Down The Last Stretch

As we come to the close of 2007, Daily Dotventures is compiling some of the highlights of the year. A kind of "the best of times, worst of times" summary to an otherwise nondescripit period of history.

In the following days, we will be coming out with a series on what made 2007 a milestone year for some, and a regrettable year for others. And without going into a fearless forecast, we will attempt to analyze how 2007 will mark the course of the lives of many peoples around the world.

We invite everyone to review the year 2007 with us as we look back and examine, celebrate and wonder at what the past 365 days have done and will be doing to most, if not all of our lives.

Come back soon for the first "Daily Dotventures: Year At A Time."

The Daily Dotventures' Blogger Birthday Blowout

Because it's someone's birthday today (I wonder who?), Daily Dotventures is inviting all to post here your birthdate along with your blog or website address (no emails please) and your blogname a.k.a. pen name. You don't have to put your birth year if that's your fancy.

Your Ads Love It Here!

Then, on your birthday, we will feature your blog or website here at Daily Dotventures.
No purchase necessary.
No linkbacks required.

How's that for a birthday treat?

This is our way of thanking you our dear readers and fellow netizens for being part of Daily Dotventures. Let's celebrate your birthday online!

What Me Splog?!?

IN A RATHER LAUGHABLE TURN of events, Blogger's anti-spam technology recently (not to mention mistakenly) identified Daily Dotventures as a splog.

A few days ago I noticed that I was prompted for word verification whenever I made a post to my blog. And here I was thinking all along that I was simply experiencing improved security measures, what with the previous Blogger trojan spam storms.

Out of curiosity, I clicked on that small orange circle "thingy" with a question mark in the middle. I was expecting to see a message heralding the remarkable Blogger security standards but to my bewilderment, I was led to a page stating that my blog was identified by Bloggers' spam prevention measures to be a spam blog.

It was like downing a half-gallon of espresso at 2AM!

Your Ad Here

Personally, I think that word verification or "CAPTCHA" features should be made mandatory across all current social platforms especially blogs. Today's Web - 2.0 and beyond - is all about interactivity and user contribution. So why not implement a challenge-response mechanism to ensure that the contributor is indeed human and not a program? He or she should've been typing away at a computer for several minutes already; why would it be such a bother to exert a couple of more keystrokes?

Security and laziness do not mingle in the same circle of friends. You don't want word verification? You might as well send your email address to spam central.

Unfortunately, Blogger thinks word verification should be the exception and not the rule. So despite my unwillingness, I requested for "unlocking" of my account since I do not want to be identified as a splogger. Thus, I received the following in my email this morning:

Hello,

Your blog has been reviewed, verified, and cleared for regular use so that
it will no longer appear as potential spam. If you sign out of Blogger and
sign back in again, you should be able to post as normal. Thanks for your
patience, and we apologize for any inconvenience this has caused.

Sincerely,
The Blogger Team

Well, obviously them spambots are posting "as normal" evidenced by the proliferation of spam blogs within the Blogger community. That there is the greater inconvenience.

To the Blogger Team, apology accepted but really, you won't have to apologize and look like schmucks if only the measure was in place prior and not after the act.

There must be a reason you guys call it spam "PREVENTION". Right?

Dotventures Goes Daily

For some time now, I've been considering changing this blog's name and sub-domain from Dotventures to some other identification.

For several reasons, the first being that there's a registered domain for it as I've discovered from trying to search for this blog through the popular search engines. For the record, this blog has no connection whatsoever to said domain, and they to this blog. So there.

Besides, the semantics are different as they refer to DotVentures meaning something like "online business opportunity" while my take on the term Dotventures is, as my byline says, "adventures and misadventures in a dot-com world."

Second, as is, the term is less descriptive than I would prefer it to be. It needs something more. Something complementing, something familiar and welcoming - a sense of being "always there".

After much contemplation, what used to be known (most of the times) as Dotventures Blog now becomes "Daily Dotventures". I think that rolls off the tongue quite well, don't you?

