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The laptop is 1 month and 3 days old today. Who could have done such a thing? What heartless bastard could have broken into a house, probably harassed the cat, and taken an innocent infant laptop who was just sitting there?! The neighbor’s house was also broken into, but the neighbor did not have any bastard children laptops, so no laptop child was stolen from that house. How strange it is, that one house suffers nothing but a broken door and trauma, while the house next door ends up with a broken door, trauma, a traumatized perverted cat, and a missing laptop child.

Victims’ and the Crime profile

This is a real theft people. Sure, you may not believe some things as you may assume it is out of this world, but the laptop was stolen yesterday, and your help is needed.

Reward?: Yes, and this is real. $500 reward through Paypal to anyone who finds or helps Ronald actually find and recover the laptop undamaged.

Where?: Huntsville, Alabama, USA

When?: Tuesday, October 23rd, 2007, between 7 am and 11 am

Type: Apple MacBook Pro, 15″, silver, 2 Gig RAM, 7200 RPM 160GB HD.

Age: Only a month, 3 days old laptop child

Mother: Apple [sold her baby to Ronald on the black market called the Apple store]

Father: Ronald [under investigation by the National Laptops Welfare & Long Battery Life Association [NLWLBLA] for suspicion of buying a laptop child on the black market]

Name or Model # of the victim: A1226

Nickname or Serial number of the victim: W87371FAXAG

Secret lovers: The cat [rumored by angry neighborhood cats. No evidence to confirm or deny this claim]

Instructions for the cops and others to follow

This is a note to all the cops, the community, and anyone who cares about young children, young laptop heartless children to be precise! Imagine the lonely laptop, sitting there without a cover, without a mouse, without the cruel abusive master of an owner who only now realizes the value of the laptop child, and most important of all, without the secret cat lover!

All cops should keep on the lookout for any depressed laptop child that is not turned on. By turned on, I mean turned on screen-wise and not literally, though if you thought I meant literally you are in the same class as the secret cat lover. Anyhow, back to the kidnapping topic! All highway patrol cars are advised to focus on expensive car drivers going empty handed to poor areas and coming back to rich homes in rich areas with a new Apply MacBook Pro. Poor folks can’t afford such a laptop baby, so probably some rich sucker would want to save a thousand on an already expensive product and bring it back to lala land only to discover that the laptop child was kidnapped from Ronald and the lesbian cat.

Non-federal authorities aren’t of help, so hitmen have been hired

So far, non-federal authorities have been uncooperative or unsuccessful in helping the quest to find the missing laptop child. The local rental association has no video, audio or picture record or any recollection of a baby being kidnapped and taken to a car, nor any video or pictures of any people coming in or out of the complex.

Apple, the corporation that not only provides people with laptop children but also can take those laptop childs’ brains away if needed, cannot help either unless and until someone connects the laptop child to the internet and accesses the internet, at which point Apple will terminate [HEAVEN FORBID] the laptop child. Ohhh the horror this world sees! “If I can’t have my laptop child, no one can!” Ronalds’ decision to hire the professional hitman corporation, Apple, is not yet backfiring. Maybe it will be after the fate of the laptop child is sealed and public that we will see heartless child rights organizations going after Ronald for his decision to not allow his laptop child to live if it is not sitting on his lap or next to the cat.

My community aspect of the investigation, and the Iron Claw Assassin

In my research, where I tried to offer help in the neighborhood aspect of the investigation, I found out that I was not welcome anywhere, and that no one wanted to tell me about the missing child. “Why?” I thought. I wondered if everyone was part of this conspiracy. I wondered if everyone knew something but was afraid to tell me. I wondered if everyone knew something but did not want to tell me because they did not like me. Soon, however, I found out why no one wanted to tell me anything about the missing child. “What the hell is a macbook pro?“, “Are you stupid? Why in the world are you looking for a damn apple? Go buy another one from the grocery store you cashless psycho!” and “Who gives a damn about Apple! I have a dell with a D, as in DIE Apple!” were the three sets of answers I got from everyone. It seems no one knows where the damned child laptop is. So much for assuming that the community is of help; it never is. I am wondering if I should do my best to get to the attention-disordered laptop child before the hitmen do.

I am trying my best to locate the stealth Iron Claw Assassin. So far, all my inside agents have reported that they have been unable to locate the Iron Claw Assassin. All of my attempts to locate her have proved futile. That is sad, since the Iron Claw could have pursued the laptop child kidnappers and taken care of them the way The Mad, Mad, Mad Screamer was taken care of, and I am confident that the laptop child would have been recovered safely, albeit a few scratches because of the claw. Claw, holding the laptop child, scratch, pointed, sharp, get it? Better to get back a dented laptop child than no laptop child. Whatever case Iron Claw Assassin is working on, I wish she could finish it soon or just give it up to help us pursue this demonic laptop child that Ronald and the authorities are so obsessed about right now.

I have offered sacrifices to the sea in the form of throwing out trash that was in my car into lakes, rivers and oceans. I have bought nuts for the damned squirrels in Berkeley while avoiding the squirrel who shall not be named [seriously, he cannot be named, nor linked to, but you know how to find out more about him, don't you?], cleaned up after psycho, murdering cats, and even spied on all cats making out with other cats in the community in hopes of finding some laptop children nearby, since rumors say that the missing laptop child had affairs with Ronalds’ cat [more on that below]. So far, I have uncovered nothing, other than the mysterious looks from all cats that probably wonder “Why the hell is he looking at us while we kiss each other? EWWWWWWWW” I hope I can forget everything I am seeing today once, and if, the laptop child is found.

Rumors about affairs between the cat and the laptop child

I did find out through my contacts that there were some illegal affairs between the cat and the laptop child. Even though I was looking for evidence for such claims, deep inside me I remembered the cat when I had met it last month, and I realized that the cat did exhibit such lovely affections to every object inside Ronalds’ house, including me when I was there. However, think of the laptop child: you wouldn’t want your desktop or laptop child to suffer the same trauma, so why ignore this tragedy where a young pro-beastiality laptop child got kidnapped? Sure, you are against animal cruelty, but come on, this laptop was less than a month. So what if a month old laptop baby likes to feel touchy-touchy with a cat? Blame the grown up cat for seducing and having affairs with a child. As you can see from the image to the right, there are some public pictures of the cat trying to get close to the child laptop sexually. Heck, blame the photographer, Ronald, for taking such pictures and not stopping the cat and the laptop from feeling close in that manner!

Me, personally, I have no problem with the cat as I think it does not realize that many humans do not like such contacts with laptops. However, the issue here is the kidnapping of the laptop child, and not the pedophile cat or its master of a roommate Ronald who focused only on what the laptop could provide in terms of productivity and not on the relationship aspect of the laptops’ life. Let’s get the laptop child back now and let’s stalk the pedophile cat and yell at Ronald for being so careless later! Ronald is sad now, so let’s make sure he knows we are there for him! Hmmm ok wait, scratch that: I have to play an online game after this. Ok, Ronald is sad now, so let’s make sure he knows that YOU are there for him, and that I will be there for him soon hopefully. All this neighborhood investigation has bored me to death, so I need some time off. 6 minutes of total investigation takes a lot of effort people!

