Binibca restaurant on the hill overlooking the harbour. It looks as though it will be very expensive but it is actually the cheapest and best food out of all the restaurants we found and it has the most stunning views – what more could you want?

Skype on the iPhone - Splash screen

Yes, it’s true, Skype is finally available for the iPhone and boy has it been worth the wait!

I only found out yesterday that Skype was officially on its way into the Apps Store.  As it is probably my second most awaited app, since I bought my iPhone 3G, I was really hoping that it wouldn’t be a disappointment.  I needn’t have worried, so far the Skype iPhone app is even better than I had anticipated.

The interface is slick and intuitive.  The text messaging part of the app works well, as I had expected it would do. However, what has blown me away is the sound quality of the calls using Skype Out!  Wow, I can now phone unlimited times back home to any landline in the UK from my iPhone for only 3 Euro a month!!! I am a very happy bunny!

The application only works over WiFi, so it is not perfect, but then it was very unlikely that Apple would have risked upsetting its partners by allowing VoIP over 3G, wasn’t it.

Also, having installed and used the application without any problems today, I was surprised to see the comments from other users on the App Store.  The average rating is currently about 3 and a half, which I couldn’t understand until I saw that it is made up from 1 star and 5 star votes.

In other words, it appears that Skype on the iPhone either works perfectly or doesn’t work at all.  I will of course update you if the situation changes, but at the moment I am very much in the former camp!

Check out Skype for the iPhone now – this is definitely a must have app!

We arrived on the Monday with grandparents in tow, we had managed to get a very reasonably priced 4 bed woodland lodge, on one of the many special offers you can find during the year, during term time. Perfect for parents with toddlers and babies.

I love to ride my tricycle!

Our first stop was to collect the bikes, J and I had been looking forward to this – seeing the oldies on bikes and trikes turned out to be as amusing as we had hoped it would be. A few wobbles though and they were off, recapturing their youth with every turn of the wheel.

Unfortunately, our amusement soon turned to frustration when our little madam refused to get in the trailer we had got for her. We tried bribery, we tried pleading and eventually we tried force – which resulted in a monumental tantrum (her and me) and then we gave up.

As we grumpily set off walking back to our villa, we started to point out the other kids in their trailers hoping that this would persuade her that she was missing something truly exciting. That is until we realised that most of them were screaming their heads off too, they just hadn’t managed to escape before their parents had ridden off.

As M gave us a smug grin, we felt slightly comforted in the knowledge that we weren’t the only ones who had a stubborn child. That’s the beauty of CentreParks, no matter how bad you think your little monster is behaving, there’s a worse one just around the corner.

Our woodland lodge was lovely, well decorated, with everything that you could possibly need and M’s room was far enough way from the living area, that noise wouldn’t be an issue after she had gone to bed. We all settled in quite nicely.

Lake at Centre Parcs

Over the next couple of days we made excellent use of the many facilities. The sub-tropical swimming paradise caters for all tastes, from toddler and larger pools, to rapids and slides, to jacuzzies – so everyone was happy. M in particular loved it and would have happily stayed there all day if we had let her.

She also had a great time on the little sandy beach, next to the lake at Elveden Forest. Little boats were stacked up along the beach and M was soon climbing into them and asking us to push her into the water.  Encouraged by her enthusiasm we decided to take a rowing boat out and make the most of the sun that was peeping through the clouds.

M also spent a lot of time in the many indoor play areas and the outdoor toddler swing park, all of which she enjoyed immensely. J and I decided that we would try to get a taste of our usual holiday adrenalin rush, by taking on the aerial adventure. We got our harnesses on and tackled the Postman’s Walk and Burma Bridge, and then got to the spider’s web.

The Spider Web

As M looked up laughing hysterically, I smiled back through gritted teeth wondering why on earth I was 40ft up a tree clinging on to a bit of rope. I pushed on through the Hanging Platforms and Indiana Bridge and was rewarded with the rush of the zip wire at the end and of course a big kiss from my little girl.

Our days were packed with fun and our evenings were filled with good food from restaurants that had indoor soft play areas – what more could a toddler want? We all took away good memories of a happy family holiday and the desire to go out and buy a bike…

With a crèche, soft play area, indoor and outdoor pools, and claiming to be family friendly it seemed to tick all the boxes and it would cost less for 3 nights than some of the family friendly hotels cost for one night.  I was sold.  I booked the holiday there and then, on a moment of impulse, which is not very me at all.

