What to Do When Someone Steals Your Content

I thought people might be interested in this great piece on What To Do When Someone Steals Your Content. It's one of the best things I've seen on this topic


This Post was written by Kalyn from Kalyn's Kitchen

Feeds, social bookmarking

Entry level questions, I guess:

I have a Feedblitz subscription box on my blog. Is that what is known as the Site Feed? I've checked my settings/formatting and Site Feeds are enabled, but I don't have that orange feed button most blogs seem to have - how does it help and how does one get that?

How do you get Feedburner to tell you how many people get your blog feed? It constantly shows zero but I know that's not true.

How will it help to add social bookmarking sites like furl and reddit to my blog?
Thanks


This Post was written by Sra from When My Soup Came Alive

[Uploading and Posting Photos] Blogger hosted photos are blurry!

Forgive me if this has already been discussed - I didn't see it on the sidebar and nothing came up on a search (but I know the Blogger search function doesn't work all that well)..........

Anyway, I was posting photos to my blog and then to Flickr for my Flickr badge. I suddenly realized that the Blogger hosted image was very blurry while the Flickr hosted photo was quite sharp and clear.

I don't remember this always being the case........has something changed? Are they compressing photos to save on space?

Here's a link to my blog that shows the difference, which I think happens to be quite a large difference.

Looks like I won't be using Blogger for photo storage any longer............

This Post was written by Alysha from The Savory Notebook

Dianne Jacob of Will Write For Food Answers Your Questions

For anyone who's interested in honing their writing skills or has aspirations of becoming a food writer, Dianne Jacob, author of Will Write For Food is answering reader's questions this week at my site. It's a great opportunity to ask her whatever question's on your mind, from how to break in to the business to how much you can expect to make.

(Hint: don't quit your day job!)


Dianne is a lovely person, and like many in the food community, very generous helping others, and this is a terrific chance to pick the brain of a seasoned food editor, food writer, and much sought-after professional writing coach.


This Post was written by David

trackback / pingback spam: strategies for minimizing their impact?

So most of the time, my spam catchers do their job but sometimes I get trackback or pingback spam.

Just FYI: I use akismet and Spam Karma 2 (latest version as of last week) on WP.

I delete these but its a few moments wasted on crap when I could be doing some other crap that I really should be doing. Yes, its always this crap or that crap *winks*.

Any suggestions on how to minimize this type of spam? I do hit the "spam" button in akismet and SK2 but it doesn't seem to make a difference. I am also resigned to the fact that they are linking to my site from a PR0 or worse site that is just a scraper (bad news for one's PR when you have spam links coming in), I have no clue how to reverse that.. I don't think you can.


This Post was written by Nika from Nika's Culinaria

Spam?

I got no less than 5 comments from a blogger called 'Mr' last night. That's not a bad thing, obviously, as I love comments. But it's a bit different, as all five comments are identical:

"I think u got a great blog!! Thank u for that. I'm definitely going to add u to my favorite :) I hope you can visit mine. It's about Copycat Recipes.
Uncover the Secret Recipes from Your Favorite Restaurants!
Easily Prepare the Most Guarded Restaurant Recipes in Your Own Kitchen.
The same tastes and flavors for a fraction of the cost! Learn to cook the highly guarded secrets behind dishes from: » Red Lobster » Applebee's » Chili's » Olive Garden » T.G.I. Fridays » Outback Steakhouse » Starbucks » +700 recipes from other most Famous Restaurants.
http : // copycatcookbook (dot) blogspot (dot) com
There's new 5 recipes each day!!"

I thought it's spam, but there seems to be a genuine person behind the blog, who replies to the comments that some people have left him after he commented on their site. It might be just his peculiar way to promote his blog, as he only began few months ago. I maybe wouldn't mind if the person left just one comment, but 5?!? During 10 hours?

What would you do? Simply delete the comments? Email to the named blogger and ask him not to do so (there's no email given though)? What if he continues to do it (he already left that comment a few days ago)?

This Post was written by Pille from Nami-nami

Special Characters in Blogger?

Anyone know how to access special characters not on the standard keyboard - eg french vowels with accents - in Blogger?

This Post was written by Ian from Yorkshire Deli .

[copyright issues, photos] asking, after the fact

I spent a good chunk of my weekend filing AdWords complaints against splogs and sending certified letters to the hosts of a number of photo-pirates, and I realize that I am so angry that I am not thinking straight. I would love some objective advice.

