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    <title>Jim Westergren</title>
    <description>About me, my projects, SEO, Web Development and Personal Development since 2005</description>
    <link>https://www.jimwestergren.com/</link>
    <pubDate>Sat, 18 Mar 2023 17:22:00 +0000</pubDate>
    <lastBuildDate>Sat, 18 Mar 2023 17:22:00 +0000</lastBuildDate>
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        <title>My Recommendations for a Happy Life</title>
        <description><![CDATA[An essay by Jim WestergrenMy personal thoughts on the matter and what has worked for me.Not a scientific article This essay is advice for myself (follow this Jim!) but also for others to benefit. Most of my advice is so obvious it almost sounds stupid but don't let that fool you - most often the &#91;...&#93;]]></description>
        <link>https://www.jimwestergren.com/my-recommendations-for-a-happy-life</link>
        <guid>https://www.jimwestergren.com/my-recommendations-for-a-happy-life</guid>
        <pubDate>Sat, 18 Mar 2023 17:22:00 +0000</pubDate>
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    <item>
        <title>Budget 100 - an old school magic format</title>
        <description><![CDATA[#article img { border: 1px solid #aaa; border-radius: 10px; margin-right: 10px; } Old school Magic is a wonderful way to play the Magic the Gathering card game by using only the cards created in 1993 and 1994 (the first 2 years of Magic). Lots of nostalgia and excitement. Back when cards had beautiful fantasy related &#91;...&#93;]]></description>
        <link>https://www.jimwestergren.com/budget-100</link>
        <guid>https://www.jimwestergren.com/budget-100</guid>
        <pubDate>Thu, 29 Dec 2022 11:38:00 +0000</pubDate>
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    <item>
        <title>My Favorite Board Games and How I Play Them</title>
        <description><![CDATA[Board games is one of my passions. Both as a player and now also as an aspiring game designer. And I can sometimes get obsessed in trying to improve rules of games to better suit the tastes of me and those I play with (usually my wife, son and brother-in-law). I normally play as a &#91;...&#93;]]></description>
        <link>https://www.jimwestergren.com/favorite-board-games</link>
        <guid>https://www.jimwestergren.com/favorite-board-games</guid>
        <pubDate>Sat, 18 Dec 2021 21:04:00 +0000</pubDate>
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    <item>
        <title>Switching from Windows PC to Mac and why I switched back</title>
        <description><![CDATA[I am a SEO and web developer that has been using Windows since more than two decades. In may 2021 the fan of my current lap top started to make a lot of noise and I bought a MacBook Pro M1 which was highly recommended to me by coworkers - I was told that I &#91;...&#93;]]></description>
        <link>https://www.jimwestergren.com/switching-from-windows-pc-to-mac-and-why-i-switched-back</link>
        <guid>https://www.jimwestergren.com/switching-from-windows-pc-to-mac-and-why-i-switched-back</guid>
        <pubDate>Sat, 05 Jun 2021 23:05:00 +0000</pubDate>
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        <title>Creating The Space War - The Card Game of My Dreams</title>
        <description><![CDATA[I love card games. I have played various card games more or less regular the last 25 years. I started to play Magic: the Gathering (MtG) around 25 years ago and have played it on and off since then. Other card games that I have especially enjoyed to play is Dominion, Race for the Galaxy, &#91;...&#93;]]></description>
        <link>https://www.jimwestergren.com/creating-the-space-war</link>
        <guid>https://www.jimwestergren.com/creating-the-space-war</guid>
        <pubDate>Thu, 29 Apr 2021 15:34:00 +0000</pubDate>
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    <item>
        <title>24 Characteristics That Geniuses Have in Common</title>
        <description><![CDATA[I am republishing here an excellent article that I first read back in 2002 and that I have read many times since then. I feel I just need to share it, it has worked well for me and might work well for you as well. The worlds greatest geniuses have all had 24 personality characteristics &#91;...&#93;]]></description>
