MicroWebmaster Blogging Community

I’ve been woefully behind in blogging. I’m teaching a class in blogging starting June 10th, and have been working on curriculum and other projects that have timelines, and there just has not been time to check in on the blogs.

Everything, it seems, requires writing. Sometimes that is a huge drain. I mean, put me in a room with people and I can talk till I am blue in the face. I can write for days as long as I have a compelling topic that I want to convey. But demand that I come up with something fresh, and new, several times a day, for multiple websites and blogs, and I eventually run dry, until I refuel.

Currently, the projects that I am in the middle of which include writing, consist of the following;

1. 4 different blogs, which have a goal of every other day posts. That’s two articles per day average.
2. Two upcoming classes -Blogging for Business, and Images and the Web (through the University of Wyoming Enrichment Program). This requires the equivalent of 1-2 pages per day.
3. MicroWebmasters Alliance - A massive project requiring additional writing - it still needs about 300 pages of content added, some of which I have, but just need to prep for online use, some of which is still in my head, some of which needs to have scripts written, or handouts prepped.
4. Front Porch Folks - Another massive project which requires about 200 pages of writing.
5. A new project which will only require about 30 pages of writing.
6. Our hosting site documentation - a project requiring probably 150 pages of writing, several video tutorials, and multiple reference manuals.
7. Documentation for our business - perhaps another 100 pages of writing.
8. Several online forums which I maintain, volunteer for or participate in. Each has varying degrees of writing commitment.
9. Several clients who require that we produce written articles or pages for them on a regular basis.
10. Clients who correspond via email - this means typically between 30 and 50 emails per day.

My fingers and my brain are challenged heavily. I love my work, but some days there just is not enough to go around.

So now, I’m getting ready to teach a class on blogging. I’ll be including strategies to keep up with a high writing demand, but I doubt any of my students will be required to do that much writing!

My typing speed is increasing yearly. Nothing like practice to make you faster at typing!

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They grow on you… Once you have one, you may find reasons to have more.

A word of caution though, each one, like children, bring responsibilities. Unlike children though, they are not sure to reward you. They take a long time before you get anything more than a feeling of ownership – true, they don’t spit or drool on you, but neither do they smile at you when they are still immature.

Each blog takes time to get going – and it takes inspiration to come up with topics on a frequent basis. If you follow the “one post every other day” rule, to get growing traffic, then you may be able to manage more than one. If you insist on posting daily, you are going to get buried pretty quickly. Blogging can easily become a full time job, even when you have only one.

So the point is, consider carefully before you create an entire collection. They’ll drain you dry and leave you feeling inadequate if you get too much too fast. Get one established, then try another, but get your first established first.

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You either have it, or you don’t. The compulsion to share things through the medium of text. Some people have it so strongly that it becomes an addiction.

Fortunately, it is non-fattening, and doesn’t kill brain cells.

It can get in the way of life sometimes though. And it can be expensive – after all, a laptop and extra batteries and power equipment to keep it running everywhere aren’t cheap!

How do you know if you are addicted? Take a hot bath. By the time you are done, you’ll know. If you spend the entire half hour soaking in the tub thinking about your next story, column, blog post, forum comment, or book title, you’re hooked.

If you go through the grocery store and get a funny cashier who makes you smile, and you think, “I’m gonna blog about that!”, or if you have one of those days that makes you grind your teeth, and you are thinking of clever ways to write about it in the middle of it, then you are definitely addicted.

It isn’t a bad thing, unless your husband starts asking, “Are you going to write about THIS, too?” There are some things we simply do not share…

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When you move an independent install of a WordPress blog, you can find instructions online for moving it within the same domain, or from one domain to another. As I moved mine, I found that the instructions that were missing, were those for moving it from a domain that was set up as an add-on domain, to a host where it was set up as an add-on domain, but under a different primary domain, or where it BECAME the primary domain.

Turns out, it isn’t any different than moving it within the same domain, because WP doesn’t care about the root path to the files. Some dynamic installs do though, so this is a logical question which might arise.

So, to move it, just backup the database, and backup the site files and download via FTP. The most efficient way to do the second (if you do not have shell access), is to use Cpanel - IF your Cpanel uses the x3 theme. If it uses the x theme, you are out of luck on this method, you’ll have to do it the long way - by downloading all the files to a folder on your hard drive - if you have to do that, just use an FTP client, do not use Cpanel, it takes longer for that!

Anyway, one of the problems with backing up the files is that you end up with a high degree of truncated or missing files. If you use the Cpanel file manager, you can compress your public-html directory before downloading it. That both speeds up the download, and reduces the degree of error.

Either way you backup, once the backup is on your computer, you can reupload it to the new space - if you downloaded it the long way, just compress it before you upload it, if you have ANY theme in Cpanel, because while not all can COMPRESS files, they can decompress them. Compressing it before you upload it speeds up the upload time, and again, reduces the risk of file loss or corruption.

