The Stiletto 100, the newest Serius satellite radio reciever by Serius is what I recently got as a present,

The pro’s of the Stiletto are,

1. It’s small, and easy to carry
2. It stores alot of songs, and you can record songs from the satellite radio
3. Using the satellite headphones your able to hear satellite radio
4. It has two batteries the big one which is the 4 hour, and the little one which is 2 hours
5. Its Wi-fi enabled

The con’s of the Stiletto are,

1. In order to recieve the satellite part outside, you must be wearing the headphones which hurt my ears
2. When walking around outside the signal gets messed up and it has to rebuffer

Ask for my review of the Stiletto, it’s a slick small and easy to carry device that fits in my back pocket. While i’m walking I enjoy the channels Buzzsaw which is a rock and roll channel, and Hair Nation, and of course the always elegant Howard Stern. On sunday nights I enjoy walking and listening to the Bears on the Stiletto. I’ve transfered Mp3’s to my Stiletto, and have been listening to them,

I’ve also recorded music while listening to it on the Stiletto. I found one problem though if your listening to a great song on the Stiletto and you want to record it, you can but if you hit a bad signal area the song wont record that part which really was sad for me to find out. While listening to the Stiletto outside my home, I have to wear these headphones to get the reception for the channels, the headphones hurt my ears.

When I first got it I realized it came with two batteries, both of mine are currently charged, the small battery which is the two hour one takes two hours to charge. The four hour one takes four hours to charge, the greatest thing about the Stiletto though in my opinion is the WiFi, I probably use this the most of anything else. Everyday I bring the Stiletto to school and listen to it before and after school, the WiFi enables me to listen to it in my room, in fact im listening to it right now. Overall the Stiletto gets a straight A- from me, and I will post new developments as they occur.

I’ve noticed that Jowl has renewed excitement in Blog Explosion. Perhaps it is that they are running their $1,000 Christmas cash giveway or the new scratch card game.

Jowl and I have been struggling — both of us, really, but moreso Jowl than I — in getting up early enough to get to the gym. School starts back shortly and Jowl has been living the summer life a little too much: not going to sleep. That’s the big problem with getting up: if you stay up too late, it’s darn hard to get up in the morning.

So what does this have to do with webmastering? Well, we set a goal to get our energy level up so we could whip this site back into shape and working out at the gym is part of that plan, but even that’s starting to fall apart a bit.

We started out going five days a week, and then we fell off to every other day and now, well, I’m not sure what type schedule we are on. The plan was to go before Jowl goes to high school every morning. We figure that this time would be the best time to squeeze in the workout every day … or at least every other day.

But we are strugging to make this work. Cliches aside, some things really are easier said than done.

Alright, going to make one more run at Jowl to get going to the gym, it’s been almost two hours now I’ve been waiting to go. 3:45am I was up. 5:43am now.

Jowl went back to bed. Guess we are going to try the workout later today.

One of the most annoying things for a website to do is to have sound immediately play when you first visit the site. It’s like blinking text and very rarely, if ever, should be done on the homepage of a blog. The quickest way to make me click away from a website is to put music or sound effects — especially midi files — to play when the homepage of the site is visited.

Now when does this make sense? On pages where you tell the surfer that music will play onload, artist/band official webpages might want to play music onload. A movie/TV show official website.

These audio ads that play (via Flash) inside news articles are annoying too. So if you want to annoy and alienate your new site visitor, just make sure you add some sound that autoplays when the person comes to the homepage.

We have been granted an exciting opportunity/invitation to run the Yahoo Publishing Network beta service here at Webmaster Cookbook. Jowl and I will be talking about YPN in more depth during tomorrow’s live show and podcast (#49).

And speaking of podcasts … show #37 should be posted and available shortly. It’s around the time we were experimenting with Google Adsense on this blog. We aren’t running the Google Adsense on this blog any more, but in our business online we’ve used Adsense on other blogs with great success.

