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Last post Author Topic: Looking for Suggestions for Name of New Blog that Will be Abandoned  (Read 26219 times)

Paul Keith

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Within two weeks or so (maybe earlier) (maybe later) (but no later than this month), I will "semi" stop blogging and forum posting. (Link to that other thread)

I'm mostly posting in DC anyway so it should be possible. I'm not going to stop posting in forums entirely but I don't plan on making any new threads anymore. (only quick replies)

Before that, I wanted to make one last free wordpress.com blog which I will abandon.

The blog contents will be pretty much a copy of everything I've concluded currently about productivity (including all my posts in DC) and I was wondering if anyone have any suggestion for a name for that blog.

Looking for a name that is:

-future SEO agnostic (something that years from now, people who may need the advice will have a chance of finding)

-have a central theme

-something that will lead to clearer tags/organization structures

I haven't learned CSS unfortunately and I still know little about advanced blog set ups so I plan the lay-out to be "ugly" but hopefully readable.

Zero stock images - Zero screenshots - All images doodled/scanned from paper or played around with Paint.Net (and I'm not an artist)

Haven't settled on a font and haven't looked through the entire library of free themes Wordpress.com has and as far as the lay-out, I'll probably try to copy App's Cranial Soup blog except for things like when images are besides the text and all the cool stuff like images underneath Things You May Like

It's not much but I'll give $10 donationcredits to the user whose suggestion I will use. I'd raise the credits but I only have $23.25 donationcredits total. All thanks from several different users here.

rdzaccess

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Hi..
I m new here, just signed up.
I shall read your previous posting and perhaps I can give something to consider about.
Goodluck...

Paul Keith

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Thanks rdzaccess.

app103

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My blog is Blogger, which is free and would be just as good of an option as using wordpress.com. (maybe better because they don't restrict the use of Javascript widgets like wordpress.com does and your posts end up indexed by Google within minutes)

I am using one of their older default templates (Minima Dark) that has been tweaked to hell & back. The original template has no images at all and comes in both a black and white version, which I have copies of both if you need them. They have newer templates now which are better looking but just as simple and even easier to use, especially if you don't want to fuss with tweaking the code.

Minima was Blogger's most popular template for many years, and for good reason...it offers so many possibilities and is a great place to start when designing your own templates.

This is what the original looked like before I started messing around with it (Everything you see in the right column are optional widgets): http://preview-minim...-black.blogspot.com/

Paul Keith

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Thanks for the details app. Yeah, I've finally tried out a Blogger account, I guess my main reason for choosing Wordpress is because Google has a habit of stopping services at a dime and once they do, it's gone. Also since it's going to be an abandoned blog, I wanted to steer away from a hierarchy that's date centric.

Mind you, I'm not saying Wordpress is more reliable but since their business is entirely centered around blogs - I thought it stands a longer chance of staying up. They also have an entire Wordpress.com community that serves like a pseudo-walled garden similar to Tumblr's culture so I thought I would hedge my abandoned blog there.

Although I'm still on the fence. Auto-posting to Posterous and then having those copies in Blogger and Wordpress is still a better back-up option but a part of me wants to pour it into one web interface. Sort of a mental thing to wash away any notion that I'm just writing for SEO/attention or new readers.

I sort of wanted to treat this like a goodbye blog to my imaginary audience. Just one consistent interface. One theme. One location. A set of posts.

app103

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I wouldn't worry about Blogger going anywhere any time soon, or as long as there is such thing as Adsense. I think one of the reasons why they bought Blogger was to make it easier for people to set up sites with their own ads...it's also why they allow javascript widgets.

Wordpress.com's entire business model is partly based on selling premium services and mostly based on forcing certain types of hidden advertising on all blogs (see here for an example) and they do not share the profits of that advertising with the users, nor do they allow users to add any type of advertising in which they could profit from. The only people allowed to make money from a wordpress.com blog is wordpress.com itself.

Google's Blogger does NOT force anyone to have any type of advertising on their blogs, nor do they restrict what type you can have. They do not forbid users from using ad networks that compete with their own. Built in, they have support for both their own Adsense as well as Amazon, but any javascript code from any ad network is as easy as adding a new widget with the code, anywhere on the blog that you want. Google makes a tremendous amount of money from Adsense used by users on their blogging platform and would be fools to ever consider shutting it down. And users are making money from the advertising on their blogs, which is much less exploitative than what wordpress.com is doing.

For me, there are only 2 options:

  • Blogger (if you want it all for free)
  • Self-hosted Wordpress (downloading it from wordpress.org and paying for your own hosting)

As far as community goes, there are plenty of options for that, including Entrecard, which encourages bloggers to visit and comment on other blogger's blogs. You can use Entrecard on Blogger, self-hosted Wordpress, or any other website, but not on wordpress.com. Depending on how active you are with visiting and/or commenting on other blogs in their network, you can get a ton of traffic and regular readers from there, fast. They also pay you points for this, which can be used to get free advertising on other blogs, bringing in traffic from the readers of other blogs. And you can target this very well, visiting only other blogs in your niche, and advertising only on similar blogs. Since I write on a variety of topics, I usually visit blogs of the niche (or a related niche) of my last post.

