Tag - blogging

Google Gadgets

February 28, 2007

Apparently, gadgets are huge:

Google Map – 4,861,113
PacMan v2.0 – 8,114,344
DIGG – 3,228,599
My IP – 1,063,244
Wikipedia – 27,314,972
Countdown – 2,076,028
Online Second Life Friends – 1,396
Free Sudoku Puzzles – 4,450,349
Memory Game – 647,151

In that spirit … have some retro fun:

MediaTemple GridServer v. 2.0

February 23, 2007

MediaTemple is updating GridServer … the grid computing architecture that this blog and many other sites are running it.

It’s been a long hard road for MT with plenty of problems. In reverse chronological order:

December 2006: MediaTemple GridServer: #2
December 2006: MediaTemple: starting to rock again
November 2006: MediaTemple does the right thing
November 2006: MediaTemple GridServer is a disaster
November 2006: MediaTemple GridServer is buggy
October 2006: bizhack now on MediaTemple GridServer

Hopefully this will address all (or at least most) of the outstanding issues, including MySQL latency and just general slowness.

(And btw, yeah, I know that it’s not v. 2.0. But v. 1.2 doesn’t sound nearly as impressive. A point release? Give me a break!)

Here are the details, straight from the MT announcement email:

Highlights of (GMR v.1.2)

– Core count (800+). After the release of (GMR v.1.2), the combined processor cores in all Clusters will total over 800 and produce massive processing horsepower for customers.

– MySQL GridContainers (in private beta). (mt) Media Temple has completely re-architected the MySQL system on the GRID. This gives each customer their own container server with dedicated resources, an industry first, that’s running an unshared copy of MySQL. Please consult the new “MySQL Container Project Log” to learn more about this new database architecture and to sign up for participation.

Link: http://weblog.mediatemple.net/weblog/category/grid/mysql-container-project/

– Improved Email Functionality. Numerous changes made to the email sub-system including improved email delivery times, resolution of random duplicate emails, virus scanning and improved MailProtect anti-SPAM recognition. An overhaul of the allow-lists envelope sender component, and new sender-verify override feature are also included.

– Improved FTP. Faster FTP connection setups, improved overall transfer rates and large FTP transfers include better connection handling.

– 400% increase in storage performance. The GRID has achieved massive improvements in overall storage performance resulting in faster page load times, script execution, mail delivery, and a plethora of overall system benefits.

– Network Speed Increase. Reconfigured back-end network fabric that utilizes next generation hardware and software to improve speed and reliability of intercommunication between every GRID segment.

– New Clustered DNS. Improves speed of internal name resolution within the GRID which results in overall performance enhancement in applications such as web, email, containers, etc.

– More and more.
– 25% faster control panel access.
– Enhanced CRON system.
– Reworked directory password protection tool.
– New stable kernel releases installed for future enhancements.

We hope you that you enjoy the many improvements of (GMR v.1.2). (mt) Media Temple would like to thank all of the users that contributed feedback that lead to these improvements. Our customer’s direct feedback and experiences has been incredibly helpful and our systems are now more powerful and running better with your help. As always, we encourage users to continue telling us what you like, what you don’t like, and what you’d like to see in the future. GMR (v.1.3) is already in development and its release cycle is expected to be much shorter than (GMR v1.1) to (GMR v1.2).

[tags] mt, mediatemple, gridserver, gs, john koetsier [/tags]

AbbyChristian411

January 24, 2007

I’ve recently been helping a nonprofit in Abbotsford create a central resource for all the Christian help/counselling organizations in Abbotsford, BC.

Announcing AbbyChristian411:

There’s an old-skewl paper-based publication as well, which will be distributed around the community.

[tags] abby, christian, 411, directory, john koetsier [/tags]

Political comment spam

January 23, 2007

Bleh … comment spam is now getting political …

Samson Blinded: A Machiavellian Perspective in the Middle East Conflict also scored high in all categories it was nominated. Google earlier banned advertising of that blog for unacceptable content.

Samson Blinded’s author advocates religious state of Judea at the border with Israel and expulsion of Arabs. Obadiah Shoher denies democracy dominated by liberals and Muslims and calls Israelis to oppose police efforts at removing the settlements. His other point is dismanlting economically unbearable Israeli army and relying on nuclear weapons. However, he decried Lebanese and Iraq invasions.

Public opinion seems to strongly shift the the right in Middle East issues. Any thoughts on that?

