Last update: 6/9/01; 19:43:26.
Thoughts and ideas as they occur to me.
Friday, December 8, 2000
Salary.com: Salary Wizard. How much are you worth? (12/08/2000 16:01 EST) I just discovered Salary.com and their interesting Salary Wizard. If you go to the home page and click on the Salary Wizard tab (or click on the link provided in the title), you'll see a place where you can choose a generic job category from a drop down menu. Enter your zip code and the nearest metropolitan area. Then click search. This will bring you to another page where it show a list of job titles. Scroll to the one you want, select it, and click on Create Salary Report.
The resulting page will show you a job description and a range of salary figures. This might be useful in bidding on a job, because you could divide this figure by 2080 (52 weeks x 40 hours per week) to determine your hourly target income, which in my case as a Webmaster in Murphy would be slightly under $23.00 per hour assuming full employment. For consultants, it would be higher to cover overhead, nonbillable hours, and a profit, but it gives you a good reference point for comparisons.
I ran a report to see how much a webmaster in Murphy, NC should be paid and learned that I have to fire me because I can't afford myself! Here's what it said:
"A typical Webmaster working in Murphy, NC 28906 is expected to earn a median base salary of $47,565. Half of the people in this job are expected to earn between $41,243 and $58,824 (i.e., between the 25th and 75th percentiles). These numbers are based on national averages adjusted by geographic salary differentials.
"(This data is as of December, 2000)"
Even with geographic salary differentials, this seems high for this area. If anyone knows where I can find this job and not leave Murphy, let me know! ;^)
I ran an advanced search for job title and still couldn't find a listing for blacksmith. So, I used their feedback form to let them know.
Joking aside, this site has lots of good information about salary and human resources. I recommend it to you.
** JD ** 4:23:06 PMThe Travel Writing Beat: Easy Steps to Getting Started . (12/08/2000 13:36 EST) The Travel Writing Beat: Easy Steps to Getting Started, by Myrna Oakley.
Quoted from the article:
"Do you harbor a desire to try your hand at travel writing? Do you long to visit exotic hideaways and write articles that inspire readers to pack their suitcases and head into the sunset?
"Before all those exotic locales lure you away, first consider the dozens of travel topics right in your own backyard and in your own region-your own local beat. Taking time to get acquainted with your own territory can build credibility and reap future assignments from satisfied editors-particularly those in your own region. The following tips will help you get started in your own locale (and can be applied to far away destinations as well)."
** JD ** 1:40:20 PMHey! UserLand linked to my comment! (12/08/2000 11:57 EST) I just noticed that Dave Winer linked to one of my comments on the Radio UserLand website. That's cool!
If you don't know, Dave Winer is one of the fathers of software outlining. Way back when, right after dinosaurs quit thundering through the landscape, the mountains were still underwater, and the rocks were soft, Dave Winer was writing software that allowed us to outline our thoughts. We could write major and minor points, move them around, copy them and paste them into word processors and then use that as the basis for fleshing out our ideas into coherent articles, reports and even books.
This was a long time before Word had an outliner, and Dave's outliners are still better.
I was a user of a program called ThinkTank and later More, before Dave sold the company to Symantec. More was, if memory serves, the precursor to presentation software such as PowerPoint.
Now, Dave and the team at UserLand are working on a new product that's still in beta, and it's growing and improving in the process. Radio Userland is a product that's hard to describe, but there's no doubt its the first outliner for the Internet. I use it to maintain my directory and to edit articles for my John Dilbeck's Ramblings site.
A few weeks ago, I asked how to render static sites through Radio Userland as I have been doing through Frontier (their premier product) for years. Dave thought that was a good idea and a few days later it was announced. Now, I'm in the process of adapting my site at JohnDilbeck.com for rendering through Radio Userland. Both my directory and JohnDilbeck.com are completely contained in a single outline, and JohnDilbeck.com has over 60 pages and is going to be expanding. This product reflects incredible power and convenience in an easy to use interface.
