Disqus - Latest Comments for Lorelle

Re: Upgraded to Wordpress 2.1

Lorelle — Sat, 27 Jan 2007 12:53:06 -0000

It loaded fine and fast for me. If you worry about cache and related issues, consider adding the WP-Cache WordPress Plugin. Many are reporting faster responses and access.

And don't assume the autosave feature is only for those who write online. And don't assume all regular bloggers use offsite or other tools for writing their material. I complained about this bitterly when repeatedly I lost what I was working on, written up elsewhere but doing last minute edit checks before posting via the WordPress Write Post panel. A slip of the backspace key sends the browser window back a page, losing what you've done. Thinking everything is fine and hitting Publish, only to have the system crash, Internet access go offline, or other problems can also lose post data. It only takes a second and your post is history.

So the autosave feature isn't limited to online writers. It helps everyone, just in case things go bork in the post. ;-)

Re: changes at WordPress - Blog in isolation

Lorelle — Mon, 17 Apr 2006 19:56:21 -0000

Excellent points on the little annoying details that we WISH we could fix but are stuck with, at the mercy of Theme designers. I don't mind the categories under the title, if the overall look of the Theme makes it blend it, but you are totally right about the author. If you are the only author, why bother. And if they have to have it, then why not put "By Andy C" instead of the long statement. "Posted by" could mean anything, and doesn't imply you are even the author, just the dude who posted it. The simple word "by" implies so much and gives credit where credit is due. I'm with you on that one.

And "add comment" at the top? That's odd. I never comment until I'm done with the article, so why anticipate and beg for comments like that. Very odd addition.

And why should the name, email and url of the comment be below the comment box? That's also odd. Feels uncomfortably lopsided, don't you think? How do you feel about that?

Let the Theme designer know how you feel about these things, and also check tomake sure smilies don't wig out the text and you can use the CODE and PRE tags without them looking like the rest of the text. There was so much I loved about this Theme but so much that made me crazy.

I'm glad you are paying attention and I hope the break was a fun one!

Re: the curious case of the missing 'About' page - Digging in a Habari sandpit

Lorelle — Wed, 21 Jun 2006 17:40:42 -0000

It's a good start. ;-)

Re: blog anniversary - Digging in a Habari sandpit

Lorelle — Tue, 22 Aug 2006 11:17:26 -0000

Excellent! And I don't mean that as a pun.

One of the joys of writing blogs is figuring out what you will write, how you will write, and, best of all, why you write. The value of what is important when writing changes. Many start to do it "because everyone else is", then they find a pleasure in exposing their thoughts publicly.

Then comes the annual review and we look back on what we've done and find that we did great things or that we need to improve, or even that we need to stop doing it, whatever it is, and do something else. It's a great thing, isn't it?

So I say "excellent" with heart-felt meaning. Keep it up and next year, I'll be eager to hear what you have to review about this year's work.

Re: How to send 1000 people to a 404 error page

Lorelle — Wed, 07 Feb 2007 12:34:45 -0000

You aren't alone. I've done this...let's just say "before" and not how many times. ;-) Good for you for catching it so soon.

One thing I HATE is when I make a mizzed spelling in the title and post slug. I can fix it easily in the title, but the post slug, well, after it's been linked to by a few hundred folks, it's hard to change that, but redirect definitely helps. Wish I could do that on WordPress.com blogs.

Re: How to send 1000 people to a 404 error page

Lorelle — Wed, 07 Feb 2007 12:34:45 -0000

Re: Introduction To Ultimate Tag Warrior | Lorelle

Lorelle — Tue, 20 Feb 2007 12:19:58 -0000

Too funny! You're trying to start something here, aren't you? ;-)

BTW: The comments policy thing is interesting, though painful to use. How about a link back to the last page visited with a refreshed page view so only those who understood what I just wrote could leave a comment. :D

Re: Introduction To Ultimate Tag Warrior | Lorelle

Lorelle — Tue, 20 Feb 2007 12:19:58 -0000

Re: Linking Mistakes Frequently Encountered On Blogs

Lorelle — Wed, 06 Jun 2007 19:38:27 -0000

One of the big link mistakes many make is not having their post title in a link, even on the single post view.

