I frequently receive email from readers of How to Blog, sometimes thanking me and other times with blogging questions that they have which they hope that I can answer. In many of the latter cases, I am able to answer their questions and get them back happily blogging. But there are times when I just don’t know the answer. So, I have decided to post the support questions that I receive that I cannot help with on How to Blog to see if any of the blog’s readers can help each other out!

I already posted the first Reader Question regarding a problem after a WordPress upgrade.. I hope that you guys are able to help out on that one b/c I’m clueless.

What do you guys think of this new addition to the blog – the occasional posting of Reader Questions or even any articles or opinion pieces? I’m all ears!

Hi Everyone – THIS IS VERY IMPORTANT FOR BLOGGERS (and all users of the internet)

Please read the following and sign the petition to preserve Network Neutrality

Do you blog, buy books online, use Google, or download to an iPod? Everything we do online will be hurt if Congress passes a radical law next week that gives giant corporations more control over what we do and see on the Internet.

Internet providers like AT&T are lobbying Congress hard to gut Network Neutrality—the Internet’s First Amendment and the key to Internet freedom. Net Neutrality prevents AT&T from choosing which websites open most easily for you based on which site pays AT&T more. BarnesandNoble.com doesn’t have to outbid Amazon for the right to work properly on your computer. What they’re talking about here is having website owners pay ISPs for the “right” for their sites to load as quickly as their competitors. If you don’t pay a fee to AT&T and other internet providers, they could make your website or blog load slower for all of their customers.

If Net Neutrality is gutted, almost every popular site—from Google to eBay to iTunes—must either pay protection money to Internet companies like AT&T or risk having their websites process slowly. That why these high-tech pioneers and others are opposing Congress’ effort to gut Internet freedom. But ringing even closer to home, individual bloggers and small businesses will likely not have the funds to pay to ensure that their sites load as quickly as other sites. Why should anyone have to pay to have their site load properly???? Its like having to pay a dirty cop to do their job and protect your business. How dare these ISPs think they should be entitled to charge companies and people for the right to have their site load as fast as their own webserver is capable of serving up the page?? What are they, Mob 2.0?

And what about the users of these internet providers? Should they all of a sudden have certain websites load slowly for them because that website didn’t pay a ‘protection fee’?? Every single person’s internet experience could be drastically negatively affected by this, whether they have their own website or simply enjoy surfing the net.

You can do your part today—can you sign this petition telling your member of Congress to preserve Internet freedom? Click here:

http://www.civic.moveon.org/save_the_internet/

I signed this petition, along with 250,000 others so far. This petiton will be delivered to Congress before the House of Representatives votes next week. When you sign, you’ll be kept informed of the next steps we can take to keep the heat on Congress.

Snopes.com, which monitors various causes that circulate on the Internet, explained:

Simply put, network neutrality means that no web site’s traffic has precedence over any other’s…Whether a user searches for recipes using Google, reads an article on snopes.com, or looks at a friend’s MySpace profile, all of that data is treated equally and delivered from the originating web site to the user’s web browser with the same priority. In recent months, however, some of the telephone and cable companies that control the telecommunications networks over which Internet data flows have floated the idea of creating the electronic equivalent of a paid carpool lane.

If companies like AT&T have their way, Web sites ranging from Google to eBay to iTunes to your blog either pay protection money to get into the “fast lane” or risk opening slowly on your computer. We can’t let the Internet—this incredible medium which has been such a revolutionary force for democratic participation, economic innovation, and free speech—become captive to large corporations.

Politicians don’t think we are paying attention to this issue. Together, we do care about preserving the free and open Internet.

Please sign this petition letting your member of Congress know you support preserving Internet freedom. Click here:

http://www.civic.moveon.org/save_the_internet/

Please feel free to forward this on to everyone you know that loves or relies on the internet!

Much thanks,
Emily

In an elaborate Aprill Fools Joke, the WordPress Development Blog announced that WordPress and TextPattern had merged and formed a new venture called WordPattern. The release notice on WordPress.org states, “Our respective websites are being decommisioned so it’s best to go there (wordpattern.org) for new information”.

WordPattern was being billed as “is an entirely new application based on both Textpattern and WordPress.” One of it’s supposed new features was a “CMS-management system”, meaning that you can managel multiple Content Management Systems (CMS’s) from within the same interface — a feature which is sorely lacking in WordPress.

I find it really unprofessional that this supposed “Press Release” was not only on the wordpress development blog but continued to display in every WordPress user’s dashboard as if it were fact up until mid-day April 3rd. On top of that, when I tried to go to wordpress support to confirm that it is indeed an april fool’s joke, you’ll get the equally unprofessional error message of, “WordPress.org is taking a lunch break.” (the entire site is down).

I’ll admit it – they got me (doh! Always read through the site thoroughly before reporting something as news!) Nonetheless, does anyone else find this to be in rather poor taste? While those of us who are higher level in their techie skills would immediately have recognized that references to such things as “Bjax” were clearly a joke, there ARE members of the WordPress community who likely would not have realized it was a joke and may have panicked with regards to what the implications of this supposed merger would be for their wordpress sites, specifically since the press release referred to wordpress.org being decommissioned.

I get emails regularly from people who are fed up with TypePad and looking to switch to WordPress but find it to be too intimidating. A prank such as this one is only going to alienate Average Joe bloggers who aren’t coders but still want to use the best blogging software out there. That said, as far as April Fool’s Pranks go, this one was certainly pulled off very well!