I thought I’d share something that I “just found out” now.

First off, I upgraded to Firefox 3, and I’d recommend the same. Tim, when you read this, I know we were just talking about it tonight and why I wasn’t going to, but I figured I might as well try it out. It seems mildly faster, but only negligibly so, which is nice.

Needless to say, if anyone uses GMail and has been trying to setup their “mailto: redirects” in Firefox 3, I found this nifty little guide which really helped out with that info.

Just thought I’d share that little tidbit for anyone who might be looking for it…

Oh, and for people wondering why this is in “Webmaster Woes,” I’ve just been using that as my all purpose computer one…

I started thinking about it, and the more I write, I’ve been getting a few comments here on the site, and a few over on my LJ feed, but I’ve not allowed any comments on my LJ. I always thought it’d be better for folks to come on over here and have accounts and be able to comment about whatever. But, I think as a whole, why have my feed and my journal on your friends list if you’re over there, eh? So I’m opening it up where you can actually comment on my LJ entries. Its only about time.

Next up, I’ll be (hopefully) working on some new recordings soon. So if you have an account on my site, make sure you can log into it. If you have issues, please contact me and I’ll fix it.

Finally, come August, I’m going to be in need of a few guest writers for a few weeks when I’ll be away from a computer for a good period of time there… If anyone would be up for that, let me know. Same goes for folks who have guested for me in the past.

And a double historical note as I close this: Today marks the 40th anniversary of RFK’s passing (shot on June 5th, held on for a day, passed on June 6th) and the 64th anniversary of D-Day. Everyday has something historic to it. Sometimes, we need to stop and remember. Today, we should definitely do both: for the men who stormed the beach for our freedoms and for the man who followed in his brother’s footsteps and ushered in change…

I log in to clean up some back-end stuff and I get a notice that 2.5.1 is available. So me, wanting to keep on top of things, figure I might as well upgrade. And especially because 2.5.1 was supposed to fix the media uploader issues that 2.5 had.

I can securely say that they don’t. Ah well. Here’s to 2.5.2 coming out soon and fixing it. Or not…

By the way, speaking of updates in case anyone missed it last time around, my downloads are working again. If I do work on my new album, shed some light and upload it here for free consumption second week of May, I’ll probably disable the other ones for the time being, just to ensure that I have enough bandwidth for the new one to be downloaded… So grab them now before I disable them. And if you see fit, please don’t hesitate to chip in a few bucks to help pay for bandwidth. Thanks…

So yesterday I was talking about how ad keywords amuse me. And I guess with the completely random content that I have on my site, it shouldn’t surprise me to have such variety to my ad keywords. But even still, you ever look at entries of yours on blogs that have high traffic? Right now, I can tell you that the highest trafficked entries that I’ve had are the following three:

1) Pyramid Marketing Recruitment
2) Salmon-bots
3) My Neil Young post this weekend

I find that sort of funny, it just goes to show how many folks are looking for different topics. Its not like those are the only posts that search engines pull up. My one on my hats is fairly popular too… But, its mostly because some of these posts are pulled up by sites that use Widgits and such that search for things related to their keywords. But, its like an article I once read about how one day you’ll have a ton of readers, the next you don’t. That’s why I strive for different random topics each and every post because I never know who’ll find it and read it.

And thank you, folks who do stay around reading. I don’t get many comments on here, but I do hear from folks in real life about posts I make, so I appreciate it.

I’d better stop slacking this morning. I have a final in about 2 hours and then I’m meeting up with friends to celebrate the end of my semester with a few drinks. Something that lord knows I’ll need after this final… Enjoy your Thursdays folks!

Oh boy oh boy, so much to talk about from this weekend, but before I crack down on homework, I need to really give a shout-out to LesterChan.net. I use his plugin, DownloadManager for my site here on the discography page for the download of my music.

Well, when I upgraded to WP2.5, the only issue I knew about was the problems with my LJ-Crossposter. Because not many people know that they can download all of my music for free from my site (or make a nominal donation to help out with me running it and bandwidth), I don’t hear about problems much with the DownloadManager plugin. Matter of fact, not until I had a new user drop me an e-mail after registering on Friday (Thanks Spencer!), I had no idea.

Needless to say, I dropped an e-mail off to Lester and he shot me back a link to his blog (which I felt like a fool for not reading and then immediately subscribed to it on my Newzie) which described the exact error I was having and provided a link to the new version to fix the 2.5 difference. Ooops. I feel like a doofus.

Anyways, enjoy folks. Downloads are back up. More later…

Transcript of Robert Kennedy’s speech can be found here.

