Vice, advice and assorted mice with a price

10.57pm local time / 13°C (55°F) rainy and cold that was the day before

10.18pm local time / 15°C (59°F) drizzly that woz yestahday

1.12pm local time / 17°C (62°F) f@#king ray of sunshine coming through

YOU’VE GOT THE MEMO about my furloughing this blog already.

So some people at lunch with me today yesterday Monday got to hear my side of the story and why I got so blazingly livid recently.

It’s generally easier to explain things out face to face about all the crap that has turned me into a High-Velocity Ballistic Rabbit.

Naturally, not all of the reasons for my ballisticality are related to the blog — but the blog crap “tipped it” for me, as one of the lunchmates put it rather well.

What you need to know is this: I’m not entirely unpersuadable. Frankly, judging from the words I got on this blog and from people in real life, it might actually be better for me not to furlough the blog.

My aching chest and still-wet cowboy boots would disagree. Then again, I am (semi-)famous for my horrible habit of not budging from a decision made in anger (even if it’s a bad decision). Not changing my mind — THWACK!

(Thumping on my desk right now, kicking the proverbial invisible cat, and chucking the proverbial invisible brick at the TV set.)

So I’ll be going ahead with the furlough regardless, just to prove a point. It’ll be temporary (if I’m going to be in a good mood) or something else (if I’m not).

__________

Lunchtime O’Argle-Bargle

Anyway, my lunchmates yesterday on Monday might have made some good points, I think, but I’m not in a proper frame of mind to listen properly.

Judge for yourself for me (names are just placeholder names):—

Anne: “[...] I suppose [deactivating and reactivating the blog] could be a bit of a chore. How many articles have you done so far? Nine hundred eleven?! How long did that take you? Erm, maybe —”

It took me since August 2008 on WordPress.

Bob: “— maybe you should tell these people to just [STFU]. It’s not like you’ve ever done anything to them [...]. You’re pissed off, you’re tired, your pelvis is giving you pain again — this is not the time to make big decisions.”

Ya think? Bob said those 911 posts are represent an investment in time and effort, and shouldn’t be scrubbed just because a bunch of people managed to anger me (online and in real life).

Charlie (a lawyer): “I mean, Rob, I know you’d prefer to do something else more constructive, given the choice. But how about doing something less constructive for a change, and really step on them later?”

Anne: “Actually, he might as well just — what was the word you used? — furlough it for the time being, instead of accidentally putting out something that could get you sued or something.”

Me: “Or be mysteriously silenced because [my] knowing some sensitive and illegal practices of these bankers, lawyers, accountants and officials from work.”

Anne: “You see! This’s exactly what I mean! You’re gonna end up in a war with them precisely because you’re gonna be f*ck-it-all angry enough to shoot your mouth off. Rob, the way you write, no one could tell whether you’re actually angry or not.”

I’m crazy — not that far-out crazy.

Charlie: ”Plus he’s not afraid of anything when he’s mad, which doesn’t f@#king help sometimes.”

Anne: “Just ignore these peep’l. Ye’aaah — those blog peep’l and the otherrrsss. They’re just jealous. You’ve been living in Hong Kong a bit too long for your own good. You’re starting to take on their bad habits.”

Charlie: “You shut down — hey, they win, you lose. That’s what they’re hoping for. You know this. Stay on it just to get in their face. Be a goddamn obstruction. The blog, just publish their names and details — I don’t know — pictures, whatever. Get them to sue you even. Sue them back. Just tie up their resources forever with one lawsuit after another.”

Yeah, riiiight, Charlie, like I’m loaded like you for a string of lawsuits. As if I don’t have other things to do.

Bob: “You don’t have to that [furlough the blog] because those people have been giving you a hard time. What? Your blog, it’s not a major part of your life, right? [...] Tell me you’re not one of those people [...] who can’t get laid and have to do it online with one hand on the keyboard. Shit.”

Shit. That puts it rather well, actually.

(No, I’m not a single-hand keyboarder, thank you very much.)

Bob: “Like I said, just lay off it for a while [...]“

Charlie: “Actually, there could be a case for just shooting your mouth off, in fact. I suppose — and I’m only imagining this, by the way — it could be argued as [prima facie] evidence that their conduct have led to your angry state of mind.”

Thanks a bunch. I don’t want to be prima facie’d as going out of my mind. Defence by reason of insanity usually doesn’t compare too favourably with being executed by firing squad, very slowly shot by shot from the kneecaps up, from dawn to midday.

Bob: “This guy wants revenge — don’t you, Rob? We can practically taste it in the air from here. He damn quiet now because he’s bouncing ideas off us.”

Charlie: ”Why don’t you keep a running count on them? They seem to be doing that on you.”

But. I. Don’t. Want. To. Keep. Feeding. This. Goddamn. Anger. With. A. Running. Scoreboard. Got that?

Anne: “You know what I think. Rob’s got all these rules for the rest of us, but he buggers them whenever it suits him. You need to follow your own advice.”

O rly, Anne? You calling me a hypocrite now?

Anne (looking at me): “No, actually, you’re pretty good following your own rules. Just that, you know, you break them pretty quickly too.”

No, not really, Anne. Not really.

__________

Perhaps I have been vague…

Accidentally ran into somebody I know (geddit?) who told me something.

The words were originally Chinese, but you gotta read it in an East End London Cockney accent for them to gel.

“Dun wanna know noff’ing ’bout your stuff. This blog ff’ing is for you educated types, innit?

“Why dontcha just do naice pictures from everywheah — no words — while you ff’ink about wotcha wannna do next? See ’ow long ff’ey could put up wiv it, roight? They’ll ff’ink they’ve shut you up good ’n proper.

