On the Pinterest blog dated April 13 headed Addressing Spam on Pinterest; Pinterest tells users what they can do to report Spam using the ‘report pin’ link. You also can ask to block a user via the Pinterest ticket system. Please do not get too excited about this prospect as Pinterest is not quick in responding to any tickets via this system.

Pinterest says not to click any link that promotes a giveaway except many of the spammers are now using other methods to get the clicks including disguising the links using URL shortening services.

 It would be great if their would be a report button on the whole profile, the spammers I came across mainly promote one website, so the single pin looks ‘innocent’ but when you look at the whole profile/ all the boards you see that all their pins go only to one website and that all these spam accounts look horribly similar … by Sybille

It’s getting to the point I think a lot of people, including myself, are going to stop using pinterest soon if the spam thing doesn’t get better… one feature i would really appreciate is the ability to block someone from following me who is an obvious spammer… by SJR

All we can suggest is like what you do with Twitter links in direct messages, think before you click as you may be sent to somewhere you may not want to go. Roll the mouse over the image and look at the status bar to see where the link takes you. Watch out for a shortened URL or a link  which gives an affiliate ID in the URL and finally, NEVER like or repin a link you have not checked first or you will be adding to the problem.

What has been your experience?

Just click the flashing heart from the left menu and make your purchase – that easy! We will even link to your blog, as long as it is family friendly.

For only $96.00 you will receive:

1. 12 month’s NO FUSS web hosting instantly set up
2. Easy to follow instructions and tutorials to get you started
3. Your blog installed within 1 working day [make sure you let us know you want a blog installed!]
4. One email address set up so you do not have to worry about doing this yourself [blog@yourdomain.com]
5. A range of useful blog plugins installed [see below] to help you create an amazing blog

You will be able to:

1. Sack your webmaster as you will have total control over your website
2. Change the look of your blog just by clicking the activate button – there are zillions of free templates on the Internet to use
3. Automatically update your Twitter and Facebook pages with your latest posts
4. Add in all the hidden ‘tags’ that Google requires to find your website so you make your blog search engine friendly [SEO]
5. Have your blog create a Google Sitemap for you, plus automaticaly upload it AND ell Google you have one
6. Easily upload your images to your blog image library
7. Tell your blog to backup itself up every day
8. Conduct online polls
9. Create a mobile/cell phone version

Check out how these fulltime professional bloggers got started:

1. Young House Love
2. Bumfuzzle – the beginning [2003], Bumfuzzle – today
3. Dooce
4. DaDa Rocks
5. Dad-O-Matic
6. Real Men Drive Minivans
7. Dadcentric
8. The Perfect Pantry

Why blog:

• You are a stay at home mum/mom and need to earn an income
• You home school your children and want to share your experiences
• You have a disability and find it difficult to get employment
• You are living in the country/bush and would like to supplement the farm income
• You have knowledge and expertise which others will find interesting

Sir Richard Branson has won control of the domain name richardbranson.xxx.

The tycoon had been in dispute with Australian Sean Truman, who registered the domain name last year.

The National Arbitration Forum (NAF), a US-based adjudication body, ruled that Mr Truman had registered and used richardbranson.xxx “in bad faith”.

The .xxx domain was introduced as a home for pornography and other adult-orientated web sites in 2011.

“We worry about the misuse of Sir Richard’s name and he is pleased that we now have it under our ownership,” said Nick Fox, a spokesman for the founder of the Virgin business empire.

Icann, the body which has overall responsibility for domain names, had ordered the transfer of the richardbranson.xxx domain name to Virgin, Mr Fox added.

Trademark owners were given the opportunity to block the registration of .xxx domain names last year before they were made available for general public registration.

Mr Fox said that Virgin was in the process of doing this when Mr Truman registered it, four days after general availability.

‘Sex sells’

In Mr Truman’s argument to the NAF, he contended that he had registered the domain name as a “souvenir” because of his admiration of Sir Richard.

He argued that Sir Richard has a history of using the “sex sells” principle in his business activities, using “Virgin” as a generic brand name.