I don’t understand why spammers of all stripes don’t at least try to make sense or form a coherent statement.

[tags] spam, comments, blogging, john koetsier [/tags]

Potpourri linkage

January 15, 2007

I have this shockingly bad habit of saving browser windows in tabs in the Mac OS X dock for days on end, unable to get rid of them until I’ve done something with them.

Sometimes I can get away with sending them to del.icio.us. Other times I just have to blog them. This is one of those cases …

5 Reasons Why Enthusiasm is Better than Confidence
Scrumptiously delicious brainfood … and good reasons to distrust confidence. A must-read.

Confidence is about you – enthusiasm is about your subject
Confidence is about you (again) – enthusiasm is about others
Confidence is impressive – enthusiasm is infectious
Confidence is certain – enthusiasm is creative
Confidence is serious – enthusiasm is fun

The most compelling parts of Seth Godin’s The Big Moo
OK, I won’t re-list them. Just go check ’em out. Then you’ll probably want to buy the book, too.

. . .
. . .

Phew, that feels so much better. Now I can kill my browser window.

[tags] seth godin, confidence, enthusiasm, john koetsier, linkage [/tags]

The unedited voice of a person

January 1, 2007

What is a blog? Here’s Dave Winer’s definition, courtesy Robert Scoble:

If it was one voice, unedited, not determined by group-think — then it was a blog, no matter what form it took. If it was the result of group-think, with lots of ass-covering and offense avoiding, then it’s not.

I like that – a lot.

What it means, though, is that multi-person blogs don’t fit. TechCrunch doesn’t fit. GigaOm doesn’t fit. Lots of the “mega-blogs” that have started employing hired help don’t fit.

And I’m OK with that.

[tags] scoble, winer, john koetsier, blogs, blogging [/tags]

Holiday hiatus

December 26, 2006

Merry Christmas (a day late) and Happy New Year (five days early).

I’m on vacation and will not be posting to bizhack for a week or so.

(Unless I am hit by some burning inspiration that cannot stay inside.)

[tags] hiatus, vacation, bizhack, john koetsier [/tags]

Priceless spam

December 18, 2006

Blogging software: $0
Hosting account: $20/month
Half-decent Technorati rating: $very expensive (in time!)

Spammers spamming anti-spam posts: priceless

I give up – I am Judge Glenda Hatchett

December 15, 2006

OK, I am Judge Glenda Hatchett, am black, female, a lawyer, a judge, and would love to come speak at your next corporate function for $35K.

Please send me all your inquiries and requests for help. After all, everyone else does.

Ahhh … the “wisdom” of masses …

[tags] judge glenda hatchett, john koetsier, funny, stupid [/tags]

Review: Search Engine Marketing Glossary

December 14, 2006

This is a paid review. More details at the end of the post.

SEO is a bit of a black art to me.

I mean, I know all about the generalities of search engine optimization, and I think you’ll find a few of them reflected here. URLs of all my pages contain keywords; titles of all post pages have the title first, then the bizhack station ID second; and I try to be a good linking citizen – linking to those who are useful and good and interesting, and hoping to be linked to in turn.

But SEO is one of those topics that you can seemingly delve endlessly into. Everyone has different ideas, everyone has different strategies. Just to make it more interesting, SEO is an ongoing arms race between Google et al and the SEO practitioners … who are always looking for a new way to game the system.

When it comes right down to it, the best SEO strategy is probably to:

create great content
that is keyword-rich for subjects you’re focused on
that people will link to
for a decent length of time (at least 6-9 months)
until Google knows you’re one of the good guys

With that as background, I was asked to review the Search Engine Marketing Glossary … a compendium of SEO terms and definitions compiled by Aaron Wall, the author of the SEO book. A little expensive, at $79, but it’s recommended by Seth Godin, which is high praise, and obviously any reasonably proficient SEO optimizer would cost you far more in consulting fees.

In any case, the Glossary is simply that – a list of SEO terms and their definitions. Here’s the funny self-referential point … the glossary of SEO term is actually a major SEO effort to improve the SEO ranking of the SEO book so that more people who search for the term SEO will find it and, perhaps, buy it. Now that’s the essence of SEO!

