Tag Archives | blogs

Conversation With a Content Theft Artist

Jul/24 in Hot Web Topics, Web Development Tutorials

Blog Content TheftI don’t like having my stuff stolen or abused. Unlike most folks though that just roll over and take it – I like to do my best to fight back.

If nobody fights back against these guys, they win and we all have to pay the price for it. I recently found one web site that will go un-named (no reason to give these guys free press) stealing content from my podcast, WebHostingShow.com. Here is the un-edited version of his responses. I sent the first e-mail asking for the content to removed and for him to respond within five days or less.

Not totally out of the question – right? Here is his reply:

Hello Mr. Keller, we are not using site webhostingshow.com for these news, than using rss feeds from domaintools.com. And under every message there is your name and your email – notice to people that YOU have written those texts. So, please see with domaintools.com are using their rss feeds are legal or not.

Oh so they are saying it’s DomainTools.com that is stealing my content – not them. Hu? Yeah didn’t make much sense to me either – the DomainTools.com folks are a great team of people, not like this idiot who can’t even spell my name correctly. I replied trying to clarify, here is the next response:

Mr Keeler, we are using material that domaintools.com provides via rss feeds for free. So I do not see any copyright abuse. If you think this material is copyrighted, please contact domaintools.com first. If they remove your blogs from their site, they will be automatically removed from our site, too.

Oh so all content published via RSS feeds are free for the taking, happy I got that cleared up.. no wait, it is still my copyrighted material I did not give him permission to post. That is the fact plain and simple – so yet again I try to explain the situation and ask for some clarification.

Wish I could say this story had a happy ending, but afraid thus far it is not looking that way.

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The Linkman Cometh

Feb/28 in Hot Web Topics

Now historically I haven’t been a person that does a lot of “link blogging” because most of the time I scan over these entries just like you might be doing now. Personally I like the meat and potatoes! Side dishes only throw me off.

With that said, I am willing to give anything a shot at least once – so let the linkman cometh and bring his mighty linking pleasures to you all.

+ Chris is Breaking Up With Vista – Heck, I haven’t even gotten to meet her yet. Does make me feel a little better for not jumping off the deep end as soon as Vista came out.

+ 60 Reasons Why Web Hosts Suck – Number 14 has to be my favorite. Reason number 61 should be “because they don’t listen to the Web Hosting Show”.

+ Eric gets a good subdomain on tumblr. Maybe I should give that service a shot too?

+ Should you pod-vertise? Should I pod-vertise? I think it is awesome that “podcast-related advertising is set to quintuple over the next five years” but I am not going to count my chickens before they start laying eggs.

+ Send me your most wanted Firefox extensions, themes, services – anything and everything you want to get out of that little browser, make it known. I have been having fun answer some requests via Firefox Facts and I am getting ready to (within the next few days) to list some questions I couldn’t find answers for.

Other Worthy Linkage:

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Best Underappreciated Blogs and Feeds

Feb/20 in Hot Web Topics

When it comes to the best of the best in blogging – you know all of the A-listers and the B-listers and maybe even some of the C-listers.

What about those underappreciated blogs out there that are just as good as the better known brands, but just haven’t had their time in the sun just yet?

Here are some of my favorite blogs I have subscribed to that you might not know about just yet.

+ Wilson’s Weblog
+ Is Your Mission Critical?
+ Life of an Internet Entrepreneur
+ Kyle’s Cove
+ CyberNet News
+ Clickfire Blog

Do me a favor. Try staying away from the overly popular Web sites and blogs for one day – and try finding your same news out there from an alternative source. I bet you might find you will find something you like out there in the blogging masses. Maybe you too can find a few diamonds on the rough?

Have any other good ones to share? Go ahead, try to make me fill up my RSS reader – I dare ya. No wait, I double blog dare ya to.

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Saved Links Folder for Writers

Feb/19 in Personal

Here is a quick tip for any writers or bloggers (writers in my opinion sounds much more dignified). When you run across a story or an article that you might want to write more about later – you can create a “saved links” folder to move it into for the time being.

