93. Apergers Syndrome and the Autism Spectrum

I guess Anthony prompted me to write a new blog post. I've not been keeping it up to date because I have lots of blogs now and most of the others are making money, so I've been concentrating on them.

One bit of news is that although I was diagnosed with Aspergers Syndrome and High Functioning Autism at the same time I was diagnosed with ADHD, dyslexia and dyspraxia, I did not really take the Apergers seriously because I didn't believe I was autistic.

Another common misconception!

Not only do I have aspergers and autism, but we all know someone (or several people - I know lots) who also have it. The vast majority of people with Austism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) have not been diagnosed. In fact if they have been diagnosed with anything, it is often depression or bi-polar disorder.

I suspect a lot of people with behavioural problems are somewhere on the Autism Spectrum, and I also believe a higher percentage of celebrities have it, as they feel they need to prove themselves more after finding communication so challenging. There's no shortage of 'odd' celebrities. (I can say 'odd' as an oddity myself).

As this blog is entitled ADHD Dyslexia Dyspraxia Info, it makes sense to have a separate blog for Aspergers and Autism, for keyword and search purposes.

So that's the update: I have Aspergers and High Functioning Autism.

I don't think anyone has ever thought of me as 'high functioning' in my life. But then, it is compared to Low Functioning Autism.

92. Is That My Child? - ADHD book

The book ‘Is That My Child?’ by Dr Robin Pauc is helping me stick to a healthy diet, but I am abysmally slow at reading it. I’m only up to Chapter 3 after heaven knows how long – over a year I think.

He says in Chapter 3 that the labels given to conditions are really only the symptoms, and that instead of calling it ADHD, ADD, dyslexia, dyspraxia, tourettes or OCD, he calls them all Developmental Delay Syndrome. DDS encompasses several or all the symptoms that children (and adults) have, but of course I still have to use the traditional terms, because that’s what people will be searching for in search engines.

91. 30 Day Challenge Day 47

Today I went back to watch some of the early 30DC videos, as I forgot where to get all the Firefox addons since I had to reinstall Windows.

I also downloaded some stand alone organizer software so that I can cram as much work as possible into every day. Why I didn’t have this before, I don’t know.

It alerts me with a pop up and a sound of my choice, so I can’t forget to do stuff. It’s called Total Organizer and has a forum if I need it.

I’ve got the free version for now, but the pro version is only $20 so no doubt I’ll upgrade eventually, but it will do for now. If you don’t have anything like this already, give it a try because if I can use it, then it’s safe to say anyone can.

And I have found out that my Digg account has been reactivated, so I spent some time digging news stories and videos of interest, that were not to products of any kind. I’ll tread very carefully with Digg from now on. I did some more social bookmarking with other sites for my blogs.

Disappointed to find my main blog’s home page not even in the top 100. Gave up looking in the end. But some of my individual posts are around, although one has been penalised by Indian Pad for breaking irrelevancy rules. I thought the description was quite accurate myself. And two people voted for it, but I don’t know who they are! They don’t seem like Pauline and Asbjorn.

I need to do some serious social posting without overdoing it. I reckon asking some of my non Internet Marketing friends to do a bit of bookmarking won’t do any harm.

Also finally downloaded my printer software. Spent all morning looking for the drivers online, unsuccessfully, then I remembered I had the CDs in a large card envelope with all the manuals and Quick Guides inside, that I’ve kept for the past two years – um, right next to the printer.

I could do with an index similar to that in a library, that tells me where every single thing is in my flat, because I’m clearly incapable of thinking of the most obvious place!

90. Minor Setback

I’m horrified that I’ve not been able to do any productive Internet Marketing work for over two weeks. After the clean installation of Windows, my PC is almost back to how it was, but not quite. I still have to download all the Firefox plug-ins again, and I might have to use Open Office, instead of MS Office, as I have a further 24 threats to MS Office, that no-one is able to sort out for me.

I also took two weeks off work for the last part of August and had all that trouble with my PC. It’s not as bad, however, as taking two weeks off work then becoming ill, as has happened to my friends.

I went into the Apple shop in Cardiff last week, to buy those spongey things for my ipod’s earpieces (the only thing I can afford from that shop!) but I came out wanting an iMac. I can dream. The sooner I get back to work, the better.


I had to hire a car and drive four hours to a funeral last week, so I had to cancel two photography jobs, and do them this week. I also didn’t sleep at all the night before. I think it was because I was scared to death of scratching the hire car, and them taking the £200 excess off my Visa card, making me go over my limit.

Sadly, I’m not like most people when it comes to sleep. I can’t just sleep more the next night to catch up. It often takes a good two weeks to get my body clock back to normal. But I’m hoping I’ve done it in one week this time.

Despite the lack of production, I really could not have done any more work than I’ve been doing, so I’ve still earned all four of my stars every day. I am today however, revising my daily routine to include time to review how well I’m sticking to my IM plan. I have been doing it once a week, but I think I need a more rigorous shake-up, as I need to be working faster. It may not work, but it’s worth a try.

