Bush Mackel

So as I said in a post or two ago, I was guilt tripped by my wife into waiting in line to get her a copy of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. I should first start this off by saying that I tried to read the first book and couldn’t get through it.

My wife on the other hand has read every book and listens to them on CD too. She’s a big fan. The wife has also taken me to all the movies and even while the first one was only “ok” in my eyes, the last couple have certainly been more than decent probably because of their darker tone. Why didn’t she go herself? I dunno. I’m really still trying to figure that one out. Maybe she’s just now realizing the power she has over me. Ok, enough with the back story.

…

I was in the middle of writing all the gory details but you know what? They’re just not that interesting. Here’s the brief recap…I went to Barnes and Nobles and there were probably about 1000 people, most of which were dressed up as wizards, demons, or some combination of the two. I took some pictures with my horrible camera phone and here they are.

The wristband the wife gave me was for #192. As I was trying to find my place in line, this rabid fan was quick to grab my hand and put me right in front of her. She was #193. In a related note, she told us that when are numbers were called (150-200), that we “HAD TO” scream as loud as we could. Of course I was only too happy to comply. I saw this guy right before I actually purchased the book. I think he’s wondering how his plan to put on a cape, painted freckles and a red pom pom on his head didn’t land him a girlfriend…Or friends in general. Of course, this event could not go quietly into the night. In this picture, it looks like Bill Nye the Science Guy put on a wizard’s hat and joined up with one of the forgotten czars of Russia. In Bill Nye’s defense, at least he wasn’t sporting a beard made out of cotton balls (saw like 5 of those), or engaged in a “wizard’s duel” (saw WAY too many of those too). And that was basically my night. WAY too many people, I should’ve scalped both my wristband and another copy of the book, and worse of all. Turns out my wife gave the book to her brother, and listening to the thing on CD that she picked up from the library the next day! (I don’t remember this during my pre-marriage counseling. Curse you Catholic Church!!!)

So I just got back from the local Barnes and Nobles, getting a copy of the last Harry Potter book for my wife. Let me tell you, I haven’t seen that many rabid nerd freaks since Star Wars Episode I came out.

More to come soon.

Part 5 – The Finale!
Some people begged it to end, and I’m sure some people wanted it to end sooner. (#):) But this is the final post in my Start Blogging series. In writing the other parts of the series I’ve really had a good time passing along the little knowledge of blogging that I have, but I’ve also found the process to be restrictive at times because there are so many other things that I’ve wanted to talk about but couldn’t really find a place for…Until now! With the conclusion of this series I’m going to jump around a lot, briefly introduce some “advanced” topics, and also bring to light some of the great comments and thoughts that have been added along the way.

What to Write
We’ve talked about blogging basics, picking a platform, blogging routines, and making friends, but we’ve never talked about writing your posts! And frankly, I don’t know that I’m going to talk about it much here either! Look – Writing is a very individual topic and personally I believe that the best way to figure out what’s best for you, is to start writing. What do you write about? Anything you want. If you can’t think of anything you can either write about whatever comes to mind or you can think about this question, “If you had a million dollars and never had to work another day in your life, what would you love to do everyday?”

Writing the Right Way
And in regards to your style of writing, that is also a very personal thing. However, there seems to be a basic consensus in the blogosphere that an impersonal style of writing works best. After all, who wants to be reading sites that look like the books we read in school? Having said that, there are lots of articles to help you tailor your writing style to help you make your posts more readable for people. You can find a lot of these tips by reading Pro Blogger, but the big ones are:

• Make your posts scannable
• Use Lists
• Don’t get too lengthy or off topic

Alright!, Enough about this stuff. Let’s get on with the stuff you’ll come to know, but will hear about now!

