m2h blogs by Marcia Hansen

FYI…I’m doing a little blog maintenance in case you notice a few old trackbacks reappearing. The posts were in my SQL database, but not showing up on the site under archives. It should be fixed soon.

Update – Saturday, July 21, 2007
When I converted to Wordpress from Greymatter I needed to categorize my posts. I wasn’t able to go back and add categories for all of the posts before I needed to upgrade to a new version of Wordpress. When I upgraded (a few months ago) , all of the Uncategorized posts stayed in my SQL database, but they didn’t appear in the archives. So, in the recent blog maintenance (read: mind-numbing activity) I had to open the wp_posts table, sort by post status, order descending so that all the posts with nothing showing in the post status column appeared at the top of the table, click to edit each “blank” post status record in the database, and click OK. The weird thing was, once I clicked to edit each record, it showed the status as “publish” rather than blank or empty. So to right things, I just needed to click OK and the post once again appeared in the archives.

The posts that were affected were from 2005, during the time when I was taking the Network(ed) Rhetorics class with Collin and posting for the Theory and Practice course I took with Donna. I was blogging a lot during that time period so there were probably 200 posts that needed to be fixed. Well, it’s finally done. They’re all showing in the archives, and I’ve just finished assigning them to categories.

According to this blog, it appears that I’ve been blogging since February 5, 2004. However, I also have an old blogger account and I blogged over there beginning November 23, 2003. I began blogging when I started working on a research paper on blogging to use as my writing sample for my application packets. The old works cited is still posted over there. It seems like so long ago.

I wonder what would be involved in getting those posts over here so that everything would be all in one place?

2nd Update – Saturday, July 21, 2007 4:22 pm
I’ve updated to WordPress 2.2.1. There is a bit of a learning curve if you want to use widgets in your template, especially if you want to use a free template. Not all of the template designers have their code perfected to use widgets, nor are all of the templates in the WordPress Themes coded for widgets, but it’s not so easy to tell until you upload a theme, try it, use some widgets, break it, and try another theme. I’ve gone through a couple templates today in the process of trying to get things situated. I am definitely through messing with it. At least for a few days!

In perusing the job sites today, I realized that writing for search engine optimization is not a topic that I remember seeing in any of the technical writing textbooks I’ve reviewed over the past few years.

When looking at jobs for web content managers, I realized how important writing for search engine optimization is for many companies. Several of the job tasks I read revolved around knowing and using SEO best practices.

So my question is, am I just looking at the wrong technical communication textbooks? Are there authors out there who are covering this issue, or is there a gap between what we are teaching vs. what writers are doing on-the-job? Or, would this topic only be covered in a web writing text and not a technical writing text?

From the research that I did today in search engine optimization, the following resources would be useful.

search engine optimization — The page for SEO at Wikipedia is quite detailed. It provides background information on the issue and over 50 linked articles.

Search Engine Ranking Factors – This well-designed page at seamoz.org provides details on what a web content writer or manager would want to focus on in order to optimize web content.

If I was going to teach a technical writing or web writing class (or manage web content), I’d want to discuss this issue, especially how it is important to pay attention to the following factors:

1. Good meta tags: page title tags, page descriptions, and alt attributes for each tag. Discuss how it’s important that each of these is unique on every page (of course, this would involve some discussion of web content development).

2. Write keyword rich copy: include semantically related terms, hierarchal page headings and paragraph headings (h1, h2, h3, etc). Also, write good anchor text for links. Avoid click here.

3. Consider the use (within reason) of the strong tag to emphasize/bold key phrases on the page

4. Develop good internal links within the site, and also focus on writing good copy surrounding links.

5. Propose a file-naming procedure with developers to include good search terms in URLs (e.g. search-engine-optimization.html).

6. Develop Web 2.0 social networking initiatives which may improve external linking and page rank position.

Just a few notes…

..I am temporarily residing in a town that does not have any establishments listed under “coffee” in the yellow pages. The hottest news in town is that Starbucks is building a store out by the Jewel. I will have to make my own coffee to go with the yummy chocolate I just received in the mail.

..I am getting more job spam than ever since I posted my resume online. I really don’t mean legitimate job offers, but the foreign national sort who want me to handle their import/export or banking operations. The first day, there was an interesting range between the emails I received–one from someone who was looking for someone with just a high school diploma and another from someone who was looking to help me land an executive position. I’d like to see more traction in the middle of that spread.

