Sueblimely - Discovering Blogging

This blog HAS MOVED

2007-12-25T09:38:00.002+11:00

This blog HAS MOVED to Blogging Sueblimely

I have taken the plunge and restarted this blog at

- a Wordpress blog hosted on my own domain. I continue to post on blogging news, themes, design mainly aimed at the personal blogger.

I maintain a blog that gives information specifically about Blogger blogspot at Sueblimely Blogspot - although I do not post there regularly I keep lists of Blogger Help and Template Sites for your information.

New Blog Update

2007-11-15T11:42:00.000+11:00

It is now a week since I launched the new blog on Wordpress but I kind of missed this one, which I had lovingly tended for over a year.

In case you have not found your way to Blogging Sueblimely I will give you an update. I have been visited and listed by Google, Yahoo and Altavista but the latter is the only one to display that blog rather than this one first in a search. Not surprising at all, it is too soon for that. I still have to add the blog to listings with social networking and blog list sites .

Topics being covered by Blogging Sueblimely for the next little while will be:

How and why to move to your own domain.
Reasons to move to Wordpress on your own domain.
How to set up Wordpress
Which plugins/widgets are useful for all Wordpress users to add.

Ongoing topics will be the same as this blog. Including:

Designing a theme/template. These particular tutorials will not be specific to Wordpress so they would be useful to anyone wanting to learn some basic styling techniques.
Social Networking and building personal blog communities.
News around the Blogosphere - new sites, blog add ins, blog tools
Help tips and advice for bloggers.
Aspects of blogging my visitors express an interest in learning.

Come and visit, I would be very pleased to see you there.

Blogging Elegance Award

2007-11-10T16:26:00.000+11:00

Colin from Life has bestowed this delightful award on me. Thank you Colin, you are a star.

‘Shibumi is a Japanese term which used in the following context is a noun. Its meaning refers to a ‘particular aesthetic of simple, subtle, and unobtrusive beauty” which can be applied to almost anything.’

The ´ shibumi’ award was originally created by Hawk - (beautiful design, Hawk)

A New Default Wordpress Blog

2007-11-08T12:41:00.000+11:00

I suspect some of you may laugh when you first see my new Wordpress blog, considering the amount I have talked about it, the time I have spent working on its design and layout and what I posted last week about transferring my posts from Blogger to Wordpress.

The Blank Canvas:

I thought I would explain the method behind my madness. Being concerned about so many duplicate links created by transferring over all the posts here to the new blog and kind advice from Mihaela Lica (Mig) from Pamil Visions, who is well experienced in Search Engine Optimization techniques, I decided to change tack and start afresh with my new blog. Thanks Mig. Mig also has a very informative free book you can download - The SEO Book of Wordpress Blogs

I deleted my installation of Wordpress, as a quick way of ridding it of all the posts I had transferred over, and reinstalled. As I used Fantastico, a free service provided by my host, Hostgator, installation was really quick and simple. Fantastico automates the installation of a whole range of scripts and programs. Take care if you are signing up with a hosting company that includes Fantastico, that its installation is up to date - so that you are not installing old versions of programs.

That explains the lack of posts over at the new blog but why the plain default template you may ask. I had designed a theme that I was mostly happy with and was going to install that. Then I had a brainstorm, which I may very well live to regret.

Starting from scratch means that I will have to promote the blog all over again, adding social networking widgets, subscription buttons etc. You can join me in learning what I do.

What a wonderful opportunity to blog about the process of styling the template/theme from scratch, so that anyone who wishes to learn about it can do so. So, the blog you see is Mark 1 of many marks - an unblemished blog perhaps?. Although I will be working with a Wordpress theme, what I will post will, in the main, be relevant to bloggers using any platform - because it will be covering CSS styling in general.

I will be able to rewrite some of the still relevant and more useful posts from this blog.

So the new blog is a virgin blog, a blank blog, an unblemished blog, a spotless blog. . The blog is in fact a blogspot-less blog. (The Monty Python Parrot Sketch was my favorite). The new blog:

Has no Google Yahoo, MSN, Alexa, Technorati .... rank. It is rank-less. I suppose that means at least it does not smell badly :-)

Is not submitted to any social networking sites.

It has no subscribed readers

In fact it has no readers at all!

It resides in no browser favorites or bookmarks.

Unlike this blog - it has not been Ratified, it is nowhere among the Top Australian Blogs or the Top Australian Women's blogs

It is award-less, meme-less, post-less, and category-less

It has had no stumbles, diggs, fames, fuels, bumps, reddits ....

It has no MyBlogLog, SpicyPage, Bumpzee, del.icious, friends. Poor lonely blog, I feel really sorry for it. (Oh dear, it is a worry when I have feelings for a blogging platform)

This situation will be gradually altered. I just hope it does not take too long!

So here it is folks - the blog with one post: Sueblimely Blogging . I would be delighted it you would 'christen' it by leaving a comment and helping its journey in life from being a brand new baby blog to an adult (although not always mature) blog. Ya boo sucks to the new google pagerank changes - see what I mean :-)

Any ideas for the blog will be very welcome.

PS - Do you think I should call it Sueblimely Discovering Blogging, Sueblimely Blogging - or something completely different?

Dona Nobis Pacem

2007-11-08T07:21:00.000+11:00

You may say I'm a dreamer
But I'm not the only one
I hope someday you'll join us
And the world will live as one
- John Lennon - Imagine

Mimi of Mimi Writes and founder of the "Peace Globe Movement ~ Dona Nobis Pacem ~ BlogBlast For Peace" has asked bloggers to join together today to blog about peace.

