Public education, ACMA, and anti-spamming
We tip our hat to the Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA) for its relentless fight against spamming.
The ACMA is responsible for the regulation of the broadcasting, radiocommunications, internet, and telecommunications industry in Australia. With approximately 540 staff spread over its principal offices in Canberra, Melbourne, and Sydney, the organisation is not small.
I have followed the activities of the ACMA during the last 18 months or so, and noted the organisation has not minced any words so to speak in making public its findings. The government watchdog has pursued its charter with no regard to whether the delinquent parties are large or small organisations.
Prior to its latest win against companies allegedly involved in SMS spamming, the ACMA has pursued separate cases against some of Australia’s large businesses. Its chairman, Mr Chris Chapman, said in relation to those cases:
“The ACMA considers that well resourced companies should be compliance leaders. There is no excuse for them to fall short in their obligations under the Spam Act for SMS marketing campaigns.”
Two months ago, the ACMA won another big case against two additional respondents who were penalised $6.5 million by the Federal Court in Brisbane for being allegedly involved in SMS spamming. The penalties were in addition to the $22 million previously imposed by the same court on five other respondents. The court’s decision in that case proved to be a landmark decision.
Last month, the ACMA again scored a win against an Australia-based international spam gang leader who was also previously found guilty of spamming by United States and New Zealand courts. The amounts awarded to the ACMA may be small compared to the big scores of the ACMA’s US counterpart, the Federal Trade Commission, nevertheless the ACMA has been proving to all and sundry that it is an organisation that takes spamming very seriously.
How to put a text widget in your blog’s header
In an earlier post, How to customize your blog with widgets, leanpearl asked: “How do I put text widget in my header? I wanna use it for social networking sites’ icons.”
I thought I use my response to that question as a separate post so it wouldn’t get lost as we progress.
Here is my response:
That’s a very interesting question. Unfortunately, I don’t think I have an expert answer to that.
But here are some thoughts and observations:
1. The widgets in a WP blog are dependent on (a) the plugins installed and active in a site, and (b) the structure of the blog theme, ie, whether the theme had been coded to allow widgets in the header, sidebar or footer.
2. As we all know, most WP themes display widgets in the sidebar, and some themes also display widgets in the footer. I have checked the more than 70 themes in WordPress.com, and I have not found a theme with the options you have in mind.
That said, you may wish to check your theme options including its Custom Header, if any.
For example, this theme I am currently using has several options to customize its header. I can insert a standard 468×60 banner to the right of my site name (which obviously I did not do). The banner can be replaced with other displays like SNS icons using HTML, or anything within the TOS of WordPress.com.
In short, the key to customizing your header is to look for a theme that gives you that option – to change the image, to change the color, to change the text or to insert other objects.
Hope this helps.
This is me, of course. Others may have differing views or ways of customizing a blog header.
Let us hear from you.
How to correctly show off your WP blog stats
When a WP blog shows off on its sidebar the following:
Blog Stats
• 3,000 visits
or worse,
Blog Stats
• 3,000 hits
without any additional information, I start asking: “What exactly does that mean?”
If a blog stats are presented in this fashion, the numbers look like a block of meaningless information.
Blog Stats widget dialog box
I know this may be hard to swallow, but that is the truth.
Let me just backtrack a little bit and elaborate before someone starts calling me names.
1. Currently, there is no method which can claim to produce web statistics with 100% accuracy. And the resulting numbers are dependent on what methodology is applied to generate those numbers. The fact that even Google has to explain the terms used in its analytics and how the Google numbers are calculated shows the difficulty in coming up with commonly accepted standards. You may wish to check out this page as an additional background.
2. Without being critical, WordPress.com in its Support page provided not enough information as to what the Blog Stats numbers are. Perhaps, to others the numbers need no explanation? Or perhaps there is another related Support page which I missed? I certainly don’t have the answer to that.
3. Again, without being critical, the same WordPress.com Support page says that we, the bloggers, can choose which word to use in describing the numbers. The two popular words, according to WP, are: “hits” (which is the default label in the Blog Stats widget dialog box), and “views”, the label “views” being more consistent with the label “Total Views”, used in the Blog Stats Dashboard | Summary Table.
4. The use of “hits” was okay, and even a buzzword, many many years ago. Is it still okay to use “hits” these days without defining what you mean by “hits”?
5. In technical terms, “hits” is not “visits” nor “views”. “Hits” are the number of files served when a web page (no distinction here between WP “post” and “page”) is requested from a server. A graphic, an icon, a banner and all sorts of files that make up a page are, technically, “hits”. For example, when you opened this page, the server’s log should have recorded at least 40 “hits” just on the bullets, icons and images alone displayed on this page.
