Fun with Facebook Fan Page Creation

Posted on April 24, 2012 by Dave

Having stopped by a few blogging forums for advice on best practices, I noticed many people mentioning Facebook Fan Pages as a good way to go as far as encouraging traffic to check out your blog, so this weekend I set out to create a few for my sites.

The first fan page you make, apparently, can be created complete with a custom URL without needing to gather up a fan base first (you have to like it yourself to get it up and running though), but I found when I created the next two pages for Mindbla here and my pictures blog lulzJapan, I was unable to get an official “vanity” URL unless I had “more fans”. What I didn’t realize at that point was that the official fan count for creating more than one fan page is 25 fans, so after wondering for a while why I wasn’t able to get my URL when I had a handful of *likes* I delved a little deeper and discovered that particular requirement.

I must add here that Facebook doesn’t put all the info out there in an easy to find place (like perhaps on the page where you’re supposed to click to get your URL, for example), they seem to like making people hunt around for it, or perhaps they just don’t want us to know what the requirements are, in order to keep people guessing perhaps and, I suppose, keep them more busy and active on Facebook. Crafty folks, those Facebookers. In addition, I was also disappointed to learn that there no longer seems to be a way to include an RSS feed on the pages in order to keep them updated automatically, apparently the only way to update them with current blog postings is to do so manually upon each blog update. I’m not sure why they’re against having an easy way to keep your fan pages updated, but in any case I guess there’s no way around it at present. Perhaps if Facebook receives enough complaints about it they’ll switch back, I did notice quite a lot of people complaining about it while I was searching (to no avail) for a way to set up some sort of an update feed.

So anyway, armed with all this new information, I gathered together the forces of my personal Facebook page, and within 24 hours or so I had my legions of fans onboard and was able to snatch up the official URL’s for all three pages. If you’d care to, please feel free to check them out and join the party by liking one or all of my brand new Facebook fan pages!

http://www.facebook.com/mindbla

http://www.facebook.com/lulzJapan

http://www.facebook.com/UpbeatRhythms

Thank you for reading this latest update on Facebook Fan Page Shenanigans and, as always, thank you for checking out the Mindbla blog, talk to you soon in the next installment.

I Squidoo, do you Squidoo too?

Posted on April 21, 2012 by Dave

Here on the Mindbla blog we’ve discussed Twitter and assorted Tweet-related sites, what Tumblr is all about (hint – think Facebook for the Younger Generation) and all of its glorious insanity and peculiarity, then there are the giants like Facebook and Google Plus that occupy so many peoples time and attention including ours, along with all kinds of other new and interesting (and confusing!) social media websites available for our enjoyment these days. Today I’d like to talk about another interesting, though quite puzzling, social media site out there which is another quasi-blogging platform with some mildly interesting twists. It is known, strangely, as Squidoo.

On Squidoo you create mini-blogs, known as lenses, where you write posts, add links, upload pictures, and do all kinds of other stuff that you might do on a regular blog like Mindbla here, but the twist is you publish this lens as a sort of stand-alone site (although you can link them up as well), and it gets ranked and people can search for it and you can actually make money from the ads there. A very nice feature is you can opt in for donating your money to charity rather than simply collect it yourself, which can be nice if you’re not making much and would rather simply donate it to various charities. In fact, that seem to encourage that, since it’s the first option in the setup, and actually getting the money is further down on the list.

There are some other fairly amusing twists, such as receiving points for your various activities such as creating lenses and liking and commenting on other people’s lenses and a bunch of other stuff. It seems as though you are able to get points for pretty much anything you do, so it can be rather addicting and fun to see what earns you points next. On the other hand, it’s really tough to see the relative value in gaining all these points, you unlock some mildly interesting new features that don’t seem particularly special and aren’t anything to write home about, but I suppose that’s all part of the game to keep the people all engaged-like and happy. Welcome to Web 2.0 style, right? There are also some feature known as a ‘quest’ which I gather is just a way to encourage people to create lenses of one particular type or another, or read other people’s lenses, and other money-see monkey-do type stuff like that. Seems more trouble than it’s worth but then again I haven’t really been using Squidoo for all that long yet, maybe it’ll grow on me over time.

