Disqus - Latest Comments for aswanlund

Re: Mardi Gras Monday: Alcohol

aswanlund — Tue, 10 Feb 2009 17:31:44 -0000

“you’re going to want to go home at some point…”

Hum… if given the right amount of alcohol, I’m not sure I’d agree to this statement. Wanna test it? LOL

Great tip on the restroom situation, and can be applied to any large public gathering involving porta-potty contraptions. I know from personal experience that if you get your drunken self locked in one - people find it really funny to leave you in there.

Re: How to Scare People: A Practical Guide

aswanlund — Fri, 10 Oct 2008 19:52:31 -0000

There’s also Type 3 scares that challenge our logic. The scares that could very well be 100% real. For example:

Fake injuries are always good, if they’re done in a logical fashion. One of the best ones that got me was the ticket taker outside the haunt. She stumbled and pretended to fall backwards on the ground and when she sat up of course her head was gushing blood. I ran forward to help her, and she opened her mouth to show horrid fangs and started clawing at me - and 2 other actors quickly pulled her away and into the haunt. It all happened so fast! Even after my brain caught back up and realized it was just a trick, I still couldn’t get the image of the woman falling and bleeding out of my mind. It had looked SO real.

Shifting foundations mess me up really bad too. Logically a floor should not move, so if the foundation I’m standing on suddenly changes - it unnerves me. I’m more open to the scares then, because my mind is overly aware of the floor doing something funky. The best one had me believing that too many heavy people were inside the haunt and the floor might collapse. THAT scared me, because I had no idea how high up we were. They somehow made the sound of creaking wood, and shifted the floor just a tiny little bit - and the guide taking us through had a look of utter panic on his face and told us all to remain perfectly still. Of course that’s when they hit us with the side view scare - and half the people ran - and I was still standing there thinking BE STILL!!! We’re all gonna die!! LOL

Re: Advertisers - Demand You Receive What You Pay For!

aswanlund — Thu, 02 Oct 2008 15:31:07 -0000

Just wanted to make an addition to this article, you can also add Technorati to the list of "Good Guys" who DO take actions...

Hello,

Please accept our apologies for the delay in getting back to you. We are
currently experiencing a backlog in Support, but are working hard to address
everyone.

I have flagged (url was listed here) for removal from our systems and as soon
as the cache clears, they will no longer be indexed.

Please don't hesitate to contact us if you have other questions.

Thank you for using Technorati!

--
Zoe McLaughlin
Customer Support Specialist
Technorati

Re: medical Advice When You’re Not A Doctor

aswanlund — Wed, 01 Oct 2008 17:50:34 -0000

These suggestions may not prevent all possible litigation - but they could certainly avert a great deal. And it only takes a moment to add a small disclosure and disclaimer, and as the saying goes... a stitch in time saves nine. :)

Re: medical Advice When You’re Not A Doctor

aswanlund — Wed, 01 Oct 2008 14:50:09 -0000

Test...

We were haing some display issues earlier, but all seems functional now. Just double checking the comment section.

Re: Why Web Content Writers Have A Bad Reputation

aswanlund — Tue, 30 Sep 2008 16:27:18 -0000

Nayna,

And you made mine :) As writers we may not always have the best paying assignment, and the publishers and editors may have some pretty redicilous criteria... but this doesn't mean we have to sink to the level they've set the bar. We always have the option to go above and beyond!

Re: Blatant Plagiarism of “History of Deep Purple” from Wikipedia

aswanlund — Tue, 30 Sep 2008 16:00:19 -0000

Yep - that would be called plagiarism, although in all fairness to this person, I do need to say it's possible THEY contributed this information themselves to Wikipedia. However, even if this IS the case, they've created duplicate content. Which we all know is a Google no-no.

Re: Going Gonzo!

aswanlund — Tue, 30 Sep 2008 08:54:58 -0000

Wow TS, you certainly didn’t hold anything back! :) I’ve sent you a copy of this reply to your email and I truly hope you accept my offer.

I don’t disagree with a single word you’ve said in your comment. Where I’m falling off the cliff is, I simply don’t understand where you think I missed a point. Your reply was very passionate, and I’d really like to discuss this further.

