My New Book: Beyond The Fence

I recently wrote a middle grade fantasy. It's about goblins and magic and stuff and was written for my son. Written with him, actually. He brainstormed with me and did my proofreading. He was a great assistant.

Synopsis:

Eleven year old Avery and his 7 year old brother move into a new house. Avery finds himself feeling strange and unable to explain it. After he has several encounters with a goblin, he learns that the forest beyond the fence houses a doorway to magic. Avery’s feelings of unease are caused by his sensitivity to it. He can wield magic, if he learns how.

During an encounter with the mysterious Dream King, his pet becomes a person, his brother becomes a barbarian and one friend can fly. The people in Avery’s life, from family to friends, start acting strange and are getting sick. He has to do something before things get worse. Who do you get advice from when you need advice about magic?

It’s up to Avery and his faithful husky to stop the Dream King, and Avery is not sure it’s a battle he can win.

You can buy the book at amazon or read the first few scenes at First750.com.

This was a fun project. My son and I decided that we are going to make this a trilogy and add two more parts. I already have the basic plots outlined and I'll start on it soon.

If you would like to give me a review, you can get a review copy from librarything. Scroll down until you get to Beyond The Fence. The review copies will be available until 2/16/13.

LewisC

Sign Up For Cheap Hosting

I have been using HostMonster for years now. I've used several over the years and HostMonster consistently has, at least for me, the most reasonable rates and the best uptime.

I know choosing your host provider is impacted by man things. Many of those are subjective, some are objective. I can only tell you about my experience.

I'm running a dozen or so web sites from a single account. You get unlimited space and bandwidth with no extra fees. Now there are rules about this. You can't try to compete with youtube or dropbox and not expect to have to pay for it. However for most web sites, the storage and bandwidth is way more than enough.

The price is pretty awesome too. I think the standard price for a good package is $4.95 per month. That's what I originally signed up for. Once I was in, I found they often offer extremely good deals. I ended up paying for several years at once for, if I remember correctly, around $3 per month. That's pretty sweet.

You also get cPanel and SimpleScripts. That's kind of expected I know but I want to verify that for you.

Language-wise you get PHP, Perl, Ruby, and Python. You also get both MySQL and PostgreSQL. You don't get Java but almost none of the providers I know support Java. It's just too resource intensive.

You get multi-media support like shockwave, realmedia, flash and other video streaming support. Unlimited email and ftp accounts and a lot more. You really should check it out.

If you use my affiliate link, I'll get a few bucks so please think about doing that,.

Thanks.

How to Use SimpleScripts on your Blog

 Simplescripts is a one click installer for web software. Of all the hosting providers that I have used over the years, simple scripts has been on all of them. I have used others too. Fantastico is a nice installer also. Several hosts that I have used had the option to choose between Simple Scripts and Fantastico De Luxe.

Just an FYI - I use blogger for a quite a few blogs but I also host my own sites. Currently, I am using <a href="http://www.hostmonster.com/track/dbwiz">HOSTMONSTER.COM</a>. You can click that link and sign up if you would like to. That's my affiliate link so you would be helping me out to do so.

SimpleScripts sits behind CPanel. I plan to talk about CPanel in the near future but for now, I'll just say that it is a the main interface for any decent web host. I always make sure the hosting provider provides CPanel. At this point, I think they all do.

Anyway, simple scripts is the way you install your blog, cms or any other software.

To use it, log into CPanel and choose SimpleScripts from the options (at the bottom of the image below).

When SimpleScripts launches, you'll get a list of your installs and the option to install more. I cut my installs out of the picture but it looks like the below image.

Below that is the list of softwar that you can install. The below image is just a portion of the stuff I have on hostmonster to install.

When you choose Wordpress (or any other software), you get a simplified install screen like the image below.

Choose install and you get a screen to fill out some basic info (like where do you want to install it). Choose your URL and then just take the defaults for your first time. It's easier that way. SimpleScripts will email you the URL for the site, an admin URL, your admin user name and password.

