Strange, but I figured might as well. The links I find follow no rhyme or reason anyway. They are just the byproducts of the work I do and the blogs I read and every now and then a random coincidence, which is why I still like StumbleUpon. And I will not be held down to the tyranny of a specific link day because some weeks I just collect more than others. Plus I have a new list of sites I am posting to my affiliate marketing blog, which will be my first link:

• An Analysis of 71 LinkWheel Sites – I don’t know if you have heard of them, but I think I here too much about them. Web 2.0 brought with it a lot of free content sites. No need to pay for hosting or install software. Instead build your network on freely available, authoritative content sites and point even site to your money blog or website. It is a bit more complex than that but you get the idea. I took a list of 71 of these fully featured free hosts, added PageRank and Alexa Data, found out which have revenue sharing (6), and added notes where I could.
• 15 methods to boost your PHP based website’s performance – I was looking for a way to cache parts of a page for different lengths of time. I ended up using gCache. It might end of playing a part in other software I am developing.
• 10 Writing Rules You Can’t Break…And How to Break Them – Sometimes the rules just don’t apply. How to throw out that Strunk & White at least momentarily.
• Creative Writing Tips for LinkBait Production – How to come up with ideas for linkbait or how to create a story so hot that you don’t have to build any links to it, everyone else will for you.
• ProgrammableWeb: How to Make Your Own Web Mashup – A lot of links to various API’s available on the internet. A great way to bring more content and data in for your visitors.
• Nesox Link Checker Free Edition Download – Software to check Pagerank and Alexa Rank and it’s free. And, yes, it is what I used to get the rank for my LinkWheel site list
• Wiktionary:Frequency lists – Wiktionary – I have been playing around with content classification and contextual matching for a few years now, trying to hit it from different angles. One angle I thought of was taking a sample of the most infrequently occurring keywords from the content. At some point over one word, a definite theme could be locked. So rather than trimming stop words and then indexing, go directly for the meat and build upward until a match is made. Think of it like Wheel of Fortune. You go for the easy letters to fill the board fast, but really if there was a z in that word you were trying to guess and it were visible, you would know the word right away. I find myself half the time searching Google this way. Not typing phrases, but trying to triangulate between three words I know have to be on the page, words that would never occur together except in the context I am looking for. This link is just a list of how often an English word occurs in various contexts from the Gutenburg Project, Movie Scripts, etc.
• Writing for Attention: Ammunition for Personalised Search – A great post on making your site stand out in Google’s new search results.
• DreamPie – I already warned you, I said random links. A few weeks ago I posted a link to Sikuli a visual programming tool. Well, you scripted that software in Python. After realizing Python was like the Volkswagon of programming languages, very forgiving to errors and simple, I found DreamPie, which is a Python shell.
• Most Beautiful Free WordPress Themes for E-commerce – Nice themes to turn WordPress into a shopping cart.

Related articles by Zemanta

• Getting things Done (comingalive.wordpress.com)
• Respect Your Blogging Accomplishments (blogherald.com)
• 8 Important Advice For Professional Bloggers (shoutmeloud.com)

Reason Not To Blog:Just Who Do I Think I Am?

Today I started to write and this started to come out. A bunch of reasons not to blog again. This time, instead of analyzing each one separately with an article for this series, I just kept going.

• With time I do know that I know myself better. And I actually think at times that in knowing myself better, I like myself less.
• I know that I am a slacker a lot and many times if I can get away with something I will.
• I know that I hope for the best at times and stop putting in the effort too early.
• I know that I should be doing something else now and I started writing practice again because the other thing was worse.
• I know that I put things off until the last-minute.
• I know that I drop the ball on keeping things in order all the time.
• I know that my mood, drive and many other things are directly tied to the money I am making.
• I know that I should be finding ways to relax more often and be more active physically.
• I know that I don’t what the next year will be like with us just treadmilling now.
• I know that I really don’t know what I want to do. Because when I think I do, I eventually get bored with it and try something else.
• I know that I am not as good as a writer as I think I am or that I once was.
• I know that I let a lot of people down in the last year and I am not quite sure how to fit that into my picture of being a good person.
• I know that I need to be more realistic about things with myself and especially with the people I work for. I had these priorities turned around.
• I know that good feeling of having everything in order is only momentary and possibly a delusion.
• I know that although I am fighting hard and have massive drive, I am a little more let’s call it realistic now and that is friction for drive. You gotta have a little bit of unfounded faith.
• I know that I am really not sure of some of my abilities. I am one hell of a troubleshooter, solution finder and problem solver, as long as I have some else do the work and can explain to them how to do it well.
• I know that I am trying to get this over and looked at the word count again.