        <link>https://www.jimwestergren.com/24-qualities-that-geniuses-have-in-common/</link>
        <guid>https://www.jimwestergren.com/24-qualities-that-geniuses-have-in-common/</guid>
        <pubDate>Thu, 27 Aug 2020 15:26:00 +0000</pubDate>
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        <title>Setting up and Managing a MySQL Server</title>
        <description><![CDATA[Disclaimer: I am not a professionally trained sysadmin. What I have learned is by trial and error and study from Google searches. This is more notes for myself rather than a guide or article. I will regularly update it. Intro I am using a dedicated MySQL server for Domainstats.com and I have been doing that since &#91;...&#93;]]></description>
        <link>https://www.jimwestergren.com/setting-up-and-managing-a-mysql-server</link>
        <guid>https://www.jimwestergren.com/setting-up-and-managing-a-mysql-server</guid>
        <pubDate>Wed, 18 Mar 2020 08:39:00 +0000</pubDate>
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        <title>Canasta - The Great Card Game</title>
        <description><![CDATA[Canasta is a card game that was created by two bridge players in 1939 and was extremely popular at the end of the 1940s, "In the peak year of the game one hundred million packs of cards were sold" - When Canasta Was the Craze, article from 1952. It is one of my absolute favorite &#91;...&#93;]]></description>
        <link>https://www.jimwestergren.com/canasta</link>
        <guid>https://www.jimwestergren.com/canasta</guid>
        <pubDate>Tue, 10 Mar 2020 23:03:00 +0000</pubDate>
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        <title>Annual report number 13 + 14: My Success</title>
        <description><![CDATA[Back in December of 2004 I started a new life from zero. I was 22 years old without any money, education or connections. I borrowed my mothers computer and started to learn HTML and internet marketing. Each year I publish an annual report. Earlier reports are linked from the history section in my about page. Personal &#91;...&#93;]]></description>
        <link>https://www.jimwestergren.com/annual-report-number-13-14-my-success</link>
        <guid>https://www.jimwestergren.com/annual-report-number-13-14-my-success</guid>
        <pubDate>Thu, 28 Feb 2019 19:12:00 +0000</pubDate>
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    <item>
        <title>Selling my SEO business TodaysWeb</title>
        <description><![CDATA[Since I came back to Sweden in beginning of 2016 I have mostly been working on Domainstats which I also secured an investment for. The project is now almost ready for an official launch which is very exciting. My SEO and web development business TodaysWeb stayed in Bolivia as an independent company and has been &#91;...&#93;]]></description>
        <link>https://www.jimwestergren.com/selling-of-my-seo-business-todaysweb</link>
        <guid>https://www.jimwestergren.com/selling-of-my-seo-business-todaysweb</guid>
        <pubDate>Thu, 19 Apr 2018 07:25:00 +0000</pubDate>
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        <title>PDO vs MySQLi speed comparison</title>
        <description><![CDATA[My conclusion Based on my testing and the advantages of PDO (info) I recommend the following: Use PDO with PDO::ATTR_EMULATE_PREPARES set to TRUE and use the charset=utf8mb4 in the dsn (to be equally safe as if emulation was turned off). The speed increase is around 80% and this is not the default with for example &#91;...&#93;]]></description>
        <link>https://www.jimwestergren.com/pdo-versus-mysqli</link>
        <guid>https://www.jimwestergren.com/pdo-versus-mysqli</guid>
        <pubDate>Tue, 31 Oct 2017 08:34:00 +0000</pubDate>
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    <item>
        <title>Installing Apache Cassandra with PHP 7 on Ubuntu 16.04</title>
        <description><![CDATA[I spent a lot of time and paid for some help (thanks David Donari!) to figure out how to install Apache Cassandra with PHP 7 and the Datastax PHP Driver. I needed additional Cassandra servers with PHP and had to find a solution to this. Following the official installation instructions ... will not work. It &#91;...&#93;]]></description>
        <link>https://www.jimwestergren.com/installing-cassandra-with-php-7-on-ubuntu</link>
        <guid>https://www.jimwestergren.com/installing-cassandra-with-php-7-on-ubuntu</guid>
