The 460 is a 4 inch by 60 ring cigar with a Brazilian maduro wrapper and Nicaraguan long-filler. The cigar feels firm and has a free pre-light draw. Aroma is oak and hay.

Since the Nub is designed to hit the sweet spot quick and stay there, there isn’t much change in flavor or evolution with this experience. The light brings some pepper and unsweetened chocolate with a bit if oak and moss.

The body stays medium with a nice dense mouthfeel, but not overly thick. Flavor is in the mid range of strength.

The only change in flavor came toward the end when there was about an inch and a half left and things got bitter.

The burn was mostly even and very slow. Burn time was close to an hour.

The only stick I can compare this to is the Oliva O Maduro (Oliva makes Nub) which has similar earthy notes but more spice.

10 Nub 466 Box-Press Torpedo $34.99

Cigar International Says:

Rather than wait for a cigar to evolve, Nub cigars hit their sweet spot right off the bat and remain equally delicious right on down to the….err….nub. The 466 Torpedo Cameroon is crafted into lovely, box-pressed figurado and jam-packed with premium, aged Nicaraguan long-fillers, promoting a highly unique smoke that’s set new standards in premium cigars. Expect a complex, medium-bodied cigar layered by sweet cedar, nuts, and subtle spices throughout the slow and cool burn.

Free Standard shipping on your whole order when you buy Joe’s daily deal!

Been thinking about launching a new website for the Honda/Acura brand. It’d be something similar to a s3 magazine in terms of feature cars, latest news from the Honda brand and a forum for exclusive members. By exclusive, I mean you have to be voted in by the appearance of your car. Those rejected would be given a summary statement on why they weren’t accepted. In the end though, the admin would have to make the final judgment.

It’d be cool, cause we’d have t-shirts for sale, stickers, shit like that. I’d have a military style ranking system. Of course, Officer ranked members would be exclusive members, admins and mods. Monthly contests to earn a higher rank faster than getting a certain post count to unlock different areas of the forum and/or ROTM(Ride of The Month).

I have some other ideas in my head and what not. Dunno if this would be a good idea, but it would definitely keep the trashy looking cars out of the forum and all the hate. It’d make for a tighter community and all that type of neat shit.

Feel free to put your input on this if you have any, positive or negative. I don’t know jack-shit about doing something upto this caliber. Any help would be cool as well.

Thank you for visiting us. We have moved to our new website! Click here to visit Toasted Foot!

Size: 5×50, Robusto

Wrapper: Nicaraguan

Filler: Nicaraguan Estelí Ligero (32%), Jalapa Ligero (25%), Condega Ligero (25%)

Strength: Full

Price: Box of 5, $25.00

This is Agent 24 from The Cigar Spy! I am doing some “off-the books, contract work” for the gentlemen here at Cigar Reviews! My target  was The Cain F. The Cain is the latest offering from Nub architect Sam Leccia and the Oliva family of cigars. It is billed as a full ligero cigar. This means that the filler is almost 100% ligero. The ligero is the top of the tobacco plant and is billed as the most flavorful and powerful part of the plant. Sam uses 3 different ligeros from Habano Seed Estelí, Jalapa and Condega plants. Each plant name represents the region of Nicaragua that it was grown.  The F, which stands for Fuerte, is 82% ligero as compared to 77% ligero in the regular lines.

Appearance:
This is a cigar that is meant to speak for its self and it comes unbanded. It does come in a nice cedar package with the 5 cigars inside wrapped in a red Cain ribbon. It is very nicely constructed. It is firm from head to foot, with very few veins and no loose spots. The wrapper is an oily, dark brown and smells of cedar and fresh cut grass. After the cut, the cold draw was outstanding and I have a lingering sweetness on the tip of my tongue. This surprised me; I do not expect this cigar to be sweet!

Burn, 2.0:
From the light, the Cain F has a great draw and thick, billowy smoke that gives off the aroma of cedar and dark cocoa. The burn is consistent all the way through and needs no re-lights or touch-ups. The ash is bright white and holds almost through the entire 1^st half of the cigar. I only ashed this cigar four times during an hour and a half of smoke time.

Flavor:
As expected due to the strength of the ligero, I was immediately hit with a blast of spice. This left a lingering hot pepper taste and was a little spicy on the retrohale. While it did give a hot pepper burn on the retrohale, it was not overwhelming at all and actually was kind of pleasant. If you enjoy spicy food, you know what I am talking about; it was spicy, but enjoyable. The real treat was the other flavors that made up the profile of this powerhouse. During the 1^st third, I had a woodsy, roasted nut flavor that balanced out the spice. This continued throughout the cigar with the occasional hit of dark cocoa to make for a consistent and balanced flavor profile.

