For the uninitiated, Associated Content (AC) has this thing called “Clout.” It’s a 1-to-10 scale based on a combination of page views and number of articles published. Until now, it was just a shiny bead that people got excited about when it increased. It really didn’t give you anything. But that was then and this is now.

AC announced today, starting with the next monthly bonus payout (scheduled for 9 July 2008), content producers with a clout of 7 and higher will receive an additional bonus. The actual message from AC was light on details. They didn’t say specifically how much more or if there would be different tiers of bonuses for each clout level 7 through 10 or if it would be the same for all 7+ producers. All it said was “you’ll see a boost in your next Performance Payment.”

EDIT: Well, someone finally spelled it out. This is how the PV bonus breaks down:

Finally clout means something other than a shiny bead on the dashboard! Here’s the official AC page explaining this.

Also pinned to the announcement was some pending changes to the report AC provides for page views and payments. Which means I’ll have to change the old converter tool which lets you change the report text into a csv file for your spreadsheet.

edit/update 25 June 2008

With no announcement or warning, Associated Content started compensating their contributors for articles distributed via their web site partnership arrangements. We don’t have any official word so the following is early-observation conjecture.

Background
First, you have to know when submitting an article to AC, the author has several choices, one of which is “Distribution: Would you like to make this content eligible for distribution with approved AC partners?” This selection is only available under a couple of conditions:

1. The article must NOT be previously published.
2. If submitted as “Exclusive,” it is automatically eligible for Distribution consideration.
3. If submitted as “Non-Exclusive,” you have a choice in Distribution consideration.

Keep in mind, even non-exclusive submission are going to experience a publishing delay as a content manager must review them.

Distribution Payments
AC has been trying for a long time to figure out a decent way to compensate their contributors for articles sold to other sites. Since it is virtually impossible to track the amount of traffic these articles receive on the partner sites, it looks like AC has fallen back on a simple one-time payment for such articles. Reportedly, it is a $2.00 flat payment. At least, that is what the early returns are showing.

At this point, we don’t know if the payments may vary by partner or if AC is marching forward on some sort of traffic-based compensation from the partners. There has been no official announcement from AC about this new policy. Were all just guessing and hoping. The good news is, AC seems dedicated to finding new ways to fairly compensate their authors.

The web’s greatest enemies are word processing programs. They do violent and unpredictable things to web forms. With a little knowledge you can avoid hours of heartache and destruction.

Now don’t even start with the, “but every web site on earth needs to work with Microsoft Word.” The worldwide web standards are not controlled by Microsoft. Just because you happen to use MS Word for everything is no reason for the rest of the world to conform to your limits. Arm yourself with a little knowledge and get with the program.

KISS it
“Keep is Simple Stupid,” is the best advice you can take away from this article. Use a very basic text editor to write things you plan to paste into a web form. Articles, resumes, and feedback rants are all examples.

Why are word processor so heinous?
Programs installed on your PC have access to the PC’s operating system, font definitions and formatting options. They also use proprietary codes to work their magic. Web servers do not have these nifty attributes. They expect you to provide plain text. When your text contains codes the web form can’t decipher, horrible, nasty things happen.

If you have dodged the bullet until now, chances are you were just keeping it simple when typing in Word. Trust me it will bite you eventually.

A little HTML goes a long way
The web runs on HTML. Just learning a little bit can be a life-saver. There is absolutely no reason to not learn the basics. Having a “mental block” is not an excuse. HTML is too easy. You need only know a hand-full of tricks to simplify your life.

1. Hypertext Markup Language is all about putting tags around your text which make the browser do certain things. HTML tags are inclosed in less-than and greater-than signs. To mark the end of what you want the tag to do, you use less-than, slash, tag, greater-than. Seriously, it’s that simple. For example <b>make it bold</b> gives you make it bold.

2. Know the basic tags: b=bold, u=underline, i=italics. That will cover 90% of your formatting needs.

3. Hyperlinks are simple. HTML has a multi-tasking tag called the anchor. You use it to create many things, but the one you’ll need most is a hyperlink. The format is: <A HREF=”http://thebarefoot.wordpress.com”>My Blog</A>. This leaves the words “My Blog” for the reader to see, but if they click on them, their browser goes to the address. So the results are: My Blog. (Note: the tag is case-insensitive.).

