Some 'Housekeeping' Business

First, please pray for Trinity. Her parents put her to bed after fighting a cold Saturday night and couldn't wake her late Sunday morning. Her acid levels are high as if she drank antifreeze -- but they don't think she ingested anything weird. Just don't know. Pray and pray some more.

Some of you have asked how I know who comes to my blog. I don't know specifically, but I can make some educated guesses. If I REALLY wanted to know, I could pay for a service that would tell me which COMPUTER visited my blog. Freaky, right? I use a service called sitemeter. It's very interesting for tracking traffic trends for my blog. WHICH can become a total obsession if you let it! Sitemeter can tell me the city of the SERVER that your computer uses (my server is in a little town outside of Abilene, I've learned!), it tells me what time you clicked onto my blog and how many 'pages' you visited while you were here (when you go to the comments, it counts as a separate page). The most interesting thing, though, is the referrals. It tells me if someone clicked on a link anywhere on the internet that brought them to my blog.

That is how I found out that Janie, and Dr. Butner, and Carrie (who was my BFF in 4th grade and recently happened across on facebook -- how weird is THAT. Oh, and she has the cutest blog!) all have links to me in their sidebar/ blogroll for which I am grateful! (Y'all -- I know I need a blogroll. Someday I'll get to that!) There are a few others that I can't think of off the top of my head, but I didn't know those folks knew I EXISTED until I saw that they had linked to me. That's really cool.

That's also where I can find out that people landed on my blog by googling for 'hammy downs' (oh, yes, they did....) or their local cult or my name. I have a friend that doesn't ever remember how to get to my blog -- I suspect she's my Abilene person who googles my name and blog. Very funny.

There are other options to use for this information, and if you have a Wordpress blog it tells you some of it automatically (Wordpress users, what info do you get from your traffic reports?)

In the post about "borrowing"/ stealing another's words or information, Warren brought up an interesting point about video -- or, more specifically, posting a video on your own blog that you saw on another. First, Warren, I agree with the first part of your statement -- what's so hard about just linking and saying: "I really liked this." The person who posted my stuff said s/he wanted a family member to know how they felt and my words summed it up best. Which is very flattering! But, still... a little credit, folks!

But video? What do you all think? I confess that I saw that video on... someone's blog and now I don't remember which one? I think it was Dr. Butner's? But since I was ABLE to embed it -- post it in my blog from the youtube server -- I consider it 'public domain'. Would it have been NICE of me to mention where I got it so that you, too, may go see all the clever and funny things that person posts? Absolutely! Was it stealing for me to NOT give credit? I don't THINK so, but this is certainly a gray area that I am happy to receive a little guidance in!

While I'm being a walking (typing) Public Service Announcement, let me tell you about a tool I recently started using. A recent Reader's Digest article talked about preventing (or being aware of) cyber-bullying, where someone (not always kids we've learned!) trash talks you or your child be it true or not. They mentioned that one way to be aware of what is 'out there' about either is to sign up for Google Alerts. Google Alerts are emails automatically sent to you when there are new Google results for your search terms. So, if you set up a Google Alert for your child, you will receive an email when someone posts something to the internet with their name on it. I signed up for all of my family -- all I came across unawares was a comment Ashley had made to her youth group's blog. Whew! But I'm thankful to have one more tool on my side to know what is out there. More info about Google Alerts here (seems it would also be useful for research, etc.)

I'm out of useful information! Anyone else want to share? :-)

How Did You Get Here?

TIRED today! Yesterday Ashley had a tennis tournament and did quite well, but those things can kind of drag on... That puts dinner late, then bed even later. I LOVE the opportunity to sit outside in the sun -- even if it is on those horrific bleachers -- but it really takes it out of you. (Ashley to mom: "Why are YOU tired??? All you did was sit and suntan!!")

If you'll notice there's a number over on the right under my Coffee Group button that's around 78,000. That (obviously) tells me how many visitors I've had on my blog since I installed that (which I have NO idea when that was) and when I log into my account I can learn some general information about those visitors.

Most interesting to me is the 'referrals' page -- where people where when they clicked over to my blog. Sometimes that lets me know that someone has included me in their blog roll and I didn't know it. It also lets me know that leaving a comment on Mike Cope's blog increases blog traffic as much, if not more than, participating in an online 'party'. And it's way less trouble, 'cause sometimes Mike is talking guacamole.

Some of you click over from readers. Yes, I have heard from those of you that hate me for changing my feed to 200 characters. There is a reason OTHER THAN trying to irritate you. No, it's not to lose you as a blog reader, either. Hope you'll click over, hope you'll read.

I do get some interesting 'Google' searches, too. One is about a specific cult that I won't mention. No cults here, folks. Keep going. Some people are just too lazy to bookmark my blog so I get several 'Sarah Stirman blog' searches. As long as it works, we're good!

So, while I am DROWNING in writing deadlines, let me know how you get to my blog. How did you show up here? I'm just glad you're here!