Community feels strong bias and discrimination by the police

Many community members have told me that they feel the law enforcement authorities are giving way too much attention to this even simply because it was an Apple laptop child that was stolen. “My damn’ Windows 95 laptop of 8 years was stolen last week and no one is investigating that“, a father of 2 new laptop children told me. Some other people pointed out the fact that most Windows laptops are dark in color, while the Apple laptops are usually white or silver in color. All local law enforcement authorities are denying that any racism is involved, citing that most law officers use computers running windows XP, that officers of many different colors from orange to blue to white to green to yellow to black to violet to red and more, are involved in the investigation. Furthermore, a short survey by me revealed that many officers do not know what a MacBook is, let alone know that Apple creates silver MacBook Pros; therefore, officers cannot discriminate against non-Apple laptop owners’ cases since they don’t even know what is missing. Ronald had to show them the laptop box, pictured above, to show the police officers the picture of the poor laptop child that was missing.

Those close to me want the laptop child to stay missing

My desktop and laptops are happy, though. They are laughing and saying “HAHA damn retarded over-hyped apple products! Doing the same exact thing that other products can do. Only thing they are definitely better at that is life-shattering is to get stolen and kidnapped.” Ignore my jealous desktop and laptop, please, and be well! They do not know what glamor is, since they grew up in a hard working family of computers which focused on bread and not gold, and thus they exist to help the poor and those in need instead of being like you, oh dear Apple MacBook Pro laptop child, where you focus mainly on those with fat wallets. You have a higher purpose in life but my laptop and desktops don’t, so please ignore their evil laughs and bad prayers, and instead be safe! When you get back you can laugh back at them!

What if you find any lonely laptop child?

So please, if you see a lonely baby laptop anywhere, see someone talking about selling a baby called “Apple MacBook Pro” or a see a child that has a 15″ screen sitting by the road somewhere, go and talk to the laptop child! See what is going on. Maybe it’s the laptop child Ronald lost! Maybe it is someone elses’ child! Who knows. If the laptop child does not belong to anyone, ask the police. Ask the local hospital. Ask the local tech shops and electronic stores. If no one knows the history of the laptop child you find, do one thing please: sell the laptop child.

Sell it on Amazon, on ebay, on craigslist, anywhere you wish. Since you tried and couldn’t find the laptop childs’ original home, you might as well make some money.

Take action, or make money!

So please, go get your holy books ready to pray for Ronalds’ laptop child, go get your jacket or t-shirt on to go look for the laptop, take out your own desktop and laptop child to search for the missing child laptop. And in the end get your Craigslist, ebay, and Amazon seller accounts ready. For if you do find a laptop child and cannot find where the laptop child came from, you can help find it a new home if you do not want to use it or do not want to get caught, and earn some money along the way too.

$500 reward for finding the laptop

This is also the part which you have to take the most seriously. Ronald is offering a $500 reward to anyone who can recover or find his laptop so Ronald can get his laptop back, undamaged. Ronald will pay you via Paypal.

Look for any Apple laptop child with the model number A1226 and serial number W87371FAXAG.

This is hoping that the laptop child is able to sleep tonight without any problems! My thoughts and wishes and my heart is with you, though my desktop and laptop are still praying that you die a horrible, anti-Microsoft death. Let us see what happens.

If you have any information about this Satan laptop child or would like to help with this ongoing investigation, please e-mail me or contribute below. Thank you!

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Your friend may expect you to comment on their site, whether or not your current friendship with that friend is solely based on the online world. You can talk to your friend via the phone or even chat with them online, but if you do not visit or comment on their site regularly, they may retaliate by not talking to you that much or by talking to someone else who visits and comments on their blog.

It is as if the friendship is solely based on the number of comments you leave on a blog. A blog can be considered someone’s personal property, thus you have to see whether or not your friend is justified in getting upset over you not commenting on their site. Your friend getting upset over the absence of your comments on your site can either be like your friend expecting you to support them in unrelated things in order for the friendship to continue or like your friend expecting you to support them in a passion they may have.

Of course, such confusion can be solved if you ask your friend what they want, or if your friend tells you what they want. However, I wonder if it is always easy for everyone to tell a friend “You know what, I don’t like commenting on your blog or reading it, because of this and this reason. Is that going to upset you?”

Business and non-business contacts expecting comments

Business and non-business contacts can be different than your friends. Sure, more and more people are calling each other friends, but no one is there for each other in anything from which they themselves do not benefit, or when a business deal is not around. Thus, let us briefly focus on the idea of non-friend contacts expecting comments from you: a random person or a business contact may show you their personal or some other blog, and thus may expect you to regularly visit or participate that blog. What happens if you do not fulfill their expectations?

Well, from my personal experience, several things can happen. I have seen business contacts doing less business simply because I do not comment on every post of theirs. I have also seen some very famous business contacts being non-communicative until they need something, which can appear to be beyond unprofessionalism in many cases. I have also heard people complaining about their business contacts becoming more aggressive and unfriendly in business deals if those people post a disagreeing comment about something on a blog. Getting upset in different ways over other contacts not commenting on some site can be signs of people not being able to differentiate between their expectations from their own blogs and their business and other deals with other people.

How do you fix such a thing? You cannot fix such a trend and mentality until you find out what the business or some other deal expects. You entered into a business deal; did it include in any direct or indirect manner your participation on any site? Did the other person get any kind of a hint in the beginning that you will continuously participate on their site? It is best to not mix business with personal life or something like your passion for comments unless you know the people involved in a business deal are willing to be true friends or logical contacts who will not let things get affected by something like the number of comments you post on a blog not related to the business or some other deal in question.

What to do?

It depends. I personally do not want to be obligated to comment on any friend’s or non-friend’s blog. I comment when I want to. Otherwise, I try to communicate with people a lot outside of a blog, like via the phone, e-mail or even chatting online on different im’s. I actually prefer to communicate more offline than online in many cases.

Do you want friendship to continue? Do you want a business or some other contact to continue doing business or remain a contact with you? Do you want a random contact to keep in touch normally? If you answered yes to any of these questions, you can think of ways to come at a solution that satisfied either you, the other person, or both of you. Whatever solution you come up with, you should feel comfortable enough to actually stick to the solution if the other person agrees to the solution also.

What do you think? Please let me know, thank you.

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I have an old friend on Skype that I sometimes call or send messages to. She always responds back quickly. So today, I decided to call her since Skype was not working. She did not answer, and I left her a message. She texted me back after about an hour, saying her Skype was not working and thus she could not talk to me. We always talk face to face when we meet, so on initial observations it may not be easy for many to realize why one cannot communicate easily on channels other than in person or through Skype, even though through Skype one usually either talks or simply types. I asked my friend if I could talk mention her situation on my site, and she laughed and told me “sure.” In this case, Skype facilitates and even allows the existence of many messages, specially for my friend.

