I detest those that don’t have the guts and fortitude to interact openly.
Maybe it is because I am an open book.
I don’t write anonymous posts, anonymous comments or anonymous reviews.
I will NOT GIVE any credence to this letter critical of Pope Francis supposedly written by an anonymous cardinals. Ya. I believe that. These days that letter could have been written by a Chinese ROBOT.
So, let me make this extremely PLAIN & CLEAR as to my policy when it comes to ANONYMOUS COMMENTS on this blog.
Just in case any of YOU are confused, let me please clarify a few things.
>> My BLOG. Not a public blog. I pay (a fair amount of money annually) for this blog. My dollar. My BLOG.
>> In case you have NOT noticed, this Blog bears MY NAME: guruge.com/blog. MY BLOG.
>> My platform. My megaphone. My opinions. MY BLOG. Not a public platform.
>> IF you want unrestricted access to comment JUST identify yourself.
OK. Got that? Smile. {There are some who seem to have trouble grasping this.} MY BLOG. My dollar. [I intentionally won’t say ‘My Dime’ because we are talking some serious money (albeit tax deductible) when it comes to ALL the costs associated with this blog — including what some of the plugins costs (yearly).]
I will entertain and TRY NOT TO CENSOR any and all comments from posters whose identity I can verify — ideally online (e.g., Facebook account, Twitter, LinkedIn, or even a Blog or Website). Of course, I will not permit anything offensive or illegal. Be realistic. Remember, I rarely if ever swear or use ‘bad language’ (& being British ‘bloody‘, ‘bugger‘ & ‘damn‘ are perfectly valid words).
Get that. IF I know WHO YOU ARE (& yes there a few posters here who are friends) I will allow you to post things that I might not agree with — or makes me look a fool (which is not that hard to do). Just today I approved and responded to a comment where I admitted that I WAS WRONG.
Yes, I will cut tremendous SLACK — IF I know who you are.
Only fair.
I will EVEN entertain SOME COMMENTS from those that I do NOT KNOW — if I find them to be ‘OK’ or amusing.
Yes, there is a poster here who name is patently BOGUS. And he/she won’t identify themself. But, to be fair, their comments NEVER raise my hackles. Most times, like one today, are AMUSING.
Come on. This can’t be that hard to understand.
I assert my RIGHT to deal with anonymous posters.
KEY WORD — anonymous.
Identify yourself & I will tolerate much abuse.
That is the DEAL. IF you want unfettered ACCESS TO MY BLOG, then I need to know who the hell you are.
FAIR?
Any questions?
Whether I respond that last question will depend on whether I know you.
If it was multiple people I it would be easier to fathom — and indeed very flattering.
This is ONE PERSON. The WordPress STATS distinguishes between VISITORS & VIEWS. So, what I am seeing is 1 VISITOR … over a 1,000 VIEWS.
I really would like to know who it is & why this interest.
Yes, perfectly OK. This is a public blog. I appreciate.
It is just that I have never had anyone so interested in my posts. Plus, Ireland. You know, this is sad. I don’t know anyone in Ireland.
C’est la vie. Just wanted to get this out.
IF you see this, I really would like to get to know you. If nothing else to say ‘THANK YOU’ & also ask if there are any subjects you want me to write about.
Not great, but (as I always rationalize) it is better than a kick in the teeth.
Not getting close to the 300/day MY old blog used to get but that had been around for a longtime & had painfully build-up quite the following. But, that one had to go.
I need a BLOG attached to my Website: i.e., guruge.com.
Yes, I definitely could have done better. But, I don’t make money off this blog. So, c’est la vie. I am happy & some of YOU too appear to be happy. So we are ALL COOL.
The last time I ordered business cards (which were also from ‘VistaPrint’) was a few years ago (maybe 2019 or 2020). I was running out of cards (& I currently only have less than 20) & moreover, they were OUT-OF-DATE.
My old cards say ’30 books & counting’. Well, I am now up to 39.
It also gave me a chance to be HONEST & not give ANY phone number, whatsoever. I do NOT like giving out my phone number. With these cards I don’t even make a pretense. No phone number. SMILE.
Funnily enough I ONLY ended up changing the FRONT of the card. Some of you will recognize the image, viz., West Quoddy Head Light, Lubec, Bold Coast, Maine. I, of course, had to have at least ONE Bold Coast image. And I succeeded. I was going to use a Bold Coast image on the back too but, in the end, reluctantly, changed my mind.
Yes, the image I have (which is the same as that from my old card) could easily pass as one of the Bold Coast — say, the ‘Ridge Trail’ at ‘Moose Cove‘. But, it isn’t. It is from Acadia & from quite a few years ago (& taken with a high-resolution camera). It still works, so I just changed the wording.
I should have the new cards by May 20. So, with luck, I should be armed with them when I next visit the Bold Coast around May 22.
I had not given ‘it’, i.e., ChatGPT mining this blog, any thought UNTIL I saw this. So, it caught me off-guard. Not sure what to make of it. Do I even care?