After that, you just log in and start blogging. My first one probably took an hour. After several years of doing this, I can literally, find a URL, buy it and be finished setting up Wordpress in 20 minutes.

Of course, with all the themes, plug-ins, widgets, etc that are available with Wordpress, you can spend a life time customizing.

Seriously though, if a web site is important to you, I would suggest buying the domain and hosting it yourself. It's not that expensive and you have total control.

LewisC

WordPress Theme Framework: Why A Framework Is Used & What Types Are Available

Today's post is a guest post by Elliot McInnis  Please check out his website which is linked below.

There is very little information on the web that describes what exactly a WordPress theme framework is. Most of the results we found in Google were websites listing the best free WP theme frameworks. After that there were a handful of theme framework web sites ranking near of the top. In this post, we'll do our best to respond to questions like what exactly is a WordPress theme framework, which kind of theme frameworks can be found, why do folks use WP theme frameworks, pros and cons for using a theme framework, in case you use a theme framework, and finally what's our favorite WordPress theme framework.

What is a WordPress Theme Framework?

A WordPress theme framework is a library of source code which is used to assist in development of a theme. Previously with WordPress, there have been some crucial issues with the way how themes were built and maintained. There was not any right way to upgrading any theme without losing any custom design settings that might have been present. There is no way to avoid copying and pasting the exact same functionality and code in all themes. While those two problems probably won't be seen as an issue to an average user, these have the potential to be gigantic headaches. Let's say you realized that exactly the same code you had been using in all of the themes had a security exploit. Much more crucial, let's say this theme was something you publicly released for others to download and modify. Yes, that’s a major headache waiting to occur. The team of WordPress developers made a decision to fix the problems mentioned previously by presenting the idea of Parent Theme and Child Theme.

WordPress theme frameworks usually are meant to also become a parent wordpress theme template which is where you can find most of the core functions. Web developers are able to build a wordpress child theme to include custom design while leaving the basic elements of it to the framework. This allows for a central location where all the functions are hosted. If the core team of developers chooses to denounce a WordPress function, or there's a bug located in a particular theme framework, then it's really simple to push out an update without having to revise anything in the child theme. This process helps you keep your wordpress framework updated without editing anything the WordPress child theme has. This process allows you to keep the framework of your website solid without editing the appearance.

What type of Theme Frameworks exist?

You can find free WordPress frameworks and paid ones. There are actually complete drag and drop wordpress theme frameworks like Headway Themes that allow users to build anything visually with no familiarity with source code. There are pseudo drag drop wordpress theme frameworks like Thesis and Pagelines. These frameworks make it possible for users to drag and drop predefines sections much like how widgets work. Of course you could define custom sections while using available hooks and filters provided by the WordPress theme frameworks too. There are WordPress theme frameworks which are full of layout and function choices. Themify and many others fall within this category. Finally, you will find some WordPress theme frameworks which are designed for web developers to obtain a jump start without the mess and bloat like Genesis by StudioPress.

This article was written by Elliot McInnis and provided exclusively to the website which you are viewing it on. Elliot is a full time web developer and writes on a variety of topics related to developing and using WordPress themes.

First 750 Preview

I'm putting together a blog for published authors. The author can be self-published or published through traditional means. My only real requirement is that the work has to be complete (I don't want readers to start something and then find it isn't available) and it can't be porn. Nothing against porn, just don't want it on my site.

It is rough right now. I have two posts up. The first is just a place holder as it is not published yet (but will be soon, I hope). The second is a memoir published by Xlibris.

If you want to get a preview, check out First 750.  Hopefully I will be getting more  stories posted soon.

At this point, I am thinking I will allow a synopsis of the story, a photo to go along with the story, and a bio. In the bio, I would allow one link to the author's landing page (facebook, blog, whatever). I would also have a link to the store of the authors choice (amazon, xlibris, smashwords, etc). Of course, an author's landing page should have all of the available sources linked anyway.

