Blogger Users Can Publish Posts Automatically to Twitter

If you are a Blogger user who publishes your blog using Feedburner, you may now publish your posts automatically to Twitter!

To do this, you must publish your blog using Feedburner and have a Twitter account.

All you need to do is to

• Go to your Feedburner account
• Select your blog by clicking on the feed title
• Press the "Publicize" Tab along the top of the page
• Click on the "Socialize" Service link on the left
• Lastly, Press the "Add a Twitter Account" Button and enter your Twitter account
• Press the "Save" button at the bottom of the page.
  

That's it! You can use the default settings displayed on the page so you don't need to bother with anything else.

I can certainly say that this eliminates the drudgery of Posting to Twitter and definitely saves a lot of time!

So what are you waiting for? Get Socialized Now!

JL ............

Why Health Care Reform is a Bunch of Bunk

Background

When my wife was pregnant several years ago, her Obstetrician suggested that she have an amniocentesis test. He told us that the best person to perform this procedure was a Doctor at a teaching hospital in Newark, NJ because was both a teacher and pioneer in this area.

So, we made an appointment and drove off to Newark. When we arrived at the hospital before 8:00 AM, the waiting room was filled with 11 other families. What struck us was that we were the only white family there. Once the clock hit 8, each of the other patients were called and led out of the room.

Finally, a nurse came to get us. As she led down the corridor to the examination room, we noticed that all the other patients were now sitting in chairs in the hallway. Once inside the room, we asked who would be performing our procedure. The nurse told us that the Doctor would perform ours, because "We were the only paying customers. The residents would perform the others under the Doctor's supervision".

Why I Remember

This is one memory that always stuck out in my mind. I think the main reason is because of the contrasts.

• Black versus White
• Paying versus Free
  

What I Learned

But, more importantly, I learned that:

• The best health care available to everyone who wants it!
  

I always applauded those parents who visited the Hospital that day with me because they cared for the future of their child. They took the time to get the best treatment available, just as we did. Although they couldn't pay for it, it didn't matter! But, for a City of such size, very few of Newark's pregnant population bothered to obtain care. Only a very small subset of the people bothered to seek care.

Now when I listen to the politicians insisting on "Reforming Our Health Care System" so that it is affordable and available to everyone, I think back to that day and know that in my heart, America already offers and provides the best available Health Care to Everyone that Wants It!

• You don't need to be able to afford Health Care, because it truly will be provided.
• It is available now, but people must seek treatment!

Thus, I think Health Care Reform is a Bunch of Bunk because it will only increase costs to everyone. Those who desire health care now will continue to get it. But those who chose not to get it now won't get it in the future either. Our politicians should understand they can change laws, but not human behavior!

My 2010 Resolution: Redo the Sidebar

During the past several months, I started to take notice of the various Social Networking widgets that I had on my blog's sidebars. I noticed that 2 were not being updated and became concerned that they were just wasting space. I contacted the site owners, and received immediate replies, confirming my suspicions.

Then, 2 days before Christmas, I learned that another large provider was considering eliminating their Social Networking Service as well.

So, I for My 2010 New Year's Resolution, I decided its:

Time to Redo the Sidebars

Below are the 3 sites that I am reviewing and watching. I've provided a bit of background and let you know what my action will be.

MyBlogLog

If you do a Google Search for this keyword, you will see an article: Yahoo to Shut Down MyBlogLog that was written on 12/23/2009. The author cites Marshall Kirkpatrick's Yahoo! Will Kill MyBlogLog Next Month. Neither of these provides much detail, my concern is that many of us participate in this network. If Yahoo! does close up MyBlogLog, we would have wasted a great deal of time. Yahoo! confirms it is reviewing the future of MyBlogLog, but says it has not made any decision yet. My Conclusion: Wait & See, but Don't Waste Much Time on It.

 SlogBite

This was launched a couple of years ago by Mel Kaye.  Many in the EC and Adgitize community became very active in the pre-launch design activities. However, after about 1 year, Mel announced that he has found another job and would simply let SlogBite flounder. Now another year later, the widgets still display, but many of the links return 404 Not Found Errors. My Conclusion: Remove Widgets.

BlogNetAwards
This is a blog that featured Blogs in various categories. Every month, it would award the Best Blog in various classes. Then, at the end of the year, it would announce the Yearly Winners. The concept was great and many participated. But, since last summer, the site has not been updated. I contacted the owner and found that they are experiencing marital problems. I tried to be patient, but realize that their devotion is to their children, and not to this site. Thus, My Conclusion: Remove Widgets.

I wish all of you a healthy and prosperous New Year and would like to hear your resolutions as well!

JL............

Merry Christmas!

Wishing you and your families the  happiest of Holidays and a Very Merry Christmas Day.

As we wind down this year and begin to think about 2010, we have decided to expand the breadth of AskTheBlogster topics from simply computer related to social, family, and educational topics.

