PostSecret

I briefly mentioned PostSecret as an aside from some other point, but it's long overdue that I talk in more detail about the actual site.

PostSecret is an ongoing community art project where people mail in their secrets anonymously on one side of a postcard. Your secrets, posted here, every Sunday.

When I first found the site it was hosted on Blogger, but they've moved the site to WordPress somewhere in the last few years. PostSecret is the largest advertisement-free blog in the world, unless you count a link to the International Suicide Prevention Wiki. Here are some example postcard images.

I've loved the shared art project since I first subscribed, even though I didn't quite understand it at first. I love the idea that it's not just one person creating the work, but a whole organic community. And they are sad or angry or happy or melancholy or joyous. All together they are beautiful.

Delicious Bookmarks - What's Happening Now?

My favorite social bookmarking service, the one and only original Del.icio.us has sort of languished for a while without any real obvious development or changes. Stagnant. The mobile app had stopped working for me and possibly others. There has not been any blog posts from them in over a year and their social feeds are also non-responsive. But that suddenly changed earlier this month.

Now there's been a sudden flurry of blog posts since the beginning of June. Mostly they are a review of del.icio.us site history and some evolution and foibles. They seem nostalgic without being unrealistic.

• Those who went before us: Web 1.0 bookmarking sites
• The elaborate scam of automated bookmark spam
• The April Fool’s joke that caused data migration headaches

But... what does that mean? Are we going to see some improvements / changes / new features? 

Update

No. We are not going to see updates. After a little more digging, I found a tweet that announced that Delicious had been sold again! And upon further reading I gather this will be the last time.

Delicious has been sold again! Details here: https://t.co/3oiYxX5C1Y

— Delicious (@Delicious) June 1, 2017

You can read more on the Pinboard Blog. But the short version is that del.icio.us is going away. And though I'm saddened, perhaps it's time. I can lead cheers for free web services at the top of my lungs, but some of them just can't last forever. Perhaps none of them can.

The longer version of the announcement is that the company was purchased by a competitor. The new owner has updated and reactivated the export feature but that's probably it. The site is going into "read-only" mode (should already be happening, but to my tests has not yet) and I'll have to find another social bookmark service eventually. Perhaps it will be Pinboard? My initial read of the new owner's blog posts gave me the impression that he's a bit of an arrogant snob, but further along and I have decided I was being hasty. He's knowledgeable and seems to have a good strategy with Pinboard's minimalism. There are other options I've looked at briefly, but $11/year is cheap compared to most other options.

Drafting and Blogging

I'm so meta-hipster, I've been blogging about blogging since before it was cool.

This will be my 415^th published post on this blog. There are also about 200 drafts stored in Blogger, but not finished or posted. I apparently do that a lot, although this blog has been in existence for a long while so it's not really that surprising... I wonder...

Oh wow. In ten days this blog will be ten years old! That's pretty impressive to me.

Many times an idea for a blog post will occur to me. Perhaps I'll read about something and want to respond. Or I'll want to review a movie, book or album I just got. I post the basic details and a link without really any meat to the post and save it as a draft for finishing later. But now there are a lot of unfinished posts and that bugs me. And of course, this isn't my only blog just my main one.

But it's a good problem to have. There's a lot of other things I think about for how this blog and my others are connected. Lately I've been thinking about combining things into one site to be easier to manage, despite the fact they are contextually very different.

Online Marketing is Still The Wild West

Or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Blog*

People who don't know or don't pay attention may think the web has gotten to some level of maturity and development, but I keep getting reminded that things are still in their infancy. For those that don't know I have a smattering of web sites. A lot of them are just there without a lot of promotion or development. I have a full-time job and a family among other stuff, so I don't devote a lot of time to all of these sites. One of them is Arconati Kid Korner, which I built ostensibly for my kids to share cool stuff with them, but also to showcase kid friendly websites.

Recently I received the following email.

from: ___@guardlex.com
to: ___@gmail.com
date: Sun, Jul 22, 2012 at 12:29 PM
subject: Links removal request

Hello,

My name is Michael Jonson, I work in the Anti Piracy Department of Guardlex (http://www.guardlex.com), we provide anti-piracy and Intellectual Property protection services for our clients.

We represent allkidsgolfclubs.com company which is currently experiencing problems with search engines because of the penalties. Our client has received an “unnatural links warning” which says that they need to remove some links pointing to their website from other web resources.

It has come to our attention that your website (or website hosted by your company) contains one or more links to the allkidsgolfclubs.com company website (http://www.allkidsgolfclubs.com) which may be causing this issue.

I kindly ask you to remove from the following website http://kids.arconati.us all links to http://www.allkidsgolfclubs.com website as soon as possible to help us deal with the search engine penalties and restore our client’s website in search engines index.