1. It's a quick grab with a link copying utility like Firefox's CoLT (Copy Link) Extension to grab the link of the post title and paste it in your blog post for fast referencing.
2. If the page is saved to the computer, it now has a permanent URL to get back to the original online version through the post title.
3. If the page doesn't load right, refresh would work, but sometimes clicking the post title reloads it nice and lovely.

Oh, there's more, but for those of us power bloggers, grabbing the post title off a multi-post view or single post view for copy and paste into our blog posts takes the tediousness out of writing out the link or putting it into a button/popup window, it's the most important reason. Let nothing get in the way of us blogging about your blog post. ;-)

Re: Linking Mistakes Frequently Encountered On Blogs

Lorelle — Wed, 06 Jun 2007 19:38:27 -0000

Re: Flock and WordPress.com, nifty tools

Lorelle — Tue, 23 Aug 2005 02:03:32 -0000

Looking around at all the hype about wordpress.com, appropriately so, I stumbled on this. Someone is offering an invite to wordpress.com on ebay. Maybe the waiting list to get your free invite is long, but I laughed at this. Typical Internet. Still, wordpress.com is a very great idea and will probably change the face of blogging in the future.

Re: 30 days of WordPress plugins

Lorelle — Mon, 22 Jan 2007 12:38:12 -0000

I'm glad you are excited about the month of February. Something to look forward to!

Be sure and stop by to let me know if you have any specific WordPress Plugin topics you'd like to see covered. I'm taking requests. ;-)

Re: The Good Fight

Lorelle — Mon, 13 Nov 2006 12:42:14 -0000

SCORE ONE FOR THE GOOD GUYS! This is fabulous. Your post makes my war on comment spam totally worthy.

And on behalf of your readers, who might not understand what your action really means to them, thank you.

Remember, Akismet is a learning tool so marking any comment spam that gets through sends a note to Akismet to help them learn what is comment spam and what is not. We still have a year or so before the battle against comment spam is closer to perfection as the comment spammers are always trying to beat the system. So far, the folks behind Akismet and other WordPress comment spam fighting tools are 2 steps ahead of them.

Re: Strange World Of Website Reselling

Lorelle — Sat, 17 Feb 2007 17:10:59 -0000

Just a bit of clarification. Lorelle on WordPress and the Blog Herald are not for sale, though I can't speak much for the Blog Herald. I can however speak for Lorelle on WordPress. ;-)

Re: How to Get Your Website Listed Quickly on Major Search Engines

Lorelle — Fri, 27 Oct 2006 12:42:38 -0000

Your blog was found because you are using WordPress which automatically uses pinging. Pings get you into search engines faster than anything else. Sit back and enjoy the ride as WordPress does the work for you. ;-)

Re: Spam Protection Plugin for Your Site

Lorelle — Sun, 05 Nov 2006 13:09:15 -0000

If you use Akismet, Spam Karma, and Bad Behavior, in combination or alone, you will not have to torture users who want to comment. Believe it or not, there are some very highly intelligent folks out there who suffer from number "problems" and what appears to be a simple math problem is complex to them.

Why make them jump hoops when one or more of these other free plugins will do the work so you don't have to and they don't have to?

Re: Spam Protection Plugin for Your Site: Update

Lorelle — Fri, 10 Nov 2006 15:54:16 -0000

You are very welcome!

Re: How to Get Your Website Listed Quickly on Major Search Engines

Lorelle — Fri, 27 Oct 2006 12:42:38 -0000

Re: Spam Protection Plugin for Your Site

Lorelle — Sun, 05 Nov 2006 13:09:15 -0000

Re: Spam Protection Plugin for Your Site: Update

Lorelle — Fri, 10 Nov 2006 15:54:16 -0000

You are very welcome!

Re: Anyone Can Be An Expert, It Has Nothing To Do With Time Served

Lorelle — Thu, 29 Mar 2007 13:51:43 -0000

Which then begs the question of defining "value".

We throw these words around as if they mean something. If they do, what do they mean? How would you know if a blog you are visiting has the value that makes it qualify as "expertise"? unless you cruise through and inspect and verify everything that is said.

