HOEI

I am a Blogging Idol competitor.  I have joined this battle of the blogggers to help motivate me to do more with this blog and potentially win three thousand dollars.  Check out the details over at DailyBlogTips.com.  The contest winner will be the blogger that increases the most in RSS feed reader count between now and July 31.  That said you should subscribe to my feed in the upper right sidebar of this page to help me win the $3000 prize.

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This is a capture of my current iGoogle Page. We talked about iGoogle a little last year when the new name surfaced. Today I want to share with you how iGoogle and some cool add-ons like Google Reader can be used to make you more productive. The following list helps you understand a few things I am doing with my iGoogle page.

A - I track the weather in the two cities I spend most of my time: Goose Creek, SC and Washington, DC

B - I track the feed of a group blog that I manage (GrowingKids.org)

C - I track current events

D - I track the feed of Simply Recipes my 2nd favorite food blog

E - Google Reader copy #1 tracks Information Security related feeds that have been placed in my Security folder.

F - Google Reader copy #2 tracks blogs that I placed in my General folder.

You will also note that I use multiple tabs. The BLOG Watch tab is a post for another day. There I track blogs using custom feeds created mainly from Google Blog Searches.

I want to offer a few more comments on the multiple copies of Google Reader found on my iGoogle page. You can add multiple copies or you can switch between folders using the pull-down on one of the readers. Using Google Reader in this way allows for a quick view of a hot subject (folder). For instance, I subscribe to several dozen blogs in my general folder. It is pretty easy for a high priority topic related network security to get lost in the midst of dozens of other posts in a general category. The security folder for me allows for a focus on blogs and new sites that provide RSS feeds related to information security. These RSS feeds are related to announcements on the release of patches from vendors like Cisco, Microsoft, Red Hat, and Oracle to address security vulnerabilities.

Today’s message from DVD host Omar Wasow is titled “Windows Vista IS for Dummies, buy a MAC if you really want to get some work done.”

Fox News ran a short segment today titled Picking a PC. The guest of the segment was Omar Wasow whose claim to fame comes from being the host of the Windows Vista for Dummies DVD. Wasow also credits himself with teaching Oprah Winfrey how to use email according to this news story.

The Fox News hosts along with their guest (Mr. Windows Vista for Dummies) actually give MAC the big endorsement. The most interesting part of this HOWTO pick a PC story is that when Wasow is asked which machine he uses, his answer leads him to admit that he is a MAC user. He does slip in there that he uses Windows too, but his reaction shows a clear preference for the MAC “Road Warrior ” machine. The Dell laptop shown in the clip gets the worst press of all as being the cheap choice for the college kid.

I found this bizarre behavior in the title bar of my “My Yahoo!” page.  It seems to only happen in Firefox and I can not recreate at will.  It has happened several times in recent weeks, but I have not been able to find any information on why this mysterious counter appears. The counter will continue incrementing for hours if you do not close the browser.  Any help identifying the cause of this behavior would be greatly appreciated.

I saw an article in the NY Times this weekend that pointed out how some companies are paying ordinary people to have their cars wrapped up like a NASCAR. The article states that folks get as much as $800 per month and free gas to place ads on their cars.  In most cases you are encouraged to obey the law and maintain a certain social standard.  That means no cussing, fussing, smoking, and certainly no consumption of competitor’s products or alcoholic beverages.  It is a good thing the cussing and fussing rules are have not been strictly enforced as a prerequisite for decals on the cars of Tony Stewart, Kurt Busch, Kevin Harvick, Robby Gordon and a few other lively NASCAR stars or these guys would be sporting “Sponsor Wanted” on their cars.

That said, I have been pondering another idea and wondering if anyone has already tried this. How well does ad space on cars and road signs work for driving traffic to a blog and/or web site? No…Really? I know all the major marketing companies know the answers to my questions, but that data is hard to come by without forking over some fat loot. Has anyone tried it? If so, how did you advertise and how successful were you?

I have seen some pretty creative billboards recently that actually left me browsing the URL from the sign. I am sure there is some degree of success, but is it worth the investment?