Overall:
Oliva and Sam Leccia have another winner in the Cain F. I enjoyed this full-bodied smoke from pre-light all the way through to the nub. I was expecting a powerhouse of spice and while it was spicy, it had a nice even flavor profile throughout that balanced out the power of the spice. Also, while I had heard that this was a nicotine powerhouse as well, I found it to be very even on the nicotine as well. I did get that full stomach feeling, but at no time was I overwhelmed. I will definitely be adding the entire Cain line to my regular rotation and at the price, it is an affordable and enjoyable full-bodied smoke for anyone who likes a little kick in the ass from time to time!

Thanks Agent 24 for the Guest Review!

[JoblessPunk] recently finished his what-a-psp-should-be mod. He’s internalized a camera and added a switch in the body to toggle between using the camera or using the USB port. There’s an additional analog stick, and added charging functionality via the USB port. He’s also packed in an additional 32 GB of flash memory. The device is of course running custom firmware which facilitates the ubiquitous flock of emulators and homebrew apps.

We agree that the original PSP is a pretty powerful handheld that never saw a full realization of its potential.  With the impending release of the next generation PSP Go we hope the price and availability of the older units leads to more mods of this sort. Check out the video after the break.

Here’s a well made video from [JoblessPunk] detailing his work. The first half is propaganda to help find partners for a future commercial venture involving these mods.  The second half shows-off the new features, connectors, control, etc. Try to resist the urge to strangle when you get 25 seconds into the video; it’s all uphill from there.

I was wondering around facebook, thinking about what I should post up on makenubs today when lo and behold, what should I find? The stonkingest opportunity for nubbers to go crazy-crazy with nubaganda videos, all courtesy of Obama’s Health Reform Video Challenge. This is going to be interesting. It’s also yet another example of how ahead Obama is on harnessing the web to engage support and stoke up positive thought for his endeavours, most recently to push through health care reform in the US. This method worked in the elections, but it remains to be seen whether it will work for this campaign, that has so far been thwarted with controversies, set-backs and, well, straight-up lies.

For those of you who haven’t been following the whole health care debate, check out thoughtbubble and vlogbrothers‘ take on it in this nub:

This week I was finally able to sit down and enjoy the NUb Maduro that was sent to me a while back. Needless to say I’ve been pretty anxious not only to try the maduro, but this is my first actual NUb cigar. Let’s hope it can live up to the hype.

NUb Maduro

This cigar was sent to me along with a pre-release Cain Habano by cigar maker Sam Leccia a while back. Ever since, I have been wanting to try it, but I knew I wanted to do a review on it and just hadn’t had the upcoming time to sit down and hammer one out. So here it is, finally. I am also completely aware that there are already 230942839402 reviews of this cigar already out there, hopefully my take will be a little different than the norm.
The Good Stuff: The NUb cigar was invented by the cigar genius Sam Leccia in his garage in 2006. The idea behind each NUb cigar is simply capture the true essence of a cigar. Every experienced cigar smoker knows that the cigar matures as it is smoke, making the final few puffs of each cigar a whopping powerhouse of strength and flavor. What NUb cigars bring is the same mature flavors, up front. No waiting hours to hit that sweet spot. NUb cigars a the “sweet spot” the whole way through.

Size: 4 x 64  -  Wrapper: Brazilian Maduro  -  Binder/Filler: Nicaraguan

NUb Maduro

Prelight: First of all this cigar has some massive weight to it. Not to mention the famous NUb shape. At a 64 ring gauge this is a pretty fat cigar. I had never even noticed until it was time to light it up. The wrapper is a smooth, creamy maduro. The one i smoked was literally about 4 shades lighter than the ones I’ve found at my local B&M shop. There is only one visible vein, but it is very small and out of the way. The obvious torpedo shape extrudes through the head of the cigar while the foot is crisp and clean. The cigar itself is very hard and has no soft spots. The NUb maduro is extremely tight wrapped, which makes for awesome NUbStands! The first scents were very earthy/leather with soft notes of almost dirt, and tobacco.

NUb Maduro

First Smoke: This cigar took a really long time to light under my single flame torch. A lot of that probably has to do with its think ring gauge. The first draws were extremely weak, which REALLY disappointed me. The cigar wasn’t plugged at all either, I was receiving lots of airflow on each puff. Then, as if the NUb read my mind I was smacked in the face with not only the largest, but the thickest smoke I have ever pulled off a cigar. I smoke outside with the wife a lot of times, and even she got all excited and followed the smoke cloud as it drifted across my entire back yard. The taste of the NUb maduro is magnificent. There are very soft spices, mixed with earthy, leather tastes with small hints of cocoa, caramel, and straight up tobacco. This is a VERY smooth smoke. The burn is absolutely gorgeous and there are no signs of wrapping flaws.

