I Can’t Believe My Eyes

So, I was clicking around Distrowatch yesterday (March 29, 2012) when I saw something I could not believe. According to their Page Hit Ranking tool, Linux Mint is getting twice the Hits Per Day that Ubuntu receives. This means twice as many people are visiting the Linux Mint website than visit Ubuntu’s.

Check it out:

Now, before I go flying off the handle on a tangential rant, I do understand that twice as many Hits Per Day does not mean the distribution is more popular, just the website.

Even still, I could not believe this to be true. I mean, I’ve run a few Mint box’s before and been quite happy. It’s nothing against the distribution, I just didn’t think any other OS held a candle to Ubuntu’s popularity.

Ubuntu vs. Mint – A Dataless Analysis

Since I can’t find any data on how many times Mint or Ubuntu have been downloaded, I’ve devised a few other ways to compare the distributions popularity. Here’s what I’ve come up with:

• The Website’s Compete Rank
• Active Forum Members
• Number of People In Each Distribution’s IRC Channel

Ubuntu vs. Mint – Compete Rank

Winner – Ubuntu

According to Compete — which isn’t completely accurate — Ubuntu is getting a good 18,000+ more unique hits per month than Linux Mint. I still find it surprising how close the two websites rank, but this is more along the lines of what I was expecting. Although you can see that Ubuntu is down significantly from last year whereas Linux Mint is on a big rise.

Ubuntu vs. Mint – Forum Members

Winner – Ubuntu

Again, about what I expected. Ubuntu currently stands at just over 1.5 million forum members, with Linux Mint barely over 50 thousand.

Ubuntu vs. Mint – IRC Members

Winner – Ubuntu

Again, it’s certainly not proof. However Ubuntu’s 1600+ IRC members certainly dwarfs Linux Mint’s 175.

Ubuntu and Mint – Final Thoughts

I know nothing here serves as true proof. But the numbers definitely make me wonder if Linux Mint can possibly be getting twice the amount of traffic that Ubuntu is getting. As I was writing this post I was thinking a lot about if Mint really were passing Ubuntu, what the reason would be.

Ubuntu Pulls Away From The Pack

People don’t like change.

Well, they do — but people are initially resistant to change.

Over the past few years, Ubuntu has really begun to differentiate itself from other Linux distributions. They created their own window manager with the Unity interface and are soon to replace the X window system.

Perhaps there has been a growing number of people pushing back to more standard linux distributions like Mint as Ubuntu rolls out change after change.

Has someone written a better version of this post?

Chances are someone has. I’m not saying that you shouldn’t write the post, just be aware that you aren’t a first mover on this topic, and people looking to learn more about your topic should probably check out the other article.

Just to make a point, I did this little exercise before writing this post and found that someone in fact had already written this post better than I’m going to.

No matter what blogging strategy you follow, it is generally accepted that your blog should be worth reading in some way. So, if someone smarted or with better writing style has already written on your topic, either forget about it or construct a blog post that still has merit in the blogosphere despite your competition.

Blogarrhea

In the article linked to above, Ted Dziuba uses the term Blogarrhea to reference bloggers writing articles on information gained exclusively from other blogs. He then calls for a Read More, Write Less strategy to be incorporated by bloggers, I’ve taken this to heart.

I’m about a month and a half away from my 1 year blogging anniversary and I’ve learned a lot along the way. When I first starting writing articles, I — like many others — was absolutely obsessed with traffic, comments and social shares. I spent countless hours surfing the web looking for tips and tricks to get more people to my website. I tried link building, comment swapping and all the other blogging gimmicks.  However it wasn’t until reading Ted’s article that I never contemplated why readers would want to read my articles.

A Simple Exercise

If you’re looking to make your blog more successful, here are a few questions you should contemplate — they might help you figure out why you’re not doing as well as you’d like.

Don’t be shy, answer these questions honestly.

• Why do you want more traffic? ( Monetize with advertisements? Get recognition? Make friends via comments? Build your resume? )
• Why should people read your blog? ( Are you funny or controversial? A master in your industry? Do your articles save people time? Help people gain insight? )
• How can people find your blog? ( Do you pay for advertising? Have you been around for a while? Do you leave quality comments on other blogs in your industry? Do you show up well on Google? )

Books vs. Blogs

After thinking about those questions and coming up with some surprising answers, I decided to take a small hiatus from blogging. I took a break from both reading and writing articles for about a month, taking time to think about what I really wanted from my own blog.

