Monday was my blog’s third birthday.
Yesterday was the third anniversary of my arrival in Townsville.
Friday is the third anniversary of Cyclone and my first day at work.
I was hoping to have my 1000th post done on Friday – and I’ve got about 40 posts to go – so expect a bit of filler.
A lot has happened in my life in that time – so I have much to be thankful for. Particularly my wife.
You can now be my “friend” here via Friend connect (unless you’re a subscriber then you’ll have to actually physically visit my blog) or see if this link works.
I only really added this friend connect thing to see if it made a difference when valuing my blog. Largely because Chris’ blog is worth over $5 million and mine’s only worth $500 and I want to figure out what made the difference. Also, it’s made by Google – so it must be good right?
The valuation thing took off after Simone posted it – and most people seem to be worth much more than me, though mine is worth slightly more than hers. It seems to be based on weird factors. I think advertising space is one of them – but I’m not going to sell out with adwords here just to boost my blog’s fictional value.
One of the top ten search keywords that brings people to my blog is “Townsville Strip Clubs”. Not many of them stay. Perhaps I wasn’t what they were looking for.
If you’re here because you searched for that – skip the strip clubs and head to church for a more satisfying experience.
The funnyometer. I rate my own blog “haha”. Your thoughts?
Well, I thought I was gone for a while. But I’m back. Cause for celebration? Perhaps.
Here’s a brief summary of what happened which may be particularly useful if you’ve googled “What happened to Dedicatedhost.net.au” or dedicatedhost.net.au in order to find this post.
My previous host – the aforementioned dedicatedhost.net.au appears to have collapsed – taking client’s money and running, not returning phone calls, having emails bounce and having their own site go down in the process. And leading to a Whirpool thread and Webhostingtalk.com.au thread speculating about the reasons behind the demise.
After spending a fair bit of Friday and Saturday worrying about the hours of work I’d poured down the drain by not backing up my content regularly I had resigned myself to losing all of my content (except the stuff in Google Reader – who’s laughing at me for subscribing to my own blog now hey…). Then, a glimmer of hope, DedicatedHost.net.au shared server space with another hosting provider in Melbourne (HighTek hosting – who have been absolutely fantastic through this “ordeal”) who could access content on the box and transfer it to their plans.
Unfortunately my site wasn’t on the Melbourne servers – but HighTek Hosting were able to initiate a transfer of the content using cpanel. That’s all technical language (not completely but it’s not English either) for saying I have my site back thanks to HighTek Hosting. At a discounted rate on the basis of dedicatedhost.net.au’s stuff ups.
So I’m back. And ready to fill your feed readers or internet browsing time with all the coffee, stupid gadgets and pseudo political commentary I can produce in my spare moments at work.
That last post was number 900. This is 901. Seems like only yesterday I was pointing out number 600. 1000 should be up sometime next week. It’s probably a cause for celebration.
Simone often says the link is the ultimate blog love language. And I like her blog. I especially like commenting specifically when she’s tried to be vague about a situation I’m familiar with. This particular post questions why people blog. I put my answer there.
It went something like this:
“I blog for a few reasons – to track and log my thoughts, because I think the internet is full of crazy things that need documenting, and because I want space for my rants.
Oh, and sometimes it’s because I think I actually have something useful to say – often that’s either about PR or coffee.
My blog has an incredibly broad scope though – sometimes I think I should narrow it and have different blogs for different topics.”
So commenters – why do you blog? And if you don’t why don’t you? Do you think my scope isn’t clearly defined enough? I do have 16 categories.
If you happen to visit my site today you’ll notice I’ve finally added a “blogroll” a list of links to blogs I read. Starting with “personal blogs” from people I know in real life, or whose personal blogs I subscribe to.
Next up will be a list of links to useful sites and blogs I read. Exciting stuff. If you didn’t make the list and think you should – let me know.
The list is not ordered by anything in particular – I just added them as fast as I opened them from Google Reader.
I hit 700 posts today. That’s 100 posts in 13 days. Can I keep up this pace? Who knows? Should I keep up this pace? Probably a better question for you, my 8 loyal readers.
Well, almost. My blog was down for a while today. My hosting provider – dedicated host – had some issues switching over to a new payment system. They lost payment details and suspended my account. Apologies to anybody who has been trying to get on today…
Dedicated Host have the best customer service I’ve experienced from an online company. I emailed today at about 4.00pm notifying them of the problem and I had a response in minutes and the problem fixed very shortly thereafter. And a free month’s hosting as a sweetener. They get an A+ for customer service.
As do Coffee Dominion. My coffee machine issues were not as simply fixed as I thought last weekend. There was a leaking seal spraying water all over the control panel’s circuitry. Water and electricity don’t mix. I normally order parts online through coffeeparts.com.au – who are good. But postage for a small o-ring is expensive and the Coffee Dominion team pointed me to their local seal supplier. Who were also helpful. My machine is now up and running safely.
I isolated the power issues in my computer – my video card died a painful death at the hands of either the tropical heat or humidity. I’m not sure which. But it’s working now too. Thanks to the onboard video card.
So, now it’s just the breadmaker. Which has been almost completely dismantled. In fact, everytime I overcome one problem with it and get a little excited, I break something else in my haste. There aren’t many more pieces left to break. And I now know exactly what goes into a breadmaker. I guess that could be exciting for some people.
I’ve often mentioned my love for ninjas. This site just got more awesome thanks to “ninjafy”. You may notice a little button in the column on the left that says “ninjafy”… press it. I dare you. Be warned – ninjas are coming at you.
Is there anything that could make this site more awesome? I doubt it. The more times you press it the more ninjas you get.
While playing around with WordPress I’ve created a new account here at nathanintownsville.com – for my lovely wife. Robyn. I don’t know how often she’ll post. If ever. She said she might. But at the very least it’s nice she’s got that option.
WordPress has a widely reported glitch with third party posting software that strips angled brackets – < – these things – from incoming posts. So you didn’t get to see the photo of my spectacularly messy desk that I used in the test post before. So here it is. In all it’s glory. I can find most things on it when I need to…
Good Mark
Mark’s comment here is worth reading. It is pretty long. He hasn’t commented for a while. Welcome back to commenting Mark.
Actually, I’ve enjoyed a few of these environment discussions – thanks all of you for commenting.
I will post my next thoughts tomorrow.
March 4, 2009