Just a quick note, I spent some time over the last few days going back through my Google Reader history, looking for all of the posts that I “starred”.

I’m planning a post to share some of my all-time favs, but while in there, noticed that a lot of the old articles that were lost on this blog were still there. So I will also be re-publishing those articles (and probably updating them a bit before hittin’ that publish button) as well! Yeah me!

It’s like getting a do-over…I only have to republish the stuff that doesn’t make me wince

Welcome back!

I’ve been very busy working on my screencast training videos for my part-time consulting gig. You know it was funny, I was procrastinating getting started because I thought I needed better tools, thought I needed this and that…then I started convincing myself that I needed a professional recording studio, etc etc.

I didn’t need any of it. I needed to just get started.

Now that I’m into them, they’re really a lot of fun to do and I keep coming up with ideas of more things to do training classes on. They won’t be relevant for everybody, but like Brian pointed out today, “In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is king”. This is along the lines of what I’ve begun to realize more and more this year and it’s kind of a ‘well, duh!’ thing.

There are people that know more than you do about any topic.

Let me say it again.

There are people that know more than you do about any topic.

But what I’ve discovered is that the REVERSE of this is also true…

There are people that know way less than you do about X. But it’s hard for you imagine that there’s people that would value the really “basic” information you take for granted.

a lot of what I know how to do with the internet and computers and software is literally freakin’ magic to a startlingly large portion of the planet.

The video ideas I’m coming up with are simple crap – how do I get my own www.mycoolwebsite.com thing? How do I get my own email address thing? Is it hard? Is it expensive? Now for most of us here in the blogosphere, these are insanely basic and stupid things to be asking….but step outside the blogs for a while and talk to real people and you’ll find that a massive amount of folks literally HAVE NO FREAKING CLUE about any of that stuff.

Thus, I am the one-eyed man amongst the blind. So are you – don’t underestimate your worth.

That sounds kind of redundant doesn’t it. Sorry, but this post is kinda grumpy so don’t say I didn’t warn you.

A couple of folks have complained to me offline about their comments not showing up. Let me explain.

Comments are held in a queue until I approve them. Once I approve them, then they will show up. If you have commented here before, then additional comments will show up automatically without me needing to approve them.

I think the issue at hand however is, why does one comment get approved and another not? Here’s my current criteria….

• If Akismet catches it as spam, there’s a big chance I wont ever see it…if it was legit, email me and let me know and I’ll try to fix it.
• If you provide an obviously bogus email or website, it’s getting spammed – period.
• If you provide a comment of questionable value PLUS the web address you link to is obviously not a blog and is primarily a commercial site, then my conclusion is that you are after a free link to a website, so you’re gettin’ spammed dude. Example of questionable value…”With interest I pursue here those always well and understandable written contributions.” along with a URL of www.crazy-realestate-scams-you-can-buy.com…uhhh what do you expect?
• If you are a first-time commenter and only say “great stuff” or something, I’m assuming that you’re trying to get approved with something innocuous so that you can post a different one later linking to an online gambling escort service or something. I don’t mark these as spam, I just delete them. They add nothing to the conversation anyway. Sorry.
• If you attack another person, you’re getting deleted. You can attack ideas all you want “that point of view is stupid…blah blah”, but the moment you say “you’re stupid…”, don’t expect to see your comment show up and if you’ve been previously admitted on here, I’m going to delete it as soon as I see it.

Folks tend to have this view that the internet is supposed to be anarchaic and that I’m somehow violating basic human rights by denying you a voice, blah blah blah. As soon as you start paying for my hosting, contributing articles and paying for my domain name, etc….then you can say that….until then, get your own blog and say whatever you want and have you’re own comment policy of anything goes. That’s still my name in your URL

OK, grumpiness fading…feeling better now. Comment away, but don’t scam, don’t spam and be nice, please.