Ma.gnolia: Gerard McGarry's Bookmarks

'Bigger than Jesus? The Beatles were a Christian band

gerardmcgarry — Wed, 16 Jul 2008 01:53:32 PDT

Was John Lennon's remark about The Beatle's popularity more about the waning influence of Christianity in the face of pop culture? This article claims that Lennon was religious, but against the institution of the Church.

Your 13 Step Guide To Becoming a Beatles Fan

gerardmcgarry — Wed, 16 Jul 2008 01:06:52 PDT

A kind of beginners guide to listening to The Beatles, taking the albums out of chronological sequence and giving you an appreciation of each 'era'. Good reading.

Lost Jimi Hendrix Rock Conjured From Beyond

gerardmcgarry — Wed, 16 Jul 2008 01:02:53 PDT

It's possible that a collaboration between Jimi Hendrix and Stephen Stills could see a release in the near future. Billed as a Stills project with Hendrix helping out, it'll still be interesting to hear what Hendrix brings to the music.

Russian Metal has never been so.... Damn Funny?

gerardmcgarry — Wed, 16 Jul 2008 00:45:20 PDT

Brilliantly funny Russian metal video featuring a ginormous Gorbachev saving Russia and bringing them awesome western culture. A great find from Ryan.

Web Community Building and Participation - Tips Roundup

gerardmcgarry — Thu, 13 Sep 2007 05:54:42 PDT

Chris Garrett: It’s true success is as much about who you know as what you know. I owe a huge part of my career to online communities and I can not imagine ever having achieved anything without what I learned from participating in them.

Editorial Calendars and Professional Blogging

gerardmcgarry — Fri, 07 Sep 2007 00:49:49 PDT

Why use an editorial calendar? Because it forces you to think about what youre posting in advance and to try to structure your writing. You might consider writing a series of related posts and running one every Tuesday. Or possibly having a theme for certain days.

Using Psychology to Create a Killer Sticky Website

gerardmcgarry — Tue, 28 Aug 2007 04:23:20 PDT

What social web features appeal to our human instincts for acceptance and belonging? Laura Alter takes a look at some of the key components of successful social media sites.

Where are all the cool startups that run on ASP.NET?

gerardmcgarry — Tue, 28 Aug 2007 03:50:45 PDT

If you checkout the new startups on TechCrunch, it seems like every new startup is something Linux based and is not ASP.NET. And I really want to know why.

Notes On The ProBlogger Logo Design

gerardmcgarry — Tue, 28 Aug 2007 02:15:23 PDT

Mike from Makalu Media shares his design notes and sketches of the new logo for ProBlogger. Interesting write-up of the process of logo design and the client requirements.

Outsource Your Blogging Chores for Free

gerardmcgarry — Tue, 21 Aug 2007 13:16:37 PDT

Hint: recruit your loyal readers to muck in and help with moderation and promoting your site (among other duties)!

10 Ways to Eliminate the Echo Chamber

gerardmcgarry — Sun, 19 Aug 2007 15:39:49 PDT

Excellent, thought provoking post about the major problems with blogging today.

Is Wikipedia Corrupt?

gerardmcgarry — Fri, 17 Aug 2007 01:19:25 PDT

Interesting post about the editorial process and politics at Wikipedia. This calls into question the impartiality and reliability of the site and calls Google to task for favouring Wikipedia in their rankings. Rightly so.

10 SEO Tips to Remember While Launching a Site

gerardmcgarry — Fri, 10 Aug 2007 01:53:20 PDT

Eric Lander presents an excellent pre-launch checklist of SEO-related factors that may either help or hinder your site upon launch.

Automating WordPress customizations - the plugin way

gerardmcgarry — Thu, 09 Aug 2007 07:01:46 PDT

How to create a plugin to automatically set defaults in WordPress to your specifications. Really useful for anyone who manages multiple WordPress installations.

MySQL Optimization - A Little Tip

gerardmcgarry — Wed, 08 Aug 2007 05:45:45 PDT

A quick tutorial on how to optimise your MySQL queries for better performance when using complicated joins.

