Here’s a great solution for a temporary email account, called 10 minute mail. If you guard your regular email to prevent spammers from finding it, you probably don’t want to hand it out every time you’re required to register to use a website, or provide an email for confirmation. Using a Hotmail or Yahoo account requires jumping through hoops and providing personal information, not to mention, registering for an email account there takes time. And if you hand THAT email out every time you register somewhere, soon it will become full of spam, which was the very thing you were trying to avoid.

The solution is 10 minute mail, a truly disposable email account. The site requires no registration to set up your email - you instantly get an email address good for 10 minutes, which should be long enough to register for whatever site you’re visiting. If not, you can extend the time limit. Once you’re done with 10 minute mail, it deletes itself!

My comment spam on all of my blogs is handled by Akismet. If you’re a WordPress blogger, this is without a doubt, THE musthave plugin. You won’t have to deal with your inbox flooded with spam comments to moderate - Akismet is a huge timesaver. It will hold any suspected spam comments in a queue for you to review or delete, much like comment moderation on Wordpress, but you won’t get emails for each suspected spam comment. Each comment is run through a spam test. You don’t need to ever upgrade Akismet, because it’s constantly learning from how others use it. It literally becomes MORE effective as time goes on.

Here’s my idea to make Akismet even better - a lot of spam comments I receive are easily 500 characters in length. It makes it difficult to review the spam once you get several long comments in there. I’d love to see Akismet work in a module to limit the # of characters that can be used in a comment. Heck, I’d even use a plugin like this if it weren’t tied into Akismet. I can’t believe no one creating WordPress plugins has some up with this idea! Limiting the character count would be just one more way to combat spam, and it would certainly make it easier to look for legit comments.

Technorati Tags: combat spam, fight spam, Akismet, Wordpress bloggers, Wordpress plugin, plugins, Akismet plugin

Have your noticed all of the people walking around wearing Bluetooth headsets? It looks like we’re all becoming Borg. Personally, it’s not for me. I’m not that much of a geek that I have to wear my phone on my ear. I prefer to hold my cell phone and talk, because then people can actually see I’m on a cell phone. When people walk around talking to themselves, I always wonder if they’re talking to the voices in their head, or wearing a Bluetooth headset. My nephew wears his ALL the time. He even kept it on at his parents anniversary party this summer.

If you want a headset though, there are some great deals to be found. Right now T-Mobile is offering a deal that you can see a free Bluetooth headset! We no longer have T-Mobile as our provider, but when we did, we were always happy with their service. Once we moved, we needed to change providers due to our location though. I got a new phone out of the deal, but I still miss T-Mobile! They’ve also got a free Moto RAZR deal going too, just in time for the holidays. Maybe Santa needs to bring ME a new RAZR phone, since mine is a hunk of junk.

Technorati Tags: free bluetooth headset, bluetooth, bluetooth headset, T-Mobile phones, Moto RAZR

We had planned to buy our new Playstation 2 system at Sam’s Club. We don’t have a membership there, but our friends Russ & Tammy too. Russ told me that Sam’s had a great package deal on a PS2 that included a memory card and an extra controller, and it was a good savings bundle, rather than purchasing those items seperately. Last night he called me from Sam’s Club, and they still have a PS2 bundle, but now it includes games instead of the extra accessories. I think now I’ll just wait to see if PS2 goes on sale, and buy an off brand memory card to save some cash. I’m hoping that since Playstation 3 is now out (even if it is in limited stock) that I’ll be able to find a deal on a new PS2. If anyone knows of any, let me know.

Technorati Tags: Sony Playstation, Playstation 2, Playstation 3, PS2, PS3, PS2 deals

I was in Best Buy on Black Friday scoping out the deals. I ended up getting a few PS2 games for the family - Family Guy for my husband and The Sims and Harry Potter for my girls. I’m putting Grand Theft Auto on my list, and my son wants Lego Star Wars - The Original Trilogy. Anyway…we stopped by the digital camera display, and there was a couple looking at the camera I just bought, the Sony Cyber-shot N2. The touch screen seemed to be a big confusing to them, and being that it was Black Friday,there wasn’t a salesman to be found. I stopped and did a quick demo on the camera for them and showed them why I love it so, mentioning how I can take pictures in a completely dark room, yet they come out bright and clear and not grainy at all.

