However, I do plan to redo this blog slightly. From my end, it’s just not very workable and I’ve found a new Wordpress template that I think will work better. I’ll be able to post more often and hopefully have my posts more viewable – as well as subscribeable. (Is that a word?)

Even though it’s been quite silent here on this blog, I haven’t abandoned it nor disappeared. I do have some posts up my sleeve, so please stay tuned.

Hello, I am the creator of WordpressDirect.  I want to provide some facts about our service

The content software included with the paid accounts does NOT scrape content.  It only takes content from sites where people create content for with the INTENT of syndication, such as YouTube and eZine directories.  Unless you specifically (as an author) post your content on one of these services, it cannot end up being found by our software.

Since the service was launched, we have received 2 copyright violation notices for content, and both were addressed immediately.  These were caused by publishers (not our users) circulating content they didn’t have permission for in eZine directories, not due to our methods.  We take copyright issues very seriously.

Forget the content publishing for a second…We save people time and frustration in setting up a a search-engine optimized blog.  Not just any old blog.  A blog that would take you a day to build yourself.  Worpress experts have said as much on the 30 Day Challenge forum.  We just make it easier for a user’s own written content to get noticed by Google and Yahoo for your target phrase - and we do it for Free.

People keep ignoring the fact that most of our users write their own content.  Why?  We and our 30 Day Challenge partners clearly explain why a blog creator needs to create their own unique content in the 30DC lessons.

It’s as if we force users to use our content software on their blogs.  We do not.  We teach our users how to use this software correctly (see the example site at www.vintageelectricguitarblog.com) to add value to their uniquely written content on their blog.  If it is OK to find a YouTube video yourself and embed it in your blog, is it not OK to have a piece of software to make it easier?  Hopefully you see my point.

There are many pre-conceived notions about blogging and the use of such technology, and many are lumping WordPressDirect in with previous stupid attempts to game Adsense.
One rule remains true from that time…

If you spam your own blog, using our stuff or anybody else’s you are a fool.  You will be de-indexed by Google and then nobody will notice your content.

However, the idea that they are promoting this as a way for people to easily grab "articles" from web sites interests - and scares - me. Perhaps it’s the editor in me. Does this software cite its sources? When it posts an article on the newly created blog, does it state where the original content came from? I suspect not, but having not tested it personally, I don’t know for sure.

Here’s the original press release about the Wordpress Direct software. Apparently they have 10,000 users so far.

Thoughts, anyone?

I called my oldest daughter and told her the news and she reminded me, “Mom, you’ve been through this before several times, even just this year. You know what to do, so just focus on doing that.” Gee, when did my daughter grow up to be so smart and wise? So, I took a deep breath and looked at my list of contacts on Windows Live Messenger. I saw my old boss from two companies ago who is now a full-time manager at Microsoft. So, I contacted him, and lo and behold, my timing is perfect he said. He wanted me to work for him two months ago but I was otherwise committed. I’ve had interviews last Friday - met his team - and have a lunch interview today with a couple more team members. Hopefully all will work out well and that I won’t have any significant break in income. That’s a good thing.

Recently I received a general invitation to critique a web site that someone had recently launched. I’ve done lots of web site critiques before, written copy for high-profile web sites, and even designed and managed a few back in the day of straight HTML. I also spend an inordinate amount of time surfing the web looking at good and bad web sites, what’s popular, and what’s not.

One of my favorite sites is that of Men With Pens who regularly do "Drive-by Shootings" , which are web site critiques. People sign up weeks in advance for their feedback and input. I have yet to read one of their critiques that I don’t agree with. Almost always, they are spot on. I often wonder what responses they get from each of the willing participants? Do they accept the feedback? Do they incorporate the changes? Or do the owners argue with them as to why the site is perfect the way it is?

Today, after looking at the site in question, I felt I could offer up some helpful  feedback to the owner. Understanding that this site was their "baby" and they had spent a lot of time on it, I submitted my feedback in positive terms, showing appreciation for parts done well, but then calling out areas that clearly distracted the reader from the content - what the person was selling - and ways in which the web site owner was inadvertently sending people away from their site.

The response I received was essentially, I like it this way and since I like it, it must be good, and since I understand each graphic, I’m sure everyone else will too. Each point where I suggested a change was justified from their point of view and why it worked for them. Sure, it works for the web site owner, and they like it, but will the reader?

It’s always hard to discern how feedback will be received and it’s extremely frustrating when people ask for your honest opinion and then, no matter how tactfully you give it, they argue with you about it. Essentially, they really didn’t want to know what you thought, they just wanted props for what they thought was sheer brilliance.

Moral of the story: If you don’t want to know the answer, don’t ask the question.

So, finally, many weeks later, I stopped and looked through the Wordpress.org support forum. I had avoided addressing fixing my blog because I thought it was going to take a long time to redo the entire template. Little did I know how a quick search through the forum would offer up just the right answer.

Five minutes later, editing my stylesheet and saving, and voila! I have a blog title and you can subscribe properly to my blog. LOVE IT! And I didn’t have to pay anyone to fix it for me. Even better. Thanks, Wordpress.org.

Early in my career, I used to go through this anguish when job hunting. However, I no longer experience this, as I learned a few things along the way. I’ll share what has worked for me, and hopefully some of this will work for you too. In the world of freelancing, contracting, or running my own business, I keep these thoughts front and center so a lost client, a lost gig, a lost opportunity doesn’t ruin my day, week, or month.

1. Have faith in the universe. Opportunities come and go, just like trains. There will be another better opportunity along in ten minutes.

2. Don’t take the rejection personally. Often the job you think you really want is one that you weren’t really suited for. Someone other than you had a vision of what they needed, and somehow your skills didn’t match up. You may never know why, exactly, but it’s not you personally. Even if it was you, would you want to work somewhere or with people with whom you clashed?

