Site Issues (again) Posted on February 24th, 2010

As many of you noticed today, Aaron’s EnvironMental Corner was down for most of the day today. Yet again, the site somehow generated a bunch of errors that caused the Web server to reject it. So instead of seeing the website, users were served with an informative page that said:

Error

It took some time, but it’s back. It’s strange, though, because I have more than half a dozen websites, some of which are hosted at the same location this one is, and yet this is the only one that seems to have chronic bi-monthly cop-outs. The only difference? This one is hosted with the “green power option” rather than the usual “wherever our power comes from” option of most hosting. Not sure how that could make a difference, but it’s the only difference from my other sites as far as hosting is concerned.

One day, I’ll figure it out. It might be the template, which is quite old. Who knows?

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Like This Site? Help Me Continue Posted on January 3rd, 2010

Do you like this website and blog? Would you like to see it continue? So far, Aaron’s EnvironMental Corner has been putting the Mental into Environmental entirely as a labor of love on my part. I enjoy it, but in many ways, it’s becoming more labor than love. It’s easy to get discouraged about what you’re doing when you see little coming out of it.

So I’m going to ask for some help from you, the people who read this website.

So far, the blog has managed to grow to over 300 visitors per day (average) and gain about two dozen subscribers to the RSS feed. My booklet, The Sustainability Factor, has been downloaded well over 1,000 times now.

That’s great news, but it comes with a down side. First, I spend over $40/month on this site alone to keep it hosted, advertise, and so on. I’d like to spend more, but since it’s all out of pocket, I can’t afford to. I really shouldn’t be spending what I am now, to be honest. On top of that money, I’m spending a fair amount of time with the site daily. That also takes its toll on both my family, my life, and my pocket book.

The site generates very little commentary from the readers. I’m not sure if that’s my fault or not, but nearly every post goes uncommented. I could open up the comments to anyone (without moderation), but since the site also generates 50+ spam comments daily, I doubt that will help. Most of the comments that make it through Askimet (spam scanner) are also spam (2-3 daily), so I would hate to have to have those posted for any amount of time before I could remove them.

What all of this means is that I’m asking you to help. I’m not going to just ask you for money. I do have a PayPal link on the left hand sidebar which I put there some time ago. I’ll be honest: it’s been completely ignored since I installed it. Not one donation to-date. You can change that, but there are other things I’d also like you to do and, honestly, would prefer that you did:

Comment on articles you like. Do it regularly and often. If you just read via RSS, come to to site once in a while (just click-through on a post you like in RSS) and say something. Even if it’s just “you call this informative?” You can use a fake name and email if you want. I don’t care.
Send me email (turpenaaron at gmail.com) if you don’t want to comment. I might take offense if you’re mean, but some feedback is better than none. I’ve been working hard to have a voice here, but that’s hard to do if I don’t get a lot of feedback from you, the readers.
Email me if you would like to cross-post here. Meaning if you would like to take an article I write and use it on your site while you send me something for me to use here. This is a great way to cross-promote our blogs and it can mean more traffic.
If you don’t have a blog or aren’t an environmental or DIY writer, send me ideas. I’ll take links to just about anything you see that you like and would like to see my perspective on. Or if you see an Instructable or other DIY project idea you’d like to see my take on, let me know and I’ll see if I can do it my way.

All I’m really asking for is a little more interactivity with you here, on Twitter, whatever. There are a couple of people who randomly send me things or make comments, but honestly, I get more out of BloggersBase (which I really don’t think is all that great anymore) than I do out of my own site. That, frankly, is depressing.

So cheer me up! Send ideas, money, comments, beer, whatever. I can’t visit your site and do the same until you tell me about it, so comment (it leaves your latest blog link through CommentLuv), or send me a link!

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