New ways to view this blog (blogger dynamic views in action)

Blogger rolled out fully their new ways to view blogger blogs. These new dynamic views are more modern way to read blogs. These remind me of templates available in  Posterous or Tumblr.

Even though some of the new views look quite neat, I'm not going to give up on my traditional blog lookalike. If you hate it or just want to read my blog in some other ways, please check from here all the other views available to read my blog. If you like some of those, just bookmark that one. Those will be always available.

Here's all the different dynamic views of www.henrihamalainen.com

• Classic: A modern twist on a traditional template
• Flipcard: Photos tiled across the page
• Magazine: A clean, elegant editorial style layout
• Mosaic: A mosaic mix of different sized images and text
• Sidebar: An email inbox-like view with a reading page for quick scrolling and browsing
• Snapshot: An interactive pinboard of your posts
• Timeslide: A horizontal view of your posts by time period 

I think only option that makes sense for this type of blog I have is this Magazine view. All the others look more or less bit childish tries to be cool. This Magazine view I could really get used to, if it only would have the options to get some of the items from my current blog template to it. Then I could consider taking it to be the default one. And at the same time I would like to disable the other possibilities.

Written by +Henri Hämäläinen

Follow my Agile SW, Social Media or Book review posts separately!

I tend to blog about wide variety of subjects. I just can't stick with one subject. Also I don't see the point on having own blog for all of those, so I tend to lose some followers for that (more about that here). I've even blogged couple of times about one subject blogs being boring and then revisiting my thought about it for some blogs. Now I have updated my blog so that, if you are only interested in Agile SW development, Social Media or interesting books, you will be able to get RSS feeds from only those!

So if one of those was at your interest, please order RSS feed from here:

Written by +Henri Hämäläinen

One Hundred Posts

I promised myself that if I ever get to hundred blog posts, I'm going to blog about my blogging. My blogging started March 2010 and after first half year I started to blog much more often and I got to hundred in in year and two months.

I can't exactly remember why I started blogging. I've been following blogs for years and years, but never really felt like blogging. I first tried with sports related blogging about two years ago, but it never really got off. No one read it and I didn't really like it. So I changed my language to English and started to blog first about books and then gradually moved to anything interesting.

The subject in question

One thing I used to think a lot was a subject for my blog. What would be the key thing to blog about. Most of the blogging tips where saying that concentrate on niche subject to get more readers. Also most of the blogs I followed was one subject blogs. I tried and tried to come up with an specific subject for my blogging, but never did. Finally I thought that I rather constantly lose many of my followers because I blog about so many different things, than try to stick with one thing and then lose my interest to this all together. I've noticed many many times that I lose readers due to wide variety of subjects I blog, but that's true me. I rather be myself with fewer people than try to please everyone.

Why I blog

At first it started with this personal branding type of an idea to get more visibility if I ever would decide to change job or start my own business or something like that. Soon I found out that I like it and blogging came a true hobby for me. For me it's like hanging out with my thoughts. It's so nice to be able just concentrate on things I feel interesting and just be totally me. Actually I haven't even told most of my friends about my blogging, just because I want to write to web, not to some guys I know already. It makes me more to be me, because I'm not writing for any known audience. Again I could get quite many more readers from my friends if only they would know I'm blogging, but that's not my point at all, so I haven't done so.

Tips - or how I blog regularly

There's couple of small things that makes possible that I get a blog post that regularly. I tend to try to get at least 2 posts out in a week, hopefully 1-2 more. I do work for living, I have two small daughters with whom I try to spend all their wake up time with, I try to exercise 5-6 times a week and I use too much time watching sports from TV. Still I tend to achieve my blogging goals. I'm not going in details of my priority management, but my main points related to blogging are:

• Write when you  have time and energy for it. When I get to the mood, I tend to write multiple blog posts at once. Then I publish those later. I normally have at least one blog post ready for publishing. Lean experts might say that this inventory is waste, but I don't see any other alternative to publish regularly, since interval to find time for blogging varies so much.
• Always write your thoughts down. I currently have 18 blog posts with some texts or ideas written down in blogger. Then I have couple more on my mobile's notebook to be transferred to blogger. This way even when I'm not right away inspired to blog about something specific, I check my drafts and most often I find some post to complete from those.
• Follow inspiring blogs and web sites. I really often get ideas for new posts when I'm checking some videos or reading something. I do follow twitter streams also, but I'm not sure if I've ever got any ideas to blog about from twitter. Good old Google reader and RSS feeds, with proper longer blog posts with images and videos work much better to inspire me.

Thanks

It's been fun to notice that there have been more and more people checking my blog out and hopefully there's some people who really enjoy it. Either way, I'm not gonna stop because of too few readers or anything, since I really like this. Thanks for you too, if you really read this post this far and have been reading my posts some other time also.

I wanna say special thanks to Vasco Duarte, who is a colleague of mine, he's been (most probably he don't know this) a kind of a role model for blogging to me. In the beginning I was checking his blogging a lot and got some good ideas from there. I know he's been reading and commenting on my posts once in a while too, so thanks Vasco for that.  

