Rule Breakin' Blogger

Over the last few months I have been addicted to problogger. It seems like every time I see a new article in my reader I mark it for later reading. For those of you who are not familiar with the site and find the name is too hard a code to crack this site is about blogging for money. He has a ton of good tips that are relvant whether or not you are looking to make money from your blog(s).

Things such as abusing the system are aimed at the 'pro' set but there are many gems for those just looking to fetch some readers. Now I have to say that this particular blog breaks a few of them but as the name suggests this blog is all about the journey. Not to mention it is the digital equivalent of an empty cave for me to shout in and hear nothing but my own voice echoing back. I do however have higher hopes for the ma.da.ba blog and I feel a bit better prepared thanks to problogger.

9 Ways to Screw Up Your Professional Blog: Blog Tips at ProBlogger

Tags:

• blog
• adsense
• list
• problogger

A Blog for the New Year

As part of the New Year's resolutions Jen and I have started a new blog about parenting. Granted we still have a lot to learn but we hope to be able to pass slong some of the things we have learned as well as share some of the resources we have found. I also think that shering it with someone will help to motivate me to post more often which is another one of my resolutions.

ma.da.ba � Hello world!

Tags:

• parentinghacks
• blog
• newyears
• 2006

New Years Resolutions

In the spirit of the new year here are a list of resolutions / things I want to accomplish in '06. I tried to paint with a wide brush to give myself a variety of things to work on as well as a way to bablance my time amongst many different aims.

Home & Family

• Move Computer Room upstairs
• Paint Living Room
• Pay off Credit Card (~$3,000)
  
• Work on a project with Jen(wife)
• Visit the zoo at least 5 times with Luka

Personal Development

• Make and stick to schedule
• No more than 14 hrs of TV per week.
• Health
• Get weight down to 190
• Run a 10K
• Run Zoo Run in under 24 minutes
• Work
• Get PMP Certified
• Write
• 1 short story
• 3 posts per week
• Music
• Learn to site read
• Record 3 songs

Misc. Projects

• Archive video footage
• Transfer VHS tapes to DVD
• Write a Roku audioscrobbler plugin

Technorati Tags: newyears, 2006, resolutions, selfimprovement

Who needs radio anyhow?

Everyone I know who listens to WDET is absolutely irate with their decision to drop daytime music in favor of NPR talk programming. An open letter on the WDET website confirms that this extends well beyond my immediate circle of friends and family. Some have taken to the web to vent their frustration in blog form. others are getting organized. While I understand and share some of their frustrations I don't know if there is a remote chance that things will revert back any time soon. So what are we to do?

Maybe we should just start our own radio station. How, you ask? Well I wouldn't know where to start in terms of building a studio and broadcasting on the airwaves but maybe the airwaves are beyond saving. The barriers to entry for internet based broadcasting have gotten ridiculously low. There is no reason that any and all of the former WDET DJs couldn't start podcasting tomorrow. They have a loyal fanbase, lots of connections and years of experience as djs. To take it one step further why not start a Motor City Broadcasting Collective? Who says you need to have a studio, or even a single location. News, music and other programming can be recorded and edited at any computer and sent to the "station" for broadcast. Anyone interested?

Read more at www.wdetfm.org/

Tags:

• wdet
• detroit
• radio
• poscast

Blogger Web Comments for Firefox

Googles new Firefox extension that allows you to view "Blogger Web Comments" seems like a pretty solid idea. A quick view to see what other people have to say about the page you are looking at on their blogs. This is especially nice for pages without the option to leave comments or trackbacks. One problem though. None of my comments ever seem to show up in the new extension. I have added comments to a couple sites and even several days later nothing seems to appear. I am hopeful that the bugs will get worked out soon. After all it in beta. Of course everything on the internet is in a perpetual state of beta-ness.

Read more at www.google.com/tools/fi...

Tags:

• firefox
• blog
• google

Does customer service apply on the web?

I ran across a story on the consumerist that at least confirms that I an not the only one who takes issue with Amazon.coms customer service. It seems that once an order has reached a certain point in their workflow it can not be stopped. In this particular the items were Christmas gifts that were not going to make it in time for Christmas but no notice was sent until 4 days later, leaving Mark in a bind. He figured that he could at least cancel the order but was told that it was impossible. I had a similar experience a few years ago when I was told in all seriousness that God himself could not prevent my order from being shipped. Eventually they told me that they would refund my card and asked that I send it back when I received it. Amazingly enough I never received it. Oh well I guess someone with more authority than God intervened. So is it just me or do some of the biggest online players have lot to learn about customer service.

Read more at www.consumerist.com/con...

RSS Widget madness

So maybe I am alone in this but it seems to me that the idea of a LifeHacker Konfabulator Widget to grab thier rss feed is contrary to the idea of both life hacks and RSS. The beauty of RSS is that it lends itself so well to the aggregation of content. So why on earth would I want to give up precious desk space to an rss feeder for 1 site. A quick search of the Yahoo's Widget Gallery shows scores of these site specifc RSS Widgets. I suppose ths is just a marketing tool to cultivater dedicted readers but it just seems that anyone who reads a site like Lifehacker on a regular basis is unlikely to see this as a good idea.

Read more at www.lifehacker.com/soft...

Resurrection

I was just about to start a new blog to capture ideas that don’t fit anywhere else when I thought why not just use this one. I think the title and intent are both consistent with a catchall journal. Think of the long space between this and the previous entry as a dramatic pause.