Why should you listen to me?
I know. I know. Some say this is all too difficult to bother learning, but I promise it will save your text one day. Some say, “Word has worked so far,” but I promise it will get you eventually.

I happen to be the technical weenie for a site which process hundreds of résumés each day. About once a week, we get notice of someone whose résumé won’t transfer correctly. One hundred percent of these cases have been people who pasted word-processor documents directly into the web site which houses their résumé. If you’ve ever been perplexed by Associated Content not displaying your article correctly, just think how these poor people feel when the window to apply for the job is closing in a few hours and they have no résumé to send.

All you Word die-hards, I’ll be looking for you in the AC forums. It’s just a matter of time before you post in a panic.

Maybe I’m over thinking things again, but where the heck did the word “retired” come from? We all know it is the golden time in life when you have enough money, you can quit working, but you’re too old to do those things you’ve been wanting to do. Still, it looks odd.

I’m in my prime-producing, work years. Does that mean I’m “tired?” Well, some days, yes, but most of the time, I feel fine. Should I be looking forward to being tired again, AKA re-tired? Sounds a bit depressing. Maybe my tread has worn thin from the road of life, and I need to be retired like an old pair of whitewalls.

All our lives we are tired and when we reach our golden years, we just get tired all over again…retired. This thought makes me want to hang myself. Can’t we come up with a better word? When I’m able to stop working, I want it to at least sound fun, even if I’m too old and decrepit to do any of the fun things I have planned.

“Golden years” is a decent euphemism, but we need one word, something short and sweet, to jazz up retirement (dang, there it is again). How about “recess?” Remember recess? What a bright spot in any grade-schooler’s day. How great would it be to turn 65 and get to have recess again, like you were eight years old.

Instead of a cruise, we could play kickball. Instead of buying an RV, we could drag out our old Tonka trucks and Matchbox cars, and play in the dirt. When I’m 65, I want to have recess. I don’t want to be retired.

Any thoughts? What word would you use to replace “retired?”

Could you use $5000?

That’s what AC is offering. One day and one day only, June 3^rd, AC will be holding the ultimate Call 4 Content. Once the topic is announced, authors will have from 9am until midnight (Eastern Time) to compose and submit their article. The prize is $5000.

Crack your knuckles, adjust your ergonomic chair and dust off your keyboard (compressed air recommended) because there can be only one. Details as they unfold.

Edit:
The official contest rules.

Just to let y’all know, I practice what I preach. I had a medical check up last Wednesday and, as a result, had about 5 prescriptions to refill. I went directly to my friendly, neighborhood, Publix pharmacy. I did not pass “Go.” I did not collect $200.

Taking my own advice about messing with the pharmacy techs, I put on my best “I’m sick and dying” face and approached the counter. Handing my list of drugs to the new girl, with a slight crackly cough in my voice, I said, “I’m very sick and need all of these filled. I have drug-resistant tuberculosis.”

The pharmacist slowly leaned back to get a look at who was at the window. I waved and she said, “I just needed to see who they let out.” When I checked out, she told me I’d better be wearing a surgical mask next visit.

I love my life. I love that I have no inhibition chip in my brain when it comes to having a laugh or sharing a smile.

But on a more serious note, I witnessed a horrible event on that fateful trip to Publix. A woman was killed right before my disbelieving eyes. I wrote the grizzly details at Associated Content. It isn’t a story for the feint of heart or weak of bladder. Woman Beaten to Death in Local Supermarket, if you’re interested.

I’ve had a draft article about how to get good customer service lying around for months. I did write something similar back in Aug 2006 about calling 800 numbers, but I keep thinking I should rewrite it to include how to write an effective email.

You ask, “Why?” The easy answer is, I’m on the receiving end of many similar emails. Additionally, I see so many rants in the AC forum about Associated Content being unresponsive. I can honestly say, Associated Content has never been unresponsive when I emailed a concern. Does AC love me more than you? No. AC gives priority to clear, concise emails with enough details to address the problem. That’s the kind of email that gets a response.

You don’t have to take my word for it. The following block is straight from the man who handles all of AC’s incoming emails.

