Historical errata for Technical Blogging

“pijamas” not “pajamas” I guess

In the second paragraph, it is:
“If they’re logged in Facebook when commenting on your blog, users’ comments will automatically associated with their Facebook profile.”

but should be something like:

“If they’re logged into Facebook when commenting on your blog, users’ comments will be automatically associated with their Facebook profile.”

This sentence doesn’t seem quite right: “FeedBurner is a service that gets in input a feed and …”

“how many orders where placed”, were

The link to Figure 26 causes the period character to appear as the first character on the next line.

“Notice how the top articles where both attractive to…”: should be “were”

First dot point: in this fragment
“… and therefore able to commend a higher rate.”
should be “command” not “commend”

Fifth dot point:
“Build loyalty. Customers who regularly interact with companies tend to develop greater loyalty for those companies, their brands and products. A blog that allows for comments and an approachable social media presence …”

3rd para:

Suggest “improve” rather than “improving” in this sentence:

“Then iterate, constantly improving your blog with small enhancements.”

Chapter 1, section 1.2
“Tip 2: Don’t betraying your readers’ expectations.”

should be “betray”.

Using a custom domain - please add (footnote?) that you need to set the CNAME for the domain/subdomain to ghs.google.com

Installing Wordpress - I suggest to make this into a sidebar or into the appendix. This way, the blogger and non wordpress users do not need instructions on how to skip this section.

Section about criticism mantras is only half complete and the presented one is IMO less important. Being exposed to criticism is normal thing IRL. If someone cannot deal with it, then should leave public activities (like blogging) at all.

The lacking half is constructive criticism, which is the best thing you can get in comments and you should be always glad of receiving it, even if it has some sarcasm there or cynicism sound (which is often the case, as wise people aren’t flawless). The truth is that there are always people smarter, more experienced, etc. than you, so if they take their time to show or explain you how wrong you are regarding something, do not ever look down on them.

Well, you have “accurate criticism” earlier, but “constructive criticism” is not mentioned even once in the whole book!

Actually the tone of 9.4 is IMO too aggresive, but it may be only me.

Blogging as Megaphone - paragraph 4

“very defective laptop that I purchased my wife for her birthday”

should be:

“very defective laptop that I purchased for my wife for her birthday”

this first sentence in general reads a bit odd :)

“in order to be complaint” => “in order to be compliant”

“what do do when…” => “what to do when…”

“Don’t betraying your readers’ expectations.” should be “Don’t betray your readers’ expectations.”

Sections in Introduction chapter have section marks next to them, but they shouldn’t be there. It was OK in B1.

It was already in B1, but somehow slipped my mind.

Page footer has:

Prepared exclusively for Przemysaw Paweczyk

which lacks non-ascii characters (ł in my case) present in the name. It’s not a big problem, but some of customers may see it (rightly) as somewhat rude.

It’s possibly not this book only problem and may require some fixes in the toolchain.

Only one line of main text on the page is sth unacceptable. Move it to the next one.

Actually 3 lines of text on preceding page also doesn’t look good, especially as being so close to “Going Pro” note. My general suggestion is to slightly increase skip below such notes in whole book. In this case additionally I would move these 3 lines (or 2 after increasing the skip) to following pages.

Figure 7 looks just ugly. If you have to use such big image here (which is IMO unnecessary and looks like you’re trying to somehow fill the pages w/o using any real content), then take screenshot of already zoomed page in decent browser (there is Zoom extension for Chrome to have better zoom control). Zooming at 400% will give you much better text quality (close to 300 dpi print) of screenshot.

“try this at home with a relatively new blog that hasn’t been well established
yet.”
^ wrong typesetting. There shouldn’t be such short word (yet) ending 2-line paragraph as it looks almost like 1-line paragraph and such thing is unacceptable.

It requires rewording to make second line longer.

Figure 15 is old FeedBurner screenshot. No longer valid, required mandatory update. May require some slight changes in text too, not sure, you have to verify it yourself after giving proper screenshot and rechecking how FB looks nowadays. Mind that there is new beta version, which will be the default one in upcoming months, so consider also switching completely to that one or at least covering it w.r.t. some possible changes there (not sure, but there may be some, haven’t checked it myself).

