2005 October | The Tlog - a technology blog

Monthly Archive for October, 2005Page 3 of 6

Blogging tips #5.5: Preparing for events

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3 years, 1 month ago

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(NOTE: this is part of the “Blogging tips” series)

This is one where I have to give all the credit to an article on Darren Rowse’s ProBlogger. It’s all there, and I could just give you that link and be a lazy bastard.

But, basically, it’s like this: pages take some time (weeks, probably) to be indexed by search engines, right? So, suppose there are some presidential elections, and, the very minute that the results are known, you, typing faster than a speeding bullet (if, of course, bullets typed…), write a brilliant article with all the results, comments, opinions, etc..

But few people go there. Mostly, it’s your regular readers, or possibly some people coming from Technorati searches. Even though it’s a certainty that thousands of people are, at that moment, googling for “presidential election results” or some variation of that.

The thing is that you should have written that article - minus the actual results - weeks ago! The article should already have the right name, and be linked to in your main page. And that article should already mention the candidates’ names, some speculation, etc.. And it should mention things like “election results” (as in “the election results will be posted here”). Then, when the results are out, you simply edit that article, instead of posting a new one.

It’s not rocket science, although, as I said, I owe this piece of knowledge to Darren. Thanks, Darren.

Testing Chitika eMiniMalls

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Pedro Timóteo

3 years, 1 month ago

in Blogging and The Tlog (site)

. 2 Comments

Since, well, today, I’m testing the replacement of this site’s top AdSense ad with a Chitika eMiniMalls one. Let’s see what difference it makes…

Blogging tips #4.8 - Avoid premature promotion

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Pedro Timóteo

3 years, 1 month ago

in Blogging and Blogging tips

. 2 Comments

(NOTE: this is part of the “Blogging tips” series)

I thought about calling this part “prevent premature promotion”, but I’m not Stan Lee. Anyway…

“Promotion”, in this case, is adding your blog to search engines and directories, asking friends and other people to link to it, linking to it yourself in your other blogs or sites (if you have any), adding it to sites like Technorati, Blogshares, etc….

And “premature”, of course, means “before the right time”. “What do you mean, right time? Shouldn’t I do everything in my power to promote my new blog, as soon as the blogging equivalent of a “Hello World” program is in there?”, you may ask.

Nope. It’s a bad idea. It’s not the end of the world, but it will harm you in the long run, and may take some time to recover from.

Premature promotion of a blog is the equivalent of newspaper ads for a new store, saying “open now!”, which, when people go there, is still under construction, with a sign saying “opening soon”. Nobody with half a brain would do that, right? (which means that only people who wear ties would do it.)

Think about it this way: anyone who goes to your blog or site and sees nothing of interest there… will probably never come back. That’s a lost visitor. Forever. Someone who could have become a regular visitor if only he or she had come there after there was something interesting to see.

So, when should you promote your site? At least, consider the following:

The site should have a couple of articles - 5 or more, if possible, but at least a couple of them. And most of them should be actual content, not a “welcome to my blog” message.
The site should be search-engine friendly. That means, among other things, no broken links, proper HTML, all the site’s sections in working order…
You should be using the definitive theme, not the original one which “came with the software” (unless that’s the one you’ll be using). “Definitive” doesn’t have to mean that you’ll never change it - just that you won’t change it tomorrow.
In general, your blog should no longer be “in testing”. If you’re still trying out plugins, enable and disabling features, testing stuff… it’s too early. Finish those tests first.

After all of that, unleash hell! Unless you’re a small child, or a Christian fundamentalist, in which case, unleash heck!

EDIT: An important exception: suppose you have just registered your domain, but the site won’t be “live” for some time; in that case, add it to Google (at least) as soon as the domain is up and you have something there - even a simple “Under construction” page. The reason for this is the Google Sandbox - it usually affects “new” sites, and if Google has known about yours for months, it won’t be seen as “new”. But do all the submitting again when your site goes “live”.

New blog: "The Games of my Life"

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Pedro Timóteo

3 years, 1 month ago

in Console games, Fun stuff and PC games

. 0 Comments

I’ve been in the mood to write about computer/video games - including old, 80s games. But I don’t want to innundate this blog with those posts, so, I’ve created another blog (hmm, that’s a subject for a future “Blogging Tips” article…): The Games of my Life.

In it, I’ll write about games. A lot of nostalgia, but there’ll also be new (or even future) hits. I’ve been a gamer for 25 years, so I think I have a lot of material to write.

Blogging tips #2.2: What to write about?