        <pubDate>Mon, 15 May 2017 21:06:00 +0000</pubDate>
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    <item>
        <title>Annual report number 11 + 12: My Success</title>
        <description><![CDATA[Back in December of 2004 I started a new life from zero. I was 22 years old without any money, education or connections. I borrowed my mothers computer and started to learn HTML and internet marketing. Each year I publish an annual report. Earlier reports are linked from the history section in my about page. &#91;...&#93;]]></description>
        <link>https://www.jimwestergren.com/annual-report-number-11-12-my-success</link>
        <guid>https://www.jimwestergren.com/annual-report-number-11-12-my-success</guid>
        <pubDate>Fri, 20 Jan 2017 07:50:00 +0000</pubDate>
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    <item>
        <title>Git with GitHub the Simple Way</title>
        <description><![CDATA[This is what is working for me and may not be the best for you. This is very beginner level. I am using the Git Bash from here. Starting a new repo Create the repo in GitHub, include readme. Create a team in Github and make sure you have access to the repo. Create a &#91;...&#93;]]></description>
        <link>https://www.jimwestergren.com/git-with-github-the-simple-way</link>
        <guid>https://www.jimwestergren.com/git-with-github-the-simple-way</guid>
        <pubDate>Thu, 30 Apr 2015 16:03:00 +0000</pubDate>
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    <item>
        <title>Annual report number 9 + 10: My Success</title>
        <description><![CDATA[Back in December of 2004 I started a new life from zero. I was 22 years old without any money, education or connections. I borrowed my mothers computer and started to learn HTML and internet marketing. That is now little more than 10 years ago and each year I publish an annual report. Earlier reports &#91;...&#93;]]></description>
        <link>https://www.jimwestergren.com/annual-report-number-9-10-my-success</link>
        <guid>https://www.jimwestergren.com/annual-report-number-9-10-my-success</guid>
        <pubDate>Tue, 03 Mar 2015 14:29:00 +0000</pubDate>
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    <item>
        <title>Annual report number 8: My Success</title>
        <description><![CDATA[Back in December of 2004 I started a new life from zero. I was 22 years old without any money, education or connections. I borrowed my mothers computer and started to learn HTML and internet marketing. That is now 8 years ago and each year I publish an annual report. Earlier reports are linked from &#91;...&#93;]]></description>
        <link>https://www.jimwestergren.com/annual-report-number-8-my-success/</link>
        <guid>https://www.jimwestergren.com/annual-report-number-8-my-success/</guid>
        <pubDate>Sat, 16 Feb 2013 22:39:00 +0000</pubDate>
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    <item>
        <title>Guide: WordPress with Maximum Performance and Speed</title>
        <description><![CDATA[This is a step by step guide in which I will show you how to setup WordPress with maximum speed and performance for just $15 per month utilizing Nginx + PHP-FPM + APC + Cloudflare + Redis. It is the same that this blog is using and I will show you how. No need for &#91;...&#93;]]></description>
        <link>https://www.jimwestergren.com/wordpress-with-maximum-performance-and-speed/</link>
        <guid>https://www.jimwestergren.com/wordpress-with-maximum-performance-and-speed/</guid>
        <pubDate>Thu, 25 Oct 2012 16:32:00 +0000</pubDate>
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    <item>
        <title>How to load WordPress in a few milliseconds using Redis</title>
        <description><![CDATA[Redis is an advanced key-value store. Like memcached on steroids. Everything is in the RAM and you can theoretically reach 100 000 GET per second with Redis. My solution below will cache all the HTML output in Redis and display it without the need to load WordPress. A big thanks to Jeedo Aquino who have &#91;...&#93;]]></description>
        <link>https://www.jimwestergren.com/wordpress-with-redis-as-a-frontend-cache/</link>
        <guid>https://www.jimwestergren.com/wordpress-with-redis-as-a-frontend-cache/</guid>
