Destiny

There was a little bit of stress in all this,
but I'll share what's left of the cake!
;) Remember, it's the cyber JELLO that makes your avatar fat!

Today’s blog is all about destiny. Destiny is as much something we make as it is something that happens to us. Whether or not you believe, if you’re told your future by a soothe sayer, that future is guaranteed if you stay on your current course in life. You can change that future by changing your present. That also covers the fortune teller if they are totally wrong. You can’t sue them for your ten bucks back because you changed your present, that voided your forecast! Also, if you “know” your future, you’ll subconsciously make changes anyway, so it’s just as well not to be told.

I have a couple items of destiny coloring my world this week. One bad but filled with possibilities and one really great!

The really great one is a hope... I applied for a couple of jobs with a local corporation yesterday. One looked to be a solid job with which I could learn, grow, enjoy and possibly even support myself. The other one was a clerical position that I thought I’d enjoy and would at least pay my personal bills. I applied through their website for both positions. Today I got an email from their recruiting team. They think I might be a match for the first job and invited me to apply! My interest and theirs crossed in cyber space! Golly, I’m hoping that is today’s rainbow on a rainy afternoon after a sunny morning!

Of course timing is everything. I put my resume in their database when I applied yesterday, but the fact that my job search agent and their candidate search agents matched us up is a good thing! It’s like career dating and I want “us” to be one of those couples on TV!

The not so great bit of destiny - passwords! If you browse through The Chronicles of Nani, you’ll notice that there are passwords for all the past freebies now. There will also be passwords for all freebies moving forward. (Big thanks to Vicki at Bubbles Babbles for her help in setting up my passwords) Mine wasn’t a decision to counter the lack of polite in polite society. I love everyone’s comments! I’m always disappointed if I go to do maintenance on my 4-shared account and see comments there, it gives me the impression that people have downloaded without reading the blog. But, even if they ignored what I wrote, they were still polite in leaving a note of thanks at 4-shared. My decision to add passwords was in response to piracy!

I wonder, is piracy part of the destiny of one who offers products for sharing on the internet? Have I created an atmosphere for it by offering my creative efforts, my intellectual property, for free? Will a password system change my present enough to spare me victimization in the future or, at least, has my response to it protected others and given me good karma to take into the future with me?

As I’ve said before, I study all my stats. I read comments left here, check the download counts at 4-shared, inspect the referral, locations and out clicks on my stat meter. Last week found a referring page that was new. It wasn’t an ad I’d placed or any or the referring pages I’d seen before, so I clicked it. I’m a total believer in link swapping. If you have The Chronicles of Nani linked on you blog, chances are I want to be sure to at least add your blog to my list in the left column! But this site wasn’t a blog. It was a private freebies group. I appreciate the extra promotion for The Chronicles of Nani, but I wanted to see how the group worked and I couldn’t read any of it without a membership. I wrote the group owner and joined the group.

I was troubled by the fact that there was a “download” link for every freebie listed! I clicked on the download link to my own Birthday kit and it went directly to the download, no stop at The Chronicles of Nani, not even a passing glance at the 4-shared page! I very much agree with Vicki that the freebies are a blog-gift. People read the blog, and every now and then, there’s a gift to download. Direct download links are worse than grabbing the spray can cheese on a cracker and not smiling at the person spaying the cheese or picking up a box of the crackers or a can of the cheese, It’s taking the cheese and crackers without ever LOOKING at the person spaying the cheese,the box or the can. It’s just eating and not caring how it got to be in your hands.

“OH NO SHE DI-INT!” said me!

I wrote back to the site owner. I complained about the direct linking, that it violates most digi-scrap TOUs and it was considered a form of piracy. I got a terse email back telling me that she was a ten-year veteran (I think I've met the grandmother of digi-scrapping) and knew what piracy was and nothing was direct linked. Sorry, I clicked on a few kits. I could have downloaded them with no idea who the designer was. They were ALL direct linked.

Now the good news out of this conflict is that when I returned to the site after receiving the email denying everything, the direct links had all been removed. So, of course now, I don’t know what my lying mouse was telling me before I got the reply. But maybe I spared some other designers, amateur and pro, from a few direct link clicks that they get no recognition for. I can’t imagine if I was selling my kits and someone was downloading samples without even seeing the full kit in my store. It’s an injustice to everyone.

So now, to control that, a little anyway, everything has a password. If someone clicks a direct link, they’ll be asked for a password they don’t have because they didn’t stop here and at least say “oh wow” at the logo before scanning for the password. I’m a trusting person and I hate that a stranger violated that trust. I know most people sharing their lives through their layouts are honest and I feel a little guilty that you all have to go through the password thing too. But I’m not offering a freebie today, so if you still stopped by to read, please accept my apology for the new security measures on my freebies and know it’s not because of you! You read the blog anyway!

Oh, and in case you wondered, I did NOT download anything I clicked on to see if they were indeed direct links. To me, that would be like buying one of the watches in the guy’s trench coat downtown. If I know it’s stolen, I’m not making myself an accessory to the crime!