To make our blogs convenient, we package our work into neat and tidy RSS Feeds and allow people to subscribe. Through our RSS Feeds, readers have our creative works delivered directly to their virtual doorstep.

A scraper site takes that neat and tidy RSS Feed and uses a plugin to regurgitate the content. Often times your content will be speckled with links and advertisements to generate revenue. Setting up a site such as this is quick and easy, with very little upkeep, allowing the owner to move on and setup dozens of others.

The objective of this article is to give you a little advice on how to spot your stolen content. The system I use is painfully simple and only requires action when I suspect that my work has been republished. Please note that I am a self-hosted WordPress user and some parts of this article may not work for you on another service.

I’ve Been Scraped:

The first time I came across my content on a scraper site it resulted in mixed emotions. Initially I was excited at the thought of my work being good enough to warrant stealing. It didn’t take long for the giddiness to wear off, leaving me feeling violated. As I stared at my stolen creative work, rage boiled up inside me when I realized that it was spattered with ads. Not only was this individual stealing something that I worked long and hard on, they were making money off of it.

Like most people I just thought to myself “It’s the Internet, theres nothing I can do about it”. When other sites were brought to my attention, I ignored them thinking that doing anything was a hopeless task. I kept telling myself that my content would pop up first through a google search and that these scraper sites wouldn’t get many eyes on them.

I don’t know what finally caused me to stop ignoring them and take action, but I sat down and started researching my options. The first thing I wanted to do was make sure that I was aware of these sites when they popped up.

Comments In Moderation:

One thing that every blogger should do is link to their past work. Not only does it give your readers the opportunity to travel deeper into your site, it also gives you a heads up when another blog links to your content.

The benefit to this, when on WordPress, is that if you have comment moderation on, you will have comments brought to your attention before they appear on your blog. I like to use this to my advantage and screen pingbacks for suspicious text. If something just doesn’t look right, I’ll click through and see what has been said about my particular article. In the event that a scraper site has stolen and republished your work, they will have just notified you.

The text seemed familiar to me, in this case, because it was a portion of one of my past reviews.

Incoming Links:

In the event that the scraper site stealing your content has pingbacks disabled, you can still monitor incoming links to your blog. From what I’ve seen most often, these sites simply republish your content without stripping relevant links (which is yet another reason to link to your past work).

Taking this into consideration, we can monitor incoming links right from the WordPress dashboard. In the “Screen Options”, you have the ability to view incoming links. The pane operates on a Google Blog Search fed through an RSS feed.

The URL can be customized to your liking, but I prefer to leave it as-is. I find that the Incoming Links pane can be hit or miss and doesn’t catch everything. I’ve seen it miss links from major blogs within the niche one day and pick up brand new scraper sites the next. Regardless of how well it works, it doesn’t hurt to keep an eye on it since it resides inside the WordPress dashboard.

Google Alerts:

My favorite tool for monitoring Stogie Review content, as well as the brand, is Google Alerts. If you aren’t familiar with this tool from Google, it is a super simple way or passively monitoring keywords. All you need to do is plug in a couple of keywords (in my case stogiereview OR “Stogie Review” as well as waltinpa OR “Walt In PA”), tell Google how often you would like to receive alerts, and set the method of delivery.

In my case, I receive an email each week with a digest of the latest mentions of my keywords from across the web. Within a couple of weeks you will learn who mentions your brand regularly. This allows you to skim part of the list while investigating others.

Filing a DMCA Notice:

In the event that you use Comment Moderation, Incoming Links, and Google Alerts to track down a scraper site hosting your content, your next move is to take action. I’ve read a number of articles which say that you should be diplomatic and contact the site owner about the problem. It could potentially be a simple misunderstanding and easily resolved with one email.

I must confess, nine times out of ten I go straight to filing a DMCA takedown notice with the host. This is a formal notice to the host informing them that content with my copyright appears on their web server. Generally, when I find my work republished it appears to have been automated and contact information is missing.

On occasion I am alerted to a retailer or manufacturer using my work as a sales tool. Most often this is a simple copy/paste of a product review used as a testimonial with no credit given to its original author. In these cases I also bypass the friendly email and go straight to the DMCA notice.

For more on filing a DMCA Takedown Notice, read over How to Defend your Blogs Copyright from Problogger. The article is very informative and contains the templates that I use to file notices.

