1. Blogger vs. WordPress

The first dilemma when launching a new blog comes pretty early. You have to decide which one of the numerous blog engines you want to choose to provide the CMS background for your blog. Although there are a number of available options, the vast majority of bloggers tend to pick one of the two (three, really, but I only want to cover free services here so that disqualifies Movable Type immediately) most popular blog engines: Blogger or WordPress. The subject of which one you should choose has an extensive literature on the web, so I’m not going to dive deep into details here.

Wordpress

For me (and for those, who are really serious about blogging) categories are really crucial to have, so that (and the infinite options of highly customize a WordPress blog) decides the question. Especially so, when you decide to register an own domain for your blog instead of using the web hosting either of these engines offer at yourblogname.blogspot.com and yourblogname.wordpress.com (warning: WordPress’s own hosting site won’t let Adsense ads in, as it doesn’t support any form of JavaScript. You’ve been warned.)
My choice: WordPress.
Google – Blogosphere – 0:1

2. Google Docs vs. Zoho
A few bloggers will doubt that the era of desktop word-processing is simply over. While some people will compose their blogposts directly in their blog’s admin area (all of the blog engines offer auto save functions by now), I personally prefer to compose posts, drafts, and basically anything in online word processors. I’ve already tried a couple of them, including Google Docs and its main competitor, Zoho.

Google docs

Zoho is stunning. It offers a whole set of office applications online, and while most of its advanced services are not free, even its free and basic services, such as word document and spreadsheet processing look way more hi-tech than that of the flat look of Google Docs. Unfortunately, most of the additional services and options Zoho offers are exactly those that I never ever use. So having everything else (the basics, really) more complicated for additional functions that are of no use for me seemed kind of a bad deal after all.
Furthermore, since I use these cloud office applications not only for composing blog posts, but also for creating my weekly and monthly reports and figures, I really missed the function of freezing table columns and lines in Zoho’s spreadsheet processor (the function is available at Google Docs). So after several weeks of testing both services, I’ve finally settled with Google Docs. If you want to read different reviews, here are three of them, from Lifehacker, from Life2.0 and from Google Operating System.
My choice: Google Docs.
Google – Blogosphere – 1:1

3. Google Reader vs. Netvibes.com
Bloggers write blogs and bloggers read blogs. The metaphor may well be frowned at, but it is a bit like MLM marketing. Similarly to Amway, Avon or other MLM products, the business keeps going because its resellers also use the products they sell, therefore creating a substantial amount of demand. No offense, but many of the blogs out there keep going because other bloggers read them, because other bloggers comment on them etc.
To cut a long story short, if you become a blogger, you’ll need to read a lot of blogs, and for this, you’ll also need a feed reader. From here on, at least for me, the discussion is over, because I have never ever seen a feed-reader that is capable of competing with Google Reader. Not even the ever-so-popular Netvibes, although others may have different thoughts on the subject. If you ask me, Google Reader wins with a technical KO.
My choice: Google Reader.
Google – Blogosphere – 2:1

4. Google Blogsearch vs. Digg or Del.icio.us
Not only will you have to read blogs, but you’ll also explore other blogs either to catch up with others, who are also interested in your niche, or to check whether a subject you are about to write of is already covered or not. Google’s rarely used Blogsearch service may be far from perfect, but (along with its News Aggregator and Search service if you have a news-focused blog) but it just about does the trick.
Alternative options may be searching social bookmarking sites, such as Digg or Delicious, and, quite frankly its hard to predict which one will deliver better results. So without further arguments I’m suggesting you to use both Google and non-Google services when exploring a subject, because a couple of more searches just can’t do any harm.
My choice: I use all of these. It’s a draw.
Google – Blogosphere – 3:2

5. Google Bookmarks vs. Del.icio.us
At the moment I have five different browsers installed on my home computer. An Internet Explorer, a Firefox, an Opera, a Google Chrome, and the one I use most of the time: a Flock. Mind you, this is only my PC laptop I use at home. I have an iMac in the office (with an additional Safari, but without the Google Chrome), and there are quite a lot of other computers I regularly use (for example my wife’s).
I store my bookmarks online, no question about it.

