…the blog into two pieces that is.

So no, I’m not quitting the blogging business, I’m just splitting the tech/geek stuff off to a new site I’m currently working on. To explain further read on…

My first and only original blog, Just Thinkin’, first started out nearly 3 years ago as just a personal type of thing running on the old Blogger service (under a different title) and that went on for 6 very frustrating months or so until I moved it to WordPress.com as Just Thinkin’ and finally to it’s own custom install (here).

In it’s own install, things went a lot better until that fateful and inevitable day when my old tech head/geeky-ness reared it’s ugly head once again and as a result more and more tech type posts involving Firefox, WordPress, various blogging tools and writers, tips and tricks, how-to’s and more began to sneak their way in amongst the personal and opinion type posts to the point that over half the traffic I received was tech related. Meanwhile, Just Thinkin’ was supposed to be evolving into a more “Boomer” type “IM[not so]HO” type articles which were being overshadowed by the tech related stuff. This obviously was not where I wanted Just thinkin’ to go so I needed another place where I could put these “geek” posts.

And so was born Green Mountain Geek. It’s not even close to being the finished product yet but at least now I have a place to put the tech/geek articles instead of trying to blend them in here. It might even be a fairly decent site once I finish setting it up, ya’ never know. Until then, wear your hard hat.

In the meantime I’ll be editing several of the existing Firefox and WordPress posts, bringing them up to date and republishing them on GMG even though it’s not finished yet. The idea is to keep anymore tech type posts off of here so I can finish turning Just Thinkin’ into what it should be.

The theme to GMG is called Structure and the blogging platform is WordPress (of course) and I’m going to have a hell of a good time writing for both of these sites or at least I will once I finally manage to get things properly set up and that horribly (and wonderfully) complicated theme figured out.

To be continued…

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MyBlogLog Gets a New Widget and so do I

MyBlogLog has a new "Recent Readers" widget and a new widget code to go with it. You can see what the end results look like by checking it out in my sidebar. For those of you using the original MyBlogLog plugin in your custom Wordpress install ("mybloglog_wp_2"–available from your MyBlogLog account page under "Get Widgets") all you have to do is head to your account page at MyBlogLog and get the new widget code and replace the old code in the MyBlogLog widget located your WP admin’s widget page. You can even choose from 7 different colors.

Hmmm, looks okay to me. I kinda’ like the fly-out feature when you hover over somebody’s picture even though some work could be done with the rather nasty looking text in the fly-out window. Perhaps it’s still a work in progress–like myself.

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Best Day Ever 2008 (and 2007 and 2006)

My best day ever this year as far as visitors go is a whopping 391 unique’s and they all came on Groundhog Day and 95% of ‘em hit last year’s Groundhog Day post and most of those came just to download Phil’s photo. In fact that’s the best day I’ve had since this I first launched this blog and it was all due to a fat, furry (alright…rather cute looking) rodent. Guess I can’t complain much since my bounce rate has gone down by about 20% since then. Blessings come in strange forms indeed don’t they?

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I Hate Spam!

On the other hand my daily spam intake has tripled since then so I went off and installed the updated version of Bad Behavior plugin again. It immediately blocked Windows Live Writer from accessing my blog of course and also blocked my host’s cron jobs as well just like it did last time. It also has "wordpress" listed in it’s blacklist file as malicious software for some reason and WordPress trackbacks were being blocked. So I trundled off to my FTP client and stuck my IP address into Bad Behavior’s white list file which fixed Windows Live Writer as well as my host’s IP for the cron jobs, removed "wordpress" from the black list file and all was well after that…I think. Either way the amount of spam caught in Aksimet’s net went from somewhere between 300 and 400 a day to around 60. Bad Behavior does work really well once you get it fiddled around properly. Now if I only could learn enough code to work up a Bad Behavior log reader and table purging type plugin that worked right from the admin it would be perfect. Maybe even an enhanced options page that included the white and black list entries so you could deal with them there instead. I won’t ask Michael (see first link) about it though, he has enough work to do.

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No Resolution for 800 X 600

My apologizes to those visitors still using 800 X 600 resolution on their displays. You’ll most likely have to scroll down to the bottom of screen to see my sidebar because that’s where it’ll be. I knew I would have to do it sooner or later and it finally came down to choosing between having to utilize a too small content area and a skinny sidebar or eliminating proper site rendering for the lowest resolution and widening things out to a more presentable and readable size. Guess which choice won out? Of course the easiest solution to the problem is to upgrade your monitor to the next larger size (and ease the strain on your eyesight as well) or you can just assume I’m using a single column theme with a really looong footer.

