Would be a neat idea to actually uh, film a Blog on the way, make use of my idle time on the way to work now I don't anticipate this being a a regular thing, but I think it's more of like a, um more of like a filler. uh, like material that's e that's easy for me to film or easier than my normal blog and um, something that I can just post to keep. Uh, those Keen people who are happy who just can't get enough of the actual blog and I figured it'd be a good way to, um, have more uh, of an off-the-cuff uh feel to my blog as I as I promote and as I originally intended. Uh, as you know, my regular blogs are, um, they are, uh, off the cuff.

they they don't have a script at all, but they are um I do at least put a little bit of thought into them and I do film them typically uh, segment by segment where I stop start and that gives me a chance to uh, think about what I'm going to say in the next couple of seconds in the next segment and yeah, it just gives me a chance to um, edit the thing when it's finished and it's a bit more polished. but it's so I thought this: this will be a single um, my drive to work's about 30 minutes or so, so this should be about I single 30 minute unedited I won't edit this at all. Um, a single 30 minute episode so you can see what I'm like in Just Off the Cuff I guess Get through the lights here and we're on our way, the tripods holding together and I have no idea if the sound is going to work or not. uh, if it's going to be too loud.

so we'll find out I guess if this concept is any good, you uh, if it's any good, you'll see it if it's no good good I just won't post it at all and well I'm just talking to myself and people think I'm weird I guess but everyone talks themselves in the car these days with mobile phones and things like that. So um, yeah, so this will be about 30 minutes. So those of you who think the video is kind of pointless in this, Well, you can stick your headphones on and and uh, turn the video off while you're at work and just listen to my, um, my calming, soothing, professional Australian whiny accent. Yeah, right.

uh. I Get a lot of complaints about the about the voice I have to excuse me I'm actually getting over a a flu I Got in the middle of summer, go figure. I hardly get a flu in wintertime, let alone summertime. and uh, so that was a bit bit weird and I'll probably need a drink on the the way too because if I talk continuously for half an hour, my voice could get a bit froggy, but uh, so there you go.

So um, basically this episode is not really going to be about Electronics I think it's um, I'll just do it as an update blog because I don't do many update blogs recently cuz I I think they're a bit of wasted space, but this could be a neat way to do it for those who want, um, just you know me off the cuff just talking about either Electronics or the blog or just you know, anything in general. really. uh, if you enjoy that sort of thing if you don't I guess you can not watch these car driving episodes. but I want some feedback whether or not this is a good idea I value all the feedback I Get on the blog and uh I I Really want to know? You know, do you like it? If there's enough people who actually like just listening to me for half an hour, you know, just rattle off anything on my mind, then uh, I'll continue to do it and those who don't like it I guess can tune out.

Well, that's the thing. There's one thing I've learned with this blog over the years. well years. God makes it sound like I've been doing it forever.

9 months or 10 months or whatever I've been doing it is that you can't please everyone. In fact, you can't even please a minority of people. First stop at the lights. So hello I think I can I can't really see the screen here, but I'm sure I'm in frame and uh, everything's working I hope anyway and if you can see the background that's the bull and Bush hotel I think it is and um anyway, where was I my short attention span there you go gets me every time it gets worse as I get older I think this short attention span um yes I was uh talking about this will be an update blog and there's one bit of big.

Well it was big to me. anyway. news I wanted to share is that I got my 1,000th YouTube subscriber who couldn't believe it? 1,000 people have subscribed to me via my YouTube channel and that's a big uh that's a big milestone for me. really.

Because um yeah, that's like an order of magnitude or more more than I ever thought that I'd get with this silly blog idea when I first started it and if you remember when I first started it it was. you know it was a heap of crap. Well you can argue it still is a heap of crap and there's I don't put much effort into it. but I can't believe that this this many people.

uh now I've had a thousand odd uh people thousand odd regular viewers for a long time now. um probably four or 5 months maybe. Um but uh, the fact is is that that Milestone on YouTube was was kind of important to me because uh my YouTube subscribers cuz I kind of think of this as mainly a I well it's not really a YouTube blog but um I host it on YouTube and that's where I get my metric from. Really? when I compare it to other blogs? Uh, now on my WordPress blog website eev Blog.com uh I've got through a Google thing which is feed burner which hosts my RSS feed I uh I've got about it tells me of got about 1,500 regular subscribers via the website and via the RSS feed.

