Here To Ask Why » Blogging

Teaching the new media ways

Michael Cruse — Tue, 12 Jan 2010 05:44:08 +0000

When does education stifle or retard technical and usage innovation? I am not sure, but it is something that I have been thinking more about over the past several months. The United States has been a hotbed of technical innovation, and many people I speak have a growing concern that we are losing our edge. Have we become over confident and lost the burning desire to innovate or does a generation simply need to absorb the changes and prime society for another creativity and innovation burst?

I recently finished reading a book (Confronting the Challenges of Participatory Culture: Media Education for the 21st Century by John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation Reports on Digital Media and Learning) that makes the case on why we need to educate people of how to use online social media tools in order for them to effectively participate in the modern online culture. The book is thought provoking especially when you understand the usage differences among various groups of young adults.

After reading the book, I started to agree that we should consider the formal education of students in the YouTube, Facebook, and Twitter services of the world. Then I started to get that nagging feeling that it may be a mistake. If by educating people in the “proper” use these tools, we place them in an artificial “box” that stifles their creativity. I know that my thoughts have been influenced by the educators that I have studied under, and while they did their best to remain neutral, they did impact how I use and see technology.

I understand that the opposite can be said as well. That without a base level of understanding people cannot effectively use technology or improvise new uses and enhancements. This is a very sad but real situation of the modern era. I have worked with many people over the years that know so little about computers or the Internet that they could not participate in an online community. They are effectively locked out of participation and completely bared from being able to contribute to an online innovation.

Where does this leave us, or me? Why, I am still pondering the issue of course. Personally, I have limited my instruction that I give my children on social media and online technologies so as not to influence their usage, one way or another. I am available as a resource should they have questions, but I have opted for a more “play with it” educational approach. I am aware of my own biases regarding an online culture and do not wish to taint their views. Still, I cannot allow them to go into the wilds of the Internet unprepared so neutrality or ignoring the online danger is not realistic either.

We need to find the minimally effective education level for social media and online technologies. Give the youth of the world an understanding of the basic functions and then get out of their way. The younger generations will lead the way with new innovations provided, we do not muck up their thinking with too many rules about what can or should be done with social media and other online technologies.

The future of tech is very exciting, and I cannot wait to see what the next twenty years will bring.

Dealing with Writer’s Block

Michael Cruse — Fri, 04 Dec 2009 02:44:23 +0000

As I walked into my first high school writing class, I was greeted by the phrase “Quality Writing Requires Quality Thought” written in huge letters across the chalkboard. I remember it clearly, as it left me with a sense of dread; as a newly arriving freshman, I had limited experience with organized quality thought. To this day, I still struggle, albeit substantially less, with my writing and face bouts of writer’s block. I experience writer’s block just like everyone else. I seem to experience it more while writing formal documents and less when I write informal documents. I am starting to fully realize this is a result of my mindset and approach to writing. Since writing more for my blog, I have begun to understand the importance of my writing attitude. My attitude comes through in my writing and anyone can tell when I am writing because I feel I have to verses when I want to write.

“I think writer’s block is simply the dread that you are going to write something horrible. But as a writer, I believe that if you sit down at the keys long enough, sooner or later something will come out.” (Roy Blount, Jr.)

To battle a bout of writer’s block, I have found my outline is one of my greatest allies. The outline helps me focus on the purpose of my writing, and it resolves the issue of not being sure what I am writing about in any particular sentence or paragraph. I also incorporate some basic tactics into my writing process such as taking breaks to read other materials, changing the location and time of where I write, distraction elimination, and just doing some free writing to get the flow going. For some reason, procrastination just loves to rear its head when I am struggling with writer’s block. To keep me on track and battling writer’s block, I follow a writing schedule. Lastly, I have recently found the idea of writing for shorter blocks of time to be appealing. In the past, I believed I needed to write for long periods to get into a creative mind frame. By working in frequent, but shorter periods, I am able to maintain a lower stress level and stay in a creative mind frame longer.

What is your approach for breaking through a writer’s block?

Live Writer: A blog editing application that may have value

Michael Cruse — Mon, 21 Sep 2009 04:19:00 +0000

I have yet to be impressed with any blog editing software that I used. Most blog editing or authoring applications do not see to offer much in the way of new or additional features that is not contained in the default WordPress. However, my opinion may be changing now that I have been playing with Microsoft Live Writer. Microsoft Live Writer is not perfect, but in several ways Live Writer is better than the default WordPress post editor.

