A little blog rework

A while back Andrew Clarke referred to an article about the Top Ten Blog Mistakes. In light of its content, I've made a couple of small changes. Also, Blogger now has a trackback option, so I've enabled that.

1. No Author Biographies
I've got a author biography, and I'm happy with it at the moment. If you think you want to know more about me (no, not my credit card number) add a comment.

2. No Author Photo
I've added one, though its about four years old. I'll confess to a habit, when I'm burning CDs (and DVDs), of not wanting to waste space. So I tend to throw in any old digital camera images laying around on the grounds that any sort of backup copy is better than none (which is my normal backup strategy). This photo was on a CD I've carried round containing a bunch of handy Oracle documentation, SQL scripts, emergency applications....

3. Nondescript Posting Titles, 4. Links Don't Say Where They Go and
9. Forgetting That You Write for Your Future Boss
Those are ones to deal with for individual posts. However in regards to the latter, a blogger should never forget they are writing for their current and past bosses too. Confidentiality should be respected, and remember your workmates may be reading what you say about them....

5. Classic Hits are Buried and 6. The Calendar is the Only Navigation
Not sure I've got any 'Classic Hits' yet, but I've set up an link in my entry page to index my 'Oracle Tips and Tricks'. Now I've just got to remember to keep that page up to date. In future I may add one for 'Opinion'.

"Most weblog software provides a way to categorize postings so users can easily get a list of all postings on a certain topic."
Don't know of this in blogger/blogspot. If you do, I'd be interested in it.

7. Irregular Publishing Frequency
I disagree with this. Given the prevelance of RSS feeds I think people can keep up to date with a blog irrespective of how long between posts. At least I hope so. I had a month long gap when time was in short supply.

With blogger/blogspot, the main limit of RSS is that it doesn't cover comments. I do get email for all new comments and I'm going to make a new resolution to make more of an effort to acknowledge them.

8. Mixing Topics
"If you have the urge to speak out on, say, both American foreign policy and the business strategy of Internet telephony, establish two blogs. "
Not convinced on this. I subscribe to orablogs, and I can see that non-Oracle posts don't really belong there. I'll see if there's any real demand for a split. If so, I'll carve out a second blog (Igor's Rest Room ?). Also, it's nice to hear what is going on in other Oracle blogger's lives. Reminds us that, underneath it all, we are people first.

10. Having a Domain Name Owned by a Weblog Service
Not convinced on this one either. I can see a benefit in having your blog on your own hosted service, but there's a lot more admin hassle and cost there. The Domain name is really a separate issue, and while domain names are cheap I don't see the benefit in having a domain name that points to service I don't have real control over.