I know we keep saying it, but Jowl and I should be caught up with all our past podcasts soon. Jowl has most the notes for the prior shows published and now we only need to FTP to the server and link up in the show notes. As soon as we are caught up our plan is to not get behind again, because it stinks for us too!

In the meantime, if you want to catch the live show, then please remember the stream is available every Friday at 3:30pm PST / 6:30pm PST via this link. You can access through the MakeYouGoHmm Toolbar (free, no spyware or viruses and available for Internet Explorer or Firefox)

There will be a show today, Friday June 24,2005, At 3:30 pm pacific time.

Links discussed:Checkbacktomorrow

This was the list i made of 5 things to do without internet-

1)Messing around with pictures using Photoshop
2)Writing code for your site
3)Writing stories
4)listening to music
5)Reading stuff
Also we said that there would be Podcasts put up, we made a plan which was, too do 3 podcasts this weekend. Then 3 podcasts over the week, then 3 podcasts over that weekend. Then do 3 podcasts over the week and be finished.

We will be having a live show at 3:30 pacific time, We will be doing Blog event at 4pm-5pm.

We’ve received a good number of emails, comments and concerns wondering: where are the recent podcasts? Some of this feedback has been fairly critical on our seemingly disappearance from publishing podcasts.

Well, here’s the good news: we haven’t stopped providing podcasts. Webmaster Cookbook is still alive and broadcasting live every Friday as it has for the last 39 weeks.

A reader named Simon commented on Friday 5/20:

Hey great new look guys!

I think its strange that you have time to design a new site but done take the time to update the content I think I learnt from your show that its the content that matters. No new shows or post in a while… maybe you need to hire some new webmasters to manage the site for you?

I look forward to some updates.

Simon.

I responded in detail, thanking Simon for the care and concern. I also politely corrected him about the design. The design is not new, it’s actually the original design the site launched with that was (finally, argh!) put back in place.

It could certainly be worse: we could have nobody care at all when the podcasts will be published. This is something I’ve talked to Jowl about that there are people on the web who do enjoy our weekly show and are wondering what’s going on here lately.

It’s important to point out that Webmaster Cookbook did not start out as a podcast program. It started out — and still is — a weekly streaming live show. We broadcast live every Friday. Originally it was an hour long show (starting at 3pm PST / 6pm EST) but based on feedback about the length we have tweaked that to where it currently is a 30 minute program (3:30pm - 4:00pm PST).

It is a very experimental show and continues to be subject to much change. If you don’t like changes, then you probably won’t like our program. This is a real, reality how-to webmaster show and just as how real life gets in the way of getting real things done, real life has gotten in the way of this show having its podcasts appear in a timely manner.

Another recent criticism is why don’t we show how to connect to a database or other programming-related tasks? Eventually we will get to that kind of webmastering stuff, but Jowl’s skill set isn’t there yet. You don’t just get into an airplane and start flying, you work your way up to things like that. His skills currently are such that he understands the basics: FTP, what HTML is and how to write some basic HTML from scratch, how to take pictures with a digital camera, how to compress pictures/graphics and make them web-friendly and some more fundamental webmaster skills. In 39 weeks I think Jowl has learned a great deal. And 99.9% of this he learned during the shows we’ve broadcasted live (and some via podcast) for the world to listen to — freely.

Dependable site updates are an important part of webmastering and that is one area where lately we’ve been falling apart on with Webmaster Cookbook. Simon has learned something valuable from this which is part of the reason I reposted his comments above. Jowl is learning this too. It’s all part of the bigger picture which is: how do we fit being a webmaster into the rest of our lives? How do we produce content, part-time, that can grow traffic, interest and provide overall site value?

Let me stop there for a minute and point out that if you want to listen to the live streaming show then just tune into the live stream each week at 3:30pm PST here: http://www.webmastercookbook.com/20k.php

We have had new content every week for those who have followed this live show. No, we haven’t had new blog entries or new podcasts posted every week, but we have broadcasted a live streaming show every week. We realize that this doesn’t work so good for folks who can’t make the live shows each week and the podcasts are a nice substitute.

