Welcome to 2010

I think we call New Year's resolutions "resolutions," because if you call them goals it bites back more when you fail. Nevertheless, I've made a few resolutions this year. One is to blog consistently. Mrf. One is to use my non-wacom tablet more often. I know it would help my productivity if I worked it into my schedule more. The other... well, I've forgotten it already. It was obviously very important.

That doesn’t sound very exciting, I know. But, I’m saving the good stuff for my goals. Here's to 2010 being a lot better than rotten, low-down, ok-not-that-bad 2009!

Blogging

Blogging has become a bit of a national pastime, possibly even a universal pastime. "We came, we saw, we blogged about it." But what makes a blog affective? What makes it stand out?

There are several seminars and blog posts about just that, some listed below, but it really comes down to content. Clever designs and gimmicks will make a reader stop by once, but it won’t make them subscribe. If you want more than your mother to read it, you have to have something more.

If it’s your personal blog, and you’re not the president or Stephen Fry, you already have a limited audience. Don’t get discouraged if your audience numbers don’t double every week. Enjoy it! Try using different styles of writing, or giving tips for people in your field. If you find a hobby you’d like to talk about, you may gather a following. Remember anyone can and might find your blog. Be careful what pictures and information you divulge.

If it’s a company blog, put in stories of company life, innovations, tips of the trade, or events. Don’t give your blog to the marketing person; give it to the guy who tells the best stories at the coffee machine. People can read marketing blurbs in the news, or your front page. They came to your blog for the inside scoop.

You also have to publish content at regular intervals. If people know they can read your blog every Friday with their morning coffee, they might. If they check in randomly for a month and see new content every time, they might subscribe. If they found one good post, but always come back to the same old post, they’ll give up pretty quickly. Happy blogging!

http://boagworld.com/site-content/old-blog-posts

http://www.webdesignerdepot.com/2009/08/how-to-blog-effectively/

http://www.eff.org/wp/blog-safely

http://www.masternewmedia.org/independent_publishing/blogging-how-to-blog/guide-to-publishing-first-blog-20071104.htm.htm

Netbook Remix – Karmic Koala

The new netbook remix of Ubuntu Linux is great. I recently installed it on my 901 EEE PC, an upgrade from the previous version. When I first upgraded it was a bit rough, but the updates that came out in the past few weeks have really cleaned it up. I’m sure it would have been fine at the start if I’d done a clean install.

Lots of good changes from the first netbook remix have appeared. The startup and shutdown times are twice as fast after updates. I like the menu on one side, versus the previous version’s two sides. It has clean finished look that takes up less screen real estate. It’s also easy to use. I’ve introduced it to a couple people who’ve never used Linux before and they were able to use it immediately.

One issue that may be unique to me is touching the screen. The interface is structured much like a touch screen kiosk, so even though I don't have a touch screen I keep touching it. I’m sure it was done on purpose, since more and more notebooks are becoming touch sensitive. It also means all icons are clearly defined, which is nice.

I can recommend Koala to anyone, from a grandma to a student.

Thanksgiving

Spending holidays with family is always a good time. All sorts of awkward stories and terrible pictures get passed out like presents, things I'll never share here; but, even those remind me life has not always been as it is now. Life has progressed in some form or other. Family you look up to grow old and complain the same way the older family did when they were young. Little kids who looked up to me will soon have another generation to look up to them. I'm sure they'll do as good a job as they can. The change doesn't always go well, but it still goes on. Rather comforting, really.

Google Wave

Would anyone like to try Googe Wave? If so, let me know.

House Repair and News

It's been a while since I've posted something of my life. We have been quite busy (as those of you who follow on Facebook know). We traveled to Lake of the Ozarks in Missouri for Memorial Day weekend. We had a lovely relaxing stay at Mallard Point and picked up a nice leather jacket for my husband's early birthday. I got an Indiana Jones/Croc. Dundee style leather hat. I'll create a page for some of the nicer shots I took there and post a link eventually.

We also replaced both garage doors with new ones. We've been busy with other repairs/updates at the house. 

It's been a very wet summer in Missouri and the basement is telling the tale. We had to do some repair in the basement to keep the rain out. Bert did most of the repair there, so huge kudos to him! I repainted and re-carpeted the basement bathroom (no pictures). I'm currently repainting the main floor bathroom (a job I've been dreading). When we ordered paint for the kitchen in the spring we ordered an extra can (on purpose), so both bathrooms will be the same light sage color as the kitchen. 

The upstairs bathroom painting was precipitated by yet another needed repair: the upstairs toilet tank breaking (clean water). There's nothing like trying to lean over a toilet to paint a corner you can barely see, so when we took out the old toilet I decided to paint that corner of the room while I could get to it. Bert and I (Mostly Bert again there. He gets all the fun jobs.) then replaced a toilet with a shiny new one. That left the corner painted and an obvious lack of paint elsewhere. I'm slowly finishing that up.

We also got a new car. I was planning on waiting until it fell apart, but events didn't lean in that direction...

About a month ago my mother was in a car wreck. Both parties survived, but Mom's car was totaled with no way to buy a new one. She needed something to get her to work right away, so she got a loaner, but she needed something permanent soon. She wrecked on the weekend, I got a loan approved on Tuesday, we had a car bought by Wednesday, I got my old car checked out on Friday, Mom came and picked up my car on Monday! She now has my car and I have a new one! It was quite a whirlwind week, but it worked out.

Just in case you are wondering, the new car is a Prius. It's a great car so far. I'm still getting used to it. It's a smooth ride and has lots of fun gadgets. I love the MP3/CD player. I tried to get something other than red, just because I've never had a car that wasn't, but the non-red one's we went to look at first were already gone. Doomed to red. Darn.

Switching to Blogger

I've change the look of my blog! I may be moving things around and changing them still, since this is a trial, but the link http://melsheffler.com/blog will always go to the newest version of the blog.