Yep, they bought the camera. I hope they’re as pleased with it as I am!

Technorati Tags: Best Buy, Black Friday, Sony digital camera, Cyber-shot, Sony N2, digital cameras

My friend Justin posted earlier this week that Sony is only shipping 200,000 PS3 units to the US this Christmas season. The news originally came from Bloomberg. They’ve stated that Sony came nowhere near it’s goal of shipping 400,000 units for the Playstation 3 November 17th debut, thanks to a shortage of a laser used in the PS3 Blu-Ray DVD player.

“We shipped as many PlayStation 3 units into the North American market as possible and continue our efforts in supplying systems to retailers nationwide through the holidays,” —Sony spokeswoman Kimberly Otzman

Sony will continue to airlift in shipments of the PS3 weekly, and their goal is to have 1 million units in U.S. stores by the end of 2006. But the shortage has led gaming geeks everywhere to line up for days outside stores. We happened to be at Best Buy a day or so before the launch and already tents were up outside. The crowd was mostly under 25, white males, but I imagine that there were a few enterprising young men in there who intended not to use the PS3 for pleasure, but rather, to resell on eBay and make a profit. Some of the new PS3 systems have already sold on eBay for as much as $5,000.

More than half of the stores that did a PS3 preorder will not have enough units to cover those preorders. Nintendo planned a bit better, and due to that, Wii is sold out in some stores, but the company expects to continue to selll throughout the holiday season.

As for us, we’re going to get a Playstation 2. It’s our first family gaming system, and I’m simply not enough of a geek to drop $600 on something like that. Not to mention, I couldn’t get a PS3 if I wanted one now!

Technorati Tags: gaming systems, PS3, Sony Playstation, Playstation 3, Wii, Nintendo, PS3 on eBay

If you’re looking for a great plugin for WordPress to help you add photos to your entries, I highly recommend PhotoPress. I originally found it on the Target Culture blog that I contribute too, and I’ve now added it to all of my blogs.

Initially, I started out using the photo insert tool that is available in the WYSISYG (what you see is what you get) editor in Wordpress. I wasn’t very happy with the way it formatted the pictures, and I stopped using the editor due to it deleting code when I tried to embed YouTube videos, so I was in search of something new.

Enter PhotoPress! If you’re using the rich-text editor for Wordpress, never fear, you can still use this plugin. PhotoPress is easy to install and start using. Once you’ve got it all set up, in your editor you’ll notice a “photos” button when you type a new entry. Hitting this allows you to browse for, and upload a new picture. You’ll then have the option of displaying a thumbnail, or the original in your post. All the photos are also added to an album on your site, and the thumbnails can also be displayed in your sidebar.

The whole thing is very user friendly. The pop-up uploader, pop-up image browser, the random image function, and the album are great tools to add to any Wordpress blog.

Technorati Tags: PhotoPress, WordPress, WP, photo plugin, Wordpress plugin, photo blog

Michael Arrington, founder of TechCrunch, and known in some circles as Assington, is taking 2 months off, because he’s burned out.

“Maybe his skin is just getting thin. Arrington recently was accused of having conflicts of interest for accepting advertising from and writing about companies that he advises or invests in.”
–Elinor Mills

Arrington was quoted as saying,

“All I promise is to give my honest opinion every time I write, regardless of whether there is a conflict of interest.”

Hmm…doesn’t that sound vaguely like the bloggers statements - the same bloggers he dissed for doing PayPerPost? He even called PayPerPost “absurd” when they launched DisclosurePolicy.org.

Michael even went so far as to state, in that blog entry, that

“Blurring the lines in this way - facilitating the pollution of the blogosphere while creating an illusion of doing something good for the public, is a good business move for PayPerPost. But it is a terrible development for the blogsphere and public trust. I hope that very few bloggers are suckered into going along with this.”

So it’s okay for Michael to blog about companies that sponsor him, or companies he has a vest interest in, because he’s the only possible person in the blogging world that can truly not be swayed by a conflict of interest. No one else has his moral fortitude. Michael? Err, pot? I’d like to introduce you to kettle.

