Blog

Someone asked me how to get started blogging. My first reaction: Do you really want to blog?

If you don’t like to write, if you don’t know what you would write about, if your days are already so full you can barely find time to catch your breath, blogging might not be for you. Then again, you might love the opportunity to write whatever pleases you and to engage with others. Continue reading “A sketchy intro to blogging”

An overview of Web site statistics for the new proprietor of a Web site or blog. If anything is unclear or confusing, please leave a comment so I can fix the problem. Thanks!

• Page tags
• Site logs
• How to access your site logs through your Web host
• Example site log entry

There are two ways to track your site visiters: site logs and page tags (counters and trackers). Both provide information about

• the number of visitors,
• the countries of your visitors,
• the links on other sites that led to yours,
• the words that brought up your site in online searches,
• which search engine was used,
• the Web browsers and operating systems used by your visitors, and

• other data.

  Continue reading “Tracking your Web site or blog visitors”

The current version of the Event Calendar plug-in (3.1.1rc3) doesn’t work with WordPress 2.5. A solution was posted to the Event Calendar e-mail list.

I’ve uploaded my patched files here: http://www.williamswriting.com/pdf/ec311rc3patch.zip

To use the patch, first download and unzip the Event Calendar 3.1.1rc3 plug-in.

Then download the file from my site. Copy the unzipped files into the Event Calendar plug-in folder. DON’T FORGET TO SCAN FOR VIRUSES BEFORE UNZIPPING.

There should be two replacement files: eventcalendar3.php and ec3.js. Backup files for both (eventcalendar-BU.php and ec3-BU.js) are included, just in case the patches don’t work for you. The Past Events plug-in (not a patch but very useful) contributed by one of the list members is also included.

Added: Sergio asked, “Is there any solution to the 404 error with the tags in the WP 2.5 when you use the ‘Keep Events Separate’ option?”

This patch should fix that problem. I use “Keep Events Separate” on my test blog. There has to be an event for the month that’s clicked, however. I haven’t tried this patch on WordPress 2.5.1 yet.

Just about ten years ago I laid out a fund-raising recipe book for Gloria Council No. 3 of IDES. I got involved in other things and the project lapsed. Then a few months ago someone called me wanting one of those books. Of course none were to be had. Continue reading “Sacramento Portuguese Heritage Recipe Book”

From Jakob Nielsen’s Alertbox:

In our current round of usability research, only 76% of users who expressed a desire to run a Google search were successful. In other words, 1/4 of users who wanted to use Google couldn’t do so. (Instead, they either completely failed to get to any search engine or ended up running their query on a different search engine — usually whatever type-in field happened to be at hand.) . . . Also, for this round of research we’re deliberately recruiting above-average users

Following that link:

Unless a specific study calls for participants with a different profile, we mostly recruit people with respectable jobs — an engineering consultant, an equity trader, a lawyer, an office manager, a real estate agent, a speech therapist, and a teacher, to take some of the job titles from the first week of our current study.

What an eye-opener.