t'InterWebs

Wednesday, 30 April 2008

Why Write a Blog??

I was reading a post on TwentySet the other day, titled "The First Step To Starting a Blog: Ask Yourself If You Actually Want One" It was such a good post, that I am going to give kudos to Monica, and share it with you here:

"A blog is good for personal branding. Sure, you can meet lots of great people or even get a job from blogging. And then there is the free stuff. But these things can only happen if you blog well, and not everyone can do that."

My blog, t'InterWebs, is about getting your own personal brand out there; I want to give you some great tips and tricks. If I find something worthwhile, I want to share it with others..

"Blogging is a ton of work and it’s yet another thing to commit to. Since you want your blog to be a success, you probably want to write regularly. You also want to learn about Web 2.0 tools, and comment on other blogs, and refine your writing skills, and improve your technology skills, and figure out how to draw traffic, and eventually meet your online friends in person."

t'InterWebs was started four weeks ago, and so far I am only doing one post on average a week. I would love to be able to write more, but I believe its important to write something worthwhile. Don't write for the sake of it.. If you must write, go and comment on other blogs that interest you.

Monica outlines ten reasons to find out if you really want to be a blogger:

You already read at least 10 blogs daily.
You are passionate about at least one subject and want to become an expert in it.
You have an opinion about everything and want to talk about it.
You read the news every day.
You are comfortable sharing details about yourself and your life.
You are okay with putting imperfect work on display.
You love to read and write in general.
You are willing to try something new, even though it has a steep learning curve.
You can tolerate harsh criticism.
You have enough ideas right now to write about one or two subjects (not including yourself) a few times a week for the next month.

Finally she ends with,

"If this doesn’t sound like you, a blog is probably not the way to go. " But that’s okay, because there are lots of other things you can do to improve your online presence. You can bulk up your LinkedIn profile, build a static website, become an active commenter, do some guest posts on your favorite blogs, join a forum, or start a podcast.

Monica has pretty much summed it up.. Thanks!

Remember a blog is about connecting to people. Be prepared to give advice to those who request it. You may have to change your writing style. don't write essays!

Sunday, 20 April 2008

FAQ to using Gmail

Why do you need email? To be someone on ye olde t'InterWebs you need a presence... to have a presence you need an email address! Every site you join will require you to register, and will send you an email to verify your identity.

Don't rely on your employers or your Internet Service Providers email. You may change jobs, or ISPs and with that you lose your email address.

Anyway, you can use any email client you want, but I would recommend that you go with GMail. Its a google product, and as such its pretty simple interface. There are two ways of getting a GMail address:

Gmail - https://www.google.com/accounts/NewAccount?service=mail
Google Apps - http://www.google.com/a/cpanel/domain/new

I would actually try and grab your Online Brand name AKA Domain Name, as your gmail address as well..

When you have an email set up, go to the Getting Started Guide over at Gmail. You will see the following tips:

My additional tip is to Keep your email box empty. Archive all your messages because the search feature always find the message you want. If you subscribe to NewsLetters, then filter them as they come in.. you could actually get them all sent straight to Archive if you don't read them, but want to search on them.

Do you have any tips for using Gmail??

More Info@

Saturday, 19 April 2008

So who is looking out for you?

Who is actually looking out for you?? No-one... therefore you need to do it yourself.

While its important to establish your brand on the T'interWebs, its vitally important to protect it. You have to remember that there are companies, and individuals out there that will be jealous of your success. You need to keep your personal brand healthy, and looked after!

Web Worker Daily had a great feature on "Do You Know Who is Viewing Your Personal Brand?" in October 2007. They had some tips on protecting your brand online. Here they are:

Set a Google alert to your name, so that each day you will receive an email with the latest blog entries attached to your name.
Concentrate your Personal Branding efforts on a select few networks, such as Facebook, LinkedIn and your blog. These tend to have the highest installed bases, so they are more worthwhile.
Communicate to some of your most trusted friends, to make sure they are watching your reputation as well.
Google your name periodically to ensure that your information is kept up-to-date and accurate.
Set complex passwords so that you’re accounts do not suffer identity theft.

All pretty basic, but you need to keep an eye out. I use google alerts every day, to watch out for my brand (with associated names like Susan / Suzzanne / Suzy / Suzie etc). This also brings back those people with similar names to yourself, with what they are doing. This leads me on to another site, that's useful to protect your brand. ClaimID

ClaimID allows you to use your blog title as your OpenID, but also,

"On your claimID page, you can create a profile of all the sites that comprise your identity. We even provide you with a simple and easy way to "claim" those pages - allowing you to easily prove ownership of things like your blog or Last.fm profile"

Link your online presence to a ClaimID page, and then link any mention to YOU there. If its not you, publish at ClaimID this is not me! Don't forget to link from your blog back to ClaimID though..

