Conquoring Technoratti for Dummies

It's not much of a secret that some of the users at Newsvine are technically challenged. Hmm, there's not even any reason to pretend, for technically terrible, yours truely comes instantly to mind. It is probably a safe bet, that few could be worse than me. Some users who know that all too well, are probably scratching their heads now, wondering if this isn't actually posted to the wrong category.

Last week's article by Jim Dent, I Link Therefore I Am, gave tips for seeding in proper format. It sounded simple enough but as only a technophobe can manage it became a huge cluster%$#@ for half the helpers in the thread. Extra posting by Jim and the 9 step plan that Aine had written, and in the end it still took Aine, the technical angel some hand holding to get the seed button on to my space bar!

If you want a button on your tool bar, it's actually very easy, smirks and grins, for normal people to. Just read the thread, check Aine's 9 steps and if there's a dopey question that you have follow my questions down the thread. Asked and answered, No it's not here in the article body in HTML but will be linked below in the comment box, where the Vine staff in their infinite wisdom make it so click buttons do the code.

Thanks to their patience I too can seed with a click now. I was so excited with my new found powers, it seemed there should be other things that were technically doable too. For weeks I had been trying to get a Technoratti link for my column. I don't even remember how I found out I could have one but someone said it was easy to do.

There again, I sought help from fellow viners. Oluseye Bassir had a lot of listings, of Newsvine posts, on the Technoratti. I wrote to him to ask for help. A few hopeless attempts to guide me, he linked me to a wonderful step by step by Corey Spring. No I won't forget to give the links to these too but no matter how carefully I followed the instructions, and they are simple and clear, when it came time to click the button that says, Release the Spiders, Claim your Blog. The wheel would spin and FAILED.

After many hours and failed attempts I resigned myself to the idea that some of will just never get pinged. That was before the taste of cyber-power from my seed button. So bound and determined a few days ago, I went at it again. No luck, nothing worked and it suddenly occurred to me that maybe it wasn't me. Newsvine had just moved their data center and they add all kinds of code things all the time. In that case the problem would be one for the McCain Punk'd man himself. I sent a note to Mike D.

Lo and behold it took him about three minutes to reply that he'd looked at the code and the links and the site and yes, Corey's instructions needed to be revised. Never mind I couldn't type a note in the time it took Mike D to discover and solve the problem but to my amazement and delight he did. One step was changed. Take the advanced claim steps to the point where Corey said to add it to your homepage and put in the space in the column where you can add recommendations instead.

I went to my column in the place with recommendations, copied and pasted only the code inside the "...", just the way Corey showed it and released the spiders. CONGRATULATIONS is what Technoratti said. For all who have helped me and my kind. to all those in around Newsvine, who do the things that make all this work, bless your hearts. It is a miracle that any of it works!

For those who aren't technical, tip toe into the details just a little bit from time to time. There's help out there and cross my heart, if I can do it you can too. Start building confidence by going to claim your blog at Technoratti and get some "ping" to be proud of