delicious screenshot

As there are an awful lot of social bookmarking services, I definitely haven’t tried all of them, but one of the first service I tried was Del.icio.us (called Delicious.com for a couple of months), and the user experience was so great that I’ve stayed with it forever. I’ve tried a couple of others, too, including Google bookmarks, but no, I will never abandon Delicious for the sake of the big G giant. (By the way, did you know that Delicious.com can live in your Flock browser, so you can save your bookmarks directly to your Delicious profile? You can also access them directly from the browser.) Others may disagree.
My choice: Delicious.com
Google – Blogosphere – 3:3

6. Google Calendar vs. any other calendar
Everybody who does business of any sort needs a proper calendar. Especially those, who do freelancing or blogging (because they don’t have any other sources of warning for deadlines, things to remember, like those who have colleagues do). Google’s Calendar is particularly cool, because you can share it with anyone who has a Google account (frankly, all of us have at least one Google account by now). It’s like having an Outlook without the annoying bugs (and with everyone else having an Outlook, too.) I cannot even name any competitor of the same level, but if you can, just name it. Google wins. (Hey, did you know that Google Calendar was able to send you SMS reminders ?)
My choice: Google Calendar
Google – Blogosphere – 4:3

7. Google Adsense vs. Chitika
First, let’s make it dead clear: it were Adwords and Adsense that made Google what it is now, so it’s no surprise if you are unable to find a competitor that matches these products.
But on the other hand, it’s a common experience among bloggers, that when it comes to monetizing a website (a blog in this particular case), Google Adsense is not always the best option. As I said when I discussed the things Rome taught me about blogging and in an earlier comment Google Adsense may be the universal weapon, the colt, but there are certain situations when you are better off having a pocket knife, than a revolver.
I have tried a couple of Adsense alternatives, such as Bidvertiser or ExoClick, but with no or very little success. But considering that both Microsoft and Yahoo have already thrown in the towel after trying to compete with Adsense, what else could you expect.
And there comes Chitika. Although I have already signed up and my site has been approved, I am yet to have experiences with that. But from what I’ve heard Chitika is a serious choice when considering how to make money with your blog.
Of course, I’m cheating here. A little. Because Chitika is not a head to head Adsense competitor: in fact, these two are fine sitting on the very same website or page. Anyway, I suggest you try both of these, too.
My choice: they drew a tie.
Google – Blogosphere – 5:4

8. Link:mysite.com vs. Yahoo Site Explorer
We’ve been here before. I’ve already mentioned that, when it comes to finding a certain site’s incoming links (not only your site’s, because there are better methods for that, but, for example your competitor’s), Yahoo handles this task way better than Google does. Even if you take allinurl:mysite.com into account as well. I don’t claim that Yahoo’s solution is perfect, but it’s definitely far ahead of Google.
My choice: Yahoo Site Explorer
Google – Blogosphere – 5:5

9. Gmail vs the email provider of your choice
I’m not sure if it’s even a question. Sure, when you launch a new site or blog, you’ll have to have a dedicated email address. You can use one of the domain’s addresses (eg. info@mysite.com), but I usually prefer creating an own Google Account, with a mysite.com@gmail.com email address for each and every one of my sites. When you later want to subscribe to newsletters, forums, or simply want to communicate on behalf of your new blog without giving out your “regular” email address, it’s the perfect thing to do.
When I first used Gmail (say, five years ago – I needed to get an invite back then) it all seemed very odd to me.
I religiously used Netscape 4.57′s mail application and I couldn’t imagine there was a way of sending an email other than hitting the Ctr+Enter key combo. Cut to today, I am perfectly comfortable with the Tab + Space, and while I’m still not a native thread-based emailer, I’m more than happy with the 15Mbyte limit per email, and the lots of other services Gmail has to offer. I have tried Yahoo, too, yes. No way.
My choice: Gmail
Google – Blogosphere – 6:5

10. Picasaweb vs Flickr
You have to know that I’m a photo junkie. I had a period in my life, when I was Flickr -addict, and although I tried to get distracted by other photo sharing websites, such as Picasaweb or the various functions of Facebook, all my attempts proved unsuccessful.

Flickr screenshot

The addiction is fortunately gone by now, but Flickr remained a far better-built service than Picasaweb. (I dig the desktop version of Picasa, though).
My choice: Flickr
Google – Blogosphere – 6:6

Feels pretty close, huh? Well, here comes extra time and sudden death. None of these services have non-Google real-life competitors I know of. It’s like a penalty, with the goalkeeper being out for a beer with his pals.

