What You See

At the bottom of each post, the LinkWithin widget displays links and thumbnails for up to 3 related stories within my blog.

You’ll see the benefits of its “intelligence” at the end of this and all other posts in this blog.

How It Works

LinkWithin chooses related stories based on their title, tags and content, according to the developer’s FAQ.

Having said that, I’ve found some of the choices to be quite amusing: it sees linkages that a human editor would never consider. Take a look at the post “Indicators of Waste Heat” as an example (LinkWithin’s results appear at the bottom).

How did LinkWithin “see” the connection between our cats’ heat-seeking behavior and a yoga retreat in Provence?

Well, it turns out the yoga retreat took place during a heat wave in southern France. There was no A/C in the yoga studio or in the 16th century hotel where we stayed. Temperatures hovered in the high 90s and above for more than a week.

LinkWithin must have detected words relating to heat in both posts, even if their subject matter is largely unrelated. Both posts were written with a somewhat wry tone, although I doubt LinkWithin could detect that subtle aspect to the content.

See what you think…

Decisions

First there was the decision of which blogging tool to use, which involved online research, looking at demos, talking to friends, etc. I eventually settled on WordPress, given its emphasis on aesthetics and relative ease of use. So far it feels like a good decision.

Then there was the choice of hosting partner. Much as I like Speakeasy, there are others who are more geared for blogging, with easier installations, attractive pricing, etc. I ended up with AN Hosting, and they’ve been a good service provider so far.

Not to mention which domain name to use, exploring URL availability, and so on. I was lucky enough to find my own name available, as long as I added the suffix “-blog.”

It goes without saying that there are all sorts of editorial decisions: what to write about, what tone of voice, style, frequency, etc. Those decisions are unique to each blogger.

But what amazes me in retrospect is what I’ve learned since mid-October. In most cases I’m now at the level of proficiency, but far from mastery.

Blogging Tools

Two weeks ago, I’d never tried any of these tools. Many I’d never even heard of:

• MAMP (to facilitate the installation of MySQL, Apache and WordPress on my local Macintosh)
• MySQL and phpAdmin (for content management of blog postings, etc.)
• cPanel (to administer the account at the hosting provider)
• Fantastico (to install WordPress on the hosting provider’s Linux server)
• WordPress (versions 2.3 and 2.3.1, both of which required installation and testing, first on the local machine and then on the remote hosting site)
• Themes and templates designed for WordPress
• Various plug-ins to detect and quarantine spam
• Widgets, such as the one that manages the random selection of books from my professional bookshelf, LibraryThing, or the one that connects to my LinkedIn profile
• Windows Live Writer, for editing local drafts on my PC

I’ve learned how to adapt templates and themes to meet my design preferences or editorial requirements. So far, so good.

Platform Differences

I’ve also experimented with UI and functional differences in the posting and admin tools for WordPress: on Macs (Tiger and Leopard) and on PCs (Windows XP and Vista). I’ve learned that WordPress’ posting capabilities differ across browsers: Safari, Internet Explorer and Firefox v2.x.

Much as I prefer the Mac, right now the more capable tools for writing and posting — based on my experience so far — are available on the PC.

Windows Live Writer appears to be very promising, and is well integrated with the latest version of WordPress. Unfortunately, it runs only on Windows XP or Vista. It’s in beta, but has been quite stable.

WordPress’ support for a choice of “visual posting” or manually entering HTML tags is only available on the PC. It’s easy to post from a Mac, but it can take more HTML know-how to include graphics, style headings, and so on.

My Take

Few small business owners will have the time, curiosity, technical background or willingness to try all the things I’ve tackled. So they’ll stick with simpler tools and a one-size-fits-all template based approach.

But I love learning, so this was the right approach for me.