Problogger group writing project - my favorites

After reading all the blogs, commenting on most, I think I have found what I would consider my favorite posts on the topic posed on Problogger.net. Here they are in no particular order.

Discovering More Time by Steve
Brand Your Blog From Day 1 by Eric
But Don’t Look Back in Anger by Jan
Kill Fifty Birds with One Stone by Curt
12 Things I would do if I had to start my Blog again by JohnTP

Here is the link to the entire list of participators.

I really enjoyed this little exercise, and learned a lot. Unitl next time.

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Great little hack for tracking time

I've been a long time reader of lifehacker.com. I download the occasional "daily download", use the todo.txt file, and have implemented several other tricks. But this one, the worklog.txt file, created and maintained by a simple script file and opened with CTL+ALT+L (for Windows OS), made this little hack my all time favorite. Why? The simplicity. I am at my PC a good amount of the day, and I am doing various tasks for various clients. This is going to be a great way for me to quickly start and stop tasks. Thanks Gina.

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The vision for this blog… would I do it again?

Over at ProBlogger, Darren has started a great thread asking the question, would you run your blog the same way? It is an interesting question. I've enjoyed reading how many other well known bloggers answered the question. Now Darren has put the question out to all his readers. So, I thought I would take a stab at it.

When I first started blogging, back in 2002, I remember the terror attacks of September 11, 2001 were still fresh on every ones mind, including mine. I'm a former United States Marine. I'd been out of the service for quite some time when the attacks happened but my sense of duty was running high. I knew I wasn't in a position to re-join my brothers, but I could be vocal about supporting them.

I was reading a copy of Java Developers Journal when I came across an article by the editor, Alan Williamson, and he mentioned a "blogging" service his company started called blog-city.com. So I did some poking around, and started my first blog. It was all about military stuff, specifically, Marines. I had a pretty good little following. It's something I discovered happens when your blog is part of a community. You tend to have a lot of readers from that community. But as time went on I expanded the blog to cover other issues, and inevitably, hosting my own blog with WordPress.

The question then, would I do it all over again, I would have to answer with a resounding yes. I've learned more over the past several years because of my association with blogs than at any other time in my life. My current blog, digitalthom.com, is going through a sort of transition. From something that was a hobby, to something that will actually make me money. I don't want to be a professional blogger like Darren, but I do think my blog can be an integral part of my business.

The things I would do differently would be to have better meta words, better content, and longer relevant posts. Something that would continue to draw people in. I've really been looking at AdSense (because there appears to be a lot of people making money), so, I'm trying to figure out the best way to implement it in my blog.

So yeah, I'd do it all over. For starters I would be a little more focused on what I know and how I can add value, but at the end of the day I'd still be doing this stuff. I'm really getting into podcasting and hope to expand my blog readership by expanding my podcasting.

Thanks Darren for giving others the opportunity to share.

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Star Trek XI in 2008

I've been following the news about a new Star Trek movie, dubbed Star Trek XI for a while now on TrekWeb.com, and this morning got a tip on new swag for the next movie looking to be out in 2008.

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Old but worth watching again

This is an old commercial from Super Bowl 2006, Honoring Our Military, but its worth watching again.

High Speed
Medium Speed
Low Speed

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Widgets broken with Now Reading

I was really struggling trying to figure out why all of a sudden the widget configuration stopped working. After doing some digging around, I found this post on the Wordpress Forums, and that's all I needed. It was the Now Reading plugin. Disabled it and now I can configure the widgets. Hmm, I wonder if there is an update.

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Removing sharpie ink from white board

I inherited a dry erase board (white board) that someone had used permanent marker on. I really didn't want to spend money on a new board and it was the right size. It has sat leaning on my office wall for the past few weeks. I keep meaning to try and figure out a way to remove the marker. But I guess I'm too lazy. But today, I quickly put "remove permanent market white board" in google.com and the first entry, Mom's Budget, gave me the answer.

I thought, there is no way putting dry marker over the permanent marker would remove the ink. But low and behold It worked. It's not perfect and there is some residual that I suppose will never come off. But when I clean it with the special white board cleaning solution, I hope it will be almost good as new. So thanks Mom's Budget for helping me out today.

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The Four Agreements

I just finished reading The Four Agreements. Very interesting book. Don Miguel Ruiz did a pretty good job with this book. It's a little too touchy feely for me, but it gets the point across.

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When I tell you your web site is broken, it is

I've been involved with software development for many many years. I've done everything from writing code to testing products. I think I've learned what a really good interface is and how to make them better. So, when I stop by your web site and tell you that I think it's fantastic, has a lot of great content, plenty of reasons to come back, but clicking on the links to each menu header returns a 404 error, I'm telling you the truth. Don't come back and tell me that there couldn't be anything wrong, I was just using the web site this morning.

First, I don't take the time, every time, to let a webmaster know there is an issue with their site. But on occasion, I think its important enough that I send a quick note so the errors can be fixed and you quite looking like a bunch of morons who know nothing about web sites. Second, if someone is courteous enough to actually tell you you have a problem, don't make them feel stupid or tell them thier crazy; or ask if you can help them buy something?

Ha, I think not. You can't kick you customer in the balls then ask them to buy something from you.

Chris Prillo has a great post on Feedbacking. A process to help users and developers communicate easier. I love it. Great thought Chris.

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The Treo 700p, it’s faast

About a month ago I purchased a Treo 650. I'm not a palm person, I actually like the Windows Mobile operating system much better, but my office mates use the Treo and I wanted to be able to communicate with them a little easier. I know I know, it shouldn't have made a difference, but it did.

After a few weeks with the 650 it started to act funny. Kept losing preference settings and I could never get connected to the network. I called customer support several times and they helped me enter some codes and got me running again. But the third time was it. I couldn't keep calling into customer support to get the issues resolved any more. So I asked for a new phone. Nope, can't have one. You must take it to a repair center first. So I did. The guy at the repair center said that he would have to replace something in the phone to fix my problem and that I would lose all my data. No problem I have a back up.

When I went back in to pick up the phone, I noticed that nothing had been reset. All my data was intact. So I asked the person who was helping me what was repaired, he said "I don't know. But that will be $50 please." Sprint, you have a munch of morons working for you. Great customer service. Too bad I don't have a choice of carriers because after this experience, you wouldn't be my choice any more.

In any event, I was fortunate to get a replacement phone. But instead of getting the 650, I got the 700p instead. Man, this phone rocks. It still has the same Palm OS, but the hardware is much nice. Better keyboard, and the internet connection is so much faster. I'm happy at the moment. No problems. I can my email at any time and I can listen to my favorite podcasts while on the go.

Sprint, you still suck. Palm, nice phone.

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