Feed the Beast

Blogging Tips from Rex BrownOne of the best ways to increase traffic to your website or blog is to promote it through social media. It increases the number of inbound links to your site, allows you to reach a different audience or connect with your usual clientele at a different level. And best of all it’s free!

I detect grumbling coming from the back row.

What’s that? You say you don’t have the time to post links on Twitter or Facebook or LinkdIn every time you update your site. Well then, dear reader, you’re in luck. Because I’m going to tell you how make that happen automagically.

Continue reading Feed the Beast

2012 According to Google

Time once again for the Year on Google.

As usual, the top trending searches leave me saying, “Huh?” The top ten search trends for 2012 are:

  1. Whitney Houston
  2. Gangnam Style
  3. Hurricane Sandy
  4. iPad 3
  5. Diablo 3
  6. Kate Middleton
  7. Olympics 2012
  8. Amanda Todd
  9. Michael Clarke Duncan
  10. BBB12

This year for a change I actually recognize some of the names. For the whole story and a lovely video smashup of the year according to Google check out…

Google: Zeitgeist 2012

 

Fun with Tumblr

A couple of years ago I started a photo album on Facebook called I Saw Art Today.

It started out as a repository for unusual paintings I discovered in thrift stores and resale shops. Eventually it grew to contain dozens of snapshots of strange and unusual works- sculptures, prints, etc. It seemed perfectly suited for a Tumblr project.

Tumblr is essentially a photo-blogging platform. Not to say you can’t post words- you can. But the main attraction is image sharing.

Unlike typical blogs Tumblr does not support comments. Instead users are urged to Like or Reblog a post to show their approval. By reblogging one user’s post it spreads it around the Interwebulars. Plus it’s very easy to post photos from your smartphone!

To see what I have managed to cobble together take a look at…

more-bad-art.tumblr.com

Go Phish

Phight Back!

Bogus emails are a pain.There is constantly a barrage of scumbags hoping to gain access to your private accounts. They use legitimate looking emails to lure the unsuspecting into a bogus website- once again, very legitimate looking- in the hopes you will enter your login or personal information. It’s called “phishing.” Fake eBay and Paypal messages are a favorite of these scammers.

Wouldn’t it be great if we could report these assholes?

Now you can.

Just as Gmail offers special tools for declaring a message is spam- there is an option available specifically for these bogus phishing scams.

Using the “Report Phishing” option (see image) will report the sender, content and network particulars to Google. While it ain’t the FBI it does serve to blacklist the bad people and stop this especially malicious spam before it spreads.

Every time we report spam or phishing with these tools it makes the world a better place.  Even if just a little bit.