The Big Boys
There are several sites that can easily be classified as “the big boys” of the blogosphere. Thye’re the ones who dispense killer tips, get you thinking in a way that you hadn’t before, and keep you plugged in with the news that you should be aware of. (Oh, and they make serious money). In no particular order here are the big boys:

• Shoemoney.com – While known for his affiliate marketing skills and overall skillz on the web, when most people think about Jeremy Schoemaker a.k.a. Shoemoney, they often think of his picture with his huge AdSense check.
• Problogger.net – Because his site gives bloggers COUNTLESS tips on how to get it down, Darren Rowse’s site is a bloggers best friend. Best bookmark it now so you don’t miss a day of blogging improvement.
• JohnChow.com- When trying to promote a website there are generally two hats you can wear, “White Hat” and “Black Hat”. White hat means you promote your site in an ethical way, being very upfront with people, and taking your links as you can get them. On the other side of things, black hat means you get links back to your site in any way possible, don’t worry about such trivial things as ethics, and will absuse any system along the way to get what you want. That being said, most people say that John Chow’s techniques are “evil” and go on to say that he usually wears a Grey Hat. Nevertheless, he is someone to watch.

Making Skrilla
For those of you that thought I wasn’t going to touch on making money, Happy Christmas. I’m not going to talk about it long, but I will say that you have many money making opportunities available to you as a blogger. Some involve you writing posts for companies, others involve you slapping ads onto your site while yet others involve you linking up with a company that sells your adspace. But whatever the case, know that you’re not going to get anywhere without traffic, AR, and PR. Oh shoot. Am I going to fast?

Has Your Blog Been Working Out?
When you start to get involved with ads, general advertising and sponsored posts, how does anyone figure out how much an ad, click or post on your site is worth? The answer: your site stats. The big ones in the web world are Alexa Rank and PageRank. Alexa.com basically tries to compare your site with all the other sites out there in the world. When it does this, it assigns a rank to you that corresponds with your position in the world, #1 being the best.

Page Rank(PR) is another factor of your site and is Google’s way of saying how important your site is in it’s eyes. Unlike Alexa though, PR goes from 1 to 10 instead of 1 to 4 million or whatever. In a nut shell, the easiest ways to improve both of these rankings are to get traffic to your site and to get links to your site but don’t think you can change things overnight. It takes a lot of hard work and a lot of patience.

The Last of My Thoughts

• Use Google Analytics – It’s a great (free) tool that will allow you to really get a handle on how your blog is doing. This is really a MUST have on your site.
• Use FeedBurner For Your Feed – Another free service just acquired by Google. It makes things so easy for you and your blog, and with Google involved it’s sure to get bigger and better.
• “Be, EXCELLENT to each other. And-PARTY ON DUDES!”

Yes, that last one was absolutely necessary.

Great Quotes – “Thanks to Viewers Like You”

• Joanne – “I started blogging 2 years back with blogger since my marriage was in crisis, and on the process of my recovery. I didn’t care if anyone reading it at first, but I started receiving comments and emails of encouragement, and that’s amazed me.”
• Angie – “I think regularly can be a relative term If you have massive traffic, you might want to post at least once a day. If you are just building your traffic, a couple of times a week will probably do the trick.”
• Danielle had a ton of great insight regarding choosing the wrong blogging platform, so hop on over to the post to get a looksee.
• Opal had great thoughts on so many posts but she really went to town on the blogging routine post, so make sure you don’t miss what she had to say.
• Brown Baron – “…making money from their blogs shouldn’t get in the way of forming new friendships. At the end of the day, it’s your readers and friends that make you rich.”

Conclusion
Blogging is a very dynamic medium to get involved in. You can essentially take it anywhere you want to go so never be limited in what you think you can accomplish by your own imagination or what others will tell you. And don’t get hung up on the tech side of things either!

Blogging is about so much more than technology, it’s about people. So if you’re having a problem regarding the functionality of your site, ask for help. That’s all you have to do to get started. And finally don’t think that this is all you have to know because they’re so much more! But that’s a good thing right? This way, you’ll never get bored.

Thanks for reading the series and if you have anything that you think I’ve missed or would like to add, please let me know!

Happy Blogging!

