racoma.com.phJ. Angelo Racoma on technology, economics, writing, problogging, and getting things done

Last time, I wrote about how I protected my laptop’s palm rest and touchpad with frisket film. I mentioned in passing how avid laptop users buy (expensive) skins for their palmrest and keyboards, and these include the iSkin for Apple laptops, among other brand silicone or rubber skins.

Unfortunately, however, not all laptop models have skins that fit the keyboards. Also, I’m of the opinion that keyboards can stand the wear and tear of everyday use, and the best thing to do to maintain them is keep them clean regularly (yeah, that and both my laptops don’t have skins available for them). Besides, I like the feel of the keyboard beneath my fingers. Having silicone in between, no matter how thin, just ruins the sensual experience.

My one-year old Compaq Presario V2000 was almost made new again with the LCD assembly, lid and housing replacement. But the keyboard was still filthy and grimy.

So armed with some patience, an hour of free time, and some cleaning implements, I set out to clean up my laptop.

Computing.net and lifehacker have a few tips on cleaning your lappie’s keyboard, along with materials you can use, ranging from common household cleaning solutions to auto-detailing sprays/lubricants. Since I labored with cleaning my car’s exterior and interior the day before, I decided to use some auto interior cleaning implements.

For this, I used Armor All protectant and some soft cleaning cloth (the kind that comes in different colors, and which street vendors hawk at intersections).

Basically what I did was spray a liberal amount of cleaner/protectant to the cloth, and wipe each key thoroughly. I made sure to focus not only on the top surface, but also the edges of each key, where the grime usually accumulates. For the edges, cotton swabs come in very handy.

As the protectant’s packaging said to “avoid use on painted surfaces,” I had to make sure I didn’t apply it onto the laptop’s painted surface (which, on the V2000, meant all the silver colored parts).

Of course, these were done while the computer was turned off.

And the finished product:

As an alternative, you can use alcohol, or even water with mild soap. If you’re the meticulous kind, you can follow the computing.net link above and actually pry off each key for thorough cleaning. Desktop keyboards can easily be cleaned this way, and you can actually clean each key as if you were washing dishes.

Now keyboards tend to accumulate dust, food particles, hair and other such stuff in between the keys. If you have a can of compressed air, or a manually-pumped blower (a nebulizer compressor will do, actually—you know, those noisy things you use when you have asthma attacks!) you can use this to force out any dirt lodged beneath the keys.

You’ll feel great using a laptop that looks and feels new. Happy laptop computing!

I’ve been using this nifty feature for quite some time now, and I think people will be interested, especially those who want to save up on telephone costs. Do you know you can sign up for a US and/or UK-based number that will route calls to your computer thru VoIP?

It’s as simple as signing up for an account with FWD, downloading a SIP-enabled VoIP client, and signing up for a DID (direct international dialling) account with IPKall or CallUK.

There are a few ways to effectively get people to notice and read your blog, and that includes being all snarky, downright funny, satirical, or truly informative, like some bloggers I know. These people have a way with words such that their writings can really drive deep into your soul or your sensibilities. Most of the time you’ll end up laughing your guts out. That’s unless you’re the unfortunate victim of snarkiness or if you end up the butt of all jokes. In this case you will probably get annoyed—unless it’s all written in good faith, that is.

Sometimes you’ll scratch your head, asking yourself why didn’t I think of that?

And I think this last one is good.

Discussion vs. Readership

I’d prefer to quantify and qualify attention better through the number and relevance of comments that blog posts get rather than just the raw number of pageviews for that entry. Why? Sure, you may get a lot of readers loading up your articles. But unless you can get a good discussion going from your post then there’s probably something wrong, which can be any one of the following.

• Your blog software or design is crappy and people are having a hard time submitting comments.
• Your post is worth the few seconds of reading, but that’s about it.

When readers talk back, it means they like what you’ve written and would like to contribute their two cents’ worth. This means your blog post is worth ranting or raving about or on. At the very least this would mean that your readers feel proud to tell the rest of the world that they read your blog!

