The Jungle Book

One can’t think of everything, and the creator of the pingback thing certainly didn’t. I noticed it first with this Lorelle’s post. Then, a few days ago, I received a pingback from another blog, with the same unusual set of characteristics.

It’s a valid pingback but the post is in the future. The Undiscovered Country. What makes?

Well, it’s simple, mcFly: The pingback thing sends a ping when the post is published, if the release date is set into the future, doesn’t matter, the ping will be sent during the publishing process, not during the first public release.

It explains a few well-crafted answers I’ve seen around, based on the excerpt and the title the author writes a counter-post and publishes it as soon as the original post is published. It’s a wild guess, but works most of the time. I did it myself once or twice.

The problem is: It’s Inside Information. You’re reading things you’re not supposed to read for a few hours, even days.

An evil blogger can tip some evil friend or use an evil nom-de-blog and write a post about the same subject, publish it before the original blog and claim plagiarism.

Sounds mean? I’ve seen worse.

Technorati : pingbacks, timetravel

How COME are you not using Zoundry? Shame on you, shame on you!

We’re talking about the Best, period. No more dealing with web interfaces, FTPs, server timeouts or browser hiccups. True WYSIWYG, tag-friendly, easy access to XHTML edit, supports plenty of blog platforms and call you tiger Friday nights. OK, I made up the last one, but Zoundry is capable of a lot more. Follow me…

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Some bloogers tell you to focus; others tell you to create as many blogs as you can. They all alert about blogs without focus as something evil, or, at least, not profitable.

Fine, but if my Blog focus on toothbrushes for carving mooses, and I want to talk about movies I watch, what do I do?

There are two possibilities:

1. Loose the focus and add the off-topic post

2. Create a new Blog

The first one is not a sin, if it happens once in a while, but if it becomes a habit, you’re doomed, your loyal readers will be upset about so many “useless” posts.

The second one only works if you’re willing to take care of another Blog and can generate enough content to make it stand by itself. Otherwise, forget the whole thing, and don’t post the off-topic at all.

People like me, who crave ADHS as a mutant power and call Ritalin “Kryptonite”, usually can’t live with a single Blog. I have my personal one, as generic as it can get a professional one with focus on ProBlogging and two English-language ones, Jungle Book itself and the Galactic Waste of Time, about humor ad sci-fi.

The last one is a bit undervisited (and underupdated), I confess, but it depends a lot of my mood. The others are more professionally run.

Can everyone do it? I doubt. There’s not enough time. I’m not even near my limit, but I have mutant superpowers, you know

My advice is: Find the absolute maximum of blogs you can post/manage and spread the subjects you crave among them. Try not to loose focus. Create a generic one so you don’t pollute the others and STOP when you reach your limit. A post in a generic Blog is better than a post in a Blog updated once a year, that NOBODY visits.

And NO, I was NOT bit by a radioactive blogger. I was born this way.

Technorati : ADHS, dispersive, felllowship

Calm down, mister. I DO believe in tags. And so should you. This blog is still a non-entity, but Technorati already brought people here, thanks to my tags. The “Dyslexia” one in my first post actually earned me a permanent link.

Tags do what every TV exercise machine should do: They work pretty well. But as in Abs of Steel, there’s a catch.

Tags are not playing stuff. Generic ones don’t help. Nothing stupider than tagging all your posts “internet”.

Funny tags have two effects:

1 - Nobody searches for them. Your tag will be unique and unreachable buried in a tag cloud. If one can’t see your tag, it doesn’t exist. Also, nobody types funny tags like “deadparrotonastick”.

2 - Funny tags mislead people. People don’t like to be misled. As much as I agree, a post about Paris Hilton should not be tagged with “STD agent”.

I have a personal favourite, a post in my personal blog, with title and tags “putas, muitas fotos de putas”. It means “Hookers, many pictures of hookers”. It talks about a nice pictorial of a dance club / bar in Thailand, early 60’s, used as R&R for American troops. It’s a historical document, very interesting, and all the ladies are far more dressed than any Britney / Lindsey / Christina you can remember of.

