Have I been hacked? – nope

My WordPress menu is weird.  How do you tell if you have been hacked and what do I do to fix it?  I have exported my blog and I haven’t clicked on any of the weird options (like the “mu”), but I am nervous.

Any help or advice is appreciated.

Information underload

There are heaps of websites out there, but most of the time I can’t find what I am looking for.  I read heaps of blogs, but I rarely find ones that I want to return to.  But once in a while, you find a gem.  The other day when I was looking up references in an article I hit on a bunch of conference proceedings on blogging community research.  The conference papers have been great and one of the authors maintains a blog which I am really enjoying (see Mathemagenic).

The great thing about finding new blogs is that they are both new and familiar at the same time.  I often worry (what me worry) that I have missed something big in my research.  That I have either overlooked a study someone else did that is either exactly the same or completely contradicts what I am doing.  So when I read research studies or blogs on blogging, I am generally a little wary.  But this blog was really engaging and made me think about blogging as a researcher and a fellow blogger.

So whether you feel over or under whelmed by the information available on the web, I think we all appreciate it when find a gem.  And if you blog – you get to tell the world about it – nice.

A place where everybody knows your name

If I had only realised how important branding was in blogging, I would have paid more attention in marketing lectures.  It seemed like such a little thing when I started, ‘please enter the name of your blog’.  That’s simple, my name is Fa so my blog will be faniemi.wordpress.com.  Oops, that isn’t available because you created and deleted it last year.  Well my full last name is Martin-Niemi, so that’ll work.  What was I thinking?!

For all of its simplicity (more like simple-mindedness) famartinniemi.wordpress.com is neither catchy, memorable nor easy to spell (even for me).  It gives no indication of the blog’s content or theme.  It is just the first thing that came into my head, ‘hey I am starting a blog, so I’ll name it after me’.  The troubles started almost immediately after I committed to the url, ‘please enter the blog’s tag line’.  Uh…. Fa’s Blog   A Blog about, hmmm….

Then the worries started about why was I starting a blog and what was it about.  It was in this moment of panic and fear that this would be another Seinfeld blog (about nothing), I decided it would be about me.  Well, you know, about my research (which is essentially about me, but whatever).  I want to know why people blog, so I’ll blog and read blogs and talk to bloggers and hopefully this will lead me to either understand why people blog or at least I’ll have “met” some interesting people and call it good.

So what’s in a name?  Would a rose by any other name still smell as sweet?  Yes, but if no one can remember it or spell it, then no one can smell its sweetness (or fill in your own profound thought about one hand clapping or trees falling in the wood).  If I had to do it again?

Norm!