My Facebook Experiment

I recently learned that Facebook has started to penalise Pages by only showing new updates to less than 20% (figures gathered according to my own research) of those who have actually Liked the page, who expect to be able to see what's being shared on that Page. Nuh-uh. Facebook doesn't want 80% of your 'fans' actually seeing anything.



But there's two ways you can get around it.

1. Pay Facebook money to increase the exposure of your post, or 'boost' it, as it's called. When you do this, it's shown to all those who Like your page, as well as thousands of other people who see it show up randomly in their stream. (If you've seen random shit from people or pages that you're not actually following, this is why - you've been randomly chosen in the 'boost' target audience parameters).


2. Share content that people actually care to Like, share with others, or comment on. As people are engaged in those ways, Facebook will increase its exposure to more of those who Liked your page. If the engagement is small, then the increase is small as well. But if the engagement is large enough (eg. you have lots of people engaged in discussion about your post), then the increase in exposure is also larger, until you can eventually reach 100% of those who Liked your page.

In my experiment, a post with zero comments seemed to average about 19% of the page's followers (those who have Liked it). When I got 4 comments a post, that seemed to increase to just less than 50% exposure. But when I got about 12 comments on a post and a number of likes, then exposure was at 100%.

So the experiment showed me that you don't actually have to pay to 'boost' your posts so all your followers can see it (unless you want to actually promote it to thousands of others, depending on how much you pay to 'boost' it), but you DO have to share content that encourages your followers to talk about it or be engaged with it in some way.

So for those pages that have boring or shitty content that no one is interested in, only 20% of their followers will get to see it. If they find it interesting and engage with it, then more followers will see it.

So I've come to the conclusion that I think that Facebook's attempts to encourage the sharing of quality content is a good thing.

I was originally against it, believing that Facebook were a bunch of greedy assholes, forcing page owners to pay money to them so that their content could be shared to those that wanted to see it anyway.

But after my experiment and the results I've found, I'm ok with it.

If I want more of my followers to see my content, I just have to do my best to make it interesting enough that they'll get engaged with it. Ask questions, etc.

It's been a good learning experience for me. Instead of just accepting and believing the complaints of others, which is what originally alerted me to this, I did my own experiments and learned a bit more about how Facebook works and also about how I can make it work better for me.

What about you? Have you had any experiences of your own that turned you off Facebook or helped you learn how to better use it?

Adding Google+ to Ghost

I wanted to integrate a Google+ button into the sidebar of this blog, and I thought it would be a nice idea for those who are interested to describe the process of integrating it (eg. other Ghost platform bloggers that might stumble upon this blog).

Now, I use the Ghostium theme for my blog and I love it and think it's worth promoting, so I'll be focusing this post on how to integrate Google+ into that theme (but don't worry, I address the base Casper theme near the bottom of this post). Ghostium is a theme based on Medium.com - you can find out more and get it from here: Ghostium Theme.

Note: right-click on any image and open in new tab if you want to see a larger version of it.

Setting up the Google+ badge

To start with, I went to Google's web page that allows you to play around with badges: https://developers.google.com/+/web/badge/



I did a bit of playing around with the options there, as well as coding it into my site, and then playing around some more until I got it right.

But once you've got your Google+ badge set up the way you want it (you'll probably change it yourself, as you go through this proces), copy the code from the bottom right box below your badge. In my case I chose to go with the non-Asynchronous code because I liked keeping the code base simple. I tested both Asynchronous and non-Asynchronous and there was no difference in the display.

There's two sections to the code.

Section 1

<!-- Place this tag in your head or just before your close body tag. --><script type="text/javascript" src="https://apis.google.com/js/platform.js"></script>

Section 2

<!-- Place this tag where you want the widget to render. --><div class="g-page" data-width="200" data-href="//plus.google.com/109031301407549473271" data-theme="dark" data-showtagline="false" data-showcoverphoto="false" data-rel="publisher"></div>

So now that you've got the code for your badge, you need to log into your unix/linux server via Terminal and navigate to where you've placed your theme.

cd /var/www/ghost/content/themes/ghostium/

Once you're there, you'll have a number of items within that directory. You'll want to do this:

nano default.hbs

This will open up the 'default.hbs' page in an editor. Scroll down to the bottom of the page and you'll see you need to insert the 'Section 1' code from above in this way:



Save and exit from that, and then go to the following location:

/var/www/ghost/content/themes/ghostium/partials/custom

From this directory you want to edit the page that controls the pop-out sidebar:

nano navigation.hbs

You'll have to make sure you play nicely with integrating it into the vertical location that's best for you, to fit in nicely with whatever other menu options you might have.

