Blogging Sueblimely

Welcome to Blogging Sueblimely. To keep up with my posts you can subscribe to my RSS feed and follow me on Twitter. Thanks for visiting!

Overloading yourself with online social network commitments can run counter to the interests of your blog. Joining too many networks, trying to please too many people and spending too much time promoting your own blog all take time away from writing. You are in danger of not paying sufficient attention to your most important social network; the one that is centered around your own blog.

What are some of the results of spending too much time on social media activities and not enough time on your blog?

• You may not post so often. Readers who visit expecting a new entry will not return so regularly. Your search engine rankings can suffer.
• The quality of your posts may deteriorate. Less time is taken for research and for writing.
• You have less time to respond to your comments and to visit the blogs of your supporters, some may be offended, some may stop visiting you so often, some may simply forget you.
• Conversations best carried out in your comments take place elsewhere.
• You may miss out on blogging events e.g. carnival submissions, memes, blog in unity days.
• You can miss out on being among the first to post and announce breaking news related to your blog topics.

You could likely add more to this list.
From a personal point of view:

• More important aspects of your life may not get the necessary time and attention they deserve.
• Your offline tasks may be neglected and even the people in your life may start to suffer.
• Trying to keep up with all the tasks you have set for yourself can lead to feelings of being disorganized and overwhelmed; stress, anxiety and depression could result.
• You may start to be short of ideas for topics to blog on.
• Lethargy can set in and you may begin to question why you are blogging and whether it is worth it.

This is not a cheerful post but I wanted you to be aware of what can result if you do over commit yourself to social media activities. There is a stage where, instead of enhancing your blogging and your blog, they become counterproductive for yourself and your blog. If you start thinking you are too busy with your peripheral blogging tasks or begin to feel overloaded then take some action to alleviate the situation straight away; before your enthusiasm for blogging starts to wain or your psychological welfare suffers.

I tend to hit an almost overload point quite regularly. I reign in my activities but in my enthusiasm for trying all that is new I get back to the same busy place again. I have my own methods of coping (writing this just presented me with the topic for my next post!) although, after being less than regular in posting lately, I realize they are not necessarily the most efficient methods. A rethink is needed. My methods may be good for my own state of mind but not so good for the blog.

Have you experienced blogging or social networking overload. If so how did it affect you and did you find any solutions that helped you?

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After publicizing RSS Awareness Day, May 1st, I am a day late in taking part, although in some parts of the world it may still be yesterday. Not wanting to miss out on a chance of joining in with bloggers blogging in unity I had to get my own two cents worth in.

If your site provides a feed then you will be familiar with RSS. I know there are still many people who do not understand the concept nor use a feedreader. There are those who believe blogs are merely used as personal online diaries, which they would not read. They probably do not realize that many sites they visit regularly are in fact blogs. If your blog attracts returning readers who are not bloggers themselves, an occasional gentle reminder about subscribing would not go astray.

The term RSS has become a generic term to describe website feeds although RSS is only one of the two main methods of providing feeds. Atom is the other - the default feed for blogspot Blogger blogs is Atom. RSS is an acronym and therefore not pronounced phonetically as ‘ar-ss’.

Blogging platforms have feed capabilities built in to them and bloggers do not have to concern themselves with their own feeds unless they wish to take advantage of the extra information and statistics provided by services such as Feedburner. Feedburner creates its own feed for your blog and provides code for you to add to your theme or template to replace the default feed. You are provided with the code for an RSS button. A subscribe button in the sidebar highlights your feed as well as compensating for the lack of a subscribe icon in the address bars of some browsers. There are more subscribe options provided by clicking this button than those incorporated into browsers including subscribe by email.

The addition of a subscribe by email option is well worth having, to cater for those who prefer reading feeds that are delivered to their inbox. Your content is more likely to be read this way too, as it reaches those who do not visit their feedreader regularly.

I chose to incorporate a graphic I created into my feed code as you can see from my own feed button at the top of the first sidebar. I had no comments about this so it is probably very silly and I should remove it. If you want a snazzy feed button I talked about some free resources in my post Feed and Social Networking Buttons.

