The Computer Zone

<Guo_Si> Hey, you know what sucks?
<TheXPhial> vaccuums
<Guo_Si> Hey, you know what sucks in a metaphorical sense?
<TheXPhial> black holes
<Guo_Si> Hey, you know what just isn’t cool?
<TheXPhial> lava?

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<i8b4uUnderground> d-_-b
<BonyNoMore> how u make that inverted b?
<BonyNoMore> wait
<BonyNoMore> never mind

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<jeebus> the “bishop” came to our church today
<jeebus> he was a f****** impostor
<jeebus> never once moved diagonally

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<death09>my girlfriend broke up with me and sent me pix of her and her new boyfriend in bed
<ktp753>ouch.
<death09>yeah.i sent them to her dad

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<kow`> “There are 10 types of people in the world… those who understand binary and those who don’t.”
<SpaceRain> That’s only 2 types of people, kow.
<SpaceRain> STUPID

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<Patrician|Away> what does your robot do, sam
<bovril> it collects data about the surrounding environment, then discards it and drives into walls

I thought it’d be fun to share with you guys some of the reasons I started blogging. Now, I’m a fairly recent contestant in the blogosphere. I started back in August and haven’t looked back since. I’ve made a number of errors, I’d change a number of things but I must say its been a fun ride so far. Here are ten reason why I started blogging.

1. I was bored at work
   Over the summer I worked at Rogers Media and I was completely bored out of my skull. There were days where I wouldn’t have anything to do, so instead of just sitting around I decided to be more productive and do something
2. I wanted to learn something
   This may sound a little weird but I actually started blogging because I wanted to learn PHP and HTML. I though it’d be good to code my own blog.
3. I wanted to be heard
   This is probably the biggest reason why I started blogging. I had things to say and I wanted people to hear it While I’m not sure if this has happened I know a few people have heard me.
4. I wanted to make money
   While I hadn’t blogged before I was on the internet a lot and I had heard that a few people were making a lot of money doing this. Being a university student, I’m always looking for different ways to make money so I thought I’d try.
5. My friend told me to
   My friend Alex was probably the most influential person in my early blogging months. He was the one that told me about wordpress and he was also the one that said I should learn PHP and such. If it wasn’t for him I wouldn’t be blogging.
6. I’m a computer nerd
   I enjoy being on my computer. I like surfing the web, writing computer programs and playing games. Blogging was just an extension of what I already did so it was fun.
7. Proving I’m an expert
   While this may sound a little conceited my first blog was a blog about the C Programming language. I wanted to prove that I knew my stuff and it was a great indicator of how much I actually know. Even with this blog I enjoy showing that I do know a little about blogging.
8. To inflate my ego
   Comments are awesome. Every time I get a comment my face lights up and I’m happy. This may sound a little loserish but it’s true. Blogging makes me feel good because I see that people are reading my stuff and some even like it
9. To get connected
   Before I started blogging I was reading a lot of blogs and I thought that starting my own was definitely a good way to get connected in the blogosphere. I was certainly right on that point.
10. To write lists like this
    Honestly, this has been my dream To write 10 lists and share them with the world. Seriously, I just couldn’t think of a 10th reason.

Those are the reasons why I started blogging and I’d really like to hear why you started. What were the main reasons why you started blogging?

Today I wrote a post and emailed it to Ben at Bloggingexperiment.com. When I logged back in to my computer I was happy to see that he posted it on his blog. The post is entitled “Maximize Your Guest Posting Efforts“. For those of you who are coming from that page I’d like to welcome you to my blog. Here are a few of my most popular posts

• Why you should post on the weekends
• Five tips to being a better guest poster
• Encouraging comments on your blog
• 10 things to do with your old computer
• Five things every blogger should have near their desk

If you like any of these posts feel free to subscribe to my feed or subscribe via email.  If you have any questions feel free to email me at adam[at]thecompzone.com or via my contact page.

Yesterday I talked about why you should post on the weekends and today I’m going to play the devil’s advocate and take the other side.

There are a number of good reasons to post on the weekend. It can help bring in new readers, keep you posting consistently, and will help you differentiate your self from other bloggers in your niche. A question you might have is with all of these plus’ how can you say you shouldn’t post on the weekends?

While there aren’t as many reasons not to post on the weekends there still are a few and here are some of them.

Not as much traffic
Most people don’t receive as much traffic on the weekend as they do during the week. This may be that their readers surf the web more during work and spend the weekend with family. Because of the smaller traffic numbers these people think that they should release their best posts when there will be more readers to read them.

