Making Progress On Tech In Demand Restoration

If you want to read the story on what happened to my blog, you can check that out on Performancing.  What is done is done, and while my previous hosting company might have been the scum of the earth, I will prevail.

My task is to move around 120 – 140 articles over to a new site.  The interesting thing is I am probably going to end up doing it all by hand.  I would love to think it was just as simple as a copy and paste job, but it will not be that easy.  I will also have to carry over all the images as well.  I could, possibly, drop all the images, but I am not sure if I want to do that.

The bad thing is that I have hundreds of people that are trying to get to my content through Google, and all they end up seeing is an error page.  It just ticks me off that those people have to see that.  I don’t want to waste their time.  I have to fix that soon.  It will all be done by the end of this week.

Life goes on.

So It Began–My Work For Performancing

I have posted my first article for Performancing.  It took quite a lot of work, particularly because I wanted to make my first article as perfect as can be.  It appears I did in fact make a good impression as my article is the most popular for the day so far—even beat the Darren Rowse interview (he owns ProBlogger and co-founder of b5Media—probably one of the few 7 figure bloggers in existance).

Regardless, I am happy with the results.  I think it is the start of a great time contributing to Performancing, and I am thrilled about it all.

In other news, I am still prepping Tech In Demand for a move to the new server.  I’m still somewhat worried that once I move everything over that my time at the VPS servier is going to turn into a hellish nightmare.  I’m usually optimistic about things, but I haven’t the slightest idea about moving a server and content.  What makes it worse is there is absolutely no support for me on this either.

Trying to think of the worst case scenarios, I came up with the following possibilities:

1. The server completely fails and my site just comes up as a blank white page or something else
2. The server works, but the movement of all the data becomes a nightmare and WordPress fails to work.  It then displays a white page or something else.
3. The move goes well at first, but after awhile of enjoying myself, I realize that there is some error in a database or something else that completely compromises any new data I put on the site.

I think that all of those cover the basis for worst case scenario.  If anything worse happens, I will just be living a nightmare.  Other than that, hopefully everything goes well during the transition!

In other news, I have been bouncing back and forth through my mind trying to decide which MacBook I want to purchase.  More on that later though.

Picking Up Some Subscribers, A New Theme, And Virginia Wildfires

Subscribers

People benefit from having a community of bloggers that can be searched for. I seem to be benefiting from this as well. It is primarily the tagging functionality that is getting people to visit my blog.  So, if you are reading this, be sure to use really descriptive tags.

Think about what others will search for, and use that as a way to generate tags for your posts.  Try to pick both generic and specific tags for your posts. However, don’t abuse the system. If I went to a blog with no related content via a tag, I would probably be upset and never visit again.

Ironically, I never really expected to gain any subscribers with this blog, but I am starting to think different.  I thank the 4 of you that have subscribed, and I hope to make it more with time.  I will try posting at least every other day.  My main motivation for writing is knowing that I have helped at least one person with my words. Feedback from any of my readers is icing on the cake.

WordPress Theming

Anyways, I decided to install a new theme for Tech In Demand.  I actually like it more for its “magazinish” type look.  I’ve always been a fan of magazine themes for WordPress, and I am going to stick with the one that I installed.  I hope to customize it furthermore, and perhaps—if this blog gets popular—I will invest some money for the CSS customizations and try to mimic that design here.

Virginia Fires & A Terrorism Threat

(Image Credit: Associated Press)

The border between Virginia and North Carolina is currently suffering from heavy wildfires. It has actually gotten so bad that nearly 60 miles away I can smell the burning.  It has actually managed to give me a serious headache, and the fires are expected to get worse.  The officials think that the fire was started on purpose.

I think it is something that America needs to look out for.  It is not that hard to think that terrorists could start setting fire many of our forests with the intent to cause serious damage. Areas around here in particular are just starving for some rain. It is a scary thought, but until we find better ways to fight wildfires, there is little we can do.  We just rebuild.

Consistent Blogging Is A Good Thing

Tech In Demand still has a long way to go before it makes the big time, but I have noticed that the more consistent I am with writing, the better. I used to just blog when I felt like it, but I feel more productive when I set a reasonable goal. Posting a daily goal is one way, but I feel better posting a weekly goal.

Right now, I want to write 20 – 25 articles per week. I want at least three featured articles, and the rest can be analysis, reviews, previews, news, and whatever else I come up with. I will try my best to pull that off.

I am still waiting on purchasing my new domain name for my actual name, James Mowery. Some kid from Texas already took http://www.jmowery.com/, so I have to go with something else. I already have it in mind.

That site will serve as my personal blog and general self whoring all around type thingamabob. The entries here might be moved to that.

I have also been considering creating a few new blogs that covers web 2.0 products and services, blogging, and the game industry. I would obviously do some research to find which blog could earn the most amount of advertising revenue.

Before all that though, I still want to finish the new site design for Tech In Demand. It relies on Drupal 6 being released, but I would prefer them to have a stable release–instead of being rushed out. It will be released soon though as development on Drupal 7 is already being discussed as I speak.