The service of web host is an Internet hosting service to access a person’s own website accessible through World Wide Web. There is dot5hosting that facilitates individuals and business owners for full small budget functionality. There is a conversation support provided by ipowerweb that has very consistent service standard from last few years. There comes a few minutes pause between both sides of conversation. There is a list of cheapest hosting web that provides great but affordable web hosting services on various web sites. Sometimes it also provides free webhosting domain or offer certain packages regarding webhosting domain.

Hey kids, I thought I’d take a small, (very small), break from my Start Blogging Series and help out Grace on a new meme she’s trying to get started. So check it out, I’m gonna come back and tag some people soon but until then, feel free to grab it and roll!

Start Copy

It’s very simple. When this is passed on to you, copy the whole thing, skim the list and put a * star beside those that you like. (Check out especially the * starred ones.)

Add the next number (1. 2. 3. 4. 5., etc.) and write your own blogging tip for other bloggers.

Try to make your tip general.After that, tag 10 other people. Link love some friends!

Just think– if 10 people start this, the 10 people pass it onto another 10 people, you have 100 links already!

1. Look, read, and learn. *
-http://www.neonscent.com

2. Be, EXCELLENT to each other.
-http://www.bushmackel.com/

End Copy

Tags are coming!

Part 4 – Making Friends in the Blogosphere

As the Start Blogging Series draws to a close, I’m going to talk about one of the bigger “must-do’s” in blogging, finding and making friends. In our personal lives, the importance of having meaningful relationships is evident. Without them we can feel empty, incomplete, and unfulfilled…And the same can be said for your blog.

One is the loneliest number…
Having no friends in the blogosphere means that your little site won’t have anyone looking at it but you. Let’s for a second examine what it means for your blog if it happens to be Mr or Mrs Lonely:

• No comments on your blog because no one is reading it
• No links to your blog or posts meaning it has no chance of growing with new readers
• No readers being enamored by your posts means no subscribers to your feed
• No traffic means no money

And once again, it should be said that if you’re just interested in writing for the sake of writing, you may not have to read this post. But if you want your blog to grow and prosper, continue on!

If you want to make friends, you have to leave your house
Speaking from personal experience, all you have to do is reach out to people. And you can’t very well do that if you never leave the confines of your own blog. You need to visit other sites, make comments and through that try to get to know other blog owners. And even though you could go to 50 random sites a day and drop messages, you probably at first want to try finding sites with a similar theme and writing style as yours. Once you do that, subscribe to their feed, visit them often and make sure you drop comments to let them know you’re there and like all the content! Staying in your niche will ensure that you and the other webmaster have things and common that you can talk about on each other’s sites. And don’t worry, if you’re a bit shy a first just drop a few nice comments and people will draw you out of your shell in no time. Right Brown? (#):D

When greeting guests, start with a hug!
I went into this a bit in 5 Easy Ways to Improve Your Schmooze but in case you missed it here’s the big summary…You have to welcome new readers to your blog with open arms! If they comment, you reply. If it’s their first time there, make sure you say “hi” by maybe sending an e-mail or IM. And certainly, if they have a blog themselves – Make sure you check it out and drop a message if appropriate. Sure it’s not brain surgery, but for some people this doesn’t come naturally. In the end, you just have to make sure that your readers know that you’re not only friendly, but very approachable and involved in your site.

Tools of the Trade
Besides all the tools I touched on in 5 Easy Ways to Improve Your Schmooze, two that I forgot to comment on were MyBlogLog and BlogCatalog. These tools are simply brilliant in giving you another way to find out who’s reading your blog. Unlike comments, where readers MUST leave a message for you to know who they are, with MyBlogLog and BlogCatalog you get to see the faces of all the people who show up even if they don’t take another action on your site! From this point you can check our their profiles, leave a message, and also visit their blogs! These are definitely great ways for a new blogger to reach out and touch someone. Don’t sleep on them!

