Where, oh where does the week go? I guess for Patrick Swayze one week is a gift. For the rest of us, a week is seven days in a row where everything happens except for the fun stuff that you want to do.
Working all day long doesn’t leave time to type in a post. Then, driving home I hear something that would be a GREAT idea for a post, and start thinking about all the points to make, all the research to do to prove my point, and then, by the time I finally get home and in front of the computer, I have some other work to do, and when it’s done, it’s time to go to bed.
That great idea that I had is gone, never to come back again, until the next day when the cycle repeats. Once in a while, I’ll remember some topic on which I want to write, and I’ll have enough time to find a fact or two. Where do I save it? Not on my Google Home Page, no sir-ee. I start a post and copy the URL into it. Then I get sidetracked, start reading my feeds, checking out eBay, reading Paid Emails and other stuff.
There is good news, however, and it has nothing to do with car insurance. The good news, my friends, is that during all my sidetracks and zig-zagging through the Internet, I have finally learned what the Internet is for. You may be as surprised as I think you might be, but when you really think about it, the Internet is really for one thing. No, it’s not for spreading information around through a decentralized system of servers. It’s not even for making money. It is for one thing, and one thing only.
“The Hole” now has the reCAPTCHA anti-spam plugin. Automated scripts are a pain in the ass, and hopefully they can’t read. With the reCAPTCHA, humans must type in the words, not unlike purchasing Hanna Montana tickets. I still blame Comment Kahuna as it requires someone to actually look at the site. Sometimes. Up to today, we’ve been getting spam crap like
Great Job Boys 8675309af5c
This is just what I was looking for. Keep it up 234ac33d
I too, have issues with [insert name of post here].
This will help me back in Bangalore.
The question I have for these comment spammers is “Where does it work?” It’s the same question for the 858 spam emails that I have wanting me to purchase “\/i@gra.” Who is the idiot who buys this crap from people who don’t even know how to spell it? Obviously, some moron has to be buying from the spammers or they’d stop, wouldn’t they?
“I sent out my link to the top 10,204,285 emails and got twenty people to buy this crap. Must be a pretty good deal. I think I’ll change my web address and send it out again. Maybe I’ll get another 20 purchases.”
Anyway, I added the reCAPTCHA yesterday, and in conjunction with Akismet, I’m getting no spam comments. The next step is defeating the splogs who copy a paragraph of your post and adding it to theirs.
Today, Pie Hole wrote:
“…question I have for these comment spammers is “Where does it work?” It’s the same question for the 858 spam emails that I have wanting me to purchase “\/i@gra.” Who is the idiot who buys this crap from people who don’t even know how to spell it? Obviously… read more“
Seriously. Spammers must die. Until then, they can BLOW IT OUT THEIR PIE HOLES!
Plenty of people out there will tell you how to make money with a blog. Darren Rowse is apparently one of the best. John Chow is another guy making big money off blogging. A quick Google search reveals 47 pages of web pages (20 at a time) that want to tell you how to “make money blogging.” I’m not sure how many people have time to read each and every one of those 928 Google entries to learn how to make money with a blog, but I have a good idea how they read, and I’m sure that many of them will sell you a program to show you how to make money blogging for just $500$400$300$197 $37.
In no particular order, this is your standard list of ways to make money blogging.
Keyword Content
You need to have good content, with your embedded keywords jammed into each post as many times a possible, but without seeming obvious. If you want to help people make money blogging, you should tell people that you can help them make money blogging. It’s like a thesis. You tell them that you have tips to help make money blogging, you tell them the tips to make money blogging, and then you tell the reader that you have given them tips to make money blogging.
At the end of every year, the hordes of people who know things better than you do come out with their top ten lists. Here at The Hole, the best thing that we can come up with is a list of the most popular posts since I installed the Popularity Contest plugin in October. This rates each post on various criteria, but basically it shows which posts have been seen more than others.
Next year, we should be able to have a better list, as we have just installed the PostRatings plugin. Go ahead and give those posts a rating. It’s like instant, anonymous feedback, and next year, we’ll have a top ten list of the best rated posts.
So I’m nearing the end of my hosting subscription with one provider. And now, in the age of cheap, multiple domains, I’m looking to consolidate my hosting. Sure, there are the Free Hosts, which work by putting an ad on your page, but every once in a while you want a grown up host. Of course, there are dangers of having all your sites in one location.
