PivotX is partly built with jQuery, Smarty, TinyMCE, PHP and MySQL.

I’ve got no intention of abandoning WordPress, but it’s interesting to experiment with alternatives like sNews and PivotX.

WordPress is such a large community now; there are so many themes and plugins to choose from.

My first impressions of returning to PivotX are positive. Setting up and making basic template changes were intuitive, at least for someone experienced with editing WordPress templates.

The features I particularly liked were the search and tag pages. Clicking on a tag link takes you predictably to a list of entries, but also shows related tags, external search summaries and a Flickr feed. Very neat!

On the downside, I couldn’t find a contact form extension and I wasn’t able to successfully insert an HTML form.

PivotX doesn’t have that many themes or plugins, but does have a large enough community to offer reasonable documentation and a constructive support forum.

It’s worth considering for self-hosted bloggers, that’s for sure.

Here’s a back-end screenshot:

More screenshots here.

Update #1: I figured out how to add forms. There is an “extra” template file, which can be renamed and modified with HTML or javascript. In fact, you could use any template file, but I created two for “contact” and email subscription.

Update #2: I received a twitter message that this isn’t a very thorough review. Well, I did say they are first impressions. Also, for the record, I am not a developer or a designer, just a long-time blogger. I will update my thoughts on PivotX here as I continue to explore the software.

Update #3, more likes:

• It’s very easy to create templates for special pages and sidebars.
• The site loads more quickly than a WordPress blog with lots of plugins.
• TinyMCE is built in and works, which means WYSIWYG.

Have you tried PivotX? If so, please comment here.

Update: Although I liked PivotX, I have discontinued the trial site for other reasons.

A company called Fraxion Payments has now made it possible for bloggers to charge as little as one cent per article.

“Creators of quality content can now charge for their work,” says Chris Wilkins, co-founder of Fraxion Payments.

“Those who create the content will get the lions’ share of the revenue. This is the way it should be.”

The company says bloggers will be paid up to 85 percent on a monthly basis for purchased articles, “which may well be a huge boost for citizen journalism”.

The payment is actually 60 percent for total royalties of less than US$100 per month.

Readers need to register for both a Fraxion account and the blog they wish to pay for content. I find that a little clumsy and it could deter some casual visitors who otherwise wouldn’t mind parting with 10 cents to read a story. The Fraxion people say they are working on an update where people won’t have to login, but “don’t ask when it will be ready”.

My “Fraxion Payments Account Registration” email went to the spam box in Gmail too, but I guess that can happen with any automated message.

Once registered, readers need to purchase Fraxions, which are about one US cent each.

The system looks easy enough to use from a blogger’s perspective, with payments made through PayPal when US$200 is accrued.

I can’t imagine readers paying for content on a personal blog like this one, but niche sites and citizen journalist sites may succeed in attracting payments.

It’s an innovative concept and one that I suspect will grow in usage.

I didn’t mean to start this post with such a complex series of questions.

I really wanted to comment on comments etiquette.

There are several blogs I read every few days and others I visit infrequently. I’m not an avid RSS feed user, but if I remember to open RSS Owl it sometimes prompts me to visit a particular site.

I don’t always agree with the opinions I read on my favorite blogs and I don’t expect readers here to always agree with me.

Although published to a public forum, blogs are a private thing. I’m not forcing you to read this and you are not compelled to comment.

I’ve got a personal policy of not arguing with bloggers on their websites, although Dina might say otherwise.

I certainly don’t allow inflammatory comments to be published here, not that it’s happened for a long time, fortunately.

What prompted this post?

Someone I used to follow on Twitter linked to Wendy’s post on the irony of India calling Australia a racist country.

I followed the link out of curiosity, thinking it would take me to some neo-Nazi site with offensive rabid views.

It was my first visit to Wendy’s site. She’s a violist who loves classical music. I don’t know her, but I can tell from reading her blog that she’s not racist and she doesn’t deserve the aggression that’s been directed towards her.

Wendy doesn’t need me to defend her and she can decide for herself what comments moderation policy she employs.

It just strikes me as wrong that casual readers, let alone regular visitors, should want to leave argumentative comments on a blog. If you don’t like a post, stop reading it and move on.

If you feel inclined to comment, add something to the discussion in a polite conversational way.

As for the present state of blogging and its future, I’ve seen many blogs fall by the wayside over the years. I miss the various incarnations of Sue’s once-titillating blog, for example.

I’ve been writing here since July 2003 and there have been times I nearly gave it away. I think it’s a good practice to write at least once a week. It also serves as a useful chronicle of a person’s life.

