Drive Magnetic Technologies

Well, the title may sound archaic first and it can be considered a feeble attempt to push yesterday's technology back into our lives. Before dismissing the idea, however, let us pause and think about it.

Recommended Content Widget

I am beginning to like the Google Friend Connect team. Their latest feature, the recommendations gadget allows members to recommend the content they like, anything from a whole page to a single photo, by simply clicking a button.

Screaming Superfly Pig

Here is a unique item that will no doubt make Remarque jealous during these swine flu days: A screaming superfly pig from X-treme Geek; introduced with these words:

Keeping an Off-line Blog

Since 2006 I have been keeping an off-line blog, using it sort of like a diary (one of many advantages of using Linux; an environment that works out of the box with a web server, PHP, etc.). Unlike many, I usually keep my thoughts, projects, ideas, etc as blog posts. This way, they are easily searchable, hyper-linked, can have embedded content (I particularly like this feature. You can access all your favorite videos, music and whatnot effortlessly), so and so forth.

Why I Love/Hate Beethoven

I have a weird love/hate relationship with Beethoven (the composer, not the dog). His music enchants me, but very few of his pieces managed to escape my endless rants. He always finds a way, at some point, to upset me. I usualy define that point as the place where I think the piece should end -gracefully- but Beethoven disagrees and goes on with an additional movement to my annoyment.

Friend Connect Bar and Poll Widget

I have added a Friend Connect bar (bottom of the page) and a poll widget today. I thought about a lot where to place the poll. I have way too many widgets on the sidebar, which is narrow for all intents and purposes anyway, so end of posts seemed like a good position.

Generate Strategic Users

When these words appeared on the glossy surface of my crystal ball, I was trying to find ways to increase RSS subscriptions. The only source of light in the dark room was a crack in the Southern wall.

Woman of Straw - Not Trendy Version

Yet another experiment or attempt of mine to stop being a non-conformist and do what the public is doing. When I noticed "woman of straw" slowly but surely moving up in the trends chart, I decided to follow it. I thought it was something I could do without sacrificing my snobbishness. After all, the trend could only be attributed to:

Missing Pale Blue Eyes

True to the spirit of a Friday night, I have found an extremely rare black and white video of Lou Reed accompanied by John Cale and Nico. They were on stage for the first time since the break up of the Velvet Underground. The legendary show was recorded at the Bataclan Club in Paris, on January 29th, 1972, by Claude Ventura.

Niche Ideas for Blogs

"How can I choose a niche for my blog?" I come across this question frequently in forums. Though I can not recommend anyone to write about topics they have no interest in or have less than average information about, if you feel compelled to do so, here is a not so original methodology which will hopefully ease the selection process.

The Berkeley Impact

Irrefutable Wisdom #1
There are two major products that came out of Berkeley: LSD and BSD. We don't believe this to be a coincidence.
-- Jeremy S. Anderson

Secret of Clypidus Revealed

Clypidus, or as is formally known Cly on Pidus, has been hosting the Qasar relics from 120th BC. But what made this small Mediterranean town an obsession among historians and archaeologists alike was not the existence of half-clay, half-stone ruins, nor were the Doric order moldings which had predated ancient Greeks by a century.

Attracting Mobile Phone Users

I previously mentioned the benefits of adding a short URL to your posts for wider exposure. Despite the increasing popularity of social bookmarking and micro blogging networks, most of us tend to ignore one particular type of media: mobile or cellular phones.

In Line Text Ads

For the past week or so I have been investigating in line text ads and how I can use them at a few of my blogs. I looked into several ad networks to see how they implement them. So far, I am not satisfied.

A few SEO and Speed Tweaks

After having done some tests, I changed the placement of a few widgets with improving reader experience and search engine optimization in mind. The popular posts widgets are now on the main page. This, I believe, will enhance readability and overall navigation. Google trends or the fancy widget as I call it, is on the home page, too. I do not know why, but I like it. Other than that, it serves no meaningful purpose. As both are basically feeds, the individual post pages should now load considerably faster.

Filtering Your Own Visits in Analytics

If you are using Google Analytics for statistics in your own site, you will most likely want to exclude your own visits from showing up by a filter. Google has provided two ways to achieve it:

• By filtering out your IP 
• By placing a cookie 

Facilitate Cross-media Platforms

Today's fortune cookie is a reminder to all of us who are trying to run a business in the web. We often forget there are other media outlets where we can send our message across: radios, newspapers, magazines big and small, school boards, street poles, traffic lights, walls, city halls, malls, fanzines, etc. And some of them can be dirt cheap to advertise.

Unable to Move a Widget

Suppose you created a widget and it appeared nicely on top of your side bar in Blogger. Then you attempted to move it to a particular place in your layout by dragging and dropping the widget. So far, so good. After the move, you pressed the save button, and... Blogger gave you a cryptic error code. Another try, no go: same error.