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Blog Basics - Chapter 2: I’m ready, how do I get started creating my blog?

Posted by Ryan
at January 31, 2008

This post is part of The Vacant Cubicle Blog Basics Series

Great, so I’m assuming you’ve read Chapter 1 on whether you should start a blog and you’ve decided you should. Now for the next step, deciding on how and where you will begin your journey into the blogosphere.

Chapter 2, Section 1: Choosing your blogging software.

Most blogs today are created using some type of pre-existing software. It’s faster and easier to use something that has already been created explicitly for the purpose of running a blog. These programs have been tried and tested and most have additional themes and plugins to make your blog look and work even better. Below is a short list of the software that I’ve used and I feel is acceptable, please visit each one and see which one looks better to you. When choosing software there are a few things you should look for. First, choose an application that has a community built around it such as a mailing list or discussion board. This will allow you to get support without paying which is always a good thing. Second, don’t purchase blogging software. There are so many great open source (free) applications out there that there is no real need to purchase one, especially when you’re first starting out. If you continue to use the open source software I do encourage you to contribute to their cause, most software creators accept some form of donations. Paying for software and paying for a host to run it on are two different things that we will discuss next.

Blogging software I recommend.

For a bigger list browse over to Wikipedia and read their blog list.

Chapter 2, Section 2: Choosing a host to run your blog on

Once you’ve decided on which software solution you’re going to use you will then need to think about where you’re going to host your blog. Since blogs are, for all intents and purposes, websites, you will need a web server to host your blog on. There are plenty of affordable hosting solutions out there and some even come with the blogging software installed to make it even easier for you to get started. Once you know what software solution you plan on using, visit their website and look for a section on hosting. Often you will find that they offer a list of providers that they use or trust to host their software. If that doesn’t work search around Google, often people create businesses around a certain software package so more than likely there is a hosting provider out there that will host your blog with the software of your choice.

If you don’t want to or can’t find a hosting provider that provides hosting for the software you want to use, your next option is to get a shared hosting package and host it yourself. Obviously for the new blogger this is the more complicated approach but since we’re in the Internet age there are plenty of resources available to help you along your journey. Visit the software’s websites and look through their documentation, there should be a getting started section which lists what you will need to run the blog software. Make sure you pick a shared hosting solution that meets their basic requirements. Along with the getting started section there should also be a section on how to install the software, you should be able to use this to install the software on your shared hosting account. Since there are so many different software packages and an ever greater number of shared hosting providers it’s impossible for me to be able to give instructions for all of them. My best advice is to choose a hosting provider and software solution that already has a great community built around it that way you if you get stuck it’s easier to find help.

Tip: Most blogging software solutions offer some kind of community support. Browse around their website or do some searches to find if there are forums devoted to assisting members. Forums can be a great place to get free support.

Here are some shared hosting providers that I’ve used in the past. I don’t use them anymore but I can say that my experience with them was great while I was a customer.

Blogger.com and other proprietary solutions.

There are some solutions that combine both the software and the hosting part of blogging. The downside to this approach is you can’t download and install their software on your servers; the only way to get access to these programs is to use it on their host. There are quality services out there but they often have restrictions such as disk space, bandwidth consumptions and what you can and can’t put on your blog. If you’re just starting off these services are great but if your blog gains popularity you might quickly outgrow these solutions, this is something to keep in mind if you choose to go this route.

Some free hosted blogging services

Well, that’s the basics for selected software and hosting to run your new blog. Once you have your software picked out and your host up and running the next step is setting up your blog so it feels like your blog. Our next section in Blog Basics will cover how to customize the look and feel of your blog so it’s unique and reflects your own personal taste and style.

Running a blog
2

Blog Basics - Chapter 1: Should I start a blog?

Posted by Ryan
at January 31, 2008

This post is part of  The Vacant Cubicle Blog Basics Series

Well, even though I would love to be able to answer this question for everyone, it’s not a straight forward answer. Blogs, as defined by dictionary.com are: a personal chronological log of thoughts published on a Web page; which is a fancy way of saying an online journal. The answer to the question on whether you should start a blog can only be answered by yourself. Review the questions below; if you can answer yes to a majority of them then you have my vote to start a blog.