Keep On top of It:

Some months are better than others. I may not file a single DMCA notice one month while sending out ten the month before. It can be mentally exhausting to protect your creative works, but it is the only way you can be sure that your work doesn’t wind up anywhere without your permission.

The goal of this article isn’t to send you running off across the internet, roaring a battle cry. Finding a portion of your creative work on another blog with credit and a link attributed to you is no reason to file a DMCA notice. If anything, it should result in a quick thank-you email.

Through the use of Comments Moderation Emails, Incoming Links, and Google Alerts, keeping an eye on your content becomes less work and easier to manage. I hope you found this article useful. If you have any tips, please use the comment section to share.

Post from: Walt in PA

Monitoring Your Creative Works

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Both Fiction Friday, by Write Anything, and #FridayFlash, by JM Strother, present a variety of reading material each week. There is so much content produced that I simply can’t keep up with both groups in a single day and spend time throughout the weekend catching up.

One of my favorite parts of the weekend is waking up early, putting on a pot of coffee, and heading down into my office to enjoy a cigar and read these excellent creations of flash fiction.

Being the author of a small personal blog, I know how frustrating it can be to produce content and not get much feedback. I try to share a little link love each week, on Twitter, and try to get a few more eyes on the pieces I enjoy reading. I don’t share links to these stories hoping to get some return linkage (which would be great), I do it because I genuinely enjoy reading them and wish to share. It is for the same reason that I “Share” links in Google Reader as well.

I find that each week I spend a lot of time looking up Twitter names to include with my links. For that reason, I’ve decided to make a list for myself. On that list, I’ll be including the name of the blog and the Twitter account associated with it. I’m also breaking the list down into categories so that finding a name on the list is a little easier.

While this list may be for my own purposes, I hope you get some use out of it. In the event that you would like to be added, simply leave a comment with the name of your blog, a link to your blog, and a link to your Twitter account. I’ll try to incorporate all of the submissions.

Fiction Friday

1. A Fullness in Brevity – @revhappiness
2. A*MUSINGS – @shellihowells
3. Annies Musings – @AnnieEvett
4. Drawing Pictures With Mind Crayons – @thehedgemonkey
5. JohnPender.net – @JohnLPender
6. NewToWritingGirl – @New2writinggirl
7. Out of the Wastebasket – @herrvoice
8. The Bank Page – @ThePiratess

#FridayFlash

1. Crone’s Cauldron Publications – @gracecrone
2. Eric J. Krause’s Writing Spot – @ericjkrause
3. Future Nostalgic – @FutureNostalgic
4. Landless – @TonyNoland
5. Icy Sedgwick – @icypop
6. J. Dane Tyler – @DarcKnyt
7. Mad Utopia – @jmstro
8. Shadowrites – @wulfshado
9. Sulci Collective – @ExisleMoll
10. Techtiggers’ Soapbox – @techtigger

Writing Adventure Group

1. India Drummond – @IndiaDrummond
2. Kate McIntire – @girlfrenkate

In addition to this list of Twitter accounts, I also have a running list of RSS Feeds. After submitting your Twitter name, head on over to my RSS Feed List and submit that as well.

Post from: Walt in PA

The Creative Writing Twitter Community

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One of my favorite activities is reading. I’ve found that holding a book in one hand, with my newborn daughter in the other, is difficult to manage. This is where both my iPod Touch and Blackberry have come in handy. These small devices allow me to access a mobile version of Google Reader and entertain myself with blogs.

Even with my Feed Reader loaded up with interesting feeds, I most certainly wouldn’t mind having a few more. What I would like, if you are so inclined, is for the blog authors out there to post their feed url in the comments section below. As the RSS Feeds come in, I’ll take a look at them and possibly add them into my feed reader for future entertainment. After a week or two I will compile a list from the comments and add them to this post.

Finding your RSS Feed on WordPress

• Open a new browser tab
• In that new tab, enter your blog address
• To the end of your address, add the following /feed/rss/
• See below for an example

Finding your RSS Feed on Blogger

• Open a new browser tab
• In that new tab, enter your blog address
• To the end of your address, add the following /feeds/posts/default?alt=rss
• See below for an example

What is an RSS Feed Anyway?