Right now I am looking for feedback before I roll it out further. If you are a published author (any content really but specifically create fiction or non-fiction), or if you are an avid reader, I would love to hear anything you might suggest.

What do you think?

LewisC

Five Things Great Photography Will Do For Your Blog

Today's post is a guest post by Caroline Jones. Please check out her website which is linked below.

Five Things Great Photography Will Do For Your Blog

A blog is important for almost any business with a heavy online presence. You know that photographs are an important element of any blog, but do you know how important? Here are five things that great photography can do for your blog.

Make Your Blog Look Professional
The worst thing you can do to your blog is make it look amateurish. Of course, oftentimes people are amateurs when it comes to website and blog design. That is why it’s a good idea to hire a professional, so that your blog will look professional, too. The quality of your photography will affect the appearance of your blog significantly. Your blog won’t look professional if the photography is low quality, which is why it’s so important to make sure all the elements of your blog are of the same caliber.

Impress Your Readers
In reality, the content of your blog is more important than anything else. A good-looking blog with poor content won’t be highly regarded, and a poor-looking blog with superb content can still get a lot of credit. In order to impress your readers, you need great content, but it’s not only the written word that counts. Your photography also has to be great. With your photos, you have the chance to impress your readers through your visual insight and endeavors, and they’ll enjoy your blog even more because of it.

Attract New Readers
Great photography can make your readers stay, and it can also bring new readers to your blog. The aesthetics of something give us the first impression of whether we like it or not. With great photography, new visitors will be more apt to stay and check out the rest of your blog, by taking the time to read your great content. If your photography is poor, you might scare off new visitors immediately by giving a bad first impression. Great photography can help increase your readership.

Clearly Illustrate Your Points
When you write about something in your blog, your intention is, of course, to get your message across to your readers as clearly as possible. Your words can do a good job of that, but sometimes they’re not enough. Great photography can help illustrate your points and really drive home the message of your posts. If your post is a how-to, for example, or talking about a specific item or place, photographs can help your readers learn and imagine what you’re saying in a visual way. They improve every post.

Enhance the Image of Your Business
Finally, great photographs don’t just enhance the look of your blog. They can enhance the entire image of your business or brand. Visual branding is strong and significant, and you don’t want your brand to be associated with low-quality anything, and the photographs on your blog are part of the things you need to consider. When building your brand, remember that high-quality photographs on your blog will portray an image that your website is professional, and as a result your business will benefit, too.


Caroline Jones runs a successful restaurant business and provides tips on effective internet marketing that she says includes great photographs, and great photographs deserve a great photography WP theme.

Does Blogging Help You as a Writer?

I believe blogging can do amazing things for your writing. I started blogging in 2004. I didn't really get a blog that I stuck with until 2005 (my Oracle blog). A lot has changed since then.

First, I have become a much faster writer. I don't mean typing speed (although that has probably improved also). I mean the speed that I can create content. In 2005, a 1000 word article would take me several hours, usually spread over several days. Now I can knock out 2000 or 3000 words in a single sitting. On some days, I will write two blog posts (for different blogs) and do a couple thousand words of fiction writing.

Second, because I tried so hard in the beginning to keep consistent with my posting schedule (which I am awful at now), I would find spare moments to write. I had a new baby and a full-time job as well as all the other "things" that tend to crop up on a daily basis. You learn to write when you can or you don't write.

Finally, my skill as a writer has vastly improved. When was the last time you worried about conjunctions and participles? Yeah, me too. But, as you write, you use grammar checkers (I highly recommend Grammarly Lite for online editing), read writing books, visit writing web sites, etc. From those, you just kind of absorb the rules.

So, does blogging help your writing? I certainly think so. What do you think?

LewisC

Who should blog?

If you haven't blogged before, you might wonder who should blog. Pretty much anyone can blog. You might want a family blog to keep distant relatives up on what your family has been doing, you might want to brag about your hobby, you might want to create how-to posts to help others, or you might want to get some exposure to help you find a job.

