Archive for the 'Blogs' Category

May 11 2008

Going Blog Crazy: Is Having Multiple Blogs Sane or Insane?


Is it an addiction? Or is it normal? Is it a warning sign? Or is it just a passing phase? I think, it is a bordering addiction.

Oh, I don’t mean you, obviously. But you know what? I’ve just uncovered around 10 blogs I created since 2004. There could be more, but I cannot be so sure. Some of these I uncovered by Googling my name, pen name, nick name, and all the names I remember calling myself. Some of these blogs have little to no content, and some have a couple months of content.

Despite this discovery, I still created 3 new blogs in the past 4 days. D Yipee! Oh no, I refuse to disclose the URLs of the blogs I created in the past, nor the URLs of the newly created ones. In time, I will, so sit back and enjoy the ride.

I did cancel one though. I closed the blog I made last month which was a health blog. Why? Pretty much because I no longer have time or the patience to focus on health. Things just got a lot busier and now I am strapped for time. No worries, though, because I still have a healthy nutty bone in me which is pushing me to be healthy. But any update on that will most definitely be read here.

Speaking of health, I was supposed to jog this morning, but I skipped out. Why? Too tired. D Ask me again in a couple of days, and I’ll tell you.

So… latez!

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May 02 2008

Mindanao Blogs for the Top 10 Emerging Influential Blogs for 2008

I am inviting all bloggers, especially those who are from Mindanao, to submit your nominations for the Top 10 Emerging Influential Blogs for 2008. The Top 10 Emerging Influential Blogs is an initiative of Miss Janette Toral of the Digital Filipino Club.  The project, which started last year, aims to recognize ten new outstanding blogs who [...]

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Apr 19 2008

Rock around the clock


I tried my best to get there, but the ground was just too slippery. And so I failed. Instead of managing to provide a post for April 19, I ended up with April 20. *sigh* But that is A-okay.

It might seem odd to find me here, posting away at 12:07 a.m. (or whatever time it is when this gets posted). I haven’t done that in years. Maybe back when I was still at Tabulas. But ever since I stepped over the hedge and landed flat here at Wordpress, 12:08 a.m. is not exactly a time for me to blog. But, here I am. You wanna know why I am online tonight?

Well, let’s just say that somebody went out and that left the computer for my demolition. har! har! har! The kiddies have gone to sleep already, as well as the whole house. Only the sound of my giant claws pounding the keyboard can be heard. [well, not exactly, there are other noises but these must be one of the loudest.. :P]. I miss this!! I must admit, though, my eyes are getting really droopy. My goal was to wait for Dhirrac to come home, then I realized that sounded rather pathetic and soooo…wife-like that I have resolved not to pursue with my intentions.

I have another reason, too. In around 4 hours and 20 minutes, I shall be up and about - again - in preparation for the walking date I have with Daphy and Reygen. Yeahp, we’re gonna go a-walkin down the street to the boulevard of broken dreams tomorrow early morning. After that, I do not know what shenanigans we might get into. hehehe.. But I think I might be busy tomorrow aside from the heaps of chores and other things to do.

Sometimes I do not understand myself. Why do all these ideas keep popping out of my head when It is supposed to be filled with other stuff… like… clouds of white and winds so light.. anyway, I believe that I am doing a good job entertaining those who even bother to stop by. *waves* Hello earthlings!! P

In other news, Never Dainty is gaining some people. I am still quite frustrated since I feel that it has been online for ages, when in truth, it has not hit its 30 day mark yet. Still… Oh I do wish it was already a month so that I could do more with it in terms of moneytizing. ;)

Be a doll and drop by there, will you? *muwah!*

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Feb 03 2008

Cebu bloggers meetup

If you’re a blogger based in Cebu, please drop by at the iBrowse Internet Cafe near Cebu Doctor’s University at the North Reclamation Area on Thursday, Feb. 7 at 6:00 p.m. We are organizing a short blogger meet-up there with the indefatigable DigitalFilipino founder Janette Toral.

Janette will be in Cebu for a workshop on Web 2.0 applications and Internet marketing on Feb. 7 and 8. She is also working on a project for bloggers’ involvement in the 2010 elections. We talked about it last year and agreed it would be great to gather Cebu bloggers to talk about blogging and the elections.

