Sunday, November 01, 2009
Friday, September 11, 2009
Inspiration for any kind of artist: Spike Jonze
In May, 2009, I launched my first animations into cyberspace.
The catch is to create a clip that is unique and original, that also has universal application. Unlike photographs and illustrations, which can be placed in both still and moving media, animations are limited to the Web and television. Who would use them and for what?
To find out, I watch television and browse websites that use them. At this point, I’m not in a position to expound about what they are used for, by whom, where, why, or how. Although I’m pleased that a few of my clips have sold, I’m also disconcerted by the fact that many have not. To scrutinize, analyze, examine, and ponder my own portfolio to look for a pattern is too myopic an approach.
I backed off to look at the grand scale in a story in the New York Times Magazine.
Spike Jonze, producer of movie hits, “Being John Malcovich” and “Adaptation” struggled for about ten years to get “Where the Wild Things Are” into theaters. Similarities to my small-scale operation: Who is the audience? Why would anyone want to see this movie? It’s a story for children, but during early test viewings, children screamed in horror for their parents to take them out of the theater.
Over time, Jonze and the movie studios arrived at a version that will be in theaters next month. I can’t wait.
It was fun to read about how Jonze inspired himself. Imagine the inside of a recording studio that contains a wealth of props and production equipment. When he and his collaborators, the Beastie Boys, got an idea, they produced it, the crazier and dumber, the better.
Jonze and writer Dave Eggers co-wrote the screenplay of “Wild Things”. To prepare themselves, they watched “Wizard of Oz” and skateboarded around Jonze’s house firing BB guns.
What do I have in front of me? A dog, a rural setting, a home, a car, a remote-controlled garage door; kitchen appliances; fans, standing lamps, a Mac Book Pro with Adobe Illustrator and Adobe Flash software; a camcorder, and two Canon still cameras, a digital SLR and a mini.
Could the appliances fight one another? What would my dog dream about? Could the garage door bite off my car’s engine?
Jonze says: “Just come up with an idea and make it.”
So I’ll just come up with an idea. Just?
The catch is to create a clip that is unique and original, that also has universal application. Unlike photographs and illustrations, which can be placed in both still and moving media, animations are limited to the Web and television. Who would use them and for what?
To find out, I watch television and browse websites that use them. At this point, I’m not in a position to expound about what they are used for, by whom, where, why, or how. Although I’m pleased that a few of my clips have sold, I’m also disconcerted by the fact that many have not. To scrutinize, analyze, examine, and ponder my own portfolio to look for a pattern is too myopic an approach.
I backed off to look at the grand scale in a story in the New York Times Magazine.
Spike Jonze, producer of movie hits, “Being John Malcovich” and “Adaptation” struggled for about ten years to get “Where the Wild Things Are” into theaters. Similarities to my small-scale operation: Who is the audience? Why would anyone want to see this movie? It’s a story for children, but during early test viewings, children screamed in horror for their parents to take them out of the theater.
Over time, Jonze and the movie studios arrived at a version that will be in theaters next month. I can’t wait.
It was fun to read about how Jonze inspired himself. Imagine the inside of a recording studio that contains a wealth of props and production equipment. When he and his collaborators, the Beastie Boys, got an idea, they produced it, the crazier and dumber, the better.
Jonze and writer Dave Eggers co-wrote the screenplay of “Wild Things”. To prepare themselves, they watched “Wizard of Oz” and skateboarded around Jonze’s house firing BB guns.
What do I have in front of me? A dog, a rural setting, a home, a car, a remote-controlled garage door; kitchen appliances; fans, standing lamps, a Mac Book Pro with Adobe Illustrator and Adobe Flash software; a camcorder, and two Canon still cameras, a digital SLR and a mini.
Could the appliances fight one another? What would my dog dream about? Could the garage door bite off my car’s engine?
Jonze says: “Just come up with an idea and make it.”
So I’ll just come up with an idea. Just?
Friday, January 09, 2009
Anonymous
"Anonymous", by Robert Flynn Johnson, is a collection of photographs taken by anonymous photographers. Most of these captured moments occurred sometime in the early twentieth century. Immediately I wanted to call the book a breath of fresh air, but that's too tepid. I’d say it’s more of a kind of hurricane that rejuvenates rather than destroys, leaving in its wake a clean, freed-of-human-junk landscape and upgraded homes.
The photographs were all taken for fun and/or someone's family photo album, rather than for commerce. There was not a trace of self-consciousness, taking me back eons to a time when I just drew, painted, and took photographs merely for fun. What’s fun for me? I looked for the photographs I wish I’d taken.
An African American boy of about seven or eight, a pacifier in his mouth, holds a rifle.
Holding a scythe like the grim reaper, a white-bearded elderly man on an antique three-wheeler bike, looks over his shoulder at a little girl standing next to her relatively “contemporary” model bicycle.
A middle-aged man, dressed like a lord of a manor, rides an ostrich.
An elderly man in a cart drives the team of pigs that pull it.
The most intense photograph for me was the scene of an automobile accident that decapitated the driver, his head lying on the road a few feet from the wrecked car. It looked as if a photojournalist or a police photographer took the image. I am glad not to have been that photographer. I probably would have fainted or vomited.
Out of all the images in the book, I wish I’d taken only four. Why those? I think that they are strictly first-class photojournalism, all telling a story literally or metaphorically. All other aesthetic considerations are limited by the amount of time the photographer has to take the photograph.
I recommend “Anonymous” to photojournalists.
Information:
“anonymous: enigmatic images from unknown photographers”, edited by Robert Flynn Johnson. Paperback edition published in 2005 by Thames and Hudson, New York, New York 10110.
The photographs were all taken for fun and/or someone's family photo album, rather than for commerce. There was not a trace of self-consciousness, taking me back eons to a time when I just drew, painted, and took photographs merely for fun. What’s fun for me? I looked for the photographs I wish I’d taken.
An African American boy of about seven or eight, a pacifier in his mouth, holds a rifle.
Holding a scythe like the grim reaper, a white-bearded elderly man on an antique three-wheeler bike, looks over his shoulder at a little girl standing next to her relatively “contemporary” model bicycle.
A middle-aged man, dressed like a lord of a manor, rides an ostrich.
An elderly man in a cart drives the team of pigs that pull it.
The most intense photograph for me was the scene of an automobile accident that decapitated the driver, his head lying on the road a few feet from the wrecked car. It looked as if a photojournalist or a police photographer took the image. I am glad not to have been that photographer. I probably would have fainted or vomited.
Out of all the images in the book, I wish I’d taken only four. Why those? I think that they are strictly first-class photojournalism, all telling a story literally or metaphorically. All other aesthetic considerations are limited by the amount of time the photographer has to take the photograph.
I recommend “Anonymous” to photojournalists.
Information:
“anonymous: enigmatic images from unknown photographers”, edited by Robert Flynn Johnson. Paperback edition published in 2005 by Thames and Hudson, New York, New York 10110.
Thursday, February 07, 2008
No More Images to be Displayed in this Blog
I just deleted almost two years’ worth of blog posts and images here when I realized how easy it is to steal imagery in cyberspace. Normally I’d be flattered if anybody liked an image of mine enough to steal it.
But now, another party is vulnerable, the online stock agency that represents me, iStockphoto. An image stolen from me is also one stolen from iStock, who sells my images. I’m told to watermark my images to make theft more difficult, but then I hear how easy it is to remove a watermark.
A month or two ago, I cancelled my Flickr account because of the site’s warning of theft. Recently, a photographer who posted images on Flickr was the victim of a massive theft, but the thief wasn’t done. He opened an iStock account and posted the stolen images there as his own. Immediately, iStock discovered the fraud and removed the thief’s site.
I’ll need to rethink where I’d like to go with this blog humchum.
But now, another party is vulnerable, the online stock agency that represents me, iStockphoto. An image stolen from me is also one stolen from iStock, who sells my images. I’m told to watermark my images to make theft more difficult, but then I hear how easy it is to remove a watermark.
