I received an email today letting me know that CLIQ has completed the overhaul on their reporting system. The new reporting system focuses on the flow of visitors between blogs and CLIQs. You’ll be able to find the new report page by clicking on the “Who’s CLIQin?” link on the dashboard page.
As you can see, since I’ve installed the widget on this blog, I have had 2,521 views. I’ve sent Brad 2 clicks, he has sent me 1. I have sent Mike 1 click and he has sent me none.
Let’s take a look at who is leading my CLIQ.
Mike is leading the CLIQ with 80 views. Must be those videos he’s been posting. I’m in second place while Brad is currently in third place with 48 views. The views are the number of times that particular headline has been displayed on the widget.
If you are currently managing your CLIQ, be sure to read the mini guide for the reports area. The mini guide gives a good explanation as to what is being reported and what everything means.
As it stands, I currently have my own CLIQ. If your blog covers the topics of SEO, Web 2.0, Blogging or WordPress related material, and your a registered user of CLIQin.com, you’re welcome to request an invite to join the group.
If your a statistics junky, I’m sure you’ll love this plugin called WassUp. WassUp is like WordPress Live which I wrote about here ( WordPress Real Time Browsing Stats ) except WassUp kicks it up about 5 notches. WassUp tracks your visitors in real-time as well as providing a wealth of information about those particular visitors. Information such as:
ip / hostname
referer
spider
search engines used (includes Google Images)
keywords
SERP (search engine result page)
operating system / language / browser
pages viewed (chronologically and per user session)
complete user agent
name of user logged in
name of comment’s author
top ten charts with aggregate data (top queries, requests, os, browsers)
Because of the amount of information available for archiving, database size can be an issue. This plugin solves those issues by giving you different options as to when to delete older records. WassUp is not intended to replace statistical information programs such as AWStats or Google Analytics but it does provide an informative view into what individuals are doing on your site. This is great for SEO purposes or just general knowledge of how visitors are using your site.
To download and learn more about this plugin, visit the official Wassup Plugin Page.
James Mowery of TechInDemand.com got in touch with me a few weeks ago and wondered which plugin sites like Engadget and Autoblogs were using that allowed for comment rating. I digged into the source code for those websites and couldn’t figure it out. Today, I have finally discovered which plugin those guys are using and figured I would share it here.
Its called, Comment Karma. Comment Karma is a plugin you can use to allow your visitors to rate each others comments. Like Digg, you can click a thumbs up or thumbs down icon which will give that comment either a positive or negative number.
This plugin was created in 2006 so I’m not sure how it will work with WordPress 2.3 but it’s worth a shot. One thing worth noting is that, the rating cache is set to 120 seconds.
If you’re using WP-Cache or similar the icons will not show up gray, nor will the numbers be updated if you reload the page until the page expires. However if a user votes again it will throw them an error. I’ve worked around this by setting the cache for 120 seconds. That way the server doesn’t get hammered with SQL queries, but you still see the comments being moderated in almost real time.
There is a similar service in SezWho, but by using this plugin, you can keep the comment ratings local to your WordPress install which may improve loading times for your site. I may install this plugin in place of SezWho just for that reason alone. If you’re interested in using this plugin, check out the official Comment Karma plugin page for directions on how to install it into your blog.
Here is a list of 20 blogging terms with their supposed definitions. I’ve never seen most of these terms used which is why they qualify as weird to me. Let me know if you recognize any of these terms and be sure to add on to the list in the commenting area.
Weborexic – Referring to tiny (width-wise) layouts. Coined by Rhiannon Phillips.
instalanche – Sudden and possibly overwhelming increase in traffic to a site after being linked to by the Instapundit
K-log – aka “knowledge log”, a type of blog usually used by knowledge workers and posted on a company intranet for sharing company knowledge.
Gulog – A portmanteau of “gulag” and “blog”. Used when a blog is so dismal and depressing, it’s as if it were written in a Soviet labour camp.
Glog – A first-person recording of an activity, in which the person doing the recording is a participant in the activity. Probably a portmanteau of “gonzo” and “blog”.
Blooger – A blogger who exhibits adolescent tendencies and lacks basic social graces or good manners. A portmanteau of “blog” and “booger.”
Blistless or B-listless – When a blogger becomes listless or apathetic about posting. It is also indicative of what will happen to the blogger’s mailing list.
