In celebration of Joanne’s triumphant return to blogging*, I wanted to assemble a collection of quotes. Alas, my quote files are still AWOL, and I’ve not yet found the disks I copied them onto. Truth to tell, I really haven’t been looking that hard, or rather, at all. Been busy.

Instead, in honor of my blog’s four and a half month anniversary**, I will instead thank all my blogging friends and honor them with a nice bit of prose I unearthed.

So, without further ado, for all my blogging friends, and those I’ve invariably overlooked here: Alex, study hard, Ann, I haven’t forgotten all those tags!; Beth, welcome newbie!; Brent, apples not oranges; Chayna, don’t be a stranger!; Chris, working the holidays; Chris, AWOL!; Coolio Jones, long time no see; CornDog, misled by Doug into coming here; David, the deviant; Dean, Doug tricked you into coming here too, didn’t he?; Deborah, read her while she lasts; Doug, who taught me the meaning of NSFW; Doug, do your friends understand your domain name yet?; Erina, take care of yourself; Ernie, who knows his scifi; Jason, deep thoughts; JD, doing things so the rest of us don’t have to; Jeanne, making us better writers; Joanne, a.k.a. Ruby, by the way, owned; Jon, you can thank me later; Keeyit, I think you still owe me a tag; Lewis, are you AWOL?; Mark, welcome newbie!; Michael, ranting bits and bytes; Mike, welcome newbie!; Mike, journaling the past; Nina, despite omitting Gina Holden, an oversight, though, which was promptly corrected; Pete, we know where to find him; Phil, hope you’re doing okay; Rolando, we’ll miss you!; Sabrina, saving us money; Sam, don’t be a stranger!; Terence, doing things the opposite of me!

A GOOD FRIEND

To have a good friend is one of the highest delights of life; to be a good friend is one of the noblest and most difficult undertakings. Friendship depends not upon fancy, imagination or sentiment, but upon character. There is no man so poor that he is not rich if he have a friend; there is no man so rich that he is not poor without a friend. But friendship is a word made to cover many kindly, impermanent relationships. Real friendship is abiding. Like charity, it suffereth long and is kind. Like love, it vaunteth not itself, but pursues the even tenor of its way, unaffrighted by ill-report, loyal in adversity, the solvent of infelicity, the shining jewel of happy days. Friendship has not the iridescent joys of love, though it is closer than is often known to the highest, truest love. Its heights are ever serene, its valleys know few clouds. To aspire to friendship one must cultivate a capacity for faithful affection, a beautiful disinterestedness, a clear discernment. Friendship is a gift, but it is also an acquirement. It is like the rope with which climbers in the high mountains bind themselves for safety, and only a coward cuts the rope when a comrade is in danger. From Cicero to Emerson, and long before Cicero, and forever after Emerson, the praises of friendship have been set forth. Even fragments of friendship are precious and to be treasured. But to have a whole, real friend is the greatest of earth gifts save one. To be a whole, real friend is worthy high endeavor, for faith, truth, courage and loyalty bring one close to the Kingdom of Heaven.

~Atmos

BTW, if you were listed in this post, and haven’t responded–please get with it!!! Thanks!

*She was gone for eleven days, fourteen hours and fifty-eight minutes. And then she only posted sporadically after her return. She’s such a tease. But, what else would you expect from the Pirate King’s daughter?

**Think of a small child. “I’m not four!!! I’m four and a half!!!” Thus, we celebrate halves. Good thing we don’t teach kids other fractions at that age…

Popularity: 6% [?]

Has anyone noticed that if you leave a comment on a Blogger blog, and you don’t have a Google account, you can no longer leave your URL as well as your nickname?

Previously, you checked could leave your nickname and an URL, which would make your nickname a link to your blog when the comment was posted.

Now, it’s not letting you do that. I wonder if that’s a glitch, or a permanent change on Google/Blogger’s part? Knowing Google, I am suspecting the latter.

If that’s true, that may weed out some of the spam comments, but it may also weed out legitimate comments as well. Without a linkback, some bloggers may just skip your blog and head somewhere where they will get something of value (a linkback) in exchange for their comment. Some of us leave worthwhile comments, you know.

