Category Archives: Media

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Articles that have to do with blogging, music, news, radio, search engines, traffic, seo, and websites

5 Steps on How to Improve a Blog in 2009

picture-15I love stats.  Some people call you a stat whore or call stats evil, but there is a reason you can get a degree in statistics in college.  Stats are used everywhere.

Sports, financial, technology, everywhere data is kept and you can gain so much information by examining statistics beyond surface level.  It can show you where you need to improve, what works, what doesn’t, and how to reach more people.

There are many reasons to have a blog, but is one of them to reach more people?  If so, you should know something about how to reach those people your blog is targeting.  Statistics is one way to evaluate how to do that.  If you don’t care about reaching new readers than I guess none of that matters, but many bloggers want to reach out.

A quick few tips for reaching new readers in 2009 on your blog would be something you can gain from your statistics.  Your stats just tell you how you have done, not what to do.  So, my few tips for what they are worth would be:

1. Keywords - be descriptive in your posts and your titles, the Internet runs off keywords.  If you had to pick one or the other, blog titles would come first.  Google keys off title tags so choose a title that is descriptive (like a newspaper headline) that accurately describes your post.

Keywords are not bad, they are just describing your post more accurately for the search engines to find the post.  For example, instead of saying we are going to be watching new year’s eve shows tonight, say we will be watching Dick Clark’s New Year’s Rockin’ Eve 2009.

2. Content - the phrase content is king is still true.  Want people to be interested in reading your blog, write original and thoughtful content.  Don’t repeat material found on other blogs and don’t re-post content from other places but instead, write about your thoughts on that topic and link to the original content.

3. Show Some Link Love - one of the best things you can do for a fellow blogger is link to the direct post.  Linking to their blog is great, linking directly to a post they have written is even better.  The reason behind this is by doing so, you give their specific post more relevance when being looked at by google and it creates a pingback to their blog.  Google operates their search algorithms by deciding what is more relevant that something else, and one of the ways it does this is by the buzz around a post or article, and lets face it, the higher you are on Google’s list, the more visitors you will have to your blog or website.

4. Consistency - post with some consistency.  You don’t have to post every day, but posting once, then a month later doing another post, then a week later doesn’t always work well with search engines.  The code on your blog should be consistent as well.  This pretty much taken care of by Wordpress or Typepad but the more frequently you change the focus on your blog or theme or coding the less relevant Google sees your blog.

5. Focus (remember your readers) - know your readers and pick a few key subjects and focus your blog on those topics.  For my personal blog, I focus on faith, photography, and personal topics and I try not to stray to far away from those topics (which are broad anyway).  Remember your readers.  You may think you are writing your blog for yourself, but you are really writing for your readers.  If you are writing for yourself and no one else, then there are several journal programs that will accomplish that purpose, but supposedly a blog is a “web log” about life, sharing ideas, information, and most of all communicating with others (i.e. your readers).

Bonus. Read other blogs and comment - ok, so there were actually 6 points, but I left the best for last.  To me, one of the most important things to do as a blogger is read other people’s blogs, and leave thought driven comments.  Blogging is a two way communication, not one way.  You should be ready to interact with your readers, and interact with other bloggers.  Blogs that only go one way become stale and cold.  Bloggers love comments.  If you want comments on your own blog, leave comments on other people’s blogs yourself.  Don’t spam your fellow bloggers.  Read, and if it was a thought provoking post, leave them a comment with your thoughts.

feed-reader

You can have the best content, the highest ranking, the best graphical design, and if you don’t allow comments, and never interact or comment yourself, your blog will be cold and corporate.  When I come across blogs that don’t allow comments that are in my feed reader, I title them in my reader with the extension “(blog title) - [no comments]” and they are usually the last blog I read, if at all.

The best example of how not to do it I have is from Desiring God.  John Piper has one of the very best blogs, period.  The content is incredible, the design is great, he has a ton of readers, and he doesn’t allow comments on his blog and (as far as I can tell) does not interract with his readers or responds to his email (at least not mine).  And because of this, I rarely read his blog, but it is one of the best on the Internet.

What are your plans for your blog for 2009?