The funeral I went to was Mike Blacktopp's. I’m glad Mike is no longer suffering with Motor Neurone Disease. He could no longer speak or move for the last six months of his life. But he was very inspirational. Before his death he managed to raise over two and a half thousand pounds for MND, the Motor Neurone Disease Association. You can watch the official video of Mike’s charity skydive, Here.

89. Thirty Day Challenge - Day 32!

Ok, that’s it. I’m gonna carry on numbering the days until I complete the 30 Day Challenge. It took Asbjorn 88 days to get his first sale in 2005, but he did it in the end. And so will I!

It will take as long as it takes, but I ain’t giving up. So the title of this post may look ridiculous, but I don’t care.

Spent the morning visiting the local computer shops getting advice, after my PC has become corrupted. I’d love to build myself the meanest, baddest PC possible for as little cost as poss, but that may be slightly too adventurous just yet. I’ll make my first ten bucks through the 30DC first, before I commit to learning how to do that.

For now, I need to totally reformat my existing hard drive. Gaurav at Microsoft has promised to ring me back on Monday to talk me through it. He was prepared to stay on the phone way past his home time, but in India they don’t get paid overtime, so I wasn’t having that!

Reformatting means I’ll probably lose a lot of software, but it’s my own fault, for not backing up the installation files. Only this week did I learn about that. I’ve been deleting those files as soon as I’ve installed the software in many cases. Dipstick!

The good news is that several of my program files will have the installation files included, so I’ve copied all of them onto the external hard drive, in the hope that most of them will work on the new Operating System.

The other good thing is that a lot of my software was free online – no NOT dodgy pirate stuff, I don’t get involved with those, but reputable sites, I can go to again. And all the programs I’ve paid for, I either have the CDs or the emailed receipts, so I should be able to download them again. Never delete your emails with receipts on, people! And if they’re for your business, always print them out, of course.

I even managed to do some 30DC work as well. Not much, but I finally put my tracking link in place of my affiliate link on my two main sites, and they appear to be working beautifully. Seen that tutorial video three times now – twice before I did the task myself, and once simultaneously. Wow, a six syllable word on a Saturday night!

88. 30DC put on hold

My hard disc seems to be corrupt, so I can't do a complete copy of it. For several days I have not been able to right click on my temp files to get rid of them, or delete them in any other way. What happens is, Windows Explorer either freezes, or just instantly shuts down.

Now it has got even worse. I cannot delete, copy, rename or do anything else with any other file or folder!

The only way I can copy a file is to left click on it, and click 'copy this file' on the left, then it gives me a box for the destination.

Also, whenver I go into any boxes like System box within Control Panel, the whole PC just freezes.

I've been on the phone to Microsoft for four hours on Wed and six hours on Thurs, and he's phoning me back again today. I've tried two offline complete scans, and four online scans.

He wants to make a new username, transfer everything across, then delete the old username (with corrupt files). I have transferred some files myself and tried to use Windows Explorer in the new user account, but it still won't work.

So I'm not confident that his plan will work. He's been a tech for years and has never come across this problem. My PC won't even let me do a System Restore - at all!

So I just want to get everything I need to put on a new computer, via my external hard drive, but I’m not sure that’s possible. I already looked at iTunes in my new user account, and three years worth of songs are gone. I don't know how to get to keep them. Most were paid for and downloaded, and I don't have them on CD.

I’ll just be spending the morning trying to salvage what files and folders I can before the MS tech rings me back.

To cap it all, I was still only on Day 23 of the 30DC before all this happened. I'm still able to watch some videos, but my system is so unreliable, I can't do much work at all.

Still earning all four stars, every day, as I've been doing ewverything I can. Non of this disaster has come about through laziness!

I guess I tempted fate by saying on Tuesday that I love my life - that'll teach me!

87. Thirty Day Challenge Day 28

Here’s something I only just found out. When looking down the list of StumbleUpon’s list of categories for websites, I noticed that one of them was ‘learning disorder’ – not ‘learning disability’, or ‘learning difficulty’ – so they obviously use a different term for it in the Sates. And I’ve never used ‘learning disorder’ as a tab for this blog. Learning, learning all the time. I love my life.

I was still behind on the 30DC, and manged to add Google Analytics to my main niche blog. It took a while finding the video, then finding a forum post that amended the instruction from a Tumblr blog to the blogger blogs, then I had to sign up with Google Analytics, and then put the code into the special box within my blog. so I had to have all these windows open at the same time, whilst I slowly but surely managed to do what turned out to be a one minute job. It just took slightly longer to learn it that’s all!

Had our weekly team Skype call, but Asbjorn couldn’t make it this week. Got Pauline set up with Google chat. My blog is now number 60 in Google, down form 45 yesterday. Hope it moves up or I’ll never get any traffic.

Spent way too long answering emails, and on the phone to Microsoft again, trying to sort out a malware alert.