I know of other communities for bloggers, too. So, if Entrecard does not appeal to you, let me know. I just happen to think that Entrecard is one of the easiest and most effective to use.

Paul Keith

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I wouldn't worry about Blogger going anywhere any time soon, or as long as there is such thing as Adsense. I think one of the reasons why they bought Blogger was to make it easier for people to set up sites with their own ads...it's also why they allow javascript widgets.

It would be easy to believe this had Google not abandoned Wave, Notebook, messed around with IGoogle, switched things around with Google pages and messed things up with Buzz. Google lately, while still mostly an ad-supported service, is also heading towards more cloud centric models. The more these cloud services mature, the less incentive Google has towards supporting Blogger and with Facebook pages being the rage, I just don't believe Google has much incentive to keep Blogger for long.

Docs can be made public, whatever their next Page/Wave creator would probably have more interactive ad based elements, finally the biggest key would be Google's shift to the mobile market. Once they feel they hit the motherload of contextual mobile ad marketing, I bet they are only going to keep Blogger as to not pissed off current Blogger users and little to no attempt would be made to improve the service until eventually Blogger becomes the next Geocities.

Don't get me wrong. I'm not a fan of Wordpress.com at all and frankly if Posterous were more mature as a blogging service or Tumblr has more of the culture that's aimed at long productivity articles, I would probably consider those before Wordpress.com but as it currently stands: Wordpress.com is both an external service and an internal community site where the interface gives more incentive for Wordpress.com to visit other Wordpress.com blogs within their interface rather than through things like Entrecard.

I haven't tried Entrecard though, only seen it in your blog, but with the fall of services like MyBlogLog - I often wonder whether there's much of a blog community left as it seems outside of professional bloggers, most of the crowd has moved on to Facebook and the result (from my ignorant eyes) is that blogging communities nowadays look more like LinkedIn communities only instead of jobs, it's mostly asking for comments. Hell, it seems Life Journal has more of an active diverse community than individual blogs nowadays.

It's mostly Blogger's date centric look though that's the deal breaker for me. I really wanted this to feel more like a static page and ones that aren't "connected" to the dates on the sidebar. (although most WP.com themes show the date anyway)

My ideal though is a free theme that makes a blog look more like a squeeze page but seeing as I don't even know how to make those e-book cover looking images, I probably wouldn't be able to pull off a decent looking squeeze page anyway. Then again, my ideal is probably a professional looking theme that merges both newsletter/blogs/forums and Ning-like start pages for free.

As far as advertising though, this isn't the blog I wanted to focus that aspect on. Although, at the same time, I'm still trying to figure out Project Wonderful and I've mostly ignored Adsense altogether. I also don't have an Amazon account so I didn't really get to experiment with how Amazon Associates work. Eventually though, I do intend to implement the full capabilities of your blogs especially as I move to just linking to pdfs and rtfs instead of blogging but I really don't know if that day will come. I mean I wanted to really learn CSS first and then gamble on a domain/Wordpress/CMS/Squeeze Page/List Building/Aweber or whatever Internet Marketers use to make the interface seem the most friendliest to visitors combined with Ruby on Rails and just figure out web design/premium blog frameworks and all that but at the same time, I both don't know the walkthrough for that.

It's one of the big reasons why I wanted to just make this final blog. After this, hopefully I can provide a free blog that would match or rival your blog design and hopefully when that happens I also have knowledge of how to program and host some applications and how to share better content that's free but on a quality scale that rivals paid sites/paid e-books and be my self editor without frustrating readers... but those are all so far away and like I said in that other topic, it's going to take beyond everything I have to even scratch the surface for those knowledge and skills and turning that blog into art and when that happens - if that happens.

There's just a low guarantee I will ever reach that point. For now, might as well just compile all these, make it easier for everyone to discover the contents based on my current knowledge, put it all in one blog and then abandon it so that the unlikely person that needs to read my advises or current conclusions may get to do that without having to search in-depth or registering on DonationCoder.com or waiting for me to strike lightning and totally provide a set of thoughts/posts/words/software recommendations that far outclasses anything I've written up to today. (especially on the clarity part...the writing for the web part...the long blocks of text part... just leave these findable, viewable, readable based on what I can do now and then when the day comes that I can offer truly quality content - then let that be the day where I care about ads, blog communities, SEO, CSS, CRM, widgets...everything you and the others here have advised and then some.)


app103

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It would be easy to believe this had Google not abandoned Wave, Notebook, messed around with IGoogle, switched things around with Google pages and messed things up with Buzz. Google lately, while still mostly an ad-supported service, is also heading towards more cloud centric models. The more these cloud services mature, the less incentive Google has towards supporting Blogger and with Facebook pages being the rage, I just don't believe Google has much incentive to keep Blogger for long.

They have more of an incentive to put more into keeping Blogger going than all the other crap you mentioned, combined. Blogger makes them money...lots of money. The things you mentioned were not profitable at all...not for Google or the users.