Now if you add that onto the 1,000 from YouTube 1,000 subscribers. that's uh, 22,000 regular viewers and that, um, and the stats seem to, uh to actually reflect that. So 22,000 regular people who listen to me rant on once or twice a week is really unbelievable. Remarkable I'm on the M2 Motorway now if you know Sydney So this should be a smooth ride for about 15 minutes or so.

apart from those bumps which you probably just saw now this is actually a toll. Motorway in Sydney I pay about $5 each way. um, to and from work. Now that's not unusual for Sydney Some people actually pay uh, three tolls.

um, three or even sometimes four tolls. Two went from work and it can be really expensive, but um, let's not go there, shall we? I'm sure most people don't want to hear about how crap the Uh roads are and the oh, the public transport system. Let's not go there anyway in Sydney So back to the blog. Yeah, um I pardon me? yeah so I figur this blog would be to fill in the gaps really I mean um I don't really want it to be a regular thing that? um because I can't really? um, this is more of a stream of Consciousness type thing I can't really do an Electronics blog cuz I put no thought into this at all.

So I don't know if I'm going to be able to talk about Electronics much on this blog. it'll be more like a water cooler rant kind of thing. and um now anyway yeah the big thing about YouTube is that uh, why I'm thrilled to get so many subscri drivers is um, what started out is well, it still is I do it because it's fun and I really love the um, just you know, doing it having so many people, um, watching you know, watch what I do and care and it's it's really remarkable that um, excuse me I got to dash across here and yeah, I find it really remarkable that people would want to, um, watch me from day one I built up I pretty quickly built up a a core audience and that was really amazing cuz it's if you start up a video blog these days, it's really quite hard to build up an audience I think but I I deliberately did the video blog as I've said before I think I did it because everyone else out there has a text blog and text blogs are boring and video blogs. they.

They're more of like a show and you you get to see the person. You get to know the person and and you know you, you get to like them more easier than just a text blog with somebody's photo up there. which is just just crazy. Now there's actually, um, quite a lot of people who actually their full-time job is doing YouTube cuz they make so much money from the Google AdSense ads.

and um, and I do too. If you seen my ads, they pop up over the the video. There's two types. They pop up well, three types actually, they pop up over the video and uh, in YouTube And then there's ones that sit next to the video window on my YouTube channel and then also on my site.

I've got um, Google AdSense ads as well. There're actually uh, text ads down the bottom of the video and I do actually make a reasonable amount of money from these ads. It really is quite remarkable. I've been doing it for quite some time with my particular websites which have uh, Google text ads on them and my blogs um, generating a similar sort of Revenue to those other sites.

but those other sites I don't actually have to do anything, they just they're just static web pages I've had up there for donkey years and they just generate Revenue So this blog I'm putting a lot of, well, a reasonable amount of effort into this blog and I'm getting a similar sort of Revenue but um, it's growing really quick. Uh, it was 1,000 subscribers to you YouTube this was only a couple of days ago Now I think it's up to 1,50 or 1,60 So I'm getting like uh, you know, a dozen or more or 15 people subscribing per day. Now it I I don't know where they're coming from, but it it really it seems to be on an exponential type ramp. I think um, so hopefully that continues.

Really? uh, cuz I'd love to get that many subscribers Now there's um, as I said, there's quite a few people out there making a full time living from this YouTube gig. and they've got typically they've got in the order of a couple hundred th000 subscribers and God you know I I didn't think I'd get a couple of dozen, let alone uh, let alone a couple of thousand that I've got now, let alone a 100,000 but I'm sure I'm not capable of that. But I do know this video blogger who I who I stole this Drive-In idea from. so I thought it'd be quite neat he's thinking about giving.

