Project smartblo.gs: Helping the Internet One Question at a Time
August 7, 2010 By View Comments
I’m starting a new, ongoing service called Project smartblo.gs. It has a two-fold purpose. One, allow us to build a unique, one of a kind, helpful database of questions and answers that can potentially help other people with the same problems or issues and two it will afford people the opportunity to challenge themselves and, with the help of SmartBlo.gs, have the confidence to create a better product on their own.
While smartblo.gs is getting up and running, myself and my partner in crime at FlooID Interactive will be the ones handling most of the questions. Although as the project starts to gel and take shape we’re going to be working with experts and thought leaders, some of the sharpest minds in the industry to answer your questions and share their expertise.
How Does Project SmartBlo.gs work
- smartblo.gs will be starting out with a soft launch. It’s not a separate site. Currently smartblo.gs will simply be integrated just as any other category on the site. As the project grows and evolves I’ll make the decision on what, if any, the next step will be.
- Spread the word! The more questions we add to the database the more relevant the database becomes. smartblo.gs is truly a community driven site.
- Click here to go to my contact page. Fill out the required fields and select “Answer Bag” from the dropdown menu under “In regards to”
- Fill out your question while being as detailed and specific as possible. Make sure to include a link to the site/page you’re question is referring to.
- That’s it! Click send and wait. Once your question has been answered and posted you will be notified via email.
- Lastly, be sure to tell all your friends and family that usually come to you for tech questions and advice to check out smartblo.gs and leave you alone.
Remember, there’s no such thing as a dumb question, feel free to ask whatever is on your mind. Design, layout, plugins, customizations or even something as simple as adding paragraph tags. Think of it as your chance for a one-on-one tutorial, a mini-masterclass on the one thing that’s been bugging you that you always wished you could change/fix about your site.
Project smartblo.gs is sponsored by FLooID Interactive.
Deleting a Post From Your RSS Feed
August 4, 2010 By View Comments
I was working on cleaning up some old posts on my site earlier today and wound up accidentally publishing a post I meant to delete. If you’ve ever had this happen to you then you probably know that even if you catch your mistake immediately and proceed to unpublish or delete the post in question it’s too late, it’s already been pulled into your RSS feed.
Obviously if it was important enough to delete the post immediately it’s important enough to get it out of your RSS feed. Depending on what the content is this could range from a minor annoyance to oh my god I just crapped myself.
If you’re leaning toward the latter then you more than likely are freaking out about how to get the post you already deleted from your site out of your RSS feed. The bad news is if you’re not using feedburner to handle your feeds you’re on your own. The good news is if you’re using feedburner to handle your feeds then removing a post from your feed is quick and easy.
Step 1: After you’ve deleted the post in question from your site, go to login to feedburner and click on the feed in question.
Step 2: Once you’re in the correct feed click on the “troubleshootize” tab.
Step 3: Scroll down until you see the “Resync Now” button and click it.
Although it’s called the “Nuclear Option” it’s not nearly as serious as it sounds. The only thing the resync does is to delete all of your current archived RSS posts and immediately crawl your site for existing posts that belong in the feed. Since you’ve already deleted the post you want gone, feedburner rebuilds your entire feed without the post in question. That’s all there is to it.
For the record, I’m not saying that there isn’t a way to get rid of a post in your feed if you’re not using feedburner, I’m just saying that, if there is a way, I’m not familiar with it. If you know of a solution for non-feedburner users feel free to share it in the comments section and let us know.
Zen and the Art of Blogging: Hosted vs. Self-Hosted – Where to Begin
August 3, 2010 By View Comments
One of the first things you need to do once you’ve decided that you want to become a kick ass, famous blogger that can change the world with a few keystrokes is to decide what type of platform you your blog to be built on. No matter who you are, or how big or small your audience will be initially, everyone has to make this decision before they begin.
First, let’s start off with some basic definitions so that we’re clear on what we’re talking about.
Self-Hosted
Choosing a self-hosted blog means that you, not the blogging company, will be taking care of hosting your site. If you choose to go with a self-hosted blog you’ll need to make a few more decisions like which platform to use and where to host it. As far as the choice of platform goes, for the purpose of this post, I’ll only be dealing with WordPress.org. For hosting, that’s up to you. You’ll need to start off with a simple hosting package from some place like GoDaddy (affiliate link) or Bluehost.
While a self-hosted blog gives you the most flexibility to what you want with your blog, it also means that you, or someone you hire, will be responsible for virtually every aspect of you site. Fortunately WordPress now has an automatic update feature so when a new version is released all you need to do is click a link that shows up at the top of your dashboard and the update will be handled for you. Installation shouldn’t be an issue either considering virtually every hosting provider worth its salt (certainly the two mentioned above) have one-click installs of WordPress that handle everything from the database creation to populating the initial files for you.
