Poliblog Perspective

Browsershots.org offers a service which will display screenshots of how your website will appear in a wide range of different web browsers:

What is Browsershots?

Browsershots makes screenshots of your web design in different browsers. It is a free open-source online service created by Johann C. Rocholl. When you submit your web address, it will be added to the job queue. A number of distributed computers will open your website in their browser. Then they will make screenshots and upload them to the central server here.

The service displays thumbnails of your website after you enter the web address into a queue and return to the site a few minutes later.

There are options to check the appearance with different screen sizes and colour depths, and with Javascript, Flash and Java turned on or off.

I’m trying out a new search facility on the Wardman Wire from a company called Lijit.

The search facility uses the Google search results, but allows me to nominate a network of websites from which an alternative set of search results are selected - so the service incorporates features of social networking websites into the site-search.

I have set up some of the other contributors to the Wardman Wire as my “network”, and I’d be interested to hear what you think.

You can find the search box at the bottom of the sidebar on the blog version of the site.

Offline blog editors are PC-based editors that allow blog posts to be written on a local PC and then uploaded as a separate operation. In conversation last night I was asked about the benefits. I put a list together, and I thought I would post it today.

I’ve now done something like 2000 blog posts using an offline Blog Editor called Blogdesk by Johannes Oppermann. I am very pleased with the software. This is only suitable for a PC, but there are other editors available, and I have a list at the bottom of the article. Here is what Blogdesk looks like: Click on the image for a full screenshot.

Offline Editor Benefits

These are the benefits of Blogdesk which I came up with. This is not exhaustive.

1. I do maybe 95% of my editing offline, and can then “squirt” a post in maybe 10 seconds, rather than having to pfaff with online delays (and I am on a relatively slow - 512kbps - link), and I get a good editor and decent image crop / resize / borders / align utility that is v. quick.
2. Responsiveness is massively better than any online editor.
3. The is no need to login to WordPress every time I do something.
4. I have maybe 25 different post templates some with WP Options and
   Custom fields set up as required etc, e.g., with all the different
   attribution links in for the different cartoonists each morning.
5. In my setup I run with 2 copies of WP (the “Magazine” and “Blog” views) - and things like videos have to be posted to each separately easily.
6. I have boilerplate phrases and paragraphs to hand.
7. There is no need to upload pictures and photos through the Wordpress online image library feature, which is slow.
8. I don’t have problems with my connection going down or website response times
   while editing.
9. I also cross-post quite regularly - I can cross-post just by ticking off boxes next to each one.
10. I can get straight at the last 99 posts without needing to troll through the Wordpress Backoffice.
11. I can automatically upload sound files. I only use this feature for small files since I have a tight limit set on my server for “upload” size. I usually use ftp for media files.
12. I get a full display of categories rather than a little Window showing about 3.
13. I can disable the WYSIWIG editor in WordPress, which removes one past source of hacker attacks. Note that it is safer now, but on this subject it is useful to be slightly paranoid.
14. I can do Wordpress and Technorati Tags, and Customised Fields directly from my PC desktop.
15. I can go and write in a pub over a pint, or on a train without the risks of a mobile connection.
16. A boilerplate text storage area.
17. Configuration was a doddle. You need to know your blog configuration settings, and what a few terms mean - but that is about it.
18. There are decent support forums.
19. Blogdesk is free.
20. Blogdesk supports the blog systems WordPress, MovableType, Drupal, Serendipity and ExpressionEngine and does not support Blogger, which means that it helps get people away from that system. Some may disagree on this last point.

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One of the interesting ways that Google seems to work is that new websites (or new articles for that matter) have a “period in the sun” to see if they will become heavily linked; they then vanish and may come back to prominence later.

One corollary of that, and of the way the internet works, is that most traffic to blogs usually comes through two routes:

a) Brand new articles.
b) Old archived articles.

In the case of the Wardman Wire, perhaps 75-80% of our traffic comes via the archives, rather than via either the Magazine Front Page or the Traditional Blog version.

Study of Top Articles on the Wardman Wire

I did a study of traffic from a 30 day period in Jan-Feb this year, eight out the top ten most visited articles were more than 4 months old, and none were between one and three months old. I thought it worth reposting a part of the study, before I repeat the exercise in the autumn.