Thanks for reading!

If You Need a Hosting Company, Look No Further than HostGator

Posted on March 28, 2012 by Dave

I’m not really the kind of guy who gushes or throws out random ringing endorsements, I’m more likely to be the complainer that the call center gets sick of hearing from lol.

But I’m sufficiently impressed with HostGator to want to devote an entire blog topic to their company. First of all, their plans are quite reasonable, it’s even fair to say they’re service is downright cheap. And as a newbie blogger, I spent a lot of time stressing over whether I should go with such a “discount” company but I read lots of good reviews online and I ended up going with HostGator. And I am very glad that I did.

Since starting up this whole blogging adventure I’ve had a good number of problems, mostly of my own creation being so new at this whole thing, and I’ve used their live chat on numerous occasions at this point. Besides the fact that they held my hand and fixed my mistakes quickly and professionally, I have to say that their friendliness and genuine attention to good customer service is nothing short of stunning.

To put it into perspective, I worked at Disneyland in Japan for many years. And I used to think that Disney had a lock on the number one spot as the very best at superior customer service out of any company out there, big or small. But now, for the first time, I can say without question that the HostGator company matches or even exceeds Disney in terms of genuine customer care. I think that’s about as high a compliment as I can hand out, and they certainly do deserve it. Each and every time I got off the line with their service center I was tempted to send an email to the CEO asking him to give whichever staff person helped me a big raise and a bonus.

So in any case, if you’re looking for a company to host your blog or website, or considering switching out, I can not recommend HostGator enough Just for the record, this isn’t a “paid endorsement” or anything like that (I know such endorsements for pay do show up on blogs from time to time), just an honest review from a very satisfied customer.

What you Need to Know about Tumblr

Posted on March 21, 2012 by Dave

One of the sites I’ve been playing around with and trying to figure out in my efforts to become a “social networker” these days is Tumblr. The more I learn though, the more confusing this particular space seems to become.

At first glance it seems like a blogging platform, similar to Blogger perhaps. But although when you sign up the first thing that seems obvious is to write a post, when you browse around to other Tumblr pages you start to realize that not many people over there are doing any blogging in the traditional sense.

It’s a weird sort of mix, in a way it’s like Twitter on steroids. There’s no particular 140 limit or anything, but people don’t write much in a post, if anything at all. Mostly people seem to put up pictures, gifs and videos in a long stream of consciousness sort of way, and not many people seem to really engage or comment on each others’ posts. There’s a lot of liking and re-blogging, so each page turns into a sort of amalgam of the posters’ own personal contributions along with content they’ve ripped off from other peoples’ spaces.

Some pages look a lot like Pinterest, some blogs carefully crafted collages of images along with others which are little more than just a bunch of random pictures, and there’s also a YouTube element that I don’t quite understand yet that seems to involve telling the world incredibly personal stuff via video where you write your innermost thoughts on pieces of paper and hold them up for the camera while playing some seriously Emo sounding music of some kind.

Then there’s TumbleTrain, which is not actually on Tumblr but somewhere off-site and seems to be a sideshow focused on getting more Tumblr followers, which is apparently the holy grail of the whole Tumblr thing. If you have a lot of followers you’re cool. Or something.

Anyway, I don’t quite ‘get’ Tumblr yet, but perhaps it will come to me over time. At the moment, it hasn’t really hit me so I find myself frustrated trying to figure it all out and wonder why exactly the communication age has turned into such a multi-media, random seeming cluster that people use to try to explain to the world who they are and what they’re all about. Somehow, even Twitter seems rather quaint and simple in comparison!

The Internet – a Network of Little Fiefdoms

Posted on March 16, 2012 by Dave

I recently had an experience on a small internet chat forum where I was vaguely threatened by the management with banishment if I didn’t conform to their rules.

Oh, and they also let me know that signing in through Facebook (a method they have on offer in plain view) is a way to get myself in trouble because I should’ve used my old handle, one I’d used years ago and had practically forgotten all about.

