Want To Radically Improve Your Blog? Here's How

I'm always looking for ways to improve my blog, so you can imagine that I was pretty excited to hear that the guy from Zen Habits quit his day job to become a full-time blogger . How will this affect you?

Well, it got me thinking. In his post he lists 10 things that he calls the stepping stones to his liberation. Quite the list... and in that list were a few things that I haven't thought about in quite a while. I want to focus more on content, because content is king. I want to give you more value, and I want to interact. In fact, everything that he says in Zen Habits in this post is something that you should be doing, and something that I intend to do, or continue, or improve on.

I appreciate people continuing to come around, and don't hesitate to drop me a line sometime. I started writing this for myself, but now, I do it for a lot of people. Thanks!

A Halloween Shout Out To My Fans

I haven't done a shout out to my fans for a while, so while I'm in the midst of doing yet more changes (as you can tell by the various updates on my sidebars), I figured that I'd do a little shout to some of the fans that I've got out in the world. So, hello to:

Colorado:  Denver, Westminster, Fort Collins, Grand Junction (Go Rockies!)
Massachusetts:  Randolph, Lawrence, Woburn, Boston (those New England Patriots are crazy good, aren't they?)
Tennessee:  Madison
British Columbia:  Victoria
Ontario:  Newmarket, Hamilton
Arizona:  Phoenix
Nevada:  Las Vegas
California:  San Luis Obisco (Hi, Kim!), San Francisco, Mountain View (say hello to Google, everyone!), and Upland
Ohio, Urbana, Columbus, Perryburg
Juarez, Mexico (been there, done that.  If you go to college in Texas, this is a stop for you)
Washington:  Redmond and Seattle (waves to MSN)
Florida:  Leesburg, St. Petersburg (I dated a girl from there, a long, long, time ago), Miami, Melbourne, Sanford, and Vero Beach
Georgia:  Augusta and Hot-lanta
Minnesota:  Minneapolis
New York:  Manhattan, Huntington Station, Saratoga Springs, Mastic
Tel Aviv(!)
London, Loughborogh, Glascow
Paris (oh, how I must go to the Louvre )
Bredene and Brussells
Indiana:  South Bend and Bloomington
Bangalore and Calcutta (no, I'm not kidding)
Providence, RI
Texas:  Carrolton and Dallas
Gatton and Sydney, Australia
Pittsburgh and Erie
Virginia:  Richmond
Orland Park and Oak Brook, Illinois
and finally... Kansas City, Kansas. I have relatives there.  I love you all.

Thanks for all your continuing support, people.  I, and POW, appreciate it.

POW! Goes The Blog

Quite unfortunately, last night while doing some blog tweaks, I unfortunately lost my blog template, so things might look a bit strange for a couple of days.  If anyone has any ideas on how to recover an inadvertently lost blogger template, let me know.

 

In the meantime, I have much to do, and will try to have this fixed by the weekend.

The Blogging Universe - No Longer Expanding?

Amazingly, according to a post from Valleywag, the number of blogs in existence seems to be stalling out.

 

It's the web media equivalent of the central cosmological constant: does the universe of personal sites expand ad infinitum, or else collapse under its own weight? And we may finally have an answer. The number of active blogs tracked by Technorati has stalled at about 15 million. Now that's still a remarkable number, even before one adds in quasi-blogs, such as pages on social network sites such as Myspace. But, compared with the conventional wisdom -- that every human, and household pet, will eventually have a blog -- the reality is sobering.

 

It's sobering only if your idea of the Internet consisted of a ever growing bunch of people who wanted to blog about their overbearing boss, stalk their ex-girlfriends, or talk in leetspeak.

 

For people that have been writing on the Internet for a while, it's probably not a terrible thing.  Keeping a blog active is kind of a serious thing that is most definitely time consuming.  Being topical on the Internet takes a certain level of dedication.  This I know.  I have a few myself, and you would be surprised at how much time I spend blogging, and I still managed to have a daughter and a wonderful girlfriend, somehow.  And freelance.  And work a couple of jobs.

