Introducing A New Blog Series

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I love it when bloggers I read and enjoy post about blogs *they* read and enjoy. It happens regularly and I often end up adding the blog(s) they wrote about to my feed reader..

I always mean to write a post about my favourite blogs but never quite manage to get around to it. So today I will like to thank Sammie from The Annoyed Thyroid for writing this post which has pushed me to finally start a new series here on the blog – it will be called –

Snoskred Faves

This will be a series of posts, not just one post. There are so many blogs I love and want to highlight, if I put them all into one post it would be incredibly long.

How Will This Series Work?

I’m not really sure yet. I might post about one blog at a time. I might do a post with 3-5 blogs. I might send a little interview request to some of my favourite bloggers and see who replies. It might be a once a week thing, or I might post one when the mood strikes me. We Will See. :)

How I (Blog) Roll.

I actually enjoy *all* the blogs listed on my blogroll.

There are 206 blogs presently listed on my blogroll. That is a lot of blogs! Within that 206, there are some blogs that stand out from the crowd.

These stand outs are blogs that I am super excited to read another post from, blogs and bloggers that I think about when not near my computer, bloggers who say things that stick in my head and pop up in my conversations away from the web, blogs that I look forward to reading and mentally know approximately when the next post should come to me as a surprise.. these blogs end up in..

Faves Folders

These blogs eventually get picked out of their folders and placed into what I like to call “Faves” folders – there are now multiple faves folders so I can break up their goodness into small and tasty snacks.

Sometimes new feeds blogs get moved to a Faves folder long before the 6 month test out new blogs time ends. They still get added to the blogroll at the usual time – that is, when I do the new feeds review at the end of 6 months.

Making Contact

Some of the blogs I love make contacting them a little bit difficult – please, bloggers, if you are reading this, make sure you have either a contact form or an email address somewhere that people can easily find it. :) If I can’t reach you via email or a contact form, I’ll leave a comment asking you to email me.

Not Listed On My Blogroll?

If you are not on my blogroll but I have left a comment on your blog, chances are you are one of the new feeds I am trying out.

If you are not on my blogroll or my new feeds list, but you would like to be, you can contact me with a link to your blog. Your blog will then go through my new feeds process.

Coming Up –

In just an hour, I will post the very first Snoskred Faves!

Over to you!

In the meantime, if you want to suggest blogs to me that I should be reading, please do. I value the opinions of my regular readers and commentators and some of your favourite blogs have become my faves, too.

blog housekeeping, blogrolls, Snoskred Faves

14 Reasons Readers Unsubscribe From Blogs.

Recently I’ve been working on clearing out my feed reader. I have gone from 215 subscriptions back to 143 – a huge drop. This is no easy task, but some bloggers have made it easy for me to make the decision – keep reading, or unsubscribe? Here’s some of the reasons why I have unsubscribed from some of the blogs.

1. Posts Too Long.

Writing one huge long post every week and posting rarely in between. There was one blog on my google reader, I kid you not, who would write posts averaging between 4,000 to 5,000 words once a week. Was it anything I could use? No. It was simply egotistical shyte where the blogger answered a whole bunch of questions other readers had asked – some of you may know the blog I mean..

Their last post in my reader was 5261 words, 28792 characters and just to give you an idea, I pasted it into word. It went for 15 pages. ONE POST!!!!!! And people say my posts are long, ya’all ain’t seen nothing yet! Just for comparison sake – this post is 2199 words long, 11276 characters and was four pages when I posted it into word.

I don’t mind a long post, if you have something useful and interesting to say. If you’re just pandering to your massive ego, I’m hitting unsubscribe.

2. Posts Too Pithy.

Every post they wrote was three lines or less. Every. Single. One. I enjoy pith as much as the next person, but there is such a thing as too much pith. Give me some substance!

3. Where Are You?

Some of the blogs deleted last week had not been updated at all in over 6 months. Hello, these bloggers had people who were reading you and they went and blew it. Maybe they got busy. Maybe they got a life. Maybe they got hit by a bus. I don’t know, and now I’ll never know, because they just left me hanging. I’ve unsubscribed. Readers of this blog will be happy to know, if something happened to me I have a plan all ready to deal with it. You’ll never be left wondering here.