I hope that the participation rate is huge and that those who would not normally divert away from their topic areas make an exception for this. A wish for world peace is not a controversial topic. I know some bloggers fear losing readers if they touch on subjects that may cause readers to disagree, not return or unsubscribe. Surely this subject is not one of them. Some bloggers do participate but, to keep on topic, their posts on the subject in question are about minor issues which relate to their own subject area.I think this minimizes the importance of the message that most bloggers are trying to send.

I regularly take part in united blogging efforts on areas I feel passionate about. I am sure my regular readers will not take offence by this even if I do divert from my topic. To be honest if I were to lose readers because of it, this would not stop me. I would take the attitude that I was losing traffic rather than readers; traffic I did not particularly want anyway. I would feel that my integrity had not been compromised by not being influenced by my blog statistics. Back to today's blogging subject itself:

The idea was to choose one of the Dona Nobis Pacem designs created for the day and to edit and personalise this .

The image I created above is based on one of Mimi's images combined with my blog logo.

In my ideal peaceful world, nations would come together to solve our global environmental problems. Therefore the countries in my image are all green and pleasant lands. The polar icecaps are emphasized to indicate a return to a clean sustainable world. (I am sure Australia would not want the Antarctic quite so close though - please forgive my 'artistic' licence here). The Himalayas and all other mountain ranges will have the 'correct' amount of snow.

I think well written, succinct quotes contain immense power and speak volumes so here is a list of quotes that sum up the importance of world peace far better than I can:

Did you know that the worldwide food shortage that threatens up to five hundred million children could be alleviated at the cost of only one day, only one day, of modern warfare.--Peter Ustinov

Conflict is inevitable, but combat is optional.--Max Lucade

Civilization and violence are antithetical concepts.--Martin Luther King, Jr

If we could read the secret history of our enemies, we should find in each man's life sorrow and suffering enough to disarm all hostility.--Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Peace is not merely a distant goal that we seek, but a means by which we arrive at that goal.--Martin Luther King, Jr

I believe in the religion of Islam. I believe in Allah and peace. Muhammad Ali

Is it a pipe dream to expect a peaceful world. Very likely, but I do believe that it is possible and that we start from a very tiny part of the world first - ourselves:

Each one has to find his peace from within. And peace to be real must be unaffected by outside circumstances.- Mahatma Gandhi

I keep the telephone of my mind open to peace, harmony, health, love and abundance. Then whenever doubt, anxiety, or fear try to call me, they keep getting a busy signal and soon they'll forget my number.- Edith Armstrong

For it isn't enough to talk about peace. One must believe it. And it isn't enough to believe in it. One must work at it.- Eleanor Roosevelt

Am I not destroying my enemies what I make friends of them? - Abraham Lincoln

If in our daily life we can smile, if we can be peaceful and happy, not only we, but everyone will profit from it. This is the most basic kind of peace work.-Thich Nhat Hanh

Let us not use bombs and guns to overcome the world. Let us use love and compassion. Peace begins with a smile--smile five times a day to someone you don't really want to smile at all--do it for peace. --Mother Teresa

Those who are free of resentful thoughts surely find peace.--Buddha

I think this sums it all up - "Be the change you wish to see in the world”…Gandi

This thought should be a real incentive for all the world to attempt to achieve peace:

I know not with what weapons World War III will be fought, but World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones.- Albert Einstein

Note - A good method of discovering who else has joined in today is to do a Google Blog Search for Dona Nobis Pacem or Dona Nobis Pacem Mimi. If you are searching today then choose 'published in the last day' from the left hand sidebar. This will ensure you are reading the entries rather than posts that are reminding us to join in.

Thank you to Colin for reminding me about this via his post at Dona Nobis Pacem - BlogBlast For Peace

Non-blogging blog readers

2007-11-07T15:20:00.000+11:00

While I was writing a recent post it occurred to me that although the content was not specific to other bloggers, references in it made it appear that it was. I am now going to try to be much more aware that not all my blog readers are bloggers themselves, although, because of my subject area, the majority are.

We often acknowledge and thank other bloggers by creating links to their blogs, adding them to blogrolls, subscribing to their community pages.... You can give your non-blogging readers some recognition from time to time too.. You could for example include something in a post about a comment they have made, thanking them for feedback, ideas, suggestions etc. If they are a member of such sites as Flickr or YouTube you could link there, as they may be trying to develop friends and a community in this way. If they run ordinary websites you could link to those.

Although we may not get reciprocal linking or social networking kudos from non-bloggers they are as important a part of our personal blogging communities as our blogging mates. Such recognition may even encourage non-bloggers to return to your site and to leave comments!

With this in mind I would like to thank the following people for their support in my blogging efforts:

David my parter who is always supportive in whatever I do, (and despite what I do at times too). His business site, not yet complete is at DC PC Solutions - I promise to finish the web site very soon, David.

My daughter who's intelligence, determination and intrepid nature is just about to see her head off to work in various, often remote, places around Australia. If you are looking at weather reports for Western Australia the information may well have come from her. Please don't blame her if she is wrong though :-) Her fascination with sunsets and clouds set her off on the path of being a Meteorologist from the age of about 12. She does not have a public blog but you can see her puppy at Introducing Amos. He is a few months older now and has been living here for a few weeks. Despite him eating my furniture, insisting on sleeping across my chest, licking me continually and chasing the cat, I will miss him when he goes on Friday.