An example of Skype crippling business communication

Earlier today, around 5 am, I get an international call from a distant friend that I also did business with long time ago. I know him for a few years, and thus once a year or so we like to keep in touch. He told me that his company support systems were down, as they depended solely on Skype and they needed any advice on how to communicate with about 50 of their big and only clients. Those clients were used to opening up Skype from anywhere and being able to reach the customer support for this company at anytime and to be connected live to an actual support person with a webcam, guaranteed. My friend knows a little bit about my background and enough about my skills, so he thought I could somehow come up with a solution that could fix their Skype-based customer support system for them.

Now that Skype was logging out not only my friend’s company but also customers repeatedly, my friend’s company could not simply say to customers “Hey, Skype is down, not our fault“, since the customers could say “Well, why did you choose Skype as your support system over which you have no control over in situations like these? We need support now. Not later, but right now, at this very instant.” The customers would be completely right in this case. So I asked my distant friend about how their support systems depended on Skype, and I told him that if I feel that the explanation will not help me come up with a problem, I will cut him off. He was really desperate for an immediate, so there was no time to lose with formalities or listening to everything.

He started explaining how their customer support systems worked, and after less than 3 minutes of him explaining things, I was really happy to know more about how Skype can actually help complex systems, but at the same time I realized knowing how Skype worked will not help me find the solution. I had to focus on alternatives immediately, that could do an even better job than Skype for the time being. I cut him off, rather abruptly, and told him I had a few solutions for him, and apologized for cutting him off. The way he told me with enthusiasm and delight that he did not mind being cut off showed me that things were really bad for him because of Skype not working. I told him of a few solutions and alternatives, and told him why one of the alternatives I think would work for him immediately, and how. After the entire thing was finished, I asked him if I could write about it on my personal site, since this is a topic that can affect all of us forever [more of it below]. He told me to wait a bit until later, and that he would call me again, at which time I could go ahead with writing about it while I also avoided mentioning any specifics, names or my exact solution [since he plans to use it from now on as the primary backup], so here is what I have on the entire topic.

Skype is a tool to help your message. Skype is not the message.

Skype is there to help you communicate in more ways. Let us read that one more time please. Skype is there to help you communicate in more ways. Skype is not the message; it is the medium. Let me repeat that again in a little bit more enhanced manner please. Skype is not the message; it is a technological tool. In order to communicate, you should at least have the message you want to convey, and you should what you want to convey through the message. If you know the message and know that you want to communicate something through the message, you can easily switch from one medium to another and from one tool to another in order to come up with alternatives to things like Skype.

Skype was known, until today, for almost never having any connection problems. The Skype platform itself is considered very robust and reliable by many, and thus even though it is a severe problem for many that is still happening at the time of this writing, this recent downtime in Skype communications will probably result in many companies and many people seeking out only alternative backups for the future, instead of seeking out complete replacements to be installed right away. Because of such issues, you should always use technology to only help you in communication, instead of define communication. Technology should rely on your message. Your message should not rely on technology. Technology should revolve around your message. Your message should not revolve around technology.

Control the message. Control the tool. Do not let the tool control you or the message.

If you know how to communicate with people, you will not depend on Skype to communicate with them. You will realize how to communicate and talk normally on mediums other than Skype when needed, so that you do not waste other people’s time and so that you do not bring conversations to a standstill, causing others to be uncomfortable and inconvenienced simply because you depend on Skype to feel comfortable when it comes to communication and simply because Skype is not working. For example, if you can communicate perfectly via Skype but do not know how to communicate via e-mail or phone or any other medium even when you are forced to, that means you have focused more on the medium and the tool, like Skype, instead of the message and the concept of communicating that message itself.

If you are used to asking people how their day was via Skype, you should know how to ask the same question via e-mail or over the phone. If you are used to sending information to people via Skype, you should know how to send the information via e-mail or via actual postal mail to people. If you are used to finding out more about people through Skype, you should know how to do the same via other mediums and tools like e-mail or other instant messengers. If you are used to providing help to others via Skype, you should know what the actual help consists of, and offer that help via other mediums and channels, including doing it in person.

Revolve the medium and technology around your message.

Revolve the medium around your message. Revolve technology around your message. Majority of the bloggers and majority of the people in the offline world revolve their message around other things so much, that if anything other than the message changes, the actual message gets affected and changes too. It is like 99% of all PowerPoint presentations at majority of the conferences, where the message revolves around PowerPoint. It is simply nonsense, and it is simply hilarious.

More and more people know how to communicate only through certain tools; they do not know how to communicate a message.

Is it a bad thing for more and more people to know how to communicate only through certain tools and to not know how to communicate a message? For me it is very bad, as it is more important for me to focus on the message and communicating that message, instead of focusing only or more on the communication tool provided. Otherwise, the message revolves around the tool, and thus the message gets limited and changes. As I said above, control the tools, instead of letting the tools control you or the message.

A great example of this? You do not send items that need shipping depending on how they will be shipped. You send whatever item you have that needs shipping. No matter what the item is, you ship it in a rugged piece of cover, whether it is an envelope or a box, so that shipping companies like UPS, DHL, Fed-Ex or USPS can deliver them via a truck, a train, a plane, in person or even on a boat. That is how much importance you should give to the message when it comes to realizing how much focus, compared to the message, you should put on the medium and the tool. The medium and the tool need a lot of focus, but that focus should be less than the original focus that you put on your message and the way you want the message presented or communicated.

What happened to my personal friend and my business friend?

As for my personal friend, Stephanie, if you are reading this, feel free to call me anytime, as doing a voice chat over Skype once a month can be the same as having a conversation over the phone.

As for my distant friend with the business issue, he called me again about an hours ago and told me that he is happy with the solution I offered and that it is helping keep all the customers around, even though Skype is still having issues. He said my alternate solution has literally saved him thousands of dollars per each customer, without considering the costs that the company might have experienced had any customer left the company in the last 12 hours or so. I told him “You better be happy, since it works and I didn’t charge you for it. ” Well, he is so happy, he offered to pay for my entire trip and accommodation if I ever decide to visit him and his company to see if I would want to work there in the future.

Those are some points of one of my small thoughts of the second. Thank you for reading about what happened in an hour or less of my life today. I really appreciate it.

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Since I have divided a single concept of being narrow-minded and selfish into specific points, I think there are a few things to keep in mind while reading this list. First, I am assuming we know what friendship means and what a friend is, and that we also know how to identify friends and how to identify people who are not friends but who love the idea of calling everyone a friend. Second, identifying such traits as below does not mean that your friend are definitely narrow-minded or selfish. Also, many times friends may simply be acting in certain manners because no one has told or showed them otherwise, and thus you telling them about it somehow can help. You may also be misinterpreting things due to some complex nature of your friendship. Your friend may simply be acting selfish or narrow-minded in one or only a few instances related to something because of some reason, and you may mistakenly assume that your friend is completely narrow-minded or selfish. Therefore, we are talking about friends who keep exhibiting the traits below over and over again, and not just once and never again.

