Square Galaxy » Blogging

Top 9 of 2009

Jacob — Thu, 31 Dec 2009 18:24:58 +0000

Here are the top 9 most visited blog posts that I wrote in 2009:

Special thanks to Google Analytics for providing the data from which I was able to create this list.

Board games I would like to own As a followup to the list of games I own,...
My secret blog A few months ago there was a discussion on ProvoPulse.com...
Things that make me happy Ice cream Pumpkin Pie Photos My hanging plant Dilbert...

Wordpress plugins that I use

Jacob — Thu, 13 Aug 2009 16:29:11 +0000

One of the major advantages of blogging with Wordpress is that there is a wide variety of plugins available. I thought I would briefly share the plugins that I make use of on this blog.

Acronyms automatically finds acronyms and wraps HTML tags around it.
Akismet come standard and does a very good job at filtering out comment spam.
All in One SEO Pack helps optimize things a little bit for search engines.
FD Feedburner Plugin connects my blog’s feed with the Feedburner service.
Google XML Sitemaps creates a sitemap of pages, helping search engines to find all the pages.
Ozh’ Who Sees Ads allows for detailed control of the people who will see advertisements.
Permalink Redirect makes sure that pages/posts are only viewed at their official permalink address. This helps with SEO and with blog migration.
WP Super Cache puts less load on my server by caching pages.
Yet Another Related Post Plugin is the first related post plugin which I’ve considered to do a pretty good job at automatically finding related posts to display.

I’ve also used a variety of lightbox, thickbox, and other such pluggins, but I’m not sure which one I would recommend.

Upgraded to Wordpress 2.2 About 9 or 10 hours ago, Wordpress 2.2 was released...
Wordpress Upgrade Wordpress upgraded to 1.5.2...
Wordpress Upgrade to 2.0.1 I recently upgraded from Wordpress 2.0.0 to Wordpress 2.0.1. The...

Getting caught up

Jacob — Tue, 19 May 2009 17:01:22 +0000

Sorry I haven’t blogged much recently. There have been some big events in my life, and I’ve been meaning to blog about them, but they are significant enough that blogging about them seemed daunting enough that I procrastinated. I’ll get caught up soon, so stay tuned. No related posts. No related posts.

Happy 700 and counting

Jacob — Fri, 13 Feb 2009 13:33:17 +0000

A couple of days ago, I published my 700th post. I can’t beleive that it has gotten that high. I wrote my first post four and a half years ago, and have been writing, on average, a post every two or three days. My 300th post came only two and a half years ago, on June 6, 2006.

Since I’ve started, I’ve split my blog into four parts, and then combined them back to one. I been at two domain addresses, and have had tens of thousands of web site visitors, over 12,000 in the last year alone.

My most popular post was, perhaps, a short article about the meaning of the name Jacob. While there have been dozens and dozens of posts which probably tie for the least popular.

Thank you for reading and commenting on my blog over these

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Top blogging categories

Jacob — Mon, 17 Nov 2008 20:42:48 +0000

Today I looked at some visitor statistics for this blog over the last month. Specifically, I looked at the average number of views in a category normalized on the number of posts in that category. I found that my top 5 categories are, based on number of views per article:

Insights: 6.6 views per article
Reviews: 4.5 views per article
Religion: 3.7 views per article
Technical: 3.6 views per article
Politics: 3.1 views per article

The category in which this article is posted, Blogging, is the worst category, with about 0.2 views per article.

Googling is a word Google can, at your option, keep track of things you’ve...
Average age of my ward I ran some stats today about the average age of...
Posts by hour Here is a graph that shows when I do most...

Blog names that lost

Jacob — Tue, 30 Sep 2008 23:49:33 +0000

It took me quite a while to decide what to call this new blog of mine. I kind of felt like I was playing a game of “Blog Name Survivor.” Here are some of the loosers, and why they were voted off the island:

http://0.02dollars.com – This was suppose to be a reference to “my two cents” but it didn’t catch on with the people I asked about it.

Frenzied Fruit – A few people thought it was catchy, but in the end it was better as a name for a smoothie than for a blog.

Organic Words – This one didn’t catch on very well.

Better if used by – There were too many other variations of this phrase: best if used by, better when used by… I felt that this name would be better if used by someone else. It also just didn’t look very good typographically.

Ladder of Jacob – I don’t even own a ladder, why would I name my blog after one? In the end, it just didn’t feel like something I wanted to name my blog.

