Video Journalism for Small Business

Fire & Police Blotter

A 24-year-old man was found unconscious in the restroom at Griff's Landing shortly before 1:30 a.m. Saturday, according to the Frederick Police Department.

Sat Nov 14, 2009

Herald-Mail

Man charged in stabbing

A man wanted in a stabbing in Hagerstown on Friday was caught after a chase in the Myersville, Md., area, police said.

Fri Nov 13, 2009

Fire & Police Blotter

A brief vehicle chase early Saturday ended with the arrest of a Montgomery County man, according to the Frederick Police Department.

Thu Nov 12, 2009

Fire Displaces 5 Frederick Residents

When units arrived, fire was coming from the second floor and roof. An early morning fire leaves 5 Frederick residents homeless.

Restaurant delivery firm expands into Frederick

Jay Twilley, owner of Waiter on the Way looks at a list of orders received and processed through the company's computer system.

2 civil rights groups sue Frederick sheriff's department over woman's arrest

Wed Nov 11, 2009

The Baltimore Sun

Two civil rights organizations are suing on behalf of a Frederick County woman who says she arrested for no reason and jailed for more than a month last year before being released.

Park service chooses interim superintendent for Gettysburg

Tue Nov 10, 2009

The York Daily Record

He will begin Nov. 23. Poole said he has every intention of returning to Catoctin once the Park Service has selected a new superintendent.

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Frederick County And Sheriff's Department Sued for Racial Profiling

Lawyers say Sheriff Jenkins and his deputies have been engaged in a pattern of racial profiling against Latinos and other people of color in Frederick.

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Fire and police blotter

The Greene Turtle Sports Bar and Grille on Citizens Way was robbed Monday, according to the Frederick Police Department.

Mon Nov 09, 2009

Decision day - Frederick prepared for mayoral, aldermanic votes

Election volunteer poll workers Alexandra Tyron-Hopko, left, and Gail Boggs set up voting machines Monday at the William Talley Recreation Center in preparation for todaya TMs Frederick city election.

Frederick County Elementary School Remains Open After Fire

WHDH-TV

Frederick CountyPublic School officials say a fire broke out in a portable classroom at Parkway ElementarySchool early Monday.

Observers: Dissatisfaction, familiarity central to election defeats

Sun Nov 08, 2009

The Frederick News-Post

A clean sweep of City Hall will put five new aldermen to work for the next four years With a mayor elected to his first public office, Frederick's government will stand untested in the face of what could be the city's most financially challenging year in decades The returns made it clear that city voters were not swayed by the well-funded and ...

Sat Nov 07, 2009

Frederick Police Involved In Vehicle Chase

The suspect was charged with DUI and Fleeing & Eluding Police. Frederick Police responded to the area of 16th and Schifferstadt Blvd.

Grand jury weighs attempted murder, burglary, drug cases

WTOP-FM Washington

A Frederick County grand jury Friday indicted two men on attempted murder charges, two men on burglary charges and four illegal immigrants on drug distribution charges, Deputy State's Attorney Nanci Hamm said.

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Primrose Schools looking at Frederick for new location

Darin Harris, chief operating officer for Primrose Schools, talks with a student.

Fri Nov 06, 2009

Trial Date Set For School For Deaf Assault In Frederick

Court documents released Thursday add details to the charges. A trial date has been set for 20 year old Tyler Dilks.

Source of this current Frederick Maryland News from Topix.net

Frederick Police Arrest Suspects In K-Mart Thefts

The suspects were seen loading items into a coffee maker box. Frederick Police were called to the K-Mart on West Patrick Street, Wednesday night, for a report of a theft in progress.

Man fatally burned in Md. gas station fire

Thu Nov 05, 2009

The Oregonian

FREDERICK, Md. - Officials in Maryland say a man has died after he caught fire at a gas station pump.

Man badly burned in Frederick gas station fire

The Washington Post

An early morning fire at a Frederick, Maryland gas station has left a man seriously injured.

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New Monitor!! Yeah!!

2009-11-07T13:28:00.008-05:00

Yes, my new monitor arrived! I just picked it up yesterday. It's a 19" Samsung Syncmaster 943, the picture resolution on it is incredible. Especially if you could see the dinosaur of a monitor I was using before. It's alot easier on my eyes.

From Video Journalism

Working on the computer for such long periods of time without the proper equipment can be and is exhausting. Your back hurts and having a poor monitor strains your eyes to the point of getting headaches. The new monitor is great. I'm looking forward to working even longer hours on my new computer and monitor. So much to do, so much to learn. Just keeping everyone up to date on my progress.

This is what my aging eyes used to have to work with: (note the 15" monitor)

From Video Journalism

http://onlinearnings.com/2009/09/09/september-2009-high-pagerank-dofollow-forums-list/

Learning to Post on Forums

2009-11-02T23:30:00.003-05:00

I've been signing up for online marketing forums, well forums on various topics.

