Wednesday, April 18, 2007

Holy Site Meter!

In the early 90's my mom's mantra was "Learn about those computer things! They are the future! By the time you are in college everything will be on computers, we will all wear tinfoil jumpsuits and you will have a flying car, isn't that exciting?!".

Sadly, I didn't learn about computers. I decided that my high school elective should be cosmetology, because spending 80 minutes three times a week fully mastering the art of washing hair made much more sense. I'm happy to tell you I can now rinse shampoo with the best of them, and if finger waves ever come back in style, I can totally hook you up.

Computers however, baffle me.

I'm a devout follower of "if you want it bad enough it should just magically happen", which is why the last time my computer started acting weird, I assumed I would be able to fix it. Because I wanted to. I spent a day pushing keyboard buttons I forgot I had in alternating combinations, ALT & CTRL & F6, ESC & SHIFT F9, & QWERTY- just because it's fun to type. I ended up deleting my entire hard drive.

Despite my lack of computer skills, I started a blog. I figured it was not really about computers but more about ideas, and I do have those. In abundance. And for the most part, the posting of all my ideas hasn't been that difficult. Minus the fact that I have no idea how to post pictures and it took me a good two weeks to figure out how to link anything because I was too mortified to ask anyone. Oh, and that little trick you all do where you write in the strike through font... yeah, that causes mini explosions in my brain from extremely painful thought.

But complaining about what I don't know isn't what this is about. It's about sharing what I DO KNOW. *And sweet goodness, I just discovered site meters!Half a year into blogging, and I now see that there's a way to keep track of who is reading what I write. And I have to say, it's bloody fantastic! Whoever thought of site meters should get some sort of genius award. Like, a life size statue of chocolate. Or all of your money. People in New Zealand and Chicago, Atlanta and London... are all reading.. this? That's so crazy. I mean, I knew obviously, that the people who commented weren't all my neighbours, but seeing it on a map how far away some of you are, well, it made me think that I should attempt to write something interesting sometime soon.

Give me six more months and perhaps there might even be pictures!

*I'm saving this sentence into my memory bank as proof of my nerdiness next time I start to think I'm more diva than **dork.

** I secretly like being a dork. It's less pressure.

13 comments:

Carrie said...

Loading pics on the new blogger is pretty easy - just don't ask me to do that strike-through thing or add "blog skins" to make the page look prettier.

I was always scared to add one of those site counters because I was scared that no one was actually reading! Oh well - but the cluster map is pretty cool. I do enjoy being the little red dot in Canada!!

Sarah said...

Oooh, how'd you do the cluster map? Share that please!

I've had my site meter up since about August, but I didn't REALLY figure out until about January or February that the site includes all of the times I hit "preview" or "view blog" from within Blogger. Thus, I deduct a good 20% of my visits, counting them as my own OCD need to check for grammar and spelling errors that I won't catch anyway...

JustRun said...

Confession: I have been too lazy to put sitemeter back on my blog since I revamped it so long ago. I will, someday, when all my empire-building plans go through. :)

Go you, though!

J. A. Blackburn said...

careful with the site meter... it's addictive!

I too subscribe to the "if you want it bad enough it should just magically happen"... love that! :)

Aaron said...

+1 from Atlanta (Although, it may show up as being from Andover, MA when I'm in the office.)

And posting pictures is EASY! If you throw in the towel on figuring it out, drop me a line. ;)

Jennifer said...

Beware of the evil site meter. When there are slow blogging days and you have very few readers it can make you wonder, "what did I say? Why don't you love me anymore?" Or maybe that's just me!

I show up as Arlington, TX. I live in Alabama. I don't get it.

Greetings from Arlington, TX!!

anne said...

Site meter is like crack for bloggers - welcome to the evil circle. Everything else you learn the hard way - or pay someone :)

As for our shout outs - I show up as a city that does not exist, let alone one that I live in. Go figure.

Anonymous said...

That's so cool! I don't know how to do any fancy blog stuff either, a couple weeks ago I just figured out how to add pictures, but it still takes me forever to get it right!

megabrooke said...

i'm so out of the loop, that i dont even know how to see "where i show up as"... how does that happen?
and the strike through thing, holy god it is waaay beyond me. we need a blogging group tutorial from someone in the know! :)

Patti said...

you're getting there...

aRbit said...

"** I secretly like being a dork. It's less pressure."- Amen to that. Plus it makes you value those "I feel pretty" moments SO much more.

Accidentally Me said...

Love the sitemeter!!! Love it!!! Stalking is so much easier now than it must have been before...

Ally said...

I think it's funny to see what search terms lead to my blog--several people have searched "adult model" and ended up with my blog...I'm sure they were disappointed!