I am pretty certain that a large portion of my readers have blogs of their own.

Do you have a sidebar? If so, is it on the right, left, or both?

I recently read an interesting article discussing the merits of both right and left sidebars.

I contemplated my own sidebar position. And after much consideration, I decided to try a right sidebar.

(And luckily, Squarespace allows me to do this with just a click of a button.)

The main reason for this change is because I want content to be king. In addition, I want this blog to be more user-friendly:

1. Most of my readers (who are western) read left to right, and as a result, scan a page left to right. A right sidebar ensures that the first thing my readers will see will be my content.
2. Visitors with lower image resolutions will not be forced to scroll to read my posts.
3. Some argue that a right sidebar is easier to navigate for right-handed mouse users.

I know that these days, one of the most popular reasons for right sidebars is for SEO purposes: a right sidebar is more friendly to search engines, ensuring that your content is loaded before your sidebar (unless coded specifically not to do so). However, I honestly believe that when it comes to gaining more exposure, providing good quality content far supercedes something as trivial as sidebar position. Thus I did not take SEO into consideration when making the change.

Visually, I think that a left sidebar looks better on my site. However, this may just be due to the fact that I’m not used to the change.

What do you think? Left or right?

In the midst of developing three separate websites, I have been reading and bookmarking some useful sources for developers, designers, and bloggers. Here are six I’ve found myself returning to again and again during the past two weeks:

1. 8 Definitive Web Font Stacks
2. How to Embed Almost Anything in your Website
3. 5 Exciting Things to Look Forward to in HTML 5
4. 50 Resources for Getting the Most Out of Google Analytics
5. 10 Killer WordPress Hacks
6. 5 Techniques to Acquaint You With CSS 3

I hope you find them as useful as I do – enjoy!

Okay, so I lied. There is just too much stuff for me to share with individual posts. As a result, I’ve decided to pay an homage to my Thursday Geek-isms days and dump these links on you with one big swoop. Enjoy!

1. Far Side reenactments, Boing Boing. The Far Side used to be one of my favorite comics, and it was a sad day for millions nationwide when Gary Larson announced his retirement. Predictably, these photo reenactments do not have the same effect…however, they add a comical twist that is funny in themselves.
2. Brand New: Best & Worst 2008, Brand New. This is a new blog I stumbled upon while researching corporate branding for a side project…and me rikey! Here is their round-up of the best and worst re-brandings of 2008.
3. 5 Homeless Guys Who Accomplished Amazing Things, Cracked. Cracked is a satire site, and so obviously there is some offbeat humor thrown into this article. However, reading about guys “who, while sleeping on park benches and using newspapers as both blankets and undergarments, managed to make more of themselves than many of us ever will” is nothing short of inspiring, no?
4. The Quattro 6000D: this ain’t your grandmomma’s sewing machine, Gizmodo. This baby deserves a picture nod:
   
   I’ve wanted to pick up a sewing machine since forever, and this isn’t helping at all!
5. The World’s Most High-Tech Nation, ABC News Blog. This sounds like something out of a sci-fi movie, but it’s not. It’s my own motherland, sucka! Now if only I can stop the envy…
6. 50 Resources for Getting the Most Out of Google Analytics, KISSmetrics. Holy shat. Who knew you could use Analytics for SEO? A must-read for anyone publishing anything on the web.
7. 2008: The Year the Geeks Took Over, Cracked. That’s right! We’re taking over! Puhahahaha…
8. Little Girl Knows Her Video Game Characters, Geekologie. When I grow up I want to have a kid just like her.
9. Regression Alert: I Need These Star Wars Stuffed Animals, Geek Sugar. Okay, this one deserves a picture too:
   
