Wreck Of The Day

After my Ugly Betty and Vanessa Williams post, just like a regressing tumor, my Internet connection miraculously disappeared and left me debilitated for a day or two. I spent yesterday calling for the Internet repairman who is never-on-sight after I brazed the thundering cold for an Internet shop selling prepaid cards so I can update Unbearable Lightness and do bloghop in the comfort of my own home without the perils of thunder striking me alive (me and my iPod are inseparable) or the floods carrying me till I disappear (my swimming skills is pointless against the flashflood current) or whatever. So far, here I am, alive and unscathed… but still disappointed as my DSL connection is nowhere near to restoration.


iPod and Lightning = Catastrophic (but still) Cute Guy

I’ve been using a DSL connection since late last year and being back on Dial-Up is like literally hell freezing over. I visited my site, of course, after trying to connect for almost 20 minutes of unsuccessful dialing and boy oh boy, it just took forever to load. This incident gave me much needed realizations: (1) my site is not Dial-Up friendly, (2) there is too much information/accessories present on my homepage, and (3) waiting for everything to load is plain acceptable, even for me.

Not everyone is endowed with the luxury of High Speed Internet, which may either be a DSL or a Wi-Fi connection. In fact, even with a 1 MBPS of DSL connection such as mine, some pages take incredibly long to load. Blame it on the long posts, or the abundance of images and videos, or of the preponderance of widgets and whatnots, a homepage that is not user-friendly could be a bit turn-off. So in this episode of Unbearable Lightness, I listed down some tips on how we can make our homepages a very user-friendly site for me and you.



1. Do not put all your entries in the main page. Unless extremely necessary and all of your posts are a must-read, and by all posts, I mean everything you have written since your childhood or something, do not put too many entries on your main page. 7-10 is a fairly decent amount. At most would be 10-12 if the entries are not that lengthy. Anything more than 13 must be truncated.

2. Create a personal limit in the length of the entries and the number of images and videos or slideshows per post. UNLESS you maintain a vlog (video blog) or pictoblog (picture album blog), upon which this maxim does not necessarily apply. I have a personal limit of 12 images and/or 3 videos per post, which I unavoidably violated with my Emmy Forecasts upon which I sincerely apologize. Please, pretty please trim down on videos. No biggie for me, as I might have my DSL back sometime, but for Dial-Up users, this is such a big No-No.

3. Tone down on too much ads that take too much time to load please, and besides, your readers won’t buy in there anyways. I guess. Unless you really earn tonloads of money from such ads, or you are dead-sure that the ads do not interfere with the functionality and purpose of your blog, it would be better off without them.

4. Keep widgets to a minimum please. Remove useless widgets, those that consume too much time to be retrieved (slideshows, mp3 playlists, etc.), and those that won’t enhance the appearance (anatomy) and purpose (physiology) of your site. A Message Board, a Twitter, an Archive list, Site Statistics provider, Bookmarking/Feeds Service, and of course, a Links List, could be all that you might need. Too much animations that take forever to load, and the oh-so-annoying BlingyBlobs and NetGlitters could be a bit *just over-the-top. Remove, remove, remove…


Do not get your own glitter at BlingyBlob.com


5. Though I still don’t know how to do this one, a peek-a-boo link, more colloquially seen as, “Continue reading…,” “Complete story, click here…,” or “Keep reading here…,” or seen so fancy like, “The adventures go on here…” or “Satisfy your curiosity here…” They keep the appearance of your site neat and well-organized, and this is the one *most important thing that I definitely have to learn. Fellow bloggers, teach me how to do this one please. I beg of you.

6. Please make a simple, straightforward translation of your written chronicles if they are written in vernacular or in your own dialect. You might never know the nationality of your readers but with the power of the Internet, readers from all over the world could land at your site and might offer you a record deal, a book deal, a new job or something. You are not required to complicate your translation. For instance, minahal ko siya could be easily translated as “I loved him/her,” and not “I have sacrificed too much of my time and effort for his/her happiness.” Being over-rated does not apply to you, unless you’re Paris Hilton, Tessa Valdez-Prieto or Malou de Guzman.

7. Some blogs cater to a specific type of audience. For instance, some of my posts tackle some medical issues and medical terms have to be used inevitably. There is nothing wrong with that, but a short definition/explanation about the term could prove to be useful. For example click here and here. A brief explanation could be enough. For instance, Brugada Syndrome = fatal heartbeat, or Reality = female condoms. Provide links if the topics do need to be elucidated further.

This line, “Brugada syndrome is characterized by pathologic delta-positive sloping of the electrographic R-wave as Na ions influxes and alters the myocardial membrane potential” is better off in a medical journal than in a blog. (Unless of course, if your blog provides technical, comprehensive information about certain topics).

8. Kindly update your blogs once in a while. Read your comments and make sure you reply. Not everyone has the time to make one but in case you’ve read one, have the initiative to (1) reply back, (2) let the person know that you have replied to his comment, (3) look at that person’s site if he/she has posted something new, and (4) return the favor. If you don’t have the luxury of time reading everything, HINT: just read the 1st and last paragraphs. You’ll never go wrong in your comments once you’ve read those. Trust me on this.

9. Blog what is in your heart. The readers know when what they’re reading is coming from the heart or just plain crap. Inject your personality and emotions in the things that you’re writing. Do not repost other people’s ideas, images, or videos in your site UNLESS you think that they are worthy to be reposted and the source wouldn’t mind you replicating their ideas. Memes and tags do not apply of course. Even though this is just a blog, Intellectual Property Rights do apply too, you know.

Lastly:

10. Enjoy writing. Blogging serves a purpose. Some people write to express themselves, while some blogs are there to inform other people. Some blogs cater to the businessman or porno-man inside of them, while some blogs are just there to make you feel bad about yourself. What matters is not the amount of traffic you get, but the personal satisfaction that you get from writing. A post that has no comments does not mean it’s bad, or it is not worthy to be read. After all, a writer does her craft not for the number of comments that would be made, but how many lives and emotions would have changed by her entries. Blogging is meant to be fun and therapeutic too. If blogging makes you feel otherwise, then it is serving no purpose to you. Just let go.



Okay, there are my top-ten realizations and tips on how everyone’s blogging experience could become more fun and enjoyable. Of course, I’m not the legitimate source of everything blog-worthy or something but following such simple rules would never hurt. To summarize, just remember three things:

1. SIMPLIFY YOUR SITE,
2. WRITE TO EXPRESS, NOT TO IMPRESS,
3. LET YOUR HEART DO THE WRITING.

Write lightly, read critically, and enjoy blogging as much as I’ve enjoyed making this one (and every entries posted here). See you soon and I hope this entry helped you in anyway possible. Write on!

*

P. S. Sorry if the lay-out is still haywire. Blame the Dial-up Internet. Images from Cultofmac, CherryPacheco, ColinFahey, some Vanessa Williams fan site, some Ad sites and some medical journal sites.