Blogger returns from alien ship

It's been a while since I blogged. Not sure why. I think it has something to do with the day only being 24 hours long. Stupid rule.

Then, there's football. We have season tickets to MSU games, and of course that includes major tailgating.

And then, the Tigers rebounded and won the Division Championship. Hopefully tonight they will show up to play in game four of the World Series, or it's toast time.

And now I am teaching my second section of online social media classes. This time it's 105, a class I love and also learn from each time I teach it. I am hoping to get around a little more in Google + as well as utilize my lists in Twitter to follow friends and students.

And my biggest distraction of all--Miss Gwenna Rose. Everyone should have a distraction like this one!

Sweden's Twitter Disaster and Other Social Media News

Technology can really reach out and bite you sometimes. Take for example, the recent Twitter disaster in Sweden. When the government decided to let citizens tweet--in an attempt to increase tourism--they really didn't think it through. Many of the tweets had nothing to do with tourism, instead containing anti-Semitic comments as well as tasteless mentions of penises and urine in cereal.

An article in the New York Times explains the thought process that went into the concept. Tweeters were pre-approved. However, their tweets were not. I am a huge believer in freedom of expression. However, when someone is representing the entire country, it might be a good idea to preview the tweets prior to publication. Yes, this takes away from the spontaneity, but this is not citizen journalism. This is public relations. Am I wrong to feel this isn't censorship as much as it is filtering out the junk?

This bit of technology is a stretch, I know

Let's get this out in the open right away.
I am 59 years old. 59. Commit that to memory.

My trainer is seven years younger. Commit that to memory.

Now, let's go back in time.

When I was 55, I retired from high school teaching and moved to an adjunct job at CMU. Because I was tired of messing with chemicals,  (Don't get excited. We're talking hair color. Peroxide. You know.) I decided to let my hair grow out and see if it would be as pretty as my Mom's.

Here's a shot of my 86 year old mom and my granddaughter, Gwenna Rose, getting some antibiotics at Thanksgiving.

Here's a shot of me, the same weekend, with Gwenna Rose in the saddle.

Ok. So our haircolor is pretty close.

In January, I began working out once a week with a trainer. As I have dropped pounds and become acquainted with people, I've had several conversations with them. About five weeks ago a woman who knew my trainer said, "Oh, how cool you are working out with your mom."

I stopped in my tracks.

"WHAT did you say?" I asked, stunned. "Did you say his MOM?"

"Oh no. You didn't hear me right," she said. "I didn't say that at all."

I left in tears, called my daughter who thought someone had died, and proceeded to cry the rest of the day.

It happened again last Thursday.

A really nice lady who always gives me encouragement, was excited when I told her I had lost 37 pounds. As she was leaving she said to my trainer, "How cool that your mom has lost 37 pounds."

This time I was ready.

"I am 59," I snapped. "He is seven years younger. Do you THINK I could be his mom?"

She was so embarrassed that I felt sorry for her and didn't bitch slap her like I did the other woman.

However, when I conveniently had a hair appointment later that afternoon, I told my stylist through tears that I was ready for something to change. I was kind of thinking the Sinead O'Connor look.

When she suggested we go back to the dark side, I was a nervous wreck. I knew that would mean touchups every 3 seconds and fading hair and looking like a hooker. All those things that had made me let it go natural in the first place.

"Go for it," I said.

And this is the new me, ready to be the mom of my own two children but not my trainer. No way.

Here's to technology. And chemicals.

Google Analytics. Google Blogger. Why don't they just get along?

I received an email from a student in my Social Media 105 class 72 hours ago. She was having trouble linking her Google Blogger blog to Google Analytics.

Google Analytics is something I have used daily with the online magazine I advise, Grand Central . Feeling quite confident I could respond to her within five minutes, I went to the Analytics site and proceeded through their instructions.

Create a new account with the URL of your blog. Check.
Account is a single domain. Check.

Feeling pretty smug, I went to the next area. This is no techno idiot here, folks. This is Betsy Rau on the fast track to solving a student's problem. This is why I am a teacher. This is why I am paid the big bucks. This is why I am a computer goddess.

Paste this code on your site. Paste it onto every page you want to track immediately before the closing </head> tag.

Ok. I'm no dummy. </head> is HTML or code.

I copied.

Betsy Rau on the fast track is now speeding to her Blogger site.

(7 minutes have elapsed)

Reread the directions: Paste this code on your site. Paste it onto every page you want to track immediately before the closing </head> tag. 

So I'm on my site, fingers poised, ready to paste.
Where the heck do I paste it?
On my site. Immediately before the closing </head> tag.

Betsy Rau, formerly on the fast track was now on the highway to hell.

I emailed the student I would get right back to her as soon as I worked through a few "issues" and began searching the site.

(2 hours have elapsed)

I went to the dashboard area of my blog, where it is very simple to check your stats without linking to anything else. Still, the assignment is to link to Google Analytics, so I was gonna make it happen.

I tried template. This is what I saw.