He's contemplating giving up his uh day job within the next year or so if his uh YouTube subscribers. Well, we're going through the M2 tunnel now and uh, if his YouTube subscribers continue to grow at this rate, he thinks he can take a pay cut and do it as a full-time gig. And he's got in the order of I think 15 or 177,000 viewers or something subscribers or something like that. So really, um, that's quite remarkable.

Good on him. Good luck to him. Jeez! I You know I can at the carrot I can probably see myself getting in the order of 10,000 regular viewers I I hope in the coming years and that would be that would be absolutely awesome. Um, cuz I don't really know where I want to take this? Vlog It's been a real huge surprise to me.

Uh I started it off just as a just a fun little thing I thought it'd die out after a couple of episodes. so did my wife. Actually she just rolled her eyes and said what am I wasting my time on this rubbish for but it really has taken off and I really want to thank everyone every one of my regular viewers who subscribes cuz you're the ones who actually make it worthwhile, particularly in my wife's eyes. Now she can actually see that it's it could actually lead somewhere.

um Not only would it be good for my career I guess my um, industry uh, rep kind of thing. but um, yeah she can. You know it does make a little bit of money for me, so it's sort of self sustaining from the money aspect. And really, those those Google ads? um, by the way, in case you don't know, uh I make anywhere from a couple of cents.

you know, 5 cents or something up to in some cases I've seen quite a few times over $2 per click Bing that's the M2 M away just charging me my $5 and thank you very much. Privately funded Bloody Road It's ridiculous. What do we pay taxes for? Let me no, I won't I won't do a rant I won't rant on the how the New South Wales state government has absolutely screwed up every um, not only public transport, but all this private transport infrastructure in Sydney Oh, I'm actually this close to doing a a documentary on the incompetent New South Wales government and how they've and their shortsightedness of how they've screwed everything up. but anyway, I won't start a rant there now.

Um yeah. these ads like, uh, up to $2 per click? Can you believe it? And and that's my cut. That's what I get in my bank account now. um I I don't know what Google are getting they? they're obviously getting at least that.

otherwise it'll be a bit silly. So these compan some of these companies are paying could be paying in the order of $5 per click to get somebody to click on their ad. And it's just unbelievable. And we're not talking big businesses here, we're talking Niche You know Electronics Uh, you know keywords.

It's based on keywords and you know keywords like PCB or Electronics or test equipment, test equipment or something like that. and uh, it really is really is quite amazing that people would actually pay that much. So anyway, ads are good. Trust me, if you like an ad, you know what to do.

because uh, really, it's um, it's terrific. Somebody actually, um, I actually had a company. it was an ad company email me last week or a couple of weeks back and they wanted to know if uh, some a company who manufactures, um, cases, uh, little? Electronics projects cases would like to advertise on my website. Sure, I said no worries, you know I Gave them my stats of how many um, people you know regularly visit the site.

there's about 2 and a half in case you want, knows about 2 and a half thousand regular visits per day to Eev Blog.com and that doesn't include Bots I Believe I Think that only counts humans somehow. Anyway, gave them all my stats and and based on the Uh, based on industry, um, standard sort of rough industry standed figures for uh, advertising impression rates. my website um, in theory is actually worth about I think it's about $7 or $800 per month for advertising space I I Don't have any advertisers on there yet that actually pay me directly per impression I Only use Google AdSense But um, uh yeah, that's what it's worth in Industry terms and this guy offered me um, oh, what was it? uh $30 a month or something like that and I just this was an advertising company was trying to rot me trying to um, uh, you know, trying to rip me off and trying he. He would have charged his client, this project case company I'm sure he would have charged hundreds of dollars per month and only give me like, you know, $30 per month.

Bug her off anyway. um yeah, that was the end of that I really gave him a serve but um, other things I Guess what can I talk about? um updates Um I've got uh, Agilant are going to send me two more multimeters for a review CU They like my other review even though I slagged them off internally. Apparently it did the rounds in Agilant. and um, they they do like the way I do my blogs.

So um yeah, they're going to send me two more meters. the uh, the new B version of the OLED one and the I think it's the U241 which is a lowcost LCD version. Uh, but the good news about this is that they're going to let me destroy them. They're going to let me have my way with these multimeters.