A facebook fan page is not a substitute for a website or blog. And you really can't make money on facebook with banner advertising unless you develop your own facebook app that people actually want to use on a daily basis (think games)

Docs can be made public, whatever their next Page/Wave creator would probably have more interactive ad based elements, finally the biggest key would be Google's shift to the mobile market. Once they feel they hit the motherload of contextual mobile ad marketing, I bet they are only going to keep Blogger as to not pissed off current Blogger users and little to no attempt would be made to improve the service until eventually Blogger becomes the next Geocities.

None of this is a substitute for having a blog or website either. Blogging will continue to exist and provide Google with a nice income for many years to come. Mobile ads are only good for mobile things that don't work well on the desktop. I don't see the regular internet being replaced by a bunch of tiny pages with minimal scripting made for handheld devices. The regular internet will exist for many years to come and there is still plenty of money to be made in advertising here. Plus, even if what you say does happen and we all throw away our desktop computers and buy a tiny screen mobile device, Blogger can easily be made suitable for those handheld devices with a simple template change...no need to throw the whole thing away. It can still make them (and their users) a ton of money for many years to come.

I haven't tried Entrecard though, only seen it in your blog, but with the fall of services like MyBlogLog - I often wonder whether there's much of a blog community left as it seems outside of professional bloggers, most of the crowd has moved on to Facebook and the result (from my ignorant eyes) is that blogging communities nowadays look more like LinkedIn communities only instead of jobs, it's mostly asking for comments. Hell, it seems Life Journal has more of an active diverse community than individual blogs nowadays.

The problem with MyBlogLog was that it was bought by Yahoo, and they kill everything they touch. They didn't develop the site like they should have, expected the features it already had to somehow make them money, and it didn't, so they are shutting it down, like they do with everything else they ruin. If the original developers had sold it to anybody else, it would have had a greater chance of survival and improvement.

I won't argue with you about the fact that there are plenty of small time bloggers begging for visitors, comments, ad clicks, etc. but you will find that just about everywhere, including facebook.

It's mostly Blogger's date centric look though that's the deal breaker for me. I really wanted this to feel more like a static page and ones that aren't "connected" to the dates on the sidebar. (although most WP.com themes show the date anyway)

Then don't use the standard archive widget. Use a link list and labels widgets instead. I did explain that all the widgets on the right sidebar of my example were optional. There are plenty more options than what you saw there.

My ideal though is a free theme that makes a blog look more like a squeeze page but seeing as I don't even know how to make those e-book cover looking images, I probably wouldn't be able to pull off a decent looking squeeze page anyway. Then again, my ideal is probably a professional looking theme that merges both newsletter/blogs/forums and Ning-like start pages for free.

I have never seen a squeeze page that didn't look like a bad ebay ad, and I immediately close the tab when I land on one of them. If you want any sort of credibility, stay away from that method of presenting information, especially if you are not selling anything or if you want anyone with more than 2 brain cells to take what you are selling seriously.

As far as advertising though, this isn't the blog I wanted to focus that aspect on. Although, at the same time, I'm still trying to figure out Project Wonderful and I've mostly ignored Adsense altogether. I also don't have an Amazon account so I didn't really get to experiment with how Amazon Associates work. Eventually though, I do intend to implement the full capabilities of your blogs especially as I move to just linking to pdfs and rtfs instead of blogging but I really don't know if that day will come. I mean I wanted to really learn CSS first and then gamble on a domain/Wordpress/CMS/Squeeze Page/List Building/Aweber or whatever Internet Marketers use to make the interface seem the most friendliest to visitors combined with Ruby on Rails and just figure out web design/premium blog frameworks and all that but at the same time, I both don't know the walkthrough for that.

It's the text that brings in people from search engines and you won't get that with links to pdfs and rtf files. You would be far better off publishing the content of those files in a blog post than going through the bother of making those files, finding somewhere to upload them, then dropping a link somewhere and expecting magic to happen. (unless you meant that you plan on selling them)

I don't know why you think you have to learn CSS and Ruby to have a blog. Most bloggers I know don't know either one of them. Most bloggers I know can barely copy & paste.

It's one of the big reasons why I wanted to just make this final blog. After this, hopefully I can provide a free blog that would match or rival your blog design and hopefully when that happens I also have knowledge of how to program and host some applications and how to share better content that's free but on a quality scale that rivals paid sites/paid e-books and be my self editor without frustrating readers... but those are all so far away and like I said in that other topic, it's going to take beyond everything I have to even scratch the surface for those knowledge and skills and turning that blog into art and when that happens - if that happens.

We had a long talk about this before. If you really like my blog that much, then follow my example.

Don't make things any more complicated than they have to be. Start with the basics...

Set it up anywhere you like that will give you the freedom to grow and profit from your work if you choose to do that in the future (wordpress.com will not do that), choose a good simple template with lots of possibilities (hell, I could even set it up for you with my template on Blogger...the tweaks I did are something to behold in the design control panel)

Hook it up to your friendfeed, twitter, and facebook accounts, so whenever you make a post your followers there will know about it.