1. BE SPECIFIC. If there is one specific article you’re having trouble with, tell us the title. If it’s already published, having a URL of the live content will help IMMENSELY, and will let us fix the issue faster for you. It will also help EVERYONE on the site, as we will be able to move more quickly between issues.

2. Don’t just rant. You would be shocked at how many emails I get on a daily basis that are just rants, which really don’t give any information. “YOU NEED TO PAY ME FOR THIS ARTICLE” does not describe the problem you’re having. We want you to have a positive experience at AC, but if there is an issue that’s keeping you from getting paid, once again, we need specifics.

3. Be nice. Ultimately, we’re all on the same team here. Every day, I remind myself that what’s best for the CP’s is best for AC. We’re not on different teams, we’re not playing against each other. AC is really not trying to “pull one over” on you. Also, the people reviewing your content are educated, they are smart, and they are good at their jobs. Insulting them isn’t going to help anyone do anything. At the end of the day, we are all in this together.

4. One email will do it. If you’re having an issue, you email, and you don’t hear back in 20 minutes, that’s normal. I get more than 200 emails per day, all of which need to be read and answered. Sending multiple emails about the same issue on the same content really slows the process for everyone.

I feel his pain, so let me expound on this just a bit.

5. Include Details. Dates, URLs, and article titles are very important. If needed, use dates to build a time-line of the events. In describing the problem, include the steps that you took which lead there. For example, “I was using the General template to submit an article on May 6th. I pressed buttons 1, 2, 3 and then got a blank page.”

6. Be Concise. Don’t address more than one concern in the email. Get to the point and stay on track. A bullet-point list is easier for the email recipient to scan than a 500-word ranting paragraph.

7. Use the Subject Field. In the subject field of your email, include something that gives a clue about the email’s contents. For example, are you reporting a technical bug with the web site? The subject line should read something like, “Technical Bug With Web Site. Broken URL.”

8. Include Your System Info. If your problem appears technical in any way, include you operating system (OS) and browser specifics. Don’t know what those are? It’s simple. For Microsoft Windows, right-click the My Computer icon and choose Properties. There’s your OS. “MS Windows” isn’t good enough. Include the version number. To get your browser information, select the Help > About menu.

9. Don’t assume things are FUBAR unless they are repeatable. Stuff happens. It doesn’t mean it’s AC’s problem 100% of the time. Try to replicate the problem before firing off an email. It may have just been a temporary network drop. It may have been something you did. Slow down, try it again, and make notes of what you’re doing. This will help if you do end up sending an email.

These are the things to which AC or any site responds. I’ll go out on a limb and say those forum posts about AC’s unresponsiveness are probably the result of failure to adhere to rule number 2 and 4. When you read those, between the lines is, “I fired off an mindless rant with no details and didn’t hear back so I fired off 5 more emails.” I guarantee you, those emails went straight to the trash folder.

These are the tips from the guys who get emails everyday about problems with web sites. You don’t have to take them to heart, but then you don’t have to have your problem resolved either.

I don’t care how attractive the offer is, the return postage cost is well worth the trip to the shoe store. Always take the time to physically try on shoes in a brick and mortar shop. Your feet will thank you. Your wallet will thank you. Your letter carrier will thank you for not having to pick up a blood-soaked box the next day. The internet is great for most things, but shoe buying isn’t one of them.

The tax forms are in the mail. That and other tall tales can be told on this, the holiest of government days, tax day. Mine were pretty simple this year, just one W-2 and some miscellaneous income to report. My poor daughter, on the other hand, had to deal with things that I, bad parent that I am, never prepared her for. We got through it together.

So where’s the omen part, you ask? This wouldn’t be odd if I lived in some rural county, but I live in a city, the third largest city in Alabama, in fact. I work on a nice campus with lots of buildings and several industrial sites. We’re near the airport for cheese sake, but that makes it all the more strange to see a coyote running beside the highway.

My brain couldn’t accept it when I saw those ears and long tail streaking down the shoulder. At first, I thought it was a fox, but my brain said, “Too big for a fox.” Then I thought it had to be a stray dog, but my brain fought back with, “Look, dummy. It’s a coyote.” It dashed across the highway in front of my and up the other shoulder. The guy in front of me couldn’t believe it either. I almost ran him over as he slowed to gawk.

