All posts by Mitch Mitchell

I'm an independent consultant in many fields, so I have a lot to share.
Blogging

Four Reasons To Put A URL In When Commenting On Blogs

36 Comments

I’ve noticed that sometimes people don’t put urls (web addresses) in when they make comments. Almost everyone has either a website or a blog somewhere that they could link to, so it would seem like the natural thing to do. It’s not a required field, though, so many people don’t even think about it. So, I figured it was time to give people some reasons why it’s a good idea, and I’m going with four.


by Beth Kanter

1. You get a backlink to your blog. If you know SEO you get this concept. If you don’t, the idea of a backlink to your blog is that sites such as Google try to determine how much of an authority your site is online, and one of the criteria is how many backlinks you have going to your site. The more the merrier, as long as they’re somewhat related to what you do, but even if they’re not backlinks can only help. And supposedly they help more when you’re getting a link from another site and not having to link back; that part doesn’t matter to me, just take the link. By the way, this is why there’s so much comment spam, because these weasels are hoping to find those blogs that don’t monitor their comment spam so their sites can grow in prominence; and you thought it was so you’d buy Viagra from them. lol

2. People might click on your link and check out your site or blog. If people like your comment, sometimes they feel compelled to check you out. And none of us are on the internet so we can hide from others, right?

3. If you blog, CommentLuv will be your friend. If you put a link in and you have a blog, you’ll notice that on blogs that have that little heart on them that you see below, it will pop up your latest blog post. That’s from a site called CommentLuv, and it’s there to help people get their content noticed while they’re participating on another blog. Go to their site and register, and suddenly you have the ability to pick from your last 10 blog posts to decide which one you want to highlight. This works great if you comment more than once on someone else’s blog, or if there’s a specific older post you want to highlight.

4. It verifies you’re not a troll. Spam is one thing; trolls are another. Trolls are people who post without any real identifying information. If your blog doesn’t require an email address,then people can post anonymously, and that means they don’t always have to show the proper respect your blog deserves. They can go after you or other people and don’t care whose feelings are hurt. When I was dealing with trolls on one particular post earlier this year regarding Akismet a bunch of them came to the blog and posted these really long and threatening messages, which of course I could care less about. None of them left a url, and all the email addresses were fake. They just wanted to rant, and they wanted to hide. I just deleted them all, which was easy for me to do. If you have the appearance of having something to hide, people don’t always trust the comment. I at least give the benefit of the doubt, but not everyone will.

And there you are. Any questions, comments, please share.

Plantronics CS50 Wireless Office Earset

Personal

Random Thoughts Three

24 Comments

In March 2009 I wrote a post that I called Some Random Thoughts. It was basically a quick hitter of commentary on some current topics and basically rants I had that I just needed to get off my chest. Then last November I had a political rant on health care in America. I’m feeling the need for my third random rants post, thus that’s what this one is. I hope you read and comment; I’m having my say anyway.

In the United States, the political season is upon us. This year it seemed to start earlier, as we started getting hammered with political ads back in July. That’s because then it was the beginning of primary season. I hate political ads, and have never been swayed by any of them. To me, most of the process is fake, and most of what you hear in an ad is a lie. One thing that’s really odd these days is that, unless it’s an ad attacking someone, they never say what party they’re with. If they’re attacking Obama, you know the person is Republican; if you’re not, you’re a Democrat. Frankly, I hate attack ads, and surveys have shown that an overwhelming majority of people say they hate them. Yet they work, and the nastier one can make their ad, the more likely they’re going to be elected. It’s the fault of the people; if more people did their own research into someone instead of deciding based on political ads, these things would go away, or at least temper themselves. We are our own worst enemies; it’s a shame.

It seems that everyone I know says they hate bullying. Yet bullying still continues, and frankly it’s starting to get out of hand. We had bullies back in our day as well, but I don’t know of a single kid who ever committed suicide because of a bully. The thing is, almost no one seems to ever help a kid being bullied. Parents say they don’t know; schools say they’re not allowed to do anything; the police say it’s not their jurisdiction. I’ve always said if I were a parent and my kid was being bullied that I’d have gone to the other parent’s house and threatened to beat that parent up, or gone directly after the kid. Sure, that’s when everyone else gets involved. Even other parents are bullying some kids, and then don’t want to take any responsibility when a kid kills themselves; y’all remember that story, right? Everyone needs to be watching their kids, but the parents of kids being bullied and the parents of potential bullies. The latest girl to kill herself was only 12 years old; neither she nor the kids bullying them were legally old enough to even be on those sites. Hillary Clinton was right; it takes a village to raise a kid. And on this topic, y’all need to go read this post by Holly.

Next, there seems to be too many kids being killed in some fashion by parents these days; what’s all this about? The latest was a pastor down south who “forgot” his 14-month old daughter was in the van and she died of overheating. There has been a rash of these all over the place; what’s wrong with people? In my very first rant I mentioned fathers who were killing their kids to spite the mother; now it seems there’s a lot more mothers killing their kids, and it’s usually because they just decide they don’t want to deal with them anymore or are doing it because they want to be with some man who doesn’t want to have kids. There really needs to be more education and more oversight on young mothers, otherwise this epidemic is going to keep happening, and it has to stop.

