500It’s hard to believe, but this is post number 500 for j2fi.net! I owe so much to the readers who have followed this site for the last little bit as well as all those who have left a comment over the years. If it wasn’t for your readership, I would have stopped doing this a long time ago.

So for the big go-hyaku kiji (500th article) I’d like to share some of my thoughts on the five most popular posts for this site, as well as a few of the biggest disappointments.

Most Popular Articles

1. Japan’s Attempt at Internet Regulation Scares Me
Less than a week after this post was put up, it was Stumbled and resulted in some major traffic. At one point, the number of visits in a 24-hour period had exceeded the total combined traffic for the two weeks prior. It’s popularity was incredible but, oddly enough, only Nick has left a comment.

2. An Open Letter of Apology
Although a work of fiction, this recently rose to the Top 5. Thanks again goes to StumbleUpon and the person that submitted it. Heck, for the amount of traffic that SU can bring to this site, I’m almost afraid to think of what a top spot on Digg, Reddit or even a prominent posting on SlashDot would do. My web server’s okay, but I wouldn’t want to tax it into oblivion … yet.

Well, truth be told, if I did notice some high processor usage, then I’d pay the extra for a better server. Lord knows I’m not too impressed with the MySQL performance on this box, but I can’t justify a higher price tag for my own SQL queries :???:
3. China Airlines 737 Catches Fire in Okinawa
My first foray into the world of semi-live blogging! Having been home when the story broke, I quickly posted the entry and earned a top spot in the Google and Yahoo! SERPs. This was mainly attributed to the time difference between Japan and the western nations, but who am I to complain? Heck, I had something on Google before CNN or any of the other large news sites. With the initial post, which was originally all text with a few pictures I had snapped with my camera, traffic to this site increased eight-fold in less than six hours. It kind of made me wish I could do this sort of thing more often.

4. How Not To Boost Your Alexa Ranking
It’s funny how some of the most negative articles on this site receive the most attention. Heck, I’m surprised there wasn’t more of a response on my damning op-ed on Palm’s abysmal failure, the Foleo. Five years in development … puh-leez.

Back on topic, though, this article discussed my experience with some of the Alexa-boosting schemes that are out there on the interwebs. Suffice to say, I did some serious damage to some Virtual Machines, thanks to all the less-than-desirable pieces of horrid software that was force-fed to the make-believe computers. If you ever have any doubts about how a piece of software will operate on your machine, or what it might expose to the world, consider running it in a virtual machine. I can’t tell you how often these digital sandboxes have saved me a ton of headache :???:
5. Another Blah Apple Product
My first article to receive attention through StumbleUpon (I’m seeing a trend, here). Written during a critical time last year when I was feeling particularly useless at work and after having several arguments with devout Apple fanatics about nothing worth discussing. Apple users tend to remind me an awful lot of religious people. You have the vast majority that are down to earth and fun to be around, and then you have the fanatics who make us question the entire Apple microcosm — allowing us to paint the whole crowd with the same brush, as it were.

That said, my comments about AppleTV are just the same for the Macbook Air. Both are too underwhelming and blah, and I dare anyone to prove otherwise.

Biggest Disappointments

There are some days when I’m quite fired up over a subject and I can’t wait to get it off my chest. Often these posts are the longest and most controversial, but result in next to no traffic and zero comments. Here are my five largest disappointments.

1. Give a Man a Fish … - Challenging the Homeless
2. Should We Mine the Ocean? - Ripping Up the Ocean Floor for Minerals
3. Defending the Guilty - The Canadian Legal System is a Joke
4. Heroes Shouldn’t Always Come Free - Rescue Services Should Charge Fees
5. Another Ethical Dilemma - What Genetic Material Can We Donate to Our Children?

Oh well. Perhaps one day someone will find my passion and aggressive stance towards these subjects useful or, at the very least, comical.

What Have I Learned?

Writing a successful post is often hit and miss. Occasionally I’ll put something together over a few days that I think is solid work with lots of great information and accompanying links to prove my case only to hear nothing, while other times I’ll write something off the cuff that I think warrants no feedback only to receive 8+ comments (8 is a big number on this site). Does this mean everything should be written in haste with no regards to form or purpose? Heck, no. But it seems that a few articles here and there doesn’t hurt :P
What Do the Next 500 Posts Have to Offer?

With a decent amount of success on Japanese politics and upcoming technologies, I’ll continue writing about much of the same. Why change what works? But, that said, I can almost guarantee that I’ll continue discussing topics that either upset or excite me. Heck, I still have a wedding coming up! Gone are the days of paid posts (not links, though), and you can rest assured that I won’t drop the ego or tone of my articles.

Doing so would take all the fun out of writing.