I wondered if the coyote and I would meet in the parking lot when I got to work, since we were both headed in that direction, but it swerved off towards the Kohler plant. I guess it needed to place an order for some coyote-sized bathroom fixtures.

Scavenging coyotes and taxes. A fitting tribute to our tax code. On April 15^th, don’t you feel just a little picked over by Washington D.C.? I don’t mind paying my fair share. It’s the ridiculous tome the tax code has evolved into that bugs me. All those freakin’ forms! I spent 15 minutes filling out one worksheet, only to have TurboTax come back and say, “We’ll use the standard deduction.” Argh!

Write you member of Congress and tell them you want the tax code scrapped and feed to coyotes. Tell them you want the Fair Tax.

I love my job. I really do. Solving puzzles is fun and that’s what I get paid to do. “I deal with the customers so the engineers don’t have to.” Wait! I’m the engineer, too. Oh, crap.

I’ve been so tied up earning a living, I haven’t had time to keep the blog up very well. April Fools Day was a blast. I really enjoyed writing and reading all the digs (Note: that’s digs not diggs. Even as a techno-geek, I find digg boring.) the blog-o-sphere created for the annual event.

Once the infernal taxes are filed, I’ll start planning next year’s joke. Taxes are a necessary suckness, made easier by guys like me. We take the tax code and turn it into a computer program in your web browser and in less than an hour, your taxes are done. Thank you computer nerds. I’d like to put us all out of a job with something like the Fair Tax. I’d end up paying more, but the stress reduction would be worth it.

If you’re curious, my effective tax rate was 9.72%, but I got a huge deduction for sending socks, Q-Tips, and lip-balm to some soldiers in Iraq. Kind of sad I had to do that, but I’m happy for the line item.

In an effort to delay doing my taxes, I’ve been reading on-line quite a bit. I was pleased to get my subscription notice that Dom Coccaro published something at Associated Content.

Dom’s story revolves around changing his MySpace profile on a lark. Here is his opening paragraph:

Like most 23-year-olds, I have a MySpace page. Like most MySpace users, I frequently change my profile out of boredom. It was this state of roving restlessness that moved me to change my display name to Zac Efron. My friends found it to be amusing, so I went the extra mile and slapped a picture of Smiley Tween (not to be confused with Sweeney Todd) on my page. Little did I know that I would soon become Zac Efron in the eyes of his adoring fans.

I encourage you to read the whole story. The results of Dom’s little joke should really open your eyes. Parents, I’m looking at you. You’re not paying attention to what your children are doing on the internet. Maybe you’re not paying attention to them at all. I don’t know. What I do know is, if anyone one but Dom had tried this, there might be some kid’s body in a ditch right now.

Dom admits the whole thing scared him, “The scariest thing that I learned from this experiment is how little effort it takes to be a predator.” Where are you parents? You are supposed to be preparing these rug-rats for life. Turning your curtain-climbers loose on the net is not good parenting. I can only imagine the parents of these kids are probably hold up in the other room, updating their own MySpace page, flirting with their bodiless friends, and bouncing between 10 instant message windows.

What kind of adults will these little idiots grow into? I doubt they will reach adulthood with any decent social skills or common sense. The term “common sense” will go the way of the Dodo bird when it is no longer common. How long until the human race abandons verbal communication? How long until we can only communicate via keyboard? How long has it been since you had a shower? Get off the net and talk to your kids, you drooling, MySpace-addicted lemmings.

If you want to see what happens to kids who spend too much time on the net, check this out.  Here is a sociopath in the making.

Category: Your Tax Dollars at Work.

It has been said the second most frightening words in the English language are, “Hi. I’m from the government.” When this is followed by, “…and I’m here to help you,” you should run. Run as fast as you can with that load in your pants. In that vain, the IRS has decided it knows best how you should spend their…er…your money.

The IRS wants to make sure those “economic stimulus” checks do their intended job of being dumped back into the economy. To prevent high-risk citizens from just paying off their credit cards instead of buying washing machine, the IRS has started sending goods instead of money. Who is “high-risk” will be determined solely by the IRS.

I heard this story on the drive home from work on Market Place. I admit, I’m a NPR junkie. It’s great programming and just a little naughty. I don’t donate to NPR, but still sneak a listen as often as possible. Just a little danger to spice up my life. It’s like ordering the Club Sandwich. I’m not a member of the club, but the waiter never asks for ID and I put one over on him every time.

