2006 January | The Tlog - a technology blog

Monthly Archive for January, 2006Page 2 of 4

Blogging tip: promoting blogs that link to yours

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2 years, 10 months ago

in Blogging and Search engine optimization (SEO)

. 1 Comment

I won’t say I “invented” this thing, but it’s a fact that I’ve never seen it mentioned anywhere, and I’ve been reading the feeds for several sites on blogging for months…

Maybe I’ll eventually expand this to a part in the Blogging Tips series. But, for now, here goes…

The tip is this: suppose you discover that some blog has linked to yours, or one of your posts. Always nice to know, isn’t it? To see that someone appreciates what you write, and finds it useful and/or interesting.

But… why not go a step further? Why not “give a hand” in promoting that other blog - especially if it’s less popular than yours, or newer, or owned by someone who doesn’t know (or care) about optimization, pings, SEO and all that?

I’m not suggesting you do a lot of stuff, but there are quick, small, easy things you can do. For instance, if that blog doesn’t ping anything, maybe do a quick ping for it in Ping-o-Matic or such, which will mark it as newly updated, and make several blogging services crawl it. Maybe you can check whether it’s listed in BlogShares, or whether Technorati, BlogPulse and others know about it. If not, why not add it to those yourself?

What for? Well, for a start, you’re, in a way, saying “thank you” for the link, and helping that other blog in return. But you’re also doing it for yourself:

The more visitors that other blog gets, the greater the chances are of someone clicking on that link to your blog;
The more popular, and well indexed, that blog is, the more “valuable” that link to your blog becomes - for PageRank reasons, and others. Remember, in terms of SEO, some links are worth much more than others, and a link from a popular site is always more valuable.

I’m not suggesting you do this all the time, for any link to your blog you discover. First, after a while, they will simply be too many. Second, this is worthless if the other blog or site already knows about blog promotion, pings, and all that stuff. Third, if the other site is more popular / older than yours, your actions won’t probably make any difference.

But if you have reasons to believe that that person has never done anything to promote his/her blog, then this certainly can help - both them, and yourself.

How to find out who links to you? If you’re a regular reader here, you’ve probably already read Who links to you?.

The Bush administration’s attack on privacy

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Pedro Timóteo

2 years, 10 months ago

in Google and Search engines

. 0 Comments

You’ve probably heard of a couple of such attacks, recently. But have you heard the latest one? They apparently want Google to disclose search data. Google is refusing.

The most worrying thing is that MSN and Yahoo! have already complied. Still feel comfortable using them?

Of course, the government doesn’t say it’s attacking privacy. It says it’s doing it “for the children”. In another blog of mine, I have written an article called People and they stated goals. It’s about how, by saying you’re doing something (whatever it is) for some noble cause, it apparently excuses anything you do, and demonizes anyone who criticizes you. That’s what’s happening here:

Jack Samad, senior vice president for the National Coalition for Protection of Children and Families, a Cincinnati, Ohio-based advocacy group, said search engines should be willing to help the Bush administration defend the law.

Samad said: “Young people are experiencing broken lives after being exposed to adult images and behaviours on the Internet. I’m disappointed Google did not want to exercise its good corporate branding to secure the protection of youth. I think [complying with the subpoena] would substantiate the basis of Copa if they get a free exchange of information on youthful use of the internet.”

But in which way would getting “millions of search records” help in that? That’s what they don’t say. And where does it end? Anyone can abuse a child at home, so why not install government cameras in every room of every single home?

I sometimes think you could get away with killing children by saying you were doing it “to protect the children”…

Blog "cleanup" checklist

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Pedro Timóteo

2 years, 10 months ago

in Blogging

. 0 Comments

In cre8d design, there’s a Blog Cleanup Checklist (link first seen on ProBlogger), listing some things you can do to “clean up” your blog. Most of the potential problems the tips check for are mentioned in one or more parts of my Blogging Tips series, but it’s nice to have quick ways of checking for them.

The suggested tests include testing your blog in other browsers, changing the font size, disabling stylesheets to see if the blog is still “usable”, disabling images, checking the total page size, and so on. All good ideas.

Firefox 2.0 alpha coming soon?

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Pedro Timóteo

2 years, 10 months ago

in Browsers, Unix / Linux / *BSD software and Windows software

. 0 Comments

According to PCPro, yes.

This bit is intriguing:

As many of the engineers involved in the Firefox project are now also working for Google, it comes as no surprise to discover that improvements are planned for the integration with search. The objective is for the browser to adapt to the user’s search needs, rather than forcing a particular view of search on them.

Version 2.0 is expected to create a simple, flexible system that unifies all search back ends, make adding keywords easy and more obvious, allow for engines to be added and removed easily when upgrading and allow for simple configuration for business needs.

Among other things, they also mention “improvements to the tabbed browsing and other user interface enhancements”. Should be interesting…

Portuguese Blogging tips: writing well

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Pedro Timóteo

2 years, 10 months ago

in Blogging

. 0 Comments

For the Portuguese-speaking readers: I have written two completely original parts for the Portuguese version of the Blogging Tips series, A Arte de Blogar. Both of them are about how to improve your writing; I’d guess they’d be useful even for non bloggers. They’re in Portuguese, though… I may, in the future, translate them and add them to the English version of the Blogging Tips series. (if you recall, that blog was supposed to be a Portuguese version of my series about blogging, but, yesterday, I thought - why not create new, original content? And why not write about writing, which most “blogging tips” sites on the web always seem to ignore?)

