Well, here I am again. Attempt number 36, or 84, or 3 or something... at blogging. I don't really know why I continue to try these things.

I mean, here is what happens every time I start blogging:

1. Goto http://www.movabletype.org, and download the latest release of Movable Type - which, by the way is an incredible piece of software. I am a little upset at the limitations of the Free version these days, but what the hell. If I decide to actually stick it out this time, I'll send them a check (or, you know, fill out one of those credit card forms).
2. Install the above MT release on my webserver.
3. Configure the templates to suit my needs.
4. Make a couple of blog entires.
5. Abandon my blog.

So, in an attempt to keep it around this time, we will be going in very slow baby steps. I have not decided on a name for the site/blog, and as such there is no domain. I expect to get zero visitors here for the time being, so, that's obviously not what I'm going for at the time being.

I am going to start off by making slow, minimal modifications to the stock templates offered by Movable Type, until I am happy with what I've got. So don't expect a great interface any time soon.... but, since I'm not going to have any visitors for a while, that's not that big of a deal, now is it?

Anyway, that's the first entry!

Get FireFox!

Well, since I'm writing for myself these days, I guess this is even more of a pointless entry. Oh well.

I think it's almost time to start bringing people to my site. Wow, I need a domain name ASAP. On top of that, I need to finish the layout of all the pages. Watch for that in the next couple of days, followed shortly by a definite name, and a domain name.

Woot!

Get Firefox!

I added the About section to the website. It contains only a bit of statistical/vitals, but a biography shall come soon. Check me out!

Ok, since roundangle.com is not an available domain name, I decided it was time to change the name of this site.... to stephenglauser.com. I don't have the domain yet, and since I've publically posted that information, I fully expect it to be gobbled up by someone and I will be forced to pick something else.

Also, the logo above will change from time to time, and if I get creative enough, it will become random. Woot!

I finally bought a domain. Woot! http://www.stephenglauser.com. Update your bookmarks.

I recently set my buddy Marc up for blogging over at MADsRambling.com. Be sure to check him out!

Over at Jeff the Martin's blog, I was reading some of his past posts, and his very first post was about blogging and how they make him feel young.

From Jeff the Martin: (ed: blog moved, orig. artical lost)

I'm only 25, but I feel old. Why? Because of blogs. I used to be internet savvy--at least, I thought I was, and at work, people always came to me with questions. But now I realize that the world of blogs almost passed me by. So here I am, blogging, so that I feel young, and independent, and cool--just like everyone else :-)

Now, although I am not 25, rather 22, I don't feel old or young as a result of blogging. And although I realize blogging is perceived by many as a hobby for the young, in my experiences I noticed it is actually quite different.

Blogging knows no age limits. And as a matter of fact, all of my favorite blogs are written by people older than me and from what I've seen, most of the very popular blogs are not written by people who fall into the 16-24 demographic.

Blogging, along with most things, gets better with age.

Woo! Today is the first time I've received comment spam. Four messages from the same person on the same post. This must mean someone is reading my blog. I feel special.

Something is wrong over at Jordon Cooper's blog. I hope he gets it back up soon. :(

I've been noticing lately that I tend not to post anything on the weekends. I'm not too sure why that is, because, generally I would think that would be the most likely time for me to blog. I mean, I don't work, I have commitments, why not post something? I really have no idea why this is... I just don't feel motivated on Saturday or Sunday to do anything really.

Oh well.

Woot! Today I found the first link to my site over at Becky's Grrrl Meets World. Sweet! It was really kind of refreshing to actually see someone linking to me. Becky used to be a regular visitor to The Blue Duck and it's nice to see that she might start visiting again. Thanks Becky!

Also, Google Analytics is finally showing me some reports. More on this later.

Now, generally I wouldn't be so happy with myself being the #1 result on Google for salmon flavored pop (wihout the quotes even!), however, people are actually searching for it, and coming to my site using those keywords. I kind of feel honored. Sweet.

Read: Salmon soda?

So, this site has now officially been around for one month! Woo! Cake for everyone. Seriously though, I am quite surprised how dedicated I've been over the past month. I haven't had all that much time to refine the look and feel quite as much as I wish I could have, but it will all come in due time. I'm not planning on going anywhere.

I haven't really delved into the blogosphere as deep as I would have liked to by now. Mainly, that is because of just how extensive it is these days. Blogger has grown up in a big way. Blogs that accept TrackBacks are on the decline, unfortunately. I've always thought TrackBacks were one of the neatest things about blogging. It brings the community together in a big way.

I'm even giving back to the community! I've set my friend Marc with a blog. Hopefully he'll get around to posting more often and really get into it. Also, another friend has expressed an interest as a direct result of my site! Hopefully I'll be getting him set up soon. My little sister, also, has expressed a distinct interest in me setting up a blog for her. Things like that make me feel all warm and fuzzy inside. Woo!

Just over two years ago (two years, three days to be exact) I made an entry (the final entry, if memory servces correctly) on my original blog, The Blue Duck located at http://www.glausers.com (damn domain squatters don't deserve a link). The entry is as follows:

From The Blue Duck on November 20,2003:

i dont know how i lost interest in this. i promise i will get back into it sooner or later.