Blogging is good for all of those. All you need to do is sit down and start writing. Look around this blog for getting started. I am going to be writing a bunch of tutorials and getting started guides in the near future.

The best part of blogging is how many people you can virtually meet from around the world. One blog I write has many people from China. It's a tech blog and I guess that particular tech is popular in China. That is so cool.

I'm serious. Any topic that you can think of has someone blogging about it. Why not you? Check out the video below.

What is RSS and What does it do?

Rather than go into detail about the composition of an RSS Feed, I will just give you some links that you can refer to.

For an encyclopedic answer, you can visit the RSS entry on WikiPedia. For the technophile, you can see details and history at XML.Com's entry on RSS. For a very brief FAQ with additional links, see What is RSS.

Now for my explanation. RSS is an acronym. Don't worry about what the acronym means. It's not important. An RSS Feed is a text file that contains data in a special format. Like a word document or an excel document, an RSS can be read, and is meaningful, to programs that understand that special format.

For Blog Readers

Bloggers create an RSS feed of their blog posts and make it available as a button or link on the site somewhere. An RSS link will usually look something like the icon to the right. Some sites may show icons for specific RSS readers, like Bloglines or GoogleReader.

An RSS Reader allows you to subscribe to all of your favorite blogs and see when the writer updates without having to actually navigate to each blog. It's like a little browser that goes out and checks for new blog entries for you.

The benefit of using RSS is that it saves you time. There are so many good blogs out there, not many people have enough time every day to go check on each and every one of them. It's especially annoying to keep checking on a blog that you really like and it not being updated as frequently as you would like. Get an RSS reader and let it tell you when the blog has been updated.

For Bloggers

An RSS Feed is built from your blog. Most blog hosting providers, like blogger.com or wordpress, will generate an RSS Feed for you. You can choose how much information goes into your feed. You can choose headlines only, headlines and summaries or full posts.

People disagree on what is best to put into your feed. My suggestion it to do what ever you prefer. It really all comes down to personal choice for any particular individual. I choose to use full feeds as I want my readers to be able to read my entire post as easily as possible.

Summary

So what is an RSS Feed for? Just what I mentioned above. People can subscribe to my feed, using an RSS reader, and see my posts almost as soon as I write them. They don't need to keep coming back to see if I have updated. It's a time saver for my readers. I also offer email subscriptions for the same reason.


blog blogging rss feed

New Blog Editor - Blog From Your Phone

I am always looking for ways to be productive while on the go. One of the reasons that I quit updating this blog as frequently as I used to was that I started traveling so much and spending so much time in traffic, I just didn't have time to keep up with all the things I need to do.

I have tried to blog using my phone's browser by connecting to the online blog entry page. That is incredibly painful. Scrolling up and down, trying to click on buttons, zooming in and out; it was a lesson in frustration. Now, I have finally found a tool that allows me to blog, with ease, from my blackberry (although I do have one issue that prevents me from using it on this blog).

The new tool is called BlogLive and it's from a company called imoblive. It runs on BlackBerry and Symbian (and may run on other j2me platforms). You can view the entire list of supported devices.

Some of the product features (from the publisher web site):

• Supports multiple blog accounts


• Efficiently create, edit and delete posts


• User library support for frequently used words and phrases


• Advanced text editor: Easily insert text URL, online image in your posts, without having to enter any HTML codes


• Supports major online mobile systems including the Blogger, WordPress, Movable Type, TypePad, and MetaWeblog API for compatibility with a most blog sites

You can see from the screen shot above that it does in fact support multiple accounts. From the menu, you select Add to add a new account. One the new account screen, you enter your connection and XMLRPC information. You can select from a list of blog types.