There are a lot of bloggers who have a lot to say who call themselves experts but the evidence isn't there to back them up. The volume is, but the validity isn't.

So what does "value" mean in this context?

Re: Anyone Can Be An Expert, It Has Nothing To Do With Time Served

Lorelle — Thu, 29 Mar 2007 14:40:30 -0000

It's up to the consumer? Then what are the clues they need to look for on a blog in order to determine if the value is real or not. There isn't a Better Business Bureau for Blogs. No real criteria that helps us to decide who is bluster and who passes muster.

We throw around words like "expert" and "value" all the time without really exploring what they mean and what qualifications they have. I'm just asking people to think about how they use these words and how they determine the expert value of a blogger. I think bloggers need to explore this for themselves as well as for the "expert" blogs they visit.

Re: Wordpress Comment Plugins: Building A Fortress To Defend Against Spam!

Lorelle — Wed, 28 Mar 2007 13:21:26 -0000

Jess, you should be. CAPTCHAS don't work and they also tend to tick off users. I'm looking at one on this blog that I can barely figure out what the letters are right now.

It's kinda like gambling. I don't know if this will work when I hit the submit button. Based on years of experience with these, most of the time they don't work and I have to try again or give up. Painful.

With the growing sophistication of comment spam bots, and the growing number of hired human comment spammers out there, these are easily overcome. CAPTCHAs are not a defense but a nuisance.

The rest of the arsenal in the article is great, and Spam Karma can add a great third line of defense, picking up what Akismet and Bad Behavior miss and acting as a backstop.

Re: WordPress Misunderstanding [UPDATED TITLE]

Lorelle — Thu, 27 Oct 2005 15:23:47 -0000

I'd just like to add my 14 cents. Akismet is still "new" and as far as I'm concerned, still in beta testing. There are some little oddities that need to get fixed. By limiting access to the wordpress.com users, those who signed up a while ago to help test and get this started, and now Flock users, the testing continues before opening it up to the general public.

I'm never thrilled with these exclusive sign up things and tend to stay away from them when possible, but the gimmick of "invites" and "exclusive" continues to work. Hype and being "one of the first" motivates people to try just about anything. I feel like an old fuddy duddy, but I like waiting until everyone else has suffered the bugs before I plunge in.

But hype sells. And like they say, if it works, don't fix it.

Re: Linking by Petersen Inc

Lorelle — Wed, 23 May 2007 13:07:08 -0000

I love your description "if you can't handle the truth". Well said! Thank you!

Re: Blogging for your Business: Five Reasons why you should Blog

Lorelle — Sat, 26 May 2007 21:02:11 -0000

And I'd like to add "great point" on the contribution and prove your abilities aspects. I tell all my students and businesses I consult with that their blog is their resume. If it doesn't speak well for them, and contribute to the online world and their business, then don't bother. Thanks for making those points as they are critical.

Re: Getting Things Blogged: Contacts, Authors and Contributors

Lorelle — Wed, 06 Jun 2007 17:46:34 -0000

Not knowing what a GTD system is (which is an important point, don't you think?), I appreciate the compliment. :D

Re: Blogger Citizenship: 5 things you can do for you, and your community

Lorelle — Mon, 11 Jun 2007 17:18:42 -0000

Excellent example of how to be a good blog citizen. One BIG characteristic I think you left off your list was to set an example.

You can set an example of how to be a good citizen of the blogosphere by what you blog about, how you blog, how you respond to comments on your blog and how you comment on other blogs. By setting an example for others, you are helping them learn how to be better bloggers and citizens.

Re: Blogger Citizenship: 5 things you can do for you, and your community

Lorelle — Fri, 15 Jun 2007 00:42:07 -0000

Thank you, and if you could fix the bold problem in my comment, it would be appreciated. Only the "set an example" was to be in bold.

Thanks!

Re: Portable USB Programs & You

Lorelle — Fri, 15 Jun 2007 01:41:31 -0000

Nah, nah, I have a 5 gig, I have a 5 gig! :P

I can't live without my little 5 gig pocket drive. It cost less than some 1-2 gig flash drives at the time I bought it, and now the pocket drives go up to 8 gigs, with larger probably on the way.