Someone who hijacked one of my more-popular images -- which I have since removed from our site, to counteract the thousands of views a day this image was getting -- has written to me and asked me if he can continue to use the photo if he links to our site. I get the feeling he's not a true splogger, but he does have a TON of AdWords placements on his site, and I am annoyed that he is profiting from my work. (He's at supersizedmeals-dot-com, and he does seem to have taken down my photo, which is nice to see.)

The irony is that if he'd asked first, I might have said yes. But in my anger, I don't feel like an apology and a link are sufficient. Thoughts?

(And yes, I'm already including copyright info in both my image titles and ALT tags, and I am going to start watermarking as soon as I get my hands on a copy of Photoshop.)

This post was written by Anita from Married...with Dinner

Happy Birthday Food Blog S'cool!

If my calculations are correct, it was two years ago today that Headmistress Sam posted her first post inviting us all to Food Blog S'cool. Since then, we have used this as a place to solve problems, to vent, to collaborate, and to share news with other food bloggers.

Thanks, Sam for putting this idea into action when you did and continuing to moderate. You have created a real community space for all of us food bloggers.

And happy blog birthday to all of us!

This Post was written by Jen from Life Begins at 30

IACP in Chicago--a three part question

I doubt there will be time for much of a meet up, but I'd love to know if other food bloggers are planning on attending the International Association of Culinary Professionals conference in Chicago this week. If you are, will you post your name in the comments section? (and please say "hi" if you see me! I'll do the same)

I was intrigued to attend after reading so many food blog posts about the conference in Seattle last year. As food bloggers and food blog readers, what aspects of the conference would you most like to read about this year? I am hoping to blog from the conference, or at very least when I get home.

Finally for those of you who attended last year, any tips for those of us attending for the first time?

Thanks everyone and Happy Easter!

This post was written by Amy Sherman from Cooking with Amy

Guest Blogger Poll

Have you used a guest blogger to fill in for you on your food blog?

Written by McAuliflower from Brownie Points Blog

Diabetic food bloggers?

I am not having much success googling this so I thought this might be a good place to ask.

Do any of you all know of a good diabetic food blog - not just recipes but also the bigger picture kind of view about how to deal with the "new" way of eating, etc.

I appreciate any suggestions you all have!


This Post was written by Nika from Nika's Culinaria

Indian Edible Perfume Help Needed

I hope this post isn't outside the terms of reference of FBS - almost all the posts I see are on technical and marketing issues and I wouldn't want to receive another caning from Headmistress Breach.

A Wall Street banker (!?!) has written to me asking if I can help him find a NY source for mitha ittar, which is an edible perfume something like kewra extract and a speciality of the Avadh region of northern India. I'm usually pretty good at web research these days, but although I've been able to find some recipes that use it and some references to it being worn as a male perfume at Eid, I can't get any further. Knowing that there are so many great Indian gastronomes as members and readers of FBS, I thought someone might be able to help me provide this chap with an answer to his search.

This Post was written by Trig from Aidan Brooks: Trainee Chef.

FDA Wants to Change MOCKOLATE into CHOCOLATE

I'm hoping the food blogging community can help me mobilize the public on an pending issue with the FDA on the standards for chocolate.

The Chocolate Manufacturers Association has proposed a major shift in the acceptable definition of chocolate. They want to allow products made with cocoa solids but NOT cocoa butter to be classified as and labeled as chocolate. We all know that this stuff is NOT chocolate. See this page for a full breakdown of the new acceptable formulas.

The FDA has an open comment period on the new proposal which ends on April 25, 2007. You can fill out a simple web form to enter your comments, send a letter or fax. Get all the info here at the website DontMessWithOurChocolate.com.

The Don't Mess with Our Chocoalte website was set up and hosted by Guittard. Pam Williams at EcoleChocolat.com is also helping to get the word out.

I've written more about it here:
Don't Mess with our Chocolate (Candy Blog)

I've created a bunch of images too, I'm hoping that folks will want to display them on their sites, perhaps in your sidebars for the month (linking to the DontMessWithOurChocolate.com site) to get our readers off their duffs to protect our chocolate. (Or make your own graphics too!)

125 pixels wide




150 pixels wide




250 pixels wide




400 pixels wide


I'm also going to be running a series of posts on my site and probably running a drawing for a package for real chocolate for folks who file their comments with the FDA. If anyone else has any ideas about how to get the word out, I'd love to hear them. I know a lot of us belong to forums as well (Chow.com, FoodCandy, C&Z etc.) that might be able to get the word out and leave their comments with the FDA.

This Post was written by Cybele from Candy Blog