Author: Jeffro

Jeffrohttp://jeffc.meEnjoy writing about, talking about, and helping others with WordPress
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First Interview At BloggerTalks

I published my first interview today over at BloggerTalks.com and the lucky recipient of my interview questions was Christina Warren. As you read the interview, take note how she became involved in the blogging scene. I find it particularly interesting that she received a position at USA Today based on her comments alone. I wonder if it is still possible in this day in age to get a writing position based on your comments.

Taking Over For BloggerTalks

BloggerTalks logo

Thord Hedengren who did a wonderful job with BloggerTalks.com, a blog exclusively focusing on interviews with other bloggers has moved on to greener pastures. Guess who has taken his place? Me.

Each week will feature a new interview. These interviews will mostly be text based but don’t be surprised to see an audio interview mixed in as well. This is a cool position for me because I enjoy interviewing people as I treat interviews as one on one opportunities to learn. I’m a curious guy who always has a series of questions to ask and although mainstream media loves to ask softball type questions, I’ll ask any question I see fit.

So far, I am making an average of $1,200 – $1,400 per month of blogging income. This is almost as much as I made working full time at the grocery store with the exception that the grocery store provided medical benefits. Something bloggers don’t tend to get unless you work for a major blogging network or corporation.

Starting November 1st, I’ll be working weekends only at the grocery store and will be using the time during the week to pump out content on the sites I write for and try to make even more money in this game known as blogging.

NOAA Implements Google Maps To Forecast Pages

I’m a weather junkie, no doubt about it. However, I was surprised to see that NOAA has implemented Google Maps into their point forecast pages. Typically, the map would display a plain image with county lines and various cities. Clicking on the exact location of where you live for your specific forecast was a trivial process of trial and error. Now however, users can zoom into the map, pan the map around, see a highlighted section of the map which describes the forecast area, and download the data in a KML file.

New Google Point Forecast

The Weather Channel website has had an implementation of Google Maps along with radar data for quite some time but I always find the page to load slowly, especially during an animated radar sequence. Although NOAA has not gone that far with regards to local radar images, the new iteration of selecting point forecasts in relation to where you live is a vast improvement.

Here is what the old point forecast used to look like and still does for those sites who have yet to be upgraded.

Old forecast Point Graphics

Steve Hodson FTW

Note: This is an entry to the blogging challenge of the week created by Perfcast. This week, the challenge was to link to your favorite blogger in a post about why you like their blog or the blogger themselves.

This challenge was an easy one for me because the blogger featured in this post is Steve Hodson. The reasons why I like the guy and his work are pretty simple, he keeps it real. Steve describes himself as a cranky old fart that wanders the internet causing mayhem as he goes. The difference between him and other cranks is that, he his hilarious in the way in which he breaks things down. Just listen to a few archived episodes of the L33t tech news podcast which unfortunately, seems to have bit the dust. While most tech bloggers have their heads a mile up silicon valleys ass, Steve keeps a level headed approach with his opinions and rarely does he ever need a reality check.

His content is thought provoking and WinExtra is one of the few blogs that consistently pushes me to the point of wanting to write an article to either combat or agree with his line of thoughts.

While many people participated in BlogActionDay to raise awareness about Poverty, check out this raw post by Steve which in my opinion, truly showcases Steve’s no BS talents.

At any rate, Steve Hodson is someone I admire and I’ll admit, I’m his number 1 fan unless someone else has already claimed that title. Be sure to check out WinExtra.com and read over some of his work. I guarantee you it will at least make you think.

You've Got Two Minutes

To guess as many TV shows as you can. Only those that are registered within the LocateTV Database will be counted. For those interested, here is how I did:

How many TV shows can you name in two minutes?

Find TV Shows at LocateTV

I don’t watch much if any Television anymore. Most of the programs I named are based on my parents television viewing. Damn, wish I would of had time to add Seinfeld!

For those who are not sure what LocateTV is all about, check out my in-depth review of them I wrote on August 30th, 2007.

Twitter Looking To Hire Spam Engineer

The other day, I noticed Ev Williams who is the co-founder of Twitter, send out a Tweet mentioning that the company was looking to hire a spam engineer. Imagine how much it would suck if the job title was rearranged to engineer spam. Of course, there are already plenty of people/bots that have fulfilled that role. At any rate, I hope the position is filled quickly so I can stop receiving followers such as this one.

Twitter Spam Lady

Despite the half way decent looking avatar, this lady has earned a spot on the blocked list.

Woopra To Close Beta Registrations

A post published by John P. over on the Woopra blog is stating that Woopra will be shutting down beta registrations once they reach 50,000 monitored websites. As of October 8th, Woopra was monitoring 45,000 websites. Once registration is closed, there is a possibility that the media will blow in response but John gives a series of explanations as to the reasoning behind the move.

  • A 50,000 site “beta” is certainly a big enough sample to work through bugs and take suggestions.
  • We have a number of projects underway that we need to turn our attentions to temporarily and this will allow us to focus on core improvements as opposed to continual expansion.
  • We continue to hear from the community that you’d like more personalized attention, and pausing the site additions will ensure against further dilution of our current limited resources.

Once the Woopra team gets their ducks in a row, they will replace their site approval system with a personal invitation system in which current Woopra users will be able to send invitations to friends and family. Woopra was unofficially announced back at WordCamp Dallas about six months ago and since then, the sky has been the limit for the amount of success and growth that Woopra has experienced. Keep it up John!