Given this background, where does that leave us if we want to show off our WP blogs stats?
You may have other ideas, but right now I can think of only two things we can do to correctly show off our WP blog stats:
1. Stick to using “Views” to label those numbers. I will not use labels like “hits” or “visits” if I were you. In the absence of additional information from WP, these labels may be inaccurate information. You may be describing the numbers something that they are not. In the Blog Stats dashboard, the numbers are labeled “views”, remember?
2. Disclose the period covered by the stats. Again, the numbers are pretty much meaningless unless the period to which they relate is described. Here is an example to show how futile and frustrating it is to read blog stats crafted using the Blog Stats widget:
Blog Stats
• 3,000 views
If you are the owner of this blog and you know that your blog stats are for 12 months, no problem. You know what your stats stand for. But if you are a visitor of this blog and you don’t have that same information, what’s the first thing that comes to mind? What do these 3,000 views represent? Are these yesterday’s views? Or perhaps, last week’s? Or last month’s? Or, last 12 months’? And how do I compare the “popularity” of this blog with another blog with only 1,500 views but I know that this other blog has been online for only 2 months?
Any suggested wordings?
By the way, I am not fond of showing off my site’s stats whether here at WP or in my company’s websites. We also do not display in my company’s websites any stats counter or meter. But if I were to show off my blog stats on the sidebar, I would probably disclose the numbers this way:
Blog Stats
• xxxxx page views from (date blog or the Blog Stats started) to date
or something like:
How popular is my blog?
• xxxxx pages had been viewed by my friends from (date blog or the Blog Stats started) to date. Oh yes, they are very pleased too!
A little bit long, you think? But no one will argue the suggested wordings are not misleading. And they are easy to understand.
Again, in a worst-case scenario too, you can present a screenshot of your blog stats dashboard plus some other information about your blog to prove that the blog stats you are claiming are factual. That is, if someone starts questioning your numbers and you need to show proof. About your friends being very pleased? I am sure your friends would be happy to come to your rescue and say they are pleased with your blog!
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End Notes: The WP Blog Stats inside my blog’s dashboard is an excellent tracking and management tool. With the Blog Stats, I learn a lot about my blog. But when used as a widget and without additional information about the numbers displayed on the sidebar, the stats are meaningless. Did I step on sensitive toes with this post? I hope not. But if I did, that’s a risk I take.
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Use the Text widget to promote your posts inside your WP blog
After seven weeks, I have written more than 20 articles including How to customize your blog with widgets. When I had only 15 or less articles, I did not have any problem listing all my articles on the sidebar using the Recent Posts widget since the widget allows 15 for linking.
But what if you have articles much older than post number 15 which you want to promote and get the most out of those posts? How do you promote them?
I am not sure about others, but I have looked at widgets like Top Rated or Top Posts, and they may not be the answer to my quest. After all, if the posts we want to promote are already top rated or most visited, there is really no point highlighting them for our visitors to notice, is there?
The other approach is to configure your blog Settings > Reading to whatever number of posts you want displayed on your main page. The default is 10 posts. The downside of this method (aside from it being an indirect method) is that your visitors would have to scroll all the way down and may not even notice the article you want them to see. And worst, what if the post you want to show is, for example, post number 75?
Activate the Tag Cloud widget? Again, this is very indirect, and does not immediately display the results you want.
Why not simply be straightforward? As they say, be bold. Stake your claim.
Use the Text widget.
All you really need is insert your promotion text and a little knowledge of HTML coding to direct your visitors straight to your target posts. The top sidebar of this blog is created using the Text widget. See also Personal and more… in my personal website for another demo.
In the hands of an HTML writer, the Text widget is the easiest and most effective method. With the Text widget, you also have better control on how to display your promotion messages.
To me, the Text widget is a powerful tool. Are you going to leave it idle?
A PollDaddy poll outside your WP blog
I mentioned in my earlier PollDaddy post, I am not a great fan of polls, but here is an opportunity to have another demo of a poll created using PollDaddy.
Someone asked me if a poll created in my WP blog can be displayed outside WordPress.com.
Yes, you can. I don’t think there is a restriction as to where you can display a PollDaddy as long as you use the correct embedding code.
To display the poll outside your WP blog, in your Polls > Edit control page, click HTML code link, then highlight and copy the poll’s javascript, and paste it to where you want to position your poll on your external page.