        <pubDate>Thu, 25 Oct 2012 10:54:25 +0000</pubDate>
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        <title>Maximize the Link Juice of your Infographic with the use of the Canonical HTTP Header</title>
        <description><![CDATA[Since June 2011 Google is supporting to set the rel canonical via the Canonical HTTP Header. This is great for PDF files, but nobody seems to have mentioned images? Does it even work? Link building with your infographic A popular method nowadays, post penguin, is to use an infographic to attract links. But how do &#91;...&#93;]]></description>
        <link>https://www.jimwestergren.com/infographic-with-canonical-http-header/</link>
        <guid>https://www.jimwestergren.com/infographic-with-canonical-http-header/</guid>
        <pubDate>Wed, 20 Jun 2012 05:20:28 +0000</pubDate>
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        <title>Why I recommend CloudFlare and why you should try it too</title>
        <description><![CDATA[CloudFlare is a both a proxy and a CDN (content delivery network). It was recommended to me by Magnus Bråth. Quoted from them: On average, a website on CloudFlare loads twice as fast uses 60% less bandwidth has 65% fewer requests is way more secure All for free! Never heard of them? According this recent &#91;...&#93;]]></description>
        <link>https://www.jimwestergren.com/why-i-recommend-cloudflare-and-why-you-should-try-it-too/</link>
        <guid>https://www.jimwestergren.com/why-i-recommend-cloudflare-and-why-you-should-try-it-too/</guid>
        <pubDate>Thu, 17 May 2012 08:53:49 +0000</pubDate>
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        <title>Annual report number 7: My Success</title>
        <description><![CDATA[Back in december of 2004 I started a new life from zero. I was 22 years old without any money, education or connections. I borrowed my mothers computer and started to learn HTML and internet marketing. That is now 7 years ago and each year I publish an annual report. Main highlights from 2011 My &#91;...&#93;]]></description>
        <link>https://www.jimwestergren.com/annual-report-number-7-my-success/</link>
        <guid>https://www.jimwestergren.com/annual-report-number-7-my-success/</guid>
        <pubDate>Mon, 09 Jan 2012 13:10:00 +0000</pubDate>
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        <title>Sixth Annual Report: My Success</title>
        <description><![CDATA[I know that I publish this late, but better late than never. On the 5th of December 2004 when I was 22 years old I changed my life 180 degrees. I quit my earlier very special life and moved back to Sweden to change my life totally and start a new life. I can now &#91;...&#93;]]></description>
        <link>https://www.jimwestergren.com/sixth-annual-report-my-success/</link>
        <guid>https://www.jimwestergren.com/sixth-annual-report-my-success/</guid>
        <pubDate>Sun, 13 Feb 2011 11:27:00 +0000</pubDate>
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        <title>Common CSS mistakes and their solutions</title>
        <description><![CDATA[While adding new templates to my website system N.nu (see all templates here) I always have to correct mistakes in the CSS. I normally add templates from Wordpress.org or popular CSS templates sites so I assume that the creators are experienced professionals. This article is based on the experience after correcting over 100 popular CSS &#91;...&#93;]]></description>
        <link>https://www.jimwestergren.com/common-css-mistakes-and-their-solutions/</link>
        <guid>https://www.jimwestergren.com/common-css-mistakes-and-their-solutions/</guid>
        <pubDate>Mon, 31 Jan 2011 13:37:36 +0000</pubDate>
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        <title>How to use a WordPress theme or CSS template for your N.nu website</title>
        <description><![CDATA[There are thousands of WordPress themes, CSS templates and other website templates available for free to download and use. Just make sure that you abide by the license which normally is to just keep the credit links in the footer. The existing templates already converted and ready to choose with a click can be seen &#91;...&#93;]]></description>
        <link>https://www.jimwestergren.com/how-to-use-a-wordpress-theme-or-css-template-for-your-n-nu-website/</link>