My elder son who puts up with the time I spend blogging and does not complain, although I know he would like to! As a Software Engineering/Commerce Uni student his knowledge comes in handy. His honesty and down to earth opinions help me see my blogging and web building more objectively. He has been YouTubing some of our visiting dog's antics. The cat gets her revenge- Amos and Pearl as do our curtains - Revenge of the Drapes
My younger son who is so impressed by my awards - because of suffering from Fragile X Syndrome he cannot read my posts, but as with all things in life he has a positive cheerful attitude and does not let this phase him. I have learned a lot from him on how to have a positive attitude to life.

Keef whose sense of humor and travel experiences, as an international coach driver, would make fascinating blog reading but I have not yet convinced him to give it a go. I will give a plug here to a website I created but was Keef's idea. An organization that he is an active member of, as a coastwatch volunteer and committee member. Ingoldmells Point National Coastwatch . This site was created with a Content Management System called Joomla which I am planning on writing about soon.

To those who have left comments on my site with just a name and no indication of whether you blog or not. I thank you.

If any of you reading this are not bloggers yourselves please remember that leaving comments on blogs are welcomed. We bloggers enjoy getting feedback and like to build a community of readers..

Oh I feel a meme coming on! On second thoughts I am going to wait until my blog is active on my own domain :-)

Blogger Template Changes

2007-11-06T13:50:00.000+11:00

Please excuse me if you are not using blogger as this will be of no interest at all to you but I know some other people are keen to make the move over to Wordpress and I want to let them know how I am going.

On changing to the 'new' Blogger I used a default template because all the alterations, hacks and workrounds I used, to add the features I wanted, broke my original template completely. A quick way round this was for me to copy all the sidebar content and put it in one of the html/javascript page elements. As I will keep this blog going in one form or another for a while, until the new one takes off, I thought I should make at least some effort to make it look reasonable.

Not being satisfied with anything quick and easy, which is quite normal for me, I set about completely altering the template to try and match it to my original. I also added a third column because I thought that the long long sidebar I had meant certain things were not in prominent enough positions. When viewing an individual post the sidebar extended far beyond the post itself and some items were probably never seen by those entering via a post rather than the main page.

I am not so sure about it though. Until I fiddled with the column widths and added the borders, the blog looked far too crowded. It is looking better now but I would appreciate your feedback on this as I have been working on a three column template for the new Wordpress blog too.

I could not resist adding another hack too - Recent Comments by Ramani of Hackosphere at Customizable recent comments widget (using JSON feed). It is nowhere near as complex as it sounds - just a matter of copying and pasting a script into the head of your template and adding another to a page element. Ramani also has a good explanation of how to add a third column to an existing 2 column new Blogger template - 3-column templates for new Blogger

Importing Blogger to Wordpress

2007-11-05T01:17:00.000+11:00

After recently changing this blog over to the new Blogger system (from the classic Blogger to what used to be called Beta Blogger), I was able to copy all my posts and comments across from this blog to Wordpress on my own domain.
This was done with an extremely handy inbuilt Wordpress feature (Manage/Import in Wordpress Admin).

If I had been using the new Blogger, categories would have been imported too. The classic blogger system I have been using does not support categories so I had used a workround instead. I now have 249 posts to add tags and categories to and 249 posts that have tags that will lead back to blogspot posts. The workround came back to bite me!

I am keeping this blog in place until I am happy that the move is complete. This involves:

Working on my template to transfer what I want to keep from this template (images etc) and adding a favicon image. I want the new blog to be recognizable as being mine although I am not sure about keeping the notebook spiral affect?

Adding the correct categories/tags to 249 posts (I am tempted to delete some I am not happy with!)

Deleting the old 'in post' tags that point to this blog via a Google Blog search (the work around mentioned above).
Fiddling with my Wordpress template until I am happier with it.
Pointing multitudes of Social Networking sites to the new location.

Have a break to celebrate Christmas and talk to my family who have lost me to Wordpress for weeks.

Adding the necessary plug-ins. I must remember the word 'necessary' here. If I am true to form I will instead trial lots and lots of them and then delete those I am not happy with and non vital ones that cause the page to load too slowly.

Google stuff - although I am a bit teed off with the big G for downgrading pagerank on some of my favorite blogs. Anyone not understand the phrase teed off - not sure if its only a UK/Aussie expression?

Creating and adding a Google Site Map to my site (where else would I add it!)

Adding the blog to my Google Analytics Account so that it tracks stats.

Setting it up to use Google Webmaster Tools.

Fiddling some more with my Wordpress theme. By this time should have got used to not calling it a template .
Pointing my Feedburner feed to the new blog rather than this one. This way those who have subscribed using the feedburner feed will not be affected by my move at all.

Let in the New Year - 2008 hopefully

Inform my readers and contacts about the move although I reckon after reading my posts about it for months they will already know and be well and truely sick of it all.

Deciding what to do about the posts on this blog so that Google does not penalize me for having duplicate content. I could delete the majority of each post, just leaving the first paragraph with a 'read more' link to the post on Wordpress. Then Google would consider me abusive for having too many links to an external site.! If I turned no-follow back on for this site they may forgive me. Maybe I should transfer this blog to a subfolder of my new site (using Bloggers publish to custom domain feature) then Blogger will just divert the site there and my links will become internal? Any suggestions would be gratefull received and acknowledged.

Start shopping for Christmas 2009

Of course I do not really expect this to take anywhere near as long. A week or two is enough surely!

