Oct 31
Alexa Rank for Mashing Windows today is: 2,315,268; not bad for a blog built on a domain name that did not exist 5 days ago.
Oct 31
Somehow the very first entry of this blog (link here) has disappeared from Google, interesting . . .
Will it be back on the next pass? Googlebot last crawled the site about an hour ago (31 Oct 2007 – 20:44).
Oct 31
12:45 P.M. my package from Amazon.com containing OS X 10.5 Leopard was on my desk: Eureka!
12:48 P.M. the DVD is in the MacBook Pro, click install, a few clicks here and there. I must say that I like the fact that the OS asks for a password before installing any software. Implementing this on the Microsoft Windows OS platform should be trivial, and it would eliminate some of the issues with trojans, viruses, and adware installing themselves. A password would make people think twice instead of just clicking “OK”.
12:52 P.M. re-boot. Now we are on for the log portion of the update (I’ve watched the movie before I embarked on this mission).
01:00 P.M. 23%.
01:15 P.M. 80%.
01:25 P.M. 100%. Are we done yet? Not really, actually the real installation starts now, until now it was only foreplay.
02:00 P.M. 8 minutes to go.
02:12: P.M. Blank screen.
02:15 P.M. Log in screen.
02:16 P.M. Upon logging in the Setup Assistant starts. There’s the pitch to buy into the .MAC service <PASS>, and then the offer for a free 60-day trial of .MAC.
02:18 P.M. We are done. But there’s the update message that there are updates available for:
- Remote desktop client;
- iPhoto;
- Garage Band;
- Login and KeychainUpdate.
How can I say no to a brand-spanking new install? Click YES, restart.
02:23 P.M. DONE! (no really this time).
I don’t have time to “play” around with anything, but BootCamp, Time Machine, Networking, are my priorities. I’ll try to play & blog more tonight.
Oct 31
Will I get my Leopard today?
UPS is pretty reliable, given the amount of packages that they handle, their error rate is manageable. Of course the few times that a snafu happens is when you need the item the most, or so it seems.
This morning I checked the UPS site (last night I checked the Amazon.com site), and I was expecting to see an update item “OUT FOR DELIVERY”. Surprisingly I see a different version of the facts. What appeared on Amazon.com as “Mis-sorted by carrier” is described in the UPS web site as “AN INCORRECT ROUTING AT A UPS FACILITY CAUSED THIS DELAY / RESCHEDULED DELIVERY” date stamped 10/30/2007 7:25 P.M.
It is followed by an additional ” DESTINATION SCAN” entry on 10/30/2007 8:41 P.M.
Puzzled I called UPS’s toll free at 1-800-PICK-UPS (742-5877), and I was assured that the package will be delivered today, but the customer service rep was not able to explain what exactly happened, I am curious how a virtual fool-proof system like UPS can be susceptible to a hick-up like this. I remember when my iPod arrive to Massachusetts via Spokane (WA).
Oct 30
My OS X 10.5 Leopard was supposed to arrive tonight (Tuesday), but something got mixed up with UPS and . . . will tomorrow be the day?
It goes back to one of the basic principles of Project Management: everything will take longer than you’ll expect, so true.
Just in case you are curious about the other two principles of Project Management, they are:
- it will cost more than you’ll expect;
- if you don’t follow-up, it won’t get done.
Oct 30
Help is always a few clicks away! And while Google search results can be overwhelming, especially if you share with me the belief that popularity does not equal relevance. But that’s material for another post, on another venue, half way between information overflow, and infosnacking lays the sweet spot of trusted sources. We all have a selected few sources that we trust, be it WikiPedia, Google, Amazon, a handful of bloggers, or uncle Sal; each one of them is trusted within a particular context, some wider than others, some deeper, but all in all they form our collective trusted information Brands.
There’s a guy named Guy, who just posted Top Ten Leonard Tips, so if you are in the process of upgrade your Mac to OS X 10.5, I trust this guy Guy, if you trust me, you should trust him (he trusts this).
In a time where repositories of information like the WikiPedia, Amazon.com, Google, your local bookstore, or your local library are more available than ever, most solutions to problems can be found pronto! It is so easy it feels like cheating! Often time is not the how that stops people, it the why. Either the why was not addressed, or was not addressed properly, or was someone else’s why that is being solved.
Never trust someone that says “Trust me!”; trust me on this.
Oct 30
Isn’t this another version of the question: “Is it Quantity or Quality that it’s important?”
The answer is within you, and more than an absolute answer is a question of the right mix, the right balance between frequency and relevance. A lot has to do with the intended outcome for the blog, its authenticity and how it fits within the overall meta outcome of your project, congruency still rules.
Once a day seems to be the rule for the majority of A-list Bloggers, voice on the blogosphere has the magic number at at least once or twice a week; in all effectiveness still dealing in terms of Quantity. Lately the discussion is migrating to Quality, and there have been a few interesting posts like Erik Kintz’s , David Chen’s and Seth Godin’s, who make the argument that relevance to your audience is more important than frequency.
So, here’s your answer: be authentic, stay congruent, and blog for quality.
Oct 30
All Hosting services give you some type of web stats, Hostgator gives me AWstats and Webalizer. That and Google Analytics will give you too much information, contributing to your information overload.
I check Google Analytics every day, and once in a while I will also check the AWstats, especially on a new site to verify that it is indexed by the search engines.
Looking at the stats for Mashing Windows, it seems that Google and Yahoo have found it, by MSN is missing in action.
The good news is that Alexa, the Web Archive and Ask have found this blog, along with 4 other robots in incognito.
Oct 30
Aaron suggested that I use Yahoo’s Site Explorer and Authenticate the site and the XML feed in order to expedite Yahoo’s indexing of the blog.
Pretty simple procedure:
- Go to siteexplorer.search.yahoo.com;
- Log in with your Yahoo account, otherwise sign up for one (free);
- Enter the url of your site or blog to the box on top of the page, then click on “Add My Site”, and your site will appear in the list below the box;
- Click on the “Authenticate” button;
- This will bring you to a new page, where you’ll have two methods to authenticate your site:
- Uploading an authentication file to your site;
or
- Adding a META tag to your home page. - I opted for the first option, so I downloaded the proper file and uploaded to the site (link);
- Click on “Ready to Authenticate”;
- If you have a plain web site and no blog, you’re DONE!. If your site has feeds, as in a blog, you need to do one more step: click on the “Manage” button;
- On the next screen you’ll enter the feed path of your site or blog, usually “/feed” or “/feed/atom”;
- Click on “Add Feed”;
- DONE!
Oct 30
What a difference one day makes, today Google is playing catch-up and has now indexed 8 pages. Still no sign of life from Yahoo or MSN.
Screenshot obtained using Pearl Crescent Page Saver Firefox extension.