How you read your RSS feed is a matter of personal preference. I use the FeedDemon desktop reader which copes with my copious feeds and syncs with its corresponding web reader, Newgator Online. This enables me to have updated subscription lists on both my PC and Laptop. Google reader is also popular and allows you to publicly share your favorite posts. I periodically save my FeedDemon list to an opml file and then upload that to Google and other sites that allow my feeds to socially network with other feeds. (In the hope that my blog will also get some publicity.)

Do you have a favorite feedreader?

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Image via Wikipedia

News

Darren Rowse is holding a Speed Posting weekend on Problogger - It is a long weekend here in Australia because of Friday’s Anzac Day public holiday so I am not certain if the “weekend” is starting Friday or Saturday - it could even be Friday in Australia but Saturday in USA

Darren has gathered 20 questions from his Twitter followers and will be providing a short answer to these and then throwing them open to readers to add their own responses. Sounds like there may be some real communication going on in the comments. As an added incentive Darren is giving away prizes to 3 readers who comment.

It is Darren’s birthday on Sunday so let us give him a gift by making this a bumper commenting weekend for him. Happy Birthday, Darren.

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Reading blogs and other websites, participating in Social Networking Sites, doing research, dropping Entrecards can create an overloaded and disorganized Firefox browser. Here are some ways you can avoid frustration, speed up your browsing and be more organized.

• Keep one lean clean, mean speedy profile free of addin toolbars, sidebars and multiple extensions for quick browsing..

• Use a different profile for visiting other sites and social networking.

(I would not recommend using this many toolbars at any one time!)

To start Firefox in profile view, where you can choose which profile to load and add new ones: Go to Start Menu/Run and type “firefox -profilemanager”. Mac users - “/Applications/Firefox.app/Contents/MacOS/firefox-bin —profilemanager” (without the “’s) . From the profile screen you can choose to open Firefox in the Profile Manager each time you start the program. To run more than one profile at once use the Profile Switcher extension

• Keep your most used bookmarks at hand by using folders on your bookmarks toolbar. Eg - one for social networking sites, one for sites you visit regularly…

• Bloggers who take part in carnivals or regular memes (eg wordless Wednesday) or follow particular scheduled weekly posts may be interested in the Morning Coffee Firefox extension which allows you to organise favorite sites by day and open them in tabs. Thanks to Brown Baron for putting me on to this one. You could also use this to discipline yourself and not be sidetracked while working or studying, e.g. by setting weekend and weekday bookmarks.
• If you have the Greasemonkey extension installed the following scripts can speed up your browsing and make life easier:
  • Disable Text Ads - Disables inline text ads from Vibrant Media (IntelliTXT), AdBrite, Infolicious (lingoSpot), Kontera, Linkworth, EchoTopic, Targetpoint and MediaText (to date).
  • RSS+Atom Feed Subscribe Button Generator - automatically finds RSS and Atom subscription links on a webpage and insertsa feed subscription button to the top left of the page.
• It’s All Text, - speed up the process of writing in text areas (comments, forum posts etc) and do not lose what you have typed due to mishaps.
• If you are game to alter your Firefox configuration take a look at the tutorial Speed Up Firefox web browser
• Use the noscript extension to disable javascript, Java, Flash and other plugins for safe browsing as well as speed. You can choose which sites you wish to be excluded from the disable functions - It does take some setting up to do this though. Some love it, some find it annoying. If you do not want to use this all the time add it to your “lean” profile or to a new one
• It is wise to do backup or copy of your Firefox profile before editing your config or adding Greasemonkey scripts.
• It is always worth doing regular backups of your profile in case other problems arise.

Please let me know if you have any tips to speed up your browsing activities (apart from setting yourself a time limit that is - something I have rarely been able to achieve).

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I have talked previously of the advantages of hosting your own blog but only from the perspective of the blog itself. Owning your own domain and hosting package has other plusses, giving you freedom to create additional content for blogging and personal purposes.

All you need is enough free space on your host server to be able to install other software and the choices are endless. You may be thinking that this all sounds too hard and that you do not have the know how to install and manage anything more than blog software but, for a large proportion of the applications I talk about here, you already have the necessary skills. If you have installed and managed Wordpress, uploaded files to your own server there is often little else you need to know.

