Friday Blogplugs

Hi folks -- here's another round of blogplugs,
which are entries that people have sent to me or labeled with the tag
blogplugs so that other people can find them.


If you click the blogplugs
tag, it'll do a blog search (in this case, using blog search engine
Technorati) that
will show you everything tagged that
way.


Note that anyone -- including
spammers -- can use the tag,  so you have to watch out when looking
through the search listings. I note that this week we've got at least
two spammers in there using the blogplugs tag. (This is one reason
why
human editors will never be fully replaced.):



* Beth talks about the problem
with carbon offsets

* Tixgirl Ames blogs about a
launch
party for R&B'er Usher's new fragrance that brought out
Martha Stewart and others.


* Paul shows us 10
more movies out of 100 (that he likes)


* Sugar shows a collection
of graphic tags.


* Christopher talks about some
friend
drama.


* Kathi shows off a video
explaining the political blogosphere (from Uncle Jay Explains the
News)


Also, we should have a patch release with a few tweaks that goes in next week, so I'll talk about that when I have a better sense of the timing.

Have a good weekend, everyone.

Thanks -- Joe

Tags: blogplugs

Jamie Sez: Don't Hotlink Images!

Hi folks -- so, I'm not sure if you're heard, but
Jamie Mottram, AOL blogger and one of the founding hosts of Sports
Bloggers Live, is leaving AOL to go do
blog stuff for Yahoo Sports. (I blogged a quick mention of it
over in Social
Media Mess.)


Best of luck, he will be missed, etc. etc. But that's not the point of this entry.


Because he is something of a big deal in sports
blogging circles, his career move got mentioned by a bunch of bloggers
(and Jamie was not shy about linking to them from his
entry).


A couple of them used a picture which was familiar to me:

Here it is -- it's a photo I'd used
last year in an entry about moods, and not coincidentally, it's on the first
page of image search results for Jamie Mottram:

Now, I don't have a problem with people using the picture. But I do
note that at least one of them is hotlinking
the picture, which means that they're just pointing to the URL where it
lives in my Hometown space (http://hometown.aol.com/Journals%20Editor/images/blogimages/042106-Jamie-Mottram-Chillin400x300.jpg), instead of hosting the photo on their own server. (I also don't care about this, but this is a teachable moment.)


Many folks who have bandwidth restrictions from their Web hosting
companies get mad when people hotlink their images, because they consider it
"stealing bandwidth." (For example, if the photo is 50K in size, and it gets seen
10,000 times, it means 500,000K [500 megabytes] of data was
transferred, which would count against the photo owner's monthly data
transfer quota. Depending on who your Web host is, you might have to
pay overage fees when you go over quota.


[Note: For services like AOL Journals, AOL Pictures, AOL Hometown, Flickr, Photobucket, etc. you
generally won't have to worry about overage fees, though really excessive data
transfers might result in some throttling access to your stuff until traffic dies down.]



Because of this, a lot of folks would prefer that people save the photo
to their computer and then upload it to their own photo host. That is,
they want you to "steal" their photo instead of "stealing" their
bandwidth, which I always find amusing (but then again, I've not been
stuck with any overage fees yet.)


Why do people hotlink images? Because they're lazy. I've done it myself
occassionally. But even if you're a heartless type with no regard for
any potential bandwidth costs of other poeple, there is one definite
reason to not hotlink images.


When you hotlink an image, you're basically saying to the Web page,
"Show the picture with this name that lives over
there." For example, my photo of Jamie is named
"042106-Jamie-Mottram-Chillin400x300.jpg" and it lives in the
"blogimages" subdirectory of the "images" directory in my Hometown
space. (I uploaded it using the Web-based
file manager).


Now, if you know someone is hotlinking your image, you can really mess
with them. Sure, you could delete the image, leaving them with a broken
image in their page, but that's no fun. However, if you replace the photo with any
other photo, but keep the same file name... since it's just a pointer,
the new  photo will show up in the page that's hotlinking to your
photo.


For example, I could do up a version of the photo with an obnoxious
text banner plastered across it ("THE OWNER OF THIS WEB SITE HAS
HERPES," "STOP STEALING THIS IMAGE," etc.)

Or I could replace the image
with something entirely new -- porn, something shocking or graphic,
etc. As long as I give it the same file name, it will show up in the
other guy's page.


Which is why you shouldn't hotlink photos.


Now, note, when you include a photo from your Hometown space (like I
explained
here), you're basically hotlinking from yourself, but it's
okay, since you generally trust yourself, right?

But any time you
hotlink an image from someone else, remember you're depending the image
owner's good grace, mercy or ignorance to prevent them from replacing
the image and displaying whatever they want in your
page.

So don't hotlink images. (And best of luck to Jamie.)


Thanks -- Joe

Tags: jamie mottram, sports blogging, hotlinking

E-Mail Rumors: Are You Spreading Lies?

