In part 1 of Compulsive blogging we discussed the mindset required and the questions you should ask yourself before taking a stab at being a blogger with a purpose. Now that you’ve made it this far, perhaps you want to know just how you go about blogging so in part two we are going to look at some of the methodology behind blogging. We are already assuming that you know what you’re blogging about and that you’ve gone as far as registering a domain name and secured some hosting somewhere. What we will look at specifically is the means by which you will create the actual blog.

First off you’ll want to decide on a blog software. There are many available, many of which are free and most of which are remote type clients where the software is hosted on a remote server and you blog writing and editing takes place with a web browser. Some of the more widely used and reputable blogging applications out there are:

• WordPress
• Moveable Type
• Typo
• and Blogger

I personally use several blog applications but if I had to choose one it would be WordPress. Some factors that might aid the decision process are the features you might require (i.e. commenting, permalinks, trackbacks, image uploading etc…), the ease of use of the software, the community that surrounds the application, and the availability of plugins, themes or extensions that allow you to create your own unique experience.

Once you’ve settled on a platform and got it hosted you’ll need to cut the tape as it were and christen your newly founded blog with some inaugural blog postings. What I might suggest is a few posts to clarify who you are what you are about. Share your dreams and aspirations about the blog and what you hope will come out of this blogging exercise. Where possible, add a few permanent information pages to your information architecture. Not only will the average visitor look for this but it will also serve as fuel for the ever hungry search engines looking for useful content.

Be sure not to go public with your new blog just yet. There are things to consider and things to test first. Wait until you have at least ten solid posts and a sidebar full of useful snippets of text, links, ads or anything else that makes the page feel well balanced and established. You also need to do some testing as well. Have a look at you new blog from every browser you can get your hands on. How does it look? Does it render adequately on IE6, IE7, Firefox and Safari? What about Opera? You might not care how your blogs looks on other browsers but you visitors certainly will, and they will let you know by not coming back. Also, be sure to check for broken links, typo’s, grammatical errors or format inconsistencies.

Now that your ready to go public with this blog consider your ways of getting the word out. In todays Web 2.0 culture there are countless way to spread messages like this. Consider services like Technorati, del.icio.us, StumbleUpon or Digg.com. There are also less agressive means like taking part in social networks like FaceBook, MySpace and Virb, as well as micro-blogs like Jaiku and Twitter.

In the next installment we’re going to address news relevancy and timing and how you should apply that to your blog.

Tags: app, blogger, blogging, blogs, create, facebook, ie6, ie7, jaiku, mind, news, plugin, remote, safari, snippet, social, software, son, twitter, web, wordpress, writing

Blogging is all the rage right now and you might feel that you want to get involved too. It is a great and rewarding form of expression but it can also be a big flop or waisted effort.

Before you dip into the world of blogging or before getting deeper in than you already might be you must first ask yourself a few basic questions:

1. Why are you blogging?

   • Maybe you have a particular interest in a subject that you feel you have a good knowledge of and would like to share.
   • Perhaps it’s a good way to stay in touch with friends and family at a distance.
   • It’s possible that you are passionate about something or someone and want to express your dedication as a fan.

   Whatever your reason, it’s important that you have one. You need a good enough reason for yourself to carry on blogging without faltering. You must have reason enough to stay the course.

2. How often do you want to contribute?

   All too often we set goals for our blogging activity that are far beyond what we can actually keep up with. Set a goal of blogging frequency that is suitable to your schedule and lifestyle. This planned frequency does not need to be common knowledge, but more often than not, your readers will catch on to any kind of rhythm to your posts. If you start off posting once per day, then once a week and eventually once a month, the public will pick up on this subconsciously and view your blog as “dying”.

   If, however, you set a steady pace at the get go, like once a week or biweekly for example, then this is what your reader will come to expect and await each “episode” with anticipation.

3. Who do wish to be?

   It sounds like an odd question, but it is very valid. Your personality will shine through in your writing so it is important to think about how to present your persona to your readers. How you write says a lot about who you are whether you know it or not.

   It happens all too often; what we intend in our writing is not always what is read by the reader, so extra care should be given when reading back your posts to yourself. Consider how your comments or remarks might be received by the public.

4. What are your goals?

   Even if you are blogging for yourself, you need to set some goals. Whether your looking for a certain size readership, looking to reach a given number of visits of even if you are just looking at exercising your creative muscle to improve your writing skills, a goal is an important milestone to strive for and drive you on.

