Since my MSN Messenger was upgraded to MSN Live Messenger and it kept crashing my system .. I stopped using it altogether. Instead, I’ve been using GOOGLE TALK.

If Anybody Is Interested, I Am On Google Talk at 1800hart (at) gmail.com

I have three Google accounts actually. I started back in 2005 where somehow I was able to create a Virtual GMAIL Drive on my Windows Explorer. It’s cool! All I have to do is drag and copy/paste and stuff from my local computer is automatically tossed onto my 1st Gmail account. I map this to be my G-Drive of my computer.

My second google account is used strictly for backups of the blogs of the HART-Empire Network. I have daily backups automated now, and each blog (except about 6 of them) backup MySQL database and emails it to my google account. Currently, I’ve got about 3200 backups and have reached 48% capacity at this moment.

My third google account is the one that I seem to be using more regularly .. the 1800hart (at) gmail.com. I do not backup anything in there – and, I never answer any emails – so, if you are sending me emails – I won’t read it. Send the emails using the contact form or to my main email .. hart (at) PetLvr (dot) com …

So, I’ve got GOOGLE TALK up all of the time now .. I’ve been playing with the shared documents and excel spreadsheets online .. and I’ve decided to create GOOGLE ALERTS.

Now – if you are NOT using Google Alerts at the moment – YOU SHOULD CONSIDER IT! It’s 100 times better to find information than say, via Technorati ..

HOW I USE GOOGLE ALERTS

Believe me – I’m not too sophisticated.

I started simple, like .. setting up the “HART-Empire Network” as a search criteria or names of my blogs – but, it became too much. I would get notices everytime HART came up .. or EMPIRE came up .. or NETWORK came up .. it was ridiculous. So, Instead – I’ve created 40 or so alert notices for the ROOT DOMAIN URL of each of my domains that I have .. Like .. HART-EMPIRE.COM would be one … PETLVR.COM would be another.

You might think it would cut down the alerts, but Google seems to be ignoring the “.COM” portion of the alert URL and still mixing up the content. For instance .. I have alert notices like .. “BATTLING-CANCER.COM” .. and I am getting notices of persons battling cancer .. people with cancer, battling something etc as if they are two separate words.

Here’s a screen shot of today – since I’ve last looked (31 new notices, 26 alerts just on the Battling-Cancer.com alert) .. I don’t bother to read them all , unless I missed the popup notice in my taskbar when the alert notice first was created. Usually I can tell if the alert notice is crap.

But, despite it all – I think these Google Alerts are a GOOD THING and when someone links your blog, you get the notice. That’s good!