Bloglines and Google Reader

Do you know what a Feed Reader is? Simply they will keep you up to date with your favourite blogs or websites without actually visiting the site. There are other readers around but two that will often come up in conversation are Bloglines and Google Reader.

Why bring a Feed Reader to your attention now? I mentioned in this post that my blog is going to suffer with updates not happening on a regular basis. Not all of us are into some of the geek side of blogging but rather than having you popping back to my blog to find no updates it is so much easier for you to be alerted that a post has been made by a Feed Reader. This way you won't be wasting time loading my blog or any other favourite blog for that matter who has not updated.

Take a look at the first image which is part of a screen print from this blog and you will see a square orange button. By clicking on this button (in my column) a page will come up with a drop down menu for you to choose a Feed Reader that you would like to use. If you haven't signed up with Bloglines or Google Reader and you would like to use one of these, you will need to register with them, which is an easy process.

If you want to add this blog to your Bloglines Reader simply click on the button that you see below the orange one.



Firefox makes it easy to add feeds to your readers as well. Click on the second image so that you get a good view of it. This is the address bar in Firefox. You will see the orange button to the right and once more this is how you can add Blogs or Websites who provide a rss or atom for your Feed Reader.

Would you rather get an email update instead? I have made that easy for you as well. You can subscribe to my blog by placing your email address in the box provided then click on the 'subscribe' button. You will see this facility in my column, which also can be seen in the first image that I have provided so that you know what you are looking for. Your privacy will be respected and you will not receive any spam mail. It is also easy to unsubscribe. If you choose to receive email updates from me make sure you verify the first email that FeedBurner sends you so that they know you have entered the correct address plus this is an extra precaution that it is you that has submitted the email address.

For those that are familiar to Feed Readers you might be interested in a script for Greasemonkey, which is a Firefox add-on

This script is Google Reader Preview Enhanced v1.07a and is the best thing I have come across for a very long time. You will need Greasemonkey installed to use this script.

What this script does it allows you to view full feeds in Google Reader. I have tested it and it does work, in fact very well indeed! I do use full feeds for my blog although there are those that do not because their posts are scraped/stolen and used elsewhere without permission. I wrote a post called Full or Should it be Short Feeds? with my thoughts bearing in mind that I do understand why blogs do use the short feeds. Anyway as you will see by this last image, even though I use full feeds I can actually see my blog in all it glory by clicking on the preview button at the bottom of the feed.

Also I will bring to your attention that the icon of a monkey at the bottom right of the image is the Greasemonkey add-on for Firefox. Another script for Greasemonkey allows me to smile at you as well with the use of emoticons!

Well I think I have given you plenty to digest in this post so until next time.......

Related Posts

• Business Card

• Full or Should it be Short Feeds?

• emoticons

Quick links:

• Free Subscription to Arts & Stuff by Email

• Google Reader - Getting Started

• Bloglines

• Firefox

• Greasemonkey

• Google Reader Preview Enhanced v1.07a

technorati tags: emoticons, bloglines, google+reader, rss feeds, atoms, greasemonkey, short feeds, blog, blogger, firefox

Test your Template in Different Size Browsers

Have you wondered how to test your blog or web template for a smaller browser window? This article is my effort to help make it easier for you to quickly check your posts at different resolutions.

Why you say do I need to test? It is very handy when tweaking your template to see what the column widths look like in different size browsers or how much scrolling will be involved for your visitors. This may not be fool proof although it just might be of some value when designing your blog or web

By typing or copy and paste javascript:window.resizeTo(800,600); in your browser window then press enter it will resize your browser instantly to a 800 x 600 resolution. Try it and see what happens.

You have a huge monitor and want a different size? That is easy to do; just change the (800,600) size to the window that you require.

Want it to be easier still? Click on each link below to see how each resizes to a new window resolution. You can drag the links to your bookmark bar or into a folder in your Favourites Folder to create bookmarks so that you can test quickly.

