Mentally Fatigued

Now that Hubby is six weeks post-surgery and back to work (truly amazing!!!), I am breaking down. A cold bug presses my immune system to yield. A stomach flu undid the fun of a Christmas season party. I hurt more than usual–and more intensely. I am fatigued to my bones.

I think the stress and wear-and-tear of caretaking has caught up with me. For a few days, I haven’t been able to muster the strength to read e-mail or answer the phone. I’ve gone turtle.

Forgive me. I know I have thank you’s to write to a couple of you who have so sweetly nominated me for blog awards. I just need a few days to re-energize and rekindle. I love you more than you know. And I’m not ignoring you. See you soon.

Stop Thieves from Stealing Your Content

Stop! Thief!

A reader sent me an e-mail with a link to a wonderful blog post with lots of information about stopping thieves from stealing your content.

Before I go any further, let me clarify something. If a blogger uses a selection — not wholesale copying of the entire work — from another blog AND attributes ownership to the rightful author AND is using the selection for educational purposes, it falls under Fair Use.  That’s the way I roll here — I tell you where the information comes from and tell you how it may help you as an author.

That said,  blogger “Between Naps on the Porch” (BNP) talks about nefarious sorts lifting multiple posts from BNP, stealing text and photos without any attribution, and re-blogging the entire content on a commercial site owned by the thief. BNP slowed the theft using several techniques:

• watermarking original photographs
• using plug-ins to attach messages that travel with content
• asking readers to report content theft
• including back-links to previous posts
• checking the site statistics
• hiring a programmer to write code to make it hard to steal things

and more. Go to the following BNP linked site to learn more about how to stop content thieves from stealing from you. It’s a long, detailed read that is worth your time.

http://betweennapsontheporch.net/stop-scrapers-from-stealing-your-content/

Quotation for 7-15-2012

Taking criticism can be hard. The next time you receive some, look at today’s quote to help you reframe the words that cause you consternation.

“If you are irritated by every rub, how will your mirror be polished?” 

 — Rumi