- Never submit pages from your own sites. Never Digg anything from your own sites. This is the most important rule of all, so this is why it is first. If you follow nothing else on this list, at least follow this single most important rule.
- Create a proper profile with an image and links to your websites and profiles on other social networks. Your profile is an important part of your site activities. It allows people to get to know who you are and more about you. The default image provided by Digg doesn't make a good impression on anyone. A properly filled out profile invites social interaction. Digg is a social site. It's important to be social. Most of the traffic I get directly from Digg is people visiting my sites through links on my profile.
- Avoid using the Digg shout system as much as possible. Even if you keep your shouts private, people and search engines can still see and find them. These shouts can hurt you. It can be viewed by some people and search engines as a form of spamming.
- Make friends with your Digg mutual friends on other social sites that have a private message system in which private messages are never made public and accessible to search engines. Or even better, use instant messaging and email, instead.
- Get your Digg friends to submit your content for you, and don?t use the same person too frequently?rotate them. (use the private message system on other sites to suggest what to submit and Digg) And not every page on your site is a worthy candidate for submission. Be selective and only give them links to the best content you have on your site. Be very critical of your own work. You know what will appeal to the masses and what won't. Don't act like you are stupid. Don't submit things that will likely only get a few Diggs. This will hurt your site, in the long run when your content is submitted to Digg and gets a low number of Diggs. Google rates your content in part, by the number of Diggs it receives. Choose wisely.
- Get real friends that are also members of Digg to submit and/or Digg your stuff. (same thing?contact them offsite) Make sure those friends are not connected to your Digg profile in any way.
- Digg a big variety of content submitted by others (not just your friends), from the upcoming section, and don?t Digg anything lame. Think massive quantities of mass appeal. Ask yourself the following: "What would the majority of people assume about me if they were to see this in my Digg history?" If it's not something good, don't Digg it, even if you really like it.
- Make sure you comment and say something intelligent that won?t get voted down, on at least 50% of what you Digg. Commenting and interacting with others is being social. You need to be social on a social network, or it just won't work. You want to be one of the first few to comment as frequently as possible, and you don't want to seem like you are some sort of idiot. And vote up the intelligent comments that you like, made by others. The more you are an early commenter with something intelligent to say, and the more social you are, the more likely it will be that you will catch the eye of a more powerful Digger that likes you for what you have to say and what you Digg, and he will be more likely to check out the other things you Digg, and then possibly Digg things that you Digg. More powerful Diggers have crowd appeal that you don?t. Their followers are what you are after and you get to those through them.
- Do not attempt to friend the top dogs on Digg until you have established a very strong profile and have an abundance of experience. They are not going to friend you back if they don't know who you are and have never seen you around the site. An even better idea is to wait for them to friend you, first.
- Never friend anyone on Digg that breaks the above rules. Remember the old saying "Birds of a feather flock together". Don't mark yourself as "guilty through association". Anyone that breaks the above rules are poor quality Diggers and their activities can get you marked as a spammer or poor quality Digger, yourself, and then either your account will get banned, you submissions will get constantly buried, or people just won?t Digg your stuff. If that happens, then you will be useless to your mutual Digg friends, and they will not be willing to help you as much. They may even stop following you. Leave the poor quality Diggers that break the above rules as just followers and not mutual friends. Don?t follow them or you will be following them to failure. Associate yourself only with quality.
And what kinds of things should you submit and Digg besides the usual stuff that has mass appeal, and content of good quality from your friends? Submit and Digg high quality pages that link to yours. Your goal should be indirect traffic coming from those sites to yours and not from Digg to yours. This is one easy way you can reward people that are kind enough to write about you. You give those pages more traffic and a boost in page rank and have more links pointing to you in the top 10 results in the search engines.
The goal is not to get a day of traffic from Digg. The goal is not to increase your own page rank for your site (this will happen any way if you follow my suggestions). The goal is not for your site to make the front page of Digg.
The goal is to take over the entire front page of the search engines so all links will point to you, directly or indirectly when someone searches for something.
Most people never go to page 2 of the results. They usually find what they want on page 1. If every article on page 1 sends them to you, you WIN BIG TIME, even if your site is buried on page 8 of the search results, which it won?t be if you are paying attention and learning from what I just said.
The higher the page rank of the sites that link to you, the higher your page rank will be. Why have a bunch of PR0 sites linking to you when you can actively do something about it and help turn them into PR3 or higher? This is one case where nice guys don't have to finish last. Being nice can help you finish first.
