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December 26, 2004

What is a Trackback?

Mell (of Divergent Poles) was trying to understand what a trackback is, so I'm making this post as an illustration.

While creating this message there was an empty spot (just like there is a place for the title) to add trackbacks, since I'm referencing this post (i.e. I'm talking about Mell) I'm adding his trackback information to that spot. When I post this message it'll send a tiny message (called a trackback or sometimes referred to as a ping) to Mell's message and now he'll know I was talking about his post and get a better understanding of this (I hope). There is no indication on my site that I trackbacked him (other than me telling you), the main reason is to let him (and his readers) know I are talking about him and when others read his site they'll know I'm talking about Mell so they might follow the link to see what I say (in this case, if they want to know what I think a trackback is).

Trackbacks are generally for when you are specifically referencing someone's specific message. Sometimes if you're making a similar post or have more information. But I think internet etiquette is it's if you're referencing their specific post. Since I am talking about his post, this is a valid example... I can't even tell you how long it took me to understand this, hopefully my example will make some sense.

The trackback is not just the address for the site or the message, sometimes it's something odd (for this example it's http://haloscan.com/tb/mditangco/110399998884597771) but you don't care 'cause you're just going to cut and paste this part. If you look at his message you'll see it now says “Trackback (1)” (or more, it was 0 before I posted) if you click there it will reveal the first few sentences of this message and the title is clickable and takes you back to this message (which is much more helpful as a link if you started at Mell's and not here), it'll also list any other trackbacks that may have occurred since then.

I use Movable Type and it supports Trackbacks, some software does not, so your mileage may vary.

This is where it gets confusing (the differences/similarities between trackbacks and pings) - Every time I post a post my blog automatically pings a few different addresses so other pages know I updated my page. Why? (I'm glad you asked) Here's three examples. 1) This is so that things like the MovableType home page knows I recently updated and lists me as a recently updated page. 2) And so Blogrolling (see the list of blogs I read on the lower right) know I was updated. On my page if a page has been updated in the last 48 hours and blogrolling knows about it (from a direct ping at http://rpc.blogrolling.com/pinger/ or from looking at some other pingable places) it marks those pages in bold/italics for me and I don't have to do a thing. 3) This same auto-ping alerts Yahoo! so that when (if?) people have me show up on their MyYahoo! start page it knows to update the content for them. This is probably technically called pinging a site but it's probably not that much different than the trackback concept (if not identical). Bottom line, if I changed all the spots on my site to say “pings” instead of “trackbacks” it'd be the same thing.

December 12, 2004

It's been a year, what's changed (technologically and me)?

So it's been a year since I started this blog. I've typed hundreds of entries (I don't think I made the 500 mark yet). I've changed many parts of it:

  • the title several times (Something Nice Happened Today [dropped the nice for a while], If I blog in a Forest and No One Reads It, Do I Make Any Noise [a few variations of that, but it was to darn long, but it was kinda my favorite] and Let Me Make My Point(e) [with the E emphasizing my my name] and it was temporarily Do you See My Point(e)?)
  • Changed the background a few times and had a few psychedelic rotating ones, it's still a little busy but I work really hard to make it compatible in all browsers (and all screen resolutions) and if not there's a nice PDA version you can use.
  • My blog ReadRoll has grown and I've redone that a few different ways.
  • Added and changed some categories but it's still pretty close to the original.
  • Added the whole about section with lists stuff about me and what tools/plug-ins I use.
  • Redone the internals quite a bit, switched to PHP and a few other things.
  • Added some advertising to the sides and some ads here and there and maybe that'll pay off someday...
  • I'm passing over 5 GB of data a month. And I'm still not sure where it's going, I've disabled my photo albums so it's mostly just my content. I've even reduced the number of entries on my main page and it's still growing so at least I've got readers (and occasionally some commenters). Some people get really bent when they don't get comments, I'm okay without them, but it sure makes me happy when I get them...

    I've tried to stay away from whining and complaining too much, but sometimes cars get broken into and sometimes people die and sometimes BK screws up my order so I need to vent a little. I'm about in the same place in life as a I was last year: single, childless and still looking to make those changes. (As much as people complain about it I'd rather be spending time this month assembling bicycles or cribs or whatever.)

    Even though I created The Daily Meme I've become less of a meme-a-holic which I've been missing so I think I'll go back to those silly quizzes as a way to express things about myself...

  • December 07, 2004

    0.5k and almost 365 days

    So I've almost been posting for a year AND I'm almost to 500 posts. If I average my average number of posts per day I'll probably hit both at the same time.

    I kinda jump from one end of the spectrum to the other (funerals to sappy TV shows to technology), I keep thinking that I'll break out the tech into it's own blog, but I can't decide it that's necessary. I've got an idea for a tech specific blog, and if I do that, then I'd have two tech blogs (extra geeky and semi-geeky) so I think I'll keep them together for now and if I go the other route I'll just keep the long tech reviews to the extra geeky blog.