For those of you not aware of a MagSafe connector it is a great idea with magnets used to hold the power cable in place, instead of the traditional stick and slot approach. This means that is you trip over the cable for some reason, rather than drag the machine with you the magnet will release. It is a fantastic idea.

Mine though has developed a fault with the sensor pins within the connector. There are 5 pins that are supposed to spring in or out and make the connection to the machine. When disconnected all 5 should be out. However, over the past few weeks I have noticed 2 pins are sluggish to reset. In fact they have necessitated the odd tap on a hard surface to coax them out.

That worked well until yesterday morning when one of the pins has given up the ghost. The pin is permanently retreated in the head of the connector. No amount of tapping or prodding sees this pin emerge from its hiding hole. As a result the power cable never connects succesfully and my battery is now 100% drained.

So I am now awaiting the arrival of a replacement MagSafe. Until then I am forced to slum it on the work craptop. An IBM ThinkPad StinkPad T42 loaded with Microsoft Microshonk Windows Winblows XP and a paltry 512MB RAM.

Given Apples track record on prompt delivery the MacBook Pro 17″ should be up and running within days. Just hope their courier services the new area (refer to the Foxtel – Another Bunch of Fools post for that).

Needless to say this confused my ISP. I had the accounts team call me to clarify the request, and during that call established that the original request was thoroughly misunderstood and that a cancellation order had been placed against the new account. Once the true requirements were understood the accounts team quickly attempted cancelling the cancellation orders and reversing penalty charges for early termination. This was thought to have been complete.

However, one key part of the erroneously submitted cancellation order was missed. This resulted in the ISPís contractor cancelling my account within 24 hours. Very efficient on the cancellation. I found this after relocating my router to a better wireless transmission location I was unable to connect to the internet. I was on the phone pronto.

As the call was made after 6pm AEST on a Friday I was informed that the account would be offline for the weekend, but should be restored on the following Monday. I was also credited a months worth of access as compensation for the service disruption.

On Monday it was no better. The Tuesday also showed no improvement. At 3pm on Wednesday I rang again and was informed that the provisioning team were delayed due to unusual demand. I was also assured that the order for them to repair the fault was lodged and escalated. I left it at that and was hopeful that the problems would be resolved on the Thursday.

Thursday came and went with absolutely no status change. So I called the ISP at 2:30pm AEST on the Friday. I spoke to the original representative from the ISP who was shocked that I was still offline. To his credit he took ownership of the problem and progressed it as far as he could. I was also given a second month of free access due to the tardiness of the provisioning team. I was though informed that it would not be repaired until Monday at least. I repeated my disappointment and that I was not happy but could not do anything more.

The call though must have gotten the wheels in motion as I received and SMS this morning that my job was picked up, then being processed, and finally completed. Clearly the provisioning teams backsides were thoroughly tanned, as they should have been.

I have no problem with the provisioning teams doing what they did in cancelling the account. They were simply following orders. What I am disappointed in was that once it was understood that order was erroneous it took over a week and two additional phone calls to repair! To further reflect the dismay I have in this situation is that the original account order was lodged on a national public holiday and connected and working 24 hours later.

So I hear you ask am I looking for a new ISP? The answer is no, this is the first issue I have had with this ISP in over 7 years of subscription. I am confident that this was an isolated incident. If it proves not to be though I will happily jump ship.

As you can imagine gardening is a very small niche and is often only frequented by those that are keen gardeners. The general run of the mill netizen is not all that interested in the subject, however I am capturing some interest from these netizens. This is by keeping the content straight forward and understandable. Also a smattering of geek and personal news intersperses the gardening articles. This keeps people hooked I have found. Although I do try and stay faithful to my niche and am being careful not to flood the blog with other non-related materials.

The Drop Strategy
The second part of the strategy is the card dropping methods I have been employing. In large this is a bit of a rehash of a comment I left at On Blogging Australia and a summary of a thread at the Aussie Bloggers Forum, for those that have now read this a number of times apologies in advance.

The card dropping strategy is very straight forward and has proven very successful with my site being in the top 3 of the Home and Garden category since about the second week of participation. I am a chain dropper, however I do take the time to scan and read some of the articles. I even comment on a number of these sites and participate in the community. I have discovered many sites of great value to me across a wealth of topics.

