Category: Blogging

Overwhelmed By A Hurricane Of Content

Blogging, Internet, Technology

content-stormThere are about a billion of websites on the Internet.  Of those, millions are blogs.  Those blogs produce between a dozen and a few thousand new posts every year.  Then there are the thousands of movies, TV shows, games, songs, books, and other forms of media released every year.  Just for good measure, mix into this the millions – if not billions – of status updates, photos, and videos published to social media sites such as Twitter, Facebook, and Google+.  It’s easy to see how we are drowning in content nowadays.

On this blog alone, I have over 1,200 posts published.  Many of them – I’m sure – are updates that would interest almost nobody.  Some might interest a small group.  A couple might actually interest many, many people.  If only people knew about them. 

The problem is that a good post can easily be lost within the swarm of other status updates, videos, and thousands of other posts.  It’s like trying to hear a cricket chirping… from across town… while a category 5 content hurricane is blowing.

There are many people who know many good ways of amplifying your volume.  The problem is that these take time and effort.  My problem is that I’ve got a day job.  This isn’t a "problem" per se – I really like my day job and in this economy there are lots of people who would love to have one.  The problem is that many hours of my day are dedicated to "doing the day job thing."  Subtract time to pay attention to the kids, do chores around the house, cook, etc, and I barely have time to write my blog posts – much less spend hours promoting them.  So I just keep chirping into that content hurricane hoping that someone hears me and likes what they read.

On the flip side, as a content consumer rather than content producer, it almost seems like there are never enough hours in the day to see everything I want to see.  My feed reader is hardly packed with hundreds of thousands of blogs and yet I rarely seem to be able to knock the number of unread items below triple digits.  When I started out on Twitter and was following only a few people, I would read every status update that was made.  Even when I took a day off of social media for Shabbat, I would go back in my timeline to where I left off and would spend some time catching up.  This just isn’t possible anymore.

If I spent my entire day reading blog posts, watching TV shows, looking at Instagram photos, reading status updates, and watching YouTube videos, I wouldn’t even scratch the surface of what I’d like to see.

One of my favorite movies of all time is Short Circuit.  In this movie, a military robot accidentally becomes alive and sentient.  Instead of wanting to destroy, however, Number 5 decides that all he wants is to live in peace and consume information.  In the sequel, Short Circuit 2, this is expanded upon when Number 5 – now called Johnny Five goes to the city and discovers a book store.  He goes from book to book flipping through them absorbing their contents in seconds.  Though it is a big bookstore (for the 80’s), he is able to absorb all of the information rapidly.

I wonder what would happen if Johnny Five were to be released in the present day, however.  No matter how quickly he could flip through a 700 page novel, consume an RSS feed, watch a TV show or movie at extreme fast forward, or listen to music songs, there would still be more to see.

The Internet brings what often seems to be unlimited content to you and this can be a blessing or a curse.  It is nearly impossible to be bored – boredom merely means that it is time to seek out new and interesting feeds/games/videos/etc.  On the flip side, you can feel left out when you are unable to keep up with all of the content that all of your friends are watching (even if said content is spread over your friends and they each aren’t watching it all).  Going back to the hurricane analogy, you are a fly buzzing about as the category 5 content hurricane blows.  Every time you think you have found some stability, another blog post or YouTube video or app comes out of nowhere to strike you.

Whether you are a cricket chirping or a fly buzzing – a creator trying to get your work viewed or a consumer trying to keep up with the latest content – it’s a dangerous and information packed world out there.  Stay safe.

Note: The "content storm" image above was created by combining the following images from OpenClipArt.org: Hurricane Symbol by TheByteMan, Generic Book by dniezby, Movie Camera by schoolfreeware, Music Icon by Minduka, Iphone 4 by Ts-Pc, Cutie Bird by Luen, and Cartoon TV by rg1024.

Five Years of Blogging

Blogging

DTRave_Cartoon_Computer_and_Desktop_smallFive years ago tomorrow, I began my blogging adventure.  At the time, I didn’t know what to expect.  All I knew was that I felt I had a lot to say.  B had been blogging for about a year and a half and I decided to do the same.  I set up a WordPress blog and made my first post.  Then, five days later, and after some website work, I wrote a second post and then, a third a day after that.  I was on my way.

Blogging certainly wasn’t what I was expecting when I began.  I remember being very upset that I had no comments on my blog when all these other blogs I read would have dozens.  I began to think I must be doing something wrong or at least nobody cared about what I wrote.  More than once, I came close to giving up blogging.

Then, I realized that I wasn’t blogging for some nebulous audience.  I was writing for myself.  It suddenly didn’t matter to me whether I had one reader or one hundred,  (Though one hundred readers would be nice.)

Over the years, I’ve written on many subjects from the geeky to the serious.  I’ve gone from being the father of a five year old and a one year old to the dad of a child in Grade 5 and a child in Grade 1.  (The math geek in me likes that for some reason.)  I’ve published 1,194 blog posts here, 34 posts over at Dad Revolution, and 4 guest posts in a few other places.  I don’t have a total word count, but that’s a LOT of writing.

I’ve met many wonderful people (some in person, many more online only) and have learnt things that I never would have learned had I never began to blog.  I wonder what I’ll learn during the next five years.

Disclaimer: The computer graphic above was created by DTRave and is available from OpenClipArt.com.

Blog Schedule

Blogging

For the longest time, I’ve published blog posts on a Monday – Friday schedule.  I’ve found some drawbacks, however.  There are days when I struggle on what to write about.  Other days, I’ll be up until well past midnight working on blog posts.  It’s gotten to the point that I don’t have much time for anything else.

