Interesting Blogs

These are photos of Russian soldiers in Berlin, Germany. Something about 63 years ago. read more....

This is one of the most mysterious places of Russian North. Those stone idols attract tourists from all the Russia. They stand alone on the wide plateau with no any stones or mountains around. Who built them? What for? Those questions have no answers. read more....

This guys took a trip to the Russian abandoned tank army base. Look like this place could make a good scenery for some 3d shooter game... read more....

Just some photos from the ordinary day at the one of the Russian steel factories. read more....

This is the world's largest military hovercraft and it belongs to the Russian army. It is armed with missiles, artillery and AA defense guns and can carry a few heavy tanks at once. After approaching to the enemy coastline it can give a burst of fire to tear of such fierce force that can tear big military ship apart, then without any slowing down start moving on the shore advancing deep inside to unload the tanks and infantry. There is a video below too. read more....

Russian Army has held a contest of beauty among the female soldiers. Here are some of the contestants. read more....

This is old Russian lady from Ukraine. You can see her in the middle on the photo above. She had a life full of hardships but overcame all of them, then settled in a small village in Ukraine. Her grown-up son was beating her constantly demanding to sell all her things and furniture and give all the money to him. Eventually he got into a jail and the lady was left all by herself in this house. And once she tried to draw something on the wall when she had nothing to do. She liked so much this that she went on and on and finally all her retirement money she spent on the paint to turn all her house into an art gallery. Just take a look. read more....

"It's my lane!" "No, it's mine!" read more....

6 Figure Blogging 

Ive been participating in 6 Figure Blogging with Darren from Problogger.net and Andy Wibbels from 6 Apart.  Most of the course so far has been fairly elementary for those who have been blogging for a while.  Indeed, I almost wish there was a disclaimer before I plunked down the money that would have rated the course on a sliding scare between Beginner and Expert blogging knowledge.

One of the things that did catch my interest was the subject of message on your blog.   The analogy given was a good one, and one I am trying to find some kind of balance for in my own blog here on troyrutter.com

Imagine going into a bookstore and looking for a magazine.  You are thinking of going skiing in Colorado this winter, so you go from one shelf to another, and come to a section marked Sports.  There tucked in back of the latest NBA news you spot a magazine called “Colorado Skiing” that was exactly what you were looking for.  You pay for the magazine and go home.

Now, think of what it would be like to go to the book store and instead of having a skiing magazine, you had a “Sports” magazine.   Inside you had all sports imaginable and maybe 1 article on skiing in Colorado.   Now back up yet another level, maybe there was one magazine on …. everything.   This magazine had articles on computers, decorating, potty training your child, baseball, fixing cars, politics, Britney Spears - everything in the world.

And that is where you find most personal blogs.

I love my blog here at TroyRutter.com, but the fact is it will not, and can not, ever be used to do the almighty M - “monetize.”   The only blogs/podcasts that seem to do well that are personal blogs are celebrities. (ie: Wil Wheaton, Adam Curry, among others.)

So what does your blog say about your tastes?

Posting Categories

One of the easiest ways to judge if your blog has a tight or broad focus is to look at your category list.   If you see more than 10 categories on your blog, then your net may be too big.  A focused blog may have 5 or less categories that posts fall into.

When you go to make a new blog post, and are considering making a new category, think carefully about what you are doing.   If you are adding a category, then your net is about to get even larger, and you may risk alienating those who have started coming to your blog because of another topic you wrote about.

Monetize? Blasphemy!

If you don’t have any aspirations to  monetize your blog, then by all means talk about anything and everything.   But if you have any interest on focusing on a niche to help earn some extra money, then focusing your blog’s entries and categories on that niche will benefit you from the start.

This year they decided to held a big Russian Army parade in Moscow, Russia. Such parades were normal in Soviet Union but were not conducted since the early 90-s of the last century in Russia, after the Soviet Union collapse. This time we have photos and a pretty long video showing all the stuff they gonna have at this parade at the 9th of May, the day that is celebrated in Russia as "The Victory Day" and they mean the victory in the World War 2. You are first who sees it, thousands of Russian would get the broadcast of the even not earlier than at that day. read more....

This one can only be called only in Russia. In Novosibirsk city they have a race between off-road cars and tanks. read more....

Almost 2 years ago I remember reading Wil Wheaton’s blog where he lost all or most of his purchased iTunes music, and I remember feeling jealous when a rep from apple who read his blog, called him to make everything right.

http://wilwheaton.typepad.com/wwdnbackup/2006/09/apple_gave_me_b.html

Fast forward to the Twitter age.

DIGSBY

I have used several IM clients over the years, and had pretty much settled on Trillian to be my IM program of choice, since it combined the services of AIM, ICQ, Yahoo and MSN. A coworker then told me about Digsby, which also combined Facebook, Myspace, Gmail and Twitter. I installed the application and had no issues whatsoever.

What I was having problems with was a notification showing up in Digsby that I had a @reply, but couldn’t see them on my twitter timeline (I use the actual twitter.com interface). I almost immediately received a direct message from Digsby offering to help troubleshoot the problem.

Whoa.

Turns out it wasn’t Digsby at all, but my settings on Twitter to “show all @replies on my timeline”

But, I was still very impressed with Digsby monitoring the twitterverse for their name being mentioned, and jumping right on questions that were presented - but probably not even directed towards them.

Bright Kite

I don’t have a phone that supports Bright Kite, so I enter in my location manually, thus somewhat defeating the purpose I suppose. In today’s world of so many different social applications being launched, I oftentimes use a generic password for sites Im not sure I will use a lot.

So, when I really WANTED to use Bright Kite recently, I had forgotten which password I actually used. I searched and searched, but to my surprise there was no “forgot password” link to be found. I immediately twittered my frustration (and almost at the exact same time remembered my password anyway). Within 2 minutes there was a @reply to me saying they were working on it, and within 20 minutes, I got another reply saying there was now a forgot password link on the site.

Yikes.

Yet again, another company that “gets it.”

So bravo to these companies and others using twitter to enhance not only their core product, but also customer service. I’m sure there are many other companies out there doing the same thing. But for once (or twice) - you guys made me feel like a celebrity.

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