Installing and Using Statcounter & Sitemeter

Photo by Irina Patrascu

This lovely photograph by the truly exceptional photographer, Irina Patrascu, carries the words of Goethe ‘I find the great thing in this world is, not so much where we stand, as in what direction we are moving’.  The compass beautifully captures this thought, and yes Irina, we all need to use a compass when we are lost!  In the vast seas and oceans of the internet, it is so easy to be lost and hard to know if we’re headed in the right direction.  Measuring and monitoring the traffic to your site, gives you that necessary compass, that helps you to find your way and know for sure whether what you are doing is achieving the desired results.  So join me now, as I go through the process of how to monitor or measure traffic to your website / blog, and outline what has worked for me…

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Time for An End of Year Review

Photo by Irina Patrascu

Firstly, I would like to wish all my readers a very Merry Christmas & a Happy New Year, as this is likely to be my last post for the year.  As the last few days of 2008 slowly take a bow and leave, the new days of 2009 are eager to join into our experience of life.  The time at the end of the year is indeed a good time to take stock and review what we have achieved.

Always be good to yourself, there’s enough people out there to knock us down in one way or another, so look at your achievements, accentuate the positive.  I am really proud of this website, it started of as an experiment for me, to just create some sort of a web presence and learn the ropes.  However, its come to mean a lot more to me now.  It has has become an avenue for my thoughts, a vehicle to share my experiences with others.  Life is a journey, and I do intend to see this journey through to the end, not give up and let things go.  So join me as we take a look back, and then look forward to what I want to share next with you, my readers.

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Lessons You can Learn from the Professionals

Photo by JdeePanIII

In the previous article on Adsense, we discussed the pros and cons of using this to monetise your website/blogging efforts, especially with regard to the issue of when it should be introduced.  We still need to cover the technicalities of setting up Adsense, but before we do that, let’s look at what works and what does n’t from my own personal experience to date, and also, see if we can learn something from the professionals.

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Photo by dingbat2005

A long time ago, when I had just graduated and was starting off in my career as an engineer, we relocated into some new offices and on the wall was a sign which said:

“The only certainty, is Change”

It struck a chord with me, that Life is beset with Change, and we have to come to terms with the changes that go on around us and adjust our own worlds to live comfortably in the space we inhabit.  In a similar vein, my browsing journey across the blogosphere led me to some inspiration which has made me want to change the complete look and feel of the Technical Articles blog, because I realised something important.  So, please bear with me, and join me as I recall the steps to this decision which will set the blueprint for this site from now on.

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In this article, we will take stock and review the progress so far with this Technicalarticles.co.uk site and look at the Top Ten articles which I would recommend you to read.

When Making Haste is a Good Thing!!!

When you start a project like this, it’s good not to spend too long procrastinating and drawing plans, but to just launch yourself head long into the activity and LEARN AS YOU BLOG.  Because, from my experience, that is the fun of blogging, you never really know where things are going to end up because you’re constantly learning new things and making new friends through your social communities.  Most importantly, you must always be prepared to change course, if it feels necessary.  So don’t hesitate or delay your need to blog, read some of my articles on how to get started, or search Google, and just GO FOR IT!!!  So let’s look at how my journey has gone so far.

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Let’s consider Adsense and the what, when and why you should, or indeed, why sometimes you should not use it until the time is right!!

Adsense - What is it?

Anyone involved in blogging or web site development will have heard of Adsense and it usually comes into play when you’ve got somewhere with your site and are looking for a means of monetising your efforts.  Adsense is an advertisement program run by Google, and website / blog owners can register for an account with Google to display text, image, and video on their websites.  When visitors to your sites click on these advertisements,  they generate revenue for you on a ‘per-click‘ or ‘per-impression‘ basis.  Lets look at this in more detail.

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In this article we will discuss the secret of automatic content generation and for those using the Wordpress platform how your choice of blogging platform may limit your future developments.

As your endeavours in web/blog site developments progress, you will inevitably ask how do I do this in Wordpress and you will soon come to the realisation that you need to look else where.  Let me start by explaining my own experiences in this area, and the reasons why I’ve started looking for an alternative.

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For anyone thinking of setting up their own blog on an external hosting solution, this will be one of the first steps you will need to take.  I’m going to run through, step by step, the process I used to do this so you can do this for yourself.

Firstly, please refer to the previous article on this series as a background to this subject if you have n’t already  read this, you can access this here: ‘How to start your own Blog on an external host‘

Now, that you’ve decided your Domain Name for your blog, let’s get it registered.  As explained, you can use a range of providers for this Domain Name Registration service, and the easiest thing to do is to Google for this and check out a few sites to see what is the most cost-effective option for your particular case.  Join me as I go through the steps with the company I used to set up my Domain Names. Continue reading >>

Let us now consider the option for hosting your blog on an externally provided host of your own choosing.

In the previous tutorial, we went step by step through the process of setting up a blog on a service such as Blogger.com for doing this.  Now, as discussed in the introduction, this will suffice for most people, but for those who want the flexibility and are brave enough to attempt some coding or at least fix the problems they may encounter, then the only option is your own website on a host of your choosing.  Join me as we review the steps you will need to go through.

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In this tutorial, we will cover using an external hosting option for your blog, which is the simplest and easiest way to start your blogging journey.  This is a follow-on article from ‘How to Start Blogging‘ which you can read for background information and also if you want to set up your own hosting option for blogging.  Let’s go through the steps next with a typical external hosting option.

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