I’m compiling a list, slowly but semi-surely of all the places that I can find that allow you to host multiple domains on their sites. Since most sites that do have different plans, ranging from one to unlimited domains, I’m only going to include their unlimited domain packages on my list. Also important to me is SSH and SSL support. Since I use Google Apps for Domains, I don’t care how many email addresses the host uses, and since it’s just me, I only need one ftp account. I’m not sure why most of the places that I’ve looked at brag about how many ftp accounts the provide, but it seems to be exciting to someone.
So here it is, the beginning of the list. It’s my Google Doc, which claims to be republished every time I make a change. That’s not to say that you will be seeing constant and instantaneous changes, but it’s a start until I decide that it’s too much for a little spread sheet and make it a new page in the Pie Hole Empire.
Holy Cow! I just saw that Google Adds IMAP Support To GMail. We use Google Apps for Domains here at “The Hole,” and now that I have discovered it, I do not see why more people and companies do not take advantage of it. Like all things, it is true that this isn’t the best thing for all people and companies, but taking 4 gigs of email off your home computer and putting it on Google’s redundant servers for the price of nothing sounds like a no brainer.
I am using this for most of my domains, although they wouldn’t let me sign up for my NaNoWriMo domain. I’m not sure why. I picked Pen Is Mightier.Info and they wouldn’t let me use Google Apps for Domains. Strangely enough they let me use the domain for a Blogger redirect.
BlogRush is in Phase 2, after introduction and taking everyone who applied. Now, they are cleaning up the spam blogs, non English blogs, and low quality blogs. They report cutting over 10,000 blogs from their network. I’m glad to see some networks cleaning up crap. In surfing between MyBlogLog network accounts, I see some sites that are in the beginning phases, non English, and “poor quality.” Most notably are the sites in the network that do not have the widget.
The scariest thing about BlogRush is that Blog It Out Your Pie Hole is still a network member. Maybe it’s the best thing.
So I just checked my Alexa ranking. I had a little boost, up from 4,426,952 to 3,578,624, which is what by badge is now claiming. Right now, the toolbar is boasting an impressive 792,514. That’s up 3.6 Million in just a couple of weeks. I can’t say for certain what any one particular change was, but here is what I did.
I changed the site theme. Made it more aesthetically pleasing. It used to be a gawdawful orange, now, as you can see, it’s more crisp and it just looks better. I think that more people who have never been here could tell, through the universal ether, that the site is beautiful and they should come visit. Read the rest of this entry »
I woke up this morning, which is better than the alternative, and remembered a weird dream. Sure, you’ve had those dreams before, but when you still remember it 2 hours later, it’s a goodie. I still remember parts of a dream I had after returning from a High School Jazz Festival in Florida in the late 80’s. I need to write this down as parts are fading, fast.
Anyway, I was some sort of secret, undercover guy. The scene opened at night time. I had a storefront to complete my image of whatever it was that I was pretending to do to be legit. The next morning, the storefront would be vacant, just as it was three days ago, with a big black and yellow “For Lease” sign in the window. I walked over to the place where I would be waiting for some guy. He was the type of guy who people were starting to believe didn’t exist. Anytime reporters or the public would call, he was out of the office. You would end up with a message from him on your answering machine, but no one ever spoke to him, directly or over the phone.
So I had this item on eBay. Didn’t sell, so I ran the listing again. Still didn’t sell. Make me an offer and it could be yours. It’s unused. It’s out of the box. Some piehole purchased the wrong adapter. I posted it for $14.99 with shipping costs (USPS) estimated at $6.34. It will be in the same box that the vendor shipped to me, in the same packing materials. I’ll actually throw some more packing in there, as the piece of bubble wrap fell into the hands of a 4-year old. First person to use the contact form below with an acceptable offer gets it.
An unused AC Power adapter for your Dymo LabelMANAGER 100, 200, 300, LabelPOINT 200, 300, DYMO 1000, 1000 Plus, 2000, 3500, 4000, 4500, or 5500.This came direct, sealed in the box new from a vendor. We opened it, and found that someone ordered the wrong adapter. This has not been used. Except for the open box, this is exactly the way it arrived, including the box and packing materials in which it came from the vendor. If you get this direct from Dymo.com, you will pay $24.95, plus $6.75 or more shipping and tax. I opened the box, you save $10. Use this, save battery money. Once this sells, I can get the correct adapter for my Dymo. It’s a WIN-WIN for both of us. Buy it now.
