One of my favorite activities is reading. I’ve found that holding a book in one hand, with my newborn daughter in the other, is difficult to manage. This is where both my iPod Touch and Blackberry have come in handy. These small devices allow me to access a mobile version of Google Reader and entertain myself with blogs.

Even with my Feed Reader loaded up with interesting feeds, I most certainly wouldn’t mind having a few more. What I would like, if you are so inclined, is for the blog authors out there to post their feed url in the comments section below. As the RSS Feeds come in, I’ll take a look at them and possibly add them into my feed reader for future entertainment. After a week or two I will compile a list from the comments and add them to this post.

Finding your RSS Feed on WordPress

• Open a new browser tab
• In that new tab, enter your blog address
• To the end of your address, add the following /feed/rss/
• See below for an example

Finding your RSS Feed on Blogger

• Open a new browser tab
• In that new tab, enter your blog address
• To the end of your address, add the following /feeds/posts/default?alt=rss
• See below for an example

What is an RSS Feed Anyway?

RSS stands for Really Simple Syndication and is a way for people to monitor a blog without actually doing the work. Through the use of a Feed Reader, we can be alerted as to when a blog is updated rather than spending time checking on it every few hours, or every few days. For an excellent explanation on how it works, check out the video below. It has been around for some time and many bloggers use it to educate new readers.

Walt, I want to subscribe to your RSS Feed!

Well thank you, subscribing to my feed would be fantastic!
You can Subscribe to WaltInPA.com via RSS or use the Email Subscription Form below.

RSS Feeds from the Comments

Cigar Blogs

1. Stogie Review: http://feeds.feedburner.com/TheStogieReview
2. Cigar Craig’s Blog: http://www.cigarcraig.com/blog/?feed=rss2
3. Toasted Foot: http://www.toastedfoot.com/feed/rss/
4. Drew Estate Blog: http://blog.drewestate.com/index.php/feed
5. Mike’s Stogies: http://mikesstogies.com/feed/rss/
6. Tampa Cigar Examiner: http://rss.examiner.com/RSS-17216-Tampa-Cigar-Examiner.rss
7. Tiki Bar Online: http://tikibaronline.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default?alt=rss
8. The Aspiring Gentleman: http://feeds.feedburner.com/TheAspiringGentleman
9. The Tobaccophile: http://feeds.feedburner.com/TheTobaccophile

Creative Writing Blogs

1. Future Nostalgic: http://future-nostalgic.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default
2. A Fullness in Brevity: http://afullnessinbrevity.wordpress.com/feed/rss/
3. JohnPender.net: http://johnpender.net/feed/

Beverage Blogs

1. Funktown Brewyard: http://www.funkytownbrewyard.com/rss.xml
2. Tampa Coffee Examiner: http://rss.examiner.com/RSS-58243-Tampa-Coffee-Examiner.rss

Post from: Walt in PA

Share Your RSS Feed

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1. The Inner Workings of my Personal Blog

As I’ve said in the past, I am a fan of Darren Rowse and ProBlogger. I subscribe to the ProBlogger RSS feed and for a fair amount of reading throughout the week. A couple of weeks ago, Darren had a guest post outlining the thirty bloggers to watch in 2010. The following week, he posted an article asking his readers to come up with their own list.

Being the avid fan of cigars that I am, I thought I would come up with a list of my own bloggers to watch in 2010. My list has been created to follow the cigar theme in some way. Some of these bloggers cover other topics, but there is a cigar element involved along the way.

10) Lindsay Heller from The Holy Trinity
When scanning through this list, Lindsay Heller and The Holy Trinity probably had you drawing a complete blank, and rightfully so, the blog was just created on January 13th, 2010. So if her blog was just started recently, why is it on my list? The answer to that question lies in Lindsay’s Twitter Personality. She is a straight shooter that provides loads of interesting information to those of us interested in cigars and adult beverages. In addition, Lindsay provided three fantastic Guest Articles for Stogie Review which has me eager to read what she has to say in the future.

09) Skip Martin from Smoke Signals
Skip Martin and Smoke Signals are names that you hear flying around Twitter from time to time. While Skip doesn’t blog on a regular basis, when he does it is a smash hit. All of his posts are well written with a lot of passion behind the message being presented. If you take advantage of an RSS Reader, I would strongly suggest subscribing to Skip’s blog because you won’t want to miss what he has to say next.