Not much of a change you say. Wait, there's more!

With the name change comes a reformatting of this blogs emphasis on general news items and broaden it up a bit to include site reviews and blogger profiles. These would be sites referenced from StumbleUpon or Technorati for example or from one of the blog directories like BlogCatalog, GetBlogs Blog Directory or MyBlogLog. Perhaps, even a link sent my way from folks in the neighborhood (hint, hint).

That is just for starters, as I trip along the cyberfrontier we will be serving up some more stuff.

Daily Dotventures stays on the same web address - http://dotventures.blogspot.com. It seems that sploggers have a penchant for snatching up deleted blogger/blog*spot addresses to perpetrate their evil spam blogging schemes. So if you're thinking of deleting your blog - don't. Just pass it on to someone else.

This would now be a great time to subscribe to the Daily Dotventures feed.

Enjoy you're daily dotventures everyone!

Creating a "Topics List" - Setting Up Bloggers' Labels Page Element

Our friend Roberto of The Silver People Chronicle asks: "Could you share with me how you got your "topics list" to look like that on your sidebar"?

Yes I can!

This site's "Topics List" is nothing more than Bloggers' Labels feature listed via "Page Elements" using the new Blogger templates. Labeling posts is the way to go with blogs nowadays as it is easier to organize your posts and helps in tracking and site optimization. So be sure to add and update your posts' labels regularly.

If you're using the classic template, you're going to have to do a bit more reading and contend with manually creating the links. You can start with this resource for details.

For those using the new templates, do the following:

1. Log in to your Blogger account.
2. Go to Layout (or Template), then Page Elements.
3. Click on "Add a Page Element". A window will open giving you choices.
4. Click on "Add to Blog" for the Labels Page Element.
5. At Configure Labels, you can change the title to anything you want.
6. You can also choose to sort your list alphabetically or by frequency of posts.
7. After "Save Changes" the new page element will show up on your Edit Layout (Add and Arrange Page Elements) screen, with the title that you entered.
8. Click and drag the element to your preferred position on your layout.
9. Click "Save".
10. Head over to my site and post a thank you comment. :)

That's it. You should have a fully functional topics list on your blog so that your audience can easily get to the topics that interest them.

One more tip. Use the labels as "Sections" for your blogs. Copy the URL (link address) of the label for your section (i.e. News, Site Updates, Sponsored Posts, etc.) and use that for a separate links list page element dedicated for your site's sections.

What Time Is It?

As the time-honored adage goes, "time flies when you're having fun." Especially when you're browsing blog after blog of humourous, sometimes laughable, oftentimes insightful posts from bloggers around the world.

Good thing our friends at timeanddate.com offered this widget of a timepiece you can add to your site. (See top right sidebar) It's a customizable text display clock that can remind your guests what time it is and thereby they won't have to miss their yoga class on account of your addicting post on making money from adsense (or similar scenarios like that).

Note however that it is currently set for Coordinated Universal Time (UTC) or Greenwich Mean Time (GMT) which is basically the starting point of world time. To know what time it is in your particular time zone just add or subtract your respective time zone's integer offset. For example, Manila Time is +8 GMT so I simply add 8 to the GMT time indicated on the time widget and... Oh 5h!+*@!! I've got to go pick up my kid at school!

See you folks again. Just click at the time to get your own time widget.

Regarding Technorati...

Nearly a month after setting up Dotventures at Blogger, I finally came around to signing up at Technorati. What is Technorati? Below is a snippet from their About us page:

Technorati is the recognized authority on what's happening on the World Live Web, right now. The Live Web is the dynamic and always-updating portion of the Web. We search, surface, and organize blogs and the other forms of independent, user-generated content (photos, videos, voting, etc.) increasingly referred to as “citizen media.”

One of the first articles I've done on Dotventures touched on Technorati's tracking of the so-called blogosphere which they also refer to as the "World Live Web". Back then the number of blogs on the Web was at around 70 million. As I write this, Technorati counts 101.6 million blogs in existence. That's an increase of more than 30 million in a few months time. And Technorati is at the frontline of documenting the Great Blog Boom.