Guess what? Kids hate me. They reach the page through Google and feel betrayed. I promised and never delivered. It’s my second largest source of hate mail.

Use meaningful tags. Related to the kernel of your idea. A quick search for keywords in your text is not good enough. Spare a few minutes to think about your tags.

The result will be supercalifragilisticexpialidocious.

(yes, it’s a lame ending line but I needed an excuse to use a silly tag. See? This is not Holly Writ; I can bend my own rules here and there)

Technorati : deadparrotonastick, problogger, supercalifragilisticexpialidocious, tips, uselesstags

Since my disaster yesterday, my challenges increased tenfold: How to keep up with feeding 5 blogs, without a full computer?

Some people under such circumstances would simply pull a Cobain, but I’m terrible with guns, my aim is so bad I would certainly end hurting someone innocent.
So, better pull a Lt. Dan and go back to work.

Using a PocketPC as your main blogging tool is not the end of the world. All you need is love focus. Focus, focus and focus.

Easier said than done, if everybody agrees you should be living on Ritalin, but not impossible. Actually, those hints work for everyone, even people with actual computers.

Think your cunning plan all the way through - Don’t plan as you write. It only works for novels, and bad ones. Check Lost. They’re pilling up the unanswered questions and plot holes. Don’t do that. Start only when you know where your post will end, how long it will be and what resources you’ll need.

ADHS is for wimps - I know I’ll link to “Ritalin” on Wikipedia, but hey, do I need to do it know? Will I dare to loose my focus, browsing away and forgetting my logical line?
Let the accessory work - link, tags, and pictures - to the end. Nobody will die if you don’t link NOW! RIGHT NOW!

Set up alternative posting methods - Most blog software accept posts via XMLRPC and email. It’s way easier than accessing their online interface. Don’t even think of using a PocketPC browser. Internet Explorer will do the trick but you’ll close it by mistake 3 or 6 times a day. Opera Mobile is great but it happens to die, silently, with no warning, taking your working data to browser’s heaven.
Post by email OR save your day’s work and finish it using a real PC.

Think about the future - Write two or three stories and keep them scheduled for the following days. You’ll miss a lot of deadlines, and those stores can cover your ass while you’re solving the big problems you’re dealing with. Classic filling stories are:

• Keywords Google people use to reach this site

• AdSense generic tip #4352

• Funny YouTube video

• Old Workplace Story post

• Obvious question thrown at the audience trick

• Problem-turned-story post (you’re reading one of those)

Don’t miss the big picture - or the small one. Posting from a PocketPC or a stranger’s PC leads to a lot of text-only posts. Time is a factor, unfamiliar image software is another. Have you tried Google Images using a PDA? Hint: Don’t.

But less images doesn’t mean no images. Are you typing your own Gutenberg Project? A small picture, here and there, breaks the hardness of a long text. A lot more people will read your posts if you do it.
Also, some posts need an illustration. Plan ahead but don’t stop including pictures only because it’s hard.

Learn to read email offline - If you are timesharing a PC don’t waste your time reading email in it. Use your PDA. Your online time is far more valuable now. There are no really urgent emails. People still use the phone for important issues. Nobody send a “WHERE’S MY INSULIN?” Email. Plan up to three email windows on your day. Don’t worry; your Nigerian friend will wait a few hours for deposit confirmation.

SEMPER FI - One thing I learned with U.S. Marine Corps: Always have a plan C. Because when you’re stuck with plan B it becomes plan A and guess what: you don’t have a backup plan anymore.

Don’t be a cry baby - You’ve lost your PC. OK, fine. Post about it, it’s a right. Just don’t make it sound like the end of the world. Some of your readers will have bigger problems. Don’t try to use pity to reach them. Nobody loves an underdog.
Talk about your loss, deal with it but don’t loose the perspective, or you’ll sound like a 30 old virgin living in your momma’s basement.