08) Chris from Nice Tight Ash
Selecting just one of the Guys from Nice Tight Ash was practically impossible. These guys do a wide array of things that cover cigars, from reviews of cigars and accessories to industry news. In addition to informative articles, the guys also produce good quality video content. Be sure to look them up sometime, I think you may like what you find.

07) J. Mulley from The World According to Stew
J. Mulley, or Stew, started his blog back in April of 2008 and quickly began producing written cigar reviews. Along the way, Stew switched over to providing his readership with video reviews. Not only are Stew’s videos informative but he also throws in a bit of outside banter from time to time, which makes them fun to watch.

06) Tom Adcock from Tom’s Cigars
Two years ago, Stogie Review presented a first guest review from Tom Adcock and friend Ed Nazre. The duo made for both entertaining and interesting reviews. Over the last two years, Tom has expanded from his regular guest spot on Stogie Review and created a blog of his own. Here you will not only find occasional video reviews, you will also find written reviews that are short and to the point.

05) Tony Ricciardi from Smoke Score
Some time on 2009 I received word that Tony was starting his own blog rating wines and cigars entitled Leaf and Grape. Over time it seemed that his readership wanted less wine talk and more cigar talk. Because of this, Smoke Score was born. Even before the transition, Tony has produced some quality writing that is full of interesting information.

04) Barry Stein from A Cigar Smoker
Barry is a cigar blogger that made his appearance on the web back in April of 2008 with written cigar reviews. Since then, Barry has made excellent headway in expanding his writing. Each reviews points out interesting information as to the origin, or back story, of the cigar before breaking down his opinion into manageable proportions.

03) David “The Doc” Diaz from Stogie Fresh
The Doc has been involved in Cigars as a member of the press for some time now. In addition to a regularly scheduled podcast he also produces some fantastic articles to expand his readers horizons. His articles are always information packed and well written. If you haven’t ventured over to Stogie Fresh in your journey through the world of cigars, I would strongly suggest taking a look.

02) Brian Hewitt from Stogie Review
I am biased here and you all probably know that. As a co-founder of Stogie Review, no list of mine would be complete without some sort of reference back to my home blog. Regardless of my bias, Brian writes some terrific articles that are very engaging. In addition, the man is a machine with a red editors pen. You can read Brian’s writing every Wednesday on Stogie Review in the form of cigar reviews.

01) Jerry Cruz from Stogie Review
As I said with in the blurb about Brian Hewitt, I am completely biased towards Stogie Review. Just like the case above, the bias doesn’t make much of a difference here because Jerry is a very engaging individual that shines when video blogging. Jerry has a straight shooter type of attitude and says what is on his mind at any given moment. This turns off the occasional viewer but makes him real in the eyes of many others. In the off chance that you haven’t seen Jerry shine, take a look at a video he did just last month portraying Jerry the Elf.

Post from: Walt in PA

10 Cigar Bloggers to Watch in 2010

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I decided that my personal blog would be my official New Years Resolution for 2009. On New years Day, I registered an account with a host and had Walt In PA up and running. Along the way, I have made some changes to the way things are done, as well as making a host and design change.

I’m very happy with the direction the site has gone and the content that has been inspired. I hope that you find my personal blog just as fun and entertaining as I do. If you are new to the site, take a moment to check some of the most popular posts here on Walt In PA.

• Flirt Pole – It Just Works
• My Benefits from Personal Blogging
• First impressions: Casa Fuego by J. Fuego Cigars
• Beer Review: Bass Ale
• Cigar of the Week: Oliva Serie G Maduro

Considering that this is a personal blog, I didn’t have high expectations for site traffic. Visitors have been coming to the site slowly, with steady growth, over the past twelve months. Even though the numbers aren’t through the roof, I’m happy with them non-the-less, as they exceeded my expectations. I also have to thank those that have been referring visitors to me over the past year. The list below is made up of five sites that have sent me the most traffic throughout the year.

• Twitter
• Stogie Review
• Toms Cigars
• The World According to Stew
• Mike in WV

Post from: Walt in PA

Year in Review: 2009

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1. A New Host and a New Theme
2. My Benefits from Personal Blogging
3. The Inner Workings of my Personal Blog

Operating a blog that is so spread out, in terms of content, has its pros and cons. The most obvious is that I’m not in a position where I feel as though I have to come up with fresh content based on a niche. For instance, when I write or record something for Stogie Review, I have to incorporate cigars. At times, this can be much harder than it seems.