With that said, I can’t say that I found a huge amount of value in the glossary. Most of the definitions I either know or don’t have a huge interest in. One that was interesting was an actual revealing of the Google PageRank algorithm:

PR(A) = (1-d) + d (PR(T1)/C(T1) + … + PR(Tn)/C(Tn))

PR= PageRank
d= dampening factor (~0.85)
c = number of links on the page
PR(T1)/C(T1) = PageRank of page 1 divided by the total number of links on page 1, (transferred PageRank)

Of course, that’s the purported PageRank algorithm. The real, current PR process may or may not have a huge impact on Google listings today, and probably bears little relationship to whatever Larry Page and Sergei Brin wrote up in a Stanford paper years ago.

I don’t really understand why PDF is in the glossary, and as far as I know Safari is a Mac web browser, not a “measure of how frequently a keyword appears amongst a collection of documents.” But hey, words have multiple meanings.

Overall, I’m sure there’s plenty of value for newbie SEO optimizers, and even some for those who understand a little more about SEO.

Most of the value, however, is in driving potential clients to the SEO book.

Paid Review
Since I like to keep in touch with all the new forms of blog monetization, I signed up for Review Me‘s paid review service about 2 months ago. I’ve had a few requests to do paid reviews that I’ve turned down; this service seemed to be one that was up my alley of interests enough that I probably would have done it anyways, paid or not.

I haven’t said anything simply because I’m being paid for the review, and frankly, the content of the review is very likely not what a person or organization using paid reviews even cares about. What they’re paying for is the link, primarily. At least, that’s my assumption. (The amount, if you’re interested, is $30.)

In any case, I’ve done this mainly as a test – to see what it feels like, and to see how it works on this blog. If you have any comments, flames, criticisms, or any reaction at all, please let me know!

MediaTemple GridServer: #2

December 12, 2006

Just noticed that I’m hit number two at Google for MediaTemple Gridserver. And the post title is not complimentary. Remind me, if I ever forget, to keep bloggers happy about anything having to do with a product/company of mine.

The funny thing? GridServer is actually performing really well lately!

[tags] mediatemple, gridserver, mt, john koetsier [/tags]

MediaTemple does the right thing

November 30, 2006

I’ve posted a few critical stories regarding MediaTemple’s new grid server product lately.

But I’m happy to be able to post good news: now MT is doing the right thing. I just got this email:

Dear John,

Our records indicate that you recently opened up a support request related to an open incident, wide-spread problem, or known issue relating to (mt) Media Temple’s new (gs) Grid-Server system. We want to apologize for the inconveniences this may have caused you.

We are compensating you 3 months of service as a concession for the troubles we may have caused you and your site. No action is required on your part. In the next 24 hours this will appear in your account in the form of a credit.

We will be announcing GRID MASTER RELEASE (v.1.1), and version upgrade which fixed hundreds of bugs and will dramatically improve your overall experience with this system.

(mt) Media Temple wishes to thank you sincerely for your patience during the course of these incidents. We believe the (gs) Grid-Server is an amazing system with new technology that has only begun to reach its real potential. Please look forward to announcements in the next few days relating to our new master release.

Thank you again.

Best Regards,

(mt) Media Temple
Hosting Operations

Good move, Mediatemple. Stuff happens, errors occur: that’s reality. I’m looking forward to good continued service from MT.

[tags] MT, mediatemple, customer, service, john koetsier [/tags]

Small biz blogging: why, how, when, where

November 23, 2006

Yesterday I met Joe Laudenbach, a Bellingham, WA realtor who is wondering how blogging might be something he could use in his business. As I prepped for the meeting, I jotted down some thoughts on how blogging will fit into his business.

Note: my goal was not to get him blogging, but to give him information that will help him make an informed decision whether or not he wants to start.

Why to blog

Better SEO
Because blogs are more frequently updated, they’re a major benefit to your site’s search engine optimization … the factors that help you rank higher in search engine results pages.
More interesting site
A blog is usually much more interesting than a website … it’s not corporate, it delivers content in quick hits, it’s more accessible …
More human face to potential clients
Building on the “not corporate” theme, a blog is where your personality comes through – which is attractive (unless you’re Attila the Hun)
Learn and develop more as a person and as a realtor
I learn more from blogging than just about anything else. Simply the process of thinking and writing and writing and listening and linking makes me much more consciously aware of trends and opportunities. The same is true for realtors or virtually any occupation, I believe.
Creative outlet
People who blog regularly come to love blogging as a creative outlet. And I don’t believe there’s a single person alive who isn’t creative to some degree, in some way. Feeding this impulse has personal and professional benefits.
Contacts, conversations, communication
Through blogging I’ve had email contact with Guy Kawasaki, Seth Godin, and many other major, well-known technology, business, and marketing leaders. They’ve made me smarter. Plus, I’ve had many more contacts with many more people who aren’t so well known … and that’s had even greater benefits. The same can be true for real estate agents or any professional/business people. Jobs, work contacts, and just plain interesting people: blogging can bring all that. It has for me.