I felt with this being the 40th anniversary of his assassination that it was noteable to post that. I had brought up MLK earlier this year on his birthday, and I feel its necessary to do so again. Race has been such a big issue this year, including Obama’s speech. No, I’m not going to make this into a Democratic statement. Its just something to think about that we really don’t think about on a daily basis. And today of all days, we could spare an hour or two of our time to really think about it.

Other than that, some housekeeping work needs to be done on WordPress… I’m getting an error whenever I try to upload images through WordPress, but that’s the problem when you switch to a new version. I keep looking to see if I can find something on the image crunching, because that’s when I get an “HTTP error,” but that’s about it. Hopefully I’ll have an answer soon. I’m also looking into changing the main theme of my site, seeing the black is starting to feel a bit dark to me, but we’ll see how I feel in another day or two…

Well, I had heard about WP2.5 coming out the other day from my friend Mel, and now? Here it is.

Matter of fact, I like it, despite the fact that the plug-in for crossposting to my LJ doesn’t work. I’ll have to figure that one out soon enough, though. No loss there.

I can say this, though, on the occasion of the second time I’ve upgraded WordPress (the first time being about a month back)? Much easier than I would have anticipated. And it seems to get easier each and every time… And Goob? Looks like I beat you to it too… :D

So tomorrow sometime amidst everything else I’ll be doing? I’ll be working on a way to see about getting my LJ crossposting working again… If I feel like it…

And two hours later… as you can see, I figured out the LJ-crossposting… There was a nice little fix that I found via a quick Google search… Now, you’ll no longer be deprived of my posts, my LJ friends. Not that you cared, but still…

First of all, to all of the well wishers throughout Sarah’s and my move–via either text message, AIM to my cell, MySpace, or Facebook–thank you. Things went smoothly, for the most part.

The full story, however, involves me cutting myself on two different metal objects and profusely bleeding the second time to the point of feeling like I was going to faint; willingly riding in the trunk of a moving car; and hanging out with some Russians. I’ll tell the full story later, but seeing its 3am, its well time for me to sleep, I’d say.

I did want to apologize for lack of formatting in my prior entries because something messed up that I have no idea what it was. When/if I ever figure it out? I’ll let you know… Also, because I noticed a lot of Splogs taking my feed, well, I followed my friend Mel’s advice… So enjoy the nice little copyright information at the bottom of your feed now… Thanks for understanding.

Alright, I’ve used enough ellipses in these past few sentences that I should give myself and my period key a rest… I’ll be back to my usual posting later today… Unless I drown myself in the sorrows of my homework because Duke lost, completely screwing up my bracket…

After talking to a friend and realizing that from high school to now? The only thing that’s changed is me getting more educated about the Democrats and being Liberal, it should be no surprise that I want to earmark this next article…

Found this on Drudge earlier today and it serves as an interesting note: Details of a Possible Delegate Plan Under Discussion

Quite possibly an amazingly fair answer to the Michigan and Florida dilemma. I’m open for some discussion on this one because its an amazingly simple plan and it appropriately handles the dilemma and gives both Obama and Clinton delegates, allows the states to be seated, and the 19 delegate net that Clinton gets there would probably be the only point of contention, but even still? Take it and let it be, I say. Thoughts?

———————

As a side note, I just tested something and I’m pleased to report that I’m really happy with WPhone as a plugin. As I’ve noted before, for the weekends, I draft ahead. This week alone? Friday, Saturday, and Sunday are all ready to go and I can tell you there are some interactive topics, so I’m looking forward to the discussions.

But as to drafting ahead, when the wife and I head on vacation? I can just post right from my phone and all of the formatting is saved and posts as normal as if I was writing from my computer. That is, presuming we’re vacationing within this country and I have cell phone access. I had to do a quick check with a test entry with basic formatting (italics, bold, links: you know, the usual that I use) which was written on my computer and then accessed on my cell phone and posted, and it did just fine. Very nice mobility right there…

I should get back to my homework, the wife and I have some roadtrippin’ to do when we wake up today…

I know that I just barely posted, but I felt that this was worthwhile in adding…

The past few weeks on and off, shortly after I’ve posted, I’ve gotten an IM. And the screen name has changed each time. Its been interesting to say the least…

2/21/2008 - (9:10:08 AM) EssentialSalmon: Hello my friend.
2/23/2008 - (10:11:57 AM) DogEaredSalmon: hi. do I know you ? I don’t recognize the IM name.
2/26/2008 - (8:09:49 AM) ObsoleteSalmon: hello
2/28/2008 - (8:45:51 AM) NumerousSalmon: I do believe that you are a fucking slut bag whore.
3/3/2008 - (9:45:42 AM) FreedSalmon: Barack Hussein Obama is a documented Christian. He goes to church, and he prays to the Christian god. Do you really want that kind of person in the white house? Vote for Hillary Clinton, the one with experience. Pass this message on.