Check out my Technorati Profile.

Settings for Blogger Comments

As discussed in my "Writer's Blog Series" comments are integral to the performance of a blog. The downside of the equation however is the propensity for this facility to be abused i.e. spam comments. This is one of those instances that prove there is no such thing as a "free lunch".

Its a toss-up between 'allowing good comments' and 'easy administration' of a blog. If you allow fully functional comments, chances are you'd have to contend with a few spam comments now and again. If you opt to limit comments in favor of administration in cruise mode, most likely your audience would be dissuaded to post their inputs at your blog site.

The decision would boil down to the primary purpose of your blog. Ask yourself, "how much audience do I want browsing or subscribing to my blog? How much interactivity do I desire with my guests." If your blog is more of an internal channel for expression, then you probably wouldn't mind a trickle of traffic. If however, you blog for a cause or for some profit, you want your comments at full throttle to attract an active following.

Generally, a good rule-of-thumb for comments settings would be to allow us much audience to view and post comments, while employing comments moderation to limit which comments actually get posted.

For other blogging platforms, refer to your sites' documentation on how to achieve this balance. For Blogger (blogspot.com) sites, Comments Settings allow you to ramp up your guest's access to the comment facility. There are three important settings that must be enabled as follows:

• At your Blogger Dasboard, click on Settings > Comments.


• At Who Can Comment?, select "Anyone". This would allow everybody to post comments, including other web surfers without Blogger accounts.

• At Enable Comment Moderation, select "Yes". A box will appear for you to optionally fill out an email address for receiving notifications of new comments.
  


• At Show word verification for comments, select "Yes". This would implement a captcha-like test that requires comment posters to enter a random set of letters shown in a graphics format. Automated scripts and text-based browsers used by some spammers naturally cannot see the letters thus reducing submission of spam comments.
  

The above settings have thus been enabled here on Dotventures. Everyone is welcome to be part of the discussions. We hope that Blogger.com users will benefit from this short guide.

Choose "Your Own Emmys!"

In celebration of the 2007 Emmys this coming September, Dotventures invites everyone to make your vote count. Pick among the nominees from the key categories of the Emmys. Who among them are deserving to take home the award? Chances are your votes here would not match with the real Emmys but hey, its just for fun! Scroll down to the lower-right sidebar to post your votes.

Were your favorite shows or actors not nominated? Leave a comment on this post and explain why they should be the winners. After 15 days, that would be on September 1, we will hold a special poll for the non-nominated favorites among the comments. Who will be the winning non-nominees? You will make that choice.

Vote now!

Plug yours! The Feedback and Guestbook Post

Got feedback? Any suggestions on how to improve this blog, want any topics to talk about, or do you simply want to say hello?

Leave your comment on this post. Note, that comments are moderated but we will approve valid ones (those not linking to a naughty site).

Thank you all for dropping by. Have a good dotventure!

PS - you can use <a> </a> html tags to make your links clickable. Here's a reference.

Dotventures Begins

Dotventures may just as well be another blog among the millions of blogs that already exist on the World Wide Web. It does not pretend to be different from other blogs on the Net nor will it ever attempt to standout from the global collection of weblogs that cruise along the "Information Superhighway".

It is a simple online journal of things that catch the interests of its author/s - both online and offline, both the virtual and the real. The range of topics can include anything from the popular to the obscure, from the important to the mundane. If it is on the Internet, or it is worthy to be on the Web, Dotventures will document, report, journalize, chronicle, or make a commentary about it. Or at least try to do so.

Dotventures' own "EA" is a full-time Web Entrepreneur and Online Chronicler. He setup Dotventures purposefully to have a platform for more objective reporting of what he finds through the Web. A passionate web developer, EA runs several e-commerce sites and co-moderates 2 online forums. This is just one among the various blogs he currently maintains.

We welcome those who wish to contribute their posts and share their views or comments on this blog site.

Enjoy your daily Dotventures!