Bear, Diah and Pasha » Blogger

Is Blogging Dying?

Papa Bear — Fri, 11 Mar 2011 17:45:41 +0000

Read an interesting article titled Growing shift from blogs by Verne G. Kopytoff in NST dated February, 28 2011. The gist of the article was about the waning interest in blogging by the younger generations who prefer social networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter to blogs. Do you think that blogging is at its ending? For me, I just don’t think so..

Blogging started about 10 years ago by services, such as Blogger and LiveJournal, became so popular that Merriam-Webster declared “blog” as the word of the year in 2004. I remembered that.. Now, blogs are being challenged by Facebook with its all-purpose hub for posting anything under the Sun and Twitter that becomes part of the so called microblogging services, which allows messages of no longer than 140 characters..

Let me share some quotes from the article that would be of interest to bloggers..

According to Elisa Camahort Page, a co-founder of BlogHer, “If you’re looking for substantive conversation, you turn to blogs. You aren’t going to find it on Facebook, and you aren’t going to find it in 140 characters on Twitter.”

“The act of telling your story and sharing part of your life with somebody is alive and well — even more so than at the dawn of blogging. It’s just morphing onto other platforms.”, said Lee Rainie, director of the Internet and American Life Project.

How is Blogger, owned by Google, doing? It had a 2% decline, to 58.6 million unique visitors in the United States in December 2010 compared to a year earlier. However, globally, its unique visitors rose 9%, to 323 million. Have you ever wondered what would happen if Google decides to shutdown Blogger?

On the other hand,WordPress and Tumblr, which also calls itself a blogging service, seem to have avoided any decline. Isn’t that interesting? According to Toni Schneider, chief executive of Automattic, the company that commercializes WordPress blogging software, bloggers often use Facebook and Twitter to promote their blog posts to a wider audience thus making them complimentary rather than competitors. He also mentioned that WordPress is mostly for serious bloggers, not the younger novices who are defecting to social networking.

“There is a lot of fragmentation. But at this point, anyone who is taking blogging seriously — they’re using several mediums to get a large amount of their traffic.”, said Schneider.

Looks like blogging will still be around for a long time folks!

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A Simple Widget for Your Blog

Papa Bear — Tue, 09 Dec 2008 06:18:56 +0000

It is good to be back after a few days away due to the celebration of Aidil Adha recently. I have been receiving a few queries on how to put the link to my RSS feed using the widget at the bottom right of this blog page and therefore, I might as well share it with all of you who wants to have that as well.

Before I go on, please take note that I am not a programmer and therefore, my explanation would not go beyond my limited technical knowledge. Furthermore, I found this piece of code while hopping around from one blog to another and I could not remember where I learned this but this method was mentioned in a few blogs out there. So, blog hopping is not really a waste of time after all…

This method is the simplest that I have found so far. The other method that I learned was more complex and required that you have access to your hosting server. So, for the benefit of those who are not self hosted, I have decided to teach you this simple coding and it is what I am using too.

CAUTIONS: I am not responsible for any damage to your blog so do this after you have backed up your code and at your own risk!

Below is the code that you need to copy to your HTML file.

You need to copy this code right after the tag if you want to load it first or before the tag if you want to load it last, in your HTML file. If you do not know how to do that, I suggest that you go and read a bit about your theme file / HTML file as without that basic, I do not recommend that you touch it.

After you have copied the code above, replace the part as indicated in the code above with your own URL as well as your own image location. The texts are optional but it would be nice of you to add them in.

You can experiment with the location of the image by changing the value starting from the "display and before the closing ".

You may need to press F5 if nothing happened after you have updated your HTML file and if still nothing happenen after that, you must have done something wrong. This should work on any self hosted wordpress blog as well as any Blogger blog. I have no knowledge about any other blog platform out there.

Another thing to note is, if you have copied the code above to your Notepad, just pay attention to the ” sign as Notepad tends to change it and it would not work if you just copy from it directly. Just retype all the ” and you will be okay.

That’s all for now and enjoy your new skill.

Loving My Firefox

Papa Bear — Tue, 11 Nov 2008 06:59:30 +0000

I love Firefox not because many claim that it is the safest web browser in the world. To me, there is no such thing as safe surfing on the internet. It is just like there is no such thing as a car that is totally safe to drive. You just need to be careful and not do some stupid things while you are at it.

At the same time, many claim that Firefox is the fastest web browser in the world. There is some truth in that statement when running it side by side to the fat Internet Explorer from Microsoft. However, when it is timed against Google Chrome, that opinion might not really hold 100% as some sites are loaded faster on Chrome compared to Firefox.