Here’s the summary:

These are the ages of the top 12 posts in months, from top to bottom:

* 5 months
* 10 months
* 4 months
* Two weeks
* 5 months
* 5 months
* 10 months
* 10 months
* 4 months
* 8 months
* Two weeks
* 6 months

i.e., posts take time to mature, and archives are very, very important. Go back to your blog and make your archives easily accessible for users and search engines - it matters to the gradual growth of your blog. Have a look at how many ways in to the archives there are on www.mattwardman.com.

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An enquiry arrived this morning:

How do I get a screenshot? I’ve tried to copy and paste the page, but it’s got video graphics on it so that won’t work. Is there a trick I need to know?

Fortunately “all you need to know” is not actually very much. So, the 15 second version:

1 - Get yourself a copy of Irfanview - a free image editing utility from here. Install it.

2 - Display the web page of which you want to make a screenshot. Make sure that that is the active window.

3 - Press <ALT><Print Scrn>. This will copy the active window to the clipboard.

4 - Start Irfanview.

5 - Do <CTRL><V> (i.e., Paste from Clipboard) to paste the screenshot of the active window into the editor.

6 - Edit down to the part of the screenshot you need.

7 - Save image. Insert into webpage.

Done.

(If you just do <Print Scrn> at step 5 not <ALT><Print Scrn> you will get the whole screen.)

Tags: screendump, how to make a screenshot for your webpage, screenshot for your blog

I came across a comment on Problogger that is one of the best summaries I have seen of things you can do to make your blog “sticky” - i.e., helping visitors find other articles of interest, and encouraging them to stay. His tips are a balance of common sense, marketing nouse and a varied bag of tricks.

This is a good approach whether you are attempting to put your views across to your reader, or encouraging them to stay and view more adverts.

It is from Ross Hill, a student who runs an “Interview” blog called Hatchthat.

Since I cannot improve it, I’ve quoted the comment directly. Here are Ross’s 17 Tips to make your blog “sticky”, followed by my reflections.

17 Tips to Make Your Blog Sticky

1. Show a popular articles list, people will see at least your top headlines and hopefully click through to read them.
2. Show a recent articles list, make sure they are different to the popular articles list and are all still interesting headlines.
3. Only show dates if you post often enough.
4. Only show subscriber counts if you have enough to brag about.
5. Post about upcoming content, but not too often.
6. Prompt them to subscribe so that they don’t miss out, immediately after you mention something upcoming.
7. Run a series of posts on a topic, linking to previous ones but also showing how many more are to come and what topics they will be on.
8. Make sure every piece of the page represents value, they want to see signal not noise. Don’t post those link roundups until you have enough to make it a proper resource list.
9. Make sure you have lots of comments on your posts. If you don’t have comments you either need to promote commenting or post less so that the comments pile up on your most recent posts.
10. If you have a multi-author blog show each authors recent popular posts so the visitor knows what to expect from each person.
11. Show third party endorsements such as blog network badges, sponsor links and mybloglog recent avatars. Mention it when a popular industry blog links to you, but not too often.
12. Have a great template design, nicer blogs generally have nicer content. If it has a tight design like the A-listers you can most likely fool a few people.
13. Have an about page that paints a good picture of you and promotes interest in not only what you have done but what you are working on next. Give them a photo of you so they know who is actually writing.
14. Order your archives by interestingness, not just date or alphabetical category.
15. Add value in absolutely every post, don’t report what other people are posting because a visitor can just go straight to the source instead.
16. Have recurring themes and mention them clearly either at the end of a post or somewhere in the menu. The same applies for categories, but make sure your categories reflect your content as a whole and remember to kill off categories that don’t.
17. Keep it focussed and on-topic. If you have a blogroll make sure you only link to sites that are relevant to the blogs topic.

My Comments

Since I started the Wardman Wire in March 2007, I have considered most of these, and implemented quite a number.

If there is one thing that has come to be the key feature of the blog, it is probably series of related posts - of which there are now more than 50.

In the current phase of the blog’s development, the most important feature is weekly columns by writers on particular topics, which I see as a way of maintaining quality while still keeping up regular postings.

The next thing I am looking at is making it easier for readers to find some of the best articles from early in the life of the blog.