11. Keyword tool
When you start to explore your blog niche’s possibilities, you garner ideas for your upcoming post or you just want to harmonize your site’s content with what people find interesting, it’s just a matter of time when you’ll have to plunge into keyword research. Google’s Keyword Tool is a free service that is designed precisely to do that. And although I said it had no competitors, it’s only partly true: the competitors it has are all paid services. If you Google “keyword research” you’ll find a whole bunch of services offering better and better services – for a fee (look for the sponsored results). For now, they are all disqualified: Google is free.
My choice: Gmail
Google – Blogosphere – 7:6

12. Sitemap an Google webmasters’ tools
Since these tools are built solely for the purpose of improving your site’s Google Rankings, no wonder that Google has no competitor in this field at all. Your blog’s SEO plugins, and a whole lot of manual work can help, too, but SEO is really worthless without using the very tools Google offers for it.
My choice: Google Sitemap and Webmasters’ tools
Google – Blogosphere – 8:6

Yes, it’s that time of the year again. You may or may not like New Year’s resolutions, but since New Year’s Eve is literally around the corner, it is worth to give change a thought. Especially, since, we’re closing a year so full of changes. To make the process of picking your perfect New Year’s resolution, and more importantly, to help you stick to it, I have put together a vast list of brilliant resources on the subject. Forget the financial crisis: 2009 is just gonna be great! So, without further ado, here comes everything you’ve always wanted to know about New Year’s resolutions, but never dared to ask.

My personal favorites

The Psychology of New Year’s Resolutions

• 75 percent of people will fail with their New Year’s Resolutions, according to this article written by John M. Grohol, Psy.D. at Psychcentral.com. The article is pretty deep and scientific, so you’d rather read it before the new year’s party.
• Psychology Today’s blogger Michele Weiner-Davis says that your New Year’s resolutions shouldn’t focus on yourself, but on your relationship with your significant other. “Why don’t spouses sit down together and truly think about where they want to be six months or a year from now, setting relationship-oriented goals that can make marriages richer, healthier and longer lasting?” she asks. Hmm, I guess she has a point. There has to be room for that kind of improvement, too.
• The Simple Dollar has put together a list for Defining and Sticking To a Successful New Year’s Resolution. Not only financially. The piece is from 2007, but it’s still a good read.
• U Turn Ahead’s 8 Tips for your New Year’s Resolutions’ success is also more than a year old, but it is very worthy of reading nevertheless. My favorite is #2: Spend some time thinking about the specific change you want to make. I agree, sometimes it is not as obvious as it may seem.
• Sharon Michaels’s How To Make A New Year’s Resolution You’ll Keep is a well-written article, without any really unique content or thoughts. If you want to reassure what you’ve already read in the previous articles, then give it a go.
• Michael Riley at MyCentralJersey.com argues that New Year’s eve may not be the best time to pick resolutions for the whole year. He may be right.

Lifestyle

• High Plains Buddhist’s Ten New Year’s Resolutions are funny, wise and provocative. I’m not quite sure how Buddhist they are, though. But maybe this is not even important in this case, is it?
• Living the Good life’s New Year’s Resolutions are, on the other hand, surely of religious motives. If “Pray more often” is a New Year’s Resolution you are about to consider, don’t miss this blogpost.

Fitness

• Fitness and working out has always been a favorite among New Year’s resolutions. So why don’t you head over to Fitness.com, and have a look at their list? I promise they won’t stop at Take the stairs instead of the elevator. They’re just warming up for the rest.
• Momlogic.com’s New Year’s Resolutions sound slightly more attractive for a lazy guy like me, even if improving the health factor still remains in focus.

Fun

• I guess that (if you have read at least some of the articles I suggested), by now, you are really confused concerning your own New Year’s Resolutions. No worries, help is on the way! Generate your New Year’s Resolutions by a single click of your mouse at Dagblog.com.
• Finally, indulge yourself with a whole lot of useless trivia on New Year’s eve and on New Year’s Resolutions. You deserve it!

Okay, it’s a bit more complicated than that. I’ve always been dreaming about building up a business on the Internet, including content and service sites, and I got very enthusiastic when I made my first move last week, and decided it was high time I started. So last Friday I registered the domain http://zsoltballa.com (although my real name is Balla Zsolt, but Hungarians, like the Japanese and the Chinese use family and surnames in reverse order, so the English compatible version of my name is Zsolt Balla), and started this blog.