I had just received some amazing books for Christmas and spent my extra timing reading through them. As I read through these great books, it dawned on me how much more information is packed into a published book than an ( average ) blog article. It isn’t that I think blog articles can’t be incredible learning tools — obviously they can. It’s all about averages, the average web design book is going to have more original thought and useful information than the average post. That’s how most of these people get published, they’re ( typically ) the best in the industry and have something worth saying.

Not All Blogs Are Bad

Reading books is better for your inspiration than reading blogs. It’s a simple truth that anything you learn through reading blogs has already been written on a blog. However, getting your inspiration from reading other blogs isn’t all bad. As important as original thought is, it’s also important for intelligent people to weigh in on current issues. If you are a real asset to your industry, you should stay current on the latest news and voice your opinions on anything contentious. I think I’m finding a nice balance with doing about 75% of my reading with books written by authorities in my field and 25% of my reading on popular blogs just to stay up to date.

Need Blog Inspiration?

If you’re suffering from writers block, my first recommendation is to not write. Wait until you have something that needs to be said, don’t blog just for the hell of it. However, I understand that some people don’t have that luxury. Maybe you have to write regular posts to keep your fans, boost your SEO ranking or maybe it’s your job. If this is the case I’ve found some pretty cool ways to get inspired without producing Blogarrhea. These ideas apply to web design / programming — my field — but I’m sure you can apply the basic idea to your field as well.

• Read a book, write a review.
• Search Github for some not-well-known piece of software, write a tutorial.
• Create something, then write about how awesome it is.
• Take a look at forums and help sections, find an unanswered question and answer it with a blog post.

Happy Blogging!

I Love Ubuntu.

What Is The Best Linux Distro

This is one of the most over-asked questions on the internet today.

It usually merits some type of answer about how Linux distributions are very similar and you should pick the one that’s best for you.

I think that’s crap.

If You Need To Ask…

If you are on a message board or blog looking to get that question answered, you should go ahead and install Ubuntu.

I am a Linux addict. It’s my personal opinion that if Linux is meant for you, you’ll be an expert in no time no matter which distribution you decide to install first.

Ubuntu is the only distribution that’s made for complete newbies. I mean people that have never heard of bash, aren’t comfortable using a CLI, don’t care about package managers or dependency issues.

I think we ( ‘nix users ) all too often forget what it’s like to be an actual first-timer. Ubuntu has a great website, easy GUI installer, tons of support forums and channels and the biggest user base. It comes with a ton of additional software but that will make Windows user’s feel right at home. I love Ubuntu and I think it’s an ideal distribution for most users.

Short Sleeve Shorts Under Long Sleeve Shirts

Programmers are elitists, that’s just a fact. Here are some common arguments against Ubuntu refuted.

Ubuntu Is Slow And Bloated

Seriously? Buy a better computer.

Ubuntu’s Package Manager Automatically Grabs Dependencies

Most people don’t have time to waste reading every single dependency for Aisleriot Solitaire. Automate it, that’s what computers are for.

The Community sucks because blah blah

The Ubuntu community is huge, not finding help on a particular site / forum / chat-room? Try another one.

I’m Too Advanced And Need To Be In More Control

Why are you searching for the best distribution? You should know your favorite. And why are you reading my blog?

I Love Ubuntu

I’m not saying I’d use Ubuntu as my web server OS, but for beginner’s / intermediates — it’s top dog.

The last place I saw it was on movethewebforward.com under Open-Source projects worth your time

List Item Hover Effect:

Hover Over List Items To See The Effect.

• Art party bicycle rights.- Art party bicycle rights vinyl fanny
• Photo booth mcsweeney’s.- Coffee brunch tumblr jean shorts carles
• Letterpress chambray.- Four loko 3 wolf moon tattooed tumblr.
• Next level echo.- Irony farm-to-table dreamcatcher.
• Readymade etsy.- 3 wolf moon tofu mcsweeney’s.

