SCHWOIT

Well many of you will have seen that my site was AWOL across the weekend. This was due to a major screw up at my web host that saw all its clients off line. As such I am now looking for a new web host. I apologise to all my regular readers and will be looking into this carefully over the next few days. In the meantime I will be running daily backups.

Popularity: 25% [?]

Well after a very frustrating week since the move I am back on line. Basically my ISP screwed the pooch and it took them a full week to resolve their screw up. The situation came about from me having a second ADSL account opened up for the new premises. Once I relocated on the Thursday I requested the superfluous account to be closed, however I wanted that user name to be migrated to the new account.

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.

Popularity: 36% [?]

Given the recent discussions around the validity of the Entrecard traffic I thought I would share my thoughts on the matter, and going beyond that, the strategies I have employed to make Entrecard work for my humble little gardening site. Basically, I am seeing large numbers of traffic coming via Entrecard and a number of those are now turning into valid commenters and regular and valued visitors.

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.

Popularity: 60% [?]

Well we are into our third day moving and I am feeling it. My legs are slowly turning to jelly and I am sore all over. I still have another 2 days of this in mass move mode. Then probably a week running the small stuff down to the coast and cleaning this house.

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.

Popularity: 54% [?]

Well all of you will have seen my A Change Is As Good As A Holiday post around our moving from Sydney to Wollongong. Today that started in a big way with us taking possession of the keys. We have also dropped of a load of our belongings. After seeing the house first hand I must say I am very proud of socko, mum, and sistahs’ judgement. It is as big as the previous photos look. I will post some soon, too late to begin mucking around with images now.

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.

Popularity: 43% [?]