Today I was looking for guidelines for formatting blog post and came across an article by Scott Mitchell titled “What’s the Best Way to Format a Title for a Blog Post, Article, or Tutorial?”. In the post he gives 4 options for a title of a post on “Grouping Data using the ASP .NET ListView Control”. I started typing a reply to his post but thought it would be a good idea to blog my thoughts on this to continue the conversation and document my thoughts in a place I can easily find ;-). Yeah, sometimes I blog about stuff as much for myself as I do for others. You see I have a very bad memory and my blog is also my online knowledge base, but I digress.
So how does one determine a good title for a blog post, article, or tutorial?
This is especially difficult with all the competition for site traffic and search engine optimization worries out there. I just want to worry about the content of my post and not so much about the ranking of it, but to make sure those that need to find my solution can, we have to put some thought into it.
So here are my simple guidelines for selecting titles for my content.
- Go to your favorite search engine and pretend you are looking for your article, what do you search on? Write down the keyword you use. Continue to do a few other searches pretending that your first did not return what you where looking for. Write those down as well. Once you have identified the 1-5 key words that would return what you are looking for see if you can make a title out of it. Usually you can just put those words together and you have it. Using Scott’s example my choice was “Grouping Data using the ASP .NET ListView control” because if I were looking for info on this topic I would have searched for the keywords Grouping, ListView, and “ASP .NET”. Possibly adding C# if I got a bunch of VB .NET results first ;-).
- If you are posting on a solution to an error, such as “(407) Proxy Authentication Required”, use that at the title. Because we usually just copy and post the error message when looking for solution like this.
Well, there you have it, not very sophisticated but it works for me. Thanks to Scott Mitchell for asking the question and forcing me to think about it. Until I read his post I hadn’t really tried to quantify how I come up with titles.
If you have other guidelines for coming up with titles of your content and would like to share them I would love to hear them.
I have downloaded many apps in the past to use at work only to find out that they do not properly handle the proxy authentication at my location. At home they work just fine, but at work no way! One was Witty the WPF twitter client, I actually downloaded the code and patched and submitted that back to the developer. You now have the option to configure the proxy settings in the options windows.
Recently I downloaded Podder, version 2 has some awesome new skins for an WPF application but still doesn’t work through my proxy server.
I did some research and did find a solution, by adding the following to the config file, Podder.exe.config in this case you can define the default proxy behavior for the application.
<system.net>
<defaultProxy enabled="true" useDefaultCredentials="true">
<proxy bypassonlocal="True" proxyaddress="http://proxy.example.com:8080"/>
</defaultProxy>
</system.net>
It needs to be in the <configuration> node and it worked best if I put it at the bottom below everything else. Putting it at the top made Podder crash, not sure that really had anything to do with it, but putting it at the bottom didn’t crash.
I wish more developers provided ways to configure the proxy server in their internet enabled apps, but they don’t. At least now if can work around their laziness and hopefully get it to work any way.
Other apps that I plan to try this on are Blu, and DigiTweet to start.
I always get asked to explain what podcasting is and how it works being a technical person I usually get into talking about RSS feeds, enclosures, blogs, bit rates etc. Which by the way usually goes over their heads.
I recently found a great video produced by the folks at Common Craft, if you are new to podcasting or have been wondering what all the buzz is about check it out.
Just got the following information from Jason Kergosien about another cool event going on in the DFW area. If you were like me and didn’t make it to MIX09 you should really check this out.
Couldn't attend MIX 09?
We are bringing MIX to the DFW area, but instead of repeating the MIX conference, we are boiling down the best of MIX into a 1-day hands on lab. This community event, called MIX Notes, will provide hands-on examples presented by industry leaders.
Computers will be provided, but participants are welcome to bring their own laptops.
Where: Tekfocus (in the InfoMart)
When: June 20, 9 AM - 4 PM
Registration Fee: $25
* Lunch will be provided
Sign up today at http://www.mixnotes.net
Incredible BizSpark event in Dallas, TX on June 12th if you are enrolled in the BizSpark program or interested you should check it out.
SparkStart is a full day of business and technology discussion (open format) and learning event for startups (“startup bootcamp”). This event will also be a networking opportunity for those startups who are new to the BizSpark program and not yet enrolled in the program and would like to mingle and learn from key business and technology influencers. It will also be an event for those startups who are recently enrolled and need to keep the momentum going by learning key strategies for success, both in business, and in technology.
There will have 6 tracks (3 business, 2 technology, and one demo) on key business topics such as “Funding”, “Marketing”, and “Production”. Each business track will feature a panel of business experts. Panel members from the business community and moderators are experts in their field, both from the Dallas/Fort Worth area and from all over Texas that include bootstrappers, venture capitalists, angels, incubators, and consulting.
The event will feature technology topics such as “RIA Development”, “Cloud Development”, and provide an opportunity to visit our “Envisioning Center” where we will be demonstrating our web technologies and the Microsoft Surface (http://www.microsoft.com/surface/) throughout the day. Attendees will literally get to see what our large customer executives see at the Microsoft Technology Center in Dallas in our envisioning room in order to inspire, ideate, and get answers to vital questions.
There will also be a “sign-up” station for startups who want to sign up for BizSpark and begin immediately receiving the benefits e.g. software, support, and visibility. (http://www.microsoft.com/bizspark)
Date: June 12th, 2009 - 10:00am to 4:30pm with us. Register Here
Where
Microsoft Technology Center – Dallas
7000 State Highway 161, Building LC1
Irving, TX 75039
469-775-0000