UsefulConcept

I made some badges for people to put on their site for the upcoming RIAdventure cruise.

I used a service called Sprout Builder, which is a flex based app that lets us easily build widgets.  I have to say it was DARN easy to make these.  I had them done in minutes, which may show, but hey it works right? :-)  I could make them multiple views, embed video and audio, slideshows, etc.  Pretty darn slick.

[More]

Yup, you read correctly.  Its a cruise.  A real one!  I am officially jumping into the RIA event ring.  If your down with CF, Flex, Air and other web related goodness  AND your down for having a nice vacation with family and friends then this is the trip for you.

This will be quite different though.  No sessions, no fees.  Just a bunch of us getting together to network, be social and have fun.

[More]

Nicknames.  Every where I turn there is someone named trnky2fun or something like that.  Every social site I belong to I get invited to be a friend by someone with NO profile, or with a description of 'what do you want to know'.    Their name?  Nothing descriptive. How can I say yes to that?

I have 2 people in my gmail talk alone who I have NO idea who they actually are.  I am sure I may have known when I approved 7 months ago, but no memory of it now.

[More]

I have been frustrated with feedburner for a while now.  Not because they don't provide a worthwhile service, they do.  But because there has been next to NO improvement in performance or features in a good long while.  Features I care about anyway, I don't want to embed ads in my feeds.

The reports have always been slow.  Today I noticed that my live stats for my feeds has been at zero for a few days. No traffic for days?  On multiple web sites?  Oh really?   I went to the feedburner forums, but they are 'locked' and have been so for at least a month. 

[More]

JeremiaX had a good idea for bloggers/twitters/plurkers going to CFunited.  He suggested posting photos of yourself so we could recognize each other at the conference.  While I know many people already, there are some bloggers I read and have NO idea what they look like.  In fact there are many bloggers which I have no idea what their real name is.

This is doubly true for twitter and plurk.  People have these odd names, and no description.  Hard to know who I am supposed to be 'friends' with. :-)

[More]

Damn you all.  I had to do it.  Comment spam just got out of control and I am angry.  I don't mind deleting a comment now and then. But the 50+ last night and handful today have just put me over the edge. 

I am VERY sorry to do it. Not a lot of you comment, which is fine, but it really is a hassle for everyone. 

[More]

I read Problogger's blog every once in a while as I often find good tips in there.  Today I noticed just such a post.

The post is about Blog Scrapers and it is something that I have often wondered about.  Scrapers are people or bots that take your RSS feed and use it as their own blog or content.  Often with no link or mention of you.  They do so purely for the advertising revenue.  They hurt us by doing two things.  1) they dilute your web site ranking by causing search engines to think your content is duplicate content.  2) they are making money off your work.

[More]