Friday 30 October 2009

Updates and Zazzle

I am about halfway through an update to all my lenses, adding MediaStorehouse images and links, correcting several broken links, and revising the content.

My other update was a new set of products created on Zazzle for my Stephen and Matilda blog, as well as some more generic ones made for general sales. Matilda is doing surprisingly well - she even made featured kitty status on Redgage for a photo:

Here's another photo of her, again being decidedly cute.

Tuesday 27 October 2009

Feedmysearch issue

Anyone using Feedmysearch might have noticed that they have been having issues. Having hoped that they would work through them, I now find this was a mistake on my part. The feeds I have created on each page now display a large ad saying that Feedmysearch is going down unless extra funding can be found.

I have found another way to create the feeds I want, but it will take a lot longer to set up, so please be patient while I got through the entire lot and switch the modules.

Why Google doesn't just offer the same RSS as Feedmysearch I will never understand.

Monday 26 October 2009

A general update

My time is currently being taken up with a sick cat. Thankfully, he now seems to be on the mend, and I can get back to writing, making lenses and work (the thing that puts food on the table and cat food in the bowl).

The novel is now at a publisher, and sitting with a few agents to see if I get any feedback. I was somewhat disappointed with one such contact, who I had submitted two items to and got two identical rejection emails. However they looked too identical, so I also checked the mime headers and properties on the email. It appears to be auto-generated, possibly on a timer from date of receipt. The timestamps on both certainly make for an interesting comparison. This doesn't give me any great hope that they actually read it. So if you're an agent, I know that you get hundreds of manuscripts through daily, but please be honest if you aren't going to read them or aren't accepting submissions right now. It saves me time on stamps and emails.

I've put together a Stephen and Matilda lens about the cats to try nand ease myself back into it.

The travelling squid is causing me a problem. The memory card in my camera was broken, so when I took the shots it saved them into memory. However I now can't get them out to send them on for the blog. ARGH!

Wednesday 21 October 2009

Mosquito Images alert

I think I've finally got linking working and have started adding a few images from the datafeed to the de Havilland Mosquito page. One of the best is this cutaway view of the Mosquito Mark II:


Unfortunately it doesn't have a preview image available, or it would be straight on the lens, since its a mechanic's dream. It takes a bit of time to set these links up, so it might be several days before they appear on my other lenses. The problem is that neither squidoo nor google sites allow script or PHP links, which are the default. Getting a link set up required playing with the datafeed to get an HTML format set up. Let me know what you think.

For images like the one on the left from £9.99, it definitely seems worth the hassle though.

Currently I'm just running through adding a text link to each collection's homepage. Then I need to see which ones I can get preview images for from the datafeed and add them (how I did the Mosquito lens).

It's also a chance for me to try and deal with the cats who have discovered that they can get into the boiler cupboard. Burnt cat's fur smells horrible, so I'm trying to avoid it.

Tuesday 20 October 2009

A small update

Well, I've got permission for the aircraft photos but their link widgets don't work with the sites I need to use them on, so some creaive coding may have to take place.

Yesterday I got a lens set up for the google site I am working on, and it's already getting some traffic.

Squidoo are trying an interesting experiment about splitting long lenses over several pages. I haven't volunteered any of mine, because the links in the nav are a dropdow and not obvious. However once they have sorted the teething problems out, this could let me expand a lot of the aviation sites considerably.

And having been awake since 3 dealing with a catfight, anything I do will be completed in the afternoon.

Monday 19 October 2009

Updates and a new google site

Well, a few updates from here:

First, novel #3's wih an agent. Lets see if it gets picked up.

I've found an interesting resource for aircraft photos and written off for permission to use them. I should hear back in a couple of days, but if I get it, then my aircraft lenses should be getting a thorough upgrade.

The cats are settling in, but I spent most of last week dealing with them - hence the lack of updates and writing in general. The travelling squid was completed and delivered into the tender mercies of Royal Mail. Whether it will ever been seen again, who knows?