I must hesitate for a moment and mention that when I say easy to use, I mean it from the point of view of someone who has been using outliners for a long time, Frontier for about five years, and I'm a programmer. Beginners may take a little while to wrap their brains around the whole concept and see how powerful this software really is.
My Ramblings site at http://johndilbeck.editthispage.com is hosted on a computer running Frontier. Every page is dynamically rendered and I can edit it using either my web browser or Radio Userland. Frontier has a feature called Manila which is a content management system used for easy-to-author and manage websites that can be created by multiple editors. All of this is a built-in feature of Manila, and Userland hosts three free Manila servers where you are welcome to create your own site: editthispage.com, weblogs.com, and ManilaSites.com.
For now, while it's still in beta, Radio Userland is free and is cross platform. If you want to try out a powerful outliner that's Internet-aware and is built on standards with open access to the standards and much of the code, then you may be interested in checking this product out. The title of the article links you to Radio Userland's home page, and at the bottom of that page, Dave links to a message where I tell what I've been doing for the last five weeks or so. It's been a wild ride, and all of my sites have improved as a result.
** JD ** 12:19:05 PMWhat To Do When Someone Interviews YOU. (12/08/2000 11:21 EST) Moira Allen is the managing editor of Inklings and Inkspot, and has been writing and editing for more than 20 years. She is the author of Writing.com: Creative Internet Strategies to Advance Your Writing Career (Allworth Press, 1999), and is now completing The Writer's Guide to Queries, Pitches and Proposals (forthcoming from Allworth Press in 2001). For more writing tips, visit Allen's Tips for Writers website at http://www.tipsforwriters.com.
Quoting from the article linked in the title of this item: "You've just stepped out of the shower. Your robe is in the bedroom; the phone rings in the livingroom. You wrap a towel around yourself and run to grab it -- and a voice on the other end of the line asks if this would be a good time for an interview!
"What do you do?"
It then goes on to give good advice on how to handle interviews, even those that don't put you on the spot. While it is written for writers, it offers advice that anyone can adapt and use.
** JD ** 11:29:58 AMIRS request for comments on speech issues and nonprofits. (12/08/2000 10:48 EST) Putnam Barber, Editor of The Nonprofit FAQ (click the title to see the FAQ entry related to this issue), responded by saying, "The complete text of the IRS request for comments is available at http://www.nonprofits.org/npofaq/misc/IRS2000-84.html. The deadline for comments is February 13, 2001. The address and other particulars are included in that file."
He continued, "Michael Wyland is right that the questions focus on some issues of great consequence. It would be interesting to see a discussion of what people think about them to help clarify thoughts and focus attention prior to the deadline."
The discussion continues on the CharityTalk mailing list hosted by CharityChannel.com.
** JD ** 10:54:15 AMIRS considers regulating Web speech by nonprofits. (12/08/2000 10:33 EST) The World News Daily story from CharityChannel's news page (located at http://charitychannel.com/forums/charitynews-a.htm) really caught Michael L. Wyland's attention. You can see the full article by clicking on the title of this article.
The tax collection agency quietly released a document called "Announcement 2000-84" soliciting public comment on possible new regulations for charities, think tanks and educational organizations.
Among the questions the IRS is addressing in its study of exempt organizations and the Internet:
Quoting from the article:
"Does providing a hyperlink on a charitable organization's website to another organization that engages in political campaign intervention result in per se prohibited political intervention?"
"To what extent are statements made by subscribers to a forum, such as a listserv or newsgroup, attributable to an exempt organization that maintains the forum?"
"Does a website constitute a single publication or communication? If not, how should it be separated into distinct publications or communications?"
Michael L. Wyland comments, "Potentially, every nonprofit with a web site and/or discussion group could be affected by this."
Michael L. Wyland is the Chief Operating Officer for CharityChannel.com, a company that provides news and discussion mailing lists for professionals in the nonprofit sector.
**JD** 10:44:23 AM
© Copyright 2001 John L. Dilbeck, jd@johndilbeck.com.