During the meetup, she’ll be talking about her project.

I’ve started projects on blogging but have lately gone off-tangent (from blogging, that is), working on a few personal projects that involved more writing and a bit of coding—using advanced customization of WordPress. After several talks of a meetup failed to push through, it will be great to finally meet Cebu-based bloggers. Please feel free to drop by at iBrowse on Thursday. If you’re going, please confirm your attendance with me.

If you don’t know where iBrowse is, here’s a map to the place.

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Aug 21 2007

Enhancing blog comments with avatars

I’ve just re-enabled Gravatar support for this blog. Gravatar, for globally-recognized avatar, is a service that publishes avatars or graphic representations of people who comment in your blog. Check out my previous posts to see gravatar in action.

I used the service some time last year but stopped it after a few months when I encountered problems.

To get your own Gravatar, just sign up for an account at the Gravatar website. Prepare a square image and then upload it to the site. Associate the image with your e-mail address and you’re done.

gravatars1
SIGN-UP for a gravatar account to have images show up next to your comments.

With the service, the image you picked will show up whenever you leave comments in blogs and websites that support Gravatar. Make sure you use the e-mail address associated with your account when you post comments.

If you are a website or blog owner, check these guidelines at the Gravatar website on how to implement the service. The service has its own WordPress plugin but I’m using the plugin written by Skippy and now maintained by ZenPax. The plugin allows local caching to deal with problems on server congestion in the main gravatar site.

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Aug 17 2007

You want someone to represent the Philippine blogosphere? Get Sybil

Blogger Jayvee Fernandez caused quite a ruckus in several Philippine blogs recently when he accused Janette Toral of “misrepresenting the Philippine blogosphere” for her own merit.

Clueless that I was, the first person I asked, via IM, about Jayvee’s “Bloggers, MISrepresent” post was Janette. She then told me that she suspected that she was the subject of the post. The two, it seems, have now settled the issue. Disclaimer: Janette writes a weekly column for the newspaper I work for but I do not deal with her.

I will not deal with Jayvee’s criticisms of Janette’s presentation. But I don’t think his criticisms are enough to support his allegation that Janette misrepresented “the Philippine blogosphere.”

But a core issue in the whole exchange is something that I feel strongly against. Some people have this unfortunate tendency to box blogging–and the people who practice the craft–in.

Bloggers, including Filipinos, are a varied lot. We’re not a clone army.

Some make a living off their blogs, others don’t. Some are journalists who blog, others are bloggers who are now also journalists. Some blog to get laid, others get laid off because of blogging. Some are atheists, others are devoutly religious. Some use WordPress, others Blogger, Multiply, Serendipity, etc. Some are link whores, others are plain whores (and I love them for it). Some are good cooks, others are kitchen disasters waiting to happen.

To represent such a diverse group of people, you need to have an extreme case of schizophrenia.

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Aug 16 2007

Upgrading WordPress Lightbox plugin

I just upgraded the Lightbox 2.0 plugin I use for my WordPress installations. I use Lightbox 2.0 extensively for snazzy image loading effects in my blog and all the other sites I run. The script loads images in an overlay window and dims all the other parts of the page.

Lightbox plugin LIGHTBOX FOR WORDPRESS. The Lightbox plugin I use for my WordPress installations now works with the WordPress post editor. Click on photo to preview Lightbox effect in loading larger version of image.

You can try it out with the photo that comes with this post (it won’t work, though, if you read this on an RSS reader or in your e-mail, you have to go to my blog).

In the new version, WordPress Lightbox 2 0.6.3, the lightbox button now works with the WordPress post editor, albeit only in the code view. In previous versions, you had to save the post before the lightbox button appeared. The new version only supports WordPress 2.1 and higher and uses the Prototype and Scriptaculous library that come bundled with WordPress. The new version now allows you to easily enter group names for photo sets.

In upgrading from earlier versions, I suggest you disable the plugin and then delete the entire folder before uploading the new version. I tried just overwriting the plugin and encountered errors.

For more on how to use Lightbox to implement snazzy image loading in your blog, check my tutorial in this post.