Also, by selfish, I mean the real evil selfishness where a selfish friend may indirectly harm another innocent friend simply to gain something for their own selfish interest, no matter how big or small such harm may be. Other than that, I am the type of human being who considers everyone to have a lot of selfish things, as I have been pointing out for years on my site. For example, I wrote this article with the selfish purpose of expressing myself and for wanting to get heard by at least one [any] individual out there. Sure, such a thing cannot be considered selfish by many people, and many people may say I am too caring of others. I agree, and while such a trait can be extremely bad and dangerous to my own self, I have a principle of wanting to applying both random and non-random principles to things, as it allows me to realize when an act is bad and when it is not, among many other things. Similarly, I focus a lot on real selfish things in other people, selfish things that tend to hurt others on purpose.

All of the following signs are some of the signs from my countless experiences with different kind of friends.

5 signs of narrow-minded, selfish friends

1. Friends who come close only when they are depressed

   This type of friend comes close only when they are depressed. This also means that they do not interact with you even if you want to ask for some guidance or help. For such friends, your good qualities that they can use in order to become happy or happier or distracted, tend to be the only friendly aspect they wish to see in you.

   Whether or not such friends realize their behavior, you can get used because of their narrow-mindedness. There is nothing wrong with being down and needing help, whether emotionally, mentally or physically. However, there is something seriously wrong with making sure that friends are only needed when you are depressed, and not appreciated on purpose when you are not depressed.

2. Friends who come close only when you agree with them

   This type of friends wants everyone to agree with them. There cannot be disagreements or ignoring any topic, and if you disagree, you will be treated differently.

   Handling such friends can be tricky, since handling friends overall is tricky enough by itself. How do you convince someone to still respect you and still act 100% when you disagree about something with them? Whether it is something related to business or a personal opinion about a personal issue, these friends wants everyone to agree with them. They will not show such a behavior easily, and anytime they accept disagreements or different options, they will brag about such a behavior. However, when they cannot control themselves anymore, they will hate you and not respect your friendship simply because you disagree about anything that they support, or vice versa.

3. Friends who go away when you try to pinpoint issues

   This type of friends cannot hear any form of issues or problems with anything, even if such issues and problems may be affecting the friendship. Many of such friends love pointing issues themselves, but if you point them, they act weird.

   Many times, two friends can be completely different. That is why if one is acting in a manner that is affect the other one negatively, it is better to bring up the issue somehow in order to address it. However, your friend might simply act distant or unresponsive if you bring up the issue even in the most respectful and light manner. If you try to bring an issue, they will become defensive or try to act rude by not focusing on the friendship aspect of things.

4. Friends who act stubborn and righteous all the time

   These types of friend want to be right all the time. They are also opposed to realizing that some problem may be because of their own actions or thoughts. Many of such friends also love to point issues with others all the time, similar to the #4 type of friends above, while not accepting the fact that maybe they themselves may not be right about something.

   Such supposed friends act immature many times by not actually acting like monkeys, but through their changed behavior regarding many things. This can be mainly because of being spoiled in many ways, and they do not realize it. They had rather tell others all the time what is wrong with others instead of realizing any problem in their own self.

5. Friends who hate some things about you unethically and let that hate affect their interaction with you

   This can be one of the most complicated types of friends. You may have a friend who hates something about you unethically, like your race, background, your way of doing things, and because of that hate, such people will let the friendship be affected all the time, or whenever such friends feel moody.

   How do we know when a friend discriminates? How do we know when a friend has racist bias against you? How do we know when a friend hates you for something like your background, your name, your gender, your sex, your job, or something else? Such questions can bother your mind when it comes to realizing why a friend is acting in a certain manner. Such questions plague me regularly when it comes to some friends I know.

There you have it. The above are 5 signs of selfish or narrow-minded friends that can affect you negatively directly and indirectly through the friendship.

What is one of the main reasons for all of this? Not being considerate.

Majority of such issues as above happen because of one thing: not being considerate of others. Many friends can have their own logic, but they will not be considerate of others. Such people may not realize that, or they may hide such a trait under different unrelated ideas in order to not look bad, like “being strong“, or “not caring about opposition“, or “not being affected by things easily” or something similar. All such things do exist, but not in the world of inconsiderate people; inconsiderate people simply use such words to hide their inconsiderate and selfish nature.

Many people are simply inconsiderate of others. The more you are considerate of others, the more you realize how someone else may be taking advantage of you since you can easily realize the situations when being considerate of others can happen only when someone else is unfairly wanting everything and not being considerate of you on purpose.

I say “on purpose” above since many times a friend might be inconsiderate of you unconsciously, in which case you can bring up such a situation somehow in order to make sure your friendship is not affected by your friend’s behavior.

A live example of being considerate in your own life?

An example in point for everything? In the entire article above, I talked about other selfish and arrow-minded friends. I did not classify you as being one of them, and I did not classify myself as one of them either. It is one of the many writing styles to talk about others as examples. However, did you ever think “I wonder about the times when Bes may be wrong or inconsiderate of others.” Did you notice me pointing the finger only at others without pointing it at you or myself? Realizing such things can help a lot in finding out different things about ourselves, before we start finding those same things in others. My reason for not pointing fingers at you as an example or myself is to talk about things that I have experience with and people I really know. Also, hopefully the above points are something that are not present in me, as I can easily identify them in many people.

Most of the offline people I know say that I am the most considerate person they have ever met. Am I considerate of everything and everyone? No. However, as I live life everyday, I learn more about more things as time passes, and about more people as I interact with more and more people to make sure I am considerate about as many things as possible. That is one of my qualities: I can be considerate of others even if I have to make myself uncomfortable. That is simply my character, and of course in many cases it is not a limitless trait that never stops for any reason.

The topic of consideration warrants so much coverage or importance in my view, that I hope I can write at least one book on the subject, or something related, within the next three years. I think this article should be enough to serve as a brief summary of the introduction of what the concept of being considerate can do to friendships on a general, broad level.

How do you ignore such problems and focus on friendship?

You cannot. You can never ignore such problems if they keep coming back and if you want a good friend, or else your friendship will be more like a stereotypical business deal where two parties are so desperate for money [or something physical or mental in the friendship] that everything else like happiness or real respect and real appreciation will be forgotten. The friendships, where problems are ignored, turn into friendships that have nothing friendly about them.

As for me, I have the “nasty habit“, as some people say, of valuing friendships a lot and on working a lot on solving issues. There is a cut off point, though, where a friendship is more dangerous than anything, and where the permanent danger cannot be avoided unless one forgoes the friendship. That can be an article for another day.

