My Final Post… Well Sort Of

It’s a deceiving title i know,

After using WordPress for just over a month now i am really impressed with it, so much so that i have been desperate to try out the install version on my own server.

So after a friend gave me some web space [ Cheers Rob ] and i finally bought the URL and created my website i am ready to say goodbye to codinginthedarkness.wordpress.com and hello to http://codinginthedarkness.com/blog/

Hopefully this won’t impact on my Social Media experiment to much as i am seeing small improvements, this blog now comes forth on the ben scowen search.

So i will be copying over all of the posts in the next day or two, setting up my theme, tracking code etc but blah, so please hold on whilst i update and hopefully I’ll see you in my new web dwelling.

Goodbye WordPress.com

My Social Media Experiment: Update #1

Wow it’s been 12 days since i started my social media experiment, I’ve been putting this first update off for a while as i have been busy with life and my own site but i think now is a good time to see just how everything is going.

Before i get into the numbers i thought I’d just give my overview and thoughts. I think i have been doing an OK job so far of actually trying to boost my web presence, i have been blogging on a occasion basis, updating my twitter feed and looking at trends, as well as regularly checking my Google rankings. But i know i need to do more, so I’m gonna up my game as far as blogging and twitter goes so hopefully by update #2 i feel like i should have a 8/10 for effort rather than the 3/10 i feel like so far.

Coding In The Darkness meets Google spider

Although if you have a look at the image to the right, Google found my blog after 45 minutes of posting, so i was very happy with that! I’ll wait to see how well my other posts and website go down but was shocked to see that the blog was picked up so quick when it wasn’t ranked in at least the top 10 pages before and it jumped to 6th.

So the stats so far;

• Twitter follower increase by 5 to 31 (I have had more followers but i seem to be losing some, maybe i am not interesting enough!)
• Blog views was 128 now 223 with an average of 5 views per day
• Facebook – i have decided to drop this stat as i just think it won’t be a good measure
• LinkedIn – still 23 connections, i haven’t done much with LinkedIn put i am looking to get involved with groups soon so we’ll see what comes of it, hopefully some good connections

Google Results

• ben scowen – 5,650 results, 7 out of 10 on the front page are all me and this blog is 6th!
• “ben scowen” – 121 results, same as above

I haven’t looked at anything else yet but i am going to try and impact the top 100 for:

• scowen
• ben! – Will have some competition for that one
• Not sure what else maybe London freelance web designer etc, let me know your ideas.

That will do for this update, i am off now to write some code, buy my domain and re-enter the Twitter-sphere, but next time i am going to add some data from various twitter mash ups, and some more blog stats, but before i go here is a great piece by MediaSnackers who have a guide for entering Social Media for beginners >,
enjoy.

My Retro Cartoon Memories

I have to first give credit to Jon Devo for the inspiration for this post, all know i often see similar links on Twitter and Facebook for retro cartoons Jon pulled one out of the bag that i haven’t heard in what must be 10 years… “Bots Master”

When i read his status update the main characters name hit me “Ziv Zulander” i just thought hold on, i know this, then a quick Google and YouTube later and the childhood memories flooded back like a Thames Water pipe!
Here is the video form my pal YouTube;

The reason i loved seeing this again is the fact that when discussing old tv/cartoons with friends (as we regularly do Shaun) i just haven’t ever heard or brought up Bots master even though i loved it ,come to that point i don’t think i ever discussed it with anyone at the time, however Teenage Turtles, Transformers and the like all got a solid mention.

Then it struck me all the cartoons i see now for Ronnie and my Niece Kelsie are just so educational to the max, or just seem to grown up to really be cartoons. So here is my flashback list to the days when cartoons where cartoons and not the fancy computer generated 3-D edu-fests like they are now. Not that i am dissing the educational content, i am glad they are like that but where is the fun? Handy Manny, Mickey Mouse Club thing a ma bob and Winnie and Tiger adventure detective agency thing, i dunno i want huge robots who rap once in a while and say cool things like “Roll Out”!