And that really is about how you fix that issue. Let your inner hater rant until he is done talking and then go on your way and get your work done. And, Hemingway, that was a joke.

Related articles by Zemanta

• How to write a blog post. (trueslant.com)
• 10 Things to Start, and One Thing to Stop (confidentwriting.com)
• The right way to do things (comingalive.wordpress.com)

Reason Not To Blog: It is too hard to write

Then don’t. That’s the simple solution. Stop driving yourself crazy and beating your head against the wall.

And if you can’t. Then deal with it. You will have to find a way.

Writing and blogging is a bitch. There are times when you are in the groove.

I had been slowly writing a post a day for a few weeks when I wrote this post. Today I edited about 7 to get them ready for publishing, wrote another 3 and came up with about 20 new ideas for articles.

I am not bragging about this accomplishment. I am thankful because I know how that I am an expert at fighting writing. And that’s about what it is. If I sit down and actually force myself to start writing and not stop for at least 15 minutes, I usually come back with something if only the drive to try the same thing the next day until I finally do come back with something good.

But I fight it. Call it useless. Let it conveniently slip my mind. Let other tasks get in the way.

With an hour a day, anyone can see good results from a blog within a year. I know that. You will not at the top of the heap, but you will be able to say it is worth it. I know this because it happened to me and the traffic has been pretty steady through my hiatus due to good anchor content.

So I will give my blog that hour a day or close to whip it back into shape. I planning on continuing to post this series or a post 3 times a week leaving more time to fix things up around here and come up with a full plan of attack.

But once you have gone through the process of just forcing yourself to write, to keep the pen moving for at least 15 minutes, every day until it becomes habit, it sticks with you. Your writing practice has memory and after a few days of writing daily, blogging is not hard at all.

I know this. I guess the solution is not to forget this and let other things get in the way.

Related articles by Zemanta

• Writing Books Standing on the Shoulders of Others (trishussey.com)
• Libboo.com – A Social Site For Readers & Writers (killerstartups.com)
• Maybe Every Thought Aggregates (broadcasting-brain.com)

Reason Not to Blog: I Have a Crappy Writing Style

I don’t really like pictures of me. I know that unless they are taken from very specific angles that one of my eyes is higher than the other one. Shannon Daugherty can get away with it, but I am not Shannon Daugherty. And I am really not sure of the point of that sentence, because this is not a post about my profile picture being grainy on purpose. It is a post about being a naturally nervous person and getting things done in public.

I don’t like videos of me. I had two chances to be in commercials when I lived in Phoenix because I just happened to work in the corporate “show” store of an auto parts retailer. It freaked me out and I turned them down. No, I lie. I did not turn them down. I walked out of one while they were filming and went to lunch. I have maybe five videos currently on YouTube. I do plan on making more, but I really haven’t tackled this issue yet. But this is not a post about videos. This is a post about, “Yeah, internet people are real people and crap I wish I could think they were imaginary again.”

A blog was about the only way I was going to get this started but I am getting tired of my own writing. It seems the more I do it, the more I hate it. See that “the more” thing in the last sentence. I probably use that in every other post, along with “basically”, a first person voice and purposely running a sentence too long to simulate the effect of a person who thinks faster than he can talk. And watch, I will probably use repetition to drive a point home somewhere in this post. I can add to this list but then I would really stop writing because the reality is probably worse than I have imagined.

I even pulled up old articles from years ago and came to the conclusion I wrote better then. I had actually gone backwards in skill. And I still feel that way at times.

I have written since my teens. I bought every year’s Writer’s Market. Not really, I wrote that for effect though I did buy quite a few. I never had the nerve to send my writing anywhere until I finally sent a short short to a literary magazine in Canada a couple of years ago which promptly went out of business before it could publish my story. But this is not a post about my corollary to Murphy’s Law. It’s a post about stage fright.

