First off I wanted to say to all my readers: may you all have a wondrous and prosperous new year. As you can see, I have taken a two week break from posting during this holiday season. I would like to assure reader Stanley who emailed me with some concern that I’ve disappeared for good that I am now back (back!) in the swing of things.
I am kind of depressed at my dearth of postings, actually. In an ideal world I would like to post an average of 2 times per day, but that does not look like it will happen anytime soon, not with my full time job and kids getting first dibs on my time.
But now that the new year is upon us, here are my 12 Freewaregenius resolutions for the new year (which I might add are not a whole lot different from my personal new year’s resolutions). I will also include a probability percentage of what I think the likelihood is for each one of these resolutions to actually come to be.
- To reliably post at an average of 4 posts per week, 53 weeks per year. My average for last year was lower than that, I am sure. (Likelihood of this happening: 60%, I fear).
- To make my posts less wordy, shorter and more ’economical’. Not sure if I could do this even if my life depended on it, but it might make it more likely that people read this stuff. I have a nagging suspicion that very few people actually read a Freewaregenius-style posting. Readers frequently raise issues in the comments section that were already addressed in the body of the text (e.g. “how does this software compare to program x” or “have you tried program x”) even as the issue was discussed in the posting. (Likelihood of this happening: 60%)
- To create at least one uber-interesting “featured post” every 2 months, 6 per year. This may be more valuable in the larger scheme of things than the daily updates. (Likelihood of this happening 70%).
- To use Twitter. Perhaps I can use Twitter for casual freeware discoveries that I am unlikely to review, or use it to get a bit of feedback before I write about something (e.g. “hey check out this new program that looks promising”). I must admit though that I am afraid it will simply create more work for me and more demands on my time. (Likelihood of this happening 50%).
- To change my site hosting. Likelihood of this happening = 100%. I am moving from MediaTemple to RackSpaceCloud. Its just a matter of time, and I hope will be complete in January. MediaTemple provides “ok” service, but my site is frequently slow and I get slapped with very expensive overage charges every single month without fail.
- To publish regular postings by guest bloggers. I would love it if other tech bloggers were regularly featured on Freewaregenius. If you can create good content in excellent English and are interested drop me a line. I can offer a link to your site in the top of the posting and a gift card to Amazon. (Likelihood of this happening: 100%; Likelihood of it happening reliably such as once per month=??)
- To get a virtual personal assistant. I read the book “The 4-hour workweek” in which the author advocates getting a personal assistant from India with flawless English to outsource time-consuming admin tasks such as responding to emails and setting up appointments, etc. I want one that would also function as a sounding board for ideas. (Likelihood of this happening: 40%)
- To update my high-traffic posts. Such as the “Freeware Top 20“, “Free PDF to Word Comparative Test“, and “Best Freeware Antivirus Comparison“. This will happen for sure, just a matter of time (I have been working on the “best freeware” post). Likelihood of this happening: 100%; likelihood of ALL of this happening in Q1/2010: 60%.
- To change my site theme: to something spectacularly better. (Likelihood of this happening: 75%). I am looking for a better theme.
- To re-categorize and re-tag all of my posts. I would like to re-arrange everything into a dozen categories and two dozen tags. (Likelihood of this happening: 35%; its just too time consuming and has to compete with other demands on my time).
- To use Facebook: just because everyone is aghast when a “tech” blogger like myself doesn’t use it. I do have an account, but I log in once every two months or so. Honestly, it just seems like another thing that will make demands on my time. (Likelihood of this happening: 50%).
- To do an SEO overhaul on Freewaregenius. I.e. to make some pro-active initiative that might get me better rankings on Google for my site. I get fairly decent rankings on some terms but I do think my site needs an SEO rethinking. Not sure what I will do about that. (Likelihood of this happening: 40%).
Bonus resolution: the following is more of a personal new-year’s resolution, but I will mention it here all the same
- Reading more books: it would seem that there is some sort of information revolution taking place, and I would like to be part of it. There are soooo many books that I would to read but will never do so; I would like to read at least two books per month. (Likelihood of this happening: 55%. Alas).
Posts on other sites that you may like:
I wish you good luck with reaching your goals for 2010.
I hope you will be saying: “How wonderful a year that has been” on 31st December, 2010!
Looking forward to greater posts soon.
I absolutely do not agree with #2. I find the articles interesting and not tedious to read at all. But I guess that’s just me and not the majority of readers here. Aw well.
i love the probability assigned to each one
looking forward to more regular posting and especially the big writeups every couple of months!
-mouser
Wrong, wrong, wrong. When you make a resolution, the LAST thing you do is add “likelihood of this happening: 60%” That’s just setting yourself up for failure and/or providing an excuse to NOT do it. As Yoda says, “Do or do not; there is no try.”
