Preface to the Journey

I’ve often wondered about the underlying motivation, the bigger picture, for why one would create or commission a custom plugin for Wordpress. I imagine that most plugins are brought into existence in the first place in order to extend what Wordpress does already or to manipulate some existing WP behavior. It would be safe to say that a custom plugin meets some special need or satisfies some particular want for a particular individual.

However, I believe that other motivations enter the picture when a plugin originally designed to meet one person’s need is shared with the general public. Other motivations at this point might include the desire to increase the popularity and the rank of the plugin developer’s website, the want to see some kind of financial benefit, and the desire to contribute to the welfare of the Wordpress community at large. In the case of the Amazon RSS in Wordpress plugin, the motivation was a mixture of each of these points.

In the Beginning

In the beginning, I searched for an existing plugin that did what I wanted it to do, but found none. Don’t get me wrong. I found plenty of groovy plugins, but none met what I envisioned. I wanted an Amazon plugin that combined product images with blog posts underneath the umbrella of word-to-product relevancy — automatically.

I believed that focusing on product relevancy would lead to higher sale conversions and increased Amazon affiliate earnings. In addition, I wanted a plugin that needed minimal babysitting, and I want a plugin that featured more than static product placement. Having scoured the net, I decided to have a plugin custom made to fit my needs.

Custom Plugin Development

Because I’m good with ideas, and not necessarily with programming, I turned to eLance in order to find a coder who could actualize my ideas. The process took around a month and cost me a little over $500 USD… $550 USD to be exact. However, the process was well worth it because I now have a plugin that does what I need it to do in the manner that I want it done.

Fork in the “Free” Road

Having just spent over $500 to develop Amazon RSS in Wordpress, it should not be surprising that I want to see a return on my investment. In addition, the plugin needed to be profitable because with the profits, I would pay to have it maintained and tweaked in order to offer more features in future revisions. I would use the improvement suggestions found in the forum for ongoing development.

To this end, the initial release of the plugin was protected with ionCube. Using ionCube protected my code from tinkering, thus ensuring that my affiliate-id would have its place on one image out of the total number of Amazon images. After announcing the plugin’s availability on blogs and in forums, I was met with an interesting situation.

On the thread that I created on the Digital Point Forums, my contention that this was a “free” plugin was challenged. Because affiliate traffic sharing was built into the plugin, one member was entirely “turned off” at what my plugin offered. The baby was tossed out with the bathwater. And for that matter, the bathtub was discarded too. In essence, one image from the total number of images would be associated my Amazon affiliate-id. If someone clicked on this one image and made a purchase, I would receive the affiliate credit. But this was too much.

Affiliate traffic sharing was out of the question. Never mind my financial investment, forget my time, and pay not attention to my effort that went into developing this plugin. I image that many people would protest along similar lines in the future. Everyone wants something for free, no matter the cost to some one else.

Fork in the Advertising Road

I wanted to advertise my new plugin on WebBlogToolsCollection by purchasing a graphical banner (125×125) for $149 per month. However, part of their requirement for advertisement is that plugins be GPL compatible — meaning that my protected code would not meet their requirements. I would have to release the unprotected version of the code — meaning that now the code is available for tinkering … and I know what this means.

In the End

In the end, I re-release the plugin without any kind of protection for the code, thereby making the plugin GPL compliant. All I can do know is hope others find value in my efforts and use the plugin that I funded.

Inspirational Sources

• My Take on the WordPress Themes & the GPL License

• WordPress, StudioPress, The GPL License (Let’s Move On)

• WordPress Plugin and Theme GPL Misconceptions, Misinformation, and Perspective

• Interesting WordPress GPL implications

• Making Money With WordPress Plugins – Mixing the GNU License With Others

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The Journey of Custom Plugin Design for WP

The Debut of Amazon RSS in Wordpress

I would like to introduce you to a new Wordpress plugin for Amazon affiliates. While there are plenty of Amazon plugins that exist already, the Amazon RSS in Wordpress Plugin has the greatest potential to create a steady revenue stream. Earn from embedding several relevant product images from Amazon into your blog post as clickable affiliate links in just a few steps.

