For a long time I’ve been hanging out in the sphere around blogging. Blogging and blogging news. Especially the echo chamber blog news coming from insiders, have always interested me, and today I’m happy because it looks a void got filled : Krug is back, with a [old] 901am style alike site, Telegraphik.
Sweet, another dose of insider blog news. I missed those!
Eatonweb, the oldest blog directory online, relaunched. EatonWeb is not your regular blog directory, but a blog directory that matters, weekly updating the strength and ranking of blogs.
Contrary to many directories, and top lists, EatonWeb uses an algorithm based on over 20 different factors to track the metrics, strength and momentum of a blog and not just the number of pageviews. Elements of the algo are PageRank, traffic, incoming links, estimated number of subscribers, Alexa Rank and some more secret numbers. Weekly the values are updated and in every category fastest climbers and sinkers are listed.
Submission to the directory is free. EatonWeb is a manually edited directory, not a website-additional-directory serving some shady SEO wannabes free link juice and monthly income based on submission fees.
Go add your blog to the oldest blog directory on the internet and show off your blog strength.
Go add your blog now now! It’s free!
After only some days, the list can be updated.
With the introduction of the excellent offline Google Reader [modus], we can delete FeedDemon from the list and save $25.
Although FeedDemon still has some more features than Google Reader, Google Reader performs well and fast.
Another addition to the list, comes in the form of the new version of Windows Live Writer.
Windows Live Writer is an all straightforward, out of the box editor for most blog platforms. Installation is easy and writing is even easier. It feels like writing in Word, with support options for your theme, just less bloated than MS Word. If you blog alot and hate to be stuck in your blogplatform editor, Windows Live Writer is what you need.
The Editor comes with many insertion and formatting possibilities and also supports tags properly, but not 100% correctly if you want to use site internal tags.
Live Writer can ping services when publishing entries, or publish entries at a specific time. Basically you’ll find everything you need and the feel is nicer than writing in the WP editor.
Screenshots after the jump
Hardly ever do I go somewhere without taking my laptop with me. When I want to have a break, but still be productive, I go to a bistro and luckily most bistros in my neighborhood offer wireless already.
But sometimes I’m on the road and no wireless is available. Sadly here in UK data plan flat rates only flatten your budget and not the road to being online anywhere (yet).
This means that sometimes I end up in locations without internet connection. I am sure the thought of this alone already scares many among you, but let me tell you, there’s life… even without direct internet connection.
And with little preparation and some (offline) tools you can perfectly continue working without losing your productivity. Actually some tools might even make you life easier.
Lets have a look at a list of 4 applications every web worker, problogger, designer who prefers classic bistros over Starbucks, professional who spends two hours or more daily commuting in a train compartment or traveler on a cruise ship, charged a whopping $15 for half an hour of internet connection, needs.
Right now this is everything I can think of, but I might add more tools as I discover new ones.
Of course the compulsary tools such as Notepad++, SmartFTP, the best free FTP client for private usage, and The Gimp/PAINT.NET/Photoshop, depending on your budget, also belong to this list, but they are more of general need IMO.
If you can think of any other tools, leave a comment. :)
I’ve been toying around with the new pMetrics Blog Metric software off and on for a few months now. Here’s my review:
First of all, pMetrics’ spy function rocks my world. It gives you an up to the second pictures of your blog traffic. You can literally “spy” on your visitors in real time. Now this isn’t for pure voyeurism, but it is a rush. The Spy App alone makes pMetrics worth the ride. Each visit AND click on your site gets tracked, and displayed in a constantly updated ticker. Doing a promotional campaign? Watch the results in real time.
So why not just stick with Google Analytics? It’s plenty powerful right? Well, it may be powerful, but its also cumbersome. You’ve got to drill down deep to find the stats that you want to see (referrals, keyword searches, incoming links, etc.) Plus, Google Analytics is tedious and tiresome for anyone who owns multiple blogs.
pMetrics shines in simplicity and ease of use. It summarizes your data on just a few pages, so there’s no need to drill down deep into the navigation to find that stats you’re looking for. That alone is why I prefer it over Google Analytics.
The coolest thing of all about pMetrics is the promise it has for expandability and widgety-goodness. Want to share your stats with the world? That’s an option. Want to pull in an RSS feed of your stats from 10 different blogs? Again, that’s an option. View all your stats in one place in an RSS reader. Save time and effort. Great feature btw. The RSS feed also gives you the resources you need to present your stats in a customizable fashion (read: hack your own widgets!).
But that’s really not all. The people over at Performancing are promising a future upgrade that will allow for Google AdSense tracking (woohoo!). Since Performancing is about open source, open community, we can expect for boatloads of cool plugins and widgets to get developed to help promote your blog and also have fun with it.
I can’t say enough good things about pMetrics. While it isn’t perfect, there’s no doubt that it’s currently my favorite analytics program for blogs.
So go get it. What are you waiting for?