Here is a link to the printed story on the Market Place web site.

Here is a direct link to the audio version of the story. Much more interesting if you have the bandwidth. Be sure to listen all the way to the end for information on how you can help stop this silliness.

The Barefoot Celebrity Buzz and Scatological Research Group, LLC (Paparazzi Division) is your one-stop shop for all things mundane in Hollywood. This week we’ve uncovered a plot to remake the classic 1942 film Casablanca.

It seems Madonna, against all good advice, got the idea and the urge to act again. This time she wants to remake Casablanca in a new setting. Rumors are flying, but TBCB&SRG(PD) has the real scoop. How is being courted on the casting couch? What will the new script contain? You can only read it here in our exclusive, insider’s story. >>

I’ve been accused of only writing one Associated Content article per month. That has been true for a while, but something about Spring, the daffodils on the lawn, or just trying to delay doing my income taxes has prompted me to produce 3 whole articles this month.

At the end of 2006, I wrote Relationships: What Women Want and in addition to standing the test of time, it has one of the funniest lines I’ve ever written. Now I’ve taken those precepts and turned them on their ear with my latest lack-luster masterpiece, Why Your Woman Left You…

This report is the culmination of 25 years of research by The Barefoot Human Behavior and Scatological Research Group, LLC. I just wanted to make it clear that this is a scientific paper and not just some ass hat barking farts on the web. You can read the full report here.

Vogue magazine lit a nice fire with the latest cover. I don’t have a subscription, but the new “Shape Issue” caught my eye. They expound on all sorts of shapes, but mine. My doctor keeps telling me I’m out of shape. I keep reminding her that round is a shape.

Let’s try to look beyond the racial divide that still exists the world over and take something away from this furor that can be applied to life. In general, life teaches us these things.

Prejudice is human nature. Yeah, I said it. Want to fight about it? You’re prejudice. I’m prejudice. We’re all prejudice in a different way. My prejudice is just against stupidity. If you want to read my angry rant about prejudice, well screw you! I don’t like you. You smell funny and I hate you so don’t read it.

Category: WTF News. Toilet sitting woman’s boyfriend charged.

I know you are on pins and needles as you follow the saga of the Ness City Kansas woman, Pam Babcock, whose phobias kept her in the bathroom of her boyfriend home so long, her butt literally became attached to the toilet set. Apparently, Ness County officials have determined her mental state didn’t have a capital city. Medical privacy laws won’t allow the release of the findings, but officials think they have enough to declare her a “dependent adult.”

This means that equally crazy boyfriend, Kory McFarren, 37, is now charged with mistreatment of a dependent adult in Ness County District Court. I’m having trouble finding any thing humorous in this massive mess. It seems that both of these people need serious help. If it comes in the form of psychiatric sessions or Scientology e-sessions, I don’t care. I don’t see how pressing charges is going to help anyone involved in this case.

Here is Associated Content’s official policy on pursuing plagiarism:

Here’s some clarification that we hope will help any CP who finds their content has been posted/published/reprinted/etc. on a third-party site that isn’t a partner site of AC’s:FACT: If we grant reprint permission for a piece of content to ANY other site, AC will always notify the CP.

For EXCLUSIVE content:
Associated Content is the copyright owner of all exclusive content. While a CP may be the original author, Associated Content is the only entity that can act legally on behalf of the content in question. If you find an exclusive article on an inappropriate site, please contact AC’s Designated Agent at designated_agent@associatedcontent.com. Include the link to the offending website, as well as a link to your content on AC. Only Associated Content has the legal right to send an effective DMCA takedown notice to an offending company/website. We handle these types of cases multiple times every week, so the Designated Agent will be your best step. Any DMCA complaint that you send to a third-party will be defective, as you are no longer the copyright owner.

For NON-EXCLUSIVE content:
Unfortunately, because the content in question was licensed to AC on a non-exclusive basis, we have no way of knowing whether the offending site published the content before or after it was published on AC. Accordingly, we will not necessarily take any action against the site. (At our discretion, AC may send a Cease and Desist order, but we are not required to.) However, since you [the CP] retained the rights to the content, you are free to enforce your rights against the inappropriate third-party for copyright infringement. Depending on where you find your content reprinted, there should always be a contact or link that every company supplies for copyright infringement complaints that looks similar to our “Copyright Infringement?” link at the bottom of each page.

