Has Your Content Been Stolen?
Has your content been stolen? This can happen to any honest blogger who is always writing posts by himself. Someone might simply take advantage out of it and steal whatever posts he likes. There are at least a few different ways you can react in such situation:
1. Remain silent and do not do anything while telling yourself that you do not care about it. Sometimes if is not worth to do anything about it.
2. Contact the scraper by email and ask him to remove the stolen content from his blog. The problem is that he might not listen to you. Sometimes it might be even hard to find a way to contact him.
3. Use a Wordpress plug-in (such as RSS footer from joostdevalk.nl/wordpress/rss-footer/) that will automatically link back to your site from the website of a scraper where he published your post. This plug-in might be very useful if you want to stay informed about any attempts of stealing your content. Of course, simply knowing about your content being published somewhere will not remove it.
Overall, there are not many things you can do if your content is being stolen by some unknown website. On the other hand, webmasters of popular websites may be afraid that you might spread the news of what they did.
March 1st, 2010 - Posted in About Blogging, About Internet, Technology, Websites | | 1 Comments
Domain Name RSS Feed
Every person who starts a new website wants to have the best address possible. By the best I mean the shortest possible and the most related to the content of his website. While choosing domain names, a person has many options available and can create an unlimited number of combinations of words and signs. It is true that the most attractive and the best addresses are already taken, but the good news is that some of them expire or have already been expired and will never be renewed by their owner. If the existing domain has an attractive address it would be a good idea to take it over. One of the best ways to do it is to check what domain names contain the keywords that we would like to use in the composition of our page and its address. To check the availability of such sites there are some tools that can help. Using such tools is very simple. Just insert the keyword that you would like to use, select what extensions that you would like to browse (like .com or .org), and press the search button. What you are going to obtain as a result is the number of sites that match your criteria.
January 21st, 2010 - Posted in Technology, Websites | | 0 Comments
Plagiarism
Have you ever noticed that somebody on the Internet copied and published your articles on his website? This happens all the time, and I am wondering how dangerous plagiarism really is. If a person copies and pastes your posts, this must mean that your posts are very high quality. Only the best blogs on the blogosphere have their posts copied and published on other sites. That is why a typical blogger does not have to worry that much about plagiarism. Even if someone publishes something that you wrote, chances are it was done by an automated script. If you send an email to a webmaster of such a site, then you probably will not get any response. That is why I would recommend to relax and do not panic if someone copies your content. After all, plagiarism is even a bigger issue in college where students copy and paste articles from the Internet. Since your career does not depend on blogging, you do not have to worry about it as much as universities.
However, plagiarism is still a big concern, and it is especially dangerous if major search engines index the plagiarist’s post before they index the post on your website. If that happens then search engines might actually assume that you are the plagiarist. That is why you should be careful so that you will not be accused of plagiarism yourself. That might be especially a problem if Google does not idnex your website very often.
November 23rd, 2009 - Posted in About Blogging, About Internet, Business Topics, Technology, Websites | | 4 Comments
Gossip on the Internet
These days everybody can be a writer, publisher, or an author. That is true because anyone can create a blog or a website. Most of the websites in the world might not be that high quality, as a lot of them do not contain any original content. The qualifications of webmasters may also vary. After all, not everybody graduated from English studies or has Ph.D. in linguistics. The Internet is a place where many people speak out their minds and share their opinions. It is also a place, where a lot of gossip starts about celebrities, the world of politics, or even our everyday life. I was wondering recently how a person can distinguish between real facts and gossip. Fortunately, there are some ways to do so. On the Internet, there are sites that aim is to stop gossip and fight with scams. Sites like truthorfiction.com and factcheck.org are a good example. When in doubt whether a site you are visiting is reliable, check them out. Those sites can also benefit you in other ways besides letting you know about gossips. Very often, gossips are not that harmful, but spyware and malware can be very harmful. If you visit truthorfiction.com, you will see that this website can help you avoid problems related to scams and viruses which you can get from your email box. You might get infected very easily by opening an email which you should not trust in the first place. You need to be aware that there are many people who are sending phony emails in order to infect your computer with malicious software. Many of them use popular scams in order to achieve it, so it is important to know how to recognize them. How about you? How do you protect yourself?