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Aug 15 2007

go ride magnolia fragrance malu f!

toni buzzed our yahoogroups about this malu fernandez woman who wrote an article for people asia magazine talking about her trip to greece and being stuck in an economy seat with OFWs. while she brand-name-drops her way throughout the entire article about her cavorting in greece then to boracay, malu fernandez makes the mistake of bashing her countrymen at her self-declared private hell of the plane's economy class. it has created such a stir in the blogosphere that there are reactions from all over. they're all quite interesting reads, from what i would term as uupakan kita, jologs na may Louis Vuitton bag retorts to the poor woman who thinks her poop is gold doesn't know better entries. other entries about it here, here and here.

my reaction to toni's email was, "isasakay ko tong babaeng to sa magnolia fragrance papuntang tawi-tawi, tingnan ko lang kung di siya masuka sa louis vuitton bag niya!" (i'm gonna put this woman on magnolia fragrance to tawi-tawi and let me see if she doesn't puke in her LV bag!). and my reaction to her article, "you're mouth and mind needs some lysol itself. some of your gold are stuck up your arse, too."

she also makes a retort here. an excerpt:
As I type this, I’d like you to know that it’s not about whining, complaining and bitching but just stating the facts. Just recently, I wrote a funny article in my magazine column and my friends thought it was hilarious. It was humorous and quite tongue-in-cheek, or at least I thought so, until the magazine got a few e-mails from people who didn’t get the meaning of my acerbic wit. The bottom line was just that I had offended the reader’s socioeconomic background. If any of these people actually read anything thicker then a magazine they would find it very funny. Most people don’t get the fact that they need bitches like me to shake up their world, otherwise their lives would be boring and mediocre. I obviously write for the a certain target audience and if what I write offends you, just stop reading.
puh-leeze. some people with lower socioeconomic background are better bred than you are. even if all they get to eat are noodles and rice to get by and you get to stuff yourselves with escargot and champignon (which is just the sosyal way of saying suso at kabute, noh). we may not be your target audience, we middle class people, but we can read and we know when we are being put down.

people asia publishers, why did that article made it in your pages in the first place? i know your mag is all about the finer things in life, one that majority of us can not afford... but to actually put down hardworking people who just want to give their families the comforts that you enjoy everyday... it's inexcusable. you're like a voldemort-controlled daily prophet who just employed rita skeeter.

i did stop in my tracks about my reaction and wondered... might have i done the same? might i have put down people of different calss? i had to review my entry about that magnolia fragrance ride to be sure whether i deserved to bury my head in shame as well. for most part of the entry, i thought... damn shit, letse rin pala ako! but thankfully, i saved myself from further shame by ending it with saying that it was a lesson of humility for me. whew. however, i realized that i should really be more conscious of how i deal with those who are different from me. because i definitely do not want to be like this woman.

i used to envy these people living the good life... to just be able to get things easily without needed to scrimp too much just to get it. but then, after all this... i'd rather learn to respect people without regard to their cash or class.

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Aug 09 2007

When a blogger strips

I’ve been tagged by Sol. The meme involves sharing eight facts that your readers don’t know about you. Here are mine:

1. The other woman

Rhythmbox says I have 243 Nina Simone songs in 20 albums. That’s 15 hours of the High Priestess of Soul’s music. As of last night, my Last.FM profile page said I’ve played Nina Simone’s songs 531 times in my Linux laptop (the only unit I use with my Last.FM account.)

In my Sony Ericsson K750i, I have at least 50 Nina Simone songs. I have several Nina Simone CD compilations I repeatedly play at home. When our youngest son can’t sleep, I play her music.

My wife, just last night, asked me “how many times have you been playing these songs?”

I first heard Nina Simone sing in, of all programs, BBC’s HardTalk. During the interview, she told Tim Sebastian, the program’s host then, “I need a cigarette. You’re making me hot.” The diva that she is, she smoked during the interview.

If you ask me my favorite Nina Simone songs, it would be “The Other Woman,” “My Baby Just Cares For Me,” “Don’t Let Me Be Misunderstood,” “Wild is the Wind,” “Sinnerman,” “I Want A Little Sugar In My Bowl,” “Mr. Bojangles.”