How to Make a Custom iPhone Wallpaper

Scott Fillmer iPhone WallpaperI wanted to post something a little different today, so here is a slightly useless use of your iPhone’s wallpaper screen, an electronic business card or ID name tag.  I have found a few uses for doing this other than it looking a little conceited and vain, but it was a lot by trial and error and I just wanted to write down the specifics of how I did create the wallpaper.  You may not want to create a “business card” per say, but you can use this exact technique for creating any customized wallpaper for your iPhone.

This actually came from a friend of mine, Michael, who had found a Nikon D100 camera body and lens back this summer.  Back in its day, this was a $2,000 camera body and someone, somewhere was going to be missing this camera.  It took great time and effort for him to actually find the owner of the camera but he did.  A phone of course is not the same thing cost wise, but I thought about putting some digital name tag on my various paraphernalia, so this is one way to do this with your iPhone.  Besides, with as many of them as there are around, if someone picks up yours by mistake they will instantly know who’s phone it is and be able to return it rather quickly.  That’s the idea anyway.

This type of thing can also be done on your Twitter background and it works just about the same way since Twitter doesn’t really give you an exact as how they control their background image sizes and such, and that takes a bit of trial and error too.  The background I used here came right off my Twitter background image with a little size adjustment.

To Create a Custom iPhone Wallpaper

To start, I have assumed that you have some image editing software like photoshop.  You need to create a new blank image in photoshop and I am referring to the diagram below for the sizes I used.  The size of the iPhone wallpaper image is 320px wide by 480px height, so make an image that exact size.  You can use something larger or smaller but this will keep the iPhone from automatically resizing the image and in most cases distorting something.

Next, I made a two tone black and white out of the 480px height.  The part the phone’s date and time covers will remain white in most cases, so if you put a light colored background it does gray out a little of the background, but it is far easier to read if you make it a very dark color.  So, color the top section (approximately 115px from the top of the image down) a dark color of choice.  You can also do the same thing on the bottom (not in the diagram, but at 95px in height) but the bottom is already a lighter color so it isn’t as hard to read.  I left my bottom 95px white as you can see, but you can make that a different color too if you like.

iphone wallpaper

The actual usable space is the center, which basically measures out at a 270px square if you want a nice margin on the right and left side.  For the image you can really take or create anything you like and just make sure it is cropped down to a 270px square and it will fit perfectly.  If you wanted to make this a don’t loose me name tag, put some way to get a hold of you in this center info.

Like I said, you are probably asking who cares or what’s the point, me too, but none-the-less, there it is.  A customized iPhone wallpaper.  All together this took about 20 minutes to do at the most (not including this post of course).  Anyone else happen to do this on their phone?  Now customizing your Twitter background page might be a little more tricky, but, a little more useful.

The Matthew Butler Memorial Fund and Zion Gate Records

Matthew Bulter and Steven SwanThis is an update to a previous post about the tragic murder of Matthew Butler and Stephen Swan in Garland Texas back in June of this year.  If you are unfamiliar with the story please see my previous post Matthew Butler Killed at Zion Gate in Garland Texas about Matthew’s life and his wonderful testimony.  Back in June I came across this story while watching the news and was touched by what happened because, according to the news story and Matthew’s wife Jamie, Matthew was a strong Christian Believer, a musician, and a business owner of Zion Gates Records.  Those thing struck a nerve with me as I am all but a musician, but a big lover of music in general.

The post on my blog grew legs and soon many of Matthew’s friends and family, including Jamie and his mom Theresa had commented on the post.  This morning I received an email from Matthew’s mom, Theresa that I wanted to share with you about his memorial fund for his children.  Normally (I would guess) once a story hits national news you can a huge nation wide outpouring of support for the family, especially when the widow has small children as the Butler’s do, but the news story was so short lived that it never really had a chance to build any steam on a large national scale, so the Butler family held a charity golf tournament, are having a large rummage sale, and have setup a memorial fund at the bank in Texas.

All I wanted to do by this blog post is bring a little attention to their situation and possibly reach someone who might be able and willing to help their family in some way.  Below is the email from Theresa about the Matthew Butler Memorial Fund, I know his wife and kids appreciate any and all help they have and will receive.