The NAF ruled that Mr Truman should have recognized that his registration and control of richardbranson.xxx “would serve to vex or embarrass” Sir Richard.

Thomas Frederiksen, chief operating officer at UK web hosting company One.com, warned that the .xxx domain could cause serious problems for businesses.

“If someone has registered your company’s name, or in this case the name of your CEO, it can permanently damage your brand,” he said.

“This is a unique case as not all company CEOs will be able to argue that their name is protected under intellectual property law.

Source: BBC 23 February 2012
Read the ruling here: NAF

If you purchase your domain name through us, we assign the nameservers at the time of purchase. If you purchased your domain name elsewhere, then it is your responsibility as the domain registrant to inform the domain name registrar [where you purchased the domain name] of our name servers. If this is too difficult for you to do or understand then we shall do it for you at a cost of $15.50 to cover our time. We will need your domain name log on details as well to do this on your behalf. You do not have to be our customer for us to do this for you.

 Example of assigning the name servers:

1.  Do a Whois search in the box below to find out who your domain registrar is
   

   .co .com .net .org .info .biz .co.uk .org.uk .com.au .net.au .org.au .co.nz .net.nz .org.nz  

    

2. Go to your domain registrar’s website and log in to your account. The log on details would have been emailed to you when you purchased the domain name. If you do not have this email, try a password reset or contact your domain name registrar for the log on details
    
3. Each registrar is different so look for a link that says something like ‘manage your domain name’
    
4. Now locate the ‘manage name servers’ or similar link
    
5. Most web hosts will give you two name servers to assign. Here is an example of ours:
    

6.  
    

7. Either click ADD or SAVE
    
8. Now wait for these to update on the Whois database
    
9. If you cannot see your website within 24 hours, do another Whois name search to see if the new name servers have updated. If not, repeat the process.
    

GEEK SPEAK DEFINITION > Whois: A way to view a domain name if it is available or taken, plus tells you who owns a domain name if it is taken. It gives the registrant’s name and contact details plus the name server details, when the domain name was registered and when it expires.

Further reading: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Name_server

Success is in the planning of your blog …….

1. BE YOU

   Determine what you want to blog about. It is best to stick with what you know, what you are passionate about, what you enjoy. Trying to mimic someone else’s blog will never be successful and will make it difficult for you to find things to write about.

2. TARGET AUDIENCE

   Who is going to be your target audience? Will your blog be business based or personal based? If it is business based like my blog, do not blog about personal things. My target audience is looking to learn about blogging and graphic design, not read about me renovating a beach house [which I am currently doing]. Instead, either create a personal section of your blog, or get a separate blog and link to it.

3. INVESTIGATE

   Spend time reading successful blogs to get a feel of how it is done. Take notes of what you like about the blog.

   Does the blog owner interact with commentators?
   What does the blog look like – professional or amateur design?
   Is the format easy to read – text size, font choice?
   What grabs your attention?
   What is the navigation like?
   Do they show the full posts or just summaries?
   Can you subscribe to the blog?
   Does the blog have guest authors?
   Do they have competitions, monthly challenges?
   How often do you go back to the blog and what makes you return to it?

4. CHOOSING A BLOG NAME

   When it is time to get your blog set up, consider a keyword domain and blog name. If you want more people to find your blog, a keyword domain and blog name will rank high in the search engines. I have a blog which I set up in April 2011. Google delivers almost 5 million page results using the keywords of my domain and blog name. I have made only two posts, and my page comes in at number 11 position. Imagine when I start seriously blogging there, where do you think it will rank? Most likely in number 1 position!

5. SOCIAL MEDIA

   Secure matching Facebook and Twitter names. This is important for continuity of your brand. As social media plays an important part of blogging, I will blog about this in detail soon.

6. BLOG SOFTWARE AND HOSTING

   Next step is the blog software and hosting. Do not let this stage put you off.EZY4Uhosting is a business that caters to the complete novice and the reason why I recommend them. They will install your blog, even set up your domain name email and then send you full instructions on getting started. I have many clients who happily blog away with little to no webmaster experience. Order your blog hostinghere for only $8.00 a month.

