Tag Archives: blogging

Permalink Structure Update

Posted on by
Reply

I’ve just updated the permalink structure of the URLs for this blog.

Previously I was using the ‘month and name’ configuration for each post, i.e. this post would be “/2012/05/post-name”.

My main problem with this structure was the impersonal tone it set for each post. Rather than each post being unique, important, and self-contained, the numerical structure set a very ordered tone for the posts. That being that each post was sequential and the order held some importance, when in reality that was far from true.

Keeping the URL scheme as just “/post-name” will now put the focus on the content and not the blog as a whole. Often-times I update posts and at that point I always ask myself, “Should I update the URL as well?”. Also I find it much more important to know when a post was last updated than when it was first created. Look to a theme change to reflect that desire.

On a technical note I used the following post by Yoast to help with my URL migration. This way old URLs won’t point to dead 404 pages and users will still be able to see the content they requested.

Blogging Is Harder Than You Think

Posted on by
Reply

When I began to blog I wasn’t aware of the challenges I would be facing. ’So many people blog all the time, it can’t be that hard!’. I could not have been more wrong.

How do you start blogging?

The first (non) challenge of blogging is what software or service to use. The most popular choices are WordPress and Blogger. Some may go the self-hosted route which opens up many more options, no decision objectively better than the rest.

After selecting your blogging engine of choice the real challenge begins. You have to write.

What do you write about? Guess what, only you know. You’re blogging because you want to. No one told you to blog or what to blog about. As a result the topics at your disposal are limitless.

At least at first. You should probably figure out what your dominant subject will be. It could be blogging about things you know intimately, or you could chronicle your foray into new experiences.

Or you could be like me and refuse to choose. Honestly it’s a stupid decision, one that causes me to curse my stubbornness daily.

Again, it’s up to you what you want to write about.

Have you chosen what it is yet?

Now start writing.

How often should you write?

Again, this is up to you. You’re blogging because you want to right?

I suggest setting an attainable goal for yourself to hit. When I started blogging I promised myself to post at least once per week. It was a goal I felt confident I could keep without burning myself out.

Write as often as you feel comfortable. Only you know the pace you can maintain. But above all else…

Write.

Write, write, write.

So now you’re writing.

Congratulations! Keep it up! Keep going! It doesn’t get easier but you do become more experienced.

With that experience you learn more about yourself as a blogger. You’ll learn that you blog best in the morning, or while on the train.

You’ll learn the posts that you enjoy writing most and the ones people love reading most.

Along the way you’ll pick up some comments, each one just as exciting as the first.

I yelped after I got my first comment on this blog, and I still do. It’s a joy to know my words bring joys to others.

So stop reading and get writing!

And for starters you can write me a nice comment. ;)

What Happens When I Don’t Post?

Posted on by
Reply

This is the first time in two years that I have gone more than a week without a blog post. On one hand I feel very shitty about this. I feel like I should be beating myself up for not being more proactive in writing a post.

On the other hand I feel quite liberated.

I think I didn’t post anything as a mild act of self-rebellion. For two years I’ve diligently pushed out a blog post, never mind the quality. However that behavior has began to pale for me. I don’t want to read shitty things so I shouldn’t be writing and posting shitty things.

Also I had an excuse.

I’ve come down with a god-awful cold these past two weeks. Last weekend I was all but couch-ridden, watching movie after tv show letting the sickness run its course. (Quick movie recap: *Immortals*: Stupid movie, fun action. *We Bought a Zoo*: Anticipated mushiness, but was a quality film for all ages. Highly recommended.)

So with my cold in my back pocket I let these two weeks ride, watching my blog sit and collect a little dust. I expected my view counts to drop as no new material was being written.

But they didn’t.

They kept strong, with my previously top read posts remaining my top read posts. It seems like some of my pages are high up in some Google searches as they’re constantly hit and read.

It was during these two weeks that I realized that I don’t need to mindlessly push out posts of any quality, but take my time with topics that I care about. Then write about them, take my time and when published their quality should speak for themselves.