So, as it turns out, I've kept my word! Abandoning blogging has left me with deep emotional scars, and the past two years of my life have been defined by dark bouts of depression that I link directly to my lapse in blogging. Ok, maybe not, but fact remains I'm glad to be back and I'm having fun. I'm getting a little upset with the lack of commenting and trackbacks, but I'm sure it will come in due time.

Anyway, here's to one month! Many more to come, I'm sure.

I've added a new section to my site, the DVD Wishlist (section deprecated). It is simply a list of DVDs I wish to own, and I will update it whenever something pops into my head. I will also update it with a date of purchase whenever I purchase a DVD on the list.

A "DVD Collection" section will soon accompany the wishlist. That will simply be a list of the DVDs I own. I really don't expect anyone to visit either of these sections, but it's my website, and I will do with it as I please.

Two new features can be found on my site today, and fall under the new navigational heading "Film Nav". I've also moved the DVD Wishlist into that category.

Sections under Film Nav are obviously related to movies, the film industry, or whatever I decide to put in there. Movie scripts will be making a home there soon ;)

The Watch List (deprecated) is a list of movies I've watched since November 24, 2005. I will keep it updated constantly. This is yet another portion of the site I expect noone to visit.

Also, the DVD Collection (deprecated) is just that - my DVD collection. Feel free to visit if you wish.

Watch that area of the site for some mega-features coming soon!

In my never-ending quest to have this website be more than just a simple blog, I've up put a section entitled Movie Scripts (deprecated). As the name might imply, it is a place to download and read Movie Scripts.

I've posted all the scripts I've got from a numerical title (like 187) through the letter S, and so far the tally is 150 movie scripts ready for you to download. Almost all of them are in PDF format.

I will post the rest of what I've got tomorrow, and then I'll start expanding the list.

Enjoy! (deprecated)

So I've finished adding all of the scripts I currently have uploaded to the Movie Scripts (deprecated) section of the website. There is only one script that it is not in PDF format.

I will be adding many more PDF formatted scripts, but will also begin to add HTML and TXT format scripts soon. So watch for the total number of scripts to balloon from 178.

Just thought I'd update you guys!

I was tagged by Krydor. I guess I'm supposed to post five weird things about myself.

1. I routinely stay up until 5:00 in the morning watching movies, even though I work at 8:00.
2. I was always the shortest kid in class in high school, but now I'm taller than almost everyone. Woot!
3. I've moved three times in the last year. All of them in Saskatoon.
4. I work in a corner desk, but it's the worst spot in the office, I swear.
5. I like my hamburgers plain. Meat + Bun + Ketchup. (I have to put the ketchup on myself, too.)

There's five. I don't care how much my list sucks compared to yours.

I've spent the last two hours upgrading the DVD Wishlist section of the website. It is now much larger, the list of DVDs I've purchased is up to date, and it now features alist of DVDs I've had stolen!

Woo!

I've done away with a few of the sections on this website. I found that I just did not have time to keep them up to date, which is unfortunate, but oh well.

These changes are temporary, so if for whatever reason you actually enjoyed those sections (I'm not even going to name what they are, because you know damned well that you don't care), leave a comment and let me know!

Also, a couple of new sections should be coming soon. (One for sure...)

I'm thinking about switching blog software. I've played around with WordPress a bit, and am still thinking about it. What are you guys using? Are you happy with it? Let me know!

Most people probably don't find the stuff I post here on a (nowhere-near) daily basis even remotely interesting, but whatever, I'll state this anyway.

I've been finding that the majority of blogs around these days are making a lot of comments on the political activities of the day. Which in itself isn't really a bad thing. However, when you have a lot of relatively uninformed young people talking about a lot of things they barely know anything about becomes annoying.

Most of the time when I hit a blog where the first post is a political one I will just abandon quickly, with a few exceptions.

Just had to rant.

In my never ending quest to get everyone I know blogging, I've set up my younger sister, Sam, with a blog of her own blog called Orli's Awakening. It's currently hosted on my domain, but that should change soon. Do me a favor and check it out.

When did the term "wtfbbq" and it's relative "omgwtfbbq" become a normal part of internet slang? It's been around for years, and all of a sudden people are using it on MSN, etc.

Weird.

I got tired of looking at my site and the pukey green color that surrounded it. I changed it to black for now as you can see, but don't expect it to last very long. I'm going to be playing with the colors over the next couple of days, but may end up switching to new software very soon. If you have some suggestions on the colors I change it to, or even software suggestions, feel free.

So, I've done it. For the first time since June 2003 I am using blogging software other than Movable Type. I have lost touch with my HTML/PHP abilities, and was extremely unhappy with the design of my Movable Type blog.

I have got my old format backed up, so if I become unhappy with this I will change it back. Once again, however, I am torn. I didn't like my last format, because of the bad design. I'm not too fond of this generic design (K2 theme, fyi). I will play around with it over the next few days and we'll see what comes of it.

I need to hear from you guys though. Tell me if you like it, or if you want it back. Your input is paramount here, as I am embarking on a new journey. I hope I don't really regret this later.

