I upgraded to WordPress 2.3 finally last week after reading that Kyles blog was hacked. I’m sorry that Kyles blog got hacked, but it did help the rest of us actually upgrade! I am a procrastinator when it comes to upgrades, but I didn’t want my blog to have any issues which some have surfaced and I haven’t had time to correct just yet. The biggest difference I noticed was that WordPress 2.3 now uses Google Blog Search within the dashboard to display recent posts that have linked to you.
Current dashboard listing from Google Blog SearchI have seen a lot of complaints about Technorati in the past few weeks and I have noticed a lot of maintenance myself when trying to use the website. But after having Google in my dashboard for only a week I’m officially missing Technorati and may just have to go in an revert that part of the code if I get desperate enough.
Technorati helped me see daily who has been linking to me, see my blog reactions. This allowed me to thank other bloggers for linking to me and just stay in touch in general. I didn’t realize that Google was not displaying all blogs linking back to me or at the very least most of them. From what I can tell it does not update as often as Technorati or maybe it just doesn’t include all blogs?
Another thing I noticed about Google is that it is displaying my own posts too! I do remember Technorati doing this sometimes, but all I see in my dashboard right now is pretty much my own posts which doesn’t help me network with other blogs or know who is linking to me in the blogsphere.
After a few other bloggers let me know they were going to be linking to me but I didn’t see it show up on my dashboard I when to Technorati to discover that there are a lot of blogs linking to me, but are not displaying in Google Blog Search. This is disappointing because it is the one thing I like to keep up with, even if I’m not doing anything else I like to thank other bloggers for linking to me.
I just want to apologizes if I’ve missed a post you’ve mentioned to me on, I plead guilty of relying on Google. Also I want everyone out there who does similar to check Technorati directly, because right now Google Blog Search is still in Beta for a reason and sucks – in my very humble opinion.
The original thought for my blog was the webmasters guide to the galaxy, which is a play off the funny movie the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. Now in this movie, they get lost quite often so I thought I’d throw in a quick guide on getting lost in cyberspace:
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Lose all your passwords. Fastest way to get lost in cyberspace is to loose all your passwords. Whether your password program database gets deleted or note paper you’ve been jotting your passwords on gets eaten by the dog, your royally screwed without your passwords.
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Forced to change your e-mail address. Your friends, family, and even your bank can’t find you! This is especially bad when you lose all your passwords, but can’t have them e-mailed to you because you can’t check your old e-mail.
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Bookmarks getting deleted. If you’ve ever had the misfortune to have your bookmarks deleted, you will know what a nightmare it is.
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Searching Google.com for the word ‘cyberspace’ Actually you could probably search for any word at Google and get lost quite quickly.
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Getting your username banned. You could sign-up for a new username of course, but starting all over and getting recognized by a new username can be harder than you think.
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Not checking your RSS reader for a few days. You will certainly get lost if you don’t check your feeds. It is mindblogging to have 100’s of unread posts.
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Going to hotmale.com instead of hotmail.com There isn’t much more to say than just that.
The last one is a little tricky and I didn’t link to it on purpose. I can only suggest when you start to get lost in cyberspace, to return to your homepage as quickly as possible and try another route. Or just do regular backups of your passwords and bookmarks, and the rest will probably sort itself out!
This Breast Cancer Awareness month. Take time to learn about the issue and how it affects yourself (even if you are a man) and others. There are some great resources provided by Cancer.org.
Thanks to all commentors this week, but I only list my top 10 (including ties). This week holds a variety of interesting reads:
Thanks guys and gals, you have all been Stumbled too!
The week has been slow for me, but this next week holds some new changes and to get back into the thick of things. Don’t forget that at the end of October I will be going on a 2 week trip. Will need a few guest posters to fill in for me, if you are interested please contact me. Everyone have a great weekend!
Blogger is a very popular free Blogging platform, but each free blogs comes with the same exact default favicon that Blogger is using. You can help set your blog apart by getting your very own unique favicon plus there are a lot of benefits with having your own favicon. This post is in response to menopauseprincess. She asked about Blogger blogs having their own favicon.
Creating or finding your favicon
If want to create your own favicon, you can follow my guide on creating your own favicon. You can also find a free favicon from the 20 free favicon resources I have collected. I’ve used both unique and free favicons, I just try to use a favicon that represents what my website is about or something that is rememberable.
Uploading your favicon
You will need to find an alternative host for your favicon because Blogger does not host custom favicons. A lot of free file hosting services will not host .ico file types, so these are not good options. If you don’t have your own web hosting account, there is a service called myFavatar that will host your favicon for free. Flickr will allow you to host .ico files also, so if you have an account there already that may be a good choice.
Linking to your favicon
You will need to do some updates to your templates in order to get your favicon to show up. This part might get tricky, so if you need any additional help please don’t be afraid to ask. To edit your Blogger templates, after you login go to “Layout” –> “Edit HTML”. Now you will need to add the following line of HTML between the start <head> and end </head> tag:
<link rel="shortcut icon" type="image/ico" href="http://example.myfavatar.com/favicon.ico" />
Make sure you update the location of your favicon to the exact web location where you uploaded your favicon. If you do use myFavatar to host your favicon, they will actually provide you with the exact code to paste into your templates.
Testing your new Favicon
Typically when you save your templates and reload you should be able to see the new favicon. But occasionally there may be settings in your browser that may prevent your favicon from showing up, so you may need to reload or clear your cache in order to see it right away.
September has been an excellent month for BlueJar.com! I am simply amazed at the growth and I am happy to report that I’m sure the group writing project has helped a lot. (This is just a little nudge to encourage others to run group writing projects too!)
Linkbacks
The group writing project has certainty boosted the amount of linkbacks I have. I currently have 821 reactions at Technorati placing me at 11,804 and 343 authority. This is a huge improvement from last month with 366 reactions, authority of 195, and my rank was 24,535. It is all just a numbers game, but being a stats whore the numbers look nice.
RSS Readers
Last month I had a hard time reaching my 60 RSS subscribers, so I decided to not make a goal for this month. On the 15th I published my RSS subscriber chicklet, however before that I was still seeing healthy subscriber rate. It wasn’t until my group writing project ended that I saw a sharp rise in my RSS subscribers pushing me over 100 and on the highest day I actually reached 133! I think a combination of the group writing project and actually displaying my RSS feed count helped with the sharp rise. Thanks to everyone that has subscribed to my RSS feed!
Comments
What can I say? Comments are just the juice of my blog and I thank all of my commentors for contributing their feedback. Last month I had 322 comments, September has really outdone itself and brought in a total of 535 comments bringing my total comments to 990! Just 10 shy of 1,000. Thanks again to my commentors!
Website Traffic Stats
Unique visitors this past month reached 11,432 with a total of 23,102 page views. This is a great improvement from last month:
Thanks to StumbleUpon for the majority of the traffic and this month my search engine stats have really gone up too. I’m very happy that I’m gaining more search engine visitors and hope to keep growing that number:
Top Posts for September 2007
Last month I did a separate post for the top posts, but I thought it fit in nicely into my monthly update. Here are Septembers top posts:
Goals for BlueJar.com
This month my main goal is to just keep posting. It pretty much has been my goal from the start, but now more than ever that is what I need to focus on. My secondary goal is to get a few guest bloggers, as I am going on a trip at the end of the month. contact me if you are interested.
I want to just send out a special thanks to my subscribers and to all of my visitors. This blogging adventure continues…
