Thinking of starting yet another electronics website - Page 1
Forum section: electronics / general

author: Anson
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: April 27, 2013, 09:41:09 pm
content: Just trying to get a feel for whether or not I should bother creating a electronics based web site. First I will state that it will be ad free and profit free. I live on disability and cannot afford to have any sort of income without it directly effecting my family's health benefits. So I will not and cannot use this site to make any money. Therefore it would be very clean with no ads of any sort. As far as content it would vary. It would be very similar to this site but not biased towards EE's. It would be mostly a blog for me to keep track of me and my daughter learning electronics and me doing some dumb and likely dangerous experiments. It would also include me as a beginner trying to repair various electronics. And also highlight the impossible task of finding things to get components from.

author: 4to20Milliamps
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: April 27, 2013, 10:11:25 pm
content: Do you have some sort of a hook to make it stand out?Blenders< that's already been doneshooting stuff< that's already been doneDumb AND dangerous......that sounds intriguing how dumb and dangerous are we talking here?

author: EEVblog
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: April 27, 2013, 10:16:24 pm
content: Watch the last 15 seconds of this:

author: amspire
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 27, 2013, 11:40:57 pm
content: If you are at the stage of thinking about it, you may as well just do it.It doesn't matter how good it is - if you are putting up information that is useful to you, it will be useful to someone else. If you spend a week trying to work out how something works and you finally crack it, then that is a perfect topic for a blog. Even extremely specialized information - like how to fix one particular fault in some obscure piece of electronics is good as you will probably be the only site in the Internet with that particular content.If you are on a tight budget, you can start with an free site on Wordpress.com ( up to 3G space - ad supported and a wordpress.com domain) or similar, but getting your own domain (about $10 a year) is a good idea if you want to have a permanent address that you control. A full featured website can cost something like $5 a month for the hosting costs and you don't have to tolerate unknown ads inserted into your site.

author: Anson
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: April 28, 2013, 01:05:41 am
content: Quote from: amspire on April 27, 2013, 11:40:57 pm

author: amspire
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 28, 2013, 01:49:49 am
content: Quote from: Anson on April 28, 2013, 01:05:41 amTo me, a mistake that many people make is thinking too much about what other people will want. It would be easy to think that a beautifully manicured tutorial blog describing how Ohm's Law works would be great for other people, but you will be bored writing it. Others will probably be bored trying to read it, and it will be on page 10,486 of the Google search results, so hardly anyone will find it anyway.If I am struggling with some piece of gear, and I find a site that has information that helps me, I am very happy, and I just do not care how pretty the page is.Content is King.Unique Content is even Kingier.Unique Content + photos + schematics (pdf's) + source code + whatever else you have that can all be downloaded in a single self-documented zip file is the Kingiest. Perfection!

author: retiredcaps
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 28, 2013, 05:34:12 am
content: You should create the website only if you and your daughter will have fun doing it.Create it however you like it. If people like it, then it is a bonus. If not, they can click on something else.

author: EEVblog
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: April 28, 2013, 09:40:35 am
content: Quote from: amspire on April 28, 2013, 01:49:49 amWhen people ask me why I don't do more general interest tutorials, there is most of your reason, in a nut shell.

author: AndyC_772
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 28, 2013, 09:43:47 am
content: Quote from: Anson on April 27, 2013, 09:41:09 pmI know it's OT for an electronics forum, but does anyone else agree that this is a far more interesting and worthwhile topic for discussion than the content of another blog?If the US healthcare and benefits system is really that broken, then I'm deeply saddened.

author: Anson
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: April 28, 2013, 02:09:48 pm
content: Quote from: AndyC_772 on April 28, 2013, 09:43:47 amYes it is sad. People that actually need governmental aid often cannot get it or it is extremely difficult to get. It took me 2 years of living on $300 bucks a month we got from family members before I finally was approved for disability. I was never denied for it either like many people are which increases the wait time dramatically. Once I was approved things weren't necessarily any better. Before I was on medicaid so was my wife and daughter along with $376 in food stamps. So food and health were basically covered we lived in my mom's house while she moved to Vermont for a while. And as I said we got $300 from family to pay for gas and mostly clothes toys and things for my daughter. Once we received approval for disability we were given 360 from ssi until our back-payment check of 28,000 something arrived and the first disability payment totaling 2018 for all three of us. Which hey sounds like a lot better right? Well the back-payment was used to buy our house or well the thing we live in us Floridians like to call a house but really its a glorified RV with no wheels. And now we have bills a lot of em my daughter and wife no longer are on medicaid because we are over the 2000 dollar mark by 18 bucks so they get whats call share of cost medicaid. So once we spend 1400 or more in medical bills then mediciad will step in. Which can be a big help eventually but not so much at first no food stamps anymore. So we are basically living a bit better than before the checks but not much.And then you have people out there like my wife's uncle who lives with only one of his kids out of the many he has. But he claims all 6 of the ones under 18 as living in his house and under his care. He gets foods stamps cash assistance and medicaid to pay for all the drugs from the multiple doctors he goes to for "back pain". He takes none of these drugs but instead sells them along with some things he grows. He also "works" and claims a very small income just enough to qualify for a tax return each year and with claiming 6 kids under his roof he gets a pretty big chunk of money each year.There are many people out there abusing the system lying through there teeth to get free money. And the ones like me who are honest get crap. I can't even have a car worth more than $4000 without it directly effecting my families medical benefits. So my wife has to drive in a beat up worn out minivan. Sure we could have anew one as long as it was never worth more than 4000 over what we owed on it but we can't afford payments anyway.

author: KJDS
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 28, 2013, 02:24:24 pm
content: Quote from: AndyC_772 on April 28, 2013, 09:43:47 amI don't believe the situation is much better in the UK. Once you're getting housing benefit then it can be very difficult to find work that pays well enough to cover the rent.

author: SeanB
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 28, 2013, 03:14:46 pm
content: Shoot, better than here, where the benefits are $100 per month, and nothing else. Free healthcare if you do not mind dying in the system.

author: GeoffS
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: April 28, 2013, 03:19:22 pm
content: Let's keep this on topic, website not health insurance.

author: Anson
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: April 28, 2013, 04:02:02 pm
content: Yes let's. I've decided to go ahead on this project and I have some content in mind for once it's up and running. I have a first run PlayStation 3 which finally kicked off after having overheating issues for about a year. I will attempt repair and if successful attempt a permanent fix for the overheating issue.I will also be showing my daughter doing some basic electricity experiments. Those will be geared toward children. She will be conducting the experiment and also explaining the process. I think it should be rather interesting to a younger audience.My site will be very user and child friendly. It will also have some Mythbusters style mayhem in future episodes. I plan on doing some personal protection taser reviews. Showing the difference between a proper personal defense device and a cheap convenience store knockoff. I have personally done this in the past for a fried demonstrating that not all of them actually work. And also there are areas on the body that are less likely to stun and stop an attacker. Oh and by the way if you really want to put someone down with a taser the neck is a really really tortuous spot.

author: Radio Tech
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: April 28, 2013, 04:12:56 pm
content: Cool, go for it. I have been running websites since the internet became available. Before that was the old BBS system running WWIV software. Man that was a blast!.