Blogging

There Goes My Google Rankings

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When I had my site hosted on my friends linux box I had some nice google rankings on some searches. I was surprised at how my site ranked sometimes. Well that is all gone now. When I changed my site address (used to start with blog. and now it is the normal www.) and I moved providers to Typepad several things happened that cost me the rankings. All of this doesn’t really matter. It is of passing interest to me. I still find it funny that anyone reads this. I am not sure what is weirder, people I know regularly reading it, or people I don’t know reading it?

Now with my new site URL and ip address I am hopeful the google searches will eventually come back.

Still Can’t Sleep

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I just took some Tylenol PM. Hopefully that will help me sleep a bit. Hopefully it will also help with the painful sinus pressure and itchy throat too. Sleep will be good enough for me. It is 2AM. I have been up reading some blogs that I like. I also wrote a few other entries. But to not be too freakish (i know too late) I will stagger some of the posts over the next few days. That way I can look like I am posting, when I in fact haven’t written in a while! Well I probably will write more this weekend because I am staying in, but I always like having something to post. I don’t like the site to get too stale for the 3 people that check it out. Actually according to Typepad I had 65 people visit today. A bunch from google. That is cool since as of 2 weeks ago I hadn’t had google spider my site yet. That is due to the change in the IP and domain name I use for it. 65 is not allot in any way, but unless Sean is refreshing the browser allot, people I don’t know are actually reading this stuff. That to me is way cool!

Locked Out

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I sat down tonight to catch up on some posting. Unfortunatly I am currently locked out of my offline blog editor. Not sure why. It seems to be taking forever to setup all my settings again. I am writting this entry right into the Typepad web editor. Not a fan of it. I want my ecto to work:( More posts after I fix the problem.

Blogging on My PC

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I normally blog while on my Powerbook. For this trip I took my thinkpad because of the extra battery life I have on it compared with the Powerbook. When in transit I like to blog. What to do? They now make a version of the blog software I use on my Mac for the PC, but I don’t want to shell out another $15 on ecto for the PC. I downloaded w.bloggar for the PC. I used it before, but last year when I had it, it was very buggy and I never used it due to problems. Now I have a newer version and it seems OK. the one thing it doesn’t do that ecto does is save several blog posts offline to be posted later. I have to export posts to txt files if I want to work on several at a time when offline. this is annoying, but otherwise I like the software.

While on the topic of blogging itself I think I will keep Typepad past the 30 day demo. So far I have not had a problem with it, and I like their management features. It is all around a cool service. it is allot compared to my free hosting by Gus, but the MOB and list features make it worth it for me to stick with them.

While in the air I also did some Moblogging. I got several pictures of the airplane cabin. Due to the shitty camera on my Treo most of them are blurry. I will post them when I get a chance.

The URL Problem Solved, I Think

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So with Typepad I have been having a problem with the old url of this site. I mentioned the issue the other day. Turns out I may have had a partial solution the whole time. My DNS provider Dyndns.org has a url redirector service for free with my Custom DNS package. DYNDNS.org provides dynamic DNS options. it is really cool. I have been using them for just about a year (i just renewed my service this week). You set your domain to use their DNS servers, and you can control your domain from their web interface. That is not anything new. Register.com does that for free. What is cool is if you host your site on a dynamic ip address their service will automatically update the DNS whenever the IP of your box changes. I also had a function where their system stored my email if my mail server went down. They are very helpful for the self hosted person.

Dyndns has a feature called mywebhops. It is now taking the old URL and just redirecting to the new url of this blog. Now if you try to hit the old home page, you will get redirected to the new site. The only thing this wont do is keep all the embedded links that google has spidered. I will just have to wait until google spiders the new site.

I will know if this whole thing works after the DNS changes propagate. Hopefully in a day or sooner.