5. How will you measure success?

   How you confirm that your goals have been met is almost as important as having them in the first place. Maybe your goal is to have an article get noticed from time to time, then perhaps one of your articles be featured on Digg is affirmation enough that your goal has been met.

   Then again, if you feel you are a poor writer who has a goal to improve, then you might view a positive comment about an article you’ve penned to be an ample measure of that success.

It’s all about your mindset. You can’t go blindly into blogging if you’ve nothing to add to the realm of blogging on some level, be it personal, family or professional. Some of the most successful blogs have a very narrow field of interest or have a voice of strong opinion. Think about what you really want to write about, and then, in your mind, map out all the things you might have to say on that topic. If you had trouble coming up with 6 possible posts you might find that blogging is not for you.

In part 2 we will talk about the methodology I use when blogging.

Tags: app, blogging, blogs, how to, mind, son, writing

I get a lot of comments from friends and colleagues about how much content I generate for various blogs, tumblelogs and micro-blogs that they have a hard time understanding how I remain as productive as I do. So how do I do it?

Well for starters, I work about 16 to 17 hours a day (my wife will vouch for me there). But I don’t fully attribute my hours worked to my through put. There are other factors at play here.

• I type fast
• I have a lot to say
• and most important, I find the fastest, smartest way to do things

Most people who contribute to a blog or post on a forum find it a bit of a chore. If it’s a web based blog, they have to login, go to the right admin panel, click a link here and there, maybe grab a picture here or there, upload it, fill in a box with copy and publish. If it’s a desktop app there using, it usually involves opening a sluggish, bloated application, click a few buttons here or there… you get it by now.

Now if you count the places I generate content for; nutMac, seyDesign, Twitter (when it works), Jaiku (when it works), WigglyWumble, Tumblr, even a blog I have for my son… Imagine if I followed those aforementioned procedures? I would be at it all day. SO, how do I do it?

I am going to break it into parts; make it a bit of a serial for you:

1. In part one I will talk about the mindset.
2. Part 2 will be about the methodology.
3. Reaction time is key and I will look at that in part three
4. It all boils down to the tools I use and part 4 will delve into this

Stay tuned.

Tags: app, blogging, blogs, design, jaiku, mac, mind, nutmac, picture, seydesign, seydoggy, son, twitter, web

I am really not one to toot my own horn but… toot toot! My super awesome team at seyDesign.com has been pulling a great number of all nighters to pull off a new store front, a new RapidWeaver theme and a new WordPress theme all launched not but an hour ago.

Not one to stand still for very long, and certainly not one to rest on my own achievements, I felt it was time for a drastic overhaul of the original store and time to branch out into new areas.

Thanks to Chris Pavlicek of Varsis Studio for yet another amazing Photoshop layout concept that I eventually turned into what I think is our finest RapidWeaver theme, waVy.

I also want to give a great big thanks to Ollie Levy from Vortex Themes who worked tirelessly and without complaint to my never ending demands. He is solely responsible for porting the seyDesign themes to WordPress. He did a brilliant job of maintaining the original integrity of the RapidWeaver versions.

Thanks again guys.

Tags: design, mac, nutmac, photo, php, rapidweaver, seydesign, wordpress

You never cease to amaze me, the happiest child about. The biggest smiles, the screams of glee, jolly without a doubt.

Some people who are dear to me, you may never come to know. A grandma passed, an uncle gone, your brother whose soon to go.

You’ll not show a care, for your heart is here and now. You’re sunshine eyes, dimpled cheeks, wonder of why and how.

Simple joys consume you, the way they should a child. Lots of laughing, always smiling, within your eyes a look of wild.

Today is the date of the original deadline served to the Internet radio broadcasters for paying up retroactive royalty payment totaling in the millions for some broadcasters. This date has been moved to June 15th 2007, but a few days back, in a bid to deal a small but political blow to the RIAA, I started the movement to stop the buying of music on the original deadline date, May 15th (today).

The movement met with criticism, stating it was pointless, useless, not sending the right message, hurting the wrong people, etc… The point I think the nay-sayers are missing is that this issue is localized to the United States. Other, obviously freer countries don’t suffer under the thumb of such organizations as the RIAA and the MPAA and so on. So this movement was more to show our American friends that we feel their pain and offer our support.

