Want to Help Google Clean Up Splogs?

Want to Help Google Clean Up Splogs?
In response to Matt Cutts’ request on how Google should work on web spam, a friend of mine gives him a very good summary of how Google can put an end to one the biggest blights on the web: splogs. In A big free clue for Google, he points out: Like many bloggers I can spot [...]

In response to Matt Cutts’ request on how Google should work on web spam, a friend of mine gives him a very good summary of how Google can put an end to one the biggest blights on the web: splogs. In A big free clue for Google, he points out:

Like many bloggers I can spot a splog in less than 10 seconds. The common features:
* Every entry has “wrote an interesting post” “read the rest of the post here” “..talked today about”
* Most entries are uncategorised
* There is an absence of comments…

Now if I can join those dots why can’t Google? Why can’t the other search engines?

He’s so right. If we can quickly spot a splog when we see one, why can’t Google, the omnipotent profiling algorithm, figure this out and put a stop to these? They have plenty to work with, overrun as they are with tons of Blogpost splogs in desperate need of some serious housekeeping. Why not use these splog spotting techniques to clean up their own house first?

Until then, we can report spam blogs (splogs) when we find them. If you want to do more, why not tell the world (and Google) how to clean up splogs on your blog. Let your voice and ideas be heard. We’re a creative lot when we put our blogs to it. Why not tell Google what you recommend to clean up it’s act.

Related Articles

• Splogging or Clogging: The Worst of the Worst of Blogging
• Splogs on the Rise on Blogspot
• Blogs That Look Like Blogs But Ain’t - Splogs
• Proud to Showcase YOUR Work: Sploggers Turn Dopplebloggers
• Reporting Spam Blogs - Splogs
• One Year Anniversary Review: Splogs - The Dark Side of Blogging
• How To Spot a Splog
• AntiLeech Splog Stopper: Fighting Back Against Content Thieves
• Wrong Thinking: Accusing Blogroll Links Not Sploggers

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Site Search Tags: splogs, spam blogs, sploggers, google, blogspot, fighting back, stop splogs, stopping splogs, report splogs, report spam blogs, how to report spam blogs, how to report splogs

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Copyright Lorelle VanFossen, the author of Blogging Tips, What Bloggers Won't Tell You About Blogging.

Redefining the Widget

Redefining the Widget
Last year at Widgets Live, the announcement of the SpringWidgets platform redefined what a widget could be. At the time of our launch there were three categories of widgets: desktop widgets, web widgets and a special subsection of web widgets that would work on social networking profiles.

We changed all that by inventing a widget platform that allowed for the first time, the ability to use a single, updatable and configurable widget file to reach all of these destinations. We took it further by incorporating in the ability to “pop” any SpringWidget you find on the web onto your desktop with just one click.

Since our release, there have been a few companies that have announced a similar product offering - YourMinis and Netvibes are examples we feel are well done.

I'm going to give you a little sneak peak behind the curtain where we are quietly working on redefining the widget once again, and perhaps in the process spur another round of inspiration.

For the most part, online widgets have been exactly what the limited definition has made them out to be …

A web widget is a portable chunk of code that can be installed and executed within any separate HTML-based web page by an end user without requiring additional compilation.

Thanks Wikipedia

Reading this, I’m thinking about the widget landscape and in my head I’m starting to challenge the entire box that we have collectively put widgets into, trying to look past the simple definition and look at the transformative nature of what a portable chunk of code can do.

Is the widget just a visitor on the web page or can it be much more and control and interact with the web page it’s on? If widgets are like parasites, can a parasite define the host?

Can a widget be a portable “experience?”

Envision if you will a Widget that no longer sends the user off to another site to personalize itself. Imagine a widget that is not content to stay within the confines of it’s own little box, but rather can interact with the page it lives on. The “Transformative Widget” would take over the page it’s on; integrating it's content within that page and transforming it based on a click.