Now will this live time change? Maybe.

It’s changed several times already in the 39 shows we’ve streamed live. However, we have streamed every show somewhere between the hours of 3-4pm PST on Friday. Webmaster Cookbook is actually part 2 of a streaming live show that my other business site has done for adult webmasters since May 2000.

For years I’ve heard from listeners wanting a mainstream show. Something that was family and work friendly. So some 39 weeks ago we decided to split up this show and make at least part of it available for a family-friendly audience, but we didn’t want to put it at our established site (because the target audience was not a work-friendly, family-oriented audience), thus the Webmaster Cookbook show and this website was born.

In order to pull this type show off I needed a reliable, dependable pupil and fortunately our oldest son, Jowl, was interested in learning how to be a webmaster. He stepped into the role and the first dozen or so shows were very instructional and I think went quite well with the exception that instructional material via audio only with no visuals can be very difficult to do. If we did the show as a video I think it would work much better and maybe that is the direction we will someday be headed. Especially now that places like OurMedia make it so that you can publish your videos without the concern of the bandwidth expense.

With all this said, there are a couple more reasons why these podcasts haven’t been published; some of which are personal and I’m not going to completely get into. For those who don’t care, don’t want excuses, etc, and just want to listen to the podcasts then feel free to stop reading with my explanation above.

However, for those who are more curious then please keep reading.

When podcasting started catching fire, Jowl and I decided to make the show available via podcast. This worked good for about 20 shows or so and then something started happening. As I stated above, this show was intended to be a father-son joint venture, not something that only one or the other of us produced solo.

I’ve been wanting to (trying to) teach Jowl how to handle the podcast portion of the show that up until two months ago I have handled exclusively. For whatever reason, he and I don’t seem to be able to find (enough) time off air to work on Webmaster Cookbook. Jowl is only going to be a teenager once and as a parent and friend I don’t want to push him into doing something that he isn’t excited about and/or interested in doing. If something has to give, then it’s this site and the other one he is working on (orting.com). At the same time, though, as parents my wife and I want to teach him something about responsibility, dependability and a good work ethic. These are things that will help him secure and keep employment throughout his adult life.

So the last two months Jowl and I have been working to determine whether this is something he really wants to be doing. The decision is totally up to him and so far at every opportunity he has told me that this is something he enjoys doing and wants to keep working on. The words haven’t equalled the action and activity though, unfortunately, which Jowl would be the first to admit.

As an instructor I’ve failed miserably so far in being able to teach Jowl motivation to work on the website.

He would much rather play online games, chat with his friends and do that ‘fun’ stuff. I get that. I totally understand wanting to spend time when you aren’t at school doing non-school stuff.

Those who have been frustrated by what seems like our total incompetence with this website might want to be mindful that this site is a real learning environment, not something we are producing professionally. If it were then I would pay somebody to help, put up a more viable business model and work this much, much harder. I have been producing business-oriented, profitable websites for years so I’m no stranger to creating that type of website.

None of this should say we are treating this like a hobbyist venture. No way. We are serious about this website, but we are serious about it in a very limited amount of time. It might take a year, two or more to get to the point where it is a totally professional production. The beauty of this — for those who want to learn — is that they can follow this as it builds in real time. They can see how lame it was in the beginninng and how it turns into something better. They can watch Webmaster Cookbook cook.

For these reasons, Webmaster Cookbook is one of the more true reality shows about webmastering you’ll find on the web (we can’t be the only one) because when something is going wrong it’s very obvious. A great example of this is when we upgraded to the new version of Wordpress and stayed with the default theme for a long time. Why? Because we needed to implement the old design with Wordpress 1.5 new theme structure. It is well documented that Wordpress altered their theme structure with this new site. Jowl and I needed time to discuss this situation and how we were going to handle these design/template changes. On most websites you’d rarely see this type of change taking place; the changes would be done and maybe — or not — the webmaster might say something to point out the obvious: that the site had changed.

Will podcasts for shows #33-39 be published? Yes. We do realize people want to download and listen to new content and both Jowl and I are really excited about that.