Couched in friendly language, the meaning was clear. “Watch your step, or there will be consequenses!”. Interestingly in one of the posts the moderator said, quite unnecessarily, “unfortulately we recently had to ban some longtime members for posting about their blogs on this site”, or something along those lines. Had to ban people. “Had” is such an interesting word selection here isn’t it? As if they had no other choice, it was out of their control. You “have” to call the police when someone is threatening you. You “have” to pay your taxes. You do not “have” to ban internet posters because they don’t fall into lockstep with whatever rules and regulations you have set forth for your little vitrual kingdom you’ve got going on.

This whole thing is pretty funny, it smacks of schoolyard politics and it’s so pervasive around the internets that people don’t even really have to check the rules pages on individual sites because they’ve got so much in common. Do this, don’t do that, or you’ll be punished, that’s the gist of it.

You would think the internet would be a place of free thinking and libertarian ideals, but instead it has tribalized to such an extent that it really does mirror the outside world in striking detail, and the world it mirrors is one of juvenile threats and summary retribution. Which makes it comfortable for the masses, I suppose, since most people inherently want rules and regulations to tell them what to do. It is such a function of society for people that entire religions have been founded and based on just such principles on a grander scale. I suppose that compared to eternal damnation, banishment isn’t all that bad. Although when you stop and think of it, aren’t they sort of the same idea?

Internet Cops – Play by the rules, or else!

Posted on March 12, 2012 by Dave

Stop in the name of the Internet!

In my efforts to promote my new online ventures, I’ve found myself run afoul of quite a few “important” internet types, the ‘internet cops’ that manage and control the social networking structure and who’s job, it seems, is to police the activities of folks who are trying to tell other folks about themselves. In other words, self-promotion is fine but not if you’re too noisy about it.

Granted, there has to be a limit somewhere. Obviously spammers have made careers out of annoying people with virtual junk mail touting their systems or their products. But hasn’t the word “spammer” taken on a life of its’ own these days? It seems that, when you cross a certain line and talk yourself up “too much”, suddenly you’re a spammer which is akin to an internet petty criminal, an outcast who is not to be tolerated.

It’s funny, I signed up on one place and, not knowing any of the rules and not being able to find any despite trying to search around the site, I proceeded to make a few posts about my blogging efforts and suddenly received a very public tweet “please don’t spam our site!”. Wow. That was a shock.

For one thing, I’d only been tweeting for a few days at that point lol. And for another, I had no idea that posting information and links about your personal blog was considered “spamming”. Dutifully, I took note and endeavored to play by the rules of that site but still, it makes you wonder. Where can one find a copy of “the rules”, and what is a newbie to do when attempting to integrate into this complex virtual society of ours? I suppose the easy answer is that a newbie should keep quiet and learn as they go, but doesn’t that take some of the fun out of it? I can’t help but wonder how many enthusiastic new participants, particularly those of us with a few years under our belts, have been chased away by the ever present citizen deputies who consider it their function to monitor the workings of the web and keep everyone else in line.

Do You Make These Six Common Blogging Mistakes?

Posted on March 9, 2012 by Dave

Ever had one of those days?

Damned Computers! I seem to be having several in a row. I’m getting to the point now that I almost regret ever signing up for a web hosting plan, given the fact that I seem to be spending more time fixing, maintaining, or re-installing websites and sections than I do with any sort of writing or content driven tasks of any sort, which didn’t seem to be such a problem when I was just doing the “amateur” blogging thing over on the google blogs. Plus, I seem to have generated a lot more interest over there than here or in any of my other blogs, I think I sort of took my momentum and chucked it out the window by signing up for the WordPress world and splitting my time and energy into three different directions at once. So far, I seem to be either paralyzed trying to figure out what to do next, or else going nowhere fast by fixing one thing on one site only to have some different problem show up somewhere else. A lot of two steps forward, three steps back in other words.

It certainly has sucked some of the fun out of doing internet stuff, something I never seemed to have a problem with in the past. Or perhaps it’s just growing pains of a sort.

As for the headline of today’s post, here are some common mistakes, or perhaps some not so common (?), that I seem to have made in the past few weeks. Ever had this happen to you?