Hosted Blogging Solutions
Hosted blogging platforms do one thing spectacularly. They let you focus solely on content. Once your site is set up you never have to worry about what’s going on in the background, upgrades and general maintenance is taken care by the blogging platform itself.
- WordPress.com – WordPress.com is a hosted and slightly crippled version of WordPress.org. The main difference is that you can’t run ads on your site. In my experience the ability to theme a WordPress.com site isn’t quite as flexibility as the self-hosted version. WordPress.com is free but they do charge for certain add-ons such as using a custom domain name.
- Typepad.com – Typepad has been around for a long time and has a lot to offer the small-business types. One thing Typepad does well are their clean, professional looking themes. Typepad is a paid service.
- Tumblr.com – Tumblr is a “short” blogging platfrom that makes it easy to post a wide variety of content while drilling each post down to the specific kind of content you are posting.
- Posterous.com – Another “short” blogging platform boasts it’s the easiest way to post and it probably is. The only thing you have to do to start your blog on Posterous is send a post to post@posterous.com and you’re all set.
If you’re looking for a hosted blogging solution you’re going to need to do a lot more research to find out which one of these is right for you. Don’t be afraid to sign up for an account and play around with the dashboard of each and see which one you’re more comfortable with. Even Typepad, which is the only service that charges, has a 30-day free trial so you can get in there and see what it’s like.
This is by no means a complete list of every blogging platform out there. These are just a few that I’ve had a good deal of experience with and would feel comfortable recommending to someone who asked my opinion.
Blogging Tips that Keep You From Being Confused With a Blogger that Sucks: Lesson #1
July 30, 2010 By View Comments
It took me a while to build up the courage to begin this series of posts, mainly because this is only part one of a 700 part series, and that’s the abridged version.
One of the amazing things about blogging is that virtually anyone can do it. Unfortunately, one of the drags about blogging is that virtually anyone can do it. Without a doubt the easiest part of blogging is sucking at it.
Fortunately, if you’re reading this, you’re already one step closer to what blogging is all about, success and glory.
Blogging Tips that Keep You From Being Confused With a Blogger that Sucks is a master-level course painstakingly constructed to, not only make you a better blogger, but to make you more attractive to the opposite sex as well as learning how to turn your blog posts into cold, hard cash.
Alright, enough with the introductions, let’s get down to brass tacks. Click after the jump to get started.
Lesson #1
Post with passion. No matter what subject your blog or your post is about there are sure to be innumerable other blogs or posts out there on the same subject. The one thing that separates you from all the others is you. You are the unique ingredient in your writing.
Earlier I started to post a blog entry about YouTube’s announcement that they’ve increased the maximum length of their video uploads to 15 minutes, up from 10.
Fortunately before I hit the “Publish” button I realized I had absolutely no business at all to be publishing a post about that. Sure, I write about tech but the only thing I use YouTube for is publishing 30 second long videos of my daughter.
Granted, YouTube increasing its maximum upload length by fifty percent is pretty big news, but really what else is there to say that hasn’t already been said?
There’s nothing wrong with posting content that you know is already being covered, that being said, keep in mind what makes the content interesting to your readers. Your perspective. Don’t just tell your readers that YouTube has increased its maximum upload, tell them why that is good news for them. Tell them how you plan on taking advantage of it and what it means for the industry.
For me, the YouTube story is a perfect example, because there really isn’t too much to say about it. If your readers can’t figure out the benefits of uploading 15 minutes of video as opposed to 10 minutes of videos then original content probably isn’t your biggest concern. Your biggest concern would be why your content is attracting people that are so dumb.
Summary
Don’t just go around the internet and grabbing every headline you see just to throw content onto your blog. Trust me, no one is going to come to your blog and be blown away by the fact that you jumped on that 15 Minutes of YouTube train.
A great goal to aim for is to be aware of your content and work toward giving your readers something they can’t find anywhere else. You.
Poling Place: What’s your stance on video posts in blogs?
June 17, 2010 By View Comments
This is something I’ve been kicking around in my head for a while but as anyone who knows me knows I’m neurotic about asking focus group like questions to find the right solution for a problem.
I went so far as to create three separate SimCity simulations exact in each way with the exception that one was using only video blog posts, one used only text blog posts and one using a mixture of both. Tragically, as part of my virtual leftist agenda I legalized marijuana and introduced it as a cash crop as a resource for making durable fibers and paper. Three months later each of my societies experienced a complete catastrophic economic meltdown as they all started listening to jazz music non-stop and fraternizing with people different social classes rendering the entire 3-year experiment completely useless.
