June 30, 2003
Mo' Betta Blogging
How to get yourself noticed in web log universe
Last week it was basic blogging needs. This spawned more research into the subject. I think I'm a sucker for punishment. Having had one Web site killed on account of personal blog-generated traffic. Now here I am trying to make my new site get more. I was checking my site stats. In 2002 the site got under 10 visitors in all. Now in May-July 2003, it's received more than 300; mostly courtesy my blogs and reciprocal links from other sites.
You may have experienced (annoying?) pop-up and under ads while reading this blog. My apologies but this is a labor of love and I'm hard-pressed to pay to zap ads. Unless you'd like to contribute to my PayPal account. There's no minimum amount, but Netfirms hosting is $5 a month.
Blog Search Tools
Having published my blog, I needed to publicize it. However blog tools like Blogger only do so much. You still need to submit your blog to a blog search engine. I do have a listing on Blogwise but needed to do more. I began with Blog Search Engine. This claims a site review within 48 hours of submission. Of course, as with most other free blog listings, you don't have to add a link back to the site. But you are (subtly) encouraged to promote your new association to improve your submission. There's also Blogarama, a Blog Directory. Submission is free but you have to add two link backs: one to improve your listings. Another to get your readers to send their comments about your blog. On the other hand, MIT's Blogdex, has fewer rules. All it asks for is your blog URL and email address (to which a submission verification is sent. You have 48 hours to respond). Like other community-driven Web sites, there is Bloglists akin to porn and warez site link aggregators. You submit a blog link, then embed the service's link script into the blog. Based on the visitors who click the link, your ratings rise or fall. When Drives Go Bad
My PC hard drive began emitting strange clicks. Each of which caused Windows to restart then display a disk error. All this in spite of S.M.A.R.T. (Self-Monitoring, Analysis and Reporting Technology) being enabled to alert about incipient drive failures. So before I lost everything, I decided to upgrade. You know, we have certainly come a long way in less than a decade. In 1995, 40 MB was considered overkill. The average PC/AT seemed standardized around 20 MB disks, 1.2 MB floppy drives. CD-ReWriters too were few and far between, and even more expensive than tape drives. In comparison 2003 is nice price time. I recently picked up an AMD Athlon XP-powered box for under $365 without monitor, keyboard or mouse. Included was a 3D-accelerator card with 32 MB Video RAM, 256 MB system RAM, 40 GB drive, CD-ROM, a 100 mbps network card. And the price includes Windows XP Home! Setup 'n Go!
It took me the rest of the weekend to setup my new drive. Luckily, I have almost all the system software backed up to CD-R. And Visual CD really helped me locate software without needing to insert any of the 100+ backup disks. And if you are left wondering why so many, well some software doesn't get better with age. So I still prefer using ancient builds which at least perform as expected. Like General Montgomery of El Alamein fame, give me old tested technology whose limits are known instead of untested cutting-edge stuff that will fail when needed most. Software Stuff
Visual CD is a data cataloger that indexes media like CD-R, CD-RW, hard drives and folders. You can later search the catalogs without needing the physical disks. Of course, to open a specific file you will need the matched disk. Visual CD uses a Windows Explorer view to soften the learning curve. And is really easy to use. Plus it comes at a great price: absolutely free. And like many great tools, what extends this app is its ability to save catalogs in non-proprietary formats like TXT and HTML. You can also view the contents of ZIP, RAR and CAB archives. And there is even a file splitter. And finally MyIE2 never ceases to amaze me with its overall usefulness. Once you really begin using it, you will find it very hard to switch to another browser. I used to think Opera was cutting edge. But MyIE2 has surpassed it. MyIE2 Build 0.7.1355 lets you select text on a web page. Then drag the highlighted text sideways to search the term with the default search engine (usually Google). In Opera you can select text but then have to right-click to display the search menu; which isn't the same thing. You can also control page views in MyIE2 using Ctrl + "+" (zoom in), Ctrl + " - " (zoom out), and Ctrl + " * " (restore). Opera's control though are more intuitive: you can control zoom using the Num keys: " + " (zoom in), " - " (zoom out), " 6 " (restore) keys. [Do remember the double quotes are there to help you; they're not part of the command.] But I appreciate MyIE2's Ad-Hunter that controls pop-ups. You can view a list of blocked URLs by left clicking the status bar icon. Right-clicking displays Ad-Hunter's menu options. Opera has only 4 options: accept, refuse, open in background, open requested pop-ups only. And doesn't track blocked URLs. Opening a new window from an in-page URL is much easier in MyIE2 than Opera. If it's an active hyperlink, just click and drag to a new window. In Opera, dragging a link opens it in the same window. You have to move the highlighted link to the Address Bar area to open in a new window. I also find searching in-page text in MyIE2's easier. Select the word or phrase, then drag to search using the default search engine (usually Google). In Opera you first select the text, then right-click for a search menu. Finally, Opera 7.1x has lots of CSS rendering issues on top of ActiveX and VB Script rendering issues. Which sort of give a lie to Opera's claim of being a standards-compliant browser. I did look at Net Captor and Avant Browser, but neither excited me. The first was a disappointing revisit as there's still a resource leak (on Window 2000) that's big enough to pass an elephant through! The second consumes exactly the same amount of system resources (lots) when maximized or minimized. Yet doesn't have anything that MyIE2 lacks. So for an alternate I'll stick with MozillaFirebird. This despite being it being a massive (7 MB ZIP) download that needs lots of plug-ins but manages to render CSS the way the designer intended. Click Here to Email Me
