Twittering Peas and Flickr
Michael | December 20, 2007
Well, I did it.
I returned to 
after an extended Hiatus.
That’s about all there is to say about that for now. I uploaded a few pics (of my kids!) and added a pea pic to Frozen Pea Friday in support of Susan Reynolds.
I think it’s great to see the support that has cropped up so quickly for Susan, and also nice to see that twitter came through again as the catalyst that really allowed this to happen.
It’s always nice to see people come together and unite for something they believe in, and Twitter has shown itself to be an excellent medium for spreading-the-word.
On a side, but related, note (with odd timing)…
I heard on the radio the other day that the Canadian Doctors Association among other Canadian health type organizations, no longer recommend that women give themselves regular breast exams.
Apparently they are now saying that there’s no significant evidence that regular self-exams increases the chance of finding cancer.
What it is doing though is significantly increasing the number of false-positive cases (where women have found benign lumps I assume) which result in biopsies; which, according to the report I heard, can be very painful and always leaves a scar.
The report did continue to say that yearly mamograms were the preferred way to go.
Personally, it sounds to me like this is a report skewed in the favour of the government and the established doctors community. (For instance, it almost sounds like the system is concerned more about paying (God bless Social Health Care!?) for all the biopsies than worrying about early detection.)
Hey, I may be jaded against medical systems run like a business; but I was shocked when I heard the report… After all, I would think that 10, or 20 (or more) false negatives is a fair price to pay to catch 1 or 2 cases of cancer in it’s early stages!
I’d be interested to know what others thought about the new view on self exams…
If I had one nugget to share with Susan Reynolds it would be this:
The human body is an incredible machine, influenced heavily by our spirit, which is in turn fed by love, laughter and the support of others. I don’t know you, nor have I talked to you (although I have read your blog and twitters), but it seems like you have everything you need to see you through the tough time immediately ahead. And for what it’s worth, there are complete strangers, thousands of miles away, who are thinking about you, and sharing your story with others.
** Some of the Topic & Conversation Links:
Go donate to the FrozenPeaFund!
| 2.9 |
If you've enjoyed this blog, please subscribe! 
Thanks for visiting!
Topics: Conversations | Comments
Now With More Audio
Michael | December 20, 2007
I just added OdioGo to my blog and would love to hear what you think of the service!
I’ve always gotten a kick out of listening to computer voices try and read things I type in, so on one hand I’m enjoying the service for purely selfish reasons. 
On the other hand, its a great way to provide extra content and better accessability options to your blog. And it’s completely free. (With a little inserted advertisment of course, but I think that’s a fair trade for the service.)
It’s like having an instant Podcast:
http://podcasts.odiogo.com/michaelvaliant-com/podcasts-xml.php . (Just copy this link into your favourite podcast client to recieve my blog in audio format; or click on any of the links on the audio player at the top of each post for more options.)
My Odiogo home page can be found here:
http://podcasts.odiogo.com/michaelvaliant-com/podcasts-html.php .
I’ll write again once I’ve had a chance to comb through the features a little more, but I have to say I’m completely impressed so far!
What do you think?
Now with more Robot!
** Updates -
Wow! The audio was ready and available within seconds! Very impressive.
Unfortunately I will need to be more careful with punctuation now. Periods are VERY important when a computer is reading back your writing.
| 2.9 |
Add this to my christmas wish list
Michael | November 27, 2007
If someone out there on the Inter-web really wants to buy me a christmas present… this is near the top of my ‘Completely unnecessary
| 2.9 |
Topics: Errant Thoughts | Comments
Dates on a Blog?
Michael | November 25, 2007
Has the need for dates on a blog outlived their necessity?
Are they simply a holdover from the online journal days that don’t really have a place on a modern blog.
Reasons NOT to use dates in a blog:
- A date DATES your post. People have been trained to look at the dates in a post; even knowing this I still find myself looking. And what happens if someone finds one of your posts in the search engines that happens to be more than a month or two old? Chances are they won’t read it, or will only scan it quickly. It will be PERCIEVED as dated material, regardless of whether or not that actually matters within your subject matter.
- Duplicate Content! This is bad! Take wordpress for example. By default, most templates will offer a date based categorization of all your posts. If you click on a particular month you will be taken to a paginated section containing all the posts from the specified month. These are the same posts that can be found under the pagination on the main page of your BLOG, or from the Categories pages, but now under yet another URL. Remove this as soon as possible.
- People don’t search by date. Check your Stats. I doubt any of your date category pages have had many hits. People don’t care what you wrote in June of 2006. They DO care what you wrote about the particular topic they are searching for and you should therefore only offer category based options and a search bar.