While Michael is gone, no doubt on a vacation paid for by some sponsor that he didn’t disclose, please enjoy 2 minutes with the Michael Arrington bobblehead.

I just wanted to say thank you to all of you who have popped in since this site launched. I feel great that so many of you are able to learn something from what I’m sharing here. My friend Cass has been a frequent commenter and my post on using the simple tags plugin for WordPress inspired her to install it and start using it.

Speaking of Cass, she’s launched a new blog too, over at Midlife Musings, where she rants and raves, and even makes light of Google Adsense on her blog.

What is SEO? Also called search engine optimization, it’s the process of increasing visitors to your website by upping your rankings in the search engine results. The higher a website ranks in the search engine results, the more likely that your site will be visited by users. Think about it - when you look up something on Google, do you normally choose one of the sites listed on the first page? Or 16 pages in? 99% of users only visit the search results given to them on the first page, so being there is essential to getting traffic to your website. SEO ensures that your sire will be there!

If the task of doing your own search engine marketing is a bit daunting, you can hire a company specializing in SEO (search engine optimization) for as little as $50 per month. That may sound like a lot to a business or blogger just starting out, but if your pagerank and search results increase due to it, you’ll certainly see the return of your money - especially when you’re able to attract paid sponsors to your site.

The services of Discount Click, for example, include affordable search engine promotion and ranking services, link popularity campaings, and even do it yourself SEO self service tools. They even offer free tools on their website, like this link popularity tool.

Programming.net has started a contest in their forums, where members can earn points and win cash. Who doesn’t like cash? The goal of the contest is to get some fresh blood on the Programming.net forums.

The contest officially started on November 15th, but since it runs til December 15th, there’s still plenty of time to enter and win. 1st place includes $500 cash, plus web design, and a years worth of hosting. 2nd place earns $200 plus some goodies, and 3rd prize is $75 and hosting. There are also prizes for the runners up!

How do you enter to win? You’ll earn points in the contest by completing tasks such as posting a new thread, or posting a reply in the forums. You can also earn points by referring new members to the forums. If you place a link to the forums on your blog or website, you earn points based on the pagerank of your site.

I love that a programming forum has gone to such great lengths to host a contest with a personal tough!

Technorati Tags: Programming, contest, programming forums, programming message boards

It was only a matter of time before someone snatched up MyBlogLog. For those of you not in the know, MyBlogLog is a relatively new social network that connects bloggers by building communities. You can meet people who read the same blogs that you do, or find out who’s reading your blog. Obviously Yahoo saw a lot of value in the MyBlogLog model, because theyponied up $10 million for it. Monkey Bites points out that MyBlogLog and Bix (another Yahoo purchase) might be considered “B-list prizes“, due to the fact that Yahoo tried (and failed) to acquire YouTube and Facebook.

I’ve been using a free FTP by the name of Coffee Cup for the past year, without any issue. However, when I attempted to use it to change permissions on files for this blog’s theme, it completely locked up. And that was trying it one file at a time, multiple files - no matter what, it wouldn’t cooperate. I downloaded Smart FTP this week, and although the interface is quite a bit different from Coffee Cup, it was easy to get started with, and I was able to change permissions again with ease. In reading some of the comments on Coffee Cup over at Download.com, I see I’m not the only one who had issues with this free FTP client.

Technorati Tags: File Transfer Protocol, free FTP, FTP, Coffee Cup FTP, Smart FTP

I needed a laugh this morning, and I found it over at Nice Ideas. And to give credit where credit is due, he found it at Internet Tech Blog.

It’s a look back at Google in 1960:

And a look ahead to 2084:

Technorati Tags: Google, search engine, the future of Google

If you’re not using stats on your website, you should be. I use a plugin called ShortStat which shows me unique visitors, last pages viewed on my site, the last keywords that brought people, domains that came, an dother information. It’s an interesting way to see where your visitors are coming from, especially when your site is brand new, like this one.

For instance, my last visitors came from:

blo.gs 5
wc5.worldcrossing.com 4
boards.payperpost.com 4
clicknewz.com 3
bloghijinks.com 1
whois.sc 1

I posted the link to this site on boards.payperpost.com. I have a trackback at clicknewz. And I listed this site in bloghijinks. The worldcrossing link isn’t a site I belong to, but in clicking the link, I was able to view the forum name, and I know people who post there. I didn’t post the site at blo.gs.