Having published my blog, I needed to publicize it. However blog tools like Blogger only do so much. You still need to submit your blog to a blog search engine. I do have a listing on Blogwise but needed to do more. I began with Blog Search Engine. This claims a site review within 48 hours of submission. Of course, as with most other free blog listings, you don't have to add a link back to the site. But you are (subtly) encouraged to promote your new association to improve your submission. There's also Blogarama, a Blog Directory. Submission is free but you have to add two link backs: one to improve your listings. Another to get your readers to send their comments about your blog. On the other hand, MIT's Blogdex, has fewer rules. All it asks for is your blog URL and email address (to which a submission verification is sent. You have 48 hours to respond). Like other community-driven Web sites, there is Bloglists akin to porn and warez site link aggregators. You submit a blog link, then embed the service's link script into the blog. Based on the visitors who click the link, your ratings rise or fall. When Drives Go Bad
My PC hard drive began emitting strange clicks. Each of which caused Windows to restart then display a disk error. All this in spite of S.M.A.R.T. (Self-Monitoring, Analysis and Reporting Technology) being enabled to alert about incipient drive failures. So before I lost everything, I decided to upgrade. You know, we have certainly come a long way in less than a decade. In 1995, 40 MB was considered overkill. The average PC/AT seemed standardized around 20 MB disks, 1.2 MB floppy drives. CD-ReWriters too were few and far between, and even more expensive than tape drives. In comparison 2003 is nice price time. I recently picked up an AMD Athlon XP-powered box for under $365 without monitor, keyboard or mouse. Included was a 3D-accelerator card with 32 MB Video RAM, 256 MB system RAM, 40 GB drive, CD-ROM, a 100 mbps network card. And the price includes Windows XP Home! Setup 'n Go!
It took me the rest of the weekend to setup my new drive. Luckily, I have almost all the system software backed up to CD-R. And Visual CD really helped me locate software without needing to insert any of the 100+ backup disks. And if you are left wondering why so many, well some software doesn't get better with age. So I still prefer using ancient builds which at least perform as expected. Like General Montgomery of El Alamein fame, give me old tested technology whose limits are known instead of untested cutting-edge stuff that will fail when needed most. Software Stuff
Visual CD is a data cataloger that indexes media like CD-R, CD-RW, hard drives and folders. You can later search the catalogs without needing the physical disks. Of course, to open a specific file you will need the matched disk. Visual CD uses a Windows Explorer view to soften the learning curve. And is really easy to use. Plus it comes at a great price: absolutely free. And like many great tools, what extends this app is its ability to save catalogs in non-proprietary formats like TXT and HTML. You can also view the contents of ZIP, RAR and CAB archives. And there is even a file splitter. And finally MyIE2 never ceases to amaze me with its overall usefulness. Once you really begin using it, you will find it very hard to switch to another browser. I used to think Opera was cutting edge. But MyIE2 has surpassed it. MyIE2 Build 0.7.1355 lets you select text on a web page. Then drag the highlighted text sideways to search the term with the default search engine (usually Google). In Opera you can select text but then have to right-click to display the search menu; which isn't the same thing. You can also control page views in MyIE2 using Ctrl + "+" (zoom in), Ctrl + " - " (zoom out), and Ctrl + " * " (restore). Opera's control though are more intuitive: you can control zoom using the Num keys: " + " (zoom in), " - " (zoom out), " 6 " (restore) keys. [Do remember the double quotes are there to help you; they're not part of the command.] But I appreciate MyIE2's Ad-Hunter that controls pop-ups. You can view a list of blocked URLs by left clicking the status bar icon. Right-clicking displays Ad-Hunter's menu options. Opera has only 4 options: accept, refuse, open in background, open requested pop-ups only. And doesn't track blocked URLs. Opening a new window from an in-page URL is much easier in MyIE2 than Opera. If it's an active hyperlink, just click and drag to a new window. In Opera, dragging a link opens it in the same window. You have to move the highlighted link to the Address Bar area to open in a new window. I also find searching in-page text in MyIE2's easier. Select the word or phrase, then drag to search using the default search engine (usually Google). In Opera you first select the text, then right-click for a search menu. Finally, Opera 7.1x has lots of CSS rendering issues on top of ActiveX and VB Script rendering issues. Which sort of give a lie to Opera's claim of being a standards-compliant browser. I did look at Net Captor and Avant Browser, but neither excited me. The first was a disappointing revisit as there's still a resource leak (on Window 2000) that's big enough to pass an elephant through! The second consumes exactly the same amount of system resources (lots) when maximized or minimized. Yet doesn't have anything that MyIE2 lacks. So for an alternate I'll stick with MozillaFirebird. This despite being it being a massive (7 MB ZIP) download that needs lots of plug-ins but manages to render CSS the way the designer intended. Click Here to Email Me
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