Generating Traffic

This review of Web Juggernaut showed up when I was searching around for ways to get visitors to this blog. I'm not trying to do the whole "niche blogging" thing to make money or anything, I just want to get my ideas on software and writing shared with other people.

Which, of course, requires visitors. It seems like a fairly easy link exchanging type program. I have no idea if it works or not, but I'm still doing my research.

I know that the best method of getting traffic is to have good solid content, but that takes time to develop and I am working on that. In the meantime, what programs or methods have worked well for you?

Official Gmail Blog: New in Labs: Stop sending mail you later regret

It's late night on a Friday, you've just come back from a party, and you get the brilliant idea to send an email to an ex. Never fear, Google's Mail Goggles are here.

It's an add-on that asks math questions to verify your sobriety during designated hours. If you answer the questions correctly, the mail will be sent.

Official Gmail Blog: New in Labs: Stop sending mail you later regret

Stuff in the refrigerator

Now that we've looked at the stuff in my living room, let's wander over into the kitchen and check out the fridge.

1. Grapes: There's some other fruit in there as well (peaches, strawberries, and some pineapple). But I like the grapes, especially the seedless ones. You can just keep popping them into your mouth, one after the other after the other. Before you know it, you've eaten way more than you should have. My rating: A+
2. Milk: Combined with some chocolate chip cookies, this is my ideal after-dinner treat. Oh, and it's useful for coffee and cereal. But, really, it's all about combining it with cookies. My rating: A
3. Diet Dr. Pepper: Of all the different sodas I've tried, this is the one that tastes least like diet soda. This, of course, is important as some diet soda ends up tasting horrible reminding you that you've opted for lower calories over good taste. It also happens to be my favorite mixer with certain alcohol. My rating: A
4. Salad: I don't usually eat all that healthy. I mean, I try to. I want to. However, I happen to like the way certain foods -- usually the ones that are not good for you at all -- taste. I do like salad though, particularly simple just a simple combo of tomatoes, lettuce, and radishes. My rating: B+
5. Southern Comfort: I haven't drank Southern Comfort straight up since college, and it was the leading cause of some of my stupider decisions. I do like to, occasionally, mix it with the aforementioned Diet Dr. Pepper into a very tasty adult beverage. My rating: A+

Sunday Funnies

They're not necessarily new, but these are some strips I like.






The Order of the Stick (doesn't allow hot linking :( ).

I know, no great new findings here, but I thought it'd be nice to share to those few out there who may not actually have seen either of these strips before.

Things on my living room floor...

To continue with the theme of "Stuff in Steve's Apartment", I'm now going to survey items found in my living room. To qualify, they must in some way or another, be in contact with the floor (which, by the way, is a nice hardwood floor that just cries out for you to slide on when wearing socks).

1. Kramer electric guitar: I don't know the model number, as it was a gift from a friend when he was moving out of his ex-girlfriend's place. He didn't know how to play it very well, so he handed it off to me; not that I'm really any better at it. I know some scales, and a bunch of chords though. And I can play a mean "Bad to the Bone" and "Creeping Death". Yes, I know the songs aren't related to each other, but my musical tastes are all over the place. Rating: B+ (has an electrical fault in one of the pickups, so the sounds fades at times)

2. Yamaha FG720SL acoustic guitar: Got this one as a Christmas present. Originally a left-handed guitar, I restrung it as a right-handed guitar. I'm sure that's against some rule in the guitarist's rule book. On this I usually just exercise my knowledge of chords, and play "Horse with No Name" and/or "Wish You Were Here". I'm sure my neighbors are sick to death of those songs by now. Rating: A+

3. Peavey TKO 80 amplifier: Something else that my neighbors must really love. I try to keep the output level low. Really, I do. My daughter occasionally will play with the dials when I'm not paying attention though, and then, at some point, later I'll turn it on and it's reverb and distortion city. Rating: B+ (don't use it enough to get a higher rating)

4. La-z-boy Couch: I love this thing. The end seats recline. It's very comfortable, and I can fit on it when I lay on it and stretch out. Rating: A+

5. Dell PowerEdge 400SC: This is my web server, mail server, and FTP server. It runs Linux (an older version of Fedora actually) and a whole bunch of custom-build packages and programs. It's the outlet for my inner computer geek. Rating: A

Unlike with the stuff on my bookshelf, I didn't move these items in anyway before reviewing them -- some were too big (the couch) and others, well, moving them would have made writing this entry difficult (the Linux server).