Amazon RSS in Wordpress is Relevant

The cornerstone of this plugin revolves around the ability for users to choose a particular Amazon RSS product feed that will best reflect their blogging category. As the written content within a blog category reflects the overall thematic unity of the blog category, so too can product images from Amazon reflect the blog category.

Amazon RSS in Wordpress is Customizable

Manipulating the Amazon in WP plugin is as easy as creating a campaign, selecting an Amazon market, entering your affiliate-id for your chosen market, choosing a particular RSS product feed to be associated with the particular campaign, and selecting how you want to style it with CSS. You can also select how many product images that you want to be displayed, and you can manipulate how large or how small those images will appear.

The Amazon RSS in Wordpress Support Forum is dedicated to helping you earn the most with this plugin.

Amazon RSS in Wordpress is Universal

Choose to pull images from any Amazon Market: the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada, France, Germany, and Japan! Your affiliate-id is associated with the images from the chosen Amazon market — automatically.

Amazon RSS in Wordpress Updates Itself

When Amazon updates its product RSS feeds, product images in the feed will most likely change in rank. And when product images change in rank, the images on your blog from your chosen Amazon RSS feed will change as well in order to reflect the new ranking. In this manner, you will be featuring up-to-date product images from the bestselling, most popular, most gifted, and mover-and-shakers categories — to name a few! In other words, the images on your blog will represent Amazon’s hot sellers.

Download

Visit the Amazon RSS in Wordpress page to find the most recent version.

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The BEST Amazon Plugin for Wordpress

PHP v5.3

The latest stable release of the programming language PHP, PHP v5.3, made its debut on June 30, 2009. A quick glance at the change log reveals it to be, in the words of Daft Punk, ” Harder Better Faster Stronger” than previous versions. Those interested in more detail should check out Migrating from PHP 5.2.x to PHP 5.3.x.

ionCube Encoder

When an author of a PHP file wishes to protect his or her work from observation or modification, he or she might use an encoder, such as ionCube, to protect their PHP coding efforts. Opening an encoded file reveals what seems to be jibberish, however, through the use of a loader, the script can still execute. ionCube further explains what PHP code protection is:

Code protection is based on 100% optimised compiled bytecodes, plus several layers of encoding on top. Never restoring files back to source is essential for true security. By eliminating source code before your files are encoded, and pre-parsing, compiling and optimising the compiled binary code, delivers the maximum possible protection, runtime performance and language compatibility. Encoded files are also protected by digital signatures, and any change to an encoded file, such as tampering with your PHP product’s copyright text, renders the encoded file unusable.

ionCube PHP encoder forum

ionCube Loader

As was mentioned earlier, when PHP coders wish to protect their efforts from change, they might make use of a PHP encoder such as ionCube. However, now that their PHP code has been encoded and “locked,” there must be some kind of loader or “key” installed on the server for the PHP script to execute.

ionCube PHP loader forum

Incompatibilities

Will my encoded files for PHP 5.3 run on older versions of PHP

No.

With PHP 5.3 we are releasing an encoder with a different compiler so as to support the new PHP language, and forwards compatibility so that files from the new Encoder will run on earlier versions of PHP is not possible.

So, if I am interpreting this statement correctly, what this means is that when the ionCube encoder is released for PHP v5.3, the ionCube protected files will not execute on PHP versions lower than v5.3. In other words, if I use the encoder designed for PHP v5.3 on a file, and someone using PHP v5.2.10 attempts to run it, the execution will fail.

Even though PHP has been through both beta and release candidate testing before the release of a stable build of PHP v5.3, ionCube does not support PHP v5.3 at this time — and some have demonstrated an ionCube PHP v5.3 frustration.

Other questions

Q: If I use the ionCube loader designed for PHP v5.2.x, will upgrading to PHP v5.3 cause problems?

A: There is no support at the present time for an ionCube loader when using PHP v5.3. A forum post on the ionCube forum answers the question this way:

We’ll be releasing support for the new PHP language later in the year. I doubt that it’s any intentional deception on the part of the PHP group to try and gain quicker acceptance of the new language with hosts than usually happens, but PHP 5.3 is really the new PHP 6.0 as it’s not just a change of major proportions but a new version of the language with a new syntax and some incompatibility with previous versions of PHP 5. The forthcoming language that the PHP group are calling PHP 6 should really be PHP 7.

