Category Archives: tipsNOTE: I posted the article below about 10 minutes too soon. After completing the Nokia firmware upgrade as instructed, using their software on a Windows laptop, my lovely N95 morphed into an expensive brick. It won’t start.
It’s surprising how upset I am about this. I’ve held off for years on getting a serious cell phone [...]
JoniMitchell.com
A bloggier home page definitely doesn’t have to be ugly.
Right now, several of my clients are working on site redesigns and also are looking for ways to increase site traffic. One of the most basic strategies for attracting more traffic to your site is making your site more appealing to search engines. That’s why I’m [...]
Gaetan Lee, via Flickr (CC license)
Is your wetware due for an upgrade?
On Monday I’ll be co-presenting a session on “Future Tools” at the Knight Digital Media Center seminar: Best Practices: Editorial/Commentary in Cyberspace. My fellow presenter Leslie Rule (who runs KQED’s Digital Storytelling Initiative) and I will be explaining to a room full of [...]
I’m at WeMedia 08 in Miami today, because at 4:15 ET I’ll be speaking on a panel about the Knight News Challenge. That’s where my colleague Adam Glenn and I got the grant to fund our community journalism project, Boulder Carbon Tax Tracker. Gary Kebbel, director of the News Challenge progam for the John S. [...]
If you get really creative about it, failure and frustration can be the most engaging part of your blog. Don’t be scared to be human.
On a discussion list, a colleague recently asked for opinions about whether it’s a good idea to sometimes blog about the sucky stuff: Obstacles, frustrations, disappointments, setbacks, etc. Several people on [...]
Bluehost’s director of customer service? Maybe.
More than a year ago, after significant frustrations with Westhost, I switched Contentious.com to Bluehost — and went through the hassle of moving the complex mass of files that this 10-year-old blog has become.
I’m really starting to regret that decision.
When I pay someone for service, at the very least I [...]
Furl, I love ya, but…
First, the good news: I love Furl. I really do. I have for several years. It’s long been one of my favorite social bookmarking tools because it includes several features beyond basic item tagging and descriptions:
Archiving: Furl saves a complete copy (or at least, it attempts to, and lets you know [...]
afkatws, via Flickr (CC license)
Don’t just start blogging. Spend some time scoping things out first.
Almost daily, people e-mail me to ask me for advice about their online-media careers. I just got such an inquiry this morning. It started out pretty typically:
“I found your Contentious.com recently. I’m very interested in online writing as a career. Can [...]
Firefox users: To disable Adblock Plus on Lijit.com (or any site), you’ll need to add this handy red icon to your toolbar.
A couple of weeks ago I mentioned that I was trying out the search widget Lijit on this site — not just for site search, but as a “me collector” (to aggregate all my [...]
Blmurch, via Flickr (CC license)
Yep, spammers are asses. And evil, in a mostly banal sense. Grumble….
Over the last few days, and especially this morning, I’ve been wrangling with fixing a hack done to this blog by a spammer. It’s been pretty stressful, but Tom Vilot and other helpful geeks have been absolute angels in helping [...]
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