Please see the list of website pages in question:

• http://kids.arconati.us/2006/05/all-kids-golf-clubs-junior-golf-clubs.html
• http://kids.arconati.us/2006_05_01_archive.html

In order to find those links, please do following:

1. If this is an online website directory. Use directory's search system to look for "http://www.allkidsgolfclubs.com" links.
2. If there are any hidden links in the source code of website. Open the website's home page and view its source code. Search for "http://www.allkidsgolfclubs.com" in the source code. This will reveal any hidden links.

It is our understanding the links in question may be authorized for use by our client or its agents, but now needs to be removed in order to restore our client’s website from search engine penalties.

Please do not hesitate to contact us if you are unsure how to remove those links. We will be happy to assist you in any way to resolve this issue as soon as possible.

Looking forward to your positive reply.

Regards,

Michael Jonson
Anti Piracy Department Specialist
Guardlex company
2820 West 8-th str,
Brooklyn, NY, 11224
Tel: ____
Fax: ____
E-mail: ____@guardlex.com

This smelled a bit like crap to me. Sure, my website may not be the best in the world, but I find it hard to believe that it could actually negatively impact this site. In fact, my immediate reaction is that it would be darn near impossible for a link to a website to have a negative affect. This makes no sense to me.

Still, I feel obligated to at least check out the facts. Additionally, I had to think back a bit to why I linked to them in the first place. And after spending a few minutes looking into it, I decided to reply. Note that I also included the first email I could find for the site owner.

from: James A. Arconati ____@gmail.com
to: ____@guardlex.com, ____@allkidsgolfclubs.com
date: Tue, Jul 31, 2012 at 12:04 AM
subject: Re: Links removal request

Hello Michael Jonson,

I am the blogger at KIDS.ARCONATI.US, among other sites. I've looked over your request for removal of the link / post to ALLKIDSGOLFCLUBS.COM. I am not sure when and why that link was originally posted but based on the timing and the details of their site, I'm guessing that I created that post when I worked in ecommerce support at their host, Network Solutions. I was in charge of intro consultations for all new clients at the time. Most likely, I saw their site and target market and added them to my blog regarding kid-friendly websites and stores. My link was not authorized or requested by the client, but was posted only with good intentions. For review, the post is here:

http://kids.arconati.us/2006/05/all-kids-golf-clubs-junior-golf-clubs.html

Your email was very detailed and outlined the request clearly, however you failed to properly explain exactly how my direct link to their home page could actually hurt them. Whereas I may not know everything about online marketing, I'm from the school of thought that just about any inbound link is better than none. In fact, in my research on the matter, the worst that an irrelevant inbound link could do to a site is to have zero effect. Perhaps in very, very rare circumstances a very spammy site could end up hurting sites they link to with no relevance, but I can't find any actual proof of this ever occurring.

Let's look at two industry leading resources on this subject.

Let’s Kill the “Bad Inbound Links Can Get Your Site Penalized” Myth | Search Engine Journal

There are few certainties in SEO, but you can stamp this one in steel: An inbound link from an evil or spammy website cannot hurt you, unless you’re dumb enough to link back.

This post did get updated with a reconsideration based on feedback and comments the writer received regarding the possibility that there may be a small rare possibility that it could happen.

Still...

Stop Linking to Our Website or We'll Call Our Lawyers

Funny enough, this article mentions your company specifically.

Saying an inbound link isn't good for a website is different than saying it's bad for a website. There are inbound links that don't provide value for a website -- those that are contextually irrelevant, from domains with low authority, or contain poor anchor text, for example. We've written about it in full in our blog post "Deconstructing the Qualities of High Quality Links" if you'd like to learn more. But those links don't actually hurt the website that's being linked to. In other words, just because someone doesn't provide great anchor text doesn't mean your website will get dinged by Google for it.

The HubSpot post is more recent and I trust their experience.

All this being said, I could understand the link removal request if I was infringing on the intellectual property of ALLKIDSGOLFCLUBS.COM, but in my opinion this is not the case. The heading tag links as follows:

<h3><a href="http://www.allkidsgolfclubs.com/">All Kids Golf Clubs - Junior golf clubs and equipment</a></h3>

And the body of the post contains some content from their site at the time, but it's properly cited in a blockquote.

<blockquote cite="http://www.allkidsgolfclubs.com/"> <p>Providing high quality, unique junior golf products so kids can have more fun learning the game of golf!</p> <p>Just arrived...Rising Star Junior Hybrid Sets...Now kids can get better quicker by benefiting from the same over-sized Drivers, soft face Putters and the latest Hybrid club designs adults have used for years!</p> </blockquote>

This is only two paragraphs of content and I feel that this falls within the definition of "fair use".

