I was just looking at my url…www.murdog.com and it hit me, that is a pretty cool url. I wonder how many people have done a search on this url and found that they couldn’t buy it. I have had it since 1998, and in web years, that is an eternity. I know a number of people who have purchased web domains and have had to settle for a url that they didn’t like or wasn’t their first choice.

In fact, the company that I work for www.genonow.com had to settle on its domain, and it is a site designed to create revenue. The initial plan was to purchase www.geno.com but that belongs to some dude down in Florida who has yet to do anything with it. C’mon bro, do something with it or give it up. It would be nice to have it.

Anyway, I am glad that I decided to start building and maintaining a site so long ago…in fact, it is just now hitting me that this year marks the 10 year anniversary of MurDog.com. Wow, we need to celebrate that. Or, has it been longer. I may have had this domain since 1995 or 1996. I mean, I was married in 1998, and it seems as though I had the site for at least a year or two before I met my wife. Wow, what a dilemma. Now, I don’t know. Hmmm.

How would anyone figure that out? Do you have any ideas. I guess I should remember, but I have always had more important things to deal with other than the site. It has always been simply a hobby and thus somewhat of an afterthought. If you have any ideas about how to find out how old a site really is, let me know.

I just went to www.archive.org and did a search on my site and it has records of it since 1999, but I am pretty sure that I had it longer than that, but for what it’s worth, it is pretty funny to look at what the site looked like back then. It doesn’t load correctly, but you can see enough of the site to get an idea. Here’s a hint, click on some of the links… they still work… amazing

The good news for me is that now it is a ton easier to post to my blog using my Samsung Blackjack. Wordpress 2.5 has redesigned the blog entry screen so that it is much easier to get to typing posts. Before Wordpress 2.5, I had to scroll past an extremely long list of Categories to get to the part of the page where you type your entry. Normally, when I log into my site I am on a full-sized computer that displays webpages correctly. On a big computer, my extraordinarily long list of Categories are hidden in a pull down menu. My phone’s browser isn’t powerful enough to display my dashboard correctly and just stacks each Category one on top of the other.

“What’s a Category?” Great question. If you look just under the title of each blog entry you will see some blue words that categorize that story. Wordpress doesn’t limit how many categories I use and obediently remembers every one I have ever used. The list is crazy long.

Now, I don’t have to deal with that list when posting from my phone. Upgrade!

Now if I could just figure out how to type faster on this tiny keyboard…

– Update–

I am on my laptop now so I am kind of cheating, but I had to give a quick update about completing my entry.  After I typed up my blog entry, I clicked done which launched me back to my dashboard window.  I still had to scroll past the some 150+ categories except now it is not as bad because I am now seeing all these categories after I typed the entry.  With the blog article still fresh on my mind, I can categorize it more effectively.  So, I still have to scroll a lot, only now it is more profitable.

If you like what I write about on this blog, and are interested to see what news items I find interesting, check out my Google Reader news RSS feed. Subscribe to it in Google Reader or the RSS aggregator of your choice. If you aren’t an RSS maven don’t fear. You can also see what I am reading on my Google Reader Shared Items page.

Yesterday, I finally decided how and when I would use Google Readers “share” function. Google Reader allows you to click a link called “share” that will make a list of news items that you find interesting. That list automatically creates a page and an RSS feed that others can subscribe to.

I have been using the share function on a hit and miss basis for well over a year now, but I didn’t have any rules.  Now I do.  From now on, if I take the time to actually read a story, I will share it.  Simple.  That means if the subject matter of a news story or blog entry piques my interest, then it is good enough to share.

How does that effect you?  Well I can be your source of sorted geek news.  Subscribe to my feed in your aggregator, and then maybe we can discuss the news of the day.

I just uploaded the backend of my blog to Wordpress 2.5. It is a lot cleaner and makes writing posts easier by hiding a lot of the more technical stuff you don’t use often a little deeper in the site. I realize that this is a little inside baseball for most people who read this blog, but hey I can geek out a little every once in a while.

The interface is a lot cleaner and uses different shades of light blue for the different sections of the page. It is actually quite pleasant to look at. Obviously this is the first time I have used it so I can’t give a real review, but on first blush it is nice. I likes it a lot.