Later in the week, I'll be reviewing stuff in my rerigerator. (I actually have to go food shopping first, as there's nothing to review at the moment.)

Horses for courses....

Many years ago, when I was still in high school, my parents bought a chunk of undeveloped land in Montana. A few years ago, they retired, bought another, smaller chunk of land in Montana. They moved out west and started up a small ranch.

My daughter spends every summer out there (yay! mini vacation for me!) and has become quite adept at riding and other ranch activities. During her trip this year, she fell off one of the mares and cut her arm up pretty good on some barbed wire fencing. She's quite alright now, and in fact brags about how tough she is when showing off the scar.

Fast forward to yesterday. My mother called and told me that my father fell off of one of the horses (a stallion aptly named Scar). He cut his head open, had to get some stitches and staples. Additionally, he had a level 2 concussion which is causing him the usual side effects of concussions (forgetfulness, nausea, problems sleeping).

So, I decided to give a plug the website for their ranch business, Peak Performance Quarter Horses. I'm involved in the hosting of the site, but had nothing to do with the design.

Anyways, godspeed on my father's recovery.

Stuff on my bookshelf

I'm picking 5 things off my living room bookshelf (ok, so they're already picked off the shelf ... I did do some footwork before I started to type this). Let's give them a quick review, shall we?

1. Diary of a Wimpy Kid: This isn't my book. Honest. My daughter loves it. She talks about it constantly, in that way that only ten years can. At her school's book fair last week, she bought the Diary of a Wimpy Kid Do-It-Yourself Book. She hasn't done anything with it, but she sure keeps talking about it. My rating: n/a. Daughter's rating: A+

2. The Light Fantastic: The first Terry Pratchett book I bought, because I had read a review of it in an old Dragon magazine. Yes, I'm that much of a geek -- no need to talk any further about it. Very funny book, as just about everyone who I've ever lent it to will insist. Skewers that highfalootin' fantasy genre, which can get a bit full of itself at times. My rating: A+

3. Another Fine Myth/Myth Conceptions 2-in1 (Myth 2-in-1): Another book I bought based off of a review I read in Dragon magazine. Yes, yes, I know. Geek. Anyway, very good stuff here, very ... uh, punny. Re-read it last year after the author, Robert Asprin, passed away. My rating: A

4. Colloquial Russian: The Complete Course for Beginners (Colloquial Series): An odd selection off the shelf. I was, at one time or another, a linguistics major in college. I picked up all sorts of language books -- German, Latin, Russian, Danish, Old English, even Sanskrit. Eventually, I wandered over into the world of computer science, where my fascination with languages continued on with books on Java, Python, C, C++, and Perl. Once a linguaphile, always a linguaphile. My rating: B+

5. The Path Into Darkness: Hey, the Web wouldn't be all about shameless self-promotion, if I didn't mention this book. Yes, I wrote it. I also have a hardcover copy of it on the shelf, but since I'm only doing quick reviews on 5 items, I choose the paperback version. I like it. Hell, if I didn't like it, I wouldn't have finished writing it, re-reading it, and editing it. It's self-published, which I know some people dislike, but there's a very good reason for that -- but I'm not goind to tell y'all what that is. My rating: A-. (Ha! You expected me to give myself an A+, didn't you? C'mon, fess up...)

Well, there you go ... 5 items off the shelf, reviewed, and then they'll be going back onto the shelf a few minutes after I click on the "Publish Post" button.

Stay tuned for another riveting chapter in "Stuff In Steve's Apartment" continues...

Rider-Waite tarot card images

Hmm...just noticed that the images used on Wikipedia are from the original deck, which is in the public domain. Which is useful, since I want to use them as part of a book cover, and now I don't have to pay royalties or seek permissions.

Happy day.