The posting has been light in the past few weeks here at HOEI. I have a couple of pretty good excuses, but I now realize that I should have been a little better prepared for what I knew was coming. I felt a little guilty when I read Pro Blogger’s tips on what to do when you’re sick. I have not been sick, but the principles of Darren’s post still apply to my situation.

My wife gave birth to our third son on Friday evening. The newest addition to the Osborne Camp did create some excitement when he got moved into the Level II nursery about an hour after birth due to breathing problems. I posted the details on Caden’s Page in several posts beginning on August 10th, the day JJ was born.

On top of the preparations for my son’s arrival I have been working pretty aggressively behind the scenes on an awesome new group blog project for parents involved in or interested in the GFI (Growing Families International) ministry. The new blog is GrowingKids.org and it serves as the Internet home for the worldwide community of families brought together through the teaching ministry of Gary and Anne Marie Ezzo. Some of the titles from the Ezzo’s teaching ministry that you might recognize are Babywise, Childwise, Preparation for Parenting, and Growing Kids God’s Way.

I recently upgraded one of my laptops to Firefox version 2.0. This upgrade left me with a very weird Firefox startup issue. I suspected that maybe the startup defaults were different for this new version of Firefox. I knew there was an option for starting Firefox with all the same windows and tabs from the precious session, but that was not what I was experiencing. I was seeing the same thing every time I started Firefox regardless of how many tabs or windows were open during the previous session. Then checked my browser settings and found that there were eight URLs in the “Home Page” field on the Tools/Options/Startup screen. Each URL was separated by pipe character.

This image is an example of what it looked like. You can click the image to see a large view. The next thing that popped into my mind after finding this was to ask myself if this was a feature or a bug. I decided to exercise my searching skills to see what came up. I searched on: “firefox open multiple tabs on startup” and found my answer in the first result. The first hit took me to “The Sukhbir” blog where the explanation was given as follows:

“Load all the favorite pages in separate tabs. Then choose:

Tools> Options> General Tab> Homepage - Locations(s) > Use Current Page

Using this, Firefox will load all the current open pages on startup.”

So what this means is that you will get every single open tab added to the “Home Page” field in Firefox (plus some pipe character delimiters if you have more than one tab open) when you choose the “Use Current Pages” button in the Firefox version 2.0.0.4 startup options.

Obviously I did not realize this new “feature” existed until after this little incident. I normally would like to start Firefox with my iGoogle page as the first thing I see. Now that I understand this cool new feature I will rethink my Firefox startup options. Much like many other power surfers, bloggers, and web site developers, I do quickly end up with nearly a dozen windows and tabs in several browsers for various reasons. While Firefox is by far my bowser of choice, I do use many other browsers including Netscape, Mozilla, Internet Explorer, and Opera on a weekly basis. I will have to review my history to see what sites I open most frequently and then add them to my startup options.

Interestingly enough the third result from the Google search mentioned above led me to tech-recipes where I learned that there is a similar feature in Microsoft’s IE7 (with the new tabbed browsing feature). Since I have not bothered to upgrade a single PC in my house to Internet Explorer 7, I had no clue. I have used IE7 on a machine or two at work, but that is normally when sitting at a co-worker’s desk helping with a problem. This all made me wonder who came up with this idea first. I think it is Microsoft who can claim this feature first, but that is pure speculation. I could not find a reference in the Mozilla Firefox release notes back through version 2.0 where this feature was added. It seems to have quietly arrived on the scene since the last time the Firefox Help pages were updated on mozilla.org. I pulled a screen capture to show what I am referring to. You will notice the “s” missing from the “Use Current Page” button. The button on Firefox Version 2.0.0.4 reads “Use Current Pages”. If you know when Firefox actually added this feature then please let me know. I am curious who came up with this first. For all I know it may have been standard on something other than Firefox or IE for a while.

I have come across a couple of blog contests worthy of entering and blogging about. The MsDanielle.com blog site is offering up a 30GB Microsoft Zune in a contest open to just anyone with a blog who is willing to link to her site a couple times. Ms. Dannielle won this Zune in a contest and decided to put it back up for grabs. I like this ideas and I promise to do the same should I come up the winner in this giveaway.

