Making a living from online activities is not always easy but there is no reason why anyone able to create and sustain a blog need not make some money from their activities. Especially where these activities tie into the subject one is passionate about. The money might be for yourself or for a charity or other good cause.

This might seem like a pipe dream and certainly if you want to do this full time then you will need serious determination but on the whole some income is a reasonable and achievable aim. In this post I will be talking about some of the ways that you, as an Internet user can make a little money from work you might now be doing for free.

You don't even need to put adverts on your blog.

...

» Continue Reading: Money in 2008

This post is one in which I will be showing my more technical side. I am going to be focusing on a topic I raised a little while ago - the ecology of blogging in Thanet. In part this is inspired by the sterling work carried out by the Thanet Blog List in compiling a list of Thanet bloggers and blogs.

In modern search technology the nature of hyper media and its unformed link structure have formed a basis for understanding the relationship documents. What this means is that pages that are connected in topic are often linked to similar or the same sources. At the centre of all that are the most linked to pages. This pages are probably the most significant.

...

» Continue Reading: Thanet Blog Rank - The Theory

In my musings on the subject of what I should start researching for tomorrow's post I started to think about my own list of saved links. Bookmarks to the regular web user are a way of getting back to stuff quickly. I have a number of selections of bookmarks and one such section is the Thanet tool bar folder which is located just above my Stumble Upon bar (those yet to explore said SU do not know what they are missing so find out now).

This is the list of things I have bookmarked for tool bar easy access in my Thanet folder at the moment. Of course there are also my feed based "live bookmarks" (a firefox thing) and the bigger bulk of "other" bookmarks. But just for amusment purposes here is a "link dump" of my current collection for Thanet.

...

» Continue Reading: What is Matt bookmarking in Thanet?

I attempted to view the Thanet blog list today and discovered that there was a spam site where the listing should be. The site is running domainless on IP 74.54.78.34 which is connected to a domain "websitewelcome.com". The whois data on this domain is hidden by a proxy service.

The domain name (which is where the problem seems to be) has been registered until next year (07-Dec-2008 according to dns stuff) but some change was made on the 28th of December this year. This suggests to me that someone has hijacked the domain (I hope not) or his website's ISP has big issues.

I hope things get sorted out soon.

Update: It seems that the domain websitewelcome.com is part of the private reseller system for hostgator.com. It might be that a small scale host has folded and taken our list with them. I have a server with available space if it will help.

Update 2: Not gone just moving hosts.

Just writing you blog post and leaving it to linger is not all there is to blogging. It is core to the art, sure, but it is only a very small part of it. You blog extends far beyond the website where it all started.

For Thanet Bloggers a tight knitted yet open community means that can quickly become "plugged in" to the Thanet blog scene. However, there is a world of additional support, services, tools and communities and more are springing up every week it seems. In this post I will be looking at the services and sites that have an impact on your blog.

...

» Continue Reading: Your (Thanet) blog but not on your blog

No, not the vicar of Witham Baptist Church in Essex but the owner of that famouse book shop in Ramsgate (72 King Street, Ramsgate) and local and enthusiastic blogger.

When not keeping the Thanet Masses supplied with interesting reading material (on his blog) Michael likes to harass Thanet Council members that have patently been asking for it. That or he just likes to get straight answers. Given the historic scarcity of said straight answers from our local political types this second option seems unlikely.

In his spare time Michael runs a bookshop.

...

» Continue Reading: Rising Stars of Thanet: Michael Child

It never ends. Feel free to talk about what you got, gave or drank this season of over eating.

Regular transmissions will resume after I have removed the fat man from the roof.

Well, guess what season it is now...

No, that is not a typers tick the word "no" appears twice. But what is NoNoFollow and how can is benifit Thanet, Thanet Bloggers and Thanet Business Bloggers? To answer that I must first explain what NoFollow is.

It was proposed some time ago. It was suggested by some that it might be an answer to comment spam but even then many people were saying that this would not work. The reason they said (and they were right) is that comment spammers use automated processes and don't care much for the specific results only for the shear magnitude of of comments posted.

What the NoFollow does is adds an instruction to search engines to not follow a link. The hope was that if comments no longer passed "link love" to the commenter's blog then people would stop spamming. This did not work and has only served to isolate bloggers from each other and devalue commenting.

...

» Continue Reading: Embracing NoNofollow

Not so long ago I took my wife to Cosmo for lunch. It is not the first time that we had been there having been introduced to the place by friends during the summer of 2007. What will appeal to many might be the eat as much as you like buffet but there is more to Cosmo than simply filling your face.