“But they’ll be coming back, justa see whatcha up to — just to find out if yah evah back on yer game, wroitin’-like.

“Do the same ff’ing for them otha peepoe. Dun go blowin’ off on ’em, know wot I mean? Do it all sportsman-like, y’know.

“So quietly, you let ’em ’ave it in the goolies. They’ll know it’s you — but they can’t prove it — ff’ey got noff’ing on yah — but they’ll know ff’at you could ’it ’em again ’arder next time around, couldntcha? Then smack’em again even before the next time needs comin’ around.

“D’you know, do you know, I ffink you’re too polite — domesticated-like. Rough ’n tumble is wot these smarmy little pricks can’t ’andle.”

Determination. Passion. Insanity. Ballet.

Who sez them Chinese can’t speak Cockney?

__________

Enough of this claptrap

I’m not going to hear any more of this claptrap from friends and foes alike about not putting the blog on leave of absence.

They got good points. But my cowboy boots are still sopping wet.

It all just sounds too much hard work.

© The Naked Listener’s Weblog, 2012.

Images: Comeback via c4c | Conversation via Spoonfed | Conversation lasagne via Some Worthwhile Quotes | “Fak Awf” T-shirt via Zazzle.

Simplify, man, it’s complicated enough

*

This probably won’t gel with some people who think they are going to have an afterlife.

Afterlife or no afterlife, THIS is what we’re supposed to do in THIS life, or you leave.

© The Naked Listener’s Weblog, 2021. Image via c4c.

Lifehack: Fixing Chromium extension installs

(Updated 10 Mar 2012 with correct software names)

IF YOU USE Chromium browser, some of you might have run into this problem:—

I can’t install apps. The ‘Add to Chrome’ button hangs at “Checking…”

I have the most up-to-date version of Chromium and my attempts to install Chrome extensions from Google Chrome Web Store always hang at “Checking.”

I’m on Windows XP (still!) and managed to install just two extensions (both related to email) but nothing else.

Chrome extensions are 100% compatible with Chromium, by the way.

I’ve fished around for a solution. I know a few of us Chromium users out there haven’t been able to install any kind of apps, extensions or themes. You get a variety of suggestions all over the Internet, some of which involve mucking around with extension names, renaming folders, editing certain system files, etc — let’s forget those.

Google Chrome Support doesn’t deal with Chromium matters, so pointless to ask them for help.

____________________

Solution (the automatic way)

After scouring the ’net many a night and dealing with the sheer frustration of it all, I’ve finally found a working solution:—

http://userscripts.org/scripts/show/63786

That link points to a user script (“Install Enabler”) invented by a software architect named digitaljhelms.

Install it. After you’re done, go back to the Chrome Web Store and it will be as if the problem never existed in the first place. All Chrome extensions will then install normally in Chromium.

Update 10/3:
The script is named “Install Enable [for Greasemonkey]” for use in Google Chrome for Mac. It will nonetheless install in Chrome and Chromium (with or without Greasemonkey) on Windows machines (Windows 2000 and higher).

Be sure to spread the word.

____________________

Solution (the manual way)

If you’re still having issues with Chrome extensions (on Chrome or chromium), try the manual way to install extensions:—

1. Go to (or copy and paste this URL into your browser address bar):—

https://clients2.google.com/service/update2/crx?response=redirect&x=id%3D[EXTENSION_ID]%26uc%26lang%3Den-US

2. Copy and paste the extensions unique ID* into the address where it says [EXTENSION_ID] (without the [brackets] obviously).

* Extension unique IDs are always found at the end of their page address in the Chrome Web Store.

For example:

Tampermonkey’s address:
https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/dhdgffkkebhmkfjojejmpbldmpobfkfo

Tampermonkey’s unique ID is dhdgffkkebhmkfjojejmpbldmpobfkfo

Copy that into the URL so it reads:
https://clients2.google.com/service/update2/crx?response=redirect&x=id%3Ddhdgffkkebhmkfjojejmpbldmpobfkfo%26uc%26lang%3Den-US

3. Press Enter key after the above steps. You should now see a warning box pop up in the bottom left corner of the browser.

4. In the warning box, click on Continue and the app/extension should install normally.

Be sure to spread the word.

© The Naked Listener’s Weblog, 2012.

You don’t blog? (5/5: the finale!)

FROM PART 4

In this series’ finale, we’ll look at branding and long-term operation of your blog.

You’re gunna lurve some of the graphics in this part and give you ideas.

Unfortunately, this part is absoeffinglutely brain-damagingly long. But it IS the finale, after all.

And pure gold, even if I do say so myself.

(There’s more?! Shome mishtake shurely.—Editor)

Get some beer and pizza. Take it one bit at a time, like two nervous virgins having sex for the first time on a freezing beach in wintertime.

* * *

PREVIOUSLY…

Just to remind readers just what the hell this series is all about, it’s a response to a question from a newbie noobhead who wants to get into the profitless game of blogging.

In Part 1, we have explained why blogging is still relevant in the age of social media.

Blogging is a ready way to get a web presence. It is your interactive platform to examine an issue or market niche in an fast-moving but in-depth setting, and a transparent forum to engage your audience as well.

Blogging today is very much part of the public communications front of many individuals and organisations. As a proactive and transparent medium, blogging can help build or repair your overall reputation.

In Part 2, we covered the lead-up issues in starting a blog.

Deciding the nature of your blog or your target audience will determine your blog’s topicality and your choice of blog provider. Topical blogs are well-received by readers generally. Your ability to provide visitors with timely and accurate information helps to position yourself as an expert and promote your other websites.

An attractive, memorable blog name attracts visitors. Originality and keywords are important in the blog name. A blog with a good name running on a free blog service is desirable in the beginning, and could even be better than running one on a custom domain.

