May 20, 2013 in Sports
So just a few shorts months ago, my then 6-year-old son Ben bought his first Kendama. Before then, I had never heard of the word Kendama and now just a few months later, he has 5 “kens”. OMG…he is totally infatuated with these things! It’s a good thing though…it teaches him some good hand/eye coordination!
Well for all you parents dealing with this…here is our unboxing video…Enjoy!
April 21, 2013 in Blogging
I was hard at it for the first 4 months of my new blog. From August through December 2012 I was working on my blog daily for at least 1-2 hours! Then for the last 3 months, nothing….I guess I hit the proverbial wall. Nothing was inspiring me. I couldn’t think of anything to inspire myself. I have nothing inspiring to write about! What the hell is going on?
57 posts I have written and I really don’t like any of them! It’s not me. Time to take a new direction I guess. We’ll see what comes up in the near future.
However, I do like the look and feel of my blog. I just don’t like the content. I’m going to stop worrying about what I think people want to read and just do my own thing. Stop worrying about how I’m going to spread my writing through social media. Facebook likes, Twitter followers, etc. If it’s good enough, I won’t have to worry about that! Right?
Time to recharge my batteries and get with it!
January 2, 2013 in Blogging
With 2013 upon us I thought it would be cool to have a look at my 2012 blog stats! I starting blogging on August 22,2012…only 18 short weeks ago and have accumulated some interesting stats. I know there are a handful of you who started at same time I did so now you can compare mine to yours. I use 2 sources. My “JetPack” stats…which is a WordPress plugin that was made available to me from day 1 and Google Analytics which I installed on September 18 of last year…26 days after my blog launch.
But first, let’s have a quick look at my top five posts! (from my JetPack stats)
My favorite story is Melbourne the Cat…it’s only 800 words or so. Give it a quick read when you have time…especially if you are an animal lover!
Ok, back to some more stats. Ever since I started my blog I knew that it was key to have a mobile friendly site. Literally everyone I know has a smart phone…either an iPhone or an Android. If your blog isn’t easy to read on these devices, it probably won’t be read at all. My JetPack stats don’t differentiate between mobile and non-mobile views, but Google does and it’s amazing how many views are seen from a mobile device. In my case, just about 31% of all views on my blog site from September 18th till the end of the year was on some sort of mobile device! I’m pretty sure that percentage will go up in 2013! Probably closer to FIFTY PERCENT! My advice to you is to make your site mobile friendly. Here is a small screen shot from my Google Analytics page.
Make sure your site is mobile friendly
Staying with Google, here is another screen shot of my 2012 stats (from September 18th on)
From my Google Analytics Page
Now here is an overview of my JetPack Statistics. You’ll see October was my busiest month. One day in October I had 1155 views…I haven’t even come close to matching that again. My day job and the Holidays kept me busy in December…you can see my total views went WAY DOWN…not enough posts!
These stats are from my WordPress plugin
In 2012, I had 68 referring sites to my blog. Social Media my friends! Below is a screen shot of my top 10!
My top 10 referring sites
Another stat is that from Twitter. I went from 3 to 1300 followers in those short 18 weeks. If you’re not on Twitter, get on it, it’s a great way to promote your blog or website.
My last stat for you is this. I’ve written a total of 55 posts with 2 written from my android phone or about 3.5 percent and I’m sure this percentage will go up in 2013.
So the action I want you to take is to set up a Google Analytics account or something similar to track your website views.
The benefit will be knowing how and where to GROW your site/blog.
Thanks for reading and have a great 2013.
I wrote this post in 1 hour 10 minutes. (554 total words for this post) last stat… promise…
December 28, 2012 in Writing
My goal starting the first day of 2013 is to write my first novel! It’s just one of those things I need to do before I die! I have already outlined most of the chapters in my little black notebook. The time has come for me to fully layout its diagram and get started.
I read somewhere that a professional writer can write about 1000 words per hour when there on a roll and complete a 94,000 word novel in just a month! I’m not that ambitious yet. I was thinking about a 50-60 thousand word novel in 365 days or less.
It took me years to start my blog. I’m not waiting any longer to start my novel….
December 19, 2012 in Blogging
For the past month I have tried several “mobile” WordPress plugins to make my website mobile but have had no luck!
First I tried WPtouch. It worked for about a day and that’s it! DEACTIVATED.
Then the JetPack mobile plugin. Same…only worked for a day! DEACTIVATED.
Then I tried WP Mobile Detector. Worked intermittently. F*(K! By then I had almost given up trying to find a WordPress mobile plugin that was compatible with my site. So frustrating putting all these hours into your blog and not have something work the way you want it!!!
So what did I do? I blogged about it! Best WordPress Mobile Plugin, The Clueless Blogger and Whoops! A Mobile Plugin for WordPress.
I shared these posts through every imaginable social sharing site to see if anyone out there was going through the same growing pains as myself. Then about a week ago, I got a hit on twitter.
@scottjonz This is caused by your W3 Total Cache plugin. Just Google instructions on how to use WPTouch with W3 Total Cache.
— Matthew Averkamp (@topalt) December 11, 2012
Being a new blogger, I would have never known that these 2 plugins conflicted with each other! I took @topalt’s advice. Well first I re-installed WPtouch. I googled the instructions. Holy Krakatoa! It was that easy. In less than 10 minutes, I finally had a mobile website!
It’s 9 days later and I still have a mobile website (crossing my fingers!)
SO a BIG shout out to @topalt on twitter! You can check out his site at www.topalternatives.com…
Thanks for reading and Happy Blogging everyone!
December 17, 2012 in Uncategorized
This is something I had wanted for the past year but just never got around to it until last Friday night. Buying a Roku for my bedroom t.v. for some good old fashion Netflix viewing!
I purchased the Roku 2 XD at my local Best Buy for $69.99 plus tax. Best Buy was having a $10 off sale. From what I understand, there are 4 levels of Roku with level 1 being the base model and level 4 being the best. I bought level 3 which gives you 1080 HD video output through your HMDI cable to your t.v. My bedroom tv is only a 720…but I thought what the hell….maybe I will upgrade my t.v. in the near future!
As advertised, the Roku was simple to set up! Power it on…attach the HDMI cable from the Roku to your t.v…and connect to your home network. Done!
I was streaming my Netflix in less than 10 minutes. The Roku has numerous channels…I just haven’t had time to explore them yet.
Any must have channels? Let me know.