Or they’ll just be ignored. At least I tried.

Review: iA Writer for the Mac and for the iPhone and for the iPad

Posted on by
Reply

They say the clothes don’t make the man. I’m inclined to disagree.

At least in this case.

I just purchased, downloaded, and installed iA Writer from the Mac App store. It’s what I’m writing this blog post on.

If I had to put into one word my reaction to this program it would be: awesome.

Well, I feel that kind of undersells how much I’m loving this application right now.

The type face is clear. The background is comforting. And the cursor icon, that beautiful little blue bar makes me just want to type, type, type!

The more I type the more I push the blue bar forward. And it’s dizzying just watching it jump across my screen. It makes me forget that I’m writing a blog post, letting my ideas flow, and preventing me from worrying if I’m making sense.

Stop. I am making sense right?

Yes? Moving on then.

I first installed iA Writer on my iPad. It shortly became my default writing app. It opened quickly which is always a top priority for me. When I want to write, I want to write. (omigod – aside: the auto-markdown feature on the mac is awesome. Just used it for the first time.) If it takes more than 3 seconds, hell, 1 second for the app to open then I’m annoyed. I can feel the thoughts slipping out of my head while I stare at a stalled screen. iA Writer nailed that out of the park from day 1.

When I’m writing I want to focus on my words. I want to focus on my words and the sentences they construct. Sometimes I want to focus on the paragraphs that my sentences have created but that should only be done when I revise. I need to be stricter about that, but ah well. iA Writer let’s me focus on my words. It blurs its edges, and the surrounding sentences, letting all my attention bleed into the line I’m currently writing. From my mind, through my fingertips, to iA Writer. It’s beautiful.

Yesterday I was getting near fed up with my writing app of choice on my iPhone. I was preparing myself to look through the App Store to find a suitable alternative. Wouldn’t you know it…yesterday iA writer released an update to their iPad app, making it Universal. Universally awesome is more like it.

Now I have iA Writer on my iPhone and my iPad. And it uses iCloud.

Last night I played around with the iCloud feature of iA Writer. It was delightful. I’d edit a line on my iPad and stare at my iPhone. Soon enough the changes just appeared there. No effort, no buttons pressed, just pure syncing joy.

It was at that point that I knew I needed to enjoy the benefits of iCloud on my Mac. And hence my purchase of iA Writer for the Mac today.

It’s on sale right now as well. Only $8.99 instead of its usual $18.99. If you like to write at all I strongly encourage you to pick up this app.

It’s also on sale for the iPhone and iPad (universal app, remember?). It’s only a measly $0.99 instead of its usual $4.99 for the iPad and $0.99 for the iPhone? That’s what it says on iA Writer’s website. I’m not really sure what that means. Long story short: it’s cheap.

I give iA Writer the Harry Wolff 5 stars out of 5. And I don’t usually give out 5 stars willy nilly. In fact, this is the first time I’ve given anything any stars.

iA Writer. It’s that good.

Blogging In 2011: A Year In Review

Posted on by
Reply

This is my year in review blog post, and oh what an exciting blog post it’s going to be!

2011 was a good year of blogging for me. I managed to kick my addiction of compulsively checking Google Analytics to see how many hits I was getting and instead was able to focus more on just getting words on the screen and out into the interwebs.

With that being said I did crack open Google Analytics today to do a post-mortem of the year and I must say I’m very pleased!
Continue reading →

On Writing And Blogging Healthily

Posted on by
2

20111219-224920.jpgWhen is there time to think? Or rather, when is there time to write? When all the hours of the day are spent concentrating to create feats of engineering how can I then kick back and let the literary imagination flow?

I’ve long struggled with these conflicting desires. Throughout the day I code. I wrestle with logic and math to bring to reality the ideas of how a website should behave. And more often than not when then day is done I’m left exhausted, my mind wrung out and needing some valuable time to rest undisturbed.
Continue reading →

WordPress 3.3 ‘Sonny’ Released

Posted on by
Reply

This blog has been updated to the latest version of WordPress, version 3.3 ‘Sonny’. This new version comes with an improved admin experience, enhanced uploader, and a lot more. Check out the blog announcement on WordPress.org and watch the video to see what is in this upgrade.

