making our stupidity help you
Posts tagged ‘blogging’
For all those of us running WordPress.org, just a heads up to say that a point released is available. 
Previous big number release was 2.5 and this is 2.5.1.
The Developer’s Blog has full details of the reasons for this upgrade, but in short:
Continue reading ‘WordPress 2.5.1’ »
Feel free to emphasise any of the words in the title.
No, this isn’t another “Seinfeld post“, at least, I hope that’s not how it comes out. Firstly, an apology: I do not consider myself qualified to write about blogging, beyond putting down my own experiences. If you are interested in the mechanics, there are far better sites out there who can talk knowledgeably about SEO and link farming (or pharming) and the best ways to get your blog seen by readers, some of them are on my Links page and others are not. Seriously. I think my all time highest view count was 200 and my most searched terms are “lesbians” and “donkey sex”. So please, get your blogging advice elsewhere.
OK, caveat over with. Anyone who may read this site will realise, ever so quickly, that it is totally random. It really is a place for me to just drop whatever is in my head onto the page. I have never hidden this and, in fact, take a sort of perverse pride in it. It also accounts for the fact that updates are only semi regular and ideas I say I’ll come back to I never do. But, recent posts on Untwisted Vortex made me think a little more about what I write about and about what others write. In particular, this post. And, by the way, if it looks as though I’m providing a load of links to one site then don’t worry - that site has a lot of good ideas and I read it every day, so it’s only natural that it will be on my mind.
Continue reading ‘What Do You Blog About (And Why?)’ »
Well, to all those naysayers, I say blerrt. Yet again I am the Comment King for Untwisted Vortex.
Thanks RT, wonder if I can make it three times?? 
Oh yes, I am indeed the Comment King. For week ending 5th April, anyway. R T Cunningham hosts a semi-regular contest for the Comment King or Queen on his blog. To take part is easy, all you have to do is to leave a comment against his posts on the specially crafted “comment area”. And that’s it really. The catch is that you have to leave more comments than any other commenter.
Oh, and don’t think you can just spam his site with a load of crap to get this highly prestigious and sought after award. Like most bloggers, most sensible bloggers anyway, RT keeps an eye out for spammers and other malcontents. So be sure to leave only useful and insightful posts. Only the finest artisan created posts get the chance to gain the award (award shown is actual size).
Aside from the award I assume there’s some sort of castle, kingdom and jewellery still to come. I can wait……
I fancied a change from regular stuff today, so I decided to post a book review to my other site: Bookstuff. This was space that I got for free from Wordpress.com when I signed up with them (very useful if you don’t want the hassle of finding a domain and maintaining it yourself) and it has been very neglected indeed. I last posted there a year ago.
And it got me wondering. When Wordpress lists the number of blogs it hosts, they list the “live” blogs - blogs that still exist and haven’t been deleted. But how many of them actually exist in the sense that they are regularly written to? If you search the web for titles of books I’ve written about, I doubt the site will be high on the list, but it will be there. How many of the sites have been all but abandoned?
When I started blogging I thought it would be easy. How hard can it be to write about whatever I want to and post to something that’s already templated? Far easier than a normal website. Right? However, I quickly found that a lot of what I think about doesn’t translate well to the “page”. And if I think it’s not worth writing about, why the hell should I expect someone to read it?
I often find myself casting around for ideas for new posts or even what to write on a post I had thought about. It all makes so much more sense in my head. And then, a stroke of luck! On my dashboard there was a link to a story on Mark Ghosh’s blog Weblog Tools Collection. So I followed it. And that tortuos story brings us here, I installed a Firefox extension by Zemanta. Called Zemanta.
There will be screenshots later, but for now let’s talk about what it does. I quote their front page here:
Have your browser understand what you are blogging about and suggest pictures, links, articles and tags to make your posts more vibrant. We are making blogging fun again.