The Code

<li>Art party bicycle rights.<span>- Art party bicycle rights vinyl fanny</span></li>
<li>Photo booth mcsweeney's.<span>- Coffee brunch tumblr jean shorts carles</span></li>
<li>Letterpress chambray.<span>- Four loko 3 wolf moon tattooed tumblr.</span></li>
<li>Next level echo.<span>- Irony farm-to-table dreamcatcher.</span></li>
<li>Readymade etsy.<span>- 3 wolf moon tofu mcsweeney's.</span></li>

li span { opacity: 0;
  -webkit-transition: opacity 0.3s ease-out;
     -moz-transition: opacity 0.3s ease-out;
      -ms-transition: opacity 0.3s ease-out;
       -o-transition: opacity 0.3s ease-out;
          transition: opacity 0.3s ease-out;
}

li:hover > span, .touch li > span { opacity: 1;}

Code Attribution – Move The Web Forward

That CSS came straight from Move The Web Forward. It’s one of the best sites on the internet, and you should all go check it out after commenting on my awesome blog post!

Twitter For Readers

When I first started using Twitter, I had nothing to say.

Let me preface my introduction to Twitter.  I’ve always been a big fan of (the idea behind) RSS. I follow a lot of blogs and I do get tired of browsing to all of them individually.

At least a dozen times I’ve gathered a list of all of my favorite blogs, added them to an RSS reader and then realized that there isn’t a single RSS that doesn’t annoy the crap out of me to use*.

*Let me take that back. The RSS reader built in to the Opera browser is as close to perfect as I can imagine. Unfortunately there are a slew of other reasons I can’t use that browser regularly.

Then came Twitter. All of my favorite blogs have Twitter accounts, and following them not only keeps me up-to-date on their posts, but I get to see what they’re reading and working on. This has become my only real use for Twitter as a reader. I follow all of my favorite publishers so I can stay up to date with all of the great content they put out.

Twitter For Publishers

In early 2011, I started blogging.

Becoming a publisher gave me an entirely different perspective on using Twitter.  Twitter for publishers suddenly becomes all about gaining followers and increasing your CTR ( Click Through Rate ) on links you share. Looking back now, I think I took three wrong approaches when getting started as a publisher:

1. I misrepresented myself.
2. I acted like a business, not a person.
3. I lumped my Tweets together, other times going days with no activity.

Where I think I went wrong was misrepresenting myself to my Twitter followers. I tried to be someone I wasn’t, which gained me a decent number of followers. However, when I would let my real personality shine through; I’d lose those followers and have to start over again.

Recently, I wrote a post about being yourself on Twitter and I’ve tried to stick to it over the last few months. It’s been a slow growth, but every week ends with me having more followers than the last. I think some of the best things you can do as a Twitter publisher are:

• Always Be Yourself
• Be Transparent ( If you’re desperate for clicks and re-tweets, ask for them! )
• Be patient. Just like a website, a new Twitter account will take a while to pick up steam.
• Learn from the best. Look at the most popular Twitterers in your field. More than likely they are funny, honest, intelligent and provide value to their followers.

Are You A Reader Or A Publisher?

How do you use Twitter?

What’s worked or backfired for you in the past?

Share in the comments and let’s get a conversation started!

Today I noticed that Smashing Magazine has re-designed with one of the most incredible designs I’ve ever seen.

There’s Something To This Design

Smashing Magazine is a great resource despite the design. If you aren’t familiar with it ( you must be new or living under a rock ) but it’s the holy grail of web design sites. They have some of the best articles ever written and they sponsor almost all of my favorite blogs with their Smashing Network.

I really recommend going and checking out this design. I can’t quite put my finger on it, but I think it’s the greatest design I’ve ever seen.

The things I have noticed are:

• The UX is amazing. Everything is right where you think it should be.
• The Degrade is flawless. Re-sizing the window from 1900+ pixels to 200 is one of the smoothest transitions I’ve seen.
• The Buttons are fun to click. This is an effect that I always strive for, getting more CTR through buttons that your users want to click.
• The comments are easy to read. Another tough accomplishment. Comments are often ugly and deemed not worth reading but Smashing Magazine’s design makes you want to read other people comments.
• The fonts are awesome. I’ve been wanting to start using paid web font programs like TypeKit for a while now, sometimes they are really worth the cost.
• The content is top-notch. They always have amazing images and fantastic content.

