I'm down again

This time Supass Hosting is blaming it on a nameserver:

Bill,

We are currently working
on the nameservers that your account relies on.
This should be fixed shortly.
Thank you for your patience while this is resolved.

We had temporarily resolved this matter,
and then we found the problem lies deeper within
the configuration. We apologize for this mistake,
and I assure you we are working on this matter as soon as possible to get this running.

Regards,

Pat
Regards,
Pat W.

Well, I feel so much better now. At least one of their hard drives didn't crash. At least, I hope thay backed up their drive on the name server. At least THAT is up to date as far as my account is concerned.

I've moved to Movable Type

Now, Peoria Pundit on Blog*Spot hasn't moved, but my main blog, Peoria Pundit is now running on Movable Type, the blogging software choice for serious bloggers. MT is very similar to the TypePad interface I've using for the past 25 days. It should, since both come from Six Apart.

Trying something new and liking it

Sooner or later, I am going to move my main Weblog to another host. While I'm at it, I thought I'd investigate migrating from pMachine -- about which I have no real complaints -- to Moveable Type.

To get a feel for the flavor of Moveable Type, I've been making use of the free-trial period for TypePad, a pay hosting service/system that makes use of software based on MT.

I really like it.

The features include multiple categories, integrated blogrolls, a nifty QuickPost bookmarklet that lets you add a new blogrool member or a post without opening the main "add a new post" site. It also allows for uploading images directly to the server at the time time that photo is inserted into a post.

I may end up keeping TypePad and use them as my server company.

Adapting the template to personal tastes was easy and satisfying.

In the mean time, I'll be doing my major posting to this site.

(Folks: As usual. Blogger is acting up and I can't spell check. So, I'm leaving the errors as is.)

Testing Flickr

bergman
Originally uploaded by Peoria Pundit.

I read about a new free photo blogging service like Photobucket or Hello!

It's called "Flickr."

It let folks upload up to 10 Megs of images a month, then use their interface to post the blog onto your Blogger, Moveable Type, WordPress, LiveJournal, etc. blog.

IT seems to work like Photobucket, but with a "submit to blog" interface. With Photobucket, you have to cut and past the image tag, then to directly to Blogger or to whatever service you are using.

Hello! lets users directly upload from their hard drive using software they have downloaded into their PCs, then post that image directly into a new Blogger post. The downside is that it only words with Blogger.

It's still in beta testing stage, and its worth a look.

Site down, and it's not my fault

Through no fault of my own, Peoria Pundit is out of commission. My hosting company is having server problems followign a reboot. It's been down since at least 8 a.m. this morning and it wasn't back up by the time I had to leave for work this afternoon.

I'm a little miffed, of course.

So, if any of my regular readers read this, please pass the word on your blogs, if your don't mind.

This seems to be happening far too often.

UPDATE: It's official. I have a problem.

It's been 12 hours now that Surpass Hosting has been unable to get my site back up and running. The last message on my now-massive repair ticket is that they have to completely reload backed up data onto a brand-new hard drive in the server. Funny how this damn thing escalated from a simply restart of a server. In fact, they were completely unaware of the problem until I sent them an email two effen' hours after I noticed the outage.

Here's a new rule of thumb. Start bitching the very first time you get a "timed-out" or "cannot be found" message. Don't hit the refresh button. Don't restart the computer. Start bitching. Right away.

Another lesson: You hunt for the cheapest hosting company, you get the cheapest hosting company.

%*@#!% !!!

Debbie does the blog*

It's Debbie Adlof, the very capable editor and publisher of the Community Word. She has just one post up now, and it's kind of introductory. Be sure to go over and say "hi."

Chase and Rob, you two play nice now.

* I'm not going to explain the pop culture reference behind this headline. No. I am not.

Comment your way to hits and visits

"You have to write 'em to get 'em."

That's what they told soliders ... back in the days before email and cell phones, anyway.

The same advice holds true for bloggers.

If you are being a good blogger and maintaining your own blogroll -- a list of frequently visited blogs, sometimes maintained via Blogrolling.com -- you have a ready-made way to drive hits to your site. And, have fun doing it.

You should regularly visit the blogs on your blogroll. And you need to let them know you are reading and appreciating what they have to say by leaving comments. Virtually every commenting system has a way for a visiting commentator to include the address to their Blog sites.

Many include a check box that says "remember info" so that you don't have to retype the information the next time you comment. Of course, for this feature to work, your computer has to be set to accept cookies (don't worry; most computers are set to to accept them unless told to do otherwise).