I’ve spent the bulk of my writing career on the trail of killers, trying to bring reason to madness. At times “finding the truth from the inside out” led me to the worst possible levels of human degradation imaginable. When the unthinkable becomes understandable, you’re in too deep. Nightmares, cold sweats, vomiting my guts out over photographs and evidence descriptions, talking to people who lost loved ones, talking to people who discovered bodies, talking to law enforcement who put their lives on hold to chase a criminal who always managed to stay one step ahead of them… you can’t help but feel the dirt. And if you wallow in it long enough, it’s bound to get under your skin. Then to bring that story out, and have some cheese dick Editor tell me that I need to change the story from first person and remove all of my emotion and insight - it takes all I have to not walk off and get a job at McDonald’s.

At any rate, here’s what I propose. Since you were so passionate about this subject, and you obviously think I didn’t use it in proper reference to the point I was trying to make, I offer you equal time. I’m inviting you to write a post for The Written Word on Gonzo journalism and help me, as well as the other readers, see this from your viewpoint. I can’t offer you much in the way of compensation, but I can pay you the same as I pay the other contributor… $10.00 a post. I realize this is an insult to a good writer, and I wouldn’t work for that rate myself. However, I would take advantage of the venue and take the money… and laugh at the fool who paid me to blast them on their own blog. *grins*

So what do you say - you in?
Angela

Re: Megadeth: New Album Release

aswanlund — Thu, 25 Sep 2008 10:25:41 -0000

Price: $24.98 & eligible for FREE Super Saver Shipping on orders over $25...

So... what's Amazon got on sale for .2 cents? :p

This price shocked the hell out of me, I fully expected twice that.

Re: Going Gonzo!

aswanlund — Thu, 25 Sep 2008 10:19:22 -0000

You knew my hero worship of Thompson would eventually find a way in the door over here, huh? :p

"When it gets wierd - the weird go pro!" Ain't it so? :)

Re: Career Kills the Socialite in a Woman- Film at 11:00

aswanlund — Thu, 25 Sep 2008 10:16:02 -0000

I miss MiRC, I truly do. :) I was cool back then too!

*side note - you changed your sig, it use to always be "Happy Writing"...

The old days of "build it and they will come" thinking are over. Regardless of how great your content is, or how well your site looks - without SEO to get a decent search engine placement - you're effectively dead in the water. This is especially true if your niche is large and competitive - such as freelance writing, or making money online.

This is where social networking can make all the difference! Just an hour a day spent promoting your blog, joining in on discussions, and contributing to debates can generate an average of 50 to 80 unique hits a day. No joke. Out of those hits, you can rest fairly assured that at least 3 or 4 will return. Over time, as this readership builds, so does the overall importance of your blog to search engines.

I suggest joining only one network at a time, and the reason being - they do consume time! And if you join only one at a time, it's easier to monitor your generated traffic, and tell if the network is working for you. If you spend one hour a day promoting and are getting less than 20 unique hits from the network - then consider another. Keep trying until you find one that generates a strong traffic flow - then concentrate your efforts there.

Re: SEO For Bloggers

aswanlund — Wed, 24 Sep 2008 06:32:56 -0000

Very informative article Patti Ann. I just wanted to pop on and add a few things...

Quality Content - All blogs need a few "anchor" posts. These are the foundation posts that you'll never remove from your blog archives. These are also the posts that need really good key word density. If you feel you may not be able to write this sort of web content, I suggest you hire the services of a freelance web content writer.

Sitemaps - If you're using the WordPress blogging platform, I suggest you install the "All In One SEO Pack" plugin - it will generate a sitemap and robots.txt file for you automatically.

Categories and Tags - Don't forget a tag cloud!

Back Links - There really is no way to control the websites that link to you,

Community Interest - BlogCatalog, Twitter, FaceBook, MySpace and FuelMyBlog are all excellent social networks for bloggers.

Re: The New Facebook Design: Not THAT Bad

aswanlund — Tue, 23 Sep 2008 06:08:59 -0000

I tried MySpace and I know it's supposed to be this major great social network - but I seemed to spend an over abundance of time deleting ... everything. So, I made the flop to FaceBook. I came in after the big change, so I have nothing to compare the new design against.

So - in my completely unbiased opinion, I don't think what they have now is bad at all. :) I love it in comparison to the Space.

Re: Razors and Blades

aswanlund — Tue, 23 Sep 2008 06:00:04 -0000

I'm gazing across the dusty tops of 3 printers, purchased for the same exact reason as you purchased some of yours. But it does not stop there. I also have 2 fax machines, purchased for the same reason, first ran out of ink, second was cheaper than ink for first.