I was able to get it publishing for my wordpress blogs but I could not get it to work with Blogger no matter what I did. I think I may have the Xml-Rpc link wrong but I can't find any definitive information for the right link. I used the link that is in my Zoundry Raven blog editor but that didn't work either. If you use this editor and get it working with blogger, please let me know. I would love to get this working.

Once you have it configured, it is a nice, if simple, editor. Select New Article and then start writing.

If you are going to be entering URLs or images, you might want to use the Advanced Editor. You get a nice large screen as well as some additional options for input. It is still a manual process but I hope they make this even easier over time.

It also has a spell checker. One of the nicer features is the User Library. In that library, you can add often used snippets of text. Footers, common links, signatures, etc. Open the library, select your snippet and it's added to your post.

The editor costs $17.99 and that price includes a free year of upgrades. Support seems to be minimal; I can't find any beyond an email address. There is a FAQ but it doesn't even mention BlogLive.

Still, even with its issues, I find it to be a nice product. I will wait and see how often it gets upgraded before purchasing it and I want to work out the blogger issue. If I can get it to work with Blogger, I will probably buy it.

Let me know if you use and what platform you use it with. If you get it working with Blogger.com, please, please, let me know.

A funny note. When my spell checker hit XMLRPC, it came up with SMALLPOX as a replacement. I have often thought the same. ;-)

Thanks,

LewisC

Technorati : blackberry, blog, blogging, bloglive, client, editor, mobile, remote

Feedburner.com shuts down

I logged into my feedburner.com account and was welcomed with a message that I had to move my feeds from feedburner.com to feedburner.google.com. It listed all of my blogs and a link to move them. It gives the opportunity to create a google account if you don't already have one. I was already signed and that's where I wanted them so I hit the button.

All of my feeds are now hosted in the google data center. I guess I should feel safer. ;-)

If you haven't logged into your feedburner account in a while, you probably should: More details on moving to a Google account

On February 28th, if you have not moved your feeds to a Google Account, the traffic to your feeds will not be cut off or terminated, but you will not be able to view or manage your feeds until you have moved to a Google Account, unless you use MyBrand. Technically, this means that all traffic will now be served out of our Google data centers, and there will still be a way to move your account that will be in place indefinitely.

You will not be able to log back into your feedburner account once you move your feeds. Then again, you won't need to. I've read some people complain about the move but I have been satisfied with the various services I've used from google so I don't mind it. My biggest hope is that the intermittent interruptions will be fixed now that feedburner has really been moved to a google data center.

LewisC

Technorati : feedburner, rss, subscription

Use Blogger or Install a Blog on Your Own Site?

I was recently asked this question:

Do you find that its beneficial to start a blog on the blogger platform versus installing it on your own site?

My opinion on this has changed in the last few months. I used to think that blogger or wordpress.com were "good enough". I now think you should host your own blog on your own domain. My only reason for this is the amount of control you have by doing so.

I have started several new blogs (on tech topics) on my own domains. I chose wordpress a my blog software. The number of plug ins that help me format and control my blogs is amazing. I don't want to spend a lot of time tweaking and with these plug ins, it's mostly install and move on.

NOTE: Don't confuse wordpress with wordpress.com. Wordpress is a blogging package (that you can get from wordpress.org). Wordpress.com is a hosting service that uses wordpress as it's blogging software. You can use wordpress the software on your own domain and if you chose wordpress.com as your blogging provider, you will be using wordpress the software (and can ONLY use wordpress the software).

From talking to family, friends, peers and co-workers, I don't think most people care about the domain being a custom domain or the blogspot domain. I have read some bloggers who feel that a custom domain gives you a certain amount of legitimacy that a blogspot or wordpress domain wouldn't. I don't agree.

So, the short answer is that if you want a very quick start up with no muss and no fuss, blogger (or one of the other hosted domains) is a perfectly fine choice. If however, you are like me and want the additional control, you should buy a domain and install your own blogging software. All of the major blogging packages are incredibly simple to install and most web hosters offer additional assistance in the option of cPanel and SimpleScripts.