So ah, um I'm not sure what I'm going to do yet, but uh, it could be fun. it'll it'll break my heart I think to to drop and smash these meters but they've given me permission to do it so well. I think I'm going to have to go through with it anyway. that'll be fun and uh so hopefully they come through on that and also fluke are supposedly when they get one cuz they it's a brand new product.

it's the new Fluke 28 meter which is the world's toughest waterproof multimeter and I've got an idea for the blog for that one. They're also going to let me beat the crap out of it. So I've got a really good idea of what I'm going to do there so hopefully that comes off and hopefully fluke come through cuz fluke. Also like my blogs they they love them.

um so Fluke Agel and the German company gos um can really see the value in my blogs and my independent reviews and my outspoken um you know I I say what I think and they can really see the value in the audience that I can reach even at this stage in the blog when I've only got a couple of thousand regulars really? and you know a a good a good product review might get if it gets linked somewhere else, might get 5,000 hits or something like that in the first couple of months. But yeah, they they realize the audience potential audience I can reach so they're they're they're Keen to have me do stuff and I find that quite amazing cuz I I slag them off and well they they seem to not mind it at all. I find that really remarkable that um, most big businesses I've worked in big companies and they love to cover their ass and they won't want to hear independent opinion and you know, but for some reason, um, there's people within these big organ test equipment organizations who like what I do, so that's fantastic now. Um, a couple of other updates I guess is that um I'm I'm really trying to fix the sound and the two big things in my blog which I which really continually bug me are the sound and the lighting.

Now the sound. I've just got myself a new um Road shotgun video mic and um, it's a real real Pro bit of Kit I Mean it's low cost, but it's real professional quality, designed and manufactured in Australia by one of the biggest microphone manufacturers in the world and it's really, um I had a crappy JC Car shotgun mic before that and it was it. It was okay. it was.

You know it was pretty good. but this new road one I think is almost too good. It picks up every uh, Echo and every subtlety in my lab lab Now I've been thinking about actually adding those um, acoustic tiles to my lab. um, actually, well on the wall behind the camera at least.

So I can, uh, you know? So I can help stop the reflections that come back and improve the sound quality a bit. So um, but they're expensive These acoustic tiles even wholesale. So I might try a couple of blankets first or something and if it like you know, drops The Echoes by you know, 6 or 12 DB or something I might think about getting those acoustic tiles so I'll do some experiments on that soon. I think and I think that's bugby from day one is the lighting in my lab.

I've got two of those strip fluo, you know, 30 W fluo light tubes and they're just horrible. The camera can't cope with the white balance properly and it's it's all over the place. it's really really and the Shadows are awful. I I really do despise the lighting in my lab, but I've been too lazy to really do anything about it.

Um, but I've I've bought some more of those um, Cre Xpg leads like I used in a previous blog to light up my outdoor uh deck and they're really fantastic. and I'm going to try and um, experiment with those in my lab to completely replace the strip Fluro Ltes and that should be much, much better. Hopefully I'll I'll actually bounce the lights off the white painted walls and and and the roof and see if it I can get enough even distributed light to improve my video quality. So maybe I'll do something on that in the coming weeks.

and I'll I'll course do a Blog on it. probably if it. uh if it works. So what else have we got now? pardon me, my voice is getting froggy.

I need a I need a drink? I'm talking too much but uh, this is me I like to talk and well I hope you're enjoying the off the cuff. Uh, really off the cuff cuz this won't one continuous 30 minute episode. I'm not too far from work now, but um, other things. um, oh, email I'm I'm constantly getting I'm really getting bombarded with email these days and uh man, I'm I'm trying to I'm finding it hard to cope actually because people send me all these emails.

oh it's not, you know I love the blog and everything and they they say they love it and then they go with. you know they've got 20 questions about some you know, especially from beginners, you know I I've always LED getting questions from beginners and I still do and I do my best effort to answer them, but it takes a lot of time and um, often they'll want an answer on something that you know I do know something about but I can't answer off the top of my head. So I've got to go and search Google and you know or or do something else or you know just just to answer their question I feel compelled to do it cuz they like the blog and you know I love answering questions and helping people out. but yeah, it's getting it's almost getting too much now and then.