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Jul 03 2007

People Search Through Blogs And Social Networks

People Search Through Blogs and Sociable Networks

Everyone’s doing it. You’re probably doing it too – and if you’re not, you cognize people who are. It’s been around a long time, but it’s only recently that it have go the large thing it is. Just as telecasting hits used to elicit H2O ice chest conversation, blogging is the new hot subject all over the world – both online and in every twenty-four hours conversations. Blogs are everywhere you look on the web nowadays. Almost every web site have a blog and if they don’t, they probably will soon. It’s the “happening thing” on the internet today.

So, what is a blog? In the simplest definition possible, a blog is short for a weblog, which is a frequent, chronological publication of thoughts, news, and web links. However, a blog is also a mental representation of the personality of the writer and/or web site who prints the blog. Blogs range from personal thoughts, similar to a diary; to reviews on movies, books, music, etc; to specific tips for business and personal niches – basically, a blog is any idea, thought, or belief the writer have and desires to express. Blogs are also a portion of the online societal web as they encourage remarks on each specific posting.

This societal web that emerges is one of the more than interesting facets of a blog. Before blogs became the mainstay, internet societal networking relied on, for the most part, electronic mail list-serves and message boards.

An electronic mail list-serve is a grouping of electronic mail computer addresses in which the participants all have got a common interest. They have got voluntarily added their electronic mail computer address to whichever peculiar list-serve(s) lawsuit those interests. Whenever any of the members of the list-serve stations an email, it is delivered into each of the subscribers’ electronic mail box. The basic thought of a list-serve is to compound those who share the same career, hobby, or other interest into a cohesive listing for networking through the usage of emails.

A message board is simply an country dedicated, again, to a specific interest and/or subject on the web where visitants are encouraged to comment. Some message boards are for members only and these members either need to be portion of the larger organisation attached to the message board or they need to pay a fee to be able to see private countries of the message board. While this may sound similar to a blog, it have a few very core differences. The chief difference is a message board doesn’t usually have got one chief writer who primarily stations the original subject which encourages comments, but rather, an in progress separation of subjects started by different individuals.

While both of these types of societal webs still exist, and flourish, a blog offers a sense of instant satisfaction for both the original writer and for those posting their comments. Also, as mentioned before, a blog is, in most cases, far more than personal to the writer and/or web site which began the discussion.

Blogs are immensely popular worldwide. In the United States alone there are over 8 million blogs in being on the web. Why are they so popular? What is the entreaty for people to not only make their ain blog but also for those reading and posting to blogs? Some of the grounds are as follows:

  • Information – for the reader, dozens of information from the original viewpoint of the writer and then further spots gathered from the comments. Often, this gives the reader more avenues to accumulate information at one beginning before moving on to another. Also, it allows everyone concerned with the blog the ability to more than readily see other points of position on any subject that is being discussed.
  • Personality – for both the original writer and the authors of the follow-up comments, being able to express a viewpoint exactly how they desire to, in their words, is a cardinal motivator. For those who only like to read blogs and don’t station their ain comments, getting a birds-eye position into another person’s mind is often exhilarating. It’s kindred to reading someone’s journal with permission.
  • Self-Publishing to a World-Wide Audience – for both the original authors and the writers of the follow-up comments, a blog offers instant exposure to anyone who chinks on the appropriate nexus to access that peculiar blog. Also, with rss feeds (methods of distributing golf course or syndicating content) to other blogs or web sites, the audience can indeed go world-wide. For those wanting to get their sentiments across to a large amount of people, blogs are an first-class manner to enable this.
  • Increase Business – any business can gain from enabling a blog on their web site. This is because blogs be given to increase traffic to the site the blog is located at. Once viewing audience are there to read and remark on that day, week, or month’s blog entry, they may just take some time to look into the remainder of the site – which can, and often does, lead to increased revenue.
  • Immediate Feedback – the ability for readers to supply contiguous feedback by virtuousness of authorship their remark to the original entry is appealing to both the readers and the original author. If the original writer is looking for specific feedback to enable them to travel ahead in some word form of action, this is extremely utile to them. For the reader, being able to refute something they differ with, and offer additional light on the topic, or to add more than of an penetration if their sentiment holds with the original author’s is an added inducement not establish in other word forms of internet media.
  • Sense of Community – for all those involved with a blog, a sense of community set ups itself over time. The writer and the readers develop a kind of chumminess with each other, as well as a strong engagement with each other via the blog. They incorporate the blog into their day-to-day life.
Because of this popularity; societal networks, blogs in particular, are literally a nimiety of information available for the taking. While this often have more than to make with the general subjects of discussion, it can also help in online probe techniques.