The Matthew Butler Memorial Fund

The community support for Jamie and the kids has been amazing.  Matthew is gone from this earth but safe in his heavenly father’s loving arms.  Now, we must help raise up these babies, take care of Jamie and help her to continue the dream that Matthew had when he opened the doors to Zion Gate Records almost three years ago.  Many of you have said, “We will not let this dream that Matthew had turn into a nightmare.  We will not give the enemy that satisfaction!”

The golf tournament raised over $20k for the children.  Friends, family and even total strangers have also donated their money and time to help Jamie get the studio up and running.  A very sweet young lady from Matthew’s high school, Tammie, got together with some of her friends to have a garage sale to benefit Jamie and the kids.  Over the past few weeks, as people heard about it and wanted to donate their items, it’s grown into this huge RUMMAGE SALE which will be held at the Albertson’s parking lot on Lavon Highway in Garland (near 190).  If you would like to help, please bring your items to the sale on Saturday morning, September 20th before 7:00am.  Here is the link with map:  http://www.yellowbot.com/albertsons-food-pharmacy-garland-tx-2.html

There is also a memorial fund at Washington Mutual Bank - Matthew Butler Memorial Fund.  Donations may be made at any location.

Thanks to everyone for their prayers, love and support.  In His Grip, Theresa Butler

Sarah Palin Undergoing Internet Smear Campaign Like No Other

Sarah Palin VPSarah Palin is currently undergoing a smear campaign on the Internet like I have never seen before.  It is really just incredible to see how sharp the attacks on Palin are and how baseless these smears are in real facts.  Is there a good reason for this?  Is the left, far left, democrats, independents, people in general really that scared of this woman?

I will have to agree with a recent blog post I read (see Politics and… by Fluidity) that this all shows our divisions, but they can’t be expected to just go away with someone like Palin, she stands for something, she isn’t luke-warm.  I just hope Palin doesn’t read blogs like bloggers do.

Still, I have not seen any of the hatred being spewed out over Joe Biden, no one is just killing themselves to be the first to get nude photos of Obama or McCain only Palin of course since she is a woman.  Are these people disappointed that she is not some homely looking feminist woman that only wears a pants suit while telling everyone to just get along?  To these bloggers I say, you really don’t get it.  This is what middle America wants.  A smart woman that can buck the system, raise her children, have a moral basis, doesn’t look like some butch tree hugger, and can relate to the “regular” person who deals with life’s problems just like she does.  And while we may not all be a part of middle America, it encompasses a lot of people in this country.

Find the dirt, the naked photos, the illegitimate children, the affair, the miserable part of Palin’s life if it exists.  You know what, maybe it actually doesn’t?  People today are so quick at trying to pull out all the skeletons from the other person’s closet, who cares about the ones piled up in their own house.

A total and complete denial, disregard, ignorance of Matthew 7:2-4 when dealing with those in public view and even those who are not.  Yes, she should be ready for this, this is politics in America in 2008, but how much defamation of character, libel, slander, and vilification should one person expect to be able to handle?

Matthew7:2 For in the same way you judge others, you will be judged, and with the measure you use, it will be measured to you. 3 “Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother’s eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye? 4 How can you say to your brother, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ when all the time there is a plank in your own eye?

At least Obama yesterday came out and said to back off, that her family should be off limits as is the case with most candidates.  Blogs today can give any nut job a voice, which actually is great, that just means that I have the same freedom to post whatever I want on my own blog (of course I may be one of those nut jobs too).  I at least make an attempt to post verified facts, and if it is an opinion, I try to say so, or at least make it obvious.  The bloggers are on an all out smear campaign of Palin based in totally false statements and no basis of fact.  I hope people who read these “news” stories or blog posts realize that and try to look at her candidacy objectively for what it is, a down to earth person who is now knee deep in the dirt of politics, at least that is how I see it here on this blog.

sarah-palin-graph

The real funny thing to me is that all these people that keep posting all these terrible things about Sarah Palin are really just helping her cause and ultimately her campaign. The graph from Google Trends above is just the start (look at the bottom graph, flat line to a straight line up).  “They” are all talking about her.  Blogs, news, radio, tv, commercials, the coffee house, the water cooler, they are talking about her as the possible VP, and this just empowers her in today’s media.

