Recently in Internet/Blogging Category

I don't know if you've noticed, but you've been unable to comment on the last few blog entries, thanks to my web host migrating their accounts to a new platform, which totally screwed up my blog. When I called tech support -- and I must admit here they actually did try to help -- they ended the conversation with the never-before-uttered phrase "We don't support Movable Type, only Wordpress". Ugh! Oh well, I've been wanting to change this blog over to Wordpress for a while now, anyway, so I guess the time really has come. I will be attempting that monumental task this week sometime. Keep your fingers crossed for me!

Meanwhile, back to my life in the real world, my family and I have been traveling, taking a couple of trips over the last two weeks. It's been so much fun! Our first trip was to Estes Park here in Colorado, which is one of our most favorite places to go. This time, however, I would have to say it was the best one ever -- except for the fact that our daughter came down with the flu the first night we were there. The next day she was feeling better, so we managed to still salvage a good time! I took a bunch of pictures and have posted them to my flickr, so please go and enjoy! I've added a little of the history of Estes in there for you, too. ;) Oh, and just wait until you see the pictures of those beautiful Elk that walked through our "back yard"!

Our other trip was to Lake McConaughy in Nebraska (in my opinion, the only thing that redeems Nebraska -- sorry Nebraskans. GO BUFFS!). We LOVE this lake! To begin with, it's huge and has a sand bottom so there's no muddy mess like a lot of lakes/reservoirs, and the beaches are beautiful white sand! The closest thing to the ocean near us, that's for sure. LOL I don't have the pictures downloaded from my camera yet, but when I do I'll post the link. We took our daughter's best friend with us, who had never been there, along with two of our dogs -- the tiniest, Riley, and the biggest, Cheyenne. Now, Cheyenne is a Lab through-and-through and adores the water, so she had a FABULOUS time. Riley, on the other hand, is terrified of water, so I thought bringing him was a mistake, but Hubs insisted. Well, much to my surprise, he really enjoyed the beach and playing ball with us. What he didn't like, of course, was ALL THAT WATER! He got on Callie's back while she was on the tube and she took him for a little ride, but he hated it. LOL Later I got in the water which, by the way, is still very cold, and started making those kind of noises you make when you dip yourself into cold water, you know? lol Anyway, Riley heard me and thought I was in trouble, so he mustered up all his courage and jumped down the little "cliff" alongside the water and was all set to come rescue me. He jumped onto Callie's back once again and she began paddling toward me. The whole time he was staring at me with this "I'm coming! I'm coming!" look in his little eyes. It was SO CUTE! I couldn't believe he would face his worst fear to save little old me. He is absolutely my hero! All seven pounds of him! :)

I best get a move on and see about all this changing over to Wordpress thing. It makes me shudder to think of importing all of what's here, but a gal has to do what a gal has to do for the love of her blog. ;) Oh, and by the way --

HAPPY FATHER'S DAY to all of you fathers out there! :)

CNN has just decided to report on what all of us who having been blogging for a while already know: Your Blog Can Be Group Therapy. Duh! LOL

According to the aricle, "Blogging can create an instant support system, especially at a time when you might not have the energy or resources to seek out people who've shared your experiences." Amen to that! I've been using my blog for therapy since day one. It's nice that everyone else is finally catching up and realizing how valuable blogging can be!

Blog on, boys and girls! :)

CNN, Blogging, Blogging as Therapy

Hi, guys. How is your Tuesday going so far? My day got off to kind of a slow start. It's one of those "do it when you feel like it" days. It's cool, though.

I've been doing a lot of work on my web sites lately. As many of you know, I had a "dry spell" for a few months wherein I did very little blogging and really ignored my sites. As a consequence, I've suffered much lower recorded visits and page views. To those of us who have blogs, we know that our sites live and die by the numbers. Months ago my PR fell to a 4, and I'd really like to get my 5 back. So, I've been doing some damage control. I've submitted my blog to the newest ways out there to help increase my traffic and page views, plus I found a great web directory free of charge to which I can submit my blogs. I thought that sounded great, considering most good directories charge in order to get a listing with them.

I could kick myself for allowing things to go downhill so much around here, but I guess at the time my mind and heart just weren't in it. Things like that happen, right? It's like running a race and falling behind, then suddenly catching your second wind and sprinting forward again. I guess you could say I've found my second wind. Finally.

I hope your day is being kind to you. :)

Blogs, Web Directories, PageRank

Comments are finally working again. It's a good thing, too, cuz I was just about ready to scream at someone over the phone! As it was I left a not-so-nice message on the help ticket asking how long it takes a tech agent to change ONE thing on ONE file! I guess I know now that it takes 48 HOURS! Geez. If this domain wasn't so huge I'd move to a new host. This stuff is getting old.