From conducting background checks to people searches, blogs can help you in nailing down to the point facts. This is a huge field for locating possible information on another individual you are trying to learn more than about, or even to simply find. The basics, however, are actually pretty simple.

  • Start with any of the online search engines and simply type in the name of the individual you are seeking background information on. Also, delight short letter – there are specific search sites that focusing their searches on blogs – these tin be immensely useful. Regardless of what type of search engine you use, if they have got a common name you may get numerous hits. Tips to assist you are:
  • Research each nexus you get. While you may garner plentifulness of information this way, you may also happen countries you’re not certain are relevant. Brand short letters of these spots of information and bookmarker the sites linked so you can happen them again easily later.
  • Use whatever identifying information you have got got on this individual to confirm or negate the golf course you have found.
  • Once you have got done the above, collect any information you make find. Maybe the nexus brought you to a web site on a specific interest, such as as collecting old-timers – now you cognize an interest of your topic you may not have got got known before, which open ups up further countries of investigation.
  • Often, specific interest web sites, message boards, etc., volition necessitate a individual to go a member in order to post, which intends they will have a login name for that site. In many cases, these login name calling are noted ALONG WITH the individual’s existent life name. If you happen a login name at any of the golf course associated with the person’s existent life name, compose it down.
  • Most people utilize the same, or similar, “handles”, inch every state of affairs that they have got to subscribe in to utilize a service. Now you have got another keyword to utilize as search criteria. Try this on yourself if you are doubtful…use your personal login name as search criteria and see what protrudes up, you’ll probably be surprised at how often stations you have got made are linked for the world to see.
  • If you’ve establish a login name, or several, that are connected to your individual, start the search over with that name and look into those hits.
  • When investigating the hits, you desire to be on the lookout man for any and all information that may be useful. If in doubt, compose and nexus everything down for future reference. Facts you may happen from blogs, message boards, and other beginnings of online societal networking include:
  • Facts on the individual via a profile, which may include name, general location of abode (i.e. country, city, state), countries of personal and business interest.
  • Other affiliations, both business and personal, that you can then follow up with to turn up further information. Maybe there’s a reference of rank in an organisation that have a web site and blog and/or message board of their own. You immediately have got another possible beginning for locating more than information.
  • In blog remarks and message board posts, personal information the individual typed. Anything from the name of their domestic dog to the name of their spouse, children, place of business, university they attended, where they vacationed – anything is possible. It pays to be thorough and read every word. People be given to associate subjects to themselves and their ain lives, which will intend referencing those facts when writing.
  • Seminars, conferences, and societal get-togethers the individual have attended in the past – which will lead you to possible approaching events they may be planning on attending in the future. Most of these types of events print a listing of registered attendees for public viewing as it assists addition additional attendance.
  • Links to other blogs and message boards the individual is involved with may be associated with any stuff the individual have written.
  • And the jackpot – A life on the individual. Often, especially if they have got their ain blog and/or web site, you will be able to happen a life about the individual you’re attempting to turn up more than information on. Biographies discourse everything from household to business to personal facts on the individual they are written about.
By utilizing blogs and other societal networks, you can happen information that you wouldn’t otherwise. Bash not go forth out this of import measure in any probe you are undertaking on an individual for whatever reason. With blogs as highly popular as they are, opportunities are with patience, deliberation, and a focused search you’ll discover many other avenues to help you in your investigation.

Remember – any activity 1 undertakes on the web go forths paths of that person. Locating and then following those paths are an extremely of import measure to take in ANY investigation.

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Jun 12 2007

Reinvigorate releases desktop software to track website visits in real time

Website metrics service reinvigorate has released a software that allows bloggers and site owners to view visits in real time on their desktop. Snoop, the desktop client, streams website visits and data. As soon as someone visits your website or goes to another page, you’d know about it.

reinvigorate snoop SNOOP. The desktop client of reinvigorate allows you to view website visits in real time. Click on photo to view larger image.

