Peoria media think Peorians don't need to know about LaHood's travel perks

What do people San Francisco; Fort Worth; Miami; Chicago; Salt Lake City; Little Rock, and Longview, Arkansas; Canton, Ohio; and even Manchester, UK have in common?

Their city's newspapers carried this article: Free Trips Yield Bonuses for Lawmakers.

The article begins:

Globe-trotting members of Congress reap a valuable fringe benefit they do not disclose: frequent-flier miles from trips they take at the expense of special interests or taxpayers. It does not take long for the miles to add up for free personal travel or upgrades to first class.

"There's no question it's a definite benefit. I would call it a nice perk," said Rep. Ray LaHood, R-Ill. He uses the frequent flier miles for upgrades and personal free trips, such as travel to charity golf tournaments in Sun Valley, Idaho.

LaHood and his wife each accumulated about 13,500 miles this year from a round trip between Chicago and China financed by the Aspen Institute. LaHood was among a dozen lawmakers attending a conference on U.S.-China relations sponsored by the Washington-based think tank.

Guess what city isn't on the list of those whose daily newspapers carried that article?

Peoria.

Which is kind of odd, because Ray represents Peoria.

I did a search of Google News and saw the story ran all over the world, but not in the Journal Star. The JS had access to that article, and I know Google includes the JS in its searches. So while it's possible this story ran someplace in the JS and I missed it, I really doubt it. I expect if I am wrong, I'll be corrected. I also don't recall seeing it on any of the other Web sites run by Peoria media.

There might be an innocent explanation. Perhaps they all just happened to miss it. Perhaps these editors and news directors considered running it, but came to the conclusion that there is no particular reason why the voters of Peoria -- or even Illinois, considering that LaHood is running for governor -- have any particular need to know that the guy is personally benefiting from the lobbyists who are paying his travel expenses.

Whatever the reason, the end result is that people in St. Francisco and Little Rock know something about Peoria's congressman than do the people of Peoria.

That is appalling.

I learned about it only because Willy Nilly finally posted an article after a several-week hiatus.

Willy says that LaHood won't discuss the paid-for travel issue with the local media. Actually, he was asked, and gave incorrect answers.

Wave to the crowd

Jessica Simpson.

More eye candy

I'm limiting my eye candy posts to my Blog*Spot site, because I want to get a little but more traffic here, and I want to limit posts on MT site to more serious subjects.

Besides, I think Michelle Trachtenberg here is young enough to be my daughter. She's cute as a bug though.

Whither Audioblogger?

I've spend about an hour trying to make an audio post to my Blog*Spot site via Audioblogger, which is supposed to integrate with Blogger. When I try to post using my phone, I invariably get a message saying "log in failed." I know I am using the correct phone number and pin. Is there a problem using Audioblogger and cell phones?

And does anyone know of a free audio blogging service that integrates with Moveable Type?

Testing Blogger images

This is outstanding. I've always thought that the need for a third-party system (like "Hello!" or "Flickr") for adding pictures to blog entries was the only thing still keeping Blogger from true excellence. I got rid of blogger back before it was purchases by Google. Since then, it's been one improvement after another. Had free and integrated image hosting been in place back then, Peoria Pundit would still be a Blog*Spot blog.

My only question is how this company can continue to offer this fine service for free.

I also want to know how many of my fellow Bloggers are aware of this feature.

By the way, enjoy the pic of Jessica Simpson.

Long overdue legal guide for bloggers

I found the EFF: Legal Guide for Bloggers courtesy of Jeff Jarvis. I agree: It's long overdue. Unless you blog exclusively about your cat (and maybe even then) bloggers need to have at least a general idea of what they can and cannot say without getting into trouble.

I have a foundation in journalism, having received a bachelor's degree in the subject and some 20 years work experience in the field. And even then, I find myself having to look things up. Just last week, I needed a refresher about New York Times v. Sullivan, the case that today still sets the standard regarding libel and public figures. I cannot imagine a serious political blogger -- whether he or she is blogging about local or national politics -- being able to avoid court threats from POed people, be they public officials or not.

Of particular interest these days are blogging about political campaigns (there are those in government who want to consider political blogs a form of campaign contribution) and (coming soon) workplace issues (such as bloggers getting fired because of their blogs).

How to link to a blog more effectively

Reciprocal links are the currency of choice in the Blogosphere. Actually, Blogads and PayPal buttons are nice for providing real cash, but I digress.

Bloggers live for hits, and if you link to other bloggers they will link to you.