So, if this turns out not to be a glitch and is instead a permanent change, those of you using Blogger should strongly consider switching to WordPress, where you (not Google) will have more control over your own blog!

Popularity: 7% [?]

You’ve probably read how the blogosphere continues to grow, and that there are X number of blogs out there.

The thing is, I don’t think any of those statistics* take into consideration the number of blogs that are abandoned each month. And, how would you account for such a blog, unless they were permanently deleted from their host? Most just end up sitting idle, left for posterity or forgotten by their owners.

Since the October 10th post linked above, another two blogs have gone silent (maybe more, but only two that I recall right now). Most recently is Rolando. Rolando understandably wants to spend more time with his family, and has decided to drop blogging to reclaim that time. Even Jon has mentioned the possibility of shutting down his blog, which I absolutely forbid him to do until he has completed my photo meme, with which I’ve not yet tagged him.**

And, now, for no reason whatsoever, I’ll interject with a link to Joanne. Have I mentioned I knew Joanne in high school? Okay, that was a different Joanne, and that’s a story for another day.

Anyway, blogs seem to keep dropping like flies. For every new and interesting one I find, an old one goes AWOL. By the way, has anyone heard from Chris Bloczynski lately? He did an interview with me, then promptly disappeared, which does not bode well for Deborah.

Anyone heard from Budget Babe? She never finished her ten part series, stopping at day 8 of the series. Bummer. And, now her blog has been overtaken by spammers.

Has anyone heard from Tom at The Net Business Journal? He inquired once about me doing something similar to guest blogging for him, then he promptly disappeared. And, Mom’s Writing, which I think was his wife’s blog, has gone silent too. Again, I’m telling you that this does not bode well for Deborah.

Bloggers interview me or want to work with me, and then they vanish without a trace. Come to think of it, there are a number of interesting people that seem to drop out of my life. They either die, disappear or move far, far away.

But, in lieu of exploring this disturbing trend further, I’ll swing back to my original point, which is blogs going silent. Some, like Rolando, may have understandable reasons for dropping out, but at least he left a closing message, whereas many others do not. And, you’re left to wonder if something serious happened to them, or if they just got up one day, said “the heck with this!” and never bothered to return.

I think there are probably a good number of bloggers that started out with the intention of making John Chow money. Who wouldn’t want to make $20,000 per month blogging? And, even if you realize that you won’t come near that amount, you still rationalize that, hey, I might not make $20,000 per month, but surely I could get $2,000 a month!

A few months later, combined with an AdSense income of $1.63***, they figure they’d do better with a part-time job at McDonald’s.

As recently as the beginning of this month****, I thought about throwing in the towel. I wasn’t even sure if this blog would last the rest of this month. I didn’t sign up for NaBloPoMo, but I figured I would try for a post per day anyway, and then maybe call it quits at the end of November. Still, I wasn’t sure I would make it through the month, having largely run out of ideas. Then again, it’s not like this month has been a stunning achievement of quality posting, as exemplified with this post. Actually, I’m pretty pleased with that post, to tell the truth. It says a lot in so few words. Or, no words, depending on whether or not you count the title.

Maybe it was Joanne-withdrawal, since we really haven’t had a real sparring session in quite some time. And, I’m pretty sure I owned her in the last one. We just won’t mention Technorati rank. Nope. That’s a fluke. A mistake. A conspiracy. But, I take full credit for her rank, ’cause, really, I pushed her there. So, that was all me.*****

Then again, sometimes I don’t readily accept defeat. Or admit defeat. There’s a point where you just have to admit to yourself that, this isn’t working! And, rather than keep beating a dead horse, you move on. But, perhaps that part of my brain doesn’t work that well, because I’ll give the dead horse CPR, shock it with electricity, say a prayer for it, or leave it alone and hope it gets better. Even when nothing is left but the skeletal remains, heck, that’s just a flesh wound. It could still recover. If I could just lead it to the water…

There’s a delicate balance between giving up too soon and sticking it out too long. I used to do the former, but now perhaps I lean too much to the latter.

