TekGoblin has been up for a little over a year and a half now and it’s been a long journey. I had a rough start between generating articles and handling increases in traffic. Things have started to smooth out for the site and this is the first time that I think that we are actually doing well. TekGoblin has hit about 830,000 visitors since its start till now at the time of writing. That isn’t really bad if you think about it, for someone starting a blog while in college and hasn’t even entered the professional world yet.

Well, we are still looking for writers on the site if you are interested, there are many perks. Perks involve conference access like E3, CES, GenCon, etc and a chance to play with new technologies. If anyone is interested in building a great blog to carry the torch into the future drop us a line at sanity[at]tekgoblin.com.  Thanks!

Well, it has been quite an experience with terrible service from Verizon DSL in West Lafayette, Indiana. Now Verizon has sold off West Lafayette, Indiana to Frontier Communications to continue on with the crappy network Verizon has left them with.

I just hope that Frontier can bump the speeds from 3mbps up to 6mbps or more, I am tired of the slow speeds. COME ON FRONTIER! Dont be another Verizon.

Here is the official statement that I got in my email.

Important Changes to Your Verizon Internet Service Dear Verizon Online Member, We are writing to let you know that starting July 1, 2010, your Internet service provider will change from Verizon to Frontier Communications, one of the nation’s largest independent providers of telecommunications services. What will not change: You will not experience any disruption of service. Your service fee will stay the same. You will still have the same great high speed connection you do now! What will change: Your Verizon.net email. Starting July 1, you’ll need to access your email at http://webmail-pn.ncnetwork.net.  Frontier is planning to let you know when your email will transition over to Frontier.  Please write down your verizon.net user name and password and keep them in a safe place, as you will need this information later in order to successfully access your email at Frontier. Your new Frontier home page. Starting July 1st, your new home page will be http://frontier.my.yahoo.com. For more information, click on Frontier’s Frequently Asked Questions link below. Frequently Asked Questions Thank you for using Verizon Internet service.  It has been our pleasure to serve you

UPDATE: 6/5/10

Important Correction to a Recent Email Regarding Changes to Your Verizon Internet Service Dear Verizon Online Member, We recently sent you an email stating that starting July 1, 2010, your Internet service provider will change from Verizon to Frontier Communications.  Unfortunately, this email contained some erroneous information. Please disregard that previous email. Below is the corrected version of the email: We are writing to let you know that starting July 1, 2010, if you have service in one of the following areas: Washington, Oregon, Idaho, Nevada, Arizona, Wisconsin, Michigan, Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, North Carolina, South Carolina, and the following communities in California that border AZ, NV and OR: Big River, Blythe, Coleville, Crescent City, Desert Center, Eagle Mountain, Earp, Felicity, Fort Dick, Gasquet, Klamath, Kneeland, Markleeville, Merced, Needles, Orick, Parker Dam, Ripley, Smith River, Topaz, Trinidad, Vidal and Winterhaven. Your Internet service provider will change from Verizon to Frontier Communications, one of the nation’s largest providers of communications services. What will not change: You will not experience any disruption of your Internet service. Your service plan and monthly fee will stay the same. You will still have the same great high-speed connection you do now! What will change: Your home page. Starting July 1st, you will need to access your home page at the following new URL: http://www.ncnetwork.net. Your Verizon.net email. Starting July 1, you may continue to access your email through the Email tab on your home page. However, if you access Webmail directly, you will need to use the following URL http://webmail-pn.ncnetwork.net. Frontier plans to let you know well in advance when your email will transition to Frontier. You should be notified of the date at least two weeks in advance. For Your convenience, Frontier plans to automatically transfer your entire email account to Frontier; you should not expect to lose any saved email, folders, or contacts. Between the time that your account is transitioned and December 31, 2010, emails sent to your Verizon.net account will be redirected to your new Frontier account assuring that you will have no interruption in email communications. Please write down your verizon.net user name and password and keep them in a safe place, as you will need this information later in order to successfully access your email at Frontier. If you cannot remember your password, please reset it on the Verizon portal before June 30th using the following link Frontier is committed to an excellent customer experience and looks forward to serving you. For more information visit Frontier’s Frequently Asked Questions. Sincerely, Verizon Online Member Service

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Google has recently started a campaign to spread hi-speed internet to different parts of the US.  Here is the official post from Google:

Google is planning to launch an experiment that we hope will make Internet access better and faster for everyone. We plan to test ultra-high speed broadband networks in one or more trial locations across the country. Our networks will deliver Internet speeds more than 100 times faster than what most Americans have access to today, over 1 gigabit per second, fiber-to-the-home connections. We’ll offer service at a competitive price to at least 50,000 and potentially up to 500,000 people.

Now I would like to see West Lafayette, Indiana nominated because we have some of the worst internet connections around Purdue University. Sure the campus has a great connection, but if you have Verizon for your DSL you know that it is terrible. If Google were to take over, we would see some serious Fiber optics here. So visit the Google Fiber Optics page and nominate West Lafayette, IN

I have been looking for good comment plugins for my main site TekGoblin Reviews, I have found JS-Kit Echo to be the nicest looking one yet. However it seems that all the plugin can do is comments, and we all know that the default WordPress comment system does more. I am talking about pingbacks/trackbacks, Echo does not handle pingbacks and trackbacks very well at all.

I have been going back and forth with Echo support trying to resolve these issues but all they do is seem to run me in circles. Echo advertises that these features work with their plugin but nobody has actually got them to work right out of the box. Echo support provides you with a trackback/pingback page with a lot of code on it that you are supposed to make work with your blog, but when support is asked how to actually implement it, you are run in circles again.

My verdict is to not go with JS-Kit Echo if you are running WordPress and would actually like the system to work. Please evaluate other commenting systems before going with Echo.