I appreciate each and every link to Peoria Pundit, even the ones who call me an idiot, as long as they spell my URL correctly. As a matter of fact, criticizing a blogger without a link back is considered a petulant thing to so.

The Blogosphere is set up in such a way that there's an accepted and mutually beneficial way to link. First, if you are linking to a specific post, link to that specific post. Don't just link to the main entry page. Bloggers update their sites, and the article you want them to read won't be located on the main page for very long. You want your readers to find the article when they click on the link you gave them.

So, when linking to the other site, link to that post's permalink. Somewhere at the bottom of every post (some bloggers put it at the top) there's a link that says "permalink," or is the date and time of that post. Movable Type blogs like mine also allow permalinking by clicking on the comments link. Some bloggers change these works to something different to confuse spambots. I use "your two cents."

The ability to permalink is one of the things that separates a true blog from an ordinary Web site. So do it.

But any post of yours that refers to an entry on another blog should also include that sites main entry page.

Confused, huh?

The reason is simple. Blogs are ranked in popularity by the number of hits they receive and by the number of links to them. It's considered a matter of courtesy to link to the main site so that services like the Blogosphere Ecosystem will notice, and increase the linked-to blog's ranking.

You will end up with posts that look like this one:

"I don't want Peorians to miss the Daily Herald's multi-part coverage of Gov. Blagojevich's "pay to play" ethics problems. So, I'm linking to Archpundit's excellent post that links to the individual articles."

You see what I did? I linked directly to the main site at http://www.Archpundit.com and to the article in question at http://www.Archpundit.com/archives/012260.html.

Speaking of how to help a site's ranking in the Truth Laid Bear's Blogosphere Ecosystem, every serious blogger should add his or her site. It's easy to do. Doing so guarantees that you site is counted and the sites you link to also counted.

Also, every serious blogger should have s Site Meter button. Site Meter is what the Ecosystem and virtually the entire Blogosphere uses to determine your site's popularity. Between the two of them, they serve as the Blogosphere's ratings system.

A cheap and nifty Web tool for bloggers

It's a Web tool that lets blog users resize their photos before they post them to the Web.

Look at this image:



The original, which I found via a Google Image search, was four times the size. There was no way that I could have used it on my site. It simply would have been too wide.

Normally, I would use some image editing software, like Adobe Photoshop Elements, to reduce the size to something manageable. But not all bloggers have access to this kind og software, and my goal is to make it possible for people to blog without having to spend one single dime.

Of course, I could have simply inserted a comment into the image tag to limit the width to something that wouldn't exceed my template width. But that would still have slowed down how long it takes for visitors to upload the image. The image would still contain the same number of pixels, but visitors browsers would simply resize them for viewing. Ugh.

This nifty and free Web tool allowed me to upload the too-large image, and then select how large I wanted the copy to be: 25, 50 or 75 percent of the size of the original. The 25 percent option resulted in the image that would fit. I saved this new, smaller version on my PC, then uploaded it to my free Photobucket account.

Picasa and Hello! are options that work well for Blogspot hosted blogs (since they all are owned by Google, I imagine they would be). But they require the user download software onto their PC, which often isn't an option for students or other people who are blogging from a computer not their own.

Blog Peoria is back and running

After being down for many, many weeks, I finally got it back up and running. This time I am using Movable Type.

Unfortunately, I seem to have lost all the previous posts. I might still be able to save the bunk of them. Here's hoping.

Let this be a lesson to all you young bloggers out there: Backup your files.

And for those who don't know, Blog Peoria is a group blog for Peoria-area residents.

I'm down again

This time Supass Hosting is blaming it on a nameserver:

Bill,

We are currently working
on the nameservers that your account relies on.
This should be fixed shortly.
Thank you for your patience while this is resolved.

We had temporarily resolved this matter,
and then we found the problem lies deeper within
the configuration. We apologize for this mistake,
and I assure you we are working on this matter as soon as possible to get this running.

Regards,

Pat
Regards,
Pat W.

Well, I feel so much better now. At least one of their hard drives didn't crash. At least, I hope thay backed up their drive on the name server. At least THAT is up to date as far as my account is concerned.

I've moved to Movable Type

Now, Peoria Pundit on Blog*Spot hasn't moved, but my main blog, Peoria Pundit is now running on Movable Type, the blogging software choice for serious bloggers. MT is very similar to the TypePad interface I've using for the past 25 days. It should, since both come from Six Apart.

Trying something new and liking it

Sooner or later, I am going to move my main Weblog to another host. While I'm at it, I thought I'd investigate migrating from pMachine -- about which I have no real complaints -- to Moveable Type.