I find that my best ideas come at random. If I sit down and try too hard to make a list of post ideas, I find that they always feel a little stuffy. So you may be wondering how I translate those random ideas into blog posts?

When I have a sudden idea about a writing topic, I try and write it down immediately. In addition, I also try and jot down a few words that will help jog the same series of thoughts I had when the subject popped in my mind. And when I say write, I mean just that. Often times I have a piece of paper and a pen handy (unless I’m actually out and about). My wife just loves to tease me about the little hand-written notes she finds in various places around the house.

For some strange reason, I feel as though writing notes the old fashioned way works better for me. When I am in a position where I can’t hand-write a note, I’ll reach for my Blackberry, but those times come infrequently. I love the idea of using technology for my note taking, but it just doesn’t seem to work for me. I’m always either forgetting to get caught up on my electronic notes, and don’t follow through with them. I think the reason hand-written notes work for me may have something to do with the satisfaction of physically crossing an item off of my list.

So writing a personal blog is easy because of the range of potential topics right? Absolutely not, think about all of the dead blogs you have come across over the web. I would think that the vast majority of these dead blogs consist of personal blogs of one sort or another.

I find that the best way to keep your blog alive and kicking is to find a balance and stick to it. I can’t reveal too much about my life. If I told too much, it could put me in a potentially hazardous position. If I told too little, it would kind of defeat the purpose of a personal blog.

In order to keep my blog active, I must lead a busy lifestyle to come up with new posts? Not really, I would think that the life I lead is average. My wife and I get out every now and again, and we have fun around the house. Some weeks I may not be able to come up with a single blog topic because of how mundane my week was. When I have a good week, I try and make the most of it by stretching out things from that particular week over a couple of posts.

These things work for me, but may be the bane of your personal blog. That is what makes this type of blog so much fun. Each one you come across will generate content in its own way. If you deciede to create one of your own, you will just have to experiment with different things to see how they work for you. The most important thing of all is simply to have fun with your blog.

Post from: Walt in PA

The Inner Workings of my Personal Blog

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2. A New Host and a New Theme

Not terribly long ago there was a new service that hit the internet and spread like wildfire. Google announced a project called Google Wave and before long, it seemed as though everyone on Twitter was mentioning it.

Not having invested any time into trying to acquire an account, I thought I would wait until after the project moved away from the invite only preview build. By surprise, a friend on Twitter was kind enough to offer me one of his invites. A short time later I was signed up and poking around the interface.

In the very beginning, after having skipped the hour and a half presentation video, I didn’t really see the benefit to such a service. It struck me as a combination email and instant message platform which wasn’t very appealing to me.

I decided that I was going to stick with it and see just how useful the tool could be to me. This is where Brian Hewitt and I began using it for Stogie Review. When Brian and I began collaborating, it immediately struck me as to how useful a service like this is.

At first we created a wave to discuss the usefulness of Google Wave. This was a fun little way of playing with the service to see what I could and couldn’t do without research. Before long we were neck deep in collaborating post ideas, to-do lists, daily discussion topic ideas, and so on and so forth.

In the past things were a lot more difficult. One of us would start a new blog post and save it as a draft. Once we were done with it, we would email the next person in line to take a look at it and make any edits. This chain of ours would continue until the post or article was complete. It was often more trouble than it was worth.

With this new Google Wave platform, we are able to create a Wave and work on it in real time, together. There is no more wasted time in waiting around for the next person in line to review the document. All changes made stand out from the document so that everyone involved can easily see the items that were changed.

The amazing thing is that I have only scratched the surface of what is possible in this preview account. There is a world or possibilities and I am completely sold on the products effectiveness to efficiently collaborate on a project in teal-time. As a collaboration tool alone, I am completely sold on Google Wave.

Post from: Walt in PA

My Early Thoughts on Google Wave

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Some time ago I posted about falling into routines. In that one particular post I talked about how I always seemed to be watching the same re-runs on television before getting dinner started. Similar routines exist elsewhere in my life as well, especially when it comes to the internet.

Each day I get to work early and quickly run down a list of forums and websites that I like to read, then quickly begin reading through posts in my RSS reader. One of the sites that I check every day is ProBlogger.

While I am not a professional blogger, I like reading Darren’s website to get ideas on where Stogie Review and Walt In PA could be tweaked. Sometimes it is a new feature that I’m looking to add and other times I’m looking for topic ideas.

