Does Your Blog Have ADD?
6 Figure Blogging
Ive been participating in 6 Figure Blogging with Darren from Problogger.net and Andy Wibbels from 6 Apart. Most of the course so far has been fairly elementary for those who have been blogging for a while. Indeed, I almost wish there was a disclaimer before I plunked down the money that would have rated the course on a sliding scare between Beginner and Expert blogging knowledge.
One of the things that did catch my interest was the subject of message on your blog. The analogy given was a good one, and one I am trying to find some kind of balance for in my own blog here on troyrutter.com
Imagine going into a bookstore and looking for a magazine. You are thinking of going skiing in Colorado this winter, so you go from one shelf to another, and come to a section marked Sports. There tucked in back of the latest NBA news you spot a magazine called “Colorado Skiing” that was exactly what you were looking for. You pay for the magazine and go home.
Now, think of what it would be like to go to the book store and instead of having a skiing magazine, you had a “Sports” magazine. Inside you had all sports imaginable and maybe 1 article on skiing in Colorado. Now back up yet another level, maybe there was one magazine on …. everything. This magazine had articles on computers, decorating, potty training your child, baseball, fixing cars, politics, Britney Spears - everything in the world.
And that is where you find most personal blogs.
I love my blog here at TroyRutter.com, but the fact is it will not, and can not, ever be used to do the almighty M - “monetize.” The only blogs/podcasts that seem to do well that are personal blogs are celebrities. (ie: Wil Wheaton, Adam Curry, among others.)
So what does your blog say about your tastes?
Posting Categories
One of the easiest ways to judge if your blog has a tight or broad focus is to look at your category list. If you see more than 10 categories on your blog, then your net may be too big. A focused blog may have 5 or less categories that posts fall into.
When you go to make a new blog post, and are considering making a new category, think carefully about what you are doing. If you are adding a category, then your net is about to get even larger, and you may risk alienating those who have started coming to your blog because of another topic you wrote about.
Monetize? Blasphemy!
If you don’t have any aspirations to monetize your blog, then by all means talk about anything and everything. But if you have any interest on focusing on a niche to help earn some extra money, then focusing your blog’s entries and categories on that niche will benefit you from the start.
The Twitter Effect - Bright Kite and Digsby “get it”
Almost 2 years ago I remember reading Wil Wheaton’s blog where he lost all or most of his purchased iTunes music, and I remember feeling jealous when a rep from apple who read his blog, called him to make everything right.
http://wilwheaton.typepad.com
Fast forward to the Twitter age.
DIGSBY
I have used several IM clients over the years, and had pretty much settled on Trillian to be my IM program of choice, since it combined the services of AIM, ICQ, Yahoo and MSN. A coworker then told me about Digsby, which also combined Facebook, Myspace, Gmail and Twitter. I installed the application and had no issues whatsoever.
What I was having problems with was a notification showing up in Digsby that I had a @reply, but couldn’t see them on my twitter timeline (I use the actual twitter.com interface). I almost immediately received a direct message from Digsby offering to help troubleshoot the problem.
Whoa.
Turns out it wasn’t Digsby at all, but my settings on Twitter to “show all @replies on my timeline”
But, I was still very impressed with Digsby monitoring the twitterverse for their name being mentioned, and jumping right on questions that were presented - but probably not even directed towards them.
Bright Kite
I don’t have a phone that supports Bright Kite, so I enter in my location manually, thus somewhat defeating the purpose I suppose. In today’s world of so many different social applications being launched, I oftentimes use a generic password for sites Im not sure I will use a lot.
So, when I really WANTED to use Bright Kite recently, I had forgotten which password I actually used. I searched and searched, but to my surprise there was no “forgot password” link to be found. I immediately twittered my frustration (and almost at the exact same time remembered my password anyway). Within 2 minutes there was a @reply to me saying they were working on it, and within 20 minutes, I got another reply saying there was now a forgot password link on the site.
Yikes.
