Okay, I had a particularly bad day of both comment spam and Trackback spam. Some idiot also decided to favor this blog with an executable called "I-blog.exe" set in one of the links. Lovely.

So as of now I'm going to switch to registration mode for comments instead of anonymous to help prevent a field day of spamming my blog. Got a few folks going willy-nilly on my blog with spam here lately. Time costs have been getting rather high with cleaning up spam. Sure, allowing anonymous comments makes me especially open to attack but registration can be viewed as a layer of effort that may discourage others from commenting simply because of time, convenience or anonymity issues.

Well from this point on anyone who truly desires to comment will take the few moments or seconds to register and contribute. I do the same on other blogs myself when I want to truly contribute...   more »

Okay, no blog is a good blog if it doesn't have traffic right? Well not exactly you can have a great blog that doesn't get traffic. The point is that you need to have a strategy for getting traffic to that awesome blog of yours. So I'm going to talk about generating traffic to your blog. There are few things you need to consider when are thinking about generating traffic to your blog and these aren't any different than if you were planning for a regular web site.

The exception is that blogs will generate traffic much quicker. I didn't say A LOT of traffic much quicker. Just much quicker. You need to consider your target audience and from where you are generating your traffic.

Blogs can do can do anything a regular web site will do, they just do it faster and they do it better. Let's get right into it shall we?   more »

I'm a little behind in publishing my Blogging 101 series. I'm an IT Systems Engineer by day and the end of the year is a very, very busy time of year for my company believe it or not. It's been eating into my publishing schedule the last few days.

So I will pick up the series in several more hours yet but it's coming. My series has been well recieved and I appreciate everyone's interest and support!

There a lot more how to blogging stuff the come!

In the mean time I thought I'd jot down some basics as a recap for newbies while following shortly with the How To Blog 101 series How To Blog 105 on Blog Promotion and How To Blog 106 Blogging For A Living.

Enjoy!

Well, let me start by saying that blogging is "HOT" ...   more »

Welcome to lesson four in our series on Blogging Basics. I How To Blog 103 you learning about several important features the seperate blogs from regular websites. You also learned about blogging tools and how they can aid you in the publishing process.

Let's turn our attention now to actually publishing your first article or item. Let's start first though with a few basic guidelines that will make your articles more effective for your readers much loved by the search engines and respected in the blogosphere.

Before you can publish an article you first have to select a blog software tool to publish with. I recommend signing with TypePad first and then BlogHarbor (the company that hosts this blog)

Cost:

TypePad Price Plans:
Basic $4.95/50MB diskspace monthly
Plus $8.95/100MB diskspace monthly
Pro $14.95/200MB diskspace monthy

TypePad's blog hosting service offers ...   more »

I'm half way through the Blogging 101 series and I'm considering doing a few video tutorials to enchance the series or perhaps as a follow up in the form of an intermediate series with videos showing more specifics tasks. The Blogging 101 series is basic coverage of blogging fundementals for layman.

Hmmmm.....   more »

In part one of How To Blog 103, I discussed what a blog is and how a blog differs from a standard or regular web site.

You learned that a blog and a web site are similar because they generally appear to be the same in form. They both allow you put content on the Internet in the form of a web page using HTML and read with a web browser.

But you also learned that blogs are distinctly different from a standard web site in several different ways. You learned about some features that are unique to blogs and make blogs an ideal tool for publishing content to the web.

In this second and final part to How To Blog 103 I'll discuss specific blog software tools, and I will conclud with a link to my growing list ...   more »

In How To Blog 102 , the previous installment of this series you learned some basic essentials for planning your blog.

You learned about a few different types of bloggers plus different types of blogging styles. You learned a few pros and cons as well about the blog I.R.S factors.

I want to now discuss how to choose the right blog software tools for your blogging efforts. This lesson will be a two-part lesson because I want to cover some features that set blogs apart for regular web sites. Then I'll cover the remaining topic of evaluating blog software tools.

Blog Software Defined
Blog software is any software that allows you to blog. Now that may a bit like over stating the obvious but let's examine this for a minute. There are certainly characteristics that are unique to blogs and some features that some would ...   more »

Let’s cover some basic essentials to planning and publishing your blog. I will classify 3 categories of bloggers in this lesson. There are many more “types” of blogs that may fall into one of the 3 categories and these categories themselves are not all inclusive.