LewisC

Technorati : blogger, blogspot, domain, hosting, wordpress

Change in Posting Schedule

Well, I guess it's time to hang it up (not totally). While I enjoy writing topics for this blog, it looks like I will have to put it on the back burner. I've changed jobs and am spending an extra 2 - 2.5 hours per day in traffic; that's better than 10 hours per week. If I had access to mass transportation, those would be some very productive hours. Unfortunately, that's not the case and I need to concentrate on my tech blogs (and I've shut down a few of those also).

I will continue to post here when I have something interesting to say but I won't be able to post regularly.

If anyone would like to post a guest entry, send me an email with the entry topic. It will be good for a link to your site and let people see what kind of content you write.

LewisC

Technorati : job, posting

Participate in a blogging Survey

Hi All,

I got an email from Technorati this evening. The subject is:

Technorati's 2008 State of the Blogosphere Survey

I am a survey taker (I just can't resist). It's not exactly a short survey. I guess it took about 15 minutes to finish. They say they will release the results on Technorati in late September.

Here's the message:

Bloggers,

Technorati has been tracking the Blogosphere for the past several years through our State of the Blogosphere study. This year we have decided to expand our study beyond the sheer size and characteristics of the blogosphere in order to hear more from you, the bloggers. How, when and why are you blogging? Is this a side business, full time job or something you do for fun? Our goal is to analyze the growth of the field as well as understand the people who make the space tick. Help us and join the study of the ongoing global conversation!

Click here to take the survey! http://v2.decipherinc.com/survey/mmc/mmc08001

We hope you will find this survey enjoyable. It should take just 15-20 minutes of your time, and your responses are entirely confidential. Be sure to check back on Technorati in late September for a summary of the results.

Thank you,

The Technorati Team

http://technorati.com/

I hope you'll choose to participate. In an survey like this, the more respondents, the better.

LewisC

Technorati : blogging, survey, tecnorati

Who or What is your blog for?

So, have you decided why you want a blog? Do you want to share information? Make money? Have a place where distant relatives can keep track of you? Post funny jokes and links?

Before you start blogging, you should decide why you're blogging. That will help you decide where to blog (which type of host) and how to name your blog. An example is Wordpress.com; no advertising so no money. Also, if you're blogging for relatives, the name doesn't matter but if you plan to monetize, you need a name the is related to your blog topic.

In addition to name, the reason you blog will also affect things like frequency and topic. Again, if this a personal blog, no big decisions need to be made. Same with a blog designed to just share information; call it whatever, and post whenever, you like.

If you want regular traffic though, you need to be on topic and at least somewhat consistent. I consider this blog a tips blog (as in sharing info, not holding out my hand. ;-) ), not a money blog. I try to be consistent for my regular readers but I don't beat myself up if I'm not. I stay pretty consistently on the topic of blogging and the name of the blog is pretty much dead on for the topic I've chosen.

If I wanted to make money, I think the topic is a decent one although the blogosphere is pretty crowded for a blogging blogs. I think the title of the blog is winner. I named it well. Blogger isn't a bad choice for hosts as it has integrated Adsense and I can put any other advertising or banners that I want to. I would need to do something about my frequency though, I think.

If you want to make money with blogging, you need to build a traffic stream and the stream has to be interested in your blog topic (which is why I don't understand why there are so many spam blogs). To build traffic you need to post daily (at least in the beginning) and you need a lot of content.

When people show up, you want them to stick around for a while. That means plenty of articles. The faster you generate that content (multiple posts per day), the faster you will build traffic.

Right now, the vast majority of the traffic to this blog is from Google. I'm ok with that. My goal is to provide what tips I can. If people are finding me via google, and getting some use out of this blog, then I am succeeding.

Why are you blogging? What do you look for in a blog like this?

LewisC

P.S. This entry ended up being one of those that started at one place and ended up in another.

