With the increase in seemingly inane and unrelated comments that I have been getting on my blogs, I started to wonder if some of these people are getting paid. So I thought I’d look into it and what better place to start your research than Google right? I tell my kids to Google stuff all the time when I I don’t have a ready answer. lol!

Anyway, so I googled “get paid to comment on blogs” and guess what? YES! Yes, people now can earn money by leaving comments on blogs. That explains a lot. It also makes me feel better about deleting comments and blocking IPs.

When I get relevant comments, especially from other bloggers, I try to return the visit and comment on their blogs. To me, that has just been good blogging manners. Lately though, with all these spam comments and scraper blogs popping up all over the place, it’s getting harder to tell the legitimate sites from the bad ones. What’s worse is, they can negatively impact innocuous bloggers like me who are not looking to make a quick buck but have been at this blogging thing just for the sake of getting our thoughts out there in the vast, vacuum of the internet.

Read the rest of this entry »

This is not a huge blog and I don’t get thousands of visitors daily, so I do appreciate your visits and getting comments. The do-follow links and comment luv are my way of showing my appreciation to fellow bloggers who take the time to drop by and leave a comment.

If you found your way here via the do-follow links or the comment luv directory, you are most welcome to leave your comments.

All I ask is, please make sense. Here a few tips/advice on how to leave a comment that won’t get deleted or marked as spam …

1. Do not copy a sentence from my content and paste it as a comment
2. Do not copy an unrelated phrase from elsewhere and leave it as a comment
3. Try to at least read through my post and leave a relevant comment. I.e. if I’m talking about food, say something about it, not something about an iPad.
4. Sometimes I will leave a prompt to help you out at the end of my post. Something like, ‘what do you think?’ or ‘what would you do?’ kind of question. Go with it.
5. While I enjoy a compliment as much as everyone else, “Good post!” is not a comment worth publishing.
6. Finally, if you can’t say anything nice, don’t say anything at all or take it up with me privately. My email address is on the ABOUT page.
7. Same thing with advertisment offers or link exchange proposals. Please send to my email address

Thanks again for visiting my blog, and I hope to hear from you soon!

To my fellow bloggers, how do you feel about some of the comments you get on your site?

Image Source: Comments on Comments from Postcards from Hell’s Kitchen

Good Monday morning to you! Maybe you didn’t even notice, maybe you missed me. Whatever. I’ve been busy the last couple of weeks and I haven’t done much blogging. Then this weekend, I was really going to buckle down and do some writing. That didn’t happen either. What happened was, my attention was diverted much like the mouse by the cookie.

I signed on to blog, and realized that I hadn’t updated WordPress in a while. I thought I was up to version 2.9 when I realized that I was still on 2.6! Well I figured, it should be easy enough to click that button that says update all my blogs, right? Right. It was easy alright. Done in a minute!

Except that when I went to a couple of my blogs I realized that some things have gone terribly wrong. This blog, for instance, was not showing any posts at all! On the backend, some menu options have either disappeared or not working at all. It turns out, some of my themes were not quite compatible with the new WP. So I got down to tweaking and hacking.

So I tweaked one thing, which led to another, to another, and so on… you know the drill. Before I knew it, the whole weekend had just about gone and I hadn’t written a thing on the blogs. The good thing is, I got all of them upgraded and they are now all working again!

Once I fixed all the bugs, I was able to appreciate more the brand spanking new Wordpress 3.1 and all its added features. I’m loving it! I love that plugins can now be added on without having to download files and upload them again to your server. You can do it all right here! Pretty cool, huh? Yeah, yea, I know it’s been out a while and you’ve probably been on it since it came out. For me, it’s all new. I afterall just came from the bowels of 2.6 to 3.1.

Another good thing about being forced to do some of this backend maintenance, it keeps this idle brain of mine going. I had forgotten how to do some of the simplest stuff and was at a lost for a while at all the new coding, but I muddled through. I felt quite accomplished for having figured some things out without having to call tech support!

On one of my blogs, I even managed to revamp the theme and added one on those cool image sliders on top! I’ve been wanting one of those for the longest time and I finally managed to get it done thanks to free WP theme designers who incorporated it into their design and pretty much made everything automated. I’ll be implementing this on my food blog soon. It’s in desperate need of a makeover but I have been to afraid to tinker with it.

So to celebrate this accomplishment, the girls and I treated ourselves to some good eats at the Asian Market. It was a good weekend!

Do you blog about food and travel? You may be interested in the email that I received regarding this awesome opportunity for a blogger to travel across five Asian countries and be paid $10,000! I wish I could apply. How about you, would you go for it? 

ULTIMATE BLOGGER OPPORTUNITY:
PEI WEI LAUNCHES SEARCH FOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT
One blogger will be selected to travel and blog across five Asian countries for $10,000
 
WHAT:   Pei Wei Asian Diner is searching for an international correspondent to accompany Executive Chef Eric Justice as he travels to Thailand, Vietnam, China, Japan and Korea in search of culinary inspiration for Pei Wei’s next dish.  Via blogs, photo posts and video uploads, the correspondent will document the journey and share the international experience along the way. The selected blogger will eat everything from street food to five-star cuisine, trek from remote villages to world-renowned cities, and meet everyone from rural farmers to cutting-edge chefs.
 
In addition to the experience of a lifetime, the blogger will receive $10,000 for his or her time and skills.
 
WHEN:          Applications Accepted: Now – December 20, 2010
                       Winner Announced: Week of January 17
                       Culinary Tour: Late February – early March, 2011
 
WHERE:       Entry Page: www.PeiWei.com/BlogAsia
                      Website: www.PeiWei.com
                      Facebook Fan Page: www.Facebook.com/PeiWei
                                              
WHY:   Pei Wei’s menu is influenced by the cuisine of five Asian countries and Chef Eric’s foreign travels help bring the exotic flavors of Thailand, Vietnam, China, Japan and Korean into the restaurants. The Pei Wei blogger will play a pivotal role in uncovering new dish ideas and sharing the discovery process with a worldwide audience.
 
WHO:    So what does it take to be the Pei Wei blogger? A talent for writing, a boundless appetite, a willingness to experiment with the unknown, an eye for the unforgettable image and the ability to capture it, comfort both on-camera and behind the lens, a spontaneous spirit but a grounded work ethic, and a passion for Asian cuisine.
 
About Pei Wei
Pei Wei Asian Diner, owned and operated by P.F. Chang’s China Bistro, offers a menu of fresh, high-quality Asian cuisine. The restaurant provides a comfortable, quick and casual dine-in experience as well as the flexibility, speed and convenience of take-away service.  From the exotic aromas rising from the sizzling 600-degree woks, to relaxing environment and hip décor, Pei Wei Asian Diner serves freshly prepared & made-to-order dishes from China, Japan, Korea, Thailand and Vietnam in a modern diner environment.  Pei Wei currently operates 168 restaurants in 22 states.  For more information please visit www.peiwei.com.