It's about the size of a facial compact, though a little thicker, but not much. So it does slip right into my pocket and travels easily. I could hang it around my neck, but that might be a bit much. ;-)

I'm loving hearing about what portable applications and stuff people really feel the need to keep with them. It's like "what do you have in your wallet?" kinda thing. Fascinating.

Re: Be a Better Blogger: four books under $20 to give you a hand

Lorelle — Thu, 21 Jun 2007 01:50:02 -0000

Rave, Review - Confused. :D Thank you for the twist for including me in your list as number 5. Three of your books on the list are tops on mine and I adore them. Excellent recommendations.

Mine is certainly not equal to those masterpieces. It's just a blogging book on blogging tips. :D

Still, thank you for the very kind words and support. You are a star!

Re: Your blogging mirror: How your blog presents itself to the world

Lorelle — Thu, 21 Jun 2007 18:04:17 -0000

A study done a while ago on first impressions on the web were different from a first impression from a meeting which I covered in Start the Stopwatch: You Have 50 Milliseconds to Make a Good First Impression. And your timing is good as I just wrote Blogging Tips: First Impressions Count for Problogger, about the various "first impressions" a blog makes outside of a visit to the actual site.

These first impressions differ greatly from physical contact and the old fashioned website thinking. We need to change our whole perspective on the first impression issue. Thanks for bringing it up. I'm looking forward to the conversation and insights on this changing view.

Re: Blogger Citizenship: 5 things you can do for you, and your community

Lorelle — Tue, 26 Jun 2007 21:02:10 -0000

Quentin Brown, trackback above, is a splog. Thought you should know. I've reported it, but the more the merrier.

Re: Some Bad Advice

Lorelle — Wed, 19 Apr 2006 14:06:50 -0000

Excellent advice, as always. I'm so tired of the whiners who say it's too expensive or useless, then reinforce it with the "it's-on-the-Internet-it-must-be-free" myth. Usually it takes a simple email, as you said, to turn the tide and stop the action.

I make it clear in my article that running to the DMCA is the "big guns" brought in only if necessary. It works very well with hosts and other non-search engine services, too. There are many steps to take before resorting to this action, and once you take it, there is often no turning back, for either party. Google and others use a big sledgehammer response because they believe in the mythology that a kinder and gentler response is too expensive and time consuming. Sad, very sad.

Education is the key to a lot of this.

Keep up the great work here and continue fighting the good fight for all of us! Thank you!

Re: Housekeeping: Writing for The Blog Herald

Lorelle — Tue, 15 May 2007 10:39:55 -0000

Welcome to the Blog Herald crew! I'm so excited. Your insights on this issue are invaluable. Welcome!

Re: Housekeeping: Comments Disabled on Old Posts

Lorelle — Mon, 18 Jun 2007 10:41:12 -0000

I'm sorry that you've decided to take on this myth. From my research and experience, most of the old style comment spam is aimed at older blog posts as their bots are still rolling around the web without stop, but the newer spam bots and trackback spammers are hitting posts published within minutes if not seconds.

Most are caught by Akismet, and I've found that adding Spam Karma and Bad Behavior cuts down comment spam almost to nothing that I have to handle.

And how often do you really publish new posts with new information and not update the original posts? That's an odd reason, Jonathan.

The increase in comment spam is because of your blog's popularity and number of incoming links, not because comment spammers are smarter. It's sad that the conversation needs to be cut off on old posts.

The time consuming part comes from scrolling through Akismet to check false/positives more than dealing with the ones that get through, right?

Re: Housekeeping: Comments Disabled on Old Posts

Lorelle — Tue, 26 Jun 2007 20:40:27 -0000

Oh, Jonathan, I have plenty of thoughts. Recently, a post on the Blog Herald went ballistic with traffic and comments. It was linked to by a popular blog as a historical reference, and their post was dug by Digg. I had a post which got little traffic which I wrote over a year ago suddenly get dug and I had over 6,000 visitors and 25 comments in one day - mostly people saying how thankful they were about the post, but also asking more really good questions. That resulted in a more articles on the subject, which I'd ignored for a year since there was little response to begin with.