A month or two ago, I cancelled my Flickr account because of the site’s warning of theft. Recently, a photographer who posted images on Flickr was the victim of a massive theft, but the thief wasn’t done. He opened an iStock account and posted the stolen images there as his own. Immediately, iStock discovered the fraud and removed the thief’s site.
I’ll need to rethink where I’d like to go with this blog humchum.
Monday, April 24, 2006
Blog Traffic King/blogtrafficking.com (cute play with words)
The Blog King, Yaro Starak, is a friendly but extremely professional presence in cyberspace, and a good writer to boot. He makes a point of answering every email with specific answers to your questions. Starak operates a network of blogs, as well as his e-commerce site. As you navigate, you receive information about drawing traffic that is useful enough in its own right; he doesn’t push you to buy anything in order to uncover some big secret.
To maintain individual contact with inquirers, he offers to email you a newsletter, a promise he keeps. The one he sent me this morning included reviews of blogging products and a warning not to SPLOG, a word coined to combine “spam” and “blog.”
“Splogs are set up to get traffic to other sites,” Starak writes. “They are automatically generated and the owners have no intention of producing a useful website — they just want to get traffic. Essentially, they are the SPAM of the blogging world.”
He goes on to say that not all blogging systems distinguish between splogging and niche blogging, where an operator might link all of his sites to one another. He sited a niche blogger whose sites disappeared, erasing all income from the display advertising on his sites, because his blogging system forbids what they consider splogging under any circumstances. Starak gives niche bloggers advice about how to avoid such a misfortune.
I believe you’ll enjoy The Blog King and his information-filled advice. His site address is:
http://www.blogtrafficking.com
To maintain individual contact with inquirers, he offers to email you a newsletter, a promise he keeps. The one he sent me this morning included reviews of blogging products and a warning not to SPLOG, a word coined to combine “spam” and “blog.”
“Splogs are set up to get traffic to other sites,” Starak writes. “They are automatically generated and the owners have no intention of producing a useful website — they just want to get traffic. Essentially, they are the SPAM of the blogging world.”
He goes on to say that not all blogging systems distinguish between splogging and niche blogging, where an operator might link all of his sites to one another. He sited a niche blogger whose sites disappeared, erasing all income from the display advertising on his sites, because his blogging system forbids what they consider splogging under any circumstances. Starak gives niche bloggers advice about how to avoid such a misfortune.
I believe you’ll enjoy The Blog King and his information-filled advice. His site address is:
http://www.blogtrafficking.com
Saturday, April 22, 2006
True Dog Story
A moment ago, a friend emailed me this story that she swears really happened:
A plane flying from Seattle to San Francisco stopped for a layover in Sacramento. The flight attendant explained that there would be a delay, and if the passengers wanted to get off the aircraft, the plane would re-board in one hour.
A passenger noticed that everyone was leaving the plane except for one man, who appeared to be blind because his seeing-eye dog lay quietly under the seats in front of him throughout the entire flight. He could also tell that the blind man had flown this flight before because the pilot approached him and, calling him by name, said, "Keith, we're in Sacramento for a while. Would you like to get off and stretch your legs?"
The blind man replied, "No thanks, but maybe my dog would like to stretch his legs."
The pilot put on his sunglasses and led the dog off the plane. When people at the gate saw the pilot wearing sunglasses leading a seeing-eye dog, they scattered, not only cancelling their reservations but changing airlines.
Things aren't always as they appear.
A plane flying from Seattle to San Francisco stopped for a layover in Sacramento. The flight attendant explained that there would be a delay, and if the passengers wanted to get off the aircraft, the plane would re-board in one hour.
A passenger noticed that everyone was leaving the plane except for one man, who appeared to be blind because his seeing-eye dog lay quietly under the seats in front of him throughout the entire flight. He could also tell that the blind man had flown this flight before because the pilot approached him and, calling him by name, said, "Keith, we're in Sacramento for a while. Would you like to get off and stretch your legs?"
The blind man replied, "No thanks, but maybe my dog would like to stretch his legs."
The pilot put on his sunglasses and led the dog off the plane. When people at the gate saw the pilot wearing sunglasses leading a seeing-eye dog, they scattered, not only cancelling their reservations but changing airlines.
Things aren't always as they appear.
Thursday, April 20, 2006
Suze Orman's Will and Trust Kit, a User's Testimony
I did it and had fun doing it. After installing “Suze Orman’s Will and Trust Kit,” I filled its blanks with my information and then printed out four extremely clear, legal documents that reflected my financial situation: my Will, my Irrevocable Trust, my Advanced Directive and Durable Power of Attorney, and my Financial Power of Attorney.
No bank or attorney had addressed with me a tenth of what personal finance expert Suze Orman covers in her kit. Reading and listening to the audio by Orman and her personal trust attorney Janet Dobrovolny, I realized that I’d been singing in the dark, believing that I had an estate plan, when I had nothing that came close.
Besides the local hospital, who would know that I had a long-term care insurance policy? Her electronic guidebooks cover every aspect of a person’s financial life. In what she calls the protection portfolio, you include items in detail about all insurance policies, an inventory of belongings for your homeowner’s policy, and the list is exhaustive and comprehensive. Her custom-designed calculators help you assess everything from credit & dept to what you will need for retirement.
I’ll be hiring an attorney who specializes in estate planning. For our appointment, I’ll be fully armed, having done the kind of work I should have done long ago.
My only beef is that Suze Orman’s financial talk show (on CNBC) is on Saturday night, when it’s difficult to sit down and watch television. Entertaining and dramatically informative, she rescues people who have made, or are about to make, serious financial blunders.
Conducting a search of “Suze Orman”, you will find a wealth of sites devoted personal finance health. Her home site is: http://www.suzeorman.com
No bank or attorney had addressed with me a tenth of what personal finance expert Suze Orman covers in her kit. Reading and listening to the audio by Orman and her personal trust attorney Janet Dobrovolny, I realized that I’d been singing in the dark, believing that I had an estate plan, when I had nothing that came close.
Besides the local hospital, who would know that I had a long-term care insurance policy? Her electronic guidebooks cover every aspect of a person’s financial life. In what she calls the protection portfolio, you include items in detail about all insurance policies, an inventory of belongings for your homeowner’s policy, and the list is exhaustive and comprehensive. Her custom-designed calculators help you assess everything from credit & dept to what you will need for retirement.
I’ll be hiring an attorney who specializes in estate planning. For our appointment, I’ll be fully armed, having done the kind of work I should have done long ago.
My only beef is that Suze Orman’s financial talk show (on CNBC) is on Saturday night, when it’s difficult to sit down and watch television. Entertaining and dramatically informative, she rescues people who have made, or are about to make, serious financial blunders.
Conducting a search of “Suze Orman”, you will find a wealth of sites devoted personal finance health. Her home site is: http://www.suzeorman.com
Saturday, April 15, 2006
Friends of Basic Jokes
Cyber-laughter and Friends of Basic Jokes Online
Friends e-mail jokes. Lately I got a beaut (see below). When I read it, the bird-twitter outside my window suddenly became laughter. My solar plexus region, which had been feeling like a pair of wet socks forgotten on a closet floor, began to warm up, like you do when you lie in the sun after a long, cold swim. Nothing is more comforting to me than a good joke.
An email “thank you” for a good joke is limited to a few “ha ha ha’s” or “I’m keeping that one” or “you made my day.” If I were a genius, I’d invent the audio e-mail. Here, I could have transmitted a laugh, or better yet, one of a set of canned laughs provided by the software, my email document flashing to the beat of the laugh.
The joke:
A young boy had just gotten his driver's permit and inquired of his father, an evangelist, if they could discuss his use of the car. His father said, "I'll make a deal with you. You bring your grades up from a C to a B average, study your Bible a little, and get your hair cut, and we'll talk about the car." Well, the boy thought about that for a moment, decided that he'd settle for the offer, and they agreed on it.
After about six weeks, they went into the study, where his father said, "Son, I've been real proud. You've brought your grades up, and I've observed that you have been studying your Bible, and participating a lot more in the Bible study groups. But, I'm still just a little bit disappointed, since you haven't gotten your hair cut."
