Folks, a few more changes for the old blog here today:

• Removed the MyBlogLog widget. Sorry, but I got sick of it slowing down the page loading time. Plus I just don’t use it any more, so it was time to go.
• Added new Facebook integration! Now you can log into OMB with your Facebook account! How cool is that? You can also have your comments appear on your Facebook wall and stuff like that.
• Removed the “Top Commenter” widget. Sorry for those of you who really liked that feature, but it was attracting so many spammers that I just didn’t want to deal with it any more.

Oh, I also added a Facebook Group for OMB, so please join it if you haven’t yet. It’s going to be a good place for us to all chat about stuff without having to do it in the comments here on the blog.

Howdy folks. I’ve made two fairly significant changes to the old blog here today, and I’m hoping to get a little feedback from you regulars as to how these are turning out.

1. I updated my “Related Posts” plugin to use Yet Another Related Posts Plugin. Though it was a more complex install than the old one, it does two things that I like better. First, it seems to be a little more accurate. Second, it shows a short preview of the related post by the link. I think this makes it easier to determine if that related post is actually interesting or not to the reader.
2. I installed a new caching / content distribution system from Steady Offload. This is NOT a free service, so if I want to keep it here I’ll have to pay for it. But the purpose is to make all of the images and pages in general load quicker on the blog. Personally, the site seems faster to me. But I’m waiting to hear from you guys. Do things seem faster? You should especially notice on posts with lots of images.

So, please let me know if things have improved for you, are the same, or worse. Cheers!

Well, looks like it only took about 3.5 weeks to bump the number of Spam responses up over 200,000.

So, I hit the 100,000 mark on May 7, the 175,000 mark on August 7, and the 200,000 mark on September 2. It looks like I’m averaging about 25,000 Spam comments per month, or over 800 spam comments per day!!! To put this in perspective, I currently have just over 9,000 legitimate, approved comments on the blog.

At the current rate we should wrap up 2008 with over 300,000 and then in 2009 we should see the 700,000 mark. Of course, I would assume that the numbers will increase, and if they do there could be well over 1,000,000 spam comments on this blog by the end of 2009.

I can’t wait until the first time some geeky Webmaster tracks down a spammer and murders him just for spamming. I will contribute to his defense fund. Furthermore, I’ll vote for any presidential candidate who promises to make Spamming a capital offense punishable by death (or at least time in a federal prison.).

Thanks to Automattic for Akismet, without which I would probably have quit blogging.

Well, it was exactly three months ago that I shared the fact that this blog had reached the 100,000 spam mark according to the spam fighting plugin Akismet. But it looks like in the last 24 hours the count has crept up above the 175,000 mark.

76,000 spam comments in 90 days is just a little out of hand, don’t you think? So, this is why I heavily moderate comments and delete anything that looks spammy. You would have thought that maybe they would simply go elsewhere since it’s not getting through. But instead they just keep increasing.

Ok. Here is a question that is going to rile some people up.

So, there is a site that wrote an article titled “The Best Places to Get Quality Backlinks” that lists sites for people to leave comments on for the sole purpose of increasing their Google PageRank since they get to leave a link back to their site.

Guess which site is at the top of the list? Yeah. This one.

So, when I get comments from people who come directly from that site I think of them as disingenuous and completely discount their validity. I mean, I spend time to write articles for those of you who really enjoy the same general stuff as me.

Now, if ANYONE leaves a comment – no matter how brilliant – which contains a spammy link, I delete it as fast as possible. So the question is why should I treat bullshit comments any differently? Shouldn’t I just can them as well?

PS – How do I know when they arrive? Woopra.

Damn! Someone over at Google has seriously got it out for me! Why is it that just 30 days ago I reported that I was number 2 for a search for “John P.” and number 12 for the word “John“, but just today I was amusing a friend and noticed that if you search for John I’ve now dropped to number 206! Oh, and Pope John Paul II just passed me for “John P.” But I’m going to let that one slide…

Oh, this is such a huge blow to my ego. I’m just not sure I can keep going on. I’m no longer more important than John Dvorak, Sir Elton John, John Travolta, and the Johns Hopkins University. How do they justify this egregious act!

I’m telling you. Someone over at Google reads my blog and they are manually manipulating results to keep The Man down! Just like YouTube. Those people keep turning off the videos I link to within a day, even if they’ve been on YouTube for a year! And just because of a little copyright violation? Bah!