Yet again, another company that “gets it.”
So bravo to these companies and others using twitter to enhance not only their core product, but also customer service. I’m sure there are many other companies out there doing the same thing. But for once (or twice) - you guys made me feel like a celebrity.
Technorati Tags: bright kite, digsby, twitter, wil wheaton
Installing Windows XP on Wal-Mart Pre-Black Friday Laptops
Background
I was in the market for a new laptop when Wal-Mart announced their pre-Black Friday “super” special on an Acer 5315 laptop at a mere price of $350. I previously purchased a Compaq laptop back in 1999 that served me well, but by now was quite antiquated. The Acer 5315 specs looked promising except for one teensy weensy detail that I was sure I could overlook - Windows Vista.
Over the past several months I haven’t used the laptop as much as I thought I would, and I attribute much of that to the installation of Vista. Even after installing the maximum 2 gigs of memory, the machine was slow to boot up, slow to play Starcraft (although now I think I know why…), and slow to do almost anything. Even running a copy of Castblaster (a podcasting program) was painful. An experience trying to run a video editing program on it last week was the last straw, it was time to “upgrade” it to Windiows XP.
The Problem
In doing a Google search for installing Windows XP on the laptop, it became clear that this wasn’t going to be easy. It would seem that Acer had zero Windows XP drivers for the laptops, and the settings for booting up were confusing for those who were not familiar with installing Windows XP.
Now I had reinstalled Windows about a billion times over the years, but even for me the instructions seemed daunting. That is until I found a web site that offered step by step instructions for installing Windows XP on the Acer 5315. Here.
The Process
I followed the instructions carefully, but when I rebooted for the final time I was greeted with a wonderful blue screen of death. I then remembered something about the boot drive type that I read on a separate web site (which was not explained on the instructions I linked to above) that said I needed to change the type of the boot drive from SATA to IDE in the bios. Once I did that. Voila! Windows XP!
I went through the rest of the install, chose my initial username, and happily reinstalled Castblaster and the trial version of Goldwave… the important programs. I rebooted to make sure the installation really was successful and it auto-logged into my main account. I didn’t like that - I wanted the username/password screen, so I went into the control panel, changed the startup sequence to show the login screen and shut down the computer while I had lunch.
I Can’t Log In
A couple of hours later I decide I want to reinstall some more productivity software so I turn on the laptop, get to the login screen, type in my password and … I can’t log in. What the heck? I try the password over and over, which I set during installation, but nothing happens. Finally, I search on my other computer for ways to recover a lost password and give it a try. It doesn’t work and instead installs another copy of Windows on the computer. Not what I wanted.
Just as the computer is booting up after installing the second copy of the operating system, it hit me. I was stupid.
The Final Solution
What I did was so stupid, I hesitated to blog about it. When I set the startup sequence to ask for a username/password… I never actually set a password for the user account I was using. That is why I couldn’t log in. I then remembered what the password I did set was for - the Administrator user. So as soon as the Windows login screen appeared for installation #2, I rebooted and chose installation #1, logged in with the Administrator account, set the password for my main user account, logged off, logged back in with my user account and ta-da! Im back in business. And of course I promptly removed installation #2 from the boot menu, and deleted it from the computer.
Frustrating, yes. But after using it for half the weekend … oh so worth it.
Technorati Tags: Windows XP, Windows Vista, Acer 5315, Troy Rutter
Report from the set of “South Dakota”
One of the reasons I grew up wanting to be in films, or work in them, was somewhat tied to the fact that I would get to travel all over the world shooting movies. The reality that not everything is at it seems hit home only last week, when I was asked to be a “featured extra” in the movie South Dakota, which was being filmed in Iowa, for a scene that takes place in Philadelphia. (how is that for convoluted?)
Thursday was the big day, and my call time was set for 8PM at the Spaghetti Works in Downtown Des Moines. In the morning I received a call from the extras casting people that it had been moved up to 5pm, so I left work a little bit early to get there at around 4:30PM. I parked my car at the Iowa Cubs parking lot, and took one of the production shuttles downtown to Java Joes, where they were going to be having dinner.
