First off I wanted to say to all my readers: may you all have a wondrous and prosperous new year.
As you can see, I have taken a two week break from posting during this holiday season. I would like to assure reader Stanley who emailed me with some concern that I’ve disappeared for good that I am now back (back!) in the swing of things.
I am kind of depressed at my dearth of postings, actually. In an ideal world I would like to post an average of 2 times per day, but that does not look like it will happen anytime soon, not with my full time job and kids getting first dibs on my time.
But now that the new year is upon us, here are my 12 Freewaregenius resolutions for the new year (which I might add are not a whole lot different from my personal new year’s resolutions). I will also include a probability percentage of what I think the likelihood is for each one of these resolutions to actually come to be.
- To reliably post at an average of 4 posts per week, 53 weeks per year. My average for last year was lower than that, I am sure. (Likelihood of this happening: 60%, I fear).
- To make my posts less wordy, shorter and more ’economical’. Not sure if I could do this even if my life depended on it, but it might make it more likely that people read this stuff. I have a nagging suspicion that very few people actually read a Freewaregenius-style posting. Readers frequently raise issues in the comments section that were already addressed in the body of the text (e.g. “how does this software compare to program x” or “have you tried program x”) even as the issue was discussed in the posting. (Likelihood of this happening: 60%)
- To create at least one uber-interesting “featured post” every 2 months, 6 per year. This may be more valuable in the larger scheme of things than the daily updates. (Likelihood of this happening 70%).
- To use Twitter. Perhaps I can use Twitter for casual freeware discoveries that I am unlikely to review, or use it to get a bit of feedback before I write about something (e.g. “hey check out this new program that looks promising”). I must admit though that I am afraid it will simply create more work for me and more demands on my time. (Likelihood of this happening 50%).
- To change my site hosting. Likelihood of this happening = 100%. I am moving from MediaTemple to RackSpaceCloud. Its just a matter of time, and I hope will be complete in January. MediaTemple provides “ok” service, but my site is frequently slow and I get slapped with very expensive overage charges every single month without fail.
- To publish regular postings by guest bloggers. I would love it if other tech bloggers were regularly featured on Freewaregenius. If you can create good content in excellent English and are interested drop me a line. I can offer a link to your site in the top of the posting and a gift card to Amazon. (Likelihood of this happening: 100%; Likelihood of it happening reliably such as once per month=??)
- To get a virtual personal assistant. I read the book “The 4-hour workweek” in which the author advocates getting a personal assistant from India with flawless English to outsource time-consuming admin tasks such as responding to emails and setting up appointments, etc. I want one that would also function as a sounding board for ideas. (Likelihood of this happening: 40%)
- To update my high-traffic posts. Such as the “Freeware Top 20“, “Free PDF to Word Comparative Test“, and “Best Freeware Antivirus Comparison“. This will happen for sure, just a matter of time (I have been working on the “best freeware” post). Likelihood of this happening: 100%; likelihood of ALL of this happening in Q1/2010: 60%.
- To change my site theme: to something spectacularly better. (Likelihood of this happening: 75%). I am looking for a better theme.
- To re-categorize and re-tag all of my posts. I would like to re-arrange everything into a dozen categories and two dozen tags. (Likelihood of this happening: 35%; its just too time consuming and has to compete with other demands on my time).
- To use Facebook: just because everyone is aghast when a “tech” blogger like myself doesn’t use it. I do have an account, but I log in once every two months or so. Honestly, it just seems like another thing that will make demands on my time. (Likelihood of this happening: 50%).
- To do an SEO overhaul on Freewaregenius. I.e. to make some pro-active initiative that might get me better rankings on Google for my site. I get fairly decent rankings on some terms but I do think my site needs an SEO rethinking. Not sure what I will do about that. (Likelihood of this happening: 40%).
Bonus resolution: the following is more of a personal new-year’s resolution, but I will mention it here all the same
- Reading more books: it would seem that there is some sort of information revolution taking place, and I would like to be part of it. There are soooo many books that I would to read but will never do so; I would like to read at least two books per month. (Likelihood of this happening: 55%. Alas).
