I think you have to experiment and see what works for your site. What may work for someone else may not work for you. It largely depends on your audience and how they interact with your site. Experimentation is a big part of all this.
Who is your target audience? I can't really tell by your content. The reason I ask is the "Join AdSense" banners convert very well on my site because I target webmasters who are just getting started.
But I learned the right combination of text and image ads through trial and error. Of course you don't want to go too crazy on either one but just test some things out and check your conversions. That's really the best way to tell.
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Don't put the cart before the horse. Plan your website, thencreate it.