 

Of course, occasionally I'm a high energy person.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Help Me Blogger, Help Me Get A Post On My Blog

Posts have been blowing up left and right.  Ironically, if you can read this, perhaps things are back to normal.  But perhaps not.

 

It would seem that the switch to New Blogger didn't quite solve ALL the problems yet.  I know that at least two posts bounced.  I don't yet know about the others.  Suffice it to say that I didn't fall off the face of Earth.  Blogger did... for a little while, anyway.

 

Hopefully, you new readers that came to see my new and exciting formatting and brand-new posts didn't run away screaming.

Blogs And Comments

Taking a look at my reader logs for the last several days, it would seem that quite a few more people are taking a notice of my blog lately, which, as you might guess, makes me smirk uncontrollably.  Hopefully you are all enjoying my ramblings and are taking the opportunity to look around. 

 

One suggestion, though - if you read, and you like what you read, or if you have a blog of your own, please feel free to leave a comment.  I tend to take a look at pretty much everyone who has a blog that mentions it somewhere on my pages.  Think of it as a cheap and effective way to blog network.  Show me yours and I'll show you mine.

 

So to speak.

 

So comment away!

 

Radical Changes To POW

Hello all!

 

Well, I've finally made some radical changes to this blog.  The formatting is different, the pages are different, the page is friendlier, I believe.  Here are a few highlights.

 

- Formatting.  As you can see, I've switched to a 3 column format and some new fonts, thanks in part to Hoctro's Place.  His lessons on his web page cannot be underestimated.  His post, and templates, can be found here.  Many thanks, kind human.  Of course, I have made some modifications.  I'll make more, and when the template is done, I'll post a permanent link to it.

 

- Labels.  Labels have been added, and others deleted.  Now, also, if you click a label that has more than twenty post contained within, you can go to older posts with the same link by the "Older Posts" link at the bottom of this web page.  Navigation!   What a concept.

 

- Translation.  I have switched to the venerable Altavista Babel Fish utility, which is on this page.  This will translate posts without having to go to another website.

 

- Charity.  You will also see on this page that there is a charity box, allowing you to chose a charity that you'd like to donate to through my blog.  The charities will change frequently, so check back just as often!  This service is possible through NetworkForGood.org. 

 

Other big changes are coming, so look for them.  Please, leave me a comment about the format changes, or make suggestions.  I do write this blog mostly for me, but it's for you as well.

 

POW... Beta Is Coming

I'm in the process now of creating a brand new stylesheet for POW.

 

My new layouts are in Beta form, and will be ready to be released to the public soon.  Get ready for big changes!

Labels

By the way, I've noticed that a bug in my label code means that not all posts for a particular topic always appear when you click one of the labels in the sidebar of this blog.

I am attempting to tweak it, and it should be corrected shortly.

Blog Optimization

I accidentally stumbled across an article on how to optimize your blog.  Oddly, I was compelled to write about it.

 

Also, when you optimize your blog for the user experience, you make it easy for users to return and engage in your blog without dealing with any of the hassles that can cause them to abandon other sites or blog entries. Repeat visitors are the cream of your blog, so by following these tips you have given them the tools they need to return as well as the user experience that makes them want to come back.

 

Search Engine Land came up with this list, which I will keep for future reference and for hours and hours of future blog mania, which I usually reserve for the weekends.

 

By the way, probably a few of you have wondered why I haven't been blogging as much lately.  Just started a new gig (one of several things that I'm working on at the moment, since I'm presently looking to become the Next Big Thing), and my time has been woefully short.  Don't run away though - I'm still around and kicking.

 

 

 

I Can't For The Life Of Me...

...figure out what's happening to my Blogger posts.  They're dropping again.

 

I'll puzzle it out and get back to you soon.

I Still Don't Know What Web 2.0 Means

...but it seemed like a good idea to keep this around.

 

Here you are the most interesting web 2.0 site all over the internet, please if you have more sites add them to the comments

 

Via, who?  Web 2.0 Magazine.

 

I still don't know what Web 2.0 means though.  Is that like a WebX or something?  Web to the extreme?