Use quotes
Search all of your name(s)
Try spelling variations
Use name association
Search for things that don't mention you explicitly
Don't forget things you've created
Remember memberships, past and present
Try lots of search engines

Lifehacker also published some guidelines in February 2008, with Manage Your Online Reputation . They mentioned keeping an eye on yourself with Technorati and BoardTracker. LH also mentions securing your brand name over at:

Flickr (photo sharing): Use your name in the title and description of the image. In Flickr, you can also add links to comments and HTML. Also, take advantage of tags!
YouTube (video sharing): The title of your video can help a lot. Popular videos are often ranked high in search results.
Digg (social news): Digg and other social news sites allow you to customize your profile with your personal information and affiliated websites. There is also room for a short bio where you can emphasize key words.
Wikipedia (collaborative encyclopedia): Wikipedia is a bit of a tricky one because you're not allowed to edit your own page or your company's page as per their guidelines. However, you can contribute to Wikipedia and use the Talk: page to engage in a discussion.
Facebook (community): In order to display your profile in the Google results, you will need to change your privacy settings.
Twitter (micro-blogging): Claim your username on Twitter (before someone else does) and fill out the short bio.

Remember nobody is looking out for you.. you have to do it yourself!

More info @

Monday, 31 March 2008

Claim your name .. using Google

As I said yesterday, "So this site is going to be about t'InterWebs and how it can help you out.. it's going to have a little reporting, some facts, some how to's and some tips and tricks"

What do you need to do to get your place on t'InterWebs? You have to Claim your name. Its important to have a recognisable and appropriate name to use, and something you can publicize to your friends, family and most importantly future business contacts.

You need an email address, a webaddress, and unfortunately it needs to be unique. Now I recommend using the market leader for all of this ... Google

Google has some excellent methods of claiming who you are, and where you belong. These are:

Gmail - Googles email system is in my opinion the best email client on the web today. Its features are highlighted at there help pages
Blogger - Googles blogging platfrom is a free, easy to use way of getting pages about you up and running very quickly. More info at Bloggers Help Page

Gmail is very popular, and as such it's very unlikely that your name is available, especially if you are after johnsmith@gmail.com .. Be creative! use a name that is something memorable to you. Try not to use Hyphens, Underscores or numbers (you will soon get fed up of explaining!).. You really do NOT want to have any nicknames, or something that may later embarrass you! An idea might be to use your geographical location?

Blogger is great way to host an easy to use webpage. Heres some basic tips. Keep it simple, Keep it relevant and up to date, and finally keep it maintained. Now when you sign up for a name, either use your name that you used for your email address or use your business name.

Now this could be managed easier using:

Google Apps for your Domain - As well as Gmail, it also enables a calendar, Docs, start page, and Sites. Its very simple to use with some great help

Now I will go into these with more detail in some later posts, but I want to talk a little more about your domain name. Have I mentioned that you need a name that is just for you? :)

Go to a domain registrar .. someone like GoDaddy .. you have different types of Top Level Domain names. Some ones you can use are:

.com - The most widely used. Normally related to a business.
.net - Used for internet operators more, but also useful for individuals.
.org - Originally intended for use by organistations that didn't fill any other criteria! Also available as .org.uk (or other country prefix)
.name - Great for an individual. See if first.last.name is available.
.info - Great for individuals or groups.
.co.uk (or other country prefix) - Great to identify your country.

When you register your name, don't register it just for one year. Do it for five or even ten years... its not the greatest expense, and if you follow the above then it will be all it costs you.

Next Step?? More on GMail.

Welcome to t'InterWebs

It's one minute past midnight on Monday 31st March 2008 and I'm creating a new site.. its called t'InterWebs

So why am I doing this? Well, I have my own personal blog "Life after Thirty.." and website over at http://www.jezarnold.com but I really only blog about my own life, and that's mostly my travels. That was created approximately three years ago, and a couple of months before I turned 30 when I went travelling around the world. Hasn't time flown!

Anyway, I didn't keep it up to date too much once I got back to UK. I found that normal life was pretty dull, compared to travelling and I didn't want to tell the world about lifes little problems that crop up everyday.

I am a keen follower of what's going on in the World Wide Web, otherwise known as t'InterWebs and how its revolutionising how people communicate with each other, how they do business and how they are changing things.. bit by byte.

So this site is going to be about t'InterWebs and how it can help you out.. it's going to have a little reporting, some facts, some how to's and some tips and tricks.

I'm going to put some advertising on this page, to make some money in keeping it going but the first few months are going to be about setting up your own site. So while this my introduction post, the next one is about what you should be doing first.

Oh, and if the scope of this blog changes going forward then... hey! So what!?! Remember, as John Lennon said, "Life is what happens to you while you're busy making other plans"

and finally.. Who am I? I'm Jez Arnold, nearly 33 and a Technical Consultant for one of the worlds biggest IT vendors. (all views expressed on this blog are mine alone)
According to my ClaimID - I'm "a thirty something Brit interested in technology, travel, smartphones and smarthomes, security and his friends.. and of course his cat Booley!"