As has become traditional at each hundred posts (100, 200 and 300), here is a brief update on the state of the blog.

At post 400, we have just past the nine-month mark, and have accumulated 838 comments. There have been 28,502 total views, and here are the top 20 blog posts:

Finally, what search terms brought people to the site? Here are top ones, though they aren’t really representative of the site:

• Question marks (from “question of the week,” I guess): 350
• Kennedy family: 251
• Passenger pigeon: 155
• Peacock feathers: 123 (some might say this blog is for the birds!)
• Following Jesus: 65 (finally one we are shooting for!)

Thanks to all the readers, writers and reviewers who make this blog possible!

In case you missed them, here are the top posts of November 2009:

1. Things I’m Excited about this Holiday Season
2. A Million Miles in a Thousand Years
3. 90 Day Tithing Challenge
4. “I Don’t Have Enough Money” (A Question about Giving)
5. Why People Don’t Give
6. Posts on Marriage & Relationships
7. Budgeting to Tithe
8. Discerning Your Idols
9. Links to Kick off the Week
10. Saturday Night Mind Dump… (11/14/09)

It’s absolutely no competition this month.  The top two posts blew everything else out of the water.  I guess the fascination in watching someone screw up is just too hard to pass up.

From lowest to high top five of the month:

5.  Sexy Every Day – Figure Out Your Own Sensual Standards

4. Friday Update: An Excerpt from Beth’s Acceptance

3. Katie Allen Likes ‘em Warm and Wild. Win a Copy of Chasing Her Tail

2. An Apology to Katiebabs

1.  A Review from Katiebabs for Beth’s Acceptance

___________

I’ve also changed the All Time Top Five Posts in the sidebar.

Thanks for reading. Here are the top posts for last week.  Comments / feedback are welcome.

Take Charge of Your Buzz

Trump’s Top Ten Tips for Success

Article: Aligning Channel Program Goals to Overall Business Objectives

How to Increase Your Product Sales by Investing in Channel Partner’s Success

Article: Marketing In a Recession

It’s been about 9 months since I started the new blog… here are the top 3 posts so far

Are you serious?

Speechless

Not as smart as you think.

Feedback is always appreciated!

Here is a little Saturday Read for you. Over the last week here are the top 5 blog post that have had the most reads. In case you didn’t get a chance to read them you can just click the title of the post. Enjoy!!!

1) When Bad News Breaks

2) Caption Please

3) Inadequate

4) The Impersonal Church

5) Raising More than Kids

Thanks for reading.  Here are the top posts for this week.

How to increase your product sales by investing in channel partners’ success

Nurture your leads to build relationships

MDF: The VAR’s problem and the vendor’s solution

10 Twitter Tools to Organize your Tweeps

When should you update your Facebook page?

We all work very hard at Photofocus.com to provide you with tons of free, valuable photo-related content. With more than 1000 posts to choose from, we like to think that there’s something here for everyone.

But it’s particularly nice to get some recognition once in a while that what we do matters. We’re proud to present these posts that made the Top Posts « WordPress.com list in the last 30 days. In each case, even though hundreds of thousands of posts are made to WP.COM each day, these posts made the top 100 on the day they published.

What’s particularly cool is we got featured on that list seven times in 30 days! Not a bad ratio.

Here are the seven top posts for your enjoyment in the event you missed any of them.

1. Three Things You Should Know About Creativity

2. Canon 7D Video Example

3. Five Things You Can Do Right Now To Grow Your Photography Business

4. 10 Things I Wish I Could Tell Every New Lightroom User

5. How Induro Tripods Got Me To Make The Biggest Gear Switch Of My Life

6. 10 Ways to Improve Your Photography Without Buying Gear

7. Mini Review Canon 7D

After seven weeks, I have written more than 20 articles including How to customize your blog with widgets. When I had only 15 or less articles, I did not have any problem listing all my articles on the sidebar using the Recent Posts widget since the widget allows 15 for linking.

But what if you have articles much older than post number 15 which you want to promote and get the most out of those posts? How do you promote them?

I am not sure about others, but I have looked at widgets like Top Rated or Top Posts, and they may not be the answer to my quest. After all, if the posts we want to promote are already top rated or most visited, there is really no point highlighting them for our visitors to notice, is there?