The WHOLE & SOLE purpose of this BLOG is to disseminate & share information. As such it is totally open. No restricted posts. It truly is an open book — an open blog. So, why should I care — why I would I care — IF ChatGPT wants to mine it. I guess in the end, I don’t. To mind would be hypocritical. A contradiction.
Yes, WordPress does give me the option of blocking search engines from scrolling the blog. Of course I have never opted for that option. That would defeat the goal of the blog. So, that answers the question — really. ChatGPT is basically NOW an extension to search engines. So, that is that.
In a sense I just wanted to share this with you. Something you should be aware. Worth knowing. What you see here could end up being used by ChatGPT. Wow. All this said, I am still skeptical about AI — & I have always been. Just recall that my first interaction with Google’s ‘Bard’ was a total & utter failure.
Click to ENLARGE. Link to this the inaugural post.
Click to ENLARGE. The calendar display on WordPress showing when posts were posted.Click to ENLARGE.
There are 962 posts on the blog! That comes to 2.6 posts a day. I am cool with that. Makes sense. I aim to do at least one and ideally three a day.
The blog has had 28,128 views. That is 77 views a day. That is NOT great but better than 0. Much better than zero. My old blog was averaging 300 a day BUT it had been up for over 12 years and got stellar ranking by Google.
I am OK with the current hit rate. Yes, I would like more, BUT that is purely for ego. This blog is NOT monetized! Truth be told it is mainly for I. It is my journal. I can look back at any day & have a fair idea as to what I was up to — & of course the daily ‘Picture of the Day + 6 Others‘ is a huge help. I have been doing those posts, without even a single miss, since about 2016. That is a lot of pictures.
Well, here, with luck, is to the next 12 months. Wish me luck.
Please come & visit. Leave a comment or two. Thank YOU.
I had signed up for ‘CodeGuard‘ backup for this Website/blog when I got my hosting package with ‘HostGator‘ in June 2021. I got a bundled deal (or sorts) at quite a promotional discount. HostGator (& their sister outfit ‘BlueHost‘) as most people know likes to ‘encourage‘ you to get CodeGuard & ‘SiteLock Security‘ as part of your hosting. Yes, I had done my research BUT my main priority was to get this Website/blog up & running ASAP — & then worry about exactly how I wanted to refine, optimize & finetune offerings. And that is exactly what happened with Backup.
I had got the ‘basic’ CodeGuard offering — which is what I had been steered towards. It only comes with 1G of storage. I blew past that this weekend. I deleted a month worth of backups. But, I was still above 1G. I pruned it down to just 3-days of backups. Still not enough. Yes, it was easy enough to upgrade BUT I realized that I would be on a slippery slope. 3-months down the road I would have to upgrade again. This Website/blog is NOT getting any smaller. So, I looked around again.
I already had WordPress’ ‘JetPack‘. It was one of the first plugins I installed. I have been with ‘WordPress.com‘ for 13-years. Though it had never been all plain sailing, on the whole, I had managed to get what I wanted accomplished. I do know the differences & tie-ins between the ‘.com’ & ‘.org’ arms. But, I already had Jetpack & as such I was already dealing with the ‘.com’ even though I was self-hosted. Plus, push come to shove, who better to backup a WordPress site than WordPress itself?
But the kicker was, & I sought confirmation from them via e-mail, the UNLIMITED backup storage. Pay for a year & DONE. No constant harassment to upgrade (at least for more storage). It wasn’t exactly cheap, BUT it wasn’t outrageous either. For what they offer, it was fair. So, I did the deal.
After more than 20-years I have FINALLY got around to consolidating my Website & blog in one place — under my ‘guruge.com‘ domain. THIS IS IT!
After about a month of research & soul searching I finally opted to go with ‘HostGator‘ shared hosting & WordPress.
‘guruge.com‘ was at Weebly. I was NOT enamored with the Weebly editor. Clunky.
I tried nearly everything out there. You name it, I must have tried it.
Truth me known, I was with HostGator previously — albeit with their template-based ‘Website Builder‘. That was OK, but was too rigid.
In the end, hosted WordPress (outside of wordpress.com) made most sense for I.
But, what FINALLY & decisively made me opt for HostGator is their support.
I had been impressed with their CHAT support. It is very good. Most of the time it is from India (with a lot of female associates) & they have been OUTSTANDING. WOW.
But, I tried the 24/7 phone support a few times. The phone support tends to be from the U.S. Wow. They just go out of their way to be helpful & they know their stuff.
Yes, I know that ‘BlueHost’ & ‘HostGator’ & a number of others are ALL owned by the same ‘investment’ company. But, I think HostGator support is superior to that available from BlueHost.
PLUS, HostGator claims to give you UNLIMITED disk storage. I like that.
So, that is why I went with HostGator. I can’t say enough good things about them. And their pricing is NOT bad too — & yesterday (i.e., June 11, 2021) I could cash into their 70% off rates (as opposed to the 60% rates). SMILE.