Technorati : blogging, writing

MIT Courseware - Free Internet Communications

MIT has, for a few years now, opened its courses to the public. Colleges and university's world wide can either use the courseware as a template for their own, or just them as is. Individuals can use them for self training. I love self training. Especially when it's free. I'm cheap. ;-)

Anyway, you can check out the entire list of courses. I guarantee there are at least a few worthy blog entries in there. However, there is one course in particular that is relevant to bloggers. It's getting a little old now but is still worth looking at. The course is Communicating in Cyberspace. Cyberspace is just so yesterday. ;-)

In the related resources section, there is a list of Excellent Websites, Poorly Designed Websites and Useful Resources. There's even a list of useful books, some of which I own already.

This course has less in the way of presentation and lecture notes than many of the courses but it does give a good over in general. There are several writing courses available. I always like the history courses as that is a hobby of mine.

Enjoy,

LewisC

Technorati : college, courses, free, mit, university

Controversy and Lawsuits

A good way to drive traffic is to write controversial posts. I tend not to do that. No particular reason, it's just that the topics I write about generally aren't controversial.

One thing you have to be careful of is becoming identified as a link baiter. Some one who writes nothing but headlines to grab attention will eventually be identified as a link baiter. That can be good or bad I guess. If you are primarily in it for the money, you can wrack up some dollars that way. I'd prefer people to actually want to read my writing. Again, that's just me.

Another issue with controversy is the possibility of moving from attracting attention to attracting lawsuits. Libel is when you write something that is not true and is either embarrassing or damaging to that person. Even truth is not an out because if there is no newsworthy reason to say what you've said, you can still potentially lose a lawsuit.

Let me say right here, just in case it is not obvious, I'm not a lawyer. I just have read quite a bit about slander, libel and defamation.

Even if you win a lawsuit, it will still cost you time and money. So the point is to be careful.

A case in point, yesterday, I was doing a search and ran across a blog entry from a tech blogger. It's not a blog I have read before so I don't know any background on the people involved. The post is fairly long. If you read just the technical aspects, it makes a lot of sense and, IMHO, the author makes some very good points (again, I mean from a technical angle).

The post is 50% to 70% Of all Programmers are con-artists. If you are interested in programming, you can read it. It is interesting. Where it becomes pertinent to this discussion are some of the claims made:

Joanna, if you ever come across this post or someone else finds it for you, let it be known that I'm officially accusing you of being a charlatan.

And they artificially inflate your capabilities which is fraud, if you intent to use your new found prowess for financial gain.

People who have hired you in good faith, should be getting their money back (if they've paid you) for being so thoroughly cheated.

Joanna has her misinformation posted on Articlebase, EzineArticles, GoArticles, and the king of all shameless plugs, Promotion World.

There is actually more of that in the article. I think those are enough to get the point across.

Charlatan, fraud, cheated, misinformation. Actionable? As I said, I am not a lawyer, so I would be hesitant to publish something like that with first speaking with one. If the author can prove those things, and maybe the author can, it would probably be a pretty good defense. But is it worth going to court for?

I wouldn't call this link bait as it is not a (un)popular stand, for or against. I think the author feels very strongly what he wrote. I think if I wrote it, I would have kept the "debunking" but dropped the accusations.

What do you think?

Technorati : controversy, slander, traffic

Sometimes, Everything I Write Sucks!

Yesterday I wrote about persistence paying off for bloggers. Brad made some good comments:

I come up with idea's for blogs and internally shoot them down as "not worth writing about" or "everyone knows this already, why write about it".

Oooh, I hate that. This is such a good point and is something I think every blogger runs into now and then. I call it my internal editor. If you read writing books, that is a major topic. Most of those books give the same advice: Write! Write! Write! Ignore the internal editor and go for broke.

It's not always advice I want to hear, that's for sure. I have to admit though, that it is true. When I wrote my book, I got up everyday, 7 days a week and wrote. During the work week, I did a couple of hours, usually starting at 4am, before getting ready for work. I'd do another couple of hours at night before bed. On the weekends, I would do a full day. 120,000 words in 4.5 months. And I maintained a blog at the same time.