On most reviews i follow up with a sentence like “i got about an inch of ash before it gave way”. The NUb is different. Different in a way that there were no ash droppings. I literally smoked the whole cigar from start to finish before it ashed the first time.

Nub Maduro

Halfway There: Honestly I don’t think I’ve ever had a cigar that kept such a balanced taste, smoke, and texture through its smoke like the NUb maduro has. The peppery spice is so well balanced with the tobacco, cocoa, and earth tastes. This is such an enjoyable cigar. The burn is still rocking perfect, and the draw is still massive.

NUb Madruo NUb Stand

Finish: That’s right. Tony’s first NUb stand. You see it all the time in pictures, and magazines, but you don’t realize what a feat it is until you actually do it for yourself. The whole smoke down I had been trying to be as careful as possible as to not knock off the ash until I could get this shot. And then when it came down to it the ash was just crooked enough to set the cigar off balance and it tipped over as I tried to snap the shot. Much to my surprise the ash held on. On the second shot i serious just smashed the ash into my ashtray. Sure enough, it held on just fine. Try doing that with any other cigar.

The finish of the cigar literally tasted just like the beginning. The NUb maduro is a VERY well balanced and well thought out cigar from the draw to the shape. All in all the NUb Maduro took about an hour and a half to smoke. A lot longer than expected. Bigger isn’t always better.

Nub Maduro

Overview: The NUb Maduro is a spectacle. It’s a great tasting cigar, extremely well balanced, and very affordable. I would not only try this cigar again, but I would honestly recommend it to any cigar smoker. The complex smoke and flavors are enough to stun any experienced smoker while the soft spice, smooth draw, and cocoa flavors are vivid enough to entice even the novice cigar smoker. This is definitely a box-buy considered cigar.

Hat tip to Michelle Malkin on this one.

ACORN Watch: Charlie Gibson And The Ostrich Media
Michelle Malkin
September 15, 2009

From which we glean the following:

Now, how is it possible that a Joe Average American like me, with nothing more than my computer terminal hooked up to the Internet, was able to gather all of the following information over the past week:

VIDEO: ACORN Aids And Abets Child Sex Trade

A Second set Of Videos Exposing ACORN

New Videos Showing 3rd ACORN Office Offering Advice On Prostitution Ring

Glenn Beck: 2, Obama Administration: 0

And yet, Charlie Gibson, with the vast resources of ABC at his disposal was somehow so insulated that he “didn’t know?”

This is why Gibson can only be accurately described as a DNC newsreader rather than any kind of real journalist. In the immortal words of the Nickelodeon Television series iCarly, Gibson is a “nub.”

If anyone from ABC wishes to take issue with my analysis, please feel free to respond.

Today, we have another guest review, this time from our friend Pat Fumador.

I stopped into Cigar Castle in Tampa on Friday afternoon to pick out a cigar that I had not tried before, and with an adventure in mind, chose this cigar.

This is what Cain puts up on their website. I found it interesting and brought what I understood to be fact to be actual fact. We wonder sometimes, yes?

Cigar Architecture is crucial in any cigar. It is especially critical in making a Straight Ligero cigar. Not All tobacco burns at the same rate. Ligeros are the fullest body, slowest burning of the tobaccos. Viso is a medium flavored with better burn qualities. Seco is lighter flavored and quickest to burn. It is the careful arrangement of these tobaccos that allows a cigar to burn true.

Flavor Range refers to the low, medium, and high range of flavors in a cigar blend. Typically these ranges are achieved by the three aforementioned tobaccos. In making a Straight Ligero cigar we are delivering our low, medium and high range all from Ligero tobaccos. Still we must carefully arrange these Ligeros with other tobaccos for a true burn. The other tobaccos make no significant contribution to flavor.

Wrapper leaf is typically credited with delivering up to 60% of the flavor of a cigar, depending on the ring gauge. This is mostly true. In a Straight Ligero cigar it plays an important but reduced role as a result of the three powerful Ligeros.

All this having been defined, here is what I personally discovered about the cigar itself.

Prelight visuals are always important. It’s like food presentation. We feast with our eyes first. Dark. Bold. Very slight oily appearance. Did I say dark? Yes, very. Wrapper was clean and slightly veiny. What one would expect from a cigar that is a company’s pride and joy.

Prelight aroma was a little confusing at first. It wanted to be grassy, but it was warmer, more dense, darker than the standard vegetable by definition as I know it.

On to the lighting! First aromas from the foot were fabulous. Richness and depth that I didn’t expect from a cigar this early. The perfume was incredible. So much so that I left the room where others were smoking so I could bring a better definition to it. Wow. Glad I did. It was almost meaty in density. First real draw was heavy. Why not? It was a very dark wrapper, bragging its’ triple fermentation ligero heritage, and stand up to its’ heritage it did.