DirectAdmin & CPanel w/ PHP v5.3

At the present time, the latest version of PHP v5.3 is not available to be installed through the cPanel or the DirectAdmin interfact due to the glaring incompatibility issues. Here’s what being talked about on the cpanel forum regarding upgrading PHP. And here’s what being talked about on the DirectAdmin forum regarding the upgrade.

In a nutshell

Because PHP v5.3 introduces a lot of new features and changes a lot of things, upgrading to this version will cause a lot of scripts to break at the present time. These existing scripts first need to be updated in order to support the latest PHP release. Included in this would be the ionCube encoder and the ionCube loader.

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ionCube for PHP 5.3

Depeche Mode

Unlike most people around me, I was introduced to Depeche Mode’s Ultra when I was a junior in college. I lived on campus in Madonna Hall at the University of Dallas in Irving, TX. I remember being up late, watching the tube with about five or six other dudes in the community lounge. We had it on one of the music television stations when I saw the video “No good” from their Ultra CD come on. I instantly was captivated with how this song sounded and was put together.

I wanted to hear more.

Before Amazon …

Back in 1997, the whole internet phenomenon was beginning to take off. While it might have been possible to order stuff from ‘net back then, it was impossible for me. I was poor. I was in college. Internet availability sucked. So while the stereotypical college male was wooing the stereotypical college female with acoustic guitars and songs about love, I sat out to purchase Depeche Mode’s Ultra. I was never the type to sing to a live acoustic guitar anyhow.

Ultra is about Passion

I have so many memories associated with each song on the album. And while I won’t share those memories with the public, [ahem], I will say that the music on Ultra is passionate, mellow, and almost spiritual in a sense. I mean, listen to some excepts from a couple of more songs off the album such as Track 10: The Bottom Line and Track 11:Insight. Simply put: they “move” me. I would go so far as to say that the songs on Depeche Mode’s Ultra touch me similar to how Katy’s Song by the Red House Painters touches me.

Depeche Mode Ultra Videos

Depeche Mode has released a collection of videos from the Ultra album, and more, on Depeche Mode Videos: 86>98. This collection is definitely worth your time and money. Someone has even put the video “Home” up on Youtube. I don’t know how long that’s gonna last before it gets yanked, though.

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Depeche Mode – Ultra

Dust in the Wind

As time passes, great songs from the past lose their focus in the mainstream consciousness. One song in particular from 1977, dust in the wind, calls attention to issues of death and mortality and reminds the listener that “all we are is dust in the wind.” The overall reference to Genesis 3:19 is clear, “…for dust thou art, and to dust shalt thou return.” The interesting idea about this song is how Kansas manipulates the notion of time in order to create an elaboration of the Biblical passage. Kansas takes the reality of people becoming dust in the future and animates their future in the present.

All your money, won’t another minute buy

Though I see a face before me, and though I see children at my feet, I know that one day that they too will become dust. My feelings and thoughts, my pursuit of happiness and my desire for material wealth are met with silence, shadows, and dust. Time pushes me and all those I care about forward, never backward. And one day, my fate will lead me to follow the same road as generations past. Two or three generations after my passing, I stand to be forgotten as I have forgotten those two or three generations before me.

Humility, not Despair

The purpose of contemplating mortality is to imbue life with a different meaning. In other words, when people accept their own eventual ending, the purpose of doing, clarifying, and accomplishing the “important” things in life have the possibility of taking over. It is one thing to think about one’s own death in abstract terms — it is quite another to “feel” it on a personal level — and be terrified.

I believe that having the experience of really feeling that we will be gone one day is necessary. Those who have had “the terrifying experience” tend to reorient the structure of their lives sooner rather than later. And in most cases, it is easy to identify these “authentic” people. Think of what happened to Ebenezer Scrooge in The Christmas Carol after he met the third ghost.  Or think of what happened to George Bailey’s character in the movie It’s a Wonderful Life when he began to accept that he was really gone from everyone’s memory.