A new Googlesite went live just now: The Buccaneer Series. It's about the Buccaneer Books - a series of children's books designed to help children learn to read. Written by Shiela K. McCullagh they are about a young boy called Nicholas who finds a magic painting of a Silver Ship that lets him enter a world of pirates and privateers.

And I'm working on a new lens about a horsedrawn railway, hampered by a severe lack of resources on the topic.

Still no ideas for nanowrimo though.

Tuesday 13 October 2009

Done it

I have just finished 60,000 words in less than four weeks. I am exhausted. Novel No 3 is ready to go out the door.

And in a month's time I'm going to be doing NaNoWriMo, if I get any ideas between now and then.

The cats are driving me nuts, since the larger one has worked out that ramming my arm while I'm feeding him can result in extra going into the foodbowl, and if both cats stick their heads in I can't judge how much they've eaten. They also kept me awake for two whole nights running, and then spent this afternoon looking angelic on the bed - fast asleep.

Little rats.

Sunday 11 October 2009

Good, better, best

Good... is that squidoo appear to have sorted their reporting out. I noticed yesterday that the figures were now correct for those lenses (and even a few others - like the one that was showing royalties I earned in a month that hasn't happened yet).

Better... is that I gave my manuscript to an editor yesterday. When I wandered back to the resturant three hours later he was still there reading it and I got a very good review.

Best... would probably be the two cats hiding under my spare bed right now. After a successful introduction at the adoption centre, we have two rescued kitties moving in with us. One of them is sweet shy and intelligent, and the other, well the other could give Snooch from Two Lumps a run for his money.

Friday 9 October 2009

Somethings a bit screwed up

I heard from Squidoo.

According to them my two top charity performers got $14's each.
According to my royalties page, they got rather less (in one case $0.08 cents).

Unsurprisingly, I've queried this. As the by-month payment data only goes up to July, it looks like I may be sitting down and doing a spreadsheet of all the data from Royalties pages to check what the payment was and what it should be. However it looks like either there's a problem with the payouts or the reporting.

Off goes the bug report.


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On other topics, novel number three is getting a quick edit for accuracy and then will be hopefully ready to go out. Despite having been in the cockpit I forgot one vital characteristic of the aircraft, so since anyone reading it who knows the plane will spot the error in two seconds I'm making a few corrections.

And fingers crossed for Sunday, that everything works out. I actually found something more important than visiting an aircraft open day, which for me is pretty unusual.

And finally for anyone not doing anything at the weekend, here's a quick plug. Gatwick Aviation Museum's open day is 11th October 2009. If you have any spare time I'd really suggest you stop by.

Thursday 8 October 2009

Squidoo, Infolinks payments and annoyance

Well, they have paid. Unfortunately the infolinks are turned on on my hatching lenses (they were never turned off), and none of them received an infolinks payment. Similarly the money missing from last month's update did not arrive.

Given that my Googlesite just outperformed (in the last seven days), any single one of my lenses over the last two months, I am beginning to wonder if I should continue with Squidoo. Anyway, there's a bug report filed. Any response from them will be interesting since I estimate I'm out by $20-40.

e.g. http://www.squidoo.com/DragonHatchery
A Tier One lens which has never had infolinks removed. It has also never received an infolinks payment.

On the other hand, news elsewhere in life should hopefully make up for it. I'll blog more, hopefully with good news and photos, when I know more.

Wednesday 7 October 2009

NaNoWriMo?

Anyone going to be doing NaNoWriMo?

I might not this year - three novels so far in 2009, lots of lenses and articles, reviews and more have left me with aching fingers, so I might actually take November off.

(Who am I kidding? If I get an idea, I'm in. Tirial's Profile)

Sunday 4 October 2009

Photo as Featured content on redgage

One of my Biggin Hill photos of the Red Arrows just got featured on Redgage. As I'd been away from my computer for a while I did wonder where all the comments were coming from.

To answer one question, the colours and smoke are made by chemicals injected into the aircraft's exhaust. Apparently these are now designed to be environmentally friendly but if the wind is in the wrong direction, after a few passes they do build up, and can smell really bad for the spectators.

Red Arrows display with Smoke at Biggin Hill