Wikipedia records that Mark Zuckerberg invented Facemash on October 28, 2003 while attending Harvard as a sophomore. Facebook was launched on February 4, 2004. Twitter launched publicly in July 2006.

There’s no doubt Facebook and Twitter have influenced blogging. A lot of people don’t feel confident or capable of writing long posts. Nearly everyone can type 140 characters.

Some people may have drifted from blogging to social media because it’s easier and connects them more directly to friends and family.

Many people who never blogged have joined social networks. These people are sometimes introduced to blogs through social media.

A few tweets about Wendy’s blog drove numerous people to her site for the first time. Most will never return.

If you create a website that’s theme based (eg politics, sport or literature) you should expect robust discussion on the theme.

But visiting a personal blog is like visiting a person’s home. Be respectful and don’t argue with the host.

That doesn’t mean you can’t tell me I just wrote a lot of crock, but say it nicely please.

An unsolicited email on November 13 said my site had been discovered during a search “for high quality blogs and gifted web writers”.

The writer referred to a specific post.

“Michael, you definitely have a unique and interesting writing style and an intriguing high quality blog. Since you and your blog meet our quality guidelines, we would like to offer you to join our unique and highly rewarding program,” the email said.

Flattery gets you everywhere.

The first email went on to say:

“The program links our customers with gifted writers like you and pays them for writing short articles. You already do that, so I’m sure you will be happy to be rewarded for your talent. Our program pays at least 15 USD for each article you write, with options for additional payments. We do not ask nor expect you to write ads; rather, we give you complete writing freedom and appreciate your creativity and imagination.”

I replied: “I may be interested on a case-by-case basis depending on the product or service, providing they are independent reviews.”

The organisation’s response included:

The principles of the program are very simple:

• Our sponsors propose a subject related to their business or cause and some resources (web page, image, video) linked to it.
• You write a short post or an article about the proposed subject (300-500 words), including the web resources. You are not expected and must not write ads.
• You review articles written by other writers like you.
• With each article you write or review, you accumulate money toward a monthly payment.

And the pointy bit:

“Our sponsors come from a variety of industries and segments, including health (hospitals, biomedical), finance (forex, insurance), gaming (bingo, casino), travel (flights, package tours), retail (books, CDs, groceries), and charity (child care, medical care). All of them are highly reputable and industry leaders, emphasizing customer care and social responsibility.”

“You will need to write regular articles and review articles written by others. Each regular article that you write increases you balance by 20 USD, while each review increases your balance by 3 USD. You will get paid monthly by a money transfer to an eWallet such as PayPal or MoneyBookers.”

Here are the full terms and conditions.

I won’t be participating.

I don’t think this is a scam. In fact I’m sure it’s a well-conceived idea to get established bloggers to write about products and services, linking to the providers.

The guarantee of independence preserves a facade of integrity, but that’s all it is. Basically, they are brokers to sell links. There’s nothing wrong with that, but it’s not for me.

I don’t mind writing reviews for payment, but I want to choose the products and services, have personal experience of them and give full disclosure.

I’m certainly not interested in writing about insurance or gaming.

I’ve only found one other web report on this so far, where a commenter confirms receiving payment.

I just don’t want to trundle on that treadmill.

“Your blog will be deleted in 20 days if it isn’t reviewed, and your readers will see a warning page during this time. After we receive your request, we’ll review your blog and unlock it within two business days. Once we have reviewed and determined your blog is not spam, the blog will be unlocked and the message in your Blogger dashboard will no longer be displayed. If this blog doesn’t belong to you, you don’t have to do anything, and any other blogs you may have won’t be affected.”

The Blogger Team said they find spam by using an automated classifier.

“Automatic spam detection is inherently fuzzy, and occasionally a blog like yours is flagged incorrectly,” the email says.

“We sincerely apologize for this error. By using this kind of system, however, we can dedicate more storage, bandwidth, and engineering resources to bloggers like you instead of to spammers.”

It’s all a bit strange really.

The help page explains how spam blogs are detected, and I can’t see why mine has been caught in this trap.

They say link spammers “can be recognized by their irrelevant, repetitive, or nonsensical text, along with a large number of links, usually all pointing to a single site”.

An archive of my editorials?

I’ve asked for a review, of course, and it will be interesting to see how long that takes.

Meanwhile, it’s all a little disconcerting.

If the case of mistaken identity isn’t sorted out within a week I’ll shift the site to WordPress or host the content myself.

Update: My site was given the all clear to continue.

The plugin enables users to display a configurable number of random links.