800 x 600
1024 x 768
1280 x 800


The size window isn't there that you want? Oh come on you don't think I am going to list them all do ya! Hey but I will show you how to make your own using Firefox.

On the Firefox toolbar click on Bookmarks then go to Organize Bookmarks. A new window will open up. In that new window click on the New Bookmark button. You can also access this by going to File then New Bookmark. Fill in the new bookmark as you see in the image I have provided replacing 800,600 with the screen resolution that you want.

This new bookmark can be placed in any folder that you require to make it easier to find when needed.

There is also another tool that you can use to resize your browser by Web Developer that adds an extension onto Firefox. I did try it out but found that I preferred to use the bookmark method because the add on has a lot more tools than I require, as well it places another menu on my toolbar that takes up space.

The ideal way to check your screen resolution is by changing your 'Windows' monitor settings. I do this by right clicking on my screen on the desktop, choose Properties then Settings. Make a note of the screen resolution that you are using so that you know what to set it back at later. Move the slider to the new screen resolution that you want and expect your screen to go blank for a second or two when you click OK so don't freak out when this happens. Click yes when the screen comes back and check your website or blog and see how it looks at a lower or higher resolution. Once you are finished, go through the same process and choose your original screen resolution and click yes once more. I have come to the conclusion that this last method is the best way to check screens at a higher resolution because fonts and images are resized as well giving a true picture of what is happening.

And there ends this lesson!


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technorati tags: javascripts, resize browsers, firefox, blog, bookmarks, web developer screen resolutions

Pastel Blogroll

Blogrolls for the most part offer quality links to blogs that quite often can be lost in the system. Blogs can also be hard for some internet users to find as not all are savvy seeking them out and for that reason today I am launching my 'Pastel Blogroll' on this blog so start scrolling down until you find it.

Many thanks to Katherine Tyrrell from Making a Mark, because it was your post called "The Pastel Journal's new blog" that prompted me to put into action what I had been thinking about doing for some time now. To quote Katherine from that post

"Maybe they'd like to start a blogroll on their blog for people who blog about pastels?"

Once the seed had been planted it didn’t take long for it to sprout into action on my part.

Because I don't want my sidebar longer than necessary a marquee will be used. It isn't ideal for visitors that are in a hurry nor do I particularly like the big gap from the end to the new start when displayed in Internet Explorer. The reason I have incorporated the text at the beginning and end, it allows you to catch the first and last link when using Firefox, especially if you are slow on the eye to hand coordination as I can be at times. When researching I have also learnt that many users don't understand how to use drop down menus so either way I don't think I will win. Because the movement of the marquee does catch the eye I decided I will go with it for now for something a little different and do hope it isn't too distracting when reading my posts.

Many thanks to Lesly Finn for sharing her marquee code with me. Also check out her "Tagged by the Queen of the World” post because she tagged me and you never know there might be a blog listed there that you haven't seen. Lesly has now been added to my "Tagged" post.

It will only be a matter of time and I will also have a blogroll for art blogs that I regularly read so watch out for that one.

So often my mind is thinking about a three column blog once more, as I have done for SnapShots only this time it might be better to have the two information columns on the same side so that visits can scan both at the same time....something for me to ponder about.

My blogroll will never be a link exchange, so please don't ask or you maybe offended when I say no. Don't get me wrong I am all for link love and that is why I started up a blog just for the purpose of exchanging art blog links. If you are interested take a look at Sue's Blog Links for your consideration. Some of these links may/will end up on my blogroll.

NOTE: I choose what appeals to me for a blogroll. Just because I have not chosen a particular blog for my blogroll does not mean the blogger isn't a good one.

What are you looking for to be listed on your blogroll?

1. Consistency with what the blog is supposed to be all about although some deviation is okay.
   
   
2. Make me want to read more
   
   
3. Post regularly
   
   
4. Honesty
   
   
5. Sharing your knowledge
   
   
6. Images; can't have an art blog without images and trust me I have seen them.
   
   
7. Humour is good although not necessary

Well I think this post will give you plenty to read along with more blogs to investigate so I will leave you to it. Cheers!

