So I spent about 30 minutes the other day writing a new blog entry. I did all of the normal things I do for each. I quickly wrote it without losing my train of thought just to get the content down before I forgot it. Then, I previewed it by clicking on the preview link (in another tab of my Firefox browser). I saw a few spelling errors and a couple of things I wanted to explain a little better so I clicked on the edit button to go back to the Wordpress administration area of my blog and made the changes. After checking a few more things and updating the entry to my liking, I posted the blog article. Everything looked good on the blog and I was ready to move on. I started browsing around other sites and doing my normal routine. Then, I came back to my blog and found my new blog entry was GONE! What in the world happened? I knew I had posted it. Where did it go? Did I accidentally delete it? Did I save it instead of publishing it? What went wrong?

I went back to my blog admin area and found the article still there but in a “saved” state and not published. Was I going crazy? I knew I had published it. Well, it was pretty late at night (actually early in the morning) so I guess I could have made a mistake. So, I published it again and everything looked fine. Until…… A few minutes later, my post vanished again. Now I’m getting really confused. I went back to the admin area and the same thing had happened. So, I went to my saved entries and then republished it once again. Then, I realized what was happening…..

It turned out that I had one of my browser tabs still opened on my Wordpress blog in the admin area (for writing) on the new blog entry. One of the features of Wordpress is an autosave feature that automatically saves your blog entry at regular intervals as you are writing it so if something happens while you are writing your entry, you will not lose all of your work. This is what was causing the problem. Even though I published my article (in another browser tab), when the refresh cycle came around in the other tab, it would “autosave” the article back to a saved state instead of a published state. Also, if I had made any edits to the article in another tab, the could have gotten lost when this browser tab autosaved.

So, be sure you do not do the same thing with your blog. It can really be mind boggling and frustrating when it happens if you don’t realize what is going on when your blog entries mysteriously start vanishing. Do all of your work in one browser and with just one tab without opening other ones. Or, if you like using multiple browser windows and tabs, be sure to keep track of them and don’t fall into the same trap.

- Hill Robertson

Have you subscribed to this blog yet? If you haven’t yet subscribed to this blog, now is the time to do it. The best way is to fill out your name and email address in the subscribe area at the top right of this blog to get email notifications. You get several benefits by signing up for email notifications as follows:

• The popup box will not annoy you any more (see No Aweber Popup for Subscribers Procedure for more info)
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If you don’t subscribe, you may just miss an awesome deal. Go ahead and subscribe to get updated with great success related information and products. There is no obligation and remember, I will never give or sell your information to anyone, guaranteed!

Subscribe and Enjoy!

- Hill Robertson

OK, it is your turn to give me some information. I am in information and product production mode. I want to hear from you what type of information and products you would like to see from me on this blog. You should know what my areas of expertise are from the posts on this blog and from my about me page. What info would you like me to cover or what products would you like to see from me.

I’m already working on several products but if anyone gives me some good ideas, I might use them. If you give me an idea that I use for a product, I will send you a copy absolutely free once it is released.

Even though I’ll take any suggestions, I’d like to keep the ideas related to the following topics (or any combination or derivative):

• Internet Business
• Website Design/Hosting/HTML/CSS
• PHP/MySQL
• Linux
• Macs
• Computer Networking

Please post your suggestions as comments to this post. I will keep them private unless you specifically want your comment to be public and state so in the comment.

- Hill Robertson

Whether writing an article for your blog or writing an article for other ezines, you can write unique articles that people will want to read. It is not as difficult as you might think. When I first started thinking about writing articles, I thought I didn’t have enough to say (although my wife will tell you I talk too much). I kept thinking that I was not a writer and I don’t know all of the big fancy words that make you sound intelligent. But the truth of the matter is, many of your readers won’t know those “fancy” words either and they really aren’t needed for a good article.

It is all about the content. If you know more about something than someone else, you are an expert. All you need to do is write an article about it. Write some of the details about what you know and explain the details as if your reader was sitting right in front of you and you were having a conversation.

Don’t worry about it being perfect. If you do, you will rewrite your article to death and you will never be happy with it. You will probably never publish it either. So, just write what you have to say and publish it. Don’t think about it too much. You will never be perfect. I’m still not a professional author by any means but I keep getting better each article I write. As long as the information is interesting for your readers, they will enjoy it and come back for more.

People are constantly searching for information. They are not looking for a perfectly written manuscript with flawless grammar and punctuation, they just want to find out about information they are looking for. Give it to them in a way they can understand and relate to.

- Hill Robertson

One of the biggest obstacles to overcome when starting a business is the feeling of needing to be an authority or expert in the subject matter that you will be selling or promoting. Most people think they need to be THE expert and know more than anyone. The problem there is that there is almost always someone that knows more about your subject matter than you do. However, there is also always someone that knows LESS than you do. You are an expert to these people.

Is your subject matter your passion? Is it something you love to do? Is it something you would do for fun whether you are making money at it or not? If so, your passion will show in your business and will draw in visitors (even if they know as much or more than your do). Just think about it, what websites do you visit frequently or subscribe to on topics that you are passionate about? You may be an expert in some of those fields. You may even be more of an expert on the topic than the writers on the website but you still value the information and you keep it in your list of favorites because of your passion and your feeling of belonging to a community.

You can easily become an expert on a topic by learning more about it. One of the best ways to learn more is to start teaching what you do know to others. As you teach others, you will focus on some of the detail areas and you will start learning more. Also, if you get questions submitted to you, you will realize how much you really know and also get some “food for thought” to give you direction on other areas to learn about.

The bottom line is that you ARE an expert at something - probably many things. Don’t let doubt creep into your thoughts. Just pick one of your own passions, and begin blogging about it. You ARE the expert!

- Hill Robertson

Looking back on decisions I have made in the past and why I failed or quit at anything was quite often due a quiet little creeping creature called doubt. It usually isn’t obvious at the time but its grip is strong and deadly. Doubt will absolutely kill anything worth while if you let it.

Doubt creeps into your thoughts saying things like “you can’t write a good article”, “you’re not an expert”, or “no one will ever buy your product”. If you listen to doubt, you will never succeed. You will always come up with a reason not to do something. However, all of these reasons are just excuses. Nothing will ever get done when you dwell on what you can’t do.

Remember one of the most important rules is to “just do it”. If you wait to long or you try to make everything perfect, you will start letting doubt creep in and you will start focusing on the negatives and you will paralyze yourself and you won’t do anything. You will convince yourself that it wouldn’t have worked anyway. Once you realize you are sliding down the slippery slope of doubt, STOP IT! Focus on the positive and JUST DO IT!

- Hill Robertson

In the world of the Internet, everything is about information. The primary form of information in cyberspace is written (or typed) content. It is obviously the fuel that gives value to a website and is the primary reason someone will visit your site. The better the amount and quality of the information, the more visitors you will attract and the longer they will stay on your site. The content must be relevant to your site. If it is not, it will confuse your visitors and they will leave quickly - never to return again.

Be sure to have good quality related content on your site. Add more content frequently to give your visitors (customers) good reasons to keep returning to your site. This is one of the key ingredients in a successful site.

- Hill Robertson