Xatal

So I realize it’s been a while since this blog was active. However, I’m not dead and I don’t want this blog to be either. In the upcoming couple of weeks (or months?), I’ll be working on revamping this blog before returning to writing.

Some things to look forward to:

1. A new domain name: One that is much easier to pronounce and actually suggests what this blog is about.
2. A new layout: While this layout has been fine, I’m currently trying to design a new layout that will be a bit more modern and elegant.
3. Updated content: Some of the old posts need to be revised with more current information (or even just improved based on my own experiences).

And, once all this is done, I’ll resume writing new content.

I can’t give much of a timeframe for all of this, but look for it to be done around the end of summer/early fall.

Due to a multitude of events in my life, I’m going to be taking a break from writing new posts for a while.

I’ll still be replying to comments, and if anyone asks me a question I may write a post to answer them,  but aside from that, I’m going to take a break from Xatal for a bit. It could be a week or a few months.

Keep reading »

Keep reading »

Seeing as it’s not just the end of a month, it’s the end of a year (and a decade, for that matter), I’m going to take a post to show how things went in 2009:

• Search engines provided 126,886 hits this year — 51% of total traffic. Referring sites provided about 41%.
• StumbleUpon was by far the biggest referrer, with 84,000 hits giving about 84% of referring site traffic.
• The most searched-for keyword was “funny google searches”, with 11,000 visits. The post that those terms refer to has only been around for half the year, so you can get an idea how much more on top it could be. 3 of the top 5 involve college dorm necessities, and the last is about Fantastic Contraption solutions. Keep reading »

Highlights of November 2009:

• November was a pretty steady month overall — there were no especially large bursts or slumps, just a pretty typical level of fluctuation.
• November did about as well as October. I received about 100 less hits in November, which isn’t a significant amount at all — plus November has one less day than October!
• By far the most popular post of the month was about funny Google searches, raking in 21% of my total traffic, as well as 22% of my traffic from search engines alone. The next biggest post was about reasons why long distance relationships fail, which brought in about 2,000 hits.
• A whopping 72% of my traffic came from search engines this month. While I do enjoy the periodic StumbleUpon bursts, I’m grateful that I have a reliable and constant source of traffic from search engines.

Since 2009′s almost over, how about we see how the year went for everyone with a new poll?

 Loading ...

I’ve been getting progressively more spam comments lately, and I think it’s time I reactive WP-SpamFree, a WordPress plugin that helps cut back on spam. I used it earlier, but I heard that a couple of comments from legitimate readers were labeled as spam by it.

However I’m going to try again and see if things work out a bit better this time. If you find that your comments are being labeled as spam or blocked, kindly use the Contact page to inform me so that I can disable the plugin if necessary.

Keep reading »