I usually find that I have to ‘forgive’ the first inch on most cigars, allowing them to warm up and become more defined. They can be a little wild starting off. Not so with this. It started with a roar and didn’t stop until I was forced to put it down with 1/3^rd left to smoke. At that point, I was pleased that I had enjoyed a solid meal before lighting up!

Draw was easy, no straining to get smoke from this one. Firm but clean draw and very generous with smoke volume.

Two notables along the way though. The first third was rich with a pepperiness, mixed slightly with deep leather tones. Half way, it evolved more to the vegetable/grassy leather, almost totally lacking the earlier pepperiness. Still very dense and generous with the smoke volume, pleasing every corner of the palate.

Would I buy this cigar again? Yep.

Would I recommend it to friends? Only if they liked deep, dark, bold cigars that would take over given half a chance.

The PSP Go is the latest version of the Sony PSP (Playstation Portable).
This version has a sliding up screen (like slider phones) with the buttons concealed beneath when it is down.
There have been rumours of PSP2s going round for quite a while, and here are some of the features speculated about:
a) Second Analogue Nub: This would be very useful for 3D Action/Adventure games and could be used the same way as the right analogue sitck on the PS2 / PS3, yet it does not appear on the PSP GO. Moreover, the first analogue nub has been moved further inwards making it harder to use.
b) Touchscreen: This would make designing custom levels and menu navigation much easier and more enjoyable, but I’m not sure if it has one. Please comment if you know.
c) Accelerometer: Motion sensing doesn’t go well with handheld consoles, because the sensor and the screen are on the same piece of plastic, meaning you can’t watch the screen and flick the sensor around at the same time. The PSP GO doesn’t have one.
d) No more UMDs: The PSP GO has no UMD drive so all games must be downloaded from the internet

Some other PSP GO features:

Non-removable battery
16GB non removable memory
Built in Bluetooth
3.8 inch screen
Lighter than the PSP 3000
Memory Stick Micro Slot instead of Memory Stick Duo Slot
A clock that is displayed when the screen is down
The same XMB as the PSP 3000

Watch a video on Youtube here

Review on Youtube

(Those videos aren’t by me)

I don’t even know where to start with this review, but I am extremely lucky to have gotten my hands on one of Oliva Cigars newest products, The Cain Habano Ligero.

Cain Straight Ligero Habano

Being that I am new to cigar reviews, I spend a lot of time reading other sites and blogs. One name stood out as of late and its all over the internet. The Cain Straight Ligero is all over twitter, blogs, review sites, and even the buzz in local stores. Needless to say I jumped at the first chance to get my hands on one of these bad boys that I could, getting a pre-release kit courtesy of Sam Leccia himself. He was kind enough to send a few of these out before release to cigar reviewers all over the Internet.

The Cain line of cigars (at this point I believe is is just a habano, and a maduro) are the newest release from the nimble hands of Sam Leccia, maker of the famous NUb cigar line. The Cain will be announced to the world at this year’s International Premium Cigar & Pipe Retailers Event that took place this past week in New Orleans and is by far one of the most anticipated cigars to make face in this years event.

Cain Straight Ligero

The Good Stuff: The Cain Straight Ligero cigar is, as obvious of its name, a ligero based cigar. Ligero tobacco is the absolute top leaves from the tobacco plant. These leaves are not only said to be the strongest of the entire plant due to the excessive amount of sun they absorb, but the most flavorful as well. Taking it one step further has always been a trend when it comes to Sam, and the Cain in no doubt withholds that tradition with its triple fermentation process. Easily said, the ligero tobacco leaves are fermented three different times, producing massive amounts of heat withdrawing the strongest, and most flavorful tobacco possible while at the same time producing the longest burning tobacco. Although the Cain states “straight Ligero” the tobacco in this cigar are blended with Seco tobacco to produce a true burn.

Cain Straight Ligero

Size: 5×50  -  Wrapper: Ligero Habano  -  Filler/Binder: Ligero  -  Origin: Esteli, Nicaragua

Prelight: The Cain I happened to receive was a Belicoso (torpedo) habano. Which is actually my favorite shape. The construction of this cigar is magnificent. Absolutely no flaws, or soft spots. When I recieved my package UPS did a good job banging the hell out of the box, so I wasn’t sure what condition the contents would be in. The Cain Habano boasts a very dark, very smooth, chocolaty brown wrapper. This actually threw me off, and for a while I thought I actually had received the maduro. From what I hear I’m not the only one who made that mistake. There were very little veins. The banding itself is remarkably simple. A black and gold band, stating the words Cain Straight Ligero is soft script; the perfect touch, the Cain speaks for itself.

