Category: blogosphere

Tag, I’m it

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I’m just reading up on how to use Technorati tags. It’s an interesting idea. The two main uses I’ve seen in MT blogs is to convert either keywords or categories into tags. I’ve got a cool plugin for MT that automatically converts keywords, only, I don’t use keywords. I’ve also got an applescript in ecto […]

I’m just reading up on how to use Technorati tags.

It’s an interesting idea. The two main uses I’ve seen in MT blogs is to convert either keywords or categories into tags. I’ve got a cool plugin for MT that automatically converts keywords, only, I don’t use keywords.

I’ve also got an applescript in ecto that converts my categories into tags. You’ll see what it does at the bottom of this entry.

What I really want, though, is a plugin that does this automatically in MT; I choose categories or keywords as usual, and then the MT plugin automagically makes them tags when I post. I don’t know if this exists yet, but either I’ll write it or someone else will. I’ll have to study up on how to write MT plugins, I guess.

Edit:

Ah, now that I re-read the tags spec, I see technorati are already honoring MT categories so I don’t need to do anything to make this work. It’s only useful if you use keywords and want them honored.

Teach me to read the spec…

Technorati Tags: {blogosphere, geek, }

Blog Year

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Today marks one year of blogging for me. I had some essay going about what it all means and what I’ve learned and blah blah blah but it just wasn’t happening. I lost interest in it. Still. One year. 185 entries in my blog. I’m surprised. I’ve never kept a journal. I expected to stop […]

Today marks one year of blogging for me.

I had some essay going about what it all means and what I’ve learned and blah blah blah but it just wasn’t happening. I lost interest in it.

Still. One year. 185 entries in my blog.

I’m surprised. I’ve never kept a journal. I expected to stop after a week.

You know, I might just keep doing this. Or maybe not. Who knows?

LiveJournal

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Yet another reason I’m glad I don’t LiveJournal. An unexpected power outage not only took them to their knees, but left them hopelessly broken. A system on that scale with that vast number of users should not find a power outage so unexpected, and should have a working recovery plan that they’ve tested and drilled. […]

Yet another reason I’m glad I don’t LiveJournal.

An unexpected power outage not only took them to their knees, but left them hopelessly broken.

A system on that scale with that vast number of users should not find a power outage so unexpected, and should have a working recovery plan that they’ve tested and drilled.

The folks working the outgage, hats off you you. I’ve done the work you’re doing now, and it’s a hard and thankless task, and I’m sure in the end you’ll get everything working with minimal data loss. You guys deserve credit you’ll never get.

But the cost to the users, the company, the reputation of LiveJournal; that’s enormous and can’t easily be fixed.

I wonder if SixApart, makes of MovableType and TypePad, are now re-thinking the aquisition of LiveJournal?

You know, I’ve had my own blog disasters. But when you host yourself or borrow space for free on friends machines, you expect that. A commercial service on the scale of LJ should know better.

Good luck to the LJ staff and to my LJ user friends; and if you’re finally fed up with LJ, come talk to me, I can suggest some other options.

BlogTips from Spank Boss

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This is focused on adult blogging, but a lot of the advice is really good for any blogger. From SpankBoss at SpankingBlog, a page of Blogging Tips: DO: Do blog every day. This doesn’t mean you can’t miss a day. It just means that, week in and week out, your visitors should find something new […]

This is focused on adult blogging, but a lot of the advice is really good for any blogger.

From SpankBoss at SpankingBlog, a page of Blogging Tips:

DO: Do blog every day. This doesn’t mean you can’t miss a day. It just means that, week in and week out, your visitors should find something new every time they come to your site — so they’ll make it part of their daily routine.

Don’t: Don’t fall into the trap of thinking traffic doesn’t matter. It does. Remember, you are building a personal brand, even if you never hope to make a dime from it. That means you want readers, and you want exposure. Again, why bother to blog if nobody reads? It’s a lot of time and energy; for most people, the rewards for that include positive feedback from as many real people as possible. Also, if you are blogging about adult topics, the traffic you’ll earn has a substantial economic value, because you could sell ads whether you choose to, or not. Eventually, people will start offering you money for your blog and your domain name. There are also practical benefits to having lots of traffic. If you link someone, and their server stats go through the roof, they are more inclined to link back to you.

Etc, etc.