A couple of weeks later, we set off down to Southampton on a beautiful Friday morning, with M, my two year old daughter, chattering in the back of the car about going on a big boat. No traffic jams, no tantrums, the sun shining in the sky, we were definitely off to a good start. The ferry crossing was smooth and M loved being on the top deck getting blown about by the wind.

Cowes - Isle of Wight

We arrived at Cowes and went straight to Gurnard Pines. The lodges looked quite pretty, ours was one of a few set around a little pond. It was quite big inside, with a nice lounge area and a small kitchen, with everything you need for a short break.  I am not sure how old they are, but it was a bit tired inside, certainly not to the standard of Centre Parcs say, but then it was about a third of the price.  All in all, it was certainly toddler friendly and good value for money! We unpacked our stuff and went off to explore Cowes.

Cowes is such a pretty place, famous for Cowes Week of course, with lots of nice shops and pubs and bars. After a pleasant afternoon, we went back to our little lodge and had fish and chips and talked about what we would do for the next couple of days.  The tourist information centre hadn’t been open, so we would just have to wing it.  We had a map and knew where everything was, from childhood holidays many moons ago, so we were sure we would be fine.

We were up bright and early, we had been blessed with another lovely day, so we set off on our Isle of Wight adventure.  First stop was the Robin Hill Park, it doesn’t take very long to get anywhere on the island so we were soon arriving at the long drive, only to discover it was shut for the Winter Season.  We were a bit disappointed but we still had other places in mind, so we set off for Black Gang Chine, to see the dinosaurs – and it was shut. Colemans Farm Park – shut. We finally found something called Amazon World, it wasn’t shut, but as we find out after about 15 mins, instead it was just sh*t.

It was soon apparent that the Isle of Wight was in effect was closed for the winter.  Now I am someone who usually plans everything to the nth degree, but this last minute holiday had been so last minute and the truth was we had come unprepared.  Trying not to be too disheartened we went on to our last destination – the needles, Alum Bay, where I had particularly fond childhood memories filling little glass ornaments with coloured sands.  I had told M all about this and she was really looking forward to it.  Unfortunately, this too was shut!

Pebbles on the Beach

At least the beach was open!  Now although it was a bright sunny day, it was a bright sunny day in February, so it was still pretty cold. Undeterred, in true British style, we wrapped our coats around us, sat on the pebbles and had our lunch. We showed M the beautifully coloured sands and looked out at the needles and played ’skimsies’ with the flat pebbles scattered about the beach. It turned out to be a fantastic afternoon, not exactly what we had planned (or failed to plan for that matter), but still a beautiful family day out.

There are quite a few decent ebook readers currently available for your iPhone, including eReader, Bookshelf and Wattpad, but my personal favourite is Stanza, by a company called Lexcycle.

Stanza on the iPhone 3G

You can either choose to download a book from a HUGE database of FREE books online, or you can transfer a book from your PC or Mac to your iPhone over Wi-Fi.

Downloading books really is a breeze, but I find the book transfer to be a little bit of a pain and hopefully this will be something that the developer will improve in a future release.

Once you have downloaded or transferred your choice of reading material to the iPhone, you are able to add a book cover, so that you can scroll through your library in a similar way to how you would scroll through your album covers on the iPod part of your phone. And then you are ready to start reading.

You turn pages in Stanza, by simply swiping your finger from right to left across the screen, as if you were flicking a page. Alternatively, you can tap on the right for the next page. And when you close down Stanza, it will automatically bookmark the last page you read, so that it is all ready for you the next time you open the application and read that book.

The fonts on Stanza are very good. You are able to read a book comfortably, without hurting your eyes and you are also able to turn on a “night interface”, which is basically white text on a black background.

Stanza is simple, but effective. It just works. Oh and did I mention that it is FREE! Go and get Stanza now, this is definitely a Must Have App for both the iPhone and iPod Touch.

Comic Relief - Rednose Day 2009

Rednose Day 2009 falls on Friday 13th this year and is another chance for us all to raise money for charity through Comic Relief. So what are you waiting for, get over to the Rednose Day 2009 -- Do Something Funny For Money website and see how you can help out!