If you’ve come this far then hopefully it’s more clear why there has been a delay and why there might be other visible — and perhaps irritating and annoying — things that happen at this website. It’s part of the learning and discovery process of being a webmaster. If anybody reading this thinks it doesn’t pain established webmasters to be part of something like this, then you are wrong — I’d love to block out two days and completely overhaul Webmaster Cookbook with everything I dream for it, but then what about Jowl and what his dreams are for this site? Me taking this solo action wouldn’t be fostering a joint venture. There wouldn’t be anything father-son about that.

Now this took me a long time to write and the time spent writing this could have been spent finishing up those podcasts and getting those published but this is also educational information for Jowl. And in the spirit of transparency and sharing this dialogue and learning experience I am posting here.

So that’s why things are the way they are here currently. Patience in webmastering is another skill that needs to be exhibited sometimes. As a webmaster’s stable of websites grows, you have to pick and choose what sites to update and when. What sites to invest in and what sites to hold back on. It’s a neverending learning experience.

Welcome to Webmaster Cookbook!

Yesterday ChefTD was getting alittle mad at me over the air, and we made a blog event. In the blog event thought of stuff to write about.

We discussed google adsense, it looked like a good thing to use I reccomend it. We also went deeper into google adsense and will be installing it next week.

We added some Miniclip games to The orting site and we also played all of them as we were playing them we noticed that flashman was using the sounds from Pacman. The sounds were copy righted material, we are discussing google adsense today.

First we discussed why i wanted to add a message board, I said it would be cooler to have a message board. Also i said a message board would be easier to manage technically…. But ChefTD said it would be alot of work and i said im ready to take on the work, listen to the podcast to hear what we did, more indepth.

When reading sites which do you find easier to read a blog or a forum?

We are currently behind two weeks and I just wanted to post a quick note that before tihs Friday’s show we should have the podcasts posted and we’ll be back up to date. As you can see we upgraded this blog, but at the same time we updated other blogs and my work has been crazy busy so I’ve not been able to get this updated and add the podcasts. The files are tagged and we did broadcast live shows the last two weeks.

Thank you for your patience.

Today is Jowl’s birthday and I wanted to take a minute to thank him for co-hosting the Webmaster Cookbook radio show. We’ve been through 28 shows together now and he has learned quite a bit. I’m excited about seeing what he does with this knowledge over the next 28 weeks.

Happy Birthday

Jowl and I will discuss this on the podcast/show later today (yes, there is a Webmaster Cookbook later today) but I’ve added a demo of the MyBlogLog JavaScript which counts the outclicks.

Talking with Nicole Simon via Skype and seeing if she receives this trackback on her blog. We’ve had some reports that our blogs powered by Pivot aren’t receiving trackback pings, so this is just a test. Also trying a test trackback ping for Tim Samoff.

Jowl just got home. He was out taking a long walk (three miles, he said) with his friend. I think it’s good exercise to get out and take walks and it’s one thing that I could stand to do too. Now he is working on his list for the show tomorrow so we can get back to work improving the website.

I’m making this checklist for Jowl so he knows what to do if he visits his website and notices anything unusual or a problem.

1. MySQL errors. Usually any problem with MySQL errors relates to the condition of whether the MySQL database server is running or not.

Solution: Restart the MySQL database server. Contact ChefTD immediately for details on how to do this.

2. Site will not load in browser. This could be a hosting-related issue. Contact ChefTD immediately for coordination with contacting the hosting company. A dead/unreachable website benefits nobody.

3. Some other error message or strange activity? Contact ChefTD immediately explaining the situation and discuss how to resolve.

Some things you never want to do or you could/may create security issues for the website or server:

1) repost specific error messages publically without a request to by an authorized party
2) ask strangers for assistance with the server and/or give out the FTP or MySQL database password information
3) save the FTP info to any public internet location (others could access the website and/or server if it was a server wide FTP)
4) grant admin access to anybody through email, ICQ or any other form of insecure communication without approval