When we created JoeUser.com to be database driven we used the existing Stardock.net user database. What that meant is that everything was based by "Handles" (think CB radios). My handle on most skin sites was/is "Frogboy". That's actually more of an accident than intentional as I had intended Draginol to be my handle which is what I used here. But when writing articles on such issues, I've always felt a bit uncomfortable using a handle because it implies I have some pseudonymn. That I'm...
It's important to set goals for yourself. Pretty much everyone knows that and yet so few people actually sit down and articulate specific things they want to do. Every New Years people come out with "resolutions". Often times these resolutions are just not realistic. "Lose 25 pounds". That's easy to promise. But is it realistic? I'm a big believer in setting bunches of very easy goals that take only a little effort. I'd be the one to say "Lose 5 pounds" as a resolution for example. So here...
Out with the old, in with the new. Happy New Year!
There are basically two types of bloggers. And JoeUser.com is aimed at supporting both of them. Web Diarists The first type of blogger is the web diarist. This is a person who wants to be able to share his or her thoughts about their lives in a way that is recorded for the long haul. My wife fits more into this category. Years from now, she wants to be able to look back and be able to show that she did indeed think about things and do things besides change diapers and chase after our little...
They didn't have blogs back when I was 18. Back when I was 18 (14 years ago), I had a BBS but that wasn't the same. But I kept a journal. Unfortunately. A journal is the same as a diary. Except guys don't keep diaries so we call them journals. It's about marketing. This past week I went back and read my journal which took place between the age of 17 to 20. I remembered how melodramatic life seemed back then. But until I re-read my journal I had no idea just how bad it was. When you're 17...
If you have a blog already and are having trouble posting, let us know what your symptoms are. Post here.
Anyone who's written enough on-line over a long enough period of time knows that there are a lot of people out there who write before they think. This is particularly true on Blog Sites. My favorite blog, USS Clueless , doesn't allow any comments on his articles. He used to have a message board but eventually he grew weary of the idiocy there and disbanded that too. We have some advantages in that our IT staff can put together some interesting options for bloggers. Ultimately, JoeUs...
Not too excited to hear Mexicans treating our soccer team this way . Booing the US national anthem and yelling "Osama" as a soccer game in Mexico helps make the case that the US really needs to secure the border. It's not just that Mexican illegal immigrants aren't assimilating as well as other cultures have for economic reasons, they're not assimilating because unlike other immigrants, there's a considerable number of them quite hostile to the US. I have seen interviews with imm...
Oh yea...this is a leap year. 29 days this month and it's sooo awesome. Employers all over the world know what I speak of. For those of you who get paid a salary, you work an extra day this year. No extra pay. Just extra days. EXCCELLLENNNT! It's great. At our company, salaries make up the vast majority of our expenses. So February 29 is like a free day. So the thousands of dollars in revenue for that day are basically pure gravy. Mmmmm. Gravy. Each day I tell my co-workers: "I...
Having a search engine also being the one who provides the ads makes for interesting reading. Check the bottom right of your blog and you'll see the google ads. But here's the kicker - the google ads are based on Google's search engine results. So you can see what kinds of people are visiting your site, to a degree, based on what types of things are being advertised. I was reading Tangled Wishes website and the ads were about personal relationships, meeting people, that sort of thing. I r...
JoeUser is growing in leaps and bounds. A month ago the average number of people on the site might be around 30 people. These days it's typically around 80 people at the same time with it being 175 as I type this. So things are going pretty well. Of course, we've also had a of technical glitches as the site has grown, we've had to make adjustments as we've started gaining unwanted attention from hackers, griefers, and other undesirables. If you've had problems posting articles to your blog...
Our software, DesktopX, was on TechTV's "The Screen Savers" yesterday. The Screen Savers is one of the favorite shows here. Some of us subscribe to satellite just to get it in. But as happy as we were to be on there, not everything went according to plan. You see, we knew back in late February that "In March" DesktopX was going to be on there. So we painstakingly put together this kit for them. A quick reviewer's guide. A print out of the full user manual. A CD with the latest versio...
As Bakerstreet recently wrote, a website like JoeUser.com represents an evolutionary step in blogging. The idea is for people to be able to have their own blogs about whatever they want. But where JoeUser.com differs is that we want to create a system in which people who write blogs have a chance of having their works get more exposure than they would elsewhere. Hence, the point system. People come to JoeUser.com, they then are presented with top articles of the day, newest articles, top arti...
I'm a snob. I admit it. I've always been a snob to a certain level. My snobbery, however, is specific. I enjoy debating with people. To debate with people, you have to have people who don't agree with your positions. So I definitely like people who disagree with me feeling free to disagree with me. But like I said, I'm also a snob. And that means I don't have much toleration for noise. Being a snob means I tend to be rude when confronted with people who waste my time. If, having written a len...
One of my pet peeves is when people try to demonize others for lacking any sort of restraint or tolerance even as they count on their opponent's restraint and tolerance to be able to say what they say. For example, one of the cries I hear coming out of Europe these days, particularly from France, is that the "Bush's" United States is the greatest threat mankind has faced. There are many variations on this charge some equally melodramatic, others more specific. Another example is the...