Category Archives: Blog tools

Top 50 Most Viewed Essays

Posted on by

If you are a new visitor to my blog, you may want to take a few minutes to browse through some of my top essays. These are ranked by page views over the past two years. I have a different list of some of my favorites but these are the most viewed. I hope this gives you a flavor for the kind of material I like to cover in my essays - current LDS topics.

1. General Authority Training – Advanced Subjects
2. How Americans View Mormonism
3. About Tim
4. There is no middle ground
5. It Came From Behind the Sun
6. Elder Packer Was Right about Bearing Testimony
7. My Interview with Mormon.org
8. What they don’t tell you about Bishopric Meetings
9. The Plural Wives of Joseph Smith
10. The Mormon Corporate Empire
11. Getting past prejudices with Rent – the Musical
12. An Evening with Richard Bushman
13. The Endowment is more than the ordinances
14. When Prophets need to know
15. Divine Manifestations must have a purpose
16. Come Unto Christ – my Christmas talk
17. A different kind of knowledge
18. Rachel Esplin video continues to be a hit
19. Shades of grey and relative truth
20. Walt Whitman – the great American poet
21. Mormon visitors from outer space
22. A website for the average Mormon
23. Thoughtful discussion of controversial topics
24. 2012 the movie
25. Revelation and emotional response
26. Add your profile to Mormon.org
27. The attitude of mocking
28. Objections to the Book of Abraham
29. A letter to a reader – burning of the bosom
30. The ambush – a fictional background story
31. Spiritual experiences as a foundation for faith
32. Seer stone in a hat – book of Mormon translation
33. When a prophet gets Alzheimer’s disease
34. The personal power of Hester Prynne
35. Red Sky – an early version of my novel
36. Unique Religion of Benjamin Franklin
37. God even loves computer geeks like me
38. Moving toward gospel promises
39. Sandinistas - missionaries in Nicaragua
 40. Mormon mommy blogs are the traffic queens
41. Multiple versions of the first vision
42. And the stars shall fall from heaven
43. Miracles and angels – a car wreck in Oklahoma
44. The government of the United States will collapse
45. Just where exactly are the lost ten tribes?
46. Mormon Church is not the fastest growing
47. Just what was Portnoy’s Complaint?
48. Changes to the Book of Mormon
49. Changing requirements of perfection
50. Public rebuke from an apostle

 

New home for Latter-day Commentary

Posted on by

wordpressI’ve been writing on Blogger for quite some time and have long wished for greater control of the blog.  I like the ease of use of Blogger but it does not offer customization features that I have read are available with WordPress.  All the old Blogger essays transferred to WordPress without any problems.  The links still point back to Blogger but that’s OK.

I’m not sure that I’ll be able to get all the same widgets in WordPress that I had in Blogger but I probably needed to get rid of some of them as it was beginning to look cluttered.  I wish there was a way to transfer my blogroll but it looks like that may be a manual process.  I also changed the theme to one that promotes the writing and not the design.  I like the simple header.  It speeds up mobile loading.

Update: three days later

The move is complete.  I may still add some widgets but overall, I like the look and functionality of the new site.  The biggest hurdle was transferring all my subscribers without having to ask them to subscribe to a new feed.  I simply had to break the old feed from Blogger and redirect it from here.  Easy, I know, but it took me hours to get it right.

Now I know why I waited until the three-day weekend to attempt this.  The learning curve for WordPress was not too steep, but there still were some gotchas.  The whole process was rather time-consuming but fun.  I’m ready now to do some serious SEO and to get back to writing new essays.  Oh, and respond to some of the recent comments.

No blogroll on LDC

I decided not to add a detailed blogroll but will maintain several in separate web pages.  The links are at the top left: A new LDS blog aggregators list, the top LDS group blogs, the top LDS solo blogs and a large list of LDS Message boards or forums.  These were all previously posted but have recently proven to be very popular reference pages.

Thanks to all the aggregators and fellow bloggers who have linked to the old site over the years.  I know some have already changed to the new site.  Thanks for your links.  A blog is fairly boring without readers and comments.  Your links bring me new readers every day.  I look forward to the continued dialog and hope my essays are worth reading.

Today’s LDS blog rankings

Posted on by

In between helping Carol put up Christmas decorations, I compiled the Alexa rankings of the LDS blogs I follow. Although it is by no means comprehensive, it helps me understand where my blog ranks among solo LDS bloggers. This does not include group blogs which I define as any LDS-themed blog that has two or more contributors. Click on the image for a hot-link page.

I was surprised to find what I thought was a relatively new blog at the top of the list. How in the world did Believe all things get to the top of the list with less than four months of activity? It is one of the best looking sites I have seen and has wonderful content, but still… I was also curious how the group blogs ranked, so I ran the same Alexa numbers there. No surprises, really:

I am aware that this group blog listing is not comprehensive. If you are interested in adding your LDS-themed group blog to the list, just let me know. And while I’m at it, I decided to compile rankings for LDS-themed websites that are not blogs. Of course it can in no way be considered complete. These are just the ones I visit regularly. Click on image for hot-links.

Here are the links to the three lists so you can add them to wherever you keep your favorite links. I’ll probably update them every few months. They’ll change a lot in the next few weeks as I add to them. Please feel free to send me links to your blogs. If you are interested in getting more traffic, refer to this essay I wrote back in May: How to promote your LDS blog.

1. Alexa rankings of LDS solo blogs
2. Alexa rankings of LDS group blogs
3. Alexa rankings of LDS websites

What type of blogger are you?

Posted on by

I ran across a new blog analyzing tool over at the Typealyzer. I am an INTP – Thinker. I know, I’m shocked too. Unfortunately, INTP‘s can also be dull and boring. Carol, on the other hand is an ESFP – the performer. Her analysis (below mine) is much more interesting. That’s why I married her. We complement each other.

Hat tip: Clark Goble at Mormon Metaphysics

Tim’s analysis:

“The logical and analytical type. They are especially attuned to difficult creative and intellectual challenges and always look for something more complex to dig into. They are great at finding subtle connections between things and imagine far-reaching implications.

“They enjoy working with complex things using a lot of concepts and imaginative models of reality. Since they are not very good at seeing and understanding the needs of other people, they might come across as arrogant, impatient and insensitive to people that need some time to understand what they are talking about.”

Carol’s analysis:

“The entertaining and friendly type. They are especially attuned to pleasure and beauty and like to fill their surroundings with soft fabrics, bright colors and sweet smells. They live in the present moment and don’t like to plan ahead – they are always in risk of exhausting themselves.

“The enjoy work that makes them able to help other people in a concrete and visible way. They tend to avoid conflicts and rarely initiate confrontation – qualities that can make it hard for them in management positions.”

Image of brain activity for ESFP type: