The Article Writer

I finally installed and activated the CommentLuv plugin today on three of my blogs, heeding the advice of several people who urged me to consider this method of sharing link love. As mostly everyone knows, good SEO strategy is to make your blog as inviting as possible, encouraging people to leave comments while linking back to their most recent post.

So, why are you still reading this? Leave your comment now!

Moments after installing I got this nifty little note on the WP administrative panel asking me if I wanted to upgrade to CommentLuv 1.2. It so happens that the latest release was made available today, so if you have CL you can obtain the newest copy right through your Plugin panel. No need to leave the blog and look for the upgrade — one click and WP does that for you. So, why couldn’t WP do my taxes for me this year?!?! Hmmm???

As far as changes with this release, it is now fully compatible with WP 2.5 and it now uses a remote script to do the parsing if your hosting cannot do it and has it’s own options page.

Of course, I can’t really know that it works until someone leaves the very first comment….

Tax season is so over.

Here in the US we have a ritual which begins shortly after the new year and ends promptly on April 15th: tens of millions of taxpayers spend hours upon hours gathering paperwork, downloading forms, uploading tax software, and entering data. I believe the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) has said the average return now takes about 27 hours to do, this despite so many people relying on software to help them get the job done.

I sent off my state and federal returns late last week, but I then remembered yesterday that the state’s corporate filing was also due. Thankfully, it is an easy four-page form done online — basically I confirmed the information previously inputted, submitted my payment information, and I was done. Poof — there went a couple of hundred dollars.

Though the pictured sign says “county taxes” those aren’t due until September as part of our property tax filing for our home. We also pay property taxes on our vehicles (bright idea, isn’t it?) and I pay a token tax to the town for an annual license. Sales tax is 7% and the feds and the state get their chunk at the pump every time we go for fuel. Restaurant food is taxed at 8%, groceries at 2%, and yes there is a tax for hotel stays.

After a few days rest I’m heading up to Boston to reprise a certain tax rebellion held there in 1773 — I’m kidding of course, but the sentiment is still there.

Mobile devices continue to catch on in popularity and may someday match or even surpass personal computer usage. Accessing the internet is easy with many of the PDAs (personal digital assistants) currently available, including such hand held devices as Blackberry, iPhone, Treo, iPod, to name a few. Even if you don’t own a PDA, some of the visitors to your WordPress blog could be finding your site with a mobile unit.

So, the question for you today is this: is your blog mobi ready?

Chances are it isn’t, but thanks to a simple little WordPress plug-in you can make your blog mobi ready without resorting to purchasing a *mobi extension.

Andy Moore developed a plug-in which, when activated, can make your blog easily readable with a PDA. The WordPress Mobile Plugin is something I discovered when a client asked me if his two blogs were mobile readable (they were not) and what we could do to make it so. Googling for that answer I came across Andy Moore’s plugin.

I don’t own a PDA, so confirming any blog as being mobi compliant can only be done with an emulator. Try the tool before downloading and activating the plugin and then come back and take a second look once you’re ready to roll. You’ll see the difference, observing your blog the exact same way that people with a PDA see it — a nifty tool that goes hand in hand with the plugin.

I hate to lose customers and/or visitors to this blog. Now that I know that the plug-in works and that the emulator confirms this, I can reach more people than ever before. If you aren’t mobi ready, then the competition already has a leg up on you.