Mrs. Mecomber’s Scrapbook

I CAN’T believe that Wordpress already ha a new version. What is it, a new one every two or three months?? I have a lot of blogs, so it is quite a bit of work for me.

However, WordPress 2.6 looks smashing. I found this video explaining some new developments. I am going to enjoy updating this!

My grandparents used to love reading the Dear Abby columns. Her columns were syndicated in our local newspaper, tucked between the comics, the television listings, and colorful ads for office supplies. I don’t think her advice was always wholesome, but it certainly was always entertaining. I saw this at a blog, and had to pass it on. SO FUNNY because it is so true!!

I read this in the newspaper many years ago and got a kick out of it then. Thought someone might enjoy it. Dear Abby has given advice for many years and one reader wrote in with a request to define different forms of government. This was her response:

COMMUNISM: You have two cows. The government takes both of them and gives you part of the milk.

SOCIALISM: You have two cows. The government takes one and gives it to your neighbor.

FASCISM: You have two cows. The government takes both cows and sells you the milk.

NAZISM: You have two cows. The government takes both your cows, then shoots you.

BUREAUCRACY: You have two cows. The government takes both of them, shoots one, milks the other, then pours the milk down the drain.

CAPITALISM: You have two cows. You sell one of them and buy a bull.

Abby, what happens in a democracy? — MRS. J. MC C.

DEAR MRS. MC C.: In a democracy, everyone has two cows, then a vote is taken, and whatever the majority decides to do, you do, and that’s no bull!

Ackk!!! We all wondered if this was inevitable! They’re watching us through our windows, through our computers, through our CAT5e Internet connections!!! LOL! I’m kidding, of course. Well, I hope I’m kidding. I found this online– watch this terrific video– well done and very humorous take on the Google gods. Let’s just hope this never comes true. :S

So far the Google Mobile has not hit my neighborhood. Let’s hope it never does!

Need some help getting your blog noticed? Check out this great post. It is done by Amy, and is a pretty good list of blog directories and blogrolls that you can join for exposure.

I have had very good success with Blog Catalog. The people at that community are quite active, and the administrators have done an excellent job of moderating the blogs and making the site very user-friendly. I do get traffic from them.

By by far, the best traffic generator is Entrecard. If you haven’t joined and want to see an explosion in traffic, I recommend them. The system works best if you visit other blogs and “drop your card” on their widget. Many will reciprocate. However, if you don’t have a lot of time to visit other Entrecard blogs, then you probably won’t see a great deal of traffic. It’s a very active community. I have found some great blogs and made some wonderful friends through Entrecard. And I have found that there are blogs on everything! From peanut butter (yes, there’s a peanut butter blog!) to knitting to pool toys. Those are the extremes– most blogs are niche or mommy blogs. I’m enjoying my experience with Entrecard.

I have seen this plugin at work on many blogs, and it is indeed awesome! I am going to be uploading it and using it myself, soon. It’s the AWSOM plugin. It creates a drop down menu of all your archives, by title. I have seen others using it and I love it! I am an archive browser (and even a sometimes medical id bracelet reader, lol), so I appreciate how user-friendly it is.

The AWSOM Archive (formerly called AWSOM Drop Down Archive) is a Wordpress plugin that allows you to place any type of Posts archive you want anywhere in your site.

It works with all versions of Wordpress.

I have a wonderful friend, Fida Abbott. She runs a really beautiful blog. I am overwhelmed by how sweet and precious this woman is. She came from Indonesia and moved to Pennsylvania with her husband– what a devoted wife! And she is beautiful, too. She has a very special place in my heart. When I am feeling a little low, up to my eyeballs with bills, leaky plumbing, and mulling over medicare advantage policies, Fida brightens my day.

And she’s also generous! She loaded me with two really cool blogger awards and I am amazed!!!! Check these out!

First, there is the Friendship Award. This one is very special.

Then there is the Excellence Award. This is a great honor. I will proudly display this badge in my sidebar. I love this award!

Fida, thank you SO MUCH for these awards. God bless you!!!!

Got a blog? Got readers? I have several blogs, and many readers, yay! I haven’t been too astute about providing easy means of accessing my content for my readers, however. I have RSS feed for some, but setting up RSS accounts is a real pain to do (and when the blog or blog server is down, so are all the feeds). I personally prefer receiving email updates to my favorite blogs, more than reading RSS feeds and reading them in third-party feed readers. That’s why I’m looking into Zookoda. It’s FREE and we all know how much I love that price tag! Zookoda is offered by the folks at IZEA (the brains behind PayPerPost, SocialSpark, and the Blogger’s Choice Awards).

