I Forgot To Add A Title

I just realized that had not posted anything for today and decided I better get with it. A while ago I had tried switching to the Edge browser but have lately gone back to Chrome. It really makes very little difference in any of the things I do and neither one supports multiple tab browsing very well. Firefox, either, for that matter. Of course, by multiple tabs I am referring to my habit of starting each morning with between 28 and 34 tabs open. As I read each site, I close a tab. I have them in a specific order and know exactly what I am looking for on each one. Most of the time I only have to spend a minute or two on each one. And then I will leave my email open when I get to the end. What? Well, it works for me.

Another thing I have been learning to leave open is the WordPress reader. I am starting to get the hang of it and the more I use it, the less confused I am about it. The way I used to do it before was to get everything in my email and then when someone updated their blog or commented on my blog or liked a comment or replied to a comment, I would open the email check it out. With the WP Reader, I have all the info I want in one place. Likes, comments, new posts, etc. are all handy. The drawback for me is that nobody sees what your actual page looks like. I like messing with how my page looks, switching themes from time-to-time, but fewer people see it this way. On the opposite end (What is the opposite of drawback, anyway? Upshot? Yeah. That works for me.), the upshot for me is that I have a much broader base of readers who can like or comment or just plain read my stuff. I have tried to make my settings more WP Reader friendly, so I hope I have fixed the problem that made it so some people couldn’t comment.

Another thing I keep forgetting is that a lot of people, almost half the readers, are reading on a phone. I’.m writing on my computer with a large monitor, but not everyone is. This has been one of the hardest things for me to work on. Fortunately for me, Benjamin (my son, but we always refer to each other kind of like we don’t know each other. I don’t know why, it just seems like the thing to do.) has been helping me with getting things set up for using the WP Reader and making it easier to comment. His site is Brother’s Campfire and his story, with personal interludes, is extraordinary. You can read it from the beginning because his prices are really good. In fact, I think you can read the entire thing for free, right now, and you won’t be sorry.

I’ve been fairly happy with how this whole thing has been going, but there is one thing that happens that kind of weirds me out. When the e-mail notifications go out, they say something to the effect of, “This or that person read your post and thought it was really awesome. You should go see what’s going on with them.” But it doesn’t take you to the most recent post(s) or their main page; rather, it gives you (as far as I can tell) a random sampling of their posts. No dates or anything, just a few links to random posts. I guess this is okay but what has happened to me a couple of times recently is that someone will click on one of those for me and wind up leaving a like or even a comment on something I wrote fifteen years ago. Then it shows up on the Reader as something to the effect of, “so and so commented on your article…” and I don’t recognize the title until I click on it and go and see the date. I guess it doesn’t really matter, it’s just odd. Or, rather, feels odd to me.

Remember, the Good Book says, “Say not thou, What is the cause that the former days were better than these? for thou dost not enquire wisely concerning this.” (Ecc 7:10 KJV)

9 Comments

  1. Great read and thank you for the shout out. I have been directed recently to something you wrote in 2005.
    Initially, my focus for blogging was to tell the story of a Bard, Beast, and Brother written by the Storyteller. I planned on using generic names for my characters and keeping a sort of distance in connection between myself as a person and the readers.

    Herb Thiel’s post is oddly the only place where my original thoughts on audience engagement stuck!

    Herb Thiel is an amazing father of 4 and an excellent writer. His story about Joseph is undeniably excellent!

    I love you dad!

    Benjamin

  2. I often read my blogs on a phone, but I always write on my computer. It just works better for me. I had to write a couple posts from my phone when the only internet I had was my data plan, but I didn’t feel like they were very good. I get so many WordPress emails it’s kind of annoying. I never pay attention to any of them, because it’s all in my reader anyway. About once a week I go through and delete a gazillion emails.

    • Cool. I’m still kicking and screaming my way through the 20th century, now we’re twenty years into this one! I was hoping I had fixed the problem, though. Thanks for letting me know.

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