These categories are:

• Personal Bloggers
• Organizational Bloggers
• Business Bloggers

Personal bloggers tend to publish articles that voice their opinion on a wide array of topics and events. Personal bloggers typically find pleasure in documenting their personal lives, ranting, stream of consciousness type entries reflecting moods and mind sets and publishing a variety of themes or interests.

Organizational bloggers use blogs to communicate both internally within their organizations but they also may communicate externally with the public as well. An organizational blog will facilitate internal communications between colleagues, employees and other organizational personnel. An organizational blog ...   more »

How To Blog 101 - What is Blogging and Why Should I Blog?

In this article your will learn what blogging really is and why you should start blogging. Unless you've been comletely internet free for the past several months to a year, you have probably heard about these "blog" sites but you may not know what a blog is. Or perhaps you know what a blog is but you want to learn more about how blogs are being used and if blogging is something you could benefit from. In this article you will learn exactly what blogging is and what blogging is not and why you should or should not start blogging.

I will attempt to dymistify the definition of blogging if you absolutely aren't quite sure what a blog really is. A blog is generally defined as an online journal that is updated frequently and where your articles are listed in reverse chronological order when they are published. That means your articles are published with the most recent article listed first in date and time order.

What Is A Blog?
The term "blog" is derived from the term "Weblog" or web log. In the early days of blogging circa mid to late 1990's, web logs were used to track updates and references to other resources on the internet. Weblogs, as journals were also used as a stream of consciousness publishing tool where you could share and comment on anything and everything under the sun. As a results and to this day, there are lots of blogs that publish opinionated commentary as diverse in tone as there are a diversity of topics to talk about.

A blog is technically a content management system (CMS) albeit a more simplified version of one. A CMS allows you to easily publish to a website and manage content without having to deal with having to know how to program code. Blog publishing software provides you with a graphical user interface (GUI) for point and click publishing of your content. Your blog software will require you to perform intial easy-to-do setup and configuration so that it will know how to automically organize your published content in the future. After that, you can publish quickly and instantly using your blog software editor that is built into your blog publishing software.    more »

Okay, I'm going to write a series of "Getting Started..." articles on how to blog. This will be a review of fundamentals and here is what will be covered.

How To Blog 101 - What is Blogging and Why Should I Blog?

In this article your will learn what blogging really is and why you should start blogging. Unless you've been comletely internet free for the past several months, you have probably heard about these "blog" sites but you may not know what a blog is. Or perhaps you know what a blog is but you want to learn more about how blogs are being used and if blogging is something you could benefit from. In this article you will learn exactly what blogging is and what blogging is not and why you should or should not start blogging.


How To Blog 102 - Planning Your Blog

In this article you will learn a few basic essentials to planning and publishing a blog. You learn about different types of blogs and how to determine your own personal blogging style for the highest level of enjoyment when you start blogging. Properly planning your blog is critical to supporting your long term personal success with your blog. I will help you understand the pro's and con's of starting your blog and how to make sure you will be successful as a blog publisher.

How To Blog 103 - Choosing the Right Blogging Tools and Software

In this article you will learn about several available software tools that will allow you to start blogging quickly and easily. There is a huge list of blog software available and the lists seems to grow daily. This article will discuss a handful of tools that I've found useful. You will learn how to determine which tools are right for you and how to use these tools properly.

How To Blog 104 - Publishing Your First Blog Article

Blogs are fantastic publishing tools and are very simple to use. Your blog posts or articles are the meat of your blog. You will learn how to publish your first blog article and how to publish articles that will attract search engines and readers alike.

How To Blog 105 - How To Promote Your Blog

For any web-based content you want to attract search engines and readers. This article will discuss promotional techniques that will increase visibility for your blog and help spread the word about your corner of the internet. You will need to generate traffic to your blog and this article will point you in the right direction.

How To Blog 106 - Blogging For A Living

This article will disuss blogging as part of your lifestyle. To be a successful blogger takes time and committment. You will have to nurture and cultivate your blog. This article will discuss some of the issues you may face as a long term blogger and provide direction on proper expectations and results from your blog.

This series of articles will be published every other day starting on tomorrow. I encourage you to check back and enjoy this series.