News from the Blogosphere

2007-11-04T18:32:00.000+11:00

I left my daughter to my main PC this weekend - being in transit from living in her flat in Melbourne to various places in Western Australia she has not had internet access at home. I shudder at the thought of not having internet!) I managed to share my Thunderbird mail with my bedroom PC (usually just used for recording and watching TV shows) to attempt a catch up on reading. Not being able to access my email for a few days, because of running out of download limit I was well behind. As usual links in emails sent me off to the web where I dallied far too long to read much of my mail.

Enough twittering. Instead I am going to share some information I discovered in these web wanderings:

Meg from Dipping into the Blogpond alerted us to the fact that Google Webmaster tools now allows us to geographically target blogs that have a generic domain suffix (eg .com, .net). This is relevant to all bloggers who reside outside the US and have a local Google search engine. Now I have set this blog as being Australia based I hope to appear more in google.com.au. If you use Google Webmaster tools then head over to Meg's post at Attention Aussie Bloggers and find out how to do this. (The post does not just apply to Aussies)
Mashable have published a list of major blogging events with excellent descriptions - Top 10 Events for Bloggers.
Peachpit Press explains how to integrate image software 'Gallery' into a Wordpress Blog Customizing WordPress: Integrating Other Apps.
Romlet is a new stats and social networking tool. I have just added their widget to my sidebar and will let you know more about it once I have had time to monitor the results.

HelloTxt is a time saver if you use a variety of microblogging services. Hellotxt lets you post one message, via their web site, and send it out to such services as Twitter, Jaiku, and Pownce . Other services it supports to date include meemi, and yappd , which is closing down tomorrow (for a little while?) after being bought out. I have not tried these last two.

Voting for the 2007 Weblog Awards is now open. I will be voting to show appreciation for my favorites.

Aboogy is a free bookmark manager and personal startpage which you can make public. It may be good to use for linking to the places you can be found on the internet (social networking, bookmarking, microblogging sites etc)

Blogging, Social-Networking alexa

The move to Wordpress begins

2007-11-03T07:26:00.000+11:00

I am finally taking the plunge and starting my move to Wordpress on my own server. It is hardly a plunge really considering how long I have been planning it, more like a tentative step into the shallow end.

Apologies to those who do not use Blogger as the following is not relevant to you.

The first step I have to take is to change over from the old (classic) blogger system to the current system. I had not done this before, despite its improved features as I found it quicker and easier to tweak the template using the old system.

Rather than creating a new template for this move I am going to use a pre-made one, temporarily at least. I will keep this blog active in some form or another, mainly because I do not want anyone to take the sueblimely name. Someone may turn it into a splog (spam blog); shudder at the thought.

I will first copy and save the contents of my sidebar. Then I can delete this from the original template as I am unsure how the change will affect it. Once the new template system is in place I will copy what is needed from my old sidebar into a html/javascript page element.

The reason I have to change to the new Blogger is because this will allow me to import posts and comments from this blog into Wordpress.

Here goes - I have no idea what the move will do to my current settings so please excuse any hopefully temporary hiccups in the page display.

Wordpress alexa

Australia's inadequate download limits

2007-11-02T12:58:00.000+11:00

Tax returns done, I can at last allow myself some time for blogging and browsing. Using up our internet download limit for the month, two days early, was actually helpful for a change as I did not get sidetracked from my task at hand.

In normal circumstances I would be ranting and raving about the restrictive broadband service in Australia. We are on a, so called, unlimited broadband plan but this means we have a certain download limit and then get speed restricted. The restricted speed was so slow that I could not download email without timing out nor get into web mail.

The current top plan with my ISP allows 30gb of download/upload a month for A$109 (US$102). With 2 adults and 4 'grown' children being regular and active internet users this is just not enough for us . I do not know of any Australian ISP that offers truly unlimited downloads. Until recently uploads were not included in the allowance. Our service is deteriorating rather than improving! I guess I had a rant after all.

Apologies from those whose emails I should have replied to earlier. I will have to have a catch up now and try and wade my way through the spam to the real emails.

Australia alexa

Facebook - Melbourne Bloggers Group

2007-11-01T13:33:00.000+11:00

In case my last post brought in some Australian readers I thought I would take the opportunity to talk about a Facebook group I have set up for Melbourne bloggers. The idea is that we can keep each other up to date on events of relevance within Melbourne - conferences, meet-ups etc.

If you live in Melbourne and want to find out (or tells us about) what is happening in the blogging scene here (or if you are outside of Melbourne but know of events that we would be interested in) please feel free to join us on the Melbourne Bloggers Facebook Group.

I thought this useful not only to learn about events which teach more about blogging and related areas but to give people an opportunity to extend their online blogging community into making real life connections. Do any of you take part in any real life blogging gatherings?

Australia, Social-Networking alexa

Blogging Carnivals

2007-11-01T12:41:00.000+11:00

My last post reminded me that I wanted to mention the "All Women blogging carnival". The carnival is run by the All for Women blog, the same site that created the top 50 Australian Women blogger list. The aim: to create "a weekly roundup of the best of women blogging from all over the blogosphere".

Carnivals are a good way to help develop your personal blogging community although I recommend you stick to those that are of most relevance to your interests or blog topics. If you are participating in carnivals merely for the backlinks they provide, whatever the topic, you have to be careful that your posts are of interest to your readers.

The reason I like the All Women carnival is that you do not have write about a given topic nor divert from your normal subject area. You submit one of the blog posts you have already written. This can be a particular post you have written for the carnival or a favorite from the prior week. You can experience the link love without compromising your blog. There is one condition to entry - you must be a woman. As if you did not realize that without me telling you!