there's other people who want to have conversations with me via email and talk about their projects and oh well, you know. look I do my best but oh jeez, you know, um, it's just getting to a point where it's getting too much. and then I also get email via uh via VIA YouTube YouTube they they send a message via YouTube and I hate getting messages via YouTube Please do Not send me a message via YouTube cuz I get a I get an email alert that I've got a message and there's no text in there I can't read it in my email inbox I've got to go to the YouTube website, log in to my message box in there, and then answer it from there and it's it's hopeless I Hate it. So please if you're going to send me a message or an email, um, please do it via my the email address on my Eev Blog.com website cuz a lot of people these 1,50 people who subscribe via my YouTube site there.

um a lot of them just will not know that I've actually my main blog is at Eev Blog.com It's not just a YouTube show, it's it's actually done. I do most of my stuff um and especially the Forum of course. Hi to all my Forum users I Can't believe my forum's taking off! That's oh. Somebody suggested I I put one up and I did it quite a few months ago now and I couldn't believe it.

Within like a day of putting it up, there were like 30 users and 50 messages and it's fantastic. The blog has turned into this um General Electronics blog where people are doing community projects and um, chatting about all sorts of stuff, answering beginner questions which is good. So if you got a beginner question, post it on the Forum don't necessarily send me a message so that um, that either I can answer you or somebody else can, uh, answer you faster than I can cuz I get so many email messages I almost can't keep up. so if I don't reply to your email message I I apologize.

it's either um, it's either I didn't have the time and it's dropped off my it's usually you know it's dropped down my email inbox list and and it can get buried and um, it can get very quickly buried in there if I don't don't answer within half a day or something like that. So um I do apologize if I don't If it's important and you want me to reply, do send me another message cuz I may have. you may have got, uh, you may have got lost in my email inbox somewhere. So we're almost to work here.

so we're almost at an end. So I hope you, uh, hope you enjoyed that and do send me feedback if you think this is a good idea or not. I won't do it all the time, but I think it could be fun just to have a true off-the-cuff um thing I W may not necessarily make it half an hour each time I know everyone's not going to like it I can't please everyone so you know feel free to say oh, it's a idea and things like that I I love getting feedback positive and negative. So um and I will will listen to feedback cuz I have AP the blog over the years based on feedback if you notice.

when I started it was I didn't know what to do and I so I just threw in all sorts of things. a review and a book, a product review, book review, industry news Chip of the week, whatever and and that that quickly died. That concept died based on user feedback because I realized that everyone wanted um, they all wanted to have like a specific dedicated episode to one thing and I found that was better on YouTube as well. When people search for me, you know they might search for you know Fluke 87 as a search term and up.

Pops my review of the Fluke 87 and you know they don't want to sit through half a Blog of other crap to you know that that they're not interested in to get to the meat of it. So I think it's much better that I do these dedicated um episodes and that's what I've done for a long time now and I'll continue to do that cuz it's the best best idea here. I am at work, swipe myself in one these RFID tag fingers and we're going into the bows of the building now so it's almost over so it's could be dark in here so it may be hard to see me. but uh, thanks for listening if you've watched the whole 30 minutes.

I Hope you find it, uh, rather interesting and um, well, just seen me rant on for half an hour and it might give you a different um, uh, aspect into what. I'm actually like, um, unedited so to speak because uh, normally you just see me. um, quite heavily edited cuz I film individual segments and uh, it's much different than this. just 30 minute truly off the cuff rant.

So there you go: I'm almost at my parking spot and please leave me your feedback about whether or not this is absolute crap idea or whether there's something in it and you would like me to continue because just remember, some people may actually like the idea. um, and those who hate it, well, they can just ignore it. Just like all my other blogs, you know you're not compelled to watch every one of my episodes. So um, yeah, leave me feedback and I'm heading to work.

See you!.