If you use WordPress I wholeheartedly encourage you to upgrade your installation. Not only do updates bring about great new features but they also always come with increased security, making your blogging experience safer and secure.

I haven’t delved too far into all the changes WordPress 3.3 offers but I know I’m already digging the new admin experience.

Go upgrade now and enjoy a new and improved WordPress. :)

My Writing Niche Is Me

Posted on by
Reply

I write a lot here about my difficulties writing. This is kind of oxymoronic as when I do write, the topic is about how I can’t write. Yet because I’m writing about how I can’t write I actually have written something – despite the subject of the written work being how I can’t do what I just did.

I hope the previous paragraph made some iota of sense. I just rolled out of bed and this is honestly the first thing I did this morning that exercised my brain. So obviously the cobwebs are still a little crowded in there as I haven’t fully shaken them free.

Blogging is mostly a thankless act. Most days that I update this blog I have no way to know if anyone read my new post. No one is commenting on each and every post with something to add to the conversation because maybe there isn’t much to add.

Yet I continue to blog and share whatever thoughts I can gather. I do it out of some self-centered need to express myself online. Some want to make my voice heard amidst the sea of internet voices.

I’ve read countless articles about how the secret to blogging is to do a guest blogging post on someone else’s more popular blog, or to pick one topic and stick to it as tenaciously as you can. Find a niche and talk about it at length. I don’t have a niche on this blog. The only niche I’d be able to say I have is the niche of ‘me’. And what the niche of me talks about varies on a daily basis, making it harder to pigeonhole the blog but also harder to know what to expect.

So in many ways the reason I don’t get many comments on posts is my own self doing: I’m not talking consistently about what people expect to read. Yet if I were to start doing that then I’d feel as if I had sold out, and would no longer be blogging for me but for some other purpose.

But that’s why I started blogging. For me. And right now I still want to blog for me. I’m sure it’ll evolve as more time passes – I have yet to even hit 2 years of blogging – but right now I’m well and happy just rambling about things that I like to say.

The Magic Bullet To Write More Often

Posted on by
Reply

Every so often I get the idea that if I were to blog underneath a different name I’d blog more often. I get some weird idea that because I actually blog as my ‘real life self’ that I’m inhibited in what I say and how I often I post.

To that I call bullshit. If I wanted to blog more often I would – pen-name be damned. The only real reason I don’t blog as much as I want to is because other things in my life get in the way. Like work. Or social life. Or just living. You know, that thing that is done away from the computer. Something that I don’t take part in nearly enough.

Sadly I don’t call bullshit on myself nearly enough. Sometimes I’ll get so carried away that the magic bullet to get myself to write more is to create a new anonymous alias for myself, register a new domain name as anonymously as possible, and then blog posts will just start to flow.

That’s a crock of shit and I know it. Although sometimes I wish there was a magic bullet to get me to post more. And then I start setting up a new WordPress blog, and before I know it I’ve wasted 3 hours not writing a blog post and having nothing to show for my time.

Ah well. So it goes.

Page Views

Posted on by
2

Sometimes it’s very hard to predict how many hits this blog will get.

For example today I wasn’t expecting many hits on this blog. I was expecting to get a lower than average amount of hits. After all it’s only Tuesday, and I only wrote a little post earlier about my reaction to the new Google Reader design. All in all I was expecting small things from this blog today.

Yet surprises remain unexpected! Dare I say – surprising. This blog hit its average amount of views today and I have no clue how. I’m not stressing about the positive result, just again curious and fascinated at how unpredictable page views can be.

Of course if I had posted something very interesting today I would have expected a fair amount of hits. Yet even then, history has proven to me that is not always the case.

Ah well, so it goes. Glad people enjoy reading things here.