To comment on two of Ross’s points:

• There can be value in going off-topic occasionally - and sometimes deliberately, as it will encourage visitors from outside your particular “silo” - which exposes your writing to a new audience. For political bloggers, engagement with political opponents is valuable for debating policy, and also to maintain a healthy political dialogue as a whole.
• For political blogs, I don’t believe in removing dates from postings, as our content is so context dependent.
• I do, however, strongly believe in making older content accessible - which is a notoriously weak point on many UK political blogs.

Wrapping Up

Thank-you Ross.

Tags: ross hill, blog tips, make it sticky, keep visitors, to blogging tips, political blog tips

When I read the first three paragraphs of this post by Lonergrrl, highlighted by Natalie in this week’s Britblog Roundup:

Stop telling me the body is nothing more than a ‘text’, merely ‘discursive’, nothing concrete, but fragmented, ‘engaged in performativity’.

What is that all about?
How is that helping?
What revolutionary purpose does it serve?

These insights of yours are purported to be groundbreaking, radical, cutting edge, liberating because they break down

‘binaries’,
‘dichotomies’,
‘totalities’,
all ‘essential’ and ‘universal’ notions.

I decided that it was an ancient manuscript written in some foreign language, that would perhaps be understandable after I purchased a copy of the Gale Sociology Thesaurus.

The Gale Sociology Thesaurus is a subset of the master Gale Social Science Thesaurus in the narrower domain of the practice of sociology and the study of complex human societies, social groups (from families to nations), and the institutions, processes, movements, issues, and behavior related to those groupings. It includes subfields and methods of sociology (e.g., political sociology). Also provides are terms for social arrangements like slavery, intergroup relations, and concubinage.

I hoped that the thesaurus would function as a modern Rosetta Stone, and perhaps contain the same material written in English.

In fact the article turns out to be written in the sub-dialect of “sociologese” known as “radical feminist“, and is a reply to postmodernism from this viewpoint.

Continue Reading »

No no no no no no NO !!!

That is NOT how you do banner adverts. Good web design does not include the concept of “Grey Space” created by putting an offset 250 pixel high advert above your top frame, pushing your entire web page down and leaving the most natural point for the eyes to land as grey as one of Mr Major’s lounge suits.

May I suggest you get a web designer, and put the responsible party in the stocks?

Click on the image to see the whole road accident.

Bill Lombard asked which Wordpress Plugins I use for embedded video and audio.

I thought it would make an interesting short post (I’m busy this week). The tag formats quoted in this article do not link back to real videos.

The other special things about these plugins, is that they all have tag formats that are capable of being posted from the Blogdesk offline blog editor into Wordpress without their tags becoming mangled in the process.

Video and Audio Formats

I regularly post video in Windows Media (.wmv) and Quicktime (.mov) formats, and Audio MP3 files (.mp3) here, and also embedded Flash Video (e.g., Youtube).

Video I host myself

For Windows Video, I use Windows Media Posting. This has been reliable. This is the tag format (you need to insert it in the HTMLsource code) to show you how simple it is.

[WINDOWSMEDIA http://www.mattwardman.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/movie.mov 448 260 false true]

The first “true” or “false” value is whether or not it should auto play and the second is whether or not a controller should be visible.

Continue Reading »

The BBC provides an archive service, which lets visitors track changes in the bbc.co.uk Homepage retrospectively.

The archives go back to May 2005. Here, for example is a screenshot of the Home Page as it was when the Cutty Sark fire was reported at 8.05am on the morning of 21st May 2007.

The service enables you to navigate through the BBC site by time as well as topic - if, for example, you remember that “something was on the website before I went to work” on a particular day. This is the description of the service:

The Home Archive is a new service, developed to produce a comprehensive library of how the BBC Homepage changes throughout each day. It was developed by Matthew Somerville (the BBC is not responsible for the content of external internet sites) and was an initiative begun on backstage.bbc.co.uk.

Here, you are able to see the latest changes that have gone through on the Homepage, section by section. Also if you click on the ‘Time’ links on the left hand side of the main column you can see a ’snapshot’ of how the page appeared at that time. The archive goes back to July 14, 2005 and if you click on browse by date you can view how the Homepage changed throughout each day and
also how it looked at a particular time.

Not every change on the Homepage is recorded, however, for example, changes to the weather forecast. Everything else is tracked though, including when the page changes to breaking news or sport or when the main promotion slot changes to full page.

The links:

• Homearchive Service
• Browse Homepages by Date

A useful service.

One caution: the archive updates run about a month behind the current date.