If the Widget is not just a chunk of code, but rather a portable experience, imagine the infinite ways we can expand the brand experience within the social network itself. Moving code and embedding Widgets can create a better way to immerse the user in an extreme brand experience. The widget then becomes an ad that is user embedded, user selected and more powerfully engaging and interactive than any traditional advertisement that is available - and just as performance oriented.

If a user allows the widget to brand the entire page, is that a "Widgetview", an "Ad Impression", or a "Pageview"?

So if SpringWidgets is ready to challenge the Widget Landscape it’s safe to say that the launch of THE FANTASTIC FOUR Widget is the next step in redefining the Widget. The transformative nature of TFF Widget is completely apparent once you start using it on your MySpace profile and the brand experience is more immersive than anything possible with a widget prior to the Fantastic Four widget launch.

This is only one of the many transformative widgets that we are engaged in and only represents a small amount of our R&D efforts. Over the weeks and months to come, we'll be rolling out some truly fantastic products that will not only transform the widget, but transform SpringWidgets as well.

We would love to have you on board as we make these transformations, so please feel free to download our API and put your own thoughts to work in redefining what a widget can be.

QuickCal 1.0

QuickCal 1.0
Create iCal events and todos quickly using natural language! (For example, “lunch tomorrow at noon”)

About QuickCal A desktop widget which allows the creation of iCal events and todos in a flash, using normal language! - Lunch tomorrow at noon - Jogging tomorrow at 6am for 90 minutes - Dinner w/ Susan next wed from 7pm to 11:45pm - Day off on Thursday - Pay taxes by 4/15! - Fireworks on July 4th - todo - back up source code … with “Smart Reminders”, that create one or more reminders for you based on how distant the event is from the creation date.

QuickCal 1.0

Create iCal events and todos quickly using natural language! (For example, “lunch tomorrow at noon”)

About QuickCal A desktop widget which allows the creation of iCal events and todos in a flash, using normal language! - Lunch tomorrow at noon - Jogging tomorrow at 6am for 90 minutes - Dinner w/ Susan next wed from 7pm to 11:45pm - Day off on Thursday - Pay taxes by 4/15! - Fireworks on July 4th - todo - back up source code … with “Smart Reminders”, that create one or more reminders for you based on how distant the event is from the creation date.

Read More

Steep and Cheap Widget 1.10

A widget that will display the latest item on the SteepAndCheap.com web site

About Steep and Cheap Widget A widget that will display the latest item on the SteepAndCheap.com web site. The item name, picture and price are displayed, together with a gauge for the number of items available for purchase and the percentage off the MSRP for that item. Clicking on the description will take you to the site where this can be purchased. Rolling the mouse over the item image will show the description of that item in the same window. The widget provides the ability to set a “refresh” time in case it is displayed continuously. Normally the refresh happens every time the widget becomes visible.

Read More

Install Photo Gallery

There are two options when installing Photo Gallery: Download and install the Photo Gallery archive manually Install via the Plugin Manager plugin for Movable Type... Read More

Adding an Item to Your Queue

From anywhere within Media Manager you can add another item to your queue. Click on the "Add Item" link in the left hand menu, or the "Add Item to your Queue" found on the main Media Manager screen. From... Read More

Blog Challenge: Describe Your Computer Setup - Then and Now

This week’s blog challenge is to blog about your computer setup as it was “then” in the early days of your computer life, and how it is now, in your modern technology life. What computer tools are you dependent upon for your blog that surround you on your desk? Do you podcast? What do you [...]

This week’s blog challenge is to blog about your computer setup as it was “then” in the early days of your computer life, and how it is now, in your modern technology life.

What computer tools are you dependent upon for your blog that surround you on your desk? Do you podcast? What do you use? Video? Video streaming? What did you start with in the early days of podcasting and video, and now, what do you use for multimedia creation?

Over the years, my desk’s setup has changed, moving from huge desktop computers to smaller laptops, handheld computers, cell phones, and - well, smaller everything.