In conclusion, Michael, considering the open question of whether or not irrelevant links can actually harm a legitimate site in a measurable way, and considering the fluid nature of these search engine variables, it seems questionable to have a business model solely based on seeking these links out and asking them to be removed while charging your clients for the service and time. I'd seriously reconsider your process and methods.

To whomever it may concern at ALLKIDSGOLFCLUBS.COM, if after reading this far and carefully weighing both sides, you feel you'd still like the post and/or link removed, it won't take me very long at all. I only wrote this long of an email to help benefit you. Despite the fact that I haven't worked at Network Solutions for the past three years, I still have a great respect for my former clients and coworkers. I work with a few of them to this day on a consultation basis. A better idea might be for us to work together to alter the post a bit with inbound links you'd find relevant. In fact, I'd be happy to offer a guest blog post to you OR perhaps a permanent relevant link in the sidebar or footer. If you are curious, the site only gets about 100 unique visitors a month all total.

Regardless, best of luck and success to you in everything you do. Let me know if there's anything I can do to help.

::Jim

I haven't heard back at all, but I did get a bounce on my initial email to the golf web site. It would seem that they are in the process of switching hosts or something and all of the public email addresses I'd found for them bounced. I did a quick whois search and forwarded my message on to the domain owner, so hopefully it gets to the right place.

To keep on top of this concept, I did research it a little further the next day. It seems the most recent authoritative article on the subject came from SEOmoz, specifically regarding Google's Unnatural Links Warnings. The TL;DR is that you may seen an unnatural links warning, but unless your traffic has taken a big dip, you should be fine. But I don't see how this can work in the long run. Google can't tell the difference between spammy links that a business owner set up themselves versus spammy links set up by their competition. Additionally, I should be able to link to whomever I want to link. If you have spammy links, don't chase them down. Build up your high quality links and improve your content. If I'm wrong, someone let me know.

---

Note: Since you asked, the answer is no, I have never seen Dr. Strangelove. It is on my list and I'll get to it when I get there.

Forget to Mention...

There was something else that I forgot to mention in a previous blog post... I've been contemplating combining and consolidating a few blog projects. Certainly many of them are due for an overhaul and I'm not just talking about their respective designs. Many of the projects are ripe for a re-branding. A variety of things have changed in my life and I need to adjust the direction these things will go if they are to continue. Let me think out loud on this page for a moment. In no particular order...

ArcoJedi's Holocron :: http://blog.arconati.us/

At the moment, you are here! This is my longest running blog and has a variety of personal, professional, private and worldly stuff. I've talked about my kids, my job, politics and whatever. There isn't any strong focus here and there doesn't need to be since it is basically a public journal for my rambling. This site is powered by Blogger.

James A. Arconati :: http://james.a.arconati.net/

The purpose of this site started as a repository for my Delicious tags. The idea at the time was that there was supposed to be a way to have your social bookmarks on Delicious automatically posted to your blog, but even now it doesn't work with Blogger. So I installed WordPress and tweaked it into what I have now. At first this was just to have a locally controlled backup of my linked sites. I expected absolutely no traffic. But this site suddenly became very big and very popular. The only posts are from Delicious with very little other changes. This site could be the best for a blog on my portfolio site, but it needs some work. This site is powered by WordPress (and Delicious).

My Portfolio http://www.arcojedi.com/ & http://www.jamesarconati.com/ etc.

This is my newest site and is still in progress. I am using this to promote myself and the work that I do. I build it by hand without using a blog tool. And since I started building it, I've come to recognize that everything else I manage might need to be reorganized a bit.

For instance, the Arconati network of sites...

• Arconati Family: http://arconati.us/
• Arconati News: http://arconati.net/
• Arconati Surname: http://arconati.name/

I started with these sites and build everything else from there. If I were to draw a thought map of everything I've ever created it would start with these three in the center based on importance. At least, that was the case up until this point. I'm making the adjustment that these sites are moving out of the center and my portfolio is becoming central. The family sites will continue to represent my family at large, our genealogy and history. And links to my portfolio will be prominent. But stuff that is strictly ME will be moved to my portfolio.

And this means that some or all of the domains and sub-domains that I'm currently using for hosting certain blog projects should perhaps be reassigned. Even the address of this site --http://blog.arconati.us/-- makes less sense now since I am the only author here. Perhaps it should be http://blog.arcojedi.com/ instead. I'm still pondering these things, but...

Arconati Kid Korner http://kids.arconati.us/

This site is for sharing links with my kids and generally making a safe site for children. It can stay on this address as I am interested in sharing the responsibility of adding content and updating it without any parent and family member who would like to help. Contact me if you have any ideas.