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Pedro Timóteo

3 years, 1 month ago

in Blogging and Blogging tips

. 6 Comments

(NOTE: this is part of the “Blogging tips” series)

First, a disclaimer. I’m not trying, in any way, to dictate what your blog is/will be about! If you have an idea, a vision, something you want to write about, by all means, do so! This part isn’t about nullifying your choices, but about giving you new ones.

This may be useful, though, if you haven’t decided yet what will be the theme of your new blog, and you really want it to be successful. Or maybe you already have a blog, but want to start a new one in parallel, possibly to expand your horizons, and also earn a little money.

I can’t choose the subject for you. What I can do, however, is give a few tips:

To be successful - and profitable -, a blog will require regular posting. Not a couple of times a week. You should aim for 2-3 posts a day. They don’t have to be long ones, and they don’t have to be “works of art” - sometimes (depending on the subject) a link to a new, related article, plus a couple of paragraphs with your opinion, are more than enough. But what makes people come back is regular posting (I’ll talk more about this in part 9 - Quantity). Are you ready to commit yourself to this? Yes, this includes weekends. Unless this is fun to you, it will feel like work. Even then, it can be one of the most interesting “jobs” out there… but don’t fool yourself, it does require commitment.
If money is one of your goals, it will require a lot of patience. While you’ll probably get your first check in less than 6 months, it will take a year of more (of regular posting - see above) before you are earning more than $50-$75 a month. To quit your job (assuming you’re not filthy rich or have other sources of money), it will take 2 years or more. Blogging can earn you a lot of money, but trust me: it is not a “get rich quick” scheme. It’s not “quick”, and it’s, in a way, hard work - though it can be a lot of fun at the same time. It will take a lot of time and effort before you can buy a house from blogging.
Finally, the blog’s subject. You thought I forgot? First, it should really be something you care about. Don’t think something like “blogs about digital cameras make a lot of money, so I’ll create a blog about them, even though I couldn’t care less about cameras or photography”. Remember, there are already a lot of blogs about digital cameras, and most of them will be maintained by people with a passion for digital cameras. You can’t really compete with those. Your passion is a requirement. One of them.
Be prepared to read and research a lot. No matter what your blog is about, you can’t succeed without subscribing to at least a dozen of related blogs, plus a couple of search feeds. And those are to be checked, and read, daily. If you have a job and kids, it will be very hard to find the time to do it every day.
Your blog should have a topic, and stick to it most of the time. Don’t try to make a blog about everything and the kitchen sink - it won’t work, unless you’re already a celebrity.
Ideally, that topic should be something with a high demand and a low supply. Such a theme is getting increasingly hard to find, but it’s still possible.
Is there enough… well, “action” in this theme that you can write something new about it every day? For instance, a blog about some band that split up in 1986 (and remained split) may exhaust its subject in a month or two…
Finally, think about whether you’ll still want to do it after your initial enthusiasm has worn off. A lot of bloggers post a lot at the beginning, but after a while they slow down, lose enthusiasm… and then they wonder why less and less people visit their blog.

An Anti-Spam gateway #7: MySQL

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Pedro Timóteo

3 years, 1 month ago

in Email, Spam and Unix / Linux / *BSD software

. 0 Comments

(NOTE: this is part of the “An Anti-Spam gateway” series)

Time for MySQL. We’ll be using it just for storing the bayes tokens, not for per-user configuration (because, in this case, there is none) or anything else.

Note: if you already have a working MySQL on the server, being used for something else (this isn’t Windows, you can use the same machine for several different things :)), just skip to the next part.

So, go to http://dev.mysql.com/downloads/, choose the General Availability Release (it’s the top one - at this moment, it’s version 5.0), then scroll down a lot until you find the Source Downloads. Get the .tar.gz file. Uncompress it, enter the directory, and then…

export CFLAGS="-O2" export CXXFLAGS="-O2 -fno-exceptions -fno-rtti" ./configure --prefix=/usr/local --localstatedir=/var/mysql --sysconfdir=/etc --without-innodb

(note: your browser may have split the “./configure” line in two. It starts with “./configure”, and ends with “–without-innodb”.)

then do the usual

make make install

If everything went well,

mysql_install_db

and start the server with:

mysqld_safe --user=mysql &

Then assign a password to the MySQL root account (which is not the OS’s root account!):

mysqladmin -u root password "newpwd" mysqladmin -u root -h host_name password "newpwd"

Replace “host_name” with the correct one, and “newpwd” with something else, of course.

Now, for efficiency, you should have an /etc/my.cnf file with several options set manually. The MySQL sources include some examples in the support-files directory: my-small.cnf, my-medium.cnf, etc.. Copy one to /etc/my.cnf, edit it, then restart the server. Nope, I won’t give detailed instructions for that here… read the MySQL docs at http://www.mysql.com.

