The Fan History wiki has been trying hard to preserve Yahoo! Geocities since it is due to close before the end of October 2009. Although Fan History is covering sites that are within the fandom realm, like fan sites, fan fiction sites, fan art sites, and the like, there are other places too that are trying to preserve more. AboutUs.org even covered this issue, so you know if they mentioned it in their article GeoCities is Closing: Here’s How to Wiki-fy Your Sites , it is important enough to pay attention.

The reason behind this is that there will be a lot of sites lost due to the fact that the owner may have long abandoned their site even though people actually visit it to get relevant information. Although Yahoo! offers paid services for their hostees to move to, GeoCities has been a great tool for many to just be able to have a website. Other than the paid services, Yahoo! recklessly redirects their hostees to choose other sites as if it was no big deal.

Although most of the places like Fan History and the Internet Archive, you can help with this, even if it is or is not your website.

If you did have a site at Geocities that is currently up, put some type of notation that it have moved and provide a visible link in your anchor text. I have done so at my old and ancient site – Petals In The Wind (as an example.) You can then go to the Internet Archive site and have them preserve your site. If you know of any websites that should be documented, but only have time to make a list, you can contact me and share your list, or contact the site owner Laura Hale on Twitter. In at least doing this people will be able to find your content if you have since moved it. Already, I am aware that Fan History has documented over 5,000 websites so far on GeoCities that are fan related.

Have you heard of the GeoCities Preservation projects? What do you think of GeoCities closing, even if you might not have used their services?

This is the first week I am introducing a WordPress blog showcase to the site. I will choose 8 sites each week in that are tied together somehow whether by the blogger’s profession, the layout design, or topics discussed. This week the theme was for Web Designers who have blogs on their sites.

Cozmos Labs has a blog run by Cristian Antohe includes topics on WordPress and other blog tools.

Devthought is the site of Guillermo Rauch. If you view the layout and hover over the moving clouds, they will rain for you.

Douglas Menezes has a unique site that is mostly a portfolio, but occasionally he does blog too.

Elite Nick is owned by Nick Morris, and contains quite a few freebies and contains many subjects including tutorials, free templates for MySpace, WordPress, and then even music.

Justin Cline – It takes a lot to put a pic of yourself on your site. This web designer does it tastefully.

Loon Design is a Very unique and welcoming website by Chan Kai Loon.

Snilesh, no it is not my site even if it has ‘Nile’ in it – do not get the name confused with me. This guy is named Nilesh and shares a wealth of tutorials on his blog.

Super Girl is the personal site of Mimi who blogs about her daily life, but she can really whip up a creatively colorful site too!

Go give them a visit and check around. Also, if you have a site suggestion for a future showcase, feel free to comment or use my contact form as there will be 8 more next week. Please remember to only submit sites using WordPress.

I had been noticing some of the things streaming around twitter involving suing for tweeting something and such. In fact Chris Voss (on Twitter) has a video blog called Rude Tweets or Blogging Can Get You Sued – Video. The New York Times covered the fact that Courtney Love had been sued for saying defamatory things a designer in their article Short Outbursts on Twitter? #Big Problem.

I am not entirely into agreeance with Chris on those, but even the ‘golden rule’ is not used of day by day. Some instances are where the social network user or blogger may say something that is true. In the case that what is said is not libelous or defamatory toward a company, individual or brand, you are within your rights to say what you like.

Forgive me on this, but I will give an example. Calling someone a petty bitch is not libelous. It is a matter of opinion. However, if you say that someone is a liar, like the Courtney Love Twitter debacle, you could face serious backlash: being sued, fired, blacklisted from a career, and overall – damage your reputation.

The Electronic Frontier Foundation is a civil liberties group that covers the internet users rights. This includes bloggers. Their section on Bloggers Rights is indepth and insightful. In fact the EFF covers Bloggers Rights well in their article How to Blog Safely (About Work or Anything Else) which talk about scenarios for certain bloggers whether they should or should not blog.

So, although you should really not say anything negative about anyone, you really should think about how it is said. If it is not true – do not write it or you could risk your credibility as a respected blogger.

Have you ever gotten in trouble for blogging?

The art of vexeling and vectoring are interesting as each layer created goes toward the whole look of an image. It takes careful attention to the layering, and certain techniques to make an image that draws awe from others. I have gone through DeviantArt carefully and found several amazing tutorials for those who have never vexeled, or those who would like to brush up on their techniques. Some of these are Photoshop tutorials and others are for Illustrator. However, from experience, you can use the tutorials toward either program, or even the concepts to other graphic editors.

Please note that this form of art takes time and patience. I have been known to work on a vexel for over 7 hours, just to give an example.

Vexel Eye Walkthrough-Tutorial by binjoo

VectorTutorial for Illustrator by ChewedKandi

Urban Propaganda How-To by domnx

Real Photoshop Vector Tutorial by donbenni

Basic Vexel Tutorial by photoshop-tutorials

Silhouette Vexel Tutorial by shesta713

Vexel Tutorial – Hair by VAngelLJ

Do any of these tutorials look interesting enough to try?

