I am sure that a lot of you guys are viewing this right now due to the title. I can assure, you, it is not clickbait in any means. However, it relates directly to the subject of my post, which is the new upgrade, so if you want to find out about it, I would read on or scroll to the bottom.
As you may have noticed, at the start of the month, I laid out an elaborate summer blogging schedule. As you may have also noticed, my amount of commitment to that schedule has been simply, well... mediocre. Luckily, a change is near! I will change my summer schedule once and for all to make the situation at hand a lot better. What kind of change, you may ask? Well, let's put it this way: Now, there is no schedule.
You heard me right: For the rest of the summer, I will be adhering to no specific blogging schedule. Why would I ever do this? The other system, as you could probably tell, simply wasn't working. While the promise of a viewer being able to, if they wanted, pick and choose which day they wanted to look at my blog to see a specific type of post, seemed great, the execution? Not so great.
Let me explain it further using an example: Let's say that one particular wednesday, I have lots of free time on my hands, and that might be enough time to finish writing a story. But the next wednesday comes, and I unexpectedly have a doctor's appointment, or have to go to a birthday party, or my parents want to go out for dinner, and then all of a sudden, my entire schedule starts to crumble. I start missing more and more posts, and breaking more and more of my schedule's promises. It started feeling as if I was unintentionally "procrastinating" for blogging; Making up just one post late might not be so bad, but what if its two; then three; then four; then an entire week's worth of content gets flushed down the toilet.
This was bad for multiple reasons. One, my viewers were being told things like "Come again next Thursday to see my next game review!", and ended up looking on that exact day to find: Absolutely nothing. Two, whenever I did manage to make a post, the view count was, well, quite unencouraging compared to what I was expecting from before. I think that last summer spoiled me a little bit. After getting a few thousand views per week last summer, getting fractions of that just seems humbling (in a bad way).
Why the low view count? Broken promises, not enough content (and time to make it, due to camp), and, I admit it, too long posts. "Gasp! Arca has admitted he writes too long posts!" Yes, I finally admit it. If its not even long enough to hold my own parent's attention, then something needs to be fixed. Its like a blogging mini-crisis: Barely any posts, lying about making new ones, getting single-digit views each, and the only viewers I do get don't even read all the way through. Luckily, there is an end to all this madness. Finally, a cure, a savior, a change to cause blog peace! What could cause such peace? No, it isn't Waluigi being put in Super Smash Bros Ultimate (which may never happen). Instead, you can call it...
BLOG UPGRADE 8.7!
Bye, Bye Schedule
Remember that seven-day-a-week specific blogging schedule I told you guys about a week or two ago? Kiss it goodbye, because I am not going to have a day-specific schedule on this blog again for a long time. This isn't a bad thing, however, under the circumstances. Camp keeps me occupied for about 63% of my average weekday, and the time left isn't always guaranteed, either. If I can't promise anything, then well, why should I? Think on the bright side: Now that there is no rules on what type of post I can make each day, there are INFINITE possibilities as to what I can write about each day! Viewing my blog each day will be like opening a Kinder Surprise Egg... Bad analogy? How about opening a Fornite crate? Too cringy? Fine, I'll say this instead; Viewing my blog each day will be like punching a question-mark block in Super Mario; You never know what you might get!
This breaks me free from the difficulty of being forced to write about a certain topic on a certain day. Plus, it gives my viewers more of a reason to go back and view my blog every day. In other words, it's a win-win situation!
Oooh, colors!
I realized how ironic that I told Burak in my review of his blog that he needed to decorate his blog more, when, at the moment, my blog was currently lacking (albeit less) in that category as well. While I am really glad with my summer logo and the general default colors and format, I decided a change was necessary in terms of fonts and title colors. So, I went ahead and changed it up a lot.
Why hadn't I done this before? Well, ever since purchasing my new website domain, the Google Domain Services had this issue which caused my template page to not load at all. So as much as I wanted to be able to change up my template, I was unable to. Luckily, I wrote about my problem on the Blogger Help Forum, and an expert from Google was able to help me get this problem fixed. So shoutout to Chuck Croll, the specialist who made this possible (even though I honestly really doubt he is reading this right now)! Enjoy the new fonts and colors, which I think add a lot more personality to my blog's appearance.
Sidebar Improvements
I used to love using the sidebar feature to add all the extra widgets to improve viewer's experiences. This would have stuff like a button to translate my blog, a link to my other profiles, a complete blog archive, a list of popular posts, and much more. I could even embed games there if I wanted to! The problem didn't arise until I adopted my current Blogger template, Notable. It was that the sidebar was now completely out of sight unless you clicked a button on the top of the page!
I lost faith in the idea of a sidebar, and deleted all the widgets (except for my view-count, of course), and moved my views display to the top of the page. However, I overestimated how slightly much more that this would be as an inconvenience for my viewers. The truth is that plenty of people actually know the function of the three-lined icon at the top of the page, so why put it to waste?
I am glad to announce that I have restored all the original functions of my sidebar: A Google Translate button to translate the contents to my blog to any of 100 languages instantaneously. A list of the most popular posts on my blog within the last week. A +1 button that generates a Google+ post on your account that recommends my blog. An embedded preview of my Google+ profile and an option to follow me. These returning features should all be familiar to those who have seen my old sidebar, but don't worry, there are some newcomers in features as well (so I didn't make the same mistake Sakurai did with Smash Ultimate).