Needless to say, after getting the last one (and laughing my ass off), I felt the need to finally say something about this. The first time or two that this happened, I got a bit frustrated because I thought someone I knew was harassing me. But, as I came to realize and did a bit of Googling, well, it’s apparently something that’s been going around. All I’ve been able to find is that in some error messages related to it, its given the information “Project Upstream AI v.4.0.0a1″. Googling that brings up nothing. Still, interesting.

And just because I’m using the LiveJournal Crossposter plug-in on WordPress, and it crossposts public to my LJ, well, I’m victim.

Ah well, amusing, to say the least… I might have to update and link back to this post as time passes if they get any funnier… But some folks just have a bit too much time on their hands… Me too, because I’m sitting here writing about it…

If you’ve looked at my site directly within the last 7 hours or so, you might not notice much. I think the only thing that’s really noticeable is the fact that my RSS subscription feed info at the bottom of the page has been replaced by my Feedburner link. That and the nice “flare” as they call it, for each entry, because I know that you’ve been dying to Digg my entries. Hell, I don’t even use Digg, but I wanted to put it there in case someone else did. I might have to look into it.

So… Like I said, I was going to do some work on WordPress yesterday. Amidst my homework, I took a few breaks and installed a few plugins. I’m still debating doing my WordPress upgrade, seeing I’m about a version out of date, but I’m a little afraid of doing an upgrade. You see, when I initially installed WordPress on the site, I used Fantastico. It was already on my site, and it did everything for me without me having to worry. But now, if I upgrade, well, I’m going to have to fully back everything up (which I’ve been doing anyways, so I’m not too concerned) as well as figure out how to actually physically install WordPress. Maybe I’ll wait and do it on Friday. We’ll see.

Needless to say, when you find a good plugin, you shouldn’t see much of it on the frontend of a site. Things like the Digg/Facebook/del.icio.us/StumbleIt link from FeedBurner are good to see, but other ones aren’t as visible. So, I’ll share some of the changes…

1) I’ll be starting tomorrow and going back to day 1 and tagging entries. This is in preparation for installing Related Posts. I’ve seen it in action on both of Goob’s sites and its a nice little one that will automatically back link to a few posts that are similar to the one you’re reading, if you look at the single post view. Nice little feature.
2) Of course, as you can see, the Feedburner Feedsmith plugin, which will be taking care of my feeds and letting me better track whom might be reading me. Not that I’m all that concerned, but it’ll be nice to know, seeing I don’t get many comments as of yet.
3) I hadn’t really optimized my page for accessibility and finding, but I felt it would be a good idea, so I put on the Google XML Sitemaps. This’ll help me increase my traffic some, which I’d definitely like that help with. More readers is nice in the end.
4) Mobile accessibility was almost a key theme with three plugins that I put into place. First off, I added in one called Text Me which will send me text messages everytime I get an admin e-mail (i.e. comments, new users, etc). And if you add to that my WPhone plugin that simplifies my control panel for me to use when/if I log in to my cell phone, and my Wordpress Mobile which lets my site now be easily read on any cell phone? Well, let’s just say that not only can I easily use my site on the go now, but I’ve also made it easier for folks to log on with their phones/PDAs and read my site too if they wanted.

So that’s about it when it comes to updating. The truth is, I really like using plugins. They’re making my life much much easier on my site when it comes to adding things here and there…

Yesterday was an exercise in cutting corners. Matter of fact, Saturday was too, just cleaned up better…

See, on the weekends, I don’t have much time to sit down and write, so I’m starting to “pre-draft” during the weekends with additional thoughts of mine and I’m just saving a few drafts so I can come in on the weekends and click and post.

In fitting with my Saturday morning theme, I’ll include this, which is a link to the 7M3 setlist from Saturday night. A bit more traditional, seeing it has “Cumbersome” and “Water’s Edge,” it’ll probably look a lot more comforting than the Friday night setlist. The difference? The Friday show was a “superfan appreciation show.” In other words: Folks who have heard “Cumbersome” and “Water’s Edge” so freaking many times that they’re sick and tired of hearing them and all of the “Cumber-fucks” in the audience who scream for just those two. Not that I don’t like them, but I’m glad to hear some of the cuts like “Flagship Eleanor,” “Home Stretch,” “Angry Blue,” and the infamous “? Song.”