Jordon Cooper made an interesting post yesterday, entitled "How I Work." So, I decided I would follow suit and let you guys know what I use, regardless of how inconsequential it may or may not be to you. So, here is the software and websites I could not do without.

• Microsoft Outloook :: I've always been a fan of Outlook, and continue to use this workhorse for all email accounts on my domain.
• Hotmail :: I was using this mainly for finding out when comments came in, when my blog was powered by Movable Type, but I've changed where those notifications go. I may stop using it altogether right away.
• OpenOffice.org :: This is a brand new addition to my software arsenal. It takes some getting used to, but I am dedicated to convert from MS Office. So far I've only really toyed around with Writer, but will make the move to other suite products soon.
• Google's Picasa :: In-computer photo storage and viewing. I've only been using Picasa for a couple of months, but like it more and more every time I open it up.
• Mozilla Firefox :: I've been using Firefox exclusively for probably two years now. I have many issues with Internet Explorer, and find it quite annoying when I click a link in MSN Messenger, that it just decides that I want IE instead of my default Firefox. No web user should be browsing with Internet Explorer.
• Mozilla Thunderbird :: Although not quite powerful enough for me to switch my email use to, I absolutely love its RSS capabilities and have been using it exclusively since I started blogging.
• MSN Messenger :: IM purposes, obviously.

I think that about covers it, besides obvious things like using Google for search, or Wikipedia for gathering useless knowledge. What do you use to get through your day?

Keeping in line with my recent history of posting stuff that noone cares about, here are some statistics from Google Analytics. Statistics began on November 15, 2005 and run through to some time April 27, 2006.

Top Referrers: (thanks!)

1. Catprint in the Mash / Sask Blogs Aggregator
2. daring to be remarkable
3. grrrl meets world
4. Marshmallows For Breakfast
5. Abandoned Stuff

Top Locations:

1. Saskatoon, Saskatchewan
2. Regina, Saskatchewan
3. Winnipeg, Manitoba
4. Calgary, Alberta
5. Montreal, Quebec
6. Yorkton, Saskatchewan

Most Popular Keywords:

1. salmon flavored pop
2. stephen glauser / stephenglauser.com / stephenglauser
3. emessenger
4. rico suave
5. yorkton snowboarding / two+weeks+notice (tie)

Browser Breakdown:

1. Internet Explorer: 53%
2. Firefox: 44%

So, there you have some useless information about the visitors to my website. I really just wanted to say thanks to those driving people to my site, but then decided to give you guys some more info. Woooooooo!

I haven't even been using WordPress for a week yet, and I'm thinking about switching back to MovableType.

There are certain things I really enjoy about WordPress, but I just find it so limiting with my minimal knowledge of PHP and CSS. I was planning on adding the full blogrolls for both Alberta Blogs and SaskBlogs, but am becoming more and more frustrating to get a sidebar on everypage.

So, I'm going to work on a new custom MT theme over the next week or two and see if I can come up with something acceptible.

This should be some kind of an indication as to how opposed to change I really am. I've used MovableType as my main blogging tool-de-force since mid-2003. Last Wednesday (exactly one week ago today) I switched my blog from MovableType to WordPress.

Well. It didn't last long.

I just couldn't deal with the hassles in modifying some of the themes, and the unfamiliarity of the backend scared me. And so, I came running back to the old and trusted. I had originally planned on spending between a few days and a week working up a new style for the site, but I managed to get something I could be happy with in about a day -- which is what you see before you here.

This style is pretty much a combination of my old MovableType theme, and the theme that my WordPress-version blog was using. Expect more changes to come over time, but I am not really planning another software switch anytime soon. One of the big things about this new switchback is that I finally figured out how to modify the pages you see after you submit a comment, and perform a search to be more uniform with the rest of the site.

Let me know what you think!

[update: Sorry to those of you who again have to switch your RSS feeds. It is back to the original (pre-last Wednesday) URL of http://www.stephenglauser.com/atom.xml. Update 'em!]

In my quest to visit all of the blogs featured on my SaskBlogs list (between 60 and 70 if I believe correctly), I came across When Irish Eyes Are Smiling.

She posted a challenge she had found that involves the Wikipedia, arguably my favorite website on the internet currently. The Wikipedia Challenge: Go to wikipedia and type in your birthday (minus the year.) Then post 3 events, 3 births and 3 deaths from the day you were born. Mine are as follows:

Events:

• 1609 - Henry Hudson lands on Manhattan island.


• 1962 - The Beatles record their debut single, Love Me Do.


• 2001 - The September 11 attacks destroy the World Trade Center in New York City, part of The Pentagon in Arlington, Virginia, and crash a passenger airliner in Pennsylvania. In total, almost 3,000 are killed.

• 1885 - D.H. Lawrence, English novelist (d. 1930)


• 1924 - Tom Landry, American football coach (d. 2000)


• 1940 - Brian de Palma, American film director

• 1161 - Queen Melisende of Jerusalem (b. 1105)


• 1931 - Salvatore Maranzano, crime boss


• 2001 - 3,000 innocent people


• 2003 - John Ritter, American actor (b. 1948)

In the world of film reviews, bloggers are king. I'm not all that surprised by this, as it is generally-accepted that bloggers are slowly gaining importance against the mainstream media in all things news, and film reviews are no different.