Conclusion
And on a final note on this front, you shouldn’t approach making friends in the blogosphere from a money making mentality. Truthfully, that’s not what blogs are about and you shouldn’t forget that when you visit someone else’s blog, it was written by a person just like you. Appreciating others for what they have to offer in the way of friendship can really open some wonderful doors that you would be foolish to lose by approaching them as simply an “opportunity”.

Part 3 – Getting Into a Blogging Routine
One of the notions of blogging that might not be quickly apparent to new bloggers is the necessity of routine. Well, let me back up a bit. If you don’t care about your blog, feel free to skip this part. If, on the other hand you want people to read your blog, and you want it to grow into something you can be proud of – By all means, continue reading. (#):)

Post Regularly
When you’re first starting off, (or some would argue more), when you’re an established blogger, your readers want to know that you post regularly. Especially at the beginning, that’s how you convert casual visitors into die hard subscribers which of course translates into more daily visitors, more impressions, and if it suits your fancy – More money. Think about it : You find a new blog that you really like so you check back the next day but there’s nothing new. You go back the day after that, and still you don’t find a new post. Are you going back the third day?Comment Regularly
You’ll also need to make your presence known on other sites by commenting regularly. The advantages of this will be covered more in depth tomorrow, but for the sake of today, understand that commenting regularly accomplishes three basic things that should be done on routinely basis:

• Getting you and your site’s name in front of other bloggers
• Getting links back to your site
• Inviting others to come to your site
• Making friends and relationships!

Check Your Stats and Dashboard Regularly
If you’re a WordPress user, you can just rely on your Dashboard. If you use another platform, hopefully they have some stat features built into the interface, but you might be reduced to Google Analytics or some other stat service. Whichever the case, you should definitely check your stats to observe the behavior of your blog and all that’s happening in or around it. If you don’t, you could miss a lot of info including:

• Incoming links that you need to respond to by thanking the owner that posted it
• Users’ comments mistakenly put into your spam buffer
• Regular comments that you need to respond to

Making Your Routine
Like almost everything related to blogging, you have to tailor your routine to your individual schedule, goals, and ultimately what works best for you. I could go on for a long time about considerations here, but most agree that setting a specific time seems to work well. So if you get up at 9AM everyday, maybe from 9:30-10:15AM you should try and check your stats and reply to your comments or e-mail. And from 10:15-11AM you should be on other people’s blogs saying “hi” and getting word out about your site and drawing attention to you recent posts if applicable.

Picking a time everyday to do this ensures that you’re spending a certain time everyday towards growing and nurturing your blog. Don’t be one of those people who look back 6 months from now and say, “Man, if I had only worked on my blog 1 hour each day – I could be so much farther along than I am now.” And look, IF you’re serious about your blog and looking to make money from it, treat it like a business and remember…Time is Money.

Next Time : Finding and Making Friends

Yesterday in the first part of my Start Blogging Series, we discussed the basics of blogging. Today, we’ll cover…

Part 2 – Choosing Your Blogging Platform

“To host, or not to host? That is the question.” For too many beginner bloggers this question is glossed over, or worst yet – not even considered at all.

The decision to host your own blog or going with a free online service can greatly impact your life as blogger. Unfortunately for some, that realization can take a while to set in…Resulting in a loss of traffic, revenue and sponsorship. Sometimes – That late realization can mean starting over completely.

“Wait, wait. What is hosting“?
Simply put, a host refers to the company that “houses” your website. In the old days, AOL, Geocities, Tripod and even Yahoo! used to host a lot of web pages. Nowadays, prices are low and consumers much more educated so these solutions often don’t make sense for tthis web savvy generation. But then why do people choose to pay for these services if they can get them free from the above companies? The answer : flexibility.