RSS stands for Really Simple Syndication and is a way for people to monitor a blog without actually doing the work. Through the use of a Feed Reader, we can be alerted as to when a blog is updated rather than spending time checking on it every few hours, or every few days. For an excellent explanation on how it works, check out the video below. It has been around for some time and many bloggers use it to educate new readers.

Walt, I want to subscribe to your RSS Feed!

Well thank you, subscribing to my feed would be fantastic!
You can Subscribe to WaltInPA.com via RSS or use the Email Subscription Form below.

RSS Feeds from the Comments

Cigar Blogs

1. Stogie Review: http://feeds.feedburner.com/TheStogieReview
2. Cigar Craig’s Blog: http://www.cigarcraig.com/blog/?feed=rss2
3. Toasted Foot: http://www.toastedfoot.com/feed/rss/
4. Drew Estate Blog: http://blog.drewestate.com/index.php/feed
5. Mike’s Stogies: http://mikesstogies.com/feed/rss/
6. Tampa Cigar Examiner: http://rss.examiner.com/RSS-17216-Tampa-Cigar-Examiner.rss
7. Tiki Bar Online: http://tikibaronline.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default?alt=rss
8. The Aspiring Gentleman: http://feeds.feedburner.com/TheAspiringGentleman
9. The Tobaccophile: http://feeds.feedburner.com/TheTobaccophile

Creative Writing Blogs

1. Future Nostalgic: http://future-nostalgic.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default
2. A Fullness in Brevity: http://afullnessinbrevity.wordpress.com/feed/rss/
3. JohnPender.net: http://johnpender.net/feed/
4. Life’s a Stage http://feeds.feedburner.com/LifesAStage-Webblog

Beverage Blogs

1. Funktown Brewyard: http://www.funkytownbrewyard.com/rss.xml
2. Tampa Coffee Examiner: http://rss.examiner.com/RSS-58243-Tampa-Coffee-Examiner.rss

Post from: Walt in PA

Share Your RSS Feed

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As I’ve said in the past, I am a fan of Darren Rowse and ProBlogger. I subscribe to the ProBlogger RSS feed and for a fair amount of reading throughout the week. A couple of weeks ago, Darren had a guest post outlining the thirty bloggers to watch in 2010. The following week, he posted an article asking his readers to come up with their own list.

Being the avid fan of cigars that I am, I thought I would come up with a list of my own bloggers to watch in 2010. My list has been created to follow the cigar theme in some way. Some of these bloggers cover other topics, but there is a cigar element involved along the way.

10) Lindsay Heller from The Holy Trinity
When scanning through this list, Lindsay Heller and The Holy Trinity probably had you drawing a complete blank, and rightfully so, the blog was just created on January 13th, 2010. So if her blog was just started recently, why is it on my list? The answer to that question lies in Lindsay’s Twitter Personality. She is a straight shooter that provides loads of interesting information to those of us interested in cigars and adult beverages. In addition, Lindsay provided three fantastic Guest Articles for Stogie Review which has me eager to read what she has to say in the future.

09) Skip Martin from Smoke Signals
Skip Martin and Smoke Signals are names that you hear flying around Twitter from time to time. While Skip doesn’t blog on a regular basis, when he does it is a smash hit. All of his posts are well written with a lot of passion behind the message being presented. If you take advantage of an RSS Reader, I would strongly suggest subscribing to Skip’s blog because you won’t want to miss what he has to say next.

08) Chris from Nice Tight Ash
Selecting just one of the Guys from Nice Tight Ash was practically impossible. These guys do a wide array of things that cover cigars, from reviews of cigars and accessories to industry news. In addition to informative articles, the guys also produce good quality video content. Be sure to look them up sometime, I think you may like what you find.

07) J. Mulley from The World According to Stew
J. Mulley, or Stew, started his blog back in April of 2008 and quickly began producing written cigar reviews. Along the way, Stew switched over to providing his readership with video reviews. Not only are Stew’s videos informative but he also throws in a bit of outside banter from time to time, which makes them fun to watch.

06) Tom Adcock from Tom’s Cigars
Two years ago, Stogie Review presented a first guest review from Tom Adcock and friend Ed Nazre. The duo made for both entertaining and interesting reviews. Over the last two years, Tom has expanded from his regular guest spot on Stogie Review and created a blog of his own. Here you will not only find occasional video reviews, you will also find written reviews that are short and to the point.