Live Writer connected fine to my self-hosted WordPress blog and downloaded my tags and categories. I edited an old post as well as create a new post and page. I liked that I could save posts and pages as drafts both locally or directly to my blog to finish of with the WordPress editor. Live Writer supports scheduling posts for future publishing and posting live to the site. The built in spell check worked well and allowed me to add words to the dictionary. The post images were uploaded correctly to the server and Live Writer allowed me to change, and standardize, the size of my blog images. The application supports plug-ins to extend the functionality, and it appears to have a decent development following with over 100 plug-ins available for download.

I had some display problems with right justified images, but they posted correctly to my blog. This was my only gripe with the software so far and may have more to do with my theme than the application. That is saying something.

So far, so good on the basics. Now for the more challenging features.

One of the challenges working with the default WordPress editor is html tables. You need to use a plug-in or code tables by hand. Microsoft Live Writer makes working with tables a snap. You enter the number of rows and columns you wish in your table, and you are done. You can customize the table with boarders and spacing as you need from the table properties. For me, the easy of working with table is the single greatest advantage of the application and why I will be using it for a while.

Microsoft Live Writer will not make you a better writer, nor will it save huge amounts of time, unless you are working with tables, but it is a solid blog editor. It is feature rich and easy to use. Live Writer is an improvement over any default blog editor that I have ever used.

Do you have a great blog editing application that you use that I should check out?

Get Your WordPress Blog Moving

Michael Cruse — Wed, 26 Aug 2009 03:05:59 +0000

Ahh, what is taking so long for this site to load? Forget it, I am out of here…your users are getting frustrated and leaving. How many visitors do you loose because of how long it takes your site to load?

For me, blogging is as much about my enjoyment of writing as it is about learning new technologies. When I started my blog, I did not have great wisdom or insight that I felt I needed to share with the world. I wanted a venue that I could write my thoughts, interact with others, and learn. I am very pleased that I have achieved my objectives. My writing has gotten substantially better, and I have learned much about blogging, SEO, and other kinds of “techie” stuff.

I wanted to get my website to in the most optimal condition, and with a little searching, I found much in the way of improvements. There is actually nothing original in this post. I must give all the credit to the quality bloggers, techies, and software developers that have worked diligently to improve their own sites, write great software, and share information.

I started by running Firefox with the Firebug and YSlow add-ons. These two add-ons work great together and give you a good overview of what is going on with your site. YSlow grades your site based off of several criteria. I started with an “F” grade, how pleasant for me. By the time that I was done, I had my grade to a “B”.

Most of my improvements can be attributed to the fine folks at AskApache.com. I have included links to the relevant sections of their website.

I added a database management plugin that optimizes, among many other things, the SQL database that WordPress utilizes. The plugin is called WP-DBManager and can be downloaded free of charge from the WordPress plugin site. The other plugin, W3 Total Cache, looks very promising, but I am waiting for some information from my host on support for APC or memcache before I proceed. I have also removed some of the elements off my blog. Frankly, I just had a little too much on the homepage.

I completed a few additional adjustments and tweaks that involved my WordPress theme. I took the extra time to test and document these changes very carefully. Any time the theme is updated by the developer, I will have to implement these last few optimization changes. I only wanted to go through the discovery and testing pain once, so good documentation on my part was required. These last few changes were theme specific, so I did not list them. Yours will be different then mine, so you need to go through your YSlow output carefully and do some research. Be aware that some changes can improve your YSlow grade but only trim off a small fraction of a second of page load time. As always, you need to look at the time it take to research and maintain the change, against the improvement in page load time. Frankly, some changes may not be worth the time and effort.

According to websiteoptimization.com, I still have a bit much on my homepage. This is a great site for looking at load times of your site by object type. It performs a pretty thorough analysis of your site and should be read in conjunction with the YSlow output. I have a lot of images on my homepage, and I pay the price for that in download time.

When I started, my site fully loaded in about 22 to 27 seconds on a T1 (1.44Mb) Internet connection. I am currently running about 11 to 12 seconds to fully load. I would like to get this down to the 10 second mark, but it would involve me having to remove additional images off my homepage and make additional theme changes. On my home broadband account, which is much faster Internet connection, my site currently loads in about 4 or 5 seconds.

Hope this is helpful and will spur you into looking at the load time of your site.

working on working

Michael Cruse — Thu, 06 Aug 2009 07:16:25 +0000

Some many updates, so little time. I have been less then diligent about keeping my blog updated from a content point of view, as well as, from the technology side. Well, I am working on both issues, but like everything else in life, this will take time.

