This was a blog post .

Now if you don’t mind … let’s get social :

I think by now everybody who know me already knows I tend to spend an awful lot of time on Twitter. That makes sense as most of you know me from/through there.

Now I guess is a safe bet to say that you all know that I’m an uber expert in social media  …( got your attention ? )  STOP.

Rewind and let me rephrase that : I guess is a safe bet to say that you all know by now that I’ve no interest whatsoever on social media . That’s more like it

I use Twitter only for fun or to unwind ( fun included of course ) and even talking about business ( mine or others ) makes me feel  uneasy . I really like to RT jobs, small new businesses tweets ( every little help ..helps, isn’t it ) or witty tweets  by whoever I follow and I don’t see anything bad in that .

If you search the internet you’ll see that there’s plenty debates around about following/followers ideal ratio and all that crap . Yes – I consider it crap because having millions of followers ( or following millions ) doesn’t make you a better nor interesting person.

Spending so much time on Twitter I couldn’t help but notice a ( disturbing ) trend on some ( most ) businesses accounts there ( not talking about the big brands but the small newcomers who try to make the end meets in this recession times )  : following anybody for the follow back and then …should I say more ?

Now I know that most business(es) accounts are handled by ( professional !? ) PR people paid to  do their magic on Twitter but ( call me ignorant in this field ) weren’t they suppose to listen/hear/read what people talk online ? ( on Twitter in this case ) . Now how can they do that if they follow less than 10-15 % of their followers  ?

I know they have end of month reports to do and looks like a “growing audience” if they show a  following/followers ratio in percentage but still …. isn’t that just a short term solution ?

Don’t get me wrong : I have no problem with ANYBODY unfollowing me on twitter ; I’m still going to follow whoever I find interesting or an account from where I have something to learn ( even after they unfollow me ) but I won’t do that for a business account who practically ”begs” for your follow ( following you without even the smallest talk ) and then unfollowing you just to look good as an account ( big number of followers compared to who they follow ).

Rant over .

… I do believe in rules . What I don’t believe in is over policing .

Few days ago I had the ( unpleasant ) surprise to find the following in my email :

Google AdSense ad serving has been disabled to your site

This message was sent from a notification-only email address that does not accept incoming email. Please do not reply to this message.
——————————————————————————————————————————-

Hello,

During a recent review of your account we found that you are currently displaying Google ads in a manner that is not compliant with our program policies (https://www.google.com/support/adsense/bin/answer.py?answer=48182&stc=aspe-1pp-en).

————————————————–
EXAMPLE PAGE: XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Please note that this URL is an example and that the same violations may exist on other pages of this website or other sites in your network.

VIOLATION(S) FOUND:

COPYRIGHTED MATERIAL: As stated in our program policies, AdSense publishers are not permitted to place Google ads on sites involved in the distribution of copyrighted materials. This includes hosting copyrighted files on your site, as well as providing links for or driving traffic to sites that contain copyrighted material. More information about this policy can be found in our help center (https://www.google.com/adsense/support/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=105959).

ACTION TAKEN: We have disabled ad serving to your site.

ACCOUNT STATUS: ACTIVE
Your AdSense account remains active. However, please note that our team reserves the right to disable your account at any time. As such, we encourage you to become familiar with our program policies and monitor your network accordingly.

Issue ID# 1962271

————————————————–
Thank you for your cooperation.

Sincerely,

The Google AdSense Team
—————-
For more information regarding this email, please visit our Help Center: https://www.google.com/adsense/support/bin/answer.py?answer=113058&stc=aspe-ai4-en.

I said surprise because in the last ~ 8 years I made sure that I followed the Adsense rules by the book on ALL my websites and on all websites I take care of. And they’re many.

Biggest surprise came when I visited the “guilty” ( erased here ) link .