Spend the time organizing
Instead of posting, use your time to better your blog. One of the best things you can do is organize your week ahead of you. Organizing your week is a great way to stay atop of your posting schedule, it can help you post daily, create better content and improve your blog.

While I think that you should post on the weekends there are a few reasons why you shouldn’t. If you have any reasons why you shouldn’t post on the weekend feel free to add it in the comments section. If you think I’m totally nuts you can voice that too

One of the ongoing debates in the ‘blogosphere’ is whether or not to post on the weekends. Some people say that since their traffic generally goes down on the weekends they should save their best posts for when their site is receiving the most amount of people.

Others say that posting on the weekend is a great way to get new readers since a lot of people are home during the weekend. My opinion on the matter is that the weekend is a great time to organize your posts and thoughts and maybe post about things outside of your niche.

Here are a few reasons why you SHOULD post on the weekends.

Consistency is King
Some people say that posting consistently is important and I would have to agree with this, especially for a newer blog. Posting consistently can increase your feed numbers, increase the number of visitors that you have and increase the number of comments that you get. Posting on the weekends proves that you can be a consistent blogger and this is always a good thing.

Bring in new readers
Some people work so hard during the week that they don’t have time to read blogs and surf the web. These people do all of this during the weekend. To capture these readers you need to post when they read, the weekends. A lot of people who don’t post on the weekends say that their traffic goes down so why should they post? My question is, is their traffic going down because they don’t post?

If other bloggers aren’t doing it, you should
One of the problems with beginner bloggers is that they jump on the blogging bandwagon and don’t think of the consequences. They think that if other bloggers don’t post on the weekends that they should follow this. GET OFF THAT BANDWAGON. If other bloggers don’t post on the weekend this is an excellent reason why you should. If you post on the weekend then you may get their readers who leave their blog because they don’t post on the weekend.

These are a few of the reasons why I post on the weekend but what I’m really interested in is whether or not you post on the weekend?

Today I’m proud to announce our first ever contest! The Computer Zone has been around for just over two months and I thought it would be a cool idea to throw a little Christmas Giveaway.

I’m really excited about this because it’s our first contest and the prizes are really good. Without further adieu here is the prize bundles:

• A one month 125×125 ad spot on JohnTP.com and a one month 16×16 or 12×12 ad spot on Chipseo.com
• ‘Under the Microscope’ review on Bloggingexperiment.com and a one month 125×125 ad spot on Thecompzone.com
• A blog review on Thecompzone.com

As you can see there are some great prizes there (totalling over $300). But now, how do you win them and how will the winners be decided? To enter the contest you need to do three really simple things:

1. Blog about this contest. All you have to do is write a few lines detailing the contest and the prizes and link to this page as well as link to my main page with the anchor text ‘The Computer Zone’
2. Subscribe to my feed so you can see who wins the contest
3. Email me at adam[at]thecompzone.com with the url of your blog post.

Thats how easy it is. On December 24th I’ll close the contest and pick the winners. On December the 25th I’ll announce the winners on this blog.

Heres a quick recap of the contest:

• Begins: Today
• Ends: December 24th
• How to enter: Blog about this contest (and link to it), subscribe to my feed and email me the url of your post.

On the 25th I’ll do a random drawing from all of the emails I receive to see who wins which prize bundle.

One of the most important decisions when it comes to starting up a blog is picking a good host. The sheer number of different options can easily overwhelm a new blogger. Thats why today’s review is so exciting. The guys over at Web Hosting Geeks (WHG) have created a site that offers free web hosting reviews for those who need help choosing which hosting company to go with.

From a design standpoint WHG have a great site. The first thing you see when you visit their site is a large box with different reviews, they really don’t mess around. They include reviews for many different kinds of web hosts like: hosts that offer free domain names, hosts that allow multiple domain hosting, and hosts that give free Google AdWords coupons.

Overall I think that their reviews are really honest and helpful. You can tell that they have tried each individual hosting provider and that they gave them an honest review. If WHG doesn’t think that the hosting provider gives a good service they’ll tell you. This honestly is really great in this day in age where people will say just about anything when theres money involved.

The final thing I like about this site is that WHG also provides a number of handy articles for the “uninformed” to help them start hosting their very own site. Overall WHG provides a great service to people all over the world. If you’re thinking of starting a new website and need hosting advice I would visit Web Hosting Geeks first,