*Yes, I know I’ve not given any actual statistics, but I am referring to the statistics in general and not any specific statistics. Okay, yes, I didn’t feel like looking up any actual statistics, so I just used “X” in place of a gazillion or whatever the number of blogs out there is currently estimated at. And, yes, I still do appear to have a problem with run-on sentences. I never used to have such a problem, but I digress…

**I’m sure my forbidding will carry a lot of weight with him. Yeah, that’s the ticket. Right now, Jon is thinking, who does this guy think he is? Well, actually, he’s thinking ejp fprd yjod hiu yjoml jr od? because I’m pretty sure that’s the way his mind works… now.

*****You’re not buying it, are you? Why does no one ever believe me?

Popularity: 6% [?]

I promised Jon my purple leaf photo a short time back, and here it is. Didn’t turn out as nice as Jon’s photos, or the original leaf for that matter, but c’est la leaf!

Popularity: 5% [?]

Yes, I blatantly (sort of) pre-empted the title from JD.

Cremstock has a Photoshop contest running. I missed rounds 1 and 2, but I entered the third round. If you’re a registered user, you can vote on my image (once voting begins). Did I mention registration was free? Just a little hint.

You can enter too! Of course, if your Photoshop skills are superior to mine, I’d like to discourage you from entering. I know many of you use PCs, so you wouldn’t want to win a Macintosh computer anyway. You might love it, toss your PC to the curb, and that would be bad for the environment, or something.

I won’t point out which image is mine, because you should be able to spot it easily. It’s the best of the bunch! Though, honestly, this is only day one and, judging by the other entries, I don’t have a snowball’s chance in a southern July of winning it.

Filed under “Fantasy” because the image (though I can’t show it here) is somewhat fantastical. And, any hope of winning is pure fantasy too. I’ll see how things go, and maybe I can improve my chances of winning round 4.

Popularity: 7% [?]

“Apparently, stupid comments (as opposed to stupid people) tend to use more consonants and more clever comments use more vowels.“

This sounds like an interesting challenge for smart people. Leave a stupid comment to this post using the most vowels you can.

Not sure how well this will work. After all, “smart” has fewer vowels than “stupid.” Well, have at it… Stupidest vowel-y comment gets a linkback.

Popularity: 9% [?]

On Filtered Foto Friday, I posted a photo which had been obscured by some Photoshop filters (I used two).

You were invited to guess what was captured in the photo.*

No one was right, but Pete was the closest with his guess of “A sunset over the ocean.”

It is actually a sunset over land. Somewhere around Dayton, I think.

*Yes, I italicized that to make it sound more exciting than it was.

Popularity: 5% [?]

It’s pretty much old news that Google reportedly slapped bloggers who offer paid links by reducing their PageRank. But, the discussion continues in the blogosphere over what to do about it. Most recently, Jeanne Dininni posted her thoughts.

My advice, which I believe is very similar to Jeanne’s, is to do nothing.

Not “nothing” per se, but rather to keep doing what you’re doing.

As I mentioned in my “Google is Irrelevant” post, Google is, well, irrelevant. It is losing its relevance in search. Google is spending a lot of time and money expanding into other areas, as a result, its focus on search is becoming weaker and it is losing ground.

Sure, there are the non-believers that think that Google is synonymous with the “Internet,” but those of us who have been on the Internet since before Google was created or even became popular know that such synonyms are bound to become undefined. Yahoo was once synonymous with search and Netscape was once synonymous with web browsing. Google, while still dominant, is seeing its empire chipped away, bit by byte.

As I mentioned in my aforementioned post, other services might possibly become contenders to replace Google: del.icio.us, Digg, reddit, StumbleUpon or Technorati. Since that time, Google has apparently forged some type of relationship with StumbleUpon, which may be good or bad news, depending upon how that shakes out.

But, there are other contenders as well. One such contender is Wikipedia. Though its reliability may be in question, I find myself using it more and more as the first place to look for something. Even if you don’t trust its content, it usually has resource links, which are typically more reliable sites from which to find the information you’re looking for.

In the comments section of my irrelevant Google post, Greg Allsopp pondered: “So your [sic] going to rely on your friend to help you cure your embarassing problems? Book your next holiday for you on one review or find the best prices on hairdryers?”