First Smoke: As a trend in most traditional cigars I have had recently the Cain Habano took quite some time to get lit under the gun of my single flame colibri butane torch. The first tastes were that of a woodsy cedar arrangement, followed shortly by sharp pepper spice. The Cain’s spice was incredibly strong and flavorful, and at times actually tickled the back of my throat while the strength of the tobacco made my eyes water. The draw was decent sized, and very thick. It wasn’t wrapped too tight, just tight enough not to let the immense taste over-power the smoker. The Cain, even in its beginning stages, has to be by far the strong cigar I have ever smoked. The scent of the Cain was well-paired with its cedaresque smells, mixed with that of leather and spice. The ash built up for well over an inch before giving way.

Cain Straight Ligero

Halfway There: I am so taken by the strength of the Cain, and the length of the burn. I can’t believe I have been going at this cigar for over an hour an I am barely reaching the halfway point. I’m not babysitting this guy either, I am hitting the hell out of it and the remarkably smooth smoke, with the great flavor is allowing me to do so. The taste is still hanging in there, and has yet to change, or decrease. The strength of the Cain has increased a bit by this point, while the burn is INCREDIBLY perfectly even.

Finish: When all was said and done the Cain Habano took me little over two and a half hours to smoke down to the nub. Again, I was going at this cigar like a champ. I am so blown away at the consistency in burn, flavor, and strength. Even towards the very end of this cigar, it was still a very smooth, enjoyable smoke. I took this down and one sitting, needless to say I was a bit light-headed and disoriented when I stood up for the first time.

Cain Straight Ligero

Overview: The Cain is one hell of a cigar, and anyone who has had one should be privileged. Because of the strength, and flavor, I wouldn’t recommend this cigar to any novice smoker, or those with weak stomachs. But anyone who has ever enjoyed a few good, stronger cigars this one’s for you. I would buy this again, and plan to do so in the very near future.

I’ve been pleasantly surprised that even though my readership is small, several readers have asked how to make a website like mine. I’m going to charitably assume you mean my blog, which is what you’re reading, and not my temporarily abandoned website. Therefore, here’s a post about choices I’ve made, research I’ve stumbled upon, and hacks I’ve created. I will start with the most rudimentary information, since it’s what has been requested, and move on to the more difficult work and choices.

Blogging services

The first question a embryonic blogger wants to ask is what service to use; there are several. WordPress, Blogger, and Squarespace are the most used sites among my friends, family, and colleagues.

WordPress

I chose WordPress for two reasons: I had professional experience with them through StyleFeeder, and I appreciate their dedication to open source communities. However, WordPress.com blogs do not get to see many of the benefits of WordPress’s open source community; if you want to revel in the programming aspect of it, visit WordPress.org, download their server software, and tinker with it. Not up for that game? Well then say goodbye to easy extra functionality via WordPress plugins; you can’t use them. Also, there’s no javascript support at all, so you can’t even hack code together. Everything that you accomplish has to come through their already-provided widgets, which was tricky for me but also enjoyable.

The site does have many useful background tools, some of which are shared with Blogger. However, the default viewer statistics seem to be much more advanced on WordPress than Blogger (unless you use Google Analytics, which WordPress.com blogs can’t do). Also, media storage and other functionality such as media sharing that looks equivalent between the two sites is actually, in my opinion, much more user-friendly on WordPress.com.

In my experience, WordPress is used mostly due to their open source software, which isn’t any good to me, and also mostly by companies. While I’m very happy with my choice of home, average Joes tend to avoid it in preference of Blogger.

Examples:
gregfreed.wordpress.com
ranyachantal.wordpress.com
writingcontests.wordpress.com

Examples of WordPress.org blogs:
www.hyperorg.com/blogger/
blog.futurestreetconsulting.com

Blogger

Very many of my friends from Emerson and back home and most of the people I’ve found through Twitter so far use blogger. In my opinion, the sites looks messier in design than WordPress equivalents, but content should drive most of your visitors, meaning that the cluttered Blogger look shouldn’t dissuade you in itself. Also, how clean or cluttered your site looks will depend mostly upon the amount of time and effort you’re willing to put into design.

Blogger, at first glance, has more functionality that a WordPress.com blog and is more user-friendly for simple tasks. For example, you can put javascript on Blogger, allowing you to automate “Twit This!” buttons and other sharing services, which will garner you free PR. WordPress.com does not have this functionality, and making a workaround (see below) via html has already cost me several hours and will cost me more time in aggregate hours in the future.

Examples:
steadyblue.blogspot.com
mundaneproject.blogspot.com
dallasdreamer.blogspot.com

Squarespace

I only know two people using Squarespace. Both of their sites show extreme customizability and are built for heavy traffic and easy use. I’m under the impression that their blogging and site building experience has been fairly intense, but they both have something to show for all of their time and effort. Paul Wesman has worked in communication for years, and his blog shows his dedication to corporate quality and readability. Sadi Ranson-Polizotti is a deaf friend and mentor who is renowned for her knowledge about Bob Dylan, Lewis Carroll, and the written word; she has a new book of poetry, For Goodness’ Sake, due in August through Twilight Times Books. (Boy, do I wish I had an affiliate program right now… lolz.)