Some rules of thumb:

1. Don't write long essays. Keep it brief and to the point. If you have a lot to say, write your own post on your own blog, and imply include a link to the post about which you are writing.

2. Don't be a troll. The phrase comes from Usenet -- a form of Internet bulletin board system still in use -- and it refers to people who use fowl, degrading and insulting language, or who post about unrelated topics. Basically, you will know one when you read one.

3. Be careful with HTML. Most bloggers decide on their own whether or not they want posters to be able to use HTML. If you try to post a link, it might not show up at all. Even if a site allows HTML, that doesn't mean its appropriate to flood someone's comments section with links. If the site owner allows HTML, use it sparingly.

This is where blogging becomes a community. This is how bloggers communicate, not through email.

UPDATE: And here is a clue when leaving the address for your own blog: Use the complete URL, such as:

‹http://peoriapundit.com/weblog.php›

Do not use just the domain name, like

peoriapundit.com/weblog.php

Trust me, it won't work and it will not bring new visitors to your site.

A few words about those pesky image tags

This is a standard image. This is the IMAGE TAG you would use on your blog:

‹img src="http://peoriapundit.com/images/bloggerbash6.jpg"›

It's always in the form of a URL address, unless the image comes from the top directory of your Web host, then it could be shorter. If you are using an image hosting service like Photobucket, you will use the address they give you.

Remember, hotlinking -- the practice of using the URL of someone else's images without permission -- is considered theft of intellectual property and theft of bandwidth. No one will throw you in jail, and it is ubiquitous, but it can cause you all sorts of grief.

This is the exact same image except for one difference. Roll your mouse over the first image, than the second. Notice that the IMAGE TAG shows up on the second, and not the first. That's because I added an ALT attribute to the tag:

‹div align="center"›‹img src="http://peoriapundit.com/images/bloggerbash6.jpg" alt="http://peoriapundit.com/images/bloggerbash61.jpg" border="1"›‹/div›

It's a good idea to use these because it tells readers that the image is yours. It also is what shows up on your site if the image fails to load properly, making it easier for you to track down what is wrong. You don't have to make the title the same as the IMAGE TAG. For example:

‹div align="center"›‹img src="http://peoriapundit.com/images/bloggerbash6.jpg" alt="Peoria Blog Bash 1" border="1"›‹/div›

Also note that I centered the image with a DIV tag.


It's always a good idea to store on image on your server in the exact same size you wish the picture to appear. Sometimes, that's not possible. If that is the case, you can change how the wise appears on your site. The above picture normally would appear 400 pixels in width. I lowered it to 100 for layout purposes. It would have been much better to have simply stored a separate image on my server that was smaller. You can change a pictures' WIDTH or it's HEIGHT in this manner. NEVER CHANGE BOTH unless you know the exact proportions. Browsers will read one, and adjust the other to keep the image from distorting.

Also note that I used an ALIGN tag to flush the image to the left of the test, and that the text flows around the image. Also, notice the tiny amount of white space between the text and the image? That's there because I added a VSPACE tag. Without it, the words would be touching the picture. It looks unprofessional and ugly.

Notice, how the border has a color now? That's because I LINKED the image to a URL for a full size, original image. Click on it to see. It will open in a completely new browser window.

Why do this? Because the full size picture might be wider than the width you have reserved on your template for posts. Huge pictures take longer to load, and people who host their sites using their own domain name -- like peoriapundit.com -- are allowed to transmit only a certain amount of data on their Web pages. Large pictures send more data, and take up bandwidth. Not everyone is going to click on and view the larger picture, but a Webmaster might want to make it available anyway for those who want to see it.

Notice that I took out the ALT attribute from the IMAGE TAG. That's because the LINK TAG now includes a TITLE that shows readers where clicking the link will take them. That's more important than knowing where the image is stored. Readers want to know if they are are visiting a safe site or not.

‹a href="http://peoriapundit.com/images/bloggerbashlarge.jpg" title="http://peoriapundit.com/images/bloggerbashlarge.jpg" target="_blank"›‹img src="http://peoriapundit.com/images/bloggerbash1.jpg" align="left" vspace="6" align="left" width="100" border="1"›‹/a›

Good advice ... follow it

Someone is not following my advice about blogging about work.

Oh, well. It seems innocuous enough. But you never know, which is my point. You never know what is going to set your boss off. Or your boss' boss. Or the board of directors.

Trust me on this. I know.

Repeat after me: "I will not blog about work. I will not blog about work. I will not blog about work."

Unless, of course, it's your job to blog about work. But even then, you can get in trouble.

