Website Update – Organisation
It’s been a while since I’ve wrote on this blog and there have been many reasons for this. If you have multiple blogs/sites then trying to balance projects with real life can get tedious.
At work chances are you use a program such as Microsoft Outlook to keep tabs on meetings, to do lists and events. Why not take the same approach when it comes to an online task such as a blog entry, a website update, running a backup job?
One approach could be that you write an article and set it to publish in the future which means that no intervention from yourself or an author is needed, a post and forget scenario. But for other things why not use Google calendar?
Google calendar is still in beta but you expect is what you get. Able to organise your day, week, month adding in items, even the ability to share with friends and family.
As you can see from the above screenshot I haven’t anything on this week, or have I? This is the main point of this post. Technology exists so why not us it? Using such an application can result in being more productive as well as being organised. Putting in an event for an outing, creating a blog post, running an update, or even a brainstorm session can help get motivated. From next week I am planning on using Google Calendar to help organise my busy schedule 
Cuil Search Engine
It would seem that several ex Google employee’s have created there own search engine called Cuil (pronounced cool).
Home page states at time of writing you can search 121,617,892,992 web pages. The textbox is ajax enabled which means that it shows you suggestions as you type. Results are returned differently from the likes of Google or Live and displayed in a 3 column paper style design. Once the results are back you can change the view from 3 columns to 2 and turn “safe search” on or off.
One thing that does jump out is the fact that there are no ads, and no sponsored links. It’s clean and fresh. I think it’s about time that someone changed the width of the goal posts and brought something different to the table.
Certainly a search engine to keep an eye on. Check it out for yourself. If you’re a webmaster and wish your site to be indexed by cuil then you have to send them an email.
Word Press Themes
It’s been a while since I took a trip over to http://wordpress.org/extend/themes/. Tonight I thought I would have a nosey.
It would seem that the themes area has been re-vamped. At current time of writing it would seem that there are only 48 themes on the system but show more than 45,000 downloads. No wonder there has been this amount as some of the themes look amazing. I remember previously when looking for a theme for this site that alot were outdated, very blocky and not very nice to look at.
The experience has of changed to. I found it easier to search, preview and download a theme. I did consider trying a couple but I am happy with my current one.
Podcast kicks revisited
At the beginning of the month I wrote about podcastkicks.com. What I failed to mention in this post is the following : If you submit a podcast and you have entered your google adsense id in your profile, 50% of the ads are yours. You have the possibility to earn some money while helping a community grow.
One thing I’ve not seen yet is a regular blogging podcast?
If you’re a podcaster and just released a podcast why not submit it. Possible earnings and traffic for you.
Entrecard Design
Ok so I have finally started doing something with the entrecard system and I have to say that my card currently looks plain and simple.
When I first joined Entrecard I found a site that had a variety of different designs that could be used freely. I think it’s a nice thing for someone to take time out to create such items. To be honest I am thinking about using one of them as I am just not that great at graphical design. Chances are I’ll atleast attempt something but will end up using such a generic card until I can persuade someone to personalize it for me
This weekend is when I am going to dedicate time to my entrecard design. I am going to thank Romelo right now though as I sense i will be using one of this designs. Then again though, you never know I might just fire something together that pulls it off. Watch this space….
Entrecard step 1
2 nights ago I started to drop cards on the entrecard system. Previous I just let my widget sit there and do nothing. Now it’s filled with a “featured blog”.
While dropping I have discovered some very interesting blogs. It’s surprising how many people out there who like me blog for a bit of fun. There is however another side to blogging. I have lost count how many blogs I have discovered that want to tell you how to make money.
It’s quite scary how many people are under the misconception that blogging will instantly make you alot of $$$. That’s not the case and thinking like this won’t get you anywhere. The bloggers out there who have made it big, know there stuff, they’ve been doing it for ages. Building a blog base takes a while.
This is where entrecard I think has an advantage for the startup blogger like this one. While there are entrecard users who power drop whereby looking at content of the blog isn’t on there mind. There are other bloggers who do take the time out to maybe skim, read and even comment on a post.
For the last 2 days and probably for the next week I will dropping 50 – 60 cards as I want to take sometime to look over some of the blogs I am dropping on. Alot of varied subjects out there in the blogsphere If you are an entrecard user or you have a blog you think I will be interested in reading why not comment?
Dreamhost – Free .com domain
Are you looking for a Free .com domain? Well, the answer is dreamhost. All you need to do is head over to dreamhost and enter the promotion code : DHFREEDOMAIN
With dreamhost you’ll get 500gb of diskspace, 5tb of bandwidth of which over the duration increases. Not only do you get the regular functionality most other hosts have such as one click installers, account back, mysqladmin, but they’re also environmentally friendly. All from only $5.95 a month. Check it out for yourself.
Would you comment?
I think part of blogging is giving something back to the readers. 9/10 would be the ability to have your name “John Doe” with a link to your site on any comments that are made. Recently I have noticed that couple of sites have turned off the ability to enter your website. What’s the point in that?
This has certainly put me off from commenting on such blogs. Why? Blogging is 2 ways. Usually if you’re commenting on an article you’re either interested in the subject and learning or you’re first hand experience in the subject. Surely this type of interaction benefits both the author and the reader?
Comments are great. If they contain some interesting. This could be a different direction on the subject in hand or maybe some advice that could enhance your thoughts/opinions. With all this in mind it gives me reasoning behind adding the commentluv plugin. What is the commentluv plugin?
Pass a bit of luv onto your commenters by providing a titled link to their last blog post. This plugin attempts to parse the feed of the comment author by visiting their site and looking in the standard locations for a feed. If no default feed is found, it will attempt to parse the users page for a feed link and parse that instead.
* source : http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/commentluv/
This blog is still in birth really but the commentluv plugin I hope will entice readers to comment
Entrecard – Frozen in time
I keep saying that I’ll actually do more with my entrecard but I really don’t have the motivation to. I have discovered some really good blogs that use entrecard but also have discovered some darker side ones. When I say dark side, I mean blogs that don’t have much content and are plastered with adverts, have popups and are very hard to read.
While I think it’s important to earn some cash from online posts I am a firm believer that this takes time and slapping on a shed load of adverts on a 3 week old blog or a blog that has < 1000 subscribers is just a waste of time. There are alot of blogs out there making money online and while being successful it is the result of phased stages and strategic thinking.
I have put on the top of my list to go back to entrecard and start using it to its full potential. Might not be anytime this month, but soon. I have a couple of blogs in my favourites that use entrecard so getting off the starting block should be simple. I hope that using such a system will also bring the discovery of new blogs.
Podcast Community Driven Site
With internet connections getting faster and faster the availability of different types of media is expanding by the day. Many top TV channels are launching “players” that allow users to watch repeats up to 30 days later like the BBC’s iPlayer.
Another form of media is podcasting. There are thousands of podcasts out there each bringing there unique slant to the table. Podcast subjects vary from music, health, fitness and business. While there are numerous podcast directorys out there this site comes with a difference.
The site which is very new has a slant in which it’s driven by the community. When a podcast is submitted the author can add a widget to his or her site with the amount of times it’s been tuned into. The more tune ins the more exposure the podcast gets.
Already I have found some interesting podcasts that I wouldn’t of normally found. You should check it out www.podcastkicks.com