Free Hosting
If a company is hosting your website for free, you’ll be up and running in no time. There are many good sites up on the web including Typepad, Blogger and even WordPress will allow you some free space for your blog! Just enter a username, a password, and for most free websites you can start blogging immediately without another thought to the setup process. That’s it! And by that’s it, I mean “that’s it”. Want to customize your comments area? Oo. You might be out of luck. Hey-how about adding some code to protect your site from SPAM? Oof. Might be dicey. And what if you want to change the basic functionality of your site? Argh! Don’t bother asking! Well if it’s this bad? Why would anyone do it? Well for a lot of people, free hosting makes sense. If you think you’re going to break your computer 9 out of 10 times you use it, free hosting might be for you. Additionally, if all you want to do is get your thoughts out in the world, you might want to give this solution some serious consideration.Paid Hosting
If you want to be able to do anything you want with your site, paid hosting is going to be the way you want to go. And with very affordable prices (often as low as $30ish), this is an option that most should at least consider. Not only can $30 grant you the ability to host your own website, it can also grant you the ability to host MANY sites on your web server. (BTW, a web server is essentially software on a computer that allows it to serve web and Internet data, including websites). I’m not going to lie though, the first time getting your hands on your own server can be very OVERWHELMING. Hopefully the company you’re with will help you through some of the parts that are new, but sometimes you gotta just get a good book, hit some web forums, and just grind through it. Now, I wish I could tell you that the setup ends there. Well, it doesn’t. At this point, you actually haven’t done any setup! Before we even talk about the blogging part you have to register a domain name, point it to your new server, and add the URL to the DNS. Yikes!, I know. But it can be done. And there are a lot of people, (myself included), who would love to help you with it.

So at this point you can upload files to your server and have them on the web as your website, (i.e. www.yoursite.com), but it’s still not in blog format. To accomplish this, you have to upload blog software on your site and install that through your web browser. The most popular of which is WordPress (the software version, not the “online blog site version”) and if you get that going, you’re in the clear. You can do whatever you want, whenever you want it, PLUS you have access to thousands of plugins and themes that can take a lot of the stress off of you as a web developer. But just to be honest, your first time installing WordPress can be painful. Will it be worth it? Absolutely.

Picking the Wrong Platform
I said earlier that choosing the wrong platform could be DISASTROUS for a blogger.

• Consider Case 1: You decided to take the plunge head first into blogging. You have your own server, are paying $30 a month for it and are ready to go. Unfortunately, you don’t have the time to learn some basic server administration, so not only do you not have your blog software up and running, but you’ve been burning $30 a month for the past 6 months leaving a sizeable whole in your wallet.
• Consider Case 2: You’re new to blogging and don’t want to invest a lot of your money or time so you decide to go with a free online service. After a couple months, you now realize that you’re addicting to blogging. Besides that, you’re not half bad at it and have amassed a tremendous online following saying that you could make some decent side money. Only problem is, to make the most out your monetization efforts you need your own site (www.yourname.com) and right now you’re site is (yourname.blogger.com). If you switch now, it’s going to take a while to get back where you are now. Plus, how are you going to move all those old posts over?

Conclusion
At the beginning it’s hard to figure out which way you should go. I wish it was easier, but it’s not. The only thing you can do is wait ’till the time is right and then switch – Work fast. Oh, and if you really want to host your own site, don’t let your fear stop you. As I said, there are so many resources and people who would love nothing more than to help you with your endeavor. If you want it to work, there are people who can help you make it happen.

Next Time: Getting Into a Blogging Routine

Recently, I’ve found myself giving little bits of advice to all the new bloggers out there. Of course more often than not my advice was unsolicited, but hey – You think that’s gonna stop me?! Ha ha. Well anyway, I thought I would perform a public service of sorts and start a new series of posts here called, “Start Blogging”.

Primarily, the series is aimed at someone who’s thinking about starting a blog but

• A) doesn’t know how to get started or
• B) doesn’t know if blogging is right for them.

And even though I’m a grizzled veteran with over 70 years of blog experience (yeah right), I hope that you’ll chime in with your thoughts and correct my mistakes so this can truly be of value to some of the new kids on the block. Remember – We were all there once. (#):)

So without further ado…

Part 1 – Nature of the Beast

A little back story…
A blog is a type of website where content is generally written in a chronological order, kind of like you would think of an online diary. By being the author of said content, you are named a blogger. Unlike many other kinds of websites (outside of forums), blogs usually exist and thrive by way of relationships…Relationships between people.