When we arrived (after filing needless paperwork with the council for an unnecessarily review so that pointless paperwork can be done resulting in no change) it was moderately busy but did not, in anyway, feel crowded. Even after the school party arrived there was never a moment when there was a feeling of the restaurant being anywhere near "over full" as can happen. This is as much a compliment to the layout planing and atmosphere as to the staff.

I am a fussy eater and a creature of habit. If an eater offends me I shall never return but impress me and I will make an effort to come back. This visit to Cosmo I made a specific effort to pay close attention to the dishes, the service and those parts that are often overlooked.

Cosmo is located next to what was once the Dreamland Cinema along Margate seafront. It's a chilly walk this time of year past the remnant of what might have been. However, it is well worth it once you get inside.

This is my review of that visit.

...

» Continue Reading: Cosmo Chinese Restaurant

My cunning plan has run aground on the three evil dilemmas of kids, work and Christmas. This seasonal lark has seriously limited my ability to find time to write code. As a result my intentions of getting a working system to list the top Thanet bloggers is still at the design and inception stage.

The theory work and data design is done but the base class (template) for all the work is not. Drat this jolly red/green dressed fellow and the festival of over eating. Still it could be worse.

So a merry thingy-mi-bob to all and to all a good long wait until January to see what I have been planning.

Now I've not noticed too much discussion within the Thanet blogging community of the finer mechanics of blogging. I had, until recently, given this no thought at all. But it occurs to me that there are some words that I am going to want to use that might be alien to some Thanet bloggers.

...

» Continue Reading: What's your niche?

For a blog to be a success beyond the satisfaction of simply writing it you need people to read it. We can use a number of words to describe people in relation to our blog and each describes the same people but within a different relationship.

The most important word we use is "Traffic" this is simply a measure of the number of people passing through. Traffic includes people that open a page from out blog in their browser but close it without reading and also those that find the blog and read ever last page. Generally the more traffic you get the better.

Traffic is disable into two groups human and nonhuman. Nonhuman traffic is things like spiders, bots and other automated scripts. They happen but for general analysis we can ignore them. When I talk of traffic in this blog I am almost always talking of the human kind.

...

» Continue Reading: Traffic is your blood

One of the biggest worries for me when eating in a new place for the first time is that I have no idea what the kitchen is like. Almost everyone has heard at least one shocking story of kitchens you would not feed an animal in and the almost statutory bad chief story. So before you eat out how can you be sure of what it will be like.

The short answer, of course, is that you can not be sure. But that should not stop you from doing what you can to find out what you can. Thanet sadly does not have much by the way of good food review. There is some but when it comes to searching the web you can often come up dry.

...

» Continue Reading: How good is their food?

Being an guide to and for blogging politic in Thanet.

I have previewing our high quality blogging from Thanet and today choose to focus on politics. Not my own but those of the bloggers. I have arranged the blogs in a sort of not all that accurate spectrum from right to left. Right is at the top mainly to get it over with quickly rather than try to end on a damp fizz. Right wing politics is not widely blogged about in Thanet. (Unless you care to prove me wrong).

This guide to the World of Thanet blogging is a continuation of my quest to "really get to the bottom of" the current ecosystem and understand who, what and where. It contains plenty of links (links are good) and a little opinion. With all things that are mostly personal judgment there is bond to be something you disagree with. Why not let me know your thoughts.

Without further ado...

...

» Continue Reading: Thanet Political Punditry Both Satirical and Real

Readers will recall that a little while ago I mentioned that Christmas was a time of debts (Beating Debt at Christmas, 15th December 2007) and it could cost you significantly if predatory lenders get their claws into you. For the poorer person of Thanet it's not just the lenders to worry about. The Council's collection on rent debts has become ever more insistent and tenants that get into trouble over Christmas could be on the street by new year.

In conversation with a councilor I shall not name it came to light that many councilors have been spending increasing amounts of time trying to advise constituents that have been getting into financial trouble. It seems that "the credit crunch" has already hit for many people in Thanet and a crisis is quietly brewing. This is backed up by the increased aggression with which the Council Tax and Rent Collection departments have been seeking their money where fairness is forgotten in favour of "the letter of the law".

On the subject of personal money management you may find this great page worth a read (even if it was written by an American) Everything You Ever Really Needed to Know About Personal Finance on the Back of Five Business Cards.

However is a disaster brewing and if so what can be done about it?

According to the BBC while I was working happily away sitting at the dinning table with my Toshiba Notebook not so far away Thor Chemicals was having a smolderingly bad time. (link).