One of the things I like about ProBlogger is that Darren Rowse has a tendency to inject personality into his articles. They make what I’m reading seem a little more real and it allows me to relate to him. I like to do the same thing, not just on my personal blog, but on Stogie Review as well.

There was an article recently on the benefits of being personal on your blog. I started reading it and couldn’t keep a smile from spreading across my face. The introduction to the article was a story about how Darren found himself being hugged by a stranger at the Blog World Expo. While I’ve never had an experience that extreme, I have met a variety of incredibly nice people at cigar conventions and events.

Quoted from ProBlogger, written by Darren Rowse:

For the next 4-5 minutes my hugging assailant (a reader as it turns out) talked, almost without taking a breath. She told me about the first day she read my blog (she remembered the first post), she told me about how it had helped her, she told me about the ups and downs of her blogging, she told me about her family, she told me about my family, she told me that she’d bought my book, joined my community, bought my ebook, she just talked…..

She talked as if we’d known each other for years – I guess in a way we had…..

The reason the smile on my face was so pronounced, was because I can relate. Over the past few years, Stogie Review has become relatively popular among the online cigar community. Because of this popularity, Jerry, Brian, and I tend to get recognized at large events and conventions.

I can remember back to the first time I was recognized at a large event, it was at the 2008 Cigarfest. I was there helping Sam Leccia work the Nub Cigar booth. Several people came up to me and were vigorously shaking my hand telling me all about their experience with Stogie Review. Some would launch into asking how things were going in my life (things that I didn’t even realize I mentioned during video reviews), and others asked me about Brian and Jerry. All of these people talked to me as if we were long time friends.

In the beginning it was a little strange. Actually, it is still a little strange at times. Being a relatively quiet person, its tough to talk to some people as I know absolutely nothing about them and they seem to know me well. Regardless of the awkwardness, I love how friendly and nice every one of these people have been.

One of the people that I talked to during my first big event was Carlos from New Jersey. Not only did I have a great time talking with Carlos, I still talk to him from time to time online. We met up the following year at the 2009 Cigarfest and got a chance to hang out for a little while.

During the recent 2009 IPCPR Convention in New Orleans, Jerry and I were sitting in Don Leoncio Cigars having a cigar and chatting away. During our conversation someone walked past the store, turned around to enter, and approached us with his hand out to greet us.

It was at that time that we met Jason and his wife from PA. Both were very friendly and again we launched into conversation like we had known one another for a time. Just like with Carlos, Jason and I talk a bit online and have a good time.

I guess the whole point of this article is to say just how fond I am of showing personality while blogging. Had we stayed stuffy on Stogie Review and revealed little of our personal lives, we may have never of met some of these fantastic people.

Each time I plan to go to a large event, I look forward to who I might meet next. Jason and Carlos are just two of the people I was thrilled to meet, there are several others that I speak with daily via Twitter and Facebook.

Post from: Walt in PA

My Benefits from Personal Blogging

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Because this site is of a personal nature, I didn’t have any expectations of it paying for itself. I viewed it as a hobby that I was to undertake, which would come along with out of pocket expenses. With the out of pocket part in mind, I opted to go for inexpensive web hosting to get me through. At the time I thought a host was a host and as long as traffic levels were low, I wouldn’t run into trouble.

Despite having the low traffic levels that I expected, I ran into performance issues that I did not expect. When choosing my host, I went with a bargain basement GoDaddy plan, with a web coupon, to bring the grand total of my hosting to about $65.00 annually.

As time went on, I realized I was getting just what I paid for. I went cheap with hosting and was getting cheap hosting in return. After I began experiencing delayed response times from my site database, I began to voice my displeasure with GoDaddy support.

Dealing with such a large company had its ups and down. Wait times for email support were long, as were phone support calls. Sometimes staff was very helpful and other times it was simply a waste of time to submit some sort of trouble ticket.

While I have no illusions of this personal blog becoming highly trafficked and requiring a large amount of server resources, I do want to it function smoothly for the couple hundred people who visit per week. Because of this, I made the decision to transfer hosts at the end of the year, when my twelve-month signup was complete.

This all changed after yet another slow day on my blog. I was attempting to transfer some posts I had typed up, when I experienced several database outages. When I contacted GoDaddy, asking that they please look into the problem and move me to another shared server, I was informed that I was required to sign up for a new WordPress package if I wanted to see an increase in performance.