But most of all, by closing off comments, you are letting the spammers win.

I get 3,000 comment spams a day caught by Akismet, sometimes more. In the past couple months, more are getting through as more are spamming my blog. I travel a lot so I have to go one to three days between checking comments for spam and questions. I use the Mass Edit Mode and can quickly dispatch the comment spam that get through. It's manageable.

For me, it is always more important to let the conversation continue at any point. You and I write fairly timeless material, so your article on copyright theft has just as much validity three months ago as it does 2 years ago.

I have a lot of other reasons, but most important, don't let them win!

Re: How To Pick the Best Theme in WordPress For You

Lorelle — Mon, 04 Sep 2006 19:24:07 -0000

Thanks for the plug and the comment. Too funny. I'm blushing? And can I quote you?

The neat thing about WordPress is that you can go simple and do just what you want to do, or you can go crazy and do anything and everything you want. That's the joy of WordPress.

Re: How To Pick the Best Theme in WordPress For You

Lorelle — Mon, 04 Sep 2006 23:28:53 -0000

You never know where I will turn up. ;-)

Thanks again! And keep up the brilliant work.

Re: 6 Basic Tips For Using WordPress + 1 Bonus Tip

Lorelle — Tue, 05 Sep 2006 11:40:45 -0000

Thanks for the link and I also recommend Writing With Post Excerpts and Feed Excerpts in Mind for those who want to use excerpts on pages that showcase more than one post (multi-post page views). There are some serious things you need to consider as you write your posts if you are writing with excerpts.

If you are using the WordPress template tag which replaces the_content() with the_excerpt()

Re: 6 Basic Tips For Using WordPress + 1 Bonus Tip

Lorelle — Tue, 05 Sep 2006 12:59:20 -0000

Yikes, half my comment disappeared. If you find the rest of it, can you fix it. If you don't, I'll repost. I didn't use any specific code, so this is very odd. Thanks.

Re: 6 Basic Tips For Using WordPress + 1 Bonus Tip

Lorelle — Sat, 09 Sep 2006 16:07:44 -0000

I didn't have any links or code in the rest of the comment, and I'm really fussy about how I add code, so this is a strange one. Anyway, here is the rest as best as I can remember.

If you are using the WordPress template tag which replaces the_content() with the_excerpt(), WordPress automatically takes the first 120 words of your post and showcases it as the excerpt. If you don't make a point or summary about what you are going to be talking about in the first 120 words, your excerpt is fairly useless. If you don't include keywords in those first 120 words, search engines also have trouble identifying content within the excerpt page.

To include excerpts in WordPress, there are two ways to "write" those excerpts. Either make the first 120 words of your posts count, or write what we call an explicit excerpt, which means use the excerpt form in the Write Post panel to write what you want your excerpt to be. It can be the same words or different from what is in your post, summarizing the content.

This means you have to think about what you write in your excerpts when you use them as they now carry a lot more weight with your readers, search engines, and excerpted feeds.

- - - - -

Nothing mind blowing but I thought it was odd that it would truncate a comment like that. Hopefully, all of this will get through and I will feel relieved that I had my say. ;-)

Re: Say No To Snap Preview Anywhere

Lorelle — Wed, 03 Jan 2007 10:36:59 -0000

The only "defense" I've found in the value of Snap Preview Anywhere is for sites which feature, specifically, links to web designs, Themes, and portfolio/graphic sites. Then the graphic thumbnail shown would influence the potential visitor and give a preview of the visual image.

Other than that, I've found beautiful content in ugly designs and ugly content in beautiful designs. Pretty doesn't mean much on the web when it doesn't have the information you need.

Re: Remove Paging From WordPress Archives

Lorelle — Sat, 24 Feb 2007 23:39:21 -0000

Which Related Posts?

And welcome back to the fold. We've been missing you! ;-)

Re: Why Nine Rules Aren’t Really Rules

Lorelle — Sun, 11 Jun 2006 19:08:33 -0000

Well said!

INSERT HERE ---> Virtual applause <---

I really debated, too, and decided that their rules fit me..."like a glove" is a great description.

Congrats and I look forward to more Wordpress.com bloggers joining the fold.