No one was hurt although six fire trucks were in attendance and I can only imaging how snarled up conditions are going to be. It's a good distance from the Westwood Cross Roundabout but I can only imagine what things will be like should traffic back up that far. Today is possibly not the best day to do your Christmas shopping.

"Police say there is no danger but are warning people living between College Road and the Westwood Industrial Estate to stay in doors as a precaution."
Crews douse chemical factory fire, BBC News 24, 19 December 2007, 11:58

I'm no expert in these matters but that sounds a little contradictory to me. Then again in our law suit culture we seem to be adopting perhaps this is the standard disclaimer line the police have to give? Any one know if this is the case?

Update 12:24

Unless anything has changed in the last half hour the road is closed.

"A254 Kentoundabout junction and the Farley Road junction in Broadstairs - Margate Road closed both ways between the Pearce Sign's R, because of a building fire at Chemicals Factory.

Live travel news: Kent's roads, BBC Kent, 19th December 2007, 11:55 (am)

This post details the plans on exactly how both Margate Museum and Margate Old Town Centre can be revived in a single day (with a lot of background planning before hand and good follow up). It does this by creating a situation where everyone has a lot to gain from joining in and actually makes something old Sandy Ezekiel has done useful. Not only that but it will put a bit of life into Margate (not to mention the boost Broadstairs and Ramsgate might get from it).

A clue can be found in a comment I left on the Margate Architecture blog recently. To be honest the whole things seems so obvious that I have had (a) a eureka moment or (b) an idea so crazy but viable that no one has mentioned it.

This is that idea.

...

» Continue Reading: How to Revive Margate Museum and Old Town in One Day

It has been quickly pointed out to me that my research is somewhat flawed when it comes to the ruling class A-list of Thanet blogging. Which of course it was bound to be - I cheated and just picked the seven most prominent blogs that I remembered, read or saw linked to a lot. My rather hit or miss methods will have produced one of two results.

1. Astounding accuracy (unlikely)
2. A random list (more likely)

As a businessman I do not like to leave things half done. When I wrote that list I had a plan for a more accurate and self updating list. I still do.

...

» Continue Reading: The Ecology of Thanet Blogs #2: Thanet's A-List Revisited

After reading about the threats to what little culture we have been able to hold on to in Thanet in the form of badly funded and under performing museums I decided to do a little homework. The short story is that things don't look especially bright at the moment (links for the full story at the end).

I have lived in Thanet 31 years and spent a great deal of my youth interested in the maritime Museum (which I actually only visted 3 times due to it often being shut) and Ramsgate's once fantastic library where I learned to love books. I did not even know that Thanet had any more to offer. I remember once when I was about 12 or so thinking that it was a bit poor that there were not more interesting places to go in the area.

Thinking about it I could have probably named the shell grotto but it was not until sometime after I had finished my A levels that I even knew where it was and only then because I needed to ride a bus past it. The big problem is that I simply did not know where to look. These things are a well kept secret, let me tell you.

So 31 years later when the dull afternoons are filled with shopping trips, in-laws, business meetings and children too young to enjoy it all I discover I could have been learning more after all.

Why did no one tell me?

...

» Continue Reading: Why did no one tell me Thanet has a museum or six?

Almost the entire Thanet Blogging community is hosted on a single host - blogger.com. It is by far the most popular free blog hosting solution currently available. This leadership is somewhat undeserved gained from the traction the Google has established with the Google tool bar. Blogger.com lacks a significant number of tools and features that others take for granted.

Google (who own blogger.com) have now blocked all commenters (not from blogger.com) from leaving a courtesy link back to their own blog. Comments, cross linking and connecting are what have made blogging work in the first place. This change cuts right to the heart of that and creates a significant chance that blogger.com users will become isolated in the same way that livejournal.com users have.

Blogger.com already has the reputation of holding the largest collection of spam anywhere on the Internet and now it seems it wants to lock users to the platform. This is a common action for large business driven services that desire "more security". Yet this very act of locking in can backfire as it becomes an anti-feature repelling new users and evicting the more alert current users.

...

» Continue Reading: Is blogger.com harming Thanet blogging?

Live in Thanet is a social networking site for people that live in Thanet. Make friends, contacts and associates. Good for business and for play. Below is a slide show of recent photo's added to the site.


Find more photos like this on Live in Thanet

As business people we tend to think of business growth in terms of the next quarter, the next year, the next five years and the "long term" of the next ten years. This thinking is too stunted for somewhere like Thanet and a new paradigm needs to be considered. Rather than the usual short medium and long term periods we are used to dealing with we must content with scales that in some cases can be measured in generations.

