Archive for March, 2009
31 Days to a Better Blog
Ever since coming across ProBlogger.com, I’ve been impressed with the practical, helpful tips the site’s creator, Darren Rowse, provides. A lot of his tips have to do with monetizing your blog, but there’s also a lot of great articles about content, SEO and usability. As great as the tips are, I’ve never really taken too much time to implement anything he’s suggested.
Which is why I’m so excited about his upcoming “31 Days to Build a Better Blog” project. Starting April 6 (it got moved back from April 1), Darren will post a tip a day and a short exercise (10–15 minutes) to implement that day’s tip.
If you’re looking to kick up your blogging efforts, I recommend joining the challenge. If you do decide to join, leave a comment below. It will be fun to see who else is doing this.
Why WordPress?
I got an email from one of my Twitter friends asking for my thoughts on WordPress. It’s a great question, and I thought I’d share some of my thoughts here.
I started using WordPress only after trying every other blogging software out there. I started on Blogger, moved to Xanga and then went back to Blogger. I started a LiveJournal and tried TypePad, but never got very far with either. I ended up choosing WordPress simply because of the number themes (designs) available. As you’re likely aware, I’m pretty vain and like for my blog to be pretty – I’ve probably spent an equal amount of time on design as I have content. (A sad comment indeed if this is all I have to show for it.)
Now that I’ve been with WordPress for a while, I’ve come to appreciate other features of the tool.
- Incredibly easy to customize. Whether you’re starting with an existing theme or creating one from scratch, you can do some pretty incredible things if you know PHP and CSS. When I first started customizing themes, I knew nothing at all about CSS and only a very, and I mean VERY, small amount of HTML. Today, thanks to WordPress and Firebug, I’ve figured out how to customize almost everything.
- Ridiculously easy to use. This largely has to do with my job, but WordPress is a very easy tool to use and train to use. Once you get into the dashboard and poke around a little bit, it’s a straightforward and well-thought-out tool.
- Plenty powerful. Again, this is largely related to my job, but this blogging tool has the capability to be a robust CMS (content management system) that can power fairly large sites. While creating completely unique pages would require some extensive PHP knowledge, creating a smaller site is a cinch with WordPress.
- Active development community. When I first decided to go with WordPress, I didn’t realize how critical this would be. Whether I’m looking for a plugin that will do something my blog can’t currently or trying to resolve a problem, I can almost always turn to the community for the answer I need.
- Totally free. WordPress is a completely free tool. There are some costs when it comes to your URL and hosting, but WordPress itself is free.
If you’re thinking about getting into blogging, I recommend heading over to WordPress.com and setting up a blog today. You’ll get a nice introduction to the best blogging tool on the planet, and, best of all, it’s completely free!
One last thing, if you’re trying to decide between using WordPress.com or self-hosting (installing WordPress on a custom URL), I recommend self-hosting. It’s true that you can use WordPress.com and pay for some upgrades to get a custom URL and blog design, but that ends up being more expensive than self-hosting. However, if you don’t have any technical know-how (or don’t know someone who does), WordPress.com isn’t a bad option.
So what did I miss? Why else is WordPress awesome? Or, what faults am I blind to?
Bobby gets his props
Check out the story in today’s Wichita Eagle about my friend and favorite-local-blogger-who-links-to-me-often, Bobby Rozzell.
Aside from one factual error in the story – Bobby was never a pastor, as we don’t use that word – Denise Neil truly captured the essence of what Douglas and Main is all about.
A little clarification
About three months ago, I wrote a blog post about the Church of Christ, predicting its demise. The comments in the post mostly agreed with my position, and aside from my dad, nobody really talked to me about it too much.
Since the post was published, I’ve received several emails from people who disagree strongly with my position. This wasn’t unexpected, I suppose, but the sources of a couple of the emails certainly were.
I don’t want to apologize for a majority of the content in the post – I still stand by the points raised.
However, I would like to apologize for the offensive and strong headline. I wrote it with the intention of capturing readers’ attention. It was intended to be strong. But I fear it was so off-putting as to render the content of the post unreadable for some.
I would also like back off of my “prediction” that the Church of Christ is done for. There are certain types of Churches of Christ that are certainly doomed. But not all of them. There are Churches of Christ that will thrive and grow in the coming years.
If you have any questions, feel free to shoot me an email.
TwitchHiking and the Power of Tweets
Wichita was graced by an Internet celebrity last Thursday night. Paul Smith, better known as the “TwitchHiker,” spent a couple of hours hanging out with some folks at a tweetup held in his honor.
Smith is on a mission to travel the world in 30 days all on the gifts and good graces of kindred Twitter spirits. These newfound friends are paying for his flights and Greyhound tickets, giving him rides and putting him up overnight in their homes. He started 12 days ago in Newcastle, England. Last Friday morning, he was on his way to Austin, Texas for SXSW.
Smith is doing all of this for charity: water. Simply by asking the Twitter-world to donate, he’s already surpassed his goal to raise more than $4,000.
We understand peoples’ skepticism with Twitter. The idea of proclaiming to the world what you’re doing does sound a little ludicrous. But examples like TwitchHiker highlight the power of this simple site. (For more on Twitter, be sure to come to Thursday’s WAMA luncheon. It’s all about how, despite the challenges, brands are benefiting from Twitter. And yes, this is a shameless plug for a presentation I’m giving.)
For more on Smith, be sure to check out his website, where you can follow his journey and contribute to the cause. Also, be sure to check out the news story from KAKE – you might even catch a glimpse of yours truly.
Weekend World Change
I didn’t read Elie Wiesel’s Night in high school with everyone else. In fact, I just finished it the other night, shortly before Todd asked me what he should write about for this weekend’s Weekend World Change (though it’s kind of starting to be Every Third Weekend World Change, isn’t it?). Since Wiesel’s story was still rolling around in my brain, and probably will be for some time, I told him he should ask people to contribute to The Elie Wiesel Foundation for Humanity. The foundation had invested nearly all of its assets with Bernie Madoff, and so those assets are essentially gone. I know they’re not going to make back their $15.2 million based on the contributions from this blog’s readers alone (Hi Mom and Dad!), but every bit helps, so this weekend we encourage you to give $10 to the foundation. After that (or before; you choose) you should also read Night if you, like me, somehow made it out of the public school system without being assigned to read it.
If you’ve got a way to change the world, leave a comment with a link. Have a great weekend!