05) Tony Ricciardi from Smoke Score
Some time on 2009 I received word that Tony was starting his own blog rating wines and cigars entitled Leaf and Grape. Over time it seemed that his readership wanted less wine talk and more cigar talk. Because of this, Smoke Score was born. Even before the transition, Tony has produced some quality writing that is full of interesting information.

04) Barry Stein from A Cigar Smoker
Barry is a cigar blogger that made his appearance on the web back in April of 2008 with written cigar reviews. Since then, Barry has made excellent headway in expanding his writing. Each reviews points out interesting information as to the origin, or back story, of the cigar before breaking down his opinion into manageable proportions.

03) David “The Doc” Diaz from Stogie Fresh
The Doc has been involved in Cigars as a member of the press for some time now. In addition to a regularly scheduled podcast he also produces some fantastic articles to expand his readers horizons. His articles are always information packed and well written. If you haven’t ventured over to Stogie Fresh in your journey through the world of cigars, I would strongly suggest taking a look.

02) Brian Hewitt from Stogie Review
I am biased here and you all probably know that. As a co-founder of Stogie Review, no list of mine would be complete without some sort of reference back to my home blog. Regardless of my bias, Brian writes some terrific articles that are very engaging. In addition, the man is a machine with a red editors pen. You can read Brian’s writing every Wednesday on Stogie Review in the form of cigar reviews.

01) Jerry Cruz from Stogie Review
As I said with in the blurb about Brian Hewitt, I am completely biased towards Stogie Review. Just like the case above, the bias doesn’t make much of a difference here because Jerry is a very engaging individual that shines when video blogging. Jerry has a straight shooter type of attitude and says what is on his mind at any given moment. This turns off the occasional viewer but makes him real in the eyes of many others. In the off chance that you haven’t seen Jerry shine, take a look at a video he did just last month portraying Jerry the Elf.

Post from: Walt in PA

10 Cigar Bloggers to Watch in 2010

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I decided that my personal blog would be my official New Years Resolution for 2009. On New years Day, I registered an account with a host and had Walt In PA up and running. Along the way, I have made some changes to the way things are done, as well as making a host and design change.

I’m very happy with the direction the site has gone and the content that has been inspired. I hope that you find my personal blog just as fun and entertaining as I do. If you are new to the site, take a moment to check some of the most popular posts here on Walt In PA.

• Flirt Pole – It Just Works
• My Benefits from Personal Blogging
• First impressions: Casa Fuego by J. Fuego Cigars
• Beer Review: Bass Ale
• Cigar of the Week: Oliva Serie G Maduro

Considering that this is a personal blog, I didn’t have high expectations for site traffic. Visitors have been coming to the site slowly, with steady growth, over the past twelve months. Even though the numbers aren’t through the roof, I’m happy with them non-the-less, as they exceeded my expectations. I also have to thank those that have been referring visitors to me over the past year. The list below is made up of five sites that have sent me the most traffic throughout the year.

• Twitter
• Stogie Review
• Toms Cigars
• The World According to Stew
• Mike in WV

Post from: Walt in PA

Year in Review: 2009

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Operating a blog that is so spread out, in terms of content, has its pros and cons. The most obvious is that I’m not in a position where I feel as though I have to come up with fresh content based on a niche. For instance, when I write or record something for Stogie Review, I have to incorporate cigars. At times, this can be much harder than it seems.

I find that my best ideas come at random. If I sit down and try too hard to make a list of post ideas, I find that they always feel a little stuffy. So you may be wondering how I translate those random ideas into blog posts?

When I have a sudden idea about a writing topic, I try and write it down immediately. In addition, I also try and jot down a few words that will help jog the same series of thoughts I had when the subject popped in my mind. And when I say write, I mean just that. Often times I have a piece of paper and a pen handy (unless I’m actually out and about). My wife just loves to tease me about the little hand-written notes she finds in various places around the house.

For some strange reason, I feel as though writing notes the old fashioned way works better for me. When I am in a position where I can’t hand-write a note, I’ll reach for my Blackberry, but those times come infrequently. I love the idea of using technology for my note taking, but it just doesn’t seem to work for me. I’m always either forgetting to get caught up on my electronic notes, and don’t follow through with them. I think the reason hand-written notes work for me may have something to do with the satisfaction of physically crossing an item off of my list.

So writing a personal blog is easy because of the range of potential topics right? Absolutely not, think about all of the dead blogs you have come across over the web. I would think that the vast majority of these dead blogs consist of personal blogs of one sort or another.