On another note, I am always a little scared when I upload a new version of Wordpress to my server. You see, I no longer use a hosted blog service like blogger. If you use blogger, it is up to them to keep the backend working. If it screws up, you can relax knowing that there are Google engineers pulling their hair out trying to get everything fixed.

Now that I run my own blog software, if everything blows up, it is on me. To be honest it is kind of exhilarating, but it’s also scary. I have a lot of content that I have uploaded and written over the past 5 years. I would hate to lose it. Maybe I should back up more.

Cool New Features

One of the coolest new features is how this new version automates the updating of plugins.  In Wordpress, you can augment the functionality of your blog by installing plugins.  I use one called Twitter Tools to post my tweets right here on my blog.  I have a ton of other plugins that I use to make it easier on me to use Wordpress.  In this version of Wordpress, updating out of date plugins is as simple as hitting a link on the dashboard.  Awesome.  To make it work, you have to put your FTP settings in a form that pops up the first time you click the update link.  After that it works.  Click the update link under the out of date plugin, then click the ‘Proceed’ button and boom it just works.  ROCK AND ROLL… I love it.

Bug Fixes?

There is one bug that annoys me and it hasn’t been addressed by Wordpress. When you embed a video from Youtube or other video site, it works fine the first time you publish the post. If you go back to your post later and then republish, Wordpress messes up the html and makes the video malfunction. I am about to test this new version of Wordpress to see if it fixes that problem. I know I can’t be the only person to have experienced this problem.

—-Update—-

Hooray. It now works. The video embed bug is now dead! Hooray. Embed videos to your hearts content!!!

There is a newish trend called Alternate Reality Games. It is an elaborate game that goes on in the real world but is heavily supplemented by an online component. Companies such as 42 Entertainment design websites and blogs that help the players engage in this alternate reality. These sites establish the fictional narrative and give clues to the players. These clues can lead to other websites or real places around the world. Players engage in this engrossing game in an interesting way. Alternate Reality gaming is a mashup of online gaming and real world role playing.

If it sounds geeky, it probably is, but it is interesting.

There is a new Alternate Reality game that is being sponsored by McDonalds that seems to be related to the upcoming Olympics. It is about a young woman name Ariadne who recently woke up in a corn field in South Africa with amnesia. She has a tattoo on her arm in esperanto that means “find the lost ring”. It is your job as the player of the game to help her find her identity among other things that have yet to be revealed.

Apparently, there are more characters who have yet to be revealed. It is believed that this game will continue until the Beijing Summer Games in August.

This may not be something that you would ever want to do, but it is still interesting. It could be very fun. Imagine having a limitless budget and the ability to travel anywhere. It could be your very own personal Amazing Race.

People of Earth! Here me now. If you want a great explanation of Twitter go to the site below. I love its aesthetic, and it will give you a good grasp on what Twitter is and its value.

As for me, I am still a little skeptical of Twitter. I tweet (that is what they call updates to Twitter) as much as I can, but so far I haven’t seen any real benefit. Maybe its because I am following people that I don’t know, (Now that I write it that seems pretty logical.) but I still haven’t gotten hooked. I feel like the guy who wants to get addicted to something and keeps on using and using but just can’t get hooked. Maybe that is a good thing.. Maybe next blog entry won’t have the word ‘Maybe’ in it to start every sentence.

Anywhos, watch the video if you don’t quite understand Twitter, though I don’t promise it will give you any better hold on why it is so popular.

I will continue to ponder the Twitter.

Video: Twitter in Plain English | Common Craft - Explanations In Plain English

A friend of mine made an interesting post in his blog enumerating six quirky things about himself.  You need to read it, it is entertaining and funny.

The Nelson’s: Quirkiness Abounds

Here is some quirkyness about me.  I wrote it as a comment on his blog, and then decided to post it here…maybe that is quirky.

1. I go through binge and purge seasons on my computer desktop. Once it hits critical mass…delete it all. …actual desk = sty.

2. Over for toilet paper no doubt

3. I often converse with myself, but even more often, I verbally replay what I just said to someone. I will say something, and then repeat it under my breath after the moment has passed and the person is gone to hear the words again. I have no idea why…it even weirds me out.