Expanding your blog site

The tendency is to go for additional applications that have a bridge via plugins to your blogging software. Even if the application is to be a part of your blog site, all it really takes is menu links to connect the two so a plugin is not necessary. The choice of application you use then becomes much wider and more likely to suit your own particular needs. This could be as simple as using the best gallery or forum software but you can broaden your horizons and add many other resources that enhance your blog.

Wordpress is touted as being a CMS (Content Management System) and it can certainly be used for more than just a blog interface. You can make use of static pages and plugins to expand its capabilities and uses. It does have limitations however and does not have all the same capabilities as some of the more complete CMS systems such as Drupal and Joomla. By using additional software alongside Wordpress you can create features for your site to suit your own needs and own niche. A few ideas:

• Install Drupal, Joomla or another CMS system and use only some of their features (e.g. groups, blogrolls, newsletters) or install other individual applications.
• Adding a wiki (TikiWiki) or forum could enhance communication with your readers and bring along more readers to your blog.
• Add your own choice of photo gallery or photo sharing capabilities. I will write a post about the options available soon.
• Many of the new Digg type voting sites are powered by Pligg, which you can download for free - you could find your own unique way to use this.
• If you add a blog directory application you could maintain a list of your own bookmarks or open it up to others to create a resource tailored to your own blog niche e.g. Dew-NewPHPLinks
• Add more value to the information you provide by adding Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) software. e.g. FAQMasterFlex
• Adding software that allows for password protection can allow you to create your own private community of friends and blogging contacts where members can feel free to talk more about themselves and add more personal information without worrying so much about revealing their identities or their online safety and security. This could even be achieved by using another installation of your blogging software and keeping this one members only.
• Make your own web pages - use software and online generators to help if you have no html knowledge.
• Use polling software with more features than available by plugin.
• Organize and get in touch with your blogging contacts and subscribers with mailing list software - PHPList
• Add a chat room with web cam e.g. Ray Community Widget Suite
• Create and host your own webring e.g.PHP My Ring

All of the software mentioned above is completely free. I have quoted applications that I have used or at least installed and looked at but there are many other alternatives. Most of them are part of the package offered by Fantastico Deluxe which is available free as part of some hosting packages and available via your CPanel. Fantastico allows you to easily install its included programs without having to upload, install and configure them manually. I will follow this post up with an article on Fantastico.

Personal Uses

Create a private area on your server, only viewable by family and friends or just for your own use. Applications you could use::

• Geneology Software - I use a reasonably priced commercial program TheNextGeneration
• Photo Galleries - here is a photo site I created for my daughter?
• Private blogs and communities
• Time management
• To do lists
• Host sites for family, friends or for non-profits

Resources

• OpenSource CMS - demos of many of the main CMS Systems
• List of open source software packages on Wikipedia
  • Content Management Systems
  • Wiki Software
• SOURCEFORGE.NET - A huge number of open source applications:
  • Internet Projects
  • Multirmedia
• Hotscripts - remotely hosted scripts (free and commercial)

There are of course many business applications that could be used to help in organization, collaboration, networking, advertising and promotion.

Do you have any suggestions for any other uses for your server?

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Words of wisdom from the world’s greatest thinkers are timeless providing advice which is as relevant now as when first spoken. All of these quotes could easily be applied to blogging:

Advice for Bloggers

1. They may forget what you said, but they will never forget how you made them feel. Carl W. Buechner
2. When dealing with people, remember you are not dealing with creatures of logic, but creatures of emotion. Dale Carnegie
3. Speech is power: speech is to persuade, to convert, to compel. It is to bring another out of his bad sense into your good sense. Ralph Waldo Emerson
4. The ability to speak eloquently is not to be confused with having something to say. Michael P. Hart
5. My opponent can compress the most words into the fewest ideas of anyone I’ve ever known. Abraham Lincoln
6. Words are, of course, the most powerful drug used by mankind. Rudyard Kipling
7. You do not really understand something unless you can explain it to your grandmother. Albert Einstein
8. I don’t let my mouth say nothin’ my head can’t stand. Louis Armstrong

Research Tips

9. First learn the meaning of what you say, and then speak. Epictetus
10. Do not believe in anything simply because you have heard it. Do not believe in anything simply because it is spoken and rumored by many. Do not believe in anything simply because it is found written in your religious books. Do not believe in anything merely on the authority of your teachers and elders. Do not believe in traditions because they have been handed down for many generations. But after observation and analysis, when you find that anything agrees with reason and is conducive to the good and benefit of one and all, then accept it and live up to it. Buddha