It makes sense too. We are the people that actually watch the movies, and I would much rather read a review by a peer as opposed to some egotistic Roger Ebert type (notice how I said type... I actually don't mind Roger Ebert).

I've never really cared what individual critics had to say, but with the help of Rotten Tomatoes as well as the blogosphere it's becoming easier to sift through the BS. A good reference from a friend doesn't hurt either.

I've been using Measure Map for a couple of days in addition to Google Analytics to track visitors. Measure Map was designed exclusively for bloggers and tracks what's important to us. Here's a quick screenshot of yesterday's visitors to my site:

It's no secret that blogging is growing at a tremendous rate. According to Technorati 75,000 new blogs are registered and over 1,000,000 posts are put up daily.

James Wanless made an interesting point about certain bloggers becoming addicted to the hobby. James goes on to link the worse-off bloggers to those who spend countless hours searching the internet for more porn, or burning thousands and thousands of dollars gambling online. This brought up an interesting thought for me:

How deep into blogging am I?

James put bloggers into two generic categories:

Many bloggers simply use a free hosted blogging service, pick a pre-fab template and post their thoughts.

Others, however, want to know their ranking, who’s linking to them, who’s commenting on their posts and what’s being said on the several hundred site and blog feeds they follow through their desktop, server-based or hosted feedreader.

Let me start off by saying I feel that neither group actually produces better material, and I read a lot from people of both categories.

I definitely fall into the latter group. I spend a couple of hours a day check my RSS feeds; trying to think of what to write about; checking my email for comment notifications; checking my stats at Sitemeter, Measure Map or Google Analytics; and, of course, reading other blogger's works and commenting. I constantly try and think of ways to improve the look and feel of my site. However, I don't feel that any of it is adversely affecting my "real" social life.

James says the following:

So, instead of looking at dirty pictures and low-res clips of porn movies, the new internet addict spends his time checking feeds, posting articles, posting comments, managing comment spam, checking stats, updating blogrolls and bookmarks, tweaking templates and developing new colour schemes to name a few. Other than the fact that blogging isn’t as damaging to society as porn, there may not be much difference to the effect on the end-user.

I really don't know of anyone that is that addicted to blogging. I view it as a hobby, and a semi-constructive way to spend some of my free time, but I do sort of agree that left to their own devices certain people could become harmlessly addicted to blogging and all that it entails.

I haven't made a post in over a week and I'm starting to feel really bad about it. There are a couple of reasons for my absense: I've been hit with a serious case of real life, and I really haven't got anything to write about, which is really frustrating. Maybe I need to come up with a new format for the content on this site or something, who knows. You guys have any suggestions for me? I'm open to anything.

I will try to start coming up with more stuff here soon.

I was looking through my list of referrers and found that my blog and RSS feed is featured on the front page of Reading Calgary. It's kinda freaky, but kinda cool. I have no idea how it got there, but I'm not going to complain.

WARNING: Severe ramble coming.

At one point I was blogging quite prolifically. That point was really not too long ago. Well, it wasn't exactly yesterday either. In May of this year I wrote fifty entries on this here web(log)site. In August, I wrote seven, and before this entry I have written six in September.

StephenGlauser.com is coming up on it's one year anniversary and it seems like I've run out of steam. But why? I slowed down at a time of pretty decent traffic and I was getting pretty good comments, and actual, real discussions were beginning to emerge on the pages of my blog. It's not as if anything has really changed in my life to reflect that all of a sudden I have nothing to write about.

And it's not just that I'm not writing my own blog, I'm neglecting to visit those that I used to frequent. Blogging used to make the internet interesting for me, and now it seems I can hardly be bothered.

I don't really know what I need to do to get back into it. I've toyed with the idea of redesigning the entire site (again) but quickly lost interest in that as well. I've got a few other web projects that I would like to get off the ground, but I just can't find the motivation to get started, and I have no idea why.

Maybe the internet is just losing it's appeal to me after twelve years of use. There are very few things I seem to do online these days:

1. Check out Wikipedia.
2. Talk on MSN to people I don't want to talk to.
3. Maybe talk to a few I do.
4. Check email. (I never receive personal email, I don't know why I check)
5. Play poker. (Even this is becoming boring)
6. Look for good, produced movie scripts.
7. Read and review (generally bad) unproduced movie scripts.
8. Occasionally write something here
9. Occasionally browse the blogosphere.

And that's about it. I remember a time when I used to do something interesting while spending time online. The problem is, I can't remember what any of that interesting stuff was. Oh well, hopefully something will spark interest again. I know, I know, this post comes at a time of (in recent history) unprecedented posting.... I had to ramble.

I spent some time last night updating the site and made quite a few changes that regular readers should be able to notice.

First, on the sidebar (to the right for those of you not in the know) I've made the Sask Blogs and Alberta Blogs blogrolls collapsible. I did this simply because I got tired of having to scroll so far to get to the search box.

That brings me to the next update -- I've severely revamped the search results page, if anyone actually uses it. I've also made the blog tag-compatible. You'll notice at the bottom of newer (and future) entries small text that says "tagged: " followed by any number of words. Simply click on one of those words to find other entries tagged with the same words. Sorry for the simplification for those of you who know how tags work (it should be pretty easy to figure out).