  1. Do you have something to write about?
    A blog should consist of constant content (articles, ports, reviews, gossip, etc…) so if you can’t think of things to write about maybe you’re better off reading blogs instead of writing them.
  2. Are you passionate about a topic?
    Anyone can find something to write about at some point but what makes a blog good is your passion for the topic. If you’re writing about random things just to get hits on your site your readers will be able to detect this. Everyone is passionate about something, pick one thing you love doing and see if you could tell others about that.
  3. Do you really know about the topic or just think you do?
    Even though you may be passionate about something does not mean you know a lot about it. Do you know enough about the topic so people will be interesting in reading it? Are you bringing something new to the table?
  4. Do you have the time?
    Running a blog is a lot of work, well; it is if you want to be successful at it. To run a great blog you should post at least a couple times a week if not more. Blogs often start off great but soon dissolve either because people realize what a time sink they can be or they lose interest in the topic(see question 2).
  5. Can you communicate your topic well?
    I’m not the best writer in the world, in fact if it wasn’t for spell-check everyone would probably think I was in the sixth grade, but I think I can communicate my points pretty well. When you write a blog which is usually intended for others to read you have to be able to give your message so it doesn’t bore or irate your readers.

So how did you do? After reading these questions do you feel like you still want to start a blog? Do you think you should? Take some time and think this over and if you’re still interested then please read on.

Running a blog
2

Set your blog free with a Creative Commons license.

Posted by Ryan
at January 30, 2008

I received an email this afternoon asking me if it would be okay if they reproduced my post on the Amazon Simple Storage solution on their site. Well, I didn’t see an immediate problem with this but after asking around on some forums I frequent I found at that if I don’t include some kind of license then they would have free rein to do what they want with my work; I decided I needed something to protect myself.

I’ve heard and read over the Creative Commons license before and I’ve seen it on popular sites like Flickr so I figured I would have another look over it. After researching it over at their site and on other places on the web I decided I would apply the Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License to my blog. I think this license fits what I want to offer to the community the best. It allows people to use my stuff on their site while still protecting my work. This particular license says that my work can’t be used for commercial purposes and if anything is used that it must include a link back to the original article. There is some other stuff included but one thing that is great about Creative Commons is how they give you a human readable version so peons such as myself can understand them.

When you have a chance I suggest everyone visit the Creative Commons site and read what it’s all about. It doesn’t hurt to apply a license to your content so I strongly suggest everyone does it.

Photo courtesy of Matthias Mehldau

Running a blog
4

Using Amazon Simple Storage Service (S3) to backup your files.

Posted by Ryan
at January 30, 2008

s3.gifAbout a week ago I wrote an article on how to use Gmail as a simple backup solution. All though I’ve used this solution for many years sometimes it’s not the right choice for the job. Since Gmail was built as an email solution and not a backup/file solution there are many limitations that we can’t overcome. For instance, you can’t backup a file larger than 20mb and currently there is a storage limit of around 6GB’s. In this article I’m going to introduce you to another backup solution that I’m fond of that, although it’s not free, it works where Gmail leaves off.

For those of you that have been living under a rock for the last few years, Amazon Simple Storage Service is a scalable data storage solution created by Amazon (yes the online book store). Amazon offers a bunch of web services and their S3 solution is probably one of the, if not the most, popular services they offer. To put it in non-technical terms, S3 allows you to upload data to the Amazon servers where you can access it later either using their API or one of the many other tools that have been created for it. It’s like having an external hard drive that never runs out of space and can be accessed from anywhere at anytime. Before you get too excited it is a pay service but considering what you’re getting it’s pretty cheap. To check out the latest prices please see their site but last time I checked it was only around $0.10/GB per month.

If you’re not a programmer Amazon’s services can be pretty confusing. They don’t offer much in the way of applications to access their services but instead release an API (Advanced Program Interface) with the hope that developers will pick it up and create the applications for them. In my opinion this is a great approach since I would rather see Amazon spend their time securing my data and keeping the services up to date rather than wasting their time answering support questions. There are a ton of applications out there that use S3 for storage; I won’t dive into all of them here because I’ve only tested a select few but do a Google search to see what’s out there.