Hedonism do not Despair

Of course, there are those who have not yet had “the terrifying experience.” And these people are easy to spot. They spend their idle time running away from having this experience in the first place, and pursue an over abundance of drugs, sex, and other pleasurable or hedonistic activities. Think of how George Bailey or Ebenezer Scrooge was feeling or thinking before having their “special” experiences. Of course, this is an over generalization — my goal is to write a blog post, not a book that covers each and every nuance.

Closing Remarks

Weaving together themes from Dust in the Wind, Genesis 3:19, Ebenezer Scrooge, and George Bailey proved interesting. This blog post made sense to some people. To other people, this blog post meant nothing at all. In either case, I suppose the lesson to be learned is that despair can be a great teacher. But let it be known that despair isn’t the only teacher out there.

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Dust in the Wind

More description is necessary

Smashing Magazine recently published an article about the Best Practices For Effective Design Of “About me”-Pages. In their article, 60 websites were found that demonstrated the correct implementation of an about me page. Time and time again, it was implied that having a clean and an informational about me page was necessary to add a certain human element between blog writers and their content readers.

The “about me”-page is one of the most overlooked pages in development and one of the highest ranked pages on many websites. In a world that’s becoming increasingly connected through the Web, it’s important that you engage your audience in a personal and friendly way, otherwise you risk just being another faceless web designer among a sea of websites.

To this end, I began focusing attention on the about page found on this website. Even though I have not been running this site for a long time, I recognize the need to let my audience know a little more about myself in order to plan the seeds of humanity been I and thou. I have even added a contact me page in case someone wants to report troubles or issues with the site.

Spreading the “about” concept elsewhere

Imagine for a moment that each important section of a blog had a page that explained its purpose, intent, and goal — no matter how obvious it appeared to be. These pages would be known for verbally clarifying the overall design implementation of a website and are meant to answer the fundamental question, “why is this here?”

With this in mind, not only did I create a page that was dedicated to the blog author, but I also created description pages dedicated to sections & aspects of the website itself.

Information Pages

Not everyone knows what RSS is used for, and so I created a page that provided a little more detail about the meaning of subscriptions and site updates. In addition, it is possible to purchase advertising on this blog directly. To describe the process and to list the cost of advertising “upfront,” the about advertising page was created. Because Google’s Adsense is used throughout this site, I felt that it was important to tell my visitors more about the adsense program using my own words. This adsense information can be found on the sponsored links page.

Because Amazon advertising is a big portion of what happens around here, I felt that it was important to explain the benefits of our Amazon Links. In addition, I compiled a length list of rss feeds from Amazon’s sites around the work on the Amazon Feeds page.

Creating the “upfront” and “honest” atmosphere

Keeping secrets, using hidden links, and being deceptive are practices that most people tend to avoid. However, not everyone has the same level of discrimination when browsing through a website for the first time. When the website owner opens their mind and puts their thoughts on display, then the possibility exists for the content reader to engage the blog author in a more personal manner. Such was my purpose and intent for creating all of these help pages.

I hope I have created an interesting website, and I am always open to hearing constructive criticism (or even complements!) in order to improve my efforts. Either use the contact form to send your reflections in my direction, or leave a nice blog comment (are you familiar with our comment policy?)

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Update: More Pages Added

Up until June 26, 2009, Amazon’s Movers & Shakers list tracked an item’s selling trend. The sales rank of a particular item would update once per hour, letting consumers know if a particular item was getting more or less popular. However, the option to view the movers and shakers has disappeared — it is not known whether this is a temporary or a permanent action on Amazon’s part.

"Movers & Shakers" use to appear in this list

Amazon Movers and Shakers

The Movers & Shakers index identifies, by category, the biggest gainers in sales rank at Amazon.com in the past 24 hours.

Official Announcements?

The Official Amazon Associates Blog mentions nothing about the removal of the movers and shakers index. Blog chatter regarding Amazon’s move has been slim to none as of late, as revealed by a search for “Amazon Movers Shakers” on Google’s Blogsearch. In addition, only one other person has reported that the movers and shakes index is missing on the Associates Helping Associates discussion board as of the time of this blog post.

How an item listed in Movers and Shakers use to render

Edit:  Amazon has restored the movers and shakers index on July 3, 2009.