I wasn't always motivated (for the book or the blog) but once I sat down and started putting words on paper, it usually started flowing. The same is true for blogging. Just type something. Even stupid ideas are a start. Many times, I start writing on a topic and I either spontaneously generate ideas for future posts, or I change direction and write a different post than I intended.

When it comes to "not worth writing about", you never know. One man's garbage is another man's gold. If nothing else, it might be entertaining.

On the topic of "everyone knows this already, why write about it". You might be an expert but not all of your readers will be. Sometimes something very basic will help someone else tremendously.

Every entry you write helps give life to your blog. Not every book is war and peace and not every blog entry will be a front page digg item. But that's ok. I don't want to read war and peace every time I open a book. Sometimes, I just want to be entertained or have some downtime.

So, my tip of the day is Write! Even when you don't want to. I'll try to do as I say, too.

LewisC

Technorati : blogging, persistence, writing

Persistence Pays Off

Persistence pays off. What does that mean? Well, in my case, in means that I continue to blog even through job changes, house moves and children being born. I've taken breaks from blogging, usually unplanned. It just kind of happens. That's a bad thing but I always come back. Persistence.

Why do I persist?

Well, I like writing for one thing. I keep coming back because I have something I want to say. As much as I like writing, I want someone to read it. For that, I need to be consistent. I haven't been lately, but I plan to return to it. If I don't write, I think I would go crazy. ;-)

I'd also like to make some money from my blogs. I don't expect to get rich but I have a paid host (for a different kind of web site) and I like the fact that my blogging pays for that. Actually, it recently paid for a Wii and a bunch of games, too. Actually, my blogging income has never been better. It's a great time for bloggers.

I also like to share what I learn. That's why I blog on so many different topics. I learn a lot from reading other people's blogs. I want to return the favor.

Why do you persist?

What makes you write on those days when you really don't feel like it? I'd like to know.

Technorati : blogging, monetization, traffic

Ethics in blogging?

I apologize for having been away for so long. My previous job ate up a lot of non-work related blogging time. Anyway, I'm back and I hope you're still with me.

I was reading a good article today and wanted to give my opinion and maybe get some feed back. I am totally open to advertising on blogs (as long as they're obviously advertising) and to a sponsor, as long as that's disclosed.

There seems to be some disagreement about this in the blogosphere. Pat Phelan, who writes a technology blog, calls out one Sarah Austin. According to Sarah, she is "one of the first live streaming, life-casters popularized on Justin.TV and now hosts a weekly live show in conjunction with Pop17 at Mogulus." Also in her about page, she says:

Pop17 is a two-to-three minute daily exploration to track, analyze and understand the new cultural phenomenon of online micro-celebrity.

On this blog, I guess she has sponsors that she does not disclose. For the details of this, read Pat's blog entry. I won't repeat them here. Sarah has her say on her blog. Personally, it seems like the whole thing just helps here in her micro-celebrity and may be a joint marketing thing between the two of them. Conflict drives page hits (which is a completely different aspect of ethics). I don't know either player so I can't say.

It does bring to light a very interesting point about ethics. As in, what are the ethics of blogging? Are blogger journalists? Are bloggers self-obsessed celebrity seekers? Something in between? I think that has to be answered before we can talk about ethics.

I think a lot of it has to do with how you present yourself and what you blog about. If you are presenting a professional appearance, and you blog as if you were a journalist, which seems to be how the blog in question operates, then I think the ethics of disclosure is obvious. The ethics of the situation are even cleared when someone is comparing a sponsor's products to those of its competitors. That's OK to do, but it must be disclosed (IMHO).

Disclosure is required for long term credibility. If something just does not look or feel honest, people will pick up on it and dishonesty will destroy long term success for a blogger.

What do you think?

Technorati : blogging, ethics, fraud, sponsorship