Then you just concentrate on writing, whenever the whim strikes. There is no reason why you ever have to plan on abandoning it before you even start it.

As your blog grows, add other things to it, a little at a time, as you can handle it. I'll always be here to help you.  :)

mahesh2k

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I prefer not to put any eggs on google hosted place. Many gmail accounts and in turn bloggers blogs were removed by google spam team recently and good blogs are also lost in that wave. Blogger amit from labnol.org -who hosted his blog on blogger and his hard work was washed because google thought it was spam blog. Better not take chance with their system. If you're not adding affiliate link to your site then it's better to put your blog under wordpress.com.

Question - Why not host your blog on dcmembers server ? i'm sure mouser will create account for you in few minutes and you can create wordpress blog, abandon it or come back to it anytime to make changes without worrying about deletion of your content.

You don't need to learn php or css unless you want to make your own themes for blogger or any other php cms. You don't need to know HTML as well because most of the ad copy pasting or banner copy pasting can be done with any modern cms out there. By the way dont stop posting on forums, it's really feel good to see your findings and other posts.  :up:

Paul Keith

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They have more of an incentive to put more into keeping Blogger going than all the other crap you mentioned, combined. Blogger makes them money...lots of money. The things you mentioned were not profitable at all...not for Google or the users.

Yes, in the form of a stable service it was but did you forget the buzz around Wave back then?

...and you can't tell me Google Notebook wasn't monetizable. Evernote probably had a 15% boost (random guessing) of user migration from Google Notebook going on hiatus. The only reason they never matched the output of Blogger (aside from quantity of users) is because Google pulled the plug rather than improved on them where as Blogger's userbase are the opposite and would be PPC migrators to begin with.

A facebook fan page is not a substitute for a website or blog. And you really can't make money on facebook with banner advertising unless you develop your own facebook app that people actually want to use on a daily basis (think games)

Oh, I was talking more about the advertising potential there.

Although in some ways, I might be indirectly saying that. I shun away from Facebook as much as possible and I've never tried to add any personal friends but it shocks me how much these few people are more active in sharing images, tidbits, personal stuff on Facebook than they would ever do on other services.

It's sort of like the difference between the noise of Twitter versus Tumblr but on a mob level as far as community, maybe it's because when people jump into an app or a page on Facebook they jump in as a group, but Facebook has a very forum-like community where the most popular pages match the output of popular blogging commentor habits - the ones that get 50-100+ comments.

I agree though that monetization is still iffy on Facebook but it's getting there. From what I've seen, it's actually e-commerce and not the social games that are the source for many users' money. Most of those still trickle back to blogs but it's like Facebook is a call to action magnet surpassing even Twitter. 5 likes automatically leads to 10 likes, 10 likes lead to 20 and then the comments - again there's just like a fan mob culture around a single account.

None of this is a substitute for having a blog or website either. Blogging will continue to exist and provide Google with a nice income for many years to come. Mobile ads are only good for mobile things that don't work well on the desktop. I don't see the regular internet being replaced by a bunch of tiny pages with minimal scripting made for handheld devices. The regular internet will exist for many years to come and there is still plenty of money to be made in advertising here. Plus, even if what you say does happen and we all throw away our desktop computers and buy a tiny screen mobile device, Blogger can easily be made suitable for those handheld devices with a simple template change...no need to throw the whole thing away. It can still make them (and their users) a ton of money for many years to come.

Oh, I was talking about the near future. Mobile ads are actually only called mobile ads because it's easier to consume on the mobile but it's like saying sms spam ads cannot apply to e-mail spam. A lot of these ads like Groupon clones are actually applicable to both.

A lot of the tiny pages also of minimal scripting are now being replaced by the social networking craze. People still consume the regular internet but now there are things like Thinkery.me that can scrape and clear all bits and data from a blog post and show it like... a normal text file or a ReadItLater-like public Google Docs looking page.

You're right though. Blogger won't be thrown away.

Also to clarify, I don't think desktops would be thrown away and it would also defeat the point of me making an abandoned Wordpress blog if it did but Google can put Blogger on hiatus now like they did with Notebook and other services and they can still profit from it without really caring whether a few blogs break here or there.

The problem with MyBlogLog was that it was bought by Yahoo, and they kill everything they touch. They didn't develop the site like they should have, expected the features it already had to somehow make them money, and it didn't, so they are shutting it down, like they do with everything else they ruin. If the original developers had sold it to anybody else, it would have had a greater chance of survival and improvement.

You're right but that's also sort of the double edge of these communities. How do you know? When do you know?

If I leave DonationCoder and then return and then post and mouser said "Fuck you!" or "This isn't the old community anymore, you are no longer welcome. Goodbye" - I immediately know.

Even if he doesn't do that, the subtle shift in how the community talks and interacts is a clear hint. With blogging communities, you sort of have to know who are the influencers and where most of the comment culture are flocking to and then re-judging them based on that.

I absolutely agree though that this is true and I will never deny this:

I won't argue with you about the fact that there are plenty of small time bloggers begging for visitors, comments, ad clicks, etc. but you will find that just about everywhere, including facebook.