Exit and save, and that's it. The last thing you need to do is this:

sudo service ghost restart

The end result is a working Google+ badge on your Ghost blog, which you'll see when you refresh your blog after the Ghost service has been restarted.



The Casper theme

As promised, I'll now address integrating it into the Casper theme as well.

First, you should change the appearance of your badge on the Google+ badge page so that it looks better with the Casper theme, which is very basic.

For the 'section 1' of the code, place it in the default.hbs file, just before your /head tag:

/var/www/ghost/content/themes/casper/default.hbs

For the 'section 2' of the code, place it in the same default.hbs file, but within the footer area:



The end result will be the Google+ badge appearing at the bottom of your page, in the footer, like this:

Today's adventures with Linux and Ghost

This is a 'technical' post. You probably won't be interested, so you should stop reading now. Of course, if you are interested, then I hope you enjoy it!

I've been using Linux Mint 15 (and recently updated to version 16) on my laptop for the past few months, and quite enjoying the experience. It's new, it's fresh, it's fast and trouble-free. Very enjoyable.

(Not my desktop.)

I've become quite competent at installing and setting up various Linux distributions. I've been trying them out on my Windows computer, via VMware Workstation. I've got half a dozen different 'distros' sitting in it as I've boeen playing around with different versions, but I've come upon one that I decided is better than Linux Mint.

It's called Xubuntu.



That's my desktop. It's very clean, smooth and fast. It's got a taskbar at the top, like all OS's, that gives you access to programs and functions, as well as a dockbar that I decided to place on the right side of the screen.

It's a faster and 'lighter' than Linux Mint, and looks a little bit different without being too different for me to navigate my way around it.

And that's why I decided to upgrade my laptop today to Xubuntu (I'm using it now as I write this). I originally started using Linux Mint on the laptop because it was faster and lighter than Ubuntu, but Xubuntu is a step up again.

I've talked about installing and setting up CJDNS in the past as well, with Project Meshnet and Hyperboria. It used to be a struggle to get it all going, but now I seem a lot more competent at it than I used to.

Now I can install CJDNS onto a new Linux distro in just a few minutes, which is a nice achievement for me (compared to how much of a struggle it used to be back in the beginning!).

Zorin OS

One of the distros I played with via VMware, Zorin OS, was promoted as Windows-app friendly, because of strong integration with Wine (Windows emulator, allowing you to run Windows apps in Linux systems) built into it. With high interest, I installed that, set it up and played around with it. But I was left sorely disappointed.

The Wine integration sucked. Absolutely nothing worked at all, and with the hassles I've had playing with Wine in the past, I didn't want to waste any time on it trying to make it work in a system that promoted it as already working. So that one was removed.

Which was a shame, it was a nice system too, with a nice toolbar. Here's an image of it.



And now onto the Ghost blogging platform.

Because of the familiarity I've gained with setting that up and configuring it, I've decided to start promoting myself on fiverr.com as someone that can do it for others.

My Ghost gig on fiverr.com

Maybe I'll get some gigs from that, I don't know. But I thought it was worth experimenting with.

My Ghost issues from today

This morning I was securing my passwords using LastPass, going through a security check and starting the process of creating unique passwords for every single site I have an account on. Yes, a tedious process.

But in the process of doing it for my blog, I found a bug which was mighty inconvenient. The platform accepted a password change that accidentally had a different password in the password confirmation field. Just as I pressed submit on the password change, I realised the number of asterisks in both fields were different.

When I tried going into the blog with one of the passwords, it failed and wouldn't let me log in. So then I tried to do a 'forgot your password?' reset, but discovered that the mail setup in the backend coding wasn't working.

So I had to go into the Ghost coding and adjust the mail setup, only to find after a bit of testing that Gmail (who I had setup for blog mail) didn't like that I was using them via my blog's backend functionality and decided to suspend my account.

After getting that fixed, I set up a new email account with an email provider that was recommended by the official Ghost creators, in accordance with their Help documentation. It worked!

Ghost Mail Configuration

So I was finally able to get my password reset and log in to my blog again.

Happy days!

That's all from me today. I'm all tuckered out from my adventures around Ghost and Linux...

Life is a highway

A long time ago I was 24 years old. Well, it seems like a long time ago, but it was only 23 years ago... Anyway, back then I got my driver's licence and I was able to drive without needing to have a licensed driver with me. I remember driving through some mountains and this song was on the radio.