I’ve previously written about reinvigorate here. Last night, I tested the Windows version of the software and it was fun to monitor visits in this website and in another site I help run. Reinvigorate tracks visitors’ path through your website and it was fascinating to watch it in real time. Reinvigorate assigns tracking IDs to each visitor so it can monitor how they got to your site, the pages they visit, and the time they spent in the site. You even have the option of actually putting a name to the tracking ID if the visitor is registered to your site.

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May 08 2007

Reinvigorate: the best hosted website metrics service I’ve tried

Hot on the heels of the release of the Automattic Stats came the sending of invitations to the beta version of Reinvigorate, a hosted free website metrics service that appears to trump most of the free website metrics services available today.

A day after installing and using the service, I think Reinvigorate is the most impressive website metrics package I tried. (Blogger’s note: the images in this post were taken a few hours after I installed the tracking code for the service). I found it so impressive that I immediately used it for my other blogs. Normally, I’d try out a stats package in this blog and then after a few weeks, I’d use it for the other sites I manage.

reinvigorate website metrics VISITOR PATHS. Reinvigorate tracks the pages readers visit in your site. This feature is very instructive and will tell you whether you did enough to provide links to related pages or articles. Click on photo to view larger image.

What distinguishes Reinvigorate from other hosted website metrics services I tried is that it tracks “paths,” the trail of web pages a reader visited in your site. The data it provides is really enlightening. I haven’t found a comparable feature in the several blog and website metrics services I’ve used.

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May 07 2007

Organizing photos into albums in Zooomr using SmartSets

Published by Max Limpag under Blogs, Free services, Highlights

Blogger Jhay Rocas sent me an e-mail a few weeks back to inquire on how to organize photos into albums in Zooomr, akin to the sets in Flickr.

I host all my photos in Zooomr not just because the service offers unlimited photo uploading but, more importantly, its terms of use is more lenient. Unlike Flickr, Zooomr allows you to link a thumbnail to a larger version of the photo and not just to its photo page. I need this feature for the snazzy image loading effect I use in this blog.

Organizing your photos into sets or albums in Zooomr is simple, it’s just a matter of assigning unique tags to it. Zooomr has a SmartSets feature that allows you to organize photos.

To simplify the use of sets, use the juploadr tool to upload your photos. The tool simplifies not just the uploading process but also the editing of the photos’ data—its titles, captions, and more importantly, tags.

Before uploading the photos you want to organize into sets, assign them unique tags.

When the photos have been uploaded, click on the Build a SmartSet link on the sidebar, under the Things To Do heading.

You will be taken to the page that will help you build the set. Once there, you have the option to group photos according to: their tags, the time they were taken or uploaded, the owner of the photos, the people in it, the photos’ geo-tags, and even the number of views.

What I’d do is create a set based on the unique tags I assigned to a series of photographs. I’d then add another criteria to include only photos I own. This will prevent photos of other people who may have the same tags to appear in my set.

After creating the criteria for matching photos for the set, you will then be asked to enter a title for the set as well as a short introduction to it. When you click on the save button, the system will then go through your photos and organize these into sets based on your matching criteria.

Unlike Flickr’s free account, which limits you to just three sets, Zooomr allows you to build multiple sets.

If you want to add photos to your set, just assign it tags for that set.

Here’s a short video on organizing photos into Zooomr SmartSets. In the video, my first attempt to group the photos failed because while I assigned the photos the tag “rhythmboxk750i,” I used as matching criteria “rhythmboxk750.” I fixed it by editing the tag:

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May 06 2007

WordPress offers hosted blog metrics system

Published by Max Limpag under Blogs, Free services, WebTech

Automattic, the company behind WordPress, has released Automattic Stats, a hosted blog metrics system. The system, deployed as a WordPress plugin, allows those running WordPress on their own servers to have the metrics system already in use in the hosted WordPress.com services.

I’ve long drooled over the metrics used in WordPress.com, where I keep a personal and largely-neglected blog. The stats package is simple and keeps tracks of the important stats a blogger wants to know: number of visitors, top posts, referrers, search engine terms used to find the site, incoming links and which links in your site readers clicked.

automattic stats WORDPRESS.COM STATS. Bloggers who host WordPress on their own servers can now get stats already in use in the hosted WordPress service. Click on photo to view larger image.

