Run with God

Ten Things I Never Blogged

I'm getting ready to write my 700th blog post. Uh, yeah, didn't think it'd actually go this far. Thanks for being my stress relief. Really can't believe there are people out there that read this stuff...

I've taken some heat in recent weeks for my posts... evidently some of you were disturbed by the post describing Eight Belles being euthanized, or how the polar bears are becoming extinct, or how I may be voting for Obama (wait, was I being serious about that?)

Honestly, if you think that stuff is crazy, you should see the stuff I write but chicken out on posting...

In honor of the stuff I've never said, I present to you the titles of ten blog posts I've written but never published:

10) Seeking Madonna
Tongue in cheek look at the concert photo of Queen of Pop... on a cross wearing a crown of thorns. Ten years ago Christians would have been up in arms over this. Today, Madonna is "seeking Christ..."

9) Why I Didn't Get Shot By The Cop
Dennis Miller (not at all inappropriate) quote relating to my unexpected encounter...

8) When Quitting Is Okay
Parallel Seth Godin's book "The Dip" to Green Bay Packer's Brett Favre's retirement.

7) Jeff's Voicemail Greeting
What my voicemail message should say...

6) Raising Your Ebenezer?
Weird line from the old hymn "Come Thou Fount." If I posted this, you'd understand what an Ebenezer is...

5) Amy's Celebrity Lookalikes
Evidently my wife is a cross of Kelly Clarkson & Merryl Streep. Yeah, think about that for a while.

4) Running on Empty (or what I've learned about God by watching my dog)
self explanatory, don't you think?

3) The More I Serve God, The Worse My Life Is
Someone actually ended up on my blog by Googling this phrase... so of course I decided to write a blog post about it...

2) What have you done for me lately?
...or why a Thai restaurant should not be proud they won an award for the best Thai restaurant in Miami in 1997... and none since then...

1) Success?
How does a business doing ministry judge success? Salvations? P&L Statements? Testimonials?

Sorry I've been on a more comical/satirical streak lately. I'll solemn up soon...

Side note: let me know which of the above you'd like to read... I may get the courage to post some of them.

The blog formerly known as Typepad

Okay, I finally got around to doing what I should have done months ago...

I'm moving past Typepad. She's been good, you know? I love the friendship, the camaraderie, the features... not to mention the fact that she makes me look good... But she's not the marrying kind.... I'm sorta in a long-term dating relationship with Typepad. I know I can do better. But I'm lazy. Maybe if I put some effort into it. But I don't have time, and Typepad feels comfortable. She's easy (stop it!). So I'll settle for Typepad a while more. It's really not that bad, but basically I'd rather people not know we're together... is that bad?

Confused? That's okay...

I've domain mapped my blog, so instead of "faking" RUNwithGOD.com, my blog address really is http://www.RUNwithGOD.com - If you have me bookmarked, please change it to this address. If you are going to link to me, please link to me at this address.

Most of you probably won't notice the difference. I was formerly known as runwithgod.typepad.com, but it always seemed silly to me that I was advertising for Typepad every time someone looked at my address...

And now, when I move my blog in the next "whenever" you guys won't even notice cause you're hooked up with the real address... http://www.RUNwithGOD.com

Facebook 48 hours later

I wanted to update you on my Facebook experiment. I've been doing it 48 (actually more like 45) hours. During that time I've made/been reunited with almost 70 friends. The majority are college age kids (that used to be in my youth group when I worked with youth). Some are currently in High School. Very few are 20-30 somethings. The oldest to date is 35 years old. The youngest I believe is 16.

Favorite comments from my Facebook Friends:

* Kim: "Welcome to 2004 Jeff :-)"
* Anthony: "You're now my second-oldest facebook friend... (after one of our friends mom.)

So much for being on top of technology. Really, I enjoy it as a venue to get in touch with people. But they have SOOO many applications, SOOO much of it is poorly developed crap... I really wish somebody would do quality control on web 2.0 applications. And that is the problem with open source projects. You get lots of development, but very little quality control.

Very few are students I went to high school or college with. Seems that Facebook really kicks in with people below age 25. Four percent of my high school classmates (Westminster Class of 95) are registered with Facebook. When I tried to find Westminster Class of 94, the number dropped to like 1%. 10% of my Facebook is college buddies. 5% is from High School. 10% is business contacts. However, 65% of my Facebook is under the age of 23.

For me, the draw of Facebook isn't to connect with classmates. For the most part, the classmates I connected with I already had a connection with. Facebook allowed me another venue to connect with the emerging generation (teens, 20somethings).