IZEA offers Zookoda, which is an online software program where you can send email updates of your latest blog posts to your readers’ email inboxes. It’s a sophisticated piece of “bloggerware,” but it is extremely simple to use. With Zookoda, you can also manage all your subscribers, design newsletters to match your blog, schedule broadcasts, and even email in text format (this is great for mobile users who read your blogs). There is much more you can do, too. I’m very impressed with the software and how easy it is to use. And it’s free! Pretty amazing. There is also a terrific forum set up by IZEA (it includes boards for all IZEA products and services, but also has a specific one geared for Zookoda users). The IZEA forum is one of the best on the Internet, too, so you can’t go wrong with that. Check it out. I’ll be gearing up with it soon, as I want to create a subscription service for my travel blog, first. So, stay tuned for that!

I read this at the You Can Learn Series blog, a blog I’ve found through Entrecards, and enjoy very much.

If you handle your own email processes then you need to take a few minutes and familiarize yourself with these new rules. The CAN-SPAM Act is not something you want to stay ignorant about.

** Any unsubscribe process can request only the recipient’s email address and any opt-out preference changes associated with their subscribed email address

** Any unsubscribe process that requires a recipient to provide more information, or interact with more than a single web page, is prohibited.

** A password cannot be required to unsubscribe.

** A user must not have to send more than one email message, or interact with more than one internet web page.

** A user must not have to provide any information beyond his/her email address.

I think these are good changes in the Act. I do not like having to go through several pages trying to unsubscribe. But I do wonder if these actions really do decrease spam?

News is not trickling in very quickly. I got an email from the folks at Entrecards, informing me that their website is down due to a fire at ThePlanet Database Center. The datacenter is located in Houston, Texas. Apparently, an electrical transformer exploded, burning down three walls. The electrical power has been turned off, and all websites hosted by ThePlanet were down all night Saturday.

My initial reaction was that of shock. I suppose I viewed a datacenter as something non-tangible and amorphous, something akin to vegan shoes or something. Oh, so– websites aren’t created out of thin air! They are on computers and those computers sometimes fail! Haha! It wasn’t until I got my own websites that I finally began to understand that the Internet is not like radio– it’s not really transported via waves, but via tangible databases.

OK, anyway… so that’s why a lot of websites are down. Entrecards says the site may be up in 12-24 hours. Statcounter.com is up although there are some components of the site not working. And the only news story I could find, and Newsblaze.com, is down because– duh– they are hosted by ThePlanet, too.

I’ve been hearing that some blogs are getting “hacked.” I’m still in the process os understanding how a blog can be hacked (there are numerous ways). I think it is a heinous thing to do, but the perpetrators always get away with it. As I dig deeper into the Wordpress forums (about as exciting as perusing a life insurance quote), I’ll be sure to let you know what I discover.

I did find this handy little tip: set up a Secret Key for your Wordpress blog. If you are computer-challeneged, this might be something you’d want to skip or get help with. You DO NOT want to go tinkering around with your php files if you don’t know what you’re doing!! But for those of you who are experienced, this may prove a worthy exercise.

Like I said, I’ll be posting more about all these things in days to come. Until then– blog safely and BACK UP YOUR BLOG on a regular basis!

Oh I am so bad! I haven’t updated this blog in quite a while! I do try to blog a post at least every other day on all my blogs. I’ve been very busy with spring’s arrival, and a few other blog-building projects. I’ve got some things bookmarked that I want to discuss, and I also have several reviews coming up. And I bought a new printer that I absolutely love! I’ll have more on that very soon.

I’ve been a member of IZEA’s PayPerPost for several months now. The experience with the IZEA community has been nothing short of wonderful. Not only have I made dozens upon dozens of new friends, learned more about the art and science of blogging and web design, and honed my writing skills, I’ve been getting paid for writing opportunities (opps, in the IZEA lingo) while enjoying the community!

SocialSpark is the latest release from this extremely innovative company. It’s been their baby for many months, and they were quick to release it and open it to bloggers and advertisers alike. I’d seen many “behind the scene” videos that detailed the development and the woes of deadlines, technical problems, and exhilaration of this new idea. So, my history with SocialSpark goes back a little ways.

I love IZEA. Do I love SocialSpark? Yes! with a few reservations. I joined SocialSpark in early April. The website, while beautiful and loaded with goodies, is slow and confusing to navigate. I’m trying to be fair and not compare it too much to the minimal PayPerPost experience. I very much like the ease of using the PayPerPost website, so I found the SocialSpark design a shock– a lot like culture shock, lol!

Navigating SocialSpark is difficult. A lot of computer newbies have found it somewhat painful to use. Just to get to my inbox of messages or view opps, I have to click a series of links. It would be a great improvement to redesign the site slightly, with fewer clicks, more options, and many more shortcuts. Right now, the cumbersome design and elongated chain of clicks is a large hurdle that dampens the glitzy SocialSpark experience. But don’t take me wrong– SocialSpark is still very navigable. I’ve been spending a few weeks at the site and can now say I’m becoming comfortable with the site.