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And that’s all she wrote for another edition of the JT Evening News and as always, thank you for dropping by.

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Defensio, the other anti-spam service and competitor to Akismet, apparently corrupted it’s own database table today which effectively rendered my admin useless and just about locked up my site while it was at it. I got my first clue this morning when I found 42 comments in moderation and a warning in the admin (once I finally managed to get in) that Defensio could not process, you guessed it, those same 42 comments. And hitting the “Process Now” button did nothing. Hitting the “Process Now” button hasn’t ever done anything since I installed the plugin but since everything else worked fine I didn’t worry too much about it. I actually kind of liked the way Defensio was laid out, color coded comments according to how bad they reeked of “spamminess”, hiding the worst offenders so you only had to pick over the moderate stuff and the plugin was pretty accurate after the “training period” was over, at least on par with Aksimet’s accuracy. Too bad. As soon as I managed to deactivate Defensio, everything went back to normal.

Whether the service went down or the table was corrupted, my host screwing up or all three combined, crippling my site as a result isn’t kosher especially since I had no idea how long it had been that way. I saved all the SQL errors that stated that Defensio couldn’t create this and couldn’t update that etc and I’ll send this along to the developers to see what they have to say. I’d also like to know, since Defensio works off of external servers just like Aksimet, why it needs to create a database table in the first place. I may have missed something here.

But wait, there’s more…

In the name of security and efficiency I finally decided to lose two of my longtime plugins. The first of these provided those roving bands of blog muggers valuable info that they might use to hack there way into my beloved WordPress install and that was the plugin that powered my “Plugins I Use” page. You can always learn something new now and then and putting out a list of your activated plugins might let a hacker know that your running an out of date or badly coded plugin that just might provide an easy way into your files and so that plugin was shown the door. Since the plugin constituted what is considered a security risk, the fact that it has not been updated in over a year and is not listed in the WordPress Plugins Directory…I’ll just leave it at that.

The second one was the Community Cloud plugin. Grandad had a problem with this plugin wherein his site became all choked up due to the number of queries to his database this plugin was causing. There’s actually nothing wrong with the Communty Cloud plugin, it’s more because Grandad has a plethora of comments coming in everyday and the poor plugin was having to keep up a constant dialog with the SQL database so it could properly update the “cloud”.  Now I can’t hold a candle to the number of comments I get a day to Grandad’s mob but since the Community Cloud page never seemed to be hit at all plus the fact I Do-Follow anyway, why take the chance I might eventually become as popular as Grandad someday?

Just a little joke there.

Besides, I’d rather have my site as speedy and efficient as it can be for any readers that may stop by.

Note: There’s nothing wrong with the Community Cloud plugin. For your average site with an average amount of comments there shouldn’t be a problem at all. It was solely my personal choice to stop using it.

Last but not least I finally got around to locking down my WordPress install mostly according to Matt Cutts 3 steps but modified a bit between what my host’s cPanel offers for extra security and what a couple of his commenter’s suggested so that’s done at last. I feel so much better about myself now.

Now usually I format this type of “in case you interested” post as yet another edition of the “JT Evening News” (published whenever I feel like it)……but I didn’t. At least I put it in the correct category though.

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The Crazy Eight Meme Not fit for the holidays…I’m working on it.

Grandad seems to have picked me out as a sacrificial victim for these crazy memes he keeps getting tagged with by his so called friends (actually great people but don’t tell ‘em I said so). He seems to be like me in the fact that he just can’t seem to bring himself to tag too many (if any) folks with these things so he picks on me instead. He knows that I’m just whacked out enough to take them on.

I did start on this meme but after the first two sections I realized that my answers weren’t appropriate for the holiday spirit of things plus the fact that my brain kept locking up after every three questions so I decided to put it aside after I found that most of the answers were either "##@@!!" or "I can’t remember". Soon I say, soon!

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PHP 5, Where Art Thou?

My host was supposed to be switching over all their servers to PHP 5 (now 5.2.5) by the end of this year and I’m still waiting. I think they passed my box right by or for some reason is saving it for dead last since server numbers that are higher than mine are already done. This is all fine and dandy except I’ve had a WordPress based shopping cart that supposed to be part of my wife’s quilting business waiting in the wings for the last month and a half. I really don’t want to have this shopping cart populated with every one of my lady’s finished products and take the chance of having the whole thing wiped out when they make the switch, never mind my blog here (they’re supposed to put in a "PHP switch" and leave my site on PHP 4.4.7 so I can do the changeover myself but I’m not going to take that chance). In the meantime…back up, back up, back up.