On the flip side, it also begs the question, is this really the right audience for a blogger that can't even format his posts, don't even want to consistently create scheduled posts on his blog or don't care for this culture of comment me and I will comment you.

Especially this abandoned blog. I want to sink my teeth into this eventually on a new blog but on an abandoned blog, I still want to comment when I spot it but really... it's not going to be a blog where I want to use it as a networking tool with others.

...of course, the flip side of that is the desire to get as much eyeballs on the blog so that people who need it can read it so for that I still thank you and maybe if things go well enough for this abandoned blog - I'll revisit the idea with you. Hopefully by then it's just going to be mostly a simple copy pasted Blogger version of this Wordpress blog.

Then don't use the standard archive widget. Use a link list and labels widgets instead. I did explain that all the widgets on the right sidebar of my example were optional. There are plenty more options than what you saw there.

True, but I didn't find one/get to customize one (through widget drag and dropping) that looks closest to these types of Wordpress themes: (I'm talking mostly simply add and insert free themes though, no widget configuration and other non-newbie options)

These are the ones that I'm currently considering in Wordpress, thank you in advance for providing the howto or the theme for the Blogger equivalent. (They don't have to be near exact replicas, just the interface elements matching closely to these or a static like page)

Choco:

Choco.pngLooking for Suggestions for Name of New Blog that Will be Abandoned

Depo Masthead:

Depo Masthead.pngLooking for Suggestions for Name of New Blog that Will be Abandoned

Depo Square:

DePo Square.pngLooking for Suggestions for Name of New Blog that Will be Abandoned

Duster:

Duster.pngLooking for Suggestions for Name of New Blog that Will be Abandoned

Elegant Grunge:

Elegant Grunge.pngLooking for Suggestions for Name of New Blog that Will be Abandoned

Inuit Types:

Inuit Type.pngLooking for Suggestions for Name of New Blog that Will be Abandoned

Modularity Lite:

Modularity Lite.pngLooking for Suggestions for Name of New Blog that Will be Abandoned

Notepad:

Notepad.pngLooking for Suggestions for Name of New Blog that Will be Abandoned

Papercrunch:

Papercrunch.pngLooking for Suggestions for Name of New Blog that Will be Abandoned

Steira:

Steira.pngLooking for Suggestions for Name of New Blog that Will be Abandoned

Structure:

Structure.pngLooking for Suggestions for Name of New Blog that Will be Abandoned

Titan:

Titan.pngLooking for Suggestions for Name of New Blog that Will be Abandoned

Under the Influence:

Under the Influence.pngLooking for Suggestions for Name of New Blog that Will be Abandoned

I have never seen a squeeze page that didn't look like a bad ebay ad, and I immediately close the tab when I land on one of them. If you want any sort of credibility, stay away from that method of presenting information, especially if you are not selling anything or if you want anyone with more than 2 brain cells to take what you are selling seriously.

Heh, I agree. I guess to me it feels like squeeze pages work better at convincing me to be curious.

I don't mean the e-bay looking pages though.

The ones that look like this:

http://www.kajabiapp.com/

or for a non-squeeze page but just as much squeeze page looking, this:

http://www.dropbox.com/

Even something like Google Chrome's download page, I would probably envision as a squeeze page:

http://www.google.co...html?hl=en&hl=en

It's the text that brings in people from search engines and you won't get that with links to pdfs and rtf files. You would be far better off publishing the content of those files in a blog post than going through the bother of making those files, finding somewhere to upload them, then dropping a link somewhere and expecting magic to happen. (unless you meant that you plan on selling them)

I don't know why you think you have to learn CSS and Ruby to have a blog. Most bloggers I know don't know either one of them. Most bloggers I know can barely copy & paste.

Yeah, I don't mean that for this blog but once I go with the pdfs and the rtf, I want to totally forget about SEO.

I want to totally aim at something that people would want to keep or bookmark and find via a Twitter recommendation or some other social way and ignore the spider altogether.

Uploading shouldn't be hard with posterous. Again I'm referring to something like this but a more polished one.

Most bloggers aren't me. Most forum posters aren't me. I've come to accept that.

To repeat what I said in the other thread, I want to do everything I know of and beyond. I want to arrive at a point where if I just make a quote, people won't think I quoted something mindlessly. I want to arrive at a point where if I wrote a long post, people won't think I'm not trying to summarize.

Because all those haven't been enough. I can bold a sentence in DC or make the topic thread be the summary, and people will still think I didn't provide a summary or made any effort into editing the post.

I'm sick and tired of myself having to vocally speak out loud every one of my forum and blog posts, only to feel guilty and hollow when someone criticizes as if I didn't do my best.

I'm sick and tired of myself having to consider images/lay-outs/outlines for my blog only to find out that I couldn't add a blog post full of stock images without laughing at my own posts.

Worse, I'm just sick and tired of my poor communicative ability. I'm sick and tired of making the wrong bodily gestures. I'm sick and tired of people saying my words are confusing when I'm just trying to speak or write. I'm also sick and tired of making the effort only for it to not feel like it.

