Category: Publishing

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Blogfest and Blogathon

Devil of a wife

Tonight is a Blogfest! We will be there. Rich, one of our Blogathon partners is already at Bailey’s on his shift.

Bailey’s holds a special place for Cathy and I because that was where we had our first date. We met for all of 2 minutes at a Halloween party being thrown at my house then 4 months later we were behaving like nervous school kids on a first date over a pool table at Bailey’s. I rapid fired every joke, with increasing naughtiness, I knew to cover my nervousness. Cathy flirted and wow’d me seducing me with her beauty and wit then upping the ante on my innuendos until everyone in the bar had quit playing pool to watch us being suggestive with pool cues, lessons, and across the table exposures. We had a blast! And our friends who got us together to commiserate our similar situations, hoping that we would take some frustrations out on each other and move on, just sat back and enjoyed the show as two grown adults fumbled around trying to remember how to date.

I almost blew our relationship. I was so overcome by Cathy that I really did not want to screw things up by coming on to hard. So in the parking lot I tried to be all casual and attempted to say, "I don’t want you to feel pressured or rushed into a relationship" but the words came out something like "if you want to get together and have sex without a commitment, I’m your man!" Oh yeah! Smoooooth.

Heading to Bailey’s! Oh! You can still sponsor us! Pleeaasse! Read more here.

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You don’t get what you don’t ask for

I have seen a lot of content theft from Reality Me. Yes, I publish full RSS feeds because I like to read full RSS feeds and you get what you give. But that makes it easier for robotic blogs to steal the content and present it as their own. The only way I know about the theft is that I allow trackbacks in my comments. Fortunately, many of my posts link to other information on Reality Me so when someone steals my content I instantly know. That also puts me in a quandary. Technically, these sites are helping my page rank and validating my blog by giving links back to me. On the other hand, they are diminishing the quality of the content (as viewed by the search engines) since the content of the post is duplicated in its entirety. So, do I ignore the theft valuing my time and the links to my blog more than the theft of my hard work? (see comments 6, 7 and 8 on this post that I composed over the course of a week) Or do I waste valuable time tracking down the owner of the blog and pursing legal recourses to stop the infringement?

When I noticed that another post was stolen on June 30, I decided to follow Lorelle VanFossen’s advice and contact the thief. I posted the following as a comment on the other blog:

This is to advise you that you are using copyrighted and protected material on your website/blog. Your illegal use of XXXX article at XXXURLXXX is originally from my website/blog called XXTITLEXXX at XXXURLXXX. This is original content and I am the author and copyright holder. Use of copyright protected material without permission is illegal under copyright laws.

Please take one or more of the following actions immediately:

* Re-write the post to include excerpts with a link to the original content.
* Credit the material specifically to me, as author, and my website [be specific].
* Provide compensation for use of my copyright protected material of $XX.00 USD paid via [payment method].
* Remove the plagiarized material immediately.

I expect a response within 5 days to this issue. Thank you for your immediate action on this matter.
[Source]

Naturally I filled in all the Xs appropriately. Surprisingly it took less time to do that than it is taking to write this post. And in just about as much time, the theft had turned to honorable blogger by changing the post to a summary and giving an appropriate attribution. I was pleasantly surprised and no longer harbored ill feelings toward the other person. I even followed up with a thank you comment. I feel we both win this way.

Lorelle VanFossen has more fantastic insight into the problem of content theft explaining image theft, feed scraping, and website hijacking. She also explains what to do when you become a victim of content theft.

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Drupal – Not bad

I just finished a Drupal theming project. I rode a steep learning curve but I can dig Drupal now. Styling with css. Custom PHP. Custom nodes and blocks. Pretty cool! I do not think Drupal will steal me away from WordPress for blogging but it may steer me toward using it as a CMS platform for business website applications for businesses that want to have regular updates (ala blogging) and more interaction with their customers (ala forums).

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Video Blogging and Video Commenting

Phillip has gotten all modern on us and posted a video which encourages video comments. Can anyone figure out why Phillip’s female readership is HUGE? My comment is below:

I will extend the same offer as The Blue Sloth. If you submit a video comment, I’ll get it onto this post somehow. You will need to record your video below then cut and paste the code into the comments section.