So, without further ado, here is the first part, and here is the second. I hope you enjoy them (though you probably won’t, unless you speak Portuguese).

No such thing as "blog" or "blogger"?

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Pedro Timóteo

2 years, 10 months ago

in Blogging

. 5 Comments

An interesting article in AdAge.com argues that a blogger is just a writer with a cooler name. The author writes:

And it occurred to me that there is no such thing as blogging. There is no such thing as a blogger. Blogging is just writing — writing using a particularly efficient type of publishing technology. Even though I tend to first use Microsoft Word on the way to being published, I am not, say, a Worder or Wordder.

It’s just software, people! The underlying creative/media function remains exactly the same.

In a way, this is something that I’ve argued before, with a friend, who knows of my “live from blogging” aspirations and has warned me several times about the possibility that blogging is just a fashion, and if it goes away, I’d lose all my income. My answer has always been that a blog is nothing more than a web site - and, unless the Web as we know it - indeed, the Internet as we know it - change completely, there’s no danger that people will stop being interested in blogs - because they never were! What they’re interested in is content, and it’s there whether you use WordPress, Blogspot, Dreamweaver, or edit the HTML by hand.

Any opinions?

Firefox: 20% in Europe, 15% in the U.S.!

Published

Pedro Timóteo

2 years, 10 months ago

in Browsers, Unix / Linux / *BSD software and Windows software

. 0 Comments

20% is a really nice number. Not only because, well, it’s a lot of people, but because, unlike the MS fanboys/apologists usually say, Firefox isn’t just used by “geeks” or “technical people”.

Because, sure as hell, geeks (and I consider myself one) don’t comprise 20% of the world’s population. Not even 5%.

This proves that ordinary, non-technically inclined people are also capable of being aware of Internet Explorer’s many problems and lack of modern features, and when aware of alternatives (and here I have to praise Spread Firefox for doing a great job in letting people know that “Internet Explorer” is not “The Internet”), can actually switch.

(Source: XiTi. It’s in French, but the images speak for themselves.)

Now playing: Jets’n'Guns

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Pedro Timóteo

2 years, 10 months ago

in PC games

. 0 Comments

Jets’n'Guns is a shoot’em up. One of the best I’ve ever seen - I’d rather not say “the best” outright, but I sure can’t think of a better one right now.

It’s a mix between R-Type and Tyrian, being closer to the latter. Technically, it’s certainly the best I’ve seen, with fantastic graphics, sound, music (by Machinae Supremacy), and never slowing down in the slightest. It’s also extremely varied, with lots of different scenarios, levels, enemies, mission objectives, weapons, ship upgrades, and so on.

If you like shoot’em ups, you owe it to yourself to at least download the shareware version, from the official site. Me, I bought it in a second ($20), and I have zero regrets.

Just for fun: counting one’s blog posts

Published

Pedro Timóteo

2 years, 10 months ago

in Blogging

. 0 Comments

A small script to do a bunch of SELECT COUNT(*) FROM wp_posts; and add them together, a bit of MRTG, mix, and… a thoroughly inspiring way of seeing how many blog posts you have written in all your blogs, and how they are growing:

www.dehumanizer.com/blogposts/blogposts.html

Still below 650. Must work harder…

New blog: “A Arte de Blogar”

Published

Pedro Timóteo

2 years, 10 months ago

in Blogging

. 2 Comments

That’s Portuguese for “the art of blogging”. It’s basically the Portuguese version of the Blogging Tips series, but also includes random posts about blogging (much like this one does).

Still in the beginning, and most of the content will be translated from here, but it should be useful to Portuguese language speakers.

So, here it is: A Arte de Blogar.

The location of your sites

Published

Pedro Timóteo

2 years, 10 months ago

in Blogging and Search engine optimization (SEO)

. 1 Comment

I’ve read - I’m not sure, but I think it makes sense and is probably true, at least to a point - that the geographical location of your sites or blogs - that is, where the server(s) they are hosted in is, physically - matters - and maybe it matters a lot - in terms of SEO.

In other words, if you have a blog, for instance, and it’s hosted in Canada (maybe you live there and have it at home, or maybe you chose a Canadian company), then it’ll get great results in searches in www.google.ca (Google Canada)… but it will be “hurt” in “normal” Google (www.google.com), for instance, appearing only in the 2nd or 3rd page, even though, otherwise, it would show up in the first couple of results.

If this is true, it means that a local site should really be in its appropriate country, but it also means that an “international” (or “country-less”) site, such as this very blog, should, in order to have the best possible hits from Google, be hosted in the U.S., since a lot of people use the “international” Google instead of the “local” one (me included).

And all my sites are hosted in my home server, in Portugal. (They also share the same domain, but more about that later.)

Maybe, in a couple of days, I’ll try moving one of them to a U.S.-based hosting provider, to see whether it makes a difference. It’ll cost me a little, but if hits visibly improve after a month or two, it’ll be more than worth it.

By the way: do you (yes, you! :)) have any experience in this matter?

Thunderbird 1.5 relased

Published

Pedro Timóteo

2 years, 10 months ago

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

. 0 Comments

Much like Firefox, the last RC - in this case, 1.5 RC 2 - is the same as the final version. If you already have that one, you have the latest Thunderbird.

For everyone else, you can get Thunderbird here.