Because entrants choose their best posts, they make for good reading. As well as submitting posts you can also volunteer to host the carnival. A different blogger hosts the carnival each Monday. For an example, here is the latest hosted by Imaginif
All Women Carnival - Why the Blog Not. I wonder if hosts are expected to be women too?

Leigh of All for Women and crazy meezer and Patricia at Mad Goat Lady have just started a novel site Aussie Swaps - a swap is where people secretly send a gift to each other. They plan to have several swaps throughout the year to mark special occasions, such as Christmas, Easter, Valentines Day, and are starting off with a Secret Santa. This is a site for Aussies but I thought some of you may be interested in the concept.

Imaginif runs a carnival very similar to All Women although the stipulation here is that you must be an Aussie - Carnival of Australia

Social Networking, alexa

Top Australian Bloggers

2007-10-29T09:48:00.000+11:00

I am so excited about finding out that I among the Top 100 Australian Blogs and the Top 50 Australian Women's Blogs that I wanted to share the news with you. Apologies for blowing my own trumpet here but it is my fellow bloggers and blog readers who will understand how much this means.

There are a good mix of blogs in this list. Unlike some, it is not dominated by professional bloggers or the "A list". I regularly read some of the blogs listed and would like to congratulate (in no particular order):

Kim at Laketrees
Snoskred at Life in the country
Darren Rowse ProBlogger
Meg - Dipping into the Blogpond
Alister Cameron - Alister Cameron // Blogologist
Colin Campbell - Adelaide Green Porridge Cafe
Lifehack
Duncan Reilly
Katie - A Byootaful Life
Small Office Australia

Others in the list I read less regularly, mainly because time restraints tend to make me concentrate on research rather than reading for leisure. I have discovered some new ones too - since I started writing this post.

The Life of Riley by Olive Reilly, at 108 the worlds oldest blogger
iCING - looks fun

If I don't stop here I will probably end up going to read all blogs in both lists but I have two GST statements to do today (tax returns) and they were due yesterday!

A huge thank you to my regular readers who have all helped me to achieve this with their support, encouragement and link-love. I would not be there if not for you.

Awards alexa

Blogging and Community Building

2007-10-24T06:57:00.000+10:00

Colin of Free PC Security has graced me with a Community Blogger Award which means a lot to me. I am a firm believer in the value of blogging for community building. This award celebrates people who reach out and makes the blogger community a better one.
It also underlines the importance of a blogs readership community, one of the most rewarding parts about blogging. It’s the people that come back to comment, adding to the conversation, making you feel like someone is listening and interested.

The social networking aspect of blogging has always been there, long before the more recent phenomena of such applications as MyBlogLog. Certainly, external communities bring people with similar interests together but on a larger scale and their emphasis is on 'networking' rather than 'social'. You can build closer, more personal communities, from them but this takes time and effort and the larger they get the more impersonal they become.

You are then more inclined to join micro communities (eg one based around your city, or topic area). Nothing wrong with this of course but diversity tends to be lost. We end up classifying ourselves, identifying with certain aspects of our life rather our whole person.

This happens in real life too of course; more so in large cities. We get together with work mates or those in clubs and organisations we join. Cities can be lonely places.

My blogging friends are diverse. They are ones that have tended to come about more naturally, from people who have visited my blog and those who's blogs I have been interested enough in to leave comments. From there I have met others, blogging friends of blogging friends. They come from all over the world, their blog topics vary considerably but I feel some sort of affinity to them for one reason or another. In 'real' life my closest friends are those who I went to school with. They were made before we had categorized ourselves by what we do for a living, what our hobbies are etc. They are a diverse lot, spread all over the world now, with vastly different experiences, different careers, different interests.

There is talk of blogging dying, being replaced by applications like twitter. Maybe this is true to an extent but I don't think blogging, because of its social and community building value, will be replaced by less personal applications. Twitter may inform me where someone is going for lunch or what they are doing today but it does not tell me who they are, only how they have defined themselves in life. This is often because of necessity rather than need. I believe blogging does satisfy our needs, creating communities of like minded people. (There are always exceptions to the rule of course - I think Facebook may be one of them. I think I have just led myself along the path to another post with that thought.)

I got a little carried away in thoughts with this post but back to the award itself. I have decided to pass this on to bloggers whose main purpose is to create a community.

Captain Lifecruiser whose lively community members, the team cruisers and swab team, get together to share and enjoy cyber travel. The Captain really gets into the spirit of things with her current blog template dedicated to things spooky. Lifecruisers Halloween runs from 23-31 October, with a spooktacular Halloween Party the 31th!

I will add more when I have had time to think about it in relation to the criteria I set for myself! Perhaps you could help me out here. Do you always pass awards on to your contacts/readers or are there times when you will give them to those who do not really know you although you admire their blogs?

Awards, Social-Networking alexa

Flock - THE Social Networking browser

2007-10-23T19:16:00.001+10:00

As I mentioned yesterday I have discovered another time saving and organization tool ideal for bloggers and this is a doozy. It was enough to set this blogger's heart all a quiver. The application responsible, the Flock browser, is not new but it's newly released version has surpassed itself in my expectations. with its new social networking and blogging features.

I have been using Flock, almost since its inception, as a secondary browser, often having it and Firefox open at the same time. Flock is built on top of the Firefox application and the only reason I used it as second choice was that Firefox was all set up with my favorite extensions and I did not spend the time adding them to Flock.