Why not to blog

If you can’t write
Don’t get me wrong. You don’t have to be Hemmingway. But if you absolutely cannot string 2 words together intelligibly, forget it. Find some other way to engage your clients.
If you won’t keep it up
Don’t start if you won’t keep it up. Few things are more pathetic than an orphaned blog. However, don’t get too worried, either. One post a week is not ideal, but it’s perfectly fine for many, many professionals.
If you’re just marketing yourself
If your blog is only going to be about how your company and you are incredibly, stunningly great (not to mention handsome and wealthy) forget it. No-one’s going to read it – one Paris Hilton is enough, thank you very much.
If you’re looking for a quick fix marketing hit
Blogging isn’t a quick fix solution. It’s about telling stories and developing relationships, and those don’t form overnight. Even the blogosphere success stories such as Thomas Mahon blogged for months and months without seeing major results. The good news: all your work is always paying dividends. Old blog posts never die, they just keep attracting hits.
If you’re not comfortable being authentic, real, and non-corporate
Don’t be a stuffed shirt – let your hair down and be real. If you can’t tolerate the slightest mistake, if you can’t speak with anything other than the traditional marcom voice: forget it. It’s boring. It’s just advertising … and people are more adblind now than they’ve ever been.

What to blog about
Note: these are tailored for Joe, who’s a real estate agent. But they’re adaptable to different situations.

Why people move to Bellingham/Whatcom county
There’s probably 10 or 15 blog posts right here … as many as there are reasons.
What areas are great for kids|seniors|adults
Another 5-7 posts …
Things to do in Bellingham
Seasonal events
If you do to a harvest festival, blog it. Christmas candlelight parade? Blog it.
House-hunting tips
Keep it to one tip per blog posts … there’s probably an indefinite number of tips here. Organize them in a category so that visitors can see them all.
Top ten house-hunting gotchas
I know I’d love to know what to watch out for when moving … and I’m probably searching for this type of information when I’m about to move, too.
Things you realize AFTER you move in
Wouldn’t we all like to have known this – about a month before moving in.
Stressless moving

How to blog

Intentional keywords
Be intentional about the keywords you use. Know what people will be searching for when they’re looking to find a home in Whatcom County, WA. Niche it out to the max if you want to rank in search engines, and make sure you use those keywords in titles and posts.
Regularly (at least once a week)
As mentioned above, don’t make an orphan out of your blog.
Naturally
When you’re blogging, you’re a person. Not a company. Talk to people who are also persons as you would talk to someone on the street. Anything else is disrespectful, stuffy, and annoying.
Interview people
Interview key people in your community. This is a great way to expand your circle of contacts, blog about interesting valuable topics, and grow your readership.
Talk to clients
Clients will give you all the blog fodder you need, if you just ask.

Other things to consider

Other social media
Over time, as you become established in your blog and comfortable with the technology, why not explore other forms of social media? Upload a house video or a neighborhood drive-through to YouTube. Then post it to your blog. Or …
Podcasts
Create a couple of podcasts so that people can hear your voice. This can really give people a sense of who you are and that they know you.

These are a few of the suggestions I had for Joe. I hope that they’re applicable to whatever situations you’re in, whether you’re a small business blogger, a corporate blogger, or a social media consultant. I’d love any feedback you might have, positive or negative.

Questions/opportunties? Looking for help in your social media adventure? Let me know.

25,392 and counting

November 21, 2006

bizhack has reached the dubiously honorable plateau of 25,392 spam comments caught and skewered so far.

Somebody play the Monty Python spam, spam, spam, spam song, please.

[tags] spam, comment, spam, akismet, john koetsier [/tags]

Now with less advertising!

November 21, 2006

It’s that time of the month again, so I dropped Google AdSense.

It adds a bit of load time, visual clutter, and general tackiness … and makes me a pittance. A couple of bucks a day just isn’t worth it.

Maybe I’ll try again in a couple of weeks with a single ad in the body of each post, if I can figure out a way to make it as unobtrusive as possible.

[tags] google, adsense, adwords, advertising, john koetsier, bizhack [/tags]