I find that the best way to keep your blog alive and kicking is to find a balance and stick to it. I can’t reveal too much about my life. If I told too much, it could put me in a potentially hazardous position. If I told too little, it would kind of defeat the purpose of a personal blog.

In order to keep my blog active, I must lead a busy lifestyle to come up with new posts? Not really, I would think that the life I lead is average. My wife and I get out every now and again, and we have fun around the house. Some weeks I may not be able to come up with a single blog topic because of how mundane my week was. When I have a good week, I try and make the most of it by stretching out things from that particular week over a couple of posts.

These things work for me, but may be the bane of your personal blog. That is what makes this type of blog so much fun. Each one you come across will generate content in its own way. If you deciede to create one of your own, you will just have to experiment with different things to see how they work for you. The most important thing of all is simply to have fun with your blog.

Post from: Walt in PA

The Inner Workings of my Personal Blog

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Not terribly long ago there was a new service that hit the internet and spread like wildfire. Google announced a project called Google Wave and before long, it seemed as though everyone on Twitter was mentioning it.

Not having invested any time into trying to acquire an account, I thought I would wait until after the project moved away from the invite only preview build. By surprise, a friend on Twitter was kind enough to offer me one of his invites. A short time later I was signed up and poking around the interface.

In the very beginning, after having skipped the hour and a half presentation video, I didn’t really see the benefit to such a service. It struck me as a combination email and instant message platform which wasn’t very appealing to me.

I decided that I was going to stick with it and see just how useful the tool could be to me. This is where Brian Hewitt and I began using it for Stogie Review. When Brian and I began collaborating, it immediately struck me as to how useful a service like this is.

At first we created a wave to discuss the usefulness of Google Wave. This was a fun little way of playing with the service to see what I could and couldn’t do without research. Before long we were neck deep in collaborating post ideas, to-do lists, daily discussion topic ideas, and so on and so forth.

In the past things were a lot more difficult. One of us would start a new blog post and save it as a draft. Once we were done with it, we would email the next person in line to take a look at it and make any edits. This chain of ours would continue until the post or article was complete. It was often more trouble than it was worth.

With this new Google Wave platform, we are able to create a Wave and work on it in real time, together. There is no more wasted time in waiting around for the next person in line to review the document. All changes made stand out from the document so that everyone involved can easily see the items that were changed.

The amazing thing is that I have only scratched the surface of what is possible in this preview account. There is a world or possibilities and I am completely sold on the products effectiveness to efficiently collaborate on a project in teal-time. As a collaboration tool alone, I am completely sold on Google Wave.

Post from: Walt in PA

My Early Thoughts on Google Wave

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Some time ago I posted about falling into routines. In that one particular post I talked about how I always seemed to be watching the same re-runs on television before getting dinner started. Similar routines exist elsewhere in my life as well, especially when it comes to the internet.

Each day I get to work early and quickly run down a list of forums and websites that I like to read, then quickly begin reading through posts in my RSS reader. One of the sites that I check every day is ProBlogger.

While I am not a professional blogger, I like reading Darren’s website to get ideas on where Stogie Review and Walt In PA could be tweaked. Sometimes it is a new feature that I’m looking to add and other times I’m looking for topic ideas.

One of the things I like about ProBlogger is that Darren Rowse has a tendency to inject personality into his articles. They make what I’m reading seem a little more real and it allows me to relate to him. I like to do the same thing, not just on my personal blog, but on Stogie Review as well.

There was an article recently on the benefits of being personal on your blog. I started reading it and couldn’t keep a smile from spreading across my face. The introduction to the article was a story about how Darren found himself being hugged by a stranger at the Blog World Expo. While I’ve never had an experience that extreme, I have met a variety of incredibly nice people at cigar conventions and events.

Quoted from ProBlogger, written by Darren Rowse:

For the next 4-5 minutes my hugging assailant (a reader as it turns out) talked, almost without taking a breath. She told me about the first day she read my blog (she remembered the first post), she told me about how it had helped her, she told me about the ups and downs of her blogging, she told me about her family, she told me about my family, she told me that she’d bought my book, joined my community, bought my ebook, she just talked…..

She talked as if we’d known each other for years – I guess in a way we had…..

