Aug
17
August 17, 2008 – 5:00 pm
Mary Jaksch who blogs at Goodlife Zen has published an e-book titled From Tragedy to Triumph - Winning through a life crisis. Her book is about the five steps to healing:
1. Acceptance.
2. Presence.
3. Action.
4. Forgiveness.
5. Integration.
The book is very well written and includes text about people who have used this method and came out stronger. It is a great handbook for dealing with crisis step by step, on your own or with professional help.
I do recommend the book - Click here to view more details.
Aug
17
August 17, 2008 – 9:39 am
WordPress introduced Post Revisions in version 2.6 which results in lots of posts (each revision) getting stored in the database. The feature is nothing I need or use and after seeing the result in my database size I looked for ways to disable it.
In How To Turn Off Post Revision In WordPress 2.6 is the answer to how to disable. To turn it off, add the following code to wp-config.php:
define('WP_POST_REVISIONS', false);
How to Delete Existing WordPress Post Revisions Stored/Saved shows how you remove existing revision posts from your database.
Aug
14
August 14, 2008 – 9:58 am
I subscribe to ProBlogger and got Authentic Blogging in the mail. That post leads to The Authentic Blogging Manifesto which is a great post that I can relate to. Maria Gajewski tells about how she got hooked on writing for social media like StumbleUpon and forgot about the real reasons for blogging. She has created her own blogging manifesto which goes like this:
Blogging is an activity done by people for other people. Blogging is a form of communication. From now on, I will blog for humans, not for search engines or social media websites. This may or may not result in any type of monetary compensation, but money will never be my primary motivation in blogging. I will market my blog by communicating with people who may share my interests.
That is a mission statement that works for me too. Being authentic is important, in blogging as well as in other parts of life.
Maria calls her blog Never the Same River Twice, a great name.
Aug
13
August 13, 2008 – 5:59 pm
At YesToMe is an interview with James Chartrand and Harrison McLeod, the men behind Men with Pens. It is a really interesting interview about how they got started and how they work together from a distance of 3,000 miles. Do spend time reading the comments and asnwers too. I love this part:
Never leap without a safety net, and at the same time, always be ready to seize the opportunities you have and take the plunge. There’s no such thing as failure – there is only learning experiences.
Tastefully Driven has a post with 10 Tips to Improve Your Problem Solving Skills.
Freelance Switch has a post by Skellie with 30+ Ways to Create an Incredible Client Experience.
Freelance Folders has a Massive List Of Killer Freelancing Tips By and For Our Readers.
Aug
13
August 13, 2008 – 5:56 pm
Aug
5
ZenHabits has a great post about 20 Strategies to Defeat the Urge to Do Useless Tasks. You know most of them but this compilation is a terrific reminder.
The key and first on the list is to know what’s important. Then all we need to do is to focus on that. But since that often is easier said than done there are 19 other strategies to help us.
It is about changing habits, getting rid of time-wasters (like do not check email all the time) and getting rid of distractions. The tough part is changing habits but we benefit a lot when we get better at doing what really matters.
See also: Zen To Done
Aug
3
I am in the process of upgrading my blogs to WordPress 2.6. That gave me a strange problem in some of my blogs, I got a blank screen when trying to access the admin part of WordPress. The strange thing was that those two themes (my own tweaks) that caused problem in admin mode worked well in the blog. I could not login but the blog worked.
Searching Google I found out that spaces at the end of wp-config.php caused blank screens but that did not solve my problem. After a tip in WordPress Support Forum I turned of plugins to see if they caused the admin issue. They did not but when WP-Spamfree was disabled I got an error message and not just a blank screen. The error message and Google helped me find an answer in Headers already sent. It turned out that my problem was caused by extra spaces in functions.php and after removing those spaces all worked well.
One thing confuses me though, how comes WordPress can handle the extra spaces in functions.php when in blog mode but not in admin mode?
Aug
3
Blogger, owned by Google, runs checks to find spam blogs at Blogger. Obviously something went wrong since they posted this in Spam Fridays:
While we wish that every post on this blog could be about cool features or other Blogger news, sometimes we have to step in and admit a mistake.
On Saturday they posted this in You Are Not Spam:
You knew that already, and now we do too. We have now restored all accounts that were mistakenly marked as spam yesterday.
We want to offer our sincerest apologies to affected bloggers and their readers. We’ve tracked down the problem to a bug in our data processing code that locked blogs even when our algorithms concluded they were not spam.
They also state that:
At Blogger, we strongly believe that you own and should control your posts and other data. We understand that you trust us to store and serve your blog, and incidents like this one are a betrayal of that trust.
Blogger has deleted blogs suspected to be spam before, including their own offical Google blog which was mistakenly deleted, but this is the first time they admit a mistake. And the statement about bloggers owning and controling their posts sounds good. There is always risks using blogging platforms run by others and not self hosted.
Jul
29
Among the TED Talks is one with Tony Robbins where he talks about Why we do what we do, and how we can do it better. It is an intense and interesting 20 minutes session. Among other things Tony Robbins mentions the six human needs:
1. Certainty/Comfort.
2. Variety.
3. Significance.
4. Connection/Love.
5. Growth.
6. Contribution.
I have never seen Tony Robbins live, he is very intense and somehow gives me the impression that he uses force and tempo to convey his message.
Jul
28
I am a big fan of TED Talks, they have created a list with the Top 10 TEDTalks. My favorite among those ten is Jill Bolte Taylor talking about My stroke of insight.
You can view the talks by Themes, Speakers or the Talks List. ANd while you are there, sign up for their newsletter and get information when new talks are available.