I am now making Flock my preferred browser as it is ideally suited to managing and organizing blogging, social networking, bookmarking, researching and online photos. Come to think of it, that is basically all of my online life. I do not even have to add many extensions because so many features are built in already.
I could write a really long post about all the features but as it is has so much in common with Firefox I will stick to the areas I think are valuable to bloggers. Some are new, others have always been there:

People Sidebar- shows your contacts and allows you to interact with them according to the application - eg message, send link, add a wall post, twitter, go to their profiles, view their favorite YouTube videos in the Flock media bar.

These features really do save time as well as keeping you up to date and reducing the need for multiple
tools/extensions.

MyWorld toolbar button opens up a three-columned page showing your Favorite Sites, Favorite Feeds, and Favorite Media.

Blog directly from Flock's blog editor as I am doing now.

Web clips - drag a URL or image onto the clipboard, where it gets saved and blog about it with one click.

Upload Photos directly to Flickr, Photobucket or Piczo by dragging and dropping - I have used this for quite a while now. So quick.

Star - Click on the Star button when you see a photo, video, page you like, to easily find it afterwards.

Del.icio.us - view your browser favorites and del.icio.us favorites in one sidebar - much speedier than the Firefox extensions I have used to do this.

Feed reader - inbuilt

I love this application and after almost 20 years of online life it takes a lot to impress me so much.

Blog Tools, Social-Networking alexa

How to make the most of blog comments

2007-10-23T06:33:00.001+10:00

I have discovered two more ways to make blogging life easier!

The first I would like to talk about is co.mments, a method I am using to keep track of comments on blogs with posts of interest and those that I have left a comment on myself.

Bloggers who interact with their readers and develop a dialog, by responding to comments, can develop discussions that make a blog come alive. They are creating their own communities. I enjoy reading and participating in these commenting sessions because:

they are helping me develop a social/friendship network

they often contain valuable information that leads me to information/further research for this blog.

They have been valuable for helping to develop my own readership.

If you have any points to add to this please let us know.
Being informed when there is a reply to a comment that I have left on another blog, or new comments on a topic of interest, means I can go back and respond further if necessary.

I used to save the post page to a folder on my links toolbar but I tended not to look at the folder regularly enough. Where a 'subscribe to comments' feature is available I would use this but some posts generate masses of comments for a while after, crowding my inbox. These are normally the very popular blogs where I feel comments are left mainly for the purpose of leaving a link. To me these blogs, although having very large readerships, do not in general have such a community feel to them.

When I first read of co.mments my curiosity was immediately aroused and after using it to keep track of comments for a while now, I am a firm fan.

How does it work?

Very simply and quickly (I love simple and quick!):-

Add the co.mments bookmarklet to your bookmarks toolbar.

Click this bookmarklet button when you are on a post page whose comments you want to track. co.mments works in the background with no more input needed. A little pop up appears confirming the bookmark along with a link to your personal co.omments page.

This action creates a page at co.mments that shows post summaries and all new comments on the posts you have co.mment bookmarked.

A 'conversations' page shows recently bookmarked pages of all the sites users.

There is no need to visit the site each time you wish to read comments on your bookmarked posts as an RSS feed and email notifications are available. I have added the feed to my Thunderbird news reader so it is easy for me to keep up to date without getting masses of emails.

Other useful features:

Make it easy for your readers to follow your blog's comments by adding a link to let them track comments on your posts. - you can see mine below just next to the comments link.

If you use FeedBurner, you can add comment tracking to your feeds.

For WordPress users the Sociable plugin includes support for co.mments

Registration is not necessary as a cookie is used to track your bookmarked posts but I preferred to do so as I like to clean out my cookies from time to time.

The option of adding a widget to your own blog allows others to see where you have been commenting.

I have started testing out a similar application coComment and will let you know if I find it of more use. So far it is shaping up well and has more social networking features - although I am not sure I need more!

I will post about the second application that can make the life of a blogger easier tomorrow.

(That was not a deliberate ploy to get you to return here tomorrow, I just did not have time to finish the post today. Many bloggers do use such teasers. I am wondering what you think about them?)

Comments, Blog-Tools alexa

Two Awards are Better than One

2007-10-22T06:45:00.000+10:00

My blogging mate and fellow Aussie, Kim, has been kind enough to bestow two awards on me over the last couple of weeks.

From poeartica Kim honored me with her very own Southern Cross Award which she gave as a token of friendship to buddies who have regularly visited and commented on poeartica and at laketrees. I think this is a lovely gesture, thank you Kim.

Kim also gave me this award for being one of the blogs she relies on for all things technical. I really appreciated this, Kim, and am pleased that I am of some help. As that is the main purpose of my blogging, it is satisfying to know that you think this.

The Blogging Hits the Mark award came by way of Speedcat Hollydale Page who received the award from The Genie King.

This one I can pass on. Therefore I give the Blogging Hits the Mark award to:

Kuanyin Who's Yo Mama - I hope you get well soon.
Gattina - Writer's cramps for great writing and photos to match.

(You can put this award on whichever of your blogs you choose)
Snoskred of Life in the Country who's posts always hit the mark. I am eager to read the post she is going to do today; which she say's may be the most important one she has written - "Some people may be insulted by it. Some people may feel guilty. Some people may shoot the messenger". Even if I feel guilty or insulted I will not shoot the messenger and the sentiment of the award will still stand :-)
Colin Campbell - Adelaide Green Porridge Cafe who's posts vary from talk of such things as British Sausage Week for sausage appreciators to political commentary

I do not expect you to post about or display the award if you do not want. Just take it as a sign of my respect for your blogs.

