i have to say, so far i LOVE the new wordpress (2.3.3) and I am so glad that I finally upgraded to a theme that is compatible with widgets. Many of things that I had achieved previously only by poorly pasting together code are now practically standard. Blogging is much easier now.

*Actually, I started last night, but I broke it. so now I have to fix it.

Edit
Ho hum. I got it working, but I can’t have tags and anything else working at the same time. So I will be without tags for a while. Also, my archives are being fidgety. well…. they are being broken. i think this problem solved itself a few weeks ago, so maybe that will happen again.

Most blog software publishes a ‘RSS Feed‘ every time the author updates their page. This is a simple version of the page that allows you to passively keep track of updates. Both the Firefox and Safari browsers let you know if the site you are looking at has a feed associated with it. Safari puts an icon in the right side of the address bar , and so does firefox but it looks like this . Since these browsers both have RSS Feed Readers built into them, you can create ‘live bookmarks’ that let you know when the page has been updated.

But it gets better. There are online services that help you keep track of your subscriptions, and offer numerous other features as well. My favorite is bloglines. After you sign up (for free of course), you can put a little bookmark in your bookmark bar that allows you to quickly subscribe to the page you are viewing. you can organize your pages in folders of similar subject, and also choose if they will be public or private (for your eyes only).

Bloglines isn’t just for blogs. you can add anything with a RSS feed. These days that includes searches from google, package tracking pages (know where you newly ordered yarn is at all times), and best of all…. Flickr. I could go on and on about the beautiful marriage between flickr and bloglines, but i think i will save that for my next post….

So what to do once you have a list of pages…. just wait, and when they are updated by their authors they will show up in bold. when you click on it, it displays the feed on the right side of the page. Some people (like me) publish their entire post into their feed, and others publish a short summary. you can click through the links and the page will politely open in a new window. you can also see how many other bloglines users are subscribed to the same feed, and if it is public, you can see who they are.

i can’t forget to tell you about my favorite feature of all…. Bloglines will supply you with code to insert into your webpage that lists all of your public subscriptions in a given folder. That is how I generate the lists of webpages on the sidebar of this blog. it is like blogrolling, but has the nice capability for you tick on and off the public label to prevent you webpage list from growing as long as your bloglines list. and you can have multiple lists like mine for “Bloggers I Know” and “Knitting Blogs”

oh wait, did I already say something was my favorite feature? That was a lie, because the bloglines ‘blog’ feature is my favorite. At the bottom of every post in every feed there is a little ‘Clip/Blog this’ link. If i see something I want to remember, or be able to find easily, I click the link and publish the link to my bloglines blog. I don’t really intend for it to be public, just for myself, but if you want to see what i mean, you can check it out here.

Some people aren’t too fond of using RSS feeds to track blogs. Sometimes it gets a little impersonal to look at the feeds only. they don’t show the nice fonts and colors that the author has created. But I primarily use it to let me know when things have been updated, and also get the added bonuses of marking posts i want to find later, and also list links on my webpage.

I know there are a few other services like this (newsgator for example). I commited to bloglines early on and have been pretty pleased. Do you use something different? How does it compare?

I know who you are. It’s a little creepy, but it is true. If you are a visitor to my blog, i know that you stopped by. I don’t know your name or anything, but i know that someone was here, what state they are from, and what link they used to get here. i know this because of StatCounter. They give detailed installation directions and a Demo on their webpage, but I though I’d highlight some of the features below.

StatCounter is a free service that tracks the last 100 visitors to your webpage for you. It also acts as a “hitcounter” that you can use to display the number of visitors to your page. Statcounter is easy to install. Visit their webpage and register; filling out the details should be pretty straighforward. After entering all of your info and making all of your preference choices, they provide you with HTML code to install into your page. Don’t panic, it is super easy. Copy the block of code. This needs to be present in every page of your blog on which you wish to track visitors. The best way to accomplish this is to place the copied code in the code of your Template (or theme). If you use blogger, for instance, log in and Choose the ‘template tab.’ In this example, I chose to display a hit counter and i want it in the sidebar, so i pasted the code in under the links in the sidebar section. republish the blog and you are in business.

Once you have accrued some visits, there are some pretty cool things that statcounter keeps track of. ‘Recent visitor activity’ is pretty self explanatory, but i thought i would add a screenshot to show you what all the details look like

If a visitor has looked at several pages in your blog, you can track the path they followed (unfortunately i don’t have an example of this right now to show you).
they just added a feature that will make a google map of the locations of your recent visitors

Pros
I consider StatCounter superior to some other free services for several reasons. SiteMeter does not provide you with as many details about your visitors, and does not give detailed info on search terms unless you sign up for their paid service. I consider Bravenet to be flat out evil since i discovered that they were the source of pop-up ads (that I had no control over) that my visitors had to endure. Finally, they don’t require you to provide a link to them, or even display a hit counter on your page. It can remain completely invisible to your visitors if you choose.

Cons
really the only complaint I have is that they only keep track of my last 100 visitors. Of course, I could pay them the money they ask for and this would be solved.

Do you have a web tracker that you like to use? Is Sitemeter better than I think? Feel free to chime in with comments.