4. They Went Quiet.

They used to post regularly and I was loving it, but now I realise I haven’t heard from them in a couple of months – and their last post didn’t say “I’m going on holidays” “I’m taking a break from blogging” “I have to do (insert important thing) so you may not hear from me so much over the next few (length of time)”. If it did, I’d be ok waiting. Seriously. We all have lives to live.

They have a term for this with nuclear submarines – going quiet. Unless you happen to be living in one, it’s not a good idea to do it with your blog. Readers will unsubscribe – like I just did. It is a good idea for bloggers to let their readers know if they are going to be away for a bit. It’s a nice thing to do for their loyal readers.

5. They Are A Wanna-be.

I linked to them for at least 6 months and I told them I was linking to them via a comment. They never linked back. They never dropped by my place and left a comment. In their links list all I see are “a-list” bloggers. All they talk about is what the “a-list” bloggers are saying or doing. If I wanted to know what the “a-list” bloggers were saying or doing, I’d be reading the a-list bloggers. I don’t read the a-list bloggers. I wanted to read *them*, not some poor soul wishing they could be on the “a-list” and sucking up to the “a-list” bloggers in every post.

I’ll give that link to another blogger who deserves it more. Just a hint they might be able to use – Spread your link love around and base it on content, not what supposed “list” the blog is on.

6. I’m Not Feeling It.

In order for me to read a blog, I have to sometimes know what the blogger is talking about. There is one blogger I deleted because they write these major in depth posts that read like a legal document. On a personal blog. There is never any personal posts, never any images and a lot of 50 cent words you only hear used in spelling bees.

If a blogger is writing like that on their personal blog, maybe they need to take a holiday. Relax. Not that I can’t handle in depth posts and legal wording but from time to time, chill out and have a laugh! Tell me something funny that happened. Lighten up.

7. I’m Overwhelmed.

Some people post too much. Two to three posts a day is one thing. Four every day, a blogger may be pushing it. 5-15 posts a day is way out of control. I want to know about the bloggers I read, but I don’t want to know every single detail that happens in their life! Learn to edit. Write things and put them aside for a wrap up post, one longer post instead of 6 short little ones.

Writing doesn’t have an expiration date. It is perfectly fine to write 5-15 posts in a day but a blogger can schedule them to post over the next couple of weeks. They will feel fantastic because you know their blog is posting the things they wrote, and readers will feel good because they get to read it in small, manageable daily chunks rather than one huge mind dump. ;) Don’t pummel your readers with posts!

8. The Content Went AWOL.

Some bloggers have got into paid posts so much that it is all they blog about anymore. I’m all about supporting a bloggers right to make money but if bloggers aren’t providing non-paid content as well, they will lose their readers, and consequently find it harder to get paid blogging jobs. My preference is that bloggers follow up a paid post with non paid content soon after posting the paid content, at least on the same day.

9. The Content Was Negative

Not one positive post in the whole time I’ve been reading? Some bloggers just want to whinge and they are not prepared to look at the positives in life? Sorry, that’s not for me. I prefer positive thought. Occasional snark is one thing, I can appreciate that. Being mad at the world 24/7/365? It’s depressing the heck out of me. Let me off this rollercoaster ride into negativity!

10. I’m Waiting.

One post a month? One post every two months? Seriously? Are their readers so unimportant to them? They have nothing to say? They can’t find a news article to speak about? They can’t post a photo and one line of text? I have to tell those bloggers, I think maybe they are too busy to have a blog. Seriously. I’m unable to deal with such long gaps between posts unless the content is *incredible*.

11. They Moved.

Without telling me more than once – and now I’ve lost that connection to them. Here’s a piece of advice for moving bloggers. Keep the old blog for at least a month. Once a week during that month, post a reminder that the blog has moved have moved on the old blog. That’s for feed readers of the blog, who may not have received the message that the blog is moving the first time. A reader may have hit “mark all as read” because there were 500 posts in one folder and they couldn’t face reading it.

Give your blog readers every possible chance to follow you when you move. They are not expecting you to move and are unprepared for it. Me personally I’d be posting “I’ve moved here” once a week on that old blog for six to eight weeks.

