Yay! Blog! v2.0
Category: Blogging and Web Stuff

CrabappleLane Rob sent me an email yesterday to tell me that it was exactly 2 years ago that he featured Yay! Blog! as his Blog of the Day. I can't believe it's been 2 years. I've enjoyed reading Rob's blog ever since. Especially on Sundays when he posts pictures.

The entry he featured two years ago was me deciding what to do for Anti-Procrastination Day. I ended up scrubbing down the kitchen counters that day. Enthralling reading, I tell ya! I love blogging.

Thanks, Rob!

You go make some, too.

Today, my sitemeter counted its 300,000th visitor. The lucky soul connected from Poland with a monitor set at 1024x768 resolution and 32 bits of color depth. She or he used Windows XP and was searching AltaVista for images of "weed." S/he got this page...

Yay! Pictures! Flowers and Plants 2

... and promptly left the site. I guess s/he didn't find what what s/he was looking for.

I had to get a new monitor tonight. More on that later... I'm pretty sure I'm going to take it back tomorrow.

When I opened my browser, this is what I found:



The main column of my blog overlaps the left column when I squeeze the window. I don't understand why it would look that way on one monitor and not another.

Is that what you see when you look at my blog? If so, I'm embarrassed. I've never seen it do that.

I'm trying out a new time killer: 43 Things. It's a site where you can build a long term to-do list and write about your progress blog style. When you've accomplished an item, you can mark it done. You can even connect it to your blog to post entries in both places. That's what I did with The Process of Ripping CDs to MP3 entry.

It's kinda neat and free for now.

I'm irritated with the link exchange I had on my site until last night. I removed all their code due to their inconsistent application of their rules. They rejected a couple of ads I submitted that pointed to individual entries on my songs blog.

I'm not sure whether they had a problem with pointing to individual entries or with it being a purely music blog. They just said, "Please link directly to your blog." Either way, it's inconsistent. Other people have pointed to individual entries in their ads. Plus they've accepted an ad I submitted for my songs blog before, so I really don't know what to make of it. They even have an ad category for "music."

Another time, I had an ad rejected because it contained the obfuscated word "h*ll" (as in 'what the h*ll was that?'). It didn't bother me at the time, but later I saw an approved ad with the same obfuscated word. Poop on that.

I might replace the code with a couple of those links that take you to a random blog. That's always fun.

I'm skeptical that the new link attribute unveiled by Google will *prevent* comment spam as Google claims. I understand it makes spamming less effective, but I'll bet the spamming continues at the same pace. Spammers might even step up their evil practices since they have to cover more area to find the blogs that don't have the attribute in place.

The people who should rejoice are the pres·cription sites and po·ker sites and po·rn sites who have the most legitimate links. It'll help push them closer to the top of their respective search rankings, but only if the majority of spam ridden blogs and self-post link sites pick up on this.

I'm not sure I'll implement it because I don't want to penalize the legitimate commenters on my site. With the few techniques I've implemented, spam rarely gets through, and when it does, it doesn't stay up for long. I hope I didn't just jinx myself....

We've set up a calendar for our website at work. We're using a fantastic program: CalendarScript. It's Perl based, fully customizable, and reasonably priced. I'm very happy Matt (the developer) considers government agencies in the "non-profit" pricing structure. Since we have no software budget, we have to scrounge from other areas (like training and supplies) to buy software. He even allows people to download and install before they pay to make sure they are 100% satisfied. The program has far exceeded my expectations!

So if you're in need of a calendar program for your website and don't mind learning a little bit of Perl if you want to customize the look and functionality of the thing, I whole-heartedly recommend CalendarScript. I wish I had a need for a calendar on my website.

On another note... MovableType considers government the same as commercial for their pricing structure. I really wish they would reconsider.

I'm back to a three column blog. I found that having the blogsnob thingy and the TTLB Ecosystem thingy were causing my blog to load *really* slow at times, so I moved them into their own little space. I'm still working on it. Let me know if something seems terribly broken.

I also added a Gravatar plugin to my comments that I saw over at Rob's. You'll see a generic picture by your name in the comments unless you sign up your email address and upload an 80x80 picture at Gravatar. It's pretty cool.

I'll get back to the posts about the nice visitors here soon. Y'all make my day.

All my RSS feeds went wonky for a while after I installed MTMultiBlog. Hopefully, I didn't lose anybody. If you're still here... it's fixed.

Rob planted a seed... he upgraded his moveabletype installation. It's been on my mind all day, so I took the plunge. So far, the only problem I can see is that comments are forced through an approval queue. So your comments won't show up right away. Blah.

There's another problem, but that might be with the operator. Hopefully, I'll get everything worked out tomorrow.

Edit: The comment problem seems to have worked itself out. So please... comment!

Yay! Rob's Amazing Poem Generator is working again!

It generated the following verse from my blog this morning:

kim is a new Year!
as 2.99% APR. on balance transfers until 9
cash offers for Unconscious Mutterings
GAME BOY:: Long time period,
but my friend,
but not your feelings in dramatic terms,
but capable of the Night
Away Death of a glass with
sugar free black cherry syrup!
Unless I had lost their
summer trying to
know Them:
Yeah.

Ian doesn't like my site design. Darlin'... just pick a skin. And if you don't like any of the skins, no one's forcing you to visit.

For the record, I didn't get into a pissing contest with David. My commenters did. David's cool. I was disappointed when he quit blogging.

Rob made the 1000th comment on this incarnation of my blog. He said, "Nice skin. Love the fireworks." I like Rob's blog, Crabapple Lane. He's counting down the days until football season. Only 65 more days now. He also posts lots of pictures of his place in Louisiana. It's beautiful there. Plus he posts a "blog of the day" link which is great for finding new blogs to read.

Thanks, Rob!

I'm almost done tinkering with my site. I think the only page left to upgrade is my styles page and some Christmas pages. I need to remake all my skins. I also need to surf through my blog entries and clean some things up. If you see any pages that don't look upgraded, let me know.

Then I need to get all my pictures from Portland together and make a photo album. I have three days off this weekend, so I should have plenty of time. Yay!

Anyone else besides boogaboo not able to open my comments with a left click?

I'd like to thank David for his explanation of how he found my blog and why he doesn't like it. I understand completely now.

To all of you who have come to my defense, I thank you much. But you have to realize... he's not my audience. You fine people are.

Apparently, David doesn't like the way I blog... See the link on the right of his blog that says "An Example of Why Blogging is a Bad Idea for Most People".

Thanks for the link, anyway.

I made a page where you can choose a skin for my site. I only have two skins, but everything is in place to make it easy to make more! Here ya go:

Check out the spike in my website stats from yesterday:

Welcome to my new blog! The old blog is still there for a little while [Edit: Not there anymore] and all the archives will remain intact.

I'm proud to have a new duet with Jim Reeder available for my first day of the new blog, too. It's a cover of the Beach Boys' "In My Room."

I'll be making different skins for this blog at some point, so if you don't like the background and colors, you'll have other options.

If you find any problems, please let me know! I tried to work out all the kinks, but well... you know. I'll be converting my whole website to the new style over the coming weeks. Weeeeee!!