I was told that when I signed up, my site would be moved to this new grid infrastructure and that the remaining time left on my current plan would be pro-rated and credited to me. Having my host tell me that if I wanted my site to run properly, I had to sign up for another twelve months, was the straw that broke the camels back.

Along with a new look, I have taken the time this weekend to transfer hosts over to one that I am more familiar with. I signed up for a more expensive Midphase Package, but have long history with the company through the Stogie Review website (our host from day 1). While we have had our problems with Midphase, we never experienced any major issues on their shared hosting plan. With this change in hosts, I hope that anyone that was having issues on my personal blog in the past, will find it much faster on the new Midphase server.

I thought that since I was taking the time to upgrade my hosting plan, that I would also take the time to give the site a face-lift. After the redesign of Stogie Review, I was very impressed with the work of Matt Brett and wanted to bring some of his work here to my personal blog. While I couldn’t afford to go the route of a custom design, he does have a few competitively priced premium themes.

I hope that you like the new layout and that the host upgrade makes a noticeable difference during your visits.

Post from: Walt in PA

A New Host and a New Theme

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The Numbers:

• Comment goal for the month of March: 105
• Approved comment count for the month of March: 103
• Visits goal for the month of March: 1,099
• Visitor count for the month of March: 1,275

Goal for April:

• Approved Comments: 105
• Visitor Count: 1,300 (+2%)

Top 5 Referring Sites

• Twitter
• Stogie Review
• Casting for Cohibas
• The World According to Stew
• Mike in West Virginia

Do you have a suggestion to
make the site better?

Post from: Walt in PA

Just short of my goal for March

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As Twitter becomes more and more prominent in the everyday lives of internet users, it becomes a more appealing venue for spammers. Being a bit of a twitter addict myself, I have seen a steady increase of junk follows.

These junk follows, as I refer to them, are spam bots or people with an agenda at making money by convincing you to check out a particular page on the web. They may tell you about the “free laptop” or how they recently received a “check for X number of dollars”.

It doesn’t take more than a second to glance at this persons twitter profile to see what is going on. While you are on their page, why not dedicate another second of your time and scan the page for “Block” button. Once clicked, you are asked to confirm the action. Once you do, the user can no longer see your tweets and his follower count no longer reflects you as a statistic.

I take the same coarse of action if I see a new follower with dozens of links to themselves in their stream. While I think linking is great, I want to connect with my followers and see more than self-promotion throughout the day. I typically do not ban these people; I simply choose not to follow back.

This sometimes leads to another type of spam, which can be frustrating. On occasion these people will un-follow me then follow me back. This forces twitter to send me an email notification of the new follower. I could disable this, but I prefer the email notice so that I remember to check out the user.

In this event, I ignore the notice and continue business as usual. Some people may accidentally remove me from their follow list and choose to add me back in a couple of days. If I see a third email notice from a single user, I go straight to the block button and don’t think twice.

In the event that I receive a new follower with no updates, I check to see how many people they are following. If I see some familiar faces, such as @brianhewitt and @jcruz, I have a pretty good idea where this person got my user name from and assume they are a Stogie Review reader and I generally follow back.

At this point you have an understanding of how I determine a new follower as spam. If you have followed me, are not a spammer, but I have not followed back, one of two things happened:

• Your tweets didn’t spark and interest and compel me to follow back
• I overlooked the email notification and haven’t seen your twitter stream yet

The simplest way to get my attention in either case is to simply send me a tweet. Anything that starts with @waltw shows up in my replies stream via the web client. These tweets are also grabbed by Tweetdeck and brought to my attention. Once a connection is made and we share some dialog, I am far more likely to follow back.

Post from: Walt in PA

Why aren’t you following me back on Twitter?

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photo credit: cogito ergo imago

After exceeding my goal for January, I was a little worried about increasing the numbers for a shorter month. It seems that I must be doing something right as we exceeded my expectations once again. My comment goal looked like it wasn’t going to be met until I made mentioned of it on Twitter and Brad in Buffalo went on a commenting spree.

The Numbers:

• Comment goal for the month of February: 102
• Approved comment count for the month of February: 107
• Visits goal for the month of February: 1,064
• Visitor count for the month of February: 1,077

Goal for March:

• Approved Comments: 105
• Visitor Count: 1,099 (+2%)

Top 5 Referring Sites

• Twitter
• Stogie Review
• Mike in West Virginia
• Casting for Cohibas
• Tom’s Cigars

Do you have a suggestion to
make the site better?

Post from: Walt in PA

Goal for February Met

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