Especially when it comes to asking the right questions. When it comes to talking about something that's not exactly rocket science or algebra and being misinterpreted. When it comes to the simplest failures of charisma, clarity, interest in speech and in text writing...and the hollowness that follows from knowing I didn't do my best. Knowing I didn't maximize or optimize the stylesheet or lay-out or design of a page. Knowing that every day I wake up, I don't practice in front of a mirror like a public speaker. Knowing I don't write 15,000 words a day like a professional novelist. And knowing that I don't want to be those people. I want to communicate but I don't have a passion for public speaking. I don't have a passion for web design. I don't have a passion for being a forum regular. I don't have a passion for being a blogger. I just want to communicate and be communicated back to because it's a necessary survival tool.

That's why I want to pour myself into this before focusing on just any type of content. Even if I failed, I want to suffer so much and learn so much from it that when I post regularly again or blog or whatever the new way of communicating is, I'd have suffered so much that when someone advises me or offers to proof read my post or hands me several tools to try, I can just have a self-esteem that would absorb and apply all the advises and regardless whether I could make it work or not - I would have the peace of mind knowing that I tried. Maybe it wasn't enough. Maybe it wasn't the right thing. Maybe it was the wrong audience. But just to feel (for myself) like all my efforts are going into some place when trying to communicate - I want that and I'd also like to hope that some of my audience needs that to better understand my advise or to better criticize my posts. That's why I want to lose into everything.

I want to have that feeling when a designer finds out their design helps in communicating a vague intention or helping out a complicated need. I want to have that feeling when a novelist writes Twilight and they are able to communicate to an audience beyond all those classics. I want to have that feeling of a director or animation artist finally pushing through the "mature" kiddie version of a dark comic book character even though their final product to me is bad and cringe worthy. I want to have that feeling of a good copywriter or a good blog commentor or a good guest blogger breaking through interests without making a link bait post. I even want that feeling of a programmer knowing they wrote a code that even non-programmers can understand because they didn't just code a code - they commented in the right places, they wrote a manual that even though it quickly becomes outdated still explains the structure in all it's glory. I want to have those feelings within me you know? To have communication that is communication. To have content that is worth communicating. And to wield those in a manner that's just not singing to the choir or over-simplifying my message to the point that it's inspirational but not a manual or a manual that is a manual but not like a Gladwell or a Godin who can make a story out of it.

I want to wield all these free stuff and let it's burden, burden me because I'm not good enough instead of because I didn't do my best and didn't try to fully make sense of CSS or Ruby or Digital Art or Copywriting or Web marketing...all except for the most static ones on the barest dead level. Things like just relying on stock images or pouring most of my focus on SEO or bandwagonning on a popular content to talk about. I want to follow the fundamentals but I want to break those fundamentals and still communicate to my imaginary audience first and foremost ...and also still be able to communicate with others; still not only continuing to receive their advises but be able to level up myself so that I can receive your advanced advises too and not make any of you repeat yourselves or feel like I'm just not listening.

We had a long talk about this before. If you really like my blog that much, then follow my example.

I am, that's why I wrote:

Haven't settled on a font and haven't looked through the entire library of free themes Wordpress.com has and as far as the lay-out, I'll probably try to copy App's Cranial Soup blog except for things like when images are besides the text and all the cool stuff like images underneath Things You May Like

***

Then you just concentrate on writing, whenever the whim strikes. There is no reason why you ever have to plan on abandoning it before you even start it.

For me there is.

When I'm communicating, I want to focus on content. Content that I don't know of but may allow for feedback from someone who knows. Content that I have an opinion of. Consistent content that will get people back. Launch content that will hype it out for people to know the blog. Guest blog content that will help me network with the leaders in my niche. Style that may help me connect with the audience.

But that's when I can communicate and can communicate something that matters.

When I can't communicate my opinions. When my opinions are not even that deep or profound that it's worth being understood. When my efforts can't change the lives of others. Most importantly, when I'm not talented. When I'm not an author. When I'm not a pro-blogger. When I'm not a source of knowledge but rather a source of woe. If I want to really work on it, then I need to stop without first figuring out how those great authors can incubate content for years and release something that's good or how those great independent coders get to produce something that's on par with commercial products or how people like you can provide quality content to your audience - on a full time monitoring scale that's also introspective but most importantly, isn't relying on my current knowledge or talent.

Something that's in tune with emotions. An ingrained instinct where if I don't know the basics, I could recreate the basics just by my mere intention to communicate. Something I equate to real productivity systems aligning with a user.

There are productivity systems that to me that feel like they can't even teach you how to make an egg if you don't know how to cook outside of cheating and telling you to pay for a cooking class.

Then there are productivity systems or techniques that are praised because they can best teach someone to cook but not to pursue something more.

...or to be able to pursue them only because all that person needed was the mental motivation to act upon their passion.

Then there's the real productivity system. A system that even if it fails, you know it tries. You can feel the author who popularized it tries to make your need productive.