The young man paused for a moment, and then said, "You know, Dad, I've been thinking about that, and I've noticed, in my studies of the Bible, that Samson had long hair, John the Baptist had long hair, Moses had long hair, and there is even a strong argument that Jesus had long hair."
To this his father replied, "Did you also notice that they all walked everywhere they went?"
*
The best thank you for a good joke is another good joke. I found a site that stockpiles hundreds of jokes:
http://www.basicjokes.com
or click link on the right to “Basic Jokes online.” Here’s one I found there:
Jesus and Satan
Jesus and Satan were having an ongoing argument about who managed to get the most out of his computer. This had been going on for days and God, was tired of hearing all of the bickering.
God said, "Cool it. I am going to set up a test that will run two hours and I will judge who does the better job."
So down they sat at the keyboards and typed away. They moused away. They did spreadsheets, they wrote reports, they sent faxes, they sent out e-mail, they sent out e-mail with attachments, they downloaded, they did some genealogy reports, they made cards, they did every known job. But just a few minutes before the two hours were up, a lightening flashed across the sky. The thunder rolled and the rains came down hard. And of course the electricity went off.
Satan was upset. He fumed and fussed and he ranted and raved, all to no avail. The electricity stayed off. But after a bit, the rains stopped and the electricity came back on. Satan screamed, "I lost it all when the power went off. What am I going to do? What happened to Jesus' work?"
Jesus just sat and smiled.
Again Satan asked about the work that Jesus had done. As Jesus turned his computer back on the screen glowed and when he pushed "print it", it was all there. "How did he do it." Satan asked? God smiled and said, "Jesus Saves."
Friends e-mail jokes. Lately I got a beaut (see below). When I read it, the bird-twitter outside my window suddenly became laughter. My solar plexus region, which had been feeling like a pair of wet socks forgotten on a closet floor, began to warm up, like you do when you lie in the sun after a long, cold swim. Nothing is more comforting to me than a good joke.
An email “thank you” for a good joke is limited to a few “ha ha ha’s” or “I’m keeping that one” or “you made my day.” If I were a genius, I’d invent the audio e-mail. Here, I could have transmitted a laugh, or better yet, one of a set of canned laughs provided by the software, my email document flashing to the beat of the laugh.
The joke:
A young boy had just gotten his driver's permit and inquired of his father, an evangelist, if they could discuss his use of the car. His father said, "I'll make a deal with you. You bring your grades up from a C to a B average, study your Bible a little, and get your hair cut, and we'll talk about the car." Well, the boy thought about that for a moment, decided that he'd settle for the offer, and they agreed on it.
After about six weeks, they went into the study, where his father said, "Son, I've been real proud. You've brought your grades up, and I've observed that you have been studying your Bible, and participating a lot more in the Bible study groups. But, I'm still just a little bit disappointed, since you haven't gotten your hair cut."
The young man paused for a moment, and then said, "You know, Dad, I've been thinking about that, and I've noticed, in my studies of the Bible, that Samson had long hair, John the Baptist had long hair, Moses had long hair, and there is even a strong argument that Jesus had long hair."
To this his father replied, "Did you also notice that they all walked everywhere they went?"
*
The best thank you for a good joke is another good joke. I found a site that stockpiles hundreds of jokes:
http://www.basicjokes.com
or click link on the right to “Basic Jokes online.” Here’s one I found there:
Jesus and Satan
Jesus and Satan were having an ongoing argument about who managed to get the most out of his computer. This had been going on for days and God, was tired of hearing all of the bickering.
God said, "Cool it. I am going to set up a test that will run two hours and I will judge who does the better job."
So down they sat at the keyboards and typed away. They moused away. They did spreadsheets, they wrote reports, they sent faxes, they sent out e-mail, they sent out e-mail with attachments, they downloaded, they did some genealogy reports, they made cards, they did every known job. But just a few minutes before the two hours were up, a lightening flashed across the sky. The thunder rolled and the rains came down hard. And of course the electricity went off.
Satan was upset. He fumed and fussed and he ranted and raved, all to no avail. The electricity stayed off. But after a bit, the rains stopped and the electricity came back on. Satan screamed, "I lost it all when the power went off. What am I going to do? What happened to Jesus' work?"
Jesus just sat and smiled.
Again Satan asked about the work that Jesus had done. As Jesus turned his computer back on the screen glowed and when he pushed "print it", it was all there. "How did he do it." Satan asked? God smiled and said, "Jesus Saves."
Friday, April 14, 2006
cyberphobediaires.blogspot.com is now http://cyber-comfort.blogspot.com - Marian Trotter, aka Bonnie Trotter
Why I changed my blog’s name to Cyber-comfort (http://cyber-comfort.blogspot.com):
Cyber-comfort is a feeling of ease in the online world of computer networks; Cyber-phobe Diaries could deter you from taking the journey.
My U-turn was influenced by an Amazon Associates technician. To solve a problem I was having logging into my Associates account (which she did quickly), she viewed my blog, Cyber-phobe Diaries, and pointed out a black eye of an inconsistency.
How likely is it that a real cyberphobe (a person afraid of using computers and the Internet) would surf, let alone find a blog called Cyberphobe Diaries, let alone buy products advertised on the Internet with their credit cards, let alone with Pay Pal? With the Amazon banner, I’m trying to encourage Internet-leery visitors to order late model Apple computers, Canon 20D digital cameras, and other relatively advanced tech equipment.
She suggested a concept more consistent with helping to ease a visitor’s journey through cyber-space, a site where they could read about books like the Internet for Dummies series, user-friendly e-tools, and ecommerce resources helpful to me and to others I know.
On Cyber-comfort, I will try to ease your journey through cyberspace, rather than scare the wits out of you.
Re Amazon and me: my customer account and Amazon Associates account were booked as one. If, after exploring the Amazon Associates program, you decide to participate with a banner on your site, start an Associate’s account that is separate from your customer’s.
When I changed my email address to btrot60@gmail.com, I had to close my customer account and open a new one. Because my Associates account was booked in conjunction with my customer’s account, my Associates account was automatically closed too, but not automatically re-opened. While I talked with the tech, she opened a separate Associates account for me, where I now log on with a new password. From now on, what affects one account will not affect the other.
To reach tech support for your Amazon Associate’s account, call 701-787-9740 (Pacific Time). This department does not have a toll-free number.
Cyber-comfort is a feeling of ease in the online world of computer networks; Cyber-phobe Diaries could deter you from taking the journey.
My U-turn was influenced by an Amazon Associates technician. To solve a problem I was having logging into my Associates account (which she did quickly), she viewed my blog, Cyber-phobe Diaries, and pointed out a black eye of an inconsistency.
How likely is it that a real cyberphobe (a person afraid of using computers and the Internet) would surf, let alone find a blog called Cyberphobe Diaries, let alone buy products advertised on the Internet with their credit cards, let alone with Pay Pal? With the Amazon banner, I’m trying to encourage Internet-leery visitors to order late model Apple computers, Canon 20D digital cameras, and other relatively advanced tech equipment.
She suggested a concept more consistent with helping to ease a visitor’s journey through cyber-space, a site where they could read about books like the Internet for Dummies series, user-friendly e-tools, and ecommerce resources helpful to me and to others I know.
On Cyber-comfort, I will try to ease your journey through cyberspace, rather than scare the wits out of you.
Re Amazon and me: my customer account and Amazon Associates account were booked as one. If, after exploring the Amazon Associates program, you decide to participate with a banner on your site, start an Associate’s account that is separate from your customer’s.
When I changed my email address to btrot60@gmail.com, I had to close my customer account and open a new one. Because my Associates account was booked in conjunction with my customer’s account, my Associates account was automatically closed too, but not automatically re-opened. While I talked with the tech, she opened a separate Associates account for me, where I now log on with a new password. From now on, what affects one account will not affect the other.
To reach tech support for your Amazon Associate’s account, call 701-787-9740 (Pacific Time). This department does not have a toll-free number.
Monday, April 10, 2006
Is It Possible to Conduct a Background Check of an E-commerce Business?
