This week I posted an ad at the DP Forums looking for a news-writer.  This is the second time in two years I’ve made such a post and since the type of responses I got were nearly identical both times I feel that I owe it to the world of potential content writers out there to give some tips on getting work:

1. READ THE FUCKING AD!!  If the ad says “send me a private message”, don’t reply with a public question.  If the ad says “I DO NOT WANT XYZ TYPE OF A WRITER” do not send me a PM (or worse, post publicly) that you a very good “XYZ” writer and ask me how much I’m going to pay you for all your great XYZ writing!
2. Don’t bother me if based on the very few requirements in the ad, you are not even close to being qualified!  If the ad says “you must be able to write in near grammatically perfect English” don’t send me a message written in Pidgeon English at the grammar level of a 7 year old asking how much I am going to pay you
3. When sending an example of your work, make sure it is your BEST work!  And OMFG, if that is your best work, please refer to #2
4. Don’t send a clearly ‘canned’ response that really has nothing to do with the ad/request that I posted.  You are supposed to be a professional writer, right?  At least put in some effort and WRITE a response.. and for God’s sake, don’t send something that has been re-written by some kind of 10 year old “keyword rewriting” program
5. Don’t make ME work – Don’t make me go searching some spam-farm looking for  your samples of work, or make me beg multiple times over multiple emails to see examples of your work.
6. If you can’t read, can’t speak/write english, have the IQ less than 9 year old encephalitic, or worse, all of these things combined, then please, leave me alone and just keep writing for eHow.com – you two will go well together.

Fortunately out of the 100 or so responses I received, there were 2 or 3 that actually met my requirements and will have some work waiting for them should they choose.

There are many modules available for Drupal to back-up your Drupal site, but I’ve always felt that in addition to backups on your server the best (and more secure) way to get the data was directly from the database – and the best place to store that data is OFF/AWAY from your server and on your local PC hard drive, included in your local PC data backup scheme. Keeping the data locally will not only protect you from catastrophic server issues, but will also protect you from the occasional “my hosting company locked me out of my account!” issues that I read about all the time.

Don’t forget that in addition to the MySQL data, you also need your Drupal files which can easily be downloaded/backed-up using FTP.

If you have never done a MySQL data export, don’t fear, it’s spelled out at the Drupal.org website: Export Drupal Data

For all you WordPress users, all this applies to you too if you value your blog.

Something I still have not quite gotten the hang of: How To Run A Successful Contest

It doesn’t matter what WordPress cache plugin you use, but for god’s sake, use one:
WordPress Cache Roundup