The back-end updated was my first chore and that has finally been completed. WordPress is running the current release, plugins are updated, and all is running happy. This had me a little stressed as I was more then a few releases behind. I just knew that I would have a database issue, but I am most happy to report that all went well. I will give kudos to the kind folks at WordPress.org. The documentation was excellent and the upgrades completed with zero issues.

Next, I am turning my attention to site design. This is going to take a bit more time then the back-end updates. I have downloaded the latest version of the theme from the nice person who created it, but I have made several tweaks here and there. I have it loaded on a test site, but I need to document my changes (this time) before I move it into production. Some of the spacing and glitches on the current live site will just have to live here for another week or two.

Well, all in good time. I am happy that this is the way of the computer world, if it was not constantly changing, then people would not need us techie people.

Testing CellSpin – A Mobile Blogging Platform

Michael Cruse — Mon, 18 May 2009 01:59:40 +0000

Update: When I got back to a computer and checked the post, I found that it looked fine. The application worked just as it stated. But I just had to fix some of the typos, wording errors, and add a link. My writing is bad enough without all the extra damage the little keyboard and my big thumbs were doing to the English language.

Note: This post is being created from my Blackberry Storm. Oh how I miss spellcheck right now.

I found an application on the Blackberry online store that says it is for “mobile blogging”. It is called CellSpin and it is free – you just got to love that price!

The download and setup was quick and easy. The application allows you to post pictures, video, and audio directly to your blog or other social sites.

Text editing is a challenge on a Blackberry Storm, as moving back and forth in text is just plain hard. I never thought I would say that I miss the scroll wheel. This is one feature of the Blackberry Curve that I miss so very much. The text navigation problems of a Storm will reduce my desire to write “on the run”. It is not a short fall in the application, but with the device. The lack of a spellcheck solution is a shortfall of the program. As you can see by now, I have a hard time spelling kat without a spellcheck program.

Is mobile blogging useful? Sure, for the right type of blog. CellSpin allows for postings to multiple sites, which I found impressive. I can see this being very popular for Facebook and Myspace users. They can snap some video or picture and post it in seconds with the appropriate commentary. That is a very cool feature.

But I must say that it has more limited application when you leave the social site arena, unless you are very good at writing on your mobile device. I am not, so I will have to give up on mobile blogging or get an fold-up keyboard for my Storm.

Time to get off my duff

admin — Wed, 01 Apr 2009 14:14:06 +0000

Well, I am going to get back into the swing of things with my blog. I have missed writing over the last several months. I am going to do some things a little differently this time around.

First off, I am not going to post daily. I just do not have the time, but I should post a couple times a week.
I am going to post about a greater verity of topics that interest me. It is my blog after all.
I am not going to be monitoring the web stats as much and try hard to drive traffic. This is going to be fun…and stay fun.

Oh, and this is test as I had to get WordPress and all assoicated software updated and happy. I have to upgrade the theme, but I am no rush as it does not appear to be broken currently.

Life is good.

How to create a Blog Post using Microsoft Word 2007

Michael Cruse — Tue, 18 Nov 2008 03:26:02 +0000

While playing with Microsoft Word 2007, I noticed something new today. When I clicked on “New” under the “Office button“, it showed “New blog post“. I do not remember being able to post to a blog directly from Word before, but then again I do not ever remember looking. Does anyone know if this is a new to Word 2007 feature, or did I just miss it in Word 2003?

Below is the dialog box that appears when you click “New” from the “Office button” menu.

When I selected the “New blog Post” document a wizard opened for me to register my WordPress, or other blog provider, account information. I have a self-hosted WordPress site and had no problems with the account setup. I was surprised that I did not have to make a single change in my WordPress admin panel to get this to work correctly.

Current, Microsoft Word 2007 supports the following list of blog providers. I have only tested it with a self-hosted WordPress site.

Once you have selected your provider, you will need to enter your blog URL and log-in information. Be sure to change only the “” text. Then enter your blog’s username and password. This information is passed in clear text to the blog. If you have concerns about your blog’s security, you should consider setting up an SSL certificate as the default log-in is most likely completed in clear text. I have not set my blog to use SSL, but I see no reason why I would not be able to use SSL with Word 2007 by simply changing the “Http” to “Https” in the below URL.

I left the “Picture Options” information as default and had no problems have my images being displayed correctly or having Word 2007 automatically uploading the images to my server. Click “OK” when you have filled out the information, and If it is able to access your blog, it will give you a conformation dialog box.

Outstanding! You are now able to create posts and publish them directly to your blog from Word 2007.