I think we general date all our posts on our blogs for no better reason than the fact that most blogging software (or possibly even ALL blogging software) uses dates as a default. It’s a holdover; done not on purpose, but out of despondance.
We don’t date all our pages on our website (except maybe within a Google Sitemap), so unless you’re actually recording an online journal, stop using dates!
A single copy write date in the footer of your blog will suffice.
| 2.9 |
Power of Persistence
Michael | November 21, 2007
The best quotable I’ve heard lately:
Persistent thought is your ticket.
Persistent gratitude makes it easy.
And persistent action tells one and all, “There ain’t no way, I’m settling for less.”
| 2.9 |
Topics: Conversations | Comments
What I didn’t learn about DayLight Savings this year…
Michael | November 14, 2007
I love Daylight savings time in the fall.
Sure it’s dark when I leave work now… but for a few days, I get an extra hour of sleep (at least a perceived extra hour!)
Unfortunately that simple pleasure was denied me this year.
And in order to regain that little joy for next year, I need to learn one thing:
How to quickly reset a 2 year old’s internal clock so they don’t get up an hour earlier than they need to!
| 2.9 |
Topics: Errant Thoughts | Comments
Benefit of running an online business #32
Michael | October 18, 2007
Good Magazine has a spread on world retailers who operate the most square footage across their stores. Some of the companies that made the list (like Walmart and McDonalds) are not suprising to see at all. Here’s the image (click to enlarge):
A few things I DID find suprising:
- Some of the others on the list (like blockbuster)
- Some companies who are not on the list (like Costco, Ikea or Circuit City for instance)
- How much space Walmart actually covers! (18k + Acres! or somewhere in the neighborhood of 850 million square feet!)
Where am I going with this? Think of the money that Walmart spends on upkeep related costs (lighting, heating/cooling, cleaning etc).
I took a quick look at a recent Walmart SEC filing and they sink some huge numbers into this stuff. My wife’s the accountant not me, so I may not be reading these right, but it looks like Walmart is claiming (#’s in millions):
- Operating expenses -$ 17 130 (or 17 Billion dollars)
- Accumulated depreciation of property and equipment - $ 26, 881 (yes… 26.8 Billion dollars)
All things that most of 1ShoppingCart’s merchants as online businesses, don’t have to worry about!
(from GoodMagazine)
| 2.9 |
Top 10 ways to create a 301 redirect
Michael | October 17, 2007
Tonight I redirected a new domain my brother-in-law purchased back to his main site. He and his wife are chiropractors in Ottawa (just setup, may 401 till it’s propogated!) and the new domain is a little shorter and easier to type in than their full domain name (PrestonFamilyChiropractic.ca).
So I thought I would take the time to talk about an important SEO tool…
The 301 Redirect
Generally speaking if you’re moving domains 
(and therefore changing post permalinks) or changing blog categories etc, you’re going to want to use a 301 redirect.
A 301 redirect tells the search engines that the page in question has PERMANENTLY moved. In most cases it’s the best and most Search Engine friendly method for redirecting web pages as it’ll go a long way towards preserving your hard earned search engine juice.
So, without further adieu:
The Top 10 Methods to Create a 301 Redirect
(Do I have to mention that you need to REPLACE www.the-new-url.com in the examples below with the actual domain name you want to redirect TO?)
1. JSP
<%
response.setStatus(301);
response.setHeader( “Location”, “http://www.the-new-url.com/” );
response.setHeader( “Connection”, “close” );
%>
2. PHP
<?
Header( “HTTP/1.1 301 Moved Permanently” );
Header( “location: http://www.the-new-url.com/” );
?>
3. IIS
From internet services manager, right click on the file or folder you wish to redirect; Select the “redirection to a URL” radio button and enter the new url. Place a checkmark for “The exact url entered above” and “A permanent redirection for this resource”
4. ASP
<%@ Language=VBScript %>
<%
Response.Status=”301 Moved Permanently”;
Response.AddHeader(”Location”,”http://www.the-new-url.com/”);
%>
5. Ruby on Rails
def old_action
headers["Status"] = “301 Moved Permanently”
redirect_to “http://www.the-new-url.com/”
end
6. .NET
<script runat=”server”>
private void Page_Load(object sender, System.EventArgs e)
{
Response.Status = “301 Moved Permanently”;
Response.AddHeader(”Location”,”http://www.the-new-url.com/”);
}
</script>
7. CGI PERL
$q = new CGI;
print $q->redirect(”http://www.new-url.com/”);
8. ColdFusion<.cfheader statuscode=”301″ statustext=”Moved permanently”>
<.cfheader name=”Location” value=”http://www.the-new-url.com/”>
9. .htaccess *
Options +FollowSymLinks
RewriteEngine on
RewriteRule (.*) http://www.the-new-url.com/$1 [R=301,L]
* Ensure Apache Mod-Rewrite moduled is enabled on your account
10. HTML *
<HTML>
<Body>
<a href=`http://www.the-new-url.com/`>Click Here to Go to My Other Site</a>
</Body>
</HTML>
* I don`t recommend the HTML method as it’s not REALLY a 301 redirect!