12. They Were Cliquey.

Some bloggers just want their friends reading. It might be best to make their blog private so readers don’t get attached to them. It can be hurtful to people when a blogger totally ignores some readers and comments, while responding to others.

13. Template Issues.

Every time I visited the blog, there was different template. And I visited the site a lot over the space of a few weeks, I said via comments how much I liked a couple of the templates but one day I got tired of the constant switching, things moving around.. it was just too much. Sorry. The content was ok but not good enough to overcome the massive template indecision.

14. They Told Me They Were Quitting.

I understand. I’ll miss them. In order to keep the blogroll alive, I’ve taken the link to that blog down but if they come back, I’ll put it back up before I finish reading the first post saying they are returning to blogging, I promise. I enjoyed their blogging and I hope they return.

But Wait A Minute?

Some of you may have read this list and thought “I do that” “Ouch, I’ve made that mistake” or even “I never realised how annoying that could be to my readers, I’ll never do it again!” If so, that is fantastic. It will make your blog even better – for me and for all your readers. Perhaps now is a good time to take a moment – to consider whether you are being considerate of your blog readers and mindful of what could make them unsubscribe from your feed.

If your name is still on my blogroll, it means one of two things.

1. You are linking to me, which I deeply appreciate, thanks! I’ll never de-link you while you link to me. If I did it by accident please let me know. This job has been evil and I have been working on it for over a week now and still have not tracked down everyone linking to me.

2. I love you so much I can’t let you go. Even though you don’t link to me. It would be nice if you did, but I enjoy your writing and I’m giving you that link because of it. If you don’t enjoy mine, you probably shouldn’t be linking to me.

My Future Policy – updated 26/1/15

If I like your blog, I add you to my feed reader. Once a month I do a new feeds post which you can find here.

After 6 months, I review the blogs I added and decide whether I am keeping them or unsubscribing. If I am keeping the blog, it will be listed on my blogroll.

Further Reading

This post is now accompanied by a post from Sephy with a lot of how-to info on RSS feeds. He’s great at taking the tech out of technical things so non technical people like me can understand them. Make sure to read it!. You may also want to have a look at these useful articles –

Over To You.

What are your thoughts? What is your policy on linking to blogs? Do you struggle with who you should give the link love to? Do you feel bad or rejected when people don’t link back to you? What about when people delete their link to you? Do you have blogs you’re hanging on to which you would love to delete? Comments are closed, so you can contact me here to let me know what you think.

blog housekeeping, blogging tips, blogrolls, google reader, what not to do

Blog Housekeeping Update 5th August

I’m in the process of adding a few sections to my sidebars. Is there anyone reading this who has an article or post which would be useful to other bloggers? Would you like me to link to it in my sidebar? Just drop me an email or a blog comment with the link and the title of the post and I will add it to a new section I am creating over the next week – designed to help bloggers find useful posts that can help them blog better or do things they don’t know how to do, like how to guides etc. There’s so much bloggers need to know!

So on the right hand side bar you may spot a new scrolling list titled Bumpzee No-No Follow Faves. This list is slowly coming together as I read through the RSS feed. It will contain some of my favourite blogs from that community, the ones I am learning a lot from, the ones that I enjoy reading, the ones that make me think and challenge me. Please note I won’t be adding blogs that are already listed in other sections of my sidebar – some blogs belong to many communities on Bumpzee.

I’m feeling a bit restless with the blog template again. I found some today that are flat out incredible however I’m not sure they work with the new blogger. If you don’t like the current template I have here, please let me know in the comments section and if enough of you agree it needs changing I’ll look at changing it. Any new template would still be 3 column, hopefully. I am hopeful I might be able to talk Sephy into creating a clean 3 column template which the rest of us can build on. ;)

What I want to do right now is make a new title bar graphic, so I’m going to focus on that for the rest of today. I have an idea of what I want to put there, we’ll see how it goes. ;)

I also have an idea for a business, and I can’t really think straight right now, my head is whirring and yet somehow still managing to play Hotel California which has been on repeat in there for a couple of days now – you can all hear the whirring, right? HUGE thanks to Meg from Dipping Into The Blogpond for posting this brilliantly helpful post The Business Of Blogging which has got me all fired up and thinking of business names and to do lists and next steps.