Blog Redesign

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Now that I have moved to a new hosting provider (Typepad) I have decided to try out a new layout of this blog. I am now using a 3 column layout with links and lists on the left as you can see. Not sure how much use I will get out of the list function once the novelty wears off, but I am trying it out now.

I like the subtle color scheme instead of the in your face yellow and black I used to have. I liked that scheme too, but this new look seems cleaner.

Expect more tweaks and changes over the next few weeks.

The Blog Has Moved

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I have taken the plunge. I have left my cushy free hosting provider. My friend had a problem with his linux server. I almost lost 2 months worth of posts. That was a big scare, but not the reason I moved. In the end Gus got the box up and I was able to backup my stuff. If I didn’t have a backup that was my fault anyway.

Gus now has to rebuild that box at some point. I will be down for that. That was a motivating factor in my decision. The simple fact is I have been eyeing a different solution for my blog for some time. I actually am now trying out SixApart’s (If you are from mars, they make MoveableType) Typepad. Typepad is a pay service, but they offer more functionality than the free moveabletype. Most of my website now consists of just my blog entries, so I am trying the free trial out. Then if I like it I will fork over the nine bucks or so a month for the hosting.

The one problem I have run into is the fact that I cannot get blog.Scott.ac to resolve to the new typepad site. Turns out they offer domain aliasing but only for www.sitename.com, not somethingelse.sitename.com. I am going to email them and see if they can get this to work. I don’t want to redirect my entire site to my blog. If I cannot get typepad to resolve blog.Scott.ac, then I will loose all my links and people wont find the site. Not that many people view it, but it will be annoying.

I am trying out a new look on the Typepad site. Not as out there as the yellow and black look of the old site. Let me know what you think.

Blogging On The Train

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With the Powerbook back, this is my first blogging session on the LIRR since I sold my old Powerbook in November. Jayson took an early train. I had stuff to do and I also wanted to get a quick hair cut, so I took a later train. With no one to talk to, I get to do some blogging. I haven’t done allot recently.

I still have a stuffy nose and a dry throat today. I think it is because of the dry heat in my apartment. I left my heat on high 2 nights in a row and I was bad ever since. I thought it was a cold last week, but I was fine Saturday and Sunday. It has to be an alergy or the heat. Of course I am not a doctor so what do I know?

OK, got the hang of this now!

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I guess most people have tons of posts the first time the do this, and then they get fewer and fewer posts per day. Well since this is new to me and I want to get this going, here is yet another post.

I have updated the blogger template to throw the stupid made on a mac icon in there! Now that I know how to modify this template, I can customize it later on. At this stage of the blog I figure I should tell people a bit about myself (even though I donít know who in there right mind would be reading this if they didnít already know me). I am 29 (at the time of this post), I work in the technology field. I guess that means I know a bit about computers. Not to give my whole life history in this post, I will save the other details to later. So I am sitting here on my powerbook writing this blog on a Saturday night. Lame! But I was so tired from work, and going out after work that I decided to just stay in. Tomorrow I am going to a party at my friend rich & Amandaís house. They are throwing an academy award party. Not sure what to expect, but it should be fun. Amanda is a set designer for movies and TV shows. Art designer? Amanda if you are reading this please correct me, and forgive any errorsJ But anyway because of that they are throwing a party for the awards. My thinking is any excuse to get together with friends and have a few drinks is just fine by me.

Today I worked a bit. I preparing to do some major data moves at work. Then I updated quicken, did some shopping and just vegged out in front of the tivo watching stuff I missed this week. I also began to build myself a red hat Linux box at home. I did say I was into computers. The world of Linux and UNIX is something that I have not done much of yet, and I would like to. I finally have a computer to put red hat on and just leave it up. I will give away that I can be considered a computer ìgeekî by the fact that I have a windows 2000 server, red hat server, windows xp desktop, & a mac laptop at home. Sounds excessive, but each has its own function. Really they do! That does not count all the equipment at work. I have come to the conclusion that I will die from the em fields coming off this stuff, so why does one more computer matter!