3. In time, you may get to see how not getting the job (or client) was just the right thing for you. I recently found out that a colleague I once worked for was select for a job I thought I wanted. It was a prestigious opportunity, rubbing elbows with multi-million dollar clients, including those at the Bill Gates level, and would have meant long-term, steady income. However, in chatting with this colleague today, I realized that I wouldn’t have liked what she is doing now anyway. It’s too fast paced, too technical, and half the time she has to be onsite. Sometimes there are hidden criteria to the job that the client or prospective employer doesn’t let on about because it’s not enticing or appealing. It will surface somehow. Be grateful  you dodged the bullet.

4. Don’t cry when a job ends before you are ready. This is somewhat related to #1, but having had several jobs end in my career involuntarily - layoff, merger, reorganization, downsizing - I’ve learned to go with the flow. Change is mandatory and part of life. It’s rare these days that jobs last for a lifetime. Economies ebb and flow, which in turn means businesses ebb and flow, and it’s all like a wonderful coordinated waltz.

5. The worst things that ever happened to me always turned out to be the best things that ever happened to me. Looking back over all the job changes I’ve had - especially when I was a corporate wage slave - when an involuntary change came along (I’ve never been fired), I can now see how the next job that came along was even better. I also can see that everything I learned in each job set me up for success in the next one.

6. It’s all about your attitude. I firmly believe that my attitude helps me adapt to changes, even when they are changes I don’t like, or things turn out differently than how I wanted. Keeping a positive attitude helps me stay focused on the bigger picture and the finer things in life. After all, it’s just a job. See #1. Next!

He also showed me how with Windows Vista, some drivers are still being updated, and he found a new update for my video driver. I’m going to install that and see what happens.

I responded back to him and thanked him profusely. Seriously. How cool is that that he used their own product to provide what is now excellent service. Perhaps I was just cranky and tired earlier.

Moral of the tech support story: a little goes a long way. And use visuals and audio when you can. Jing can help you do that.

This particular topic comes up as I am dealing with a technical support person at TechSmith - creator of this fabulous new tool called Jing, that my colleague, Beth over at Life on Avenue Z, told me about.

I downloaded Jing and it’s the sweetest screen capture invention for free that I’ve seen yet. It shows up as a little half sun on the edge of your computer screen. When you hover over it, it expands to give you three options of capture. Click one, and off you go. You can even reposition where the half sun sits on your monitor.

After a few days, I needed to contact HP support for a completely  unrelated issue. After that issue was resolved to my satisfaction, I restarted my computer and noticed that Jing was no longer working. The half sun was frozen in place and was inactive. The only way I could get JIng to work was by launching the commands from the task bar - not my preferred method because I think that Jing’s screen launcher is the coolest method. So, I uninstalled Jing, and then reinstalled it. Still not working. I sent Techsmith an email with the problem:

"I love this tool, however, after a session with HP tech support yesterday for an unrelated issue, Jing is not working. I have the yellow half-sun graphic, with a black quarter circle near it, and when I hover over the yellow half sun, nothing works, but it did before. Hmmm. I tried uninstalling and reinstalling Jing, but still the same issue."

Their response:

"We have had a few reports of this problem, but we have not yet found what is the cause. It is interesting that you describe this happening after working with HP. What kind of problem were you troubleshooting, was this a problem with your computer, or were you servicing a printer? Please give me some details of what was done on that call, as it may offer a clue as to what made this change in Jing’s behavior.
I would also like to get a System info file to help me troubleshoot this problem. Please click start > run and type msinfo32.exe then hit "ok". This brings up System Information. Click file > save as.. to save a .nfo report. Attach this to your reply."

Since there was no "save as" option, I sent them a .txt file - a bit nervous though as to why they need all that information. That file offers up everything about my computer. How do I know this support person is honest? But, I digress…

So, my response to her added more clarification:

"We were troubleshooting why my built-in microphone wasn’t working after Microsoft had me change my operating system from Vista Home Premium to Vista Enterprise. I loaded Jing onto Vista Enterprise and it worked fine. Then the troubleshooting with HP - we updated audio drivers and the BIOS. That’s all that I know we did - HP had remote control, but I was watching. I’ve attached the system information as a text file. There was no "save as" option, only save or export, so I chose export. Hope this helps. Oh, and Jing works, if I choose the image capture from the taskbar, not from the half sun at the top. I can’t move the half sun or get it to work, so I just turn off Jing now when I reboot."

Here’s the response I just got back that fried my eggs this morning:

"your system info file is not useful in this format, please try this again, and choose "Save" to save in the .nfo format.
If you updated your audio components or major Windows components after installing Jing, this may be causing Jing to not appear correctly. Please unisntall Jing, then reinstall Jing, and let me knwo if this solves the problem.
Jing should still work for you, this is just a display problem. If you click "More" in the task tray icon for Jing, then go into preferences, you can uncheck "show launcher" to make the sun icon at top go away, then you can use Jing from either the task tray, or you can also set a hotkey, also in the preferences window.
Please advise."

Um…. didn’t I already tell her all that? In my first message I told her I’d already uninstalled and reinstalled it. I also tole her that it still works from the task tray (what I called the taskbar.)

Seriously. If you are a tech support person - and I say this as a reminder to myself as well - make time to stop, digest what your client tells you, before shooting from the hip. This tells the client you respect their time, you respect them, and it also gives you all the information you need - or most of it - to really troubleshoot the problem successfully and quickly, the first time - without ticking off your customer and making them repeat themselves.

And now I’ll probably have to eat my own words because I could be firing this off too fast and someone else reading my messages to the support people could be as equally confused as she was - so perhaps it’s all my fault anyway.