Once it is uploaded, use the Cpanel file manager to decompress it.

Open up the wp-config.php file, it has the database name, username, and password in it. Go back into Cpanel, and create your database, with the same info, assign the user to the database with full privileges. Then use PHPMyAdmin to import the database backup.

Once you’ve done that, the site should be ready to test - if it is done right, you’ll get a php error in the content area, if the domain has not yet resolved. Let the domain resolve, then test it again. If you cannot get the pages to show up with the template showing, and just that error instead of the posts, then you most likely have a database username or pw typo, or you have a truncated file. It is often easiest to just reinstall the core files, or even do an upgrade if this happens.

It is a fairly simple process, if you are familiar with setting up databases, and using FTP and Cpanel. If you are not, then you will need additional instruction.

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If you have your own blog, hosted on your own hosting account, you can typically back up the database, and the template and images folders. If your blog is hosted by someone else though, you’ll have to do it another way.

You can export your posts, and comments. If you do that, it won’t be the same as backing up the entire installation, but it will allow you to get it back fairly quickly.

Look in the backend of a WordPress install, and click the Manage link, and you’ll find the Export link under that. It will create a file that can be imported into another WordPress blog. That means if you ever want to move it, you can do that too.

It is a good idea to export every week or so if you feel that you need to have your own backup – some platforms have a reputation for deleting blogs at random, so you might want to do that just so you have your posts in case something happens.

You also have the option of saving a file on your hard drive, where you can keep a copy of each post. It is a little less flexible in some ways, more so in others, because you can more easily get at a single bit of text.

If it matters to you, keep a copy.

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They get a vicarious thrill from reading the blogs of people who are doing things they’d like to be doing. They lurk around on forums, never letting anyone know they are there, living a live of quiet voyeurism. Unlike Peepism of old, Virtual Peeping is perfectly legal. We aren’t talking about stalking or privacy invasion, what makes this legal is that there are plenty of people out there exposing themselves willingly in front of the open windows of the web.

We call them “bloggers”.

They blog on topics that were not discussed at all 50 years ago except in hushed tones in a doctor’s office or in desperation to your mother when you didn’t know what else to do.

They discuss the intimate details of their personal relationships, the functions of their bodies, and the things they did at the party, whether these things SHOULD be discussed or not! Some bloggers seem utterly unaware that anyone who wishes to do so can READ what they wrote.

Others have more circumspection, restraining their baser impulses where writing the minute details of their lives is concerned. We thank them! They are the ones who entertain us and make us feel like friends instead of like skulking peepers, even though the friendship really isn’t real, because it is completely one-sided.

Like all things, it is certain that there is a point beyond which this just isn’t healthy. But it is also certain that nobody is quite where the line should be drawn.

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It has a softer, cleaner appearance. That is the first thing you’ll notice. I’ve upgraded a few, and the upgrades went without a hitch. Not so the first post!

Most of your access to items in the admin area are the same. But the admin links have moved into two categories. You feel lost for a moment when you go to look for Settings, Plugins, or Users. But a quick glance around quickly reorients you.

The Post page though, is different. Everything is still there, but they changed the name of a few things, hid a couple, and moved them into radically different locations. I’m not sure I’ll get used to having to scroll down to the bottom just to select the category.

It may take you a bit to find how to schedule a post also – but if you click the edit button above the Publish button, you’ll find it – it pops out.

Overall, I think WordPress is moving forward, even when some of the features they add are features I’m not quite ready to move forward with.

We’ll be upgrading to 2.5 shortly.

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Have you hear that recently? Have you SAID that recently. No one can say it SERIOUSLY now, but it is good for a laugh in the middle of a conversation.

“I blogged about that” is sort of a social statement now. So many people are blogging, that you can FEEL it even when it is not spoken. Sometimes in the middle of a meeting I can just see people making notes – and I know that some of them are not trying to remember the great points of the presentation, instead, they are taking notes for future blog topics.

And if it is a current or controversial topic, you can bet that some of the people around you are blogging about that.

Get your blog rolling. And you can blog about that.

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Everybody is blogging. In fact, more people are blogging than are reading blogs, I am sure of it. How else can you account for the fact that there are ten zillion unread blog posts out there, which have never had human eyes set on them, and which only surfaced briefly on the search engines to then drop into permanent obscurity?

It is true. And the reason it is true is because there are ten zillion BAD blog posts! It has to be good, or it won’t be read. People are too smart to bookmark bad writing. Blogging solely for the sake of promotion never works, because the person doing it gets so wrapped up in selfishness and self-promotion that they forget that their purpose is to entertain, enlighten, or instruct.

If you want to gain a following, you have to EARN it! You have to be consistent in blogging frequency, and you have to be consistent in quality. People have to LIKE you, and they won’t do that if you indulge in bad writing, or think that keyword strings and computer generated prose is an acceptable form of marketing!

Keep it smart, and enjoyable. People will read, and come back to read again. They aren’t stupid enough to settle for less!

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