NOT Tech Life Blogged http://techlifeblogged.blogspot.com/

This site I sort of inherited in a rather long story I won't rehash here. For most of my history with it, I've only been caretaker of this site as a placeholder for the original owner that moved off of Blogger. It has slowly become mine over time as I've updated it with new content as the desire hit me. It's a technology and gadget centered blog. I have thought about redirecting it using a sub-domain like tech.arconati.us or gadgets.arconati.us but just haven't yet. I think that just like the kids.* site mentioned above, I would welcome help from other family members to update a gadget blog. Let me know!

Arconati Comedy Awards http://comedy.arconati.us/

This is a joke blog, where I post any funny email forward and shared joke that I think is worthy. Again, I think this can stay on the current domain since I'd welcome any family member that wanted to post their own jokes that they find. The invite is open...

ArcoJedi's Dastardly Plan

I guess this is the closest thing I've got to a 'photo blog'. Updates are largely infrequent and usually posted tangentially from my Flickr account. The domain used for this has changed around a lot and it's not really very important. I've toyed with other stuff for this, but it's mostly public photos I've shared. I can and should fold these posts into another blog; either ArcoJedi's Holocron or James A. Arconati. I can export the posts and import them into either site with quite a bit of ease. But which one?

Musical Holocron http://music.arconati.name/

This is my music blog, where I write about music and share mp3s. Originally, I meant to use this site just for myself so that I could download my own mp3s directly onto my cell phone for free, but I could never get that to work right with my last few cell phones. Once again, this site could easily stay on the family domain name because I'd welcome any family members and music lovers who would like to write more for this site. Get in touch with me if you are interested.

R-Quotes http://quotes.arconati.name/

This is a directory and repository I created for quotes. I could very easily keep this under the family domain name. Or I could fold the posts into another site, such as the comedy.* site mentioned above. Or ... something else? For those family members like me with a fondness for a good quote (wise or whimsical), you are welcome to start adding your own. I can send you an invite and get you logged in very quickly and simply.

Seamist Inn • Dungeons & Dragons http://seamist.arconati.us/

I've had a little help with this site before but for the most part this is a site about Dungeons and Dragons written by me. The original plan was to document and play campaigns with my in-laws and they had a small hand in the site in it's early stages. However, for a long time, it's been just me. I'm getting my kids into tabletop gaming now, so this project will continue. I see no reason currently to change the domain as I'd welcome help from others with this site the same way I've already mentioned above. I should consider a more RPG related sub-domain for this site. "Seamist" doesn't seem to fit anymore.

Mudhorny http://www.mudhorny.com/

This site belongs to my little brother, but I mostly update it for him. This site's goal is to write about four by four trucks, the hobby of muddin', and promote a "Mudhorny" brand name; a t-shirt with a logo and quirky phrases will be forthcoming. For the most part, no change is necessary here, but I have plans to add a community forum (under the mudhorny.net address. Most of the updates I've posted have been links I stumble on about cars, trucks and other automotive technologies. I need to prod my brother into contributing his own stuff more often.

ColorBurst Video http://www.colorburstvideo.com/

This site belongs to my dad, but again I update it most often. The goal here is to promote my dad's brand name as a videographer, editor and titler. I mostly post links to pages regarding video editing, special effects and movies I like. There is also going to be a lot more information on home video production and services that my dad is looking to do more of now that he is retired. My dad also needs encouragement to contribute more often.

MonsterCommerceBlog http://monstercommerce.blogspot.com/

Here's a prime candidate for re-branding. MC as an entity doesn't exist any more and I no longer work for the company that owns the brand. I initially nabbed this sub-domain through Blogger back when the company was smaller and I was encouraging the leadership to start a blog. Over time, I've used it to discuss specific MC stuff, e-commerce ideas and general web development concepts. Since my portfolio is web services centered, this is a good candidate for alterations. For the future, I've got an idea I'd consider. Fold the content into an existing blog that is linked from my portfolio and redirect the URL. I could create a new sub-domain and keep the content separate. But I don't want to just abandon the site and the content that I've written there for whatever it is worth.

Happy Is The Bride - Wedding Planning Ideas and Products http://happyisthebride.com/

Here is my one active e-commerce site. This was a business idea that my wife and I shared and started in 2007, though it hasn't made much yet. In the long-term, my wife would like to be a wedding planner and event coordinator. The site is powered by Network Solutions Ecommerce, but there is also a blog powered by Blogger. Both sites could use a massive redesign and more frequent updates. What do ya say?

Friends of ArcoJedi http://friends.arconati.name/

I started this site as a link blog for my friends and coworkers who rarely had or launches web sites of their own. Nowadays however, it kind of seems like EVERYONE has their own site, which I consider a good thing if they go about it the right way. This site is a prime candidate for a bit of a shuffle. First off, the use of the family domain name here doesn't seem to fit. If these are my friends, then I should use my own vanity domain instead of the family moniker. So friends.arcojedi.com makes more sense. However, I could also easily fold the content and purpose into one of my larger and more regularly updated blogs. But which one?