And finally…

Never Give Up, Never Surrender! - Most of Humanity’s best written works were produced under nasty circumstances. You don’t have black plague, Nazi soldiers in your dinner room, soviet agents joking your next work will be made in a place that rhymes with “Liberia”.
Think about your changed blogging environment as a fact of life. Not in a Pollyanna way. “Katrina is coming” doesn’t mean you’ve got a date, boy.
Imagine you’re a war blogger, without the war. Some things are bigger than you but what can’t be broken can be bent.

No, it does not mean you can dodge bullets.

Technorati : adhs, cobain, disaster, ritalin

Checking this entry on Lorelle on Wordpress, she talks a lot about downtimes and servers going belly-up. Well, it’s a fact of life. My Bluehost account is very reliable, but even they can’t deal with a +12 hours power outage, and gave up after 5 hours of diesel generators, Dilithium crystals decomposing and inverted polarities.

BUT (there’s always a but) the Server Down is NOT my biggest concern anymore.

A few weeks ago my earnings suddenly dropped to half the daily average. Of course Murphy being Murphy, I was away, returned home late afternoon. Check here, mess with adsense codes there, ping site, everything is fine.

The problem? Although the server was up and running, the database OK, external links properly working, somehow Wordpress messed up with some config and returned to its default theme. Yes, the one I never touched, and never included ANY adsense code.

Lesson learned:

1. Always check your blog personally. A pingomatic server check is not smart enough to visually detect problems.
2. Don’t be a lazy stupid monkey (like me). Edit the default template and include some adsense code. Worst-case scenario even looking like a plain install your money will still generate some revenue.
3. Don’t go out. You can’t have a life. (OK, maybe this one doesn’t apply to everyone)

Technorati : adsense, outtage, profit, revenue, server down

Let’s face it. Sometimes it’s hard to not reblog. A very short post “Jesus is back, news at eleven” found on another blog, a classic “post-void filling” YouTube Video, a funny picture.

But if you post the content as-is, and quote the source (please quote the source, it’s only fair) soon your visitors will identify you as a reblogger, and will add the source’s feed to their own RSS reader, and forget about you.

The secret here is: Add something. Don’t just post a video, post your impressions. A 5 minutes search will find lots of new info about anything. When I reblog something at MeioBit, the largest Brazilian technology-oriented blog, I do my homework. Usually a Digg story points to a lame blog with a single headline and two paragraphs of text.

I use it as a starting point. If it’s a story about some Japanese robot, I Google for the firm that created the robot, use Google Translate to catch more info, and presto: New and original content, a improved version of the press-release everybody else is reblogging. Do it yourself. Choose a story in Engadget, try to find more info than the original post. It’s easy, don’t take a a CSI to accomplish.

Next time, your readers will not click on the source, or will do it only to realize how lame its content is, compare to yours.

Technorati : content, enhanced, reblog

This is not a scam, but it’s so easy that almost sound like one.

I wrote an article on my professional blog (sorry, Portuguese-only) with a simple, “do nothing” strategy that attacks more users to your blog.

Let’s face it. People can’t spell. The “doodz” generation, with their “like this and like that” is not, like, smart, like, you know. Like. They can’t spell banana because they don’t know when to stop. Don’t matter if you write to an audience that does not write like that, sooner or later the kids WILL arrive and leave a comment like “in ur base killing ur d00dz“. Should you erase it?

NEVER!

Google don’t care if people can’t spell, it will index everything that it thinks it’s relevant. Sometimes Google can’t recognize a typo, and will think it’s just a weird word. And will index it. A lot of weird typos from people who leave comments on my articles are indexed, and lead other readers who write the same weird typos directly to my blog.

It means you should use typos and weird word yourself? No, not at all. Just don’t get mad about the not-so-smart people who leave such comments on your blog. They are not alone.

Technorati : dumb people, typos