For example, lets say you see this post here come across your feed reader of choice. Now instead of trying to remember the link, or saving it to one of the many social bookmarking services out there – you could have me saved right to your bookmark bar.

Saved LinksThe good thing about this is that it is just one click away to get rid of it when you don’t need it anymore. Just hit the old right click – then delete bookmark and you are done.

Let me know if you would like to see more of these quick tips and I’d be more than happy to share how I do things here in the content creation department.

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One Voice vs Many Voices

Feb/15 in Hot Web Topics

After writing “Time to Cleanup Your Web Site” for Lunartics the other day, I noticed a link back coming from a fellow that had this to say.

Mitch at Lunartics asks “How do you keep your site content fresh and manageable?” My answer to that question is “You don’t!” In the ideal situation, your community will do this for you. They’ll post new articles (which may require your editing/approval), submit tips for blog entries, start interesting discussions on your forums, dig up coupons and deals to share with your other readers, etc.

The Social Bubble Web 2.0 Crowd

I don’t think that should always be the case though. There are situations where a public or social driven Web site is good. Just look at Digg.com. The only problem is Digg is only good if you don’t bother to read the comments.

Once you get into reading all the Digg comments on a story you feel like you are back in junior high school.

“This so blowz!”

“I Love ‘em my Ubuntu!”

“This story is so a dupe of one like I posted…”

It ain’t exactly Shakespeare folks! Not all of them are bad, but after reading a few comments down from just about any story I always feel just a little stupider inside.

The Mindtank of Multiple Folks Blogging (or Group Blogs)

Another section of the content culture I have to say I do like is the group blogs like Lifehacker and the many Lockergnome blogs. Although Lockergnome seems to be more watered down these days – I think it still belongs in the worthy mentions camp.

The One Man Showcase

I think there is still a place though for a one man act though. Why? You get to know the person more. It is a much more personal and enjoyable experience when you can read one really good writer in comparison with twenty five typing monkeys.

All three can be enjoyable and each have their place in the Online world. As a man who has many one man acts – I can only hope what I do does not become a lost art anytime soon. Which is your favorite?

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Don’t Steal My Content!

Jan/29 in Hot Web Topics, Personal

Nobody likes it when they get their stuff stolen. No matter if it is personal goods or virtual goods, the end result is the same. You feel a little cheated. Well, this weekend I decided to fight back against some folks that were stealing content from one of my Web sites.

I ran across a Web site that was reposting content word for word from Firefox Facts.

Now I have seen maybe a post here or there taken from one of my blogs – that I can live with. Even if they are spam blogs – I can’t go around and fight every single one of them. This one though just made me mad. So what did I do?

Well first I contacted the Web site owner after doing a whois search on the domain name in question. That didn’t end up being too fruitful. After that I contacted his Web host and his Web host’s data center. Did that work? Yep.

As of right now the stolen content is off the Web and I feel good about getting these folks shut down. Now yes, they could go to another Web host and start all over again – that is the bad thing about these types of setups. I’ll be keeping an eye on them though. The lessoned to be learned here is do not steal my content! This guy picked the wrong geek to mess with.

If you want to read more about how you can protect your content, I would suggest checking this post out from Lorelle on WordPress:

+ Applaud Those Who Warn You: Your Blog’s Content Is Being Stolen

Updated – Well it wasn’t The Planet that took them down. Apparently The Planet is happy to have them. Here is the response I got from their abuse team:

To Whom It May Concern:

Please note that below-referenced copyright infringement notice does not substantially comply with the required notification elements of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act of 1998 (“DMCA”). Please note that we have not passed on the substantive merits of your claim.

So The Planet won’t take down a splogger or could it be since they were already taken down they can’t really do anything about it?

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WordPress 2.1 Upgrade Done

Jan/24 in Personal

Well I made the leap and upgraded all my Web sites to WordPress 2.1 last night. I figured I might as well bite the bullet now instead of putting it off again and again.

Now it isn’t that the process is hard, it is just updating it on six or seven different Web sites can really become a boring and tedious task. I have to say I am really impressed with the final result. All of my Web sites seem to be zipping along a lot faster now.

