Ads on After Hours

After some thought (and a few days of experimentation), I've finally implemented advertising on this site.

After Hours has been ad-free for over five years.  In the very beginning, I was running the site on free software with a very cheap hosting package.  Last year, I upgraded to a full-featured content management system (CMS).  It was at this point I decided to implement advertising on the site.  The CMS I use is not super-expensive, which is one of the reasons I didn’t rush to put advertising up (the other having a lot to do with the continued use of the “beta” tag at the top of the page).  Nevertheless, the CMS cost money up front and incurs a yearly fee if I wish to continue receiving software updates (which I do).  Add that to the hosting and domain name fees and you have the reason for me wanting some kind of kickback.

I briefly toyed with the idea of putting up a PayPal donate button, but let’s face it: this site is not worth donating to.  I’d feel bad for those who did.  Instead, I decided to affiliate with some of my favorite companies and advertise their products and services on this site.  I’m only affiliated with companies who I personally use and trust.  If someone purchases anything through a link from this site, I get a small kickback.  Hopefully it will be enough to offset some of the costs of maintaining this site.  Better still, I know that whoever is responsible for those kickbacks is enjoying a product or service that I believe is good.

For those of you who would rather not visit this site than tolerate the minimal ads (currently, I only have them at the bottom of the weblog entry pages), I have two options for you.  First, you can install an ad blocker for your web browser.  I use Firefox primarily and can recommend Adblock Plus (I can confirm it prevents the ads I use from showing—if you have it and want to see the ads on my site, click the drop-down next to the ABP stop sign and disable it for this site).  If you use another browser, then I can’t help you.  Good luck.  The second option is to simply send me an email if you are a member and I will disable the ads for your account (if you are not a member, simply sign up and then send me the email).

Thoughts, concerns, and suggestions are welcome in the comments section if you have them.