Raising Blog Interest
I like WordPress – even if things go wrong from time to time, it is because they are trying something new. They work out the bugs, they move forward.
In an announcement today, called Possibly an Announcement they talk about putting some references at the bottom of each post which, if you liked this post, will take you to other blogs with posts on similar subjects.
I don’t know how this will work, but I like it that they are coming up with new ways to increase blog traffic, and to allow readers to follow a theme. You can read the entire announcement by clicking on the blue type, above.
Blog posts can be a total tease. You get to the end and you’re ready for more, but all that’s there is maybe some post navigation, and if you’re lucky a few comments. If your appetite was whetted by the awesome post you just read there’s no place for you to go, except maybe to a search engine to look for terms around what you just read.
Post or permalink pages probably account for about half of the pageviews on your blog.
One of my favorite things about Youtube is that you can start with a single video and then see something else interesting in the related videos and you lose yourself and next thing you know it’s four in the morning and you’re watching disco pilates videos. My fancy term for this is lateral navigation. (Which the rest of the world seems to think has something to do with flying.)
Well now you can have that same experience across WordPress.com.
In a feature we’re calling possibly related posts we’ll now try to show posts related to yours a little section at the end. If we find any posts on your blog that are related, we’ll put those at the very top and in bold. Next we’ll show other posts from around WordPress.com, and finally we’ll check if there’s anything in the mainstream media.
The result is a handful of links that should provide you and your visitors something interesting to check out. On blogs that cover the same topics frequently related posts could cause a 5-10% increase in traffic overnight. You could also start to see traffic from lots of other blogs. It’s a bit of an experiment, and we’ll be tweaking it a lot based on your feedback and the data that we collect once everything is live.
Safari / WordPress Upload Image Hint
After several mornings of agony trying to upload my sunrise photo, only to be successful later in the day, I went to the FAQ section, where one little line gave me a clue for something else to try. It’s something about when you sign on, you might get one link or you might get another.
When uploading an image, if I see that they are using “Flash” I know it is going to work. If it says it is using “browser,” it is never going to work.
As cumbersome as it may be, what works for me is to sign out, and sign in again, hoping this next link will enable the “Flash” upload.
Bonus morning photo, just because I can:
Just Yesterday . . .
Just yesterday, I remember sitting at my computer, looking out over the Gulf and blah blah’ing to you about having the luxury of a whole year luxuriously stretched out before me, a year to accomplish all kinds of wonderful things.
This morning, I thought with a start “a THIRD of the year is gone!” I have dallied and dawdled and let a third of this wonderful year just slip through my fingers! I feel I am out of control, careening dangerously through the year, not thoughtfully and with dignity.
Seven Things Tag
Seven things I plan to do:
1. Get more exercise
2. See Canada and the US
3. Be a good aunt
4. Take care of my husband
5. Eat more locally
6. Go back to Alaska for a visit
7. Love God, love my neighbor as myself (I think that is supposed to be #1)
Seven things I can do:
1. Write
2. Spin stories for media
3. Make intuitive connections
4. Calm a terrified child or friend
5. Keep friends for years 🙂
6. Tip generously
7. Speak in public
Seven things I can’t do:
1. Ride a bicycle
2. Run on pavement (knees)
3. Have more than three “things” in one day
4. Lie and get away with it
5. Pass a hungry cat without feeding it if I can
6. Listen to gossip
7. Get by without sleep
Seven things I say the most:
1. Good Morning!
2. Thanks be to God
3. Is this a good time?
4. Aaaarrrgghhh!
5. Who is this?
6. Ayb!
7. 3asel!
I tag Mirror Polisher, who used to be Magical Droplets,, q80Saracen, and Yousef at Some Contrast.
The Cat and the Table
see more crazy cat pics
When I saw this today, on ICHC, I just had to laugh.
Our son has a cat. Our son has a sprayer. The cat gets on the table, where he knows he is not supposed to be. Our son yells “Gordon! Get off the table!” and Gordon settles down. Our son jumps up and gets the sprayer, and Gordon watches. Our son sprays. And sprays. And sprays. If you get right up close to Gordon and spray under his tail, he will get up slowly, annoyed, and saunter off the table. He takes his time. He wants you to know you are annoying, but you don’t scare him. He wants you to know that you are NOT the boss of him.
Normally, Gordon is just the nicest cat you could ever hope to meet. He just has a thing about the dining room table.
Touching up Your Photos
Interesting article for the non-professional photographers among us about how to do some quick-and-dirty touch ups to eliminate common causes of less than ideal photos: shiny face, distracting background, and red eye. You can read the entire article at Wired: Touch up your pics
If only your girlfriend didn’t look sweaty and possessed — and the background didn’t resemble the mothership’s control room — this snapshot would be frame-worthy. With Adobe’s consumer-grade image editor Photoshop Elements ($100 for PC, $90 for Mac), you can remedy these common photo spoilers in seconds.