This morning I started looking for and reading Weblogs that have appealing qualities I could use in this blog. The readers get more than the diary entries: business enhancement resources, tips for getting from square one to the finish line, or the type of lessons that they can apply immediately to their lives. As a reader of blogs, I also love jokes and cartoons, and plan to ask my tech trainer how best to upload them.
I read a blog this morning that I liked, a fairly straight-faced rendition of how to draw traffic to your blog, including an audio of a gentle but clear voice. Hoping to begin a correspondence, I subscribed to its free newsletter for new bloggers, and left a message asking permission to review the blog on my site.
Then I discovered the layers, embedded links that led to other blogs and then finally to a fairly straightforward business that catered to students. What student wouldn't benefit by its services?
A thought stopped me in my tracks. Before I recommend any e-commerce business, I need to figure out how I can do a background check. Is there an e-commerce equivalent to the US Chamber of Commerce? A Google search resulted in the USA Chamber of E-Commerce, which is open to international business as well. I subscribed to the newsletter and then emailed a message asking what kinds of systems they had to help members conduct background checks of e-commerce business whose products or services they’d like to buy.
In an article posted today, the Online Review Board recommends Net Detective and Web Detective as two of the top online investigative services, for which I need additional plug-ins. After consulting with my tech trainer, I may decide to purchase one or both of these services.
I read a blog this morning that I liked, a fairly straight-faced rendition of how to draw traffic to your blog, including an audio of a gentle but clear voice. Hoping to begin a correspondence, I subscribed to its free newsletter for new bloggers, and left a message asking permission to review the blog on my site.
Then I discovered the layers, embedded links that led to other blogs and then finally to a fairly straightforward business that catered to students. What student wouldn't benefit by its services?
A thought stopped me in my tracks. Before I recommend any e-commerce business, I need to figure out how I can do a background check. Is there an e-commerce equivalent to the US Chamber of Commerce? A Google search resulted in the USA Chamber of E-Commerce, which is open to international business as well. I subscribed to the newsletter and then emailed a message asking what kinds of systems they had to help members conduct background checks of e-commerce business whose products or services they’d like to buy.
In an article posted today, the Online Review Board recommends Net Detective and Web Detective as two of the top online investigative services, for which I need additional plug-ins. After consulting with my tech trainer, I may decide to purchase one or both of these services.
Sunday, April 09, 2006
Getting Blog Traffic
On January 12, 2006, I launched this blog, with some apprehension because I knew nothing about the technology involved or about what it would be like to live in cyberspace. It’s taken until now to feel comfortable with the idea of posting diary entries about my experiences, all positive except for a few dings here and there.
I also feel safe. No one makes vicious comments. When I conduct Google searches on my name or on the name of this site, as I’ve mentioned, the results are professional and benign.
It’s as if I’d found a raft while swimming in the ocean and climbed aboard. Now, I’m warm, dry, and unscathed. But the seas are disturbingly calm. I’ve gotten only two comments, one from my tech trainer, and another that was auto-generated I think by a company whose ad appeared in my Adsense box.
The raft is anchored, and it will stay that way until I drag the anchor up, but I want to do more than just drift. Underneath I find oars and an outboard motor. After using the oars for a while, I graduate to the outboard. A month or so ago, I upgraded from dial-up to satellite Internet, which is wonderful because I am always “logged on”, in the ether, my signals instantaneously picked up and transmitted by a satellite orbiting the equator.
I’d like a navigational map, a chart to indicate the nearest landmass. A ship-to-shore two-way radio would help. Who else is out there? What do they do, and what would I do?
Conduct a Google search of “blog traffic” and you will find a lot of material about how to attract visitors and comments. Successful bloggers teach a popular subject (like how to attract visitors to your blog) or write controversial essays criticizing those in positions of authority. I have to ask, “Now that I’m here, what could I have to offer beyond my postings? Now that you are here reading my site, what would you like to take away that would enhance your life?”
I also feel safe. No one makes vicious comments. When I conduct Google searches on my name or on the name of this site, as I’ve mentioned, the results are professional and benign.
It’s as if I’d found a raft while swimming in the ocean and climbed aboard. Now, I’m warm, dry, and unscathed. But the seas are disturbingly calm. I’ve gotten only two comments, one from my tech trainer, and another that was auto-generated I think by a company whose ad appeared in my Adsense box.
The raft is anchored, and it will stay that way until I drag the anchor up, but I want to do more than just drift. Underneath I find oars and an outboard motor. After using the oars for a while, I graduate to the outboard. A month or so ago, I upgraded from dial-up to satellite Internet, which is wonderful because I am always “logged on”, in the ether, my signals instantaneously picked up and transmitted by a satellite orbiting the equator.
I’d like a navigational map, a chart to indicate the nearest landmass. A ship-to-shore two-way radio would help. Who else is out there? What do they do, and what would I do?
Conduct a Google search of “blog traffic” and you will find a lot of material about how to attract visitors and comments. Successful bloggers teach a popular subject (like how to attract visitors to your blog) or write controversial essays criticizing those in positions of authority. I have to ask, “Now that I’m here, what could I have to offer beyond my postings? Now that you are here reading my site, what would you like to take away that would enhance your life?”
Monday, March 20, 2006
Dings and Things Forever
I’m starting to worry less about dings in cyberspace and more about the quality of the things I want to share with you. I still have cyberphobia, but I’m no longer a case for emergency technology services. My tech trainer and I have returned to our twice-a-month schedule, when we’ll have plenty of time to work through dings as they happen. By now I’ve accepted that dings will always happen, regardless of how much you know.
My manic cyber-puttering is over. I didn’t call my trainer when I had difficulty uploading this Weblog to an appealing site, Dogpile Web Search (http://dogpile.com), maybe because the site couldn’t process my change of email address to btrot60@gmail.com from AOL’s.
Dogpile is an interesting site. On ABC News online, womens’ career specialist Tory Johnson recommends it as a comprehensive search engine that may be able to deliver more that a standard one delivers. On its site, Dogpile says that it compiles information from several major sites. Yes, I’d Ilke to be part of that site, but I’m no longer freaked out by every little glitch like this one.
Tory Johnson’s site has a wealth of information vital to career women: http://www.womenforhire.com
Reading Tory Johnson’s article, “Dusting Your Digital Dirt” (the one that mentions Dogpile), I can appreciate my cyber-phobia because it protects me from the kind of scenario she presents. If you are woman looking for work, Johnson advises you to conduct a search of your name on the Internet (via Dogpile) to seek out embarrassing stuff you may have written about yourself, and then get rid of it if possible.
If that isn’t possible, be prepared to handle it head-on during a job interview. Employers conduct searches of job candidates, and vice versa. Anybody can conduct a search of anybody and find more information than you can imagine. Her suggestion for a job seeker might be to write instead about subjects that have to do with work areas that interest her.
As a cyberphobic I’ve had a healthy respect for where you can end up in cyberspace. When I conduct a search of my name, the listings are benign and professional. Now I need to focus on being more interesting. On Amazon.com, I found a book, “Writing and Publishing Personal Essays” by author and creative writing professor Sheila Bender. Using her material, I’m writing my first essay, which I hope to post very soon.
My manic cyber-puttering is over. I didn’t call my trainer when I had difficulty uploading this Weblog to an appealing site, Dogpile Web Search (http://dogpile.com), maybe because the site couldn’t process my change of email address to btrot60@gmail.com from AOL’s.
Dogpile is an interesting site. On ABC News online, womens’ career specialist Tory Johnson recommends it as a comprehensive search engine that may be able to deliver more that a standard one delivers. On its site, Dogpile says that it compiles information from several major sites. Yes, I’d Ilke to be part of that site, but I’m no longer freaked out by every little glitch like this one.
Tory Johnson’s site has a wealth of information vital to career women: http://www.womenforhire.com
Reading Tory Johnson’s article, “Dusting Your Digital Dirt” (the one that mentions Dogpile), I can appreciate my cyber-phobia because it protects me from the kind of scenario she presents. If you are woman looking for work, Johnson advises you to conduct a search of your name on the Internet (via Dogpile) to seek out embarrassing stuff you may have written about yourself, and then get rid of it if possible.