Delving into the “guts” of your blog, the editor section in the case of WordPress, and screwing up the works badly enough that completely re-installing the whole bloody thing seems easier than trying to repair the damage? Check.
Deciding to restore a backup of one of your sites, only to accidentally restore the wrong site, thereby losing a weeks worth of content? Check.
Taking the time and effort to link your blog up using the social networks only to realize that the only visits you actually received for your efforts were your own clicks when you were checking to make sure the links worked right? Check.
Working yourself up into a frenzy because the Google Webmaster tools were telling you you were getting zero traffic only to realize that you hadn’t set it up properly in the first place? Check.
Trying to strike up a conversation about blogging over on some other blogs, only to realize that you’ve replied to a post or a comment that is over a year old? Check.
Getting in deep trouble with a website master for putting your website address in your signature on their forums, which happens to be well within the written rules except that you happened to make the text bold (this was a little known rule I found on page 82, subsection 13d of that website’s rules list…oops)? Check.

On the other hand, on the bright side, however you want to put it, I can say without a doubt that I’m learning a lot. So maybe that will come in handy some day. Maybe I’ll even start a tutorial series of some sort. Something about what not to do when you’re a newbie blogger such as myself lol. And on the fun side, just as I was starting to feel more and more down I decided to write up this topic and, lo and behold I discovered a neat “full screen” feature I’d not even noticed before which makes writing up a blog post a lot more fun and enjoyable for some reason.

Neat!

Onward and upwards, and thanks for reading!

What if I don’t really have a ‘niche’?

Posted on March 7, 2012 by Dave

Having been at this blogging game for about a month now, I’m finding myself frustrated by the constant barrage of advice ordering me to “find my internet niche” and other advice to that effect. Seems to be everywhere I turn.

As far as my other two sites are concerned, that works out well enough. One, upbeatrhythms, is a music site, rhythm to be more exact, and so the niche is built in so to speak. I just have to create some good content. Similarly, the lulzjapan site is a photo blog and the angle is humorous observational photos from Japan. A small niche, perhaps, but still a niche.

But then we come to Mindbla. My personal blog. And it is rather personal, although I do want to create a site that can be useful to others and a place for exchanging ideas and stuff like that. But what is the niche?

In researching other blogs, I find that a lot of bloggers’ internet niche is, well, blogging. They write about blogging, they offer advice on blogging, they give handy tips about the tools of the trade and that sort of thing. But what it all boils down to is people talking about what they’re doing. Not really a niche per se, more like a general discussion about how to do what you’re doing. Sort of like authors all getting together to talk about book formatting or something. Do they do that?

So I guess I’m still sort of up in the air. I want this blog to be useful, fun, funny, helpful, and most importantly successful. Perhaps I’m putting the cart before the horse by saying that, but if I didn’t want it to be a success why bother? I could keep a diary in a notebook all for myself if I just wanted to write down my thoughts and feelings, why make something like that public?

I have given some serious thought to making this more of a current events space, and I might go ahead and write some articles with that in mind, but even so I hesitate to call that my niche. It’s just something to talk about right? Water cooler stuff.

I wonder if other bloggers have gone through similar feelings. When it comes right down to it, if I really wanted to find a niche I don’t really think it would be a blog sort of focus at all, in a blog I feel as though writing about “stuff that’s on our minds” is really the main point. I guess it all comes down to what my readers are looking for, perhaps that will give me some direction, trying to keep in mind the sort of stuff that a likely reader would find appealing. Am I writing for bloggers? For people just looking for stuff to read? Stories? Events?

I guess time will tell. If you have any ideas or suggestions, please feel free to give me a shout out here. I promise I’ll read all the comments, even if they threaten to overwhelm me out of sheer volume lol (I’ll cross that bridge, right?).

Thanks for reading!

Boy does this webmastering thing take up a lot of time and effort!

Posted on March 6, 2012 by Dave

Well, I’m writing a quick blog post this evening because I’m in the midst of yet another crisis over on my other site, UpbeatRhythms.com, which I thought would be my easiest effort but has turned out instead to be far and away the most troublesome and time consuming of my three sites thus far.