If you’re on a Mac, you can also try using the lightweight photo-editing app Pixelmator ($60). And those of you on Linux can give the free and open-source GIMP a shot. The controls and keyboard shortcuts won’t be exactly the same as the techniques described below, but they’ll be close enough that you should be able to figure out the correct combinations.
So far, I’m kind of low-tech. The MacBook Pro comes with iPhoto, and it takes care of just about everything I need. I crop, every now and then I adjust contrast or give it a little more or less lighting. Once I even straightened a photo that was tilted – wow, that makes me feel so powerful!.
AdventureMan has PhotoShop Elements, which he has explored, but I think maybe he was a little overwhelmed by all the processes. We both like taking photos, but we aren’t going to spend a lot of time trying to make a bad shot into a great shot. We try to do that when we are taking the photo. It’s all fun for us, when we start taking it too seriously, it stops being fun.
I like articles like this, though, that take something step by step and make it easy.
Do you PhotoShop? What’s your favorite tool?
Shiite Mosques?
On the same road as the earlier photo taken in Mubarak Al Kebir, just along the road (I think it is 250) was this mosque. It has writing on it, around the top, but the dome is not green. It has lights at night. Is this a Shiite mosque?
This mosque in Fehaheel doesn’t have writing, so I think it is a Sunni mosque, but it is so PINK and so pretty – and mostly the more delicate mosques are Shiite. Is this one Sunni or Shiia?
Road Work Needed
I had a meeting in Mubarak Al Kebir yesterday, and when I got to the streetlight to turn on exit 209, this is what the road in the lanes next to me looked like:
Four huge slabs of concrete – maybe they used to meet. One big depression, with rebar showing . . . most of the cars seem to know it is there, slow down to go over the bumps. I can only imagine what happens to the youngster who hits it going mach 6.
Think we need a little attention to detail here.
By Popular Demand
. . . your sunrise this morning at 0545. It looks like it will be a gloriously spectacular day, hot, but not killer hot, maybe in the low 100’s (F) (around 38 C). Not a cloud in the sky. Even the haze on the horizon is light, not that icky dark band you sometimes see. The Gulf is flat and glassy, not the tiniest wave. Freighters are tootling by, bringing all good things to Kuwait.
Tonight is date night, and the beginning of the weekend in Kuwait. I wish you all the happiest of weekends.
Dreaming of The “Not-So-Big House”
I’ve been dreaming lately of the house I want in my future. I’ve visited a couple houses in Kuwait lately, houses I liked a lot, with beautiful spaces, intimate dining rooms, a variety of ceiling heights, cozy seating areas that invited conversation and large, light bedrooms that also had seating areas, grown up retreats with Jacuzzi style bathtubs and places to curl up and read, along with a whole lot of closet space.
I told you a while back about a book we were told about, Sarah Susanka’s The Not So Big House Book. The book is about making every part of your house work the way your lifestyle needs it to – cutting out space wasted on impressing other people and maximizing areas of the house where people actually hang out.
As she introduces the book, she talks about how you throw a party and everybody ends up hanging out in the kitchen, that the living rooms we create are not welcoming, and she has good ideas how to make all the spaces in your house more welcoming.
She emphasizes also the use of high quality materials and workmanship.
I know that a little bit of heaven for me is getting up every day and looking out on the Gulf. I know that when I am working, I work facing the same view. It gives me such joy. I might get some of the same satisfaction overlooking a forest with wild animals (I know AdventureMan would love to have that not-so-big house be in Africa! Imagine! You’re sorting through your books and an elephant sticks his trunk in!) or the Puget Sound with the Olympics in the background. I know I am addicted to big windows and watching the weather change.
I need privacy. I don’t want other people looking in my windows.
My best friend has a round dining room table, and my sister, and my Chinese friend tells me those are the best for family “energy.” I want a big round family dining table, in wood, like my sister and like my friend.
I love glass brick, and would love to have it in bathrooms and entries and have walls of it letting light stream into and through my home.
I love glass tile, especially the watery shades of aqua blue and aqua green.
(photo courtesy Bedrock Industries)
I love light wood floors, honey oak, birch, even knotty pine planks I had in an old German house where I once lived. I love the feeling of wood underfoot; it is gentle and forgiving, and so classically good looking.
(Photo courtesy Pennington Hardwoods)
I love second floor loft libraries, overlooking the lower living areas of a house.
Dream along with me.
Think about YOUR house. Now, close your eyes and think about what goes into making a house your very own special hideaway. What makes it special for you? What would you do with your living space if time and energy and money were of no importance?
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