At the midpoint of Blaugust I am taking a breather. It’s been a flurry for 16 days but a LOT of fun – I find the daily posting isn’t too tough even though I had a couple travel days for work AND a couple travel days with family last week. It has been fun because I have been getting more traffic – I am not sure if that has to do with Anook or the posting frequency. I know not all of the posts have been my strongest but the effort has been there. Consider this post a half time Blaugust post.
My blog has been around for quite some time – my first post was August 27, 2008 – coming up on an anniversary! I’ll probably forget about it on that actual day – it was top of mind right now for an odd reason. 6 years, a few patches where I didn’t post much, a TON of life changes as well. Interesting to look back on where I was then, and where I am now.
The Housecleaning aspect is that IN THE PAST ALL OF MY TITLES WERE IN CAPS – I don’t know why I made that decision, but I did it for years – so I have been going back and fixing that. Also, all of my posts back then had a “break” in it at some point in the text forcing click-throughs to read it. Again, not sure why I did that either. No reason to inconvenience visitors. I have been taking those out too.
I’ve gone through various iterations of Categorizations and tags – I now categorize by the publisher or developer (Blizzard for Wow, for example) instead of each game individually – I don’t know if they serve any value in the internets besides having people click through and I am guessing that they are rarely used – so I have kept it simple. The tag cloud is now my last sarcastic, attempted wit or parting remark instead of an actual tag – again, not sure if tags have any functional use outside of the blog.
If categories or tags are important, please let me know. If they are helpful somewhere out there, I’ll adjust accordingly. I’ve been blogging for 6 years and I still don’t know why some things are the way they are, or even best practices.
Linking still isn’t working but my webmaster is an old guildmate friend of mine who has never billed me for the URL www.ihaspc.com and he is a family man, and its summer (and he is a boater) so I don’t like to pester. I do feel bad if people are linking and I can’t thank them for it, respond, or become a part of any side conversations but I am sure blognation will go on fine without my track/piggybacks (for now!) hopefully when we get it fixed they will back-update.
I am going to play around with some new themes. I have had this one since day one – and while I like it because it is the same one I have had, I am curious if a fresh look would be better for readers. Besides, TAGN seems to change annually and he is one of those gold standards of bloggers that I respect and admire (him, Bhagpuss, and Zubon) – those are blog-titans of course though, so no surprises there. My Blogroll on the right is all blogs I love reading which is why they are there – makes it easier for me to track my favorites! I added some links on my Blogroll – found some great articles through this initiative and Anook.
Is there anyway to make Blogger and WordPress be more friendly? I love commenting on WordPress sites (it keeps track of who I am so simply!) I figure they should be better friends.
There is my Blaugust half time. I still have 15 drafts in the bank and finding inspiration everyday. At bare minimum, even if I don’t manage to finish Blaugust, I think I am a better writer for working a bit harder on finding/fleshing out topics and being consistent with posting.
Bare minimum, I appreciate the support from everyone else out there who HAS PC.
/blush
Tags are a bit of a mystery to me. I read somewhere that they have some affect on how Google ranks your blog/site, which is why I thought I ought to use them, but how that works or whether it’s even true I have no idea. I didn’t even start trying to be consistent with mine until long after I started and they are a total, incoherent mess by now.
I can’t say I have ever used the tags to find anything on anyone else’s blog either. I do quite often use the Search function embedded in blogs though, which might use the tag system to correlate results for all I know.
As for changing looks, as a reader I’m usually mildly disturbed when a blog I’m familiar with changes appearance but then I quickly get used to it and forget what it used to look like. I’ve only changed mine once – it used to be very narrow with a lo of wasted space. Changing it certainly improved the look but it also broke the “Preview” option in Blogger so I now have to live-edit the final version after I publish, so changing things comes with a risk.
As an aside, I’m still having huge problems commenting on other blogs. A few work perfectly, most now don’t. I’m compiling a list as I make comments but I’ve been in touch with Akismet who were very helpful and it doesn’t appear to be anything they’ve done (or if it is that they can see and fix). I may have to make a new identity and try commenting as that so if you see comments under a variation of my name or other details that’s probably why.
Aha! I Has PC goes on the “Good” list, for reasons other than the obvious! Maybe in time a pattern will emerge.
Yep, that is why I am torn about changing the blog look – its been what its been and it works, so why change? I just notice a lot of people updating often and there are some fun new options out there. I’m torn on it right now, but you’ll definitely know if I do it =)
Glad to see Askimet sees you as the good guy now! At least, here =)