Amazon Patents Search URL

Yet another reason why I completely despise patents, especially software and design patents. Why the heck is a “search string” worthy of a patent?

How To Separate WordPress Comments And Trackbacks

This is something I’ve been thinking about doing here.

The Ten Commandments of Blog Typography

No strange fonts, no funky colors, and no squished letters. It’s as simple as that.

Darren Rowse and Yaro Starak Talk Blog Design

Darren and Yaro discuss blog design - both of their blogs have had major redesigns in the past few months.

Create A Slogan For The PageRank Slam!

Darren Rowse and Brian Clark are running a little contest. Pick the best slogan for the PageRank slam and get free 3 month subscription to Brian’s new Teaching Sells program. Mine is “PR? They’re Still Using That Thing?”

What Would Google Look Like If It Was Optimized For Google?

So true, so true…

Do You Disclose Affiliate Links?

To be honest I am SHOCKED at the number of people who say they redirect their links and such. Personally I think anyone who tries to hide the fact they are getting paid is scum, absolute scum. I think it is also bit foolish to not disclose the links (unless it is obvious, like an ad), but I don’t mind that as much as purposely hiding them. Money changes everything - including people’s opinions about products.

The Virtues Of Posting Less Often

Mohsin has pretty much convinced me posting less often is better - and I want to try my best to do it. Problem is now I am doing weekly blog reviews in addition to the regular content here, so I’ll probably still be posting daily.

A Secret to Profitable Blogging - Trending Up Over the Long Haul

Darren talks about treating blogging as a long term thing and to not expect huge, immediate results. It takes a long time to go from nothing to something.

PC Magazine Top 100 Favorite Blogs

Nusuni Dot Com didn’t make it on there, oh well. Maybe next year?

Being Stupid And Litigious Is No Way To Go Through Life

A classic case of copyright misconception and how NOT to handle legal issues. Extortion, anyone?

Judge to Porn-Peddling Spammers: You’ve Got Jail

Some spammers have finally been sentenced to jail for five years for sending spam mail. Two down, 5000 more to go.

Jonathan Bailey over at PlagiarismToday posted his thoughts on the RIAA’s $222,000 win. His post inspired me to write post on it as well.

Lawyers Win

First and foremost - the lawyers are the ONLY people who win major civil lawsuits. They walk away from these things with tens of thousands of dollars of cash in their pocket. Meanwhile the plaintiff looks like a robber and the defendant looks like a criminal.

Spend Money Wisely

Why do the RIAA (the MPAA) refuse to evolve. Are they so pathetic they can’t accept modern society wants free stuff? Why not spend their millions of dollars developing ways to make money online instead of suing for it?

Here I’ll give them a business plan.

• Put their content on websites and offer both free and paid (membership) areas.
• Put up a stat counter.
• Figure out how much traffic they get and get sponsors.
• Get a swimming pool filled with hundred dollar bills.

It isn’t hard at all. If an 18 year old kid can see that surely a bunch of overpaid lawyers can?

Real Life Examples

Look at pro bloggers, Revision3, Digg, Google, Linux developers, etc. They give away stuff for free and they get quite a bit of money as a result.

I’m Entitled To Free Stuff!

While I agree no one is entitled to free stuff, I do think it is a better way of running a content-based business online. People love free content - so give them it!

So Is P2P Sharing Good?

Just so no one thinks I support copyright infringement - I don’t. I think anyone who go around downloading crap illegally should get some sort of punishment, but $222,000 for 12 songs? I’d call that cruel and unusual punishment.

For the most part having more people comment on your blog is a good thing, but every once in a while you may encounter a Rogue Commentator. Rogue Commentators are people who for some reason or another are always angry and seem to think they have to tell everyone about it. They are absolutely miserable people who cannot control themselves whatsoever. Often times their comments are completely illogical and make you think they have an IQ of -38.

If you haven’t had to deal with one consider yourself lucky, they can be quite nasty at times.

Rogue Commentator vs Someone Who Disagrees With You

It is important to understand the difference between Rogue Commentators and people who simply disagree with you. The main difference is why they comment (to express their opinion vs to make your life miserable and make you feel like an insignificant fool), and how they react to you if you respond.

What Do They Do?

Unlike other commentators, rogue commentators will keep attacking you over, and over, and over. They will even go on posts that have nothing to do with what they’re talking about and comment on them.

When I first started this blog I had a particularly bad one come on here. He commented on here and claimed he owned Nusuni.com and I stole it from him. Well, that can’t be right, I’ve owned it since 2002, and no one owned it before. So, I e-mailed him and asked him what the heck he was talking about, then he went all ranty on me and started spewing some pretty nasty language out of his arse. I tried ignoring him, blocking his IP, and I did everything else but for some reason the guy kept going on and on about it. It finally ended when I sent him a lovely computer nerd threat, “Dude, I know how to make viruses.” I never heard from him again.

The point is you can try to ignore them and block them from your site, but they will keep going on and on.

How To Deal With Them

The #1 thing is don’t give them any fodder. Stay calm, talk in logical manner, and only start the threats if the nonsense continues for too long. Usually they will give up after a few days or a week.

If it goes on long enough and they aren’t stopping (even if you are completely ignoring them), try searching for an abuse contact for their ISP (use a tool like Domain Tools and enter their IP) and report them. Include all messages sent back and forth between you and the other person.

Eventually they will stop and you can continue blogging normally.

Stay tuned for more Back To The Basics posts!

About 3 weeks ago I found a splog that stole about 2 articles from Nusuni Dot Com (what a surprise, I find at least 1 of them per day), and today I was going to go and file DMCAs. Well.. I went back on the site and both articles were gone. In fact, the pages for the articles were completely different. I did some more snooping and couldn’t find my articles anywhere. This isn’t the first time I’ve noticed this happening either.

This makes me wonder, splogs must have all of their content rotated quite often (vs having more and more content shoved on top of existing stuff). This also makes me wonder if the worries of splogs killing your search rankings are a bit exaggerated. If the duplicate content is only on there for a few weeks does it cause as many issues? Maybe the sploggers are finally learning that search engines like changing content more than fairly static content?