Category Archives: computers

Operation Global Media Domination: the Technorati Situation

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cross-posted to running through rain

TIAWell, after losing 2000 places on Technorati recently because apparently nothing I cover is link-worthy, not that I’m bitter and you people wonder why max got a whole biography, I have recently regained my former status in the 16,000s. And how, you may ask? Simple, I reply.

I have a big mouth.

It turns out, it doth, that comments made on WordPress.com blogs are counted as independent links to our own blogs from those other blogs when and if that blog displays the recent comments in the sidebar.

Implications: I’m not going to be resisting the impulse to shoot my mouth off anymore (Metro, don’t say it). There’s more of an incentive to comment on the top blogs, which will of course reinforce their popularity, because they have more authority, which means that links from them count more on search engines than links from obscure blogs (although T counts everyone, no matter what the authority). It will make WP.com blogs attractive destinations for commenters who are interested in subtle blog pimping (ie not AND CHECK OUT MY BLOG WWW.BOZONINCORPORATED.BIZ!!!). God knows I dropped Iain Dale like a hot turd once he restricted commenters to those willing to link only to Blogger blogs or forgo links entirely. I am certainly not the only one who thinks this way.

Questions: it remains to be seen if it works this way with other search engines like Google. It remains to be seen if this is a deliberate strategy on WP.com’s part or if they’re going to read my post in the forum and go oh shit! and “fix” it. It remains to be seen whether this applies equally to those who choose not to become Avatarded (WP already excludes them from Top Blogs, Featured Blogs, etc).

Anyway, comment away. My Fish Heads, Fish Heads post could use some sweet lovin’.

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subservient chicken rules!

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No, it’s not the regulations for a new kind of kink party. It’s a trip in the Wayback Machine to deepest, darkest 2005, when Burger King, of all monarchies, rolled out perhaps the awesomest, gob-smackiest, rootin’ tootin’ time wastin’-est website in the entire history of the Intertubes.

Subservient Chicken

The Subservient Chicken.

The deal is this: You type in something for the chicken to do, then you Submit (it’s a Subservient website; what would you expect?) and the garterbelt-clad-yet-otherwise-nekkid-as-a-jaybird chicken performs whatever act your devious mind can come up with for her.

Strangely, the list of actions seems to have shortened since last I frequented the site. She can no longer, it seems, remember the Macarena. She now does Half Lotus position when you type Yoga, rather than the Warrior pose she used to do. Air Guitar is no longer in her poulexicon.

And just try typing “show us your boobs”. Someone with more hacker skillz and patience than myself will have to let me know if the dirty chicken hacks still work. All I got was the stern e-cluck and fingerwag.

I recall with pride that I was probably the first to type in “Destroy Tokyo” and that it still works.

Supposition as to the identity of the masked chicken abounds to this day. Given the Oscar-worthy effort of the immortal Subservient Chicken routine “Perform Shakespeare” I think there can be no doubt that we are dealing with an actor of rare quality and subtlety, one who had fallen upon hard times, if only momentarily .

Yes.

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Blogging for Beginners August 18-25th

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Blog

Just a quick note to let everyone know that raincoaster media (ie me!) will be giving the popular course Bloggging for Beginners again. This will be split into two half-day sessions, a week apart, to give students time to work with their blogs and develop specific questions and fluency. Let’s face it: we were all overloaded after last month’s marathon 1-day session.

At some point in the next two weeks we’ll announce an online course session as well, via either MSNMessenger or Second Life, and in early September we’ll be giving our course in the sunny Okanagan.

Blogging for Beginners will run in Vancouver once per month for the forseeable future.

Students can choose from morning or afternoon sessions: the first will run Saturday, August 18th, and the second Saturday, August 25th. Morning sessions begin at 9:30 and end at 12:30, while afternoon sessions begin at 1:30 and end at 4:30. Classes will be held at Tradeworks Training Society downtown (loads of street parking, and easy access to buses and Stadium Skytrain Station).

Our original announcement is here; please note the format change.

What: Blogging for Beginners: from Zero to Technorati

When: 9:30am-4:30 pm, Saturday, August 18th and August 25th, 2007

Where: Tradeworks Training Society, Vancouver

Why: Get your blog up and running in one day; optimized and pimped out in two! Strictly limited to no more than 8 students, this course covers blog basics like:

· what a blog can and can’t do for you
· doing business on blogs/advertising and Adsense
· podcasting, video, audio, and text posts
· basic copyright law and accepted practices
· blog promotion
· joining the blogosphere at large
· solving basic technical problems, where to find help
· what to say when you have nothing to say/what to say when you have far too much to say.

Who: raincoaster media ltd, in partnership with Tradeworks Training Society.
Contact lorraine.murphy at gmail.com or use the contact form below for more information (details continue below form). If inquiring about our online classes, please let us know your time zone.

 

How(much)? $100 tuition. Pre-register to reserve your space: email lorraine.murphy at gmail.com or phone 778-235-0592, and pay via the secure Paypal link on running through rain.

Blogging is the most powerful self-publishing tool ever invented; not only is it free and accessible, but it’s easy. Let Vancouver blogger and entrepreneur Lorraine Murphy teach you the skills to start up, maintain and promote your own blog. Whether you’re interested in blogs for self-expression, showcasing your professional expertise, personal journaling, keeping in touch with family, making new friends, sharing poems, or even publishing a book, this intensive course will get you up and running.

With class size limited to 8, this will be a program of personalized, hands-on learning. During the class you will create your own blog, tweak the design, publish your first post, add a YouTube video, and even some music. Then you’ll learn how to let Google and Technorati and other search engines know you exist, and begin to take part in the blogging community as a whole, including where to turn when you need help. We’ll wrap up with a lesson on effective and values-driven blog promotion practices and netiquette. You will leave with a functional, optimized blog and all the skills you need to take it as high in the blogosphere as you want to go. See you on Technorati!

Bio: Lorraine Murphy is a Vancouver blogger, writer, and editor. She has been blogging for many years, both professionally and personally, and her flagship blog, raincoaster, is ranked in the top 16,000 blogs in the world. She also maintains The Shebeen Club Blog for the literary group of the same name, and running through rain, for students of her course Blogging to Personal Growth. Ms Murphy is the author of Terminal City: Vancouver’s Missing Women and a former Small Business Columnist at Business in Vancouver newspaper and Occupational Pursuit magazine. As one of the cornerstone volunteers in the WordPress.com technical help forums, she has long experience helping beginning bloggers develop fluency and achievement online.

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Henry Rollins, cyberpatriot

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Sometimes, there’s just no other words for it but “Baby Hewey-faced motherfuckers screwing over our country,” and no better messenger of the divine truth than Henry. Fucking. Rollins.

Selah.

Transcript coming soon. And yes, it must be admitted I got this from BoingBoing.

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p0p#1 sez u b svd lol!

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Digital confessional

Let no man say the Catholic Church doesn’t move with the times.

Oh, it doesn’t generally change policies any faster than a glacier changes direction, but their marketing department is already all over Second Life, reaching out to those with no particular First Life (so no change there), and now from the Guardian (of the faithful?) comes news that the Vatican, heretofor known as rather a Slow Adopter (at least since that whole Savonarola brou-ha-ha) has gone all bleeding edge and announced that the C-list blogger known as “the Pope” will be sending daily text messages to the faithful.

No word on whether the service provider will be Virgin.

 

Again.

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