Understand?

Oh, and thanks for the kind words, Kevin.

Save your templates

Speaking of Alex and his vanishing templates, there is a simple solution.

Whether you use Blogger or some other tool like pMachine or Movable Type, you simply *must* save a copy of your template on your own computer.

Alex suffered a crash of his site and Blogger lost his template, forcing him to use one of their prepared versions.

Unfortunately, he wasn't using Blogrolling or some other outside linking server. That means he lost his entire blogroll as well.

New Peoria bloggers

We now have Prairie Lawyer, who says that I am to blame for inspiring this new blog.

Just three posts so far, and I can't say I find much there with which to disagree.

Seems like a fine start.

I'll be adding it to my blogrolls soon.

Also, Alex is hurling expletives at Blogger for trashing his original templates, which caused him to lose his links to other sites that were hard-written into the template's html.

Alex also has a new site.

And FINALLY, this guy showed up in my referrer logs. He's a central Illinois blogger who also has IlliniGirl and several others blogrolled. I consider the linkage a compliment.

How to not get links to your site

There's a blog out there that's building a good reputation during the current Ra^thergate scandal. I went to add it to my Peoria Pundit blogroll. Because I use Bloglines, I need to know the URL for site's RRS feed. I couldn't find it, so I shot off a quick email.

This was the reply:

We do have an RSS feed, though not linked on our site. I think if you look where it "should" be you'll find it.

Well (as Dana Carvey used to say, isn't that special.

Needless to say, no link for those guys, who shall remain nameless.

For those unfamiliar with RSS feeds, it's a stripped down version of a blog that can be read in a newsreader -- even Outlook Express. There are several advantages to keeping upto date with the Blogosphere through newsreaders. The first is that you can set your reader to notify you of new posts on your favorite sites, so that you don't have to visit every site on your blogroll to see if anything new has been posted.

Blogger uses an "Atom" feed, that users can activate in their settings tab. It's also a good idea to post a link to your RSS feed URL somewhere in your template.

Account suspended!

One of the drawbacks of paying for a domain name and paying a company to host your site is that occasionally, they screw up.

Sometime between 10 and 11 p.m. on Sept. 10, the company through which I host peoriapundit.com decided that I didn't pay my bill and they suspended my account.

Funny. 'Cause It took me all of 10 seconds to find email confirmation of payment in mid July 2004 of one full year of service from them.

I know from experience how these ******s work. They suspend the account late Friday night, and there is no one in the office who can fix it or respond to email and trouble tickets until Monday.

That's not acceptable.

I've saturated the company with complaints as well as hints -- Hell, I made outright threats -- that they better fix the problem or there will be more bad publicity than they can handle.

I got treated like dirt by my last hosting company, but it was partially my fault, so I didn't devote daily posts for one full month that linked their name to the words "idiots" and "moron."

This time I am in the right. 100 percent. So there will be daily badmouthing by me -- using their full company name -- if this isn't fixed very damn quickly.

I'll roast their nuts over an open fire if this isn't fixed. Quickly.

Eventually, PeoriaPundit.com will be back up and getting more than 1,000 hits a day. It's not much, but imagine what will happen with people type this company's name into Google and they see what I will be writing about them.

BWAHAHAHAHA!

Until then, I will be posting full-time here.

UPDATE: I awoke to find my site restored, and letters from my hosting company saying: 1. I need to resinstall my site because it's making their server crash, and 2) It may be do to higher than normal hits.

Well, the server was workign fine at 10 p.m., yet it was removed an hour later because of server problems? Sorry, it doesn't scan.

And how is reinstalling the site going to solve problems caused increased hits? I'm paying for 50 gigs of bandwidth a month, and I'm up to less than 3 gigs about one-third of the way through this month.

Sorry, none of this scans.

BTW, the contradictory reasons came from the same person in the billing department.

And I will say this, the next time they yank my site, and direct my readers to a default message saying that I have BILLING questions, I am going directly to court and file a lawsuit.

That's libel.

I work in customer support. You do NOT tell strangers that someone hasn't paid their bill, especially when they have certainly have paid their bill.

And thanks to Acidman and other other person who answered my request for a heads up to readers.

Reciprocal link, 2

I am adding The Annoyances, Grievances, and Misc. Happiness of Corgan Dane to my blogroll. Dude, your blog needs a shorter name.

Reciprocal linking

Living as Trinity gave me a shout-out, providing the first intentional inbound referral to this site. I get dozens a day through the Blogger nav bar atop the page.