All the fuss was ( is ) about a video posted on one of my sites – video which was posted ages ago by someone ( not me or anybody known by me) on (surprise ! ) YouTube (Google owned) .
Following your own rules I dare you Google to close your own Adsense account  because

publishers are not permitted to place Google ads on sites involved in the distribution of copyrighted materials. This includes hosting copyrighted files on your site, as well as providing links for or driving traffic to sites that contain copyrighted material.

Because in my Adsense account I couldn’t find a “Close/disable  account” button I hereby ask you to disable my account with you (  ca-pub-9071152381995636  ) as my intolerance to stupidity can’t let me partner with you anymore.

It was a great ride and I made a small fortune using you ( although I bet you made more using  me ) but I consider that my users / visitors are more important than what you request out of me : to check that everything I posted in the last years – like videos from “legitimate” sites as YouTube adhere to your policy.

Thanks but … no thanks !

P.S.  Have to thank you though for my following post which will come shortly :

” Google Adsense alternatives”

VICE VERSA

Convert Pages to Posts and Vice Versa

Vice Versa allows you to easily convert WordPress Posts to Pages and Pages to Posts. You can also assign a Page or Post a parent or category(s) as you are converting from one to the other. Vice Versa is easy to install and use. No database tables are affected during installation and there are no additional settings required for the Vice Versa to work.

Get it here  VICE VERSA PLUGIN

Ultimate Google Fonts

With this Google fonts plugin you have more than awesame 90 open source fonts at your disposal! Choose and customize Google fonts directly from your WordPress admin panel! Enable only font you really want to use! Check text effects examples direcly in your admin panel. Text that use beautiful Google fonts is selectable.

Get it here Ultimate Google Fonts Plugin

Specific CSS/JS for Posts and Pages

Specific CSS/JS for Posts and Pages is a plugin that allows you to add custom CSS or Javascript files or embeded code in header to individual posts or pages.

• You can add multiples CSS files to indivual posts or pages
• You can add multiples Javascript files to indivual posts or pages
• Also you can add CSS or Javascript code directly between header tags in posts or pages

Get it here Specific CSS/JS for Posts and Pages

WP Post Styling

This plugin simply provides a custom field on your WordPress interface where you can add custom styles to be applied only on that page or post. Useful for being able to publish articles with a unique look.

The use you’ll get out of this plugin depends on the flexibility of the theme you’re using and your own knowledge of CSS (Cascading Style Sheets).

How to use the style library:

1. Add the styles you want on your settings page.
2. Navigate to an article which requires specific styles.
3. Select the library style from the drop down, leaving the style textarea blank.
4. Update or post the new document.

A newly-selected style from the style library will always overwrite any previous hand-written styles. If you wish to alter the library styles for a specific page, you can do this in the textarea after you’ve saved the page with the style library template. Editing your templates will have no impact on previously saved post-specific styles.

Get it here WP Post Styling

SubHeading

This plugin uses a custom field to allow sub titles/headings to be added to both posts and pages.

The custom subheading field is re-positioned so it is directly below the main title when editing.

By default subheadings are also appended to RSS feeds and the admin edit post/page lists.

( you can see it in action on this post title )

Get it here  SubHeading

Really Static

Really-static generates static html-files out of your blog. Every time a Post is published/edited/deleted or a comment is posted, changes will be automaticly written to the static blog. That makes your Blog incredible fast!

• its incredible fast, faster than any cache solution
• saving static files via local, FTP, SFTP
• its secure, because you can hide your wordpressinstallation
• if you dont have PHP/MySQL support on your server you can host the wordpressinstallation local

Get it here Really Static

Dynamic Headers

Dynamic headers fills a void that has been present for a while in WordPress. It is a small, easy to use plugin that allows you to manage what header media is shown on each page/post. Unlike some other plugins however, this plugin allows you to use any image file OR a .swf Flash file. So you are no longer limited to a certain media type for your headers and you are no longer limited to one site-wide header.