Thank you for reading, and thank you for hopefully being considerate of my bragging of both of my good and bad points related to my concept and value of relationships and friendships, which I did on purpose to help clarify further the things I am trying to show about friendships.

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1. Directions

   Driving around with furniture and going to at least 4 cities everyday, in the middle of a move, can prove to cause headaches sometimes. That is why using the cell phone, I saved a lot of time finding out directions or shortcuts to different places. The cell phone allows me to either access Google Maps, or call a 1-800 number to find out directions. For reasons I will explain in the near future, I was forced to put some of the furniture on top of my car at the last minute in order to move it to the new house. While driving, the furniture fell down once. I decided to find some local roads instead of taking the freeway. Google Maps showed me a local route to my destination. It took longer, but the furniture did not fall again from the top of my car.

2. Finding out specific answers to specific questions

   Using the cell phone, I could call someone and find out some information, or I could even text some people. I had a very important presentation a few days ago, and I had forgotten some key information. I was driving, so checking the internet via my cell phone was not possible as I did not have enough time. What was the solution? I decided to either quickly e-mail someone or text someone. Some people I knew in other countries were sleeping like babies, so I decided to ask Valerie if she could help me . She helped me, by texting me back with all the information I needed. In this case, the cell phone is sometimes only good when you know someone reliable who can help you find some very important information. Thanks Valerie!

3. Contacting people

   This can be considered the most basic purpose of a cell phone. While doing a lot of important things, none of which can easily be given priority over something else, contacting people for various things by placing a simple phone call can help tremendously. I called a few people to confirm appointments, and I called a few people to let them know I would be a few minutes late. I also talked to different people about different important things, in other countries also, about topics ranging from business tasks to personal things.

4. Checking e-mail

   E-mail is unfortunately a big part of my life. The reason I say “unfortunately” is because I do not like relying on any piece of technology, unless it helps and cannot backfire. I get many e-mails everyday, and thus checking those e-mails via my cell phone while on the go is very important to me. I was selling some furniture, and I got an e-mail from a buyer willing to pay the price I wanted. I contacted them through my cell phone e-mail, and I sold the furniture.

5. View missed calls

   If your cell phone allows you to view missed calls, this can be one of the most important features available. I get a lot of phone calls regularly, from friends, strangers, business contacts who are either friends or just business contacts, and even new random people who call for life-threatening help for various reasons [one of my supposed-specialties]. While driving around and moving stuff, I missed a lot of calls, and I was able to call back some people. Of course, I was not able to call back any blocked calls or calls from restricted numbers.

The 5 examples above illustrate how my cell phone helped me tremendously during the last few days. By helping me find directions to finding information to interacting with others to checking e-mails to finding out who tried to contact me, my cell phone helped me save a lot of time and helped me do a lot of things faster.

Please let me know if you have any questions or comments about this. Thank you.

Below is the original post I had written, on July 31st, 12:02 am PST.

Title: No post today, tuesday - Moving houses - July 31st, 2007

Hello. It is that time of the year again, where I have to do it again. No, I don’t mean getting stabbed again. I am moving houses and changing cities. I will most probably not be able to access a computer with an internet connection today [Tuesday], so I apologize in advance. I will update this very post on Wednesday, hopefully, with some more useful information, like a good article. Once the new article goes live, this very message will either be buried or will get deleted.

I will reply to all comments and e-mails by this Thursday evening. If you wish to get a hold of me, simply contact me by e-mailing or im’ing me on my cell phone through e-mail or AOL AIM instant messaging.

Thank you for supporting me so far. I really appreciate it.

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1. You own an iPod, or something similar.

   Think of the iPod as a luxury. Majority of the world cannot afford to buy food once a day, yet you have an iPod. You could have gotten the iPod as a gift from someone, or you could have bought it yourself. Now, how does this make sure that you are not poor? If you ask someone to lend you $100, while your iPod can be sold for $70, it means you want someone else to be inconvenienced by them giving you their money, while you do not want to give up listening to your iPod. Similarly, if you have something along the same lines, like a new laptop, and cannot part with it, you may not be poor. You can easily sell a laptop and get some money for it.

   Exceptions: Your job may depend on the laptop, or in some very rare cases, the iPod. Someone close to you may have given you the iPod and thus you cannot sell it, or else they will be greatly offended. Your iPod may probably be so old that you can only get $5 from it while you do not have money to pay the rent, which costs a couple of thousand dollars, etc. Of course, I can also say that if you can get $5 from your iPod, it means you are doing your best to make sure you utilize every resource possible before feeling that you are helpless and poor.

2. You can afford to buy a home or pay rent

   Home is another important factor that people and society have worked together to create. If you can afford to buy a home or pay rent for your current place of living, you are most probably not poor. Some ways to save money could be to cut off on living expenses: using less electricity, finding a cheaper place, selling off the home, renting a room to someone, etc.

   Exceptions: Even if you find a cheaper place, you may still not have the money you need. You may also already have the cheapest place anyone could get, unless you had a gun to force the landlord into lowering your rent. However, a gun usually costs money, so a really poor person may not be able to afford that. Unless, however, you use a knife to get a gun, but a knife costs too. Unless you use…..ok, never mind.

3. You can buy large combo meals from fast food places every day

   Food prices are a good way to measure the performance of an economy, and food is also a good way to measure the strength of your bank account, if you have one. If you can buy at least 2 large combo meals at McDonald’s or Carls. Jr.s every day, you are probably not poor. Why? You can buy cheaper stuff at grocery stores and cook things yourself for weeks, saving more than half the money you spend in a month on fast food.

   Exceptions: You don’t know how to cook, you do not have a kitchen, you get gift cards or coupons for the fast food purchase, etc.

4. You can buy the things you want

   The things you need are usually different than the things you want. Wanting to eat food daily is something you need. Wanting to buy coffee and chocolate everyday, in addition to other kinds of food, can be something you want. If you can afford to buy things that can be avoided on a regular basis, chances are you are not poor. Paying for a blog, host, design and extra features for your site just for a hobby also means that you are probably not poor since you can afford such a thing.

   I knew this guy once who would drink coffee 3 times a day, finish a pack of premium cigarettes every day, buy food supplies and also eat at fast food places multiple times a day. On top of that, he would ask from time to time to lend him something so he could pay his rent. I calculated his expenses with him and in front of him, and figured that he was spending around $250 for the things I just listed above. How much did he want me to lend him? Around $100 or so. I told him about this, and he stopped being friendly after that.

   Exceptions: You are addicted to smoking. By addicted, I do not mean that if you do not smoke you feel weird. No, feeling weird for not smoking is an excuse for people who want a lame excuse to keep spending money. By addicted, I mean if you stop smoking or drinking you feel extreme depression, or you get seizures and have to go to the hospital, etc. Also, without things like coffee, you may actually get literal headaches throughout the day resulting in you getting admitted to the hospital. Also, things like blog may maintain your sanity by allowing you to express yourself, and without that, you would be poor and insane, though some can say that such a reason is simply an excuse to spend on your blog while you do not have enough money for offline things.