Examples:
www.paulwesman.com
tantmieux.squarespace.com

Hacks, or making my WordPress.com blog work for me

I discovered Problogger early, which has been both helpful and not. On the one hand, they have very good advice; on the other hand, most of their advice seems to me like common sense, or rather, like the decision that I came to when I thought to myself for a second about what I was trying to do with my blog. Either that, or their advice was far in advance of where I happened to be.

New readers are hard to come by, and you want your blog to be ready to receive them when they arrive. Problogger posted an article recently about the nine first steps for new bloggers. I’ll try to cover what I think they missed below.

Design

Readers coming to your site will have a series of questions in mind, such as Who does this blog belong to and why am I reading it? or Where’s the good info at?! Not having readily available answers to these questions puts your new reader at risk of leaving the site and never thinking of you again.

From Tim Ferriss I learned several points, but one most crucial theory: Do not have an easy exit point for new viewers. Every link that a reader can see within seconds of entering the site should be directed back at your site. Yes, you want to plug other people’s blogs wherever possible, but you don’t want a reader to leave your blog before they’ve even seen one post, and they will if they have reason to believe that you’re leading them into more interesting content than they expect to find on your site.

The topmost section of your website should be dedicated to you. Have an About page so that potential readers can get to know you and feel like they belong with your content. Have a Contact page, letting people know that they can feel free to contact you. List your most recent or most viewed posts at the top of your sidebar so that readers can find the interesting content they’re looking for as quickly as possible. Just don’t provide an easy out or the viewer just might take it.

RSS widget

That said, making the RSS feed I have in my sidebar was a bit tricky; maybe it’s because I’m a nub, maybe it’s because I wanted a custom RSS feed where I could decide what content my blog would link to. In order to accomplish my task, I created a Google Reader account. In Google Reader I subscribed to all the blogs I wanted to keep up with, which included Facebook friends, actual friends, and family in addition to the helpful blogs like Problogger and the blogs that created material I was actually interested in. Start sharing posts you think your readers should see; they will be allocated into an RSS feed at http://www.google.com/reader/shared/YOURGOOGLEIDHERE, which can be accessed via the “Shared items” menu. Access that page, and you will see the link Atom Feed next to the universal feed icon: . Copy the link location.

At that point, go to My Dashboard->Appearance->Widgets and drag the RSS widget to your sidebar (I drug mine to the bottommost section). Copy the link location for the Atom Feed where the widget says “Enter the RSS feed URL here.” Name the widget if you want (mine is titled simply My Google Reader), change whatever settings you want, and click Save. If that doesn’t work, mash you head against the keyboard until you successfully spell out Head hit keyboard sequentially, and then contact me, and I’ll do my best to help.

Subscribe links

After a little research on this crazy web of ours, you’ll find that WordPress.com recommends Google’s FeedBurner for all your subscription uses. Though a little tinkering is required, I now recommend it, too.

After signing in with your Google account, a basic page will load that says Burn a feed right this instant. Type your blog or feed address here. So do it and follow the rest of the instructions.

Go to the Publicize tab once you’re set up with FeedBurner.

Click on the BuzzBoost tab on the left, change the settings as you see fit, and then click Activate at the bottom of the page. When the page reloads with the service activated, there will be a box with javascript that FeedBurner tells you to put on your site. Except you know that you can’t use javascript on a WordPress.com blog. Therefore, check on your own to make sure that your RSS feed is activated by pasting http://feeds.feedburner.com/XXXXX?format=xml where XXXXX is set as your FeedBurner profile name.

Next, go to the Email Subscriptions tab. Simply click Activate.

Now go to My Dashboard->Appearance->Widgets and drag the Text widget to where you would like it to appear. Input the following code:

Subscribe to this blog via <a href=”http://feedburner.google.com/fb/a/mailverify?uri=XXXXX”>email</a>!<br>Subscribe via <a href=”http://feeds.feedburner.com/XXXXX?format=xml”><img src=”http://feedburner.google.com/fb/lib/images/icons/feed-icon-12×12-orange.gif”></a><a href=”http://feeds.feedburner.com/XXXXX?format=xml”>RSS</a>!

Replace the XXXXXs with your FeedBurner profile ID, and the code should be ready to go! I coded the RSS image and the hypertext seperately so that the image would not share an underline with the hypertext.

If, like me, you would like to invite people to join your Facebook group, simply create a group and then use the following code:

<br>Also, join this blog’s <a href=”http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=XXXXX”>Facebook group</a>!

Replace the XXXXX with your group id and it should be good to go!