For this article we’re going to focus on using S3 for backup, but there are many other uses for this great service. Since Amazon does not provide any direct access to their servers other than the API we’re going to use a free (shareware) Firefox plugin that does the hard work for us. I stumbled upon this application one day and I’ve been using it ever since, I have it installed on all of my computers so I have access to all of my data no matter where I am. The program is called S3Fox and you can download a copy here. In order to use this though you will have to have Firefox an an Amazon Web Services account so shoot over there first and get one.

There are two ways to use this plugin; I use both. The first is you simply use it like an FTP client and drag your files into it; they will then be added to a queue and uploaded one by one. I use this method when uploading single files. The other method is to use the Synchronize Folders option which allows you to keep a local copy and the copy on their servers in sync. This is what I primarily use for backups because when I want to back up a file I simply drag it to that folder and then sync them up at the end of the day. However, S3Fox does not auto-sync your files but as long as you can remember to sync them up this method words great.

To set this feature up make sure you have the plugin installed in Firefox. In the bottom right corner click on the S3Fox icon and open up the window. Then click on the Synchronize Folders then Add Folder. Name this task and tell it what folder on your local computer you want to backup and at which location on the Amazon servers it should be stored. To start the synchronization process simple click on the Synchronize Folders button again and choose the folder name you want to sync up. When you sync the folder any files that are on the server that are not on your local machine will be downloaded and any files on your local computer that are not on the Amazon server will be sent over. Simple isn’t it?

Some Tips:

My average monthly bill is around $5, where else can you get this kind of service this cheap?

Backup
2

Should my next computer be a Mac or a PC?

Posted by Ryan
at January 29, 2008

By PC I mean any computer running the Windows operating system.

Behind all of the fancy ads, the funny videos and years of debate the simple answer to this question is simple; what ever one fits your personal and business needs the best.

Don’t let anyone tell you that any certain operating system is better than the other because these days it comes down to preference. Which one YOU feel more comfortable using, which one gives YOU the best options and makes you more productive, and which one offers YOU the choice in applications that you need. With the technology available to us today you can basically run any program under any operating system with virtualization so the old saying of running Windows because it has more applications or using Mac because it’s better at XXX is out the window. If you feel more comfortable using a Windows machine then by all means use a Windows PC. On the other hand if you like how Mac’s work and enjoy how they look and feel then use a Mac. Don’t let your boss, your sisters best friend’s mother, or anyone else tell you what computer you should get… listen to yourself and get what you want.

Tips:

Linux:

I didn’t mention Linux because it’s the lesser known option. The same rules apply though but most people running Linux don’t need this advice because they already know it. Linux can be a tricky beast if you’re used to using a Windows or Mac so I suggest you dabble in Linux on the side and don’t jump headfirst into using it.

Computer Hardware, Living
4

Wordpress Plugin : Before Publishing a Post On Your Blog

Posted by Ryan
at January 29, 2008

I decided to churn out a quick plugin for a great post on problogger.net today. The post titled ‘13 Questions to Ask Before Publishing a Post On Your Blog‘ gives a very accurate, realistic list of things to check over before you publish a post on your blog. Shoot over to read the list now.

This plugin installs the list in the sidebar of your Write Post section in Wordpress so you can quickly review the list before you publish it. Just put the file in the Plugins directory and then activate it from you Plugins menu. The list should appear on your Write Post page and you should be able to move it around as you feel fit.

Screenshot

before_you_post.jpg

Download

http://www.thevacantcubicle.com/content/plugins/PostCheckList.zip

Running a blog, Wordpress
2

Make friends with fellow bloggers.

Posted by Ryan
at January 29, 2008

istock_000004941834xsmall.jpgIf you’ve spent any time in the business world you know that one of the most important things you can do to succeed is to network. Networking is basically creating mutual beneficial relationships with like minded people. This can include talking with them, exchanging business cards or even working together on a project. Just as networking is important in the business world it’s also just as important in the blogging world. You can learn a lot from other people and I’m sure there are many things other people can learn from you. As great as networking is it won’t happen unless you get your name out there and speak with fellow bloggers.