A basic webpage design is easier to administer than a more ambitious design, and that is preferable in the beginning. Set your newly registered blog to ‘private access only’ until the time is right to ‘go public.’

In Part 3, we looked at the actual mechanics of setting up a blog.

Finalise your essential static pages before your blog goes public. Most important is the About page. Some blogs may require a mission statement. A copyright notice may be applicable.

Readers appreciate both email and RSS as subscription choices. All blogs ought to display an email address for contacting the blog owner.

A blogroll of your favourite websites helps raise your blog’s search-engine ranking and therefore generate more visits.

A Testimonials page is optional, yet it will help reinforce your online credibility.

In Part 4, we looked at the essential copydesk skills needed to keep your blog as a going concern.

A weekly update of around 500 words is a good starting point in developing a more frequent posting schedule and higher or lower word counts as needed. Big features should be published in multipart format.

A flexible and adaptable month-by-month posting plan set up in advance for the whole year will provide regularity and consistency of coverage in stories, thereby advancing the continued life of the blog. Running a yearly biographical sketch of yourself will remind readers of the ‘person’ behind the blog and stoke up reader interest. We showed you some simple steps to develop leads for writing interesting stories.

The quality of writing for posts should be personable and engaging, whilst paying good attention to details of the topic at hand and consideration of your readers’ perspectives. Readers always favour high editorial quality, yet a high literary tone may sometimes work against the essential attractiveness of blogs: entertaining, topical informativeness and decorous informality.

Knowing basic drafting technique helps shorten the turnaround time needed to compose posts. Allow draft posts to ‘marinate’ so as to give yourself time to mull over details, phraseology and other elements and work your stories into first-class publication quality.

Resize your artwork to fit your column width before uploading to the blog servers. Oversized illustrations prolong the loading time of your webpages, thereby losing you visitors and reader goodwill.

Ensure files for downloading by visitors from your site are in correct and safe file formats that do not cause search engines or browsers to detect your blog as a spam site.

Lack of Internet connection is no bar to blogging. Indeed, that could be rethought of as an opportunity to produce more considered, higher-quality posts.

(That’s enough recaps. Get on with it.—Editor)

* * *

10. BRAND YOUR PARTICIPATION

Most of us tend to look back at our school life with some degree of fondness, in spite of the antedeluvian attitudes or even outright detestability of those strangers with shifty eyes and funny noses who lord over or study with us.

In many ways, blogging is a bit like school life.

Just as in doing homework and telling fibs at school, you spend an obscene amount of time and effort banging out lukewarm stories night after night, recounting the minutiae of barely imaginative exploits with over-imaginative but under-promiscuous beach bunnies on your way to and from work.

And just like your schoolmates did about your fibs, you get sussed out by other bloggers, who then proceed to practically ‘flame’ you with the grumpiest, the meanest, the most demeaning and sardonically insolent comments on your own blog.

They steal the thunder from right under your feet — and yet you’re still enduringly grateful to these ingrates for their doing so out of desperation and forlorn hope that your blog actually gets ‘read’ by somebody ever since your blog started 21 years 7 months 15 days 9 hours 22 minutes ago.

You can advance your sorry little bucketslopof a blogging life with the following new and improved protips from The Naked Listener.

*

You are par-ti-ci-pating!

DO

Invite other bloggers to guestblog (or ‘guest-bog’) on your little online kingdom — and offer to do the same on theirs. Keep it simple: file your stories by email instead of opening up new user accounts in your blog.

DO

Submit stories to other blogs, websites, newsletters and print publications. If you do get published, this will generate credibility (even fame) for you, your ‘expertise’ and your blog. If not those, then at least ‘excerptise’ (ek-serp-tees) for you.

For that, you might get a ‘southern death threat’ (which, coincidentally, is also the name of a really nice American rock band). At least you’ll know somebody somewhere considers you’re not totally ‘not worth the beating.’

Guestblogging is a two-way street. It gives variety to your blogging routine and theirs. It gives you and them a practical change of perspective. You can create a compelling online portfolio by guestblogging.

It’s also an opportunity for others to ‘blog and flog’: blog lurkers or non-bloggers to blog on your turf without the hassle or long-term commitment of setting up their own miserable blogs.

DO

Attend blogcons (blog conventions). Blogcons are just like any other regular trade event. They are networking events for fun and profit, and sometimes you end up landing a real-life job from the networking. Bring your employer along.

Blogcons aren’t some hippie ‘groupie’ sessions organised by arty-farty illiterates for the ‘counterliterates’ wearing cosplay outfits.

Blogcons are big business and big money.

A blogcon is just like any other trade fair. Indeed, they are usually organised by the same event-planning companies that organise industrial trade fairs, military armament expositions, car roadshows, music festivals and cosplay conventions.

Visitors pay good money for tickets and their spends at the event bring good revenue for the hotels, convention centre and the shops that supply these ‘pretend writers’ with food, drinks, shopping and other sellables. Bloggers are just normal consumers and blogcons are consumer-driven fairs. The networking done at blogcons (and especially at cosplay- and comic-cons) rakes in the cash on the spot.

You need to make your employers understand this.

For instance, the memorably named Clockenflap 2011 music and arts festival I went to was profitable just on sales of food and drink, never mind the ticketing revenue. Just because the attendees there were young(ish) and have shifty eyes and funny noses and wear outlandish garb don’t mean they have no money to blow in pursuit of their own brand of happiness.

Another example: Social Media Week is a major international event held simultaneously across several different continents. Venues are hotels, convention centres, nightclubs, restaurants and other high-class joints. I’ve been to some SMW events. The booze, the grub, the souvenirs and whatnot might come free for guests, but imagine the revenue for the suppliers.