And finally, a word about “isms”. I put a question out on my FB business page asking people if they’d ever step in to help someone who they saw was a victim of some kind of “ism”. The only response I got was one guy who said he didn’t understand the question. That tells me that he, and others, have absolutely no understanding of what to do when they see someone being treated badly because of racism, sexism, gayism, etc. There are just too many of us deciding to “mind our own business” instead of stepping forward to help someone when they can. Are there times when you should err on the side of caution? Sure; that doesn’t mean you can’t pick up the phone and call 911 or something, does it? Bad things are going to continue happening to people until someone decides to step forward and offer some kind of support. When Rodney King was beaten, the only support he got was some guy who filmed the whole thing, and the local populace acquitted the police, not believing their own eyes. When it takes the federal government to protect someone’s rights, it shows that the entire system of common sense and decency if flawed. Remember this part of the old axiom; if you don’t stand up for someone else’s rights, when it’s your turn there won’t be anyone to stand up for you.

I think that’s enough. I have more but now I have to go drink something cold and cool down. Just some things to think about; what are your thoughts?

Tolerance

Web Stuff

Are You Often Disappointed By “Free”?

14 Comments

I think I give a lot of advice on this blog, as well as a lot of commentary. I’ve helped a lot of people by showing the results of research, or testing things so they don’t have to. I don’t believe I’ve ever really held back on a topic when I’m writing about something unless it was personal.


by Andrew Steinmetz

With that said, I’ve also sometimes wondered why none of the products I’ve created sell here. I know I said that I don’t expect this blog to make a lot of money, but I do expect it to make some. Many comments indicate that there are some relatively new folks who visit and glean information from this blog, yet I’ve never sold any of my books or my webinar from this blog, though luckily I’ve sold them from other places.

What’s leading me into this conversation? The other day someone who I follow on Twitter posted something that said you could learn how someone else made $8,000.00 while on vacation through membership sites, and if you followed the link you could learn how. Well, I thought that was intriguing, as I’ve thought about membership sites, and so I followed the link and got to this page that I’m not going to advertise right now. There was a short video which said if you gave your name and email address, there would be 5 videos that would explain how she’s able to make great money through membership sites. I figured that within 5 videos I might glean some pretty good information, so I gave up the information to one of my rarely used sites; that’s how I subscribe to many things.

I got immediate access to all 5 videos, and I started watching them; took me an entire day, as I had other things to do as well, but eventually I got through all of them. And when I was finished? The only thing I got out of it was that she’s got all of her membership sites set up for recurring billing; that’s it. She talked about concepts, about statistics, and showed a lot of other people’s blogs, but never got to what I wanted to hear, which was just what someone might put into a membership site.

For instance, she mentioned a website where people could get together to talk about autistic children. Okay, that sounded good, but is there content in there? Are there videos or podcasts? How much? Is any material original, or gleaned from other sources? See, to me that’s pertinent information; that’s the type of thing that would help me decide if I wanted to not only create a membership site, or even to join one. I’ve actually joined a couple here and there in the past, only to be disappointed by one thing or another.

Now here’s the thing. Within hours of getting the link to the videos, the emails started coming about a course on how to create a membership site. At that point I pretty much figured I probably wasn’t going to get anything out of the videos, but I found it amazing that, in total, the videos were about 80 minutes long. How can anyone talk for 80 minutes and not say anything, and not be a politician?

The strange question to ask then is are you ever disappointed in free things, and do you deserve the right to be? I’m of two minds. One, if it cost you nothing and it didn’t work quite right, then you got what you paid for. Two, if something took up a lot of your time and at the end you got nothing out of it, then that’s something entirely different. That’s like sitting through an entire presentation geared to get you to pay someone thousands of dollars to create multiple websites for you by telling you how much money other people make and not telling you how other than “they sold cat brushes and made $100,000 in a week!”

What are your thoughts on this type of thing? Do you like the tease to buy, or will you buy if someone can at least offer you something up front that maybe you didn’t know?


Print Free Coupons

Blogging

How To File A DMCA Notice

25 Comments

It seems that I’ve had to become practiced in the art of filing DMCA notices against people who are stealing my content. DMCA stands for Digital Millennium Copyright Act, and it was created to protect online content. Of course it wasn’t for those of us who blog specifically, but what you’ll find is that most hosting companies won’t do anything about a complaint of yours unless you put it into a specific form which is laid out in the Act.

I have seen where some other sites recommend going after a person through the pocket book, aka filing one with Google to get their Adsense accounts removed. However, even doing that the content stays on the site. I’d rather it not be there at all.

There’s a step by step process of information you need to file with the host. The best way I know how to figure out who the host might be is to go to GoDaddy, put the name of the domain in the name search, then when it comes up saying someone already has it there’s this link that will let you go find out who the person is. Look to the nameservers near the bottom and that will tell you. I did find there was one strange one, “domaincontrol.com”, and it turns out that means the account is hosted on GoDaddy’s servers; interesting. There’s always the possibility that someone has paid to remove most of that information, but I believe the nameservers are always there; I’ll have to confirm that.