PS - I did not receive these awards at the same time - I have just been slack with blogging for a week or so. Work has had to take precedence. Apologies Kim.

Awards alexa

8hands is better than 2

2007-10-22T05:05:00.000+10:00

I have been trying out the newish social media desktop application, 8hands, for a couple of week or so and give it the thumbs up because it has been saving me time - in some respects at least.*

8hands lets you access your Facebook, Flickr, YouTube, MySpace, and Twitter accounts from your desktop.
Notification is given of new comments, messages, friend notifications and new videos. You are alerted to these with a pop up message.
Notifications are also viewable from friends avatars in the 8hands window. Clicking on messages takes you to the messenger's profile.
An archive of messages is also provided, which is handy if you have not logged in for a while, but I do find this slow to load.
You are able to chat with your 8hands friends and share Flickr images and YouTube videos.

I have not had to trawl through emails for notifications but have relied on 8hands instead. I only visit the sites when I know there is some action that I want to take.

* The reason it has only saved me time in some respects is that once on the sites I tend to get sidetracked from tasks at hand - such a writing blog posts and work. I find Facebook to be particularly addictive! Do any of you feel the same way or are are there other social networking sites that have this affect on you?

Social-Networking, Blogging-Tools alexa

The Meaning of Blogging - digital story

2007-10-18T04:11:00.000+10:00

Renny of Renny BA's Terella has created a delightful video explaining what blogging means to him. He has kindly given me permission to include it here. If you are trying to explain to non bloggers what the appeal of blogging is this would be an excellent video to show them. It would not be a bad thing to review it yourself from time to time, especially if your motivation needs a bit of a boost.

A different perspective for those who are blogging for income comes from Darren Rowse in his most recent weekly video, He answers the question from a reader “Was there a time when you first started blogging that you became despondent and thought about quitting? If so, what happened that gave you the confidence to keep going?”

See the video on the Problogger site here A Secret to Profitable Blogging - Trending Up Over the Long Haul . Although I don't normally post about making money blogging I just loved the funky tune Darren is using on his videos.

Motivation, Blog-Definitions alexa

Youlicit - Relevant Content for Blog Research

2007-10-16T12:53:00.000+10:00

I have been spending some time lately trying out Youlicit, which I can only describe as a kind of cross between a search engine, Stumbleupon and del.icious. The aim is to provide you with relevant content by remembering the type of site/posts you visit and suggesting similar content. So far I have been impressed by the accuracy of the results.

Youlicit says that its underlying premise is that of reducing information overload by using collaborative filtering. Anything that can recude overload, to whatever extent, gets a thumbs up in my book.

Features

Remembering your interest areas and recommending similar sites/posts.

Adding sites you recommend via Firefox addins.

Adding sites via links on the Youlicit site itself.

Finding sites similar to those you have bookmarked via the Youlicit site and directly from Firefox.

Adding contacts who have similar browsing interests

Importing of del.icio.us bookmarks and digg favorites

RSS feeds for several aspects of Youlicit’s service, including your recommendations or another user’s recommendations.

Configurable feed lists for your blog.

An AIM subprofile

Emailing friends with links

How Youlicit works

Youlicit learns from the sites you recommend; those you or others have added. You can also import del.icio.us bookmarks and digg favorites - which gives the process a head start by providing it with sites you already like. Based on your preferences it suggests other sites that you may find of interest. On the Youlicit site you can browse these sites via lists, specific urls or tags. For example, enter a blog URL or a specific tag and you will be presented with similar content. Next to each site in a list is a button allowing you to narrow down your search further by finding sites similar to individual entries.

Adding sites to Youlicit:

Using a choice of a variety of Firefox browser add-ons and Google toolbar addins you can recommend the site you are on - this very quickly works in the background with no diverting to their site, no pop-up forms to fill in, and no tagging or description needed.

The add ins available are in the form of a Firefox toolbar or individual toolbar buttons (the latter being my preference - I have too many Firefox toolbars as it is) There is also a Google search add-on, which lets you get related Youlicit results for any Google search you do.

The 'stumble' type features 'Youlicit next' and 'Youlicit more' take you to another site similar to the one you are looking or to a list of similar sites bookmarked on Youlicit respectively. The beauty of this is that the sites are relevant to your own preferences rather than random sites on any topic.

Add sites from the Youlicit site itself by clicking on a button next to each link.

Adding Contacts

This feature is accessed via your profile page where you will find a 'Related User' list. Viewing their profile allows you to see their related users and their tags and so on.

How is the Youlicit search engine different to others?

To quote Youlicit - "While the other search engines return sites based on algorithms that determine the popularity of a site with other sites (how many web pages link back to the web site among other things), our unique algorithm processes the sites that people are finding important and interesting and providing you with just those results."

More information:

Youlicit Home Page

Youlicit Blog

Youlicit about page

I would recommend you check the site out. Registration is not necessary so you can just browse for content and recommend sites if you wish. Registration does brings you all the Youlicit features and your own profile page though.

Social-Networking, Research-Tools alexa

Blog Action Day - The Environment

2007-10-15T06:21:00.000+10:00

"We should be the heart and mind of the Earth, not its malady.
So let us be brave and cease thinking of human needs and rights alone,
and see that we have harmed the living Earth
and need to make our peace with Gaia."
James Lovelock: The Earth is about to catch a morbid fever that may last as long as 100,000 years

Effects of global warming include rising sea levels, glacier retreat, and altered patterns of agriculture, extreme weather events, an expansion of tropical diseases, and drastic economic impact.