Interesting, eh?

Technorati Tags: Wordpress plugins, Wordpress, plugins, ShortStat, referral stats, referral logs, track your stats

Simple Tags is a plug in I started using on my other blog about a month ago. It’s so easy to use, that I’m adding it to all of my blogs. Why use tags?

Tags are just another way of thinking of catagories, or keywords. But by using tags in your post, you’re linking yourself to others using those same tags all over the web. For example, if I had an entry about Google and pagerank, my tags might be Google, pagerank, and SEO. Visitors to Technorati looking for blog posts on one of those keywords would find my post. Likewise, you can link from a post using tags, to see like results in Technorati. Once you have posted the tagged post, there are two ways to have your post included on a Technorati Tag page. If your blog software is configured to ping Technorati, you’re already done. If not, you can manully ping Technorati. Oh, and it’s a good idea to claim your blog at Technorati. You’ll then be able to add your name photo, and description, as well as list it in Blog Finder.

If you want to use tags to up your readership, that can be done as well. Visit your own tags via Technorati and see what others have to say on the same topics. Leave comments, and you may just see new visitors to your blog to see what YOU have to say.

Want to know more? Lynn over at Click Newz has a great article on tagging tips that’s a must read. She’s the one who first shared the simple tags plugin with me, and she’s got lots of tips to share.

Technorati Tags: Wordpress plugins, Simple Tags, Technorati, tags, tagging, wordpress, traffic

This policy is valid from 15 November 2006. This blog is a personal blog written and edited by me. For questions about this blog, please contact Colleen (colleen_ccATyahoo.com).

This blog accepts forms of cash advertising, sponsorship, paid insertions or other forms of compensation. However, the compensation received has absolutely no effect on the topics posted. I will always strive to give my honest opinion and findings, and all opinions expressed on this blog are my own. Any product claim, statistic, quote or other representation about a product or service should be verified with the manufacturer, provider or party in question.

To get your own policy, go to http://www.disclosurepolicy.org

It looks like we’re finally going to be adding some sort of gaming system to our household this Christmas.  We originally thought this would occur about 2 years ago, but our kids didn’t seem that interested, so we held off.  Last year, the kids got their own laptop, and our son has really enjoyed playing games on it.  He’s also played on a Gamecube at a friends house, and I think the time is right for us to get something similar for our house.

The last time I used a game system, it was a Super Nintendo.  In fact, my mom still has my old Super NES hooked up at her house, and the kids play it quite offten.  Hence, I’m not really up to speed on what’s out there, and what will be best for our family.  I know the 3 major systems - XBox, Playstation, and Gamecube - but I don’t really know the features of each.  I know they all have their pros and cons.  What I’m looking for is something our whole family can enjoy (I can see me and the husband playing some Grand Theft Auto!) tha has a large range of affordable titles.  I know some consoles offer you the option to play online against others - and I don’t think that’s for us.  I think we’re the type of family who will play against each other, or one on one.

Thoughts?

Technorati Tags: gaming platforms, Super Nintendo, XBox, Playstation, Gamecube

I’m not as technical as I’d like to be, but that’s ok - sometimes you all may need someone to dumb something down to make it easily understandable.  And in those cases, I’m your man.  Err…mom.

Why Geeky Speaky?  Because this will cover all things geek, and in simple speak.  Err…speaky.  I’ve been on the internet since 1997 and I know enough to get by without asking for help too often.  I used to run a website for moms that I started literally from scratch, knowing only the most basic HTML.  It grew to recieve 30,000 visitors in the year that I sold it.  Not bad for someone who used Front Page to design and build the whole site!  Since then, I’ve returned to the real world to work, and I’m employed as a PeopleSoft support analyst.  That means I fix other people’s problems and mistakes, all.day.long. 

This blog will focus on technical issues, but I promise not to bore you to death.  There will be software reviews and advice, notes on new platforms of software being released, tips on blogging and internet marketing, as well as discussion on search engine optimization and upping your pagerank.  I’m not an expert on any of those things by a long shot, but we’re all here to learn together.

Welcome, I’m glad you’re here.