You need to edjumacate your employers about blogcons.

(You’re fired for attending parties during work hours.—Editor)

DO

Learn things (and about people!) at blogcons. Some things you get to see or hear about blogging you’d never even thought of before. It’s good experience for newbies and oldtimers alike.

DON’T

Don’t brag about your blog or show off your pseudo-intellectual literary skills or journalistic capabilities at blogcons or similar gatherings. Some bloggers there used to be senior staff journalists, prizewinning book writers and editors, and famous celebrities in the media business. These are people who make money from their blogs, so you shouldn’t embarrass yourself (or them!).

I once met a nondescript blogger who 20 years before won the Pulitzer prize for some kind of journalism. I didn’t believe him at first, but after I checked him out, he really was what he claimed. Thank god I didn’t insult him or anything.

Another ordinary-looking blogger I met at a mini-blogcon turned out to work for a merchant bank (‘investment bank’ to our American cousins). That blogger eventually gave me a printing order. The price of the order wasn’t thrilling but wasn’t to be thumbed at either: it was good for six months of office rent.

*

Corporatistical branding made simple

If you’ve been blogging for some length of time, eventually you’ll have to go on ‘field assignments’ and follow up leads like a kind of ‘pretend foreign correspondent.’

Without some kind of visible identification or credential, a blogger will have a tough time getting access to events and people — indeed often summarily denied it.

But how do you get blogging credentials? It’s not like there’s a Press Pass system for us that journalists have.

You have to make do with some homebrewed workarounds.

ESSENTIAL

Print your blog’s very own business card: blog name, your name, phone number, email and blog URL. Include Facebook and Twitter as desired. Use a proper printing firm for this.

This is the absolute minimum — and likely to be the only corporate branding technique most of you will ever need. It obviates the necessity of you explaining yourself when you could flash a biznaz caaaerd that shows you run a blog. Why else would you get cards printed like that if you’re not a blogger?

*

ASIDE: A WORD ABOUT PRINTING

The whole purpose of getting cards printed is to give them away like mad. If they’re expensive to print, you’re going to look visibly distressed giving them away.

Protip on paper: Print standard-size cards only. Use only uncoated paperstock of 120–150 gsm (grammes per square metre) weight. Uncoated cards can double as memo cards in front of your ‘interviewees.’

Protip on inks: Print single colour (’1C spot colour’ in printing parlance). Single-sided is 1C and double-sided is 1C+1C. ‘Warm Black’ is usually cheapest, but I recommend Pantone U-288 Blue (see left) for ‘authenticity’ effect. U-288 is dark enough to look goodly conservative but bright enough to stand out. Frankly, no one needs anything more than single-colour, single-sided printing.

Dont’s: Avoid costly fancy techniques like coated paperstock, full colour (“4C”) inks, double-sided full colour (4C+4C), lamination (glossy or plasticised surfacing), diecuts, rounded edges, gilted edges and so on. The job printer invariably recommends those exact things (“they make your cards look distinctive”) because they bump up your printing bill, okay?

(You’re fired for giving away your tradecraft for free.—Editor)

Lessons to learn:—

I once knew a person who ran a bitty setup selling something and had cards done in 4C+4C (full colour double-sided), ivory white 150 gsm cardstock, matte lamination both sides, rounded corners and a diecut of a star in the left-centre field. Each card costs a cool HK$7 each (or 90 US cents or 57p British money)! Don’t be a blithering fool like that.

Main retail shops also go overboard with card printing. Here in Hong Kong, matte laminated cards are the favourite, which I tell you is the depth of brain-damagedness because you cannot write price quotes on them for customers. Don’t be a fool like them.

Granted that I’m a printer myself and can get away scotfree on costs, my own cards still cost a bloody expensive 17 cents Hong Kong (or 2 cents US or 1p) a shot. Mine are 4C+1C (full colour one side, single colour the other) on uncoated woodfree 120gsm. Your cards (for whatever earthly purpose) should cost no more than half-cent apiece.

And, no, I don’t print my own cards. I farm this out to a job printer for cost efficiency’s sake.

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DON’T

Don’t make fake ID badges or cards, even if it’s for your blog. If you flash one in public, you can get arrested for impersonation (yeah, impersonating yourself!) or prima facie evidence of your intent to defraud. If you put the word ‘Press’ on your fake ID badge, that alone will secure your conviction on both charges. If you did your ID badge online, you’ll additionally be convicted for wire fraud. If you did it offline, that’ll be counterfeiting or forgery. You just won’t win.

Sentences: Impersonation and intent to defraud each carry a fine and one year in the slammer in most jurisdictions around the world. Wire fraud is one more year in the slammer. Forgery carries 5 to 10 years: forgery or counterfeiting usually supersede copyright infringement if you actually used (say) Coca Cola’s logo on a physical item. You can’t plead insanity or ignorance as defence because designing your ID is evidence of your sound capacity of mind and premeditation. Flashing an official-looking but unlawful ID is also arguably a form of criminal intimidation — another year of ‘porridge.’

But, alas, some of you faggots out there still prefer to have an ID card. One possible workaround is to print your blog’s business card in the form of an ID card, which at least arguably is less illegal.

DO

Prepare standing ‘shirttails.’ A shirttail is newspaperspeak (and an americanism) for a brief clause added at the end of a story. Necessary, if your blog is a collaborative effort or if it uses a fair number of guestposts. A shirttail is not a footnote, as many people seem to mistaken it for.

