Saturday, June 9, 2007

Article Writing Tips and An Apology to Blogflux

As I often struggle with actually sitting down and writing an article, this post at Writing Help about The 30-Minute Article really struck my fancy. It actually inspired a new take on a article that I've been futzing around with for over a week. I may well actually finish the silly thing. I'd been so focused on outlining the problem that I forgot to offer the solution! I may never be a 30-minute article writer, but I can focus on what I'm trying to do rather than playing with language until I've forgotten my own point. That ought to eliminate frustration and increase writing speed.

As promised, I've been researching guru.com and have very little encouraging to say about them. There is a basic, free membership and you can bid on jobs. I've had people tell me that they were members long ago before there was an “upgrade” available and that they made great contacts with whom they now deal directly. That's fantastic, but the bulk of the information I encountered from recent users was that there is not much work awarded and that the rates were generally low. If you're interested in the site, I'd stick with the free membership and only bid for a few projects. Someone must be making money there, but it doesn't sound like it's worth investing much time. Note: unless you search with quotes around the name of the site (“guru.com”) you'll get the self-proclaimed guru for everything from snowshoeing to hang gliding.

One more note: My opinion pendulum has swung back the other way on Blogflux. Why? Because I finally started using some of their tools. For interacting with other bloggers I give them a D. But for useful things and toys? An A- at least. The two things that have really surprised me there are the Pinger that pings all over the place with one click. I had never even heard of Icerocket until I signed up there, and now I pop up there without ever having visited!

The other tool I like is the e-mail scrambler. I'd long been reluctant to add an e-mail address to this blog because I had heard so many horror stories about bots scraping addresses and overwhelming amounts of spam. No sooner did I open a new e-mail account than I noticed this tool. Now I've got a handy-dandy “Contact Me” spot that is doubly safe! As a plus, the stat map is a really cool toy. Blogflux, please consider this my official apology. I misjudged you. Then again, I was mislead by the “Top Sites” tag you provided to me. Let's just shake and forget the whole thing.


3 comments:








Open Eyes Blinded By The Knowledge Of All That Is

said...

LOL, I like blug flux, but I have found some things confusing, but that could be due to my lack of expertise in the working with templates area...





Unknown

said...

I downloaded a template from there but have been afraid to try it! I, too, lack knowledge and experience in the template arena. Thanks for the comment.





Debu's Blog

said...

Very good and informative articles you have....it helps me a lot...and adding your link at my favorite...but still i would need your help...i will contact you soon....keep it up..your articles are noting but the manner for helping others...keep in touch !!!

Warm Regards,

Aniruddha (debudeodhar)