Solar Blueberry – I loved this name, but it didn’t stick with other people.

Questions are Welcome – Too long!

Feet ahead of me – This one escaped from me.

Black Hole Escape – I really liked this one, but it escaped from the island before it could win. I personally didn’t like the two e characters in a row. I also think it was too nerdy for a lot of people.

Smashed Sunshine – It sounded too morbid, drug related, or otherwise kind of weird to be used. Although it was a cool name, it didn’t have any special significance to me.

See Reverse Side – This would have been good for a political blog, but it didn’t have enough jazz to win.

Green Paper Pad – I really liked the reference to a green pad of engineering paper, but in the end, it sounded too environmental.

Most of these names are avaailable as a .COM domain name. If you want to use one of these names for your own blog name or website name, feel free. I would appreciate a note so I can feel good about being inspirational.

Domain Names I went looking for domain names today, and I found...

Welcome to my new blog

Jacob — Sun, 28 Sep 2008 01:28:42 +0000

I’ve taken all my old blogs and have migrated them to a new blog here at SquareGalaxy.com. It is still a work in progress, and I haven’t yet forwarded all my old pages yet, but all the old posts are moved and recategorized, and there will be no more posts to the old blogs.

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Blogging complaints

Jacob — Mon, 30 Jun 2008 20:41:58 +0000

I see blogging as the action of writing about and reviewing this thing called life. Sometimes that involves writing about what makes us happy, or what we are interested in. Sometimes it involves voicing an opinion. Other times, it may involve writing a negative review of some aspect of life.

Sometimes, others disagree with what is written.

So, here is my question to other bloggers out there: What sort of negative reactions have you see to your blog posts?

Have you been told to take an anger management class, to quit whining, or to get a life? Do you think these responses are justified?

Why I don’t leave blog comments On a New York Times blog, Stephen J. Dubner asks...
Pilcrows and paragraphs Ready for my next micro-rant? Some people think run-on sentences...
Wells Fargo, stop calling me Dear Wells Fargo, I really want a bank that just...

Jaiku, the microblog

Jacob — Tue, 08 Apr 2008 04:28:27 +0000

I’ve been playing around just a little bit with Jaiku. Its a microblog, or a presence indicator, or an online status syndicator, or something like that. My Jaiku is at http://jwb.jaiku.com. I’ve found that they have strangely appropriate icons to use, and that jaiku isn’t always the easiest thing to type.

If any of my dedicated readers or friends want an invite, let me know. You’ll have to personally know me or have left a comment or something, and I’d be happy to help a friend out. If you are just stopping by hoping I’m giving out free invites, you should look somewhere else. (Hint: try Google searching “jaiku invites”)

No related posts.

Why I don’t leave blog comments

Jacob — Thu, 06 Mar 2008 18:42:47 +0000

On a New York Times blog, Stephen J. Dubner asks why people comment on blogs, although unfortunately, he didn’t provide any more insight over simply raising the questions.

It is a good topic, and I would love to know what causes people to leave a comment so I can facilitate more comments on my blog. I do know why I often don’t leave comments:

Login Required. I hate having to create an account and log in just so I can leave a three sentence comment. The effort is too great.
Nothing of value to add. While the post might have been great or insightful, I personally don’t have anything I could write that would add value to the topic, and I’m not going to spend time to sprawl garbage out on your post.
If I’m going to add discussion to your presented topic, I might as well write it on my own blog so I can maintain ownership of what I’ve written.

If you have any reasons why you do or don’t write comments, please feel free to leave a comment. No login required.

Additional thoughts added March 21: Apparently, users on ZDNet are discussing talkbacks, which is what they call comments over there. I’ve been reading more and more ZDNet posts because I’ve seen them come up in my Personalized News Google Desktop Gadget. Every once in a while I want to add a comment to either add value to the discussion or to challenge the writer. When I hit the register screen, I give up, mostly because it looks too big scary. More than once I’ve written a slightly longer comment not knowing that I needed to be registered until after I tried to submit it.

I don’t know that ZDNet should eliminate registration altogether or allow fully-anonymous comments, but I do think they should make it easier by:

Forcing authentication/registration before the comment form is shown
Simplifying their new user registration form
Allow alternate forms of authentication such as OpenID

I also have to admit to rarely reading other users’ comments. Although when I do make a comment somewhere, I like to read the replies to my comment.

Blogging complaints I see blogging as the action of writing about and...