Posting Files to a Blogger.com-Hosted Blog

As you may be aware, I have been trying to provide the PowerPoint file for my USPTO blog presentation to my readers via a link on this blog. I am finding that this is not as easily done as I had first thought (see previous posting). Yesterday I thought that I was onto the answer by signing up with the file-sharing service Ares. In theory, I should have been able to post my file to the Web for download or allow file sharing directly off of my computer, thus allowing readers to access my PP presentation from this blog.

My (it turns out, rather diabolical) plans were proceeding along well until I had a technical question and contacted my employer’s IT dept. to assist. Well, it turns out that IT departments do not like their network users to download and use file sharing software. This is because of security holes that file sharing programs can create. The result was that I ended up removing the Ares software from my computer.

I also checked with my IT department about using FTP transfer to provide the presentation, and they have similar security concerns about this process. They did suggest one other potential alternative, which I will check out.

What we have learned so far, though, is that it apparently is not easy to provide access to files using the Blogger.com hosting service. If anyone has any thoughts or suggestions, I would appreciate hearing them.

USPTO Presentation in this Blog

One of the attendees at my second USPTO session had a good suggestion that I post the presentation PowerPoint file to this blog. However, it does not appear that Blogger allows this. I assume that this is due to space requirements on their server. I haven't given up hope, however, and will try a file sharing service. Hopefully, I can then provide a link to the file on my blog. I am not sure whether this will work. I will try it and let you all know the results.

Thank You for the Comments

Thank you to those who have left a comment. Thank you also to those who have sent me emails after the session. I have received quite a few more emails than blog comments, probably because that is what people are familiar with. We'll bring them around, though! ;-)

I want to point out to those who have left comments and to those who may do so in the future, that your comments first come to me in an email. I then must choose to publish the comment to the blog. This is for purposes of moderating comments for spam, etc. The result is that comments will not show up immediately. Note that I do not see your email address when your comment comes in via email and I also cannot respond to the email.

I rarely check that email account over the weekend, so comments currently will not get published until Monday. If readers feel that this is detrimental, I can make it a point to review the comments and publish them over the weekend. Please let me know your thoughts.

Welcome New Readers from USPTO Conference!

Welcome to the new readers of my blog who attended one of my sessions at the U.S Patent & Trademark Office's 11th Annual Inventors' Conference.

I created this blog several months ago, but have not yet been diligent about posting to it. Now that I gave out the address at a conference, I guess that I'll have to get on the ball!

I hope that you take the time to read the booklet that I handed out at the conference. This should give you a good feel for my background regarding inventions and new product marketing, which should keep you coming back here for more.

The processes of inventing and marketing are demanding, complex, and require deep commitment to the goal. As independent inventors, you will need all of the horsepower behind you that you can get. That is what this blog will be all about.

Please take the time to add a comment to this post, letting me know that you are a conference attendee and have read my blog.

As I mentioned in my presentation, blogs are relatively new, and quite new to inventors (of whom I am one). Just 12 months ago I was wondering, like many of you were when you came to my session: "What are these 'Blog' things with this weird name, anyways?" Well, I studied blogs and blogging diligently over the past year and I saw how useful blogs can be to inventors. Apparently, I was successful in conveying this to you if you are reading this!

However, I readily admit that I am a novice when it comes to actually blogging. You may notice that I am using a blog hosting service called Blogger. This really is a service that a more well-established blogger would consider as too basic. As you and I become more sophisticated in blogging, I may move the blog to a service with more customization tools, etc.

Here are instructions for subscribing to my RSS feed for this blog:
1) Open a new browser window, go to www.bloglines.com and set up an account
2) Come back to my blog
3) In the bottom of the right-side panel of my blog, click on the Bloglines chicklet (icon)
4) Scroll to the bottom of the Bloglines screen (that should automatically open) and click Subscribe

The feed should now show up in the My Feeds tab in Bloglines

Thank you for your interest. I plan on adding a posting at least once a week.

Please subscribe to the RSS feed of this blog, and don't forget to leave me a comment.

I should say to my readers that I have a deep but rather dry (I prefer "dry" to the term "warped") sense of humor and I like to use it, so hopefully we can connect on that level as well.

Good luck as we go forward!