The reason the smile on my face was so pronounced, was because I can relate. Over the past few years, Stogie Review has become relatively popular among the online cigar community. Because of this popularity, Jerry, Brian, and I tend to get recognized at large events and conventions.

I can remember back to the first time I was recognized at a large event, it was at the 2008 Cigarfest. I was there helping Sam Leccia work the Nub Cigar booth. Several people came up to me and were vigorously shaking my hand telling me all about their experience with Stogie Review. Some would launch into asking how things were going in my life (things that I didn’t even realize I mentioned during video reviews), and others asked me about Brian and Jerry. All of these people talked to me as if we were long time friends.

In the beginning it was a little strange. Actually, it is still a little strange at times. Being a relatively quiet person, its tough to talk to some people as I know absolutely nothing about them and they seem to know me well. Regardless of the awkwardness, I love how friendly and nice every one of these people have been.

One of the people that I talked to during my first big event was Carlos from New Jersey. Not only did I have a great time talking with Carlos, I still talk to him from time to time online. We met up the following year at the 2009 Cigarfest and got a chance to hang out for a little while.

During the recent 2009 IPCPR Convention in New Orleans, Jerry and I were sitting in Don Leoncio Cigars having a cigar and chatting away. During our conversation someone walked past the store, turned around to enter, and approached us with his hand out to greet us.

It was at that time that we met Jason and his wife from PA. Both were very friendly and again we launched into conversation like we had known one another for a time. Just like with Carlos, Jason and I talk a bit online and have a good time.

I guess the whole point of this article is to say just how fond I am of showing personality while blogging. Had we stayed stuffy on Stogie Review and revealed little of our personal lives, we may have never of met some of these fantastic people.

Each time I plan to go to a large event, I look forward to who I might meet next. Jason and Carlos are just two of the people I was thrilled to meet, there are several others that I speak with daily via Twitter and Facebook.

Post from: Walt in PA

My Benefits from Personal Blogging

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Because this site is of a personal nature, I didn’t have any expectations of it paying for itself. I viewed it as a hobby that I was to undertake, which would come along with out of pocket expenses. With the out of pocket part in mind, I opted to go for inexpensive web hosting to get me through. At the time I thought a host was a host and as long as traffic levels were low, I wouldn’t run into trouble.

Despite having the low traffic levels that I expected, I ran into performance issues that I did not expect. When choosing my host, I went with a bargain basement GoDaddy plan, with a web coupon, to bring the grand total of my hosting to about $65.00 annually.

As time went on, I realized I was getting just what I paid for. I went cheap with hosting and was getting cheap hosting in return. After I began experiencing delayed response times from my site database, I began to voice my displeasure with GoDaddy support.

Dealing with such a large company had its ups and down. Wait times for email support were long, as were phone support calls. Sometimes staff was very helpful and other times it was simply a waste of time to submit some sort of trouble ticket.

While I have no illusions of this personal blog becoming highly trafficked and requiring a large amount of server resources, I do want to it function smoothly for the couple hundred people who visit per week. Because of this, I made the decision to transfer hosts at the end of the year, when my twelve-month signup was complete.

This all changed after yet another slow day on my blog. I was attempting to transfer some posts I had typed up, when I experienced several database outages. When I contacted GoDaddy, asking that they please look into the problem and move me to another shared server, I was informed that I was required to sign up for a new WordPress package if I wanted to see an increase in performance.

I was told that when I signed up, my site would be moved to this new grid infrastructure and that the remaining time left on my current plan would be pro-rated and credited to me. Having my host tell me that if I wanted my site to run properly, I had to sign up for another twelve months, was the straw that broke the camels back.

Along with a new look, I have taken the time this weekend to transfer hosts over to one that I am more familiar with. I signed up for a more expensive Midphase Package, but have long history with the company through the Stogie Review website (our host from day 1). While we have had our problems with Midphase, we never experienced any major issues on their shared hosting plan. With this change in hosts, I hope that anyone that was having issues on my personal blog in the past, will find it much faster on the new Midphase server.

I thought that since I was taking the time to upgrade my hosting plan, that I would also take the time to give the site a face-lift. After the redesign of Stogie Review, I was very impressed with the work of Matt Brett and wanted to bring some of his work here to my personal blog. While I couldn’t afford to go the route of a custom design, he does have a few competitively priced premium themes.

I hope that you like the new layout and that the host upgrade makes a noticeable difference during your visits.