As business people the year to year accounting period is not going to go away. It should be considered the smallest accountable unit. The year becomes the immediate term period while the next five should be considered the short term.

The medium term, and the one with the most exciting possibilities, is the fifteen to twenty year span. In that time scale our actions, as innovators, are seeded in new lives that grow to the early stages of maternity and the first tentative steps as contributing adults. If we squander that chance to invest we will not reap the rewards.

...

» Continue Reading: Education as a key to future growth

Keep an eye on the debt this Christmas season. The word with those that "know" is that banks are becoming ever more predatory in their sales of high interest loans. This is a strong sign of currently hidden economic difficulties as bank work harder to main profitable growth in the face of some tough times.

What can be done to escape from over spend? Lets talk about it shall we...

...

» Continue Reading: Beating debt at Christmas

Thanet Blog List is currently not completely open. In fact it is likely to be closed to new entries by most people. The reason for this is that it uses an excellent anti-spam script called "bad behavior" which spots spam bots before they get started.

Bad behavior, however, has an update after a blacklist was deactivated and thus returning a false positive on most, if not all, IP addresses. Simply downloading the latest version from the site and copying the core files over your current set will complete the update and remove the issue.

Here's to hoping to a swift and ready update at Thanet Blog List so we can all get back to enjoying the most up to date listing of blogs in Thanet.

Blog Clue (blogclue.com) is a cross between a wiki and a search engine. Much like the more famous examples you can use it's URL structure to point tags at. Tags (in case you have been living under a rock) are a way of marking blog posts (and other things).

To qualify for the tag micro format the link URL must be the same text as the linked text from the last slash to the end. Lots of sites have suitable structures media wiki installations like the wikipedia are one such example. Blog Clue is another.

The page for Thanet was, until today, lacking a reasonable write up. Even after my modest attempts I am sure there is more that can be said. Therefore I am going to make it a minor mission of mine to encourage my fellow Thanet bloggers to make the listing the best that there is.

...

» Continue Reading: Blog Clue on Thanet

The world of the arts is something that Thanet is deeply lacking. For all the talk of "revamping" the libraries (by moving council services into them) and the black hole that is the Turner Centre we are a deeply deprived area. Were it not for a few souls working hard to bring things finer than say, a pint of cheap larger to the masses, we in Thanet would be totally bereft.

One such group is the voluntary organisation known as Thanet Film Society. Thanet Film Society have since 1994 been bringing independent and foreign film to Thanet and screening them in real cinemas too (Such as The Windsor where things started). This flavour that is not the spoon fed mainstream of "blockbusters" and template driven formalised stories could as easily disappear tomorrow as stay with us forever.

...

» Continue Reading: Media in Thanet

XML is a powerful technical specification but powerful specifications are nothing without a useful implementation. RSS and ATOM are two such examples of an implementation that is both fun and useful. However, that means nothing if you don't understand what they are for.

Atom and RSS are site feed formats. A site feed is simply the raw content (headlines, story etc) of a site. While this sounds rather dull there is plenty that can be done with it.

...

» Continue Reading: What is a feed?

The ecology of Thanet blogs is dominated by a few big players. These are blogs that rank highly in the search engines for searches on "Thanet" and "Blog" but also occur regularly within the wider blogging community. For the Thanet blog scene these can perhaps be considered "The A-List" I think.

This is a topic I hope to return to many times as growth and an influx of blogging talent hits Thanet... or at leasts shows up and says "hi" from time to time.

1. Big News Margate - authored by Tony Flag this is probably the leading Thanet commentary blog at present. Over the years it has carved a considerable reputation in the Thanet blog scene. Tony is possibly the most vocally political of the Thanet Bloggers but has gotten so far by not being boring nor feeling the need to be exclusive to the topic. As you can Guess there is some Margate bias and focus in the blog beyond the topic of Thanet in general.

...

» Continue Reading: The Ecology of Thanet Blogs: Thanet's A-List

Introduction by a Thanet business blogger

My Name is Matt and I am a small business owner from Thanet. I have been blogging for a long time but have done little to address the unique needs and issues of doing business in an economically deprived district. In this blog I will be focusing on successful blogging in Thanet.

The possible meanings or marks of success are as many and varied as the people you might ask. For this reason I will define success as having a large readership or an active community as the base line of success for a blog. Success in business is clearer: creating and sustaining viable economic activity - something not so easy to do within Thanet.

...

» Continue Reading: The Thanet Star