The archives have also been revamped. The pages were getting pretty long, so I've also made both archives pages (monthly and categorically) collapsible.

Hmm, what else. Oh, finally, after four or five unsuccessful attempts, I was able to set my blog up for scheduled postings. This will make my life quite a bit easier, but should have no affect on your viewing of the site. I also upgraded Movable Type to 3.32 from 3.31... this update also has no affect on you.

I'm going to be revamping more and more as I go on in an attempt to remotivate my blogging proficiency, hopefully it works. If you have any comments/suggestions about any of the changes I've made, let me know. Love it or hate it, I want to know!

I can be accused of being an absentee blogger from time to time, and have pointed this out myself. I'm going to really try to cut back on my blogbreaks from now on, as I am really starting to become frustrated with some people.

I mean, it's cool to go a day or two or three without posting anything, but when some of my favorite blogs on topics important to me become absent. I check my RSS reader, no updates. So I jump on their sites just to see if my RSS reader is broken. Nope. Dammit. Update!

Most of the personal blogs I read/subscribe to update regularly, why can't these people?

ed: add my sister to the list of the massively asbent. weak.

If you are a regular reader, you have no doubt noticed a vigorous comeback of content on this site as compared with recent months. While I'm happy I'm actually getting around to posting something here, I'm still not happy with the whole.

I've been using this design since early May and I have made many "tweaks" that in retrospect make the whole thing seem disjointed and unplanned. The more I look at it the more the bad design elements jump out at me. Also, when I designed the current theme I was still coming off a fairly lengthy absence from web design/programming and a lot of my old (bad) habits crept into the design and code and I'm simply not happy with that.

I've been researching trends in design and usability for a project I've been working on, and the more I read, the more I dislike my site. So. Expect a full redesign in the coming weeks. Everything is going to change. Every page. The entire way you interact and view my site will be changed. Although I have a lot of ideas, I haven't actually started planning the redesign yet, so it is a few weeks off.

If anyone with any photoshop skills would like to help me out with a few graphics, that would be outstanding. I currently only need one graphic! So, yeah, if you could help me out, woot woot!

My entry proficiency might drop off a bit in the meantime, but be patient please! In the meantime, Sam has started updating again, so pop over and say hello so she doesn't take another two month vacation.

Posting will be infrequent for the next (short) while again, unfortunately. When I come back the new layout should be right behind me, so watch for it!

Welcome to the new design of Stephen Glauser dot com. By now I've redesigned the site four times (in less than a year) and am hoping this one sticks for a while. A lot has changed so I've written a small guide to point out some of the new features. If you wish, feel free to just click around and see how you make out.

New Archives

The archives are probably the biggest change besides the visual ones. Check out the archives page (up top) and find what way will work best for you. I've started tagging my favorite entries, and you will be able to find them via the "favorites" part of the archives. You can also go back by date, by category or find out how I've tagged all the entries. Big changes were made here, so explore for yourself!

Web Standards

I've written the new design to be web standards compliant. It fully validates in XHTML 1.0 Transitional. As well, the CSS, RSS and Atom codes are also standards compliant. Unforunately Internet Explorer 6 is not. Parts of my site do not work correctly in IE, so get firefox.

Usability

I've made an honest push to make my site more usability-friendly. And with that honesty, I'll tell you I didn't push as hard as I possibly could, although a lot of strides were made.

Throughout the site you will find I have used larger text. This should make everything easier to read. I'm also using alternate colors for visited and unvisited links -- although this only applies to the bodies of entries, and the archives.

In an effort to lighten load times I've cut back on some of the graphics, and have started to use mainly lightweight PNG and small GIF images and am trying to do away with bloated JPG images, except when posting photographs. I've also minimized the number of entries that appear on the main page. This should drastically cut load times for (gasp) dial-up users.

Also, links no longer open in new windows. I was even starting to get annoyed. You may find the odd link (especially in the older entries) that isn't up to code on this one yet, but I'll try and get around to them all eventually.

For most of the pictures I will post in the future, clicking on them will allow you to see the full size, as opposed to just the small version I've posted in the past. This also will not open a new window, rather I'm using a "Thickbox," which uses AJAX to display the new image. I will try my hardest to go back and find full sizes of stuff I've posted and make it work for them too.

Refreshing old information

Some of the entries are starting to age, and some of these elder postings have old links. Links that don't work anymore. I've gone back in time and checked every entry for dead links and updated them where I could. You'll find editor's notes if links have been removed because they simply do not work any longer and I couldn't find the new URI.

In my time travels, I've begun adding tags to older entries for easier and more consistent browsing of the archives. I haven't gotten around to them all yet, but I will in due time.

Cleaned up sidebar

One of the things that really got to me about my last design was my cluttered sidebar. I've taken a few steps to lighten it up.

I have removed the SaskBlogs blogroll for a couple of reasons: it was quite long and doesn't go with the new light look; it is often "down" and really slows down the load time; even if it is not completely down, it sometimes loads terribly slow. I really think Lance is doing a great thing for us Saskatchewan bloggers, but I just can't carry the whole roll any longer. I will still link to the Aggregator. The Alberta Blogs blogroll has also got the kibosh.

