Happy Blogversary to Me

Five years today... 3,000+ posts and 2,000,000+ hits.

Blog Comment Spam

Blogger cleans them up, but I get tons of comment spam on this ID-51 post. I have no idea why that one is so popular with the spam bots.

Comments

So, I'm not really ignoring you guys... I just realized I've not been getting e-mails when someone posts a comment. Guess I'll work on fixing that and working through all the ones I've missed.

Blogger

Is Blogger next on the chopping block? Since it is easy to monetize (at least more so than Reader), I don't know that it would be at risk. However, who knows. When you don't pay for something, then you can't complain if it goes away. I use it because it is simple and cheap. My only real expense is registering the domain name. I wondered if FeedBurner might go, too. Of course, it can run ads as well so maybe not.

Layout

Explains why I have been seeing new options for grid layout templates for blogger.

andrewchen OH: a recent A/B test showed that grid-layouts increase engagement/interaction by 10-30% over linear feeds. Visual density helps w scanningMon, Jan 16 12:50:19 from web

2-Step Verification for Google

After reading this and confirming that Eric Schmidt is not in my friend list on Facebook, I have activated the two step authentication for my Google accounts. Now logging in requires two factors - something I know (the password) and something I have (my mobile phone). You can register a computer for 30 days, so you don't have to repeat the process all the time.

It is not too intrusive on the main Google pages, but not all of their apps are configured to require the code from your mobile phone. In those cases, Google creates a special, complex password that you must use.

I just cannot imaging losing all the work from the past year. I have been doing the poor man's backup, but I was sending to the Gmail account that is tied to the blog. I even commented then that might not be the best strategy. I'm off to change that now.

Blogger's Dead Man Switch

I read most of my favorite blogs and web sites using a RSS reader. One blogger I read is in poor health. He must have scheduled a good-bye post that he would continually update and push the date out. Except one time he must have forgotten or otherwise been unable to move the date.

I saw the post in my RSS feed, but when I checked his site, the entry had been pulled. It was eerie, sad, and beautiful all as the same time.

I am happy to report that he was still posting last week.

Blogger's Poor Man's Backup

After the mishap with Blogger, I thought I might want to check out my backup options. I can manually download an XML file of the entire blog, but that depends on me to do something. I suspect there are cool tools to do a backup, but for now, I've just subscribed myself to the blog, so I get an e-mail with the current posts. That at least gets me the text, so I wouldn't have to rewrite a post.

Depending on Gmail, a Google service, to backup Blogger, a Google service, what could go wrong?

Grrr. Arrgh. Blogger Broke 2

Here is the official word from Google about what happened to break Blogger.

"Here’s what happened: during scheduled maintenance work Wednesday night, we experienced some data corruption that impacted Blogger’s behavior."

That clears it right up.

Here is a short list of my posts that you might have missed (or you could just scroll down through the site):

Baofeng UV-3R: Local Knowledge

Heard on the 940 Repeater

Baofeng UV-3R Menu Options

Tactial iPad Case

Kel-Tec PF-9 Week: Day 4 - My Holsters

Kel-Tec PF-9 Week: Day 3 - My Thoughts

And after clicking Publish Post, I am off to do a backup and go to bed.

Grrr. Arrgh. Blogger Broke.

Google broke their Blogger service. I couldn't make changes last night or this morning. It is back now, but they lost some of my posts. Never fear! I will attempt to rebuild them bigger, stronger, faster - the million dollor posts!

A Deal You Can't Refuse

M.J. Mollenhour, whom I had the pleasure to meet, is celebrating the imminent release of his new book by dropping the price of his first thriller to $0.99!

I don't have a Kindle, but I've got an iPad on the way and I have the Kindle client on my Android phone. I've downloaded some of the free books, but this was my first Kindle purchase. Perfect timing as I head to the beach in the near future.

Get it here:

Testing Blogger-droid

Just a test post from my phone.

Published with Blogger-droid v1.6.7