Okay, this one has started to make the rounds, but I couldn’t resist posting it here. From the good folks at Despair.com:

Blogging: Never before have so many people with so
little to say said so much to so few.

Aaah, Despair.com. You’ve just got to love a company with slogans like “The Relentless Pursuit of Dejection” and “Increasing Success by Lowering Expectations.”

Update: There was some thoughtful concern expressed that I might be questioning the value of blogging with this post. If you share that concern, please read the comments below!

If you are a regular reader or subscriber to this blog, then you probably noticed the site was down for a good portion of last week. I am sorry for such a long period of down time.

The host server had some technical issues and crashed the site on Wednesday. I have spent too many hours since then talking back and forth to the tech support staff at Midphase (AN Hosting) trying to get the site back up, but they finally informed me this afternoon that they do not have the proper backup files to restore the site themselves.

My most recent personal backup was from August 13, so I have been able to restore the site at least up to a few weeks ago. However, I will need to rebuild everything else by hand. This will take some time, so please be patient with me as you see the old posts from the previous weeks returning to the blog.

Update 1: I have updated all the missing posts. I will work on restoring the missing comments next.

Update 2: I was able to find and restore all the missing comments — except my own! But it’s getting late and I need some sleep, so it’s time to take a break. It looks like I will need to re-respond to your comments as best as I can remember. Some of them were quite detailed, so this could be a challenge. (Yet another good reason to go to sleep and come back to this later.)

Update 3: Well, using a combination of old backups, emailed posts and comments, Google cache, and stored RSS feeds, I believe I have finally restored all missing posts and comments. And I just ran a full backup to catch myself up to date, too! Officially done.

Update 4: Midphase contacted me by phone and gave me a year of free hosting in light of this issue. I think that is very decent of them, and I appreciate them taking this step to make things right.

Have you ever had server problems? Feel free to share your story of woe below!

I am taking a break from blogging for the rest of this week. I should be back after Labor Day (Monday, September 1).

Click for Map of the World’s Religions.

(Learn how you can survive the Digg effect below.)

A number of you trying to access my blog last weekend may have encountered a big, fat “ACCOUNT SUSPENDED” notice instead. No, I was not delinquent on my bills. I was dealing with the Digg effect.

What is the Digg effect, you ask? Digg is a social media site where users share and promote content from all around the internet. The most popular articles get “pushed” to the front page. This results in the Digg effect, where thousands of visitors suddenly surge onto your site in a relatively short period of time. If you have a dedicated server with plenty of bandwidth and memory resources, it is not a problem. But if you are on a shared server, like I am, your server host can shut you down for consuming too many resources.

(more…)

I just added a Top Posts page to the blog. This is mostly for new visitors to the blog who may want to get a quick feel for the site rather than slog through all of the back Archives. You can access the page through the Top Posts tab at the top right of the blog (right under my picture).

I will update the page as new favorite posts pop up and old ones fade. If you are a regular reader, check out the list and let me know if any of your favorites are missing!

The Blogiversary Bash continues!  Click here to sign the guest list.

One of the nice things about blogging is that it really is a cooperative effort. Bloggers regularly share information with their readers by linking to other blogs. So, in keeping with the whole “Let’s celebrate the first year of the blog” theme, here are some of the sites that have been kind enough to link to me over the year. I invite you to look over the list and visit some of these sites. (I hope I got everyone. If you linked to me and I left you out, please let me know, and I will be glad to add you to the list.)