Bleg – A blog entry consisting of a request to the readers, such as for information or contributions. A portmanteau of “blog” and “beg”. Also called “Lazyweb.”
Biblioblogosphere – A humorous reference to the world of librarian blogging
Fisking – To rebut a blog entry in a line-by-line fashion.
Phlog – Type of blog utilising the Gopher protocol instead of HTTP
Scribosphere – Term to encompass blogs written by professional and aspiring screenwriters. A portmanteau of “scribe” and “blogosphere”.
Svithe – A spiritually themed post on a blog not normally focused on spiritual matters.
Vorage – A marriage between the words forage and video defined as “The act of foraging for video on the internet and sharing it with others.” Bloggers or vloggers who share streaming or downloaded video content on the web often engage in voraging, scouring search engines and obscure websites to present a curated collection of videos that usually fall within a set theme or editorial perspective.
Blogorrhea – A portmanteau of “blog” and “logorrhea”, meaning excessive and/or incoherent talkativeness in a weblog.
Which one correctly identifies our role in the universe? First let’s see the basis behind each principle.
The Copernican principle states that there is nothing special about our place in the universe. So far, every astronomical discovery seems to vindicate this point of view. Not only did Copernicus banish Earth from the center of the universe, Hubble displaced the entire Milky Way galaxy from the center of the universe, giving us instead an expanding universe of billions of galaxies. The recent discovery of dark matter and dark energy underscores the fact that the higher chemical elements that make up our bodies comprise only of 0.03 percent of the total matter/energy content of the universe. With the inflation theory, we must contemplate the fact that the visible universe is like a grain of sand embedded in a much larger, flat universe, and that this universe itself may be constantly sprouting new universes.
But at the other end we have the Anthropic Principle, which makes us realize that a miraculous set of “accidents” makes consciousness possible in this three-dimensional universe of ours. There is a ridiculously narrow band of parameters that makes intelligent life a reality, and we happen to thrive in this band. The stability of the proton, the size of the stars, the existence of higher elements, and so on, all seem to be finely tuned to allow for complex forms of life and consciousness. One can debate whether this fortuitous circumstance is one of design or accident, but no one can dispute the intricate tuning necessary to make us possible.
We often fail to appreciate how precious life and consciousness really are. We forget something as simple as liquid water is one of the most precious substances in the universe, that only Earth (and perhaps Europa, a moon of Jupiter) has liquid water in any quantity in the solar system, perhaps even in this sector of the galaxy. It is also likely that the human brain is the most complex object nature has created in the solar system, perhaps out to the nearest star. When we view the vivid pictures of the lifeless terrain of Mars or Venus, we are struck by the fact that those surfaces are totally barren of cities and lights or even complex organic chemicals of life. Countless worlds exist in deep space devoid of life, much less of intelligence. It should make us appreciate how delicate life is, and what a miracle it is that it flourishes on Earth.
The Copernican Principle and the Anthropic Principle are in some sense opposite perspectives which bracket the extremes of our existence and help us to understand our true role in the universe. While the Copernican principle forces us to confront the sheer enormity of the universe, and perhaps the multiverse, the anthropic principle forces us to realize how rare life and consciousness really are.
This explanation of these two principles was written by world renown physicist Michio Kaku on pages 347-349 in his latest book Parallel Worlds. Parallel Worlds explores our cosmos, black holes, time machines, multidimensional space and, the possibility that parallel universes may lie alongside our own. A very interesting and intriguing book to say the least.
However I must warn you that this book places a heavy emphasis on physics terms so if your not into physics this book may not be for you. I also recommend his other books as well HyperSpace and Visions as these two are well written, easy reading books that really make you open your eyes and mind to the enormous possibilities of our existence and what may lie ahead.
After reading about each principle and giving it some thought, please leave a comment that describes which one you believe in more.
I received an email this morning from BlogRush letting me know that my blog had passed their strict guidelines. However, 10,000 blogs apparently didn’t get approved and among those that weren’t approved were valid blogs that were following the guidelines without any problems. Some of those blog authors that owned a valid blog that was removed from the BlogRush service have published rants against the service and John Reese himself.
After reading quite a few of these rants on various blogs and reading the responses of John Reese, it would appear as though that most of what was complained about is not true. First of all, if your blog fails to pass the strict guidelines by BlogRush, your account is moved into an InActive state which is considerably different than being banned.