7. VISUAL BRANDING

   A logo is important when developing your brand and makes it easy to identify you where ever you go on the Internet. Google Ideas Woman and see where I have been. Where I can, I always make sure I use my ‘name’ and my Ideas Woman character as my avatar. Worldwide, I am unique and I am a brand.

8. CONTENT

   If the content is not interesting, it will not be read. If it is too long, it may not be read. If you do not spell and grammar check, it will be difficult to understand. If you do not use correct typesetting, punctuation and paragraphs, it will be difficult to read. I personally do not like lower case i and SMS language in blogs as that shows writer laziness.

   As content is another large topic, I will offer tips about this soon.

9. PHOTOGRAPHY

   Keep your camera handy at ALL times – shopping, outings, dinner dates. An opportunity may arise that you can blog about and a photo always makes reading more interesting. No-one wants to read “if only I had my camera, I would have taken a photo”.

   If you are blogging a HOW TO, always take a before photo. It may seem like common sense that you would take the before photo, but if you want to get straight in to a project, it is easy to forget. I suggest writing a story board first so all steps are covered; this saves back tracking.

   Out of focus photos just do not cut it. If you do not know how to use your camera, then learn. If you take close-up photos, learn how to use the macro mode. Have a look at the Not Quite Nigella blog and see the quality of the photos. Do your photos look this good? We have a $95 Canon digital camera that can take similar quality.

10. BLOG DESIGN

    You need to remember that the blog needs to cater to the target audience, not what you as the blog owner likes to look at. If you make the blog in your favourite colors, these may not be the most suitable for a blog. There are many FREE templates to use on your blog, or if you are really serious, I am happy to create a simple custom design for you and within your budget. Custom designs are not as expensive as some people may think.

11. MARKETING YOUR BLOG

    Do not think for one second that typing in your blog and posting photos is all that there is to it. Marketing is as important as the blog itself.

More people in the U.S. will access the Internet via mobile devices than through desktop computers or other wired devices by 2015, IDC predicted on Monday.

That bold prediction follows a tremendous uptick in smartphone sales in the past two years. IDC projects that nearly 1 billion smartphones will be distributed globally in 2015.

IDC also noted that it expects an explosion of media tablet sales in coming years.

The researcher predicts sales of all wireless device sales in the U.S. will see an annual growth rate of 16.6% between 2010 and 2015.

“Forget what we have taken for granted on how consumers use the Internet,” said Karsten Weide, an analyst at IDC. “Soon, more users will access the Web using mobile devices than using PCs. It’s going to make the Internet a very different place.”

Analysts are already tracking the voracious usage of downloadable mobile apps that take users off the World Wide Web by wirelessly connecting them directly to content on devices. Most smartphone and tablet users download multiple free and paid applications, though IDC didn’t say how that trend is affecting Internet usage.

IDC said that smartphone and tablet adoption will be so great that desktop computer usage will at first stagnate and then slowly decline. Western Europe and Japan willl follow the U.S. in the pattern, IDC said.

In its statement, IDC said it projects that the number of Internet users (mobile and wired) globally will jump from 2 billion in 2010 to 2.7 billion in 2015.

In the same period, the business-to-consumer e-commerce market will grow from $708 million to $1.2 billion, IDC said, while online advertising sales will jump from $70 billion to $138 billion. Online advertising as a share of all advertising will jump from nearly 12% in 2010 to nearly 18% in 2015.

Now you can create your own graphic for your website using this online icon [favicon] generator creator found here.

1. Create the favicon.ico and upload to your website
2. Add this line of code to your website’s main template or to every page on your website:
   Example …….
   <head> <title> Easy to use favicon shortcut generator tooltitle> <meta name=“description” content=“Learn how to create a favicon for your website!”> <meta http-equiv=“Content-Type” content=“text/html; charset=iso-8859-1″> <link rel=“icon” href=”/favicon.ico” />head

Here are a few  favourites:

@dani

@adamplitt

@thenewschool

@imagedesigns

@sitepointdotcom

@ideaswoman

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