Category Archives: File and data management

Plugins, Widgets and Blinkies

Posted on February 1, 2008 by greenbucks| 2 Comments

I do not spend 100% of my time online writing posts. I read online publication especially current events and magazines. I read blogs. But there is that thing about SOME blogs that are not very appealing to me.

Why?

 

There is just way TOO MANY or TOO MUCH (because I can’t count every one) of these things:

  • blinkies
  • plugins
  • widgets
  • awards
  • video
  • audio
  • kilometric blogroll
  • what-have-yous

Feeds and other forms of subscriptions to the blog are ok with me. Archives and post categories can be compressed or maybe not, because these are the blog’s own records. Links or blogroll can be put in a separate page. As much as possible, do not put too many or is it too much blinkies, plugins, widgets, video, audio, whatever seem nice to the eyes but not really necessary. Not only does it make the blog looked cluttered, it doesnt look good to have a kilometric page when the permalink is just a two-three inches long.

My suggestion? Have these in separate pages. We do not need to see every badge, every award, every blinky, every plugin, every video, every photo posted in Flicker, even every book in an online bookshelf that the blog owner has, on the main blog’s page itself.

Am I just too criticizing?

Posted in blogging101, File and data management, web tools

Spam Catcher

Posted on December 17, 2007 by greenbucks| 1 Comment

Why is installing a spam catcher in a blog a good step? A spam catcher catches spam comments that would otherwise be caught in your comments section which you have to delete one after the other. These either contain nonsense words, key words that bloggers wouldn’t want to be associated with or videos about the different anatomical parts of the human species 😉
Our main blog, TeacherJulie.com blog had to swim through a lot of spam emails/comments that go through the posts’ comments. The task of removing thee cuaght spam comments was tedious, to say the least. I had to select/approve those that are legit comments and delete those that were not. Wasted time, wasted resources.

The task was daunting and tiring. And time-consuming too. As of today, there are 31,000+ spam comments caught by the spam catcher installed.

Update: there are 54,000+ spam comments caught by my spam catcher.

There are two or three that slips through the spam catcher daily but we are not complaining so far. Such as there are also two or three legit comments that are caught as spam but since these bloggers are kind enough to tell me that they have been considered as spam, we try to retrieve their comments.

Even if we have to scan through hundreds.

What is your Spam Catcher called?

Mine is called Akismet.

Posted in blogging101, File and data management, web tools

Tagging and Tags

Posted on December 5, 2007 by greenbucks| 1 Comment

What is a tag? What is tagging?

A relevant keyword that is associated with information like a blog entry, video, map and/or photo is called a tag. To be able to classify keyword-based search of information, tagging is used.

Creating tags to categorize contents according to the key words is one of the more popular  ways to index important topics. Tag clouds are often used to be able to visualize the contents in a certain site. Tagging makes it easy to have posts found by other people who either made thee posts or found by people looking for these key words. Finding related content is now easier with the use of tags.

Examples of sites that use tags are

del.icio.us

technorati

flickr

Is it any easier to find relevant information by tagging?

Web-based communities, mostly blogs, are able to label, tag and share information with others who may have written about the topic/tag. Even those who do not blog but read blogs, searching for particular topics/posts/keyword/tags would be able to see the posts categorized, if there is a system of categorization made.

Next topic: Memetag

Posted in blogging101, File and data management

Documentation is Important

Posted on November 4, 2007 by greenbucks| 1 Comment

There are many ways to document the important developmental steps taken during an experimentation, and/or exploration and/or completion of projects. Some of the ways documentation can be done are:For hard copies:

  • Labeling of folders and/or envelopes, where paper files are stored. Examples are monthly bills, receipts, letters, contracts, brochures, legal documents and a whole lot more.
  • After these have been labeled, file these in boxes or cabinets or shelves or whatever storage bins are available.
  • Label the storage bins to easily find the files needed.

For soft copies:

  • Organize folders in your computers and label these separately. For example: personal files likes documents, emails, spreadsheets, etc. Media files like audio, images and videos. Software tools, drivers, etc.

It is also important to separate the hard drive or partition from the operating system.

For both hard copies and soft copies, if it is possible, have an off-site back-up of the most important files in your possession. How? Have a safety deposit box, or register your documents to an online storage facility.

Posted in File and data management