168 hours
33:6:8
3Dsound
4Simpsons Blog – Eternity Matters
Ancient Hebrew Poetry
Between Two Worlds
Blog Contests on the Net
Blogging Expertise
Bob Krumm
Bradley Wright’s Weblog
Challies.com
Christians in Cinema
Contest Beat
CROSS-eyed
Dead Theologians
Dekodet
Desiring God
Digg
Don Surber
Eclexia
Engage the Culture!
Eric’s Blog
Every Square Inch
Faith Church Blog
Families-R-First.com
Gloria Filiorum Patres
Good Brownie
Gospel Prism
Hackman’s Musings
Hope It Is
In all things…God’s glory
Jo’s Boys
JollyBlogger
Journey in Intercession
KenPierpont.com
Knightopia.com
Kummeropolis
Laura Williams’ Musings
Like a Tree Planted
Mike’s Noise
Monday Morning Insight
Mutant News Annex
My Blog Contest
Neatorama
Not Conformed Thoughts
Notes from the Trail
Of Preference and Principle
OpenBible.info
Pastor Steve Weaver’s Blog
Photographic Memory
Ponder This
Practicing Theology
Preach the Word
Provocative Church
Purgatorio
Reformed Chicks Blabbing
Reformed Faith: Salsa Style
S Anand
Semper Reformanda
SF Signal – A Science Fiction Blog
Smart Christian
Steadfast & Immovable
Submit Your Contest
Targuman
Thinking Out Loud
Wide Margins

More Blogiversary-related posts:

• 1-Year Blogiversary Bash!
• One Year Ago on the Blog
• First Year Blog Stats

The Blogiversary Bash continues!  Click here to sign the guest list.

As part of the celebration, this seems as good a time as any to share the stats for my blog. I don’t refer to them much, but I do make them available on the Stats tab for those who are interested. I only update them at the end of each month, so here are the stats for March 2007 – February 2008.

In this first year of blogging, I have welcomed visitors from 157 countries around the world. Here are the number of page views, visitors, comments and posts for the year:

Page Views:   118,489
Visitors:            65,783
Comments:         1,587
Posts:                    590

And here is a chart showing the monthly growth over the course of the year. There was a nice jump in the month of June, and then again in October, and then a much bigger jump in December. I am not sure why. You can click on the chart for a larger image.

                              (Click on the chart for a larger image.)

Thanks everyone once again for visiting!

More Blogiversary-related posts:

• 1-Year Blogiversary Bash!
• One Year Ago on the Blog
• Thanks for the Links!

The Blogiversary Bash continues. Click here to sign the guest list.

As part of the first year Blogiversary Celebration, just for fun here are the first seven posts that appeared on the blog last year at this time – and which no one has probably ever read!

• New Blog Under Construction
• News and Notes – 3/8/2007
• Can Movies Change Your Life?
• More Evidence of Jesus’ Resurrection
• New Resources Page
• Why Blog? Three Reasons To Start
• News and Notes – 3/10/2007

More Blogiversary-related posts:

• 1-Year Blogiversary Bash!
• First Year Blog Stats
• Thanks for the Links!

(Please sign the guest list below!)

Today is the one-year anniversary of my blog, so I thought I would celebrate with some blog-related posts over the next couple days. It has been a fun year, and I have enjoyed writing and sharing my thoughts with you. Thank you to everyone who has stopped by to visit. You make it all worthwhile. As someone once said, “If you don’t have visitors, you don’t have a blog. You have a journal!”

One of the reasons I started blogging was to meet new people, and I have enjoyed getting to know many of you through your comments and emails. But there are a lot of you I have yet to meet, so I would like to open up the comments today for people to introduce themselves. I believe other readers of the blog would like to meet you too!

Even if you have never commented here before, please consider leaving a comment today. You may share as much or as little about yourself as you wish. Your name (or nickname), general location, and what you do are always good for starters. If you have a blog or website, feel free to post a link. This is a great opportunity for us all to get to know each other a little better.

So, who will be first? 🙂

More Blogiversary-related posts:

• One Year Ago on the Blog
• First Year Blog Stats
• Thanks for the Links!

The Guess the 150th Country Blog Contest is now officially over. We have a winner! At 11:22 this morning, I had my first visit from the country of El Salvador. Ego guessed El Salvador back on February 2, so Ego, you are the winner of the $25 Amazon gift certificate. (I will email you separately just in case you miss this post.) I have now had visitors from 151 countries — only 43 more to go! Thank you everyone for playing and for visiting the blog.

Here is a great little hack that will allow you to gain all the benefits of Feedburner without ever losing control of your original feed and subscribers. (I don’t usually blog about blogging, but I have not seen this hack covered elsewhere, so I thought I would make it available here.)

(more…)