To get a feel for the flavor of Moveable Type, I've been making use of the free-trial period for TypePad, a pay hosting service/system that makes use of software based on MT.

I really like it.

The features include multiple categories, integrated blogrolls, a nifty QuickPost bookmarklet that lets you add a new blogrool member or a post without opening the main "add a new post" site. It also allows for uploading images directly to the server at the time time that photo is inserted into a post.

I may end up keeping TypePad and use them as my server company.

Adapting the template to personal tastes was easy and satisfying.

In the mean time, I'll be doing my major posting to this site.

(Folks: As usual. Blogger is acting up and I can't spell check. So, I'm leaving the errors as is.)

Testing Flickr

bergman
Originally uploaded by Peoria Pundit.

I read about a new free photo blogging service like Photobucket or Hello!

It's called "Flickr."

It let folks upload up to 10 Megs of images a month, then use their interface to post the blog onto your Blogger, Moveable Type, WordPress, LiveJournal, etc. blog.

IT seems to work like Photobucket, but with a "submit to blog" interface. With Photobucket, you have to cut and past the image tag, then to directly to Blogger or to whatever service you are using.

Hello! lets users directly upload from their hard drive using software they have downloaded into their PCs, then post that image directly into a new Blogger post. The downside is that it only words with Blogger.

It's still in beta testing stage, and its worth a look.

Site down, and it's not my fault

Through no fault of my own, Peoria Pundit is out of commission. My hosting company is having server problems followign a reboot. It's been down since at least 8 a.m. this morning and it wasn't back up by the time I had to leave for work this afternoon.

I'm a little miffed, of course.

So, if any of my regular readers read this, please pass the word on your blogs, if your don't mind.

This seems to be happening far too often.

UPDATE: It's official. I have a problem.

It's been 12 hours now that Surpass Hosting has been unable to get my site back up and running. The last message on my now-massive repair ticket is that they have to completely reload backed up data onto a brand-new hard drive in the server. Funny how this damn thing escalated from a simply restart of a server. In fact, they were completely unaware of the problem until I sent them an email two effen' hours after I noticed the outage.

Here's a new rule of thumb. Start bitching the very first time you get a "timed-out" or "cannot be found" message. Don't hit the refresh button. Don't restart the computer. Start bitching. Right away.

Another lesson: You hunt for the cheapest hosting company, you get the cheapest hosting company.

%*@#!% !!!

Debbie does the blog*

It's Debbie Adlof, the very capable editor and publisher of the Community Word. She has just one post up now, and it's kind of introductory. Be sure to go over and say "hi."

Chase and Rob, you two play nice now.

* I'm not going to explain the pop culture reference behind this headline. No. I am not.

Comment your way to hits and visits

"You have to write 'em to get 'em."

That's what they told soliders ... back in the days before email and cell phones, anyway.

The same advice holds true for bloggers.

If you are being a good blogger and maintaining your own blogroll -- a list of frequently visited blogs, sometimes maintained via Blogrolling.com -- you have a ready-made way to drive hits to your site. And, have fun doing it.

You should regularly visit the blogs on your blogroll. And you need to let them know you are reading and appreciating what they have to say by leaving comments. Virtually every commenting system has a way for a visiting commentator to include the address to their Blog sites.

Many include a check box that says "remember info" so that you don't have to retype the information the next time you comment. Of course, for this feature to work, your computer has to be set to accept cookies (don't worry; most computers are set to to accept them unless told to do otherwise).

Some rules of thumb:

1. Don't write long essays. Keep it brief and to the point. If you have a lot to say, write your own post on your own blog, and imply include a link to the post about which you are writing.

2. Don't be a troll. The phrase comes from Usenet -- a form of Internet bulletin board system still in use -- and it refers to people who use fowl, degrading and insulting language, or who post about unrelated topics. Basically, you will know one when you read one.

3. Be careful with HTML. Most bloggers decide on their own whether or not they want posters to be able to use HTML. If you try to post a link, it might not show up at all. Even if a site allows HTML, that doesn't mean its appropriate to flood someone's comments section with links. If the site owner allows HTML, use it sparingly.

This is where blogging becomes a community. This is how bloggers communicate, not through email.

UPDATE: And here is a clue when leaving the address for your own blog: Use the complete URL, such as:

‹http://peoriapundit.com/weblog.php›

Do not use just the domain name, like

peoriapundit.com/weblog.php

Trust me, it won't work and it will not bring new visitors to your site.