The area covered by sea ice in the Arctic has shrunk to its lowest level since satellite measurements began nearly 30 years ago, In September this year the Arctic's North-West Passage - a sea route linking the Atlantic and Pacific oceans opened up for the first time since records began.

The UN is calling 2007 a global climate change "mega disaster".

Scientist: Global greenhouse gas emissions already beyond 'worst-case' scenario

Heavy water restrictions are already in place here but Australia suffers its worst drought in 1,000 years says that Australia will have to switch off the water supply to the continent's food bowl unless heavy rains break an epic drought. The two rivers that feed the region that yields 40 per cent of the country's agricultural produce are so low that there will soon be only enough water for drinking supplies.

"The Great Barrier Reef will become "functionally extinct" within decades at the current rate of global warming" Sydney Morning Herald - Reef 'facing extinction'

In the Pacific The report warns that in Fiji climate change could result in a 100 per cent increase in cyclone damage, an increase in dengue fever cases of between 20 and 30 per cent and a decline in crop yields of up to 15 per cent.

UK TV AD on CLIMATE CHANGE

The Climate hot map gives an increasingly comprehensive picture changes in the world's climate system

Blogs on the environment

Green Options a community dedicated to environmental resources, education, and discussion.

The Conscious Earth Earth-centred news for the health of air, water, habitat and the fight against global warming

Eco Chick - The site shows you how to find the things you love, and keeps you updated on what’s going on in that great green world.

Enviroblog is a project of
EWG Action Fund
covering public health, environmental policy, and better consumer choices.

Climate Ark Climate Change and Global Warming Portal

Green Wombat covers the intersection of the environment, technology, business and policy.

Tree Hugger aims to be a one-stop shop for green news, solutions, and product information.

New Scientist Environment Blog

Officially supported charities for Blog Action Day 2007 - the Environment

Good-Causes alexa

All you wish you did not have to know about Domain Names

2007-10-14T09:49:00.001+10:00

If you are thinking of moving from a web based blog hosting service, such as blogspot or Wordpress, to your own hosting service then you will need a domain name, which is your unique address on the internet. When I move this blog over my domain name will be sueblimely.com.
A domain name is made up of two parts, the unique name you choose, made up of letters and or numbers (in my case sueblimely) and a top level domain (TLD) - eg com, net, au, ca. A complete list of TLD's can be found on Wikipedia. (As from next year you will be able to get a .me TLD when Montenegro's domain name becomes available - imagine the rush to get that suffix e.g. buy.me, love.me, bookmark.me...)

Think carefully about your domain name considering these points:

If your hosted blog name is already well known then think about reusing this.

If you want a new name, try to choose one that is easy to remember and easy to spell. Shorter names are generally better and less prone to spelling errors. Remember that your domain name and blog title do not need to be the same so a long title does not have to translate into a long domain name.

It is good to have a name that descriptive and relevant to your blog topic, using keywords that will bring in readers from search engines.
- You can be descriptive and creative at the same time e.g. treehugger.com
- You may wish to create an identity for yourself at the same time e.g. joelonsoftware.com (this is what I am aiming to do because of my other web activities which are distinct from blogging)

If you already have a well known identity/nickname consider using this e.g.: snoskred.org.

Many blogs do not have a particular topic. You can be creative in this case but try to choose a memorable name.

All of this comes with the proviso that the name you choose is actually available. You may not be able to buy your chosen name and a rethink or compromise may have to be settled on.

There are many other domain naming tools available online although I have not been too impressed by them. I found the following of the most use:

Instant Domain Checker - nice and quick

Create a list of words associated with your site and check them on Google Trends gives you an idea of how much search traffic words get:

bustaname.com - allows instant live searching and helps you find domains sounding similar to the one of your choice.

namedroppers.com - perform searches for domain names using multiple keywords

MakeWords.com - search via keyword and get alternatives to the resultant names.

JustDropped.com - lets you search for domain names that have recently expired.

If you need a little inspiration the weblog name generator may help. If not you can get a giggle from some of the names it comes up with. (e.g. bug-eyed dreams, happy noodle)

Once your domain name is decided on and you are sure it is available, you need to actually buy the name. Most hosting companies provide domain registration services but, although buying this way is the simplest option, it may not be the cheapest option.

You can find reviews of domain registrars on NamePros.com. Namecheap and Dynadot seem to have good reputations. I have used WebPageDomainNames.com, which is associated with GoDaddy, for a few years now and have had no problems. I have not had to test out their customer support so cannot comment on how efficient this is.

Domain-Names alexa

How to share with Madkast

2007-10-13T09:10:00.000+10:00

If you look at the title of this post you will see a little green 'share this' button underneath. This is the Madkast widget. Clicking on it will allow you to save/share the post on 15 of the major link sharing sites (Digg, Delicious, Facebook, Reddit, Technorati...) .

What makes Madkast stand out from other similar blog utilities is that you can also send the full text of the post via email or MMS text message. Cleverly, Madkast recognizes you wherever you go by saving the email addresses and numbers that you send to.

Installation is simple, either by copying the generated code snippet and pasting it into your template or using a one-click install for Blogger or Typepad.

The origin of Madkast is interesting. It is the first start up company to come out of TechStars; which was founded by a collective of Colorado-based entrepreneurs as a way of promoting entrepreneurial activity. Techstars provides seed funding, facilities, mentoring and promotion for a number of promising potential startups each summer. (Reddit came from a similar program).

You can keep up to date with Madcast news on the Madcast Blog and get your madKast widget here.

Widgets, Social-Networking alexa