What Do You Think Of The Design

Am I over-reacting here; Or is this one of the greatest designs on the web?

What specifically do you like about their site?

A few months ago, I wrote an article about how terribly inaccurate the Alexa page ranking service is.

Although my opinions on the matter haven’t changed. I’ve seen a recent upswing in articles telling readers what tips and tricks they can use to boost their rankings. When it comes right down to it, there is only one trick that will legitimately work for improving your rank. First, let’s debunk the rest of these myths.

Things That Will Not Improve Alexa Rank

1) Use Alexa Redirection Whenever You Can

Not only is this myth completely false, but it’s also completely dated. Way back in the day Alexa had a system that allowed this url structure:

http://redirect.alexa.com/redirect?yourwebsite.com

It was believed that if you gave people your Alex re-direct link as opposed to your normal link it would improve your ranking. I don’t think this was ever true but it’s a moot point now because the entire redirect.alexa.com sub-domain has ceased to be.

2) Install Alexa Traffic Widgets On Your Website

Before I tell you all about how this is not going to help your Alexa rank whatsoever, let us take a minute and relish on how absolutely ugly these widgets are.

You can find them here: http://www.alexa.com/siteowners/widgets

I absolutely, 100% guarantee you that placing one of these big, ugly, slow-to-load widgets on your website displaying your ( most likely ) very poor Alexa ranking will be a determent to your website.

Alexa has come right out and announced publicly that their traffic widgets do not increase rank. I say that even if they did, they aren’t worth having on your website.

3) Use Some 3rd Party / Non-Related SEO Service To Improve Rank

While the simple concept of Better Website = Better Rank holds true in this scenario, don’t fall for the bait. With thousands of people desperately looking to improve their Alexa rankings, low-down money-grubbing publishers haven taken the opportunity to try and sell you whatever affiliate software is currently paying them the most money. While investing in a legitimate SEO firm is almost always a good idea for a website, do your research first and don’t expect some fly-by-night service to improve your Alexa rank.

A Warning About Improving Alexa Rank

Before I get into the details of how to legitimately improve your Alexa rank, let’s take a second and talk about whether or not it’s really worth all the trouble.

Some important things to know:

• Alexa does not affect your standing in the search engines
• Alexa rank is well known as at least fairly inaccurate
• A Higher Alexa rank won’t guarantee more traffic to your website

Why Most Theories Won’t Improve Your Ranking

In order to understand why the aforementioned tips and tricks are useless it’s important to understand the ideology behind the Alexa ranking system. Let’s keep it simple with another bulleted list.

• Alexa is trying to give every website an accurate grade
• Alexa can only get its data from people using the Alexa toolbar
• The only people using the Alexa toolbar are webmasters / tech enthusiasts, the people who know about an Alexa toolbar
• For the above reason, technology blogs are skyrocketed to the tippy top of the Alexa ranking system
• If your website doesn’t have a ton of content ( like a blog ) and / or isn’t technology related, you probably are not going to rank high. Ever.

Those are just the breaks when it comes to the Alexa ranking system, they’re important to know.

How To Improve Alexa Rank

After reading that list above you should have a pretty good idea of what you need to do.

1. Encourage your visitors to install the Alexa Toolbar
2. Publish content that Alexa Toolbar wielding visitors will seek out.

These are pretty much the same idea, split into two different approaches. Either convince your current readers to help you by installing that toolbar, or change up your content to attract a different type of visitor.

Conclusion

Save your time and money.

If you are really concerned with the arbitrary ranking system, adapt.

 <a class="huge_button green" href="#">These Are So Cool</a> 

a {
     text-decoration: none;
     color: #444;
     margin-top: 50px;
     float: left;
     font-family: "Lucida Grande", Verdana, Sans-serif;
} 

a.huge_button {
     -moz-border-radius: 50px;
     -webkit-border-radius: 50px;
     font-family: Arial,sans-serif;
     font-size: 28px;
     font-weight: bold;
     letter-spacing: 0;
     padding: 15px 20px;
     text-decoration:none;
} 

a.huge_button:hover {
     -moz-box-shadow: 0 0 5px #666;
     -webkit-box-shadow: 0 0 5px #666;
} 

a.huge_button:active {
     background-image: -moz-linear-gradient(top, #549a2f, #a7ed82); /* FF3.6 */
     background-image: -webkit-gradient(linear,left top,left bottom,color-stop(0, #549a2f),color-stop(1, #a7ed82)); /* Saf4+, Chrome */
     filter: progid:DXImageTransform.Microsoft.gradient(startColorStr='#549a2f', EndColorStr='#a7ed82'); /* IE6,IE7 */
     -ms-filter: "progid:DXImageTransform.Microsoft.gradient(startColorStr='#549a2f', EndColorStr='#a7ed82')"; /* IE8 */
     outline: 0;
} 

