Showing posts with label Blogging. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Blogging. Show all posts

Thursday, November 14, 2013

Three Years of Blogging

I started blogging three years ago. I've said more about the why and what in previous years (2011, 2012). For this year, I'll just say the 2,148 posts of the past three years have resulted in 997,021 hits. There are about 225 RSS subscribers.

More important than the numbers... I've learned a lot, made some friends, and had fun. Thanks to everyone that reads, comments, and e-mails!

Wednesday, September 4, 2013

Good Company

A different Bricoleur was the Twitter General Counsel. Cool.

Sunday, July 21, 2013

Editing for a Quote

Hans says about me:
"He’s running one of the best blogs on earth"
Don't click his link. Just stop right there. Nothing to see. Move along.

Monday, July 15, 2013

Out of Town

I was out of town over the week-end - blogging to resume shortly. Here is funny cat picture to entertain you for 2.3 seconds.


Wednesday, March 27, 2013

Financial Disclaimers

This may be a while over due, but I have created a page that will list my current financial relationships through this blog.

It will stay at the top as the ReadMe page.

To save you a click, here is the meat:
Google AdSense - you will see the ads on my pages. If you click them, then Google pays me. Please don't click them if you aren't interested in the products. It isn't fair to the advertisers. But if you are interested in something, have at it. 
Amazon - I have an Amazon Affiliate account. When I use my account to create links to items on Amazon, Amazon pays me if you buy something. I also get paid if you use the search box and buy something. It doesn't cost you anything extra and I cannot see who buys what. I can see that someone bought a radio or some knitting needles - but not who. Your privacy is protected by Amazon. If you'd like to support the blog, feel free to use the search box - again at no extra cost to you. 
I do not have any financial relationship with any of the radio suppliers. We communicate and I share information that I think my readers will enjoy. I have purchased radios, etc. from them, but I've paid the same price as everyone else.

Chinese Radios and Server Names

It will come as no surprise that most of the hits to this site are for the Chinese radio news... but I regularly see  hits to this post about server names. It isn't a ton of traffic, but enough to show up in the dashboard as one of the top five some days.

It was something that amused me, but was pretty much a throwaway post.

But now it bugs me because I don't know why it is still getting hits.

Maybe there is an overlap of people who like the Chinese radios, but hate the crazy naming conventions and are looking for comfort in simple, standard server names - like my TNFS01 or TNMAIL01.

I'm gonna actually have to learn how to use the analytics to see if I can see what is driving traffic to it.

The internet is a strange and wondrous place. Be careful out there.

Monday, March 4, 2013

Busy

Sorry for the lack of posting the last few days... life is happening. Nate did send me some interesting stuff about some radios that I hope to post soon.

Tuesday, January 15, 2013

Smarter

Some sites I read for amusement or information. I read Althouse, because I often feel smarter after reading a post. Do I agree all the time? No, but my beliefs are challenged or reinforced and I am better for it.

Here is a good example of why it is one of my favorite sites centering around a word - "the".


Monday, November 26, 2012

Two Years of Brick O'Lore

I missed the actual two year anniversary on the 14th, but this is close enough for government work.

Not too much has changed since last year's review.

I still don't have an AR (but I do have two lowers!) or an M&P9. I've not been shooting in a long time.

I rarely even turn on the ham radios - partly because my KG-UVD1P that I was using in the car has died. Anyone know anything about a good, cheap Chinese mobile radio I could buy? (HA!) I did spend a little time with WSPR, but would like to invest some more. I haven't even cracked the book for the Extra Class exam.

I ran a marathon this year. I'm just crazy enough to think about doing another one. The bad news is I would need to start training now for an April race. Ugh.

I'm also getting a lot more involved at church. One week, between services, meetings, and fellowship, we were there four days out of the week.

Between family, exercising, church, work, and blogging; my days tend to be pretty full.

The radio posts are still the most popular, but that doesn't stop me from posting about anything I find interesting or funny. The blog has had 539,362 page views since I started it - around 112,000 in 2011 and 427,000 in 2012. I posted less in 2012 - 727 vs 856 in 2011 for a total of 1,583. SaysUncle is still the single largest referring URL thanks to a story about ninjas (of all things!). Makes me think I should resell radios under a zombie ninja brand.

The most popular post (15,555 views) is about the software for the Baofeng UV-3R Software. Given the endless discussion on the Yahoo groups about how to get the software to work with your Baofeng/Wouxun KG-whatever or UV-xxx, this really isn't a surprise. I think almost all of this traffic is driven via searches.

Given so much of my traffic is via search, the biggest surprise for me this year has been the jump in my RSS subscribers. Last time I checked, I think there were about 8. I could even account for half of those - me, my wife, probably Linoge, etc. I looked and found I have 100 subscribers - wow! I was and am floored. Thanks so much for reading my ramblings. If any of my RSS subscribers would do me a favor, please leave a comment on this post - anonymous is fine. I'm just curious as to how many people actually follow and would read a long post like this one.

Goals for next year... I need to build at least one of the lowers in to an actual rifle. I want to get my Extra Class license. I'd like to run a sub 20 minute 5k.