Life is a highway 

Life's like a road that you travel on
There's one day here and the next day gone
Sometimes you bend, sometimes you stand
Sometimes you turn your back to the wind

There's a world outside every darkened door
Where blues won't haunt you anymore
Where the brave are free and lovers soar
Come ride with me to the distant shore

We won't hesitate
To break down the garden gate
There's not much time left today, yeah

Life is a highway, I wanna ride it
All night long
If you're going my way, I wanna drive it
All night long

Etc etc

I remember feeling so damn excited! I felt freedom for the first time in my life. I was free to drive by myself, to go anywhere I wanted. I was free to make my own choices without needing to have someone else with me.

It was an exciting time, being able to feel like life was a highway, and I wanted to drive it all night long.

I think I did, that night. I drove and drove and drove, for hours, through the nearby mountains, enjoying the drive like it was everything in the world to me.



And in that moment, it was. Being able to drive was my freedom from having to rely on others.

And yet, as the years have gone by, I've still relied on others. My friends, and my loved ones. They've been there for me when I've needed them. They've joined me in my journey.

I stop long enough to open the passenger door, and they get in with me. They join me in my journey along the highway of life. Without them sharing my journey with me, it would be pretty lonely.

Freedom is nothing if you have noone to share it with. What use is freedom if you're alone?

I wasn't running away from people, nor was I running away from my own fears. I wasn't seeking freedom from people around me. Maybe that was what made it different for me.

Instead of wanting to be free of people, I just wanted people to join me in my freedom.

I think I still do.

As I explore my life with the words I write, this blog is my car, and it holds me and the sum of my experiences. I have passengers that I'm happy to join me in my adventure through life.

Some of them stay a while, they join me in my drive over the hills and through beautiful fields. We share adventures together, sing songs together on the stereo, and then we part ways as I drop them by the side of the road somewhere.

Some of them stay longer, and Fanfan recently has decided that she wants to stay with me in my car forever. I couldn't imagine anyone more awesome to be with me forever as I travel the highways of life.

Life is a highway, I wanna ride it
All night long
If you're going my way, I wanna drive it
All night long

Be with people who truly value you

Look around you at the people you hang out with. How many of them seek to be with you, compared to how many you seek to be with? If you didn't keep in touch with them, would they try to keep in touch with you? Would they want to catch up? Would they care?

How many people in your life never call you? Never get in touch with you? Never hang out with you the way they used to?

I can imagine that there's a few people who come to your mind straight away.

Here's the thing - if people value you in their lives, they'll want to be around you. If they don't value you, then they won't want to be around you.

Think about that when you think about your 'close' friends that never call or contact you in any way.

When you're chasing someone who isn't chasing you, you're trying to convince them that you're worth being with. But the truth is, you don't believe that yourself, because if you did, you would sit back and let people come to you while you're enjoying your life.

If you were someone that people wanted to be with, to share their lives with, then the truth is that they would be trying to spend more time with you.

If they're not doing that, then you're not worth it to them.

But they're not worth it to you either.

Why are you chasing them? What are you getting from them that makes you want to continue having them in your life?

In this kind of situation, you're seeking validation; these people will tolerate you, and that makes you feel better about yourself and your life.

A long time ago I used to chase my friends. I used to think I had friendssimply because they tolerated my presence when I turned up to spend time with them.

But then I started experimenting in my life. I started wondering who my real friends were, which of them would get in touch with me if they didn't hear from me for a while.

I quickly broke the habit of chasing people, and ended up being very surprised about which of them would end up contacting me and finding out how I was, because they were concerned they hadn't heard from me.

But the rest of them, I just let them drift on in the wake of my life's journey.

If I wasn't someone that they wanted to be with, why should I push that upon them? Why should I try and force them to be with someone they cared so little about?

I know that life's experiences and the passing of time can make us lose touch with people that we once did care about, but if we still care about them, then we'll make the effort to keep in touch with them.

The best you can do is get on with your life, learn how to enjoy yourself and your life without needing other people to validate it for you.

If a person doesn't appreciate you for who you are, they don't deserve you. Respect yourself and be with people in your life who truly value who you are.

The evolution of socialising

How often do you see people out and about with their friends or family, but seemingly ignoring them while they're constantly checking their smartphones? These days, quite a lot. You probably think they're being really unsociable, but maybe you're not seeing the big picture.



The social world has changed. It's not just those you're physically present with any more.

Today's technology is allowing people to connect with family, friends and loved ones all around the world. While we're socialising face to face with people around the table, we're also socialising with others that aren't physically present, via our smartphones, tablets and laptops.

Today, socialising includes people all around the world.

We share updates on Facebook and Twitter about what we're doing and who we're doing it with, because we want to share our activities and life events with those nearby and around the world who are special to us - or even with complete strangers who are interested in what we're doing with our lives.