Also, there’s a definite learning curve to SocialSpark, with its own unique language– queue, opps, sparks, props. It’s not for the faint of heart! However, IZEA has one of the best– nay, THE best– public forums I have ever seen. The IZEA boards have been my lifeline to understanding everything there is to know about IZEA, and more. And I’ve made a good many very dear friends there. The community is the best blogging community I’ve ever had the pleasure of joining. So that makes the annoying problems sting a little less. So overall, I believe SocialSpark is sorely lacking when it comes to intuitive navigation. But SocialSpark is truly still developing, and there are a lot of things still on the table. And that takes us to the very beauty of SocialSpark. Just the fact that I can offer my input and they will listen to it is what makes you say WOW about SocialSpark.

SocialSpark is exactly what the word means– it’s social. It was created to be a conglomerate mega-pool of users, bloggers and advertisers alike, to share ideas, create ideas, listen, and be listened to. You can create a profile (see mine) and make friends- even with advertisers! You can send and receive messages, share and write non-sponsored opps called “sparks” to get the word out (or to use as an impetus for a bad case of writer’s block)! SocialSpark is the big boy in the social networking neighborhood, kind of like a networked Starbucks. You converse, hash out ideas, and enjoy the refreshments with others. I love SocialSpark for this, and especially for bridging the vast desert land that had existed between blogger and advertiser.

SocialSpark is still a tween, in my opinion. It’s not quite full grown, and is still budding. There are some bugs to be worked out and of course there are tweaks needed to make it more friendly (better clickability and better linking). But I think these will all be resolved. And judging by the incredible support by the people at IZEA and the community in general, I think SocialSpark will absolutely shine in the near future. If you are interested in joining, I highly recommend it.

this review is sponsored by SocialSpark

I’ve pulled away from Blogger for the most part (at least for the blogs I monetize), but I do still have a few blogs with them, and I do still pay attention to what they are doing. The latest feature just released is the ability to pre-schedule posts. Wordpress has had this feature for a long time, and I’m glad to see Blogger take it on. It’s a wonderful feature, and I use it a lot with Wordpress. This is from their news release post:

Scheduled post publishing, which we talked about testing on Blogger in draft last month, is now live for everyone. If you set a post’s date into the future, Blogger will wait to publish until that time comes.

Have you ever wanted to announce something on a certain date but knew you wouldn’t be at a computer to make a post? Or you wanted to keep posting regularly but knew you’d be on vacation for a few weeks? Scheduled post publishing is here to help you out.

There are a few extra steps to take for “bumping” posts, but anything is an improvement here.

I kind of lost repect for Blogger after hearing that Google was arbitrarily deleting or suspending accounts they didn’t feel were “worthy.” Sure, some sites were probably spam– I’ve come across a lot of them– but not all of them were! If you had a harmless blog about the wonders of wood shutters and dared to monetize your blog without Google’s AdSense, you risked deletion. With a week after I heard about Google’s actions, I hopped on over to Bluehost web hosting and Wordpress. The transfer from Blogger to Wordpress was agonizing, but the risk of losing a year’s worth of posts just because I monetize my blogs was too great.

Anyway, Blogger is introducing new features every few months, it seems. They are doing a good job of keeping up with the big dogs. And Blogger is a terrific place for a beginner blogger. Plus, it’s still FREE!

Last I heard, there were over 7 million blogs. Holy cow, that’s a lot! I contribute to that batch– I’ve got 7+ going. Hee. Marketing all seven is SUCH a chore. I monetize most of them, so I am always keen for ways to connect with other bloggers, advertisers, and to increase my traffic. I use a variety of networks for these purposes; some work, some don’t. I also am looking for new blogs and bloggers to give me ideas for content, too. So a good, reliable Blogger Search website is crucial for my blogging business. I found another one and this one looks good. I see a few people I know already in the group. It’s Blogoria.com. Registration is easy and- get this!!!– using the website is a PIECE of CAKE! I hate having to hash through reams and reams of ads, profiles, and other junk just to find what I’m looking for. Blogoria is simple, sleek, and looks great! You can search by “channels” (topics), country, blog name, language, etc. And if you have blog(s), list them for more exposure. The more exposure, the better.

Ever been “scraped”? It’s the name (oh no! another funky new name for something Internet related!) for a blogger whose content has been stolen and that content republished by another blogger. And without crediting the originator. These scrapers surf the blogosphere, looking for content for the specific purpose of stealing it to “create” their own blog or website. It’s a disgusting, heinous practice. Search engines like Google and Yahoo, penalize websites for “duplicate content.” Your website or blog has a decreased chance of getting indexed (and therefore visited by readers) if there is more than one copy of your work out there. So scrapers are the bottom of the pool of scumbags, worse than card-sharks at poker tables.

I came across a great website that tells bloggers how to fight back. Hurray! It may come in useful for you if you are a blogger. You can check it out here. There’s a downloadable pdf form, too. Many thanks to this blogger for bringing this to the forefront! Scrapers should — and now can– be stopped.