Day In The Life of Baz

We all know that linking to your prior posts is a great idea. Google loves it and your new readers will love you for it. But knowing you lazy guys out there, you don’t really do it as much as you should. Well I’m going to help you out there. There one way you should know about already: the Related Posts plugin. I kind of prefer the Similar Posts plugin, but you guys already know that. But I got a great new way to help you out with your links.

Enter aLinks

I’m guessing that the “a” is short for “auto”. It basically helps create links without actually going through the tedious process. I mean I guess it’s not that bad, but I’m lazy, sorry. Now as with everything that helps us lazy people, there’s a bit of footwork involved. The way that aLinks works is off a set of key words or key phrases. You go to the administrator section and stick in some key words and when you use them in your posts, links and magically created. That’s it. Out of the box it helps you in three basic ways.

I’ve been having a problem deciding which plugin I should be using: “Related Posts” vs “Similar Posts”. I’ve decided to test both of them at the same time. Now, I’ve made up my mind:

Similar Posts blows Related Posts out of the water. I don’t know how the matching algorithms are different, but the matches ended up being more relevant. Some times Related Posts would return no posts, which Similar Posts gave me what I was looking for.

Not to mention Similar Posts has a great plugin that works for the feeds. So the decision has been made. I thank you for bearing with me during this experiment.

I’m curious as to which one you guys think is better:

Popularity: 30%

I take it that, now, we’re over the whole iPhone thing. To those of you who haven’t gotten one (I haven’t, by the way) I know you’re kicking yourself for not camping out outside your neighborhood Apple/ATT store the week they were coming out. But for those of you who have gotten one and are in love with it, this post is for you guys.

You’ve dealt with all the skeptics who thought that this would just be another gimmick from Apple. But, as the skeptics are slowly learning, Apple doesn’t do gimmicks; they put out solid products. So, you have your iPhone and you love it, but there is this lingering feeling that you have in back of your head. It’s similar to the feeling you get when you’re in the car on your way to work and you think, “Did I leave the iron on?” There is some unfinished business that you have to handle before you can continue with your iPhone enjoyment experience, but what can it be? I know! You’re wondering what to do with your, now useless iPod. Your iPhone is now your lifeline and you’re not going to carry around two MP3 players are you? So, here are a few ideas to get you started:

OK, now I’ve never been a big fan of Apple for a few reasons:

• Lack of exposure - I grew up on DOS and Windows. That’s all I know. I had no friends who were enterprising enough to try a Mac.
• High prices - Macs may be good machines, but they are really expensive right now.
• Can’t Build - At least I can’t. I’ve never even seen inside a Mac. And I haven’t been hearing of many people heading over to NewEgg and buying Mac parts and setting up.
• Lack of Games - I’m a gamer, I’m a gamer, I’m a gamer. I don’t want to pick up my latest favorite game from the store and then have to check whether is Mac compatible.
• If It Breaks, Then What? - Again, this come from lack of experience with Macs. I’ve never really been fond of Tech support of any kind. I like to fix my own problems. With a Mac I wouldn’t be able to do that.

One great thing about Macs however, is that they don’t get viruses, or at least didn’t used to. Such things just didn’t exist, until now.

Along with working extended hours (and being too bloody lazy; I’m really sorry guys), one this is one of the reasons that I’ve been posting less. I know it isn’t and excuse, but that’s the best I’ve got.

I was over on Mozilla’s site looking for an extension (no, I can’t remember what it was) but I stumbled onto the coComment extension. I don’t know why I haven’t seen this advertised by more bloggers. Since I’ve found it I don’t know how I’ve gotten on without it.

What Is coComment?

One thing that we’ve been taught as bloggers is that we need to actively engage in comments on your blog and on other blogs. Well it’s simple enough to do this on your own blog, because you know when you receive a comment. However, there’s a slight problem trying to do this on other people’s blog? Subscribe to Comments 2.1 has made this a little bit easier. But not all bloggers have this plugin installed. If they don’t, then you have a few problems.

With coComment you can subscribe to any comments from anybody’s blog. Then you can go to your coComment homepage and there are all your comments right there. If there’s a new comment, that thread will become bold.