10 signs that tell you it's time to go to the dentist

I avoid the dentist at all costs. No matter how piercing the toothache. If you're like me, here are 10 signs that imply you should probably see a dentist some time soon:

1. You never leave home without taking painkillers with you.
2. Toothpicks aren't long enough to reach to the bottom of your dental cavities.
3. Your 12 year old dog has a fresher breath than yourself.
4. Eating becomes a dangerous and exhausting task that requires full attention.
5. The thought of cracking a nut with your teeth makes you faint.
6. Headaches don't irritate you any more, they provide practice grounds for your will against pain.
7. When you wake up in the morning without a toothache, you feel lucky.
8. When you go to bed at night after a day that you didn't lose another chip of your teeth, you feel lucky.
9. You can't stand the taste of your own mouth without a spearmint gum.
10. You read all these with a wry, knowing grin, instead of pure horror.

...Read the full post...

How long should a blog post be?

The ultimate answer to "How long a blog post should be?" comes from Abraham Lincoln (yes, the president).

Abe Lincoln was once asked "How long should a man's legs be?" After a brief ponder, he replied "Long enough to reach the ground".

Length of a blog post is probably one of the most debated aspects in blogging. Some bloggers stick to short and frequent posts, and some stand by comprehensive, essay style posts. Yet the majority uses a mixture of both styles.

Research shows that the attention span of online readers is shorter, compared to people reading pieces printed on paper. The average time a surfer spends on a blog is around 1-1.5 minutes. Most internet gurus advise to keep post length within the range of 250-500 words.

I personally don't like one-liner posts that just link to another page. Especially if I had seen the same link on a dozen other places before. True, there are some popular blogs that do just that. They can get away with that, because they have already established a stance, and the readers more or less know what to expect from links in that blog.

For a more earthly blog, though, I think it's best to at least put in some opinion or review of what the linked page offers. And also, don't bother posting a link about the story at Digg, unless you have some original things to say about it.

I would much prefer to read an over-lengthy post than one with a few sentences and a link. You can always stop reading a long post if you lose your interest. There's this myth about web surfers not being inclined to scroll. How is that possible? We scroll all the time! In fact, we scroll so much that mouse producers have introduced the scroll wheel. Why should we become so arrogant and resist against scrolling down, when it comes to a web page?

And why am I writing this post? Well, because there were many other things I wanted to write in that previous post about Blogger Beta. But since it was a "first post", I got impatient and posted it away hastily. So now I'm just preaching myself. ...Read the full post...

New blog with Blogger Beta

I read many reviews and rants about the new Blogger Beta before deciding to give it a try.

Some people seem to greet the new features with excitement (quite like myself), and some have already started building custom templates for download.

There is, of course, a lot of buzz about what does not work with the Beta version. The most evident one, regular Blogger users not being able to post comments on Beta blogs (and the fix for this bug is just commenting as Anonymous).

Personally, I like the new template system. I haven't had the time to study and play around with the new widgets yet. As you can see, I've made just a couple minor tweaks to the default Denim template.

But as I scanned through the help files on the new template tags, I saw many new features like if-then blocks, loops, and variables. A whole new domain of possible tune-ups for Blogger!

The Google guys had been sleeping on Blogger for quite some time, and now they seem to be back (and kicking). I hope they keep up the good work. ...Read the full post...