Quick links:

• Free Subscription to Arts & Stuff by Email

• Take a look at my SnapShots Blog
  
  
• Katherine Tyrrell from Making a Mark
  
  
• The Pastel Journal's new blog
  
  
• Lesly Finn

• Tagged by the Queen of the World
  
  
• Tagged

• Sue's Blog Links

technorati tags: marquee, pastel blogroll, pastel, blog, tag, tagged

Garry Conn.com and Dosh Dosh's Technorati Favourite's List

When Dosh Dosh first posted about “Ultimate Technorati Favorites Exchange: An Interactive Experiment” I bookmarked it with the intentions of participating. Since that time numerous blogs have started up lists on their blogs to keep the momentum going. One that really caught my attention was Garry Conn.com. He has made it so easy to subscribe his list "Technorati Most Faved List" to your Technorati Favourites that there is no excuses not joining in because of lack of time.

Will you?
"
Is it fair to earn Technorati favourites this way?
"

Is it fair to earn Technorati favourites this way? Fair or not my thoughts are if you want to get some reward for all the work that is put into a blog, go for it and get a higher ranking with Technorati! I am not going to go into the nitty gritty reasons of the why’s because Dosh Dosh gives all the explanation and it is worth a read and then you can make up your own mind as to participating or not.

If you do decide to get involved by adding your name to Garry Conn.com’s list, please make sure you read his ‘three rules’. These rules are what makes it fair to everyone participating and so easy to do. Be warned, the list is growing. I write the last name down that I add to my Technorati Favourites to make sure I don’t miss adding anyone to my list.

Dosh Dosh has a list at the bottom of blogs that are participating as well and once more if you want to partake, read the rules carefully. You might like to check the blogs that are already on the list. Be warned, make a hot cuppa first and make sure you are comfortable in your chair, as there is some interesting reading along the way.

When getting listed myself I was thinking about the old saying “all is fair in love and war”; well this is all out war for the Technorati Favourite list.


Quick links:

• Free Subscription to Arts & Stuff by Email

• Take a look at my SnapShots Blog

• Arts and Stuff with Susan Borgas website

Technorati Ranking Tips Technorati Ranking dosh dosh Garry Conn technorati favourites technorati favorites

New Look (again)

Considered at one point to change this blog to a three column template; I thought better of it.

Not always completely satisfied with the template that this blog was using because it spread across the screen so much making it difficult to read, I then tried the various templates that are supplied by blogger. Again and again I kept coming back to the Denim template. Also admittedly I do enjoy the layout of other blogs that use the Denim template. I have change the colours to suit my own blog, as well as tweaked the template so that the header wasn't taking up so much room.

There maybe more tweaking done over the next few days as my thoughts settle into this latest design for my blog, so be warned!

Quick links:

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template blogger blogger template

Help Dosh Dosh

Dosh Dosh needs your help!

Maki needs 40 or more participants to test out Pageflakes. I have already signed up using a link provided on the Dosh Dosh blogsite.

I can hear some of you already saying what is Pageflakes? Pageflakes is a personalized start page that you can add feeds, weather, address book along with many other items. This image will give you a larger sample of what is on offer. Google have something similar though I am not sure if the Google version of a personalized homepage has a tab like Pageflakes that can be shared with the internet community by making it public if you choose to do so.

The original post can be found Make Money with Pageflakes - An Experiment. with a follow up post Turning Commissions into Donations Update.

The following quote from Maki's update will give you more idea of what it is all about.

The goal of this experiment is two-fold: Firstly, to test Pageflakes’s affiliate program in order to confirm if it is legitimate or accurate with their data reporting.

