Foreign Perspectives

Archive for the ‘Blogging’ Category

Almost all of the photos on our sites were specially taken for the purpose and a number of them are quite unique. The overall effect of this is that we get quite a lot of hits on our sites arriving because of those images so we thought we’d have a go at selling prints of them a while back but have only gotten around to doing something about it today.

We’ve started with by far the most popular: our photo of the castle in Foix but will be adding the rest as we go along (it’ll probably take a few weeks to get caught up with the backlog). In the meantime, if there’s one that you’d quite like a print of, pop a comment on this post and I’ll put that on by the following day.

In theory, we can produce t-shirts, mugs, fridge magnets etc. using the same images so if you fancy one of those, let me know. Also in the works will be a book form version of our Pyrenees guide but that’s going to take us well into the Winter I expect.

After nearly two weeks of no ADSL, we’re finally back online, at least for the moment.

We’ve been calling France Telecom every day over that time and every day it’s a a different answer. At the start of the two weeks, the noise on the line was so bad that we couldn’t hear the guy on the fault reporting line so ended up having to call them from another phone.

Result? We’ve tested your line and it’s perfect. Emmm, we can’t hear anyone when they call as there’s so much noise on the line. No, it’s perfect.

Next day. Testing… yes, there’s a problem. We’ll send someone out. Two days later nobody and no working line so we call again. No, we’ve tested it: there’s nothing wrong. Several more attempts and we actually had someone come out. Ah, there was oxidation on the contacts, that’s why it wasn’t working.

Well, that sort-of fixed the phone. We can usually hear people now but still the ADSL wasn’t working. Called again. Yes, there’s a problem on the line: we’ll send someone out. Two days later, with nobody out: no, it’s your problem we’re charging you EUR 150 for someone to come out.

That guy actually did come out and announced that it was perfect. Still no ADSL though. Of course, the guy who came wasn’t from France Telecom so wouldn’t test the France Telecom modem for us. Thought I’d try changing the modem and cables and that worked, for a while (at a much higher speed than before) but ’tis still rather hit & miss and we can’t hear people when they call so I’m not sure how long we’ll be online this time.

As you’ll have noticed, I’ve posted next to nothing over the last month. A total of seven posts vs what would have been a more normal 30 in fact.

That’s because I’ve been over in Northern Ireland trying to sort out some administration since June 5th and only got back home on Friday evening.

Now, I wasn’t expecting there to be much change in the traffic on my websites but the blog is different. The most commonly held belief is that you need to post at least once a day to keep up the traffic. That seems reasonable: after all, blogs, for the most part, cover “current events” in some fashion so without the regular updates, the traffic on a blog is bound to drop off quite quickly, isn’t it?

Well, the funny thing is that the blog traffic didn’t drop at all by any meaningful amount. The number of hits showed very little change at all nor did the adsense income. The number of subscribers via Feedburner dropped about 10%. The number of incoming links as counted by Technorati went up.

So little was the change that it has me wondering if the best strategy would be to build up a blog over six months or so then start a new one.

The so called me is very much a slice of the life of its author in New Jersey.

It’s quite a plain site but that “do it yourself” feeling refects the content of the blog very well. This is very much “life as it really is” which isn’t what you find in a lot of blogs these days and it makes it more unique for that.

You’ll get tales of the trials and tribulations of raising a two-year old, visiting mom, and the like.

Anyway, a place to look to see what normal life in New Jersey is actually like.

This little link train is perhaps one of the most interesting that I’ve come across to date. Kelly Cho just tagged me this morning and I’ll follow their example in tagging several blogs outside the usual link trains to see the effect.

~Start Copying Here~

Alexa Redirect Train by Carl Ocab

Rules:

• Put anything you like above this list Chit Chat, talkies, introduce what this is.
• Start copying on the ~Start Copying Here~’ and copy all the things listed without removing the links (Of course, the train would be no use without those links)
• Move all the sites labeled Newcomers’ to the list labeled Oldies’.
• Add 5 sites that you want to include in the train and make their Visit My Site’ link like this: http://redirect.alexa.com/redirect?www.kellycho.com then invite them to join the train.
• Visit all the listed sites using the Visit My Site link. (That’s not much work! Remember, if you plant good seeds they will also grow good) and look at your high Alexa ranking next week!

Newcomers:

An Age of Magic – Visit My Site
Off the Vine – Visit My Site
Europe a la Carte – Visit My Site
An Island Life – Visit My Site
Frenchless in France – Visit My Site
Anitokid – Visit My Site Link train

Oldies:

Foreign Perspectives – Visit My Site
Carl Pei – Visit My Site
Swapw – Visit My Site
Life of a School Bus Driver – Visit My Site
Tamiki – Visit My Site
Bobs’ Reformat This – Visit My Site
Shawn Knight – Visit My Site
Kelly Cho – Visit My Site
John Chow dot com – Visit My Site
DoshDosh.com – Visit My Site
Jane May Blogs – Visit My Site
Ms. Danielle – Visit My Site
Stock Trading 101 – Visit My Site
Ed Lau – Visit My Site
Derrich.com – Visit My Site
Nate Whitehill – Visit My Site
Gary Lee – Visit My Site
Make Money Online with a 13-year Old – Visit My Site

~End Copying Here~