Like you, I too, finally discovered the refill kits and took care of the ink crisis on the computer printers. But the refill doesn't work on the fax machine cartridges. So - guess who'll likely be at Best Buy this weekend looking at spankin' new fax machines?

My 3 year old little grandson actually may have had the answer to all of this. After watching me refill a cartridge and bite back bad words, he ask why this whole ugly process was necessary. I explained, because Mimi needs to write stuff down on paper.

To which he said...

Mimi, I think crayons would be easier.

Re: Advertisers - Demand You Receive What You Pay For!

aswanlund — Mon, 22 Sep 2008 19:45:52 -0000

Hi Claudia - do I recognize you from BlogCatalog, perhaps? :)

On BuyBlogReviews, thanks for the heads up. I was just really impressed with how expediently they handled this matter for me, so I gave Kudos to them for that.

I'm thinking... I'll have to go over and read their TOS, but do they perhaps have a "payment threshold"? A certain amount you have to earn before a pay out? I’ll check this out and let you know, because in the back of my mind I’m thinking I may have read this somewhere. If this is the case, you may have not received payment because you hadn’t reached the threshold yet. I’ll check into this and get back to you :)

Re: Dealing with Plagiarism

aswanlund — Mon, 22 Sep 2008 19:35:51 -0000

You know, I've ran into this too. Some people honestly do not realize "re-blogging" is a form of plagiarism. I think perhaps it all is somehow related to the false belief that once something is placed onto the internet - it becomes public knowledge - therefore public property. I'm not sure where this crazy notion actually came from, it perhaps may have spawned from images being uploaded to forums.

In the back of my mind I can remember the early 90’s and forums with huge signatures being all the rage, and people becoming upset when their signature was copied. If I’m remembering this right, the majority of forum owners and moderators may have made some sort of blanket ruling to this effect - that once you post it, it’s open game.

Re: Dealing with Plagiarism

aswanlund — Mon, 22 Sep 2008 19:28:45 -0000

Thank you so much Jonathan, you're advice is always greatly appreciated! This one was the proverbial "learning curve" for us, and knowledge was indeed gleamed. The hardest thing to accept, I think, is that aside from the DMCA, cease and desist, and a follow though with advertisers - there really are no further actions to take.

"Calling out" seems like a logical course of action, but in reality all this does is generate interest. Interest leads to people wanting to find out for themselves - which leads to clicks to the offending website. These clicks generate income for the plagiarizer through his/her advertising affiliates. In effect, we defeat our own purpose by calling out the individual. In the future we will strive to focus on the larger issue, instead of the individual occurrences.

And you’re absolutely right about facing possible litigations ourselves. Not 20 minutes after I discussed this with you, I received a letter from someone who had taken an article from an Article Directory, thinking they were well within the publication rules - only to find out the entire Article Directory was filled with stolen content. So - had someone called out this particular person/website… they in fact were innocent, and a victim as well. *sigh*

Perseverance and temperance - in equal measure - seem to be the key elements to longevity in this crazy world we call freelance writing!

Thanks again!
Angela

Re: Course Of Action When Plagiarized

aswanlund — Sat, 20 Sep 2008 11:24:07 -0000

Well hello you little cutie! :) Have I ever told you how much I enjoy your discussion threads on BC? Thanks for dropping by!

We had a small nightmare with content theft over here, so since I was having to go through the process of fighting it myself - I decided I might as well add the steps to the blog so everyone could know about the laws and measures we can take.

Re: Course Of Action When Plagiarized

aswanlund — Fri, 19 Sep 2008 23:33:54 -0000

Patti Ann and I completely agree. The person who most recently plagiarized her and infringed upon my publication rights actually did make a very small change to her work that he copied and pasted. He did go back and add her name giving her Authorship credit. But he only did this after I'd literally brought the wrath of Angela down on him. LOL

Re: Free Freelance Job Boards

aswanlund — Fri, 19 Sep 2008 10:07:19 -0000

Hi Angie (nice name! heh) - Thank you so much for the words of encouragement!

For everyone who might be wondering what a "Smortian" is, let us explain. Angie and I are members of Smorty.com, and on the blogger's Forum, we call ourselves "Smortians". When I traced the plagiarizer down and realized he too, had a Smorty account - I took this issue directly to the Forums for discussion. I wish I could link to that discussion thread, but you'd have to be a member to read it.

