Be prepared to loose your content with Blogger

Do you user Blogger as you blog platform of choice? If so are you also prepared to loose the content and or the branding effort that you have put into the domain name that your blog has (eg. yourname.blogspot.com)?

You may be lucky and never have any problems with you account but then again you may be like some of the hundreds (or possibly thousands) that have had their Blogger-based blog hijacked or closed.

Reg Adkins is one such person that has very recently had his Blogger-based blog, Elemental Truths, hijacked. My friend Rosa Say brought Reg’s Blogger issue to my attention -

In what I sincerely hope will be a temporary fix here for him, I have replaced the links here for Reg Adkins’ Elemental Truths blog with links to Faith Based Counseling, where Reg had initially begun his blogging adventures.

Earlier today, Reg found that his Elemental Truths site had somehow been high jacked! When you follow links to his site, they take you to something that looks like a political advertisement written by someone other than Reg!

Reg has contacted Blogger (and their parent company Google to get this situation rectified but the last I had heard there had been no response back from them).

Another client and friend Pete Aldin, was concerned enough to comment -

Unbelievable. What can he do to fix this? (What can we do to avoid it?)

Unfortunately Reg is not the first (just search on the phrase “hijacked Blogger account”), and probably not the last, to loose the result of all the effort he has put into his blog, Elemental Truths. Blogger is very attractive to many people due to its free nature. But with free you handover all control over what happens behind the scene.

A few years ago when many people started using Blogger it was the only low-tech, low/no-cost option available. Many people worked out that to move away from their Blogger account also meant that they lost the domain name and any branding that had been built up in that name (and also the link love that was pointed at the blog). So they stayed.

To Reg and the many other blogger’s whose business or professional image relies on Blogger my advice is to start developing a plan to take more control over the content, branding and the investment of hours that you put into your blog.

Start now with some simple steps -

• register a domain name, that you own, that can be used at the URL for your blog
• investigate other blog platforms that are available that will provide a blog platform from the point of view of security, flexibility of content delivery, reliability and support responsiveness.
• backup your current blog content on a regular basis (the same as you do for your computer … you do backup your computer don’t you??)

Reg, you deserve better than what has happened to you and I hope that it all resolves for the better.

For everyone, be careful of the company that you and your blog keep. I know that most aren’t ready to loose at that you have invested in it.

[tags]Blogger, hijacked, Rosa Say, Reg Adkins, blog problems, Pete Aldin [/tags]

Hello to all The Australian Readers

If you have headed here from the article in the Entrepreneur section of today’s Australian newspaper, let me give you a warm welcome. If you would like to get a regular dose of tips on small business technology then you might want to subscribe using one of the links over there on the right. You might also want to browse the archive to see if there is anything of interest to you.

A big thank you to my client Megan Tough, who was also featured in the article, for recommending that the journalist call and speak with me.

If you are a regular reader and would like to see the article (currently it is not online at The Australian website) then let me know.

UPDATE:  You can find the article, Interactive Beats Static, written by Ed Charles online.

Power Outage Puts Pressure on Big Name Service Providers

San Francisco was gripped by a major power outage today (Tuesday afternoon USA time / Wednesday morning Australian Eastern time).  There would have been many people complaining about lack of access to air conditioners, lights and lifts but the power problems have had a huge effect on many small businesses worldwide.

For the people who have a Typepad hosted blog you will find that you web presence is timing out and your domain is just giving an error to anyone looking for your site.  An email has been sent out to all users advising that they are working flat out to get services rectified but that won’t help if you rely on your Typepad service as your main web presence.

Other major internet business also were effected including Technorati, CNet, Craigslist, and Linden Labs (Second Life).

Blog Subscribers – How Many?

This post is a question that I received from a client a week or so ago. You will see more of these sort of Q&A type posts from here on in as I start to offer, first clients and then open it to the general community, the opportunity to ask a question about any aspect of small business webs, blogs, tools and other technology.

Q – How do I find out how many people are subscribing to my blog?

The best option that I have found to manage and track subscribers to a blog is by using Feedburner.

Feedburner is a free service (recently purchased by Google) and it handles 3 main aspects about blog distribution. It helps you -

• Publicise your content and make it easy for people to subscribe.
• Optimise distribution so that your content is properly formatted for all of the major directories and can be consumed by subscribers wherever they are.
• Analyse your traffic to learn how many subscribers you have, where they’re coming from and what they like best.

Did You Know?
After Google purchased Feedburner the previously fee-based Pro Stats are now available at no charge to all feedburner users.

If you aren’t registered with Feedburner then I suggest you go there right now and sign up.

If you are using Feedburner the all you need to do to see how many people are subscribing is log in to Feedburner and in the main dashboard click on your blog’s name.

You will then see something like this ….

You can then click on links for the subscribers, the day of the week or other links to find out more details.

If you have a Wordpress blog then the other option is that you can install the plugin called Wordpress Reports (from Tan Tan Noodles) that takes the stats information from Feedburner and Google Analytics (if you are using it) and delivers some basic graphs straight into your Wordpress admin area.

SpeedFiler to the Rescue – again!

Back in March, 2006, I wrote about SpeedFiler being a great tool to help me get around my natural tendency to be a piler rather than a filer.

Now being the practical person that I am I decided that there had to be an way of getting on top of at least the email filing. The criteria was that if it took me longer to file and categorise than it did to find in the pile then it wasn’t worth it.

SpeedFiler was a great help but unfortunately I upgraded my Outlook and never reinstalled it. Guess what happened … the pile started to reappear.

Just when I thought I would drown under the weight of all those emails not filed, Itzy Sabo (creator of SpeedFiler, released the brand new version 2.0 of SpeedFiler (thank you Itzy!).

I can’t believe that it is quicker and easier to use than version 1.0. One of the things that I love is that when I reply to an incoming email not only does SpeedFiler file the reply but it also files the original email in the folder that I choose. Once you have filed emails from a particular person SpeedFiler also predicts where you want to file the email and gives you that option first up – so it is only a press of the enter key rather than a “hunt and find the folder” exercise with the mouse.

There are loads of other features but I would suggest that you have a look for yourself [link updated: thx Marc!). There’s even a 30-day free trial period.

PS – this is not a paid review nor am I an affiliate. This is just a great application that I believe you will love if you are a PC-based Outlook user.

iPhone – Do You Really Care?

Even though it doesn’t make to it Australia for another several weeks I’m over all the hype already.  What am I ranting about?  The iPhone!

To me it is just another over-hyped gadget.  What about you?  Do you care?