Next: how to create the bayes database, and how to configure SpamAssassin to use it.

Familiarity with inefficiency is no excuse for perpetuation of inefficiency

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Pedro Timóteo

3 years, 1 month ago

in Microsoft, Software and Work

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While reading some reader responses to a Microsoft guy’s rant disguised as an “editorial” about OpenDocument, I found a phrase that was almost… shocking, in the way it simplifies and clears a truth that many people ignore or simply don’t understand.

“Familiarity with inefficiency is no excuse for perpetuation of inefficiency.”

Unfortunately, many people (most of them wearing suits and ties) fail completely to understand that fact, and believe otherwise: that everyone in the company is completely stupid and incapable of learning anything new (I wonder why they keep those people employed, then…), and so, the only factor to be considered in what software to use is “what we’ve been using before”. No matter how bad, unstable, insecure, slow, inefficient it is. “It’s what we know”.

Imbeciles.

A little experiment…

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Pedro Timóteo

3 years, 1 month ago

in Blogging, Search engine optimization (SEO) and World Wide Web

. 1 Comment

Since a few minutes ago, I’m trying out a little experiment with ping services (Pingoat, in this case) and blog exchangers.

I’ll run the experiment for a couple of days. If it works, I’ll let you know.

Sid Meier’s Civilization IV

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Pedro Timóteo

3 years, 1 month ago

in Fun stuff and PC games

. 2 Comments

It’s almost out… about one week remaining. Here’s the new Civilization IV web site.

And a screenshot:

If it’s as addictive as the first 2 Civs, or as Alpha Centauri… I foresee unslept nights ahead.

Blogging tips #16: Making money from your blog - AdSense: which ads? And where?

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Pedro Timóteo

3 years, 1 month ago

in AdSense, Blogging and Blogging tips

. 0 Comments

(NOTE: this is part of the “Blogging tips” series)

At last, the long awaited (I hope) part 16!

Google AdSense offers many ad formats: big, small, horizontal, vertical, with or without images… so, which to choose for your blog?

The answer, of course, depends on several factors. And there probably isn’t a single one: it’s likely that you’ll be better served by using different ad formats in different places.

Also, if you have other sources of money on your blog, such as affilliate ads, it may affect the number and position of AdSense ads. But affiliate programs are a subject for a later part.

A few tips, then:

usually, you want the appropriate ad for a particular section (a vertical ad for a vertical section such as a sidebar, and a horizontal one for the rest).
the ad should be as big and noticeable as possible, without, however, drawing attention away from the content. Content is king. You don’t want your blog to look like an “ads blog”. People see those and close the window (or, if they’re intelligent, close the tab :)).
a large, horizontal ad at the top of the page, either with the page’s color scheme, or with a different one, which fits nicely, tends to work well.
vertical ads on the sidebar aren’t as good, but can complement the top ones nicely.
ads at the bottom are usually ignored. In general, don’t bother.
avoid “Link Unit” ads (go to https://www.google.com/adsense/adformats, they’re the ones at the bottom). My experience with them has been dismal: 0 (zero) clicks in two weeks. It’s possible that in other kinds of blogs, or using them in a different way, they work… If so, I’d like to know how.
on individual article pages, an ad after the text can work well.
I haven’t used these yet, but I intend to: ads between articles in the main page (but only a few - no more than 2 in the whole page). Some people seem to use them quite successfully. These ones will probably work better either using the site’s color scheme, or a very similar one - they should be different enough so that people notice them, but not so different that people just skip them without even consciously looking.

Credit card rates that will please you!

An Anti-Spam gateway #6: Razor

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Pedro Timóteo

3 years, 1 month ago

in Email, Spam and Unix / Linux / *BSD software

. 3 Comments

(NOTE: this is part of the “An Anti-Spam gateway” series)

Vipul’s Razor is a piece of software for accessing a large database of spam messages. By installing it, and configuring SpamAssassin to use it, you can, among SpamAssassin’s other tests, see whether a particular message has been previously reported as spam by other people. You can also report messages yourself.

It’s not a perfect system, but the best way to use SpamAssassin is by combining several methods of checking spam. This is simply one more.

Note: although I have previously said that I won’t be offering different alternatives, as this is a “recipe”, for Razor I’ll make an exception. If you don’t want to use it, simply skip this part and move on to the next.

Continue reading ‘An Anti-Spam gateway #6: Razor’

Nokia E61

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Pedro Timóteo

3 years, 1 month ago

in Gadgets and Mobile phones

. 1 Comment

Now this - the forthcoming Nokia E61 - looks interesting. Scratch that, it looks more than interesting. I wonder how fast one can type on that keyboard…