Note: If you want to edit HTML, the type on the button is gray not black. So when you click it, over and over and over again while using every word you learned on the playground at Sacred Heart Academy, nothing happens.

I tried settings. I tried overview. I tried template, again and again and again, moving from one dynamic template to another. I went back to analytics. Read the directions for the tenth time. Nothing worked.

(4 hours have elapsed)

By this time I was convinced it was the stupid laptop computer I was using. It belongs to my husband and besides waiting 1-2 minutes for every page to load, it has a few other issues. Like it is two years behind on upgrades.

I moved to my iPad. Went through the same steps. Swore a lot. No HTML edit possibility.

(5 hours have elapsed. My husband has gone to bed.)

I now moved to our tower computer in the den, ignoring the strange message I received when I started it that said something about a windows shutdown and giving me options on how to start it up.

(6 hours have elapsed. It is 2:33 a.m.)

I gave up for the night. Before going to bed, however, I typed a lengthy email to my 105 class telling them not to stress over the analytics tracking. I recommended using the built in tracking in Blogger and promised to get back to them in the morning.

As I hit send, the screen went dark. Message lost. Computer dead. Champagne from Monday long gone.

I went to bed.

In the few hours I slept, I dreamed of head cheese from the Polish market, touch screens that wouldn't let you touch and champagne--just out of my reach.

The next morning I did what any college student would do. I went to YouTube.
"How to link Blogger to Google Analytics" brought me several choices. I picked number one.
It was in Arabic.
Number two did the trick.

A very nice man explained the entire process. One thing bothered me, though. It was a different looking dashboard.

After watching Nerdy White Kid Kills Gotye (You're vs Your by MacLethal), I went back to Blogger.

(3 hours have elapsed)

One of the options was to revert to the earlier Blogger format. Evidently it had just been updated.Once I got to the old format and saw the same dashboard as I saw on YouTube, I was able to click on template, go into the HTML, paste the snippet (That is NOT what I was calling it at this point) and waited for Google Analytics to do its thing.

In the meantime I went back to watch a few more Nerdy White Kid videos and decided to look at more Blogger to Analytics ones. This time I looked at the dates. When I found one from two months ago, I watched it.

Even though we had been directed to use Dynamic templates, the only way I could get the edit HTML button to function was to pick another style template. I am now a simple template kind of gal.

My vast experience with technology tells me there has to be an easier fix. In fact I am sure there is. Why, however, doesn't Google make it easier for a user of Google Analytics to link it to a Google Blogger site?

While I wait for an answer, I'm off to the store for another round of Champagne. This time I'm buying a case. Who knows what will happen next.

And I was beginning to think I was smart

If you follow this link http://betsyrau.wordpress.com/ you will discover this is NOT a new blog. I have moved it, and after what happened to me today, I intend to continue it. I had begun posting on http://sixtypoundsordie.wordpress.com/ in my quest to lose weight. However, one bottle of champagne and a package of creamy caramel Rollos later, I am dead. Er, moving back to my techno topic.

Yes, this is the bottle of Korbel I was going to drink on Mother's Day but decided to hold for a few weeks. (She stops to sip her champagne).  I have changed my mind.

It started with the Social Media Class I am currently teaching online. I love it and have learned lots in the process of teaching it. One thing I read on my news feed the other day was that Tagged was the fastest growing social media site out there. Being an enthusiastic learner, I signed up. This morning a 29 year old from Tunisia named Wajdi Z sent me the following message: "hi bautiffful really you are so charming and sweet i hope we can be friends i hope to answer me"

No one has called me bautiffful in such a long time!
(She takes the bottle and tosses back her head for a long swig.)


(Slight burp after wiping excess champagne from her chins.)


Wajdi Z was just the start of my day. Next I had a message from Shawn B with some exciting news.


"Congratulations!

I am a part of Tagged's incentives-team and you've been randomly honored to have a hand in our most liked members Apple iPad giveaway, sponsored by Tagg's advertising department!

Simply, go to this link -> http://facebook.com.tagged-reward.2394857.s3-website-us-east-1.amazonaws.com/?75468

No cost to you, all we ask for is that you let people know about our rewards program =) Thanks again for your loyalty to Tagged!!"


It was early. It was Monday. I hadn't had my coffee yet, and I was still thinking about responding to Wajdi. So yes, I clicked on the link.


If anyone ever tells you you are going to win an Apple iPad because you are being "randomly honored as a most liked member," delete the son of a bitch. Fast.


Otherwise you will do what I did.
(Opens another bottle of champagne.)


You will spend the next three hours clicking "no" or "next" or sorting through "free" offers and end up with some teeth whitening miracle paste coming to your house from Bella Brite at a cost of $1 that you later discover is going to cost you $78 unless you call to cancel and they offer the $59 price at which point you say no and they offer it to you for $19 and then you end up cancelling your credit card and discovering they have been reported to the Better Business Bureau in Denver.


And then you open your champagne. The rest is history.


Yes, I am a social media teacher.
LOL.
(I just found out that means Laugh out Loud.)
So go ahead.
Laugh.
At me.