If that isn’t possible, be prepared to handle it head-on during a job interview. Employers conduct searches of job candidates, and vice versa. Anybody can conduct a search of anybody and find more information than you can imagine. Her suggestion for a job seeker might be to write instead about subjects that have to do with work areas that interest her.
As a cyberphobic I’ve had a healthy respect for where you can end up in cyberspace. When I conduct a search of my name, the listings are benign and professional. Now I need to focus on being more interesting. On Amazon.com, I found a book, “Writing and Publishing Personal Essays” by author and creative writing professor Sheila Bender. Using her material, I’m writing my first essay, which I hope to post very soon.
Monday, March 13, 2006
Cyberspace Interrupted
Late at night, mid February, I find myself in the middle of the Arizona desert among friends. I rode down there with a lady who raises, trains, and shows performance horses, along with her three horses and dog. Taking my first steps on Arizona soil, I experience a swaying sensation, like you do after a long trip on an ocean liner.
Other than our three stationary trailer homes, a car, three trucks, and three horse haulers, there is nothing man-made except for distant lights and traffic hum from an unseen highway. Occupants of two of the trailers have been camped here for some time. When we get out, the others throw up a hearty welcome. But before we can do anything else, the horses are watered, fed, and put to bed. Pent up in the back seat of the truck for the two-day drive down from Montana, my driver’s dog runs, frolics, chases, and barks at dog ghosts.
I listen to horror stories of what coyotes do to domestic dogs: invite them to come along, and then rip them to shreds. We would not let the pets out of our sight.
I have lost all connection to cyberspace. I can’t even use my cell phone, even though a rep had sworn that I could call from anywhere to anywhere in the United States. My laptop is stored safely at home. Journal writing will be written by hand, but where did I leave my pens?
My hosts take me down to my very own trailer. Out of the darkness and freezing night, I enter a brightly lit place, already warmed by a propane heater. On the kitchen counter I find a pencil.
That night I dream about the tech trainer who has been helping me through my cyber-journeys. He was hauling horses through New York City, I beside him. We weren’t the only ones driving an enormous truck, large animals in a trailer behind. He pointed to a semi hauling a new species found in Africa, one-ton, snarling, teeth-baring carnivores. The beasts had burst free into what looked like a staging area draped with sheets.
We noticed that the load behind us had lightened dramatically. My tech trainer checked the horses. They were gone. We searched alleys for them, and I couldn’t read the language on neon signs. Although we could find no trace of our horses, my tech trainer was as giddy as a kid about this incredible, fascinating new world.
Here, I’m dead and in bed by nine, so am awake in the wee hours before a hint of daylight. Smoking inside my trailer is forbidden, so outside I go to sit on the stoop, bundled up for winter, with coffee, cigarettes, and my journal. In the darkness, I hear wings flutter.
A red smudge above the shoulders of mountains to the east expands to streaks of bright red-orange, pink, ochre, and finally bright gold, before the blinding crown of the sun appears to start the day. A horse whinnies.
We’re camped in a desert valley, mountains at the horizon on all sides. They look like mounds of clay puckered by erosion. Scrub covers the ground, which is littered with sharp lava and is unevenly corrugated with gullies and ravines, its wild paths forged by flash floods and coyotes.
I hear an intense hum of distant, unseen traffic, beeping, a siren, and then birdsong.
A desert wren adopts me. She appears early every morning, then circles at a hop around my trailer. I try feeding her moths that commit suicide the night before by dive-bombing into the propane heater. Back inside, I see the wren looking at me through the glass door, a moth in her beak.
Back outside, getting ready to join the others, two tiny desert finches land on my left forefinger. They are extraordinary, with their yellow faces, white breasts, a spot of red at the tip of each wing, and a body of three shades of gray.
During the day, temperatures reach the low seventies, which is why we’re here. If a hot fudge sundae were air, this would be it. Warm and cold currents flow together. One moment you’re as hot as on a summer day; the next, you need a jacket. At home in Montana temperatures are hovering at zero.
The lady who drove me here leaves for a two-week long hunter jumper show in Tucson, where she and her horses clear every fence and place well in the competitions.
My hosts have a horse for me to ride, a young buckskin paint. His muzzle is a big, wiggly, velvet muscle. His owner describes him as “push button”, which means that instead of kicking him, as in “giddy yap”, you squeeze gently with your lower legs. You ride with loose reins, signaling turns by neck-reining and with leg squeezes, slowing and stopping by sitting back in the saddle, and pulling slightly on the reins, rather than yanking back as in “Whoa, Dobbin.”
We ride into the hills until our camp in the distance looks about the size of an eye’s iris. Horses wear protective pads on their hoofs. We see varieties of cacti, my favorite the cholla, which is made up of glistening, translucent thorns. But you stay away from that one. Its punctures are painful and difficult to extract. They say, “a cholla can reach out and grab ya’.”
Our one stab at hiking lasts fifteen minutes. The path, although too grizzly for walking, is extraordinary, filled as it is with stones that match colors of the sunrise – the reds, oranges, golds, along with an occasional turquoise – and some fragments and rocks glitter and shine in the sunlight. I daydream that some of this is left over from the Big Bang.
Later I ask a neighbor if a three-minute walk from one trailer to another would count as exercise. “You’re darn tootin’,” she replies.
My hosts pick me up for trips to museums and to shop for bargains and oddities. They point to my roof, where a white roadrunner matching my white trailer skitters across. They say these birds don’t fly that high - a very unusual occurrence.
At a museum, I love best the contemporary Navaho blankets, their patterns similar to the old ones, but woven, within the last six years by descendents, with silk along with traditional materials. Flat reds and whites dance against mottled blue-greens that recede like skies.
A recovering hoarder, I buy nothing at the flea markets. I resist striking hand-wrought sculptures at galleries. Instead I take photographs. I try the glassware displayed on long folding tables, of the sun shining through the glass casting transparent shadows on wooden surfaces.
At the end of the day, we walk to one of the two other trailers for supper (not mine, because I’m not fully equipped. Instead, when they allow me to, I treat them to meals in town.) Their dogs bark to warn of approaching visitors. We have show-and-tells: a book of cartoons by a lady about her husband’s dog, drawings and story line professional and very funny.
She pulls out a deck of Medicine Cards, which are very similar to the Tarot. I volunteer. According to the deck’s book of interpretations, the cards I draw have this to say to me: avoid tunnel-vision pursuits. Whatever your project, nurture every part of yourself as you go along. Otherwise, your effort will be fruitless, like that of the musician who tries to play using only three notes.
At night my hosts walk me back to my trailer. I didn’t think to bring a flashlight. Outside, the constellations Big Dipper and Orion look larger and closer. We hear the eerie, high-pitched shriek of a coyote, and then a response from another further away.
As I drift off to sleep, a moth tickles my leg under the bedclothes.
Other than our three stationary trailer homes, a car, three trucks, and three horse haulers, there is nothing man-made except for distant lights and traffic hum from an unseen highway. Occupants of two of the trailers have been camped here for some time. When we get out, the others throw up a hearty welcome. But before we can do anything else, the horses are watered, fed, and put to bed. Pent up in the back seat of the truck for the two-day drive down from Montana, my driver’s dog runs, frolics, chases, and barks at dog ghosts.
I listen to horror stories of what coyotes do to domestic dogs: invite them to come along, and then rip them to shreds. We would not let the pets out of our sight.
I have lost all connection to cyberspace. I can’t even use my cell phone, even though a rep had sworn that I could call from anywhere to anywhere in the United States. My laptop is stored safely at home. Journal writing will be written by hand, but where did I leave my pens?
My hosts take me down to my very own trailer. Out of the darkness and freezing night, I enter a brightly lit place, already warmed by a propane heater. On the kitchen counter I find a pencil.
That night I dream about the tech trainer who has been helping me through my cyber-journeys. He was hauling horses through New York City, I beside him. We weren’t the only ones driving an enormous truck, large animals in a trailer behind. He pointed to a semi hauling a new species found in Africa, one-ton, snarling, teeth-baring carnivores. The beasts had burst free into what looked like a staging area draped with sheets.