So, if those are not the reason to fall in love and to be still in love with a fox that is on fire, what is it then?

Well, it is none other than the Add-ons! Those little programs that hop into the back of the fox and make its fire hotter are the answers. Now I am going to share with you what Add-ons I have on my Firefox 3.0.3:

Download Statusbar – I use this download management add-on a lot for downloading pictures, plug-ins for my blog as well as some other things that I need to download. I chose this because it does not give me one of those big download windows that pop-up on your face when you are dwonloading something.
Downloadhelper – This add-on is primarily used to download YouTube videos to my hard disk so that they can be viewed offline. An FLV player is needed to play those video or you can install a video converter program and get this add-on to convert it to the format that you want automatically.
Entrecard Toolbar – I am an Entrecard member and this one helps me to do my daily drop.
Extended Statusbar – I like the status bar on Opera web browser and finally I found this. It shows percentage of the page loaded, number of loaded images, bytes downloaded, average download speed and load time. It is more for fun than anything else.
FireFTP – FTP program is a must have for those running their own sites. So, instead of installing a separate FTP program, I use this add-on and it has done nothing but wonders so far.
Flagfox – It displays a country flag depicting the location of the current website’s server and provides quick access to detailed location and web server information. For example, if your site/blog is on Blogger, then the US flag will appear. If you load this blog, the Malaysian flag will appear.
Gspace – Not G-spot! This extension allows you to use your Gmail Space (4.1 GB and growing) for file storage. It acts as an online drive, so you can upload files from your hard drive and access them from every Internet capable system. The interface will make your Gmail account look like a FTP host. I have never actually used this so far.
Linky – A handy tool if you need to open multiple links on a page into multiple tabs and then you can visit them one by one. You are going to be sure that you would not miss a link.
Resurrect Pages – This one performs like magic. Dead pages, broken links, the scourge of the internet. Powerhouse sites like Slashdot and Digg can bring a server to its knees. What do we do when a page is dead but we still want to see it? Call in the clerics, and perform a resurrection ceremony! Or, the easier route, use this extension. I had even managed to copy some entries from my defunct blog at Modblog using this.
SeacrhStatus – A quick way to view that PageRank and Alexa rank of the site/blog that you are visiting. It displays the Google PageRank, Alexa rank and Compete ranking anywhere in your browser, along with fast keyword density analyser, keyword/nofollow highlighting, backward/related links, Alexa info and other SEO tools.
Tweak Network – I was using Fasterfox on Firefox 2 before and it is still in the experimental stage form Firefox 3. Therefore, I switched to this. With Tweak Network, you can tweak these settings, and you might be able to speed up the loading of web pages. You can also increase the maximum number of simultaneous downloads from a site (the default is only four). Please bear in mind that it can not do anything if the bottleneck is your own internet connection.
TwitterFox – I need to see what people that I follow on Twitter are doing and talking about. This is the best tool to do that so that I don’t miss a tweet.
Zemanta – An excellent blogging companion for me. Zemanta expands the author’s regular blogging dashboard, populating it on the fly with content suggestions relevant to the current text. It presents images, links, articles, tags in a simple interface. It encourages re-use and linking to other content with as little effort as possible – a single click.

There you go! What about you?

If you are not a Firefox user, you can go here.

Reward for Your Comment

Papa Bear — Fri, 07 Nov 2008 07:10:33 +0000

It is a great honor for a blogger to have visitors to his or her blog and it is an even greater honor if the visitors left some comments after reading the posts. However, many visitors would just come and go and only a few would really read and comment.

Due to that, I have been looking around the blogsphere for ways to reward people who took the trouble to read and leave comments. I have seen many ways from different bloggers but I am impressed with they way Bonoriau rewards his first commenter. He would put up your banner on the spot dedicated to the first commenter.

So, based on that, I looked around for a nice spot to put a 125 x 125 banner on this blog. I needed a spot that provide good visibility to others who read and comment on this blog and I found one. The spot is right below the shoutbox and next to the Google Adsense ads and right above the Entrecard drop box. I could not have any better space to give away at this time.

So, my visitors, from now on you are going to be rewarded for your comment. The first commenter to the latest post will get his or her banner (125 x 125) displayed on this blog for FREE! You may put your own ads or whatever you want there for as long as there is no bad stuffs.

So, here is a short FAQ on how this reward works.

Do I need to have my own 125 x 125 banner to get the reward?

No. If you are a member of Entrecard, I will use your Entrecard banner for that spot. If you are not an Entrecard member, you can include the link to your 125 x 125 banner in your comment and I will put that up. If you are an Entrecard member but wish to use a different banner you may also include the link to your other banner in your comment. If you do not have or do any of the above, I will take a thumbnail shot of your blog and put it on the spot.