“Share This!” links

As I said before, WordPress.com does not support javascript, so there’s no way to have automatically updated buttons. However, these buttons are so useful in publicizing a blog that it just seems a horrible waste to not have them. Therefore, I developped a workable work-around, though it does take some effort to pull off for each blog.

After some research I discovered the basic submission links for some of the syndication sites I felt my blog might likely get plugged on: Del.icio.us, Digg, Reddit, Facebook, and Twitter. I also discovered, though I can’t remember to link from where, AddThis, which on one page covers all sites that anyone anywhere might ever possibly want to link your blog to. While AddThis has such powerful capabilities, I opted to keep the specific website buttons because the less you ask of your audience, the more likely they are to follow through.

A little HTML trick I picked up: in order to have the icons contain links without being underlined, you have to link them seperately from text. Because of this, the HTML looks redundant, but it’s not; it’s simply a little extra code to reflect a design choice. The code I use for the buttons is below, and instructions on how to use the code follows it.

<a href=”http://del.icio.us/post?url=XXXXX;title=YYYYY” target=”_blank”><img title=”del_icio_us” src=”http://gregfreed.files.wordpress.com/2009/07/del_icio_us.png” alt=”del_icio_us” width=”16″ height=”16″ /></a><a href=”http://del.icio.us/post?url=XXXXX;title=YYYYY” target=”_blank”>Save to del.icio.us</a><a href=”http://digg.com/submit?phase=2&amp;url=XXXXX;title=YYYYY” target=”_blank”>
<img title=”digg” src=”http://gregfreed.files.wordpress.com/2009/07/digg.png” alt=”digg” width=”16″ height=”16″ /></a><a href=”http://digg.com/submit?phase=2&amp;url=XXXXX;title=YYYYY” target=”_blank”>Digg it
</a><a href=”http://reddit.com/submit?url=XXXXX;title=YYYYY” target=”_blank”><img title=”reddit” src=”http://gregfreed.files.wordpress.com/2009/07/reddit.png” alt=”reddit” width=”16″ height=”16″ /></a><a href=”http://reddit.com/submit?url=XXXXX;title=YYYYY” target=”_blank”>Save to Reddit
</a><a href=”http://www.facebook.com/share.php?u=XXXXX” target=”_blank”><img title=”n20531316728_2397″ src=”http://gregfreed.files.wordpress.com/2009/07/n20531316728_23971.jpg” alt=”n20531316728_2397″ width=”16″ height=”16″ /></a><a href=”http://www.facebook.com/share.php?u=XXXXX” target=”_blank”>Share on Facebook
</a><a href=”http://twitter.com/home?status=Check+out+XXXXX”><img title=”twitter” src=”http://gregfreed.files.wordpress.com/2009/07/twitter.gif” alt=”twitter” width=”16″ height=”16″ /></a><a href=”http://twitter.com/home?status=Check+out+XXXXX” target=”_blank”>Share on Twitter
</a><a href=”http://www.addthis.com/bookmark.php?pub=dvd&amp;url=XXXXX;title=YYYYY” target=”_blank”><img title=”aolfav” src=”http://gregfreed.files.wordpress.com/2009/07/aolfav.gif” alt=”aolfav” width=”16″ height=”16″ /></a><a href=”http://www.addthis.com/bookmark.php?pub=dvd&amp;url=XXXXX;title=YYYYY” target=”_blank”>Even more ways to bookmark</a>

Copy this code into a text editor with a replace function, such as Microsoft Word. Using the Replace All function, replace all XXXXXs with the exact web address of your post as you can copy it out of your browser’s address bar. Replace all YYYYYs with the title of your post. Select all of the updated code, put your WordPress post creator into the HTML tab, go to the part of the post you want the links to appear in, and paste the code. Click either Publish or Update Post and then check your links. If there are any errors, it’s probably user-generated, so look over your own HTML code before you come crying to me about how it’s broken. If it is legitimately broken, however, I would like to know and will help you resolve any issues. If you want submission links that are not included here, AddThis is a much better research tool than I am: I will not do your research for you.

Good Luck!

And with that, I’m outta here. I have that faint yet numb buzzing in my head that’s generated solely by technical writing, so it’s definitely time for a break!

Share on Facebook
Share on Twitter
Save to del.icio.us
Digg it
Save to Reddit
Even more ways to bookmark

Author: Greg Freed

Nach nun einem Monat hier in Mannheim getraue ich mich nun, einen ersten Rückblick zu machen.