   The Darth looks a bit evil (as he should be) but the Chewy is too adorable. I wouldn’t mind snuggling up with him as I doze off to sleep!
10. New Weapon Against Hippies: Wi-Fi, Gizmodo. I admit that I’m not sharing this as much for the article, but more for the accompanying picture. “Stupid beatnik hippies….die, hippies!”
11. 20 websites that changed the world, TechRadar. Working on so many web projects, I cannot help but derive inspiration from articles such as these. Who knew that a coffee machine could be so revolutionary? Or that Amazon was a Web 2.0 company even before the term was coined? However, I must admit is that I was surprised to see Google omitted from the list.
12. Now That’s a Tasty Website: The Bacon-izer, Geekologie. Just type http://bacolicio.us/ before any URL, and you can view any website with some sizzling, pig fat goodness.
13. Screw heads demystified, MAKE. This should be printed and taped next to every toolbox in America.
14. 30 Years of Star Wars Technology, Slashdot. Need I say more?

And, because this is too funny (and sad) to pass up…

Via haha.nu.

A neutron walks into a bar and asks the bartender, “How much for a beer?”

The bartender replies, “For you, no charge.”

I thought I would start with a joke so you’ll forgive me for backing out of another promise. The fact of the matter is, I’ve had a pretty crazy couple of weeks.

Quit a job (and get handed a slew of last-minute projects during my last two weeks there).

Help a friend with a web project.

Host a crazy, “legendary” potluck.

Be more involved in church.

Start a new job.

I had a good first day at work today, but I am saddened to say that I will have a lot less time for blogging. Either that, or I will have to sacrifice a lot of shut-eye time. And sleep seems to become so much more precious as I get older.

I’ll do my best to keep writing, but I predict that they will be in sporadic bursts. As a result, I will probably end up busting out a bunch of posts in one sitting and space them out so that they’re published in more regular intervals.

Thanks for reading and please forgive me if I sound incoherent.

While pouring over the latest issue of my favorite magazine over the weekend, I was shocked to read this obituary to blogging.

The first four paragraphs really stung me:

Thinking about launching your own blog? Here’s some friendly advice: Don’t. And if you’ve already got one, pull the plug.

Writing a weblog today isn’t the bright idea it was four years ago. The blogosphere, once a freshwater oasis of folksy self-expression and clever thought, has been flooded by a tsunami of paid bilge. Cut-rate journalists and underground marketing campaigns now drown out the authentic voices of amateur wordsmiths. It’s almost impossible to get noticed, except by hecklers. And why bother? The time it takes to craft sharp, witty blog prose is better spent expressing yourself on Flickr, Facebook, or Twitter.

If you quit now, you’re in good company. Notorious chatterbox Jason Calacanis made millions from his Weblogs network. But he flat-out retired his own blog in July. “Blogging is simply too big, too impersonal, and lacks the intimacy that drew me to it,” he wrote in his final post.

Impersonal is correct: Scroll down Technorati’s list of the top 100 blogs and you’ll find personal sites have been shoved aside by professional ones. Most are essentially online magazines: The Huffington Post. Engadget. TreeHugger. A stand-alone commentator can’t keep up with a team of pro writers cranking out up to 30 posts a day.

I’m sorry to say that I too, have been noticing this trend. When I first started blogging back in 2000, many of my friends had blogs too. We wrote about silly things like what we did over the weekend, who is dating whom, relationship woes, and the mind-blowing circus that is college life.

Slowly but surely, these blogs began to remain untouched and neglected. We were out of college now and living adult lives – who had the time to blog? Other friends cited the lack of anonymity on the web as their reason to stop blogging. Many, like Mr. Boutin states in his article, shrugged their shoulders and said that Facebook/Flickr/Twitter was easier.

I’ve also found that I get discouraged whenever I read about blog rankings. As they say, the popular only get more popular while the little guys continue to suffer in numbers. As such, I tend to ignore sites such as Technorati and Digg for the repetitiveness of their featured sites.

So why do I continue to blog?

I blog because I like to write. And as a born researcher and human sponge, I love to share my thoughts, findings, and amusings.

And the narcissistic side of me wants to broadcast this to the world.

I am definitely not in it for the money. I only get about a hundred unique hits a day, and I hardly ever advertise my blog. Besides, I’m not sure if I ever can use blogging as a source of income, because I’m afraid that my passion for writing is greater than my abilities.

Why do you blog?