..My mom has a Duet washer. It has more settings on a washing machine that I’ve ever seen before in my life. I have discovered that clothes will get clean in the washer without any laundry detergent–even the spots will come out. However, if you’re going to try it yourselves, I’d recommend that you catch it before you put the clothes in the dryer or hang them up, although it is great for a good laugh, especially when you’ve just been having that self-congratulatory talk in your head to the effect: “wow, aren’t you being industrious and on top of things, hanging the damp clothes so they can air dry and not get all those wrinkles in the dryer.”

..Miss Potter is a charming movie. There were some interesting animations that caught my eye. Now that I have a little bit of time, I may see if I can find any.

..On the other hand, Pride was a good enough movie to watch, but it was as if it was trying to straddle the fence between documentary and drama and suffers as a result.

..I’m embarrassed to admit that I enjoyed watching Shooter. Yes, one of my guilty pleasures is action movies. It features Mark Wahlberg, although a good friend told me that he can have a bit of an attitude off camera, which makes me think I wouldn’t like him much in real life.

..I’m working on starting a motorcycle blog. I think I’ve come up with a name — Mindful Rider. I’ll let you know when I’ve got something posted.

..Ok, I’m off to pick up a couple library books that my mother’s friend has checked out of the library for me–Assault on Reason, the relatively new text by Al Gore; and This I Believe, a collection of values statements from prominent individuals. I’m also reading Central Works in Technical Communication, and Creativity: Flow and the Psychology of Discovery and Invention.

..more, later.

Mom and I went to a few garage sales before breakfast yesterday. At one house, I found a box full of memo pads. Some had pictures of sports teams on the cover. Others had just plain red, blue, or green covers. A few had leather covers with tops that flipped back. I had a fun few minutes looking at all of the different kinds.

I turned to the older lady sitting in a chair by the driveway and asked, “did someone collect memo pads?”

She said, “My husband. He was a deputy sheriff. He never went to the store without coming back with a memo pad. They fit in his front pocket and he used them when he made stops.”

I smiled at the memory she shared of her husband. I was afraid to ask anymore questions.

Mom has a green thumb. However, the weeds have been wicked this year. Hence a weed-barrier mulch is going to be deployed by my step-father. The following picture shows only enough mulch to cover just 1/2 the flower beds. 140 bags! From conversation at the dinner table this evening, I think the other half of the beds are due to be mowed over, except for any plants that are rescued and replanted before Saturday. It’s just too much work to keep all of it up. It’s got to be manageable. I’m proud of Mom for coming to this conclusion rather than stressing herself about it when she has other things she’d like to be doing in addition to summer gardening.

I’ve tried my SimpleTech portable hard drive in another computer (my parents’ pc). No luck.

Next, I went to Radio Shack and purchased an external power supply, which I tried with my laptop and their pc. Still no luck. The good news with this is that RS will let me return the power supply.

Now I’m waiting for an email from SimpleTech tech support to see what they suggest next.

Update: after several more emails from some prompt tech support, they are going to issue a return authorization.

National Geographic Traveler is running an essay contest for undergrad and grad students. Winner gets a trip to Mongolia. Deadline 12/31/2007.

I’m in the midst of a reinstall of the OS on my laptop. It is not going so well.

Luckily, I saved all my documents off onto CD because my new SimpleTech Portable HD is having problems. I hate to say failed because I’m hoping that the tech support will be able to help me save it tomorrow. But, I plug it in and it doesn’t show up on my desktop. As I said, I do have another copy of my documents, but the portable hd has all of my images and music.

If I can find another computer to hook it up to (need one with dual USBs and my old laptop only has one), I can see if anything changes when I hook it up to a different computer. I really don’t think it’s this computer because my wireless mouse works in both USB slots on this laptop. Unless, even plugging into both USB slots it is still not getting enough power, but then why did it work long enough to save all my documents and stuff to it and then fail overnight? An external power supply is not included with it so I can’t try that out to see if that might be a problem.