• Set different headers for each page and post.
• Use different media types on each page (image files, flash files).
• Cross browser compliant embed code automatically generated.
• Can set default header for pages/posts without set header image.
• Fails gracefully if no header media present for current page.
• Random media for individual pages/posts and default media.
• Alt / Title tag management for images.
• Supports both built in browser uploader or FTP.
• Quick and lightweight.
• Simply add template tag to theme to pull dynamic media.
• Tested and validated to work on WordPress version 2.3+ (Plugin Version < 2.7 Only!)
• Ability to add links to your header images.
• WordPress MU Compatible (As of 2.8)
• Theme developer friendly with several template tags and functions for custom themes.

Get it here  Dynamic Headers

SI CAPTCHA Anti-Spam

Adds CAPTCHA anti-spam methods to WordPress on the comment form, registration form, login, or all. In order to post comments or register, users will have to type in the code shown on the image. This prevents spam from automated bots. Adds security. Works great with Akismet. Also is fully WP, WPMU, and BuddyPress compatible.

• Configure from Admin panel
• Valid HTML
• Section 508 and WAI Accessibility Validation.
• Allows Trackbacks and Pingbacks
• Setting to hide the CAPTCHA from logged in users and or admins
• Setting to show the CAPTCHA on the comment form, registration form, login, or all.
• I18n language translation support

Captcha Image Support:

• Open-source free PHP CAPTCHA library by http://www.phpcaptcha.org is included
• Abstract background with multi colored, angled, and transparent text
• Arched lines through text
• Generates audible CAPTCHA files in WAV format
• Refresh button to reload captcha if you cannot read it

Requirements/Restrictions:

• Works with WordPress 2.9+, WPMU, and BuddyPress 1.1 -> 1.2.3 (WordPress 3.0+ is highly recommended)
• PHP5 is highly recommended

Get it here   CAPTCHA anti-spam

Page Excerpt

This plugin adds the same functionality of the excerpt feature in posts to pages. It is based upon the same code used in WordPress to add the functionality to posts. This one is compatible with WordPress 2.6+ because it uses newer code than other similar plugins.

Get it here   Page Excerpt

Simple SEO (Search Engine Optimization)

Optimize your web site or blog by changing the title and menu output for any page or post. Thich is very important for SEO (Search Engine Optimization) reasons, but it can also increase the usability of your website, making it more friendly and understandable for your visitors.

• Change the page title of your posts and pages. This is the title that you see in the title bar of your web browser. It is also the title that shows up in search engines like Google.
• Change the menu title label of your posts and pages. This is the title that is shown in your menus/navigation.
• Supports custom post types.
• Make your post or page more attractive in Google’s search results (Google SERP).
• Add additional keywords synonyms to your pages or posts.
• Increase usability
• Nicely integrated into WordPress. Looks like it was built into the core.
• No settings, just activate the plugin and you’re ready to go.
• Uses WordPress own custom fields, so no extra database tables.
• Works with most themes and plugins.

Get it here  Simple SEO

Front Page Category

A plugin that let you choose posts in one or more categories to appear on the front page. If there are some category that you don’t want to appear on front page, especially uncategorized one, just simple go to Settings section, click at Front Page Category and uncheck those categories.

This is extremely useful useful if you use an automated posting system, or posting through mail. In this case, you can assign these posts to a category of your choice and uncheck it at Front Page Category settings. As the result they don’t appear on the front page, but do appear in a category page.

Get it here Front Page Category

Tooltip

This plugin displays a small preview image of the target site whenever you hover over a link.

Tooltips are fully customizable via css, and can either be displayed for all links, or only links to external sites.

It is very simple, all the work is done automatically for you, you only have to install and set you preferences.

Get it here  Tooltip for WordPress

Page Security

Page Security lets YOU decide which users can access which content. PSC adds much-needed user groups and permissions features to WordPress!

Create groups to organize your users how YOU see fit. Use groups to easily limit access to posts, pages, or entire sections of your website. Create an intranet or a members-only area with just a few clicks – or build a subscription based system with automatically expiring memberships. You can even create multiple levels of security for granualar protection of any sub-section on your site.