So what is this great idea I have? I’d love to tell you. But not just yet. I’ll let you know when I know more.

blog housekeeping, blog template, blogrolls

A Quick Note About The Sidebar

I’ve put in some scroll bars on my links lists. You might want to do this as well. The code is fairly simple – <div style="overflow: auto; height: 200px">PUT LIST OF LINKS HERE</div> – you can change the height of the box to suit yourself as well, just change 200px to whatever amount of pixels high you would like the box to be. Thanks go to Sephy who figured out how to do this.

blog housekeeping, blogrolls, html

Blogrolling and Commercial Promotion

The first blog post I read on opening my google reader was Weekend: Blogistan by one of my favourite bloggers, Chani from Thailand Gal. While I adore her and her writings, on many topics we see very differently and this is one of them. It really got me thinking, especially some of the comments and her responses to them. So let me get into what I think, in the hope it may suggest other ways of thinking about these things.. Yeah, this one will be long, sorry about that, and I really would like to hear your thoughts and comments on it. Don’t forget there’s a weekly wrap up post below this one too. :)

Blogrolls.

I give out link love like there’s no tomorrow. I do it for various reasons –

– Blogs I read via my google reader – these are the blogs I am reading and enjoying. If I like them, and you like my blog, chances are you may enjoy them. But my tastes are wide and varied, and therefore you might find yourself surprised or even absolutely dislike what you find there. Once every 6-12 months I will go through this list and I may remove blogs I am no longer reading, blogs that have moved without beating my head up about the fact that they have a new location (tip, if you move blogs, post at your old blog at least once a week to let people know you have moved with a link to the new blog, so your feed-reading people can follow you), blogs that I’m not feeling the connection with anymore.

It is not done to offend anyone, it is not done so people link back to me (if they do, that is really lovely and much appreciated) and it is done to let people know I am reading them and that I love and appreciate their work. I believe it is the very least I can do in return for the enjoyment I get out of their blogging. A link in my sidebar is good for their Technorati ranking, their Google pagerank, and various other things.

– The links list to both the Australian and the US blog communities.Other people’s blogrolls –

– I understand that these things are not easily updated all the time. Most of the time I have all day every day to work on my blog. Not everyone has that.
– If you link to me, that is lovely and much appreciated but if I don’t know about it I can’t link to you in return. I always post a comment on a blog to let people know I am linking to them.
– If you link to me and you’re not in my sidebar, I recommend you let me know because I am happy to check out your blog. Comment on this post to mention you’d like me to check out your blog. I will as soon as I have the spare time, and if I like it, I’ll link to you.
– I appreciate someone asking to do a link exchange, and I will usually respect that by giving you a link back. If you get removed from my links bar at some later time, I do apologise, but it does mean I am no longer reading your blog. I read a lot of blogs, from time to time I have to re-evaluate my choices, and if you didn’t catch me with your content, if there was no connection, I’m sorry. It’s me, not you. ;)

Commercial Promotion

And now we get to the slightly more thorny topic. Let’s face a few facts up front.

1. I do not earn any money. I do not work, I have not applied for unemployment though I would be eligible for it, I do not want to receive it at this time. We live on The Other Half’s income. Though it is reasonable and enough to provide us with most everything we need, it also is nice to have my own money from time to time to buy little treats for me.

2. If I were to promote a product or website here on my blog, it would not be something I don’t already use and love. And I have given blatant free advertising to things that I use and love, places I shop, websites I adore, places I like to go and visit, etc, before here on the blog. So if someone wants to pay me to do it, that’s fine by me.

Pay per post –

I did recently sign up for pay per post, and was a bit disappointed to find that one product I do already love and use and a product I would love to be able to tell you guys about because I really feel it would help you to increase your internet security was paying people PLENTY of money to blog about them – we’re talking in the hundreds here just for one post. However they wanted people with a google pagerank of 6 and mine is only 4, so I could not earn anything for blogging about it. So for the time being, I’ve settled just for putting a “you can hire me” thing on the sidebar, and then if someone wants to hire me I’d only agree if it is something I really do love and use – or, if it were something new that I felt I would love and use.