I am currently running in my personal site a very simple poll (see image on left).
No, the question asked in the poll is not earth-shattering. The question is very simple, and can be answered in less than one minute. I also wrote a brief background story about the poll with invitation to my readers to use the Comments to share their thoughts on the issue.
Poll results? The poll is generating good responses from my website followers.
Why not visit the poll and let me know what you think.
The spellchecker in WordPress is not purr-fect after all
I knew a spellchecker has been in WordPress for sometime now and that was really very good news for people like me. But the other day’s announcement of a proofreader support in the HTML Editor set me out to a fun trip.
How good is it? Does it really know how to spell receive as against recieve? Or, seperate when we actually mean separate?
I did a quick listing including tech-based nouns and I could see that the proofreader can spell. It even recognizes words like blog, Twitter, and Google. But wait a minute. How come I am receiving an error for WordPress? Not in the database? Yes, it does recognize word press (two words) or word-press but not WordPress (one word).
Interesting, isn’t it? The spellchecker does not even recognize its master.
Here is a screenshot of my very brief word list:
So what do you think? Should we accept Word Press for WordPress? Or, do we have to teach the spellchecker to insert WordPress in its dictionary? // Leave a comment
A simple solution to tweet and retweet your WP posts
Our post two weeks ago on Publicize: Twitter is about automating the process of sending an update to a Twitter account each time a new post is published in your blog.
But what if others want to tweet and retweet your posts?
One simple solution: Place a Twitter sharing code at the bottom, or anywhere else, on your post.
A sharing code comprises the Twitter grabber, a teaser which normally is the title of the post, and optionally, the permalink of the post or its equivalent shortlink. A shortlink is the “tiny URL” version of your post’s permalink generated by and stored in WP ~ very useful to get around the 140-character limit of a Twitter update.
Here is a sample structure of a Twitter sharer:
<a href=”http://twitter.com/home/?status=This+is+the+post+title+OR+Create+another+teaser+http://wp.me/Get-Shortlink”>Tweet it</a>
End Note: I acknowledge currently there are social bookmark applications which automate this process taking into account the scripting limitations imposed by WP. At this time though, I don’t think I am ready to use them, particularly if these are run in a local drive. I will just wait until their scripts are taken on board by WP.
Feel like designing your own “tweet me” icon? Why not create your own special Twitter graphics and store it in your Media library. Try googling out “Twitter icons” or similar search terms to pick up Twitter icons for use as-is or for customization.
Here is a sample Twitter icon customized for this blog:
How to embed a Vimeo video
Following a tip in Comments to a WP’s support page on how to embed a Vimeo video, here’s a demo:
The above video was embedded using this shortcode (no space after [ and before ] ):
[ vimeo http://www.vimeo.com/7243598 ]
How to resize
The above video can be resized from the standard 400×300 to a larger 600×450 by inserting the width and height parameters in the shortcode:
[ vimeo http://www.vimeo.com/7243598 w=600&h=450 ]
This is the resized video:
Hmmm, that was easy too.
Thanks T3CK for the tip. And thanks Ileane for the prompt.
More resizing and formatting
Using a DIV tag and CSS, you can easily position a smaller video (left or right) and wrap text around it.
Here is a sample of the above video resized to 300×225 and text-wrapped:
Blah blah blah blah. Blah blah blah blah. Blah blah blah blah. Blah blah blah blah. Blah blah blah blah. Blah blah blah blah. Blah blah blah blah.
Blah blah blah blah. Blah blah blah blah. Blah blah blah blah. Blah blah blah blah. Blah blah blah blah. Blah blah blah blah. Blah blah blah blah. Blah blah blah blah.
Blah blah blah blah. Blah blah blah blah. Blah blah blah blah.
Blah blah blah blah. Blah blah blah blah. Blah blah blah blah. Blah blah blah blah. Blah blah blah blah. Blah blah blah blah. Blah blah blah blah. Blah blah blah blah. Blah blah blah blah. Blah blah blah blah. Blah blah blah blah. Blah blah blah blah.
Australia wins its biggest anti-spamming case
This post is out of my ordinary posts, but I thought I’ll let you into the latest developments in Australia’s fight against spamming.
Today, the Federal Court in Brisbane imposed Australian $6.5 million in penalties to two respondents who were allegedly involved in SMS spamming. The two respondents are part of a group, according to the government watch dog Australian Communications and Media Authority, that was likewise penalised Australian $22 million in a landmark decision last 23 October.
You can find out more about these developments in two of our company’s websites, The Filipino Australian, and SPAMWATCHERS.