   Another important exception to this rule is if you are Bes: Bes needs and wants chocolate every single day; no exception to this rule. Period. Bes used to give packs of chocolate to homeless people before someone threw it back at Bes and yelled “I want some change! What the HELL am I gonna do with that?” Bes apologized and moved on, and ever since, Bes has been thinking of never giving away any chocolate, but keeping it in the fridge to devour while writing posts at night.

5. You can buy things for others

   If you can buy things for others, you are most probably the opposite of poor. You may be rich. There is nothing wrong with buying a $500 watch for your boy/girlfriend, but there is something wrong with buying a $500 watch to impress someone and asking someone else to lend you $200 for your car payment at the same time.

   Exceptions: You feel your job or some relationship depends on you buying something for others so much, that you do not even have enough money for some personal things, like your own rent, enough food, etc. Sure, such an exception means you do not know how to have a good relationship and are in touch with the wrong people, but it also means that you may be poor and cannot help it. Another exception may be that you are raising a child or someone, and you want that child or anyone depending on your financially to be really happy, and thus you are sacrificing your own financial happiness.

I hope this list helps you realize whether or not you are really poor. Also, if you want to borrow money from someone, you may think twice before asking someone to part with their money, while you do not part with yours.

Can you think of more things to add to this list?

A good next topic could be “5 situations in which you wish you were poor.” Thanks for reading.

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Being inconsiderate offline

Almost every week I talk to some friends who tell me about how they ran into some people who had no manners because they did not respect the culture, religion, political view or something else that my friend believed in. However, people usually do not talk about their own character not having any rules or views on how one should be accommodating of other views. For example, if a certain culture dictates how someone should eat, it can be very hard to find any rule or cultural characteristic that dictates how one can let someone eat anyway they want, if they did not subscribe to certain cultural trends.

If a culture, religion, or any other guideline view about something in life about is not accommodating of people who want to do things their own way while not hurting others, why can we ourselves not be more considerate to and of others and still follow our culture and our rules? If our culture or religion does not consider other conflicting views, does that mean our culture and religion is not good? Why can people not be all right with others doing the same thing in different ways? Does everyone have to have the same religion? Does everyone have to have the same culture? Does everyone need to have the same political view? Does everyone need to do everything in the same exact manner? As long as someone is doing something and not hurting others directly and intentionally, why can we not be happy with them, coexist with them, and even incorporate them and their views into our own lives?

Being inconsiderate online

I run into many blogs daily where people get upset over someone having differing view about something then them. A blogger may get upset and feel offended if someone else talks about contradictory views on religion, politics, or even blogging. However, should we not have the quality of being considerate to other views? Why can our own online views, such as blogging rules, dictate something like “We will treat and deal with the people who have the exact same views as us, in exactly the same manner as the people who have different views“?

Why is it that I cannot write something, like saying that blogging is just a stupid fad, without getting people to attack me without any reason? Being inconsiderate does not mean that you do not disagree with others. Being inconsiderate means that you cannot live normally while knowing that people have different views. The only reason we may be upset at others online, and thus be inconsiderate to them, is because those other people are going after ideas that we ourselves have either not thought of, or we have decided not to utilize them. We do not disrespect and disagree with others people because we believe we are right; we disrespect and disagree with others because they have a different view and because they do not subscribe to our views.

This mentality creates a little dilemma, if one believes in the concept of applying a theory to different things; does everyone then, when following the concept of being considerate to others, need to follow the same standards online? Why can we not have more blogs without any RSS feeds? Why can we not have nonstandard, and strange, labeling around a site, like the word “Backroad” instead of “Archives“? Why can we not have more blogs without the comment feature? One of the grand questions of all: if we want to be considerate to others, why can we not be comfortable with blogs that deliberately aim to be inconsiderate?

Do you think the concept of being considerate to others has any value for you?

What is your view on this? Do we have to criticize or hate every instance of something that we disagree with? Could that be the reason why many married and dating couples look like brothers and sisters, because many people want to find someone who not only acts like them but also looks like them? Can human beings, as a whole, ever have a mentality where they not only respect different views and people, but they also make it a part of their own character to revolve their own views and character on such a thing? We we, as individuals, easily have a mentality where we are not only considerate to others, but where we also revolve our own ideas and beliefs around the idea of letting other ideas and beliefs prosper within our own life domain?

I am touching the introduction of this touchy subject very lightly, as this subject probably defines the lives of many people out there, and deserves more than just a single post that was written while Bes was hungry. Do you agree or disagree with this?

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1. Stop learning new things: One of the reasons your blogging skills may be getting outdated can be because of your reluctance to learn new online programming languages, or new ways to do different blog things, like creating new blog themes or creating new kinds of blog content. You may be compensating for such a deficiency by experimenting a lot with what you already know.
2. Have outside factors control your skills: If you allow outside tools to do specific things on your blog, you are depending on those tools. While it is good to use external tools like MyBlogLog or plugins for your site, it is even better to know how such services work in order to come up with your own alternative or replacement if you ever wish to stop using such external tools which are not under your direct control. Otherwise, just because you know how to use an external blogging service does not mean you know how to provide to your own blog, on your own, the same functionality as that external blogging service.
3. Blog about the same thing repeatedly: There is no doubt that you can blog about topics like “Catchy Headlines“, but if you write 20 posts on the same topic even from different perspectives, you should either have a blog that focuses solely on headlines or you should have a plan that incorporates those 20 posts into a larger picture. Otherwise, blogging about the same thing repeatedly may signify that you do not know what to blog about, and are probably not looking into different areas of your life or the offline world in order to come up with fresh topics or different messages to express.
4. Blog about the same things as everyone else: If you are like many news reporting sites or blogs, you probably blog about things that everyone else is blogging about, in almost the same manner too. There is nothing wrong with blogging about something that everyone is also talking about. However, such a behavior from your side shows that your blogging skills are outdated because they depend on the blogging skills of other people. You apparently cannot come up with your own content, and you probably do not even know how to present commonly discussed topics in your own words.
5. Avoid the latest blogging tools: Even though I mentioned in the first point above that knowing how external tools work can be a good idea, you may have noticed that I did not say in that point that using external tools was a bad thing. External tools can be more than good. Use external tools if they allow you to do necessary tasks more efficiently and with better results than otherwise possible. Similarly, trying to do complex things manually, when you can instead use software like WordPress, results in your attention being diverted unnecessarily, and inefficiently, to things that can be done quickly and more efficiently through tools already developed and available for use by others. The more time you focus on different things on your blog, the less time you focus on actually coming up with great ways to convey your thoughts on your blog.