Not totally the same thing but I can’t imagine people doing this to Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis?  I understand she was not running for VP, but she was a woman in politics?  What about the two democratic woman that came before Palin?  I have respect for them just the same, but it doesn’t seem to go both ways on the Internet today. So if you want to empower her in the media, just keep talking about Palin.  I don’t see it helping Biden?  What do you think, how much slander should one politician have to handle? All of it I guess.

Is Your Favorite Faith Based Blog on This List?

What are your favorite faith based blogs you read?  I have a few different categories in my mind of blogs I read.  I have a total list, which includes some of my friends blogs and some of my favorite faith based blogs, and more I just flip through on a daily or weekly basis.  I have a few blogs I read (this would be across all categories) that are really bad, but for some reason I have some fascination with what they will post next because the blog is so bad (poor design, format, sentence or grammar structure and so on).  I call these train wreck blogs because I can’t help but read them for some reason.

google reader blogroll

I won’t mention any of my personal favorite train wreck blogs but there is one blog I have been reading quite a bit called TonyMorganLive.com which has a lot of fresh, well written content, plus his job listings are interestingg reading to me.  I have to give my blogroll award to Brody Harper who has one of the best blogrolls on the side of his blog and he always has something interesting going on over there (see his latest Positive Post Tuesday-Outdoor Encounter).  Below you will find my current faith based blogroll for today, Tuesday, September 2, 2008.  This list below is static, but my list changes daily.  For the most current and up to date list, see Faith Blogroll.  Is your blog on this list?  No?  Well post it in the comments so we can all take a look and add it to our feed readers.

The list above is obviously in alphabetical order, but it is a list of blogs I frequent.  There are so many that I have not come across yet, but to those above, thanks so much for putting so much effort into your blogs, I really enjoy reading them.  Keep in mind, even if you never receive a single comment, there are people who read your blog, so write your posts with that in mind.

Gustav and Hanna Looking for a Place to Land

These two storms look like they could really do some damage once they reach the U.S. coast.  Right now both are predicted to reach hurricane status over the weekend and then hurricane Gustav looks like it will go to the Louisiana side and hurricane Hanna the Florida side. Sorry no photography posted other than the hurricane graphic, I will get back to posting some images soon.

projected path of gustov and hanna

On an interesting note.  I work with domain information and registrations and often buy domains for my personal or business use.  Did you know that all hurricane domain names have been purchased by speculators through the end of the current hurricane name cycle. Right now, hurricane names are release up to the 2013 hurricane season.  If you take that list and look at some of the unique names on the list, then compare them to registered domain names (like hurricanenestor.com), you can systematically go through the list and see they are already reserved as far out as 2013.

Domain names are the last relestate frontier, and most are worthless, unless you actually want to use one for your name, business, or product.  Some Karen out there might be a windy kind of gal and want the domain hurricanekaren, but your name is on the list for 2013, so sorry, you missed that one.

Blogging Stats and Our Daily Walk of Faith

How does your blogging life look? Are you consistent, true, and purposeful when it comes to writing or participating with your blog (or put in another part of your life you take some value with)… no… me neither. I was thinking about this the other day when I really couldn’t find the words for a blog post and just decided to let it go.

Of course then I started drawing parallels of our Christian walk and the consistency in which we blog, and what effect it has on our blog. Once you start blogging for any considerable length of time (a few years for me), you start to think of life in terms of blog posts. I went to see this sporting event, ahhhh good blog post, this guy just cut me off in the highway, let me snap a photo and it will make a great blog post.

How do you know what the effect of writing that blog post has on your blog. We check the stats. Do you love stats as much as I do? I wish I could stat out everything sometimes. I love looking at collections of data like that, it tells us where we can improve, where we failed, where we succeeded. How often do we check our daily walk stats?