Secondly, it has to said that the blogs were reviewed by humans. There are going to be mistakes made and each human being may interpret something differently than the next. This is apparent because John Reese himself has commented on various blogs that were deemed InActive when in reality, that particular blog was following the guidelines.
It is really easy to jump on a THIS COMPANY SUCKS bandwagon but come on, put a little sense into your post and stop jumping to conclusions before the real story unveils itself. I believe the best example of how this situation was handled correctly was by LocalSEOGuide. Although the post content is questionable, the way Andrew handled it in his comments section with John Reese is a good example of how to solve the situation. Believe it or not, Andrew mistyped his BlogURL which came up as “locaseoguide.com” which when reviewed, the site wouldn’t load causing the reviewer to mark his site as inactive.
Just remember something people, nothing is usually as it seems.
As for myself, my blog passed the guidelines but I have since removed the widget from this site. I am now a fond supporter of CLIQ which I reviewed here ( Share Blog Traffic Via CLIQ ) and I go into detail as to why it may one day kill BlogRush here ( Why CLIQ May Kill BlogRush ) Calm down bloggers, being InActive on BlogRush is not the end of the world.
My girlfriend and I have started up a new tradition. Each year, we try to determine the best date to go out for a Fall picnic. This is no ordinary picnic. This particular one included steak, home made pumpkin pie, cheesy scallop potatoes and Hawaiian rolls. The weather forecast for Monday was perfect. A high temperature near 75 degrees with a calm wind, mostly sunny with increasing clouds during the day.
After working my usual 9PM-5AM shift, I hit the sack at about 6 AM. Woke up at noon, prepared the materials we needed and headed out the door at 1. Picked up the girl at a quarter after 1 then proceeded to stop at BP to gas up, buy a 20oz of Mountain Dew and clean the windshield. That is pretty much my routine anytime I take a decent road trip. We were on the road by 1:30PM but our plans had changed.
I received a phone call from a buddy of mine who spent the night at Salt Fork State Park. He told me about all of the muzzle loaded hunters that were in the area. After checking the park map, sure enough, just about the entire park was considered public hunting land. Because I didn’t want it to be my last day alive as I know someone out their would probably mistake us for deer, I decided to take the girl to Wayne National Forest which is where I do my Bigfoot related research, hike and occasionally camp.
It took us three hours to finally arrive at the location. As soon as we unpacked the car, I poured a quarter bag of charcoal onto the grill. Because the bag became empty, I threw the empty bag on top of the charcoal to help get the fire going. This was my first mistake. My girlfriend and I decided to do a bit of hiking as it was getting a bit late in the afternoon and the charcoal needed to burn through it’s surface layer before it would be ready to cook anything.
We went off on our hike and took some wonderful photos which I’ll link to in a little bit. After about a half hour of hiking, we decided to head back to camp. As we were retreating back to the car, it started to rain. The rain was not expected to be in the area until late evening, so it was rather disappointing that we traveled over 150 miles just to be in the rain.
When we returned to the grill, I noticed that my first mistake of putting the empty charcoal bag on top of the charcoal had diminished the effects of the charcoal. As it the rain started to come down a bit more heavily, I decided to throw the steaks on the grill anyway as I didn’t think they would take that long to cook. Unfortunately, there wasn’t enough heat to properly cook the steaks and the rain just kept coming down. Thinking how much of a drag this entire situation had become, my girlfriend and I finally decided to leave the steaks on the grill and ditch them. She ended up tossing out the scallop potatoes she made and all that was left were 4 rolls and a pumpkin pie.
We decided to head to a McDonalds that I swear has the best food out of any of the establishments I’ve been to. If your ever in Woodsfield Ohio, stop by their McDonalds. Every time I’ve gone into that particular restaurant, they have made the food fresh, as you order it. I think thats the difference. At any rate, on the way home, the rain continued to come down. I almost hit 5 different deer and some idiot household let their dog loose which decided to run at and chase my car, forcing me to slam on my brakes because I thought I was going to hit him. I’m glad I didn’t.