(photo above from flickr.com)
| 2.9 |
Thought of the day
TheCanadianFoodie | October 17, 2007
Hello everyone!
I’ve been out of town a lot recently (with the day job) as well as launching a new blog (MichaelValiant.com - warning, not food related at all!) so I apologize for not being around here much.
Thanks for the comments (that took me forever to moderate)!
I will re-kick things off with a thought for the day:
I try not to eat any veggies that have travelled more than I have!
The Ultimate WordPress Plugin List
Michael | October 16, 2007
While I’ve always believed in working hard once I’ve set my mind to something, I’ve spent a lot of time over the past year or two trying to teach myself how to work SMARTER as well.
One of the ways I try to do this is by automating my daily life as much as possible. This allows me to slice the time I DO have just a little thinner.
In fact, it’s one of the reasons I love apps like Wordpress and Firefox (although I definitely DON’T like how heavy the newest Firefox runs). Some of the plugins available for these programs are incredible and allow me to squeeze more work into less time by taking advantage of the work of other very smart people!
I owe a BIG thank you to the 2,000′ish people who’ve taken the time to visit and help make my first couple of weeks on the new blog great! And, as I continue to tweak the template and improve the SEO’ability of the blog I’ve received a few emails asking about what it is I’ve been doing - and why!
So instead of sharing individually over and over again, I thought I’d just bare all (so to speak) and compile a list of ALL the great wordpress plugins I’m using, have used, or may be thinking about using…
The Ultimate WordPress Plugin List:
- Ad Rotator - Will be trying this one on my 1ShoppingCart blog shortly
- Add Meta Tags - Adds Keyword& Description meta tags to your blog pages. Automated & Customizable (* currently installed)
- AdSense Deluxe - Inserts AdSense (and other types of ads) into blog posts
- Akismet - Default WordPress comment spam filter, I can’t imagine anyone on WordPress NOT usisng this one! (* currently installed)
- Dagon Design Sitemap Generator - Generates a useful HTML Sitemap. Good for navigation & SEO (* currently installed)
- Democracy - A polling plugin I’ve used in the past with success
- Feedburner Feedsmith - Integrate your Feedburner Feed and have the default Wordpress feeds redirect to it! (* currently installed)
- Landing Sites - One I haven’t used yet, but was recommended to me for providing search traffic with links deeper into the site
- Linklove - Protect your PR while rewarding your regular commentors with this plugin (* currently installed)
- Popularity Contest - An interesting plugin that aggrogates popular posts
- Random Redirect - Another well designed plugin to help traffic & search engines deeper into your site
- Recaptcha - I just installed this one for the first time. Using it to pick up the slack from Akismet (* currently installed)
- Related Posts - Simple plugin that displays links leading deeper into your blog - good for traffic and search! (* currently installed)
- SEO Title Tag - Simple plugin that allows you to control the titles tags of all your posts (* currently installed)
- Share This - A good plugin I used on my last blog that provides readers a way to share your post via email or social bookmarking
- Subscribe to Comments - A must have for any blog! Allows people to receive an email when anyone leaves a comment after their own
- Twitter Tools - Twitter posted to Blog, Blog posts to Twitter. Doesn’t get much more automated! (* currently installed)
- What Would Seth Godin Do? - Wouldn’t you like to know?
- WordPress Reports - Plugin to your Google Analytics and Feedburner stats and show the basics right within your WordPress menu (* currently installed)
- WordPress Page Nav - Improves the standard Wordpress pagination interface (* currently installed)
There are a few other good ones out there, and I’ll be updating this list over time, but this is an excellent place to start and should cover all the major bases you’ll need!
And if you use any plugins that you can’t live without but I’ve somehow missed (it happens more than I like to admit!), I’d love to hear about them! Let me know what they are and where I can find them and I’ll add them to the list and credit you with the addition!
| 3.1 (1 person) |
Topics: Blogging, Lifehack | Comments