Each individual page will feature a maximum of two sidebar cells. The main page may in the future, however, be expanded.

Feeds

Syndication feeds are available in both RSS and Atom formats. In the navigation bar, on the right side, you will find a link for the RSS feed. If you would the Atom version, check the bottom of any page.

Bug Fixing and Upgrades

I've finally found out what was wrong with saving your comment information, and it is has been fixed. So no more typing your name email and website. Also, I've upgraded Movable Type to version 3.33.

One year ago today at 2:00 pm I launched StephenGlauser.com with Welcome, sort of.... I made the comment that I will probably only make a couple of entries and abandon them shortly.

Since that time, this website has gone through two blogging platforms and four designs. This will be entry number 255, so I guess I was a little off. You fine folks have left me 378 comments on those entries, forcing me to forge ahead.

Since November 15, 2005 this site has had 5,680 visits comprising 13,142 page views. As those of you who have been around since the beginning will know, I didn't have a domain until this date and was unable to use Google Analytics as a tracking method until then... so I don't have stats for a full year, yet.

Some more navel gazing is in order, I suppose. So, here are some "top x" things:

Top Six Referrers

1. Daring to be Remarkable
2. Sask Blogs Aggregator
3. Abandoned Stuff
4. SaskBlogs.ca
5. Orli's Awakening
6. The Ford Focus Wagon

Top Ten Canadian Visitor Locations

1. Saskatoon, Saskatchewan
2. Regina, Saskatchewan
3. Calgary, Alberta
4. Yorkton, Saskatchewan
5. Winnipeg, Manitoba
6. Edmonton, Alberta
7. Montreal, Quebec
8. Saltcoats, Saskatchewan
9. Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan
10. Toronto, Ontario

Top Ten International Visitor Locations

1. Brookfield, Wisconsin
2. Buffalo, New York
3. Los Angeles, California
4. Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic
5. New York City, New York
6. Maceio, Brazil
7. Cary, North Carolina
   Mission Viejo, California
   Seattle, Washington
   Stockholm, Sweden

Browser Wars

1. Internet Explorer - 50.21%
   1. 6.0 - 93.16%
   2. 7.0 - 6.10%
   3. Others - 0.74%
2. Mozilla Firefox - 45.56%
   1. 1.5.X - 77.36%
   2. 1.0.X - 11.37%
   3. 2.0 - 11.17%
   4. Others - 0.12%
3. Safari - 2.32%
4. Opera - 0.92%
5. Other browsers - 0.99%

Well, this kind of sucks. As some of you may have noticed my website was unaccessible for the past two days. Apparently my host wasn't too happy when the comments script was "assraping" the server by being executed nonstop. Apparently there is a hole in MT that allows someone to use my comments script to comment other blogs, or something like that.

So I've had to turn commenting off for the time being, while I try to figure out what to do. The comment form will still be there, but won't work. :( I'm going to try porting the new design to WordPress. Hopefully it goes well.

As you know this site was down for most of Saturday and Sunday due to some jerk exploiting my comment script in one way shape or form. I've spent a few hours trying to port the design to WordPress, but it just isn't powerful enough for what I've got with MT. It probably just has to do with my not-so-great PHP skills more than WordPress' abilities, to tell you the truth, but I'm still having problems with it.

I'm going to try and put comments back up this evening with MT and see if I can not do something to plug the hole in the comment script. One of the main reasons I do this is to interact with my readers. Losing commenting would be like taking away half of the fun.

Also, thanks to James for the email.

As you may have noticed, the site was down again because of spammers relentlessly hammering at my comments script. Until I can find a way around this comments will be down.

Don't expect much in the form of blogging from me until I can get this sorted out, as this whole thing is causing me a great deal of anger with blogging.

I've come up with a new way to combat the ridiculous load on my server due to spammers. So once again comments are open. If my website gets redirected to http://suspended.page/ then you know that I have been shut down because some bastard has found a way around my new methods. I really wish spammers would die a very slow, unhealthy and painful death. Soon.

Anyway, I look forward to hearing from you folks again!

Someone nominated me for Best Personal Blog at the 2006 Canadian Blog Awards, which is pretty neat. You can vote daily and I appreciate every vote I get. The banner at the top of the site will be up for the remainder of the voting period.

Good luck to all the candidates.

I was a little discouraged earlier this month following a couple of days of downtime caused by some spammers, and I've noticed myself falling deeper and deeper into a state of "blog burnout" since. It seems that I can't find a way to put together a decent article. Or anything that brings me any decent traffic. Watching my traffic details lately hasn't been overly inspiring either.

I don't know whether it's the fact that I have got no real theme to my blog that is causing me some distress, or what it is really. All I know is that I need to fix it. Fast.

During my best month, May 2006 I was posting at least once a day. But when I go back and look I have no idea where all of the ideas for those posts came from and am a little upset about it.

I was reading another post about blogging burnout, that relates being a blogger to being a pastor and found it rather intriguing although it didn't really offer all that much insight into my current issue.

Any of you facing this situation? Or have faced this situation? What, if anything, did you do to overcome?