I’ve never used the WordPress links feature much, but plan to change that now. I was concerned about creating long blogrolls that nobody would ever read, and which all visitors (including me) would find boring, a waste of space and difficult to use.

This plugin solves the problem by controlling the number of links displayed and making them random.

One problem I encountered is that I don’t use widgets in the sidebar. I’m a WordPress dinosaur who prefers to code the sidebar myself.

It was simple enough to remedy because the plugin author provides PHP code for the blogroll to appear in a page.

It’s a little awkward because you have to set the widget options first and then remove it.

I also had to edit the plugin file to remove references to the title, which would otherwise have been duplicated with the wrong style.

If anyone wants a more detailed explanation they can contact me or comment below.

Anyone can login using their webmail or Facebook account to post or comment.

The experiment is because I like the short post format, but feel Twitter has some limitations.

I opened my Twitter account on March 23, 2007, but quickly lost interest until recently. As of today, I have made 402 posts.

The concept of short updates has grown on me and I like the sense of community that Twitter now offers.

I feel that I’ve “met” more people through Twitter than blogging or Facebook.

A few weeks ago I made a conscious decision to use Twitter mostly for media-related posts. I actively sought other journalists and editors as friends and followers.

I now have 104 followers and I’m happy with that number. I follow 79 people and I enjoy reading their updates. If there were more it could become difficult to manage.

Most of my followers are friends, fellow bloggers and journalists with a few politicians who follow me because I follow them.

Ironically, as my Twitter usage has become more targeted I feel less comfortable about making bland random posts.

Politicians and editors don’t want to know what I had for breakfast or the score in my daughter’s hockey game.

I expect their posts to be meaningful, so mine should be as well.

That’s where Short Say comes in.

I host the content and control the design. Visitors come because they want to or they stumbled there by accident.

Twitter pushes a post to a reader. A self-hosted site draws readers to the post.

There’s a place for both and I’ve achieved some integration by synchronising all my new Twitter posts with Short Say using a WordPress plugin.

But whereas I’m self conscious about making potentially trivial remarks on Twitter I can write whatever I like on Short Say.

Neither replaces this blog because, by design and definition, the others are for short posts.

In no particular order, these are some random musings and personal news items:

1. I’m reading Stewart Cockburn’s biography of Sir Thomas Playford. The subtitle is “Benevolent despot” which gives you some idea of Playford’s style. He set a record of 26 years in power, making him the longest-serving Premier or Prime Minister in the Commonwealth. I’ll write more about that later.



2. We hired a skip bin for the weekend and filled it with junk. The $140 cost is cheaper than making frequent trips to the rubbish dump and more convenient than hiring a trailer.
3. I’ve restored Google ads and Lijit search to this website. I removed all javascript code a while back when there were problems with loading pages. At that time I was earning about US$100 a month from Google ads across several sites. The amount has fallen right away and it’s not so little to ignore.
4. Maggie has a mobile phone. Yes, I know, she’s only five! It’s one of my old phones and we paid $20 for a Telstra pre-paid SIM card, which we won’t renew when it runs out. Now the phone is activated again she can take photos, play games and listen to music. Walking around the house now, you never know when Maggie is going to start recording a video or snapping candid moments.
5. We’re hoping that Mr Rudd will deliver his bonus payment next week. There’s a chance we might have to wait until tax time to get it, which would delay some plans we have.
6. In the blogosphere, The Girl Who Wished She Was Australian is back in USA after visiting these shores and normal blog service has resumed. I never did send Dina that text message while she was here. I’m glad that Sue has started blogging again. Tim Burrowes is doing a great job with media and marketing site mUmBRELLA.
7. Collingwood lost at football and Victoria is winning at cricket, like the natural order of things has been properly restored.

Go to Google and type in quotation marks your name and then “likes to” (eg “Steve likes to”). Type in the first 10 things that come up and repost in your own note.

1. Michael likes to get up in Heidi’s face and touch her nose or put his palm on her head.
2. Michael likes to be needed, as well as to cherish and protect his loved …
3. Michael likes to dance.
4. Michael likes to relax before a swim.
5. Michael likes to sleep in a high-security environment.
6. Michael likes to be “on the go.” He is full of energy and has an engaging personality.
7. Michael likes to explore the dark side.
8. Michael likes to tell his stories in colored light.
9. Michael likes to ski.
10. Michael likes to work with people and is very good in math.

I think most of them were for Michael Jackson and one was for Michael Phelps.

The truest for me is that I like to sleep, but it doesn’t have to be in a high-security environment. Anywhere will do.