Re: Stolen Content, Sitepoint and Host turn blind eye! » Ajay - On the Road called Life

Lorelle — Mon, 28 Aug 2006 12:33:25 -0000

The part of your post that broke my heart is the assumption that because you are in another country, you can't do anything to stop the theft of your content. NOT TRUE. Copyright protection laws may different but they are valid across borders. For more information, you might want to check out What Do You Do When Someone Steals Your Content.

Re: Time to switch to WordPress

Lorelle — Thu, 13 Oct 2005 09:55:46 -0000

And the "joy" of using a wordpress.com blog is that when you comment on another wordpress.com blog, it "remembers" you are logged in. I was working on my husband's blog when I wrote the above. Do a fan a favor and change the URL and name in the comment above to this one and delete this? If you got time. Thanks.

Re: The race to time-based and blog search

Lorelle — Thu, 13 Oct 2005 14:00:28 -0000

Part of the problem is that time-based searching is dependent upon the blog post being found in a "timely manner". This means that web crawlers have to be on the alert 24/7 and happen to cross THAT post at THAT moment or soon after its release. Imagine the size and speed of that crawler!

So that leaves us with two options. Either the burden is upon the user to update tagging and search services, or pings and trackbacks will have to merge and grow into a new form of "I got a secret!".

I see a form of ping and trackback services sending out an excerpt of the post to search engines and directories at the moment of posting. Immediately, time-based information is delivered, literally, to your door.

Google, Yahoo, and MSN are not the end-all, but they are the beginning. I see tagging as part of the baby steps of information gathering on the Internet.

The first to come up with this new form of ping and trackback service, with checks and balances thrown in, will get all my attention, and it should get yours.

Re: Wordpress.com has annoying IE bug

Lorelle — Tue, 18 Oct 2005 17:49:45 -0000

1. Reality Check: wordpress.com is alphaware - please report all bugs and issues directly to the developers through the feedback.

2. The invite for wordpress.com might not have it in writing, but by participating, there is an expectation that you are also here to help develop the program. It's fun to play with a new toy, but you are in a position to help make that toy even better. Help by reporting to those who can do something about it rather than the public at large who can't help you.

3. By bringing the issue to the attention of the developers, everyone in the wordpress.com community benefits. By helping figure out your problem, you solve the problem of hundreds, maybe thousands of wordpress.com users' sites, and help make WordPress 1.6 much stronger when it is finally released. I take that responsiblity very seriously. I hope you do, too.

4. I am thrilled that you, Mr. Scoble, have entered the WordPress world and are helping WordPress gain respectability as an important user. I'm also thrilled that Matt and Donncha have bent over backwards to help you customize your wordpress.com Theme when NO ONE else on wordpress.com can. Show appreciation for such favors by reporting them to those who can help.

In other words, use the Feedback button in your Administration Panels rather than opening a wound publicly that may not heal.

Re: Wordpress.com has annoying IE bug

Lorelle — Wed, 19 Oct 2005 00:17:51 -0000

To all who want to help improve Wordpress.com and WordPressMU, which in turn helps to improve the future release of WordPress 1.6, the FEEDBACK button is in your Administration Panels.

On every panel. Look in the upper right corner, just below the "Howdy, your name" and SIGN OUT.

As you have noticed, this is a very exciting community to be a part of and it is helping all WordPress users now and in the future to create a better product. I think it's a brilliant method for really incorporating users' needs to have hundreds and maybe even thousands participate in the process. We all have a say in how this works.

Sure there are limits to wordpress.com. Since we are all working in a giant laboratory, the lack of control over Themes, plugins, and javascripts and styles within the post act as a controlled environment, testing the parts of the program the developers can control, not the parts we users can tweak with and mess up. We just all have to learn to live with the temporary constraints, bugs and glitches as the software is changing even as I type this comment.

With things changing all the time, I compare it to blogging inside of a Cracker Jack box. Every day a new surprise. Very exciting to be on the cutting edge of this hot technology, even as the knife's blade is being sharpened.