We noticed that the load behind us had lightened dramatically. My tech trainer checked the horses. They were gone. We searched alleys for them, and I couldn’t read the language on neon signs. Although we could find no trace of our horses, my tech trainer was as giddy as a kid about this incredible, fascinating new world.
Here, I’m dead and in bed by nine, so am awake in the wee hours before a hint of daylight. Smoking inside my trailer is forbidden, so outside I go to sit on the stoop, bundled up for winter, with coffee, cigarettes, and my journal. In the darkness, I hear wings flutter.
A red smudge above the shoulders of mountains to the east expands to streaks of bright red-orange, pink, ochre, and finally bright gold, before the blinding crown of the sun appears to start the day. A horse whinnies.
We’re camped in a desert valley, mountains at the horizon on all sides. They look like mounds of clay puckered by erosion. Scrub covers the ground, which is littered with sharp lava and is unevenly corrugated with gullies and ravines, its wild paths forged by flash floods and coyotes.
I hear an intense hum of distant, unseen traffic, beeping, a siren, and then birdsong.
A desert wren adopts me. She appears early every morning, then circles at a hop around my trailer. I try feeding her moths that commit suicide the night before by dive-bombing into the propane heater. Back inside, I see the wren looking at me through the glass door, a moth in her beak.
Back outside, getting ready to join the others, two tiny desert finches land on my left forefinger. They are extraordinary, with their yellow faces, white breasts, a spot of red at the tip of each wing, and a body of three shades of gray.
During the day, temperatures reach the low seventies, which is why we’re here. If a hot fudge sundae were air, this would be it. Warm and cold currents flow together. One moment you’re as hot as on a summer day; the next, you need a jacket. At home in Montana temperatures are hovering at zero.
The lady who drove me here leaves for a two-week long hunter jumper show in Tucson, where she and her horses clear every fence and place well in the competitions.
My hosts have a horse for me to ride, a young buckskin paint. His muzzle is a big, wiggly, velvet muscle. His owner describes him as “push button”, which means that instead of kicking him, as in “giddy yap”, you squeeze gently with your lower legs. You ride with loose reins, signaling turns by neck-reining and with leg squeezes, slowing and stopping by sitting back in the saddle, and pulling slightly on the reins, rather than yanking back as in “Whoa, Dobbin.”
We ride into the hills until our camp in the distance looks about the size of an eye’s iris. Horses wear protective pads on their hoofs. We see varieties of cacti, my favorite the cholla, which is made up of glistening, translucent thorns. But you stay away from that one. Its punctures are painful and difficult to extract. They say, “a cholla can reach out and grab ya’.”
Our one stab at hiking lasts fifteen minutes. The path, although too grizzly for walking, is extraordinary, filled as it is with stones that match colors of the sunrise – the reds, oranges, golds, along with an occasional turquoise – and some fragments and rocks glitter and shine in the sunlight. I daydream that some of this is left over from the Big Bang.
Later I ask a neighbor if a three-minute walk from one trailer to another would count as exercise. “You’re darn tootin’,” she replies.
My hosts pick me up for trips to museums and to shop for bargains and oddities. They point to my roof, where a white roadrunner matching my white trailer skitters across. They say these birds don’t fly that high - a very unusual occurrence.
At a museum, I love best the contemporary Navaho blankets, their patterns similar to the old ones, but woven, within the last six years by descendents, with silk along with traditional materials. Flat reds and whites dance against mottled blue-greens that recede like skies.
A recovering hoarder, I buy nothing at the flea markets. I resist striking hand-wrought sculptures at galleries. Instead I take photographs. I try the glassware displayed on long folding tables, of the sun shining through the glass casting transparent shadows on wooden surfaces.
At the end of the day, we walk to one of the two other trailers for supper (not mine, because I’m not fully equipped. Instead, when they allow me to, I treat them to meals in town.) Their dogs bark to warn of approaching visitors. We have show-and-tells: a book of cartoons by a lady about her husband’s dog, drawings and story line professional and very funny.
She pulls out a deck of Medicine Cards, which are very similar to the Tarot. I volunteer. According to the deck’s book of interpretations, the cards I draw have this to say to me: avoid tunnel-vision pursuits. Whatever your project, nurture every part of yourself as you go along. Otherwise, your effort will be fruitless, like that of the musician who tries to play using only three notes.
At night my hosts walk me back to my trailer. I didn’t think to bring a flashlight. Outside, the constellations Big Dipper and Orion look larger and closer. We hear the eerie, high-pitched shriek of a coyote, and then a response from another further away.
As I drift off to sleep, a moth tickles my leg under the bedclothes.
Sunday, March 12, 2006
I've Been Away
For the past two and a half weeks, I've been camped with friends in the Arizona Desert, a wonderful and amazing experience. While writing a detailed post about it, my computer crashed. The pointer is a spinning beachball, until I can get the problem solved.
Tuesday, February 14, 2006
Liability Insurance for Blogging?
My insurance broker told me yesterday that my blog is covered by my homeowner’s policy, but he asked me not to present this as an across-the-board fact. Each case like mine would have to be handled on an individual basis.
I had to work hard to arrive at that definitive “yes.” First I asked Google by email about our business liability as Ad Sense Participants. Here’s what I got back:
“Google does not give out legal advice and if you would like to get an answer to your question, I recommend that you contact an attorney who specializes in this field.”
My attorney said that, as far as he knew, I would not. He’d never heard of a blogger being sued. The key phrase, “as far as he knew”, meant that I had to keep looking for a definitive answer.
Conducting Google searches for blog liability insurance, I came across someone else asking the same question about corporate blog liability.
Suzanna Gardner, author of “Buzz Marketing with Blogs for Dummies, wrote:
Subject: Liability Insurance for Blogging?
“I spoke with a reporter today whose editor has asked for a story on liability insurance for corporate blogs—what companies offer it, what companies are buying it, and what it covers.
It’s a fascinating question—and one I haven’t been asked before (I love those). Unfortunately, it’s the first time it’s come up, at least for me, so I’m looking for anyone out there who has maybe thought about, looked at, or heard anything about blog liability insurance. The article could go a couple of directions, but certainly the obvious questions are, do you need liability insurance for a corporate blog, and do you need coverage when you encourage your employees to blog about their work experiences. So how about it, folks? Anyone know anything about blog liability insurance? You’ll likely get quoted for the article if you do!”
Posted by Susannah Gardner on 11/08 at 07:30 PM • Blogs and Business -- Law and Ethics.
Gardner welcomes any information and insight you might have. Log on to: Susannah Gardner's Website
When I first asked my insurance broker if he ever issued business liability policies to bloggers, he said he had not. After he hung up, he asked the company that issues my homeowner’s policy for a crash course on blogging. Then he asked for a crash course from me. When I described this blog site to him, he took extensive notes. Then he examined my site, along with the ads, until he got the gist of its intent.
The insurance company also looked at my blog, and from there the rep decided that, yes, my homeowner’s policy would cover my site at no additional charge. My broker said that when my blog earned $600.00 or more per year, I might need additional coverage.
So far, my site has earned a grand total of $2.33.
I had to work hard to arrive at that definitive “yes.” First I asked Google by email about our business liability as Ad Sense Participants. Here’s what I got back:
“Google does not give out legal advice and if you would like to get an answer to your question, I recommend that you contact an attorney who specializes in this field.”
My attorney said that, as far as he knew, I would not. He’d never heard of a blogger being sued. The key phrase, “as far as he knew”, meant that I had to keep looking for a definitive answer.
Conducting Google searches for blog liability insurance, I came across someone else asking the same question about corporate blog liability.
Suzanna Gardner, author of “Buzz Marketing with Blogs for Dummies, wrote:
Subject: Liability Insurance for Blogging?
“I spoke with a reporter today whose editor has asked for a story on liability insurance for corporate blogs—what companies offer it, what companies are buying it, and what it covers.