For example, a screenshot of a compilaton shirttail used in my bio:—

 A shirttail may be biographical, a kind of ‘about the author’ for the post writer:—

“This article is reproduced by kind permission of the estate of Obi-Wan Kenobi, a Jedi master who played a significant role in the fate of the galaxy during the waning days of the Galactic Republic. Later known as Ben Kenobi during his exile, Gen. Kenobi was born in 57 BBY on the planet Stewjon, the first son of a moderately wealthy family. In French Internet subculture, Gen. Kenobi’s name has given birth to the expression ‘Obi-Wan Kenobi’ meaning ‘your question does not make sense.’ Gen. Kenobi was killed in action aged 60 and is survived by Mildred, his watercolourist wife, on the planet Coruscant.”

Usually it’s a straightforward factual ‘after-byline’ for the post:—

“This exclusive article to The Naked Listener’s Weblog was written by Sith Lord Darth Vader in Bangkok, with contributions from his Zabrack Sith apprentice Darth Maul in London and The Naked Listener in Hong Kong.”

For a guestpost shirttail, it’s usually semi-biographical and semi-plug:—

“The Naked Listener is the pseudonym of Robert Lee and runs The Naked Listener’s Weblog (http://thenakedlistener.wordpress.com) since around 1995/97. During office hours, he moonlights as a printer in Hong Kong and is legally trained but is not a practising lawyer, thankfully.”

Protip on usage: Use the word ‘written’ (not ‘authored’) in a shirttail. Stop being pretentious.

Protip on usage: Italicise your shirttails. I tend to do it in roman because the italic fount appearance on this blog design isn’t so hot.

Srsly, if you are a professional and blog on professional matters, shirttails add to the overall credibility of your blog. A very short shirttail in every post is highly beneficial in marketing your services, such as:—

“Marianne Dubois is author of this post and an attorney-at-law. She may be contacted at Sue, Runn & Grabbit LLP at the address given in the Contact page of this website.”

Just don’t be long and full of platitudes. Remember, playing softball wins more than hardball.

DO

Prepare a ‘biobox’ jpeg for use as in-text illustration. A blogger inviting you to guestblog usually asks for your bio and a mugshot. A biobox combines the two in one. Look at the Jane Bloggs spoof biobox here and mine below.

Shameless prostitution: I’ll be more than happy to produce a biobox jpeg for your blog if you supply me with your copy and a picture. It only takes me minutes to make one.

(You’re fired for prostituting for free.—Editor)

 A ‘corporate’ image may be relevant for advanced bloggers. The below are optional.

OPTIONALS

Indent cards are postcards bearing your blog name or logo — just like those held on air by TV show hosts. They can double for notetaking use in front of ‘interviewees’ or held up by them in photo ops. Also useful for communicating with people still on snailmail mode. They give off a professional image and help in the pretense that you’re not a fly-by-night cowboy operator who might do a D.B. Cooper.

My own indent cards (photo) are full colour on one side and one colour the other (4C+1C). Each costs me around 3 cents US or 2p British, which is comparable to the cost of a packet of 100 index cards. But then again, I’m a printer and I’m pretentious and need the ‘corporate image.’

Pocket notebooks with your blog name or logo on the cover. Clearly costly to custom-make but they evince a professional if somewhat journalistic image.

Letterheads specially designed for your blog probably takes it right into the corporate realm, especially if you’re hoping (or imagining) your blogging could lead to paid work.

Stickers or banners with your blog name or logo are perhaps the cheapest way to corporatise your blog. Stick them on your notebooks, photobag, property, etc. The major newspapers and news agencies have their gear emblazoned with corporate ID stickers. Make your stickers in square shape (rather than a strip) so they’ll fit any item.

T-shirts with your blog logo or name is something you wear ‘on assignment’ as if you’re some kind of freelance journo. I have two tees like that which I wear on those occasions where I wish to be clearly identified as a ‘staff member’ of my blog.

(That’s enough expensive recommendations.—Editor)

* * *

11. PROTECT YOUR BLOG

Your blog can get hacked or wiped just like any other website. Your blog provider can suspend and delete it for breach of terms of service (BOTOS) because of something defamatory or outright unlawful you wrote.

Alternatively, some unknown mean arsehole out there can report your blog as pornographic or spammy to your blog provider just for laughs because:—

• didn’t like your vocabulary or phraseology (foul words or not)
• didn’t like you for not writing in Chinese (and I get this complaint a lot)
• didn’t like you can write better than they could
• didn’t like your coverage is better than theirs
• didn’t like your insistence that the expression ‘being that’ is grammatical (which it actually is)
• didn’t like your atheistic or religious views on furry little animals
• didn’t like your refusal to post your private sex pictures

There are lots of people out in the blogosphere who would report you just out of spite, to troll you, just for the lulz.

*

Operational security

DO

Back up your entire blog once a month. Choose the 20th of every month or some other date so you have a fixed date for making backups.

DO

Create a secondary user account for your blog for ‘backdoor access’ in case your primary login is in trouble or locked out.

I have a secondary user account for my blog, and the secondary login is displayed openly at work so that anybody could access the blog in case of emergency. I have never needed to use my secondary user account.

Any rogue user-luser could only access my blog on that secondary user account. If the rogue pretends to be me and posts something on the blog, it will be easily identifiable by the secondary username and therefore unlikely to have been made by me.

DO

Take screenshots of your more sensitive posts. If your blog gets wiped or hacked, or your arse hauled into court, you’ll have those screenshots as evidence.

OPTIONAL

A Dead Man’s Switch (DMS) post that you continually reschedule forward to act as a public alert in case something untoward or abrupt happened to you. (Read my dedicated post here)

*

Your blog and the law

You can blog your insane opinions however much you want, and 99% of the time nobody cares to sue you because 99% of the time nobody reads it. True fact.

Trouble is, there’s the 1% of individuals out there as insane as you are who will take umbrage at your nearly illiterate scribblings and have the wherewithal to haul your goddamn arse in court for a goddamn thorough drubbing.