Arconati News http://arconati.net/

I mentioned this site above, but I'll bring it up again here because I need to an overhaul to it. First off, I need to decide if I keep it on Blogger -or migrate it to WordPress or some other program. Do I stick to the current host or consolidate it with the other sites? And whatever I do with it, what do I do with james.a.arconati.net, since that is on the same server?

I also manage the site for Ferguson Christian Church, but that is okay for now. I hammered out a decent new composition for it that I will get around to implementing as soon as possible. And I may also upgrade it with it's own CMS of one kind or another. I host a few others, including Ratlifter.com and FrenchClassicalDressage.com, both of which use WordPress. Unless the friends that I host these for have some need, there is no reason to change these.

There really is not just one major dilemma, but a series of small ones. Do I keep using mainly Blogger? Do I move most or all to WordPress? Do I stay in multiple hosts or do I put all my eggs in one basket? Does the Arconati Family really need three separate sites or can these be consolidated into one?

That's where I'm at. Additionally to all of these questions and many more, I'm very excited that I will be starting a full time job next week. I can already tell that this is going to be a great company to work for. However, it would have been better of me to get all this personal stuff finished by now. Indecision causes procrastination.

Well, that's more than enough thinking out loud for now. Gotta wade through this...

ArcoJedi's Messy Stuff Central

One of the very first web sites I ever created is closing very soon. ArcoJedi's Messy Stuff Central is being forcefully shut down in a manner of speaking. I got an email at the end of September that AOL was shutting down it's 'hometown service' for good.

We're sorry to inform you that on Oct. 31, 2008, AOL® Hometown will be shut down permanently. We sincerely apologize for any inconvenience this may cause.

I became aware of this service for the first time way back when I first used the internet post-college at home on a black-and-white-screen Macintosh II.

Do you remember those? Well, I really got into the internet beyond just email when I got home from college. Dad got me an AOL account because they were next-to-free through his work. This would have been about 1997 or so. I was working on a group project with the Dark Sun Mailing List, but lamented that I didn't really have a place to host the files. Someone suggested that I use the hosting that AOL included. I looked into it and found out that AOL subscribers (which technically included me) had 10mb of free space online at - members.aol.com/USERNAME - and I took advantage of it. What it amounted to at the completion of the project was about two dozen wordpad files (.rtf), most of which I'd written myself. They were uploaded to a folder and the server built a directory listing which I linked to for the mailing list.

Fast forward about two or three years. I'm married, a father of one and a member of a small-town garage band called Rod & the Satalites. When we lived in Quincy, Illinois at this time we didn't really have much when it came to a computer and I didn't have time for it anyhow. However, when we moved back to St. Louis, my first hobby project was to build a long overdue web site for the band. I posted pictures of the band members, short three-line bios, a few upcoming show dates and contact information. I created this all on my mom's computer using Windows 95 Microsoft Paint and Netscape Composer 4.5! Yeah, good times.

Unfortunately, I didn't get to visit back at Quincy as often as I'd hoped and I eventually stopped contact with the band members. The older free-form Dark Sun Mailing List got replaced with a more official corporate one and it wasn't much fun. They had also halted Dark Sun as a product line. My site sat dormant with few updates until probably 2003 or so. That's when I became a member of MonsterCommerce and really started learning about websites.

I wanted to create something new and was going to just use the AOL space, but it turned out to be a little difficult to manipulate without being signed into AOL at the same time so I found an alternative in the space my cable provider and earthlink made available and started work from there. Eventually those other sites became the family sites you see today with domain names and everything. But I never forgot those older projects.

So, get yourself caught up to the present day. In case you haven't noticed AOL is way down on the list of successful internet companies and is completely repurposing themselves into an entirely different animal; a content and portal provider instead of an ISP. At least, I'm surmising that is their plan. I'm not really following it all that closely. Since the hometown/journal operations don't really benefit anyone at AOL, they did the smart move and retired them. I'm honestly surprised it took them this long. At least I got wind of their warnings and saved those files. AOL also had a blog tool at one time that I tested out and they made it easy to import these blogs into Blogger.

So, my Dark Sun Net Project and Rod & the Satalites pages will have to find a new home in some archive folder somewhere. I have all of the files saved to my local computer and will probably post them somewhere, just for the sake of history. The AOL Journal has been imported properly too, just in case I ever wanted it (which, at the moment, I don't).

My AOL email address still works for those old college friends that still have it, though I check it infrequently. There's some life lesson here about impermanence and growth through destruction, ... or something. Anyhow, that's how it happened.