Three Ways To Spice Up Any Blog Post

gerardmcgarry — Tue, 07 Aug 2007 01:55:47 PDT

Here are three techniques that will have you bringing zesty back to your blog in no time. Some smart copywriting advice from Bryan Clarke.

How To: Plan Your Blog Posting Schedule

gerardmcgarry — Tue, 07 Aug 2007 01:17:03 PDT

Darren is running a fabulous series of posts about reinvigorating your blog. Steve Rubel talked about editorial calendars a while back, and Darren is also advocating a planned posting schedule as a method of keeping a professional blogging workflow. Highly recommended advice for anyone who s taking their blogging seriously.

10 Steps to Success on the Net Without SEO

gerardmcgarry — Tue, 07 Aug 2007 00:23:10 PDT

Tadeusz Szewczyk believes conventional SEO is dead in a world of blogs and social media. I m inclined to agree that social media on its own can generate a lot of traffic, but all these activities contribute to a sound SEO plan also.

The Business Blogging Toolset: 100 Resources for Entrepreneur-Writers

gerardmcgarry — Fri, 03 Aug 2007 02:08:23 PDT

Wow, if you re looking for an introduction to blogging, this is as comprehensive a resource as you re likely to find. 100 links to useful sites and classic blogging articles.

Rediscovering ScribeFire: 7 Reasons To Use The Blog Editor

gerardmcgarry — Thu, 26 Jul 2007 11:01:50 PDT

ScribeFire s been around for quite a while, but many bloggers are only just waking up to the productivity benefits blog editors can bring them.

Creating A Magazine Layout For WordPress

gerardmcgarry — Thu, 26 Jul 2007 00:26:52 PDT

Excellent post describing how to create a magazine style homepage for a WordPress blog.

Fighting Duplicate Content On WordPress

gerardmcgarry — Wed, 25 Jul 2007 08:03:28 PDT

A default installation of WordPress creates a lot of duplicate content. Here are some tips for optimizing your posts and avoiding Google s duplicate content filters.

Blasting the Myth of the Fold

gerardmcgarry — Tue, 24 Jul 2007 03:03:40 PDT

Probably the most talked about aspect of web design in 2007 is the fold - a mythological creature that changes its appearance on every different monitor and curiously prevents people from scrolling down a page...

The Best 80 Photoshop Text Effects on the Web

gerardmcgarry — Mon, 23 Jul 2007 13:45:19 PDT

I thought this was going to be overhyped, but it s really an excellent collection of tutorials for jazzing up text.

Why Small Businesses Need SEO to be Successful

gerardmcgarry — Mon, 23 Jul 2007 12:49:20 PDT

An important essay on why small businesses need to be aware of the power of SEO to improve their business. I d argue that while SEO is great at bringing in new business, you also need to focus on things like easy ordering systems and outstanding customer service. Finding your website is only part of the equation!

Short Term Gains Versus Long Term Value

gerardmcgarry — Mon, 23 Jul 2007 12:41:35 PDT

Chris Garrett expounds upon the futility of empty linkbaiting, describing it as essentially a short term strategy compared with writing useful insightful content.

RustyBudget: Multi-Author Blog Management

gerardmcgarry — Mon, 23 Jul 2007 09:41:36 PDT

Bridging the gap between blogging and professional multi-author management, this looks like a must-have tool for blogging teams.

Get Anyone to Read Every Word You Write With These 7 Steps

gerardmcgarry — Mon, 23 Jul 2007 05:36:19 PDT

Excellent 7 step advice on editing your writing ruthlessly in order to better serve the needs of your readers.

16 Best-Loved Font Bits In Web Design

gerardmcgarry — Tue, 03 Jul 2007 01:25:32 PDT

Useful article looking at fonts for use on the web. Some aren't universal, so they can't be used as pure text, but they would be quite nice for graphical titles.

xcavator – Advanced Image Search

gerardmcgarry — Mon, 02 Jul 2007 03:19:32 PDT

AJAX-driven stock image search. Pretty interesting colour matching technology.