I have seen this happen to other people and the sight is not very lovely.

DO

Read up about what constitutes defamation, political and criminal incitement, criminal intimidation and sedition because they have particular importance to blogging. If possible, show your draft post to a lawyer.

Many bloggers don’t realise just how much of their writings could be construed as defamatory, inciting, intimidatory, threatening or seditious (or even all of them together).

Likewise, many commenters don’t realise their comments could be legally considered as inflammatory (‘incendiary’ in some jurisdictions).

DO

Know one or two lawyers who specialise in defamation, copyright and online contractual dispute cases. Introduce yourself to them by letter and ask to have their business cards “should I ever have need of your services.” Don’t ask for their fee schedules because it’s impossible in absence of a case before them.

DO

Retain a lawyer and negotiate for a nominal (low) fee from him for ‘lawyering’ your posts. This is especially useful for blogs that cover news, politics or industry developments.

Retaining a lawyer for your blog sounds like overkill, but not when your blog covers potentially suable stuff like politics or industry ‘insider’ gossip. Legal services don’t come cheap, so retaining a lawyer is a major long-term financial undertaking.

You might be luckier if you’re still in college or university. A good idea is to ‘retain’ your pals at law school. You get some kind of protection and they get some kind of experience.

• Write to the law school explaining you wish to have someone with knowledge of the law to lawyer your blog articles before publication.
• Schedule an appointment with a law professor to help draw up a lawyering checklist.

Having blogposts ‘lawyered’ sounds like helluva overkill for a personal blog. But you can sell the idea to the law professor on this sales pitch:—

1. it’s an opportunity for his law students to get some supervised hands-on practice in media and defamation law
2. it’s an opportunity for legal and non-legal types to learn to work with each other, appreciate each other’s perspectives and constraints, as it will imminently be like that in the real world after graduation
3. express that if the law professor is agreeable to the arrangement, you will be more than happy to be used in PR materials of the law school that the undertaking underscores the law school’s or professor’s innovative and pragmatic approach to the training of future lawyers
4. persuade the professor to assign students on a rotating basis for the lawyering
5. the professor will be the tiebreaker and final arbiter in event of disagreements between you and the ‘lawyer’
6. that your blog will credit the lawyering to the law school itself in the early stages and, if things go smoothly and really well, the law professor’s name would be added ‘prominently’ in recognition of his esteem and farsightedness

(You’re fired for not having this post lawyered.—Editor)

* * *

12. REFINE AS YOU GO ALONG

Some people (usually perfectionists) can’t stand being told this advice. To them, this piece of eminently sensible advice is like blowing smoke up their arse and ruin their autopsy.

DO

Write pre-prepared floaters suitable for running at any old time to meet your posting deadline in case you have nothing topical to write about. Good floater topics would be small lifehacks like what kind of corkscrews are suitable for opening six bottles of wine in under 10 seconds (see photo), or ‘notes’ on your ephemeral remembrances (such as mine on an ex-colleague).

DO

Make a style manual for your blog. This is your own usage guide to provide uniformity in the writing and design formatting of posts and downloadable documents. Use an alphabetically indexed pocketbook for this purpose.

Write in your favourite HTML codes, shirttails, decklines, boilerplate phrases, preferred nomenclature, second references, in-line jokes, etc, so you won’t have to hunt around the Internet or rack your brains for them.

No need to make a big hash of it like the Associated Press Stylebook and Briefing on Media Law (a.k.a. the AP Stylebook). Your own stylebook is just a memory aid for your blog. You already know your own spelling and usage preferences (or should).

I have a stylebook for my blog, but I almost never use it mainly because I’ve completely internalised my stuff by dint of long working in printing and publishing work.

Excerpts from my stylebook:—

Aliases (by alias). DW is _____. Mr Wankmatic is _____.

Aliases (by real name). _____ is Skinny-D. _____ is Råtta.

Biobox. Slugged ‘biobox tnl grey dark 233×528′ in Media.

Blog icon. Slugged ‘tnl blog icon’ in Media. 195 × 195 pixels.

Column width. 500 pixels.

DMS/Dead Man’s Switch post. Slugged ‘dms’ in Draft. Reset every 21 days. Include last update date.

Facebook. http://www.facebook.com/pages/The-Naked-Listeners-Weblog/124762890923834

Gravatar. Slugged ‘tnl gravatar’ in Media. 250 × 250

Header image. 500 × 225 pixels.

HTML for big fount. <big> … </big>

Japan. ”The Land That Gave Us ‘Weird’ Since 1957″ (when it should’ve been 1952).

Login (secondary). Username ‘______’. Password ‘__________’. Email ‘______’.

Placeholder photo. Slugged ‘placeholder thumbnail’ under Media.

Solid linespace. Shift + Enter.

Table, 2-column. See draft slugged ‘B09032 2col table’ for HTML code.

Theme. Ambiru by Phu Ly, http://ifelse.co.uk. Showcase at http://theme.wordpress.com/themes/ambiru/

That’s the kind of entertaining, readable stuff you should put into your blog stylebook so you won’t have to memorise them and fill up your brain drive capacity.

Search-engine optimisation (SEO)

Blogging increases your communications. Sooner or later, you’ll end up getting involved in this maddening craze called SEO.

This is a thing most of us don’t really care about. In fact, I don’t give a flying f@#k about SEO and haven’t reached the stage yet to pay even lip service to SEO.

Search engines (like Google, Bing, etc) love websites with relevant, frequently updated content. Search ranking goes up for your blog if your content is always fresh and relevant.

High ranking (especially on Google) largely rests on the number of incoming links — links from another website that points to your website.

