Boy, time sure flies when you’re having fun! I’m going to skip the normal link post today to talk a little bit about the last year.

It’s hard to believe that one year ago I made my first post here, “Welcome to Port 16 – and so it begins”. I was so excited when the idea for the domain name first popped into my head, that I just couldn’t wait to get the hosting set up, even though I was going on vacation.

Like a lot of blogs, I started out strong, and then petered off later on. It seems like especially since January, I’ve been having some difficulty posting. I hope to change that, and get back on track. I don’t think I’ll be able to get back to posting daily, but I’m going to do my best.

What have you learned?

1. It’s not easy posting every day. This is especially true with a busy work schedule, and the demands of a family. I haven’t even come close, although there were some stretches where I was able to pull it off, it’s a lot of work.

2. You can meet some really great people blogging. I’ve been really fortunate to meet some other great bloggers through my blog, and it’s really been great to have conversations with them, either on the blog, or through emails. I’ve also had readers email me with questions, and I’ve really enjoyed the feedback, as well as having the opportunity to help them out too.

3. It’s hard to turn visitors into readers – Granted, I haven’t worked at this as hard as I should have, there are some other tricks that I could employ. Still, as you’ll see later, I’ve had a ton of visitors, but it’s nowhere near the same number of people who subscribe to my blog.

So, what’s next?

Of course, I’m trying to get back into posting again. I also think that I’m going to be changing the direction of the blog some.

Port 16 has always been my personal blog, but I’ve posted a lot about technical topics. The tech content isn’t going to leave entirely, but since I’ve started Two Guys Tech with Art, I’m going to be focusing most of the tech content there, and posting more about non-tech personal stuff here.

Can we please see some numbers?

Being the geek that I am, I like to see stats. So here’s what I’ve got.

- 156 – The number of posts that I’ve made to port 16.

- 13 – The average number of posts per month.

- 29,068 – The number of absolute unique visitors I’ve had.

- 23,212 – The number of unique pageviews that my most popular post has had.

- 4, 057 – The number of unique visitors I had on November 23rd, 2007, which was my best day ever.

Now, to qualify those numbers some, I only saw such large numbers of visitors because Pearl had stumbled my post about WindDirStat, which sent a flood of traffic to me, for several months.

Conclusion

The last year has been really great, and I think that I’m going to be blogging for quite a long time. I just renewed my hosting account for another year, so no fears there.

I would really like to thank everyone who’s stopped by, and everyone who comes by regularly. I really appreciate you guys and gals taking the time out to read something that I’ve wrote, and I hope that you continue to find things that are worthwhile here.

Thank you, I look forward to another year of blogging.

The Photo is “Birthday Cupcakes” by Heather Shelley

Posted in anniversary, Blogging, BlogNewsandUpdates 4 Comments »

I had mentioned that Art and I were working on a project, and today’s the day.

We launched Two Guys Tech today! The site is still a work in progress, Art has some really big plans for it. There isn’t any content there yet, but the framework for great things is in place.

Also, in addition to the site, we are launching a podcast, and the first episode is available on Podshow. You can listen to the show at that link, and if you feel inclined to do so, there are also some handy dandy subscription buttons. This way you’ll never miss an episode.

We would really like to make the site and the show something to help computer users of all levels, so feel free to give us any feedback you have, or ideas for what you would like to see.

I really appreciate everyone who has been a reader of this blog, and I hope you’ll come over to Two Guys Tech and follow it as well.

And Kellypea, I haven’t forgotten your question about Memory, I have a whole series of posts planned to answer it.

Posted in TwoGuysTech, Podcasts, Blogging, WebSites, BlogNewsandUpdates 1 Comment »

When it comes to being an evil genius, I rank pretty low on that scale. No, I’ve never seen a evil genius scale, but I have to assume that there is one. What else would you use to measure evil geniuses with?

Now, when it comes to being a genius, sorry, but I’m pretty low on that scale too. Once again, I’m assuming that there is a scale for this.

When it comes to ideas, plots and plans to take over the entire world, or at least large plots of it, I seem to have more of those than I know what to do with.

Anyway, about a week ago, we bought a new scale. Also, around that time, I posed a question to Art. I asked if he had any interest in doing a podcast with me.

Turns out that he was.

