Vanilla Mist

Ok, so apparently someone posted in a Turkish forum (I’m deliberatly not linking to it) about my blog being a PR8 and now I’m getting all these comments that don’t really add any value to any conversations (most of them actually qualifying as spam in terms of content), but of course link back to their sites (mostly non blogs, some of them questionable), all from people in Turkey. One of the commenters said something like: “your stats were going to change, you’re getting popular in Turkey” – something among those lines. Even though I don’t understand the language, the title of post in the forum in question has the words “search-engine-optimization” and somewhere in there a “PR8″ is mentioned (along with the link to this blog), so I’m assuming this is all an attempt to get linked to from this blog in order to increase their PR.

So, if that’s the case, here’s a message to them: all comments are moderated. I’m deleting them all, so you’re wasting your time and mine. The comments area in this blog is not meant for this purpose and I will not allow it. This is also spamming. Comments are open to those who intend to make a real contribution to the conversation.

If you’re Turkish and posted a valid comment and I deleted it, my sincere apologies. I’m checking each link individually in order to avoid this mistake, but it’s possible that one or two valid comments get accidentally deleted in the process. On the flipside of that, if I accidentally approved your spammy comment before I realized this was going on, it won’t be here long.

I guess I won’t be very popular in Turkey after all…

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I’ve had an account with MyBlogLog for a while now, but it wasn’t before yesterday that I decided to play with it a little bit. So, now I have a proper profile and all my blogs have the “Recent Readers” widget in the sidebar.

MyBlogLog allows us to connect with those who read our blog as well as with bloggers whose blog we read. For those of you who have never heard of MyBlogLog (where have you been?) here’s how it works: you sign up, fill out your profile and add the blog(s) you author. Each time you visit another member’s blog, if they have the widget set up, your profile image will appear in their blog, along with a link to your profile. If the widget is not set up, they will still be able to know you have visited from their control panel – however, you can choose to hide yourself from any particular site if you want.

Each blog has a community that people can join either by choice or automatically after a certain number of visits (defined in the settings). Members can message each other and add people as contacts.

The service also provides statistics, showing where readers came from, what readers viewed and clicked. New users get a 3 day trial of MyBlogLog Pro: realtime, historical, and full daily stats. After the trial period, if you don’t want to upgrade, your account is automatically set as basic – you still get stats, but with limitations.

There are 2 widgets available that you can set up in your blog: the one you see in the sidebar in this blog under “Recent Visitors” called “Recent Readers”, showing MyBlogLog members who visited the blog and another called “Top Links”, showing the most popular links in your blog. (I’m not using this widget here).

I really like MyBlogLog: it’s cool, it’s social and it drives traffic. And… it finally gives me a better way to connect with some of the people who read my blog.

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This post is my submission to the ProBlogger Group Writing Project – Reviews and Predictions.

Instead of trying to predict anything for the upcoming year, I’m going to use this post to talk about a belief I have about the future – and I will start with a Henry Ford quote that sums it all up:

Whether you think you can or can’t, either way you’re right.

The future is unwritten. It will be whatever we choose to make of it – individually and collectively. This is a very empowering belief. When you realize that you’re the only one in control of your future and take charge, whatever your circumstances are in the present, things start to change.

I’m a strong believer in the Law Of Attraction – just in case you missed the “subtle” ribbon at the top of the blog, “The Secret” is a movie about the Law of Attraction – go watch it if you haven’t yet, it’s a good place to start if you have never heard of the Law of Attraction. I will not go into details in this post, but I’ve had plenty of experiences this year that make it very hard for me not to believe that whatever we experience in life is a direct result of the predominant thoughts we hold – be they conscious or unconscious. We attract the things, people and circumstances that are congruent with our thoughts and beliefs.

So, with this in mind, I repeat: 2007 will be what we make of it. I for one intend to make it a wonderful year for myself – and do that consciously. All of us can do that. We can all create a wonderful future for ourselves, our society, our planet. If you don’t believe you can, well… like Henry Ford said, you’re right. If you believe you can, though, you are right too. So…

What will you choose to believe in 2007?

Here are some links to help you make up your mind:

http://www.realitycreating.com/
http://www.stevepavlina.com/blog/2006/06/how-intentions-manifest/
Wealth Beyond Reason
http://www.selfgrowth.com/articles/Doyle14.html
http://www.dreammanifesto.com/
http://evolvingtimes.com/category/law-of-attraction/
The Secret – Larry King Live – Part 1

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Just a quick note: I have updated the contact page with information regarding availability, questions about Connections and copyright infringement. I’ve been getting more emails than I can handle and this has been going on for quite a while (to the point where I currently have over 2100 unread messages sitting in my inbox), so hopefully this update will help reduce some of the traffic and people’s frustration when they don’t get an answer. I wonder why I didn’t do this sooner… My apologies to all of you who sent me an email and didn’t get a reply. If that’s your case, please go read this update and accept my deepest sincere apologies. Thanks.

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