“If you enjoyed this post, then make sure you subscribe to my Newsletter and/or
Feed.”
^ another bad typesetting example (short word ending 2-line paragraph).

You cannot reword quote, but you can increase right margin by the value of additional indentation used in left margin for quote environment. Doing it in whole book for all quote-like excerpts should also increase the book readability and its overall look.

Write about how to add Google author information in search results.

Sad to notice this, on this day.

You probably don’t want to refer to Steve Jobs as people to interview.

There are many, many links throughout the book, mostly in footnotes.

It would be good to have them collected in one Appendix, maybe categorized by topic (chapters?) too.

Then make that list available online too.

At “Bounce Rate” bullet point:

s/suite to suite/site to site/

?

-ST

I used to submit all of my posts to Reddit as a matter of promoting my blog. That’s all I really used the Reddit account for. Anyways, I had one post really take off on Hacker News (front page for 12+ hours), but not a single visitor from Reddit, so I thought: what gives?

I went to investigate. I tried resubmitting the link and I noticed that it didn’t appear in the “new” feed. I tried creating a new account and submitting the post. Same thing happened, so I contacted the administrators.

Apparently, if you mostly submit links to the same site, you’re considered a spammer by Reddit and are, thusly, hellbanned, which is the practice of hiding everything that a user submits without their knowledge. It seems that my website is also hellbanned, so legitimate users cannot submit links to it.

Now, I submitted a link to my blog (which is all high quality content and it’s ad/affiliate free, to boot) to Reddit only once every couple of weeks. I’m not a spammer. (I’m frankly outraged that they dared to class me as a spammer, but c’est la vie).

So, anyways, my point is that submitting articles to Reddit shouldn’t be a part of a blogger’s workflow, since it is considered spamming by the Reddit administrators, which I guess technically makes it blackhat, and thusly it’s decidedly not in tone with the rest of your book.

Here’s more information on what Reddit considers spamming: reddit dot com/r/Moderating/comments/cz6zu/identifying_spammers_101/

In the paragraph: “This site had to register experts-exchange.com, an hyphenated version of their existing domain name […]”

Should it not be “a hyphenated” as opposed to “an hyphenated”?

Second paragraph starts with “If see yourself…”

I believe there should be a “you” following the “If”.

In the second paragraph, third sentence, there is a missing word “of” after the word :out“. It should read, ”… would come out of the whole blogging thing, …".

Wrong word in second paragraph of 7.9: “Actives” should be “activities”

I’ll refrain from teaching you black hat techniques, opting instead to list a series of borderline actives

Perhaps change reoccurring to recurring. Reoccurring implies an irregular event; recurring implies a regular one.

“Without a doubt, sponsorships are a great way to generate reoccurring sources of extra cash as a technical blogger.”

Use “gauge” instead of “gage”; gage is technically a variant spelling, but gauge is more correct in this case.

“listen to what they tell you so as to better gage what you can do to address their questions.”

In the first paragraph after the heading “Starting a Collective Blog”, second sentence, there is a missing word “do” after the word “after”. It should read, “Not only do you have to worry …”

In the first paragraph after the “The Team Blog”, first sentence, you have used the word “setup” when I believe you wanted to use the words “set up”. It should read, “… it may make sense to set up a team blog.”.

In the first paragraph of section 2.1, third sentence, there is a missing word “be” after the word “can”. it should read, “For general blogs it can be much looser …”.

In the first paragraph of the section titled “Define the Main Theme for Your General Blog”, only sentence, there is an extra word “a” near the end after the word “having”. It should read, “… or having too small of an audience to capture.”.

In the third paragraph, near the end of the only sentence, you have an extra word “the” before the word “law”. It should read, “… required by law to protect it …”.

In the second paragraph, last sentence, it looks like you left out the word “registrar” after the word “stable”. It should read, “… having all of your domains under one stable registrar is preferable.”.

In the first bullet point near the bottom of the page, last sentence, the word “dollar” should be plural. It should read, “Often running you only a few dollars a month, …”.

The first word on the page under figure 5, “performances” should be singular. The sentence, which starts on the previous page, should read, “… and more predictable performance.”.