BTW… you didn’t backseat drive me when we went on our photo expedition with the daughters… or did you drive that day, now that I think about it, you did drive…nevermind.

Hey everybody, here is my new look and feel. The best thing about having a personal site is the ability to change the look and feel at the drop of a hat. On a professional site, if you change your look a lot, you risk losing or confusing users. In my case, I only have around 40 hits a day so I feel pretty confident that everyone will be along for the ride.

There are a couple of things that I like about this theme. First, it appears that the main portion of the page is backlit with a soft blue light. Second, this theme is much cleaner than my last one. I think it will be easier to find old posts. Also, this theme is a two-column layout that is less confusing.

My blog is Wordpress. Wordpress makes it infinitely easy to change your look and feel. There are a ton of designers out there who put together layouts. There are literally thousands to choose from, but it is amazing how many suck. The real trick is to find one that looks pretty good.

This theme was pretty good right out of the box. I had to make some changes to the CSS to make the search area work correctly. Initially, the search button was too narrow to see the word ’search’. I fixed that. I also created the banner up above and made some other CSS tweaks to get it just like I like it.

Let me know what you think, leave me a comment.

Wow, that wasn’t that bad. WordPress has an option in its ‘Manage’ tab that allows you to export your entire blog. I did that on the old hosted site, and then did the import on the new hosted site, and unless you happened to go to my site between midnight and 7:00 AM last night, you won’t see a thing.

Hooray… now to get Google Apps Email working. Then, we will really have something.

I have started using the new service from Google that allows you to “host” Google Apps on your domain. I started the process of getting it all hooked up on Thursday of this week and so far it has been pretty cool. It was pretty simple. I went to the Google Apps page and signed up. I filled out the online form and that was pretty much it. I had to post some HTML in a specific folder on my site, but doing that was trivially easy. The HTML let Google know with certainty that I was the owner of the domain.

The Killer Apps

Once you have Google Apps set up on your domain,iIt allows you to share a family calendar, or a shared calendar with all those using your domain which, right now, seems like the killer app. Keeping up with all the things your family is up to is a real chore, and having a simple powerful calendar that everyone shares for free is incredibly handy.

I set Megan up with an account, and she immediately filled the calendar up with all our family’s upcoming plans. Super handy.

In addition to a family calendar Google Apps also gives you Google docs. I haven’t found a killer use for this yet, but it allows you to create documents that are available for everyone in your family. I can see where this could be very handy for a business domain, but in the family world, it seems to be fairly limited in usefulness.

If that weren’t enough, it also includes a built in start page based on iGoogle. It lets you set up a personal start page with a ton of different widgets that connect you to the information you need. I don’t use a start page much now that I have started using Google reader to keep up with the news that I am interested in, but I still like it. All the users on your domain that you set up with Google Apps also get a start page of their own.

I was hoping that there would be the option of having a common iGoogle start page that everyone on the domain could use. It could be a great place to communicate, but so far I haven’t found that option if it exists.

My Email Dilemma

It also comes with integrated email which means that my MurDog.com email addresses can go through Google’s Gmail interface which is incredibly handy. Right now however, I can’t get that running. In order for it to work, you have to update the MX records on the DNS server to point towards Google’s mail servers. I know that is pretty technical, but it should be a pretty simple thing if you can get access to it. The Google site has great instructions that make it pretty simple to make the changes.

I have a problem. My hosting service provider, www.thehostgroup.com doesn’t give me access to the MX settings. Or, if it does, I can’t find them. It is enough for me to start thinking about finding better hosting for this site. Having a personal email address that leverages the power of Gmail is an exciting prospect. I have sent a message to my provider in hopes of getting this resolved, but so far I haven’t heard anything from them.

One of the bad parts of having a personal email address that I have to manage is spam. It is a huge problem. I turned off my personal email address years ago because of spam. If I could get this Google apps thing to work then I would have Google’s horsepower behind spam control. It would be a huge help.

If I can’t get the email thing resolved, I might have to look at another provider for my web site hosting.

MurDog.com is just a personal site, and I don’t get any revenue from it so low-cost hosting is a necessity. If I can find a provider that is inexpensive, and allows me to host this WordPress blog I might be interested in switching.

For now, I will wait and see what The Host Group does.

Other than that, it is a pretty cool option from Google that should only get better.