It used to be that we could only socialise with those in our suburb or city. Now we can socialise with everyone.

I quite enjoy it. I like knowing that there are people around the world who are getting something of value in their lives from what I'm doing and sharing with them.

Whether it's personal updates about something that caught my attention in the moment, or photos of something I'm seeing and experiencing - these people who are following me or are connected to me in some way are expanding their lives by being able to see something of my own life.

Technology is bringing more people together, making the world smaller, allowing people with similar interests and passions to connect with each other without needing to be in the same city.

When you see people in cafes, restaurants, or on the train who are engrossed in their phone, tablet or laptop, just remember that it's not always about staying isolated and being unsociable.

They could be - and usually are - connecting with people around the world, thanks to the wonders of technology.

Socialising has changed, and technology has allowed it to change quite drastically. But I think it's a great thing, rather than a bad thing.

Instead of remaining isolated in our own small groups of physical friends and families, we're broadening our emotional and spiritual selves by connecting with people in other countries and other cultures. We're sharing our lives with them, and having them share their lives with us.

I've enjoyed connecting with some of my regular readers on Facebook. Our interactions through commenting and even emails has brought us closer together, so that we've become Facebook friends. As a result, I get to see some of what's going on in their lives, and the experiences that they're having in their lives.

These aren't just commenters at the bottom of my blog posts any more; they're real people with real lives, and they're connecting with me because they're interested in seeing more of my life beyond this blog.

It honours me that they want to do this, and I'm privilieged to get a glimpse into the lives that they want to share with me.

We can't have too many friends in our lives. And if this technology can bring more people together, to share lives and interests, it can only help people feel more connected.

And having these connections can change our lives, give us meaning, reward us with personal growth, and allow us to change people's lives.

Strangers are friends not yet met.

If you're reading this, and we haven't already connected, I'd like to hear from you. Leave me a comment, or send me an email and say hi, introduce yourself, tell me what you like about this blog, and what you'd like to see more of.

Technology is wonderful. Look at the big picture, appreciate what others are getting from it, and maybe even get more involved in it yourself - you might just change your life in ways you couldn't possibly imagine.

Be gentle with yourself

This society we live in is very goal and results oriented. Look around you and you'll see deadlines, objectives, incentives and rewards. Sitting back and taking it easy is often frowned upon. People will tell you that you need to work hard to achieve your goals. If you're taking it easy, then you must be lazy, or something's wrong with you. But all of that is true only if you believe it is.



I began a writing project in early 2012 that included setting deadlines and goals for myself around a single topic. Then I spent time looking at the results so that I could measure the effectiveness of what I was doing against the goals and deadlines I had.

But that really wasn't working for me, not to mention just writing about a single topic, so I started to move away from doing that. The pressure of those deadlines was taking away my enjoyment of what I was doing. Instead of enjoying the writing and allowing my writing to come to me when I was inspired to do so, I was working to a deadline and forcing myself to find inspiration.

After a few months of this I ended up realising I needed to take a break.

What I really needed to take a break from was the expectations I was placing upon myself. I needed to stop thinking I should work to deadlines and objectives, and I needed to return to just enjoying the progression of my life.

Sometimes you just need to do what you feel like doing, instead of what you feel you have to do.

If you have a desire to do something, you should. Even if it feels like it's taking you away from the direction you originally want to go, you should definitely do it. Especially if you think it will be enjoyable and rewarding for you.

When you're doing things that your heart and mind just isn't into, and you feel like you could be doing something better - you're absolutely right. You really could be doing something better with your time, something that you're more interested in, that'll bring you more enjoyment.

Take a break from what's leaving you bored and unfulfilled, and do what interests you instead. Even if it's a distraction, like a game, you should do it. Don't beat yourself up about getting distracted from what you think you should be doing.

Be careful about procrastination though. You don't want to distract yourself by sabotaging your own efforts.

If your instincts are strongly telling you to take a break, follow your instincts. And when you do, you'll be refreshed and recharged by it. Let yourself do it for as long as you feel is right for you - however long that might be! You'll know when the time is right to go back to what you needed to be distracted from.

Be gentle on yourself. Don't believe the hype about objectives and deadlines in your personal life. Let yourself do something different when you feel like you should.

Go for a drive, play a game, read a book, see a movie, write a story, spend time with friends and family, have a bubble bath, meditate, talk to an animal, hug a tree, go for a swim, take a holiday, climb a mountain...

Whatever is in your heart, let yourself do it. And do it for as long as you feel you need to.

You might be surprised where it'll take you.