Re: Scoble should be fired, author tells Microsoft

Lorelle — Thu, 27 Oct 2005 23:49:26 -0000

As a past employee of Microsoft, and darn proud of what the company has done in spite of the media painting a bulls eye on it, I think that you are safe. After all, "know thine enemy" and "keep your enemy closer" are some serious truths. ;-)

Re: The call…

Lorelle — Fri, 26 May 2006 02:12:06 -0000

Thank you for sharing this publicly, Robert. I know it has been tough, but you have brought a fresh and wonderful compassion to blogging by wearing your private face publicly.

I know that you have touched so many people in so many ways through this process, and we want to touch you back with our sympathy.

Hugs, our friend. Big hugs.

Re: Billy Jones notes my copyright is being infringed on

Lorelle — Thu, 28 Sep 2006 12:35:19 -0000

Robert, just as a reminder, a lot of people count on you and your blogging success to represent them against the evil doers. I know it's a burden and a time waster in many respects, but a lot of people look up to you and figure if he can, I can. And if he won't, there's nothing I can do.

All it does take is a couple of CC'd emails to the right folks to add to a mountain of evidence against the evil doers. I have mine waiting in my draft box as form letters, just fill in the blanks and send. Lending your voice with the rest of us "small" voices does make a difference.

Re: Lorelle on WordPress Is Reading My Mind

Lorelle — Sat, 30 Jun 2007 11:28:01 -0000

Thank you for the recommendations and for the great way you are getting people thinking about these issues. They are so critical and often overlooked, which is why I love bringing them up.

It has long been believed that a hobby is something you do that is not a job. It's what you look forward to doing while at your job. It's something that brings you enjoyment, wisdom, and develops your creativity and imagination. It brings you joy.

Should your joy bring you money? That's a complicated question.

The key is that once you put a monetary value on your hobby, your hobby changes. It becomes about the numbers. It's about the responsibilities that arise from producing income and making contracts and agreements, paying taxes on that income, and all the rest - your hobby becomes a business which makes it no longer a hobby.

When you change a thing, the rules change with it.

As for the question of proper categories on your blog, I'm still looking for the two "best" answers to my challenge.

And yes, your old posts are invaluable resources we often ignore, so thanks for pointing that article out, too. Much thanks.

Re: Lorelle on WordPress Is Reading My Mind

Lorelle — Mon, 02 Jul 2007 23:42:30 -0000

It's not an issue of right or wrong. It's an issue of "difference" and "change". If you are blogging for fun and you start to monetize your blog, your blogging style changes. Trust me. It does. Your thinking changes. A lot of people think that their hobby has to pay for itself. It doesn't. There is nothing wrong with having no ads on your blog. There is nothing wrong with having ads (though, too many is too much).

It's about the mind set. As mentioned, when the joy goes out of it and it becomes a job, is it worth it to lose your hobby?

And if you do decide to monetize your blog, make a plan. Research. Study. Learn from the experts who made the mistakes first before you start the monetization process.

Enough folks have blindly gone forth and made all the blogging mistakes, so learn from them and plan accordingly to do better. And you will find that your blog is now a business, hobby or not. Things change from when it was for fun.

Biggest change of all? The tax man cometh. :D

Re: Sitestuff: I love SPAM, I hate spam.

Lorelle — Fri, 30 Mar 2007 01:17:19 -0000

Thanks for the link and I thought I'd just add that comment spam is NO indication of a blog's popularity. Once they have found you through an incoming link, they belong to you. ;-)

Everyone has seen a huge rise in comment spam, from the lowest on the traffic totem pole to the highest. It's like a virus. One person links to you and they follow. You link to another and they follow that link. Sad. Sick, and pitiful.

Still, isn't it fun to actually "know" who is reading your blog fairly consistently! I like that part. Comment spam or not.

Re: Categories vs Tags

Lorelle — Fri, 09 Sep 2005 10:00:54 -0000

Categories are created by you in WordPress. Tags are created by Technorati and other tag oriented sites and you manually add them to your site by typing them in or with plugins.

You can have a category called "Widgets, Wires, and Wobbles" which will never show up on any Technorati tag list, but "widgets", "wires", and maybe even "wobbles" might be tags.

WordPress automatically sets categories to be recognized as tags. But you can go further and add your own.