I like my host just fine but man! Get on with it!

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The Future Bringeth?

Great googly moogly, 2008 is right around the corner and I’m already into my third year as a blogger. And what have I accomplished in that time? Let’s see now…

1. I’ve met a great bunch of folks along the way which makes the whole thing worth it. This is also the only legitimate item on this list.
2. I’ve made absolutely zilch, nada, nothing through advertising. Not one bit. Ask me if I care.
3. I’ve received a couple, three or four blogging type awards from various blogging type folks and have been pleasantly surprised each time I found out. I still don’t understand why but I’m not complaining at all.
4. I still have way too many categories and now I’ve added way too many tags as well. This coming year I intend to find something else I can add way too many of.
5. The blog topics still ramble all over hell and breakfast. Probably always will. I can’t help myself. I wish the topics would ramble all over hell and midnight snack instead since I like my breakfast the way it is and I don’t do midnight snacks.
6. I still have the same (25 to 60) number of unique visitors per day as I did when this blog was on WordPress.com so you can’t say that I’m not consistent. A bit unpopular perhaps but consistent nonetheless.
7. My feed subscription has gone up though so I figure that means that there are folks out there patiently waiting for me to post something that’s actually intelligent and informative which most likely indicates that I have done something like this in the past. I’ll have to go back and read my own blog to verify this though.
8. I’ve been able to help out a few folks with their WordPress installs and that’s all to the good. Some of them actually donated some $$ for my help and that’s just fine too. Better than lawsuits I always say. WordPress 2.4 is almost around the corner folks.
9. I still can’t spell garuntee, remeber, definately or form (supposed to be from) the first time. I do know how to spell these words but my fingers refuse to comply no matter how much I threaten them.
10. I’ve learned a ton about WordPress and it’s workings. I still refuse to learn code but I sure can cut and paste like all get out.
11. I’m older. Wiser is another matter entirely but I’m definitely older.

So what is 2008 going to bring as far as Just Thinkin’ is concerned? More of the same I reckon. If I’m absolutely stupid enough to list all sorts of "New and Improved" type things that I’m going to put forth in a thorough rework of this, that and the other thing…It ain’t never going to happen.

As always, this is me…enjoy it as you will.

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My word this could become a habit.

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Google Page Rank Update–Everybody Loses

I saw a comment today that Google completed it’s new batch of page ranks and I wasn’t too surprised to find I had lost a point since there has been a lot of kvetching among the Blogosphere since the the Q3 roll up started. Here’s a sampling of what’s out there about it.

Based on the list at SEO 2.0 

• The Day PageRank Died
• Google Declares Jihad On Blog Link Farms
• Digg Favorites Slapped By Google | Andy Beard - Niche Marketing
• PageRank Q3 Quarterly Update. Many blogs demoted
• Google PageRank As Good As Dead | Everybody Go To
• Google’s PageRank Update Goes After Paid Links?
• PageRank Drops for Many Sites
• The Great Google Bitch Slap
• 2nd Google PageRank in October 2007
• Google Drops PageRank For Many Sites : Paid Links or New Algorithm?
• Internet Hunger: “SEOs are shaking in their boots.”
• Google PageRank Update and It’s All Down | John Chow dot Com

As far as Just Thinkin’ is concerned it really doesn’t matter much. I’m here for the fun of it and probably always will be but for many others it’s going to be a turn away from Google.

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Added "GoodBlogs" SOB Widget

In honor of the 2nd annual SOB birthday party at Successful Blog, The GoodBlogs has worked up an SOB version of their GoodBlogs widget, one of which now resides in my right sidebar. You know, the sidebar with all the bling in it. Now you too can have access to all these SOB’s.

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Put in some Shopping Ads

I’m currently running a test of the new Shopping Ads in my right sidebar. The service is in beta and by invite only at the moment and I happened to have gotten my invite from Patrick Gavin over at TLA where I have a publishers account. The ironic thing is that I haven’t run any standard TLA ads for months now but I liked the look of this new offering so I’m giving it a try.

In short, these ads are simple CPC types (like Adsense) that pays out so much to the publisher (me) every time someone clicks on one (more than Adsense) and safe enough for the reader to click on which is the important thing. The neat thing about these ads are that they bring up the common shopping type web sites that offer the best price on the item that’s displayed. Places like Target and Amazon to name a few, not some fly-by-night operations like my third cousin owns–if he’s still alive that is. Sp if any are so inclined, check out a few of the items and let me know what you think.

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And that’s it for another "fine" edition of The JT Evening News (published whenever I feel like it).

Have a great evening all.

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