Over 350 miles were driven for a hike of about 45 minutes, a ruined picnic, and unexpected, wrongfully predicted rain. Not all was lost. I managed to grab two videos. One of me driving down Interstate 77 South and the other from within Wayne National Forest. I also managed to grab quite a few foliage photographs from the area. That was one of the major reasons of driving this far down south as the trees are plentiful, filled with a variety of colors. My girlfriend and I had a chance to spend some quality time together, although most of it was within the confines of a car. My car was washed and I nabbed some good photos. Things turned out alright in the end!
Click any of the images to see a larger size.
Click here to see a slide show of this particular photo set.
Tells me which magazine, Jeffro2pt0.com was sort of but not quite featured. The article in question was highlighting a particular web site/service. To compliment the text, there was a small screenshot of the front page of this particular web site. That website actually had a banner that displayed JEFFRO2pt0 on their front page. So in essence, I was sort of but not really featured in a magazine.
The first person who tells me, which magazine along with the site they wrote about in the article will receive $10.00 via PayPal. If you are the first one to provide a photograph or screenshot depicting the article and associated screenshot, I will send $15.00 your way via PayPal.
Let the games begin!
If you have any questions regarding this little contest, leave them in the commenting area.
In a previous post I mentioned that I would highlight a plugin that enables avatars from both MyBlogLog and Gravatar to be displayed at the same time. That plugin is called MyAvatars MyAvatars displays avatar images from MyBlogLog and Gravatar yet, Gravatar support is not enabled by default. Among the obvious, MyAvatar sports the following features:
Added nofollow for avatars (from 0.2b)
“No image bug” solved (from 0.2b)
Title attribute for avatars in english (from 0.2b)
“Big images” bug fixed (from 0.2a)
Improved XHTML validation (but we still use onload=””) (from 0.2)
Gravatar support (not active by default) (from 0.2)
Trackbacks/Pingback support (Works good, but it’s not perfect) (from 0.2)
Support for blogs with more than 1 author, works very well (from 0.2)
Separated CSS Style (from 0.2)
Email address is now safe!!! (from 0.2)
Customizable title for the avatars (from 0.2)
Gets MyBlogLog avatars of your commenters
Links directly to their MyBlogLog profiles
Easy installation & template integration
Added email support for retrieving profiles (from 0.1a)
If not MyBlogLog member will prompt the registration page (from 0.1a)
I believe everyone’s comments.php file is different but here is a screenshot depicting where I have placed the MyAvatar function.
I’m not sure what impact the recent acquisition of Gravatar will hold for this plugin but so far, everything still appears to be working normally. One of the cool aspects of this plugin is that, if WordPress integrates Gravatar support within the WP core, you can turn Gravatar support off so it only displays MyBlogLog avatars. This will allow you to keep the functionality of displaying avatars from both services.
Yesterday, I was greeted by a FedEx man who handed me a package that contained my complimentary StartUpSchwag that I wrote about back in September. ( From ValleySchwag To StartupSchwag ) Inside the package: one yellow squishy star, one CAKE sticker, one ChicagoProps.com sticker and of course, my very own Michael Arrington approved TechCrunch T-Shirt.
The shirt I received was a large TechCrunch colored green T-Shirt made out of 100% Cotton. The brand name of TechCrunch was printed on the chest part of the shirt in a combination of white and black letters on a green background. The quality appears to be top notch but I’ll have a better understanding after I wash it a few times as a washer can wreak havoc on a new T-Shirt. Personally, I think this T-Shirt would look wonderful on Tim, but I’m sure he would find other uses for it.
If you were thinking about paying the subscription to receive such items from a surprise company each month, I’d say it’s worth it. The worst that could happen is that you ONLY receive a Tshirt. That’s ok, because that is pretty much what your paying for to begin with. Everything else is just complimentary.
Below is a small video review of the schwag I received. It’s not much but I think its better than nothing. Also posted below are a few photos I took. Click on any of the photos to see a larger size.
Because of the amount of information available for archiving, database size can be an issue. This plugin solves those issues by giving you different options as to when to delete older records. WassUp is not intended to replace statistical information programs such as AWStats or Google Analytics but it does provide an informative view into what individuals are doing on your site. This is great for SEO purposes or just general knowledge of how visitors are using your site.
In a previous post I mentioned that I would highlight a plugin that enables avatars from both MyBlogLog and Gravatar to be displayed at the same time. That plugin is called 
(from 0.2b)
Thoughts and Insanity From Jeff 