Style and Substance

However, it’s usually not enough to be just funny, snarky, or satirical. Sometimes this kind of writing might be interpreted as being attention-seeking or bordering on despair, with the writing’s or the blog’s raison d’être being just that—to seek attention. Your writing should be backed with substance in order to be truly worth reading and writing about.

Here are a few tips I can offer from what I’ve learned in the course of my pro-blogging. Let’s not focus on picking themes or niches for your blogs for the meantime, and let’s narrow in on writing one single blog post. Pretty soon you might want to apply this to each and every blog post you write.

1. Pick an interesting topic and learn all there is to know about it. This may be a current event or a hotly-contested issue. But I think it’s best to be unique and try to zero in on something no one else is noticing, but you know you can write effectively about. Be creative.
2. Make a strong point and take a stand. If you will just echo what everyone else in the blogosphere is saying then your post is probably not worth the fuss. True, it may make for good reference, but that’s just about it. Express your opinion and express it clearly, concisely, and unequivocally. Speak up.
3. Write with conviction and confidence. Readers love it when they see someone expressing their own opinion and doing so with passion. You are more likely inspire your readers to do the same. Move mountains.
4. Invite discussion. Your readers would hate it when you shoot down each and every dissenting comment on your posts. Agree to disagree. Welcome even the people who don’t share your own opinions. Talk and talk back!

Controversy is good

I’m of the opinion that a blog is only half-complete without active discussion from its readers. This is why I’d rather allow commenting without moderation and clean up spam post-fact—those that slip through spam filters at least. I’m thankful for all of you who have been actively posting here. I’m actually also happy that the J Spot has had a higher comment-to-post ratio since I moved from i.PH to my own hosted WP installation. Somehow my old design, layout and blog software were just not comment-friendly. I’ve changed the format of my blog, too, since then. I’ve focused on writing more substantial material rather than just simple “read this, this is cool,” posts.

Here’s a case I’d like to highlight my point with. A few days ago, I wrote on FG about something I read up regarding Wikipedia (as pointed out to me by Corsarius). I made some strong assertions, and I drew some flak from commenters who thought otherwise. They had good points—some probably better or more valid than mine. But I chose to take a stand. True, I downplayed some points by responding with humor, but that’s to entertain the dissenters and not turn them off.

Controversy is good. And it’s even better when you have great arguments to back up each and every side. That’s how you can blog and get noticed!

Here’s something anyone into SEO (search-engine optimization) would find useful: Google Trends. It’s a spanking new service brought to us by Google Labs (meaning, it’s still in “beta” stage, just like most other things Google) that lets users compare search volume trends across keywords or phrases (from two to five).

Say, I want to check out trends in the search volume for “blog” and the plural “blogs” for the past couple of years, I get this result:

The blue line would be for “blog,” while the red for “blogs.”

So clearly, more people search for the singular rather than the plural form of “blog,” and this trend has been on the rise ever since. The tool also marks the peaks, or high points in search frequency, and gives the details on the particular top search results during that period.

What’s great is that this tool also gives you the trends in how often the searched keywords appear in Google News items, another great way of comparing across keywords or phrases.

Another good feature is the geographic aspect of the search trends. Trends gives information on the top searching countries, cities, and languages for the queried keywords.

Now what good is this for SEO? It helps you identify which keywords or phrases are best to use, when coming up with content for in-site optimization (i.e., keyword density) or link anchors for off-site optimization (i.e., backlinks). Do check out the SEO Philippines blog if you’re interested in making your blog more search-engine friendly.

Or perhaps you’re just interested in checking out what people are looking for—Trends would come in handy for this, as well.

More information on Trends can be found on the About Page.

Great! Now I can reactivate my Google Analytics account. A few months back, I accidentally deleted my website profiles, and I couldn’t create new ones, with Google temporarily suspending creation of new accounts and profiles.

I’m not so sure, though, whether Analytics is as good as it’s hyped to be.

(via DIGG)