(Note: The whole scale analogy kind of fell apart, but I already found and used the nice scale photo, so I felt obligated to tray and tie it in.)

I’ve been meaning to post about this new endeavor, because frankly, I’m pretty excited. I can’t wait to start churning the podcasts out.

Of course, being tech guys, it’s going to be a tech podcast. I don’t want to give away too much, but we are doing a brand new website with it, and Art is currently fighting with the Drupal install. We hope to have to site launched, and our first podcast ready, by Wednesday the 26th. Hopefully we’ll make it.

I know that I haven’t been terribly active in the blogging arena lately, but I think that this podcast and new web site will give me some real focus, and help to get me back on track. Don’t fear, I still plan on updating this blog, after all, there is a lot of stuff that just doesn’t fit on a pure Tech blog.

So stay tuned.

Photo by Chance Agrella

Posted in Tech, The Mumbler, Blogging, BlogNewsandUpdates 7 Comments »

 You may notice that at the bottom of all of my posts, I had a section titled “Also on Port 16″. Believe it or not, I was generating those by hand.

Let me tell you, that started to be a huge pain.

Last night I installed the “Related Posts” Plug-in, and it’s terrific. In the old days (read: Yesterday), I would publish a post, and then I would have to go and edit every single related post that I had, and add a link back.

Then, I would receive a flood of emails asking me about link backs, from my own posts. I always delete these, which also takes up some time.

With this plug-in, I get this handy dandy list of posts, and I don’t have to do anything.

I was worried that I wouldn’t like what the plug-in pulled, but I am really happy. The related posts are, well, related. Cool huh?

The downside is that I was up last night removing the manually entered related posts section on each and every post. If you happen to see any posts which have two “Also on Port 16″ sections, please let me know.

Who cares about related posts?

Well, I do. If you have a blog, then you should too. You see, I have two types of readers:

- Regular readers - I define them as those who subscribe to my RSS feed or actively check my site for updates.

- Accidental or Transient Readers - Those who either come to my site from search results, Digg, StumbleUpon, or referrals from other blogs.

I greatly appreciate my readers, but I prefer regular readers. So my goal is to turn the transient readers into regular readers. Then regular readers into fans, then fans into addicts, then addicts into cult memebers, and finally, cult members into …

Well, you get the idea. I want you to keep coming back. I want you to tell your friends and family, I want you to tell strangers, I want you to tattoo “Port 16 Forever” in a heart tattoo on the back of your head.

Anyway, I noticed a long time ago that if I had a blog story which sent a lot of search results my way, the new visitors would look at that page, and then be on their merry way. Never to look at my blog again. My cries of abandonment were loud and unending.

But ever since I started placing the related links, as well as the “recent posts” section on the side bar, I keep a number of those readers. Instead of looking at one page and running away, they start reading more and more, and then maybe, just maybe, they subscribe. No one has had the tattoo yet though.

If any of you have the tattoo, send me a picture and I’ll post it.

Posted in Add-Ons, Blogging, WordPress 2 Comments »

I saw BlogRush for the first time on Phil’s new blog Tech Fires, and I was a little curious. Then I followed the link from his widget, and I started to get really excited. This is really a great idea, and I wish I had thought of it.

You display a widget on your blog, much like the one pictured below. The widget has 5 links in it, which open up in a new window if one of your readers clicks on it. Every time you have a page load, a link to one of your posts is displayed somewhere else.

That’s right. One page load = one link. What is even better is that when you sign up, you choose a category for your blog. Your widget shows links from that category, and your link is displayed on other blogs in that category. In other words, your link is being displayed to readers who are already reading topics close to yours.

Now I thought that was well worth putting the widget on my site. Then I found out that BlogRush also acts like a pyramid scheme.

For every person who follows your referral id, or clicks on your widget, and signs up, you get a credit. Every page load they have, you get your link displayed on another blog.

The referrals from your referral count for you too, down through 10 generations of referrals. After so many generations, it isn’t one for one, but it is still better than nothing.

The only thing that I didn’t like is that you can’t choose a size for the widget. That is why it is a little larger than my sidebar. I was planning on resizing the sidebar’s a little bit anyway, I’ll just have to do it sooner. 

Posted in Promotion, widgets, RSS, Recommendations, Blogging, Web Tools 3 Comments »