It’s a fascinating question—and one I haven’t been asked before (I love those). Unfortunately, it’s the first time it’s come up, at least for me, so I’m looking for anyone out there who has maybe thought about, looked at, or heard anything about blog liability insurance. The article could go a couple of directions, but certainly the obvious questions are, do you need liability insurance for a corporate blog, and do you need coverage when you encourage your employees to blog about their work experiences. So how about it, folks? Anyone know anything about blog liability insurance? You’ll likely get quoted for the article if you do!”
Posted by Susannah Gardner on 11/08 at 07:30 PM • Blogs and Business -- Law and Ethics.
Gardner welcomes any information and insight you might have. Log on to: Susannah Gardner's Website
When I first asked my insurance broker if he ever issued business liability policies to bloggers, he said he had not. After he hung up, he asked the company that issues my homeowner’s policy for a crash course on blogging. Then he asked for a crash course from me. When I described this blog site to him, he took extensive notes. Then he examined my site, along with the ads, until he got the gist of its intent.
The insurance company also looked at my blog, and from there the rep decided that, yes, my homeowner’s policy would cover my site at no additional charge. My broker said that when my blog earned $600.00 or more per year, I might need additional coverage.
So far, my site has earned a grand total of $2.33.
Monday, February 13, 2006
Review of "Publishing A Blog with Blogger," by Elizabeth Castro
This book is like an instruction manual that comes with a new camera, but much better. Large color photographs of Blogger.com’s pages, along with clear instructions, helped me navigate the high seas of blogging. It is available at Amazon.com.
Castro shows you every aspect of your blog— launching, posting, digital imagery, editing, and advertising. I examined each feature, opened and closed each until they became as familiar to me as my stove and car. Best of all I overcame the fear that I’d break something accidentally, let’s say, erased a link or two that my tech trainer had created.
She wrote the book for both Mac and PC users and carefully deals with compatibility issues by warning that some of the book’s illustrations might not match what you see on your screen. She then guides you along alternative routes.
Taking a few hours to study Castro’s crash-course manual saved me days of trial and error. I recommend it to all bloggers with Blogger.com.
Castro shows you every aspect of your blog— launching, posting, digital imagery, editing, and advertising. I examined each feature, opened and closed each until they became as familiar to me as my stove and car. Best of all I overcame the fear that I’d break something accidentally, let’s say, erased a link or two that my tech trainer had created.
She wrote the book for both Mac and PC users and carefully deals with compatibility issues by warning that some of the book’s illustrations might not match what you see on your screen. She then guides you along alternative routes.
Taking a few hours to study Castro’s crash-course manual saved me days of trial and error. I recommend it to all bloggers with Blogger.com.
Saturday, February 11, 2006
What is Good Blog Writing?
Here it is for the umpteenth time: revise until spelling, grammar, and syntax are ready for public view, in other words, absolutely correct. I do my best, which doesn’t mean perfect. I’ve found myself revising posts.
My favorite non-fiction writing centers on emotions felt by the characters, whose feelings trigger actions that evolve into anecdotes or stories. Both story and anecdote have a beginning, middle, and end. I’m working on my posts until they look a little more like that. I believe a good nonfiction writer takes you by the hand and leads you through the door and into a setting. But too often, the start of a typical post of mine would begin with me at my computer, staring out of the window, trying to decide what to write.
Right now I can imagine an alternative beginning for a future post, wrangling with my satellite Internet installers. During the satellite service installation, I’m imagining the installers asking questions I can’t answer. I’m imagining that those trees to the south, which they had said earlier would not interfere with reception from the equator-hovering satellite itself, actually do pose interference, but it’s too late to get a refund for the equipment.
Nonfiction story writing experts suggest escalating conflict until there is a declared winner, or loser. In that post, I would include installers’ frantic cell phone calls to headquarters, their facial expressions, body language, and anything else that would help my reader get a picture of what’s going on. Basically, I’d try to include all sensual input, what I see, smell, hear, touch, or taste.
At the end of that post, I deeply hope that I can declare myself a winner, that I’d have a high speed service, a clearer path to a wider variety in cyberspace, and that I will be able to offer you all the how’s, the what’s, the who’s, the where’s, and the why’s.
On “Online Journalism Review”, its article, “How to Write for The Web,” offers some good tips. Log onto:
http://www.ojr.org/ojr/wiki/Writing/
My favorite non-fiction writing centers on emotions felt by the characters, whose feelings trigger actions that evolve into anecdotes or stories. Both story and anecdote have a beginning, middle, and end. I’m working on my posts until they look a little more like that. I believe a good nonfiction writer takes you by the hand and leads you through the door and into a setting. But too often, the start of a typical post of mine would begin with me at my computer, staring out of the window, trying to decide what to write.
Right now I can imagine an alternative beginning for a future post, wrangling with my satellite Internet installers. During the satellite service installation, I’m imagining the installers asking questions I can’t answer. I’m imagining that those trees to the south, which they had said earlier would not interfere with reception from the equator-hovering satellite itself, actually do pose interference, but it’s too late to get a refund for the equipment.
Nonfiction story writing experts suggest escalating conflict until there is a declared winner, or loser. In that post, I would include installers’ frantic cell phone calls to headquarters, their facial expressions, body language, and anything else that would help my reader get a picture of what’s going on. Basically, I’d try to include all sensual input, what I see, smell, hear, touch, or taste.
At the end of that post, I deeply hope that I can declare myself a winner, that I’d have a high speed service, a clearer path to a wider variety in cyberspace, and that I will be able to offer you all the how’s, the what’s, the who’s, the where’s, and the why’s.
On “Online Journalism Review”, its article, “How to Write for The Web,” offers some good tips. Log onto:
http://www.ojr.org/ojr/wiki/Writing/
Wednesday, February 08, 2006
We Don't Have to Wash Out of Cyberspace
When I first viewed a line of “html” a while back, I blinked, froze, and asked my tech trainer to handle it. I’d hired him to design my website, a portfolio of my artwork. That’s why he’s here, right? Creating my artworks kept me busy enough, right?
But blinking, freezing, and passing it on keeps threatening to wash me out of cyberspace. Techniques to combat these behaviors: Breathe deeply until very still inside. Understand exactly why I need all this kind of stuff: to get out of my back yard. Blow off embarrassment about not getting it immediately. After the last session with my tech trainer, I gave myself a homework assignment to create links on this blog.
I’ll stop a second here to tell you that I’d been reading Elizabeth Castro’s book “Publishing a Blog with Blogger”, which I’d ordered through Amazon.com. I examined each feature of Blogger, opened and closed them again and again over and over, until they became as familiar to me as my stove or my car. Best of all I overcame the fear that I’d break something accidentally, let’s say, erased a link or two that my trainer had created.
From the Template feature, Edit Current, I copied one of my trainer’s lines for a link, pasted it onto a Word document. You might wonder why I included the Word document in this procedure. Well, on the Word document, I could scrutinize the line, making sure every word and symbol were correct before moving on to Blogger’s Template, Edit Current.
On the Word document, I erased the address and title in that line and replaced them with the address and title of the new link that I wanted to create. Then I copied the revised line into the Template, Edit Current. Instructions for saving and republishing are clear. So far, so good.
The title of the link appeared on my blog. Fine. But when I clicked on the link, I got an error sign. When a hidden ding compels you to throw your computer against the wall, repeat the above exercises. When my trainer showed up, we got to work on this ding immediately. Almost by accident, he’d found out earlier that you couldn’t paste an “html” line copied from Word onto Template, Edit Current. Using TextWrangler, we could.
By the time of this post, I had hoped to find out what if any business insurance policy you would need for an advertising blog. I have found out nothing. If you find your way here and have any information about this subject, I would deeply appreciate your input.
Next leg: I’ll read Elizabeth Castro’s book, “HTML for The World Wide Web.” Castro’s books are excellent training manuals. In "Publishing a Blog with Blogger," large full color illustrations, with clear labeling, draw you in and keep you reading and puttering page after page.
But blinking, freezing, and passing it on keeps threatening to wash me out of cyberspace. Techniques to combat these behaviors: Breathe deeply until very still inside. Understand exactly why I need all this kind of stuff: to get out of my back yard. Blow off embarrassment about not getting it immediately. After the last session with my tech trainer, I gave myself a homework assignment to create links on this blog.