For example, if your website has 10 pages but no blog, a search engine will index only those 10 static pages and be limited to the amount of keywords found there. However, if your website also has a blog, the search engine will index each blogpost (plus their keywords) and increase your SEO ranking.

The idea behind SEO is simple: If you post stories of high relevance to your subject area, other websites in your subject area will link to your related articles. The more relevant are your articles, the higher the chance of search-engine webcrawlers finding keywords and search terms. That builds up your link structure and bumps up your search ranking, resulting in a higher profile for your blog. There’s no mystery to this SEO business: you just need to use keywords throughout your posts.

Well, that’s effing dynamite on paper if you’re running a blog that’s heavily focused on one subject or is business-related. What if yours is a personal blog, where you write the first thing that comes into your head? There’s not a whole lot of keywords to index on.

The odd thing is that many SEO websites themselves don’t rank high in search-engine positions. Or maybe I’m missing something, no?

The Naked Listener’s Weblog is a personal lark. I write about a whole lot of things in the most brain-damaged way conceivable. There aren’t many ‘relevant’ keywords to feed the webcrawlers, which is why the blog has low muscle ranking. But I’m pretty sure you’ll agree this blog is nicely done all round and ‘relevant’ to many people, just not by the numbers.

SEO. It’s dynamite. It blows you away. Permanently.

* * *

BONUS PROTIPS

Some more protips that got left behind in the earlier parts.

Coverage redux

Some further coverage ideas:—

Prepare advance posts on neighbourhood or school events but run them at a date to coincide with their opening. Pretty soon you’ll be famous for having your ears on the ground.

Music festivals with whacky pictures of whacky people doing whacky things.

Maxims to live by. Or not.

Obituaries prepared in advance of famous people or just your teachers, school bullies, etc, who’s quite likely to kick the bucket any moment now that you’re all grown up.

Interview friends (or their friends) who do something well or interesting. For example, I have a coincidentally female friend who is a self-taught electric guitarist with virtually a crush on American guitarist Joe Satriani. I’m planning on interviewing her about how she got turned on to playing the electric guitar, making her one in a million in Hong Kong where the preferred hobby of 90% of Hongkongers is property or forex speculation.

*

Web operation

Statistics page

This is a static page to show blog stats so visitors may have an idea of how your blog is faring. Add to month-by-month figures as they come round. Different blog providers provide different stats. See the bottom of my January recap for an idea.

Widgets

A widget (or software widget) is a small application that is installable and runnable within a webpage. See my widgets at the bottom of every page on my blog. A couple of them point to third-party sites and use their external services:—

1. Date at my location
2. Unique visitors
3. Locations of visitors to this page
4. Follow on Facebook

Too many external widgets will slow down your page-loading speed, especially if those widgets use Flash or some kind of Javascript.

*

Copydesk revisited

Learn some of these extra copydesk skills:—

Offline blogging

Like I said, lack of Internet connection is no bar to blogging. When you draft longhand, leave a wide(ish) righthand margin for edits and additions. (Left margin for lefties.) Helpful for those who still draft in paragraphs, a way not particularly amenable to amendments later (which is exactly why drafting by paragraphs is brain-damagingly still taught in academic writing).

Slug-naming conventions

Name your slugs properly. Eight characters or under is perfect, though not always possible. There are slug-naming conventions:—

Prefix ‘adv’ (e.g. advsmith) means an advertorial paid for by your client Smith & Co.

Prefix ‘am’ (amfestival) means a post that must run in the morning. Remove the ‘am’ on actual posting. Same deal with ‘pm.’

Prefix ‘cx’ (cxjohnsmith) means a correction to an already published post slugged ‘johnsmith.’

A dated slug (feb21bongo) must run on a specified date (e.g. 21st February). A story slugged ‘feb21paxleocenturion’ while in draft status is a guestpost from ‘leo’ on the movie ‘Centurion’ that must run on that date. Remove the ‘feb21′ at posting time.

Prefix ‘flot’ (flotwinecork) means floater while still in draft status. Remove the ‘flot’ on actual posting.

Prefix ‘pax’ or ‘gp’ means incoming guestpost. A story slugged ‘paxtnlcenturion’ is a guestpost from blogger ‘tnl’ on the movie ‘Centurion.’

Prefix ‘rando’ (rando22) means ‘R and O’ (review and outlook), which is a review of the stories you read during Week 22 plus your predictions — if you’re in the habit of writing reviews + predictions, then forget about ’roundup’ (below).

My biobox

Prefix ‘recap’ (recap22, recapaug) is a recap or roundup of your own posts for Week 22 or the month of August. Learn English: you ‘recap’ your own stories but ‘review’ those written by others.

Prefix ’roundup’ (roundup32) is a roundup or review of events or stories you read for Week 32.

Prefix‘site’ (siteblogroll) is a site update post on your Blogroll page. If your site update is about About, Blogroll and Testimonial pages, use the first named (e.g. siteabout) or something descriptive (e.g. site3pages).

Suffix ‘side’ or ‘sidebar’ (greenside or green-sidebar) is a sidebar to the main story slugged ‘green.’ A sidebar is textual information placed next to an article, graphically separate but with contextual connection. Not generally relevant in a blogging situation (since blogposts are individually posted) but some designs may allow text-in-text insertions.

Prefix ‘xp’ (xpleoscomma) is a crosspost from your other blog named ‘leos’ on the comma.

Copydesk lingo

Learn some of the copyeditor’s language. Know terms like a/w, biobox, blurb, byline, bybox, chart, correx, dateline, deckhed, deckline, draft vs. manuscript, flot, folo (not to be confused with ‘folio’), a two-deck hed, lede, obit, quotebox, recap, rando, roundup, shirttail, sidebar, slug, slugline, subbing, subhed, tagline, wirecopy, and when copy is in ‘slot.’