I will close the same way as I did last year...

Thanks for reading!

Monday, November 12, 2012

Programming Note

Sorry for the lack of posting... especially to the guys sending things my way. Life has been busy. When I finally sit down in the evening, I don't quite have the energy to fire up the ole brain to put up a post or two. Thanks for bearing with me.

Thursday, May 31, 2012

How To Make Money Blogging

An interesting read that says monetizing your site isn't the hard part any more. There are plenty of off-the-shelf solutions. All you need is 100 million active users. I'm no Uncle, so I'm a little short of that number.

Monday, January 16, 2012

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

Wednesday, December 7, 2011

No Silence Silenced

I had a friend that was laid off yesterday, but I didn't know that Michael Silence was in the group, too. I liked his stuff. I hope he pops back on-line soon. After 29 years and 11 months:

A programming note
Michael Silence asked the online staff to post this message on No Silence Here on his behalf.
As you may know, I got laid off yesterday along with 32 others. That sucks, but it is the reality of our business. I will miss my colleagues, a great bunch of people who I got to hang around with for 29 years and 11 months.
This blog, started in August 2004, has been a blast, and thanks for constantly opening my eyes to new perspectives. I'm told it will cease to exist. It has been the most rewarding aspect of my time here. I've been honored to sit on the front porch of the 21st Century.
As I've said for many years of those who have left the online world, "They'll be back. They always come back."
Stay well my friends, and no worries
Michael

Monday, November 14, 2011

One Year of Brick O'Lore


One year ago today I started this blog with a post about Financial Commitment Sunday at my church. At the same time I was contemplating a purchase of some radios and guns. Well, I got some radios (IC-7000 and UV-3R), but I never did get the AR or the Glock. And now I've been leaning towards the M&P9.

When I was writing that entry, I was thinking that I would blog for a year and then see if I wanted to keep doing it. I plan on continuing the blog, but I feel less pressure now. I've had various undocumented goals - three posts a day, so many a week, etc. None of which I've consistently met. I blog when I feel like it - which is fairly frequently. I had envisioned longer, more thoughtful posts (like Linoge and others), but it turns out that I'm closer to being a linker. As far as the personality of my blog, it was going to be some guns, ham radio, technical, commentary on society, etc. It turns out I was going to post quite a bit about a little radio and the page views would go up dramatically.

As you will see in the stats below, some how this became a Baofeng UV-3R blog. It all started with a simple post about a Yaesu VX-3R knock-off.

As of late yesterday, the blog had 112,231 page views for its first year. I've made 856 posts in that time.

The single largest referring URL was Say Uncle - primarily for the Ninjas in my House post with 1,850 views.

However, the single most visited post is the Baofeng UV-3R software instructions at about 7,000 views.

The single most visited page is the Baofeng UV-3R summary at almost 11,500 view for the year

Google.com is the largest referring site at about 12,500 pointers to the blog. If I add in the referrals from Google in Germany (2,500), the UK (2,200), Italy (2,100), Netherlands (1,200), Spain (600), and Canada (400), then Google is responsible for 21,500 views. Most of the hits from Google are from searches for the UV-3R.

Feedburner tells me I have a few RSS subscribers. Google Analytics tell me that I have lots of people who get here by way of the Baofeng searches and they click through to another post between (roughly) 30% to 60% of the time depending on the particular starting page. People average 2.93 pages and 3.15 minutes per visit.

So, where do I go from here?

More of the same I suspect. The UV-3R has been a great learning experience for me - both as a ham radio and as a blogger. I've got too many interests and not enough time. I think you've see that here... radios, running, tablets, guns, prepping, computers, reading, etc. Toss in a wife and an almost three year old - time is my limiting factor for sure. The Radio Amateurs Code reminds hams that playing with the radio is a hobby and that the ham should be balanced - never letting it interfere with "duties owed family, job, school or community." I might add church to that, but it still sums up where I am.

Let's see what the next 365 days bring. Some goals... pass the Extra Class exam, keep running - maybe a marathon, earn a WAS award, pay off my student loan, finally pick up that plastic pistol, and blog a little.

Thanks for reading.

Tuesday, October 4, 2011

New Tag Line

I'm thinking about a new tag line:
"Too Dumb To Fail"
Maybe I can jazz it up and do:
"2D2F"

Thursday, September 29, 2011

Blades Everywhere



Being slow has it's advantages.... a long list of knife pics from a gun blogger meme about daily carry knives. My Kershaw G-10 SCAMP on the top and the Ontario RAT1 on the bottom. Both are value knives - about $25 per. Not pictured my Leatherman Juice S2 (Orange - Go Vols!). (Also, this is basically a roll call of all the gun blogger world.)

Shelley Rae
Miguel
Tam
Og
Rob
PDB
Bill
Unc
Jay
Caleb
Weerd Beard
North
Brenda
Mike
Marko
Fred
Kevin



Wednesday, September 7, 2011

Out of the Country

I'll be back soon. Lots to catch up on... including a Baofeng UV-3R Mark II.