Our Daily Walk

Probably 5% of my ideas for blogs posts actually make it to my computer. I would say another 50% of those never make it out of a draft. But what happens to our blog when we just let it go, then try to pick it up, then let it go, well, just check the stats. It looks like an up and down mess, usually.

daily graph of our blogging walk

This graph above is a daily graph of my other photo blog. The piece in the middle there is typical, just up and down with the wind it seems, but it is directly related with what I do with the blog. When I post, the stats go up, when I don’t, they go down. That is how I usually feel in my walk with Christ. I am inspired and walking great one day and the next something happens and I neglect my prayer life that day (or any number of other things), and I feel brought down a notch.

One thing that has taken me a long time to realize is my walk is going to be an up and down event. For some reason we often think once we become Christians we are riding up that hill till we hit those pearly gates, and it just isn’t that way, and the Bible tells us this too.

Among many different places in the Bible, we read in John 16:33

33 “I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world.”

I love reading that verse. It reminds me that our life here on earth is not trouble free just because we are Christians, but, it doesn’t say we can just live like the world, forget our walk and our relationship with Christ will be the same.

Our Weekly Walk

I have been a Christian for more than 10 years now, so I have longer stats to look at than just a daily graph. So what if we could look at our walk on a weekly basis instead.

weekly graph of blogging stats

This graph has a little more data. This is showing me the 17th week of the year of 2008 up to week 33-34 of this year. Still some ups and downs visible, but now we can see a trend? I may not be getting it done like I would like every single day, day after day, but I have an overall goal with my blog to keep it fresh and create growth within the blog. So without getting to deep, you get the idea. We can’t keep looking at our daily failures in our walk with Jesus as the sum of our walk. We have a goal as Believers, right, to keep growing and mature in our faith and our walk with the Lord.

Our Monthly Walk

Take it one step farther out and look at our monthly walk.

monthly blogging stat walk

Now we’re talking. I can see that month 11, 12 of 2007 weren’t so good, although they were in existence, but look at the trend. Can we look back over our walk with Christ in months and years and see growth? We may not think so, but if we check the stats of our daily walk, in terms of months and years, we will hopefully find we have grown, but don’t forget about that little notch at the very end of this graph.

What do you do on your blog when you can’t find something to write or just don’t feel like messing with it? I guess I write about stats. Try to plug away at your blog if it is important to you, you will be rewarded yourself by just looking back over time to see how you have grown as a blogger and what you found was important enough to put down in words.

Don’t feel guilty about neglecting your blog either, just open the admin screen, hit the “create new entry” and write something that is on your mind. I have read blog posts that were one word and were great posts. One of my most popular posts was just one photo, so it doesn’t have to be a long drawn out message like this.

Results of Rick Warren Interview With Obama and McCain?

Obama McCain WarrenSure, this is old news by now since the interview was a few days ago, but I am still thinking about the how and why of it all. From Saddleback Church in Lake Forrest, CA on Aug. 16, 2008, pastor Rick Warren interviewed the two Presidential candidates (AP Photo/Alex Brandon of McCain, Warren, and Obama left) on live, nationally broadcast television.

On a night that had just about nothing on other than the Olympics, Fox News and CNN both carried the interview live from Saddleback Church (see full written transcripts from the interview here). From other fellow faith based blogs, I knew the interview was coming, but I think it ended up being larger than anyone originally thought. So what was the result?

Prior to the interview, Warren contacted many of his fellow pastors to ask their opinion of what questions he should ask the candidates. Those pastors then blogged about it, asking their readers what they thought Warren should ask. I read a ton of blogs (see my faith based blogroll here), so watching this progress through the Internet was interesting.

I have read everything from pandering from the evangelical far far right to blasting of corruption of everything by Rick Warren from who knows what side, to down right condemnation of Warren and his life (see Rick Warren warranted). [The only reason I actually referenced that post is to show a point of view that is how some feel in the "mainstream", from outside a faith based circle. His statements are by no means backed up by fact and basically is just a dig at Warren, but he isn't alone.]

Did We Learn Anything from the Warren Interview?

So, did we learn anything from this. Was your vote changed? You still had two choices before and two choices after, and I have to admit, I was flipping on the commercials over to the rip roaring woman’s marathon (shown in its entirety). I have to say, the questions were not the typical stump speech softballs. There were some softballs thrown, but the questions were different, as they should have been, but I don’t know if I really gained any insight into McCain or Obama that I couldn’t have already guessed.

