Blogging

how to rotate taglines on your WordPress blog

Another thing on my todo list was to learn PHP and write a WordPress plugin to randomly select quotes stored in the database to rotate the tagline.

An admin interface to create, modify and delete quotes was planned for Version 2.1 (beta) due Q4 2008.

Fortunately for me though, a helpful person called Zombie Robot (pseudonym ?) has already produced wp-quotes (and another kind person tweaked it to work properly for taglines).

fun with Habari

There’s been a lot of excitement and discussion recently about the emergence of a new blogging platform called Habari.

A brand new blogging platform being created from scratch with more developers than actual blogs.The prospect of my blog being completely broken by the nightly alpha build was an attractive one. A chance to leave the comfort of a stable Wordpress environment with all those themes and plugins. A change to live on the bleeding edge. I desperately tried to resist but the lure was too strong. In the end, I simply couldn’t help myself.

fun with disaster recovery

Sort of.

I decided to remove all posts from my newly created Habari sandbox in case my readership and GoogleBot gets confused. As there was no obvious bulk deletion tool, I simply truncated the `wp_posts` table.

Unfortunately, I truncated the `wp_posts` table from the Wordpress schema instead of the Habari schema.

So, in the space of a mere 24 hours, I had managed to lose my favourite boxer shorts, get a brand new shiny blog and then completely trash my established, trusty, stable blog.

thin line between truth and humour

Occasionally, I used to wonder what people thought when they were subjected to some of the material on this blog. Andrew Sherman’s comment questioning whether this story was completely true also resurrected this thought.

Most of the articles, posts, stories on this blog are based on truth. The vast majority are anecdotes recounting real-life events that actually happened to me, that my warped sense of humour finds amusing. Examples in this category:

• Axe Murderer
• Narrow Escape
• Hamsters etc
• Eat Your Own Dog Food
• Trick Or Treat
• Smoke and Mirrors
• Anything titled YCNMIU

Other posts are simultaneously technical and non-technical but merely an opportunity for a superb, ambiguous title.

traffic report

The year end always sees lots of people post meaningless stats about blog traffic. Unfortunately, I only have tracking data since my move to Bluehost in late September but I am not going to let that stop me. Google Analytics reports:-

• 4,709 visits
• 8,036 page views
• 1.71 pages per visit
• 3,902 unique visitors

[ Note the almost linear growth in visitors over the three months. It took me ages to get that perfect straight line ] Of course, these traffic numbers are bitterly disappointing so, to cheer myself up, I analyze the AwStats reports for the same period. This makes me feel much better.

who wants to be an Adsense millionaire ?

Occasionally, I have been tempted to experiment with Google Adsense on this blog. Not because I think I will get rich and be able to retire but I am curious to see how the technology works. Thankfully, to date, laziness, inertia and minimalist tendencies have prevailed.

So I was very interested to read Guy Kawasaki’s 12 month review of his popular blog. ‘How To Change The World’ received 2.5 million page views (slightly more than my humble blog), 7,000 comments (again, slightly more than my statistics) and 2,000 trackbacks (1,999 more than me) in 2006.

murky depths of the recycle pool

London, near England. 1 December 2006

Brightside Productions proudly announce the launch ‘From The Murky Depths Of The Recycle Pool.’

This innovative blog series will round up the latest happenings from the blogosphere with a sideways glance at Oracle. The blog will feature a variety of exciting formats including articles, podcasts, video blogs and live satellite links. Assuming I get that microphone, Webcam and satellite dish for Christmas that is.

from beyond the grave

Stumbled across this blog. Another young life ended prematurely. Sad. Very sad.

How to get dugg, increase readership and earn lots of money

Engtech has some great references stressing the importance of the blog title when trying to attract readers.

However, this merely confirms what I already knew. A couple of weeks ago, I posted this entry which brought a trickle of traffic from TailRank. This, in turn, brought another article about the same news story to my attention.

My post was titled: ‘361 days to go’

The other article was titled: ‘Black Cat Thunderbolt Rocket Up The Arse’

do not disturb

Phil McIntyre is busy blogging right now.