Moar Refreshments (mai multe piscoturi)!

The Romanian word “piscoturi”, loosely translated as “refreshments,” has become associated with the meagre price deontology or blogger ethics commands on the online advertising market (i.e., “piscotareala”) in that many are willing to sell not only their blog, but their soul and their mother’s soul for a few cookies and a coffee. Being a writer is a job everybody would love to have, except the writers themselves. Few other jobs (except maybe acting or singing) have as many people trying and so few succeeding. Being a blogger is somewhat less glamorous than being a writer, at least not in the traditional sense of the (former) word, as it combines traits of several other fields, such as IT, publishing, PR, but it still has a strong creative component. In this article, we take a look at the Romanian refreshment (piscot) market.

DMCA takedown–Vali Petcu aka Zoso

Once again, I find myself at the receiving end of a bogus DMCA claim (I cannot even ascertain what it is about). This time however, I intend to fight it and document every step of the way, in the hope that others might find it useful.

Windows Live Writer Portable upgrade

I was prompted today to upgrade my portable install of Windows Live Writer. In case you have not heard about it, WLW is one of the few Windows applications that have no equivalent in the Linux world, causing many to keep Windows virtual machine or windows partition just so they can use it. This being the best blogging editor there is, I thought it's a good idea to share this experience (and much more) with you.

WLW or Windows Live Writer 2012 Portable–redivivus

With so many reports decrying the death of blogging, I thought I share with you what is most likely the last article ever on Window Live Writer or WLW - more precisely, how I am moving it and backing it up and how I am planning to move away from it.

Disqus support fatigue

#Disqus has become the de facto standard in commenting, being used not just by small blogs, but even major newspapers and other high-traffic sites. I was one of the early adopters of Disqus, after having tried the Blogger 'left-behind' system, then the Intense Debate which ended up acquired by Wordpress parent. Compared to alternatives, Disqus is still the best, but there have been and still are problems, and that is what this article is about.

OSS WLW and quitter bloggers

As blogging is dying, those of us who still cling to this habit are occasionally baited by news we'd like to think will come true, only to be proven otherwise. One such news items suggests that Microsoft might release the source code of Windows Live Writer or WLW.

Back to AdSense

I recently decided to add AdSense to an older blog, hosted on Blogger, and using the old Layout. Here's how that went. This is one of the articles that is not necessarily meant for everyone, but rather for me to keep track of what I’m doing (i.e., it doesn’t take you from zero level, but the info here is probably more useful than what you get in such articles).

Is buying followers or likes a good idea?

I've recently heard about a "big blogger" - if not in blogging, definitely in volume - who may have artificially inflated his twitter count with fake followers. Intrigued, I decided to take a look at the business of buying fake followers.

Submitting Your Site to Bing Webmaster and Microsoft AdCenter

I recently changed my domain for a website and decided to submit my site to Bing. In the process, I discovered Bing Webmaster Tools as well as got started with a Microsoft AdCenter coupon for free advertising on Bing.

Webhosting with 1and1

It started out well, but it devolved into strange domain freezing and impenetrable wall of silence.

HufPo on The Monetization of Mom Bloggers

If you ever wondered how "mom bloggers" are doing, HuffPo published an article full of interviews with them.

Combining Two Blogger Blogspot Blogs

I have long ago started several blogs as I have quite a few areas of interest and points of view, some apparently contradictory. I wanted to explore different sides of my personality but as it often happens, I never had enough time to fully develop some of these blogs. Since I hardly have enough time to update them any more, it makes sense to combine some under one single address.

Trackbacks and Pingbacks for Blogger

One important blogging feature not fully implemented on most platforms (with the probable exception of Wordpress) is trackbacks. Trackbacks and pingbacks are important because they tell the world that you are referring to another article. We look at ways to mitigate this omission.

Encryption on Blogger I - obfuscation

I often find myself publishing articles on Blogger / Blogspot that I do not want to be read in their entirety by everybody. I want to hide parts of them and make them available only to a select group of people, or nobody at all. If you ever feel this way, this article's for you.

More harassment from Google

After having my Google Plus account suspended for daring to protect my identity even while following Google policies to the letter and then having to deal with another suspension whose sole explanation was "suspicious activities", I find yet another email from this corporation, this time accusing me of running AdSense ads on pornographic content. But is that content really pornographic?!?

Encryption on Blogger III – Vincent Cheung

Vincent has updated his code to a newer, better version, and we're trying to keep up with the times.