Tip number 7 seems to just come out of the blue with no previous discussion. It seems that all your other tips were preceded with some discussion. I would think you would want to do the same for this one.

Second paragraph, first sentence, the word “show” should be “shown”. It should read, “… that is similar to the one shown in Figure 6 …”.

In the last paragraph, last sentence, you have used the word “highest” when you meant to use the word “higher”. It should read ,“… the higher the number of subscribers.”.

In the first paragraph of section 4.7, second sentence, you have used the word “set” when I believe you wanted to use the word “saw”. The sentence is a little hard to puzzle out otherwise. I think it should read, “In the previous chapter we saw a new permalink structure …”.

In the fourth paragraph of the section titled “Configure W3 Total Cache”, first sentence, there is a missing word “as” after the word “such”. It should read, “… when serving static content such as images, …”.

In the sixth paragraph of the section titled “Configure W3 Total Cache”, first sentence, the word “setting” should be plural. It should read, “The plugin allows you to test your settings in preview mode, …”.

In the bullet point at the top of the page, last sentence, there is an extra word “the” before the word “attention”. It should read, “… has allowed several companies to become the center of attention.”.

In the box titled “Ask Your Readers What They Want”, last paragraph, last sentence, it looks like there is a missing word “yourself” after the word “avail”. I think it should say, “Alternatively, you can avail yourself of more sophisticated …”.

In the last paragraph, last sentence, the word “marketer” should be plural. It should read, “Internet marketers are quite aware …”.

In the first paragraph of section 7.4, last sentence, the word PageRank is broken across a line break between “R” and “a”. You need to make sure this incorrect hyphenation doesn’t happen in the final version.

In the first bullet point, the word “links” should be “link”. It should read, “URLs that link to you have a high level …”.

In the fourth paragraph of the section titled “Using Press Releases For SEO”, third sentence, there is a missing word “a” before the word “free”. It should read, “… start out with a free service …”.

Tip 21 seems to come with no preparation for the tip. You should probably describe what a Planet aggregator is and why it is useful.

In the first paragraph of the section titled “Submit Your Posts to Reddit”, second sentence, you have used the word “trice” when I think you wanted the word “thrice”. It should say, “Occasionally you can submit the same story twice or thrice to different subreddits, …”.

However, I would reword the sentence to say, “Occasionally you can submit the same story two or three times to different subreddits, …”.

In the fourth paragraph of the section titled “Submit Your Posts to Reddit”, first sentence, the word “subscriber” should be plural. It should read, “Always check the number of subscribers a subreddit has …”.

In the paragraph before the “DZone” heading, last sentence, there is a missing word “do”. It should read, “But don’t do it.”.

In the first paragraph in the section staled “DZone”, first sentence, the word “hundreds” should be singular. It should read, “… and will only give you a few hundred hits …”.

In the first paragraph of the section titled “Exploring Clicky”, third sentence, there is a missing word “the” before the word “navigation”. It should read, “… and the navigation bar offers …”.

In the second complete bullet point, second sentence, you have repeated the word “for”. It should read, “… feel free to mention or review it for them …”.

In the first bullet point of section 9.2, fourth sentence, you are missing an article, either “a” or “the” before the word “forum’s”. I would probably use “the” so the sentence would read, “You may even use the forum’s questions …”.

In the last paragraph, second sentence, you mention turning to the third part of the book when you meant to say the fourth part of the book. It should read, “Turning the page will lead you into the fourth part of the book, …”.

In the second paragraph of the section titled “Should You Find Sponsors For Your Blog?”, last sentence, the word “month” should be plural. It should read, “… for three or six months at the time.)”.

In the sixth bullet point, the word “performs” should be “perform”. It should read, “… as they generally perform poorly for blogs.”.

In footnote #36, fourth sentence, you have used the word “lose” when I believe you wanted to use the word “loose”. It should read, “To further confirm Any New Books’ loose correlation …”.

In the 14’th bullet point, the word “child” should be “child’s”. It should say, “How can you assess and improve your child’s IQ?”.

In the last paragraph, second sentence, the word “article” should be plural. It should read,“Those articles are also hosted …”.