That's something that's also ingrained in the authors who spent their lives drinking and smoking to write something or to the bloggers who already know the inner innards of the system they are wielding and can just pop in, recommend and use Entrecards, implement PPC ads, register to domains, merge images to their posts... it's all rosy painted. I'm not saying you didn't go through hell learning and implementing all these stuff but for me who's not even a programmer. For me who hasn't even whiffed achievements that you consider minor to do, and to have that fortune of being a poor communicator, I may have to want to cut a part of my priorities. I may need to not even think about my drafts being posted in public.

I may need to match up with the greats of this generation just to grab unto some semblance of mediocrity. To draw before using images to break my long paragraphs. To pre-edit before even typing. To web design so that I'm not limited to bullet points. Whatever it is, what I'm doing isn't sufficient.

I'll always be here to help you.

Thanks. I hope one day I may be worth helping without causing frustration but for now, one thing at a time.

Right now, I'm just looking for a name for this abandoned blog.

Question - Why not host your blog on dcmembers server ? i'm sure mouser will create account for you in few minutes and you can create wordpress blog, abandon it or come back to it anytime to make changes without worrying about deletion of your content.

To be fair to mouser, I can't even figure out how to grab much of an audience with my forum posts so I don't event want to consider burdening mouser for that.

You don't need to learn php or css unless you want to make your own themes for blogger or any other php cms. You don't need to know HTML as well because most of the ad copy pasting or banner copy pasting can be done with any modern cms out there. By the way dont stop posting on forums, it's really feel good to see your findings and other posts.

True. The problem is, those CMS still require money. Money is also something I don't have much of. Much less knowledge about hosting and all those other sort of things.

Also the copy pasting methods are a lot like the usage of stock images in blogs. They're good but I don't want to leave any effort un-turned when I refail to communicate.
« Last Edit: March 12, 2011, 09:06 PM by Paul Keith »

Renegade

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For a name:

The Productivity Archive
Paul's Productivity Archive

Just a couple thoughts.
Slow Down Music - Where I commit thought crimes...

Freedom is the right to be wrong, not the right to do wrong. - John Diefenbaker

app103

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Well, if/when you want to set something up on Blogger, shoot me a PM and I'll guide you through initial setup basics and adding me as an admin so I can do some of the setup work for you, like I did for my dad. Once everything is done and you are ready for posting, you can remove me if you want (or leave me there, just in case you run into issues you need my help with).

steeladept

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I'll add my idea for a name:

FINALLY - Getting them done....

or

Getting them done, FINALLY....

or some variation thereof.

mahesh2k

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To be fair to mouser, I can't even figure out how to grab much of an audience with my forum posts so I don't event want to consider burdening mouser for that.

It's not easy to get audience for site but if you're on platform like DC and also comment on other productivity blogs then slowly you'll get a lot of traffic. So i doubt if it'll in any way is burden on mouser.

The problem is, those CMS still require money.
Which CMS ? Take a look at some of the free php cms - joomla, drupal, wordpress, mambo,textpattern, movable type, etc. all free and even some good themes are there for free.

As for name suggestions, let me try web 2.0 style.

Productev
snipgtd
gtdhub
---
---

mouser

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Yeah a blog is really not going to be any burden for me or DC.. unless you are serving up huge videos, etc.
If you want we can create a blog for you at WHATEVER.dcmembers.com (preferably paulkeith.dcmembers.com); i think wordpress is your clear choice for a blog engine.

Paul Keith

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Which CMS ? Take a look at some of the free php cms - joomla, drupal, wordpress, mambo,textpattern, movable type, etc. all free and even some good themes are there for free.

Oh sorry. I should have clarified. I understand that there are technically free CMS out there (although I didn't realize Wordpress was one of them) but they still require paying for a domain and also understanding their entire landscape and that's something I couldn't fully understand either and I still haven't found a way to understand them without actually paying for something.

Take the three Copyblogger ads:

http://getpremise.com/

http://www.studiopress.com/

http://scribeseo.com/

Do I need these? Do I not need these? Only way to find out is to pay and I can't afford them.

It's not easy to get audience for site but if you're on platform like DC and also comment on other productivity blogs then slowly you'll get a lot of traffic. So i doubt if it'll in any way is burden on mouser.

Yeah a blog is really not going to be any burden for me or DC.. unless you are serving up huge videos, etc.
If you want we can create a blog for you at WHATEVER.dcmembers.com (preferably paulkeith.dcmembers.com); i think wordpress is your clear choice for a blog engine.

Thanks. Not that I'm looking a gift horse in the mouth; believe me I'll take the offer up in a snap if I didn't have these fears but:

1) Video is the least of my worries since that could always be Youtube'd.

2) Content is the first sore point. I'm just not one to believe that what I write doesn't impact the brand of everything else in DC. That leads to proof readers and it also leads to being careful with what I say and comment on other sites as to not undermine DC.

3) Speaking of comments. I'm writing an abandoned blog. I'm not really sure I can comment often in other sites. Worse, I don't really like commenting positively underneath topics if they didn't change my life but critical comments don't exactly lead back to return visitors.