1. Drop on those network of fellow bloggers that I am familiar with through forum discussions. For me this is a collection of contacts from the Aussie Bloggers Forums and Blog Catalog. These contacts always reciprocate.
2. Those that have taken the time to consider my site and are willing to advertise are next on the list. My clients are often more than happy to reciprocate with a drop back or two.
3. The next hit list are those fellow Entrecard participants that I wish to, or am, advertising with. Showing them that I do take the time to look at their site, and not simply clicking from the Dashboard is an important step. Often too these sites will be the ones with the more interesting articles, and I will be moved to participate within their blog.
4. Return the favour to those Drop on those that dropped on me. As per above, even the chain droppers, have taken the time to visit my site.
5. Drop on those that drop on me regularly that are in the top 10 from the details page. Even if these guys do not participate in a discussion, they are constant visitors and my hope is that sooner or later one of my articles will arouse their interest.
6. Next on the drop parade are those blogs that threw me the most traffic from previous advertisements. They are also the ones that I am likely to advertise with again.
7. Drop on the new arrivals. These are the credit poor people of Entrecard and are often thankful for the credits. Some I also try to advertise on, but these spots are snapped up lickety split.
8. Complete drops by dropping on the smaller categories. Those categories are often the ones with <20 members and do not attract much attention from the world. As such they are often more than happy to reciprocate.

I have also begun performing similar drops for Sockos Spot. Again that is reaping rewards with numerous advertising requests coming in from sites that did not know about Sockos Spot in the past. It is building a readership and that in turn is improving the reach of the sites.

Thanking my Advertisers
I am also now sending a personal message of thanks to those that have decided to place an advertisement on my widget. The idea was inspired by the excellent article Entrecard: Social Advertising for Bloggers that in turn was inspired by The Cheap Gourmet. The reason for this thanks is that these are the people that have taken the time to evaluate my site and make the decision to advertise on my screen real estate. The act of thanking will encourage that client, and that is what they are, to advertise again. It also opens up another social network opportunity on Entrecard.

Thanking Those That Allow me to Advertise
By admission I have been a little lax here, but I am making every endeavour to thank those fellow Entrecard members that have permitted my advertisement on their widget.

Remember that Entrecard is a social network of sorts. So be social in its use.

Internet connection is yet to be arranged in the new house. The phone is there, so it should just be a matter of getting the ADSL/ADSL2+ programming done. However, due to that I am at large portions of the day without any connection, a real pain especially when it is overnight.

The lack of connection also means for all my Entrecard droppers I am unable to reciprocate the drop quickly. So if you drop on me can you please comment on this post and I will reciprocate as best I can. I know that looks like a grab for comments, but I want to ensure that you all get rewarded for your drops. So, if you take the time to comment I will drop 10 points into your kitty, as such it will be worth your while.

For the Entrecard advertisers thank you for choosing my blog to advertise on. I have sent you a thank you for advertising already.

For the potential Entrecard advertisers watch the advertising price drop. Now is a great time to advertise on SCHWOIT so get your checks ready. At the time of writing this I am at 306 credits, I expect that to crash soon.

It is now time to move the worms and the garden tubs into the truck and move them to the Gong.

Anyways back to the back breaking move.

I have seen a wonderful new study from which I will be able to work, blog, and other tasks. I even have a view of several standard Birds of Paradise and thus will be able to watch them develop. My White Bird of Paradise will definitely be positioned near these plants. I have also seen a lot of places for the vegetables, herbs, fruit, and flowers. We certainly are not limited to the amount of places with a sunny disposition as we are in the current house in the big smoke.

Now the heading of this post is “Change All Around”, and the reason is that I have been fortunate enough to receive a free Entrecard design. Many thanks to The Optimizer SEO News who made the kind offer on the back of running an Entrecard advertisement on my blog and receiving a thank you for advertising message. Manners and etiquette do bear fruit after all.

So what are the changes? First off my plain Jane original Entrecard.

and the new one is

As you can see there is a lot of change there, and I am very impressed with the design skills.

The new card has included an urban jungle to cater for the dropping from the sub-title. Why did I drop the “in the urban jungle” bit? Well there are a few reasons. First, I am moving from the big smoke to a much less built up area, though still a city. Second, it made the sub-title very long and really added little value to the title. Third, it made a larger space available to really highlight the “Gardening and Geekdom” which is the main part of the sub-title in any rate.

Many thanks to The Optimizer SEO News who is always providing sound advice for bloggers in the SEO realm.

So I shall now see how the new card goes, with luck it will prove very successful.

On the Aussie Bloggers Forum I have been offered moderator status, and have accepted. I am rather excited about this project as it focusses on the Australian blog community that often has little chance to network effectively on the other social networking sites, often due to the time difference between down under and the rest of the English speaking world. I am happy to share my experience with this community as they are with me. It is a great sociable place.

The Blog Catalog forums give me the opportunity to socialise with the rest of the world. Many discussions start up there and I enjoy it immensely. Again, it is another helpful bunch and many great contacts are being formed.

In fact across the night I have been thinking about some off beat stuff and have started a thread on the Blog Catalog forums around what cartoons we all watched, or still do watch. My absolute all time favourite was Battle of the Planets, however many people would know it as G-Force. It was one of the original manga cartoons. You can see the intro in the below YouTube video.