The above 5 are some of the many reasons that can result in your blogging skills to become outdated. You may simply be doing or avoiding one of these things, but along the way, you may be neglecting something more important because of paying attention to something of lesser value. As a result, your blogging skills may not be up to date on many levels. That puts you at a risk of not being taken seriously by employers looking for specific skills, or even your readers who realize that a lot of the things you do are not beneficial in the long term, for both you and your readers.

What is your opinion on this? Is there any point you disagree with, or have an example for? Can you think of other points that signify that you are slowly starting to lose control of your blogging skills and may be falling behind?

Thank you for reading.

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Controlling stress does not mean we have no stress

Controlling a situation can be an interesting thing, though controlling a stressful situation does not mean a person is able to handle the situation. A person could be able to negotiate their way out of an argument, but they may be feeling alienated from the person they argued with. A person may be able to clear a misunderstanding, but that person may also end up severing their relationship with someone else in the long run. A person may even be able to fix critical problems on their blog and avoid any damage, though they may end up acting rude for a long time to online people, or even acting different in the offline world.

We may be transferring online stress to the other parts of life

Whatever change that results in a person after or during a stressful situation, it can be because of the stressful situation. We may be inclined to think that we become moody because our friend calls us too much while we blog, though in reality we may be becoming moody anytime we blog. We may not be realizing that we are shifting our stress onto different things instead of actually working on reducing the stress itself. We may think blogging is not stressing us, but we may be feeling stress from lack of sleep, lack of enough food, lack of having friends, lack of exercising, lack of relaxing time, or almost anything else in the offline world. In reality, those other forms of stress may have been born because of our initial and real stress that may be stemming because of blogging, or any other online activity or situation.

Online stress and offline stress both have one thing in common: Stress

So far, I am noticing that people are treating online stress completely different than offline stress. I think there are differences between online stress and offline stress, the same way there are differences between different kinds of offline stress. However, one thing that many bloggers are forgetting is that both online and offline stress result in us being stressed. The critical element to consider is not that we experience and want to handle online stress, but that we are handling stress. Once we realize that, we can focus on the online nature of some stress in order to come up with a good way to try to reduce or eliminate the stress.

What do you think? Do you handle online stress the same way you handle offline stress? Do you think that handling online stress sometimes does not work as we may start stressing in the offline world, as a result of online stress? Do you think I am on the right track to tackling this issue?

Thanks for reading.

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1. Getting into arguments with other bloggers

   Arguments in the offline world can result in married couples and best friends hating each other forever, so it is no surprise that even the smallest of online arguments can result in powerful grudges. Just like any argument, just because you argue logically or think you are right does not mean you will be appreciated for voicing your opinion. An argument itself should be avoided, since forcing someone to agree with you contradicts the idea of making someone believe in something voluntarily. Also, bloggers should try to disagree with arguments, not with people who argue.

   If you argue online for business reasons, it is better to end the argument as soon as possible and to move on, since continuous arguments about something mean that either the issue should be ignored or the business deal should be reconsidered. Getting into an argument with someone, where the blogosphere sides with your “opponent“, can result in you and your blog being sent to the blog hell, resulting in you getting less attention, fewer blog comments, and even fewer ways to find inspiration to build back your affected reputation. Sometimes, it is very hard to improve a damaged reputation because of the way the online world looks at how or why you argue in arguments.

2. Punished by search engines

   Search engine optimization [SEO] is something that many bloggers, if not most, focus on. If you pay close attention to many prominent blogs and their bloggers, you will realize that they usually focus more on SEO than their readers or even their content. While such a thing may seem evil, consider this: if a blogger upsets one reader, that blogger can rebuild that relationship, or replace it with another relationship with some other reader; it happens regularly, even if that sounds evil too. However, if you upset a search engine like Google or Yahoo, you may end up losing most readers forever since it is hard to rebuild good relationships with search engines.

   Some blogs get more than 90% of their readers and commentors through search engines, because many people find those blog through their search engine searches. If a search engine bans or punishes your for any reason, you may be in a blog hell because you will have to start depending on other sources to bring in more people to your blog. Imagine having a bookstore on a street where the only way you find new customers is through newspaper ads. Now imagine all newspapers not placing your ads anymore for some reason. You will probably worry that you might run out of business. That is how your blog can be if you upset search engines for various reasons.

3. Being criticized by a famous blogger

   For many bloggers, there is nothing more shocking than having a very famous blogger criticize them in public. If you are a blogger who is suffering the wrath of some prominent blogger’s anger, you may have said or done something on your blog that the other blogger may not like saying or doing themselves. Take the issue of MyBlogLog banning Jeremy Schoemaker, aka ShoeMoney, because he posted MyBlogLog security exploits in public. Arguing about something or having issues does create tensions, though when the entire blogosphere joins in, reputations can go either up or down really fast. Overall, MyBlogLog was criticized more heavily than Jeremy, and one of the reasons for that was because the criticism was started publicly by Jeremy first. One way for you to avoid such a scenario is to avoid telling someone that they are wrong.

   If you get criticized by a famous blogger, you may feel the blog world crashing on you. Your reputation may be on the line, and you may feel the need to either accept all blame and apologize, or to go out fighting like an action hero or heroine. The way MyBlogLog tried to correct the situation was by Eric from MyBlogLog posting an apology to ShowMoney online, and by explaining briefly how his action was justified, and how he could have done some things differently. Sometimes, accepting a criticism after fighting it for a while can be a good thing also, if you feel that not giving up on something may be hurting other more important goals in the long run. If you are worried about a small criticizing comment left by someone, you may want to refer to the Art of Reacting to Criticizing Comments for further guidance.

4. Technical issues resulting in loss of the site or readers

   This is something that allows many people to regularly visit the blog hell for a few hours or even for a few days. Such technical issues can range from your domain name expiring to you accidentally deleting all your older posts and comments on your blog without having a backup. Sometimes, your host could also simply go down for even a few days, resulting in many frustrated readers and commentors of your blog to never come back.

   Technical issues can also result from sites getting hacked due to exploits in software like Wordpress. Whatever the reason, your site may be down and your blog readers may not be able to access or comment on your blog. It can be a nightmare for you, and the time you spend trying to worry or fix the problem is actually the time you are in a blog hell. You just feel the heat more mentally than physically, unless you have the heater on.

5. Losing interest in your own blog

   This is the point that allows most bloggers to be in denial that they are not in a blog hell. Many blogs that you see today will have their owners losing interest in blogging within a year. After a long time of staying away from blogs or even posting random stuff just to fulfill the obligation of blogging, they will start gaining interest in blogging again. Many other priorities in life result in many bloggers focusing less and less on blogging, and many bloggers could simply be having writer’s block for a long time, resulting in loss of interest in blogging or even writing. By the time a used-to-be-a-blogger wants to reclaim the blogging fame that he or she once had, it may be a hundred times harder to regain the same success as before.