More Information

• Attention AOL Hometown Users - People Connection Blog
• We're Closing Our Doors - People Connection Blog
• How to Download Your Hometown Files - People Connection Blog
• arstechnica.com - AOL axing two more services this month
• Macsimum News - AOL Hometown
• Anti-AOL

Mingle2 - What's My Blog Rated? Find Out Your Film Rating

Interesting. I want to add this to ALL my blogs... Mingle2 - What's My Blog Rated?.

G-rating? Hmm...

Musical Holocron: Producers Howl Over Sound Cut Out by MP3 Compression

I have a blog about music, but although it's recently reached 200 posts, they are mostly just a feed of MP3 and MIDI file links that I've discovered (usually through del.icio.us. My original goal was to get these files downloaded to my cell phone and make the site WML compatible. I wanted the files for ring tones.

I've never devoted enough time to getting this working right, but the site managed to start getting a following anyway simply because of the music files and the information about them. However, I recently wrote a short response to an opinion article about modern music compression in MP3 files and how music producers feel about it. Go read this at Musical Holocron and let me know what you think.

Tales from the Road: A Traffic Cop's Stories

So Blogger now has a feature that allows their users to browse the profiles of other bloggers within the same local area. Actually, I should say that they activated this feature again as they one had this feature before. But ever since the system upgrade a little while back, the feature has been disabled.

I was checking out the feature just for fun one day and came across a local Florissant and I found one called Tales from the Road: A Traffic Cop's Stories written by KingDonutEater.

It's a local cop writing a pretty frequent blog about his daily job life writing tickets and pulling people over. It's funny and interesting. I think it's possible he even pulled me over once.

Periodic Google Pagerank Report

And now it's time for another quick report on the Google Pagerank of the various websites that I manage. This is starting to mean less and less to me the higher it goes. I have traffic, but I really don't have the traffic I would have expected from the ratings but it doesn't really matter.

• Arconati.us - 0
• ArcoJedi's Holocron (this site) - 4
• Arconati Kid's Korner - 0
• Arconati Comedy Awards - 0
• Seamist Inn • Dungeons & Dragons - 0
• Arconati.name - 2
• Musical Holocron - 1
• Friends of ArcoJedi - 3
• R-Quotes - 3
• Arconati News - 3
• my del.icio.us archive - 4
• Arconati Family Tree Wiki - 3
• Ferguson Christian Church - 3
• Mudhorny - 3
• Colorburst Video - 2
• Happy is the Bride - 0

In summary, the Arconati.us has taken a bit of a dip, and the sub domains have followed it down.

More Information

• google/pagerank
• google
• Search Results for google pagerank

Updated Template Again

It was pointed out to me by my dad in a blog comment that the design I was using was not really all that great, especially on certain monitors or in high contrast settings. I rearranged the colors again and do I hope I've improved it. Posted here for your comedic pleasure is a screen shot of the old look. Thanks!

I Want YOU to Comment

No seriously, I really do want you to comment. If you are viewing this page, stop what you are doing for just a second and comment. Whether you know me personally, family or coworker, or if you don't know me and came here from a link or search engine, just let me know very quickly.

I keep track of my stats. I know how many visitors I'm getting and where they are coming for the most part. But I really want to hear from some of these visitors. So take a moment and just say hi.

How Do You Leave a Comment?

Leaving a comment is very simple and easy on my site. I use Blogger software to create almost all of my blogs. First, in most cases you have to be on an individual post's page to create a comment. Look for a link in the footer of the post labeled with the time or the number of comments. Then look for text link named Post a Comment. This will take you to a screen on Blogger.com where you can enter your text comment (and even add some formatting or a link if you want). There are three ways of identifying yourself on the comments page.

• Your Blogger Username (preferred)
• Other (Name & Web Page URL)
• Anonymous

I can control which of these options (if any) is allowed and I might change them later. But rest assured that you can use Anonymous if you want for the foreseeable future. But if you have a Blogger username or if you have your own website, I'd really like you to post it. Keep in mind that I moderate comments, so they may not show up right away.

So, post a comment on this post below. Just test it out if you have nothing else to say. Alternatively, you can find a post you like (or dislike) and add a comment to it right now.

Thanks!

OneDayBlogSilence.com

My Blogger Profile

I'm about to change the "About Me" section of my Blogger profile. The current one is just lame and conceited. I archive it here just for historical data.

About Me

I could write a small book about myself (okay, I could write a BIG book about myself), but instead I thought I'd post a modest blog... or two. Okay, make that about five.

I have written a rather largish glob of stuff about me, but also about other things that I cared about. The above is kinda funny, but it could really make me sound like a jerk as a first impression.