The other approach is to configure your blog Settings > Reading to whatever number of posts you want displayed on your main page. The default is 10 posts. The downside of this method (aside from it being an indirect method) is that your visitors would have to scroll all the way down and may not even notice the article you want them to see. And worst, what if the post you want to show is, for example, post number 75?

Activate the Tag Cloud widget? Again, this is very indirect, and does not immediately display the results you want.

Why not simply be straightforward? As they say, be bold. Stake your claim.

Use the Text widget.

All you really need is insert your promotion text and a little knowledge of HTML coding to direct your visitors straight to your target posts. The top sidebar of this blog is created using the Text widget. See also Personal and more… in my personal website for another demo.

In the hands of an HTML writer, the Text widget is the easiest and most effective method. With the Text widget, you also have better control on how to display your promotion messages.

To me, the Text widget is a powerful tool. Are you going to leave it idle?

• Hard night tonight
• Don’t know why but I never really got going tonight
• Hate when that happens
• Yet, had a ton of conversations with people about my talk tonight
• Amazing how God uses us even when we feel like it didn’t go well
• Love being able to pray with people as they consider taking God at His word and start giving back to Him
• Love the faith that is just waiting to come out
• Got a lot of questions about why we should tithe, what to do if you are in debt and can’t afford to tithe
• I’ll blog some thoughts to those this week
• It was awesome looking at the communication cards and seeing the names of those who are doing the tithing challenge
• Really excited to see what God does through this and how He grows Revolutionaries in their faith
• And now I’m waiting for all the blog haters to send me emails and tell me how tithing is not biblical, on and on
• What’s funny, there are websites that try to prove how tithing is unbiblical, and all the ones I have seen have onling giving buttons
• I’ll let you figure that one out
• In case you missed them, here are the top posts from October
• If you want some more resources or information on what the Bible has to say about money, giving, riches and how they impact our faith journey and our eternity, check these out
• I’m really ready for Katie and the kids to come home
• Only 4 more days
• The hous is way too quiet
• Took our kids to the dentist this week, it went well
• Amazed at how much cooler it is to go to the dentist now than it was when I was a kid
• I’m amazed at how many meetings I can fit into my week
• It seems like my schedule goes in bunches where it is full one week and then another week there is nothing
• Why can’t it even out
• Having coffee this week with Justin Anderson up in Phoenix, really excited to get some of his wisdom about leadership
• Huge Steelers game this week
• Can’t believe that we are having to keep pace with the Bungles
• Ridiculous
• Got an elder team meeting this week
• Love being able to meet with those and pray and think through how Revolution is led
• We have the best leaders any church could ask for
• Revolution is going to be part of a project to learn how churches can use social media to connect people and create community
• Paul and I have a meeting about that this week, really excited about what that can bring to Revolution
• Have my lead pastor coaching network this week
• So much happening
• Got a huge day of watching football planned tomorrow, with a run thrown in
• A good way to spend a Sunday
• Heading to bed

Should we put some kind of Top Posts meter on this Blog? Let us know via the poll below.

10 Notorious Cases of the Bystander Effect

Posted using ShareThis

And the top five posts for this month, traffic-wise, were, from least, to highest:

5.  The MMF Thing…How to Get It

4.  Are Werewolves Really That Sexy?

3.  Guest Post: Brigit Zahara and Her Edible Delights.

2.  A Review from Katiebabs for Beth’s Acceptance

1.  Who’s Sexier? Werewolves or Vampires? Tielle St. Clare Picks Up the Challenge

I’ve also updated the all-time top five posts on the sidebar.

Top Posts This Week

1. Top 5 Best Boy Baby Names 2010
2. Top 5 Best Girl Baby Names 2010
3. Top 5 Best President Phrases
4. Top 5 Best ADHD Brand Name Medications
5. Top 5 Best Animals Found On The Farm

November 11, 2009 will mark the first anniversary of the founding of the Gryphon’s Aerie.  In the run-up to that event I am presenting here the top fifteen view getters at the Aerie, and a sampling of photos associated with them.

As always,

We Thank You For Your Support.

Gryphon

p.s. this list is as of 10.27.09.  Give War A Chance has a bullet and I expect it to move into the top five very soon.