I mentioned the possibility of Drupalizing the place, that sort of petered out when I realized I’d need a college education in computer science to make it work. So I decided to try and max it out wordpress-wise as much as I could. Thinking I’d be all smart about it, I changed my settings around to allow multi-user, multi-blogging, though I have neither multiple users nor the need for multiple blogs. It was just the easiest way, I thought, to allow myself the flexibility to change around the page themes throughout the site.

Hasn’t worked out as planned. I’m getting error messages and it seems unable to accept files or “write” whatever it needs to. Tried to head it off at the pass by directly FTPing my files (any bloggers reading this can understand and sympathize with my plight, I’m sure), and it seems as though my folders are claiming that I’m storing hundreds of gigabites of crap when I know full well all I have is a couple dozen low resolution images in there.

I guess my next step will be to contact the host, again, although I’m not really in the mood and I’m starting to feel like a real moron for not being able to work this stuff out for myself. I guess I got spoiled with Apple products, there just doesn’t seem to be any of these kinds of issues but going to the server and the host and all that is bringing up all kinds of windows nightmares form my former life as a PC user. I am SO glad I gave that all up, now they just have to invent internet hosting the Apple way, somehow.

Or else maybe I’m just a complete idiot. Sure feels that way.

Back to the drawing board. Again.

Either I need to win the lottery, or figure out programming for myself

Posted on March 5, 2012 by Dave

Coping with Drupal

Having only been at this whole blogger/webmster thing for a few weeks, I’m starting to realize that what I want to do is not really within reach unless I have the cash to pay for a web designer or else figure it all out for myself.

WordPress is great for blogging, I love it. But, as far as my percussion site UpbeatRhythms.com is concerned, I want to max it out a lot more and include some cool graphics and maybe some flash and make it all cool and user friendly-like. The blog part is fine, I’ll probably keep it as is even if I change the rest of the site around. But for the main page and for the video content portions, I really want to do something more.

Unfortunately, I’m realizing the limitations of WordPress when it comes to that sort of stuff, so I’ve turned to Drupal for some ideas. Indeed it is a powerful platform, seems like you can do pretty much anything with it. However, right off the bat I’ve started getting error messages and grumpy responses from the bowels of the software whenever I try to do something as simple as set up a menu! And unlike the user friendly widgets and plugins you can find in droves for WordPress, the whole Drupal scene seems much more geared towards programmers and other people who generally speaking have more of a clue. So stupid questions are none too appreciated, and you get a lot of “read the manuel” replies when you try to ask around.

Er..I think I've got some errors to deal with here!

Heading over to the Drupal community forums, I figured maybe I could find some “for dummies” info or something. No such luck. No dummies there, quite the opposite. I have no idea if they’re nice people or whatever, I’m sure they are, but I was too intimidated to even attempt a feeble “hello” in that online mecca. Just the topic titles alone were enough to make my head spin, they might has well have been typing in Greek for all I knew. I found “Theme Development”, and figured that might work. I didn’t even end up clicking on a topic though, being far too intimidated by headings such as “in using the drupal view with attachments, how do I defer the initialization..”, and “I created a view with many fields of one node type,”. Gack!

I can appreciate why programmers make so much scratch, they deserve it!

Still, I really feel as though I want to figure it out and get to work on a more maxed out site (though with my limited skills I’m probably better off figuring out how to max out WordPress as much as I can, or else save up my pennies to shell out to a true computer guru and tell him or her what I’m looking for). If I can figure some things out, I might even consider incorporating them into the Mindbla site as well, although for a simple blog I suppose all the bells and whistles could end up detracting as easily as enhancing. I need to come up with a load of great content first, and worry about that stuff later.

Anyone who has any thoughts on Drupal or other alternatives is welcomed and encouraged to chime in, I can use all the help I can get! Or, for that matter, any advice on maxing out WordPress would be appreciated as well. That’s definitely the alternative avenue I’m seriously considering at this point, assuming I don’t suddenly figure out Drupal by osmosis or something lol.