I was able to add multiple categories from the “Insert Category” icon on the Word 2007 Ribbon menu, but not post tags. You are able to open and edit prior posts using the “Open Existing” icon in the Word 2007 Ribbon. The “Manage Accounts” icon will allow you to setup multiple blogs to work with Word 2007.

Once I completed my post, I publish it to my blog by simply using the ”Publish” button. I opened the post in the default WordPress editor and added image titles and post tags. I will look around to see if i can find a way to do this from Word, but so far, no luck.

I was surprised by how clean the code was in the HTML view.

This is not a bad option for creating posts for a blog. Most of the more advanced formatting worked just fine, which I was very pleased about. Even my image placement worked as designed. While this is the not the prefect blog post publisher, it is one of the better ones that I have used.

What do you use to create your blog posts? Have a recommendation for an alternative software?

Social-networking can be rewarding and it can get you a pink slip

Michael Cruse — Wed, 22 Oct 2008 13:04:28 +0000

Having MySpace or other social-networking sites that present anything less than a stellar picture of oneself can hurt one’s chances at advancement or even ongoing employment. This goes for full-time employed people and freelancers/consultants.

Last month, I wrote a post discussing the potential dangers that social-networking sites can have on future employment.

In my morning reading, I came across the below news story written by Nate Anderson on ars technica.

Every teacher wants to be the cool guy, the Robin-Williams-in-Dead-Poet’s-Society friend to students, but a court case from Connecticut offers a lesson to teachers-in-training: be careful when you buddy up to students online. While sites like MySpace make it easy to engage in casual contact with students, they also make it easy for the contact to cross professional red lines.

While this teacher clearly stepped over the line with his students, it does illustrate some of the dangers of social-networking sites and conflicts of interest that may have an effect on employment status.

The greater position of authority, or likely hood of promotion, that someone is in, the greater the level of scrutiny that people will be under. If someone is going to be considered for promotion, management and HR will review not only the work ethic and achievements of the candidate, but may review public information to be sure that the person is truly ready for the position.

It is simple, people checkout the people that are in positions of trust. At the beginning of each school year, I search the Internet for any information about my daughters’ teachers and principal. As a parent, I want to “know” the people that have influence over my children. I am fortunate that I have never found anything that was disturbing, but that does not mean that I do not continue to check. And if I find something, you bet I will bring it to the attention of the principal or school board.

Be aware of your online identify – It Matters!

New Blog Design: Is it a keeper?

Michael Cruse — Wed, 01 Oct 2008 18:51:37 +0000

First of all, changing the blog theme is not a piece of cake. It is not overly difficult, but it is not a five minute task either.

I have spent weeks searching for a new design for my blog. I do not know if this is the look for me, but I like this design better then my last one. Still, I do not know if this is really “me”.

So what do you think? Should I keep this design, go back to the old one, or keep searching for something new?

Comment Moderation: Is it moderation or elimination?

Michael Cruse — Fri, 26 Sep 2008 09:25:56 +0000

As blog owners, we have the right to moderate our blog comments as we see fit. We have the commenting feature enabled so our readers can interact with us, the blog author, as well as, each other. This is the ideal world, but the “ideal” seldom resembles reality.

It is appropriate to remove or prevent comments that are off topic, rude, spam, or contain unacceptable language.

It is not wise to remove or prevent comments based on a difference of opinion. This behavior destroys your blogs credibility and is counter to why we have a commenting system in the first place.

As I have expanded my reading and commenting, I have come across more frequent occurrences of bad commenting and terrible comment management. Over the last two weeks, a full 20% of my comments have never been released from moderation by the blog authors.

I take time to write thoughtful comments, but my comments are not released for posting because they are not in agreement with the blog author’s opinion.

I do not attack or make things “personal” in my comments. I offer a different, but respectful, opinion to the mater that was posted. All should follow the commenting golden rule: “comment on other blogs, as you wish your blog to be commented on”. I do not feel that comments should only reflect the blog author’s opinion to be valid, included and beneficial to a blog.

The only thing that I hate worse then over moderation of comments is the engagement in personal attacks amongst blog authors and commenters.

I find this mainly on political sites. I recently read an excellently written political post, that I totally disagreed with, and the associated comments. A commenter wrote and very good and respectful counter point to the post. The blog author called the commenter a “a hate filled ignorant troll of a human for thinking that way”. I posted my support for the commenter, not is opinion, and my disgust at the blog author, which after six days, still has not been released from moderation. I reviewed a few other posts and comments on the blog, and found that this behavior was a pattern by the blog author.

