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Thursday, June 28, 2012

DMCA Takedown Notice Template

The following contains information on how to find the contact details of the company who hosts a website. This can be used to contact hosts in regards to copyright violation. Here are the step to follow in finding contact details and a sample DMCA takedown notice.

You can find out the hosting company of the website that's stolen your content by doing the following:

Step 1: Go to http://whois.domaintools.com/ or any other whois site of your choice.

Step 2: In the box, type in the url of the offending site and hit "lookup."

Step 3: Click the "server stats" tab.

Step 4: Click the blue numbers by "Ip Address."

Step 5: Look for an "abuse" email address, usually under "OrgAbuseEmail." If there isn't one, then use the "OrgTechEmail."

Step 6: Compose an email to the email address you acquired from above. Remember to be polite. The host usually has no involvement in the stealing of your work. Plus, being polite will get you much further than being angry. BE PROFESSIONAL!

DMCA Takedown Notice Example
I just send the following message and have had a TON of success in getting stolen content (and entire sites) taken down.

Use the subject line of: Notice of Copyright Infringement
Put the following in the body of the email, replace the #### with your information:

I am writing to you to avail myself of my rights under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA). This letter is a Notice of Infringement as authorized in §512 of the U.S. Copyright Law.

1. The copyrighted work at issue is the text that appears on:

######THE_URL_OF_YOUR-HUB#######

2. The URLs where my copyrighted material is located include:

##LINK OF STOLEN MATERIAL#####

3. My contact information is as follows:

##YOUR NAME##
##YOUR MAILING ADDRESS##
##YOUR EMAIL ADDRESS##


4. I have a good faith belief that use of the copyrighted materials described above as allegedly infringing is not authorized by the copyright owner, its agent, or the law.

5. I swear, under penalty of perjury, that the information in the notification is accurate and that I am the copyright owner or am authorized to act on behalf of the owner of an exclusive right that is allegedly infringed.

##YOUR NAME##

Tuesday, June 26, 2012

There Are Four Lights

I don't know if I would have continued to say or or if I would have gone with what Madred wanted. I'm pretty stubborn, so I hope in that scenario, it's be the four.

I've got six more articles to write and then it's vacay for a while. I'm super happy about that. I start ballet next Monday. I tried on all my old stuff and it still fits which is awesome.

I did some editing to CodeGurl... mainly just fixed the bullet points. They were red and I wanted them to match the rest of the blog, so I made some new ones using teh GIMP. I also changed my picture on the sidebar. I figured a color picture would be a nice change.

Unfortunately, I've been so busy with work and this Greenpeace campaign that I've really been unable to relax. I love it all, but this is one of those time where I sooo can't wait for the weekend to come (and it's only Tuesday!)

Sunday, June 24, 2012

Pancake Art

So, I came across a bunch of delicious looking pancake designs. These look really fun and tasty. I'm going to have to try some of these!

Some of these actually remind me of the smiley face and Mickey Mouse pancakes my mom would make us as kids.

Have you ever tried making any fun or creative pancake designs? Which of these are your favorite? I can't decide!

This one is so cute and looks fairly easy-to-make
Star Wars, anyone?
This looks like a great way to get children
to eat fruit in the morning!
Totoro? Now that's just dang creative!
A bit of food coloring and a ton of
artistic skill and you have an amazing
breakfast you'll never forget!
Have I mentioned that giraffes
 are my favorite animal?
So creative and so simple! Great for breakfast
on Thanksgiving day!
So cute! I almost wouldn't be able to bite into it!
These are perfect because they hold extra syrup! Yum!
This must have taken forever to make.
Pigs in a blanket! Too cute!!

Turtle pancake = awesome!
Okay, this is the coolest idea ever!!
Is it "pancakes for breakfast" or "breakfast for pancakes?"
So these pancakes are pretty awesome, right? Check out some of these weird cakes, for more cake fun!

Thursday, June 21, 2012

Oldies, But Goodies

So it has finally come to this:
I heard Depeche Mode on an oldies station today.
"Enjoy the Silence"

Kind of depressing to find music I know and love on an oldies station. Great station, though.

When did you start hearing your childhood faves on oldies stations?

Proud of This

I am proud of this. That is all. Hoping to repeat this next fall when I take way too many courses!

I'm in:
Biology Seminar
Algebra II &  Trig
Italian I
Ecology & Evolution
General Chemistry
Diversity, Ecology, And Behavior

I'll also be going to Chicago three days a week for ballet. I'm going to continue on as treasurer of the PNC Robotics Team.

By next fall I'll be finishing up my apprenticeship, so I'll have a lot more extra time on my hands than I did this Spring! Plus, since I'll be taking the train, I'll do some homework during the commute.

Wednesday, June 13, 2012

The Weirdest Song I Love

I'm not really all that big on embedding videos into blog posts, but there's this one song that I've found oddly alluring throughout the past few years. I'm not sure where the "pull" is... if it's the lyrics or tune or if it's the music video!