Batman and Robin	21,805	Batman and Robin
CLOSE THE DOOR!	16,090	Close The Door!
Cute Cats Theory 2	10,047	Cute Cats Theory 2
Taking a Page	9,962	Taking A Page
Old Woman/Young Woman	8,433	Old Woman/Young Woman
Ahmnodt Heare for President	6,193	Ahmnodt Heare For President
Give War A Chance	5,965	Give War A Chance
Favorite Duck	4,763	Favorite Duck
More Mountain Lions	4,441	More Mountain Lions
Not Such a Bad Guy	3,312	Not Such A Bad Guy
Body Farm	3,130	Body Farm
Two Philosophers in a Bar	2,779	Two Philosophers In A Bar
Rodeos	2,747	Rodeos
Best Supporting Actor	2,564	Best Supporting Actor
The Tet Offensive	2,406	The Tet Offensive

This is my 299th post. Something Special for post #300 so stay tuned.

I’ve lost over 100 pounds in less than 2 years. There, I said it. I’m not one for big build-ups, so I’m just puttin’ it out there from the get-go. And being a guy who has started (and ended) about 5 or 6 blogs in his lifetime, I’m not much for the whole, “Hi, I’m Tyler, you can call me Trau” thing spread across 6 paragraphs either.

To the point, I know how to lose weight. I know how to get fit. I am a walking testament to that and a constant work in progress — as it should be. But somehow, whenever the conversation comes up about my weight loss — whether it be from a friend or co-worker who has noticed the change, or just from me bragging about it to someone I’ve just met — I don’t know the answer to the question I’m inevitably asked: “How did you do it?”

How did I do it? How DID I do it? How DO I do it? How did I DO it? How do I do IT? Ummmmm… well. Hm.

They want to know. I feel obligated to tell them. Of course they want some big secret, some crazy revelation or mad scientist method like I eat stem cells or sleep in a freezer or inject myself with chicken blood.

A lot of times, I give people the old trusty line: “That whole ‘diet and exercise’ thing turned out to be true, har har har.” They are not appeased. Everybody knows that already.

After a while, I’ve come to feel like my “diet and exercise” line is the equivalent of saying “figure it out yourself.” Which I don’t mean. I just honestly don’t know how to boil down a year plus of hard work and research and effort into some kind of zen-koan haiku that will enlighten every out-of-shape soul who craves the answer like he craves a Ho-Ho.

It can’t be done. It doesn’t exist.

So what do I say? “I know, but I don’t have time to tell you”? That’s not helping me. I really, desperately want people to know how I did it so that they can do it for themselves if they choose to. After agonizing over how to share that with people the best I can, it hit me this morning: The best way to share this with someone is to show them.

And this is how I show them. I’ll use this blog as a vehicle to describe what I do day-to-day. Maybe it’s how I work out, maybe it’s how I eat, a recipe, a new activity, a good article I found or anything that helps answer the question: “How did you do it?”

So this is it. This will be an ever-evolving answer to that question. When someone says “How did you do it?” I’ll explain that there’s a very long answer to that very short question and invite them to http://howtraudoesit.wordpress.com.

For me, a big part of losing the weight was publishing my results, which I was doing in another blog that was a mix of personal journal entries and fitness chatter. It held me accountable to the few readers I had, but it wasn’t something I was comfortable sharing with the general public. This blog has one purpose, and it’s named for it.

As I settle into it, I’ll incorporate my Twitter account (www.twitter.com/trau) to tweet the little things — what I’m eating, how I’m working out, links and what-not. Feel free to follow me, to let me know how you’re doing, to retweet the exercise and tell me you did it twice as hard. And please, feel free to give me tips! I mean, I said I know what I’m doing, but I’m far from an expert.

So let’s do this. I’ll be back tomorrow. Or today. I like shiny new things.

TRAU

DEAR FRIENDS

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KEEP READING GYANDOTCOM

REGARDS

ROHIT SHARMA

In case you missed them, here are the top posts from September:

1. Planning a Preaching Calendar
2. Zero to Sixty: 60 Principles and Practices for Leading a Growing Church
3. Thoughts From Being a First Time Guest
4. 15 Ways to Improve Your Marriage
5. 15 Ways to Destroy Your Marriage
6. Preaching From a Ladder
7. Perspectives and Expectations
8. Navigating Criticism
9. Date Night
10. How You Know You are Slacking Off