I met a few people from the production, including the extras people, and also met my co-extra, Randy from Waukee, who went through the dinner line with determination. I however, decided not to go through the line, mainly since I was nervous about driving the Mercedes, worrying if it was a manual transmission. (Hey, I don’t know cars.) Eventually the entire crew filed in, ate, and one by one went back to the set to continue working. Randy and I remained at the table we were sated at, and eventually it was just us and two other people who we would come to know as “good looking couple.”
Over the next few hours, Randy and I would talk with Good Looking Couple about a variety of subjects, just trying to stay awake as another hour ticked off the clock. It was cold and rainy, but at least we were dry and warm sitting in the Fourth Street Theater adjacent to Java Joes. At around 9PM, we were told to go to the set, so we took off down the street.
Did I mention Randy and I were supposed to be “Mafioso?”
Anyway…
When we arrived at the set, my fears were calmed by the director telling Randy that Randy not only had to smoke a cigar, but would be driving the car. I had mixed feelings, as this obviously meant Randy was the main subject of the scene, but hey, that can be a good thing too. So over the next 2 1/2 hours we repeated a sequence of coming out of the restaurant, me opening an umbrella and locking the door, us both getting into the Mercedes, him dropping a cigar, and us driving off.
Easy.
It was fun to be on a movie set again, and it is very contagious. The police had set up barricades on Court avenue, and at times there was a crowd standing there, wondering what was going no. It was an interesting feeling having a crowd watch *you* doing a scene, then watching you get out of a car, wondering if you were “somebody.”
When we were done, I had to turn in my overcoat and shoes that were provided by the costume department in order to get my payment voucher. I took the shuttle back to the parking lot and thankfully made it home without falling asleep.
All in all, filming South Dakota really felt like working on a production in Los Angeles again. Both it and Duck Farm No. 13 were fun, but it was evident that South Dakota had a higher budget. I think I read somewhere that Duck Farm No. 13 had $250-$500,000 budget and South Dakota is 2.5-$3 million. Iowa is getting a lot of motion picture action lately due to increased tax incentives for production. No doubt about it, as long as they want me to keep being in them, I’m always available… unless it’s a major crowd scene.
Just not interested in doing those any more. But luckily there are always others who are willing to.
So major thanks to Deb Copeland of Copeland Creative Talent for the opportunity to work on the film for the day.
I’ll keep you posted on the release dates, etc as I can.
Rosie Comes Out of Hibernation
My distaste for anything and everything Rosie O’Donnell is legendary (I thought I explained it on a blog post, but I can’t seem to find it. I know I mentioned it on my Podcast several times…) so imagine my surprise when Rosie showed up again on my television this morning - this time on Good Morning America.
She was there to promote her new book - on crafts of all things - but she ended up putting her foot in her mouth yet again when it comes to politics and how she sees the world.
As someone who has had first hand knowledge of dealing with such a demoralizing and ugly personality, I found it strange that she has once again crawled out of the shadows. Oh how it only seems like yesterday that she was out touting yet another book about her withdrawal from public life (Celebrity Detox) - Rosie - we wish you WOULD withdrawal from the public.
Rosie is a nasty woman if you get on her bad side, and she doesn’t allow anybody with different opinions to be around her. Even on Good Morning America this morning she said “I’m the same person I always was. But on my show there was no one with a conflicting point of view. And I was also the boss of everything, which frankly for me works well. ”
Her own words.
My question is… she has wanted to “withdraw” from public life - so why doesn’t she? Putting up a blog and posting her broken english every day is not quite “withdrawing.”
For those wanting to learn more about my Rosie experience(s) - stay tuned, I’ll try and post them when I can, including maybe some emails from Rosie herself back when I worked for another company. (oh boy!)
Technorati Tags: Rosie O’Donnell, Good Morning America
