Posts in category "blogging"

from zero to hero

Up by around 13,000 due to an arbitrary inbound link from the WordPress tags page

Day 202. Technorati Rank: 173,971 (29 links from 16 sites)

However, this may be the last in the very popular 'From Zero' series for two reasons:

  1. I have exhausted all decent subject lines and puns starting 'From Zero'
  2. Apart from creating a load of splogs or bribing people, I have exhausted all known avenues for inbound links

I may well now turn my attention to PubSub where my ranking is a much more satisfying 66,425 (InLinks 0, OutLinks 0, Entries 0) and I simply do not believe that hurtful person who told me PubSub only track a total of 66,426 blogs.

autograph hunting

The following celebrities have graced my blog with the odd (in some cases, very odd) comment:

One of these is a joke.

from zero to eternity

Thanks to Jeff Hunter kindly updating the link on his blogroll, this blog has awoken from a period of slumber.

Day 201. Technorati Rank: 187,013 (28 links from 15 sites)

Don't ask me why 3 links and 3 sites have been added (instead of 1) since the last update. Who am I to question the inner workings of Technorati ?

However, /Message is currently positioned at an impressive 4,586 (514 links from 269 sites) and Stowe Boyd's beaming face and black beret continue to taunt me so the struggle must go on.

tags, categories and labels

Lorelle is getting a little vexed about the the precise semantics and usage of tags and categories.

I must confess this isn't a subject that keeps me awake at night although I do agree that the WordPress category list tends to get a little verbose with all those pesky tags.

However, due to circumstances outside my control, I have just had to endure some pain and wasted time converting Outlook Tasks and Contacts to use a flat structure with 'Categories' (rather than my previous folder structure Contacts-Personal, Contacts-Work etc etc). Forgive me, Father. I do not know what I was thinking of.

This is OK but it does mean that when I actually finish something I now have to reassign the category to 'Done' instead of the incredibly satisfying feeling of dragging the Task and dropping it down onto the 'Done' folder.

Maybe Lorelle should tell Scoble that Microsoft Outlook is using the term 'Categories' when they really mean 'Tags'. Shock, horror.

I understand that an individual Contact may fall into several categories - 'Friend', 'Personal' and 'Work' but part of me still thinks in hierarchies.

When I create a directory, I normally have to think about the parent directory so my brain is forced to think 'hierarchy'. I simply don't have 4,563,231 files in the root directory with tags.

When I see an organization chart, I see a hierarchy.

So it is relatively easy to continue to operate in folders and hierarchy mode when organising emails (in fact I still do) and continue in that mindset when dealing with Tasks and Contacts in Outlook. Maybe Foldera will help to change this way of thinking.

Whenever I find myself being lured by the dark side and thinking in terms of hierarchies, directory structures, folders and parents, I remind myself of this excellent technical whitepaper. This document is all about Oracle performance I/O tuning on HP-UX.

Previously I might have saved this PDF to a folder named 'My Documents-Technical-Whitepapers-Oracle-Performance'.

This would pose a problem when I tried to find it again. Where did I put it ? Was it in 'Technical-Whitepapers-Oracle', 'Technical-Whitepapers-Performance', 'Technical-Whitepapers-Unix' or 'Technical-Whitepapers-HP' ? Or did I forget to file it ? Yes. I know all about Google Desktop.

Now I just add it to my BlinkList with the following tags 'Technical, Whitepaper, Oracle, Performance, Tuning, HP-UX, I/O'.

Consequently, I also have now seen the light and removed the two level hierarchy of WordPress categories on this site into a single flat structure.

Now, what categories/tags/labels shall I use for this wide ranging article: 'tagging', 'tags', 'GTD', 'Outlook', 'Oracle', 'WordPress', 'categories' 'meta-data' ? Decisions, decisions.

Oh forget it. This one is 'Uncategorized'

from zero to infinity (and beyond)

The purchase of the black beret has certainly had the desired effect.

Thanks to an appearance on James Healey's Oracle POC blogroll and Rahul Agarwal's newly created blog (also on WordPress.com), I am the proud owner of two fresh inbound links.

However, the Technorati ranking remains unchanged. Maybe the links were already accounted for. Sigh.

Day 195. Technorati Rank: 235,668 (23 links from 12 sites)

the great Tammy NYP blog hoax

Remember the tiresome, well-intentioned emails at work that spread fear, uncertainty and doubt, waste a lot of time and hence, cost a lot of money but actually transpire to be a well documented hoax.

Well the blogosphere has its own endless loop equivalents for the unwary.

going on a diet

I will stop wasting time evaluating every RSS reader in the universe and simply revert to NewsGator Online.

This will help me to read and enjoy content when I actually have the time and inclination. This will also stop me being distracted by that insidious 'There is 1 new article' irritant which just leads to skim reading lots of irrelevant material in a mindless urge to get 'up to date'.

I will endeavour to constrain my list of feeds to those that I actually read and are of interest. The recent introduction of Technorati favo(u)rites proved to me that this number was indeed less than 50.

And finally, Cyril. And finally, Esther. I will unsubscribe immediately from Scobleizer's blog. I am starting to feel like a mindless sheep. I know millions read it and discuss it. I subscribe to it and my eyes see the words but I don't actually read it. He won't mind. He has a big enough audience. Baa.

full circle

Thats it. Enough procrastination. Finished.

I will use Microsoft Outlook to manage my email, contacts, tasks and calendar at work.

I will store work related and personal data in the same repository.

I will not store any data on a Web based service.

I will use Beyond Contacts (from DataViz) to synchronise my contacts, tasks and calendar to my aging but perfectly adequate monochrome Palm Vx.

I will either use old fashioned paper and cheap biros from leading hotel chains (I would only lose an expensive moleskin and fountain pen) or the Palm to capture stuff when I am at home, in transit, in a hostelry or away from my work computer.

I may also send emails to myself from my home computer to work.

I will manually manage my address book on my Nokia phone. This is more work for me but absolutely necessary because I dislike the Nokia PC Suite program so intensely.

I will capture my personal finances in Microsoft Money.

I will continue to use TiddlyWiki (in preference to OneNote and EverNote) to capture personal notes, jottings and information mainly because I like the sound of 'reusable non-linear personal web notebook' and it fits on a memory stick.

I will continue to keep Joomla in my thoughts.

I will no longer mock my wife for keeping lots of lists; 'The only thing you need now is a list telling you where all your lists are'.

from zero to 0.00000001

I am following, with interest, the progress of Stowe Boyd's /Message blog as it gradually, inexorably climbs up the Technorati rankings.

Excellent subject for a blog. Plenty of interesting, free material on a daily basis without any need for thought.

So I have decided to follow suit albeit a little late in the day.

Day 194. Technorati Rank: 235,668 (23 links from 12 sites)

Tune in this time tomorrow to see the impact of my new black beret.

PS. How did I know it was day 194 ?

select trunc(sysdate) - to_date('17-aug-2005', 'dd-mon-yyyy')
    as interval from dual;

INTERVAL
--------
194

small is beautiful

I had a beautifully crafted draft that said...

So MySpace has a staggering 55 million users (well 54 million angst ridden, teen blogs with garish colours, dodgy photos and flash animations galore) while the more recently launched WordPress.com has a mere 110,000 blogs but a far more discerning, perceptive, technically minded and intelligent user base. Quality not quantity.

...but now I see the most popular WordPress tag is 'LECTURES' so maybe WordPress also has 109,998 students, a Microsoft blogging evangelist and me.

'Fancy a drink after this lecture ? No thanks. I simply must go back to the library and blog about it.'

WordPress