Strange what late nights make you think isn’t it.

Recently though I participated in a discussion at Space of Reality around whether or not there is a valid reason for white lies. Today I was shocked and thankful to see that this fellow blogger has gone to the extreme of handing out rewards for the commentary. I have thus won an Honest Blogger Award, which is the badge below.

This is a great incentive to continue returning to Space of Reality as it demonstrates the willingness of Hye to facilitate a discussion. Thanks Hye.

Transformation of SCHWOIT from a general run of the mill social commentary site that was infrequently updated, to a frequently updated and niche focussed blog was the beginning of turning the blog around. I went from discussing many subjects that enthused me for a week or so, and then they faded into the distance. Now I have a passion for gardening and am more than happy to share my experiences in my developing passion. Whilst I am not an expert by any stretch, I am willing to learn and research. So sharing my experiences, and nifty inexpensive ideas is giving me a constant content source. Content is after all king in the blogging game.

Another part of the transition was to a new clean skin for the site. The new skin is a complete departure from the old scheme that had a black background. The new skin is much more readable and complementary to the content. The old black site was one that I liked and was around for many months, however I am much happier with the new skin.

The second part, and the bit that has seen the traffic numbers is my embracing of some social networking sites. The first being Blog Catalog. A great social networking site that has made many people aware of the sites existence. It is important to be a regular contributor to be seen in the forums. There are a great number of really knowledgeable and helpful people there from around the entire globe. Many topics are discussed from religion (ugh), blogging tips and development, and general idle chit chat. I have found many a useful tip or had a good chuckle.

Site number two is a forum for Aussie Bloggers at Aussie Bloggers Forum. The forums again reward active members that involve themselves in constant communication. Many of the members of the forum are very knowledgeable in the blogging fraternity, and all are friendly. Many of my regular readership are now from the forums and I am happy they are.

The third site is Entrecard. Entrecard is a site that allows bloggers to advertise for free by exchanging Entrecard Credits. A bloggers 125 x 125 banner is displayed on a fellow bloggers site for a 24 hour period. This allows for other people to discover your site. Primarily fellow Entrecard users, but other curious people also can click through to your site. Of late many sites have been discussing the validity of the traffic and the service. However, Entrecard has brought SCHWOIT many new readers and participants. In fact I will credit it with the majority of the credit. I will discuss my strategy for success in a subsequent post.

Another site that I am about to begin partaking in heavily soon is Blotanical. This is a site for gardening bloggers to discover one another and share tips. I have not been too active yet, however will with time permitting be starting to leverage its offerings. If nothing more than to research what others out there are growing and how. I believe it will be a stellar information source that will enrich my own sites content, and thus help keep the interest of the readership that I have built up.

All this took less than a month to achieve and it does require working at. However, this and similar strategies are rewarding for bloggers as we like to know there is other people out there that are listening. I fully appreciate all the traffic, even the chain dropping Entrecard users that many whinge about. The reason is that if I can convert 2% of those users to a regular visitor and contributor then my efforts are worth it.

So now I have done my geek post for the week I will get back to gardening. Time to research the best way to prepare and move worms and plants from the big smoke to the Illawarra. On that the sites tag line will remain, the Gong is still an urban jungle. It is just not an old growth forest!

Unfortunately, over recent months the #Peers.20s channel has dwindled in numbers with users flocking to other rooms such as #Chat and #Lounge. Thus a tough decision was made to cease the room for good. As a result the web site that I used to host at http://peers20s.schwoit.com has also ended and is now redirected here for the next month or so, after which time it to will cease.

I still thoroughly recommend the Induced IRC network run by knowledgeable and responsible administrators. It remains the premier chat service in Australia, and when I do squeeze in a chat that is where I will be hanging. If you wish to give it a go simply click Chat Australia. There is a small applet that will need to be trusted. Alternatively hit on Induced IRC and access from there.

Bob was in trouble. He forgot his wedding anniversary. His wife was really pissed.

She told him “Tomorrow morning, I expect to find a gift in the driveway that goes from 0 to 200 in 6 seconds AND IT BETTER BE THERE !!”

The next morning he got up early and left for work. When his wife woke up, she looked out the window and sure enough there was a box gift-wrapped in the middle of the driveway.

Confused, the wife put on her robe and ran out to the driveway, brought the box back in the house.

She opened it and found a brand new bathroom scale.

Bob has been missing since Friday.

So I entered very quickly indeed and was the first entry. Low and behold I managed to hold the competition off due to the jokes wide appeal and won the 1000 credits.

Now I am pondering what I will be doing with this prize.

PS: I also sent the joke to Ferrari Dave who is running a simple contest for free Entrecard credits. Check it out at Win 500 Entrecard Credits.