I'll keep Facebook online, but it will probably become the red-headed stepchild to my blog. If you're on Facebook, look me up! And if you're a fan, tell me why I'm wrong!

Uh Facebook?

Okay, I'm taking tomorrow off with Amy, so I decided to mess around with Facebook. So far I'm impressed. Interface is simple, and within 2 hours of setting this thing up I've got 16 friends and was reunited with a couple college chicks I haven't heard from in a long, long time.

If you're on Facebook, check out my profile.

For the record, I'm really not a social networking guy. Maybe this one will be different. I'll let you know.

(and by "college chicks" I mean friends that I knew from college that were of the female persuasion. NOT in a dating relationship. I dated Amy in college, remember?)

Instant Comments w/ Click Comment

The nice people over at swerve.LifeChurch.tv showcased a new comment system called "click comment" that I'm going to test-run for a while.

Long story short, I'm always looking for feedback. But I know that people don't like to register on a website. Heck, my own wife is too afraid to leave a comment on my blog...

That's the idea behind the move to Click Comment. Basically, just click on the emotion you get from my blog. There are eight choices. Mouseover the choice to get a description. Then click however many you want! Go crazy!

We'll give it a try, and for those (faithful) of you that leave comments the old fashioned way (by typing) please continue to do so.

Approachable Blog

I don't often blog about blogging. But with my work with CFMissions.org and my mom starting her own blog soon, I thought it would be worthwhile to post a link to The Blog Herald: 10 Minute Blog Tips: Is Your Blog Approachable.

Highlights include:

It’s easy to fall into a pattern that makes our blogs more mechanical and less human. Some bloggers focus so much on being “correct”, editing and fussing over grammar and formatting, that they forget their audience is not a team of school teachers armed with red ink test marking pens. Others find it hard to break out of “corporate speak”.

It’s not just your writing. In fact before your reader has begun to digest your content they are making judgements about you. The web after all is a visual medium. Smile! Include a small picture of yourself on the homepage. Use photography in your posts. Warm up your colour scheme. If your blog is informal, feel free to use smileys. You might think this is twee and unprofessional but its worth testing.

Keep Blogging!

...then Google heard my cry...

(Google Analytics + Feedburner = HAPPY JEFF")

Several weeks ago I blogged my glee (people never use that word anymore) over Google's webMonitoring software, Google Analytics. However, my glee was not complete. As happy as I was, Google Analytics does not monitor RSS feeds, which is a major shortchange in my book. Instead of solely using Google's Analytics software, I have to go back and forth between Google for HTML monitoring, and Feedburner for RSS monitoring. That's two different logins, and who wants two when they can have one?

Well, Happy Jeff is coming once again. Rumor on the blogosphere is that financial giant Google is going to buy Feedburner for $100million.

Yeah for me!

Thanks to TechCrunch for breaking the story, and Terry Storch for giving me my smile back.

(Yet again another prime example of how I should be KING OF THE GEEKS. Vote now!)

Google Analytics

I've already established I'm a cyber-stalker... just not a creepy one! Google just re-beta'd their Analytics software. I gotta tell you, this is one of the coolest things I have ever seen. If you find this boring, just go ahead and vote for me to be KING OF THE GEEKS!

I've been doing websites for almost twelve years now, and I've used all sorts of tracking/reporting software. I've used Sitemeter, WebCounter, WebTrends, HttpPhaser, Feedburner, and another dozen that aren't even around anymore. I don't know what it is about Google, but they do things that other people do, they just do it better. A lot better.

Google Analytics works off of your GMAIL account (another way Google will take over the world). -- If you need a GMAIL invite, let me know. -- Analytics is similar to most other services. It tracks visits, page views, location, time, where'd they come from, where'd they go to. Fun stuff like that. But what Google realizes is the more data you have, the better data you have.

Their reporting feature is, well, Googlesque (is that a word?) The interface is simple, yet the amount of data it stores rivals any PAID service I've ever used. Oh, and this one is free.

Create all your reports the way you want it, and stick it on the dashboard (homepage) so it's right there when you log in. Don't want to look at the web page daily? It will e-mail you the data, in the format you want, at the time you want. Export the data to PDF, Excel, CSV...

I've got two negatives (Google, listen up):

1) The data posts every 24 hours. Come on, Google. If someone is on my site at 9:51pm I want to know about it on 9:52. Don't make me wait till the next morning!

2) It doesn't cover RSS Feeds. Of my website, RSS Readers (Google Feeds, Bloglines, etc) are roughly 2/3rds of my traffic. Google, support your blogs!

All things considered, Google does what it does better than anyone else. Keep it up!