Here is a sneak peek at a few the posts that we will be writing next year:

• Why Healthcare Reform is a bunch of bunk.
• Can children learn from watching TV? (Two posts planned)
• How to help your child become a math wiz.
• Thoughts about evolution.
  

Merry Christmas Everyone!

How to Get Rid Of and Remove System Defender

Last Friday morning, I tried to get an early jump on my daily Entrecard and Adgitize droppings. While I was visiting Adgitize sites, new browser windows popped up, alerting me to a potential virus danger. I closed the pop-up and tried to continue my droppings. But I found that many of my browser links had been redirected. Either weird pages appeared, or the System Defender's Window Advanced Security Center! I could close that window, and search, but many of my other links didn't work. Randomly, little pop-up alert windows would pop-up automatically.  If I clicked on them, the System Defender's Window Advanced Security Center would appear. A sample of the main screen is shown below.

So what is System Defender? Basically, the intention of this program's authors is to trick you into paying them to remove the badware they just placed on your system. It's a hi-tech blackmail scam. Things keep popping up, links are redirected, and your computer runs slowly.

I knew that this was a major problem and it needed to be removed. I did some searching and found a site called:

bleepingcomputer.com

While it has as strange name, I knew that it is a reputable website that offers removal software products for free (because I had used it before on someone else's machine). Also, it has complete step-by-step instructions for how to use the Malwarebyte program below. So, I won't repeat that information again.

Once you arrive on bleepingcomputer.com, scroll down to the Automated Removal Instructions and download the Free Version from their site or from cnet:

Malwarebytes' Anti-Malware

Once you download it, close all your programs, including all browser windows. Then, double-click on the Malwarebyte Icon and perform a full scan of your computer. If you have System Defender or another bad virus or more, this program will find the evil ones. (If you don't close everything, the virus will still be alive in your open programs)

Depending on your computer, the full scan can take 2-3 hours (mine took almost 2 hours). When the scan is complete, it lists the malware found on you computer. Press the Remove Selected button, and it will do its work.

After a reboot, your computer should be working properly once again! (If not, repeat the scan. Sometimes you have to do that twice)

Prevention Advice

Even if your computer is not infected with anything and you think your Anti-Virus software will protect you, I recommend that you download the Malwarebyte Anti-Malware program ahead of time. This way, if for some unknown reason your computer is infected (like I was), you'll already have the removal program on your machine, and will know what to do.

Avoid Infecting Your PC - Only Click on Sites You Know

As I woke up this morning, I had plans of completing all my blogging chores early. So, I dropped my regular Entrecards, then began going about my 100 Adgitize clicks. Then, I was going to write a long planned AskTheBlogster entry.

Just to mix things up, I decided to start the Adgitize clicking around 100 of the Leaderboard. As usual, things were going smoothly until I reached 90 clicks!

Then, browser windows & pop up screens took over my computer. I couldn't close anything, so I rebooted.

But the malware was still there! For the past 8 hours, I have been battling this vicious & unwanted enemy.

I finally got enough control of my machine to write this post, and will begin another important Viral Scan that will take hours.

I usually open 6 Agitize sites at a time & begin clicking on them. So, I don't know if the malicious site was one that was on the Leaderboard or one that has purchased a  monthly ad.

(Perhaps even, the responsible site doesn't even know its infected).

This is really a pain in the rear, and makes one wonder if the $0.20 - $1.00 earned daily is really worth the effort.

Anyway, thanks to my recent commenters, but I won't get back to you until I clean this mess up.

And, if anyone else has a problem, please share it with all of us!

JL................

Add an RSS Feed to Your Site

As our website Lottery Power Picks has grown, we've realized that it has become difficult for visitors (and us), to find the quality articles and research pages that we worked on so hard.  We realized that going forward, we will need to rewrite many of our pages to concentrate on individual lotteries. Ideally, we would pack as much information into a compact space as possible.

So with this, we thought that we need to organize and deliver topical links that could be easily updated and broadcast. We thought about writing little individual pages for this purpose.

But in the back of our mind, we wanted our information delivered as a feed. Perhaps like many, we were intimidated by the word "feed".

We did a quick search and found that an RSS feed can be easily created. Basically, you just need to create an xml file! The two best sites that describe how to do this are:

• Make RSS Feeds 
• RSS Tutorial by W3Schools
  

The content in both are basically the same and provide an easy step by step method for a novice to follow. The only tricky part is that you must have a website domain that contains your files.

The xml feed file consists of a header, channel information, an individual items. The things you typically see are the items which include a: title, link, and description.

We followed their guide and created our first xml feed file. To distribute, we used FeedBurner. Below is the RSS link to our first stand-alone feed (which you can subscribe to):

Mega Millions Research Articles

Afterwards, we added our feed to our iGoogle Home Page. Soon we will be adding more and more feeds for various lotteries and topics. Best of all, we now have an easy to use distribution and organization tool that our visitors can subscribe to.

This was so easy that we wanted to share it with all of you!

JL..............