Possibly Related Further Reading:

• Blogging Addiction
• Neglect
• Why Can't I Contribute?
• Absentee Bloggers

On November 21 an email arrived in one of my email inboxes from Karen Brownlee, a reporter for the Regina Leader Post. Unfortunately I didn't check that account until the 28th, by which time she already had enough information for her article about Saskatchewan bloggers, Sask. bloggers create online interactive community.

I was a little miffed at myself by coming up late when I had a chance to be mentioned in the article, but all is well. Ms. Brownlee does a nice job showing the community attitude that most of the bloggers in Saskatchewan take, and gives a couple of people good "face-time," namely Lance, who runs the Sask Blogs Aggregator and Saskboy among others.

It apparently has driven quite a few people to the Aggregator, and has resulted in a bit of a spike in traffic even here. Cool. Be sure to check the article out.

For the past few weeks a couple of friends and I have been hard at work on a new blog, that we are calling Too Real. The site is not quite feature complete yet, but the postings will be regular and from a plethora of writers. We've launched this afternoon with one article, and will continue to post 'em up regularly. So head on over, check it out, bookmark it, add the RSS feed to your reader or do whatever you do!

I've been neglecting my blog again. It seems to me that this has become a rather regular issue for this particular slice of the web. I've been hit with a rather heavy dose of real life again lately. On Friday I attended Lana's Christmas party. Gillian's birthday fell on Saturday. Then Marc got back from Buffalo on Sunday. So, at least I've had excuses unlike some of the hiatus' we've seen around here in the past few months.

Anyway, I've got not much to say tonight, but I'll try to get back to some real content tomorrow.

I haven't been posting much to this blog lately and one of the reasons is the time I've been devoting to Too Real. The last two days have seen that time actually pay off.

Yesterday I published an article on the Top 7 Canadian beer that somebody stumbled the article, and then started receiving a bunch of traffic. And to add to that, it hit the front page of the Odd News section of Newsvine. Yesterday TR received 360 visits and 650+ pageviews—the majority of which went to my beer article—which makes it easily my best day of blogging ever. Only, so far today TR has received 550 visits and 1000 pageviews, again the majority of which is centered around my beer article.

Sorry for the blatant navel gazing. But it's sweet.

During an interview at South by South West, former-CBS news anchor Dan Rather was asked his opinion about bloggers:

Anybody who blogs, who does real reporting, which is to say, make telephone calls, go interview people, go talk to people, in a spirit of independence…and (tries) to do journalism with integrity, I would consider a journalist.

I'm glad that someone as influential as Mr. Rather is/was is giving bloggers some kind if validation. Good on him. (via The Blog Herald)

If you're like me and read a couple hundred blogs, and even happen to comment on a few from time to time, you know how much of a pain in the ass it is to keep track of where you've commented. Doubly so if you've had a few drinks at the time of commenting.

I like to stay a part of the conversation once I become involved so I'd been looking for a solution to this dilemma for quite some time. I'd tried using a folder in Firefox bookmarks, but that just got too heavy too quickly; I'd tried bookmarking entries I'd commented on to del.icio.us with an aptly named 'commented' tag; the list goes on and on.

Then I came across CoComment, an excellent Firefox Add-On that integrates itself with almost every blog I read (aside from some custom CMS setups). I've only used it for a couple of days but I already consider it indispensable. So if you like to leave comments on blogs, go check this out. Now, yo!

A lot of people are trying to find ways to monetize their homes on the web. Others have been rocking AdSense ads for years. If you fit either of the above categories and want to make money online, you should check out John Chow's blog. John offers advice on a lot of different ways to monetize your blog, and he'll even link to your blog if you review his.

John made over $7500 in February from his personal blog alone, so his advice has got to be worth something. Head over and check him out.

You've probably noticed that I haven't put anything up here in almost a month. I've grown disenchanted with the current design (of my own creation, no less), and haven't really had much self motivation lately for this particular site. Plus, I had finals and now it's summer.

Anyways, I'll try to post more often, and in the mean time I'm going to redesign the look and feel and reformulate my goals for this place. I'm going to implement a few things to try to aid in driving myself to be more committed to my blogging.

A redesign is happening at Too Real as well, but that was born out of finals for most of the writers, and a need to freshen the place up a bit. Anyway, look for things to change around here eventually.

In accordance with my post of May 8 entitled "This Blog," I've started making some minor changes around here. I'm going to try to tweak the look and feel instead of outright redesigning the sucker. So, I don't expect everything to be working 100% as I nip, tuck, tweak, cut, slice, add, etc. around here, so you shouldn't either.

Just thought I'd give a heads up. And I'll try to get around to regular postings sometime soon.

Six Apart released Movable Type 4 today in what is a radical departure from their previous version, 3.3(5). I will be basing my blog reboot on this software, and have been playing around with the beta a little for the past month or so. It looks very promising and should have a big effect on the blogging world as a whole.

Right now the entire blogosphere is abuzz with the news, and almost everyone is saying good things: TechCrunch has a limited review up; as does O'Reilly Radar and Read/Write Web. Problogger has got the most in-depth look at MT4 that has popped up in Google Reader so far today. Make sure to check them all out.