I really hope SimpelTech tech support will be able to help me with this hd. It’s been longer than a month since I purchased it so I can’t take it back to best buy. I’ll have to return it to SimpleTech if it’s failed. And, my journal is on there and copies of tax returns and well, everything. darn.

Then, next issue — when I reinstalled the OS, (Tiger) I lost my version of iPhoto. I had to get the old version of it off my old laptop that has Panther on it. I guess the last time when I archived and installed, it didn’t erase the app, but this time because I was starting fresh with an erase and install, it wasn’t in the version of Tiger that I had. I’ve got it fixed now on the new OS, but can’t get to my pictures anyway because they’re all on the portable hd. Oh, joy.

Also, the disc burn function is not working properly. It worked fine a month ago. But, now it will write the data to the CD, but it will not verify at the end so I get the message that the disk is faulty and to try again with a new disk. But, I’ve done it 3 times now and get the same error message with each disk. I’ve used other disks in this container without the error message so it is hard for me to believe that it is the disks, especially 3 in a row. But, it makes me think the CD/DVD drive is going bad. The new install of the OS did not improve this situation.

Argh. Usually things like this go so smoothly for me. Not this time.

On PBS tonight, Tavis Smiley (author of The Covenant with Black America – website, Amazon) moderated a discussion at Howard University among the democratic presidential candidates.

There was consensus among many of the candidates on the following issues:

Criminal Justice System
- eliminate minimum sentences for non-violent offenses
- treat powder cocaine offenses like crack cocaine offenses
- create rehabilitation programs for non-violent offenders
- create good jobs in inner cities that pay more than the minimum wage

Poverty
- expand WIC programs
- increase jobs, education
- let tax cuts lapse for wealthy Americans

Education
- fund birth-preschool programs so that all children have good/fair/head start
- pay teachers to go to inner cities and rural areas
- provide access/opportunity to all to get college education

Healthcare
- several candidates mentioned supporting universal healthcare.
It is the first time that I have heard it positioned as not only something we need to do for all americans, but also it would be a solution for businesses b/c they are overwhelmed paying for it for their employees.

Katrina
- there was a question asked about supporting a human rights bill to repopulate New Orleans and other Gulf areas. The point was made that its not just getting people back, but we need to rebuild the infrastructure (hospitals, fire, police, etc.)

The candidates by and large didn’t take issue with each other. Many times they all agreed with each other, with just a few exceptions. Also, in one answer Obama said he was going to finish one of Edwards’ points when Edwards ran out of time b/c it was a good point.

I think it was Kucinich who said that we should repeal NAFTA. Gravel was the wild one. He said that we should get rid of the income tax and replace it with a sales tax.

The biggest difference between the candidates is how polished they are when speaking in public. It’s really apparent that the top candidates have spent a good deal of time practicing good intelligent answers to fit the short amount of time they have for each question.

Here’s my take — I think Clinton had good answers, especially in the 30 second time slot. She sounded knowledgable about infrastructure and economic issues. Biden was well-spoken, but I can’t remember any strong points he made. Edwards distracted me by enumerating his points with his thumb in the air, and he tried to tell stories in the short time slot that didn’t work so well. Obama was well-spoken but can do even better with sound bites. As I said above, Gravel was the wild one with much different answers and often condemned his fellow candidates for not taking more drastic positions that would really create change (iho). Sorry, but the others all ran together for me.

Remember my dilemna about the teaching with technology award? I heard from them yesterday. After I sent them a polite email mentioning my concerns, the committee has revised the information they previously sent. Turns out it wasn’t a rule change, but a “clarification.” And, instead of all finalists being denied the opportunity to receive award monies, it should have been interpreted to read “faculty finalists who are no longer employees.”

I was really surprised that they reconsidered and clarified their postion. I didn’t expect that I would be able to say anything to achieve this result. Of course, it’s not a perfect solution for any faculty who are no longer employees, but it is enough of a clarification in policy that I am again eligible to receive award monies if I am selected as the winner in the TA category. Now if only they will forget that I was the person who wrote a “complaint,” and instead think of me as that smart grad student who has done so much with teaching with technology. Let’s hope the 13 page doc/PDF with links to supporting materials will convince them. When I’ve revised the doc to a suitable length for a web-based portfolio, I’ll post a link to it here in case anyone is interested.

I should hear the results by September 1st. Keep your fingers crossed for me!