I also wrote down a couple of ideas for the first blogposts, and after setting up the blog environment on Saturday, I started working on them full throttle. I also wrote down a couple of my already existing ideas I was planning to work on for the first few weeks (originally this blog was meant to be a report or a diary on the proceedings of those projects). These notes were not a specific business plan or something, that I am yet to create. But all the while it turned out that I had a hell of a good time writing blog posts.

Based on the fact that I thoroughly enjoyed writing blog posts, and brain storming on possible topics (I had over 30 topic ideas for future posts in virtually no time), and the other fact that I always wanted to have thematic blogs on two special subjects (one of which was charity, the other one I will reveal later on), I decided not to register dedicated domains for these blogs. I thought It would be a nice idea to use my personal domain for these blogs, especially as both of these subjects are of the kind I will gladly give my name to.

The charity blog I launched yesterday evening will feature news, articles, tips (and possibly a nonprofit database and a job board) on everything in connection with charity, donations, volunteering, fund raising, nonprofit works and aid works. I couldn’t resist but started the blog with a bunch of tips on charity Christmas presents.

Call it a cliché, but once I started the blog in the Advent season, I couldn’t find any reason why I shouldn’t do so. I’m planning to have approximately three posts a week up (similarly to this one), although the posting frequency may be a bit higher until the blog gets well established and widely known.

Although the blog is on charity and nonprofit, the blog itself is a for-profit project (I see nothing wrong with that), so for now, I’ve put a few Adsense stripes here and there. Later on I’ll see what works best for me (and for the blog).

But when drawing up the two posts, it turned out to be one. Laying down the rules proved to be nothing else but stating explicitly what this blog is not going to be and what is it that I am not willing to do (ie. the rules). So, here they are now.

This is a hobby. First of all, it means that I will only work on this blog (or on the projects mentioned in this blog) outside office hours. At least as long as I have a proper job (which I plan to have in the timespan that I’m able to foresee).

It means that I will not, in any means work or think about things mentioned here in the office, but on the other hand I will reduce my office-time spent with Facebooking and stuff, and try to cut out the longest time possible to do these projects with spending shortest time possible staring at a computer screen altogether. Secondly this site’s being a hobby also means that I will have to take it way more seriously than people take things related to their jobs. I mean normal people here, not the obsessed ones.

My life will not be changed by this. There are a couple of bloggers out there, who say that, back when they started blogging, they had no idea that it would change their lives. I’m not talking about change of this sort. If, say, two years from now, I will be a full-time blogger, sitting on my terrace writing posts and earning a six figure income, then so be it. When I say this hobby won’t change my life, I mean that I’m not willing to spend less time with my loved ones (family, friends, dogs etc.) because of my “virtual playground”. For now, I want to cut back on the time I spend on useless activities (watching TV, browsing the Internet pointlessly) and spend it on my internet projects.

I will be transparent, straightforward, and I’ll stick to the truth. If I’m not successful, you will know it, if I am, you’ll exactly know how successful I am.

I will never deny or hide any figure or data, be it income, spending, ROI, traffic, whatever. Amongst the few exceptions will be my AdSense revenue, as publishing details on your AdSense revenue is explicitly against the program’s TOS. But I will go as close to the exact figures as I can without braking the law.

If I find the key for success, I won’t keep it to myself so that you can’t copy my success. In fact, you are welcome to copy my success once I’m successful. But drop a backlink if you don’t mind…

I and all my projects will remain entirely white hat. No obscure schemes, no AdSense sites, no plagiarism. My sites will offer own content and own services. Period.

I will not want to sell anybody anything he or she doesn’t want to buy. It’s not that I have any problem with ClickBank-style stuffs or lengthy sales-letters, it’s just I’m not planning to be involved in that. I will use certain techniques, and, obviously, SEO. I will even buy PPC-traffic, but I will steer clear of anything reminiscent of a make-money-fast scheme. I will not review sites for you and lure you to buy lifetime access “for only $199″ or anything like that. I’ve been there before, I’ve seen it all, and it’s very remote from what I want from the Internet.

Internet, to me, means an infinite source of creativity, and I’m planning to keep it that way. I’m not sure that every site and service on the way will be creative and unique on its own, but I want to think that every idea of building a new site or offering a new service will be exactly like that.

Now I think I’m done with the mandatory part (maybe another post on what this blog will be after all would make sense), so let’s get down to business.