These big and powerful Internet companies need to stop messing with little old me.

There seems to be a proliferation of bloggers following my lead. First there was AnotherMansBlog.com, and now there is YetAnotherMansBlog.com! What’s next? StillAnotherMansBlog.com? Why not OneWomansBlog.com? And where is OneDogsBlog.com?

By the way, those blogs are probably better than mine. So you should read them too.

PS – Did you see that Another Man quit blogging? You guys better go and prod him…

Folks, this amuses me. By the way, make note of the date. It is NOT April Fools day…

Yesterday when I was on Cali’s show I randomly mentioned that I wished I was like Matt Mullenweg because if you search for Matt he comes up as the first result in Google. The last time I checked “John P” I was like the 90th listing. However, someone watching the broadcast dropped me a note to let me know that I’m actually now the second listing!

It looks like the number one position is occupied by a gospel singer by the name of John P. Kee. So, if anyone out there wants to help me take over as the king of “John P”, just link to my blog using my name (”John P.”) specifically and it might even drive me to the pole position!

Either way though, number two isn’t bad out of 46,800,000 results! :-)

Oh, and incidentally, it looks like if you just search for “John” now, I’m about 12th from the top out of 141,000,000!

That is just crazy! It looks like I’m right after Senator John Edwards and singer John Mayer (whom I’m a big fan of), and before Senator John Kerry, popular columnist John Dvorak, and singer Sir Elton John. Amazingly I’m even ahead of John Travolta, and Johns Hopkins University (which won’t make my sister in law very happy).

Anyway, thanks to all of my loyal readers and the thousands of Web sites that have linked to me!

UPDATE: I’m now #1 for a search for John P.! Yeah! :-)

Hey folks, on Saturday June 7, 2008 at 3pm Central time in the U.S. (-5 GMT) Cali Lewis and Neal Campbell will be coming by to live stream an interview with your’s truly. We’ll be chatting about chicken nuggets, quantum string theory, plasma torches and bikini waxes.

Well, maybe not. I actually have no idea what we are going to discuss! But what I do know is, if you stop by http://www.ustream.tv/calilewis/ you’ll be able to watch live, and if you click “Go to Show Details and chat”, you can choose a username (no password necessary) and join in the conversation.

I’ll be taking questions from anyone and everyone on religion, politics, abortion, war, famine, disease, and Michael Jackson. I might not answer any of those questions… but I’ll certainly take them! Otherwise, I imagine we’ll probably talk a little about Woopra, Layered Tech, OMB and other geeky stuff. So mark your calendar and come on by!

You know, I think of myself as a pretty prolific blogger. With over 1,100 posts in under two years, its hard to find others who can match my output. So would it surprise you to learn that even with multiple anti-spam measures in place, there are 100 Spams posted to OMB for every post I write!

That’s right. Akismet alone has saved you guys from reading over 100,000 spam comments, so a big huge thanks goes out to Matt Mullenweg and the gang over at Automattic for offering this service.

Folks. I have a confession to make. I’ve been secretly cheating on all of you for some time now. Oh, and to make matters worse, I’m proud of it.

Yes, you already know that a few months ago I joined Layered Technologies as the Chief Marketing Officer… but I’ve got another on the side. And she’s called Woopra. I’ve been secretly working with Elie Khoury and Jad Younan on this project, and we just unveiled it yesterday at WordCamp, making Beta accounts available for the first time for all participants.

What can I tell you about Woopra? She’s hot, smooth, smart, and sexy. But don’t take my word for it… Here is what Cali from GeekBrief had to say after just a few minutes with Woopra.
Read the rest of this entry »

Today I added a new Gift Ideas section on the blog (just look up at the top) because I thought it might be helpful to share things that I’ve found which would make for birthday, anniversary, wedding and other gifts. I get a lot of catalogs, and I do a lot of shopping in general, so as I come across cool things I’ll add them into the Gift Ideas page.

The underlying technology behind the Gift page is an Amazon Shop. Any affiliate can set one up, and most people would usually do it to try to earn a little cash. Please remember, I donate ALL proceeds from OMB, so I didn’t set it up for that reason.

So, check out the new tab, and remember we’ve got it the next time you’re pressed to come up with a gift idea for that someone special.