Other than that, speaking of cleaning up, I’m going to be adding some WordPress plugins over the course of the next few days. I also really need to go back and start tagging my entries, seeing I haven’t since day one. When I have my new plug-ins installed on my site, well, I’ll give a heads up to them because a few of them will be functionally nice for some friends, I know. They’ll especially be that way for me.

I’d better get some food and off to homework before having my fun today…

Seriously. I’ve been doing that since day 1 of this site, trying to make sure I post something a day. I’ve held off on a few topics because I want to be better read before I shoot off at the lip on here, and there are other topics that I just haven’t even covered yet. But as long as I keep living, I’ll always come up with something new. I’m a writer, its in my nature.

Its like a great little blog I read about writing everyday. I found that on another blog that I’ve had bookmarked for a while about first year blogger mistakes. Both are very good points, and things that I’ve had in mind…

But for now, this is more of a utility entry for me… Just wanted to say a few things of webmaster note…

1) For folks who might remember my old site, TryingSoHard.com, it’s been just a frontpage that notes about the change of location to here. Well, I was talking with my father the other day, and he mentioned something about being able to host more than one domain with my package through SearchItUp.com. I looked into it, and he was right. So the other night, I copied all of my files from my old host to my desktop, then uploaded it to this host. I’ve got enough space that the small 50k of all of the files I had up there doesn’t affect this one at all. Needless to say, that’s where most of my old pictures were, so it let all of those on my LJ, MySpace blog, and such stay as they were. Cool.

2) Speaking of subdomains, I launched one for one of my classes the other day… When I have the necessary web stuff up and running on it, I’ll be linking it here because I’ll probably want some folks to trial run it for some input on it. That’ll be fun. Creating a web based simulation for a Training and Development class.

3) I check my Webalizer stats for my page to see where folks are coming from, search strings, etc. Seeing its provided by my host, its all I really need for a sense of traffic. It tells me that I get around 90-160 visitors a day, which is respectable for me to think about that so many folks are reading. If you are reading, please feel free to register and comment, I appreciate it, and I don’t bite. And besides, if you register and comment, you can always download my music for free too. And when I get a new album done, you’ll be up to date before having to download them all in one shot…

4) Which leads me to something I talked about: my “greatest hits album.” Needless to say, its going slow. I have little to no motivation to re-record some of these tracks that I’ve recorded 2-3 times already. I’m slowly working on it, but it’ll be something that will take a whiiiiiile longer, I’d say.

5) Oh, and speaking of the Webalizer stats from point #3, I noticed something sort of funny. See, this blog is pulled onto my LJ as public entries and it’s also pulled as a syndicated feed there too. What I had completely forgotten about, was the fact that there are public feed readers that pull the latest X pictures. That being said, I’ve noticed on days that I post pictures, my traffic “spikes up.” I’m a whore, so I’m going to post a picture now. :D

And if you haven’t noticed, and my friends on Facebook probably already noticed this, but I’ll say it here. I have a decent digital camera, but I don’t use it. I’m a slacker. Its a lot easier for me to snap a few shots with my cell phone and mobile upload it, rather than find a camera cable, unload, reload, etc. And my cell phone is smaller, of course, so I always have it with me. I need to really thank Susan for pointing out the mobile uploads to me and suggesting it, seeing she’s my phone buddy with the same phone as I have.

But that’s about it, really. Busy day with tests and papers to work on, but seeing I’m a good boy who follows the news, well, I’ve been thinking a lot about change…

More on that point later. I’m really making sure what I say is right when I say it…

I finally added myself a LJ crossposter. So if you’re on my syndicated feed there and on my friends list too, you can read whichever you prefer. The only difference is, whenever it crossposts an entry to my real journal? You can’t comment there, you have to comment back on my website itself. If you’re on the feed, you can still comment there.

I thought about it from time to time, and I never really pursued it, but seeing this is public anyways, I figured why not?

Besides, it’ll save the work of those who want to read me and didn’t add the syndicated feed but are normally on my friends list.

Of course, this sort of makes my “Duplicated on my LiveJournal” category a bit erroneous in nature to have, but that’s the nature of the beast, I guess…

So I was talking with my friend Elayne tonight and I mentioned the whole song download thing–how I have all of my music up for free download on my discography page. Needless to say, she had just registered for the site and afterwards was having problems logging in…

I fixed that, in case anyone else was having that problem. Now, on the sidebar on all pages, there’s an easy link to register or to log-in if you’re not logged in. With me fixing this, the only other thing I have to do webmaster wise really is get my Google Adsense setup so I can get a few extra bucks here and there.

Its all in the little things…