Ear Pollution: Music On A Page That Automatically Starts.
See 3 Things That Will Make Me Immediately Leave A Web Site

Does this annoy you to no end like it does me? You have your own playlist going just surfing around listening to the new Radiohead album, when you are audibly attacked by someone’s new favorite song.

I HATE THAT!

This was as annoying back in the day when people would embed wavs into their cheesy html 1.0 pages as it is today. This is also a problem with many Myspace pages. I don’t want to listen to your music. I don’t like your music…well that’s not fair, but I would much rather have the option to listen to your music than have it thrust onto me. See my XSPF player link below and to the right. I like to share with my readers to, but I’m not forcing anyone to check out my superior musical tastes…(tongue in cheek)

So I propose the Stop Ear Pollution movement. If you would like to support your right to listen to what you want when you want and not have noise thrust upon you please sign up. Tell a friend. Tell that friend to tell a friend. It is my hope to strike a cord with the blogosphere and hopefully make others aware of this obnoxious offense.

Leave your link below if you would like to support the cause. Please add a button or text link from below from below and help spread the word.

Get The Code Here

Copy and paste the code below into your site template where you want this button to show up and help fight the battle against intrusive media.

Stop Ear Pollution Buttons

Stop Ear Pollution Text Link

Stop Ear Pollution

Stop Ear Pollution For MySpace

<a href="http://natebal.com/journal/stop-ear-pollution/"><img src="http://i144.photobucket.com/albums/r181/lukeslytalker/stop-ear-pollution-sm1.jpg" alt="Stop Ear Pollution, Sign Up Here" title="Stop Ear Pollution, Sign Up Here" border="0" /></a>

Follow the link below to add your own link to the list of supporters. Show your support by adding a button or text link to your web site. Together we can crush Ear Pollution.

< <<<<<<<<<<<<<<< Add your link here >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

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I just got a rather disturbing email from my good friend telling me that my Twitter account has been suspended. I haven’t been able to log in for the past few weeks, but assumed it was a Twitter programming issue as it always told me to try and login later. Now I find that I am suspended for strange activity. Has this happened to anyone else? Does any one know why?

Twitter Bug Report

Sent: August 25 2008, 12:26 PM

“I just got an email from a friend trying to add me as a contact. He sent me a screen shot of a page that read, “This account is currently suspended and is being investigated due to strange activity”. I haven’t been able to log in in for the past few weeks. I thought it was an issue with Twitter. Now it looks like I’m suspended??? Can someone let me know what’s going on. I’d like to be able to tweet again, but for some reason am unable to right now. I think this issue might have started around the same time I installed the tweet this plugin for Firefox. It’s hard to tell though as I’m not sure how long my account has actually been suspended.”

Twitter Suspended Accounts

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I tried logging in to Entrecard this morning and was declined. It said my email address was incorrect. So I shot them off an email before reading the following mail they sent to me. Imagine my surprise when I found out my Entrecard account was deleted.

Your account ‘Come On In The Web Is Fine’ on entrecard.com has been deleted. The administrator gave the following reason:

Please contact support@entrecard.com if you have any questions regarding this action.

Not a blog?? Not a blog????? People is this not a blog? Is this not a set of posts that’s been going on since 2005? Do you not have the ability to post comments and sign up for a membership? Is it not based on Wordpress blogging software???

I’m sure this is just a snafu, but in the mean time I’ve taken down my Entrecard badge. I really don’t understand why they would have deleted my account. I’m on the site every day and drop cards all the time.

Again I’m sure this is some kind of mistake. Maybe a problem behind the scenes. Dunno. Has this happened to anyone else?

Follw this discussion on Blog Catalog >>

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I was bouncing around dropping some Entrecards this morning and ran into a few things that I absolutely hate to see on the web. New designers should be taught to avoid these practices in web design 101. I know I’m not alone here so any newbie bloggers out there please take heed to these, “what I consider”, horrible design flaws.