Post from: Walt in PA

A New Host and a New Theme

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The Numbers:

• Comment goal for the month of March: 105
• Approved comment count for the month of March: 103
• Visits goal for the month of March: 1,099
• Visitor count for the month of March: 1,275

Goal for April:

• Approved Comments: 105
• Visitor Count: 1,300 (+2%)

Top 5 Referring Sites

• Twitter
• Stogie Review
• Casting for Cohibas
• The World According to Stew
• Mike in West Virginia

Do you have a suggestion to
make the site better?

Post from: Walt in PA

Just short of my goal for March

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As Twitter becomes more and more prominent in the everyday lives of internet users, it becomes a more appealing venue for spammers. Being a bit of a twitter addict myself, I have seen a steady increase of junk follows.

These junk follows, as I refer to them, are spam bots or people with an agenda at making money by convincing you to check out a particular page on the web. They may tell you about the “free laptop” or how they recently received a “check for X number of dollars”.

It doesn’t take more than a second to glance at this persons twitter profile to see what is going on. While you are on their page, why not dedicate another second of your time and scan the page for “Block” button. Once clicked, you are asked to confirm the action. Once you do, the user can no longer see your tweets and his follower count no longer reflects you as a statistic.

I take the same coarse of action if I see a new follower with dozens of links to themselves in their stream. While I think linking is great, I want to connect with my followers and see more than self-promotion throughout the day. I typically do not ban these people; I simply choose not to follow back.

This sometimes leads to another type of spam, which can be frustrating. On occasion these people will un-follow me then follow me back. This forces twitter to send me an email notification of the new follower. I could disable this, but I prefer the email notice so that I remember to check out the user.

In this event, I ignore the notice and continue business as usual. Some people may accidentally remove me from their follow list and choose to add me back in a couple of days. If I see a third email notice from a single user, I go straight to the block button and don’t think twice.

In the event that I receive a new follower with no updates, I check to see how many people they are following. If I see some familiar faces, such as @brianhewitt and @jcruz, I have a pretty good idea where this person got my user name from and assume they are a Stogie Review reader and I generally follow back.

At this point you have an understanding of how I determine a new follower as spam. If you have followed me, are not a spammer, but I have not followed back, one of two things happened:

• Your tweets didn’t spark and interest and compel me to follow back
• I overlooked the email notification and haven’t seen your twitter stream yet

The simplest way to get my attention in either case is to simply send me a tweet. Anything that starts with @waltw shows up in my replies stream via the web client. These tweets are also grabbed by Tweetdeck and brought to my attention. Once a connection is made and we share some dialog, I am far more likely to follow back.

Post from: Walt in PA

Why aren’t you following me back on Twitter?

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photo credit: cogito ergo imago

After exceeding my goal for January, I was a little worried about increasing the numbers for a shorter month. It seems that I must be doing something right as we exceeded my expectations once again. My comment goal looked like it wasn’t going to be met until I made mentioned of it on Twitter and Brad in Buffalo went on a commenting spree.

The Numbers:

• Comment goal for the month of February: 102
• Approved comment count for the month of February: 107
• Visits goal for the month of February: 1,064
• Visitor count for the month of February: 1,077

Goal for March:

• Approved Comments: 105
• Visitor Count: 1,099 (+2%)

Top 5 Referring Sites

• Twitter
• Stogie Review
• Mike in West Virginia
• Casting for Cohibas
• Tom’s Cigars

Do you have a suggestion to
make the site better?

Post from: Walt in PA

Goal for February Met

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photo credit: f.kuraken

Those of you that follow me on twitter, may be aware that I had a goal for my first month with this personal blog. In one months time I wanted to reach a set number of approved comments and visits here to Walt in PA. I’m happy to announce that we reached that goal and I couldn’t be happier about it.

I wanted to achieve 100 approved comments and 1000 visits. Initially I thought that was a bit aggressive for a personal blog, but it seems that we are on the right track. Riding the wave of success, I have set a new goal for myself this month and would love for you to help me achieve that as well.

This months stats:

• Approved Comments – 104
• Visits – 1,043

Goal for next month:

• Approved Comments – 102
• Visits: 1,064

For this short month of February, I would love to see a 2% gain over last month. I’ll provide the content, I just need you to provide the eyeballs and the responses. Thanks guys, I love the direction that this blog is heading.