As far as the first question is concerned, Wikipedia may offer an answer. As for the second, you may want to pay Deborah (or a similar blogger) a visit and, as for the third, you might want to just go to Wal-Mart.

For certain things, I find myself checking Wikipedia first and then only resorting to Google if Wikipedia doesn’t lead anywhere. I’ve learned the types of things that are easier to find in Wikipedia than in Google. I’m sure I am not alone. And, that’s bad for Google, because that means fewer searches coming its way, which means less advertising revenue.

I’m not saying that Wikipedia will replace Google. It’s entirely possible that Google won’t be replaced by any one service, but that a number of different services will chip away at Google’s empire.

Not that Google isn’t chipping away at its own empire… Does anyone else remember when Yahoo was the top dog in search? You had to be listed in Yahoo if you were running any kind of business or service online. Google was making some inroads, but plenty of people were still using Yahoo. Then, Yahoo decided it could push webmasters around, and started asking for a $299 fee to expedite a review of your website for inclusion. Note that they didn’t even guarantee that you would get listed, only that they would review your site and make a decision within x number of days instead of 6 months (or whatever the lag time was then).

Some webmasters paid the fees. Others focused on the free search engines, like Google. Google made a lot of progress when Yahoo started charging. People began to question Yahoo’s reliability–were listings based on quality or ability to pay? And, usage of Google increased. On top of that, webmasters even helped promote Google by adding Google search boxes on their sites as one more slap in the face to Yahoo.

Now, Google is turning into Yahoo. Instead of charging fees, they are bullying webmasters into doing things their way–to benefit Google–or punishing them with reduced PageRank or results placement. At this point, Google’s quality must be questioned. Despite all their updates, I still see a lot of spammy sites in the search engine results and most, if not all, of these sites are of far less quality than the bloggers and websites who are being punished for selling links.

Google apologists will argue that “overall” search quality is improving and that you cannot take isolated search results as a measure of the overall quality. But, an individual’s individual search results are what matter. And, if those return low quality results, those individuals will begin to look elsewhere. Likewise, there were Yahoo apologists that argued that webmasters that couldn’t afford a $299 fee (which I think was later made into an annual fee to maintain your listing), you probably weren’t a quality site to begin with or weren’t serious about your website or business.

But, the amount of money you have to spend is not a measure of the quality of your site. It doesn’t matter whether you cannot afford a $299 fee or cannot afford to not offer paid links. Neither determine quality. You can see how Yahoo fared by its decisions. Do you think Google will fare differently?

History repeats itself. People frequently say that it’s because we haven’t learned the lessons of the past. But, that’s not true. The reason that we repeat the same mistakes is because we think that our situation is different or that history is not relevant to our decision. Or, we make some excuse as to why the past mistake was different from the mistake we are making.

Take this chance to learn from history what Google has not. If you have a quality site, keep doing what you’re doing, in spite of how Google may punish you. Death is knocking on Google’s door, not yours. Take advantage of other search engines and methods of promoting your site. Google is not the be-all, end-all. Google is not the Internet.

Summary: Keep publishing quality content. Maybe even put a Live Search box on your site.

Popularity: 20% [?]

So, I am skipping around with my updates, rather than sticking to Mondays. Oops. Maybe this is the new trend, since I did a Thursday update once. Last update, though, was on a Monday.

I am nearly finished with the last task, which was mentioned in my last update. However, I am skipping ahead to the next part of the project. Why leave a portion unfinished? Because, once finished with the site, I will need to go back for minor fixes and tweaks–things that always come up after you’ve left them alone for a while or started using them more regularly. So, the odds and ends that need to be completed on the last task can be taken care of then. All the “heavy lifting” is done.

Today, I had resolved to complete the next particular task in the queue. That took me all of eight minutes, leaving me free to twiddle my thumbs for the rest of the day. Actually, I am composing this post in between that* and the next task. The next bit involves some thinking, as I decide how to accomplish certain goals. I may go clean something whilst I ponder…

*That being the last task and not the “twiddling my thumbs” part, which I’ve opted to skip for today.

Popularity: 6% [?]

So, what is in the photo? I’ll leave that for you to guess, and reveal the unfiltered photo later.

Popularity: 8% [?]