And I mean small. A friend just emailed me that she found a small SD digital card on the floor of her car. Thinking it was hers, she checked it out and found it had some of my video files. Don’t remember losing it, but how would I know? They weigh nothing and there is no room to put my name and email address on the card label, so they could be lost forever and never come back to me.

My desk was custom built for me by my husband and in the monitor base are two drawers, one for 3.5 disks and the other for CDs, perfectly sized. I still have a few CDs in there, but I haven’t seen a 3.5 disk in years. Instead, I have a ton of digital media cards in several shapes and sizes of various data storage sizes stacked like thin blue chicklets amid the colorful sticky note pads, stacks of business cards, tape, stamps, and junk I stuff in this open drawers.

Gone are the hundreds of meters of phone cord and the acoustic coupler we used to strap onto telephones and payphones to connect to the Internet, replaced by WIFI hi-gain and boosting PC cards and antennas. My huge and heavy desktop monitor that measured 32 inches (81 cm) deep is now replaced by a 1.5 inch (4 cm) thick large monitor.

Some things remain the same. My desk has stayed the same through more than fifteen years on the road in our trailer. While I don’t use a big desktop computer, the space is now taken up with a stack of portable hard drives - at least ten of them are currently hooked up with tons of USB connectors. Until a couple months ago, I was still using the small but very powerful Altec Lansing computer speakers and woofer, but it finally gave up after 16 years of hard life on the road. I replaced it with something only slightly smaller, but much more powerful.

Who lied to us about the magic of easier connections and wirelessness? I have a black snake jungle of wires under my feet and two more USB/Firewire snake infestations on either side of my desk connecting all the parts and pieces together. My mouse and keyboard are wireless, but everything still needs a cord! It’s a power brick building along the power strip.

Recently, I replaced 18 lbs (8 kg) of laptop and power brick with a little over 5 lbs (2.26 kg), lighting much of my travel load due to increased weight restrictions on US domestic air carriers. But I still carry too much computer crap with me, as I haul around portable hard drives, USB hubs, digital microphones and recorders, WIFI boosters, digital camera crap, and all their cords and connectors.

Don’t even get me started talking about the tangled black snake jungle I have to take with me every time I travel. Power bricks, USB cords, Firewire cords, custom cords, s-video cords, USB hubs, power strips…I keep trying to reduce it, in weight, number, and size, but I swear those black snakes are breeding in my travel bags!

I have two digital recorders, digital cameras, MP3 players, four printers, several USB hubs…I have more computer crap now than I did when everything was 10 times bigger.

Next week, I’ll challenge you about software, but this week, I want you to blog about the hardware that controls your life, what it looked like when you started, and how it has improved - or not - over the years.

As usual, send a pingback or trackback to this post, or put the link to your blog challenge post in the comments, so we can all see how you’ve done with your blog challenge.

Did you know that you don’t have to write these blog challenges? You can also use audio with podcasts or make a video in response to the blog challenge and publish it on your blog. There are a lot of ways you can have fun with these weekly blog challenges. Use your imagination and see how far you can take the challenge into territories you haven’t explored before.

These blogging challenges are published weekly and are an attempt to kick your blogging ass. They serve to challenge your thinking and efforts in blogging and blog writing. To participate, start challenging yourself now. Today. Go for it.

Past Blogging Challenges

• Blog About Someone or Something That Has Changed Your Life
• Blog Challenge: Personal Blogging - Tell Us a Story
• Blogging Challenge: Write WordPress Tips
• Blogging Challenge: Comment on 10 Blogs
• Blogging Challenge: Travel Blog - Adventure in Your Back Yard
• Blogging Challenge: Hobby Blogging and Blogging About Your Hobby
• Blogging Challenge: Blog The Opposite of You
• Blog Branding: Show the World You are an Expert

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Site Search Tags: blog challenge, blogging challenge, blog writing, writing tips, blogging tips, hardware, history of hardware, computer hardware, how the computer has changed your life

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Copyright Lorelle VanFossen, the author of Blogging Tips, What Bloggers Won't Tell You About Blogging.