I have even had compliments on the way I write. I loved them, but it didn’t change things much. I still saw the errors and when I read the posts outloud, they all sound a little bit less intelligent than I think I am. It’s the gap between ideas and words and you can never close it, only get better at coaxing them closer to each other.

So this reason, I am not really sure of the solution. Maybe, just do it. Your writing will get better if you write often enough, care enough about it to edit and learn from your mistakes. Forget your readers and write, but then remember your readers and edit. But this is not a reason to stop blogging. It’s a reason to blog and get better at it as you go.

Related articles by Zemanta

• Some Grumpy Thoughts on Style (laf.ee)
• Nonfiction and Fiction Writing – Worlds Apart (lifehack.org)
• Six (Of Many) Challenges Of Writing Memoir (trueslant.com)

A Few Weeks Ago

A few weeks ago I started writing posts and saving them on my desktop. You see, each one of the posts I wrote in the last year was meant to be the beginning of a new start blogging, if not daily, at least a couple of times a week.

But each time, it never happened. I just started a series on my Affiliate Marketing Blog about creating content that just started with one post and stopped right there. But I have a good start on that series now too.

Comments were filling up on both blogs and I check them once a week, if that. I had long ago stopped interacting with commenters. I had stopped checking social networks. And I had stopped reading feeds.

So this time, I wasn’t going to post, not until I had enough post to fill a month.

14 Drafts, 18 Rough Drafts and 20 More Ideas

I think I have enough to start now. I always really wanted to do this, organize things beforehand but I never really found the right tool. When I write a post series, there are always gaps. Writing everything or at least planning beforehand helps.

Strange Things Motivate Me

So shortly after I started this process, I just happened on to a post that referenced disclosure policies. And one of those disclosure policies happened to be on John Chow‘s blog and guess what, it was just enough to give me an extra boost. His blog will give you the bug and his subscriber count is proof so I guess it is not a strange way to be motivated.

Being Anal

This also had me looking at all of my blogs for missing elements. Blogs are like houses. Constant maintenance. The internet changes and you must too or get left behind. And we all have run into sites that seem to take us back in time, like maybe MySpace.

And I started fixing things and I stopped writing posts. But I caught this and wrote a post about it.

A Series On Not Blogging

I know myself pretty well. Writing and blogging helped me know myself even better. So I knew for a fact, once I started writing again, the posts would be introspective and about blogging and writing. In other words, metablogging.

So instead, I am framing them as a “Why Not to Blog” series. I will take all the excuse I had and expose them for what they are and see if the excuse is still valid. I will be starting out with 3 posts a week and will see how far it gets.

Each post will be linking back here and as I post them, I will add a link here. And I am not just writing this series. Between the posts in this series, I will be writing other posts. But having posts laid out of me ahead of time sure takes the pressure off and when the pressure is off, I don’t have to worry about ideas or writing. It just happens.

Related articles by Zemanta

• Blogging is Rocket Science (problogger.net)
• 27 Internet Marketing Blogs To Follow In 2010 (tlmarketing.net)
• What I Learned During My First Year of Blogging (johnchow.com)

Cover via Amazon

I wrote this article a long time ago, before I had a blog. It references Outlook, so it had to be a while ago. I haven’t used Outlook in a long time.

After reading the about William Saroyan and how he wrote The Daring Young Man on the Flying Trapeze by writing a story a day for 30 days, I wrote 30 articles in the same time and spread them all over the internet.

This was one of those articles. One I read over and think, who wrote this. But it does make a lot of sense. I haven’t written many emails in a while and recently have had the chance to help show a few new people the ropes via email and other forms of communication. After reading through some of my emails, I remembered this article I wrote and tracked it down. It makes a still makes a lot sense and it does work.

How did you sell your last product? Imagine that I am a newbie writing you an e-mail after reading your ebook. How would you answer the question? I bet you could send me a 300 word reply in no time. Words would flow from your keyboard as fast as you can type. You have just written your next article. Don’t think so? Too easy? Read the next paragraph.

Robert Allen has written you an e-mail. He needs you to write a chapter in a new book that he is putting together and he needs it in a week. Are you up to the task? Can you have it done in time? The theme of the chapter: the unique way that you sold your last product. Okay, start writing. How long did it take you to write the first sentence? A hour, two. Remember, millions of readers will be viewing the results.