I touched on this issue before in a previous article about out of control food prices and how it is affecting the poor of this country, but one group that I did not take into consideration when I wrote it, was college students.
This is why I felt the need to write a Part 2. (Blog Action Day was the reason why I delayed publishing it till today.)
Due to the rise in student poverty, you may now add them to both the group of kids sufferring from malnutrition, unable to concentrate in school due to their growling stomachs, and also to the group that is struggling with unemployment and the lack of available jobs.
College students are a group of people that are traditionally strapped for cash and live on tight budgets, with ramen being a staple of many of their diets. (It's not just a joke...it's real!)
It is difficult to make ends meet when you have to go to school all day, spend a substantial amount of time studying, and make sure you get enough rest in order to perform well in school the next day.
It doesn't leave that much free time for employment, and if students are employed, it's usually only part time for minimum wage. And with many businesses currently feeling the crunch and cutting their workforce, those jobs are becoming more scarce and the competition for them rising.
In many communities, students are competing with low income families that have kids to feed, for those fewer available low paying jobs. And during the summer, they may even be competing with their temporarily unemployed teachers, who also need more money to make ends meet and survive through the summer, till they return to work again in September.
Forget the stereotypes of the typical college student wasting all their money on booze and partying it up all the time. It just isn't true, any more (if it ever even was). The vast majority are working themselves to death and rarely have the time, money, or energy for booze and parties.
And forget the stereotypes of students being able to just hit mom & dad up for more cash. Most parents have set a strict budget for their kids in college, if they are even willing or able to give them any help at all with personal expenses. And the parents that are willing to help, are feeling the squeeze themselves, with the rising food and gasoline prices eating into their extra cash they might normally have and be willing to contribute to support their children away at college.
The truth is, most students are more or less on their own for providing for their personal needs above and beyond their tuition, books, and housing; with many living well below the poverty line, and drowning in debt. The rising cost of fuel is eating away at whatever extra cash they may have on hand to feed themselves. The cost of gasoline is also affecting their ability to hold a job and earn anything at all, to cover their cost of living.
And because their parents can still claim most of them as dependants, statistics are based upon the income of the parents and not the actual cash the students have available at their disposal, so most of these poverty stricken young adults are not even included in the statistics that refer to students living below the poverty line. They are this nation's hidden poor.
The rise in food prices isn't helping things, and are driving students to drain the already scarce supplies of the local food pantries that are already struggling to keep up with the burden of demands from poor and out of work families, while donations dwindle, as the middle class cuts back on "unnecessary" spending.
This is adversely affecting the already poor, the ones that were relying on food pantries long before the students started showing up. There is only so much food available, and it's not enough to go around. The rising number of students in need, is making the problem much worse.
The current economic crisis is going to seriously aggravate the problem further this winter, and it is likely that contributions will dip even lower, and need will increase even more, as the unemployment rate rises even higher.
Your local food pantry will need your help, more than ever, during this time of economic crisis. If you can spare anything at all, please consider making regular donations of food or cash to the one closest to you. A little bit can go a long way and help a lot of people get by this winter, and beyond.
Cash contributions would be best, because food pantries can buy in bulk and get more for your money than you can, and it will ensure that they have enough of the items they need most, and cut down on the surplus of unsuitable items. It will also help cover the cost of transporting the stuff they buy, to the food pantry. (this cost has increased drastically, due to rising fuel prices)
If you feel the need to contribute food instead of cash, these are the kinds of items they would always be in need of:
- spaghetti and other pasta products
- spaghetti sauce (preferably with vegetables or meat)
- canned meats (like tuna or chicken)
- shelf stable milk that doesn't need refridgeration (something like Parmalat)
- canned and dried beans
- peanut butter & jelly
- hot & cold cereals
- pancake mix & syrup (get the "complete" kind that doesn't require eggs)
- rice
- canned fruits and vegetables
- soups and stews (stuff with lots of meat & vegetables)
Just think healthy & nutritious, and don't give anything that you wouldn't eat. This is not an invitation to clean out your pantry of all your unwanted crap. They don't want your dust covered cans of gourmet liver paté and jars of pickled baby corn, that neither you nor your dog would eat.
If you are giving anything that requires something else to make it a complete meal, be sure to buy the other item to go with it, such as is the case with stuff like pasta & sauce, pancake mix & syrup, peanut butter & jelly, and cereal & milk.
