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not blogging

Submitted by shabam on Sun, 04/05/2009 - 11:34
in

For various personal and economic reasons I am not blogging. I have to concentrate my energy elsewhere. I will be keeping the site up but more content will not be coming anytime soon. When I am able to concentrate some energy on my sites again it will most likely be in the creation of tools more than blogging as I can get my writing energies out in ways that actually make me money.

I'd like to thank everyone who has read or will read my blog articles for being great readers. Thanks and God bless!

Drupal for Small Budgets

Submitted by shabam on Fri, 01/16/2009 - 16:02
in

I got an email from a friend earlier today asking me some questions about Drupal. I thought that others might like to have answers to these questions as well. His questions will be in blue.

I wondered if I could ask you a couple of questions about Drupal, since I seem to remember you saying you have worked a bunch with it. I’m getting more and more clients in this changing economy who have smaller and smaller budgets for company websites but I still want to be able to try to offer them a new site that can be managed completely by them with a CMS, for as little a price as possible.

Everyone is looking to save money. Can't say I blame them.

So my overall question would be, could Drupal be the product for this?

Well... Maybe. Drupal is a great program, but it does have it's flaws. Drupal is free, which is great. There are a lot of people developing for it. There are a lot of modules you can download. Drupal is also highly customizable. If you have a developer, you can do amazing things with Drupal. Without a developer you can do quite a lot, but it would take someone with some fairly strong HTML and CSS skills and some basic PHP skills to do it well. If a developer set up the site for them, they could maintain it without the need of a developer on staff.

Some of the customization of Drupal can be cumbersome. Doing basic customization can be very easy and some of the themes you get can easily be changed in certain ways. Colors are easy to change as are what goes into each region, but where the regions are is an example of something that can be difficult. If I want to add something to my sidebar, or any of the other block regions, I just add that block to the region. Drupal is quite easy to use in that way.

There are a lot of modules, and a lot of developers, but since developers are not paid, and there might only be one developer for a module, then if that developer is no longer able or willing to maintain the module it does not get updated. This might mean that it is a major chore to upgrade from one major revision of Drupal to the next. They are still maintaining the older version (5.x). Some people are even still running an even older version (4.7). If it is doing what you want, you do not need to upgrade, but if you want the newer cooler stuff that newer versions offer, you want to upgrade.

If so, is it user friendly enough for most designers who have some basic HTML knowledge to design and create a site themselves? Or do you really still have to be a developer?

Someone with some HTML can create a site themselves. They may not be able to do all of the theme stuff they want to do easily, but assuming that they want to do what the software was designed to do, or a module has been created to do what they want, then they can do it, with some help. Basically it depends on what it is that they want to do. If they want a site that has a bunch of articles, blogs, forums, pictures, etc and want them nicely organized with tags, directories, or what not, then Drupal can do it. Using directories can get a little difficult with Drupal, depending on what you want, because it requires a module. The build in system uses taxonomy, which is basically tags, to track content. I'd need to know what they wanted to know if Drupal was the right option for them.

And is it easy enough to implement just about any look and feel design and layout that you have? Or are you restricted by the framework and templates of the product?

There are very few restrictions on how it looks, but the template system is complex. There are a lot of templates available, and they can all be easily customized. Some changes are easy to make, others, not so much. Once you get used to the theme system it gets easier, but like any CMS, learning it can have a high learning curve.

Most things can be controlled through the CSS, so changing colors, font size, etc is really easy. But the locations of some pieces can be challenging to move around. For instance, say you have a content type that you have 4 different tags on. By default, all the tags are listed together. If you want to list those tags separately that requires a little customization. I can easily do that now, but the first time I tried to do it I had trouble finding directions. Some location customization is made easier with the module Content Templates. Without it, you have to build it in the back end and it gets painful.

And lastly, is Joomla another or better consideration because of features etc?

I can't speak to Joomla as I have never used it. I would like to look at it some time, but have not had the need to yet and don't have time to work in a system that I don't need to. I've heard a lot of good things about it and it should be competitive to Drupal. I think they both probably have some parts that are better than the other.

Commenting on Blogs

Submitted by shabam on Fri, 01/09/2009 - 08:22
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Commenting on other peoples blogs is a great way to meet other bloggers and you can also use it as a way to increase traffic to your site. Some bloggers will only comment on blogs that offer follow links. I think you should write on everyone's sites, but there are a couple of rules to follow when making comments. Let's go over them

Comment on many sites. Don't worry if they use follow or no-follow. No-follow means that they set it so that the search engines will not follow the link to your site. Since the search engines ignore the link, it does not increase search engine traffic to you, but this is only a side reason for commenting. Commenting also builds community. You should build up a community of other bloggers that you like to read, frequent their sites and comment on them. Blogging is a lot about making friends.