As blog authors and commenters, we should write and engage in respectful dialogs. This is the power of the Internet and the blogging system. We should not eliminate comments from people that are critical of our writing or our views. However, we should not tolerate any derogatory comments directed towards us or other readers. We are able to set a positive standard in our comments, by how we respond to our commenters.

We help by spurring ideas and dialog, we should never stifle it!

Could social-networking sites hurt or help you get your next job?

Michael Cruse — Wed, 24 Sep 2008 12:41:22 +0000

Hiring managers and college administrators are starting to review social-networking sites and blogs as part of the applicant review process. Based on what they find, it can have a serious impact on your chances of getting hired or admitted to your preferred learning institution. Be aware of what you post, and how it will be viewed by potential employers or admissions counselors.

If you must have a “free-spirit” MySpace page (or one of the other social sites), then take a few precautions to protect yourself. You should restrict access to these sites and use a nickname rather then your real name. Make sure the pictures you upload and the captions used do not use your real name or other obvious identifiers.

Reviewers tend to go back through the last 5-10 posting and then view posts by topic cloud, categories or complete site searches. You do not want words like “Drunk”, “Partying”, “Cheating”, “Fired” or other negative words to be in your tag cloud, or categories, if it displays you in a negative light. Watch your language as well! This can be a huge turn off for potential employers.

Really it comes down to this: if after you reviewed the site, would you trust that person with your livelihood?

A better idea is to use these tools to promote yourself. Turn social-network sites and blogs into sites that you want potential employers or admissions counselors to visit. Keep this in the front of your mind, especially when blogging, as you frequently post on varied topics.

Write about your industry or other areas that might interest potential employers or admissions counselors. You can have your site show off areas of personal interest, community and positive self growth. If your passion is of a more divisive area like politics, then be fair in your writing and do not demean people that do not share your vision.

Again, potential employers or admissions counselors are not looking for people that will polarize their environments.

Take time to write your “about” or “profile” page carefully. This is another great area to capture the interest of potential employers or admissions counselors. Do not regurgitate your resume or work history. Use this space to do a bit of “personal promotion”, but keep it realistic.

Since I have been reading more blogs, I have come across posting of people who received job inquires solely, or partially, based on their blog. This is not common but the trend in increasing. Combine a sold blog, or other social-networking site, with well written profiles on job sites (if applicable), and you have a good foundation for someone to gauge your online life.

Remember that once posted on the Internet, you should assume that it will always be on the Internet. What you post is your responsibility, so exercise it wisely and to your advantage.

I still have more work ahead of me

Michael Cruse — Sat, 30 Aug 2008 16:45:17 +0000

Transferring a blog is kind of like moving, a real ton of work and every time you think you are are done, you remember another five things…

To-do List (not in any particular order):

Get bullet images on my Google Reader widget (right side bar)
Go back through 100 posts and correct layout issues and assign tags
All images need to be copied to the new server and have the location updated in every posting.
Locate widget to display monthly posts better then the recent posts that I am currently using
Add widget for XML site map
Setup Google Analytics
Update Google and Yahoo Meta tags for search engine inclusion
Update social and traffic referral sites with new URL (like Technorati Profile)
Work with InteseDebate to get my historical comments relocated
On new page creation, all images are left justified no mater what I set…more code time.
hmmm, give me a minute and I will think of a few more items…

Up and Running on WordPress

Michael Cruse — Sat, 30 Aug 2008 01:10:05 +0000

Well, the posts have been moved and a theme has been chosen. I wanted to get the site operational before I put much effort on the theme. This one will work for now. I think I am going to stay with the my commenting service if I can get the posts to tied back correctly.

Beginning the move to WordPress

Michael Cruse — Fri, 29 Aug 2008 13:09:08 +0000

Over the weekend I will be moving my blog from the Blogger platform to a hosted WordPress platform. My server was provisioned last night tonight and I gave it a quick once over. It looks great and I can not wait to get started!

I have determined that my comments are not going to move out of IntenseDebate to the WordPress comment system. Oh well, I may stay with IntenseDebate or not…I am not sure as yet.

So if the blog, acts a little weird over the weekend you will know why.

Wish me luck!

Some great Blogging Tips

Michael Cruse — Mon, 25 Aug 2008 00:04:00 +0000

I have been surfing around and attempting to decide on what I want to do with my blog hosting and I came a across a good article on “authority”, but I believe more than “authority”, it is just sound blogging advice. It is well worth the read.

