State of the Blog

On the first of August, this humble blog rose from the ashes, abandoned by Google and by myself.  I installed WordPress into my hosted domain. and a whole new world of blogging was opened to me. What is great about WordPress is that it works and looks great right out of the box using the default Twenty Ten theme other themes are available, but the default theme is flexible enough and is very suitable for my purposes.  I added some widgets removed some inserted an appropriate header image.  Blog looks pretty good. A lot easier to make modern and nice looking than Blogger was.

I found that WordPress has some great features that I’m only just learning to appreciate.

• Comments: are threaded, one can reply to another comment rather than just having a string of them in a line. This makes the site much more interactive and dynamic.
• Stats and Spam control: Automatic Spam filtering and management along with The ability to see the hits and page views, along with the referrers helps me build the site and learn what articles are most popular. Spam controls and the somewhat automatic moderation. make upkeep of the blog real easy. I can concentrate on postings and following real comments.
• Easy bloglink control makes it real easy to edit links without hard coding them in .  It is  frustrating  while surfing blogs to find that so many have gone dormant. as well as the links. This makes it easier to keep the bloglinks up to date.
• Speed: because posting doesn’t involve going through an intermediate service posting especially with images is remarkably fast. Automatic Draft save is pretty quick too.
• Features undiscovered: Seems like every time I tear into this thing I find something new.
• RSS feeds work real smoothly, this is the best way to keep up with current posts.

So far I keep the blog ad free, I’m not looking to make money off my entertainment and I don’t want to face my blog as though it is a job. I have one already. I’ve noticed that once one accepts money from advertisers it can effect the posts. Maybe someday, but for now it doesn’t cost me much, I think my hosting/domain fees are paid up until 2014 so its not like I need it to pay the bills, and it keeps anyone from calling me a business.

What I will do in the future is to work to increase our visibility through the blogosphere. I want to create and install a unique collage for the banner. Get my favicon working and collect lots of postings and comments.  I intend on keeping discussions friendly and informative.  Its OK to differ with my opinion or other commentors, just be civil. The elections are comming up and the Texas Legislature will meet for the biannual free for all shortly after.

We have come a long way since this phoenix has poked its head out from the pyres, we have further to go until we have a the blog in the condition we would like. Please stay tuned. I think you will like what we will have to offer.