Now that I think about it, the guy kind of looks like the dude who plays Peeta!

"Always" by Erasure.

Tuesday, June 12, 2012

Melbel's HubPages Milestones

As you may already know, I'm a writer on HubPages. There, I write under the name "Melbel." While I joined HubPages in 2009, I only really gained an interest in writing there sometime around January of 2011. As I wrote more, my writing skills really improved. Some hubs saw great success, some never saw the light of day.

This year, I've embarked on a journey in HubPages' Apprenticeship program. While, many of my hubs written before the program still receive MUCH more traffic than my newer ones (they're so new, it's really too early to tell how they'll do), I have a LOT of faith that they're do really well. In fact, some of the hubs I've written last month have already started to show a bit of promise.

Since this post is inspired by MissOlive's Milestone post, I want to follow a bit in her footsteps by sharing a few of my milestones.

Melbel's Milestones

Published Hubs to date: 169 (I deleted a few)
Number of Hubs in Draft: 27
Total Hub views to date: 1,110,498 views
Total Hubs with over 1k views: 70
Total Hubs with over 10k views: 20
Total Hubs with over 100k views: 2
Comments to date: 3244
Followers to date: 1380

My goals for 2012
To reach 1.5M views
To reach 80,000 views per month

Advice from Melbel
  • Keep working at it. You're not going to make ANYTHING at first. I made almost zilch for quite a while. Just keep writing.
  • Don't write poetry or things on "how to do well on HubPages."
  • Write for people coming in from the search engines, not for other hubbers. Other hubbers are nice, but don't really bring you any money.
  • Don't put your amazon products at the very end of your hub. Nest them near relevant text.
  • Only put relevant products in your hubs. Unless your hub is related to reading or the kindle, don't sell kindles on your hub.
  • Find hubbers that write fabulous hubs. Learn what elements of their hubs you love and what makes them so successful.
  • Make friends with other hubbers, but don't get overly involved in "office" politics. There's drama everywhere and there's no need to let it get in the way of your writing.
  • Pay attention to what you do in everyday life. You'd be surprised the things you're able to do with ease that many people have to look up (on Google... your hub) directions for. Things like "how to scrub a pan clean" and "how to check if your water heater is leaky" are things people do in their daily lives... and have already made some awesome hubs!
  • Keyword research every hub you write. Even if you've already got an idea for a hub, you'll want to find some ways to give it the best chances in Google search.
  • Soak up everything in the learning center.
  • Avoid bad/all SEO advice. Just write your hubs and pay attention to what's in the learning center. There are a TON of "SEO" idiots that appear very authoritative. No SEO is better than huge SEO mistakes.
  • Do the WTI. It's the best way to write an article without having to do the keyword research... all the research is done for you, all you have to do is use one of the handy titles given by Simone!

Monday, June 11, 2012

Retro Cycling Jersey... Pour Moi?

I have been thinking of getting one of those more retro style bicycle jerseys, but aren't sure what to get. There are a few fabulous ones that I've got my eye on. At their price, I think I should really only get one.

The Spiuk La Vuelta one is definitely near the top of my list. It's really attractive. Unfortunately, I have no idea what "Spiuk La Vuelta" is/means! That's one I'm going to have to look up!



Another jersey that I found kind of cool was this Chiquita one, but it's a little bit on the flashy/ridiculous side. The thing I don't like about it is that the back is blue and so it does this half blue and half yellow thing which I find kind of strange.





This Zanussi Peugeot one is kind of cool. I really like the colors and it really does have this "retro" look about it that the Chiquita one doesn't really have. I do think the NASA one is kind of retro, though.


The one I want the most is this NASA one (or maybe the La Vuelta one), but it appears that my size is really hard to come by. It's a shame because this is probably the jersey I identify with the most.

There are a lot of other really cool jerseys I found, but these are the ones that really screamed "awesome" to me. Which one do you like the most?

Friday, June 8, 2012

Competing Against Yourself on HubPages

In for a little competitive hubbing?
Here's a fun game for competing with yourself in hubbing:
In track (running), there is this "game" where everyone runs in a line and the person at the very end of the line has to pass everyone else. Once he gets to the front, the new last person in line has to pass everyone (and so on.)

Let's try that with hubs!

What's your lowest scoring hub?
What score does it have?
How can you revamp it to make it one of your top hubs?


Example: My hub "How to Make a Threaded Running Stitch" is a 68. It's really short (only 511 words) and it needs better pictures. I could add more sections and perhaps a video. I will make these changes this weekend and report back in the coming weeks how this hub is doing.

So what hub are you going to revamp?



Note: I know hubscores are somewhat inaccurate. There are fab hubs that aren't 100 and not-so-hot hubs that beat these fab hubs. That said, I think we can all agree that hubs with scores in the 50s and 60s (and below) need a lot of work.