Read More

Sprint Airave Cell-Over-Wi-Fi Box Goes On Sale Nationwide [Cellphones]

Sprint Airave Cell-Over-Wi-Fi Box Goes On Sale Nationwide [Cellphones]
Sprint and Samsung's femtocell answer to T-Mo's Hotspot@Home is now available everywhere after localized tests in Indy and Denver apparently went well enough to push it nationwide. The box connects...

Blog Challenge: Describe Your Computer Setup - Then and Now

Blog Challenge: Describe Your Computer Setup - Then and Now
This week’s blog challenge is to blog about your computer setup as it was “then” in the early days of your computer life, and how it is now, in your modern technology life. What computer tools are you dependent upon for your blog that surround you on your desk? Do you podcast? What do you [...]

This week’s blog challenge is to blog about your computer setup as it was “then” in the early days of your computer life, and how it is now, in your modern technology life.

What computer tools are you dependent upon for your blog that surround you on your desk? Do you podcast? What do you use? Video? Video streaming? What did you start with in the early days of podcasting and video, and now, what do you use for multimedia creation?

Over the years, my desk’s setup has changed, moving from huge desktop computers to smaller laptops, handheld computers, cell phones, and - well, smaller everything.

And I mean small. A friend just emailed me that she found a small SD digital card on the floor of her car. Thinking it was hers, she checked it out and found it had some of my video files. Don’t remember losing it, but how would I know? They weigh nothing and there is no room to put my name and email address on the card label, so they could be lost forever and never come back to me.

My desk was custom built for me by my husband and in the monitor base are two drawers, one for 3.5 disks and the other for CDs, perfectly sized. I still have a few CDs in there, but I haven’t seen a 3.5 disk in years. Instead, I have a ton of digital media cards in several shapes and sizes of various data storage sizes stacked like thin blue chicklets amid the colorful sticky note pads, stacks of business cards, tape, stamps, and junk I stuff in this open drawers.

Gone are the hundreds of meters of phone cord and the acoustic coupler we used to strap onto telephones and payphones to connect to the Internet, replaced by WIFI hi-gain and boosting PC cards and antennas. My huge and heavy desktop monitor that measured 32 inches (81 cm) deep is now replaced by a 1.5 inch (4 cm) thick large monitor.

Some things remain the same. My desk has stayed the same through more than fifteen years on the road in our trailer. While I don’t use a big desktop computer, the space is now taken up with a stack of portable hard drives - at least ten of them are currently hooked up with tons of USB connectors. Until a couple months ago, I was still using the small but very powerful Altec Lansing computer speakers and woofer, but it finally gave up after 16 years of hard life on the road. I replaced it with something only slightly smaller, but much more powerful.

Who lied to us about the magic of easier connections and wirelessness? I have a black snake jungle of wires under my feet and two more USB/Firewire snake infestations on either side of my desk connecting all the parts and pieces together. My mouse and keyboard are wireless, but everything still needs a cord! It’s a power brick building along the power strip.

Recently, I replaced 18 lbs (8 kg) of laptop and power brick with a little over 5 lbs (2.26 kg), lighting much of my travel load due to increased weight restrictions on US domestic air carriers. But I still carry too much computer crap with me, as I haul around portable hard drives, USB hubs, digital microphones and recorders, WIFI boosters, digital camera crap, and all their cords and connectors.

Don’t even get me started talking about the tangled black snake jungle I have to take with me every time I travel. Power bricks, USB cords, Firewire cords, custom cords, s-video cords, USB hubs, power strips…I keep trying to reduce it, in weight, number, and size, but I swear those black snakes are breeding in my travel bags!

I have two digital recorders, digital cameras, MP3 players, four printers, several USB hubs…I have more computer crap now than I did when everything was 10 times bigger.

