The Dovetail Kid » the schwarz

The power of Google

Luis — Fri, 10 Jul 2009 23:33:17 +0000

When you change your site structure radically like I did yesterday night – all links changed from static HTML files to dynamic PHP files – there are a few things to consider:

Every link on the web will be broken and people wont be able to find the content again on my website;
All the indexes on search engines will be broken, i.e. pointing to the non existent files;
How fast will the new pages show up in Google search results?

All of the above being a reason to loose popularity and visitors.

With this in mind I tried to make the change as easy as possible to my faithful readers and with a simple script I managed to produce a table mapping all the old website URLs to the new ones. This way I could take care of the two first points above, but what about number three? That one is out of my control!

Surprise, surprise! Less than 24 hours later the new pages are already on the results page, and I didn’t tell Google to re-index my website.

The nice thing about this is that both links will still work and visitors will be happy. Now it’s just a matter of time before the old pages are dropped from Google’s index.

While looking at my website search statistics I noticed something really curious: if you run a search on Google for “chris schwarz blog” my blog will show up in third place! The first and second being Chris’ won blogs.

Check this out:

Changing a tool’s DNA

Luis — Wed, 24 Jun 2009 22:35:51 +0000

I was catching up on my reading and found an odd post written by The Schwarz where he mentioned “a chisel with rasp-like teeth on its shank”. It sounded like a joke to me…

Everyone who’s been reading Chris’ blog for a while knows he’s a funny guy, but he’s also a talented and knowledgeable woodworker, and above all, a professional journalist. So I gave it a second though and realized I wanted to see what that joke of a tool was all about.

A quick Google search and there it was, right on the first page and being sold on Amazon, the Nicholson WoodChuck Chisel Rasp Set! And it looks freaking odd, like someone decided to play with the tool’s DNA and the result wasn’t quite what they expected.

A few questions cross my mind:

How do you flatten the back of the chisel on your precious stones?
How to you do a paring cut without denting the surface around?
Do you hold the tip of the tool while using the rasp? Watch out, it’s the cutting edge!!

The more I think about it the more I want to go to my shop and take some paring shavings with my Japanese chisels and maybe smooth some curves with my Auriou rasp.

New blog by Christopher Schwarz

Luis — Thu, 17 Jan 2008 13:33:00 +0000

In case you haven’t noticed, Christopher Schwarz is now writing a new blog at Lost Art Press, his new publishing company which is devoted to help the modern woodworker learn traditional hand-tool skills.

Besides Chris’ usual essays on workbench design, there is an excellent series on handplaning which focuses on different techniques (seven at the time of writing) to reduce tear-out.

The blog can be found at: http://blog.lostartpress.com/

For those that have been following Chris’ posts on the Woodworking Magazine blog, the good news is that this blog is still active with the usual high quality content!