Secondly, I thought it’ll be a creative way of getting everyone to contribute to a good cause - namely to support Mercy corps ’s effort in helping the recent massive flooding in Indonesia, which has made around 200,000 people homeless.

When there is more time for myself I will have a play with Pageflakes but for now I am up to my elbows with a lot of other things. The GST bookwork that I mentioned in an earlier post went without a hitch. I only need to fill in the the final paperwork, which I will do shortly once this post hits the internet. It is only copying figures across on one sheet of paper so nothing hard in that. It is a shame #2 daughter doesn't live closer to home as she loves working with formulas and numbers and if you read my past post you would know she never inherited that desire from me.

During my coffee break I came across a way to install a clock on my blog. It is for a little bit of fun but at the same time it helps my visitors to work out quickly what time zone I am in. This is especially helpful when I have mentioned a day I am doing this and that and when to expect an update on my blog about said subject in relationship to your own time zone. Clicking on the clock will take you to the website where I acquired mine with extra information about my time zone. The clock can be configured to look the way you want then grab the html and add it to a Page Element in your blogger Layout or template. It isn't necessary to sign up to anything, which I did not and will wait to see what happens.

Want one? Go to directly to Free Clocks for Your Web Site to get yours or if you prefer click on Time and Date for more information about it.

Quick links:

• Free Subscription to Arts & Stuff by Email

technorati tags: Pageflakes, Dosh Dosh, google, maki, experiment, donations, gst, gst bookwork, time and date, free, free clock, blog, page element, blogger, blogger layout

Full or should it be Short Feeds?

What are your habits when reading RSS feeds in readers such as Google Reader or Bloglines? Do you dislike not being able to see the whole feed because the blog owner syndicates the first paragraph or 255 characters, whichever is shorter. If you tut tut or grumble about blogs that do this please consider not doing the same with your own blog.

My own habits are as follows when viewing RSS feeds in Google Reader:

• Speed reading as I have a huge list to wade through and for this reason hate shortened feeds with more time taken to load up blog sites.

• A shorten RSS feed, the 255 characters will have to catch my attention to visit the blog, which often they don’t so I delete that feed without visiting. Possibly I miss out on good content further down the blog but what I don’t see I don’t miss.

• If full RSS feed content is interesting I will often click to the blog site to get the feel of the post on its site. Don’t know why, just do. Perhaps it has something to do with a well designed site that makes a longer post easier to read.

• Reading a full feed often encourages me to comment on blog sites as I have the time to absorb the information quickly.

• Moved away from Bloglines as I couldn’t view images in the feed; love images when they are available.

• Recently deleted blogs from my Feed Reader, as I found I wasn’t visiting their blogs at all with the first paragraph or 255 characters, whichever is shorter in place. Still a few I am mulling over as to delete or not.
  

There are also gimmicky tweaks to blog templates that shorten a post on the owners blog site. These have to be expanded to read and once more I will often pass over these as I can’t speed read without extra clicking involved. I always thought a blog was about sharing your words so why hide them and make your visitor have to work that much harder to find the content to the heading? I find these blogs are also not pleasing to the eye and make the page relatively hard to read, where I prefer a newspaper style where different text format will spark my interest to read more.

I believe it is a brave soul that uses the shortened version for their RSS feeds. Especially if they are not properly established in the blogsphere, because I would think a reader would have to be very familiar with the blog authors way of writing to know it would be worth while visiting their blog to read more. Familiarity often in the first place comes from a Full Feed. I do understand those blog owners that make money from their ads wanting visitors but is shortening a feed really the right way to do it? I visit many professional blogs with AdSense and other means of advertising whom do use the Full Feeds; I also enjoy visiting their blogs from these full feeds.

Apparently many busy commuters load up their laptop with feeds directly to their email inbox to read while traveling by train or bus to work. Full feeds are the order of the day, as there are often no internet connections to view the full post on the blog.