I grew up watching Comic Relief each year and remember our greatest comedians reporting on some of the saddest and most moving news ever seen on British Television. Perhaps the footage that always stands out for me is when the Big Yin, Billy Connelly, gave a report from Mozambique, in 1986.

As well as the serious issues reported on both at home and in Africa, there is also a lot of silliness, such as Dawn French’s infamous Hugh Grant kiss and Connelly dancing around Piccadilly Circus naked.

And of course there is comedy, lots of comedy! There have been some superb sketches over the years, and none better, in my opinion, than this superb piece of film by Ricky Gervais, from Comic Relief 2007.

So, don’t forget to watch Gervais, Tennant, French, Henry, Ross and co. on Friday 13th March, from 7pm on BBC1 and BBC2 and give some money to charity!

Byline Google Reader on the iPhone

Up until last week, my iPhone RSS Reader of choice had been Byline, developed by Phantom Fish, and available in the iTunes Application Shop for only £2.99. Google Reader is my preferred desktop RSS reader and for the past four of five months Byline, which acts as a superb interface to Google Reader, has been the number one most used application on my iPhone by far.

The cool thing about Byline is the ability to browse offline, allowing you access to web pages without a connection, so perfect for the London Underground journeys or flights in Airplane mode. Byline archives web pages linked to by feeds you have starred, allowing you to save any item you want to read or website you want to browse offline.

I LOVE BYLINE!!! That is, I did love it until it died on me on Saturday!

After much cussing and swearing, when I realised that my favourite iPhone application was not going to start working after a simple re-boot, I decided to do a little research online as to what I might do to get it working again and almost immediately I came across news that Google had released their own native web application for Google Reader on the iPhone. As I was at home with a wifi connection, I decided to give it a try!

Google Reader on the iPhone

Getting Google Reader on your iPhone is simply a case of pointing your Safaris browser to the iPhone Version of Google Reader (http://www.google.com/reader/i/).

Once logged in to your Google Reader account you arrive to an iPhone friendly home screen, displaying all the folders of your news feeds. Okay, it does not look as sexy as Byline, but boy does it work!

It is fast, way faster than Byline. You are able to skip through your news feeds and read those that are most relevant to you and ultimately work far more productively.

I only had Google’s Google Reader loaded on my iPhone for a matter of minutes, before forgetting that I was trying to fix Byline. Nor have I bothered to look since.

All the time that I am able to get online for my feeds then, the Google Reader is definitely my new RSS reader of choice. I added the cool icon to my front page screen and haven’t looked back!!! In my opinion, this is a must have app.

That is not to say I have totally given up on Byline. The next time I am going on a trip and know that I need Byline offline browsing capability, I will make an effort to get it working again. Until then, I am more than happy with my new favourite app!

Junifest - the Slovakia equivalent of the Munich Beerfest

Junifest, to be precise, the Bratislava Beer Festival or Slovakia’s answer to the Munich Beerfest!

In 2009, Junifest will be celebrating it’s 6th year, taking place from the 29th May until the 7th June, in Hall B of the Incheba Exhibition Centre, Bratislava.

Incheba describes Junifest as a ‘National festival of beer, exceptional drinks and great music. 10 days full of fun, concerts, attractions, competitions, high-quality gastronomy and drinks.” Sound interesting? I imagine Sky Europe flights from London are getting booked as we speak!

Women that Rocked the World: Stevie Nicks

Once described by Rolling Stone as “The Reigning Queen of Rock and Roll”, Stevie Nicks was born on May 26, 1948, in Phoenix, Arizona and is best known as a singer-song writer with Fleetwood Mac, during their golden age in the 70’s.

Here is Stevie singing her signature song, about that old Welsh witch Rhiannon in 1976, just prior to Fleetwood Mac’s Rumours success.

An incredibly powerful performance by Stevie, impeccably supported on lead guitar by her then lover, Lindsay Buckingham, and on piano by Christine McVie, who will also be the subject for a future review in this same series.

The song builds up nicely to the musical orgasm finale, where Stevie just lets go completely and rocks the place down!

You can find out more about what Stevie Nicks is currently up to (whether it be with Fleetwood Mac or solo) on her official website, Nicks Fix.

And if you would like to own the wonderful Rhiannon, it appears on the Fleetwood Mac album, Fleetwood Mac.

Coming next in this series: Ella Fitzgerald -- the greatest singer of all time?