I’ll stop a second here to tell you that I’d been reading Elizabeth Castro’s book “Publishing a Blog with Blogger”, which I’d ordered through Amazon.com. I examined each feature of Blogger, opened and closed them again and again over and over, until they became as familiar to me as my stove or my car. Best of all I overcame the fear that I’d break something accidentally, let’s say, erased a link or two that my trainer had created.
From the Template feature, Edit Current, I copied one of my trainer’s lines for a link, pasted it onto a Word document. You might wonder why I included the Word document in this procedure. Well, on the Word document, I could scrutinize the line, making sure every word and symbol were correct before moving on to Blogger’s Template, Edit Current.
On the Word document, I erased the address and title in that line and replaced them with the address and title of the new link that I wanted to create. Then I copied the revised line into the Template, Edit Current. Instructions for saving and republishing are clear. So far, so good.
The title of the link appeared on my blog. Fine. But when I clicked on the link, I got an error sign. When a hidden ding compels you to throw your computer against the wall, repeat the above exercises. When my trainer showed up, we got to work on this ding immediately. Almost by accident, he’d found out earlier that you couldn’t paste an “html” line copied from Word onto Template, Edit Current. Using TextWrangler, we could.
By the time of this post, I had hoped to find out what if any business insurance policy you would need for an advertising blog. I have found out nothing. If you find your way here and have any information about this subject, I would deeply appreciate your input.
Next leg: I’ll read Elizabeth Castro’s book, “HTML for The World Wide Web.” Castro’s books are excellent training manuals. In "Publishing a Blog with Blogger," large full color illustrations, with clear labeling, draw you in and keep you reading and puttering page after page.
Wednesday, February 01, 2006
Ad Sense Zeroes in on What I Really Am
As I set out to conquer cyber-phobia, I’m learning to keep an eye out for the kinds of preconceptions about cyberspace that scare the wits out of me in the first place.
First, what would I advertise on my blog and how? I imagined working as a blog broker for companies whose products I use because they make my life on cyberspace easy and enjoyable. I was thinking about Microsoft (Mac OS), Canon (printers and cameras), Apple computers (notebooks), and Adobe. But what if a flaky customer, who had logged onto my site, clicked an advertisement for one of those companies, ordered through me, and then stiffed the company? Would I get sued? I’ll need to ask my insurance agent what kind of business liability insurance policy I need.
At our last meeting, my tech trainer helped me complete my Ad Sense application. Ad Sense, owned by Google, serves subscribing companies by inserting their ads on appropriate blogs on Blogger.com. Google also owns Blogger.com. Ad Sense selects ads for the blogger. I don’t choose my ads, Ad Sense does.
How does Ad Sense select appropriate ads for a new participant? The devises they use are called spiders. Spiders scan your content and select ads that reflect your blog’s message. I worried that the spiders would find nothing. “Wait,” I said to my trainer. “I’ll need to post material that mentions computers, photo printers, digital image processing, and browsers.”
Then I decided to let the spiders do their work without interference. Let me be surprised. I was. Ad Sense zeroed in on exactly what I was — a PHOBE. I am not a nonfiction writer. I’m not a blog broker of top-rated tech equipment. To the Ad Sense spiders, I am first and foremost a person with phobia.
Delicately, Ad Sense sprinkled ads offering healing resources. Speak to an audience without fear. Fly in an airplane without fear. During all my surfing, I’d never thought once to look for blogs or sites about phobias. Next leg: Google "phobias"
First, what would I advertise on my blog and how? I imagined working as a blog broker for companies whose products I use because they make my life on cyberspace easy and enjoyable. I was thinking about Microsoft (Mac OS), Canon (printers and cameras), Apple computers (notebooks), and Adobe. But what if a flaky customer, who had logged onto my site, clicked an advertisement for one of those companies, ordered through me, and then stiffed the company? Would I get sued? I’ll need to ask my insurance agent what kind of business liability insurance policy I need.
At our last meeting, my tech trainer helped me complete my Ad Sense application. Ad Sense, owned by Google, serves subscribing companies by inserting their ads on appropriate blogs on Blogger.com. Google also owns Blogger.com. Ad Sense selects ads for the blogger. I don’t choose my ads, Ad Sense does.
How does Ad Sense select appropriate ads for a new participant? The devises they use are called spiders. Spiders scan your content and select ads that reflect your blog’s message. I worried that the spiders would find nothing. “Wait,” I said to my trainer. “I’ll need to post material that mentions computers, photo printers, digital image processing, and browsers.”
Then I decided to let the spiders do their work without interference. Let me be surprised. I was. Ad Sense zeroed in on exactly what I was — a PHOBE. I am not a nonfiction writer. I’m not a blog broker of top-rated tech equipment. To the Ad Sense spiders, I am first and foremost a person with phobia.
Delicately, Ad Sense sprinkled ads offering healing resources. Speak to an audience without fear. Fly in an airplane without fear. During all my surfing, I’d never thought once to look for blogs or sites about phobias. Next leg: Google "phobias"
Wednesday, January 25, 2006
Blog Naming
My subconscious never runs out of ways that I can hide. A large part of my cyber-phobia is stage fright. After blindfolding myself, I have set out to speak to an audience that extends to infinity on all sides.
The first name I chose for this site was “humchum”, which, after a while, started to suggest to me background nonsense noise or flan pudding. Was this to keep people from finding me?
I logged on to two of my favorite sites, Smoking Gun (http://www.thesmokinggun.com) and the Drudge Report (http://www.drudgereport.com). Both have edgy names, and each has a mission. Missions aim to address issues and solve problems. Missions are born as obsessions.
What is your obsession? I believe you won’t have to look far. What do you think about most of the time, when there are all kinds of other activities you’d rather put your heart into?
For me, one of the most difficult things about solving a problem is to define it and put it into words. I’d been describing myself as a techno-retard, a chortle thrown in to soften the remark.
But inside I was not laughing. When did that technological-revolution bus take off? Why did I miss it? I hired my tech tutor, and we started with what I considered essentials. By the time I decided to launch a blog, I considered myself fairly competent when using the computer technology that I needed: laptop, word processing, and digital visuals.
So right now my problem isn’t fear of computer technology in general, but rather of cyberspace in particular — of glitches, of crashes, of committing an unforgettable, unpardonable breach of cyber-etiquette, and of identity theft.
So I changed my blog’s name from “Humchum” to “Cyber-phobe Diaries.” (My tech tutor suggested that I hypenate "cyberphobe" so that it would be easier to read.) My blog's mission is to share my journey into cyberspace and, I hope, to unravel a few of the Internet’s mysteries.
The first name I chose for this site was “humchum”, which, after a while, started to suggest to me background nonsense noise or flan pudding. Was this to keep people from finding me?
I logged on to two of my favorite sites, Smoking Gun (http://www.thesmokinggun.com) and the Drudge Report (http://www.drudgereport.com). Both have edgy names, and each has a mission. Missions aim to address issues and solve problems. Missions are born as obsessions.
What is your obsession? I believe you won’t have to look far. What do you think about most of the time, when there are all kinds of other activities you’d rather put your heart into?
For me, one of the most difficult things about solving a problem is to define it and put it into words. I’d been describing myself as a techno-retard, a chortle thrown in to soften the remark.
But inside I was not laughing. When did that technological-revolution bus take off? Why did I miss it? I hired my tech tutor, and we started with what I considered essentials. By the time I decided to launch a blog, I considered myself fairly competent when using the computer technology that I needed: laptop, word processing, and digital visuals.
So right now my problem isn’t fear of computer technology in general, but rather of cyberspace in particular — of glitches, of crashes, of committing an unforgettable, unpardonable breach of cyber-etiquette, and of identity theft.
So I changed my blog’s name from “Humchum” to “Cyber-phobe Diaries.” (My tech tutor suggested that I hypenate "cyberphobe" so that it would be easier to read.) My blog's mission is to share my journey into cyberspace and, I hope, to unravel a few of the Internet’s mysteries.
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