 

Generation Web?

 

Doesn't matter.  All that I know is that YouTube, Weblogs, Inc., Digg, Skype, and whatnot are kind of the future for the Internet.  Wise to check out the article and probably bookmark it.  I know that I'm waaaaay behind the curve on the proper use of internet tools.  If I have some time I'll try to catch up.

 

 

 

Blogger The Sequel

Well, it's been a while, but I know that I'm having more blog hiccups that even switching to Blogger Beta hasn't been fixing.

 

They tell me that it's the fault of Gmail, but hey, same company.  Has been for a while now.  Meh.

 

For this, I apologize.  I'm hoping to have the problems cleared up soon.

More Blog Updates

You may have noticed a couple of changes.

 

This website now has labels, which is the fancy Google name for "Categories".  What this allows you to do is click any of the topics under the "Labels" section of the sidebar, and that will immediately take you to all of the posts in that section.  Pretty spiffy, huh?

 

Also, you'll notice that almost all of the posts now have a "Labels" tag attached.  This allows me to categorize each post I make.  I only ask that you allow me a few hours to get new posts correctly tagged.

 

Now, I haven't yet categorized all of my posts, as I have been doing this for a while and had a lot more posts than I thought, so might take a hot minute for me to get up to date.  Also, there may be some post that are categorized where they don't belong.  If you happen to come across any of these, let me know.

 

I'll probably post later how I did it.  It's not a particularly simple process, as I did not upgrade my original Blogger template to do it.

 

I would also expect that I'll be posting a few more Blogger how-tos.  I have numerous hacks already built into my site, as you might have guessed.

 

The layout will probably also be changing.

 

Ch-ch-ch-ch-changes!

Switched!

Well, I switched to new Blogger in beta.

 

Let me know how it went.  If things get too goofy then I will be making other changes.  Did my template change?  Are comments still working?

 

As a result of this change, you will be seeing plenty of new things, and first on my list... categories!  That's something everyone seems to want.

 

More later!

 

 

Yes, I Know

Yes, I know that my fonts have been going odd lately.

It's only one thing in a pattern. Bear with me. Thanks.

So, just to let you know that I know what you're talking about, I'll post this:

Blog From Email

I've been blogging from email for some time, but this particular app seemed quite well timed for me, especially since I have had so many problems getting that to work lately.

Software blog Download Squad gives the scoop on BlogMailr, a free tool that lets you add posts to your blog just by sending e-mails.

Glory be to Lifehacker! We love you, Gina.

Incidentally, the link to the BlogMailr is right here. Yippie!

I'd also like to add that you should expand your mind and listen to Littlefeat. I am doing that right now.

Update: The first time I posted this today failed. What timing. In other words, you need this app.
Update x2: The second time that I've posted this today failed. Arrgh.

More Blogger Woes And A Shout Out

Just so it's out there, for some reason, Blogger was blowing up my posts earlier this week.

 

I only say that for those of you that were wondering, "Why hasn't Clark posted anything on Election Day?"

 

Needless to say, things seem to be working again.  Ack.  If you posted a comment anywhere (this means you, L!), then you might want to repost your comment.  Sorry!

 

In the meantime, let me give a shout out to all these places that have visited lately.  Lately I've been getting a heck of a lot of hits, and that I appreciate, but it's making it harder to give out the appropriate shouts, as the list is getting a bit long.

 

*deep breath*

 

Erie, Lafayette, Parker, and Denver, Colorado, Florida, New South Wales, Austrailia, Denmark, The University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee (go Panthers!), Chicago, Dubai, United Arab Emirates, Berlin, Newfoundland, Canada, Bainbridge Island and Gig Harbor Washington, Australia, Portland, Oregon (yes, I did go there!), Stockholm, Sweeden, and finally, my boys in San Antonio, TX - where I love my guys at KKD.  Keep on keepin' on.

 

There's quite a few more, but my hands are tired.

 

Keep coming around.  I'll get you listed on a shout out sooner or later.

It's Halloween

Psst.