Bloggers will often refer to other bloggers, and sometimes themselves, as the “authority” in their niche. Often people, both offline and online, compete to become the most “powerful” and respected person/company in respect to the entire group. In a sense, blogging is no different. Once you have transformed your once worthless blog into something that others can link back to and claim that what you know must be right, it is definitely a great position that others want to be in.”

This is an honest opinion as I have never even traded an e-mail or comment with Kevin. I was just impressed with his content, as I am with several other bloggers that I have recently discovered.

I think I am ready to make a jump and I need YOUR help!

Michael Cruse — Fri, 22 Aug 2008 07:25:00 +0000

Well, our little one is not letting me sleep so I thought I would surf a blog or two and work on my pending posts while she is having a late night snack. I have been looking at several WordPress blogs I visit regularly, and I really like the additional features and more flexible design that WordPress offers over Blogger. Here I sit, pondering what to do.

You, most kind visitors of my little blog, Please Help Me With a Couple of Questions:

When I make the jump to WordPress, should I use WordPress.com with a few paid upgrades or should I host with a third party company?

As a tech head, the technical side does not scare me but is it worth hosting at a third party over WordPress.com?

Has WordPress.com had any service problems?
Do sites hosted by WordPress.com load slowly? This is a concern of mine as some seem to load very slowly.
Is WordPress.com slow to implement the open source upgrades?
Where are you hosted and why?

This is a big decision as I am not looking forward to moving and I do not want to do it again after I make this change.

Thank you for thoughts, opinions and time!

Blogging and Anonymity

Michael Cruse — Wed, 20 Aug 2008 20:53:00 +0000

I received an e-mail two days ago asking if I was concerned about my identity and the ability for someone on the Internet to track down additional personal information since I use my real name on my blog.

My response was that I was not really concerned about anonymity due to the following reasons.

I do not write about my current employer
I do not write about anyone associated with my current employer
If I write about past employers/clients, I do not use their names
If I write about issues with friends or industry peers, I only refer to them as colleagues
I mainly write about the IT industry, technology, general management issues, personal development topics, and current events

This way I do not have any conflicts at the office or have to worry about any disclosure issues.

The e-mail made me think about why the vast majority of blogs are essentially anonymous and how I value those blogs compared to other blogs that provide some information about the author.

I have not come across many blogs that are critical or really talk that much about their employer. I have come across one or two true “hate” blogs but the 99.999% of all blogs that I have read are tame to only mildly provocative. Only a couple have ventured into the very provocative or delved headlong into “indecency”. I can understand the need for anonymity if you write a very personal (diary) blog, if you get my meaning, and for the moderate to very provocative blogs. Again, these are minority of the available blogs.

I believe what I write, on my blog and the comments I leave on other blogs. This blog is who I am, and I do not have an issue with letting the world know it. Who knows, if I play my cards right, it might help me down the road with name recognition. If I play it wrong, it will certainly cause me great harm. Once on the Internet, always on the Internet.

Is this why people embrace anonymity?

I always read the “about” link on every blog I visit. I like to get a little glimpse of the author as a real person. I place a higher value on blogs where people do not hide behind the wall of anonymity that the Internet offers.

Whether you write a provocative blog or not, be proud of it and do not hide from your readers. I do not recommend that you post your home address but being just “John Doe in Noware, USA” does not give your readership much of a personal connection to you, the author, as a real human.

I am speaking from the male point of view, and as I write this, I am aware of that fact. I do not have concerns about my personal safety and I do not write a provocative blog. So does this change my thoughts, no, not really. I recommend that people with concerns for personal safety be more obscure, but as a reader, I prefer more information about the author.

I guess it gets down to the simple fact that I value the opinions of people who stand up to be counted in the full sight of the world.

My Blog: Looking back over the last few months

Michael Cruse — Tue, 12 Aug 2008 12:52:00 +0000

I am approaching the 100th post on my blog (Yea!). While I feel this is an accomplishment, I am still a very green blogger as I continue to try and find my voice.

Over the last weekend, I took some time to read my old posts, and for the most part, they suck to varying degrees. I started to edit a few of the posts that were really getting on my nerves, but stopped shortly after I started.

I believe my writing has improved over the last few months, but it has a long way to go before I consider it at an acceptable level. I stopped editing my old posts because I want to be able to look back and see my progress, and frankly, no one ever reads the old posts anyway. Looking at the Google Analytics report, people only read through the last four or five postings whether it be chronological or topic based.

I do edit the posts that bring traffic to my blog from search engines. I review and tweak these posts once ever three or four weeks, and I am amazed at how many small things I still find that needs improvement.

