Blogging

Ideas for Blogging, including websites, information, and tips.

Technorati: A Blogger’s Friend or Foe?

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Technorati is a well-known website that aims to search, index, and rank the estimated 60 million blogs around the world. When a blogger starts out, your ranking on Technorati tends to be on the low side, if you have one at all. Like Alexa, the ranking is reversed: the smaller the number, the better the ranking. As you move up (like I did), the ranked number decreases as the number of links and blogs linking to your blog increase.
You can build up your ranking in several ways: by linking to blogs and by having blogs linking to yours (called inbound links):

Technorati reads all of the HTML code in a blog posting, and also tracks all of the activity around a blog or post such as inbound and outbound links.

There are a variety of ways that such links can be established: the most obvious are comments, trackbacks, blogroll links, links in posts, perhaps even text links such as ads. All of these can act to increase your ranking. Additionally, I have heard that including a blog in your favorites at Technorati and others including your blog in theirs has a positive effect, too.

So, how do you do it? Basically,

  1. comment on top bloggers postings (thanks, John Chow!),
  2. link to other articles,
  3. encourage people to link to your blog and your articles,
  4. exchange favorites in Technorati,
  5. use your Blogroll to exchange links.

There are more good strategies I found here, though they are perhaps less orthodox.

Naturally, as John Chow found out, there are ways to be banned at Technorati so avoid using blackhat techniques that may risk a hard-earned reputation! Of course, I had problems just claiming my blog, I kept getting an error every time that I tried to claim my blog. And, initially, writing a request for help took a while to solve.

A first data: Should you or shouldn’t you save yourself?

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Last week, I spent too many precious hours copying data. Geez! Every solution I have tried seems to generate more trouble. Here’s the problem: I have too many files generated over 10 years of PC use, going way back to Win3.1 on my first pc.

I have religiously copied and backed everything up since my first hard drive died nearly 10 years ago. Result: I have now tons of files, all over the place, with new versions, multiple copies of the same version, and so on. Originally I tried to place them in folders, only to discover that some folders ran so deep that the system couldn’t recognize them when moved. Others were in Chinese so that Win98 would stop copying the files reporting an error. Yikes! I had to copy everything again. I just do not have good data management habits in that respect.

And it’s not like I haven’t tried: I tried a 100MB zip drive, a CD-writer, a DVD writer, an extra hard drive (or two), and even an extra system. All of them worked (for a while), but now I’m overrun again with copies of pictures and albums, and it’s becoming a regular nightmare.

Now I’m hoping that a program called CloneSpy V2.3 will help me, but I’m not awfully positive on that point. I’m also planning to use software like SyncbackSE to store data automatically on another PC for all the computers I use. I have thought about using online storage (I like have a ton of space, courtesy of Dreamhost) as a backup…

But the one common thread that runs through everything is that each solution brought its own problems:

  • zip drive: slow, burdensome, occasionally failed outright (meaning 2 copies were needed)
  • Zip software: quick, effective, until I ended up with zips within zips within zips
  • CD burner: until I ended up with dozens of CDs and not a clue what was on them
  • DVD burner: couldn’t get it to burn a full DVD of data
  • Hard Disk: data was half copied several times due to errors
  • Another PC: copying files in another language caused undue stress.

So, I’m pleading for help. What in your opinion could be the answer to all my problems? I need some data guidance. And as I blog more, I think that will present a whole NEW dimension to my data nightmare… And I have started making videos seriously yet, either…

Comments, suggestions and general advice are most welcome!

SanDisk’s New 32-GB Flash Drive – Liberation for the Blogger?

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I recently blogged about virtualization on a USB flash drive. Little did I realize that a portable flash drive of such dimensions as SanDisk’s new Flash Drive Hard Drive replacement would become available so soon and at a price that is almost affordable.

While the dimensions aren’t huge by hard disk standards, running an OS in such a space is certainly very feasible. I’m sitting here thinking of a Damn Small Linux running on a laptop without a CD. Now on that environment, you’ve cut out two large sources of power drain. I wonder how long you could get out of the batteries, then. Not to mention, the weight and physical size of the laptop could be much thinner, I think. Or perhaps an extra battery could replace the CD-Rom/DVD burner!

I know that there are people designing such systems even as we speak, but I think for the most part, they’d have to be homegrown efforts for the time being. Still, it would be awesome, if you could get your hands on such a machine or design one yourself. Could it be the perfect blogger’s tool?!