Written by +Henri Hämäläinen

Disappointed to notice amount of copycats in the web

When I was doing the investigation for my previous blog post about this one site which had suspiciosly similar content from other sites, I noticed that similar things is ongoing in much larger scale than I expected. It seems that it is really common that same article is shown in many places with minor differences. For example all of the following websites had the exactly the same article, only differences where the title, pictures within the text and whether the writer and source was mentioned or not.

http://lovelyra.com
http://greenpitchmusic.com
http://advancedguitarlessons.org
http://www.syncrat.com
http://teddmusic.com
http://countryguitarlessoninfo.com
http://www.positivearticles.com
http://www.musicinfo4all.co.uk
http://www.freebie-articles.com
http://www.darulz.com
http://netview.blogsome.com

Here's the exact links to those article's and you can see that those really are the same article.

Acoustic Guitars – Picking Out Your First One
A Guide to Buying an Acoustic Guitar
A Guide to Buying an Acoustic Guitar
Buying an acoustic guitar
Music Guide - A Guide to Buying an Acoustic Guitar
A Guide to Buying an Acoustic Guitar
A Guide to Buying an Acoustic Guitar
Advice on Buying A Guitar
The Secrets and techniques To Owning A New Acoustic Guitar
How To Buy An Acoustic Guitar
Acoustic Guitar - Picking Out Your First One

Here's citation how they all start:

Knowing how to choose the right guitar and how to identify a bad one, will save you from countless headaches, not to mention finger aches.

Acoustic guitar bodies come in basically the same hourglass shape, with some variations, but they do vary in size, color, wood-type, style, and extra features. You can even buy an acoustic guitar so small that fits into a hiking backpack.

Guitars ( Acoustic Guitar, Bass Guitar and Electric Guitars) come in a very wide range of prices, but when it comes to instruments, in general, you get what you pay for, especially ...

Couple of these articles mentions that article was written by Ian Williamson. Most of those doesn't. In most of those you have no way to realize that article is originally from another source. I'm not accusing these sites for anything, but I'm just disappointed. Disappointed for the guys who really create unique content. That content will get less and less visibility if articles which are seen popular are copied to multiple web sites over and over. The different unique content might be pushed down in search results because the ones copying their content can release so much more often than the ones who really need to write something to publish it.

For the internet is almost the same if there is 100 times the same content or not. Main thing is that people will find what they are looking for or find things that are interesting for them. Main disadvantage there is that this type of activity might lead to people actually producing less and less content unique content and internet will get much poorer.

Maybe all of us bloggers, who create our own content and do remember to mention the source if some content is borrowed, should have a unique badge on our blogs. Here's challenge for someone to create snippet that could be added to these unique content blogs.  

Written by +Henri Hämäläinen

Duplicating the texts in different blogs - is it acceptable?

Someone from mytravelspots.info send me a mail asking if I would like to link my site with her's (signed with woman name). First I thought it was nice idea, but I wanted to check the site out before linking to it. At first sight the site looked fine, I was only wondering that topics were not in line with site looks and name and topics varied a lot. For some reason I wanted to investigate bit more.

What I found out was that this all posts in this site had really many similarities with other posts from other sites. Most of those were not exact matches, but there was so much similarity that I decided to share it with you. Here's my results of that study:

I've marked with red the differences in between two text's from two different sources. I've only take a snap of the text, but if you see the full article's it's always the same paragraph division and same amount of sentences.

Example 1 - article about directional speakers

Here's snap from mytravelspots.info article Most Convenient Directional Speakers.

Directional speakers are ideal for specific applications in a certain environment. Much to the difference of loud or regular speakers, directional devices have all the features necessary to target the perimeter right in front of them. A large number of applications, tasks and processes are thus suitable for the combined use of directional speakers. You can enjoy the best audio environment if you know how to use directional speakers, because whithout proper installation and positioning, much of the effect will be altered or impaired.

Here's snap from article www.danclaude.com The Proper Installation Of Directional Speakers

Directional speakers are ideal for specific applications in a certain environment. Much to the difference of loud or regular speakers, directional devices are designed so as to target the perimeter right in front of them. This means that for specific tasks and processes, directional speakers function for a large number of applications. You can enjoy the best audio environment if you know how to use directional speakers, because whithout proper installation and positioning, much of the effect will be altered or impaired.

Example 2 article about folding knives

Here snap from mytravelspots.info article Why can I get a discount buck knives

 The most popular knife, the Buck Folding Hunter Model 110, was first produced in 1963. With a four-inch blade, high-tension lock, and low-pressure release, the Buck Folding Hunter is truly one of the most well-known knives ever produced. Often imitated by other manufacturers, this Buck knife was the first profitable folding lock-blade knife ever. In fact, “Buck knife” is sometimes used to mean any folding lock-blade knife, though of course Buck Knife is a unique company, generating many more styles than just this well-liked model.

Here's snap from an article from jacknife.net Buck Knives and Wet Sharpener

The most popular knife, the Buck Folding Hunter Model 110, was first produced in 1963. With a four-inch blade, high-tension lock, and low-pressure release, the Buck Folding Hunter is actually one of the most popular knives ever produced. Often imitated by other manufacturers, this Buck knife was the first successful folding lock-blade knife ever. In fact, "Buck knife" is sometimes used to mean any folding lock-blade knife, though of course Buck Knife is a specific company, making many more styles than just this popular model.