4) Then there's monetization. DC doesn't really have ads but I'm not already donating to DC (not even the fundraiser) and now I'm draining some more funds away from mouser. I'd rather if the blog can at least get some dollars back each month but having ads changes the philosophical image of DC.

5) Finally, priviledge. If mouser creates a blog for me, then what's to say someone else wouldn't want mouser to create a blog for them too? I'm not saying they'll outright request it but it opens up the question as to why everyone else can't have a blog and it could impact the community in a subtle unforeseen manner.

40hz

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Finally, priviledge. If mouser creates a blog for me, then what's to say someone else wouldn't want mouser to create a blog for them too? I'm not saying they'll outright request it but it opens up the question as to why everyone else can't have a blog and it could impact the community in a subtle unforeseen manner.

I'm guessing that if anyone else asked nicely, Mouser would give them their own blog too. 8)

« Last Edit: March 13, 2011, 08:47 PM by 40hz »

mouser

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One of the reasons we are having a fundraiser is to pay for our high hosting costs.  One of the reasons we have high hosting costs is because we have a nice powerful server that can host member sites.  People are donating so we can do this -- that's what it's there for.  A blog, especially one thats not super popular, is almost no drain on a webserver at all, so it's not a big deal.

Having said that, as app has pointed out, there are tons of good free blogging platforms that are just as good.  Up to you!

mahesh2k

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Oh sorry. I should have clarified. I understand that there are technically free CMS out there (although I didn't realize Wordpress was one of them) but they still require paying for a domain and also understanding their entire landscape and that's something I couldn't fully understand either and I still haven't found a way to understand them without actually paying for something.
You don't need a domain if you're not concerned about branding. Wordpress can be installed on paul.dcmembers.com subdomain. There is no charge for using someone's subdomain if they're offering you free hosting. If you feel to host your content on other free subdomain blogging service then try typepad or tumblr. Another free hosting site is dreamhostapps.com where you can host your content for free without paying a cent but URL is a bit cluttered on that site.

Take the three Copyblogger ads:
http://getpremise.com/
http://www.studiopress.com/
http://scribeseo.com/
Do I need these? Do I not need these? Only way to find out is to pay and I can't afford them.
You don't need getpremise because your goal of using blog has nothing to do with premise platform. You don't need studiopress theme because there are free wordpress themes like hybrid theme or thematic as alternative to studiopress. You don't need scribeseo because it is for copywriting and keyword optimization. Unless you're working on heavy on-page optimization there is no need for scribeseo. You just wordpress and good free wordpress theme for now to showcase your content.
 

Paul Keith

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Hmm...that is tempting.

I am thinking of branding though. Not in the sense of marketing but I want a name that if people stumble upon the url would make them think it's a productivity blog hence why I made this topic.

I've heard of the others except for dreamhostapps. Set-up does look a bit confusing with the usage of the word real web hosting.

I'm also lost at the themes you mentioned: hybrid and thematic. Are premium themes just themes that allow for css?

mahesh2k

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You can get domain name from namecheap at cost 9.95$/year and point it to your tumblr or typepad blog or dreamhostapps blog. I think that will do for personal branding.

Studiopress has premium framework upon which themes are built and it's privately maintained. Alternative frameworks like hybrid and thematic are free frameworks and there are also some themes which are free based on those frameworks. It's not about CSS editing but about premium support and extended features which are usually required if you're web developer and building web sites for clients. For example, genesis (studiopress) framework has SEO and php hooks built-in inside the dashboard of theme, which you don't find with free theme frameworks. You don't need them because that's not needed for your blog.

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Are premium themes just themes that allow for css?

All themes I have seen, including the crappiest free ones,  use CSS and allow you to use your own CSS.

Paul Keith

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You can get domain name from namecheap at cost 9.95$/year and point it to your tumblr or typepad blog or dreamhostapps blog. I think that will do for personal branding.

Yes, where I live and considering I am unemployed, 9.95$/year is expensive especially for an abandoned blog. Could I find some way to acquire it? Yes, it's not impossible but it's still a noticeable enough drain.

It's not about CSS editing but about premium support and extended features which are usually required if you're web developer and building web sites for clients. For example, genesis (studiopress) framework has SEO and php hooks built-in inside the dashboard of theme, which you don't find with free theme frameworks. You don't need them because that's not needed for your blog.

All themes I have seen, including the crappiest free ones,  use CSS and allow you to use your own CSS.

Thanks for the clarifications.



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Have you got any names/concepts that you are thinking of yet?
Slow Down Music - Where I commit thought crimes...

Freedom is the right to be wrong, not the right to do wrong. - John Diefenbaker

Paul Keith

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I try not to think about it since this is technically a suggestion thread and I wanted to be as neutral to the names as possible.

As far as productivity concepts, some of the name suggestions and the choice of a hosted wordpress/blogger and being on DC or not pretty much opened up any concept I planned but nonetheless the intention remains for it to be an abandoned blog - sort of like a static page/online book but written in such a way that it's more akin to a blog novel.