Also, I have my own little rule (which as yet I’ve not had to implement) that if I wrote a sponsored post, I would immediately follow it up with some not sponsored content. This gives people a chance to skip the sponsored post if they feel like it.

My position on bloggers and commercial promotion.

So I guess my major bone to pick with Chani’s post was the part where she said commercial promotion on your blog means you get removed from her blogroll. I think commercial promotion can be done tastefully and without offending anyone, and as long as the blogger involved tells you that they’re being paid for that post. Money won’t buy my good opinion. I have to already have the good opinion first. If a company said to me – try our product, and if you like it we’ll pay you to blog about it – and I did like it so much that I intended to use it again, I’d be happy to blog about it.

If any of the companies which I use products from already came to me and asked me to promote their product here on the blog, well what’s wrong with that? I already use their stuff, I already love it, I was probably going to mention it at some point anyway (and I do have ideas for products I can’t live without blogs floating around already) and if I like it, chances are my readers might like it just as much as I do.

Just stop for one moment and think about this. You wash your hair, right? (One hopes so!)What if the company who manufacture your shampoo offered $10US for you to blog about their product. Would that tempt you, if you really loved their product, the feel of it, the smell of it, how clean your hair felt after washing it? What about $50US? What about $100US? What if they said a year’s free product? You’re already using it. What’s wrong with saying I love this, and the company is paying me money to tell you I love this?

Not to mention, it is actually good for me to tell people about things I love, because if I do that then maybe some of these companies will STOP TAKING PRODUCTS OFF THE SHELVES WHICH I CANNOT LIVE WITHOUT. I have here on my desk right now an empty McCormick pepper steak seasoning bottle because I am intending to write them an email which says why can’t I find this on the shelves anymore? I love this product and so does the rest of my family, we’ve tried the other brands on the market and they don’t taste as good, so please bring it back!

As time goes on, I find I am writing more and more emails to companies. They fall into two categories – why can’t I find your product, can you tell me where I can get some more of it – and I love your product, it is fantastic. I feel it is important to let companies know when they’re doing something well. They probably get plenty of complaints, and there’s not enough people out there giving compliments. I like to take the time to give a compliment if I can.

I’ve already promoted plenty of stuff here on my blog for free. For example – Pitango SoupLean CuisineRushfaster and their brilliant website – of course Ikea there’s been many posts about, and that is not even mentioning the movies I’ve written about, the blogs I’ve recommended, books I’ve written about, TV programs, music I love, DVD’s, I could keep going but I think you get my point.

Consider a-ha and Morten Harket, how many times have I posted their songs here and written about them? Why do I do it? Because I love their work, and I think people who enjoy my blog would love it too – and it’s not something you’re going to find on the (US) charts – too much (c)rap and not enough substance there these days. I hope that me talking about it here might inspire people to purchase their music, I won’t lie to you about that. I’m not making any money out of it, I’m just a fan.

In this world today, good service and good products and good books and good movies and good music really are not easy to find, especially if they’re not mainstream or promoted everywhere. If a good friend of mine says to me – wow, this is fantastic, you have to (see, hear, taste) it, I’m likely to do exactly that. I consider my fellow bloggers good friends of mine, and if they love a book or a product or a movie or some music, I want to know about it. :)

Shopping in an ocean of products.

I went into Borders while in the city, on the weekend. We spent probably two hours there. As I was browsing the shelves, I was trying to recall the titles of books which my fellow bloggers had mentioned they liked, and I failed miserably. I could only remember one title which someone had not liked (yes, it was The White Masai), so I wasn’t about to buy that one.

There were SO many books there, millions to choose from. I felt like I was drowning in an ocean of not knowing anything about these authors and whether I would like them. It was like a glittering cave of pretty book covers with no idea of what was behind them. Like the old Doug Antony Allstars joke along the lines of – do not judge a book by its cover, read the entire thing in the bookshop first and then decide if you wish to purchase it.

Books aren’t cheap, especially not at Borders. As more time went by, I began to feel under pressure to choose. I went right through the authors from A to Z and nothing jumped out and grabbed me, except books I already had, and books I remembered reading in English class many years ago. I already have a lot of the classics – I must finish that Library Thing list in my sidebar one day, it does not represent anything like the amount of books I own.