TechLifeBlogged - The Overview

Okay, so here is an overview of a story involving blogger, blogspot domains, spammers, Google Pagerank and me. The subtitle of this one could also be:

How I Got a Site With a Pagerank of 5 With Absolutely No Work ... and Then Gave it Away

It began when I was reading through some blog posts about del.icio.us integration with blogs. In one good post there was a comment recommending a site with a post explaining How to Create Those del.icio.us Link Posts. By the summary in the comment, it sounded like exactly what I was looking for. Unfortunately, the link was dead and I was confronted with the blogspot 404 error. The URL was:

techlifeblogged.blogspot.com/something

Even though it wasn't there anymore, I noticed the post URL had a Pagerank of 1. Curious, I checked the root directory of this blog and found that the root had a Pagerank of 5. So even though the site was not there anymore, it was clear that the blogger had done a lot of work posting and promoting the blog. Now it was gone. It had either been deleted or the blogger had changed the URL (perhaps posting over FTP).

I had some experience with posting a blog with blogspot for awhile and then switching it to a hosting provider. Sometimes this worked really well and sometimes it didn't depending on how Blogger set it up. In one example, I'd had http://arco-friends.blogspot.com/ but wanted to set it up with a subdomain on a hosting account at http://friends.arconati.name/. Prior to switching these settings within the Blogger dashboard, I modified the template to redirect using JavaScript or a meta refresh. I'd done this more than once:

• http://arconati.blogspot.com/ » http://arconati.net/
• http://mudhorny.blogspot.com/ » http://www.mudhorny.com/
• http://lisa-is-30.blogspot.com/ » http://lisa.arconati.us/

I'd also more recently used Blogger's new feature for Custom Domains, which allows you to actually point your DNS to Blogger's servers. Hey, it's like free hosting!

• http://arcojedi.blogspot.com/ » http://blog.arconati.us/
• http://arco-comedy-awards.blogspot.com/ » http://comedy.arconati.us/
• http://arco-kid-korner.blogspot.com/ » http://kids.arconati.us/
• http://seamist-inn.blogspot.com/ » http://seamist.arconati.us/

The cool advantage to this latest feature is that the old blogspot URL actually redirects to your domain with a search-engine friendly 301 redirect, meaning any listings in the SERPs and inbound links will still work correctly with no JavaScript needed.

However, between the first list and the day that Blogger added the Custom Domains feature, there was one site that didn't quite work out that well. When I went to set up and move - http://arco-quotes.blogspot.com/ - to - http://quotes.arconati.name/ - it didn't work out quite as well. I set up the redirect correctly, but moments after changing the settings to FTP, the old blogspot site was showing PAGE NOT FOUND. A blog I had built up with almost 250 posts and was well listed in the search engines was now gone. Minutes after I had discovered what happened, I did the natural thing and posted an emotionally reserved rant called BLOGGER SCREWED ME.

With all this as a back story (phew), I was staring at the techlifeblogged URL and wondering what happened to it. Still being curious, I wondered in my head how long Blogger kept blogspot subdomains before they went back into circulation and someone else could get them. So I went to the dashboard page and attempted to sign up for that as a new blog. I assumed it wouldn't work.

And I just about fell out of my chair when lo and behold, it did work. All of a sudden, I was the administrator of a site that had a pagerank of 5! But then the dilemma sets in. What did I just do? What do I do now? Naturally, I blogged about it --can you sense the theme?

TechLifeBlogged - The Beginning

Okay, what has just happened tonight was that I was browsing around and found a link to a blogspot site that was giving 404 page not found errors. I was sad cause the content I wanted was on it. I checked the root of the blog but was still getting 404 errors. Curious, I decided to try signing up for this subdomain and assumed it wouldn't ... [read more]

So I posted that and I waited. Not much happened. I wondered if anyone was actually coming to the site. I also wondered if the pagerank would drop very quickly, so I kept my eye on things.

TechLifeBlogged - Google Pagerank

As of today, the pagerank on this site as measured in both Firefox and IE is currently 4. When I ... [read more]

Thinking about it the next day, I tried just using Google to see if I could find where the original blog had gone and it was surprisingly easy. I posted again, linking to the original TechLifeBlogged and browsed around a bit enjoying the site. The blogger was a good writer and a geek like me. I had to get in touch with him. I found the contact page and hovered my cursor over the email link... and then wasn't sure what I would say.

Thankfully I was saved from the trouble. Scott Kingery, owner and writer of the TechLifeWeb Network posted a comment on what was once his blog but was now mine. He confirmed what I had already guessed. That he had owned and maintained that blog for a long time and then switched to a hosting plan. Without realizing it, he lost the 'blogspot' address that he had been promoting for so long and a spammer picked it up. When it became available again, I was the first to notice while simply browsing around.

By the end of this weekend, Scott should have his old blog address back. I am going to be adding him as an admin and then when he logs in he should be able to remove me. Prior to hearing from him, I briefly entertained turning this into a project for myself and using it to promote my own interests in technology, hardware, software and web development. But besides the fact that I'm already very busy, I just can't morally do this. Even if I had never figured out who Scott was, I'd always have assumed that someone out there had lost something that was their labor of love. I know it sounds stupid and sentimental and pretentious, but I just couldn't do it.