I hope you don’t follow up on resolution number 2! One of the reasons I come to Freeware Genius is for the insightful reviews, the pros and cons of each application reviewed, and very importantly the suggestions for improvement (which let me know if a key feature I am looking for in the app is not currently provided). There are lots of sites which mention some of the apps on Freeware Genius as well, but they don’t bother with reviewing at all besides mentioning its main functions and download link.
About #2: Like a couple others above, I enjoy your detailed and comprehensive reviews. The idiots who ask questions you already answered never read anything -don’t take it personally. And writing less won’t make them stop asking questions. Thanks for your awesome site!
I had to read #11 several times to be sure. Who on earth is this “everyone” that thinks tech blogging and Facebook are even in the same universe? I don’t expect to find a singles bar in the middle of Fry’s, and I don’t expect real techies to do much more Facebooking and Twittering than their family and friends arm twist them into.
Keep up the good work!
P.S. That does not mean I would not follow you on Twitter, just that I don’t “expect” you to supplement your full blogging with micro or social blogging. And the first time I hear what you had for breakfast, consider yourself unfollowed.
Let me know if you are seriously looking for a virtual personal assistant
If memory serves there is a WordPress plugin that posts the titles of your new blog entries to Twitter so Twitter is not that bad an idea. I started using Twitter last year just so I could test Digsby’s Twitter implementation for them and now I use it to inform users of new releases of my PHP script.
I’m off for a few weeks so I’ll start work on that review I promised you and I seriously need to write some stuff for my own blog since the last entry was November 2nd.
Don’t worry too much about the frequency of posting. It’s the quality of your posts that brings people back, and I don’t think anyone would want to deprive your kids of their Dad’s attention.
Measuring the number of useful posts against the total number puts your site above most others, in my opinion.
Many thanks.
A great new year to you too! I agree that your posts shouldn’t be shorter, they are great as they are. Maybe a good new year resolution for your readers: read before you post!
Furthermore I agree with Steve, concetrate on quality, not quantity.
On Bonus:
Can you give us at list a couple of books from the list?
TIA!
Your final resolution got me thinking it would be interesting to hear what books you plan on reading because we are naturally a curious breed of people checking out your site
.
Happy New Year To You Too!!!!
Regards,
Tom
Hi Samer!
I fully agree with Steve. I don’t want a lot of posts every week. Heck, I got too many RSS-feeds already. One cracking good post a week is plenty. If you start pumping out a lot of so-so posts, I’m out…
I just realized I visit your site quite often, even follow RSS feeds but seldom post any comment or read the full article. With this whole “information revolution” going on, one just can’t afford to spend minutes on a single site or reading a single RSS post… the revolution sure has its downsides
Nevertheless, I wish you Samer good luck with the site and the resolutions, I believe with the work behind you you’re one of those “veterans” who do deserve to enjoy the rewards of this work. GJ and keep it up.
Thanks guys for all your feedback.
With respect to point #2: I am encouraged by your positive remarks. Like I said, it would be very difficult to change my writing style at this point, but I will try to edit the text so it is shorter and more economical without cutting down on the content. A bit of a contradiction, but I hope its possible.
As for books, you can check out my Amazon wishlist if you like:
http://tinyurl.com/yahrjrl
I am with you in No.1, 3, 6, 9, and 10.
About the theme: keep it simple and clear (like this one). IMO, black text on white background looks best.
And whatever you do, don’t make it ugly like lifehacker. (I know people will disagree, but lifehacker has got the worst theme I’ve ever seen on any blog.)
Virtual assistant?! How about a real life one who does your laundry, too?
Everyone say hi to my wife Amanda, also known as “AJL” above
@manwithcake
I disagree these aren’t critical things like stopping smoking, it is just a list of things he would like to get done. If he doesn’t get through them all because he is spending time doing the things that really matter in his life then it’s no big deal at all.
With reference to those realistic probability ratings these are in actual fact designed to protects you from the perception of failure, There are enough things in life that will kick you in the teeth without you getting stuck into yourself over things that don’t really matter on the grand scale of things.
Best of luck to everybody and especially those who made resolutions.
The 4 Hour Work Week.. Haaaa. I just finished reading that book a couple of days ago my friend! I guess we’ll have a lot to talk about when we meet next time. I attended a talk By Tim Ferriss in Paris’ LeWeb conference. Very interesting..
for #5 ..if you are changing your web hosting why don’t you go for the option which gives unlimited space & bandwidth.
Why don’t u use “GoDaddy.com” or “HostGator”?
@ Ahmad: I somehow completely missed your comment my friend, just saw it today; would very much like to get your take on “The 4 hour workweek”.
@ Ravi: I already switched to RackSpaceCloud. The issue with my site for some reason seems to be slowness due to CPU usage and/or overload. With RackSpaceCloud and cloud computing in general that issue is circumvented by other resources from the cloud coming to rescue at times when there may be traffic spikes.