Comment outside your niche. You might blog exclusively about fashion, but that does not mean that you should only comment on fashion blogs. You should comment on a lot of other fashion blogs, but you should also read and comment on other blogs that you find interesting. You should, for instance, comment on Shabam Development regularly ;).

Make your comments useful. You do not have to have a long comment, but it should not be just "I agree" either. Remember, we are trying to build community here and just saying "here here" does not get them to want to come to your site, read your articles and comment on them. If you don't really have something to say, perhaps you should not say anything. You do not have to comment on everything. If you do have something to say, make it worth saying. If you just say "I agree" then I'm probably going to assume that if I go to look at your site there will not be anything useful there either.

Don't curse. If the author of the blog curses a lot, then it is probably ok to curse. If you curse on a comment to one of my blogs, I will delete it. It will usually be gone within a couple days. If you can't say it without cursing then you probably don't have the knowledge to respond. Cursing does not mean that you are not intelligent, I've known some really intelligent people that cursed every third word, but when they needed to they could speak or write without cursing. There are times when cursing is fine. It is not fine on most peoples blogs. If I would not want my daughter reading it, I will not keep it on my sites.

Don't veil your curses. %#$@ is still a curse. It is also a curse if you abbreviate it. If it is meant as a curse, it is a curse. See above for more on cursing.

Don't put down the writer or his work. It is OK to point out flaws, but putting them down makes them feel bad and makes you look like a jerk. You might be a jerk, but do you want everyone knowing that? Again, if you want people to come see you, you should be nice to them.

Be a jerk and put down others work and the author. Alright, this contradicts the above. I can't do this, but some people can be a jerk and get away with it. If your style is of the jerk nature, then go ahead and attack others. This is a way to get others to link to you and talk about you. If you are a jerk and do it well then you will get a lot of "see what a jerk this guy is" type links. If that is how you write on your blog, write that way in your comments. Just be aware that some bloggers might delete the post. For me, it would depend on the wording. If I would be worried about a child reading it, I'll delete it. I usually leave the jerk posts, as long as they are not cursing.

Analyzing Traffic

Submitted by shabam on Tue, 01/06/2009 - 19:08
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I have several blogs. One wildly unpopular education blog, one about Christian Family life and sustainability, this technology blog, and a brand new one which is attached to a contest database. I was looking at the stats for my sites and based on those stats considered making some changes. Before those changes were made, I wanted to check further into the stats. Tired Garden and Shabam Development are the only ones with decent traffic, so we will just look at them. Contest Farm is brand new and Shabam School I don't write on much.

Shabam Development has had 23,176 page views in the last year. My sustainability blog, 32,326. At first glance that might seem like I should spend a little more time on Tired Garden, but work on both. But let's consider something I forgot to mention. While Tired Garden is over a year old, Shabam Development is only 6 months old. Now that would seem to make things different. Especially if you just look at the last month. In the last month, Shabam has had 10,751 page views and Tired Garden 2208. Ok, that settles it, I'm ditching Tired Garden and working solely in Shabam!

Wait, not yet! Shabam had 23,176 page views in 6 months and 10,751 of those in the last month? Half of the reads were in the last month? Is there a spike? Yes. I have one wildly popular rant that has received 15,047 reads in total, 9,649 of those in the last month. It is a popular article and garners me a lot of traffic, mostly from Stumble Upon (16 reviews and 35 thumbs up). If I cut out this one article my traffic on this site plummets to 5398 page views in the last month. Still better than Tired Garden.

Considering that I have worked hard to build the traffic for Tired Garden and have let Shabam Development sit, even not writing on it for 2 months, I think that this tells me somthing. With little to no work on Shabam and lot of work on Tired Garden, even ignoring the one anomaly, Shabam got 3190 more page views last month than Tired Garden.

Now this tells me that writing more on Shabam is a good thing. In another article I will be analyzing the type of articles that are getting the best views for me and I will be altering my writing based on this. I will also look at other important factors, such as which articles get comments and which have outside links.

What are Paid Posts?

Submitted by shabam on Sat, 01/03/2009 - 11:36
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If you already know what paid posts are and just want to see a list of them and sign up, visit my Get Paid To Blog list. Otherwise, read on and then go back to the list. There is also a link on the menu at the top if you want to look around the site and check it out later.

