Archive for Writing Advice
· July 21, 2008 at 5:11 am · Web Development, Writing Advice
When getting started building a brand Online, a lot of people ask what should they do first? Well after you get your content flowing, you need a way for people to follow that content. That is where RSS and all the various feed readers out there come into play.
Everybody has their own way of doing things though, so you need to make sure you meet everybody’s needs. Thanks to services like FeedBurner, this is pretty easy. From inside their web site you can generate tons of those subscription links, as well as your standard big orange button and even e-mail newsletter management. It is by far the best option out there.
As a rule of thumb, you want to give people the ability to follow you via:
- Your Domain (visiting your web site)
- Via RSS (using the feed reader of their choosing)
- and a newsletter (which you can easily setup with an RSS feed with FeedBurner)
Also it never hurts to let people know your RSS feed over and over again. Such as how I am right now begging you informing you to subscribe to this feed if you want more informative posts just like the one you just read:
http://feeds.feedburner.com/mitchelaneous
· July 7, 2008 at 4:58 am · Writing Advice
It is amazing the keyboard combos you will run into when your fingers stumble over the keyboard trying to do something you didn’t even have in mind. Much like me, I doubt you knew either that Windows Live Writer had a "special" paste mode?
To activate it, just press Ctrl+Shift+V. Doing so will give you the option to remove all the HTML formatting but preserve the hyperlinks and images. They also have a thinned HTML option which will preserve the font sizes and text alignments but strips out all the extra CSS beyond that point. Quick tip for all you fellow Windows Live Writer lovers out there!
· June 11, 2008 at 6:05 am · Writing Advice
As a writer, going out and reading other people’s content out there from time to time is enough to make me want to run off to a deserted island never to be heard or seen from again. Now I am far from perfect, but time after time I see the same offenders when it comes to copy and headline writing. Need some examples?
Networking Junkies - You know the type. They are those people who join every single social network out there, and all they have on their page is enlarged Hanna Montana fan-made glitter signs and copy that reads, “THIZ is MY MY MYSAPCE DuDeZ! CoMES OUT AND LetS DO THE PARTY! WHOOOO!”
Firefox Add-ons - Just when you think you have found the Firefox extension that will solve all your problems, you go to read more about it and the description goes something like this…
“This tool lets you copy the video from the Youtubez.”
Come on, you spent month after month working on this great Firefox add-on and the only thing you can give me as the user, trying to sell me on your download is two sentences?
Carbon Copy Web Hosts - A good majority of the copy on web hosts’ web pages are just stolen from the guy down the street. Copy and paste is too easy of a task for these guys, and come on, what do you expect? They are trying to keep the three customers they have happy who happened to mistake them for somebody important.
Social News Headlines - For an example on this one, go to Digg.com and check out any headline on the page. Enough said. Ok, that in itself if the main problem here. Not only do they give us a crappy headline, then they try to sell us on the point that their headline did all the work. Come on diggeruzer987, the headline does not say it all!
So do you agree with me yet? If you can think of anymore copyrighting offenders please feel free to let us all know in the comments.
· April 28, 2008 at 5:31 am · Desktop, Writing Advice
First off, thank you for the positive feedback on the latest eBook release of mine I told you about a few days ago. Always appreciate the feedback and thoughts on the project. One question I have gotten a lot thus far is, what did I use to create it? Well, as many of you know I pride myself on being a low budget guy… so why pay money when I can get this done for free? I created the entire eBook using Open Office and this video I found on YouTube for pointers.
Who says this Internet thing isn’t a great learning device? This made it easy to pick up pointers on how to link inside of the document, and then how to export to PDF and secure the document up some so that it could not be edited. I would suggest anybody bookmark this video and play it again if you ever want to get into the basics of digital publishing yourself.
· March 28, 2008 at 5:57 am · Writing Advice
For those of you who may not know the best way to lead into a post, but you think you might have something to say one tool or trick of the trade (depending on how you want to look at it) would be to use a story to add some meat and potatoes to you thoughts and ideas.
Give me some content, then tell me some of the story. Then give me more content, then give me more of the story. This is a great way to both entertain and inform the visitors at large. This is also extremely handy when your writing about a subject that might be a little vanilla and dull for the mass public.
Need some help? With your next post mix in a story about Ryu from Street Fighter fame and his trouble with buying a new pair of shoes. (Does he even wear shoes?)
So there is your homework for the weekend. With the next thing you write up, tech opinion, help or how-to; try to bring a story into the mix. It doesn’t have to be a true story, it could be a fictional character from the back of your brain. Flesh out the weak points with him (or her) and you’ll keep your readers a ‘bit more interested in what you are trying to tell them.
What would Ryu do?
· January 3, 2008 at 6:20 am · Writing Advice
If you can learn to write by leading your reader and holding his hand through the work - you can become better than you ever thought you could be.
Writing is one of those skills that everybody can do, but not many can master. If you broke it up into a chart you would have those who can’t being a very small percentage of the pie, those who have mastered it being another slightly larger pie piece and then those who are “somewhere in the middle” taking the rest of the cake pie. Read the rest of this entry »