This blog is not what I intended; I wanted a deep thoughtful blog about “life”. I did not create that blog, consciously or unconsciously, I created a blog about my professional life, the Information Technology industry and other work related realities. I have been thinking about renaming the blog to something more appropriate based on the content I post, but I am undecided. I think I need to find the right name and tag before I jump ship.

I have found that blogging is fun, interesting, addictive and great way to improve your written communication skills. I suggest you give it a try! You have nothing to loose but much to gain.

New Blog Commenting System

Michael Cruse — Sat, 26 Jul 2008 19:33:00 +0000

The Blogger commenting system seems to have been having “issues” for the last few weeks. I have tried to post comments to many blogs and only about 20% of them are able to be posted. The rest generate errors when I click submit. This is so frustrating.

I reviewed the Blogger help site (I am getting better at actually checking for known issues) and found people reporting the same problems but I saw no response from the Blogger team. This is disappointing to say the least.

I have been searching for a new commenting system as I get more comments via the e-mail form then posted due to problems with Blogger comment system.

I believe I have made my final choice and it is (drum roll please…) “Intense Debate“.

Intense Debate was a snap to setup, as it did almost all the work for me, and the integration into the site took all of fifteen seconds to complete. I did not import my prior comments so I do not know how well that works but I would not expect any trouble based on how well everything else has gone so far.

We will give this a try for a while and see if it is smooth sailing or not!

A tip or two for a blog reader and a blog writter

Michael Cruse — Tue, 22 Jul 2008 22:20:00 +0000

I have been surfing more Blogs then ever before and I am reading topics that I would never have been exposed to in any other way. I am also getting glimpses into other people’s lives that are from parts of the world that I have never visited, or know anything about, and I find that very interesting.

With all the positives in blogging come a few negatives and here is what I have learned so far…

Take everything you read that appears to be “news” with a gain of salt. I read all blogs as opinion pieces and not “news” pieces
Do not expect a high quality of writing – This blog is an example!
Do not expect readers of blogs to be kind in most of their comments
Do not expect most blogs to have a great layout

OK, the last item I am going to rant about. This is my real iteration with blogging. If your blog is so busy with ads or “widgets” that a visitor cannot tell content from crap, you have a problem!

Many blogs, that actually have good writers, are so packed with ads and other “widgets” that it makes the sites look like disorganized ad billboards. Or a better yet, maybe it should be called “electronic graffiti”, either way, it causes the blogs to load slowly and it distracts from the intended message. Excessive ads and widgets will bring down the value of the blog in the reader’s mind and reduces the likelihood of returning visitors.

In my opinion, unless you are in the top 10%-15% of blogged sites, in your category, you are not going to create enough cash from PPC ads to make it worth the possible loss of regular visitors.

One other issues I have with blogging sites, if you post daily, or near enough, do not put a months worth of postings on the landing page. Again, the site takes to long to load (even on broadband) and it does not look organized. A week is more then sufficient to catch the reader attention and make them look backwards through time, if they wish. By the way, from what I have read, most blog readers do not read much past the last 3-5 postings. They tend to read forward in time as new posts are added.

To the blogging world: Time to simplify!

Interest in Blogging

Michael Cruse — Fri, 04 Jul 2008 14:21:00 +0000

My interest in blogging has been increasing over the last several months. I have found that I am reading more blogs each and every week. I cannot say for certain why this is occurring; only that it is. The blogs I read are random and cover topics from daily life, politics, computers, and all the way to family issues. I do not have the time to read blogs on a daily basis but I do try to set an hour or two aside on Saturday to catch up with the 10 to 12 blogs that I am currently reading. Some of the most recent blogs I have found are listed on the right-hand side of the site.

I signed up for a service (Blog Explosion) that says it will increase traffic to my blog. Why you ask, especially since this is not an overarching goal of mine? If I have an increase in traffic it will be purely a secondary benefit. The service operates much like Link Exchange.

I visit other people’s blogs and in turn earn credits that will drive traffic to my blog. I would say about 20% of the blogs I have visited using their service have been noteworthy. There are some very, very, good bloggers out there. I am sure that I am in the 80% of average to below average bloggers. As I’ve stated before, I not the most eloquent writer and can barely craft a coherent sentence.

In my opinion, it does not matter if you have a blog or just interested in finding other people’s blogs. This service will work for you and it costs you nothing. I like this idea a little bit more than just using one of the blog search engines. Users of the service have gone through steps of increase traffic to their blogs; this leads me to believe they are more serious about blogging. Blog Explosion is certainly not the Holy Grail but I have found some really nice blogs with their service. If you have a blog and you are interested in increasing traffic, give them a try. If you just enjoy reading blogs, I would also give them a try. You just never know the type site you’ll find.