Recently Weblog Tools Collection published an article called Pinging Your Own Blog Posts? Good or Bad? Basically, it is arguing the side that pinging your own blog is bad.

According to Wikipedia:

A pingback is one of three types of linkbacks, methods for Web authors to request notification when somebody links to one of their documents. This enables authors to keep track of who is linking to, or referring to their articles.

That means, you write a post and possibly use a link in reference to another post whether within your blog or to another blog – also known as an internal link or external link. Pinging your own links is not necessarily a bad thing unless your posts are already filled with spam, and linked to other posts with spam within in it. As already mentioned in my article Crossposting: Pros, Cons, and Etiquette, Google penalizes for spam, not penalizing internal linking or duplicate content, so Weblog Tools was not entirely according to Google’s policy changes. Though duplicate content and internal linking is not the same, the principle is. It also makes sense that this is okay as bloggers use some type of related post plugin for their blog, which links to 3 similar topics, not necessarily the one you may have internally linked within your blog.

Though pingbacks really do not deliver any content other than to notify that your post has been referenced either internally or externally as according to the WordPress Codex’s description of a pingback, it can be a great tool to help your readers learn more, especially when your site may contain valuable information that is of interest to anyone (ex – related posts plugin or internal link.)

Matt cuts talks about PageRank sculpting talks more about letting links flow, whether internally or externally. It is up to the webmaster to make some type of balance, meaning that you as the blogger will have to make sure to reference outside sources more (which is great for you and the person you are linking), while also linking internally to posts that are of similar interest and carrying on the topic so readers looking for more information will either stay or go to the sources that you are referencing. So, in using the Nofollow method within your own blog, you are basically saying that you do not vouch for your own posts, right? That does not sound like a confident blogger at all.

Do you use pingbacks? What are your views on using pingbacks?

On October 5, 2009, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) published FTC Publishes Final Guides Governing Endorsements, Testimonials – Changes Affect Testimonial Advertisements, Bloggers, Celebrity Endorsements. Of course, this issue is debatable on the fact that at this moment it has never been officially said that the Internet was medium, as perceived by WebProNews covers in their article Potential FTC Fines Raise Big Blogging Questions.

This issue does crack down on people who blog for pay, or pay to post/ pay to review. And it is right to do so as blogging is steadily being recognized as a medium as news stations are even turning to interviewing prominent bloggers for their experience on certain topics. This is not a single case deal as these are widely seen all over, even in my area – the St. Louis metro east (Southern Illinois.) Bloggers are influencing people with their posts. Some choose to endorse products and that can run into problems if a company has a product that is not up to par as what the blogger said.

With this policy, the company must provide adequate instructions to bloggers to post disclosures making their readers aware that they will write product reviews for monetary gain. This includes places like Pay Per Post and Social Spark, who run between the companies to get bloggers to write about them. This will deter companies with less than honest reputation to avoid seeking bloggers to endorse without a disclosure. By the way, Pay Per Post and Social Spark, who are properties of Izea require site wide disclosures and/or individual post disclosures. You can get a site wide disclosure with DisclosurePolicy.org for free, or create your own. In doing so will establish a more honest relationship with your readers.

As for individuals, it is important to put a notation of some type that the post is either a paid review, endorsement, or something similar. It would be recommended to do this with past posts even if the policy is not to go into effect until December 1, 2009. Violation of this policy could cost a blogger $11,000. Of course, this extends to even advertising in your social networking streams like Twitter and Facebook, but I decided to focus on the blogging aspect in this article.

What do you think of FTC’s policy change? Do you do paid to post? Do you have a disclosure policy for your blog?

I saw a contest being advertised the other day while using Facebook and thought I would share it with those who design, whether web or print design. Jean M Invitations and Accessories is holding a wedding invitation design contest until November 30, 2009. The top designer could win $1500. There is also a $500 runner up, and a third place prize of $250. Designers of any designs that are well liked, but did not win, could be offered $100 for their design. The designs would be placed on the Jean M Blog and others will be able to vote on their favorite.

It is a contest you can submit as many designs to, but if you do, you need to have a separate application for each. Just think, if you submit enough designs that they like, you might get more than just a $100. I know it is just wedding invitations, but it is great practice to round yourself in graphic design – to think outside your normal creative mind. Please read the rules for their submission criteria before you submit.

Yes, that is correct! According to the title of this article, I will be search all over each week with a certain theme in mind to look for in WordPress sites. Some might be businesses, others might be personal sites. Some might be for art, and others for sports or technology, or politics. However, what they would have in common is that they all use WordPress.

It is one of the Weekly showcases I will be introducing. I am working on a couple others as well. So, if you have a site that is unique or well designed, that uses WordPress, then feel free to contact me. You can even suggest other sites too. Also, in regards to showcasing, as Blogrity (my new social bookmark website) becomes more active, I will be starting a section for people to submit a screenshot of their website and rate, called The Blogrity Showcase.

One thing I have always liked to do is visit other websites. In my dinosaur days in maintaining a website and blogging, I occasionally had ‘Site of the Week’. Why just feature one website when I could do that anytime? Why not feature several sites that meet a certain theme for a week.

Sounds interesting?