Here's an example number 3 Flat stomach

Here snap from mytravelspots.info article Is a Flat Stomach What You Want? 

Sprinting, martial arts, swimming, bicycle riding, playing volleyball, skating or perhaps other sports activities may help to reduce fat and tone muscles all over your entire body. I’m not saying you can’t work your mid-section but you have to understand that many workouts work the muscle and still have nothing to do with eliminating fat. When you’ve got a layer of fat covering your stomach muscles, tell me precisely what sense would it make to obliterate yourself trying to create washboard abs when all you want is actually visible abs or simply just a flat stomach.

Here snap from waisthipsandthighs.com article How to Get a Flat Stomach

Sprinting, martial arts, swimming, bicycle riding, playing volleyball, dancing or other sports will help to burn fat and tone muscles all over your body. I’m not saying you can’t work your abs but you have to remember that most exercises work the muscle and have nothing to do with getting rid of fat.  When you have a layer of fat covering your stomach muscles, tell me what sense will it make to kill yourself trying to build abs when all you want is visible abs or just a flat stomach.

Here's more examples if you want to find more similarities

Article from mytravelspots.info: Derelict Houses For Sale Free State Mooi River
Very similar article from articlesnewsreviews.com: Derelict Houses For Sale KwaZulu-Natal St Lucia

Article from mytravelspots.info: Chore Work Boots For Those Dirty Chores
Very similar article from professionalnametags.com Muck Boots Chore Makes Your Tough Days Easier

For most of the article's I did comparison with Beyond Compare and as you see with this item, those are exactly the same ones:

Article from mytravelspots.info Murcia Airport Parking
Article from crescentheightsreview.info Murcia Airport Parking

So what's my summary

There seems to be blogs around there who have really similar texts than other sites. Maybe that's intentional and someone is just spreading their own text with many different sites with small twist on it. This will for sure increase the possibility to get hits from search engines and then increase the visibility of ads used in the site. If they are the actual producers of their content, I don't see there being anything illegal. It's just lame trick to get more money from ads from getting more visibility to the same content.

I feel bit disappointed for all of those whose blog posts are not getting traffic due to same almost duplicated article is getting hits in search engines instead of some unique content. But if there's nothing illegal, I can only cry for Google and Bing to eliminate these results.  

Written by +Henri Hämäläinen

What I miss in the internet - real discussions

One reason I'm active in the web are different point of views. I love discussions on many topics. I have the luxury of having co-workers and some friends who are not afraid to discuss and disagree. With them I can argue so that it's not going to insults, but stays almost always on intelligent level. Still often those discussions are really tense and I can really feel the adrenaline level raising while having those. It's just a pity that I don't get those in the internet.

In the web I tend to follow the people I agree. I tend to comment to posts I somewhat agree. And the times when I or someone else disagree's on some subject, discussion almost always ends really shortly. Either one of the discussion partners just disappears or then it goes to meaningles "I'm right and you're wrong" type of discussions.

One problem is that in the web you don't really need to listen. You don't really need to try to understand the point, you can just jump to shouting mode and state your point. One doesn't have the possibility to explain the point thoroughly and to make sure the opposite site undestands the point so that he or she could adjust their comments accordingly.

In the web it's so easy to turn the other cheek or run away. If you disagree with someone, you can just ignore the message totally and find something else.

Web is full of happy happy, joy joy type of comments. Comments start often like this: that was a good post, here's an another point to support your point. It's much easier to go and support a post than disagree with someone you don't really know.

I'm not saying that everyone should be hostile and fighting with each other in the web, but I tend to believe, that new always start from disagreement. The only way to change and develop is to challenge. Challenge the existing knowledge and challenge the common believes.

I love good discussions where different point of views are appreciated and arguing enriches discussions. So far, web hasn't been able to bring that to me. That's why I still need real life.

Written by +Henri Hämäläinen

Looking back - inspiring blogs and sites this year

Year is ending and I decided to join the club and make short recaps on my web life. This was the year I really realised how much great content and interesting people there are to enrich my life.

I'll start these recaps with listing couple of blogs I have enjoyed following this year:

Springwise
It's inspiring to see new innovations everywhere around the world day after day. In some weird way it makes me happy that there are always room for good small innovations. It doesn't require a corporation to build something new and interesting.

Seth's blog
Being as popular as he is, he still keeps making surprisingly good observations about the world we live in. Quality of posts no one else have been able to achieve.

Stuff no one told me
Beautiful and inspiring cartoons from Alex Noriega.

Hawaiians do no blog
Amazingly stupid nonsense with twisted sense of humor. Best medicine to not to think yourself too much of an adult yet.

Ted talks
It's not exactly a blog, but there's so much great content I've enjoyed during the year that it had to make to the list.

There's many more I've followed and many of those have produced some brilliant posts. These are just the ones that have almost always made me feel more inspired or happy. That's the reason I think those are most relevant to me.
 
Written by +Henri Hämäläinen