Bloggers hop from blog to blog reading other bloggers’ entries, (called posts), and leave their thoughts on the post in the form of comments. When bloggers leave their comments, they usually leave their blog URL with it, instantly creating a link from blog to blog for other visitors to see and follow. This series of connections blogs is often referred to as the blogosphere.

Who writes blogs?
Anybody can write a blog, and as you make your way through the blogosphere, you’ll see that diversity first hand. On any given day you can read content from high definition enthusiasts, online comic strip artists, technology journalists, singing black belt mamas and even bloggers writing about other blogs! – Which is great news, because that means there’s a spot for you!
Why would you write a blog?
Almost everyone needs an outlet. A lot of people just tell their friends stuff, but sometimes that friend isn’t around, or you need to find new ones. For others, blogs are a way of making money, and they take that very seriously. Some people actually live off their blog money, others primarily blog for fun but are happy to make a buck off it it too. And finally, one of the best things my dad ever told me was, “Everyone has a story…”, the point of that being the more you listen to people, the more you can learn. And you never know where you’re going to find the story to make a difference in your life. You never know which story of yours will make a difference in someone’s life. So what’s your story?

The commitment
The time and effort you’ll expend on your blog will depend on what you want to accomplish with it. If you’re looking to just blog about your random thoughts and you don’t care if anyone reads your posts or not, the time and effort required is going to be very low. On the other foot, if you’re looking to make a presence for yourself and make some money, you have your work cut out for you. Replying to e-mails and comments and easily eat up your entire day BUT, if that’s what you’re into, I doubt you’ll mind it too much.Conclusion
The greatest thing about the Internet is its ability to shrink the world. Blogs further that concept by connecting people with people, and allowing them to engage in meaningful conversations. Personally, meeting new people from all parts of the world is truly a wonderful experience and I don’t know that having experienced it now if I could ever give it up.

Next time: Choosing Your Blogging Platform

Out With the Old, In with the New
We all know that this year’s E3 was nothing like previous years’. Gone were the thousands of rabid fanboys, the scantily clad girls, and basically all the hoopla. I’m ok with that. (Probably because I never went to an old school E3 so if I ever went to a “modern day” one, I wouldn’t know the difference). But just looking at the news to come out of E3…Am I missing something? To me, there isn’t a single game that I was waiting on pins and needles to hear about and after the dust settled, there still isn’t a single game I’m blown away with.

I’m more taken with Zelda II: The Adventure of Linkthat I just downloaded from the VC than the whole of E3. (#):(
What’s New Pussycat? (whoa eewhoa-whoa…)
Prior to E3, tons of info had already come out about Halo 3 and Super Smash Bros Brawl…And I think at LAST year’s E3, we heard all about the still to be released Metal Gear Solid 4. Furthermore, I’ve made tons of posts about the very exciting Rock Band here too, again with details prior to E3. *sigh* I get it. All the next gen systems are out and most haven’t even gotten their legs yet but well..I feel like the kid who peeked at his XMas gifts two weeks early! So tell me video game fans out there, am I missing the big game out there? (And don’t tell me it’s the PSP redesign)

I usually don’t write posts like I did with yesterday’s, 5 Easy Ways to Improve Your Schmooze. But you know what? I don’t think I’ve gotten that much positive feedback for a post in quite sometime. I’ve been wondering lately where this blog was going and I think that this might be it. Up ’till now I’ve been presenting a hodgepodge of topics, basically under the gigantic banner of “Technology”. But I think after yesterday’s post, I may try and present more articles to try and help all of us out there in our web endeavors. I wish I could say that from now on I was going to write mostly in the style of yesterday’s post but if I did, while I’d probably be popular I don’t think I’d be blogging for long. …Even though technology is a big part of life, it’s certainly not the only part. And I want this blog to reflect that.