The initial results show that evangelicals were favorable of McCain’s answers. Well that is hard hitting news there. I did like several of his answers to questions I probably wouldn’t have heard without the interview, but does that change a person’s vote, or was it even supposed to?

So, What’s The Point? Did We Change Our Minds?

Constantina Diṭă-Tomescu of Romania I guess what I am trying to figure out is, what is or what was the point? I know Warren said to be able to fairly show the sides of two people running for the most powerful office in the world that we don’t normally get to see… but is it going to change your vote?

I have a lot of respect for Warren, and I don’t always agree with him or some of the other super-star pastors of our time, but he did get a commanding audience, he pulled at least a solid few hours of prime time news, his church got a lot of publicity, he probably sold a few more books, and Constantina Diṭă-Tomescu of Romania became the oldest woman to ever win the gold in the woman’s marathon.

Rick Warren has done something that many churches are just unable to do, reach an audience capacity on a nation wide level, even internationally on this venue, and for that, I think his work with this interview and other avenues he has followed are well worth it.  There are many people that have a smaller reach, but a reach that I couldn’t possibly have (one example being Ragamuffinsoul, he just does things I couldn’t do in the faith).

But… did anyone make a meaningful commitment to Jesus Christ? Well, I guess that wasn’t the point.

The Bible Now Available in the Mam Language from Bible Gateway

Bible TranslationsI read this today and was fascinated. Can you believe with all the technology’s we have today that the Bible is still be translated into other languages, wow.

If you have never checked out Bible Gateway this is an amazing site, and I would highly recommend using it as an aid to anything scripture related.

I have been using Bible Gateway for many many years now and they just keep getting better and better. Today they announced that they have released the Bible language version (MVC) for the Mam language (see Mam language Bible now available), which they say traces their lineage back to the Mayan civilization.

I know there is so much work that goes on with translating into other languages, and it is almost all behind the scene stuff that we never hear about. I recently read about a man who had spent the last 5 years of his life doing nothing but translating the Bible from English into a specific language for a village in Africa.

This was not a large language translation like Spanish, or probably Mam, but for a select group of people. I met a fellow blogger, Biscuet, the other day who is back from China for a brief summer rest and I am sure he knows the value of a Bible given to someone in their own native tongue.

Those of us in the U.S. and Europe may just take for granted that we have a Bible we can read in our own native language, but for those hungry for God’s word that don’t have a way to read it for themselves, these translations are huge, and I think very noble work.

What’s in a Wordle on The Damascus Blog?

I thought I would start off with something light hearted for the week here on The Damascus Blog, and then I came across wordle again. If you haven’t seen or used a Wordle yet, it can be very interesting and a little eye opening. I have looked at these now and then but I always try to guess what my most used word will be, and I never seem to be able to get it right, and I wrote every word. [As created on Wordle]

The Wordle Tag Cloud

The word cloud below is a comprehensive look at this blog in total by the words I use (click on the image to see it full size on Wordle). I only wish it was clickable to each word, but perhaps next time. So what stands out in my cloud?

Wordle on The Damascus Blog

For my faith blog, is it the word Jesus, or faith, or Christ, no, this go around, it is the word time. Also appropriate to me since I think time is so important, but I did not know it was my most used word on this blog. Others of note wedding, think, life, Christian, read, and can.

What Does Wordle Say About our Words

What wordle does that I find very interesting, is that it doesn’t lie (it a computer how can it).  The randomness of my words, put in the format I chose, and I find that the small words little and God are in order right on top of each other (lower right), and the word Jesus?

Our church did a series a while back on how we use our words. I love the Wordle, it reminds me once again how our words are used, how important they are, and also what is small or absent in our vocabulary.  Does this translate into our heart, or into our lives.  Well I am not going to make the leap from Wordle to life just yet but it does point out to me what may or may not have importance.

The word Jesus shows up on this wordle, in the very lower left hand corner in tiny little text.  Should be front and center on this tag cloud, bigger than everything else?  I have actually used the name Jesus less, and He, or Him, or Creator more in total, and some times by design for specific reasons, so I don’t think Wordle quite tells the whole story.

What does your wordle say about your blog?