I don't know if it's because I'm Journals Editor, but I get copied on a lot of chain e-mails and such that get blasted out to lots of people.

Almost all of the time, the e-mails are just... wrong. They're either flat-out hoaxes, funny but fake stories passed off as true, misattributed or made-up quotes, real-life photos with wildly inaccurate captions, political opinions disguised as facts, etc.

They typically include the text "pass this along to everyone in your address book." And the more breathless and overheated the mail, the more likely it is to be false (or at least substantially incorrect).

Most of the time, I can find it's been written up and debunked to death over at Snopes.com, which is pretty much the authoritative site on Internet hoaxes, urban legends, chain letters, etc. (So much so, it's the subject of its own conspiracy theory.)

And, in the name of truth, justice and the American Way, I'll usually reply with a link to the relevant debunking article (just to the sender -- I'm not trying to embarass anyone).

Now, lots of people say, "well, it could happen. I'll send it along just in case. It can't hurt anyone, right?"

Unfortunately, here's a real consequence of one e-mail rumor campaign: Because of an e-mail rumor started by a disgruntled ex-employee, the owner of a grocery store in a small Pennsylvania town says he was forced to close the store. [link via Obscurestore.com]:

"Store owner Sam Singh, 27, of Pine Grove, a
native of India, said he fired Wolfgang Aug. 3 for poor job
performance. Shortly after, Wolfgang began perpetuating an e-mail rumor
that said Singh told a person wearing military clothes to leave the
store."

Singh says he suffered a drop-off in business, forcing him to close the store last week.

The ex-employee, Amber Wolfgang, copped to starting the e-mail rumor and was subsequently charged with disorderly conduct, making false statements and ethnic intimidation.

When it comes to e-mail chain letters, a lot of times, it seems that people's critical thinking skills go right out the window. Maybe it reinforces an existing belief, or maybe it touches a hot-button issue. (They call this confirmation bias -- when you give more weight to something that fits in with your existing beliefs. It also explains a lot about politics.)

Now, I don't imagine that doing this entry or responding to spreaders of fake e-mails is doing anything to stem the tide. But I'll keep doing it, and I hope the next time you get a chain letter that asks you to send it to everyone in your address book, you'll look it up before you go inadvertently spreading falsehoods.

Thanks -- Joe

Tags: chain e-mails, snopes, confirmation bias

Friday End-of-Summer Blogplugs

Hi folks -- welcome to the last blogplugs of summer. As always, these are entries that people have sent to me or labeled with the tag blogplugs  -- click the blogplugs tag to see everything people have tagged that way):

* Sugar reminds us that today is National POW/MIA Recognition Day (see the Department of Defense's official Web site about it).

(There are apparently a bunch of military aircraft flying around over DC today, due to the POW/MIA ceremony at the Pentagon, as well as a NORAD exercise.)

* Barbara blogs an e-mail that she sent to her daughter's school administrators.

* Mary an entry from her paper journal.

* Deb plugs a project called YouPost.

* Donna welcomes autumn with a graphic tag.

Also, Yom Kippur began at sundown today, and Sunday marks the first official day of fall.

If you've got an entry you want to have included, just give it the blogplugs tag so people can see it. 

Thanks -- Joe

Tags: blogplugs

Friday Blogplugs

Hi folks -- welcome to another round of blogplugs, which are entries that bloggers have sent to me or labeled with the tag blogplugs  -- click the blogplugs tag to see everything people have tagged that way):

* Dawn had a 9/11-related poll (see my earlier entry for more 9/11-related blogplugs.)

* Ellie blogged about her bad day.

* Jimmy has his weekly wrapup (some language)

* Beth talks about living well.

* Sugar shared her Rosh Hashana wishes.

Have a great weekend, everyone!

Thanks -- Joe

Tags: blogplugs

A Quiet 9/11 Remembrance

Hi folks -- this September 11th has been a gray, dreary day. I've mostly been keeping my head down, but I wanted just to highlight a few AOL Journalers who blogplugged 9/11-related entries, including Ellie, Sugar, Christopher, Indigo, and Jimmy.

Also, again this year, Kathi has an entry supporting the 2,996 Project (in which bloggers do entries remembering each of the victims of 9/11).

If you have your own 9/11 related blog entry, feel free to leave a comment with a link.

Thanks -- Joe

Tags: 9/11 remembrances

How To: Add a Poll to Your Journal Entry

Hi folks -- I did a poll last week about whether I should do a tutorial about how to add a poll to your Journal entry (which was one of the features added in R13).

The "Sure, do a tutorial" votes won, but to be honest, I was going to do one regardless of the poll results. So here it is. It's pretty straightforward:

1. Create a new entry or edit an existing one.

2. Click the "Add Poll" button in the button bar or the formatting toolbar. (If you've already got stuff in your blog entry, click with your mouse in your entry where you want the poll to go, then click the Add Poll button.):

Both Add Poll buttons do the same thing.