Some are webmastering forums (like I really know what to do there) , others are writers forums (they tend to be a little snobbish), still others are SEO forums (there's stuff to say about some of those), other forums are about blogging/ how to blog/ how to get visitors to your blog... I feel a bit more at home on those.

The SEO forums have what are known as "junk posts". Apparently there are a lot of people who post to forums to "drop links", they have little interest in contributing to the forum, all they want is to get their link on the forum.

Then there are the "nazi" forum moderators, they assume that we joined the forum for the express purpose of spamming them... then there's the whole issue of what is and what isn't spam.

My boss is shepparding me through this process, he suggested I sign up for a couple dozen forums, I found this overwhelming... then I saw the LONG list of forums, the list HE signed up for (we wont talk about that)

Here is just ONE of the long lists:

and here is another one:

http://www.peiprofit.com/traffic-secrets/list-of-dofollow-forums

Among this list I found these both useful and not so intimidating (which is to say the community welcomed me and I did not feel incompetent)

webdigity.com

On Blogger forum, I was quite comfortable. There was no intro section, so I created a new topic, introduced myself and proceeded from there.

If you want to know how I did this?, Here is a step-by-step tutorial of sorts, forgiving any mistakes, for I am learning as I go also.

Sign up for forums of your choice, you'll have to register. After registering you'll be sent an email to confirm that you are really a person and not a machine. I have learned that there are programs that people write, they act like little machines called "spambots". They make fake blogposts and fake forum posts, more on that topic later. Make certain you confirm this email. If not, you will not be registered and you won't be able to write posts on that forum.

After you have confirmed your email, login and find your profile and fill it out. Some forums don't call it a profile. They refer to it as a userCP, so you may have to hunt for it. Along with filling out your profile you need to upload your picture. Why is this so important??? Because it seems that over half of people using forums don't bother posting a picture. If you want to stand out and more importantly be taken seriously, you should put your picture on your profile.

Your profile is one of the main reasons, if not the primary reason for posting to a forum. Why is this??? Because you want the "Googlebot" to spider the forum to see you and your link... more later it's late and I'm tired. I spent the last three and a half days at the hospital with my daughter and newly born granddaughter, she is a Halloween Baby!!!

More Ram in my computer

2009-10-25T21:23:00.004-04:00

My ex came over and installed a gig of ram to my computer.

It runs so much better now.

We bought the ram from ebay, that was cool because I'd never bought anything from ebay before. They have a "buy it now" button if you see what you want for the price you want to pay for it. I discovered that if you see something priced on ebay for a price that's too good to be true, it is. Every time you bid on something, someone outbids you within seconds. I suppose it's possible that someone else was bidding the same time I was but I don't believe it. I think the seller had a minimum price set. If that's true why did he or she start the bidding for half of what they were really going to accept? I'm avoiding anything that doesn't have a buy it now button for the foreseeable future.

The ram came from ebay within 3 days, so that was kind of cool.

Apparently if you view a lot of pictures and especially if you view a lot of videos or edit videos for uploading to youtube your computer can slow down a lot. It seems to require more power or something to mess with videos. Since this is my work computer and my only source of income right now I'm a happier camper than I was last week.

I've spent many, many hours reading and learning from forums. There are dozens (maybe hundreds?) of different kinds of forums on every topic conceivable. I'm signed up for webmastering forums and marketing forums and writing skills forums (the writers seem to all prefer books to computer screens or ebooks).

Forums used to be called Bulletin Boards I'm finding out, they all seem to be using similar software as the layout of each one is remarkably similar. They all of a Control Panel (often called a CP) and they let you upload a picture of yourself. Not sure what an avatar is yet, but they all have one. They all seem to have an "off topic" section and an "introduce yourself" section.

I'm really embarrassed to ask questions where the people there seem to know extreme geek stuff, I'm not really required to know all that geek stuff but I should know a rudimentary amount of the terminology.

Some forums are less intimidating than others, will keep you posted:)

Learning from spending time on SEO forums.

2009-10-25T02:12:00.004-04:00

Online Forums

Learning from spending time on SEO forums.

I'm an intern, for me that means on the job training. I was instructed to spend time on SEO forums to give me enough background on our industry to enable me to understand what the end result of our video interviews should be.

My boss is paying me to learn, I was told to sign up for dozens of online marketing forums and webmastering forums and scan the questions everyone asks. This is known as "lurking", after I felt comfortable enough, I was urged to ask my own questions. That is known as "posting". Having a conversation on a forum, where people are posting Q & A's and then you include your participation, this entire process is known as a "thread".

I'm relieved to discover that I'm not the only newbie.

The first forum I spent a lot of time on was WebDigity.com

Someone asked a question that caught my eye, they asked can someone really make SEO into a career. You can tell from the clumsy grammar used, this person likely uses english as a second language.

"Is it really worth with SEO as career that can make money with SEO services. How important is seo as career to someone that use it to make money online...

what do you all think about that?"