Before you go right into the DMCA notice, you should send at least one email to the offender to give them a chance to do the right thing. I hate to say this, but so far I’ve only had one person willing to do the right thing before I had to take the next step; shame. So here you go, the steps as listed in the law, and an explanation if needed.

(i) A physical or electronic signature of a person authorized to act on behalf of the owner of an exclusive right that is allegedly infringed.

This is where you put your name.

(ii) Identification of the copyrighted work claimed to have been infringed, or, if multiple copyrighted works at a single online site are covered by a single notification, a representative list of such works at that site.

This is where you put your original link that the material was stolen from.

(iii) Identification of the material that is claimed to be infringing or to be the subject of infringing activity and that is to be removed or access to which is to be disabled, and information reasonably sufficient to permit the service provider to locate the material.

This is where you put the link where your stolen material is showing.

(iv) Information reasonably sufficient to permit the service provider to contact the complaining party, such as an address, telephone number, and, if available, an electronic mail address at which the complaining party may be contacted.

This is all your contact information, including address and phone number and I also add the link to my domain name. One host sent me something back saying they had to have the ability to call me, which is why I know you have to add your phone number.

(v) A statement that the complaining party has a good faith belief that use of the material in the manner complained of is not authorized by the copyright owner, its agent, or the law.

This is where you basically write an oath of some kind saying that you know it’s your material that someone stole. Here’s what I have for mine: “Not only do I have a good faith belief, I know it is stolen content from my site, as I was the author of the post and am the owner of the blog it was taken from.”

(vi) A statement that the information in the notification is accurate, and under penalty of perjury, that the complaining party is authorized to act on behalf of the owner of an exclusive right that is allegedly infringed.

This is where you write an oath of, well, honesty that you are who you say you are and fully take notice that you’re reporting someone stealing your content. Here’s mine once again: “I affirm that this statement is accurate to the best of my ability, and the proof is that all the other content on the site is stolen and scraped as well. Since I’m the complaining party, I am authorized to act on my own behalf.”

And there you go. That’s all you need, and you can send that to the contact information you find on the host’s site. Now, the same people who made me put a phone number on it also said they only accepted DMCA notices via fax; weasels. Luckily, there are a number of online sites that will let you send a free fax as long as it’s not longer than 2 pages.
 

Motivation/Inspiration

Where I Find Inspiration

32 Comments

Our friend Peter asked an interesting question in one of his comments. His question was where I find the inspiration for all these posts and newsletters that I do. I guess it’s because I have a large output for all my blogs and my one newsletter, and of course all the writing I do for other people here and there.

I find inspiration in many places. Almost anything could spark an idea for writing a blog post. Even visiting other blogs or reading news stories or seeing what’s going on via Twitter or Facebook can spark something. And sometimes it’s a comment, like this post. Let’s take a look at my previous 10 posts on this blog to see where I got the inspiration from; I’m not going to link to them, just so you know.

I wrote about evaluating when to end something because I was reading another one of those blog posts where it was recommended to never give anything up because success is just around the corner. I had just a couple of weeks earlier stopped writing one of my newsletters because I realized I didn’t have what it took to write it anymore, and thus I felt what I was reading was contrary to what I was doing, and so I wrote about it.

I wrote about the song We Are the World because I was walking on the track at the gym listening to my MP3 player and it came up and I got chills listening to it. The impact was still strong when I got home, and there you go.

I wrote a Sunday post on cravings because I’ve been having a lot of them. I had just days earlier started a new metabolic eating plan that I’m being evaluated on, and I had been craving chocolate almost nonstop.

I wrote a post on the Count Per Day plugin because on one of the blogs I write for they had it, and I tested it to see how it compared to Analytics and wrote my thoughts on it all.

I wrote a post on blogging and Twitter because of a local event that showed just how fast news, good or bad, can spread based on a blog post and its popping up on Twitter, and how a business can either be ruined or have a chance to save their reputation.

I wrote a post on simple answers to what seems to be difficult problems because I’d just gone through two things, one literally a couple of days earlier, where I’d done a lot of work for nothing.

I wrote a post on the things a blog should have because of a comment someone left asking about it. Then the next day I wrote a post on the administrative area of WordPress because I had just helped a friend of mine set up a new blog, and she looked inside it and was really confused over what she saw.

I wrote the next Sunday post on trust because it’s the political season, and thus all those political commercials are on TV these days. It’s interesting how much we all hate them because they’re so mean, yet these people keep putting that trash on, and thus we don’t trust them because we know they could care less about us and are only in it for their own reasons.

And finally I wrote about the components of a newsletter because my friend has been thinking about writing one and kept asking me about length, images, etc, and it seemed like a good idea to write a post about it in case someone else had been wondering.

And there you go. See, it doesn’t take a lot to determine what to write a blog post about, even if I were writing a niche blog. Of course, this is the fun blog, so I write more posts on this one than the others. Inspiration really doesn’t have to be hard most of the time; all you have to do is pay attention to what’s going on, what people are saying to you, and of course your own feelings.