You Can Squidoo It!

The trouble with sharing your expertise with the world on the Internet tends to be that, even if you are an authority on your subject matter, to make a web page you usually need a lot of ancillary knowledge related to web design.

With Squidoo any registered member can create a web page by populating the page (or 'Lens' as they call it) with prefab modules and filling those modules with text, pictures, video, and a lot of other types of media. All of this with absolutely zero of knowledge any HTML or HTML editors. Squidoo levels the playing field, taking the ability to get content online out of the sole domain of web geeks.

That said, there are goodies here even for the web developer pro. With Squidoo already being well-known by Google, your pages are almost instantly indexed after publication. Even if you know HTML, creating pages with Squidoo is a cinch, and if you know little about computers a large community of Squidoo members are more than happy to help. And don't forget if your page is above average you get paid!

I've made a number of pages on many different topics:

My Internet HQ:

• Rodney Lewis' Homepage

A guide to flight simulators:

• Civilian Flight Simulators for PCs

My favorite movie:

• The Corporation

Another movie I like:

• Let The Right One In

A guide on researching movies:

• Online Movie Research

My favorite TV show:

• Strangers With Candy

A guide on Windows Vista:

• Surviving Windows Vista

Squidoo is the brainchild of Seth Godin, entrepreneur and author of numerous business books. Godin has been running businesses since he was a child and has worked for such firms as Yahoo! As well as being its owner, he is an active participant

Have Your Copybook Ready!

These guys are going to be big someday! The lyrics aren't that impressive but the singing and the instrumentals totally rock! You can visit Jack Morgan at MySpace.

Write that down in your copybook and turn it in to your instructor now!

Burying Digg

I can't believe Digg deleted my account! Their decision, according to their e-mail, "is final and irreversible." It never stated that they actually had any real evidence of me sending spam, merely that I had been reported by a user to have had sent spam.

I think I am an honest user of the Internet. If you look around at some of the different things I've written you will see a lot of stuff I've written about wanting to see the Web be more than just a place to shop, but to remain and be even more of the immensely valuable tool that it is to so many people. I am no spammer. I get spam and I hate it, so why would I do that to others?

These are the unforgivable things I did to deserve a summary life sentence of banishment from Digg:

• I cut and pasted a two-line signature my comments. The first line was my full name, the second was a hyperlink to my homepage
• I 'dug' a few of my blog posting and some webpages from some of my sites

I never meant them any harm and I never did anything explicitly against their vague and nebulous terms of service that I can honestly tell (I triple-checked). I am hurt by their their willingness to delete my account in such a rudely cavalier fashion and offer me no recourse whatsoever. I have to admit that I still think Digg is a great idea and I'm also saddened to not be allowed to be a part of that anymore for the rest of my life. It's not of much consolation to search around and find out they've done this to many others as well.

There is a part of me that is led to believe by the way it all happened that they think I'll be back tomorrow under a different e-mail and username perhaps, but, unfortunately for them, I am especially angry that I've lost the dozens of favorites I had saved up, to some excellent places on the 'Net, that are now gone forever. I'm really pissed about that.

So I will never be a user of Digg again, my decision "is final and irreversible."