        <guid>https://www.jimwestergren.com/how-to-use-a-wordpress-theme-or-css-template-for-your-n-nu-website/</guid>
        <pubDate>Tue, 23 Nov 2010 09:03:00 +0000</pubDate>
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        <title>SEO Features of N.nu</title>
        <description><![CDATA[I learned PHP and built the online website creator N.nu from scratch myself (examples). From the start one of the principal focuses has been to make sure that the system has optimal SEO and it is my intention that N.nu is the online website creator with the best SEO. This blog is of course hosted &#91;...&#93;]]></description>
        <link>https://www.jimwestergren.com/seo-features-of-n-nu/</link>
        <guid>https://www.jimwestergren.com/seo-features-of-n-nu/</guid>
        <pubDate>Wed, 11 Aug 2010 15:13:00 +0000</pubDate>
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        <title>A new approach to block web spam</title>
        <description><![CDATA[This article updated on the august 11, 2010. Around half a year ago or so I had a unique idea (at least I had never heard or read about it before) on how to block web spam. It is very simple, yet very powerful. Normally comment spam, false registrations and other such spam are being &#91;...&#93;]]></description>
        <link>https://www.jimwestergren.com/a-new-approach-to-block-web-spam/</link>
        <guid>https://www.jimwestergren.com/a-new-approach-to-block-web-spam/</guid>
        <pubDate>Thu, 22 Apr 2010 09:46:06 +0000</pubDate>
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        <title>Fifth Annual Report: My Success</title>
        <description><![CDATA[On the 5th of December 2004 when I was 22 years old I changed my life 180 degrees. I quit my earlier very special life and moved back to Sweden to change my life totally. I had no money, education, experience or connections and some people highly doubted that I could get successful – personally &#91;...&#93;]]></description>
        <link>https://www.jimwestergren.com/fifth-annual-report-my-success/</link>
        <guid>https://www.jimwestergren.com/fifth-annual-report-my-success/</guid>
        <pubDate>Mon, 11 Jan 2010 11:07:00 +0000</pubDate>
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        <title>Challenge In Building a CMS: Different Hosting Setups</title>
        <description><![CDATA[This is the first article in a serie about the Clesto CMS - my first PHP project (I am still a kind of noob, feedback appreciated). There is a huge difference in building something for yourself and something that you release for a lot of people to download. The Clesto CMS has now been tested &#91;...&#93;]]></description>
        <link>https://www.jimwestergren.com/challenge-in-building-a-cms-different-hosting-setups/</link>
        <guid>https://www.jimwestergren.com/challenge-in-building-a-cms-different-hosting-setups/</guid>
        <pubDate>Wed, 11 Nov 2009 10:58:05 +0000</pubDate>
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        <title>Fire Sale! 80+ Web Sites And Domains Must Go</title>
        <description><![CDATA[Over the years I have bought a lot of domain names and web sites. I especially bought a lot of web sites in 2006 and 2007 to use for link building to clients but as I sold my link building services and 40 web sites in October 2007 I have had almost no use of &#91;...&#93;]]></description>
        <link>https://www.jimwestergren.com/fire-sale-80-web-sites-and-domains-must-go/</link>
        <guid>https://www.jimwestergren.com/fire-sale-80-web-sites-and-domains-must-go/</guid>
        <pubDate>Mon, 12 Oct 2009 13:22:37 +0000</pubDate>
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        <title>Version 2 of my CMS, The Clesto CMS</title>
        <description><![CDATA[After a lot of hard work and learning I have now finished making a complete new version of my Clesto CMS. It is still flat file based without a database and now it has both visual editor and HTML editor for making the pages - similar to that of Wordpress. Focus has been to make &#91;...&#93;]]></description>
        <link>https://www.jimwestergren.com/version-2-of-my-cms-the-clesto-cms/</link>
        <guid>https://www.jimwestergren.com/version-2-of-my-cms-the-clesto-cms/</guid>
        <pubDate>Fri, 18 Sep 2009 12:38:06 +0000</pubDate>
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