Strategic Blogging 101-001
If you having been visiting this blog for a period of time, you will have noticed a few changes. After five years, it was time for a new look.
However, I have bigger plans than that. For five years, I have blogged about whatever I pleased and I have created a haphazard collection of categories to classify my content. Now, I want to blog strategically, and I need to create tags and categories that help drive traffic to this site. I am also beginning to work with clients to show them how to do the same.
Today, I deleted useless categories, and I began to think about what I want to achieve by blogging. In short:
- I need to know what I want to achieve.
- I need to prepare to measure my success.
- I need to measure my success, and course correct as necessary.
I am going to delete more categories, and tags. Then, I will create new categories and tags, and I will apply them to my old content as I see fit. This blog needs focus. This is happening after the fact, but it is never too late.
The first part of the exercise is about branding, I guess. Strategy, for me, is about knowing what you want to achieve, identifying the resources you have at your disposal , and planning how to use them to achieve your end. My blog is a resource.
Back To Jython/DB4O: Part 1
Ok, I let this work drop a while ago, but I have received a few requests for more info on using DB4O in Jython. Let’s make it clear, I am just playing with Jython and DB4O, but if this information is useful to you, then that makes me happy.
If you are impatient, like me, follow the steps I outline below, and you can stop reading here.
First things first: get the book. You can purchase the PDF of the Definitive Guide to Jython by clicking on the image of the book that appears above. Or, you can view a preview that is available at Google Books.
Last, but not least, there is also an open source version of the book. I will refer to this version in my examples, but, if you own the book, follow along.
I suggest that you download Aptana and install PyDev – that is the IDE I will be using in my examples. Since Aptana is based on Eclipse, you also have the option of installing the PyDev plugin in your current Eclipse Install.
I am going to assume that you have Java running on your machine, but I will provide instructions for the other steps. So, just to keep things easy, to get started follow these steps:
- Install Jython on your machine.
- Get Pydev running on your machine. (As part of Aptana, or as an Eclipse plugin.)
- Get the latest version of DB4O for Java.
Bookmark the useful resources:
You are free to bookmark these resources any way you please, but I am fond of Delicious because I can access my links from anywhere, because there is a Delicious API and because there are some cool plugins for Firefox and Google Chrome that make it more fun to use the service.
Get this done, and move on to part 2 when I have written it.
Open Source Philanthropy
If you participate in an open source project, chances are that you love technology. That goes without saying.
However, the truth is that open source is also about loving or caring about people. Today, I want to feature a Firefox extension that I have been using for a while now. I even recommend it to others: FireFTP. This is a great little tool that works from any Firefox browser, and gives you the ability to upload and download files from other servers using FTP.
The tool is free, but you are invited to donate funds to keep the project going. Half of all proceeds go towards helping various orphanages in Sarajevo, Bosnia & Herzegovina and in Vukovar, Croatia. Isn’t that something?
The writer of the software also encourages users of his software to volunteer in their own community. He is definitely using open source to make the world a better place for people.
To start using the FireFTP Firefox extension today, goto the Firefox addon site.