Category: Milestone (Page 8 of 13)

My 2016 in depth

2016-12-31 / Muaad Elsharif / 0 Comments

I had goals going into 2016, it wasn’t much but I’m glad I made some of them come true.

Things I’m proud of

To be honest, I don’t have much to show for this year, I’m thankful for what I have indeed, but it’s been this situation where nothing can be achieved, I guess staying alive is an achievement to be celebrated.

The gift of life is not to be taken lightly, life should be celebrated always. It’s just this civil war situation that doesn’t seem to be going anywhere soon.
This year was a tough year, things are getting worse in Libya and it takes it’s toll on everyone, myself included.

1. New job

I got a steady job, the same job I’ve been struggling to get for the last three years as a teaching assistant, despite the need for new teaching assistants the government won’t sign them until the political dispute in Libya is resolved -isn’t that a bit silly?-

sadly now due to financial issues I’m not getting paid (and none of the teaching assistants got paid so far) which makes me wonder if this is better than sitting at home or working part time for startups and non government organizations?

2. Self discovery

I’ve also taken some steps on the path of knowing who I am, according to the MBTI chart I am an ISFJ, knowing that and reading a lot about the subject has opened my eyes on many things I didn’t know about myself, and answered some nagging questions I was desperate to find out, and never really knew how to formulate!

3. My blog

My blog has done very well this year, possibly better than all the past years put together! It’s either I was really bad before or that I got insanely good this year, it goes both ways!

I’ve written a lot less this year compared to 2015, it doesn’t have to do with my “new job”, it was a resolution I took in order to improve the quality of my writing, posting less but meaning more. Being my own worst critic I’d say that the quality of my writing has improved, but not as much as it should.

This leaves room for improvement, I still need to build my blog’s fanbase and newsletter, to be honest I haven’t put much work into that and it needs to be on the list!

I know that blogging has taken a backseat to other social media platforms, but I do believe that blogging will be great again!

4. Radio head

Some of my good friends kept suggesting I should be on the radio (not sure if they mean I’m ugly and I need to be heard not seen or something else), so I’ve decided to give radio a chance. I’ve started to contribute to WTSLTY “Wrestling talk show Libya”, and I’ve attended comi-con with them in a very special episode.

I’ve also taken an internship at t radio Alsa’aa 90.7, first starting as a guest on some of the shows, I learned some things about the business!

The gift of moving on

I tend to over think a lot of things in my life, mostly the past and it’s events specifically.

I’ve set a goal for myself last year to move on past all the things that trouble me and hinder my progress as a human being, did I manage to achieve this seemingly easy goal? Well to a certain degree.

Moving on isn’t as simple as pressing a button! It requires time and effort in order to be able to move on, luckily life keeps pushing new obstacles down the road, which helps letting go of the old!

Thinking about my past won’t change it, it would waste the time I should be living in.The gift of moving on, it’s something that shouldn’t be taken for granted!

I’ve also learned some valuable lessons in life that I might share in a later post, some of them seem like basic things, while they truly mean so much!

A quick site update

My blog has reached 189,400 thousand views, just a tad bit shy of 200 thousand views!

I have removed Disqus from my blog, it didn’t sync old comments and it confused people! I haven’t received a single comment the whole time it was installed!

What do you think of this post? Did you review your past year? And what are your goals for the year to come? Share your thoughts in the comments section below.
For an Arabic version of this post, click here.

150,000 page views!

2016-11-01 / Muaad Elsharif / 0 Comments

Looking at the status bar at my blog I realized that I have reached 150 thousand views, and you might have noticed that I didn’t post a status update like this in a while. I decided to celebrate the bigger milestones, as they began to happen more often (thankfully).

150K banner made in Gimp

Passport rush!

Over the last few months my blog attracted thousands of Libyan readers trying desperately to reserve an appointment to take the passport photo, my blog views spike on Thursdays (as it’s the only day the reservation system is open on), so in sense these people aren’t here for my blog, they think it’s associated with the passports somehow and most of the comments are questions that I shouldn’t be getting! The people who actually work for the overmanning and get paid for it should be asked these questions!

The polar ends are Thursdays!

Welcome in!

Well you know the old saying: All publicity is good publicity and as long as my blog is out there and getting views, I should be happy! Even when I know for sure that these lurkers don’t care for my blog or what I post, they just want a passport.

Maybe what I wanted is for people to come to my blog for the things I’m passionate about and actually enjoy, like open source, Linux, and video games! We’ll get to that sometime I hope!

Posting less, meaning more

I’ve also managed to pace myself, I try to post at least once a week, I realize now that blogging has more work to it than creating posts, right now my goal is to finish all the drafts I have on before the end of the year (hopefully).