Any comments? What would you have done in my place? What would you have done in Scott's place? Thanks for visiting and thanks to Scott for being understanding!

TechLifeBlogged - Google Analytics Results

Update: This blog post was originally posted at TechLifeBlogged, but has been moved and archived here. The full story begins here and ends here.

---

I've got an update about this site. First off, I found a site simply by doing a Google search for 'Tech Life Blogged' and I discovered a site that was most likely the original prior to posting the blog over FTP. Please visit the actual and most likely original TechLifeBlogged.

Secondly, the preliminary Google Analytics results have shown that only ONE other person besides me visited this site in the last 24 hours. It was about noon today CST and they were from or near Williston, Vermont. The clicked a link from Lifehacker.org. They probably didn't find what they were looking for and left quickly. And hey, if that was you, sorry!

TechLifeBlogged - Google Pagerank

Update: This blog post was originally posted at TechLifeBlogged, but has been moved and archived here. The full story begins here and ends here.

---

As of today, the pagerank on [techlifeblogged.blogspot.com] as measured in both Firefox and IE is currently 4. When I signed up for the blog, it registered as a 5 but has dipped a little.

I've mentioned Google PR on my blog multiple times.

• Google Hiccup Gone For Now
• Let's Do the Google Shuffle Again
• Alexa
• Google Pagerank Dip
• Google Pagerank Shuffle
• Holy Pagerank Three Batman
• Google Pagerank Achieved

But having a site with PR of 4 or 5 is pretty impressive. My question that I'm wrestling with morally is whether or not I should really USE this site or abandon it. The previous owner was a spammer. If I benefit from this, am I not also associating myself with this spammer?

The question is not JUST a moral one. Google may have this site on a bad list, and any site or person associated with it might get marked as spammy also. Hmm...

Any comments? I've installed Google Analytics on this site to see if I can discover more about if anyone is coming to this site and from where. I'll post results when I have them (probably in a few days).

TechLifeBlogged - The Beginning

Update: This blog post was originally posted at TechLifeBlogged, but has been moved and archived here. The full story begins here (on this page) and ends here.

---

Okay, what has just happened tonight was that I was browsing around and found a link to a blogspot site that was giving 404 page not found errors. I was sad because the content I wanted was on it. I checked the root of the blog but was still getting 404 error. Curious, I decided to try signing up for this subdomain and assumed it wouldn't work.

Well, it did and I'm faced with a quandary. I now have a blog that somebody else used and worked on for a while. It's gone, either lost or abandoned, but now what do I do with it? I feel weird, like I cheated or am guilty of something.

I am not a hacker NOR am a black-hat person at all. I did this rather randomly. However this site ...hmm.

Further investigation has shown that it was one of those rather nasty spammers who signed up for a blogspot account but have it redirect to their spammy domain. Check the Google cache if you doubt me. Still, I felt very weird, like I'm painting a big target sign on my forehead for what I just did.

If you have a complaint about this, please post a comment below. If this is your former blog and you want it back please comment as well and I'm sure we can find a way to work it out so that you get it back after we prove it was yours.

Star Wars Horoscope for Pisces

A typical Pisces, you have your head in the clouds. You're self-sacrificing and a bit too passive to stand up to the dark side. You become fairly pessimistic when put under pressure. You are a chameleon - wanting to change your scenery on occassion.

The Star Wars character you are most like is Lando Calrissian.

What Is Your Star Wars Horoscope?

New Blogger Version

I've just had all of my blogs upgraded to the latest version of blogger. It took a few minutes to complete, but was mostly painless. One immediate change I noted was that the dashboard lists all unmoderated comments and has a decent interface for viewing them. I noted immediately that this blog had five comments I didn't even know about. I'm wondering if they were there and I just never went to the "Moderate Comments" section, or if some bug had kept them hidden even on that menu.

I thought nobody read my blog and here were several different comments from people other than my close family. There were two comments from J.D., one on my post about Ferguson-Florissant School District and another post about Olivia's adventure in the supermarket late one night. I also had a comment on my post from last summer when I created the website for Ferguson Christian Church from our former Youth Minister, Nikomas Perez. I also got a comment on one of my posts from a coworker from MonsterCommerce, Janet Lackey thanking me for linking to her site, which I was all too thrilled to do.

Most exciting to me was a comment from an old best friend, Jeff Kirchhofer, who I've been thinking of getting back in touch with for the longest time. What bugs me most about this comment thing is that he posted a comment way back in January of this year and I am only finding out about it now. Don't I look like a jerk? Oh well, I'm emailing him now.