Writing Tips

11. What is written without effort is in general read without pleasure. Samuel Johnson
12. Put it before them briefly so they will read it, clearly so they will appreciate it, picturesquely so they will remember it and, above all, accurately so they will be guided by its light. Joseph Pulitzer
13. Talent alone cannot make a writer. There must be a man behind the book. Ralph Waldo Emerson
14. Those who write clearly have readers, those who write obscurely have commentators. Albert Camus
15. I learned that you should feel when writing, not like Lord Byron on a mountain top, but like child stringing beads in kindergarten, - happy, absorbed and quietly putting one bead on after another. Brenda Ueland
16. When something can be read without effort, great effort has gone into its writing. Enrique Jardiel Poncela

Communication Tips

17. Constantly talking isn’t necessarily communicating. Joel Barish
18. The art of communication is the language of leadership. James Humes
19. Reading makes a full man, meditation a profound man, discourse a clear man. Benjamin Franklin
20. Speak when you are angry and you will make the best speech you will ever regret. Ambrose Bierce
21. You cannot shake hands with a clenched fist. Indira Gandhi.
22. To effectively communicate, we must realize that we are all different in the way we perceive the world and use this understanding as a guide to our communication with others. Anthony Robbins
23. We shall never be able to remove suspicion and fear as potential causes of war until communication is permitted to flow, free and open, across international boundaries. Harry S. Truman
24. Communication leads to community, that is, to understanding, intimacyand mutual valuing. Rollo May

Advice on Commentating

25. Kind words can be short and easy to speak, but their echoes are truly endless.
    Mother Teresa
26. To listen closely and reply well is the highest perfection we are able to achieve in the art of conversation. François de la Rochefoucauld
27. What is the shortest word in the English language that contains the letters: abcdef? Answer: feedback. Don’t forget that feedback is one of the essential elements of good communication Unknown
28. You can tell whether a man is clever by his answers. You can tell whether a man is wise by his questions. Naguib Mahfouz
29. The greastest compliment that was ever paid me was when one asked me what I thought, and attended to my answer. Henry David Thoreau
30. The great enemy of clear language is insincerity George Orwell.
31. You can make more friends in two months by becoming really interested in other people than you can in two years by trying to get other people interested in you. Dale Carnegie
32. One kind word can warm three winter months. Japanese Proverb

Advice on linking

33. Nothing gives an author so much pleasure as to find his works respectfully quoted by other learned authors.
    Benjamin Franklin

Community Building

34. A healthy social life is found only, when in the mirror of each soul the whole community finds its reflection, and when in the whole community the virtue of each one is living. Rudolf Steiner
35. Community cannot for long feed on itself; it can only flourish with the coming of others from beyond, their unknown and undiscovered brothers. Howard Thurman
36. it’s almost impossible for people to change alone. We need to join with others who will push us in our thinking and challenge us to do things we didn’t believe ourselves capable of. Frances Moore Lappe
37. The new electronic interdependence recreates the world in the image of a global village.” Marshall McLuhan
38. We were born to unite with our fellow men, and to join in community with the human race. Cicero
39. The life I touch for good or ill will touch another life, and that in turn another, until who knows where the trembling stops or in what far place my touch will be felt. Frederick Buechner
40. Communication leads to community, that is, to understanding, intimacy and mutual valuing. Rollo May

Bad blogging Advice

41. Words are a wonderful form of communication, but they will never replace kisses and punches Ashleigh Brilliant
42. Electric communication will never be a substitute for the face of someone who with their soul encourages another person to be brave and true. Charles Dickens
43. Life is far too important a thing ever to talk about. Oscar Wilde.

To Spammers and Plagiarists

44. So far the only successful substitute for brains is silence. Unknown Author
45. Blessed is the man, who having nothing to say, abstains from giving wordy evidence of the fact. George Eliot
46. Wise men talk because they have something to say; fools, because they have to say something. Plato
47. Your manuscript is both good and original, but the part that is good is not original, and the part that is original is not good. Samuel Johnson
48. Saying nothing…sometimes says the most. Emily Dickinson
49. Noise proves nothing, Often a hen who has laid an egg cackles as if she had laid an asteroid. Mark Twain

Inspiration for this post came from Mary Anne of Maryannaville who tagged me as part of a meme started by Lauren of You Can Be A Part of My Life which asks us to choose a quote that speaks from our hearts.