How long will it take for my banner to appear?

I can’t promise you the time. I am doing this manually in order to avoid spammers. My time is GMT +8. If I received your comment and I am still on my blog, you banner would be up within a short time. If I am already asleep when you put in your comment, it would take a longer time for your banner to be up. So, try to comment when the post is still hot.

How long will my banner be displayed?

For as long as there is no new entry posted on this blog. The total time displayed would be between the time I put your banner up and the time I posted a new post. For your information, I normally update my blog with a new post on daily basis. Sometimes, during weekends, I do not post and you may get a longer time for your banner.

Is there any catch to this reward?

None! This is free and you will not be asked to do anything. All you need to do is be the first commenter.

What if my question is not answered here?

Please contact me by filling up a form here.

What Brought Them Here?

Papa Bear — Mon, 03 Nov 2008 07:54:02 +0000

What did people search on Google and brought them to Kisahberuang.com in October 2008? Based on the Google Webmaster Tools, the Top Search Queries for this blog in October 2008 are as below:

hot 15 (32%) – If you follow that link, you will be greeted by some ladies in bikinis and that could be hot for some guys and because of that they found a hot bear too. Is that so? Anyway, the hot link actually went to my post on some hot news on October 15 here.

commentluv enabled jokes (5%) – I could not find the link anymore. This blog has the Commentluv plugin enabled but I seriously do not remember making any jokes about that. So, I wonder what is that all about.

wedding anivasary (5%) – This person could not even spell anniversary correctly and I think he or she must be looking for something to buy for his or her anniversary. Due to that, my 2nd wedding anniversary post got picked up in the process here. I love that!

anas zubedy (5%) – I didn’t know that this guy is famous. Some people have been looking for him and ended up here instead. This search found my Malaysia tag and I wrote a post about his call for unity message here.

jenis gerbera (5%) – I could not locate this link anymore and I have no idea what that is. Based on the search result, this is referring to some flowers… I do not remember writing about any flower in this blog so far.

lainy (3%) – I could not find my link in this search either and the only Lainy that I know is a blogger at Lainy’s Musing and she is one of the top entrecard droppers at this blog. I guess that must be the link.

googl the life of tony hawq (3%) – An interesting search that must be looking for somebody by the name of Tony Hawq but ended up on my post about the popularity of Internet Explorer here. The key words got linked to Tony and The Hawg!, which I misspelled as Hawq (sorry Mr. Hawg), who are among the commenter in that post.

malaysia feet therapy fish spa (3%) -This fish spa stuffs is really getting the attention of Malaysians lately and I did post a video about it here. Now you can find this spa in shopping malls and even at some of the hypermarkets. Anybody has tried that?

shaxx (3%) – I wonder why are people searching for my nickname? Then I realized that there are others out there using that nickname as well… Whoaa… Who can they be?

klci record tracking (3%) – This is related to one of my posts about the Kuala Lumpur Composite Index here. the KLCI is still not in a good shape until today due to the global financial crisis.

old kuala krai station wordpress (3%) – Is that somebody looking for a railway station or a wordpress blog about the railway station in Kuala Krai? Instead they went to my hot news (see above) about the gruesome murder case in Kuala Krai here.

klci jatuh lagi (3%) – I think many Malaysians are upset or worried about the state of the Kuala Lumpur Stock Exchange where the Composite Index has been going down recently. I posted about that here.

irresponsible boyfriend (3%) – Some girls out there are not happy with their boyfriends I guess. Somehow, these keywords are also in my hot news (see above) and part of that news was about a boyfriend who did some bad things to his girlfriend here.

why smoking “isn t” cool (3%) – This person was probably trying to change his or her lifestyle or may be it was for someone else. It is either he or she is trying to quit smoking or get somebody to quit. I did a post about smoking here.

wow beruang (3%) – This is really cute but it is kinda strange that there are people who search for such a thing. Searching for beruang (bear) would be normal but “wow beruang”, that beats me. Anyway, that went to the front page of this blog.

seram “yahoo com” 2008 -spam (3%) – The weirdest search last month. I could not locate the link anymore. I am still wondering about the relationship between seram (spooky) and Yahoo! in 2008. I also didn’t know that spam could be spooky. Do you know?

umobile commission (3%) – Yet another link that could not be located anymore and I definitely have not written about U-Mobile.

There you go! It is interesting to see what people searched on Google and how certain words in your blog posts would be picked up by the search engine and bring in visitors to your blog.

However, some of them remain a mystery…

People who arrived at this page were looking for:

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