The second contest I am participating is over at PureBlogging.com. These guys are offering up two separate $100 prizes to be delivered via PayPal. The first $100 prize will go to the 1000th commenter on that blog. The second $100 will be given via a random drawing from all qualifying entries. Stop by PureBlogging and read the details and rules if you are interested in a chance to win some cash.

I will admit right up front that I did not read all 893 posts from Darren’s latest writing project, and I do not plan to read them all. I did not get 893 visits to my Top 5 post so I know I am not the only one skipping a few in this list for one reason or another. I chose to read only the ones that caught my attention with their titles. From those I started bookmarking my favorites. Out of a few hundred posts that I did clink into, here are the ones I marked as favorite:

• Five Reasons to Participate in Group Writing Projects
• Top 5 ways to love your wife
• Top 5 methods to increase comments on your blog
• Top 5 Things Moms Should Keep in the Family Minivan
• My Top 5 Favourite WordPress Blogging Tools
• Top 5 Business Startup Myths
• Top 5 Tools Every Blogger Should Use (Or At Least Consider Using)
• Top 5 Steps to Redirect Traffic from Your Old Site to a New One
• Top 5 Free Ways to “Start” Generating Traffic to Your Blog
• Top 5 (+2) Ways to Earn Respect on the Internet
• The Top 5 Free Search Engine Optimization Tools

The above list includes blogs ranging from an Alexa ranking of 28,000 to infinity. That tells me that there are plenty of lower traffic blogs out there that appeal to me just as much as the heavy hitters like Darren Rowse. I just need to find a way to identify more of these blogs. Oh wait, I just did. I joined this writing project and followed the links to some of the other participants as suggested.

I have some others that I will call honorable mentions saved in a separate favorites folder. I will give them some attention later in the week. I also need to identify those who were so nice as to include me on their favorite (pick a number) list.

Much to my own surprise, I am rapidly moving into what I consider to be the part-time equivalent of a “Pro” blogger based on the criteria in Darren Rowse’s “What makes a Problogger?”.

Is it the fact that somebody blogs for another person, getting paid per post? Is it someone who blogs alongside others, sharing the revenue between them? Is it somebody who maintains their own blog, making an partial, or substantial income from their blogging activities?

I agree with these because all of the bloggers I consider to be pro fit into at least one of these and most of them fit into all. I can think of at least one more point that might identify a person as a pro blogger. Is it when people respect you enough as a blogger to approach you for blogging advice where some even offer to pay? Some of these things are happening to me. My blog related income is growing, traffic numbers are rising, and I am increasingly getting tapped for answers to blog related questions, some paying and some not.

My personal blog and Caden’s Page have historical seen the majority of the attention on HOEI.COM. I will be highlighting each of my blogs in the coming weeks to talk about why I started them and where they are today. I hope that I can raise this new front page blog into the ranks of those respected in the “Pro” blogging community. I believe I have some relatively unique insights on blogging and will be sharing them here on this blog.

One of my favorite bloggers in the pro category is Dareen Rowse over at Probloger.net, if you couldn’t tell by the references I have already made to his site. I read Darren’s blog almost daily because he is straight forward, seems like a genuine guy, and he is a professing Christian. I am not setting out to become a full-time (six-figure) pro blogger like Darren, but I do hope to learn some things from him to help keep my blog activities profitable and growing. I should be comfortable inside the four figure range by the end of this year and hope to double the blog related revenue by the end of 2008. This is realistic if I stay on track with my current growth.

Keep an eye on the Problogger site over the next couple of days. Darren’s releasing his latest Group Writing Project where the top prize going to a random participant will be $1001.

Even though this blog is young, I hope that Darren’s Group Writing Project will be built around a topic that will match up with some of the post ideas spinning around in my head this week. I did not participate in the last Group Writing Project over at ProBlogger, but I might just have to jump on this one. I am not counting on any cash prizes from any of Darren’s sponsors to get me into the four digit revenue range this year, although it would be very nice boost to the bottom line.