Music On A Page That Automatically Starts

This was as annoying back in the day when people would embed wavs into their cheesy pages as it is today. This is also a problem with many Myspace pages. I don’t want to listen to your music. I don’t like your music…well that’s not fair, but I would much rather have the option to listen to your music than have it thrust onto me. See my XSPF player link to the right. I like to share with my readers to, but I’m not forcing anyone to check out my superior musical tastes…(tongue in cheek)

Video Ads That Automatically Start

I’m afraid that these are becoming more and more popular. These are the tiny video ads that start once loaded without anyone clicking on them. If you have these on your page I will not come back to your site. I don’t feel I am alone here. So if you wanted to make some extra cash with some fancy looking video ads like this I think you’re doing more harm than good.

Full Page Pop Over Ads

I don’t know who decided this would scheme would work, but unfortunately these to are showing up more and more. I’ve noticed a couple today while bouncing from my Entrecard rss feed. These are those full page ads, usually white, with a, “skip this ad”, option at the top of the page. I’m more apt to skip your web site and never come back. These didn’t work when they were pop up ads and they don’t work now.

In Summation

I’m not opposed to web site ads. My site is monetized, but is what I consider un-intrusive or at least less intrusive. These are just in my opinion horrible design practices. I will immediately hit my back button or close my browser when you push media like this into my eyes and ears.

Again I’m sure I’m not the only one who feels this way. There’s a reason why Tivo is so popular. No one wants to watch the commercials. What makes you think that I wont immediately leave your page when you try to push your commercials on me?

Some food for thought folks. PLEASE STOP.

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I was bouncing around the net trying to find some easy, “Copy and Paste”, code to add Sociable type functionality to my Blogger blog and had little luck locating code that actually did what it said it would. So I set to the task of writing something that would.

Below is some simple code you can copy and paste into your Blogger template to add the following group of social networks to your Blogger web sites.

Socialize this post

Step by step directions

1. Access your Blogger dashboard and click on the layout tab. Select the, “Edit HTML“, sub tab.

2. Make sure, “Expand Widget Templates“, is selected. You can also revert to your defaulted widget template by clicking the revert button on the bottom.

3. Look for the following strip of code in your template.

<p class='post-footer-line post-footer-line-3'/>

4. Past the code below after this tag and hit preview.

Copy And Paste Sociable Code For Blogger

<br /> <strong>Socialize this post</strong><br /> <a expr:href='"http://digg.com/submit?phase=3&url=" + data:post.url' target='_blank'><img src="http://i144.photobucket.com/albums/r181/lukeslytalker/digg.png" title="Digg It" alt="digg How Do I Add Sociable Buttons to my Blogger Template?" /></a> <a expr:href='"http://del.icio.us/post?url=" + data:post.url + "&title=" + data:post.title' target='_blank'><img src="http://i144.photobucket.com/albums/r181/lukeslytalker/delicious.png" title="Del.icio.us" alt="delicious How Do I Add Sociable Buttons to my Blogger Template?" /></a> <a expr:href='"http://technorati.com/faves/naterati?add=" + data:post.url + "&title=" + data:post.title' target='_blank'><img src="http://i144.photobucket.com/albums/r181/lukeslytalker/technorati.png" title="Technorati" alt="technorati How Do I Add Sociable Buttons to my Blogger Template?" /></a> <a expr:href='"http://www.stumbleupon.com/submit?url=" + data:post.url + "&title=" + data:post.title' target='_blank'><img src="http://i144.photobucket.com/albums/r181/lukeslytalker/stumbleupon.png" title="Stumble Post" alt="stumbleupon How Do I Add Sociable Buttons to my Blogger Template?" /></a> <a expr:href='"http://www.furl.net/storeIt.jsp?u=" + data:post.url + "&t=" + data:post.title' target='_blank' title='Add to Furl'><img src="http://i144.photobucket.com/albums/r181/lukeslytalker/furl.png" title="Furl It" alt="furl How Do I Add Sociable Buttons to my Blogger Template?" /></a> <a expr:href='"http://www.spurl.net/spurl.php?url=" + data:post.url + "&title= " + data:post.title' target='_blank' title='Add to Spurl'><img src="http://i144.photobucket.com/albums/r181/lukeslytalker/spurl.png" title="Spurl" alt="spurl How Do I Add Sociable Buttons to my Blogger Template?" /></a> <a expr:href='"http://myweb2.search.yahoo.com/myresults/bookmarklet?u=" + data:post.url + "&=" + data:post.title' target='_blank' title='Add to Yahoo web'> <img src="http://i144.photobucket.com/albums/r181/lukeslytalker/yahoomyweb.png" title="My Yahoo" alt="yahoomyweb How Do I Add Sociable Buttons to my Blogger Template?" /></a>