This brings up what should be standard practice: When someone intentionally links to your site -- either in their blogroll or in a post -- courtesy demands a reciprocal link. A mention in a post works when someone mentions you. Most of the time, when I am added to a blogroll, I will add them to line, unless the blog has questionable content to which I do not want to be associated, or I am limiting blogroll links to a specific category. This site's blogroll only links other Peoria blogs.

"But, Bill," you might ask, "how do we know when someone is linking to my site?"

Simple. Get a decent hit counter and add it to your blog. Site Meter is the one I use because set up is simple. You just paste the code in a spot on your siderail or at the very bottom of your template, before the [/html] tag.

If using Site Meter, be sure to select the cops that allows for you -- and even readers, if you prefer -- to see a list of sites that are responsible for inbound links.

Also, Blogrolling has a feature that allows you to see what sites are linking to you.

And here is another tip: When signing up for these free or even pay-for-use third-party services, be sure to save your user name and password. I can't tell you the number of times, I've had to create an entirely new account for a hit counter because I lost the password that let me make necessary changes.

Journal Space beats LiveJournal for features, extras

I spend a lot of time teaching people how to use Blogger. I do this for a reason: Blogger and its free Blog*Spot hosting is easy to use and reliable. And it has some very pretty templates.

But it is far from the only free blogging service out there.

On a lark, as if don't have enough to do, I spent part of an unexpected day off work testing out two of them. I now have a LiveJournal site and a Journal Space Site.

Of the two, I'd have to say that LiveJournal is better known (perhaps just because I've heard of them). Journal Space is perhaps not as well known. Truth be told, I went to Journal Space thinking it was LiveJournal.

The results are here; Peoria Pundit at LiveJournal and Peoria Pundit at Journal Space.

Of the two, I like Journal Space better. I found the set up easier and less intrusive. I also spend more time tinkering with the layout, because the basic template is very spartan. LiveJournal users have two basic template designs, one called old style and one called new style. I don't like either one. Users can pick and chose size, style and color for various fields, but they cannot get at the actual HTML of the template.

It actually has some advantages that Blogger does not. The first is that Journal Space has a built-in blogroll feature. Users must type or paste the URL and the site's name into a field, then save the entry. The other is a category feature. I have it set for five different type of entries.

Both are features I miss in Blogger and that I could not find available in the free version of LiveJournal.

Journal Space sets up users with a subdomain. Mine is "peoriapundit.journalspace.com." LiveJournal gives its free service users one of those long URLs: "livejournal.com/users/peoriapundit/" or "livejournal.com/~peoriapundit/." The difference is that the first is easier to remember and easier to type into the address field on a Web browser.

Both these services are designed for diary blogs, people who write about their cats and who-said-what during recess. They are set up for groups of friends who want to visit each others' blogs. Blogger can do that to, but it's also still popular among people who write about news and events.

That's a no-no

Tempted to embed music onto your blog, so visitors can listen to "Eye of the Tiger" while your massive image files load?

Don't.

Think animated buttons can liven up your boring old blog?

Don't.

Want to use as many fancy, little-used fonts as possible?

Resist the urge.

There are sites where you can learn to do all these things. There are sites that do all these things. This is not that site.

Gimmicks don't work. Remember to leave some white space to give readers a chance to rest their eyes.

More HTML advice

I cannot stress enough the need for any blogger interested in more than writing about his or her cat to learn a thing or two about HTML (hypertext markup language).

I've scoped out a site, called Webmonkey, that might help explain some tricks a bit more intricate than simple image tags.

Blogger and some other blogging tools allow for HTML editing, so you can get by with basic HTML skills. But anything serious requires some skill.

What did you mean by that?

The Blogoshere. Barking moonbats. Fisking. Meme. Dowdification. Ping.

Blogging has it's own language. Luckily, the good folks over at Samizdata have compiled a glossary. When I use a blogging term here, I'll permalink to the definition.

Freebies and courtesy

Notice the button at the bottom of my right siderail? It's a link to Photobucket, the service that lets me host images and put them on this site.

It costs me nothing.

I could make a $5 donation -- and I just might do that later -- and increase the bandwidth and image storage I am allotted.

Until this, I am giving them a free link.

It's just simple courtesy.

Courtesy goes a long way in the Blogoshere, although sometimes it doesn't seem that way.

Everything I know about blogging and the Internet I learned from other people giving me free advice. These people learned from other people, and are simply giving back.

The Internet is like that. Don't believe me? Log into Usenet and subscribe to a few newsgroups. Post a technical question and you will likely get an answer. No charge.

I guess that's one reason I created this blog.