You know what I ended up buying? Nineteen Eighty Four by George Orwell, a book I remember enjoying from high school and the only book from the A to Z section which probably had a hundred thousand books to choose from. My Life So Far by Jane Fonda – I saw her on The Actor’s Studio recently where they talked a fair bit about this book she’d written and all of a sudden there it was in front of me (not hidden on the shelves, in a book stand) so I grabbed it. Failure Is Not An Option by Gene Kranz – I mentioned already that I’ve seen him interviewed and really adore him. He still can’t talk about Apollo 13 without getting emotional, you can see just how much it meant to him to get those guys home. I loved the Apollo 13 book and I knew I’d love his book too, but I had no idea it existed and I found it quite by accident while looking for books on Aviation.

I had more money to spend, I could have bought several more books, but I didn’t because I didn’t KNOW what was good in an ocean of many options. I’ve been burned before, you know? If I’d had time to prepare for going there, I’d have put together a list. I have a DVD list, which I take everywhere with me, and if I see anything on it for less than $10AUD, I usually pick it up. I’m now starting a book list, and if a fellow blogger gives a book a good review and it sounds like something I’d like, I’m writing it down so I can check it out in the store.

So I guess, I feel like bloggers promoting things – for the right reasons – is something I really want to see more of. Yes, I have seen blogs which blatantly post a sh*tload of pay per post things and you can tell they have never had anything to do with the product they speak of. It always turns me off – however if they have good content as well, it’s not going to put me off entirely. I’ve seen blogs where the content was great, then they got into pay per post and now won’t write anything other than paid posts, and yes I agree that sucks and I wouldn’t keep reading that kind of blog.

The reasons above is one reason why I have not done any paid posts yet – there’s nothing there at the moment which I use and love. There’s one opportunity there at the moment that appeals to me that is trying to get the word out about a non-profit service and you know what, I think that is truly a worthwhile thing to post about. I post here about scams and internet security and keeping yourself safe on the net. I’ve posted before about Lifeline and depression because these are things that have happened to me and Lifeline helped me and maybe those posts helped someone to get help, you know? If non-profits and legitimate charities can use pay per post to get the word out about things they do and services they offer, that is brilliant in my opinion. If it can benefit bloggers too, that is surely a good thing.

Make money from your blog.

There are plenty of blogs out there promoting make money from your blog type of things, many of them are in the Australian and US blog communities. I have mixed feelings about them. Some of the things they talk about, some of the tips they give are actually excellent for blogging in general – not necessarily for making money out of your blog. I do want to improve my writing and my blog, and I am happy to read peoples tips and ideas.

There are some blogs out there where stay-at-home Mom’s are trying to make enough to continue staying at home with their kids. Some of those blogs are brilliant and fantastic and I love them. Some of those blogs I find incredibly annoying but I still have to stand up and applaud the reasons they are trying to do it – if my Mom had this option years ago, she might have been able to be at home more with us. I’m one of a generation of kids who let themselves into the house after getting home from school.

I guess the bottom line is, I’m willing to overlook a few commercial posts from time to time as long as

– I believe the blogger is telling the truth and not just saying things in order to earn money
– The blog has enough content which is not sponsored and that content makes me love the blogger enough to keep reading
– The blogger isn’t in your face about it, they follow up a sponsored post with genuine unpaid content
– The blogger also has content which tells about things they love and use which is NOT paid for, so it does fit in with their blogging in general

As far as ads in the sidebar etc –

– they are not too overwhelming
– they do not flash, or make noises when I move my mouse over them
– we all work hard on our blogs and deserve to earn some money from them, but we also must respect our readers and not overwhelm them with commercial content. There’s such a thing as too much.

For me, it’s not a black or white thing.

I can’t say – if you post commercial content I’m removing you from my blogroll. I’m not in a position to judge other people on whether they are tempted into making a bit of money from their blog. In fact I’m in a position to *applaud* people if they do it in a way which respects their readers. The money is out there for the taking and I’d much rather see it go to a blogger I love and respect who needs the money than someone just doing it for the cash.