When in doubt, contact your local food pantry and ask what they need most, or if they are willing to accept an item you may want to provide, before you make your purchase.
Probably about the easiest way you could do this, is to just pick up at least one extra non-perishable meal each week, when you do your shopping for your family. Then at the checkout, buy one of those contribution tags that donates to something like Feeding America/Second Harvest. Then drop off the food you bought at your local pantry, on your way home.
If you are having trouble locating a local food pantry near your home, pick up your phone and call churches in your neighborhood. Many of them serve their community by running a food pantry.
Most do not require the people they serve to be a member of their church or even hold any religious beliefs, at all. And they don't use it as an opportunity to preach their flavor of religion to the people they serve, either. So if you are an athiest/agnostic, this shouldn't be an issue for you. Don't let it stand in the way. (Who cares why churches help, as long as they help and do it fairly.)
Read More:
American Spaghetti Crisis: Part 1
Other articles, news, and information resources
Thank you, Chris Lang, for reminding me that I forgot the college students. 
Wouldn't it be great if you could add a button to every post that would make it easy for your visitors to share your posts with their friends in Google Reader, even if they don't subscribe to your feed?
The following is instructions to do just that, for Blogger layout based blogs. (Blogger Classic, Wordpress, and basic static HTML page instructions will be posted soon.)
This will require you to edit the HTML of your template. While I have tried to make this as easy as possible, those that don't feel comfortable with this, should not try it.
The button will only show on post pages and not the main page of your blog. It's not wise to do this any other way, as the URL that will be supplied in Google Reader will be the URL of the page in which your button is clicked. If it is on the main page, the post may not be there when someone reads the entry in someone's shared items, and it is likely not to win you any new loyal readers, so use this only on post pages.
I have also added some comments in the code that will make it much easier for you to add addional buttons in the future, and have them appear on all pages or just post pages.
1. On your Blogger Dashboard, click the Layout link for the blog you want to add the button to.
2. At the top of the Layout page, click the link for Edit HTML.
3. Where it says "Backup/Restore Template", click the link that says "Download Full Template" and save the .xml file to your hard drive. This file will help you restore your template, in case anything goes wrong.
4. In the "Edit Template" section, check the box at the top right that says "Expand Widget Templates".
5. Use your browser's search function to find this line:
<div class='post-footer'>
6. Find the 2 lines in your template that look like this:
<div class='post-footer'>
<p class='post-footer-line post-footer-line-1'>
7. Copy and paste the following code between those 2 lines:
<!-- Footer Button Codes BEGIN -->
<div>
<p><span id='footer-buttons'>
<!-- things placed after this line will show on all pages -->
<b:if cond='data:blog.pageType == "item"'>
<!-- things placed after this line will only show on post pages -->
<!-- Google Reader Share Item Button BEGIN -->
<a href='javascript:var%20b=document.body;var%20GR________bookmarklet_domain="http://www.google.com";if(b&&!document.xmlVersion){void(z=document.createElement("script"));void(z.src="http://www.google.com/reader/ui/link-bookmarklet.js");void(b.appendChild(z));}else{}'>
<img alt='Share this in Google Reader' border='0' src='http://appsapps.info/blog/blogspot-layouts/gr-small.png'/></a>
<!-- Google Reader Share Item Button END -->
<!-- Do Not Paste Any Code Below This Line -->
</b:if>
</span></p>
</div>
<!-- Footer Button Codes END -->
8. Click the button at the bottom of the page that says "Save Template".
If you get any red errors, leave a comment stating the specific error message, and I will try to help you out. If you get any errors beginning with "bX-", just try again tomorrow. Sometimes Blogger has issues with itself and waiting a bit can resolve them.
9. Look at your blog. If you have done this correctly, the button should appear on post pages only, and not the main page. Test the button by clicking it on a post and sharing one of your posts in Google Reader.
10. If you would like to add other buttons to the footer of your posts, the comments in the code will help you decide where to put your button codes. One place will show on all pages, and the other will only show on post pages.
11. If you would like a larger button than the one that shows when you use this code, find the word "small" in the file name of the image URL used, and replace it with "large".
We are all familiar with the type of censorship that occurs on the radio with songs containing swear words being bleeped or blanked out. Plenty of artists have been subjected to this, and it seemed that no artist or swear word was immune to this type of censorship in America...except one.
Ever since the release of "The Dark Side of the Moon" back in 1973, Pink Floyd has been oddly immune to the same type of censorship that has victimized every other artist.