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Amazon removes ‘Movers and Shakers’

Warehouse Deals

(Popular categories: Just Arrived - Last Chance – Deep Discounts)

On my more recent trip to Amazon.com, I noticed that there was a relatively new link to Amazon’s Warehouse Deals. Being the curious type, I decided to follow the link in order to see what was new and special about it. Upon reading the description on the page, it seems like Amazon.com wants to advertise the fact that they’re willing to resell returned merchandise at a significant discount. As a bargain hunter, some of these deals really appealed to me.

Warehouse Shopping Categories

Sample Nodes

The first thing I noticed was that the shopping categories in the warehouse product nodes seem to parallel the shopping categories found in the regular browsing nodes at Amazon. For example, there are interesting deals to be had within deeper categories (for example in the video games and in the television nodes).

And I’m sure the are more interested things to be found upon further inspection.

(I did find the Toshiba REGZA 55ZV650U 55-Inch 1080p LCD HDTV with ClearScan 240, Black for $1,788.99. — That’s a 55″, 1080p Television that has the 240Hz refresh rate — for under 2G. Nice.)

Returning items to Amazon

A few reasons come to mind as to why someone would want to return a product back to Amazon.com — it happens all the time. (And Amazon makes it easy!) After all, the discounted products found in the warehouse have to come from someplace.

• The item received was significantly different from the item advertised.
• The item received was slightly damaged during shipping.
• The item received was a gift.
• The item received did not fit or did not work.

Amazon’s Return Policy

Basic returns policy: Within 30 days of delivery, you may return any of the following purchased from Amazon.com: books in their original condition; unopened CDs, cassette tapes, vinyl records, DVDs, VHS tapes, video games, or software; and any other merchandise in new condition with original packaging and accessories. Read the complete returns policy.

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How to find deep discounts at Amazon

Cleaning mp3s

When using mp3 identification software to update and fix your music collection, it can be a difficult task to know which files have been processed and which files have not. This troublesome task becomes especially evident when processing tens of thousands of individual songs over the course of days and weeks (if not months). Reasons for using mp3 identification software include the desire to embed album art into the mp3 file itself, the need to have (mostly) accurate information in the tags, and the over all desire for library organization.

mp3 Identification software

There are a couple of software titles at the present time that advertise themselves as “fixing” improper mp3 tagging information: Fixtunes ($24.95), TuneUp ($29.95), and Picard (Free!). Whereas iTunes must be installed in order for Tuneup to work properly, Fixtunes and Picard do not necessarily need to have iTunes in order to function. Note that it is possible to have iTunes installed alongside another mp3 library organizer (such as Mediamonkey) — just ensure that iTunes doesn’t have the ability to move files around on your hard drive.

For the purpose of this particular blog post, I’ll be focusing on using TuneUp. In the past Fixtunes has been known for causing havoc… read some Fixtunes reviews before using it.

Step 1: Cleaning the Comment Tag

Both Tag & Rename ($29.95) and mp3Tag (Free!) have the ability to clean out the one specific tagging field within the mp3 file that we’re interested in at this point in time — the comment tag. While it is possible to completely wipe out all information in an mp3’s tag using either of these programs, all that we’re interested in is the scrubbing out the comment field. Experiment with and learn the procedures for cleaning the comment tag within one file before batch cleaning your entire library in one fell swoop.

Step 1: Alternative Procedure

If you own Mediamonkey — which is worth checking out, then using the free plugin script RegExp Find and Replace (designed for Mediamonkey) can simplify and speed up the process — significantly.

Step 2: Loading your music collection in iTunes

Load up iTunes. Then look under File, and click on Add Folder to Library. Of course, the folder I’m speaking of is the one containing the mp3 files with the cleaned comment tag. Depending on the size of your collection, the time needed to import your collection will range from several to dozens of minutes. Patience is a virtue. Go watch a movie or something.

Note: If you already have iTunes filled up with information, it might be worthwhile to delete your current database — NOT YOUR FILES — and re-import the newer “comment cleaned” music files. This is a recommended procedure, not a mandatory procedure. To delete your database, highlight all the songs in your library and press the delete key. Do not move the files to the recycle bin when prompted! I follow this procedure and have not had a problem with it.

