Two Today - does this mean…
… a return to regular posting?
An interesting and possibly thought provoking short film about why the internet will probably be censored… one day… maybe?
Source: SpaceCollective.org
125Cards Leap-Year Special
I’ve decided to run a little competition/give-away type thing over on 125Cards.com.
Prizes include:
- A custom 125×125 design and 1 month free advertising on 125Cards.com
- 1000 Entrecard points to spend however you like
- Another 1 month advert spot on 125Cards.com
To qualify, all you have to do is subscribe to 125Cards (via Email or RSS), then leave a comment on the post Win a Custom 125×125 Design, 1000 Entrecard Points and more… it’s that simple.
My Powerbook G4 came home!
This has to be one of the weirdest things that has ever happened to me.
Last year I spent two months travelling around Europe in my VW Camper, I had actually planned to be away for four months, but while visiting Pisa in Italy my camper van was broken into and everything was stolen - cloths, food, books, dirty washing and my trusty PowerBook G4, all gone to some thieving ….
Anger eventual turned to frustration as all the things stolen where mealy materialistic and could be replaced, but one thing that frustrated me the most was that my laptop had all my holiday photos on, and although I could revisit the places and take more pictures, the mood and atmosphere would never be recaptured.
So I set about asking for it back, not necessarily my laptop, but the pictures that were on it. I tried a kind of laws of attraction thing, but without all the fuss of the secret (I personally don’t like that film/book). I imagined myself looking at the pictures and even showing them to my family and friends. Then…
I’m a Bloggin-Ads winner!
Madness is all I can say. I can’t remember the last time I won anything.
Not 100% sure exactly what I have won, but I’ll let you know in full as soon as I have the details. If you wondering what this is all about and why you didn’t enter - head over to the rather excellent Bloggin-Ads to fine out.
Four Months Messing Around
Four months ago I decided I was going to seriously try my hand at making money online. Everything started off well and I did make a few hundred dollars, but then I lost enthusiasm and started to get distracted, and before I knew it, I wasn’t making anything.
Making money needs a special kind of dedication and commitment which keeps you going, even when things look bad. There is also a fine line between knowing when to keep going or when to quit a bad idea. I think I failed all of the above and as a result I have wasted a lot of my time running around after foolhardy ideas, and not dedicating myself to the things that were working.
I am now going to wipe the slate clean and give it another go. The knowledge I have learned over the last four months will be used to hopefully help me get things right. I have learned the hard way as they say, and I think it has taught me to respect the knowledge of others and that you do not necessarily need to come up with a new winning formula. In fact, the last four months have blatantly made it clear to me that there is plenty of room out there to actually copy somebody else’s really good idea and make it work for yourself. All you need to do is put your own spin on it.
So that is what I am planning to do. It’s not lazy, not stealing (especially if you pay for somebody else’s knowledge) and it is definitely not cheating. It is however, hard work and requires that special commitment — qualities I think I now have and understand!
Problems and Moving House
Ok, so this is the quick version of what happened.
In the middle of moving house, I received an email from my hosting company saying my account was in violation of their Terms and Conditions.
It took ten days to get connected to the net at my new house, and by then my host had suspended my account and nothing was working.
Fortunately a good friend of mine allowed me to lug my iMac up to his house and use his internet for a day so I could sort out the mess - in short… I was using old versions of Wordpress that had vulnerabilities. A very bad idea as these vulnerabilities were being abused by someone or something which caused my T&C violation.
I had plained to return davinian to its previous state ASAP, but what with all the DIY and sorting out my new house I just haven’t had the time.
Anyway, I’m back and I think everything is sorted. I have sucessfuly moved house, and I’m now living in Dorset, not far from the coast and to be honest, enjoying having my own place again.
Back from Wales (noisy on the Home Front?)
Well, I’m back! Miss me? Don’t answer that… It was fantastic weather in Wales (see above). And the break from the computer gave me some much needed time to think about some projects I have had in the back of my mind since I went travelling in Europe earlier this year. I also finished one book and started another that I had been carrying around for several weeks - so a good rest and catch up.
Right, notes, research and more notes… and strong coffee!!!
All quiet on the Home Front
It’s going to be a bit quiet around here for a few days as I’m off to Wales for the Bank holiday.
But before I go, I would like to say a big thank you to everyone who has shown interest in my first free Wordpress theme called Tumbled. It was downloaded over 40 times in the first day, and as many again after I released the update yesterday evening. Amazing!
Right, the camper van is loaded up, so it is time to hit the road… now where is that nice sunny weather we were supposed to be having today?
Tweaking a few things
After yesterdays stats overdose, I’m back on track - well I’m only checking stats every two hours and feel I can get myself back to only checking them twice a day again by the end of the week… I hope!
Anyway, just tweaked a few things here on Davinian:
- Removed the over-sized RSS logo from the top of the sidebar - I have no idea why I made it so big, but it was taking up too much room - so its gone and in its place I’ve added the Feedburner feed stats.
- After playing around with an additional ad on single posts, I’ve decided to move them from the top-right to the bottom of the post just above the comments area. I’ll continue to monitor its performance and see if it is really worth having a 3rd ad box at all.
- You may have noticed that there is now Related Posts at the bottom of ever post. I meant to implement this from the start, but completely forgot to add in he necessary code when I re-designed everything on the 14th August (I’m wondering what else I forgot?).
OK, not a bad few hours this morning - especially as I’m a little hung-over!
Obsessively checking Stats
I seem to be obsessively checking my website stats all the time at the moment!
I normally check them first thing in the morning as part of my, what has happened while I’ve been sleeping routine (more on my daily routine soon), and then I usually check them again before I go to bed. This way I can get a good feel of the effects I am having on new and returning traffic to my sites form using different types of advert campaign’s and social networking tools/websites (i.e Bla.st, Twitter, StumbleUpon etc.,)
But as the volume of new (unique) visitors goes up, which is great, I have been finding I spend more and more of my time analysing my stats than writing new content, which is not so great - detrimental to the cause in fact!
I guess a way around this is to try and find the information I want in a more efficient way. Currently I tend to find my built in hosted AwStats cross referenced with Googles Analytics gives me the most accurate figures, but this can be time consuming. So I’m wondering if there is a better way or an additional traffic monitoring service that is quicker and more accurate? Thus saving me time!
So, does anybody have any suggestions? What do yo use for site traffic monitoring? And how many hours a day do you spend checking your stats?
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