What I get from this is if you submitted your article as an AC exclusive, AC owns the rights and will pursue the matter for you. You only need to report it to their Designated Agent and they’ll take if from there. If you submitted the article as non-exclusive, you still own the rights and AC is under no obligation to help you. You should take action to rectify the situation.

Doing this yourself can be difficult especially if the thief is a blogger. My recent experience is pretty typical when a blogger steals your article. With no other way to contact them, I was reduced to leaving comments on their blog. After receiving no response for a couple of days, I resorted to reporting them to their host. The host, which happened to be WordPress, took swift action to suspend the blog.

It is important to note, I used all the magic DMCA words when I contacted WordPress. If you are going to pursue copyright infringement on your own, you will need to be very specific with URLs, publishing dates, and use the right language. Under the law, if you follow the DMCA legalese, the responsible party must follow up.

Because of my recent saga, I found a great resource, Plagiarism Today. It has lots of information on how to deal with plagiarists. There is also a very helpful Stock Letter section. Simply fill in the blanks and you have an officially worded DMCA cease and desist letter.

The really hard part about enforcing your copyright is finding out that you’ve been plagiarized. You could pay for a service like Copyscape if that is worth your money, but there is a cheesy free way to follow your work. Set up a Google alert for a key phrase or two from your article. This will notify you if the phrase shows up elsewhere on the web.

The goal is to find wholesale plagiarism. Finding just a except falls under the fair use rules. Don’t freak out if you find one paragraph which cites you as the source or links back to your original article. That’s a good thing. However, if you do find a paragraph or two which someone incorporated into their own work and they didn’t cite you, that is plagiarism.

Good Luck and happy hunting.

Beer is liquid bread.   Bread is the basis of modern civilization.  Wheat builds cities.  Just ask those Roman dudes.

Sea water sucks.

Category: Stupid Criminals.

Huntsville police arrived at a robbery scene early Friday to arrest a suspect but ended up arresting the victim and a witness, too. >> Read Full Story >>

Around 6:40AM on March 15, 2008, 43-year-old Walter McLin flagged down a patrol car and told the cops he had been robbed at gun point.  After speaking to a witness, the police arrested 31-year-old Stepheon White at a near-by motel and charged him with first-degree robbery.

Upon further questioning, McLin was charged second-degree theft for the $900 forged check in his possession.  Police then became suspicious of the witness’ identity and charged him with filing a false statement because he lied about his name.  It turned out the witness had good reason to lie because he had multiple, outstanding warrants.

All three men are currently enjoying the hospitality of the Madison County metro jail.

This story only supports the old adage, “There is no honor among thieves.”  It also highlights the fact that if you are going to be a criminal, try not to hang out with other criminals.  One thief may be stupid, but the power of stupidity rises exponentially with each additional criminal brain.

Category: WTF News

All the answers to your burning questions about the woman from Ness City, Kansas who sat on a toilet seat so long, her butt became one with the porcelain.

Yes. There was a second bathroom in the house.
No. She didn’t sit constantly, but long enough.
Yes. She was abused as a child, but not by her boyfriend.
No. No charges are pending at this time.
Yes. She may spend the rest of her life in a wheelchair due to the damage to her leg nerves.

And finally, yes. This couple does not appear to be the sharpest tools in the shed. According to the sheriff, “The unfortunate thing is this truly is a case of two people, in my opinion, with diminished mental capacity.”

“The house was cluttered but not in shambles,” he [Sheriff Wipple] said. “The smell was overpowering - a terrible smell about the house, obviously coming from where she was at.”

McFarren, 36, told police his girlfriend, Pam Babcock, 35, had a phobia about leaving the bathroom and may not have left the bathroom in two years, although he’s unsure how long she was in there because “time just went by so quick I can’t pinpoint how long.” He said beatings she received in her childhood caused her phobia. >> Read the Full Story >>

Next time someone tells you to “Shit or get of the pot,” take that sage advice to heart. I’m glad that’s settled and now we can focus on the real news again. I hear there may be a puppy with his head stuck in a bucket in Peoria, Illinois. Stay tuned.