PSC is created to be simple, yet powerful – and is designed to integrate seamlessly and intuitively with WordPress. If you know how to use WordPress, you know how to use PSC.

1. Subscription support! Assign an expiration date to any membership!
2. Custom “Access Denied” pages!
3. Fully AJAX-loaded! Any changes you make to security are saved immediately!
4. Use the “Registered Users” smart group to create special “registered users only” sections!
5. Contextual help is available for every PSC feature (via WordPress’s ‘Help’ tab)!
6. Use simple, well-documented theme functions to easily automate your group memberships (You could even create an automatic subscription system)!

Get it here  Page security WordPress plugin

WP Customer Reviews

WP Customer Reviews allows you to setup a specific page on your blog to receive customer testimonials.

• All submissions are moderated, which means that YOU choose which reviews get shown.
• Reviews are displayed to visitors in a friendly format, but search engines see the hReview microformat (and RDFa soon!)
• Multiple anti-spam measures to prevent automated spambots from submitting reviews.
• Provides a configurable Business hCard, to help identify all pages of your site as belonging to your business.

Get it here   WP Customer Reviews

The answer to that is simple :  I don’t do ( or like ) link building for the same reason I don’t like ( or use ) a GPS while driving .

Now everybody understand whatever they want . Or whatever they can .

Contrary to other Valentine’s Day contests this time all you have to do is to blog, tweet or share on Facebook your best or worst date experience. Considering that bad dates outnumber ( usually ) the good ones I’d say is plenty of material around for writing something like that.

THE WINNER will be announced on February 11th 2011 to ensure your Valentine’s surprise will reach you on time.

Facebook Friends can join too! Simply add yourself as a friend of the Flowers Made Easy Facebook Fan Page and post as a fan on the page.

Disclaimer

*This is not an entry for the contest nor a paid advertising post for FlowersMadeEasy*

That’s when all ( or most ) politicians tried to do an Obama ( election ) online getting to talk to the little people on Twitter , Facebook or other “online social places ”

Obvious to me back then was that as soon as the ink on the voting paper got dried they’ll stop “engaging” and came as no surprise that, in fact that’s exactly what happened .

Now that General Election on 25 February 2011 comes closer I notice the same trend so I made up a list of ( most ) Irish politicians on Twitter with the idea of seeing how many of them will be as active as they are today in 6 months time .

If anyone’s up for a bet that not even 50 % of them will still be as active as today I’m open to discuss

Irish politicians on Twitter

I decided is time for me to try ( after such a long time ) to get in an online competition .

Looks like Alfa Romeo Ireland will give use of 8 ( eight ) Alfa Romeo Giuliettas for 1 year with FREE tax and insurance so I said to myself : Why not ?

All I had to do was to submit 250 words or a 1 minute video expressing who am I and why I’d like the car . Because I suck on putting nice words together I chose the second option submitting a video I made out of scratch – nothing special but I thought of it as a good idea.

Considering I drive on average around 12-1500 km /week ( more on holidays ) I’d say that’s a lot of future blog posts in the making about driving an Alfa on the Irish roads ( including pictures – of course ) so I’d say yes – I’d like one of that cars for a year !

Stay tuned for updates because I might need your vote for this – on Facebook , YouTube or Twitter – so this ( whoring around ) post will continue …

]]> http://www.mix.ie/alpha-dog-or-alfa-whore/feed/ 2 http://www.mix.ie/to-foursquare-or-not/ http://www.mix.ie/to-foursquare-or-not/#comments Tue, 25 Jan 2011 15:53:58 +0000 Raul http://www.mix.ie/?p=112
To tell you the truth I never understood the hype around Foursquare . Aside from the controversial talks about criminals using Foursquare to harm you my question is :

If Foursquare was a government backed/funded service would you use it without a fuss ?