Alexa has long had a toolbar available for Internet Explorer. However, when it came to Firefox, almost no direct support was available, and so several enterprising individuals created toolbars themselves for Firefox. These solutions were usually to be found at Mozilla in the extensions section.

Now, however, Alexa’s got Sparky. To get this, simply open this page in Firefox and you’re taken straight to the plugin. Its webpage cites:

* Related Links: Find sites that are similar to the one you are currently visiting.
* Traffic Trend: A sparkline showing the traffic trend from the last four months.
* Reach Meter: A neat little indicator that shows the site’s Reach.
* Traffic Rank: Shows the current site’s Alexa Traffic Rank.

Once installed, it can be found in the bottom of the right hand side of your browser screen.

Clicking on the ‘a’ in the middle of the bar brings up a list of options for the extension.

I don’t know exactly how it compares to the IE Toolbar, but you can find that out for yourself. For FF users, though, it represents an improvement over Alexa’s previous support! Let’s see what happens.

CashQuests and John Chow have been discussing whether to shut off comments on their blogs. Click on the links to see what arguments they make:Kumiko says:

• RSS subscribers will increase.
• There will be more incoming links.
• Better relationships will be built.
• Every page will convert better.
• Search engine traffic will increase.
• Posts will be more viral.
• Review orders will increase.
• Less time will be spent deleting spam.
• Productivity will increase.

John replies:

• Your No. 1 Communication Tool With Your Readership.
• A Blog Without Comments Isn’t A Blog.
• Without Comments, Your RSS Readers Have Very Little Reason To Visit.
• User Generated Content Means Less Work for You.
• A Blog Is A Community.
• Comments Enhance The Value of a Review.
• It Doesn’t Take That Long To Read Comments.
• Getting Comments Is Very Rewarding

It is an interesting debate. I would encourage you all to visit both of these blogs to find out their full points of views. Both make good points.

In general, I’m in favor of comments on most of my posts, but not on my pages. I think that I tend to agree with most of John’s points, though I don’t doubt Kumiko’s points: comments do require additional effort and time managing both the expected comments and the unexpected issues that arise. But having read through a number of blogs and many of the comments: a lot of comments just aren’t worth the bother. Most reiterate main points of the article without adding anything new, or are compliments without furthering the discussion much.

How do you manage your comments? Do you leave a lot of comments or not? Do you like to read other people’s comments?

I sat down to blog, and I looked in my publish queue to see if there was anything I wanted to work on. Unfortunately, the publish cupboard was bare. I didn’t know what to do because I like publishing on my blog, and I like to have a daily record of at least two published posts. Often I will do a backlog before I complete the current assignment, because I have gotten behind. I find that I tend to blog better when I have the ‘mood’. However, this ‘mood’ can be dangerous. And today, I needed it but it had gone on holiday.

Where was I going to find some ideas? Well, I started looking in the news at Google News for ideas, and I found something about Mars that had tweaked my interest. I was able to match that with a Mars panorama. Boom! A post was born.

Then I read through Google Reader’s feeds, but so many posts were talking numbers that I didn’t find it enticing at all today to talk about $, % or #. But still, you never know when your subscribed feeds may provide something really juicy.

Also, you can check out other types of media, such YouTube for ideas. Though many of the videos are quite silly, you can surely find something to get your blogging juices started!

Many people suggest checking the articles at sites like ArticleBase or ArticleCity for ideas. However, I have not found that helpful, as many of the articles just remind me of the things I don’t want to write about. But it’s worth a thought, if you’re really stuck.

The last way I can think of is just to start writing something. In fact, my blog is full of drafts that were begun this way. So sometimes I can begin something with a few words or more, and then save it for a time when I have a clearer idea of how to finish it. Other times I can open a post that has been begun in this way, and add or edit it as necessary so that it is fit for publication. This tactic separates the ideation and editing process and thus makes blogging successfully much easier.

There are many ways to find great ideas about how to blog, but I’ll just highlight five ways. How have you overcome blogger’s block? What techniques work for you?