The previous three posts total over 2,000 words (and grows as i think of things to add). They are also mighty image heavy. I’ve taken over 400 photos in three days but try to be concise in my image selection. So i decided to split the posts so you have to go to the post page to read the full entry. This will make the main psge load faster and not be so long in case you skip a few days and want to read my experience chronologically. By looking at my stats, this will also let me know if anyone is even reading them!
I got tired of having to size my images so small on my site and having the content use about one third of the width of my screens. I checked with google analytics and only 2.6, % of my visitors are running an 800×600 resolution. And of that small segment of visitors, 98% are new visits. So if i’m primarily worried about the browsing experience of my few regulars it makes sense to improve the appearance for a larger screen. So i switched to a new theme and started tweaking css and colors to make it a little more to my liking. It needs a bit more work though. Just what i need to keep me busy for the week before i leave!
I think i’ll make the modified theme available for others to use when i’m done with it.
I made a notable change on a previous post – i made it private. A look at my logs showed that a former friend was lurking and reading (i wrote about him before and he was a bit mean-spirited). I also realized that any efforts i make toward reconciliation will continue to be rebuffed so i no longer wanted my “heart on my sleeve” and instead would like to return to displaying a “stiff upper lip.” But for my future benefit i wanted to hold onto the message and the comments.
But removing the post from the public eye isn’t enough. Google kindly caches many web pages – and a hit to the site using Google’s cache also showed up. This was from a local IP address that i also was able to isolate and determine the source. My privacy isn’t mine when i go public with feelings like that – i know. But i changed my mind and no longer wanted those words available to dangle in front of anyone. But Google saved a copy for anyone savvy enough to find (and she is smart)!
Fortunately, Google also allows you to specify that you no longer want them to archive your pages. Follow these directions to make your content a little less permanent.
It’s too late for me now – but next time i need to eat my words or decide to redact a post it should work out.
I participated in the annal October ‘blog action day’ for the two years It has taken place. Today I received the hardcover book "Causewired" and a tub of ideablob. Yeah – I don’t know about the ideablob. But the book is about modern technology supporting causes. I’ve admittedly not done much "pleasure" reading in the last – oh – decade. But something like this might actually get cracked open. Right after I finish "What Would MacGyver Do?"
Hot dang. I did take a peek at the new Wordpress admin area recently but seeing it first hand is pretty nifty. I like it a lot. I’m so glad i shifted from Blogger so long ago. Any of my blogging friends that want to make the move let me know and I’ll do all the work for you. It’s that good.
Technorati keeps a running list of the “top 100 blogs” according to incoming links. A number of these sites have posted some of my content (some have given credit and others have not). Here’s the list of sites in the top 100 with stuff from me. If the number is in green they gave me credit or a link (or both) and if red they didn’t.
#1 – HuffingtonPost.com used my cropped Palin photo – I have asked for attribution.
#3 – Gizmodo.com wrote about my shopping cart bike.
#4 – Engadget.com wrote about the Nintendo Mouse.
#5 – Lifehacker.com wrote about my greasemonkey script…
#5 – Lifehacker.com also covered the wallet made from an old keyboard.
#17 – Treehugger.com wrote about the shopping cart bike.
#25 – Problogger.net included my post about improving blogging.
#25 – Problogger.net posted my entry in a group writing challenge.
#31 – Consumerist.com has used a number of my photos to illustrate articles. (I linked to the search results instead of the half-dozen actual posts for this one.)
#40 – Joystiq.com covered my Nintendo mouse and…
#40 – Joystiq.com also covered my Nintendo controller card reader.
Well it looks like the world is looking for images of Sarah Palin today. And i have a few. Look at this…
I better make sure my images are watermarked…
I found that the things that i write about change along with my interests. Since i seem to have been writing more about beards and want to document my finds from thrift stores and garage sales i added categories for those posts. I also went back and added old posts to those categories.
Every now and then some spam slips through the filters that Wordpress has. Since I switched to Wordpress to publish my blog, 38,137 spam comments have been caught and not posted by Akismet. I’m ok with having to delete one or two comments manually. But adding the reCaptcha service to the site might make that unnecessary. It also might really annoy some of you that post on here.
But here’s the neat part. I heard about reCaptcha on an NPR story last week. Tens of millions of Captchas are solved by humans daily. And we’re solving these stupid letter and number combinations to log into sites, leave comments, or otherwise prove that we’re human. Well, the inventor of these tests realized that we humans could use our numbers and brains to the advantage of everyone. The captchas that you solve on my site are actually words that were scanned from a book and a computer couldn’t figure out. Well, one of the words is on e the computer couldn’t figure out. The other the computer knows the spelling of and that’s the one that you’re really being tested on. The second word it is waiting for your spelling and a few other people to spell and then it will determine the result based on the majority. Using this technology will allow our millions of entries to transcribe old issues of the New York Times and books for the Internet Archive. More info here.
I found that i really missed the valuable information that AXS provided regarding my site visitors. I was using Google Analytics (which I’m still using) but it couldn’t isolate IP addresses (probably over concerns over people’s privacy) or give much more than very generic and vague information on site visitors. I’ll still use the service they provide but it doesn’t let me really drill down and see what is going on with my site. I made a small modification to the code to allow me to see users that have switched to Firefox. I also resumed tracking Myspace with AXS.
Here’s a good example of some data that AXS shows me.
So this person from oag.state.ny.us did a google image search for “french doors installation” and my photo was somewhere between 19-38 in the results. This was at 6 AM (Pacific time so at 9 in NY). I looked up oag.state.ny.us and…
…it is the Office of the Attorney General. Someone in Albany installing a french door?