3. Give your poll a name (it doesn't show up anywhere). Enter your poll topic. Then, enter your poll choices. If you want to add more choices, click the "+" sign. To remove choices, click the "-" sign:

4. If you want to preview your poll, click the "Preview" button, which will show you the poll and a sample results page. When you're done with the Preview, click the "close" button to go back to poll editing:

5. When you're finished making your poll, click the "Create" button. The poll will be added into your Journal entry. That's pretty much it:

You can continue editing your Journal entry, just like you would any entry.

(Now, what's happening behind the scenes is that it's creating an AOL Poll which lives on the AOL Poll site. It also creates an iFRAME, which is like a window cut into your Journal so it can show the poll that's on the AOL Polls site.

This all happens in the background, so you don't need to know any of the HTML that makes it work, though you can see it if you switch to HTML mode and take a look -- you probably shouldn't mess with it unless you know what you're doing.)

Tip: I usually like to center things -- until we get alignment buttons, I use div tags:

<div align="center">Stuff to be centered</div>

Right now, you can't edit polls you've created, or fiddle vote counts, change layouts, etc. And I don't know what future poll enhancements are planned. So it's pretty much for quick-and-easy, single-question, multiple-answer polls.

Also please note that polls are currently only working for US Journalers, though Paul and others have noted that you can create a poll in a US Journal and copy-and-paste it into a non-US Journal, and it should work.

 (Keep in mind -- there are other third-party poll providers out there, so if you find one you want added to the AOL Journals whitelist, let us know.)

Thanks -- Joe

Tags: aol journals, aol polls, how to, tutorial, journals poll

Friday Blogplugs

Hi folks -- well, I was going to do a quick poll tutorial (regardless of the poll results) -- as I said, it's pretty easy (it'll probably take me a lot longer to write the entry than for you to figure it out yourself), but I'll get to it next week.

Here we have a weeks' end round of blogplugs, which are entries that bloggers have sent to me or labeled with the tag blogplugs to get them in front of other people (I only list one per person per week, generally -- click the blogplugs tag to see everything people have tagged that way):

* Indigo talks about bullies (both childhood and others)

* Sugar notes that it's Cancer Awareness Month

* Guido remembered some September dates of World War II significance.

* Bea uses a bulletin board to talk about creation.

* Stephen weighed in on the Senator Larry Craig situation.

* Tom had a series of entries about veterans' health issues -- here's one of them.

Finally, you may have noticed that we see a lot of the same names every week -- blogplugs is open to everyone (well, except spammers), so if you want to get an entry out in front of people, just tag it with the tag blogplugs (when you're creating or editing a post, just type "blogplugs" in the box -- one word, no spaces -- that's above the "Save" button). That way, when you click the link, you can see everything that people have tagged that way (and other people will see the same thing).

Have a good weekend, everyone.

Thanks -- Joe

Tags: blogplugs

R13 Release Successfully Installed

Hi folks -- as mentioned yesterday, the Journals R13 Release was successfully installed last night. No major glitches were encountered.

A couple folks have mentioned random problems (can't comment, can't access Journals), but they don't appear to be related to the install -- if you are seeing any weirdness, please try clearing your browser cache and footprint and restart your computer.

If that doesn't help, or you are experiencing any other Journals problems, please let me know.

There are the usual behind-the-scenes adjustments, setting up for future work and bug fixes, but for regular users, R13 basically adjusts the comments layout and gives us embedded polls (US users only, sorry).

The polls are pretty straightforward -- do you think I need to do a tutorial?

Here's a suggestion -- if you do a poll, leave a link in the comments, and also tag it with journals poll.

Thanks -- Joe

Tags: journals poll, aol journals status, r13

Reminder: Journals R13 Release Installs Tonight, Midnight EDT (9PM EDT)

Hi folks -- just a quick reminder -- the Journals R13 release will be installed tonight, 12 midnight EDT (9PM PDT) -- it basically gives us:

* Comments Restyling
* Embedded Polls (US-only) -- the team also mentioned that the polls integration is acting a little hinky in beta right now -- just a heads up, though.
* Hometown hit counters won't be included on the default template for new Journals any more (current Journals will be uneffected, and users will still be able to add them from the Edit Journal screen).

There may be brief, intermittent outages during the install period, but we're not expecting any significant downtime.

Also, we've got a report or two of Journalers not getting clickable hyperlinks in their New Entry Alert e-mails -- it does not appear to be widespread, nor does it look like an Alerts problem (which puts the problem somewhere on the Journals end).

If you're experiencing this problem, please let me know so the Journals team can do some further investigation.

Thanks -- Joe

Tags: aol journals, journals status, alerts, r13