[quote author=Nikolas link=topic=8306.msg39105#msg39105 date=1230545798]
Yeah it is a great job. You can check some good arguments on that here
[/quote]

Hi Nikolas, Thank you for posting the link to SEOBook, I'm very new at all of this. I'm a new intern and my boss is constantly saying to learn this, that and everything. There is so much information to mentally absorb, it can be a bit overwhelming. I just spent the last couple of hours reading and watching related videos (by LeFever) through SEOBooks. I learned more in the past few hours than I have in the past 3 weeks. Which is especially useful, as my boss is paying me learn, in addition to working. The info from both SEOBook and the Lefever YOUtube videos, were comfortable and easy to follow and absorb. I now subscribe to both.

How to Set Up a Blogger Blog

2009-10-17T20:00:00.004-04:00

I've been told one of the best ways to learn is to teach, at least going through the process of teaching helps cement in ones own mind what is supposed to be happening. The act of actually getting your students to learn is or might be another issue altogether. Learning is different for everyone. We all learn at different speeds and in different ways. Some of us learn by watching, by listening, and then there are the ones of us who learn best by hands-on. Just diving in, sink or swim and learning from the mistakes we make along the way. This is pretty much the technique I used when I was the senior Driver Trainer at F.O. Day Company. Mind you driving a CDL heavy construction dump truck is quite a bit different than blogging or computer work of any kind, but the hands on principals are the same.

So this post I'll cover the steps I took to create this, my very first blog (the one I made because my boss wont let me learn what I want to learn until I can understand the basics of blogging)

What is a blog?
wikipedia says this:

A blog (a contraction of the term "weblog") is a type of website, usually maintained by an individual with regular entries of commentary, descriptions of events, or other material such as graphics or video. Entries are commonly displayed in reverse-chronological order. "Blog" can also be used as a verb, meaning to maintain or add content to a blog.

Many blogs provide commentary or news on a particular subject; others function as more personal online diaries. A typical blog combines text, images, and links to other blogs, Web pages, and other media related to its topic. The ability for readers to leave comments in an interactive format is an important part of many blogs. Most blogs are primarily textual, although some focus on art (Art blog), photographs (photoblog), videos (Video blogging), music (MP3 blog), and audio (podcasting). Microblogging is another type of blogging, featuring very short posts.

As of December 2007, blog search engine Technorati was tracking more than 112 million blogs.

If you want a blog you have to decide on a blog platform, there are a few to choose from.

There are 3 top blogging tools, 2 are free, the 3rd costs money.

Blogger.com (Google owns this)
Wordpress.com (very good but has certain limitations, pros and cons)
Typepad.com (not free)

If you want to blog, have it be easy, hands down the best place to start a blog is on Google's blogger.com

From Video Journalism

My First Video Ever

2009-10-17T00:14:00.003-04:00

Webcam... it's fun

My first attempt at a video is a video message to my oldest daughter, Marie.
She lives in Ohio with her husband and two of my grandchildren.

Video to Marie

Facebook is truly amazing, I'm told it brings families together... it does. My Facebook Profile is http://www.facebook.com/judybelt/
It did for me! It did for the small business clients of my new job: Frederick Web Promotions

We make company Facebook pages for our small business SEO clients, most of them did not have a personal Facebook profile so we create one for them. Within minutes our clients see people they went to school with and haven't seen in 20 years, or they discover that their clients have a Facebook Fan page and they "friend" each other.

My first post ever to a blog

2009-10-04T02:00:00.004-04:00

Learning to do video interviews for youtube commercials and hopefully video documentaries for a Maryland search engine marketing firm: Frederick Web Promotions.

In a past life, I was a CDL truck driver, now that the economy has tanked, I'm switching careers totally. My boss wants me to learn the ins and outs of blogging, social media, social networking, social bookmarking and more crap than you can shake a stick at.

I'm not really sure what blogging has to do with me creating, and being a news anchor for video documentaries, but he's telling me that a video on youtube is a blog, photos on flickr can be either someone's family vacation, pictures of their kids but ultimately they are photo blogs.

RSS feeds?, I'm really unsure about what an RSS feed is, but he says that's what makes a blog different from (and he says better than) a conventional website. Something about syndication and blasting a feed all over the internet. It's confusing now, but he sure knows what he's doing.

He's a master of breaking his arm to pat his own back, shameless self promotion. However, he occasionally forgets that it was I, who taught him how to use the computer with DOS, Windows 3.1, just roughly 12 years ago. Go figure, he now blows me away ten fold on the computer.

My God, I've created a monster!!!!

To ease the pressure I put upon myself, he often has to reminds me, that 50 million people start their first post by typing "Well, I'm here, now what?" So on that note, "Something is better than nothing and you can't do it wrong, you can only make it better". In the words of Nike "Just Do It" and so that is my new motto for the time being.

So how did I do? Feedback anyone?