Concluding this Long winded post: I realise that every blog owner has their own thoughts on how they should run their blogs and I do respect that, after all we are individuals with minds of our own as to why things are done the way we do. I would love to know about your own RSS Feed Reader habits. if you want to share please leave a comment, as I read on another blog today, I dare you.

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technorati tags: RSS , bloglines, google, google reader, habits, commuters, blogsphere, rss feeds, adsense, gimmicky tweaks, feed reader, rss reader

Adding a Second Sidebar

What a day it has been playing around with my Snapshots blog to add a second sidebar. It was while reading New Blogger Template Tutorial: Adding a Second Sidebar at Tips and Tricks last night that I decided to play around with the idea on one of my test blogs. As Peter says there are some well written instructions for adding a second sidebar at Adding a second sidebar to your Blog - part 2 which is the Beautiful Beta blog.

A lot of time was wasted during the last part of editing the template as I found the preview didn't always tell the true story with the testing blog. In fact all was well with the edited template even though the preview said otherwise. Once more this also happened with SnapShots and have to admit to having my heart in my mouth when I decided to click on save and to my delight the blog looked okay.

The columns had to be fussed around with widths to make them fit correctly in Firefox and Internet Explorer. My daughter has a Mac so she checked to see what the test blog looked like in her browser and once more all was well. I have no idea what it does look like in any other browsers. The blog still has the odd item to put back on but all in all it was a smooth transaction. The width of the whole area will not fit into a 800 wide screen with some scrolling to the right needed. The posts will be completely in view along with the important links on the left hand side. This way the page isn't crammed up.

One odd thing though is the Page Element column in the Edit Layout on the right hand side does cut off in Firefox and yet in Internet Explorer all is well. Once I realized it didn't effect the actual template I decided not to let it worry me.

For now Arts and Stuff Blog will stay as it is. I spent a whole day mucking around with SnapShots which means a day of painting was lost. Tomorrow is my big shopping day at Port Pirie with appointments involved so yep you guessed it, no painting tomorrow either.

Quick links:

• Free Subscription to Arts & Stuff by Email

• Take a look at my SnapShots Blog

technorati tags: snapshots, blog, blogger, tips and tricks, beautiful beta, second sidebar, three columns

Keep current date and time for drafts with New Blogger

Found a piece of paper with a draft for a post and knew that a better idea would be to make more use of drafting my ideas on Blogger rather than loosing scraps of paper. The only problem with the draft posts on Blogger if I forget to change the date and time when posting it to the public, the post can be lost in earlier posts as the current time and date was never updated when editing the draft. A blogger called The Last Word that writes scripts for Greasemonkey for Firefox has come to the rescue with a keep current date and time for your draft posts script and the post can be found at Keep Current Date & Time On Posts. Before downloading and installing scrips it would be worth you reading this post at A Consuming Experience so that you are informed of what to expect. I am having no problems using this script and can see where it is going to save me a lot of time.

It is a shame I can't find a script that will do all my holiday preparations and packing then that would leave me free to concentrate on my creative jobs but alas one could not be found so there you have it, no painting to post today.

Quick links:

• Free Subscription to Arts & Stuff by Email

technorati tags: draft, blogger, greasemonkey, firefox, script, holiday, painting, the last word, a consuming experience, keep current date & time on posts

W3C Link Checker

An interesting post from Blogger Tips and Tricks dropped into my Google feed reader on how to check links in your posts. Click on W3C Link Checker to see if your blog links are all in order. I found two broken links in my Arts and Stuff blog sidebar due to domain changes. If you have been clicking on the following two links without success with them loading up the website, they are now working.

For your interest I didn't tick any of the boxes on the W3C Link Checker page before starting the search. Also I searched my whole blog rather than individual posts.

The Art Gallery of South Australia

The Pastel Society of Australia

technorati tags: Blogger tips and tricks, google reader, link checker

CRT vs. LCD Monitors

Is your monitor off?
"
monitor might just need to be calibrated correctly
"

Not surprising when having a conversation about web and blog background colours someone will mention what they can or can't see on their own monitors. For example seeing washed out hi-lights can happen because of the graphics card or type/age of monitor that the person has or the monitor might just need to be calibrated correctly. There is sure to be other reasons as well.