Whatever you do, don’t embarrass your friends, guestbloggers or yourself by saying naff things like ‘polishing up’ the text.

__

(Thank god it’s done! You’re fired for wasting webspace.—Editor)

Update 25 Feb 2012: Part 6 is here.

© The Naked Listener’s Weblog, 2012.

Images: ”MasterLedZ’s Avatar” by itemforty via tvreeh via Wikipedia | Guest pass via Freelance Folder | Convention goers via Jewellery Net Asia | Pulitzer Prize gold medals by Daniel Erath of The Times-Picayune via Nola.com | Pantone U-288 by Markus GmbH | Gavel via Wooden Toys UK | SEO image via clipclic | Lawyered via Survivor Sucks | Red pen and words via Heriot-Watt University Library (link lost) | Linotype slug via Circuitous Root | All other images by the author.

One lump or two, luv?

THIS IS A SIDEBAR to the four-part ‘You don’t blog?’ mega-feature that’s published since 15th February.

This sidebar chiefly relates to the copydesk advice mentioned in Part 4 of the series.

* * *

Do we use one or two character spaces
after the full stop (period)?

Ask a professional writer or a journalist, and 99% of the time they’ll tell you it’s one character space. Don’t take their word for it — take mine!

Actually, you shouldn’t have to ask. You should have been tee’d up on it at your age.

I happen to be a trained secretarial typist (85 wpm) and shorthand transcriber (25 wpm) as well as a trained typesetter (which is why I’m in the printing business and not practise law). Pitman’s Typewriting courses back in the 1970s taught:—

Two character spaces between sentences when using fixed-pitch founts (such as Courier and those fount slugs on typewriters)

One character space between sentences when using proportional founts (such as in typesetting and on webpages)

If two or three generations of professional typists learnt this since 40 years ago, you’ve got no excuse for not knowing!

“Every modern typographer agrees on the one-space rule. It’s one of the canonical rules of the profession, in the same way that waiters know that the salad fork goes to the left of the dinner fork and fashion designers know to put men’s shirt buttons on the right and women’s on the left.” — Farhad Manjoo (via turri design)

Never mind the bollocks.

Read this person’s article about why two spaces after the full stop is wrong, if you don’t trust what I tell you.

Another writer tells us HTML coding automatically ignores and corrects the two-space usage.

Truthfully speaking, most blogging services don’t correct and just let it run because the still-numerous battalions of doublespaceheads out there will surely go ballistic at the mere possibility of being ‘corrected’ and will relocate their blogs elsewhere. Not always a good business tactic to correct others, it seems.

Never mind the bollocks.

Since the appearance of the electronic typewriter with proportional spacing like the IBM ‘Golfball’ Selectrics in the 1970s, there’s no need to put in two spaces. Read the full article in Slate magazine, which is seriously on the button.

(I had a green-coloured IBM Selectric II typewriter, made in 1974 and weighed a ton, that I used to use constantly until overuse completely totalled it.)

But here’s a person who takes the opposite view in a rather elegantly reasoned monograph, and used double spacing throughout his text. His reasoning may intellectually elegant, but he’s still wrong.

(Indeed, off-topic a bit here, zeroing in on the minutiae of details and reasoning things out according to some predetermined set of ‘logical’ steps doesn’t necessarily make your conclusions right. You’re just ‘making things fit.’ A lot of intellectuals and academicians are operate like that, to be honest.)

Never mind the bollocks.

Let’s look at the the other side of ‘facts’:—

Xerox Corporation started the DTP (desktop) publishing) craze around Star Wars time (1977) by developing hardware and software that uses typesetting-like elements.

Then came the desktop typesetting program called TeX (pronounced ‘tek’) in 1979 and extended in the 1980s by LaTek (‘laytek’), both using true proportional founts.

Then DTP hit mainstream paydirt when the Apple Macintosh 128K computer hit the markets in 1984. What the Mac used quickly got taken up by Windluzer 1.0 in 1987 (in MS Write) through to Windoze 3.1 in 1992.

Twenty-eight years of using proportional founts on personal computers and there’s a sea of morons out there who still haven’t gotten the hang of it.

Dead slow children!

FACT

All webpages (and your blog is a series of webpages) use proportional founts (unless you customise it to a fixed-pitch fount like Courier or Lucida Console — then you really are brain-damaged). Two character spaces between sentences causes your text to run with ungainly rivers of white space.

Please grow up and keep up with the times! You’re living in the 21st century now. Read my post on draft vs. manuscript.

Some philistines hard up on the brain department say they find it more readable with two character spaces between sentences. Clearly, they’re reading for sentence separation and not the ‘message’ behind the sentences. I’ve noticed this in people for a long, long time.

Predictably, these numskulls point to the wider space between sentences in printed books. That’s handsetting, idiot.

And it’s not two character spaces there either — it’s actually an en-and-quarter space or sometimes an em space.

Modern typesetting output machines since the likes of the Lintoype Model 6 molten-lead linecaster (1965) and the Linotronic 202N imagesetter (1972: the one I trained on) make automatic intersentential space adjustments according to the fount used.

Don’t bother rationalising your preference for two character spaces with me — you don’t know enough about this than I do.

This is how I roll:—

On a computer (and using proportional fount), I automatically, unconsciously, conditional-behavourially, operant-conditioningly type one space after the full stop.

On a typewriter, I automatically, unconsciously etc type two spaces, even when distracted.

Why can’t YOU do that?

© The Naked Listener’s Weblog, 2012.

Images: Manual typewriter keyboard via Online Business Blogger | Two-space ban via Doobybrain | Ascii art chick via PingMag | Scribus desktop publishing via Nyutech | Fount spacings via Tom Sarazac | Books by Ian Britton via freefoto.