What’s good about Automattic stats is that the service is hosted in WordPress.com servers. Andy Skelton said in the plugin’s homepage that “because all of the processing and collection runs on our servers and not yours, it doesn’t cause any additional load on your hosting account. In fact, it’s one of the fastest stats system, hosted or not hosted, that you can use.”

I use several blog stats packages, many of them remnants of services I tested for a blog post. But the stats package I check most often is Site Meter. This is almost embarrassing considering that I have a MeasureMap account. But the ease by which you can check Site Meter stats, clicking on the Site Meter button and not having to log into another website, makes this the metrics system I check by default. I also use Google Analytics but it’s a service I check maybe once or twice a quarter.

With Automattic Stats integrating the blog stats in your WordPress admin section, I can see this becoming my default blog metrics system.

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Mar 31 2007

Winning in the Philippine Blog Awards

In 1997, someone told me I’ll never understand FTP. Last night, I won in the best technology blog category in the first-ever Philippine Blog Awards.

What difference a decade makes, huh?

The colleague who told me I won’t be able to grasp FTP probably never meant it as an insult. He was grumbling on being given the added task of sending magazine pages via FTP to the server of a Hong Kong-based company. He was right to grumble, imagine the upload speeds in 1998. I asked him what FTP was and I think he meant it to be a brush-off when he said I wouldn’t be able to understand it.

I’ve gotten more familiar with FTP, among other things, since then.

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Mar 20 2007

shameless plug

Published by anj under Blogs, Travel, adventure

once i was biyaheng mindanao. that blog tried to chronicle my experiences of the sights and sounds and feelings of going around mindanao for work. then things changed. i had to morph into the cross-eyed bear.

but there is no denying the mole on my foot. it itches to travel. to see places. to feel the grains of sand on the beach. the road less traveled. to discover every possible nook and cranny of this country. anywhere place i can drag myself to.

at the same time, i desire to be a virtual tour guide. to guide people to places i have been. to take them on a trip and explore with me the wide wide world.

so i started a travel blog. drop by BIYAHENG PINAS.

note: non-multiply users may go to this BIYAHENG PINAS.

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Jan 28 2007

Nice work if you can get it: Ella sings and WordPress blings

Published by Max Limpag under Blogs, Open source, WebTech

I took the plunge. This blog, as well as a host of other sites I run using WordPress, is now using the latest release of the popular open source blogging software: WordPress 2.1 “Ella,” named after the great Ella Fitzgerald, one of my favorite singers.

I did not encounter errors in the upgrading process, which took less than an hour for all the blogs I oversee. I am, to continue with the Ella theme, in the mood for “making whoopee.”

Major upgrades, like WordPress 2.1, are not to be taken lightly. I botched a major Serendipity upgrade oh so many years back (my fault) and lost at least 50 blog posts. On hindsight, though, the posts are better off in digital limbo.

WordPress update CPANEL FEATURE. Cpanel allows you to upload a packaged file (i.e. zip, tar) and then uncompress this using a point and click interface. This saved me time in uploading new WordPress files while upgrading several blogs I run. Click on image to view larger version.

Unlike security releases, which I implement as soon as I read about them, I usually take days to upgrade to a feature release. This gives me time to read about problems of others who took the plunge earlier. The major cause for worry with the latest WordPress version is the compatibility of plugins for your website blings.
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Jan 16 2007

WordPress blog maintenance checklist

Published by Max Limpag under Blogs, WebTech, planner

Unlike blogs hosted in such services as WordPress.com and Blogger.com, weblogs installed in your own server need regular checks and maintenance. Failing to do these checks can leave your blogs sluggish and even vulnerable to security problems.

If you use WordPress to run your website, at the minimum, you need to be on the lookout for new releases (one has just been released as a write this) of the blogging engine. You also need to regularly check updates on such things as your theme and the plugins you are using.

Blog tasks checklist WORDPRESS BLOG CHECKLIST. My checklist for tasks related to running a WordPress site. click on photo to view larger image.

I used to keep track of these tasks using an installation of activeCollab, an open source project management software that mimics Basecamp. With the recent Internet connectivity problems caused by that earthquake in Taiwan, I decided to track blog management-related tasks on paper. This way, I can prioritize whatever time I can spend online on really important tasks.

I created this blog maintenance checklist as reminder of tasks I need to do as well as tracker of such things as version numbers of plugins and themes.

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