As am passing this on to new bloggers I chose a quote that encourages us to keep trying.

50. What we hope ever to do with ease, we must learn first to do with diligence. Dr. Samuel Johnson

The meme:

“Post a quote that speaks from and to your heart and dedicate it to at least three other bloggers.”

I am passing this on to:

• Mr V at School Spirit
• Duchess at Duchess and the Duke
• Charlichoclateeater at Charlichocolateeater’s Weblog

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Darren Rowse of Pro Blogger has created a video that highlights the most important and fundamental elements in achieving a high page rank. This has nothing to do with Search Engine Optimization techniques (SEO), linkbaiting, submitting your blog to directories or social networks but all to do with the quality of your content. Darren believes that people are becoming obsessed with page rank and place too much emphasis on it. If you instead concentrate on creating the quality content Google is looking for then page rank will look after itself.

I find it reassuring to be reminded of this. I imagine the Googlebot to be a busy little creature and I much prefer to leave him to do his work, rather than bombarding him with techniques imploring him to come and explore my blog. SEO is one aspect of blogging that I find a little tedious and do not talk about much here. Anyway there are zillions of blogs out there dealing with the subject so I will leave happily that up to them.

I will not just rehash what Darren has to say as you can listen to this for yourself - plus he says it so well and it is interesting to see the man and hear the voice behind Pro Blogger; with his wonderful Aussie accent. (he is from my home city of Melbourne).

Darren not only gives sensible advice but being a regular reader of Pro Blogger proves to me that he practices what he preaches very well. If I want authorative trustworthy information about the subject areas he covers then he is my first port of call.

Traffic, SEO alexa

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Mihaela Lica at The Dog Yard has tagged me to continue a tongue in cheek thread she has started “10 Ways to Make Your Fellow Bloggers Hate You” . I will not duplicate her list as you may be interested in following the thread via the others she tagged. Starting from number 11:

Another 10 Ways to Make your Fellow Bloggers Hate You or to misquote Elizabeth Barrett Browning “How do I hate thee? Let me count the ways.”

11. Place so many ads at the top of your site so as to cause RSI (Repetitive Scrolling Injury) in the readers who are interested in your content.
12. Incorporate dominant ads within your posts and write really short posts. Force your visitors to read your ads; they are more interesting than the post.
13. Having a subscribe to this blog pop up appear when the site loads.
14. Make your page load extremely slowly by filling it with unnecessary widgets and subscription buttons and crash browsers with scripts that do not work.
15. Have very little original content but copy from other sites, blogs and ezine articles.
16. Befriend hundreds of people on social networking platforms such as MyBlogLog and Pownce just to send them links to your blog.
17. Set up numerous sites on Blogger all with little content, Adsense on all, and link them all together.
18. Huge subscribe buttons followed by “advertise here for $… and “buy me a cup of coffee” boxes placed at the top of the sidebar.
19. Spam, Spam Spam Spam people in any shape or form. (That word always reminds me of Monty Python)
20. Submit all your own posts to Digg, StumbleUpon and any others you can get away with. (a little secret - I used to do that with StumbleUpon as I thought it was merely an online bookmarking site.)

These were extreme examples, but practicing these to a lesser extent can annoy your readers and send them rushing away even though your content may be well worth reading.

Michaela’s blog is quite new but it is one that I am going to read regularly. So far her topics have included the art of communication, building trust and reputation, general blogging articles and the theme of this post which she tags as ‘evil blogging advice’.

I am passing this on to the following people who I know for giving sound blogging advice and their keen sense of humor.

To:

• Colin - Life
• Colin - Adelaide Green Porridge Cafe
• Kuanyin - Blog Blond.

Please add your own suggestions as “Ways to Make Your Fellow Bloggers Hate You” and tag others to carry on from you. Please ask them to come back here and let me know they have done so, so that we can keep track of all the ideas.

Image from PythOnline’s Daily Llama

, Blogging-Tips alexa

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