If you want to, do both exercises above and compare the results. Which piece reads better? Which one sounds like a high school textbook? Read them aloud and I bet the answer becomes clearer. You would be proud to let anyone read the e-mail addressed to the newbie but create a pen name for the book chapter. Why is there a difference here? Both of the subjects were the same. The same person wrote both pieces. Or was it the same person?

In example one, you were yourself. You were just answering a question. You were more than happy to explain your knowledge to someone who just casually wrote you an e-mail. In example two, you became "the author". Maybe you had to outline the chapter first, make notes, research it. In other words, do as many things as possible to put off what you really sat down to do. Just write. After all, with thousands of readers critiquing your work, everything has to be perfect. There is no room for mistakes. And yet the e-mail reads better.

So why not write an e-mail. The next time you have a great idea for an article, turn that idea into a question and e-mail it to yourself. Well, you don’t actually have to go that far, but if it helps, do it. Then all you have to do is reply to it. Don’t worry about grammar. Don’t worry about going off on a tangent. That tangent may be exactly what you need to make your article, oops, "e-mail" stand out. Just explain everything you need to in order to get your point across. If you need to, click "Create" in Outlook and start writing. Try it. And don’t follow the instructions in the next few paragraphs until you are done with your e-mail.

When you are done, read it out loud. Any time you slow down or stumble over the words, cut those word out. Any part that sounds like your sixth grade English teacher instead of you, chop it. Take no prisoners. You will know your own voice when you hear it. Just listen for it. Your readers want a new perspective just as much as they want information. You are not writing for the New York Times and you definitely don’t want to become Joe Friday. Slip the facts in with your personality and your readers will be flocking to your web site in search of more info. Or for that matter, they will be flocking just about anywhere you want them to flock.

Don’t forget to make sure you covered everything that you needed to cover. If you need add a word here and rearrange paragraphs there, do so. Once the idea is alive in your e-mail, it is hard to kill it. Don’t worry about that. Just make your e-mail complete. You will know when it is. You will get that feeling that is hard to explain, but involves printing your article out, sticking it to your refrigerator, telling your neighbors, and rehearsing for your Pulitzer Prize acceptance speech. If you notice any of these symptoms, your can now safely begin to refer to your "e-mail" as an article without killing it or triggering writer’s block.

Use this method as described and I promise you will become a much more productive writer. So how did you make your last online sale? Write me an e-mail.

P. S. I did write this in Outlook and addressed it directly to you.

This is what you should be doing.

Ignore the rest.

Of course, only if you are here for the same reason I am.

Did I just piss off some “natural and organic” internet denizens or what?

A note to them. The internet is made up of bits and bytes. There are people in behind them, but no matter how long you explore it, it is not going to be made out of granola and twigs.

Is this an explanation of why my posts have dropped off? Yes and no.

I am writing this one.

And making it very scannable.

And maybe going a bit overboard.

But here is what happened:

• I started confusing traffic with income.
• I started counting comments and feedback.
• I started trying to be the first to new stories.
• I became a blogger without a modifier. And that’s like being a mutt at a dog show.

And, no, not everything is about making money. I have met a lot of cool people online. But at the end of the day, you need to pay the bills.

• If you are doing something to learn the ropes, know when you are at the end of your rope.
• If you are turning over a new leaf, time yourself so the leaf does not get old.
• If you are going down the same path, make sure it still goes somewhere.
• If you are doing research, don’t fall for your own loose definition.

And if you want to write a post, do so and stop blocking your words before they are on the page. There is a fine balance between writing like no one will read the result and writing for audience. And I am not sure where that line really is, so you are better off to ignore it.

Pen and Paper

I don’t know. I still can’t get away from my Moleskine and a pen to carry around with me. I can write everything in it from errands I have to article ideas. I only use my phone when something I have to do has a specific date. I can write faster than I can type with two thumbs and I would rather catch the ideas as fast as they come.

Google Chrome

I figured I would have to make up for what I said the other day about Chrome. Chrome is damn nice if need a browsing environment that is minimal. I miss minimal at times. Like right now, as I write this post. It is now what I write in and keep uncomplicated.