Paid posts are an easy way for bloggers to make money or for advertisers to get links, reviews, and customers. You know how when you watch your favorite TV show and they zoom in on the car so you can see what model it is, or they hold up a can of soda so you can see what brand it is? Paid posts are like that, for a blog.

As a blogger paid posts can be a good source of income. If your site has a high Google PR, Alexa Rating, or other score, such as those that some of the paid to blog sites employ, you can make a decent income. To start off with, you might make $5 for a paid post. Sometimes less, sometimes more. Fairly quickly, and sometimes right away, you should be making $10-$20 for a paid post. A really high traffic site can make significantly more.

As an advertiser paid posts can be an easy way to increase your exposure. You offer a little money for paid posts and then you get several bloggers looking at your site. Many of these bloggers will look around, maybe read some of what you have to say, and then decide that it is not right for their blog. Others will write about it and you will pay them a small fee and you will get some great buzz off of it.

Google seems to not like paid posts. They have set up their system so that those who write too many paid posts loose their PR. They say that if causes problems for their search engines. Some of the pay to post sites allow you to use no-follow links, which will help with this issue, but most do not. You should think about how this will effect you before you decide to do it. Many say that PR is a useless metric, others use it for a lot of advertising, so it is a decision only you can make and a discussion for another post.

Over the next few weeks I will be discussing paid posts more and how they can be useful and how they can be detrimental. I hope you will follow the series. To watch the series, follow my paid posts tag.

Getting Paid to Post: PayingPost.com

Submitted by shabam on Fri, 01/02/2009 - 14:30

I'm in the process of developing a list of all the different get paid to blog sites out there. In the process I'm checking them all out and making lists of what is good and bad about them. I just checked out one called PayingPost.com and this is my review of them. I'll be reviewing others, and hope to get a nice listing of them.

What I like:

  • The site is well laid out and clean. Not a lot of clutter that makes it hard to navigate.
  • Clear navigation at the top.
  • List of all the bloggers who are members. This give us an extra link home and you can see clearly who else is using the service (or at least signed up for it).
  • They require disclosure.

What I don't like:

  • There seems to be some things missing. The only place I found what their disclosure policy was is buried in the terms and conditions. I was going to make this entry no-follow, but wanted to see if that was allowed. It is not.
  • They don't allow no-follow.
  • That list of blogs is not sortable in any way. I'm buried on page 22.
  • They don't have a lot of listings. They only had 5 and this was the only one I was qualified for.
  • You are not required to be honest in your write-up. Advertisers can say that they want "positive" reviews only. Actually, this review was one of those. Since I was not 100% positive, they may choose to not pay me. I'll comment below what happens.

They are ok. Could be better. If they got some more advertisers, they might be worth checking out more.

Happy New Year

Submitted by shabam on Thu, 01/01/2009 - 01:29
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Just a quick note to say happy new your. May your 2009 be blessed.

Lord, please bless all my readers and help them to know joy and love.

Scour.com: A Google Replacement?

Submitted by shabam on Wed, 12/31/2008 - 10:46
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I've been checking out a new search engine called Scour. Competing with Google is going to be a hard battle, but Scour has a few things going for it that I think can make it a little better than Google.

First off, they are social. I can go up there, check out a website and then comment on it in the Scour system. As I comment or vote for sites they move up or down the list, depending on the vote. This allows spam to be moved down the list and good sites to move up the list. Unlike other social media sites, the listed sites are not just limited to those that sign up. Like Google, every site is listed in the engine.

Since there are not yet very many votes or comments in the Scour system, they need to have something else in the background to help with the searching. They also need this in order to cope with sites that have the same number of votes. If people start using it, it could grow, allowing us to have a say in the search results is a good thing.

Many people do not need encouragement to be involved with social media. It is just fun to do. Scour does give some encouragement though, in the form of points. These points can then be turned in for money. Unless you search a LOT, and add a LOT of votes and comments, this builds up very slowly. In the few days I've been playing with it, including installing their Firefox search bar, I've earned about 200 points. I only need 6300 more to get a $25 prepaid visa card. However, they also give insentives to get me to get you to sign up. If you sign up with one of the links on this page, I get a 25% bonus of any points you earn. Don't worry, you don't pay them to me, they are in addition to what you get.

Another thing that makes Scour nice is that they give you Google, Yahoo! and Live results as well, so you can check all four sources to get the best results for you. Some times one source just does not have the results you want, so another source is useful.