Re: Free Freelance Job Boards

aswanlund — Fri, 19 Sep 2008 09:58:33 -0000

Good morning! And thank you so much for taking the time to stop by and read about our little ordeal. Smorty was very prompt in their reply concerning this, and assured me that the person was not a member in good standing - the blog in question had actually been declined and the reason was "duplicate content". So this person's attempts at trickery did not fool Smorty! And I have to give them a big thumbs up for thier promptness in investigating this for us.

Re: Garesi Guilty Of Blatant Plagiarism

aswanlund — Fri, 19 Sep 2008 00:04:45 -0000

Well hello Jack! Thanks for stopping by, and also thanks for the detailed reply on your thread at BlogCatalog! I truly appreciate both items of feedback :)

On your question, I see your point and recognize the validity of it, and have ask myself this same question many times. Had this person given Patti Ann her author's credit, it's likely we would have let this go. But even a compiled and detailed list takes a writer's time. Time is money. And when someone takes a shortcut and simply copies and pastes another's hard work and time investment (even if this is a compiled list from many sources) - and claims it as their own - I think a line in the sand is crossed.

Patti Ann may chime in and correct me, but I think this piece took her the better part of a week to compile, and all I was able to pay her was $10.00 for her publication and use rights. So to now have the work quite likely be rendered useless in the content market because it is now "duplicate content" in the eyes of Google - is a hard blow to any writer's pocket book.

Once I had ran the piece on The Written Word for a certain length of time, Patti Ann would have gained her full rights to the piece BACK. I generally return use rights once a piece is in need of a re-write or update, and I start all over again with a freshly written piece. I remove the old piece from publication, and the author is free to re-sell at that time. This piece is now basically "dead in the water". It's useless to me because it's no longer exclusive, and useless to Patti Ann because it would be detected in any CopyScape duplicate content search.

Re: Paying Blogging Markets

aswanlund — Thu, 18 Sep 2008 11:00:17 -0000

This is a very valid question Top7 and I'm glad you ask.

Starting at the top - PayParPost - I didn't fare very well with these guys because I didn't want to install their tracking code, so my earnings with them ended when the code became a requirement. Prior to this, January to March, I earned a total of $287.50.

Blogitive/LinkNerve has by far been my single biggest earnings. I'm in the beta test of LinkNerve and earned $65 on their first round of testing and $55 on the second. I earned a grand total of $625.00 before they shut down earlier this year.

Smorty earnings from January to present - $361.80

I'm not a member of PayU2Blog

BloggingAds may have went out of business, I haven't had a task from them in quite some time, but total earnings from January to present was $85.00

Just started with BuyBlogReviews - I've done one task for $7.10

Also just started with SponsoredReviews - I haven't taken a task as of yet.

Blogsverise is an all time favorite of mine and I've earned $135.00 since January of this year. The tasks have slowed down considerably in the past 2 months, however.

LoudLaunch - Love these guys! $255.00 since January

Haven't done a task for ReviewMe yet.

Bloggerwave started out like gang busters - then just sort of dried up, I haven't seen a task from them in so long I wonder if they're operational. But since January my total earnings were $35.00

BlogToProfit sends task assignments in Excel file format to your email, and when I stopped doing the plastic surgery category of ads, the excel files stopped arriving. I assume you must be willing to cover this category, or you get no tasks? But from January to present - $50.00

Grand Total: $1,960.40

This is why I contend that the claims of $1,000 a week are bogus. I'm a pretty diligent blogger, and I check for offers several times a day so I personally don't see how that sort of money could be made. I think the most tasks I've ever saw assigned at one time was 15 and that, of course, was back in the hay day of Blogitive. About the largest single pay out per task that I've saw all year was $36.00 on a blog with a PR of 6, and that was offered by LinkNerve in their Beta testing.

Re: How To Turn A Blog Around In 90 Days

aswanlund — Thu, 18 Sep 2008 05:53:43 -0000

It works! :) In my experience, the wheels turn much too slowly to wait for these services to update, it's faster to just cancel those old accounts and create all new ones. The one I still haven't figured a way around, however, is the Alexa rating. I'm open to suggestions....? Anyone?

Re: How I Make Money Blogging Contest

aswanlund — Thu, 18 Sep 2008 03:16:23 -0000

Oh wow - cool! Can you tell us more about it? Details, rules? And just how big is this money you speak of? LOL

Thanks for the link too, I didn't even know about this pay to post site!