Sometimes I don’t need all add-ons hanging off of my browser telling me PageRank, Alexa Rank, debugging the page and alerting me about everything from the latest updates from 200 people I follow on Twitter to new mail in Gmail.

And sometimes it just takes to long to move a browser that loaded with addons. Chrome is fast, the fastest browser I have installed on my laptop. And I have Flock, FireFox 3, Safari, Opera and Internet Explorer. I have been trying to time it. Click the icon and the browser and home page loads in about a second. This will probably never be possible for my installations of Flock or Firefox. You can count the time in minutes. Safari and Opera are fast but not this fast. And when I click the Chrome icon when Windows is loading, it’s there just as fast.

And Chrome is a Google Gears machine. So I put the bookmarks to my WordPress blogs, link to my Zoho account and MindMeister account on the toolbar. This means I can use these accounts whether I have an internet connection or not. It’s like having multiple programs loading instantly, at the click of a button. It also does this for Remember the Milk which has me considering switching from BackPack which doesn’t support Gears.

Until Chrome and Google Gears, I had been slowly switching back to desktop apps after using web apps for a while and just not finding them as fast as desktop apps. Google Gears effectively created a hybrid, apps that run everywhere and with Android coming, it will be truly everywhere.

So minimal + Gears + faster than any program known to man = another browser I use for a specific task. I have used multiple browsers for a while. I like everything I need visible and that is all. But I do so many things online one browser really couldn’t handle it. Now I’m with Flock, Firefox and Chrome. Chrome took Safari’s place for being the fast one.

Zoho or Google Docs

I just logged in Zoho so I would have more details to write in this section and realized it does a lot of things, even has a scheduler with a to do list. But as far as I know, only the word processor works with Google Gears, but that is good enough for me.

As I wrote this, I switched to Google Docs for documents. One, more people use it and I can share things more easily. Two, I was having real formatting issues with Zoho.

Writer: the internet typewriter

I wrote this post on Writer. I had been using Dark Room and highly recommend it. I still have it on my taskbar because there have been times I don’t have an internet connection. But when I realized how fast Chrome was, I found Writer. I only wish Chrome had a full screen mode, so I could fully block out the rest of the screen.

You can sign up for an account and have Writer save your text files. You can also send what you have written via email, post it to a blog and download it as a PDF file, which looked really nice. Other than that, it’s a word processor that is green letters on a black background that blocks out all the rest of your screen,

Formatting, linking to references, and adding pictures are best done later or they could become a chance to do busy work instead of write.

Auto-Hide the Taskbar

If you get distracted easily, like I do, but still can’t resist leaving your email software open while you write, hide your taskbar, so at least you can trick yourself into not being distracted.

Big Huge Thesaurus

The more you write, the better you get at it. But it seems, the more you notice what is wrong with it. I know there are words I use over and over when something new would at least put a stop to the monotony.

Blog Post Idea Generator

Hit the button and 5 ideas show up. Pick from those or keep hitting the button until something you like comes up. You can also contribute your own ideas. Not for your niche blog? Push it a little. Flex your writing muscles and make a topic fit your niche blog. Or just use it as an exercise to get your mind going.

MindMeister

Need to plan a series or are you going to write a more complex post. Give MindMeister a try. You can build a whole mind map by typing and hit enter or tab. Map out the ideas for your articles and posts quickly and then you can add notes and links to each node on your mind map to flesh them out.

Remember the Milk

As I was writing this, I got more familiar with Remember The Milk and I think I may be using it from now on. I created a list called “Article Ideas” that I can add possible blog post headlines to quickly through a bookmarklet whenever I feel like it.

BackPack

But backpack still has some feature’s I like for research and collaboration, so I am keeping that one too.

Silence and a Closed Door

This won’t always happen but it helps. This is my first post after maintaining radio silence for most of the weekend. I only checked sites that had to do with the articles I had written. I only checked email once a day. And I turned off Google Talk. Sometimes you just have to do what you have to do.

Writing Down the Bones

If you have not read this book, do so now. It was written by Natalie Goldberg. It will change your attitude about writing and is my backpack, wherever I go. Does writer’s block happen? Is it a cop out? The answers don’t really matter when you are facing a blank page and your fingers refuse to move. Or on those days you are sure you could write, but no idea seems right.