Remember, tags and categories are to help people navigate your site and find more and related information. You don't have to use them, but it can help once you reach the 500 or more post range, increasing navigation options.

Does that help? And try not to do "too" many things that require 90% of your brain for each task. ;-)

Can lead to melt down. hee hee

Re: Testing my blog’s development

Lorelle — Wed, 14 Feb 2007 02:38:28 -0000

You've given some good hints, but I want to know how this information is going to change how you blog.

Thanks for accepting the challenge.

Re: Testing my blog’s development

Lorelle — Wed, 14 Feb 2007 12:39:18 -0000

Excellent lessons! Well done. You get an A. ;-)

Re: Diagnosis for Wordpress

Lorelle — Thu, 22 Feb 2007 21:56:44 -0000

Always glad to help! You never know where inspiration will come from. ;-)

Re: What’s The Point Of Registering On WordPress Blogs?

Lorelle — Thu, 15 Feb 2007 02:09:55 -0000

If you require registration for people to post comments, they are your registered guests. If you have current emails for them, you can email them and ask them to subscribe to your feed.

Other than that, do with them what you will, but make sure you do it carefully as some efforts can slap you back in the face. ;-) No selling the list.

You wouldn't have them if you didn't offer a way to register. I'd clean them out and get on with the more important stuff like quality content and turning off the default check in the checkbox of comments notification via email and moving that above the Submit Comments button where people can SEE if before they hit the button. ;-)

Re: The Blog Herald is Absorbing My Reading List

Lorelle — Mon, 22 Jan 2007 22:34:33 -0000

Glad to be considered one of the "quality" folks. ;-)

And thanks for noticing my involvement. I'm really proud of the whole team at Blog Herald.

Re: When Details Matters To Your Blog Visitors

Lorelle — Thu, 05 Jul 2007 13:18:27 -0000

Actually, this is an old debate and it was cleared up by making it a standard to NOT force links to open in a new window. It breaks accessibility and web standards. If you want a web standard compliant site, then don't force links to open in new windows.

Honestly, it is no longer a debate but a done decision.

As for not hearing from readers who find forced links annoying, they often don't come back. It's THAT annoying.

With the advent of tabbed browsing, your forced opening of a window puts a tab at the back of the tab queue where someone might not find it if they have their tabs set to open in the background. So they click and click and click and nothing happens. When they get to the end of their tab list, they find 4 tabs of the same page. They've already closed your page, so do you think they are going to come back and complain?

As for Tim Linden's issue of the CTRL key combined with the mouse, use the center button (or scroll wheel button) of your mouse to open a link in a new window/tab. It's easy.

By letting your readers control how they want to read your web pages and the pages you link to, you give them the power. By forcing links, you take away that power, and trust me, I've heard from a lot of folks who hate their power being taken away. :D

I would, however, recommend that you enlarge your comment form box. It's micro small. I can barely read what I've written within.

Re: Is the trackback dead? Only if you’re selfish?

Lorelle — Thu, 29 Mar 2007 12:03:47 -0000

Well done!

Trackbacks are a very important part of the blog conversation world. The fact that comment spammers use comments and trackbacks to spam should not mean that trackbacks should be treated differently from comments. They are all "comments".

I'd also like to clarify a point I'm seeing on many blogs as they debate this issue for themselves. There are incoming and outgoing trackbacks.

Many blogging programs, including WordPress, have a feature to turn on and off trackbacks from the Write Post Panel and/or Options Panel. This does not turn off all trackbacks, it only turns off your blog's ability to send trackbacks.

To stop the receipt of trackbacks involves changing the core programming manually or through a WordPress Plugin and changing the WordPress Theme that displays the received trackbacks.

Excellent coverage and thanks for bringing up this issue. I believe those shouting trackbacks are dead are certainly missing the whole picture. Trackbacks are still new and still being understood by bloggers. Their value is growing, not dying.

Re: Is the trackback dead? Only if you’re selfish?

Lorelle — Thu, 29 Mar 2007 12:29:29 -0000

Minor self correction. I forgot that WordPress now allows turning off incoming receipt of trackbacks and pingbacks from the Options > Discussion panel.