Want to hear a true story?

 

I was a teenager, living in the Denver suburbs with my parents and brother, many, many years ago.  We lived in a nice little place not far from where I now work.

 

One day, my mother was out doing something - no one can remember exactly what.  My dad, brother, and I were preparing to go out on a little excursion somewhere on a Saturday afternoon.  Nothing really remarkable was happening, unless you count the fact that all of us were together and it was a nice day.  It takes many years of seasoning to learn to appreciate how nice it is to have memories like that. 

 

But I digress.

 

Well, on this particular day, all of us men were preparing to leave the house - and being just a little silly, from what I can recall.  You know, just being guys.  I believe that I had pulled some dishes out of the dishwasher - they were not hot, as the dishes had been washed some time ago, and had put some away.  I specifically remember putting a clean glass on the counter relatively close to the sink.  But we were in a hurry.  My brother ran upstairs for some reason, while my dad went to the front door.  After a moment, I joined my dad at the front door, in the hallway, which was just adjacent to the kitchen, to wait for my brother to come down.

 

During the course of one's life, I believe that a person can look back on certain events, both large and small, and say without hesitation that sometimes very, very small things can have very, very important outcomes.  Sure, big decisions, like, for instance, where do I go to college, or should I take that job are big too.  But truly, sometimes the tiniest detail can have a stunningly important impact.  And in this case, the tiny little detail that probably changed my life in some fashion was that I had left the kitchen.

 

Why?

 

Because a few moments after I left the kitchen, everyone in the house heard an enormous BANG coming from the kitchen.  It was as if someone had been shot.  My father and I recoiled in shock.  My brother ran downstairs to see what had happened, and with some trepidation we all walked into the kitchen.

 

A glass, one that I had just touched, one that I had left on the counter just seconds before, had exploded.  Not cracked, exploded.  It was as if someone had put a tiny time bomb inside the glass.  The base was mostly intact.  However, the rest of the glass had disintegrated into a million tiny, sharp pieces of glass.  We found shards of glass behind the refrigerator, in the family room 20 feet away, all over the kitchen sink.  Glass was everywhere.  Many months later, I was still finding glass by the fireplace where my family watched television. 

 

What we did not find, however, was an explanation for what actually had happened. 

 

Nor have we ever.

 

The "Story of the Exploding Glass" is legendary in my family.  What I do know is that the glass was NOT hot, it was NOT cold in my house, I did not break the glass, and no one was in the room. 

 

But I do not know what made the glass explode, although we were all thankful that we weren't in the room when it happened.

 

This I do know, however.  There was some... feeling, that we had come shockingly close to witnessing something happen that was... unnatural.  Perhaps supernatural.  My brother, father and I still feel that to this day.

 

Was it someone or something trying to send a message?

 

Was it, like we have all whispered amongst ourselves for many years, a ghost?

 

Perhaps. 

Or perhaps not.

 

 

BOO!

 

Happy Halloween.

Side Projects

Lately I have been thinking about, then starting on, a couple of side projects that I thought that I might share with you.

 

The first is a yet-to-be titled website.  It's a pretty good idea, and I think that I'm going to run with it, even though the person who sold me on the idea doesn't have it quite... fleshed out.  I think I can work with it anyway. 

 

The second is a still-untitled non-fiction book project.  Other people that I have talked to are pretty excited about this one.  I might be able to get to those people that, *gasp*, love it.  If this one goes over, I'm bagging this spot and moving to the moon, and then I'm going to park right there on the moon with a telescope, and tell everyone on Earth to get the hell out of my 1. sunset view, or 2.  driveway, whichever comes first.

 

Why to embark on either of these time-intensive, and probably time-killing, projects, you ask?

 

Well, it's like this.

 

I've been practicing.  I've been practicing quite a bit, actually.  That's kind of why I began this blog in the first place; both as a place to practice and hone my writing skills, and as a website for me to dabble with to increase my web authoring skills.

 

Also, I should mention that I might be moving this site soon.  You see, I've been messing around with this other thing, and... well, just don't be too surprised.