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Is Bigger Better?

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Inspired by the “big” layout in The Unseasoned Wok, I figured I’d see what Pulpconnection would look like if I spaced things out. So I went from a three-column layout to two columns.

The main column when from 540 pixels to 680 pixels wide and the sidebar went from 195 pixels to 260 pixels. The primary reason for the main column size is to accommodate wide aspect ratio videos on YouTube (see the Christina Perri Breaking Dawn post) and the medium-size image setting in WordPress.

More playing around and tweaking for sure, but it does seem like bigger is indeed better.

Update: Expanded the sidebar to 300px. Might try for 2 columns in this single column for the Powered By graphics.

My Apologies!

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My sincerest apologies to those on Facebook and Twitter who were flooded by old posts from the #Archives. For the past day, it seems like a WordPress plugin, Tweet Old Post, went crazy and began posting every few seconds vice every 20 hours as configured.

Reliable @abaggy and @cocobeanheart told me about the aggressiveness of my archive posts, and I was totally clueless what they were talking about. Then I saw my timeline filled with Archive posts. Yikes!

Sadly, I think my server was so busy serving up these posts/tweets that I couldn’t access it. I went into my Twitter account to unauthorize the plugin, and that seemed to give my server some breathing room. From the WP admin page, I also unauthorized the plugin from Twitter and then deactivated it.

So what happened? I’m not sure. There are several recent turn of events that probably contributed to this craziness. To help figure out my sites’s (in)stability, I provisioned a virtual private server for my MySQL backend. This process took little over a day before all my various, scattered databases were migrated to my new virtual server. Last night, I noticed I was getting a database connection error across all my sites. All configurations looked right but apparently wasn’t. I generated a trouble ticket for this incident and went to bed.

This morning I got a reply from the Help Desk saying everything looked okay. And yes it was. All my sites were working once again. Weird. But also over this time frame, the WP plugin Tweet Old Post started doing its thing, really, really well. I didn’t notice all the tweets every few minutes originating from my account. Again, sorry for flooding your Twitter and Facebook timelines with all these updates.

So, it might be that the migration of my databases looked like new DB entries. Therefore Tweet Old Post activated and started tweeting out all these “new” old posts and ran crazy trying to catch up. Up to this point Tweet Old Post worked as expected, so I’m not knocking this plugin. This is probably an anomaly triggered by unique technical changes to my WP and MySQL backend.

Again, I apologize to all who got too much pulp from my site. Sadly, I’ll have to endure the Twitter followers I lost due to this outbreak and all the spambots I picked up.

Test Post Now with More Memory

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After pruning of plugins and removing some javascript code, I still couldn’t stabilize Pulpconnection. I bumped the the allocated RAM even more as suggested by DreamHost techs.

Now to see if more memory (and a higher monthly bill) helps solve these site outages.

Coincidences in Life

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You ever wonder about events that occur in your life and the timing of them? Sometimes, you gotta wonder if there’s some deeper meaning to it all or if truly is purely coincidental?

apple-crowded2

Yes, Apple Stores Are Overcrowded

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Both you and I know the Hawaii retail Apple Stores are crowded, especially the Ala Moana location. I mean where else in the mall are kids going to take PhotoBooth pictures of themselves?

This past Saturday, the crowds were so much that the fire marshall decreed a limit on number of shoppers inside the Ala Moana Apple Store. Employees had to maintain a queue for shoppers just to enter the store, similar to what you see on the first day of product releases.

So here I was wanting to make a return but faced with a 15-minute wait, I’ll try again another day.

Still Fighting Site Stability

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I’ve been trying to improve the stability of Pulpconnection, but it’s still suffering downtime more or less every time I publish a post. Usually a restart of the server fixes the problem, but that really isn’t a satisfactory solution.

So I disabled a few more plugins (which were supposed to improve performance) and am removing the Hello Bar javascript code.

The Secret of Social Media Success

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I attended the Social Media Summit Hawaii 2011 and gleaned the secret of social media success. Do you want to know what the secret is? Do you? Are you ready for it?

Okay, here goes. The secret of social media success is hard work.

What?! That’s it? That’s what you learned from a day-long seminar with social media elite you ask? Well, yes, but not in those exact words.

In this post, I am not going to recap topic sessions. You can harvest the power of Twitter for that by searching for the hashtag of #SMSHI (or #HISMS). Mari Smith taught the audience How to Build a Large, Loyal, and Profitable Network, Erin Blaskie explained how companies can outsource their social media, NEENZ provided her insights about building communities, Mike Prasad presented self-experienced case studies, and Yancy Unequivocally Jim convinced the audience to create viral presentations. These sessions I attended were filled with tips and insights, but one underlying lesson resonated from each speaker and each topic – you have to invest hard work to realize success.

Hard work includes discipline. Do you reach out to your social media communities every day, every week, every month? NEENZ does.

Hard work includes consistency. Are you consistently listening to your clients, customers, and audience and consistently using their feedback? Mari Smith implores you to do so.

Hard work includes organization. Do you use a project management system such as Basecamp to organize your social media replies and conversations? Erin Blaskie recommends it.

Hard work includes dedication of time. Do you spend 60-80 hours of work and research to create a one-hour presentation slide deck? Yancey Unequivocally Jim of Empowered Presentations does.

Hard work includes being methodical. Do you dissect your target audience into focused seed groups? That’s what Mike Prasad did for Kogi BBQ and sold over $2M of $2 fusion tacos.

So success doesn’t hinge upon the social media tools, tips, or resources. The differentiator is the hard work you bring, and that my friends is the secret of social media success.

Thanks to the Social Media Club Hawaii for organizing a great event!

Bonus

About the tools and resources mentioned during the Summit? Here are a few I jotted down:

Double Bonus

Here are just a few random shots taken from the event and venue.

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