Time hasn’t been on my side to check out all the neat new features, but so far I like what I see.

Before you get started upgrading your own Web sites, you might want to check out the plugin compatibility page over at the WordPress.org Web site. (thanks Kyle for the heads up on that) Luck was on my side, because I only had one plugin that didn’t work. After upgrading it – post upgrading WordPress, everything was back to normal.

Update – Well I might have spoken too soon, now it seems like I have a problem with disappearing tags. I have updated the version of Jerome’s Keywords plugin (and got rid of the tags in the head plugin) I was using and that might have fixed it. Give me a heads up if you notice any tags doing wonky stuff.

Update 2 – No such luck – just happened again on Firefox Facts when I approved a comment. Grrr…

Last Update – Well I upgraded all my Web sites to Ultimate Tag Warrior and things seem to be smooth again. Hope it lasts!

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I Was Rubelized!

Jan/11 in Hot Web Topics

I have been a big fan of Steve Rubel’s writing for a long time – so I was more than happy to see that he found his way to my Google Reader article that I wrote a few days ago. After he did link to me and del.icio.us put me on the front page, I noticed a boost in traffic.

Rubelized

As you can see the little bars went up – and that is a good thing. So in an effort to find something to call this wonderful surge of popularity, the best thing I could come up with was “Rubelized”.

Has a nice ring to it, don’t you think? Of course my 15 minutes of popularity are probably almost over – but I promise all you regular readers you will continue to get the best my fingers have to offer every single day.

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Hosting Hoopla is Back, Jack!

Dec/31 in Personal, Web Hosting

Well, never say never. I had a few free hours yesterday, and an idea in my head so I figured I might as well carry things out and see how they go. For those of you who thought that Hosting Hoopla was long and gone – think again. I have brought it back, but this time things are going to be a little different.

I want Hosting Hoopla to the like an appendix to the Web hosting industry. I don’t mean that organ that you don’t really mean, I mean an appendix like that thing you find in the back of the book. Instead of having dozens of hosting related Web sites bookmarked – just bookmark Hosting Hoopla and you will have them all in one place.

Drag and drop Hosting Hoopla into your favorites, and it will be the one bookmark you need to get you through your Web hosting related links. I like making things simpler for folks, and this one is brain dead easy. Of course, that is where you come into the picture. If you are going to be using it – I want to make sure you are getting the links that you need. If you have any suggestions to make, I have added a nice shinny button for you to click at the top of the Web page to submit your own favorite hosting links.

Hosting Hoopla is Back

Over time the Web site might become more segregated, once the links list gets too big for one Web page to hold. I am ready to take any and all suggestions on this project though, because it is not only for me to use – it is for you to use as well. Tell me what you want to see here and I will do my best to get it added on.

Hosting Hoopla is back, and I have a feeling it will be better than ever as 2007 is right at our doorstep.

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Customer Is Not Always Right?

Dec/20 in Hot Web Topics

So the customer is not always right? Damn, I have been in the hosting business for a few years now and I have been doing things backwards! The CEO of Homestead has stuck his foot in his mouth and now it seems like everybody and their grandmother are taking their shots at him.

Personally, after I actually read what he wrote (Maybe you should fire that customer?), I did not think it was all that bad. It has been blown out of proportion. Sure, I might not agree with his comments but he has the right to have them. Maybe you should take those customers that are a pain in the rear and kick them out the door. Wouldn’t it be better though to take that enemy and make him or her your friend?

I have seen my fair share of jerk customers working customer support over the years. I have never told them to “hit the bricks” or “don’t let the door hit you on the way out!” yet. Why? Your role as a service provider is to make the customer happy, it is just that simple. No matter if they are the nicest person in the world or the worst, you should be bending over backwards to make them happy.

Why? The most powerful weapon you have when it comes to getting more customers is word of mouth advertising. If you can not win that war, you will not have much of a future. If you provide any service to any group of people out there, you should always want to make them happy. So maybe the customer is not always right – but the customer should always be made happy.

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