The origins of the nofollow tag are steeped in the early days of blogging where spammers were common place, and spam control mechanisms were not. The nofollow thus presented the nefarious activities of the spammer resulting in a profit from the increased sales of whatever product they were pushing.

In the current day however there are multiple spam control options available to combat this disgraceful activity. In fact one is shipped with WordPress by default in akismet. They are very effective and constantly updated. They are not faultless so the blog administrator should review all comments. However, the amount of illegitimate spam is vastly reduced. As a result the nofollow tag is less a legitimate spam control mechanism.

Given the effects of the spam control mechanisms I believe that commenters should be rewarded for their commentary. So I thought I would check the WordPress Dashboard and look for a simple toggle option for enabling/disabling the tag. Unfortunately, it is not a natively user configurable option. I hope that makes it into WordPress 2.5.

As such I have over the previous few days been investigating ways to remove the nofollow tag from comments. After a brief Google search I found the dofollow plugin by Kimmo Suominen. The plugin is highly configurable, but as mentioned earlier an administrator should still check comments regularly to ensure they are relevant and are not some clever spam.

I also found a complimentary plugin called CommentLuv. This plugin will interrogate the supplied URL and if possible retrieve the commenters last blog and place a direct deep nofollow free backlink to it. In this way other blog commenters will see potentially interesting content and visit. Further, search robots will also follow the link to the post.

With these natural advantages I decided to display that SCHWOIT is a proud believer in the I Follow Movement. Again looking at the fiddyp site I found the fast friends follow fair comments post. I liked the design and so decided to integrate it with my design. It is displayed in the header floating over the Bird Of Paradise leaf.

I am a proud member of this movement and encourage all bloggers to embrace the movement.

As you can appreciate in order to make 500 credits it is 500 drops of the card. This equates to a minimum of 1 and a half days as card dropping is capped at 300 per day. Now I have found that Ferrari Dave is giving away 500 EC’s in one foul swoop at Win 500 Entrecard Credits with a very simple competition. This is invaluable for anyone starting up as credits means traffic. If you can manage to capture some of that traffic then that will turn into readership, and if you monetize, will turn into cash.

As my blog is still developing I am keen to grab the 500 EC’s, so expect some hefty but friendly competition.

One of the requirements of being in the Information Technology business is to be accessible by mobile phone. It is also a bit of a life requirement in the modern world. One of the dilemmas with our yearly pilgrimage to the Bathurst 1000 is that keeping phones charged for 4 days is problematic. Even in standby mode the phones barely make it to the final day. Of course an option is to run the car and charge off the cigarette lighters, however thats expensive with the current, and escalating, cost of fuel not to mention the generated pollutants from the fumes.

Recently I found a solar phone charging device for under $50 that will do all the phones in our house (3 x Nokia, 1 x Motorola) from Deals Direct. In terms of size the device is a little larger than an iPod classic when the two solar panels are packed away. When deployed it is probably the same length of two iPod Classics laying length ways, so is quite portable. It certainly will not be a problem taking it and from the track as it will easily fit in one of the back pack pouches.

I will keep you posted on how well this device operates soon. My mobile is currently fully charged and the device needs several hours to charge.

Presently the default theme is installed whilst Socko and I hunt down a suitable theme. It certainly will not be any minimalistic catastrophe with only black text on a white background.

I chose to compare the statistics of:

1. phatic.org
2. schwoit.com
3. iserv.com.au
4. vilesilencer.com

The first test was to plug the site name into Google and see where it returned.

1. phatic.org – Not in the top 100 when searching for the word phatic.
2. schwoit.com – Ranked number 1 for the word schwoit. In fact the entire page is dominated by links to the domain or sub-domains.
3. iserv.com.au – Ranks at number 2 for the word iServ.
4. vilesilencer.com – Ranks at number 3, however the site that leads the way is a sub-domain owned by the same individual.

Not off to an auspicious start there.

The second test was to use a popular, yet not always accurate PageRank Prediction Tool.

Now while I don’t trust the results (PR is impossible to predict), I find it astounding that phatic.org has an unknown current PR, yet the owner speaks about SEO.

The third test is via Alexa.

1. phatic.org
• Traffic Rank for – No Data
• Sites Linking in – 6 (one of which is iserv.com.au)
2. schwoit.com
• Traffic Rank for schwoit.com – 3,642,649
• Other sites that link to this site – 88
3. iserv.com.au
• Traffic Rank for iserv.com.au – 63,219
• Other sites that link to this site – 63
4. vilesilencer.com
• Traffic Rank for vilesilencer.com – 9,644
• Other sites that link to this site – 50

Again no information.

Clearly this site is new right? Wrong, phatic.org has been around since 17th June 2005. Clearly the owner has no idea about SEO and as such his assertion that complying to W3C standards has no basis for belief, and should correctly attract contempt.