I'm looking forward to really sinking my teeth into the new platform. Hopefully I can come up with something awesome.

According to TechCrunch two rulings by the FEC have given blogs official recognition as media organizations under US law.

From the article:

The first case was a complaint against the well known left wing blog The Daily Kos. Conservative blogger John C.A. Bambenek claimed that the site should comply with campaign finance laws because it charges a fee to place advertising on its website and it provides “a gift of free advertising and candidate media services” by posting blog entries that support candidates. The FEC determined that the website falls “squarely” within the media exemption and is therefore not subject to federal regulation under the Act; ipso facto: under US law blogs are formally recognized as media organizations.

This is awesome for so many different reasons. It doesn't change anything, really, but it's still cool.

It's about damned time. I've been using Reader for about a year now, and my biggest issue with it has always been that it didn't have a search feature. I mean, it is a Google product, isn't it?

Another big improvement (for me) is that, if you have more than 100 unread feed items (which happens every morning following a decent sleep), it no longer just says 100+, and actually shows you the count.

Awesome! Awesome!

UPDATE: In Read/WriteWeb's coverage of the news, I was even quoted! Yesterday I made the following comment on that blog:

I'm a loyal Google Reader user, but if they don't hurry up and implement a search feature very soon, the first company who does will win my service.

A new ally of mine in blogging, Ahmed Bilal, who is helping me launch a new blog soon has got a great new post up on Performancing about building your blog.

The list, 27 Tips for Building a Kick-Ass Blog rehashes a lot of what everyone already knows, but should be (and just may become) required reading for every blogger. While I've pretty much let this blog go in the past, I'm going to be launching a couple of new ones in the coming weeks, and will try to follow his advice as closely as I can.

So, whether you are launching a new blog or just want to build yours a little more, check out the awesome list.

I have recently launched a new blog devoted to the NBC television show Heroes, called Heroes the Blog. The show just provided such an excellent blogging opportunity I had to take it, and this is the result.

Ahmed Bilal of Soccerlens and Performancing provided a lot of guidance pre-launch and will continue to help out on the project along the way. As well, Todd of Doublecool and Saskatoon Live will be a blogger on for Heroes the Blog, which rocks big time.

If you are a fan of the show, be sure to check out Heroes the Blog, and if you want to help out in any way (including blogging), email me, and I'll be more than happy.

Awesome!

A while back Google introduced the rel="nofollow" attribute to discourage spammish links. While in theory it works for certain sites, many in the blogging community don't think it's a good idea. Almost all major blogging platforms implement the attribute on all comment and trackback links, which robs your commenters of any link love.

By setting your blog up to have Google and other search engines follow links to your commenters websites, you encourage more comments and give back to your community.

I've been trying unsuccessfully for a while to set my blogs up to do this, but Movable Type made it difficult. Until now. I came across this entry that shows you the two steps to disable nofollow in Movable Type. It was the second step that was killing my efforts for so long.

WordPress users can simply install the dofollow plugin. They have it easy!

So, if you think it's a good idea, go ahead and set up your blog for dofollow links. Let me know in the comments what you think, and earn some Google love. For the record, I've implemented dofollow here, Too Real and Heroes the Blog.

Saskboy has gone through the trouble to plan another Saskatoon meet for SaskBloggers this Saturday October 13th, and the turnout is looking pretty good so far.

This year's Regina meet was a big success, so let's hope Saskatoon can match it, or at least come close. It'll be interesting to finally put faces to some of the other bloggers in the flatlands.

To RSVP, you can visit SaskBlogs.ca, Abandoned Stuff or check out the Facebook event listing. Hope to see you there.

It's been exactly one year since I put the current design of this blog live. I was going through old entries in my RSS feed, and was interested in remember exactly what it looked like previous. I doubt any of you will remember it, but now that I look back, I'm not entirely sure why I switched.

This design has served me well for the couple of hundred posts that have passed through it, but I'm still not happy with it. Unfortunately, I have absolutely no ideas for ways to improve upon what I've got, so for the time being I'm stuck with it. Sometime in the future, I do plan on redesigning however.

What do you think? Is the current design better than the old one? Should I just switch back? Should I redesign from scratch? Simply modify this one a bit? Or just keep with the status quo?

On October 23, 2005 I (re)launched my blog in this space. It's been a pretty interesting twenty four months since then, and it only looks like it will get more interesting in the coming twenty four months. Last year on this date, I marked the occasion with a bit of statistical gazing, but I don't think I will do the same this time around. Instead, I'll just do this:

Thanks to all of you that managed to keep coming around here, even though I went through a few spots where I rarely, if at all (June and July of this year, for example) posted anything. Even more thanks to those of you who comment from time to time, and even sometimes link to me. Cool.

Anyway, here's to another year... let's hope the next is better. I've got lots planned.

I've noticed that I haven't checked the email address listed on my contact page in, well, months. And there's a good reason too... it gets upwards of 30 - 50 spam a day. Which sucks.

Anyway, if for any reason you want to get in touch with me, send your emails to steveglauser@[nospam]gmail[nospam].com, minding of course, to remove the bits that interfere with the gmail domain portion. You know.