Venting at the expense of Group 2

Not to override your post Tom, but I will get to that shortly. I just feel compelled to share this.

I have been blogging on my personal blog on the four blogs I have been viewing for the past week or so. Only two of the four are actually able to hold my interest at any level, but beyond that, I got my first semi-offensive/serious comment from an outsider. Well I guess technically it is my second. I welcomed the first comment from an outsider (out of class) with open arms seeing as it was very nice. As you guys probably know, I don't write for comments, I write for me. Apparently with this notion, I tend to forget that anyone can see our blogs, which shouldn't change what I write anyway.

I recently made a post on a picture of a creepy doll in my opinion. You can check it out on "quotable quotes." It turns out that the person who maintains the blog where this picture was commented on my posting with some unfavorable words. What he said was completely legitimate, but point and case of why I don't love comments or blogging for that matter. Sure blogging is great for most people, but I just get too offended too easily. That is my problem and I am completely willing to admit it.

I just needed to get that off my chest.........

kick it into gear

Not sure how we can kick this blog into gear. Posting would help. If for no other reason than to start a dialog I'll ask; what are your plans for break? I still have to work so I don't have major plans. A week with no class or homework will be a welcome break though. Plan on putting in some marathon gaming hours.
Did everyone come up with feedback about the final paper for Dr. Sands? I am still not sure where to go with that. I did reassert my statement from class that D2L can go. Bringing that conversation here will help.


ADDED: Just came across this story on BBC. The 2007 award for journalism went to 22-year old blogger Abdel Kareem Soliman, who wrote under the name Kareem Amer. How's that for blogs making a difference and changing the world.

Interesting Blogging Article

This is entirely off topic of what our assignment sheet is saying, but I thought this was pretty interesting and random that I came across this article.

I found a magazine on the newspaper racks in the union. The magazine is called Young Money. Inside was an article by a technology editor, Dave Matthews, called "Beginner's Guide to Blogging." It was very brief, but discussed a couple key points. First of all, Matthews says that blogs are a good idea because they may one day be able to make you money. He brought this point up a few times, but never really expanded upon it.

He is also a big hater of MySpace and Facebook. He says, "If you are one of the millions of college students graduation this spring with MySpace of Facebook accounts loaded with so-called "friends" and message board entries, it may be time for you to grow up to a real blog."
I think this comment is a bit harsh, but I see his point. He talks about being able to make blogs private or public and being able to add photos. You can do all of these things of Facebook as well. I am not personally experienced with MySpace, so I can't comment on that. One of his main defenses is that blogs are easy to access. He says "can you imagine your grandmother signing up for a MySpace page, just so she can access your photos?" I think he soon realized that was a silly point to make because he mentioned that you probably wouldn't want your grandmother to see those photos anyway.

Lastly, the author offers some blogging quick tips. Here is what he has to say.
*Post regularly or readers won't keep coming back to your blog
*Leave comments on other's blogs, to drive more traffic links
*Make sure the comments are smart and not seen as spam
*Use a photo with each entry since a picture is worth a million words!
*Link to your friends on the sidebar to gain traffic
*Sign up for Google Ad Words to make some money from your blog traffic hat your expertise area is.