In their song "Money", there is a line that goes like this:
Money, its a hit.
Dont give me that do goody good bullshit.
Never, since the 70's, when I first heard the song on the radio on 95.5 WPLJ New York (back when they had an album rock format), have I ever heard that song censored. I have heard it a million times over the years and heard "bullshit" in it, clear as day, each and every time.
The Almighty Pink Floyd, was allowed to openly say what other artists could not.
I do not know why...maybe it was out of respect. Maybe it was just overlooked (doubtful), but they were allowed to swear as much as they wanted.
Even the song "Pigs", which contained the following lyric, was never censored:
Bus stop rat bag, ha ha, charade you are.
You fucked up old hag, ha ha, charade you are.
Yesterday afternoon that all changed.
For the first time in my life, I heard "bullshit" blanked out in "Money" on 101.9 WRXP New York. That station did what no radio station ever dared to do before. They censored Pink Floyd!
Omgwtfbbq!!!11one-eleventy-eleven!
Shameful! Shameful! Shameful!
They not only totally ruined my listening pleasure, they ruined my day, as well. This has been bothering me for the last 10 hours. How dare they censor a song that has always been allowed to stand in it's entire artistic majesty, on the public airwaves, for well over 30 years!
I am still in shock...stunned.
They are an awesomely fantastic radio station (you can listen to their stream and check them out for yourself), BUT...this incident is going to linger with me, bugging the hell out of me, for a long time.
How dare they!
With everyone belonging to so many social networks on the web, it is becoming harder and harder for everyone to keep track of you, and for you to keep track of what everyone else is doing, too.
Jack Humphrey suggested a good way to keep an eye on your competitors, by friending them on social networks and aggregating them together into a single RSS feed. (it's also good for keeping track of all your friends, too)
That takes care of you keeping track of everyone else, but how to make it easier for others to keep track of you is a good question, and one in which I recently found the answer to.
Here is how to get yourself together in one feed:
Getting a BackType account will help gather all your comments from blogs all over the web into a single feed.
Take that feed, the feeds to all your blogs (minus the comment feeds since yours will be included in the BackType feed, and we don't want everybody else's comments, any way), feeds of your activities from every social site you are a part of, and go to xFruits, select "Aggregator RSS" and make one huge master activity feed for yourself.
xFruits will aggregate all your feeds and publish the last 100 events into a single super "Stalk Me" feed for all your fans and friends.
Now all people have to do is subscribe to this feed and they will know what you are up to, everywhere.
If you want to know what I am up to, just subscribe to my super duper "Stalk Me" feed in your RSS reader: 
You'll get all my posts on all my blogs, comments I make on other blogs, as well as ones I make on my own, my Twitter activities, posts on DonationCoder.com, links I am Digging, stuff I am bookmarking on Delicious, new software I am using, software reviews I have written on Wakoopa, links to Pandora stations I have created, stuff I am sharing on Google Reader, and a whole lot more...all in one single feed. And it's bound to get pretty interesting once I have a better computer, which will be very soon. (ordering it within the next few days, hopefully)
Totally awesome RSS icon images provided by BittBox.com 
Playing around in Paintshop Pro again!
Inspired by the trend on a lot of the design blogs to use flourishes and swirly looking things, I deceided to take a crack at it and create a pack of images that would be suitable for anyone that designs Wordpress themes, website templates, or just if you want to use it on your own website or blog. Commercial use is OK, do as you wish, just don't offer them for download (together or individually) or claim you made them. You have to make something with them.
There is a total of 60 PNG images in this pack:
- 1 image with a transparent background
- 1 image with a white background
- 29 images with various gradient backgrounds
- 29 matching gradients images to be used as page or element backgrounds.
Sample shown at actual size:
Samples with some of the gradients (reduced size):
Download the full set: Style01
If you use any of these, post a link in a comment so I can see.
|
Blog Directory ID: 3328
Blog URL: http://cranialsoup.blogspot.com
Google Pagerank: N/A
Blog Description: Random thoughts, ideas, rants, web finds, and general musings.
Blog Category: Personal Blogs
Blog Owner: April
Blog Added: July 05, 2008 06:22:25 AM
Audience Rating: General Audience
Blogger/BlogSpot
Blog Country: 
United States
My Yahoo! 
Report Blog Listing - 
Refer Blog Listing - 
Print Listing
Total Visits: 7
Blog Rating: 0.00
Rate Blog: 