A few words about those pesky image tags

This is a standard image. This is the IMAGE TAG you would use on your blog:

‹img src="http://peoriapundit.com/images/bloggerbash6.jpg"›

It's always in the form of a URL address, unless the image comes from the top directory of your Web host, then it could be shorter. If you are using an image hosting service like Photobucket, you will use the address they give you.

Remember, hotlinking -- the practice of using the URL of someone else's images without permission -- is considered theft of intellectual property and theft of bandwidth. No one will throw you in jail, and it is ubiquitous, but it can cause you all sorts of grief.

This is the exact same image except for one difference. Roll your mouse over the first image, than the second. Notice that the IMAGE TAG shows up on the second, and not the first. That's because I added an ALT attribute to the tag:

‹div align="center"›‹img src="http://peoriapundit.com/images/bloggerbash6.jpg" alt="http://peoriapundit.com/images/bloggerbash61.jpg" border="1"›‹/div›

It's a good idea to use these because it tells readers that the image is yours. It also is what shows up on your site if the image fails to load properly, making it easier for you to track down what is wrong. You don't have to make the title the same as the IMAGE TAG. For example:

‹div align="center"›‹img src="http://peoriapundit.com/images/bloggerbash6.jpg" alt="Peoria Blog Bash 1" border="1"›‹/div›

Also note that I centered the image with a DIV tag.


It's always a good idea to store on image on your server in the exact same size you wish the picture to appear. Sometimes, that's not possible. If that is the case, you can change how the wise appears on your site. The above picture normally would appear 400 pixels in width. I lowered it to 100 for layout purposes. It would have been much better to have simply stored a separate image on my server that was smaller. You can change a pictures' WIDTH or it's HEIGHT in this manner. NEVER CHANGE BOTH unless you know the exact proportions. Browsers will read one, and adjust the other to keep the image from distorting.

Also note that I used an ALIGN tag to flush the image to the left of the test, and that the text flows around the image. Also, notice the tiny amount of white space between the text and the image? That's there because I added a VSPACE tag. Without it, the words would be touching the picture. It looks unprofessional and ugly.

Notice, how the border has a color now? That's because I LINKED the image to a URL for a full size, original image. Click on it to see. It will open in a completely new browser window.

Why do this? Because the full size picture might be wider than the width you have reserved on your template for posts. Huge pictures take longer to load, and people who host their sites using their own domain name -- like peoriapundit.com -- are allowed to transmit only a certain amount of data on their Web pages. Large pictures send more data, and take up bandwidth. Not everyone is going to click on and view the larger picture, but a Webmaster might want to make it available anyway for those who want to see it.

Notice that I took out the ALT attribute from the IMAGE TAG. That's because the LINK TAG now includes a TITLE that shows readers where clicking the link will take them. That's more important than knowing where the image is stored. Readers want to know if they are are visiting a safe site or not.

‹a href="http://peoriapundit.com/images/bloggerbashlarge.jpg" title="http://peoriapundit.com/images/bloggerbashlarge.jpg" target="_blank"›‹img src="http://peoriapundit.com/images/bloggerbash1.jpg" align="left" vspace="6" align="left" width="100" border="1"›‹/a›

Good advice ... follow it

Someone is not following my advice about blogging about work.

Oh, well. It seems innocuous enough. But you never know, which is my point. You never know what is going to set your boss off. Or your boss' boss. Or the board of directors.

Trust me on this. I know.

Repeat after me: "I will not blog about work. I will not blog about work. I will not blog about work."

Unless, of course, it's your job to blog about work. But even then, you can get in trouble.

Understand?

Oh, and thanks for the kind words, Kevin.

Save your templates

Speaking of Alex and his vanishing templates, there is a simple solution.

Whether you use Blogger or some other tool like pMachine or Movable Type, you simply *must* save a copy of your template on your own computer.

Alex suffered a crash of his site and Blogger lost his template, forcing him to use one of their prepared versions.

Unfortunately, he wasn't using Blogrolling or some other outside linking server. That means he lost his entire blogroll as well.

New Peoria bloggers

We now have Prairie Lawyer, who says that I am to blame for inspiring this new blog.

Just three posts so far, and I can't say I find much there with which to disagree.

Seems like a fine start.

I'll be adding it to my blogrolls soon.

Also, Alex is hurling expletives at Blogger for trashing his original templates, which caused him to lose his links to other sites that were hard-written into the template's html.

Alex also has a new site.

And FINALLY, this guy showed up in my referrer logs. He's a central Illinois blogger who also has IlliniGirl and several others blogrolled. I consider the linkage a compliment.