The 10+20+15+5+50% Rule (aka “Edison was wrong”)

…Genius – and by extension, creativity – is not about 99% perspiration and 1% inspiration. It’s a complex interaction between many factors, including some that can be controlled (research, perspiration, education) and some that cannot (luck, innate talent)…

Site Traffic Update (July 2010)

Back in February 2009, I posted a brief summary of tannerhelland.com traffic for the last five months of 2008. I also mentioned a few goals related to traffic, including my hope that the number of unique visitors would double between 2008 and 2009. I’m finally getting around to posting a follow-up, so for those interested – here’s how tannerhelland.com traffic has grown over the last 18 months…

Apologies for the RSS Spam

Many apologies for the momentary bout of RSS “spam” in tannerhelland.com feeds. I’ve been working on integrating my Twitter and WordPress accounts (which should eventually lead to more quality content both places). An unfortunate side-effect is that once everything got connected, a bunch of Twitter posts got sucked into WordPress, making it look like there were TONS of new posts…

Yes, I Am Still Alive

I know, I know – it’s been a LONG time since I’ve posted anything. The last two months have been way too busy, what with an appendectomy, a rewrite of Teal (my novel), great progress on a new book, way too many video games (God of War, Borderlands, BioShock…), and a couple large side projects that have FINALLY been wrapped up. At any rate, several months of inactivity doesn’t mean I’ve forgotten about the site…

On Sharing (Licenses, Copyrights, and Fair Use)

You may not realize this from scanning my site, but I was this close (envision thumb and pointer finger nearly touching) to pursuing a career in intellectual property law.   I even went so far as to take the LSAT, enroll in a pre-law seminar, and participate in a semester-long legal internship. I’ll spare you the [...]

NEW MUSIC!! Can you believe it?!

My friends, the wait is over. I am FINALLY getting around to updating the music on this site. I know, I know – it’s been (literally) years since I made any updates to my music entries, but in all fairness I’ve been a busy man. Working full-time, writing a 400 page novel, and being married to my best friend all consume a lot of time. But no more excuses! I’ve finished my novel and am currently working on signing up an agent, so with my newfound free time I’m working on updating my poor, forgotten music. Read on to see how this is going to work…

Building a Better Blog

As you may have noticed, things have started looking a lot better around here. I thought it was worth taking a moment to mention some of the new features I’ve been working on – features that should make your experience on tannerhelland.com even better than it already is. This includes a totally revamped site search, iconified links, better downloads, minor aesthetic adjustments, and a whole lotta SEO. Read on for details!

Traffic ‘Round Here (2008)

As you can see from the above chart, the redesigned tannerhelland.com was visited by some 20,000 people in its first five months. One of my goals for 2009 is to double each of these stats. I’d like to see closer to 30,000 unique visitors in 2009, and it’d be great if the number of visits per visitor could get bumped closer to 2.0. Part of the way I plan to accomplish this is with a renewed emphasis on regular posting (which I hope you’ve enjoyed!) and a host of SEO changes, along with the continual addition of content from my old programming and music sites. It’s all a work in progress, but hey – at least it’s progressing! :)

2008: Year in Review

Ah, another year over – and 2008 was a great one (for both me and the site). Read the article to check out some of the highlights.

Happy New Year!

This site is not ugly

Finally, a new look that’s both functional AND good-looking. This theme is built off “The Morning After” theme by Arun Kale – and I can’t begin to describe how much I’m impressed with his work. This is the first WordPress theme I’ve used where the CSS and PHP is reasonably designed and – even more importantly – reasonably commented. A usage and customization sheet is provided for those looking to tailor the theme to their particular needs, and built-in support for several excellent plugins (including WP-Print, one of my new favorites) is just icing on the cake…