Understanding PageRank

Principles of PageRank (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

This is not me explaining PageRank.  I still don't really get it.  I'd never even heard of PageRank before I started writing some paid blog posts several years ago.  Then I learned that it was something to be desired, and the more active my blog was and the more other blogs I could get to link to my blog, the higher my PageRank went.

Except that Google doesn't like paid posts and paid links, so they can randomly take away any PageRank a blogger may have earned - which then means none of the advertisers who were willing to pay for posts and links are at all interested in paying for new ones.  In fact, they're all asking to have those same links removed ASAP because Google has also penalized their sites.  Except, of course there's no payment for removing said links, except in rare cases.  Somehow I just have to find the time to remove multiple links, all of them really important.

Anyway, the reason I was thinking of this is that I just renewed this domain.  I was thinking about just dropping it because I don't use it as often as I thought I might, but then I ran this PageRank Checker and found out this page as a PageRank of 2.  Considering I rarely update this blog and don't really do anything with it, that's quite surprising.  On the other hand, my recipe blog bcmom's kitchen has a PageRank of 0.  Zero.  I may not update it as often as I should, but I really do use that blog, and I know there are other blogs linking to it.  And I've never done paid posts there.  So what's up with that?  Yeah, makes no sense to me.

So, I renewed this domain - whether I really need it or not.  At least one of my blogs has a PageRank of some kind, even though it really doesn't seem to matter unless I'm going to sell posts or links - which would then make Google take away any Rank I might have.  Just Because.  Yep, I definitely understand this PageRank thing.  How about you?

What's So Great About Wordpress?

Image by Colin ZHU via FlickrSince I've started blogging, I've heard so many people say that self-hosted Wordpress is the only way to go. It's like you can't be a 'real' blogger if you're not using Wordpress.  I'm not sure exactly why.  I've been very happy with Blogger.  I can do pretty much anything I want with my blogs - customize my templates, use my custom domains, add widgets, etc.  And, in the 5 years I've used Blogger, last week's outage was the first time I'd ever had a problem.

Image via WikipediaNow, I have a few web pages I do for our church.  About a year ago, I decided to try Wordpress for a couple of those pages.  I don' t see a huge difference.  I can find and customize templates, use custom domains, add widgets and plug-ins.  It works.  However, I have had to repeatedly clean out spam links in every single post.  I remove the links, I change passwords, and a few days to a week later, the links are back.  This is getting beyond frustrating.  I never had this problem with Blogger.  Never had this problem with regular html web pages.

This has me wondering what's so great about Wordpress?  I haven't seen enough advantages to be worth the frustration of dealing with this.  Maybe there's some simple fix I just don't know about, but I'm about ready to go back to regular webpages and scrap Wordpress altogether.  I'm certainly not thinking about moving my blogs from Blogger, where we're perfectly happy.

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I Don't Want my Links to be NOFOLLOW!

Image via WikipediaI'm feeling very frustrated by the idiots people at LiveJournal right now.  Apparently they've been having problems.  So one of the 'fixes' is:

Spam: In an effort to reduce spam on LiveJournal, the text string 'rel=nofollow' will be added to URLs for entries and comments posted from Plus and Basic accounts. This will help reduce visibility in search engines and make spam commenting less attractive to spammers.

I missed this when they announced it, but I wrote a paid blogsvertise post last week, and it got rejected because my links were nofollow.  Well, I knew I didn't post nofollow links, but I checked the code anyway, and the links looked fine.  So, I re-submitted - and had it rejected again.  They said to check my blog settings, which I did, along with the code again, and I couldn't find anything that would have made my links nofollow.  But then I checked this NoFollow Link Checker, and sure enough, those links came up as nofollow.  What in the world?

That's when I went searching and found the above announcement.  And now I'm just frustrated with the whole thing. I'm thinking it may be time to abandon LiveJournal for once and for all...

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Where Are My Links?

I've been sharing links on Facebook, mainly because it's easy.  I see something I like, and I share the link.  And I used to be able to go back and find those links - because I wasn't just sharing them, I was saving them for later.  Except, I can't find them anymore!  I checked Facebook's help page and found this:

Where are my links?

You can access your links from your homepage:

1. Go to the left-hand navigation column, and look for the section that lists your applications.
   
2. Click on "More" to see the full list.
   
3. Find and select the "Links" filter.
   
4. At the top of the page, select "My Links."
   

The only problem is that I don't see any "Links" filter and can't select "My Links" after that.  They must be there somewhere, but for now it looks like all my links are missing.  So, facebook help was not much help.  If any of you know how I can find the links I've posted to facebook, please let me know!

But from now on, when I come across a recipe I want to try, a game I want to play, or a great source for postcards, I'm going to have to save it to my recipe blog or share it here, instead of relying on facebook - which is what I should have been doing all along.  Then, I'll be able to find them later.

beethov9.wma Is All Kinds of Problem

Earlier this week I was helping a friend of mine upgrade Windows XP to SP3. It shouldn't have been a big deal, but for some reason these Service Pack upgrades always seem to have their issues. I put off installing it on my own computer for a long time, and then when I finally did it - BSOD! - which led to having to reformat my hard drive and reinstall Windows completely.

This time things seemed to be going well. We backed up all the documents on the computer and began the install, which of course takes forever because Windows has to back everything up, just in case you need to go back to SP2. So, all the files are backed up, the install of SP3 begins, and partway through there's an error copying beethov9.wma - do we want to continue the install without copying it? Click yes and the install continues, until we get another error message telling us the same exact file cannot be copied. After multiple retries we hit cancel, which does not just cancel copying that file - it cancels the entire upgrade. That means everything that had been installed is uninstalled and all the backups are restored. And we went through this multiple times - first deleting the file because we thought it was a random file that was already on the computer. That didn't work so I tried downloading SP3 from Microsoft again, thinking maybe there was a problem with the file I had previously downloaded - except that one had worked just fine when I installed it on my computer - the 2nd time, after I had reformatted and re-installed.

Midway through the 3rd attempt, this storm rolled through, and I held my breath hoping the power wouldn't go out. It did flicker a few times, but thankfully we had the computer plugged into a battery backup. I still got the beethov9.wma error, but at least the install wasn't interrupted, and I didn't lose everything. That's when Mary Googled "beethov9.wma" to see if there was any info. Sure enough, we weren't the only ones having this problem. Basically, Windows was trying to copy this file into the Shared Documents folder - except that on this particular computer that folder had never been shared. It was just called Documents, and every time we tried to open it, we got an error message saying we didn't have permission to access that folder.

To fix this I right-clicked on the folder and chose 'Sharing and Security' (you can also choose Properties and go to the Sharing tab) - then I checked the boxes to share the folder on a network and allow users to change my files.

Reading the box, it looks like the Shared Documents folder was already supposed to be there and be shared with all users on the computer, but for some reason it wasn't. I ended up having to run the Network Setup Wizard first so that I could check those boxes, but the end result was that, after sharing the folder, the file did indeed copy, and the installation of SP3 was successful. Finally!

My question for Microsoft is - why does an update to my operating system that contains 'security updates, hotfixes, and select out-of-band releases' also need a music file? I'm pretty sure the computer would have operated just fine without it - and saved me a lot of frustration. A job that should have taken a couple hours ended up taking ALL DAY.