.green {
     background-color: #7AC054 !important;
     background-image: -moz-linear-gradient(top, #a7ed82, #549a2f) !important; /* FF3.6 */
     background-image: -webkit-gradient(linear,left top,left bottom,color-stop(0, #a7ed82),color-stop(1, #549a2f)) !important; /* Saf4+, Chrome */
     filter: progid:DXImageTransform.Microsoft.gradient(startColorStr='#a7ed82', EndColorStr='#549a2f') !important; /* IE6,IE7 */
     -ms-filter: "progid:DXImageTransform.Microsoft.gradient(startColorStr='#a7ed82', EndColorStr='#549a2f')" !important; /* IE8 */
} 

.green:active {
     background-color:#7AC054 !important;
     background-image: -moz-linear-gradient(top, #549a2f, #a7ed82) !important; /* FF3.6 */
     background-image: -webkit-gradient(linear,left top,left bottom,color-stop(0, #549a2f),color-stop(1, #a7ed82)) !important; /* Saf4+, Chrome */
     filter: progid:DXImageTransform.Microsoft.gradient(startColorStr='#549a2f', EndColorStr='#a7ed82') !important; /* IE6,IE7 */
     -ms-filter: "progid:DXImageTransform.Microsoft.gradient(startColorStr='#549a2f', EndColorStr='#a7ed82')" !important; /* IE8 */
} 

Ta-Da! Awesome CSS3 Buttons

They’re pretty sweet right? Remember, I didn’t come up with them, http://blog.bufferapp.com/ did.

Enjoy!

It’s going to be a running meme where I write about decisions I’m constantly flip-flopping between. This first segment is going to be:

Decision Time – What Is The Best Web Browser

I recently wrote a blog post comparing the different web browsers in a general sense. This post is about which web browser is my personal favorite and why I have such a difficult time deciding on just one.

The Contenders

To be totally honest there are only ever two web browsers that contend for the top spot in my book.

• Google Chrome
• Mozilla FireFox

The Runners Up

Although they never make it to my top-spot, there are two browsers which deserve honorable mention.

• Apple Safari
• The Opera Browser

The Tough Call

Mozilla FireFox:

• Amazing features
• Firebug for development
• Fantastic looks
• Great add-ons

Google Chrome:

• Blazing fast speeds
• The latest features
• not-as-good but still awesome developer tools and extensions

The Question

What are your favorite browsers and why do you think they’re better than the rest?

How often do you switch between browsers and why?

Twitter Never Works Correctly

Personally, I love Twitter. I use it everyday to stay connected with friends, blogs and heroes alike. It’s really one of the most incredible online services of the 21st century. That being said…

I always seem to be having problems with Twitter. I searched around and can’t seem to find anyone else writing about this so I figured I would.

My Problems With Twitter

Scenario 1 – The Numbers Don’t Add Up

Have any of you had this happen? You look at a blog post and there is one of those awesome little tweet buttons. In the box it says that this blog post has been tweeted 100 times. You click inside the box to see who has been tweeting about this blog post and you get a Twitter error saying no tweets can be found with links to that blog post.

I mean, understandably the numbers can’t always line up. There are glitches and expired tweets and any number of variables that can throw the count off. But it really seems to me like the numbers are never close to lining up.

Scenario 2 – That Person Doesn’t Exist

Here’s another one that gets me. I sometimes spend upwards of 10 minutes trying to find someone on Twitter. Even if I know their username exactly sometimes I just have to do the same search 4 or 5 times before the user will come up.

Is It Just Me

Is everyone else having these problems too?

What other problems with Twitter are you having?

Share them with me in the comments and I’ll add them to the list!