Start by searching for blogs that have the same goal as your own. Subscribe to these blogs, read about the author(s) and get to know what they’re all about. If you believe your sites are related and think they will both benefit from a cross link then contact the owner and see if you can swap links. It doesn’t hurt to ask, the worst thing that can happen is they say no.

Start a ‘link love’, ‘featured blogs’, or ‘blog real’ section to link to fellow bloggers. By linking to related blogs and having them link back to you not only will you boost your search engine visibility (page rank) but you will also be providing your visitors with a great resource.

Some tips:

Running a blog, Tips & Tricks
2

Increase productivity by adding another monitor to your computer.

Posted by Ryan
at January 28, 2008

When you’re working for yourself, you want to try to find as many ways to save time and money as possible. Some of these methods are more difficult than others and some are more expensive than others but in the long run they should all have the same goal in mind; to make you more productive and to earn you more money. It’s common sense that having the right software and hardware for the job can make anyone’s job much easier but we can go further than just the basic computer setup. It’s been shown in multiple studies that on average adding another monitor to your computer can increase productivity by 20%.

There have been many articles written on how multiple screens can increase productivity and even though they all differ on the actual percentage of increase they all agree on one thing; productivity does in fact increase. If you think about it, it makes sense because you can see more without the need to open and close multiple windows. For example if you’re writing an article you may want to have different sources open on one screen and have your writing application open on the other. Instead of switching back and forth from the source to the application (often losing your location in the article) you can simple look at the other screen while continuing to type. Having multiple monitors not only helps writers but it can help graphic designers, programmers, and even data entry positions. Designers for example may want to have their graphics application open on their main screen and have ideas and color pallets open on another.

There is no hard answer as to how much more productive you will become with another monitor (or three or four more) but you don’t know until you try. The best way to do this is try and find a monitor to borrow so you test it out before you make a rather large investment in another monitor. Borrow one from another computer in the house, a friend or “borrow” one from work for a week or so. Hook it up and give it a try, most people say that once they’ve worked with a dual-monitor setup they can’t imagine every working on a single setup again, I concur.

Things you will need.

Some Sources

Tips & Tricks
1

Increasing Revenue: The basics of Split Testing

Posted by Ryan
at January 28, 2008

This topic, often called A/B testing is very large and complicated. It’s so big that there are companies devoted just to split testing; but for a majority of us out there hiring a company to help us with this is not an option. In this brief article I plan on summing up the basics and giving you enough information to get started.

Split testing from Wikipedia

A/B testing is a method of advertising testing by which a baseline control sample is compared to a variety of single-variable test samples. A classic direct mail tactic, this method has been recently adopted within the interactive space to test tactics such as banner ads, emails and landing pages.

Employers of this A/B testing method will distribute multiple samples of a test, including the control, to see which single variable is most effective in increasing a response rate or other desired outcome. The test, in order to be effective, must reach an audience of statistical significance.

istock_000003244312xsmall.jpgSo for our purpose this means we have one ad and we modify this ad in some way such as its color, size, location, etc. We then display both ads one at a time and see which ad gives the better CTR*, the original ad or the modified one. We then take the better ad and again modify one thing on that ad (color,size,location,etc..) and again see which one performs better. If the original ad performs better then you will want to change something else and try that test again. If the modified one works better you then change something new on that ad to see if you can get even better results. By doing this over and over and changing things as you go the perfect ad for your site will slowly emerge.