Social media interactions

I’ve also reached 22,000 twitter followers thanks to my follow back system, I’m not even trying that hard to get fans, but I guess it’s my thing now and it’s far too late for me to go back.

As I use Twitter as my main platform to connect with readers and promote my blog it’s important for me that my account is synced with a good followback ratio and to have some fresh accounts following every now and then.

Got retweeted by OpenDocument

I also gained some valuable input from the open source community on two of my recent posts about LiberOffice, plus a few retweets!

Got retweeted by LibreOffice

Final words

Thank you all for being a part of this journey, and I hope to keep your trust and support. I’ll see you soon in another site update.

Please share this post and help my blog grow!

MY BLOG HAS REACHED 100,000 PAGE VIEWS!! (Video message inside).

2016-08-04 / Muaad Elsharif / 0 Comments

I am really happy and a bit surprised too, I didn’t expect this milestone to arrive this soon!!

My calculations were off by an entire month! Based on the traffic and site views, this update wasn’t supposed to happen until September, I guess the blog was doing better than I thought! It caught me by surprise!!

I’ve been building towards this update for so long, I can’t believe it finally arrived, I missed the magical moment when the counter turned 100,000 (thank you LTT) and despite some minor hiccups, I managed to make it here thankfully.

I promised my fans I’ll make a thank you video when I reach a 100,000 views, you can find it on this link.

Thanks to all of my regular readers, family and friends. And I’ll see you in another update 🙂

90,000 page Views!

2016-06-30 / Muaad Elsharif / 0 Comments

Today I noticed that I reached 90,000 page Views!!

Another significant milestone on my blog while reaching for my goal of 100,000 views which doesn’t seem too far away! There are some changes and things I’d like to address in this site update

Blogging about Libya in Arabic

The 90,000 views post banner that I made in Gimp

Since my last milestone a few months ago I made some changes to the blog regarding content, I decided to put more focus on Libyan readers (seems only natural since I’m a Libyan living in Libya, duh!) and I have to say it’s starting to pay off! After all my top viewed post is the passport post, a pure Libyan matter.

I added a Libyan section on my blog collecting all the posts I made about Libya in Arabic and English too, I am afraid I can’t express some matters properly lately, we have some very unique problems and explaining it to foreign friends is really frustrating, people can’t imagine a country without cash flow in banks for over 6 months!

Putting more focus on Libyan readers and blogging more in Arabic doesn’t mean that I’m not blogging in English anymore or neglecting my English speaking fans! I can do both (I hope!). After all I posted this in English haven’t I?

I also started post journals, it’s an old school kind of blogging, where a blogger captures his impressions and events of his daily life and turns it into blogging, lets see how that turns out.

I also been doing several S.E.O (search engine optimization) tweaks on my blog, I hope they come into play soon and help my blog grow.

CAPTCHA much?

I’ve taken a courageous step and decided to remove the CAPTCHA from my blog, it attracts spammers like crazy, but it’s a risk I’m willing to make, I mean Google’s CAPTCHA has become so annoying lately it drives me off stuff I want to see, so I guess it’s the same for readers wanting to comment, I’m moderating each and every comment tho, no chance!!

I got me a new logo!

I’ve been helping a friend promote his Radio show on Twitter (Checkout 96.9 FM Wednesday at 10:)) PM CET) and he thought he would reward me by designing me something, I asked him for a logo I can use on my blog, what do you think?

My blog’s new logo

Social media update

I’ve reached 20,000 followers on Twitter and I’ve decided to take a break of the whole “Followback” system, it requires so much energy without real reward, and don’t get me started on spam! I will continue to follow back people who follow me, but not the in same way I used to do.

My 20,000 Twitter follower banner, also made in Gimp
I’ve decided to create a Facebook page, not a personal page, a page for my blog! Who would have thought!
While I’m known to be an anti Facebook person, I know for a fact it’s the biggest social network out there, and it’s a shame not to share my content there, it would be interesting to preach about the dangers of Facebook while being on the site! I have to admit that Facebook is my biggest traffic source. As we grow up we learn to compromise, I guess this is a price I have to pay to grow my blog.
I’ll post a link to my blog’s Facebook page when I have it ready.

On a lighter note, this is my 300th post after the cleanup I did a few months ago and I didn’t make a banner because this wasn’t supposed to be my 300th post!

With less that 10,000 views separating me from my blogging goal, a lot of work is due to celebrate that properly, and I’m going to need tons of fan feedback, so keep that coming folks!

As the month of Ramadan is coming to an end, I wish you enjoy a peaceful month with your friends and loved ones, and that things in Libya and all of the Arab and Muslim world improve soon.

Thank you for reading this update, please leave your comments in the comments section below, and have a nice day.

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