I’d also like to thank the referring sites for the past month:

• Twitter
• Tom’s Cigars
• Stogie Review
• Mike in West Virgina
• Digital Photography School

What types of things would you
like to see posted here?

Post from: Walt in PA

Reached My Goal, Thanks To You!

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A little more than a year ago Jerry, from the Stogie Review, and mentioned to me that he was using this service called Twitter to keep up with friends and co-workers. He explained it in such a way that I viewed it as a sort of large chat room from my old AOL days.

I checked it out and wasn’t totally convinced. I saw it as a service along the lines of Myspace, which I never could stand. As Jerry became more and more involved with it, I started using it as a way to get answers to simple questions faster than we normally would communicate over email.

For the longest time I was simply using the web interface to check my tweets and send little tid-bits. The more I grew attached to Twitter, the more interested I became in applications to make it run smoother.

The application that I experimented with was called TwitterFox. This was a Mozilla Firefox addon that updated every so often and popped my messages up in the lower right corner of the screen. This was great when I had my browser running.

After passing on TwitterFox, I checked out an Adobe Air application called Twirl. This was a straight forward piece of software that kept tabs on my twitter stream, responses, and direct messages. I used this for a while until Jerry turned me on to a more robust application called TweetDeck.

TweetDeck was a little intimidating at first, with all of its panes and buttons. It took up a massive amount of screen space and I didn’t expect to use it for very long before ditching it for something new. I contemplated going back to Twirl until something else of interest popped up, but I started taking a liking to this new application.

Since I started using TweetDeck, I’ve found its URL shortening service very convenient as well as its ability to create panes on the fly. I can setup groups to keep track of certain people or even setup a search which updates frequently in order to find new people to follow.

Since my trial run of Twitter, I’ve become a bit of a Twitter Junkie. I log on via the web interface several times per day while at work and generally have TweetDeck running while I am home. Its been a great way to keep up with the growing cigar community and to meet new bloggers.

Now that I use it so much, I don’t know what I would do without it. Since getting my iPod Touch, I even check in from my local cigar shop to see what is going on.

Post from: Walt in PA

Are you on Twitter?

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photo credit: jakemohan

When I started this blog, I wasn’t sure just how often I planned on posting. I thought of trying to get myself in the routine of posting three times per week, with the possibility of a link roundup on Sunday. That hasn’t held true for this month, I’ve been going full tilt with daily posts. The reason for this was to quickly generate content on the new blog.

I want to throttle down for February and maintain a more relaxed pace. I’m still unsure of what the game plan is exactly, but wanted to get your input on the subject. Most, if not all, of the writing here is simply me rambling on about something that interests to me. Do you find this type of writing interesting enough to check out several times per week?

As the weather gets warmer (or warm at all here in PA) I’ll be mixing in more Photography and toning down the rambling. In addition I also want to mix in more reviews. While the route hasn’t been fully chosen just yet, you are more than welcome to stick around for the ride.

Post from: Walt in PA

Frequency of Posts

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At this point I am able to take a peak at php and css, and make small changes. Unfortunately, I ran into a problem with this theme that some of you have brought to my attention. There was a bug in the theme that was preventing you from reaching the comment box depending on which link was clicked.

I was able to wade through the files on the back-end a see where the problem was, but I had no idea how to fix it. The issue was that the comment link was not including the URL of the article, thus pointing you nowhere. I tried looking for an example on calling up the URL, but I came up empty handed.

Being the twitter junkie that I am, I went directly to my list of followers to see if I knew anyone that was handy with code and wouldn’t mind helping. The first person that came to mind was someone who I talk with alot on twitter, @mountchuck. I sent Chuck a message explaining my problem and he was happy to help me resolve the issue.

So thanks to Chuck, regardless of which comment link you click on, it should direct you to the proper portion of the site. One of the things that this snag has taught me is that I really need to learn a little css and php, at least enough to help me diagnose problems and approach a wordpress theme issue like this.

Its is also important to know that when using a free wordpress theme, small problems like this have to be expected. Sometime free items do not get the attention or regular bug fixes that they should. As a blogger it is just something that needs to be addressed when discovered.

Thanks again Chuck, you saved the day!

Also,
While I have your attention, check out Chucks cigar blog: Nice Tight Ash

Post from: Walt in PA

The comment bug has been squashed

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