I remember writing in school. It was a chore and it was boring. That’s because it was taught incorrectly. You studied for tests. You practiced for football. When it came to writing, you were graded on your first try to put it truthfully. Writing requires practice just like anything else.

Don’t take my word on the book:

• Writing Down the Bones
• Why Writing Down the Bones Works and Peter Elbow is Wise
• Writer’s Resources

Procrastination Nation

I get wrapped up in a lot of things. But I need to learn to write more often and more fluidly. And it’s always the thing I leave for last. After email checking, stats checking, feed reading and hitting the social sites, I leave the last half hour to write an extra post or two.

Don’t get me wrong. I get the bare minimum done first. Posts do get written pretty regularly around here and at my other blog. But I am trying to start a few more. These won’t be posted to daily, but they will need enough content that I will need to write more often.

I started with a good idea in mind and it takes me off on a tangent a lot of times. I can trim a few minutes here and a few minutes there by building automated systems to save time. Don’t get me wrong. The plan was to have all the time wasters automated. I would write the content. But if certain things were brought to me while writing it, similar but more complex than the way that Zemanta works, I could save time in research.

Putting Writing First

The fact is, writing takes the longest time, especially when it is not practiced that often. But once you start doing more of it, it becomes easier. And building a system based on the belief that I really have the stamina and will to keep that amount of writing going is putting the cart before the horse.

So for now a test. And the test is action. I know if I set aside twice as much time for writing, time where I have to be typing, whether it comes out like shit or not, I will eventually write three times as much content in twice the time. Well, I don’t really know exactly. But it works something like that. Because writing the bare minimum lowers the bar. And with practice, comes better writing.

How am I going to find the time? Setting it in the forefront of my mind for period of time. By reading books and blogs on writing and reading good nonfiction. I am always reading, but for the most part, what I read does not inspire good writing or writing in general. My wife has told me this many times.

Content and Writing Prompts

Another problem with a plan like this is that blogs tend to get in a groove. Believe I jump all round on this blog as much I think as possible, but there is only so much I can write on certain topics in a day. At least at this point, where a small part of me knows that a lot of this is procrastination. When writing becomes second nature to me, like eating three times a day, maybe there will be more content all around.

So, I was reading a post over at WordPress Web 2.0 Spot-Er about how to become a Google Trends blogger last night. And to tell you the truth I had a few beers in me. So, I started a blogger blog and started writing about trends. I was just picking random ones. I got to the point where I realized I had written a lot of posts.

With the freedom to write about anything that pops up on Google Trends, there is no excuse. Maybe I should be focusing on my work (i.e. not spreading myself even thinner), but sometimes you have to prime the pump first. And if this is what it takes, so be it. And you can be damn sure the time won’t be wasted, because like Alex said, there is traffic potential. And you can be sure I will build some links somewhere.

Everything Does Not Have to Be Perfect

For starters, I think I put it on bloglot. In fact there’s a test post up there now. I still can’t see myself using a free blogging platform. For now, on a directory. A subdomain would be nice, but I have to work out my WordPress MU installation over there first. With an active Drupal site in the root directory, I ran into issues. So I will just start up another blog inside Drupal for now. You see, I could create enough issues, I will never start this thing. I am already thinking I need a different theme and that’s my mind trying to throw something else in the way. It’s better to take the path of least resistance for a while and just start.

Now, I won’t kid myself. I know there is only so much time in the day. The hour fairy isn’t going to stop the clock for a couple of hours. Something else will have to give. And like I said, this is too get my bare minimum daily writing done which I will continue raising the bar on, until I am satisfied that it is worth investing any more automation time into the machinery. Of course, if I take off on a whim and start pumping out articles on other blogs, that is what I am trying to acheive anyway. Then, the trends blog will have to sit for a while.

You see, I have built site’s on automated content in the past and it’s always a crap shoot. Great risk for a single guy for extra windfalls, but not if you depend on it. Instead, automate the rest, just write to build truly unique content and stop waiting for Google to turn the tables any day. It happened to me once. The beginning of 2005. After a few pages refreshes, it was apparent that I was on Google’s naughty list and it was going to be a long road to make up for a site I just set up and babysat a few hours a week.