Recently in Surfing Category

I spent much of yesterday upgrading all my sites with the latest release candidate 4 for Movable Type 4.2 but not without problems. Whether the problem had something to do with the upgrade or it was a hosting issue I'm not sure, but the addresses for my sites were changed somewhere along the way. I couldn't access www.juneemagic.com, only juneemagic.com would work, and mt4.juneeonline.com, which does not have the "www" in front, would only work as www.mt4.juneeonline.com, very strange indeed.

Twitter was down most of yesterday too. You may have noticed my "tweets" in the sidebar where I post little snippets of conversation. I follow other people's conversations and they can follow mine. It's stupid, I know, this social networking is one big time waster. I feel a bit like an eavesdropper, listening in on conversations. Some of it is technical, like Movable Type and Twitter Status, but most is everyday stuff: I'm in New York, or having lunch, or it's hot today. I guess it makes me feel "connected". Well I lost most of the people I was following after Twitter's outage and getting them back was a pain. It's pretty boring just to read your own posts. We're all in the same boat and whereas I was only following about 20 people, some have thousands in their lists. It's amazing that they have the time to read them all.

I think the trick is to have a topic that people are interested in (and that probably doesn't include too many personal posts), maybe have a few pay-per-click links on your site, and you too could be earning lots of money from blogging. Paula Neal Mooney has come up with a list of 60 bloggers and webmasters and annual earnings. The list would certainly have taken some research. Second on the list is a free resource site, Free Web Layouts, but they earned a whopping $1.2 million.

Marcus Frind, from Plentyoffish.com (a free dating service), is an adsense millionaire and in a year earned $3.65 million.

I have Google Adsense but am yet to receive a cheque from them (after 5 years), so I guess my first million is still a long way off.

The Webby Awards is the leading international award honoring excellence in web design, creativity, usability and functionality. They recognise outstanding web sites in 65+ categories.

The Webby People's Voice Awards is your chance to vote for the best of the Web and voting begins today and continues until May 5th. Make sure to support your favorite sites by voting now!

The 10th Annual Webby Winners and Webby People's Voice Winners will be announced on Tuesday, May 9th, 2006.

In the NetArt cagegory, Postsecret was my favourite. Of the 20-odd sites that I looked at, many of them were slow-loading and over-loaded with features like flash and images. Many were 3-column layouts. I wasn't taken with any of the entries in the Personal Website category. The list of nominations is worth a look and you'll find lots of top-name sites in the lists, but there's a few gems that are worth bookmarking. Cool Capitals, Beast Blender, Snopes, just to name a few. Google has entries in many categories and seems to be doing better than most.

I received a comment recently from someone and re-read it tonight and it took on a totally different meaning.

How whole-heartedly I agree with this lady. There are so many neat blogs out there, and we can go past them so quickly on our quest for the next one that we really don't afford the time it takes to post a comment. I fiind this especially true of the Blogger sites, I have my own at Toni's Alternate World, and when I bother to use the topbar I find some extraordinary sites that I cruise past in a second. Occasionally the site grabs me and I deign to blog about it. That's it isn't it? We deign, as in a God who controls the future of a domain. We don't find a site a second look and completely overlook it considering it beneath us to at least leave a comment. At least to say "Your site sucks".

It's annyoying on Blogger that alot of the sites are pure ad sites or scam sites (anything suss, beware!), but every three or four there'll be a site worth reading. Google is no better. I typed in "Whispered Into the Ground" and got this return:

It is a rather precise phrase. To get something back that related to "Fucking the Wind" is rather outrageous. Candle in The Wind doesn't even come close! I'm wondering whether it's even worth our while to even consider site optimisation when you get a search result like this one.

Remember...
The house with an old grandparent...
Harbours a jewel.
Master Chen Hai Yang

I found a wonderfully refreshing blog today about a woman who's recently started dating again after 14 years of marriage. Honest and funny. You might enjoy Introducing Suburbschic, and have a chuckle about the men she's met. I must be quite cynical because I got a laugh from her comments.

Adding comments to a person's post takes so little time and adds so much joy to their day. It gives many people the confidence and will to keep writing about themselves. Some sites you visit have many comments, others none. I always try to leave a comment on such sites as encouragement to keep blogging.

The Splintered Mind was one site I visited where I couldn't get over the number of comments left on his posts. The first one I read had 59 comments, the next 71, the next 81. Somebody like that doesn't need my encouragement. Very good reading though: a look at the ADHD mind and I've added him to my del.icio.us blogroll.

I have a blogspot at Blogger that I post to quite regularly. When I'm done I like to surf the blogs with the NextBlog feature. Sometimes they're pure crap but occasionally I come across something worth re-visiting.

I came across a good idea. Someone has started a blog just to advertise their house for sale. Complete with pictures and info. A beautiful house too, pity I don't have a spare half million.

A rather nice site I came across was Whispered Into the Ground by Aina~Sunali~Noquisi. Cool title, a bit similar to my own Spitting Into the Wind blog, though Aina's content is better. She(?) describes herself as a "A border walker in the esoteric dimensions of transformation & enlightenment, dreamer, and souljourner of the sweet madness of life". A good read.

Regular Dress is a site filled with trivial information. You could pick a page, any page, in an encyclopedia, take a stab with your finger, and you'd come up with the same content this guy has. Very different.

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I discovered this text image on Shaun's space at MSN

Remember...
You can't fill your belly
Painting pictures of bread.
Master Chen Hai Yang

It's like to check out other blog sites occasionally and this always turns into a very time consuming activity. I can spend hours going from one blog to another, catching their links to a new experience. It gives a bit of insight into the person when you see their lists of favourite sites. Mine must look way to technical for the average internet surfer unless they're an MT user. My sites are directed mainly to programming, css and design. Some sites I visit have vast lists of cartoon sites, or music, or whatever they're into. Some are like my own. I discovered another MT lover at Eat Drink Sleep Movable Type where you can see a fine example of flexibility of design offered by MT. There's some useful MT plugins there too that I can recommend.

The bonus tonight was my discovery of Movable Tweak. A great site for anyone wanting to "get things done with Movable Type". Just a recent site too by Jesse Gardner, who seems to have a good understanding of what's under the hood of MT. I wish I had the time to sit down and write out the steps to everything I've done to my site. It would make interesting reading. Unfortunately I have a hard enough time getting it right in my own head and some stupid mistake turns a simple thing into an all nighter.

I discovered a site where I really wished I'd thought of that! How many times have I installed MT (at least 3) and could have used a web-cam and talked myself through it, then sold the video and made money from it? Movable Type Training is just such a site. It's a one-page site by the looks. Great Idea Leonard - just wish I'd thought of it.