Ranting in Writing Blogs

Those who read A Writer's Edge at the website will see some of the changes I've made in the home page -- and resulting construction problems. Yes, as much as I advocate using Blogger for your ordinary blogging needs, sometimes it sucks like Electrolux. Until I drag the page into DreamWeaver, I won't be able to fix the bottom that, I suspect, visitors seldom view anyway.

I've included a "recent visitors" box from Blog Catalog now, mainly because it's the only way I can see more than ten visitors from there to thank and entice to leave a shout on my Profile page or a Comment or Review or to join The Neighborhood on the blog's page. I may expand the features from MyBlogLog, too, currently in the left column.

This must be the Week of the Blog for email, because I've received several nutty messages, including a request to remove a link to a news article because someone is unhappy with what the article says. I don't even mention the person in my post! He writes to me, "Yes, I am the subject of the slander in the article." His logic goes like this: my link causes the newspaper article "to show up highly on the search engines...what is happening as a result of the hyperlink in your post that is objectionable to me." I"d much rather that my links cause my blog to show up highly in the search engines, but maybe there's a lesson here, somewhere.

Then a Google Alert alarmed me when I found one of my recent posts appearing in toto in someone else's blog, but WITHOUT links or attribution. Jeez! If you're going to steal my work, at least leave the link or use my name. I wasted an hour or more trying to track down an email address for the hacker jerk (he has several sites on Blogspot), found none, so settled for wading through Blogger's complaint system, only to receive a lengthy email from them, saying that I had to put a full DMCA complaint in writing. Sheesh! Shall I post his name, this Indian student? Let you visit his sites and leave nasty remarks? Would you? Or would he welcome the attention?