Anyway, you can leave comments again, so do it! LOL

Web Hosts, Tech Support

I've been working with tech support for hours now trying to get comments working again. I get so mad at them! Anyway, they assure me that it should be taken care of within the next 24 hours, if not sooner. I have NO idea why it should take that long when all they have to do is set permissions on ONE file. But oh well, at least they're working on it. Of course, if I was there I'd have it done in five seconds flat!

Have a great weekend, everyone! :)

Comment Systems, Web Hosts, Tech Support

I've been toying with the idea of getting a job in the outside world again. I don't know, though, because I absolutely love being home with my daughter. Time goes so fast, and she's going to be out of the house in just three or four short years, so I may just wait until then.

I did find something new out there for people seeking jobs, though, and it totally rocks! I went to just "check it out" and ended up spending at least an hour there! It's called realmatch, and it is a very cool way to put yourself out there for potential employers who are looking for people just like you. In reading about realmatch I found out that it was co-founded by Alan Schonberg, who founded Management Recruiters International, the largest recruiting company in the world with 1200 offices, and Business Week is calling it “Scary competition to Monster”. I can certainly understand why, too. It was crazy easy to set up my profile and downright fun using the site. I think they have just about every category and sub-category of job title and description you can think of! It's there for both active and passive job seekers, so I entered myself as passive.

It's also there for you employers who are looking to hire the most qualified people you can find. How much easier could it be to find a perfect fit for your company? If you're looking for a job, or looking for an employee, I seriously recommend using realmatch to do it!

realmatch

Hi there. :) Long time, eh? I'm finally over the flu. Took about 2 1/2 weeks but it's gone now, thank goodness. Man, that stuff is brutal! How have you been?

I thought I'd alert you guys to an email virus making the rounds right now. I only know about it because I'm naturally skeptical about emails I receive from anyone and anything other than my friends, and I'm glad I am! I received an email that looked exactly like the notifications sent out by Hallmark when someone has sent you an ecard, but I immediately noticed it was sent by "A Friend". Now I don't know about you, but when I receive an ecard the sender's name is always attached, and when I send one to my friends I always use my name, not simply "a friend". So anyway, the first thing I always do with a suspicious email is mouse over the links to see if the URL they lead to is actually the site they're supposed to lead to, and the ones in this particular email absolutely did not. In fact, the link didn't lead to a web site at all -- it was a link to an .exe file! You all know what that means, right? VIRUS! So then I went to Hallmark's legitimate web site and found this ecard alert and thought I should pass it along to you. People who use their "skills" to ruin it for everyone else really piss me off. They're the cyber version of the schoolyard bully. Don't let them get the best of you -- pay attention and be alert with those emails!

Hallmark, Ecards, Ecard Fraud, Ecard Virus

I've decided that I definitely want to change the blogging platform of this blog from Movable Type to Wordpress. If any of you out there have done so with a blog that had a huge amount of content and successfully migrated everything over, PLEASE let me know! I'm really scared I'm going to lose everything. That would be a very bad thing.

My back is whacked. You know how backs are -- one small innocent move and POW, a lot of pain! Especially backs that have had surgery in the past like mine. I'm gimpin' around, trying to take care of it the best I can. Sitting here at the 'puter doesn't help much. lol

Hope you are all having a great weekend so far! :) If you see things go really crazy around here in the next few days, it will probably be me screwing up my site. LOL Wish me luck! *crossing fingers*

Ciao!

Movable Type,, Wordpress

I don't know how many of you have tried commenting lately, but if you have, you've seen the Internal Server Error page that you got instead of seeing your comment go through. After searching out the problem, I found that the permissions on the .cgi script responsible for commenting within my Movable Type application were set to a big fat 0. When I tried to CHMOD them back to the proper setting, it told me I didn't have access or permission to do so. What???? So, once again I called up tech support. Turns out some stupid ass was trying to sp*am my comments system by literally trying to send through hundreds at a time, which in turn slowed down to an excruciatingly slow pace the server on which my domain resides, so they turned the commenting script off. They didn't bother emailing and letting me know, though. Nice, huh?

ANYway, a very looong story short, I have had to resort to forcing my readers to register and/or sign-in in order to comment on this blog. Fortunately, though, you can log in using your existing username and password in TypeKey, Movable Type, Open ID, Live Journal, Vox and/or Wordpress. You don't have to register with this site specifically.

It only takes one, doesn't it? One stupid idiot to ruin it for the rest of us! So I apologize, but I had no choice. Thanks for understanding. :)

Idiots, Commenting Systems, MT

With all these problems I've been having with my web host lately, I've seriously been considering finding a new one and moving my domain. It's a daunting thought, as I've had the same host since I began this journey online many, many years ago, and the domain itself has become huge, so it would be no small task. I didn't even know where to begin looking -- until I found Web Hosting Choice at http://www.webhostingchoice.com. It's very cool because you can input the criteria you'd like met by a web host, then simply click "search" and it gives you a list of web hosts from which you can choose. Talk about easy! They also have a very comprehensive web host directory that you can browse at your leisure. If you're new to the internet and aren't quite sure how to begin, they have a great Learning Center to teach you the ins and outs.