For all you 80’s and 90’s kids enjoy,

Transformers
Mask
Pole Position
Jayce & The Wheeled Warriors
Skeleton Warriors
Biker Mice From Mars

Feel free to tell me your favourites or just ones to mention and ill add them to the list (with contributor) later.

Also just wanted to add this video i saw taking (feels a bit like someone was trying to copy Family Guy for some reason?) a pop out of the Gobots

The Race To 1 Million Twitter Followers…

… I’d be happy with a hundred!

I have been keeping a watch on this for the past 2 or 3 days now and i just find the whole concept very funny. (Link to story here)
The fact that a) CNN @cnnbrk has only just got ownership of the account, so technically they have only really earned the last 80,000 or so followers, b) That of all of the twitter accounts out there it has fallen upon Ashton Kutcher @aplusk to try and steal this race.
I have nothing against Ashton, i like him actually and i have chosen to follow him because his posts seem interesting enough, i just was surprised that there is only one news feed against two celebs for the first mill (Including Britney Spears @britneyspears who is third).

I suppose it confirms the fact that we are more interested in celebrity culture than news, well celeb news is news but you know what i mean.

I like the whole story as its just a nice fun story in the news for a change and whoever wins the Malaria charity’s and suffers will benefit which is great. Also the special number followers who will get games by EA is cool and should help up the numbers!

Also found this of Ashton on YouTube helping to fight the cause, all i can say is one man, nearly a million followers, what would happen if this guy ran for president, or worse if Britney Spears did!

Anyway if you want to follow me and help me get to 100 followers i can be found here @BenScowen, maybe I’ll do something for charity too, but you will get no games!

TTYL

Content, Content, Content when it comes to blogging it’s all about the content

When it comes to writing a good blog, content is king, in-fact when it comes to writing web content or even updating facebook and twitter if your content is boring then it wont get clicked. But where do you or i fit into all of this?

I’ve been reading  alot lately about what makes a good blogger and web writer i guess unsurprisingly it’s similar to writing a good book, you have to know your audience and present your content in an interesting way. But how exactly do you do that when there are no doubt thousands of blogs already which know your audience and know how to grab them in?

So I’ve been thinking what do i need to do to find my voice, grab my audience and most important find what to write about.

I reckon it will take me a while to figure all of that out nut for now a little link dump is in order:

http://www.socmedia101.com/ – Very cool site i found a few hours ago, i will be checking often
http://www.viralvideochart.com/ – Try not to get addicted, good tool for learning if your interested or a great way to waste 30 minutes!
http://www.gosquared.com/liquidicity/archives/category/helpsheets – Great for Web Designers – Simpellz!

Hope that craves your thirst of Ben for the day…

How Famous Can I Get in 2009?

I suppose the title sums up this post, i talk to lots of people about Social Media, Networks on the web, and Google and SEO rankings etc, but am i right?

Basically as it stands i have:

• 175 Friends on Facebook
• 26 Followers on Twitter
• A very Old MySpace and Bebo page
• A nearly finished Web Site
• YouTube & Flickr accounts
• And this blog which needs a good shot in the arm

I admit i am selective and don’t add just anyone, i know >90% of my FB friends for instance.

So the EXPERIMENT!
How famous can i get by the end of the year?
Basically i have no idea how i am going to measure it but i want see how many “friends”, “followers”, “subscribers”, how high up the google rankings i get when i search for “Ben Scowen” (and how many are actually me).
I have to learn a lot more about good blogging, SEO, Social Media but there is no better test subject than myself.

So i will set some rules to make the test fair throughout and not cheat.

1. I will not request people to be my friend, follow etc, they must want to join me on there own accord
2. I will blog, tweet, video blog etc as often as possible but at least once a week
3. On certain sites i will become or follow someone but not ask them for a return, i want to make myself visible without forcing myself upon people.

That’s it for rules unless i get some good suggestions, i will post weekly or monthly updates on my progress with graphs etc for all you stat geeks out there.

That’s it, if you have any advice, or can find anyone else who has done similar so i can compare please let me know, but for now,

Stay Classy (Maybe i need a new non Ron-Burgundy sign off?)

WordPress for iPhone eh?