Google Analytics – Day 1

Michael Cruse — Thu, 03 Jul 2008 01:54:00 +0000

I have data! I have visitors (well, not that many – but heck, I expected zero)!
Some people have found my blog via web searches. However, I was disappointed with the posting they found. I must pay closer attention to the title to content relationship, as well as, keyword usage.

On to the Analytics Report:
As a very new user to Google Analytics, I was amazed at the level of detail available in the reports and dashboard. Reports covered many areas like the pages visitors entered and existed on. Time on site/page is great information as it really lets you know if they are reading the content you are posting. I saw the keywords visitors used on the search engines that brought them to the site. Geographic, browser, network provider, new visitor vs returning visitor, even connection speed was all in the reports. It has the ability to track sale conversions, site searches, just about anything/everything you can think up. I have have used Hitbox for a long time and I think Google’s product is as strong a contender for entry to mid-tier web analytics market space.

It did take me a bit of time to write filters to exclude my access from the reports. It took a little time searching to locate the correct information. I found detailed information to create the exclusions based on IP address ranges or based on a cookie. I believe this would be a fairly common request and I was surprised that it was not prominent in the help section of the site.

I wanted to find out if newly created filters were retrospective. After a short time testing , later confirmed via the Google help section, I confirmed that filters are not retrospective. The filters are processed against the data as it is received by Google Analytics. This was a bit of a disappointment but I can understand why.

Overall – I must say that I am pleased with the service. It is a winner in my book.

The links below are to my other posting about Google’s applications and services.

More Google stuff and the blog

Michael Cruse — Wed, 02 Jul 2008 02:52:00 +0000

The web analytics platform that I have used in the past (Hitbox) is going away…a victim of acquisition?? I have been looking at alternative solutions for web analytics. I have never had any kind of tracking on my blog and, to be honest, never really cared that much about it. I am basically convinced that I am safely tucked into my cyberspace hole of obscurity.

My web developers have suggested a few solutions but really like the output an cost structure of Google’s Analytics platform. They tell me it is not the most feature rich product compared to tier-1 providers but then again our needs are basic. Being the anal retentive person that I am…THIS MUST BE TESTED!

I created a Google Analytics account for the Blog. The creation process took about 2 minutes to complete and it was a snap to setup the code in the web pages. I even enabled the search term tracking as well. Getting giddy here…

The management site interface was easy to use and I found myself looking at many of the features the product has to offer. I was impressed. This looks like a robust feature-rich product and if I was in the analytics business, I would start worrying. If the site has less then 5 million page views a month, the product is free. That is a lot of page views for a smaller company and the best possible price point.

The reports update once every 24 hours. I am not sure the exact time, as yet, but I expect it is in the early morning hours. Hey! maybe I will be able to confirm that I am the only person that ever comes this blog! w00t Me – 1 visitor!

How cool is blogger

Michael Cruse — Sun, 29 Jun 2008 18:53:00 +0000

I am still suffering from the lack of desire to do anything of value today. It has been a long week and I am drained.

I was looking at my blog and the tools that Blogger provides and I am impressed. I know that services like WordPress have more features but for the easy of use, Blogger rocks. I had this site up in 30 minutes. I found lots of templates on the net that I could use and the cost, oh ya – FREE. The integration to other Google services is seamless and easy to setup.

I would like to add a couple of static content pages but I have not found a way to do that as yet. I am sure it will be added in the future. Who know, I may try WordPress at some point but right now, Blogger works well and it has the majority of the features I would use.

I would encourage everyone to start a blog, what a lot of fun and it is wonderful to express yourself.

I got nothing

Michael Cruse — Sat, 28 Jun 2008 16:55:00 +0000

I have gotten into the habit of posting something each day. Well today, I do not feel really like writing anything at all. It is not that I am out of ideas; I am just lacking will or desire. Since I do not want to break this habit of posting, I thought I would simply write, that I do not want to write today.

I am not sure why but I am going to leave it where it stands for now…

the Blog

Michael Cruse — Sun, 08 Jun 2008 19:46:00 +0000

I have been having fun with my little blog. I know that it is not read by anyone and I am fine with it. It is making me more aware of how bad I write and I am starting to work on that a bit. I look at this as a public personal journal.

I changed the look of the blog based on a great template I found. I like the look but I need to fix the posting date section when I get a little more time.

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