I think I better go do a search for myself!

Web Hosting Choice

I read just yesterday that Google has been spanking people all across the internet with lower Pagerank, and I received my spanking today. This blog went from a 5 to a 4. To those of you who do not do paid blogging, that probably means nothing to you, but it means a big loss of $$$ for me. That's the bad news.

The good news is that my other blogs, The Inconvenient Truth and Imagine That went from big fat zeros to a 1 and a 2, respectively. That means I'll be able to make a little more $$$ on The Inconvenient Truth, so maybe it will all wash out in the end. I hope.

It's a cloudy, chilly, windy day today. My daughter and I went BIG grocery shopping last night, which totally sucked. Cramps from hell, a headache and backache made it suck even more. Timing. It's everything.

Next weekend we turn our clocks back an hour. I really hate that! It will be getting dark SO early. Icky.

My bestest friend in Australia lost her beloved dog, Muddy, the other day. He was very old and died at home surrounded by the love of his family. Even when you're expecting it, though, it is very, very difficult. If any of you would like to send Debbie your condolences, you may do so here in my comments. Debbie whispered in Muddy's ear that he should find Daisy when he crossed over, so I'm sure they are frolicking around together and having lots of fun.

That's all I have. I hope ya'll have had a happy Friday so far. :)

Cheers!

Dogs, Shopping, Pagerank, Google

I didn't have much of a mind left to lose, but I think I'm pretty close to having NOTHING left!! This upgrade -- holy crap!! I have seemed to left myself with no individual pages accessible. Used to get a "Forbidden" error; now I'm getting a "so-and-so category doesn't exist". You wanna bet?! They all exist! They're hiding somewhere and I can't find them. Well, not the categories themselves; I know where THEY are. Browsers just can't seem to find my archives. HELP!!

I'm going to be attempting an upgrade to MT 4.0 tonight, so if things look and act wonky, that's why, OK? Wish me luck!!

Hope you're all having a great Friday night! :)

Movable Type, MT, MT 4.0, Upgrading to MT 4.0

Hey you guys, just thought I'd give you a heads-up on my wonky blog here. When you leave a comment, if you get a blank white screen after you click "Post", there is no need to re-post your comment. It doesn't look like it, but it actually has been posted.

I've been trying to figure out why this happens. I've done everything I can think of, including running the repair command for my entire database. Nothing changes it. Guess I'll have to call my web host -- again! *sigh* If any of you have any bright ideas, I'd love to hear them!

Web Site Problems, Wonky Web Sites, Commenting System Problems

Listen, you guys, if you want to really know how you can make money with your web site and increase your revenue per visitor, then take a look at this Affiliate Training!

At SmartAff.org, you're going to discover some of the actual inside knowledge and expertise of a million dollar affiliate marketing company that owns and manages over 800 domains! Sound good? It does to me, too! Be sure and check out their "Our Purpose" page. You'll find all kinds of info about their purpose and their values while striving toward those purposes, which include:

Honor Your Most Valuable Asset; Time!
Act with integrity and respect
Give Back

And last, but certainly not least,

LIVE WITH PASSION

Passion -- a vital ingredient in anyone's life, regardless of what they do! Interested? Go take a look! :)

SmartAff.org

I can't believe how late I am in coming to know about certain things. I was slow at learning about how to effectively shop with coupons back when my kids were small -- and so were our paychecks. I remember going to the store and finding coupon exchange "bins" in the aisles where you could take the coupons you needed and then drop off the ones you weren't going to be using, and thinking it was a very cool idea. Now I find out that you can basically do the very same thing online!

Do you know about coupon codes? I'd heard of them, but being the idiot I am, hadn't paid much attention to what I'd heard. LOL Now I wonder what cool stuff I could have been buying for MUCH less! Take for instance all the things I buy for my dogs -- I could have been saving money using pet coupons! You can bet I'm going to be using those coupon codes from now on! For all you computer-lovin' people out there (YES, that means me, too!), you can find fantastic deals on computers at Deal Locker. How does $350 off all Inspiron desktop purchases over $999 from Dell Home sound? Pretty awesome, huh! You really should check out all of their coupons; you can save some major dough! Don't confuse Deal Locker with any other coupon code site you've seen before, though. All of the coupons found there are user rated and by default you only see working coupons, which have not expired. No trickery whatsoever! Nothing to lose and a lot to save! :)

Deal Locker, deallocker.com, Coupon Codes