Other

As you may have noticed, Simplehelp has been ‘down’ much more often lately than I’d like. It all relates to my previous host disabling me, moving to a new host, being on the front page of digg when the (new) server wasn’t ready for it, and the lack of a wp-cache plugin. Anyway - that’s all fixed now (in theory). This post has an actual intent too - to push the changes made by the Full Text Feed plugin live (after WP 2.1 feeds are cut off if you use the <!–more–> tag, which is annoying if you want to allow RSS subscribers to read the full text of your post, which I do).

Update: out of Spock invites, I’ll update when I have more.

Just a quick note - if you’d like an invite to Moola, Pownce or Spock, please leave a comment below. Just tell me which one you want an invite to, and use a valid email address in the comment form. Cheers!

Yahoo describes Pipes as “an interactive data aggregator and manipulator that lets you mashup your favorite online data sources”. Alright, but what does that mean to the rest of us? Yahoo Pipes uses an easy-to-understand visual editor that allows you to (among other things) take multiple RSS feeds, combine and filter them, and then output all of that information to one RSS feed.

This tutorial will take you through the steps to filter the content of one RSS feed (Techmeme) so that content you may have already read isn’t included in your Techmeme feed. [click to continue...]

Have you Googled your name lately? Not entirely happy with the results? This review/overview/tutorial will help you change how you’re represented online.

There are a lot of reasons you may want to alter what comes up when people search for your name. Most likely, you’re about to enter the workforce and you don’t need recruiters and/or an HR rep. looking at your drunken antics on MySpace. The following tips and free-services can help change those Google search results to something you’re a little more proud of.

1. Ziki
2. LinkedIn
3. Naymz
4. Damage Control

[click to continue...]

I think the move from a shared host (Dreamhost) to a dedicated host (The Planet) has worked. There are a few issues that I know of, and I don’t *think* they’ll make a difference in the use of the site. If you could take a moment and surf around a bit to see if you can find anything that’s broken, I’d be very appreciative!!

Thanks,

Ross

And the winner is…. Nancy Biggs! I’ve emailed Nancy and the folks @ Answers That Work to arrange for her free copy of The Ultimate Troubleshooter.

The winner was selected at random (by me asking the stranger sitting next to me in the coffee shop that I’m writing this post from to pick a number between 1 and 7 - the # of people that participated).

The folks over at Answers That Work have offered one lucky Simplehelp reader a registered copy of The Ultimate Troubleshooter. All you have to do is leave a comment on this post. That’s it. Make sure when leaving a comment to put a working email address in the Mail (required) field (so I can forward your contact info to Answers That Work for you to claim your prize). At the end of the week (Friday, June 15th, 2007) I’ll pick a random commenter as the winner. Good luck!

If you would like to run an ad on Simplehelp, there are a number of options available for you. [click to continue...]

As usual I’ll keep this fairly brief, but May was a pretty great month. All previous traffic records were broken (by May 20th actually). This was due in large part because of 3 front page ‘diggs’ and 2 links from my absolute favorite tech blog, Lifehacker.

Some vague stats for this month:

Unique visitors: over 150,000
Unique page views: over 250,000
New feed subscribers: over 200

Some relatively useless stats for this month:

Simplehelp entered the “top 10,000″ blogs on Technorati
Alexa ranking went from 150,000 (give or take) to 90,000 (give or take)
Even with the digg and lifehacker links, Google remains my #1 source of visitors/page views.

Most viewed posts that were created in May:

1. Quicksilver Tutorial and Screencast Roundup (thank you digg)
2. How to install Linux applications in OS X (thank you digg and lifehacker)
3. How to install Ubuntu Studio in Windows using VirtualBox (thank you digg)
4. 20 free RSS readers reviewed
5. How to create a favicon.ico for your web site (thank you StumbleUpon)
6. Top 10 iTunes addons and plugins
7. How to install Windows programs in Linux using Wine

Now I just have to do it all over again this month.

This post is really only interesting/helpful for folks who visit the Jambands.ca forums. [click to continue...]

Based on the ONE single piece of feedback I got last time, I figured I’d try a poll this time around. I’m trying to figure out if I should add more of a “personal touch” to this site. To date, it’s largely just FAQs, tutorials etc. Are you interested in knowing more about me, site stats, having weekly “recap” posts, posts that are a collection of links that I find interesting etc? Use the other space to provide feedback. I know there are 850+ of you that subscribe to this feed, let me know how I can increase that number - or at least keep you as a subscriber

Alright maybe they’re not so much under-appreciated as they are old. Before this was a borderline-semi-popular blog, I put a lot of effort into some posts that never get many page-views. So give something old a read, for the first time

How to get promoted - the call center/tech support version
How to get tickets for any Ticketmaster event
Does your ISP offer free security software?
5 steps to securing your wireless network
How to share a keyboard and mouse with multiple computers
5 quick tips to speed up your PC’s performance

And these two, which aren’t exactly ‘old’ yet, but took forever and a day to write -

How to get your ISP to pay attention to your problems (and see a real world example of what happens if you follow this advice)
20 Free RSS Readers Reviewed

Hi all - I promise to keep this brief’ish

If you could take a minute or three out of your busy lives and help me out a bit, (no I don’t want your money!!!), I would be very appreciative.

1. What type of tutorials/documentation would you like to see more of on the site? Is there something computer related that you really had a hard time figuring out, and wished there was a tutorial explaining it step by step?

2. Do you prefer screencasts, or tutorials with screenshots? Or both? I’ve yet to do a screencast, but I’m very tempted. Coming from a support background, I’ve always found watching something from point A to point B isn’t always the easiest way to find the info you’re looking for. But that’s just me, and I don’t want this bias to hinder your usage/appreciation of the site.

3. Any type of constructive criticism you can offer up would be appreciated.

Please feel free to leave a comment below, or contact me directly at

Update: the first 13 32 52 invites (everyone who has left a comment so far) have been sent. If you didn’t get the email from Joost, check your ’spam mail’ folder to make sure it’s not in there, and then please let me know and I’ll have it re-sent.

Update 2: ok I’ve sent out over 200 invites now (248 exactly) via this site, another one of my blogs and a mailing list that I participate in. Due to the recent Joost update, I’m no longer able to copy and paste email addresses into the “invite” section of Joost. Which makes it a huge hassle, so I’m afraid I’ll have to stop sending them.

If you’re looking for an invite, I would strongly recommend heading to Technorati and search for Joost. You should find plenty of bloggers who are willing to give out invites. Cheers!