Written by astoner on 10 January 2008
I just read Caroline Mibblebrook’s ebook about setting up a profitable niche site with WordPress. I sort of understood what a permalink was from some other research but she finally brought it home for me with it’s relation to SEO (search engine optimization) and just human read-ability.
I wish I would have read it BEFORE I setup my blog. Since I’m a tech guy myself I do have a bit of a tendency to dive in first, then go back and do more research when I have too. Not always the best way to do things. This change isn’t going to cause me too much difficulty. I think I only put out one or two trackbacks and a comment or two that links straight to an article.
The interesting thing is the links I put out there didn’t break, what broke is the permalink on the site. I don’t know the inner-workings of WordPress, but this seems a fair compromise. I’d rather have people coming in from the internet get to the post they expect to see. I guess the problem is any future links could be difficult.
Although I don’t think it was really meant to be, or at least not the primary goal, I think Caroline’s ebook also makes a nice intro to setting up a site/blog with WordPress. I’ve been planning to convert my alpaca farm site over to exactly what she’s talking about as a basic site with a blog. Shortly after I started working with WordPress I saw the potential for using it as a content management system, and not just a blog.
This was a very useful read with lots of good tips.
Allen
P.S. Now we’ll see how the permalink works with this first post after the change.
Tags: Blogging, wordpress
Posted in Blogging | No Comments »
Written by astoner on 07 January 2008
The ‘four worm experiments’ that I setup with my boys are now a week old, so I figured it was time to take a look at them. I didn’t want to really dig through the small ones that I had put together for the boys so I just took the newspaper off the outside and examined them through the clear plastic. I was only able to see one worm in the one, but there seemed to be plenty of evidence that they’ve been at work.
The bin I had put together with the chicken feed wasn’t looking too good. I hadn’t moistened the chicken feed and it just acted as a dry barrier which kept at least two of the worms in the top couple inches. I dug a stick down through one side and put some left overs down the hole, hoping it will at least give some way for the worms to make their way down to the lower parts of the bin.
I wasn’t able to find any worms in my larger bin with the four worms. Again, I didn’t dig through the worm bin to much to avoid disturbing it too much. I added some more food and closed the bin back up. I’ll check it again in another work or so. I didn’t find any cocoons, although I didn’t really expect to find any after only one week.
Allen
Tags: Worm bins, Worms
Posted in Vermicomposting | No Comments »
Written by astoner on 07 January 2008
I finally got the bulk of the materials needed to build the heat grabber. The large 4ft x 8ft sheets of rigid insulation were the most challenging, but they did successfully fit in our minivan, with no kids. The one thing I am missing yet is the glazing, or the glass to cover the front. I haven’t found a good source for the reinforced fiberglass, and some of the stuff that the local box stores carry would double the price of the entire project. I’m thinking of just trying some of the plastic that is used for weatherizing windows from the outside, I’m just not sure how translucent it will be.
I’m not sure when I’ll have the opportunity to work on it though, hopefully later this week. We are supposed to be having near record warm this week which would be good for painting the box black, but I don’t think I’ll have it done before then.
Allen
Tags: heat grabber, Solar
Posted in renewable energy | No Comments »
Written by astoner on 04 January 2008
In the interest of keeping my topics driftless (random) I’m not going to post about worms today. One of my interests is photography and when I got a Nikon D80 last year I got even more interested in taking high quality pictures. This is a great camera. In the past year I’ve really been trying to improve my photography. I’ll be reviewing some of the books I’ve been using in a future post(s).
Getting more in to photography has also involved getting more equipment, or more realistically, wanting to get more equipment. Additional lighting and backdrops could easily cost more than the camera, if everything was bought commercially.
That’s where the internet comes in, and a good site for DIY projects related to photography is, what else, but DIYPhotography.net. The one project I’ve tried so far is making a backdrop. The directions can be found here and they are very easy to follow and well illustrated with photos.
The photo is my first attempt at my own backdrop and I am very pleased with the outcome. Now all I need to do it get some models in front of it.
I usually try to involve my boys in my projects as long as it can be done safely. So I had each of the boys rubber band up one of their new white t-shirts that they got for Christmas and threw them in the dye as well. Now they each have a blue tie-dyed that they made themselves.
It was a great evening project and I think I’m hooked! I’m already planning the next colors that I’m hoping to do!
Allen
Tags: DIY, Photography
Posted in Photography | No Comments »