   It depends on each blogger whether they feel they are in a blog hell when they are losing interest in blogging, or if they feel like being in a blog hell when they try to bring their blog back up to its former glory and it just is not happening easily. Either way, the offline world plays a major role in deciding our interest in the online world, since even if we blog all day, we still sleep and eat in the offline world, thus giving some kind of an unconscious preference to the importance of the offline world compared to the online world.

That is my list of 5 of the many things that result in many bloggers getting a train ticket to Blog Hell. Some people are lucky and get a round trip ticket, though many people are not so lucky and get only a one way, first class train ticket to Blog Hell where it is hard to bring the blog out of some specific misery.

What is your opinion on this? Please let me know if you can think up of other things that result in people experiencing the scorching fires of the Blog Hell. Thank you for reading.

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We live in a prototype world where things are supposed to be clear but they are not. If we saw problems and did not do anything, we would have no innovation. Even innovations achieved only to make money are because of some entity being frustrated with not making enough money. Besides money, things are supposed to be easy to understand but they are not.

It is easy to make money through someone else’s efforts. It is hard to make an effort yourself.

It is easy to keep saying things are perfect and make money using someone else’s efforts, but the main people who make a difference see a problem somewhere; that is why they try to fix things and improve things in the first place. It pleases me that one can learn and figure out on their own how to fix and understand things, though it frustrates me how people jump into things for selfish reasons and manipulate others for their own gains.

Among the countless other things related to frustrations:

• Frustration with how things are broken because of narrow mindedness. Focusing on a single transaction or earning money quickly is a sign of narrow mindedness.
• Frustration with how complex problems have simple solutions, yet many people focus on complicating things further. Many people simply want to show off instead of wanting to fix problems. That showing off probably results in short term popularity or even income, but in the long run, it makes those people appear stupid and selfish for the rest of history.
• Frustration with how people make money by claiming to promote the concept of ethical value or appreciation, yet in reality you can see in their offline lives and also on their blogs how they do not appreciate anyone, and how their ethical values are limited only to the concept of making more money, not even for their companies but for themselves.
• Frustration with how many bloggers do not understand that manipulating their users is not something that can be hidden forever. Slowly, one can see through what is written in blog posts and realize that such bloggers only want to aim for retirement, and have no interest in people, customers or even the company they work for. Such people try to make money from everyone as they do not know how to co-exist with others. These people only find fault with others and never in their own selves. Such people cannot be easily hired by companies as they do not know how to have goals or ambitions. Sitting by a swimming pool drinking a drink that costs two dollars is not an ambition.

Those are some of my inspirations, from within one of the main inspiration sources (frustration) to actually do something useful to fix things, and to also blog. Those are some of the sources that prompt me to do things to create things myself and to help others fix things they created. That also allows me to help others create things, and to let others help me fix and create things also.

What about you? What are your sources of inspiration?

As time passes, I might list more sources of inspiration.

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Following are 5 things that I think MyBlogLog, or Yahoo, need to improve or work on in the long run. Just because a business model exists does not mean it will work. It has to be fixed and improved constantly. It is more important to fix current bugs that affect users or the overall service instead of introducing new fancy features.

5 things MyBlogLog needs to improve

1. MyBlogLog only tracks other MyBlogLog users

   MyBlogLog lets you discover people who visit your site only if they are also MyBlogLog users. Otherwise, you get even fewer stats than your regular stats program.

   “MyBlogLog was designed to track only registered MyBlogLog users“, you say? Then why is everyone running around, including MyBlogLog admins, claiming that anyone who visits your site can be tracked? The original promise of the program was to discover who visited your site, and not which MyBlogLog members visit your site.

   This bad point about MyBlogLog is also its strongest selling point: if a user is registered, it allows a site owner to find out exactly who was visiting a site including their name and site url.

2. I visit your site only if I see you on my MyBlogLog widget

   Many bloggers have stopped visiting other sites unless they see someone in their MyBlogLog widget. That means these bloggers are only visiting the sites of those MyBlogLog members who visit them. That also means these bloggers do not visit, or rarely visit, the sites of their commentors or people who are not MyBlogLog users.

   MyBlogLog is supposed to let you find out who visits you. It is not supposed to let you prefer MyBlogLog users over non-MyBlogLog users. MyBlogLog needs to promote a mentality through the MyBlogLog blog that will allow people to realize that they should not avoid visiting sites that do not appear in their MyBlogLog stats.

3. Using MyBlogLog makes you depend on MyBlogLog servers for your site to load

   The MyBlogLog code loads a lot of things from the MyBlogLog servers. That means if the MyBlogLog servers go down, your site will load slow or keep loading. That has happened to me a lot, where my site has taken up to a minute to load simply because some image from the MyBlogLog server was not loading.

4. MyBlogLog widget is not customizable

   When you show the MyBlogLog code or the widget on your site, one of the only things you can customize is the colors. Otherwise, you are stuck with showing the standard format of the MyBlogLog widget, including the advertisement link that points back to their site.

   Some people may say that a free service comes with a link pointing back to the service. My point here is not to argue whether or not the link back to MyBlogLog should be necessary; what I am showing you is one of the things that show how and why the MyBlogLog widget is not customizable.

5. MyBlogLog communities are spammable blogrolls in disguise

   These can be two points, though I will combine them as one. The MyBlogLog communities are supposedly places where people can interact and find out more about each other. In reality, the MyBlogLog communities are nothing more than blogrolls. MyBlogLog communities currently display only the names and links to people and sites you are associated with.

   MyBlogLog does allow you to e-mail other people, though that has resulted in spam messages, including people sending “Thank you for visiting me” emails to you everytime you visit their site or MyBlogLog profile, probably resulting in spam advertisement to be disguised in unwanted “thank you” e-mails. Such a trend is increasing, turning MyBlogLog into more of a MySpace community where many spammers spam every profile they come across just to get someone to visit a specific profile in return.

So, what is the verdict?

The verdict is that you have to figure out your own verdict. If the above things are insignificant to you and you still consider MyBlogLog to have an actual purpose, go ahead and keep hugging MyBlogLog. Personally, I am still using the MyBlogLog service as of this post, as it does one thing for me that has made me keep it on my site: it shows me new MyBlogLog members who visit my site. It does introduce new people to me, and it is easy to find out who has visited my site.

How Yahoo’s control of MyBlogLog is shaping things

One of the things, in addition to the above list, that I would love MyBlogLog to have is to allow anonymous users to register their site addresses, using relevant e-mail addresses from the same site domain, so that people are not required to register new accounts, but are allowed to enter in a url that is kept in a cookie or associated with their IP. That way, we can have more non-MyBlogLog members tracked also.

However, considering the fact that Yahoo bought MyBlogLog, we may probably see more strict registration requirements where people who do not register will continue to be left out of the MyBlogLog service. Recently Yahoo announced about improving MyBlogLog, though the above issues are not being addressed yet, according to the announcement. At least it is a good thing that Yahoo is working on improving some things about the service it acquired not too long ago.

What do you think?

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