I love looking at a LCD (Liquid Crystal Display), especially with video but do not own one. My CRT (Cathode Ray Tube) graphics monitor sits proudly on my desk in the office taking up quite a bit of the space and I love it for editing my images. I would imagine with technology moving forward at an incredible rate the LCD monitor will soon match my CRT screen if not better but until that time happens there will always be a CRT monitor on my desk because it is a tool for my trade.

I did write a post sometime ago how to go about calibrating a monitor and that can be found at Calibrate Monitor and may be of some help to you.

As often does; a Google search did bring up two interesting websites that goes into more detail about the differences with LCD and CRT Monitors.
Design: talkboard has a good writeup with

One of the most overlooked and undervalued purchases that many designers make when budgeting for a new computer system is the display screen.

The website then goes on to speak about monitor sizes, LCD or CRT and picture quality. It is very informative and easy to read.

The following website at About.com has some very good information as well.

The primary advantage that CRT monitors held over LCDs was their color rendering. The contrast ratios and depths of colors displayed were much greater with CRT monitors than LCDs. While this still holds true in most cases, many strides have been made in LCDs such that this difference is not as great as it once was.

About.com goes on to write about the Pros and Cons of LCD and CRT monitors with two further links at the bottom for understanding the two types of monitors, also written by the same author.

technorati tags: LCD monitor, CRT monitor, about.com, monitor calibration

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Emoticons

Painting over the holiday period has been put on the back burner with so much going on around me. Meanwhile I have been catching up with other items on the “to do list” that I have had on the back burner for some time now.

Quite awhile back I came across a way to add emoticons to blog posts without using links back to an image storage space on the internet. For example Photobucket and ImageShack. Today I was reminded of this when I came across the same blog and now put into practice emoticons on this blog of mine. If you want the same for your blogger you can learn by visiting Tricks and Thinks blog or go directly to Emoticons for Blogger.

Hopefully these little faces will help my readers to understand that I am an easy going Aussie…..for the most part!

On that note it is New Years Day in Australia and I am off to organise a few prawns for my evening meal.... cheers!

technorati tags: emoticons, photobucket, imageshack, blogger, happy new year

How many posts showing on your blog?

Do you have a very fast internet connection? It must be wonderful for those that are able to have that service provided to them although it does create a problem for the person who does not have access to higher speeds.

I am one of the unlucky ones that use dial-up and often frustrated by extremely slow pages loading on blogs and end up giving up as I just don't have the time to waste when I am so busy. Hopefully within a couple of years it will change with faster internet connections for me to use. For those that do have fast internet connections you need to be aware of how many images are displayed on your blog and how it affects those that do not have a fast internet connection.

Did you know that you can change the amount of posts to be displayed when a visitor happens to click on your blog address? If not I am posting an image here of how I have mine set up for seven posts in blogger. This for me is an ideal amount of posts to show to a dial-up visitor, especially as I do often have an image in each post. Please do consider how many posts it is appropriate for your own blog but also take into consideration that you maybe loosing return visitors if they come from a dial-up connection. Yes they can read your posts in a feed reader but if they are anything like me they also like to occasionally click on the link back to your blog to see how it is truly developing.

technorati tags: blog, posts, images, dial-up, internet connection, blogger

Three Column Template

With the column on this blog so long I wish for Beta Blogger to provide a three column template. Researching on the internet when times allows me hasn’t been all that successful. There are three column templates to be found but found when testing them on beta blogger that I will need to tweak the html code for my blogs; taking time I don’t have to spare.

Why do I want one a three column template? It will make my blog more user friendly with less scrolling for my visitors to check out what this site is all about.

