Take That For Taking My Writing, Scraper!

Ooh, I'm fired up this morning. I just discovered that someone had copied, launched and Google indexed one of my posts word for word. The one about porridge. I'm guessing they took it from my RSS feed. Now, copyright violations just happen to be one of my hot buttons. If anyone wants to take a little extract of any post of mine and link back, I'm open to the suggestion. But just taking my stuff and putting it on their site to attract people to their Google ads, no contact with me, no linkback, not even any way to contact them on their site, that fairly had me hopping!

At first I was floundering around trying to figure out what to do, but Problogger turned out to be my knight in shining armor. If this ever happens to you just go take a look at Fighting Scrapers With Your Left Jab. That violator has now been reported to Google Adwords for violating copyright and to Google search for using duplicate content. Hopefully that's it taken care of.

Got an RSS feed? Know if anyone is taking your stuff? If you don't know you might want to care because duplicate content can "flag" Google and you might be the one who gets thrown off the search indexing. Bad, bad.

OK, time to calm down. What was it I was going to write about today? Sorry, this hi-jacked my brain cells. I'll try to post something nice, and calm, and gentle later.

Technorati, Top Blogs, Do You Care?

My regular readers will notice that every now and again I like to write about bloggers and blogging. The fact that there is something out there called Technorati hasn't entirely escaped my notice. However, up until now I've managed to avoid knowing anything about it except that it's a place to find a list of the top ranked bloggers. Today I got curious though and I began to wonder what we can learn about human nature from the top ranked blogs at Technorati.

Somehow it seemed that the experience of exploring would not be complete without registering my blog over there. I'm left in two minds though about whether I really want a Technorati button on my blog. I mean, being ranked 497,353 isn't exactly a boost for the ego. Maybe I'd rather just forget I ever went there! OK, I said I was going to talk about human nature and top ranked blogs at Technorati. Either I'm lost for words, or there's just not that much to say about it.

If you've never ventured over to Technorati I could just save you the trip with my quick guide here to learning about those top blogs.

Technology and Gadgets

as covered by Boing Boing, Techcrunch, LifeHacker, Gizmodo, Mashable and Engadget.

I'll admit it, I'm always behind the curve on this. I don't pay attention until things are well tried and have trickled through the layers of the people who surround me to get to me.

Quite honestly, my ego does not require me to have the latest stuff and my pocketbook doesn't support it. Neither am I interested in going into debt to get new stuff. I don't much care for gadgets either - too many sequences to learn to understand how to use these. I prefer that my technology be simple and that I can learn how to use it from a family member rather than an instruction book.

Yes, and though Life Hacker is about getting things done it's also about doing things with technology. Hey, I leave as much as possible of the doing things to others, unless it's laundry or cooking, and which gadgets are going to do those jobs for me?

Sorry guys, if you wanted one more reader, it won't be me.

Not Sure What to Call It?

as covered by PITT and Post Secret

I'm not really sure what to call these. PITT I'd never come across until today. I clicked on the top video and saw exploding buildings. I'm not sure if that was The Twin Towers or what. I just got the feeling this blog is not the place for me to spend my time. Anyway, I prefer to read at blogs rather than watch videos. What's it about? Actually, never mind, I don't really care, but if you have some words of wisdom on the psychology of PITT do please share.

I've been to Post Secret a couple of times, yet I'm not sure I could really say what it's about. Obviously people's secrets, but what makes that so fascinating? My own life is enough of an adventure. I don't need to be party to the secrets of strangers.

Sorry guys, I know you won't care, but I'm not voting for you, whatever you're about and whoever visits you.

Blogging and Such

as covered by Dosh Dosh and Problogger

Notice here that I listed Dosh Dosh first. That's because I was reading Dosh Dosh before other bloggers started to recommend to me that I read Problogger. It goes without saying that these guys get my vote. Blogging is something that I do and something I'd like to do better. At the same time, I think any dreams of making lots of dosh at this would be pie in the sky. Hey, I like pie and I love sky gazing, but really I just want to do a good job. Of course, if you happen to want an Usborne book or two, or something from Amazon.com and choose to order through me, that would just make my day. I need a little cash to feed my blogging habit! End of ad, just keep visiting, "pretty please", I like having readers :-)

What do you think? Do any of the top 10 Technorati ranked bloggers get your vote? Had you heard of Technorati? Do you even care?