I’ve decided that it’s time to move my blog from Blogger to it’s own domain, but I don’t have time for my usual extensive research into all the issues, so I’m leaving it up to my always helpful readers. I know many of you have done this and many are cybergeeks (or cybercoolguys, as I like to say), so what do I need to do?

What’s a good domain host? Anybody heard good or bad things about GoDaddy.com?

How much space do I need for a blog of my size? How much transfer bandwidth do I need if I have about 150 visitors a day?

Anything else I should consider?

THANKS!

Also, since the blog will start costing me money, I’m probably going to put some Google AdSense stuff on (nothing too intrusive). Any thoughts on that?

I had the added challenge of doing this while holding a squirmy 2 month old - can you top that?

*Courtesy of Cliff over at Regensblog

Okay, this thing doesn’t seem to work on Blogger, but my score was something in the 27,000+ area.

Just discovered: this shirt and other great geek-wear available from ThinkGeek.com.

As of July 11, integrating your Feedburner feed into Blogger became a snap. All you need to do is go to your Blogger Dashboard, hit Settings, hit Site Feed, then enter your Feedburner feed address, and hit Save Settings. And voila! You should soon be able to see how many subscribers you really have.

I’d also suggest that while you are on your Settings page, you make sure that you are publishing a “Full” feed. It is a big turnoff (for me anyway) to have to leave Google Reader and load the blog to read a whole post. More likely than not, I don’t bother unless the title and first few sentences are very catchy, which means that I (and others - I’ve read this as a common complaint on the “be a better blogger” type blogs) are missing out on your great content!

A little while ago, I got invited by friends to join LinkedIn and Facebook. I decided to take the opportunity to check out some of the other social networking sites as well.

Facebook is great. I really dig it, but it would be better if I had a few more friends (I’ve got 8 at the moment). Due to the personal nature of the information that is up on my profile there, I’m only connecting with people I am friends or family with in the “real world” (or was friends with - in high school for example - and want to reconnect with). If you fall into this category, sending me a “friend” invitation should be easy.

MySpace is much talked about and I really don’t get the hype. Okay, my only friend is Tom, the MySpace founder, maybe that has something to do with it. The site isn’t as easy to use as the others I tried out, I had profiles up and running in minutes on all the other sites, I still am not happy with my profile here. I also don’t like that it doesn’t search your address book for people you know who are already members. I don’t know who of my friends are members and I’m certainly not going to take the time to search for each of their names! Anyways, I’ll friend anyone on here (as long as they’re not a spammer or otherwise suspicious looking!), so feel free to “friend” me - my MySpace profile.

LinkedIn is a professional networking site where you can list your job experience and connect with friends and coworkers. You may also receive job and consulting offers though the site. I’ve read that it can take a while before you get any “action”, so I went ahead and signed up now. Maybe in a few months or a year, I’ll have worked up enough connections for it to pay off in a career. I’m not sure if I’ll link up here with people I don’t really know.

XING was recommended to me by a former colleague and LinkedIn contact and seems much like LinkedIn, but when I had it search my address book, I only came up with contacts in Germany who were already members, so it must be more German-centric. I’m not sure if I’ll link up here with people I don’t really know.

iLike is a music site that looks at your iTunes library and suggests friends with similar music tastes. You can then check out what your “friends” listen to and maybe find new bands you hadn’t considered. It works best if you install the iLike sidebar onto your iTunes. This is my second to last pick for usefulness, just ahead of MySpace. I think my taste in music is too eclectic for this site to help. I do like it’s music quiz though. It plays a song and you see how fast you can guess the song’s title or artist from multiple choice questions. It’s very addictive. Anyways, I’ll friend anyone on here that either I know (through blogging counts) or that I have a medium to high music match with, so feel free to “friend” me -my iLike profile.

StumbleUpon is a social networking site for which you install a toolbar on your browser and when you come across a webpage you like or dislike, you can give it a thumbs up or down. The more sites you rate, the better StumbleUpon gets to know what you like/dislike. You can them “stumble” random web pages, blogs, or news items that StumbleUpon recommends for you. I’ve had trouble getting into the habit of rating the sites that I visit. I also haven’t been that excited about the sites that have been recommended, but this site has been highly recommended by many bloggers out there, so try it, you might like it. I’ll friend anyone on here (as long as they’re not a spammer or otherwise suspicious looking!), so feel free to “friend” me - my StumbleUpon profile - my goodness, I just checked in and I have three fans - that’s a shocker!

Finally, and still my favorite social networking site, MyBlogLog. I love clicking on the little pictures people put up of themselves (or of whatever they want to represent themselves) and seeing what blogs they read and which they write themselves. Just by looking at who else is reading the blogs that I like to read I’ve found a ton of great blogs that I don’t think I would have found otherwise. View my MyBlogLog profile, view this blog’s community, view the communities to which I belong. If you have a blog, put it on here, and if I read it, I’ll be happy to join it’s community.

What do you think of these sites (if you’re a member)? Any other sites I should try out? Anyone have any experience with LibraryThing? Is there something similar for your movie library?

Update (1 Nov 2007): 

I’d say I’m pretty experienced with this stuff now and the only site I really use is Facebook (which I spend much too much time on).  I get a ton of spam from MySpace; LibraryThing only allows you to enter 200 books on a free account, then you gotta pay; and I loved MyBlogLog, but with a new baby, I don’t have time to read all the blogs I’m currently subscribed to in a timely manner, let alone start reading new ones!

LinkedIn and XING haven’t done anything for me because I’m not looking for work at the moment, but if you are, I HIGHLY encourage signing up on them.  I’d sign up for LinkedIn if you’re in the US or UK (I’ve been contacted by one recruiter in the UK for a position in Switzerland), and if you’re in Germany, definitely go for XING.  I was getting at least one recruitment email a week and it got so I had to write on my profile that I didn’t want work.  I still get recruiters writing to see if I know anyone they could contact.

Since I am in turmoil over my possible transition from Republican to Democrat, I decided to seek out some help in the shape of Internet Quizzes!

According to the World’s Smallest Political Quiz on the Advocates for Self-Government Website, I am a Libertarian:

LIBERTARIANS support maximum liberty in both personal and economic matters. They advocate a much smaller government; one that is limited to protecting individuals from coercion and violence.

Libertarians tend to embrace individual responsibility, oppose government bureaucracy and taxes, promote private charity, tolerate diverse lifestyles, support the free market, and defend civil liberties.

According to the quiz on The Political Compass website, I am just slightly to the right and slightly more libertarian than the Dalai Lama, but am still in the left/Libertarian quadrant. Warning: I would be careful taking this quiz, it uses a lot of double negatives in the questions.

The quiz written by Victor Kamber and Bradley S. O’Leary that appeared in the October 28-30, 1994 issue of USA Weekend puts my political beliefs between those of Bill Clinton and Colin
 Powell.

And finally to add some spice to the mix, there is the very cool Belief-o-Matic at beliefnet.com, which has proclaimed that my religious beliefs most closely match with Unitarian Universalism, with Liberal Quakers, Mainline to Liberal Christian Protestants, and Theravada and Mahayana Buddhism following.