WordPress Keyboard Shortcuts »

If you use WordPress for your blogging software of choice, this post is for you. TipMonkies has posted a super list of WordPress keyboard shortcuts that I will definitely be making use of. I am sure this information has been out there for a while, but it is new to me – I’m kinda slow like that . For example, to make text bold, you can always highlight the text and click on the b button in the menu OR you can just highlight the text and hit Alt+SHIFT+b. Sweet!

Alt+SHIFT+q for Blockquote – nice.

Check out TipMonkies WordPress shortcuts for more. Thanks to Wendy from Lifehacker for finding this and posting about it.

Peter Norvig Criticizes Alexa »

Peter Norvig is the director of research at Google and a post on his blog weighs in on the whole Alexa is Awesome vs. Alexa is Flawed debate.

He has published some of his web stats on his blog showing that, although his site gets about twice the pageviews of Matt Cutt’s blog, Matt’s blog has an Alexa pageview ranking that is roughly 25 times better than Norvig’s. That would seem to indicate some unreliable data, at least in terms of measuring web site traffic.

Basically, a site gets credit for an Alexa pageview ONLY when a visitor views that site through a web browser which has the Alexa Toolbar installed. Meaning, no Alexa Toolbar installed, no Alexa pageview credited. And, since the Alexa toolbar only works with Internet Explorer, that means that if most of your visitors are using Firefox (or Opera), Alexa is not giving you credit for pageviews.

In addition, we had a post a while back about how one can manipulate Alexa ranking and how that fact also really devalues its benefit as a true measure of web site traffic.

Unfortunately, many of the companies which a blogger could use to make some revenue from their blog (ie. PayPerPost, Text-Link-Ads and others) use a web site’s Alexa ranking when determining the value of an ad placed on that web site.

So, if your blog does not have a high Alexa ranking, you will not be compensated as well by advertisers, despite the fact that your ranking may not be a true representation of your web site traffic and that an Alexa ranking can be artificially inflated .

EDIT:
Dan brought out a great point in his comment and I should clarify. PayPerPost (and Text-link-ads) offer a web site’s Alexa data as a source of information for an advertiser to consider. It is up to the individual advertiser to decide how to view that information. My problem is more with the fact that the Alexa information is even used as a possible source of accurate information regarding a web site. I wish there was a better alternative .

Introducing Another Blog Writer »

Our newest blog writer is Nicholas from Alabama. Nicholas contacted me about writing for the blog and after reading his blog, I knew he would be a great asset to have on-board.

He is a young guy, but has learned a lot in his 17 years. He manages a computer business that handles all things computer related and last year he got his IC3 and Fiber Optics certification. Congratulations, Nicholas! His next goal is his CCNA (Cisco) certification and I am sure he will have that in no time.

On top of all that, he has his own blog called Techboggle so you should check that one out too.

Welcome aboard, Nicholas .

If you are interested in writing for our blog, visit our “write for us” page for all the details.

Nofollow No More – For Now Anyway »

After much discussion, we have decided to remove the “no follow” tag from comments made on the blog. Typically, spammers try to take advantage of situations like this. However, I think it is important for bloggers to encourage a thriving blog community. We decided to make this change for two reasons:

1. We use the Akismet plugin for WordPress and it does a super job of catching spam comments.
2. I felt it was important to reward those who take the time to leave a comment on the blog with a little “link-love”. Our blog is PR4 currently, so leaving a comment will give you a decent little backlink.

I hope that this works out well and that people do not take advantage of it. If we see a bunch of comments like: “Nice post!” or “I agree!”, things like that which offer nothing of benefit, we may have to bring “no follow” back.

Until then, feel free to comment and reap the rewards .

If you want to join our “link-love” community, here is the code for the button :

Yahoo Makes Search Box for Blogs »

Yahoo! released its Search Builder toward the end of last year and it was a nice option if you wanted to use something other than Google’s search box on your site.

However, it did not really fit with our blog because the box was too wide to fit in the sidebars. Yahoo had set it up so that your “custom” search box could be any size, as long as it was between 300px and 600px (yuk!). So, since I did not want some monstrous, obnoxious search box going all the way across the page, we stuck with the standard PHP search box that fit nicely in the sidebar.

Well, evidently we weren’t the only ones shying away from Yahoo’s new search box. They received enough feedback that they have now released a new size option of 200px wide. Much better. Although, I am not switching yet, you might want to give it a try. Note: you will need a Yahoo! sign-in in order to use it.