Allen Umständen zum Trotz (“Hochhaus? Das ist ein Albtraum!”, oder “Plattenbau!”, beides Zitate meiner Verwandschaft, doch die sind nun verstummt…) bin ich zu dem Schluss gekommen, dass man es hier wohl nicht hätte besser treffen können (wohl eher ganz im Gegenteil, wenn ich da so an die anderen Wohnungen denke, die wir gesehen haben): Die Lage ist absolut perfekt. Alles, was ich brauche kann ich hier gemütlich zu Fuß erreichen. Geschäfte und Supermärkte gibt es hier in der Neckarstadt mehr als genug, und selbst ein neues Stammcafé  hat sich etabliert. Bis in die Quadrate brauche ich ebenfalls nur ein paar Minuten und habe dort alles, was man sich nur von einer Einkaufsstadt wünschen kann.
Direkt vor der Haustür sozusagen befindet sich eine Straßenbahnhaltestelle, was bedeutet, dass man schnell überall hier in Mannheim hin kommen kann. Und trotz das die Lage so inmitten der zweitgrößten Stadt Baden-Württembergs (der einzige Umstand der mir nicht gefällt, denn ich bin nach wie vor Pfälzer) habe ich hier Ruhe und Natur und kann trotzdem die Häuser der Stadt sehen. Der Fluss liegt direkt in Sichtweite vom Balkon, welcher einen herrlichen Überblick über die Quadrate und den Neckar bietet. Und obwohl hier herum gut und gerne 300 Nachbarn wohnen ist es sehr ruhig und entspannt hier.

Nacht dann schließlich vermischen sich die vielen Lichter der Großstadt mit den Träumen, und das einzige Geräusch ist das Zirpen der Grillen, das Rauschen vom Gras am Fluss und das leise Brummen des Stadtlebens…

Cigar: NUB Cameroon

Size/Vitola:  The 358 (3×58)

Price: $4.80

Wrapper: Nicaraguan Cameroon

Binder: Nicaraguan

Filler: Nicaraguan

Alright, folks.  The NUB Habano is one of my top three smokes (alongside the DPG Cuban Classic and I think probably the Camacho 8/22) and I’ve been thoroughly impressed by the new-release Maduro as well. I decided to grab a Cameroon from a shop around my girlfriend’s house (and she put up with this very long, out of the way trip. ) See, I sort of half-read where the store was, and ended up totally making up the address that I’d read- it was totally different. Anyhow, story aside, I smoked this cigar, hoping it would live up to the expectations I had for it.

The cigar has a very sweet, mellow smell to it. I cut it with a punch and the pre-light draw tastes sugary, with earthy tones. This cigar is not the prettiest thing that’s ever been rolled; it’s bunched in places, with a very big vein running through, as well as a few chips here and there. It was a very easy light, with billowing smoke. It turns out to be a VERY easy, free draw with just the right amount of resistance. The flavors are a very sweet sort of oak with a light pepper to the finish. Through the first two thirds, if there is anything I can say for sure, it’s that it’s a woodsy smoke. This cigar had very heavy flavors of oak and cedar. In the second third, a very subtle, hard-to-place spice floats in. It tastes a little like incense smells, in a good way. Very exotic. There is a very smooth feeling to the smoke, though not creamy; it leaves you with an incredibly clean pallet. The spice I mentioned before builds for the second third. The final third cleans up a lot, and tastes like a bitter sort of tea. The pepper from the begining makes a quick return, before fading out as the cigar become harsh with about 3/4 an inch- 1 inch0 left on it. I put it down.

However, remember that this cost me a mere $4.60. For the price, it’s a fantastic medium-modied smoke, especially if you like that wood flavor. Like all the other NUBs, it has a destinctive flavor. They do not taste very similar, and I love the variety they bring to the market.

Appearence: 7/10

Construction: 8/10

Flavor: 8/10

Smoke/Draw: 8.5/10

Variability: 8/10

Overall:  39.5/50 – a solid smoke, especially for the price. VERY worth picking a few up.

I thought I’d update you lot on a potential “project” I’m thinking of. We all remember the newbie days when we were afraid to equip soul bound items, spammed the auto attack button and was stunned by how huge the world was. And I hear a lot of people say they wish they could have that time back, they try new MMO’s, but it’s never the same since you still have the general idea of what to do.

So here’s my idea. I got a couple of friends whom I’ve tried to get playing for quite some time, but since they both are overachievers, the response always is “I don’t have time”. But ‘lo, summer has arrived, and with it summer vacation! A perfect opportunity to convince them since they no longer will have the “I don’t have time”-argument. Now if I get them playing, my idea is to write small updates or “reports” on how their doing. All the way from “What’s this button do?” and “What’s a hearthstone?”, all the way to “LFM to Naxx”.

Is this something you would be interested in reading about? If yes, got any thoughts and suggestions on the matter?

UPDATE: Tarheel 26 is the winner for the Penguin Contest at http://kurbykudly8.wordpress.com/penguin-contest, and Tarheel 26 owns a site and I work on his site and if you, Tarheel 26, are reading this, please comment your email address here or at the at the first page of your site and I will email you the user name and password!

How to nub