I definitely don’t want to stop blogging, but I just can’t keep up this every weekday post schedule.  Plenty of bloggers post on weekly schedules or even less.  After giving it a lot of thought, I’ve decided to cut my schedule back for awhile.  I’m going to only post on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays.

This should give me some extra time to work on other projects and avoid bloggy burnout.

How often do you think someone should post to their blog?

The Wall Street Journal Insults Moms and Dads

Blogging, Social Media

Two days ago, the Wall Street Journal published an article which portrayed moms heading off to conferences as deserting their families to party with other moms.  To listen to Katherine Rosman, moms run off to these "so-called-conferences" to party with other moms, get drunk, eat lots of bad-for-you food, and tweet what companies ask them to tweet.  The article even included an oh-so-helpful graphic showing how moms attend these events to sleep in, party, and raid the mini-bar while laying on the floor.

Now I’m not sure what blogging conferences this author is talking about, but the ones I’ve gone to haven’t been like this.  Granted, I haven’t been to a lot.  Mainly just BlogHer 2010 and the Disney Social Media Moms events.  Still, I’ve heard from plenty of other people who have gone to a lot of other events and they all tell similar tales.

Is there partying?  Sure, but that comes at the end of a long day of learning and networking.  Are there company reps there and sponsorships?  At many events, yes, but nobody is obligated to meet with them or to tweet/blog about their products.  In many ways, this is no different than just about any other conference involving travel.

Years back, the company I was working for sent me to a computer expo.  I was there to learn about new technologies that were coming out.  There was plenty of company information to collect, but there was also a lot of swag.  (People crowded the Iomega booth to get their great buttons… buttons which I still have.)  In addition, there were parties at night designed to wine and dine various attendees.  I didn’t attend it, but I was invited to one party where I was assured that there’d be a hot tub and that I’d "have a good time."

Just like the expo I attended way back when, you could go to a blogging event like BlogHer and just party and collect free swag, but you’d be missing the entire point of the event.  Or you could attend just the seminars, avoid the company reps and parties, and come away having learned a lot.  Most people take a middle of the road approach and do a little of each.

Of course, many bloggers have already written many responses.  The main woman who was interviewed, Katherine Stone, aka Something Fierce, even posted an apology for how her words were twisted and misused.  (For the record, she doesn’t have anything to apologize for.)

The Wall Street Journal didn’t just insult moms with their article though.  As a dad, I found it highly insulting as well.  First of all, they insinuate that moms go to these conferences to lie around in a hotel room and let someone else clean up for once.  As if dad never cleans up at home and mom is the only one who ever tidies the house up.  The helpful graphic also insinuates that dad hogs the remote and doesn’t help get the kids ready for school either.  The old stereotype of "dad the idiot who does nothing in the house while mom wears herself out doing everything" was quite clear.

Congratulations, Wall Street Journal and Katherine Rosman for insulting both moms and dads in one article.

Oh, and that graphic showing the mom eating from the mini-bar while laying on the floor?  Have you SEEN some of those hotel room floors?  I don’t walk on them barefoot much less lay down and eat off of them!

NOTE: The photo at the top of this post was taken at BlogHer 2010.  Pictured are Christina (aka WELLInThisHouse), Jenn (aka KissMyKitty), B, and myself.

Apocalypse Meow and a WordPress Hack Warning

Blogging, Internet

DTRave_Cartoon_Computer_and_Desktop_smallWordPress is the biggest content management system around,  The good thing about this is that there is a wide array of themes and plugins that various people have developed.  The downside is that it makes WordPress a giant target for hackers.  Security is paramount if you are going power a website with WordPress.

Currently, WordPress websites are under attack.  A network of 90,000 compromised sites are performing brute force attacks to try to gain access to WordPress websites.  (To those who don’t know, brute force attacks attempt to learn your password by trying many common passwords in a rapid manner.  The more power behind the brute force attack and the shorted the span of time that it would take to guess your password and get in.)  If your site is compromised, it will be added to the network and used to hack other sites.  In other words, as the brute force succeeds, it becomes stronger and more capable to add other sites.

How can you prevent this?  Over at TypeAParent, I shared some WordPress plugins to help prevent spam and strengthen security.  One plugin in particular would be helpful with this attack: Apocalypse Meow.

The first thing that Apocalypse Meow can do to protect you is remove the "generator" tag that WordPress adds to the website.  This tag doesn’t display, but notes that WordPress created the website and even the version number that you are running.  This might not be something you see, but to a hacker it is a flashing neon sign telling them just how to attempt to hack your website.

The second thing that Apocalypse Meow can do is rename your administrative account.  By default, WordPress suggests the name "admin" for your admin username.  Most people don’t change this and so millions of sites are administered by "admin."  Hackers need just guess the password (not a hard proposition in many cases) and they have full control of the site.

Last week, there were over 7,000 login attempts made on TechyDad.com and TheAngelForever.com.  That is about 2 attempts every 3 minutes.  Of those attacks, 98.8% were trying to log in as "admin."

As a side note: These stats were recorded by Apocalypse Meow,  It records all successful and failed login attempts.  If one user tries and fails too many times (user defined, but starts at 5), then you are locked out of logging in for awhile.  Usually, this thwarts brute force attacks, but in this case the attackers wisely assault sites from many different compromised WordPress installations.

Still, why not make things more difficult for the hackers?  They are mainly looking for "admin", so rename the Admin account to something else.  Make sure it is something you can remember, but nothing obvious like "admin1" or "administrator".  Apocalypse Meow can help here too.  It provides an easy method for renaming the admin account.

In a matter of seconds, you can thwart 98,8% of attacks, keep your site safe, and help make sure that your website doesn’t unwittingly get conscripted in the hacker’s brute force army.

NOTE: The computer image above is by DTRave and is available from OpenClipArt.org.

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