Well I downloaded the WordPress app for the iPhone and am giving it a quick spin.
So far I’m impressed with the speed and the interface isn’t to bad either but will I really be bloging from my iPhone enough for this app to keep it’s place on my phone?

Well I can see the advantages, being able to blog anywhere as long as you have some form of connection is cool, if you need to type something that’s on your mind for later even better. But how practical is it?

Well I have just tried the horizontal keyboard which speeds up my typing, i’ve added all of my tags in pain free and even the iPhone’s built-in spell checker is very handy while a type! I’m gonna try some pictures next if that’s possible and maybe a web link just to really push it but I’m guessing you can’t switch between HTML and visual like normal, but again I could add images, links and videos later. (Added some of me and Ronnie at the park and pic of the app loading lame I know)

Well I can see this being a handy app to start my post on a train and then finish once I get home if the app will work without connction I don’t yet know, anyway, time will tell how many iPhone posts I make but I’ll add iPhone blog in the catorgrie section for each one I do make.

So all thats left is,

Stay class mobile blogging world.

It’s been an interesting Friday the 13th

Well i have had a typical bad day, first no croissants from Tesco left me in a bad mood, my work laptop has also been behaving very badly in deed, disconnecting me, freezing and just being lame (I think he’s sad that I’ll be giving him back to BT soon) and i used four disks just to try and burn Ubuntu.

Ubuntu for those that don’t know is a Linux OS which so I’ve heard is the best available. As i cannot install XP because of some silly creating RAID issue i think this will be the solution to my problem as a) I should be able to create a RAID array in it and b) I will actually be able use my computer in the time being!
Luckily some good advice from the Ubuntu forums means that i am now installing Ubunto as we speak, although the screen is black at the moment but there is plenty of noise coming out of that ol’ desktop which must be a good sign? (Just realised that it went black to save the screen during install [noob!] ).

I haven’t used Linux since Uni and i am actually really looking forward to it, the fact that it’s free, has many apps that are free that do the same jobs as windows and it just looks and feels cooler to be sticking it to Bill Gates, well just Microsoft now.

So today has been a bit dodgy to say the least, but things seem to be on the up, i am applying the finishing touches to my teams last ever newsletter (well by us anyway) which you can find here @ BT Better World Campaign

Now as i finish the blog a few days later i can add that i had a very good time at Matthew Brogden’s First Birthday Party, had Cake, Trifle and many other fine foods, just a shame we had to wait an hour for a cab home!

I will bid this mish mash of a post farewell now as i want to continue my job hunt, but i just wanted to add I’m very impressed or disturbed(i haven’t decided yet) from my very quick Java Script post which got 63 views, my highest yet. All that effort i put into a full blown post and no reward! Oh well,

Stay Classy

The Apostrophe S or is it (’s)?

Now I think I have a good command of the English language, although the computer has ruined my need to check spelling, on paper or from the top of my head I can spell really well, just not on the keyboard.

But one error crippling me of late is the apostrophe S, yes that simple little (’s) that you see on most pages be it web, newspaper, magazines etc.
No doubt I will still have made a mistake on this post to which I will get a few comments about but hey, I am trying to get the hang of it.

A very nice woman form work Wendy who has to check all of the content I write must love getting my e-mails as I often get returns with many red errors! But she also gave me a very quick 30 minute or so run down on how to get to grips with this slippery ” ‘ ” fellow. I have to say in those 30 or so minutes I think I finally have it cracked, although maybe after years of writing in technical language and coding maybe its time I did some English revision so obviously using Wikipedia is one method but her are some links I found on the ol’ Google.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apostrophe_(mark)
http://www.elearnenglishlanguage.com/difficulties/apostrophes.html
http://www.mantex.co.uk/samples/apo.htm
http://www.bbc.co.uk/skillswise/words/grammar/punctuation/apostrophes/game.shtml – A bit simple perhaps but if your struggling don’t complain

With that off my chest, it’s time to do some more writing,

Stay Classy

JavaScript: The Good & Bad Parts

Just a quick post, found this on YouTube  whilst looking for videos in how to repair external hard drives?

Anyway i thought it was really good and wanted to share, i may buy this guy’s book.

Enjoy