Living outside of America we have little way to impact the situation on any governmental level but we can always speak with our wallets. And that’s what today and this movement is all about. Will it change the overall outcome? Probably not, but a petition doesn’t sting nearly as much as lost revenue. Consider us and all the other international supporters on American Internet Radio, the constituency who vote with their wallets.

So I stick to my guns; DON’T BUY MUSIC TODAY, MAY 15th, AND STAND UP FOR INTERNET RADIO.

Tags: internet, music, radio, riaa

This really is a bit of a fluff piece but us Mac users have to find something to cheer about in out tiny Mac-o-sphere. I don’t know much of it’s history or origin, but I stumbled upon a great mac app rating site today, CoolMacApps.com. All I could really get from it was this:

CoolMacApps.com was born out of frustration… and out of an addiction; An addiction to cool software, and a frustration with the current top-ten lists and file repositories out there.

This was little more than a fun way to waist a few minutes in the day, and only served to confirm my feelings about a great number of apps I was aware of. One thing that came as a surprise on this app voting site was RapidWeavers placement in the number 1 spot. Not that I ever doubted RapidWeavers strength and ability, but what shocked me is that it has beet out some of the more generic, globally used apps like FireFox or Adium.

Recent polls have shown that only 8% of North Americans have engaged in deep internet activities like building web sites. On the flip side, nearly everyone has used a web browser or IM client. I find it hard to imagine that RapidWeaver, a web building tool, would beat out such staples to mac computing as a web browser and an IM client. It’s just not in the numbers.

What’s really at play? Well… Web 2.0, meet Community 2.0! I happen to have a bit of an insiders knowledge of the whole RapidWeaver machine. If I was a betting man, I would always put my investment dollars on the company with the ravenous, blood thirsty, go-to-battle-and-die-for-your-app kind of community backing that RapidWeaver has behind it. If you want to see what I mean sometime, go to the RapidWeaver support forum and just arbitrarily flame the app in any old thread and watch the blood bath that ensues. You’ll want to change your mailing address before embarking on such suicidal endeavors, mind you (and let it be known that I don’t actually condone forum trolling).

This isn’t to say that the ratings are rigged in anyway; I really do believe that RapidWeaver is an excellent app. But I do think that RapidWeaver does have an unfair advantage when the owners simply need to put out a single call to the one gathering place that you will likely find 90% of all RapidWeaver users and the hordes will flock by the thousands to pledge their allegiance to their beloved RapidWeaver.

Who did I vote for? Here is just a few: RapidWeaver (of course), Quicksilver, Sticky Windows, Parallels, TextMate, iClip, Inquisitor and NewsFire.

Tags: app, html, internet, mac, mind, news, nutmac, rapidweaver, software, textmate, web

Reiley J, Has two sisters who stay, In his room, For what seems like all day.

It’s funny to see, Those siblings three, Play games, do crafts, And watch t.v.

He’s never tough, Rarely rough, And you can be sure, He puts up with enough.

To him we toast, “He’s our son!”, we boast, But his sisters, I think, Will miss him the most.

Tags: son, t.v.

A little boy and his unicorn, in a magic land they be, Stopped to rest from a magic quest, beneath a magic tree.

“Exuse,” said he, the magic tree, “your stepping on my boot.” And sure enough, when they got up, a boot was on his root.

“Why do you wear a boot, when you have no place to go,” Said the boy, “I may not be too bright, but at least this much I know.”

Said the unicorn to the boy, “Because he’s got ambition, “so he’s running on the spot to help him with his weight loss mission.”

“He can’t lose weight,” exclaimed the boy, “I can’t see how he’d do.” “The tree might think he’s hefty, but he’s slight for 102.”

The unicorn and the little boy, heard the old tree say “The boot is on my root to stop you crushing it all day!”

Warthog Willy and Sidekick Billy, were a pair of silly bones, Said Warthog Willy to Sidekick Billy, “Would you like some tea and scones?” “Warthog Willy,” replied Sidekick Billy, “I would rather pick my nose,” To Warthog Willy, continued Billy, “and drink from a garden hose.”

Laughed Warthog Willy, laughed Sidekick Billy. “Oh my, I do declare,” From Warthog Willy, for Sidekick Billy, “that I would rather eat my hair!” “Further,” Willy, carried on to Billy, “I would completely swallow my hat!” At Warthog Willy, asked Sidekick Billy, “What would be wrong with that?”