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(This is my first YouTube video ever. Low end video courtesy of my razr phone.)

How Do I Upload Videos To YouTube?

This is so easy a sleep deprived drunken 1 armed monkey could do it. Let’s get started.

1. Click on the yellow upload button in the corner.

2. Add your video specific details and sharing options.

3. Select your video.

4. This is what your account will look like after you establish a video library.

Like I said super easy, but I’d never done it before so I didn’t know. I’m sure I’m not alone.

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Here’s an animated gif I made from screen captures from my whos.amung.us widget page. This is the direct result from my round of submissions to social networks. Keep in mind this is within minutes of my final submission of this post. I had particularly good luck with Digg, Reddit, Simpy and Stumbleupon.

The Sociable Plugin For Wordpress

I recently started a pretty consistent round of social networking submissions after each post. Hence the boost in traffic. It was cool to watch the different countries hit. I peaked out at 199, however this is the first time I’ve used whos.amung.us immediately after a submission. So I’ll be trying this again very soon.

I just upgraded my Sociable plugin to 2.5.2. It basically offers more social networks. I’ve been having pretty good luck with my current list though. That’d be the ones below high-lighted in blue.

Click on the image below for a larger screen shot and complete list of social networks currently supported by Sociable.

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As I suspected when I made my last post there is one last step for getting your screen-shot image updated.

I kind of suspected something like this might be the case. And since I don’t have a particularly spectacular Alexa score it appears it may take more than 48 hours. I started keeping track on the last post, but figured it would be better to put a tracking widget on my site. This way I can truly lock down a length of time before my update goes live.

45 days, 9 hours, 3 minutes, and 50 seconds have passed since initial submission to Alexa

Well it took over 45 days to update, but Alexa finally did. My image isn’t updated on BCA which is why I did this in the first place. Just an FYI folks.

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Is there a way to update my bloggers choice award screen shot?

The answer is yes! It’s not spelled out on the website anywhere so I figured I’d share with everyone else my original post from Blog Catalog.

“I submitted my site quite some time ago when I was using a different template and was wondering if there’s a way to update my BCA screen shot? I don’t seem to see an option anywhere.”

FYI Everyone. Just got a response from Scott Mulrooney at Bloggers Choice Awards.
————————————————————————————————————————-
Thank you for contacting Blogger’s Choice Awards! In response to your query, all thumbnails are cached by Alexa and updated about once every two months. The thumbnail images of more popular sites are updated more frequently, and sites with higher Alexa scores (lower traffic ratings) are updated less frequently.

You may have some success asking Alexa to update the thumbnail for you, and if they do please let us know so that we can pull the new image. Sorry for the inconvenience.
————————————————————————————————————————-

Once at Alexa you can, “Edit site info”:

Once here Update Thumbnail Image:

Viola. According to Alexa your screen shot will be updated within 48 hours.

I just wanted to put this out there as I did a lot of searching, but didn’t find out myself until I contacted the source. With that said how about a vote?

Post Update Step 4 Wait:

Waiting for Alexa to update my website screen-shot in order to update my Blogger’s Choice Awards Badge.

Waiting For Alexa To Update My Website Screen Shot