If you have a blog or considering signing up for one and would like to use a three column template, make a wish at Features and Suggestions. It is very easy and you don’t have to sign up to make your wish. The image below will show you other choices you can make as well. The three column template wish will have to be typed into the box at the bottom. I do encourage you to make a wish for the blogger community because my research has shown me that they are crying out for a three column template.


features and suggestions

technorati tags: three column template, beta blogger, blogger, template

Favicon

A Favicon are something that I have always enjoyed seeing listed in my bookmarks directory as they make it so easy to find a link address that I am looking for. There is plenty of information on the internet telling us how to make Favicons for our website. I only found out recently from Beta Blogger For Dummies how to add a Favicon to Blogger. If you want to do the same go and visit Beta Blogger For Dummies and I would suggest grabbing their blogspot RSS feed or bookmark it for future reference as this blog has a wealth of hints for anyone that works with Blogger.

I have made and loaded up two animated Favicons, one for this blog as well as Little Paintings. I really think Favicons are a good idea to use as they are like a trademark for your sites making you more visible for your visitors, especially return visitors who want to bookmark your site or blog. I did find I had to re-save my links in my bookmarks for the Favicon to show up and you may need to do the same.

I used Fireworks to design my image using a 96 pixel square. Once happy with my design it was time to save it as a jpeg file. I used the online free Favicon generator at Favicon from Pics website to make my animated Favicon. The website also makes a Favicon that isn't animated. I use Photobucket to host my Favicons then following Beta Blogger For Dummies blog to the letter, the Favicons were loaded up to my two blogs.

technorati tags: blogger, fireworks, photobucket, favicon, website, blog, animated favicon

I have switched to Blogger Beta

Phew and it didn't break!!!

After saving my old template to a word document so that I could quickly grab any HTML/JavaScript that did not transfer to the beta version, I am now up and running. Gee it only took seconds to happen with very little to do afterwards. The buttons plus my counter were the only items that did not move to the beta version.

I am using a different template to my original one and now all colours are consistent across my blogs. I did tone down the colour of the links as they were very strong on the black background. Also I didn't want the links competing with my images.

I have tagged/labeled some of my threads. More will be done with time. I would imagine there is going to be quite a few updated threads showing up in Bloglines from tagging and I apologise for that but will make it so much easier for visitors to browse my blog. Also it gives you a chance to click on a tag in the left column to see what happens.

Now I must concentrate on getting some painting done over the next few days; was rather fun playing around with my blogs though.

Technorati"> technorati tags: blogger beta, beta, tags, tag, labels, label

Beta Blogger

Are you using it?

I have been thinking about going away from Blogger for some time now. The breaks are now on with that thought, as now Blogger is moving forward with some great ideas and now putting them into action. I noticed that I can move my old blogger over to the new system but not quite ready to bite the bullet yet and do it.

To test out this beta version I have started up a new blog called Little Paintings to show you what I mean at my new blog.

The labels that really are tags will be a very handy way for visitors to be able to find subjects that they are interested in. I have used one called flowers

I may make further changes to colour, fonts and general layout but for now I just want to be able to keep an eye on what blogger are doing and can do that by actually having a beta blog.

Bet I gave you something to think about now.


Technorati tags: blog, blogging, beta blogging, test, testing

Do you know about Bloglines?

I now use Bloglines to organize my RSS & XML feeds so that I can view them quickly at anytime I am online. I don’t even have to be on my own computer to do so. It is an online service that makes keeping up to a favourite blog so much easier.

One neat idea is the Clippings option. If I have left a comment on a blog, I clip that blog for awhile to remind me that I have left a message for the blog owner. I will delete the clipping once a reply has been made or time has passed. It can also be used to bookmark a favourite story.

I have a button now in the right hand column that makes it easy to add my blog to your own Bloglines. There are also other tools that are useful at bloglines. I am still exploring them and may make use of them at a later time.

Click on Bloglines here and have a look what it is all about.

Technorati tags: Bloglines, clippings, RSS, XML