To see how this works in the real world let’s pick an ad.  Since a lot of people use AdSense lets go with them. We first need a base case, we’ll use the basic AdSense ad Google assigns you when you sign up. Now we’ll pick one thing on the ad and change it. You will only want to change one thing on the ad at a time so you will have a better idea of the effect the change had on the ad. If you change multiple things and revenue increases you won’t know which one of the changes increased revenue so stick with changing one thing at a time. For this example I’m going to change the text color. Below is the original AdSense ad, this is the ad as it comes from Google.

google_ad_old.jpg

The next ad is my modified one, as you can see all I’ve done is change the text color a little bit, in this case to match my sites colors a little better than the original.

google_ad_new.jpg

Now for this simple case I’m going to run the ads for one week(seven days) each, first the original then the modified version. It’s important to try to keep as many variables the same as possible while your test two different cases. For example if you start the first ad Sunday morning at 8am you will want to start the second one at the same day and time. Also, don’t run the first ad the week before Christmas and the next one a week after and expect the results to be accurate; use your head when testing. Here are the results from the test.

Original Ad: 1669 hits, 18 clicks giving this ad a 1.08% CTR(Click through rate)
Modified Ad: 1456 hits, 27 clicks giving this ad a 1.85% CTR

So with some simple math we can see that the modified ad gave us a better CTR. We can then take this ad and test it even further by making the modified ad our new base case and start changing that ad. Maybe you’ll want to stick with the text color until you’ve maxed out it’s potential or maybe you want to jump in and start changing the font, border colors or size. It’s up to you and as long as you stick to this basic principle of testing one variable at a time you should continue to move your ads in the right direction.

I hope this gave you an idea of how to start split testing. Again, this is a very basic example but you have to start someplace and this is a pretty straight forward approach on how to maximize your text based ads. This can be carried over to many different sections of your website, for anything from improving navigation to deciding which links to put in the footer. Split testing is one of those things that never really ends, good luck and feel free to post up any questions in the comments section.

*CTR : Click through rate. Your click through rating can be calculated by taking the number of clicks that ad got and dividing it by the number of impressions the ad got then multiplying by 100.

Running a blog, Tips & Tricks
0

MBTA launches free wifi pilot program for greater Boston area.

Posted by Ryan
at January 28, 2008

This post is based primarily for readers in the greater Boston area, all though it’s an interesting program so you still might want to read it.

MBTA: Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority WIFI

They say: As one of the first services of its kind on commuter rail trains in the U.S., our free T Wi-Fi Commuter Rail Connect test program strives to provide free Internet access for your laptop, cell phone, PDA or Wi-Fi enabled device. In fact, any commuter rail customer riding in a coach participating in the free T Wi-Fi Commuter Rail Connect Test Program may be able to access the Internet via their enabled laptop or wireless device.

I say: I’m probably the last person who would say anything nice about the MBTA. Whether it’s the rate hike that just took place, the slow and unreliable service or the sometimes rude and unhelpfully employees the MBTA just doesn’t have much going for them lately. With all of these negative things I must be honest and say when I read about this pilot program I wasn’t really getting my hopes up but so far I’ve had a great experience.

I read in the Metro this morning that they were offering this program on the line that I take into Boston(Worcester line) so once aboard I decided to give it a try. I took out my trusty iPhone and searched for networks, there were about 10 so I waited until we started moving to see which ones dropped away. Once we were about a mile away they all dropped but one so I connected to it and opened up Safari. Bam, full Internet access on my iPhone and it was quick, I knew this wasn’t the EDGE network that comes with the iphone because pages were loading in seconds not minutes. I spent about 10 minutes checking my email, news feeds and blogs using my iPhone at blazing speeds and I was impressed but this was just my iPhone, I decided I would have to break my laptop in order to get a real feel for the speed.

I booted up my Thinkpad and within a minute or so I was able to find and connect to the wifi signal. For easy comparison I started with my morning routine. I checked my email, checked my rss reader and checked a few forums and just as I do at home I had them all open on different browser tabs. I was switching pages as fast as they could load, the connection felt very similar to broadband probably because it’s based off Sprint’s EV-DO service and it had very few slowdowns. For the rest of the train ride I continued to browse around the Internet and the speed made me forget I was moving 70 mph on a train headed into town. I’m looking forward to the train ride back home in hopes that the experience is similar and possibly even better if I get a seat to sit down in.

Possible Issues:

Below are some screen shots of the speed. The first one is the speed as taken while I was on the train and the second is the speed taken from the office once I got into town. As you can see it’s pretty close.

mbta_speed.jpgoffice_speed.jpg

Living
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