Sorry today’s Byte is pretty specific for bloggers who wants to filter out comments they receive in WordPress. (For those who don’t have a WordPress blog (http://wordpress.com/), here’s a fun site that lets you Photoshop yourself to this week’s inauguration: http://www.myinauguralphoto.com/.)
Recently a few folks have told me that they are getting spam from their blogs – people are trying to add spam-like comments. You can filter out those comments before they even come to you for consideration. You could turn off the ability to post comments altogether – but that’s no good. You can filter posts that contain certain terms.
Go to your dashboard (where you type in the posts)
Click on Settings in the bottom of the sidebar
Click on Discussion
From here you’ll see a bunch of moderation options – including an area where you can filter out comments that contain a certain term. I had an issue once where I was getting tons of spam but all from the same IP address – adding that number to the blacklist list fixed my problem.
Today I gave a presentation to the Minneapolis Breakfast Club (http://www.minneapolisbreakfastclub.com/); I really enjoy belonging to this networking group. For many people work has slowed down a bit – so I wanted to introduce a number of online marketing tools that were pretty cheap, didn’t require a ton of technical expertise and helped you connect with potential clients.
Here are links to the specific tools I mention in the PPT or came up in the presentation:
Constant Contact www.constantcontact.com – for email newsletters
WordPress www.wordpress.com – for blogs
Twitter www.twitter.com – for microblogging
Flickr www.flickr.com – for sharing pictures
YouTube www.youtube.com – for video
LinkedIn – www.linkedin.com – social network
Facebook – www.socialnetwork.com – social network
MySpace – www.myspace.com – social network
One fun note that demonstrates how all of the online marketing works. I posted my PowerPoint on Slideshare (www.slideshare.com) last night about 9:00 so that I could post it on the Byte Blog today. I checked my email at 6:15 the next morning and already 41 people had viewed my presentation and one person had sent it to a group site she has. Now I don’t think any of those people are calling me in the next week – but I always think that good luck comes down to being in the right place at the right time and if you can expand the places you are – you can increase your lucky quotient.
I hope everyone had a great time last night and is settling into a fun day. I have a semi-regular New Year’s tool to share:
PCPitstop (http://www.pcpitstop.com) is a free service that will scan your computer for any performance or security risks. I’m about to run the scan on my machine. Usually it reminds me to defrag files or delete old cookies or it might give me a heads up on more serious issues emerging.
One thing I really like about is that it gives you easy to follow instruction for fixing many of the potential problems they find. The other nice thing – you can’t use your computer when the test is running. You have to click continue or run a couple of times but otherwise it’s a good excuse – especially on a holiday – to quit working for a little while.
I hope everyone has a safe and prosperous 2009!! Thanks! Ann