Second to last paragraph, last sentence, there is a missing word “so” after the word “do”. It should read, “You can do so by using the URL Builder6 by Google.”.

Second to last paragraph, last sentence, there is a missing word “so” after the word “do”. It should read, “You can do so by using the URL Builder6 by Google.”.

The label in the top section of the sales funnel is missing the word “to”. It should say, “Visits to your homepage”.

In the “Other Approaches to Selling More” box, third bullet point, second sentence, the formatting for Olark and SnapEngage should have a space between the name and the URL.

In the fifth paragraph, second sentence, you have used the word “your” when you meant to use “you”. It should say, “So if you are a programmer, …”.

In the fifth paragraph after the heading “As a Freelancer”, second sentence, there is a missing word “be” near the end. it should read, “… for your services needs to be specific.”.

In the third paragraph, third sentence, you have used the word “then” when you wanted to use the word “than”. It should say, “More often than not …”.

In the same paragraph, fourth sentence, there is a missing word “have” after the word “don’t”. It should say, “Stating, I’m afraid I don’t have the time X requires …”.

In the first bullet point in section 12.5, last sentence, I think there should be a comma after the word “wish” in order to make it read easier. It should read, “If you wish, you could even …”.

In the fourth paragraph, last sentence, there is a missing word “as” before the word “requirements”. It should say, “… you can now establish conditions such as requirements like …”.

In the second paragraph after the heading “Blog Networks”, last sentence, there is a missing word “of” after the word “dozens”. It should read, “… and has expanded to now include dozens of blogs …”.

In the fourth paragraph after the “Launching a Second Blog” heading, first sentence, you have repeated the word “site”. It should read, “… in your posts as your site is just beginning …”.

In the last paragraph, last sentence, you have used the word “a” when you wanted to use the word “an”. It should read, “… handle all the traffic that an entire series …”.

In the second paragraph after the heading “Personal Presence vs Business Presence on Twitter”, last sentence, the word “network should be plural. It should read, ”… the company name on social networks, as very few people …".

In the last paragraph, first sentence, you have used the word “strength” when you probably wanted to use the word “strengthen”. It should say, “… as well as to strengthen your relationship with them.”.

In the fourth paragraph, last sentence, you have used the word “you” instead of the word “your” before the word “fans”. It should say, “If your updates are engaging and your fans loyal …”.

In the sixth paragraph, first sentence, you have used the word “you” instead of “your”. It should say, “… to show a random assortment of your followers.”.

In the last paragraph, last sentence, you have the word “am” instead of the word “an”. It should read, “… like on the confirmation page for an order or …”.

In the “Creating Lists and Groups” box, second paragraph, first sentence, the word “one” should be plural. It should say, “… or interacting with existing ones and …”.

In the second paragraph, second sentence, there is a missing word “to” between the words “as” and “not”. It should read, “… so as to not flood your readers …”.

In the last sentence on the page, you used the word “were” when you wanted to use “where”. It should say, “Don’t skip these pages, as they’re where we’ll say goodbye …”.

“OK, you’ve planned it. Not it’s time to jump right in and start implementing your blog.”

Not should be Now.

“Your homepage has a certain authority score that’s determined by a Google algorithm known as PageRank (sometime shortened to PR, not to be confused with PR intended as press release).”

“sometime” should read “sometimes”.

“You can read more about PuSH on Wikipedia at en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PubSubHubbub and on the
homepage of the protocol at code.google.com/p/pubsubhubbub if you
are curious.”

The Wikipedia page has been deleted.

“More importantly, the most prominent hosted analytics suite tend to be very sophisticated and can provide you with highly customized reports.”

“suite” should be “suites”.

This mobi version consistently crashes my Kindle reader. I haven’t tried reading it in my Kindle. No other books are doing this. I don’t know why or how a book could crash a reader. I haven’t ever had this kind of problem before. Sorry I don’t know any more details or can’t point more clearly to a fixable problem.

“Keyword Yool” should be “Keyword Tool” in the last sentence (in brackets) in the third paragraph from the bottom.

“Entering the URL of a competitor in Keyword Yool”
typo in the last word

You mentioned “Hudson” in the column about CI but Jenkins is more popular now.