I’m Deirdré Straughan. This personal site collects my writings, photos, and videos – mostly about living in Italy and travelling in Italy (and elsewhere). But there are also sections on food, technology, my career, my life, the international school I attended in India, and what I think about it all – in short: my life in Italy, India, the Internet, and other countries beginning with I. You may not agree with everything I say (intelligent disagreement and other feedback welcome!), but I hope you enjoy reading it anyway.

You can write to me for a subscription to my free monthly-ish newsletter, or subscribe to a (more frequent) RSS feed.

If you would like to advertise on this site, I’ll probably be happy to accommodate you, but please read the info below first.

This site is hosted on Dreamhost, and has been for years. More than decent service, good uptime, lots of freebies (such as the WordPress this blog is now running on). If you want to use Dreamhost, click here - I’ll get a referral fee (thanks!).

If you’re a long-time reader or for whatever other reason would like to say “thanks”, a gift from my Amazon wish list is always welcome. ; )

The views expressed on this blog are my own and do not necessarily reflect the views of my employer.

For Advertisers

Statistics

• Google index of pages on beginningwithi.com – old site
• Google index of pages on beginningwithi.com/comments – this blog version, still moving all the old content!
• statistics for 2009 (download pdf)
• statistics for first six months of 2010 (download pdf)
  

Advertising Rates

• Graphic ads that fit in the sidebar (160 pixels wide x 120 high – if you want something taller, talk to me), displayed on every page: $75 per month, 3 months’ advance payment required to start, then billed monthly (via PayPal). Per my agreements with BlogHer, all other graphic ads must be “below the fold” (viewer must scroll down to see them).
• Text link ads in right or left column, displayed on every page: $35 per month, 3 months’ advance payment required to start, then billed monthly (via PayPal).
• Text link ad on a single page: depends on the popularity of the page, probably around $10 per month.
• …or you can purchase ad space via Google AdSense (click that link to go directly to a page where you can purchase advertising on THIS site).
• Link exchanges? Rarely, and only when I think the linked site is really likely to be of interest to my readers. To be blunt, a link from this site is worth something (that’s why advertisers are willing to pay me a monthly fee), so you’ll have to make a damned good case for me to give you for free what others are paying for. I have a kid to put through college!

Attempting to put spam links in my comments (which are moderated) will only annoy me.

If you have read the above paragraphs closely and wish to make an offer that you think will truly interest me (I’m open to suggestions), you can write to me.

What’s My PageRank?

Depends on the page. Install the Google Toolbar for your browser and you’ll see PageRank for every page you visit, on my site or any other. Information about my site’s traffic is available here.

To My Readers

So far, there has never been a solicited or paid review on this site (except the one about JohnChow.com, for which I was paid in a link back); any such thing to appear will be disclosed. All the restaurants etc. I have reviewed have not been told I planned to review them (though I do sometimes tell them after the fact; sadly, so far this has not resulted in any free meals!).