Next week, I’ll challenge you about software, but this week, I want you to blog about the hardware that controls your life, what it looked like when you started, and how it has improved - or not - over the years.

As usual, send a pingback or trackback to this post, or put the link to your blog challenge post in the comments, so we can all see how you’ve done with your blog challenge.

Did you know that you don’t have to write these blog challenges? You can also use audio with podcasts or make a video in response to the blog challenge and publish it on your blog. There are a lot of ways you can have fun with these weekly blog challenges. Use your imagination and see how far you can take the challenge into territories you haven’t explored before.

These blogging challenges are published weekly and are an attempt to kick your blogging ass. They serve to challenge your thinking and efforts in blogging and blog writing. To participate, start challenging yourself now. Today. Go for it.

Past Blogging Challenges

• Blog About Someone or Something That Has Changed Your Life
• Blog Challenge: Personal Blogging - Tell Us a Story
• Blogging Challenge: Write WordPress Tips
• Blogging Challenge: Comment on 10 Blogs
• Blogging Challenge: Travel Blog - Adventure in Your Back Yard
• Blogging Challenge: Hobby Blogging and Blogging About Your Hobby
• Blogging Challenge: Blog The Opposite of You
• Blog Branding: Show the World You are an Expert

---

Site Search Tags: blog challenge, blogging challenge, blog writing, writing tips, blogging tips, hardware, history of hardware, computer hardware, how the computer has changed your life

Subscribe Via Feedburner Subscribe by Email Visit
Copyright Lorelle VanFossen, the author of Blogging Tips, What Bloggers Won't Tell You About Blogging.

Steep and Cheap Widget 1.10

A widget that will display the latest item on the SteepAndCheap.com web site

About Steep and Cheap Widget A widget that will display the latest item on the SteepAndCheap.com web site. The item name, picture and price are displayed, together with a gauge for the number of items available for purchase and the percentage off the MSRP for that item. Clicking on the description will take you to the site where this can be purchased. Rolling the mouse over the item image will show the description of that item in the same window. The widget provides the ability to set a “refresh” time in case it is displayed continuously. Normally the refresh happens every time the widget becomes visible.

Read More

A:Muze Music News Widget 1.0

The A:Muze widget brings you the latest news and gig guide direct to your dashboard.

About A:Muze Music News Widget Will keep you up to date with the latest music and gig news added to the site. The widget covers all aspects of the site, the gig guide, reviews, interviews and news. The dashboard widget is a great way of keeping up to date with A:Muze. We aim to update you with the latest happens and using the widget gives you access to the site RSS feed directly from your OSX Desktop.

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The Menorah for Hanukkah is also available . . .

Here's the Menorah for Hanukkah!!!!

A new candle is added and lit for each day of Hanukkah. You can choose from a variety of candles and Menorah colors. I've made this one silver with blue candle, but just click the "Get this widget" to configure in your own way and embed on your page . . .

Thank you Drew and Lani and Michael for creating these great looking holiday treats!

Get this widget!

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Spiderman gets on the Express train.

Spiderman gets on the Express train.

Get this widget!

Sony Pictures decided to put out an express widget for the upcoming Spiderman 3 movie.

Being a long time comic book collector, I can completely understand the excitement surrounding this film and am looking forward to seeing this one on the big screen at the local Imax probably more than any of you are.

While you are waiting through the last few days prior to the release, be sure to grab this widget and follow the news leading up to the opening weekend.

Remember, "With great power comes great responsibility!"

Of course, this Spiderman widget is so cool, I had to mash one up myself! as did EJRavin, another of our ExpressWidgets users. Good job EJ!

Dumbell Shaped Sports Bottle Gives You a Thirst Quenching Workout [Exercise]

Dumbell Shaped Sports Bottle Gives You a Thirst Quenching Workout [Exercise]
I don't know how much of a workout you are going to get with some rinky-dink 1 pound weights, but I like the idea behind this Dumbell Sports Bottle design. Not only would a bottle weight serve as a...