Blogging

Last Saturday I mentioned that I signed up for BlogRush, and that I’d be reporting back with the results today. Well the stats (Dashboard) section of BlogRush kicked in this week, so now I know how many folks I’ve referred, how many “credits” I’ve earned, and how many visits BlogRush has sent my way. Like others, the results aren’t great. [click to continue...]

After being appalled at what I saw when I viewed Simple Help in my Smartphone, I decided it was time to figure out a way to make this site more appealing to folks using mobile browsers. It didn’t take long for me to find Alex King’s WordPress Mobile Edition plugin. If you follow the instructions outlined in the README (included with the download) it only takes about 30 seconds to convert your WordPress installation to a very usable site for mobile web browsers.

Simplehelp in a mobile browser

Simplehelp post in a mobile browser

Instead of reviewing or introducing you to BlogRush (for that you can check out ProBlogger), I’m going to try something a little different. I’ve signed up, added the code to my sidebar (though admittedly not giving it ‘ideal’ placement) and I’m going to leave it up for one week. Then I’ll report back next Saturday on how much (if any) traffic that it has driven. Like others, I’m a bit skeptical - but we’ll see. First update after the cut -

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From their site:

“The Google Analytics widget is an Adobe AIR application that runs on your desktop and displays basic stats for your Google Analytics account.”

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At some point yesterday (Nov 12th, 2007) Google Webmaster Tools got a bit of a redesign. And at least one new feature was added - Subscriber stats. Now you can view the number of users who have subscribed to your RSS feed(s) using Google products such as iGoogle, Google Reader, and Orkut.

Are there any other new features I missed?

Screenshots:

Dashboard Overview	What Googlebot Sees
Google Subscriber Stats	Tools Overview

If you’re a big Technorati fan and want to display your blogs rank, MyTechnorati might be just the thing for you.

The installation and setup are very straight forward, and the author (Tyler Ingram - a fellow Vancouverite) is very responsive to support issues etc.

This article outlines 9 different ways you can secure your WordPress blog/site. Security is often an overlooked aspect of blogging, but a few minutes making sure things are secure can save you hours and hours of ‘fixing’ if someone decides to mess with your site. [click to continue...]

Last month I wrote a tutorial on How to “Pubvertise” Your Live FeedBurner RSS Content to a Wider Audience. I also signed up for a one week paid campaign in the FeedBurner Ad Network to try out the service (I had never previously paid to advertise Simplehelp). This post details my experience with the FeedBurner Ad Network.

↑ Grab this Headline Animator

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For the last few days I’ve been trying to figure out how to best write this post. This is what I’ve come up with, I hope it’s helpful (cause it sure is long, winded).

1. What I’ve done
2. What I think I’ve done right
1. SEO
2. Content
3. Responsive
4. Thankful
5. Research
3. What I think I’ve done wrong
1. Community participation
2. Took a break
3. Low Page View per Visit ratio
4. Misc. Mistakes
4. What I was surprised by
1. Traffic sources
2. Browser type
3. Top content
5. What I still don’t understand
6. What I’m going to do next
7. Summary of my tips/suggestions

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FeedBurner recently announced that their Headline Animator tool can now be used to promote your RSS feed (or site) through other FeedBurner feeds (pubvertising). This brief tutorial will walk you through the steps to do just that. [click to continue...]

Not long ago, Mashable did a very cool roundup of 15 Online Graphics Generators - with a heavy emphasis on the Web 2.0 style. This post was inspired by that list - with no duplicates, and additional resources including pre-created images/logos, tutorials, WordPress Web 2.0 themes etc. And since it’s not exactly an original idea, I decided to double their 15. [click to continue...]

The following overview lists the supported blogging platforms, features, license (4/5 are free), a summary and screenshots for 5 blogging clients. I should also mention, 3/5 work in Linux too. [click to continue...]

Though this was originally created for another blog, I’ve updated it (more steps, more plugins, more theme sites etc) and posted it here.

One of the great things about WordPress is how easily you can have it up and running, completely customized to your liking, in such a short period of time. After setting up WordPress for several of my friends, I found that having a ‘checklist’ makes things go even faster - so I decided to write it all up and share with you. Please don’t hesitate to use the comments to suggest additions etc, I’ll update the checklist accordingly.

1. Create blog title, add email address
2. Change your password
3. Disable visual rich editor
4. Add users
5. Change the tagline
6. Edit Membership permissions
7. Set a date and time format
8. Modify Reading and Writing settings
9. Edit Discussion settings
10. Modify Permalinks structure
11. Pick a theme
12. Customize your theme
13. Write down CSS info
14. Change title format
15. Edit blogroll
16. Edit the About page
17. Add some categories
18. Edit the example post for testing
19. Install plugins
20. Install widgets
21. Check blog and test plugins
22. Create a favicon.ico
23. Create a shortcut to the Dashboard / setup WordPress client
24. Create a test environment
25. Start posting!

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This post could also be called ‘an introduction to JumpBox’, as that’s essentially what it is. JumpBox allows you to install several open source applications, such as WordPress, in a virtual environment (like Parallels, VMWare and Xen). They provide the complete package - WordPress itself, all of its required components (database, runtime dependencies etc) and the virtual machine configuration files. Continue for the full tutorial/walkthrough.. [click to continue...]