I have also added something that makes sense as a recent feature, and it is a list of my labels I have created thus far for my blog. This will be an easy way to browse what different categories of posts my blog has to offer.
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My Promise & A Look Ahead
So, that was all that I added in my ugrade 8.7 to my blog. I promise, now that my schedule is gone and I have free reign, to try to post much more frequently. Does that mean once a day? Maybe, but I can't promise anything. What I can tell you, however, is that I will make a new post every 1-2 days, so be sure to check frequently to see new content. It will be easier to make posts daily if my posts are kept short, so from now on in the summer expect to see posts focused on just one topic to keep it shorter. With my current view drought, I am forced to rely on quantity over quality when it comes to posts. So that doesn't mean that my posts will necessarily be worse, it just means they will be shorter and more to the point. Also, unlike previous summers, this time I plan on actively posting while on my annual trip to Turkey. That would be a first for my blog due to the fact that I will now have frequent computer and internet access there. So from now on, I will try to post once per day for two weeks, and then I will be on vacation. Whilst on vacation, I will post every 1-3 days possibly. The worst case scenario would be twice per week. After my trip, there will be only over one week before school starts, but the first week of school is usually not very busy anyway. I am happy to say that the TTHT Blog is now back and at full force!
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Now, finally, for the breaking news of the day (and why a lot of people are reading this right now):
I RESTORED XIANG'S BLOG!
This is a pleasant surprise for anyone who is an OG fan of my blog. You would know that back in the day, Xiang and I would have a very close association with each other's blogs. We would compete for views, make posts together, and even parody each other's blogs (once)! Fun fact: I was a member of his original blog, and also, it would have never become a thing if it weren't for my blog. You see, Xiang created Past Now Future originally so that he could have a week-long competition with me for views. Even after the competition, he still blogged, and well, it became what it was.
However, about a year ago, he permanently deleted his blog off the face of the Internet. While he did make a second blog a while later (dedicated to Clash Royale), he ended up deleting that one as well. I was messing around with a potential "followers" feature on my blog when I accidentally stumbled across something amazing: A page for his blog, complete with all the posts and pages, perfectly reserved how they were a year ago.
How did this happen? Well, you see, when you "delete" a blog on Blogger, it isn't actually gone. It is stored automatically in Google's servers. All that happens is that the domain name changes so you can no longer visit it anymore. The new domain name is usually random, complicated, and impossible for a human being to guess. This is only meant so that Google's bots can upload important security information to their database, but it turns out that it also has another purpose which I found out: Restoring old, once-dead blogs.
How did I find it? I was trying to install a "followers" feature into my blog's sidebar, I checked out which blogs I was currently following. One of these blogs included Xiang's blog, and I decided to click on it. I expected to find an error page saying "Page Not Found", but instead I was greeted with the entirety of Xiang's blog, frozen in time as if it were some fossil preserved in an iceberg. With a feeling of sudden nostalgic joy, I browsed every link and found out that it worked. I had successfully "revived" Xiang's blog!
How do you view it? Here's the link: http://45643223456789.blogspot.com/
The best thing about this is not only is it perfectly preserved, but no one can delete or change it. It is like a photograph, a pleasant memory of the past. Take a look yourself. If you are familiar with Xiang's blog, it might give you a great sense of nostalgia. I guess that Xiang's blog isn't "dead" after all.
Using this trick I intend on using it in the future if, God forbid, I need to view one of my friend's deleted blogs. Currently, I have Burak's blog and my little brothers (which seem like they are going to stay for a long time), but I am relieved to know that if the time actually comes, I have a backup and a way to view their blogs post-deletion.
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I hope you enjoyed this post! I try to post every day or two during summer, so be sure to click the subscribe button at the top of my blog so you can receive email notifications whenever I make a new post. Tomorrow I will try to write about this week's Nintendo news. Feel free to leave your thoughts and suggestions in the comments below, but remember to stay positive as I need to approve comments before they become public. If you like my blog, be sure to tell your friends about it so I can gain a greater audience. My current goal is to reach 130K views by the end of the summer, and I am currently at 121.5K views. Stay tuned, and I hope you enjoy the vast amount of blogging content that is soon to come! :)
Here is a link to my previous post, a sci-fi story about a janitor who works at Area 51: http://www.arcabaran.com/2018/07/an-alien-mess-story.html
If you liked this post, be sure to browse the labels at the top of the post's sidebar to find other similar posts on this blog. Here are some other blogs you may like.
Onur’s Blog- First Step, Next Step, This Step: My little brother got inspired by me to start his own blog too! He writes mostly about Nintendo and posts decently often. Here it is: https://onur3.blogspot.com/
Burak’s Blog: My AABO buddy Burak has written about very similar topics that I do, over on his own blog. I highly recommend you check it out, so here it is: http://biloglu.blogspot.com/ He even figured out how to intricately code and host his own website, and I have to say I’m quite impressed by it: http://buraksblogmore.com/
My YouTube Channel: I also happen to have a brand new YouTube channel, and will post videos there from time to time. It is called ArcaVids, and you can see it here: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCeLK4m7tp3K1q2eMxkbQ91g
This is Arca, signing off. Bye for now!
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