Take a look. Some of the advice is great, particularly about things like having a blog roll, linking to other blogs, and commenting on other blogs. This is what brings traffic to your site. Worth a look for any blogger, but warning: it’s a sex blog and not really work safe.

(Thanks to Bacchus at ErosBlog for the link)

Slashdotted by Proxy

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It’s funny, I have not checked my logs in a couple days — I just did and suddenly I’ve got a huge traffic spike, just huge, even bigger than when erosblog links to me. I tracked it down — it seems that traffic spikes run downhill; Brandon over at contemporaryinsanity.org just got slashdotted, and since […]

It’s funny, I have not checked my logs in a couple days — I just did and suddenly I’ve got a huge traffic spike, just huge, even bigger than when erosblog links to me.

I tracked it down — it seems that traffic spikes run downhill; Brandon over at contemporaryinsanity.org just got slashdotted, and since I’m on his all-around cool people list, that slashdot effect has washed over onto me in the form of lots of hits, and lots of comment spam.

Funny how these things work.

Gotta wonder if anyone’s actually reading though; if people don’t comment, I never really know.

The Artist and the Toons

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So a few people have asked me where I got the Kartoon Karl Elvis image I use here and on my Orkut profile. Contact info for the artist is here, courtesy of Doxy’s site. The work’s damned good, and the artist is a rockin’ babe as well.

So a few people have asked me where I got the Kartoon Karl Elvis image I use here and on my Orkut profile.

Contact info for the artist is here, courtesy of Doxy’s site. The work’s damned good, and the artist is a rockin’ babe as well.

Hit me slowly, hit me quick!

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So as kind of an attention slut, I can’t help but keep an eye on my hits and stats and referrals (Where the hits come from). My best hit spikes have both been from mentions in erosblog, one of my favorite sex blogs. Both times my hits spiked through the roof, and I’m still getting […]

So as kind of an attention slut, I can’t help but keep an eye on my hits and stats and referrals (Where the hits come from).

My best hit spikes have both been from mentions in erosblog, one of my favorite sex blogs. Both times my hits spiked through the roof, and I’m still getting hits from both mentions.

But the funny thing I’m getting now is a steady wave of hits from google searches on the word “Erototoxins“.

This makes me laugh. I’m hoping some of these are coming from the insane people who actually thing all this makes sense. But in any case I just think it’s funny how many times each day I’m still seeing referrals based on that word. If I’ve actually picked up any readers from that, folks, let me know, that will be a cherry on top. I keep trying to find a way to work erototoxins into everyday conversation since it’s such a silly word.

When I started blogging I really didn’t want anyone to read this. I was doing it for myself. Somewhere along the line that changed and I wanted to make sure I stayed visible and had an audience. That’s a double-edged sword; I know I’m more restrained in what I write here now, since people I might talk about are reading this, people I might not be talking about might assume I’m talking about them, and — well, people are reading, and I am aware of it. On the other hand, knowing people read this makes me update it; when my audience was about three people, I updated only once in a great while.

In other news, people keep asking me for details on last weekend’s party. Lets’ just say it wasn’t my party and they were not my details, so I promised not to confess too much here. I will say, though, that I spent most of sunday in bed; I’ll also say that my children were not the least bit surprised and alarmed to find two people passed out in my living room, nor were they in any way concerned to find daddy in bed that morning cuddled up with a lovely woman who was not mommy. “Oh, hi!” they said; “We didn’t know you were here!” They’re pretty damned cool kids.

MyMoronosphere

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EDIT: This was broken for a while, I fixed it. Yahoo changed something. The RSS functionality on My Yahoo is in beta so that’s not a surprise. This should be working now, but if not, let me know. I just figured out how to get this to work. Get The Moronosphere on MyYahoo by clicking […]

EDIT: This was broken for a while, I fixed it. Yahoo changed something. The RSS functionality on My Yahoo is in beta so that’s not a surprise.

This should be working now, but if not, let me know.

I just figured out how to get this to work.

Get The Moronosphere on MyYahoo by clicking here: Add to My Yahoo!

I get Slashdot, Wonkette, BoingBoing, and a couple of other sites this way. It’s pretty cool.

So many blogs, so little time

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It seems the more I wander around the blogosphere the more I add to the list of blogs I like and want to follow. And of course I can’t even begin to keep up.

It seems the more I wander around the blogosphere the more I add to the list of blogs I like and want to follow. And of course I can’t even begin to keep up.

Read more “So many blogs, so little time”