Now, for the flaws in the system:

Spammers can vote up their stuff. Right now, being a new engine, a spammer can come in and vote their sites up. I'm not a spammer, but I voted for my sites. In the long run, this will not be a bad thing, if there are a lot of voters, then a few people voting poorly will not hurt the system. In the short run this will make it hard to get great results. They can easily overcome this by allowing people to vote for the voters. This will allow people to vote others up and down, giving more or less weight to their votes.

Those points. The points are nice, but they can also cheapen the system. Are they really needed? And can you let others know how many points you have? If you can brag about the points you have earned, showing a ranking of the highest earners, then you are going to get some vain people (admit it, most of us are a little vain) who want to see their names in the lists who will be voting in order to get on the list.

JavaScript and PHP; Using a JavaScript Include to Run PHP

Submitted by shabam on Wed, 12/24/2008 - 13:09
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JavaScript and PHP do not play well together. JavaScript is client side, PHP server side. This makes it difficult to get things to play together. One way to get them to play together, is to have your PHP script build your JavaScript. Now, what if you need to have an external JavaScript file get some stuff from your database and run some things in PHP? Something like this widget:

This is a widget that I wrote. It pulls a list from a database and then displays it. I want people on other websites to be able to display it, so I need a way for them to include it on their site. To do that, I use the <script> tag:


<script type="text/javascript" src="http://contestfarm.com/scripts/cf/rand_contest.php?style=2&uid=1"></script>

I want you to notice a couple of things that are different about this than normal JavaScript includes. First, notice that the file extension is .php, not .js. If I called it .js, then it would not run as a PHP file, and I need it to run as PHP. Second, notice that I included two variables. This allows us to pass variables, just like you would in any PHP script.

OK. Not that we have the hosting site set to call it, how do we make it display something? Well, if I was doing it in HTML/PHP it would have code something like:


echo "<a href='" . $url . "'>" . $title . "</a>";

This is all fine and dandy, if I am calling it as a PHP script, but I'm calling it as a JavaScript. Since it is JavaScript, it does not know the HTML tags as commands, so the script fails. We need to make it JavaScript, so we have to add in a document.write. Now, this line gets longer and more confusing. We have to remember to close the HTML tag, we have to close the JavaScript command, and we have to close the PHP command. This is what we end up with:


echo "document.write(\"<a href='" . $url . "'>" . $title . "</a>)\";";

In PHP, you can stop your PHP script and display some HTML. ie:


?>
<a href="http://shabamdevelopment.com">Shabam Development Rocks
//more php here

We can do something like this, but remember, that we are doing JavaScript, so we can't bail out, use HTML and then go back. We can bail out of the PHP, but not the JavaScript. We still need the document.write. This will work:


?>
document.write('<a href="http://shabamdevelopment.com">Shabam Development Rocks');
//more php here

One last thing. We have to set the header of our file to be JavaScript. At the top of the page include a header, like this:


<? Header('Content-Type: application/x-javascript')?>

So now lets put it all together.

In the hosting page:


<script type="text/javascript" src="http://contestfarm.com/scripts/cf/rand_contest.php?style=2&uid=1"></script>

In the script:

<? Header('Content-Type: application/x-javascript')?>
document.write('<a href="http://shabamdevelopment.com">Shabam Development Rocks');
//more php here

Useless blog: Blogging about not blogging

Submitted by shabam on Sun, 12/14/2008 - 22:27
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Don't you hate it when people blog about not blogging? I know I do. It is a useless post. If you are not going to blog, just don't blog. I don't care that your not blogging, I don't care why. I'm sure your wart removal surgery is keeping you from blogging, I'm glad your daughters new husband is recovering well. Whatever your reason you can't blog, just don't. On the other hand, if you are going to take the time to actually write a blog, write something useful.

We are all out looking for useful blogs, right? We go to tech blogs to read reviews, get ideas, etc. We don't go to tech blogs to read about not being able to blog because you were helping your mother mow the grass on the roof of her garage. We go to gardening blogs to read information on finding purple sweet potatoes and planting a 12 month garden, not to read about not being able to blog because your computer died and you had to fix it.

Now that I've ranted about how annoying it is to blog about not blogging, I just wanted to say that I realize I've not written much in a few months. I've also looked at my stats recently and seen that I'm getting a lot of traffic for a site I'm not really maintaining. I've also received a few nice comments from people saying that they appreciate some of the guides I've created. I'll do my best to add more guides to the site. Thanks for all the nice comments too. I hope to be able to be a little more active in the coming months.