October 28th, 2009 - Posted in Technology, Websites | | 2 Comments
Switching to Newer Windows
Windows 7 will get released in October. However, at the moment the most popular operating systems are Windows XP and Windows Vista. Even though many people still use older versions of Windows, many of them have been wondering whether they should purchase the newest version of Windows, namely Windows Vista. If the overall graphical presentation matters to you, then you will be happy with what Windows Vista has to offer you:
-There is no doubt that the developers of Vista wanted this OS to look very appealing. Vista looks a lot better than any other OS before. Windows Vista takes advantage of so-called Aero glass interface. Aero stands for Authentic, Energetic, Reflective, and Open.
-The Start button is definitely smaller, and thus will take less place on your desktop. The icons are intended to be smaller too. Even though the graphics is not everything, nicer looking interface add to the enjoyment of working in Windows Vista.
October 1st, 2009 - Posted in Technology | | 0 Comments
Speeding Up Boot Time
Many computers have a very long boot time. This often happens due to the fact that many programs set themselves to run at start-up. Programs like Yahoo Messenger, QuickTime, and various security programs are an example of that. By preventing some of those programs from running at startup, you can quite considerably reduce the boot time. Before you start doing so, make sure that you are logged into your PC with admin rights. All you have to do is go to Start->Run->type msconfig, and in the start-up tab uncheck the applications that you would like to disable from loading. By doing the steps I listed, your PC will load a lot faster, and the best part is that you will not have to spend any money on new components.
September 27th, 2009 - Posted in Technology | | 0 Comments
Credit Cards and Restaurants
Do you think that your credit card details are safe at the restaurants you visit? Even though in most cases your credit card details are safe, hackers have ways to hack into cash register terminals in order to steal credit and debit card numbers. Such details are often sold later on the Internet, and you can imagine what problems it might cause. This year, there was a situation like this, as two hackers managed to hack into 11 Dave & Buster’s cash register terminals. It has been said, that they captured data of about 5,000 credit and debit cards, which is a quite large number considering those were only two hackers. While I am not saying we should not visit restaurants, I think that we should look a little bit deeper into possible security vulnerabilities at such establishments.
September 24th, 2009 - Posted in Business Topics, Technology | | 0 Comments
Playing Older Games
The video game industry is literally flooded with newer and newer games of many genres. Whereas in general a newer game means a better game, there are a few exceptions to that. It is true that due to the progress in technology games have better graphics and generally have more features. However, for many fans what matters the most is the idea behind the game. So what that a game has a flashy graphic, if it lacks content? Flashy graphics will not help at all if the game is boring due to lack of content. Many gamers still tend to return to games from the past that they used to play, and that is because many older games are very entertaining.
August 21st, 2009 - Posted in Technology | | 5 Comments
Photo Slideshow
Many of us have a lot of digital photos stored on our computers. Why not create a slideshow using those photos while using nice effects and implementing background music? After all, viewing photo slideshows can be a lot of fun. By creating a slideshow, you will be able to show your pictures to your friends and family members. You can create a slideshow in PowerPoint, or other similar programs. Microsoft offers a free software that will enable you to edit your pictures, and create slideshows. I am sure you will be very pleased to see the results. The program is called Photo Story, and it is available for download. While creating a slideshow you may wish to add special effects, voice narration, soundtracks, and caption.
June 26th, 2009 - Posted in About Internet, Technology | | 0 Comments
Using a Joystick
I was wondering today how many people actually still use a joystick to play computer games. I know of the fact that most people either use consoles to play games, or simply play games on their PC by using a keyboard and a mouse. Of course, a joystick can be connected to PC as well. Actually, I do not remember using one in my life. I was always using a mouse and a keyboard, and I am used to such controls. Anyway, there are still many joysticks available. Some of them only cost $9.99. Joysticks are great for playing arcade and driving games. However, since this is not my favorite type of games, I do not plan on purchasing this stick in the nearest future.
April 10th, 2009 - Posted in Technology | | 0 Comments