Step 3: Tell TuneUp to write “Cleaned by Tuneup!” in the tag

In the perference menu (right click on the TuneUp icon), Tuneup has the ability to write a certain phrase into the comment tag after it has processed a particular mp3 file. The phrase is “Cleaned by  Tuneup!” — and it is through the presence or absense of this phrase within the comment tag that it can be determined that a file has already been cleaned.

Note: I believe that Fixtunes also makes use of the comment tag after it has cleaned an mp3 file.

Step 4: Use iTunes & TuneUp as usual

As Tuneup cleans songs, you’ll notice that it populates the comment tag with its information. Now you can arrange your iTunes library according to the comment tag in order to see which songs are due for cleaning.

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How to clean your mp3 collection

The Great Divide

Celebrities live in a world different from the common person. While both celebrities and common folk have several overlapping areas of concern, e.g., eating, dressing, and having friends, celebrities have additional problems that most people do not have, e.g., an increased likelihood of being stalked, harassed, or even sued. And while celebrities enjoy luxuries that most common people desire, e.g., money in the bank, a pampered lifestyle, and the attention of adoring fans, the personal and social cost of having such luxuries usually result in a qualitative disconnect from the world of commoners.

Fans as a resource

The world from the point of the view of the average fan is different from the worldview of the average celebrity. For the fan, watching celebrities and others on television is a part of a daily or weekly ritual. The average fan has grown accustom to the presence of certain entertainers being in their homes at certain times via the television. We, as a devoted audience, watch to see our favorite entertainers give performances that inspire various personal feelings — lust, excitement, love, wonder, hate, scorn, dismay, humor, and the like. Thus as perceiving fans, it is easier for us to develop some kind of emotional attachment to those whom we watch. Our favorite entertainers usually find themselves in some kind of emotional situation with which we as an audience can identify. We believe that we are “feeling” along with the people we watch, when in reality, we are “feeling” what they are “acting.”

Indeed, it is easy for fans to develop a false sense of intimacy and familiarity with the people who appear on television. The reason I say “false” is because of the one-sided nature of the relationship. There is no give and take in this kind of relationship. The celebrity does not and cannot offer feedback or criticism to us. However, it would appear to be in the financial best interest of the entertainer to help foster this false sense of familiarity — as fans, we are more likely to spend our money on the products (read: merchandise and movie tickets) associated with our favorite entertainers. Hence, when we read the blogs and tweets of our favorite entertainers, we read that they are asking us to watch their latest movie, purchase their latest audio cd, or purchase their latest dvd.

• Find celebrities on Twitter
• Blogs about celebrities

Celebrities as utilitarian

The world from the point of view of the celebrity appears different. Fans, rather than being seen as real people, are nothing more than cash-carrying cattle who need to be exploited harvested. Fans are a means to an end, with the end being the transference of money from the fan to the entertainer. Generalizations are formed early on: fans are crazy, have lost their respect for personal privacy, and form one-sided imaginary relationships.

I believe the celebrity mantra would be: If you like me, purchase my products. Otherwise, leave me alone.

Disappointment

Disappointment occurs when expectations and actual events do not line up. If you’re expecting that a celebrity will have an in depth conversation with you, then you’re setting yourself up for pure disappointment. In reality, you do not “know” your favorite entertainer — you’re familiar with their acting, their movie, or the performance. Also since your favorite entertainer has had no idea of your existence, why should they feel a spontaneous emotional connection to you upon the first meeting?

At best, the meeting of a celebrity is an awkward event between two strangers who will forever remain strangers.

How to make the most of it

1. Understand your ultimate motivation for meeting the celebrity.
2. Know that celebrities will not share your sense of familiarity.
3. Celebrities get paid whether or not you care about them. Do what’s easiest for you.
4. Be brief in your talk with them — they seriously do not care about you.
5. Be utilitarian right back at them: demand entertainment for your money.

Sources

• wikiHow.com:  How to Meet a Celebrity
• eHow.com: How to meet a celebrity and not act like a tool
• essortment.com: How to meet celebrities: etiquette

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Why meeting a celebrity will disappoint you