Your blog is a place for you. It is where you can express your thoughts and opinions about things you believe in, things you love, things you want to let others know about. I’m along for the ride and I’m going to be there for the good times as well as the bad, the good posts as well as the not so good ones, the paid posts as well as the unpaid ones. I’m a pretty loyal person once you’ve won my heart. If you can make money out of your blog, good on you. Just don’t forget that your readers will leave if they find it offensive, or too much. I’m thinking one pay per post per week is probably enough for most readers to overlook. If you start posting three a day and no worthwhile content in between, eat my dust cos I’m outa there.. ;)

If you never comment on a post of mine but you’ve managed to make it this far, please drop by and leave your thoughts in the comments. I really want to know what other people think about this.

a-ha, blogging tips, blogrolls, Morten Harket

Blog Keeping & Art Update

Wow, it’s been a busy week here. Just a few bits of housekeeping and an art update.

As far as the commenting goes, I’ve decided to take my time with it because after going through just 25 blogs, I’ve added 5 excellent ones to my google reader. These will be linked in the weekly wrap up.

So you might be wondering what makes me add a blog to my google reader? 95% of the time it is because the blogger has “it” – it being a mysterious thing that makes me want to know more about them and read more about them.

What are some of the annoying trends in the blogging world that I have picked up after just 25 blogs? There seems to be a new plug in where you hover over a link and it pops up a preview box. This sounds nice in theory but it makes everything go very slow here on my system, and to be honest is just really annoying. If I want to click on a link, I’m going to click, I don’t need a preview. :) It also seemed to make those blogs very slow in loading, to the tune of anywhere between 2-5 minutes. I think it’s called snap or snapshots. Say no to it, bloggers. It seems to be evil.

In other blogging trends, you may have noticed a trend towards “monetize your blog”. I’ve been to some blogs with more ads than blog content. That’s not going to happen here, however.. That money has gone toward an important new project which I can’t announce yet. ;) Believe me I am hanging out to launch it, so as soon as I can say anything I’ll let you know.

WordPress blogs look fantastic. Sephy and I have been considering setting one up for some time now to try it out and play with it, so we did. On closer inspection it seems to be some kind of elaborate scam to get people to pay money for things blogger does for free. I could be wrong about that and WordPress people don’t line up to hit me over the head with things, but it seems like everything costs money, even down to how much space you get for your blog unless you want to host a wordpress on your own space – which you also have to pay for. Blogger does this for free :) we’ve got it good blogger people. If you’re using WordPress can you take a moment to comment on how it all works?

I’m seriously considering a blog template change. I’m not in love with what I have now however it is functional and it works. If I can get a larger picture up there that might be enough to make me happy. I don’t like that the images have to be so thin.

While in keeping you up to date mode, I currently have many art works in progress. You can click on any of the photos for a bigger view. In this picture you can count 9 paintings in progress.

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You can see 5 stacked on top of each other – the pink one completes the set of 5 which I am doing as cardboard dragging. I’m going to take some pics of how that’s done so that I can write a post about it. You guys out there might be inspired to do some works of your own. It is so simple. ;) Here’s a close up of the pink one, which I am seriously crazy about already and this is just the base coat.

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The painting below is the final completed version of the painting for my nephew, which had just been freshly sealed when I took the shot so the flash reflected a little. There’s nothing white on the painting. I asked you guys for opinions on this 69 days ago, wow, how time flies!

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So what am I up to for the rest of the day? I have to cook dinner, I am going to watch some West Wing, comment on a few blogs, and most important of all, look at some hotel packages in Sydney. This month is my Birthday month and Mum is going to pay for us to visit Sydney for a weekend (or midweek might be better value, because I am not my sister) and also IKEA. YAY! I’m seriously writing a huge list of things I want to get there. Laundry Baskets are number one on the list right now, followed closely by AA batteries. They had packs of 10 AA’s for $2 and they last for ages, and my cordless mouse chews up batteries and spits them out. Yes, I mouse too much.

I saw a hotel package which includes 30 minutes in a flotation tank. I’d love to try that. It’ll probably be somewhere in the CBD and I’ll take my camera and take heaps of pictures. We might get to the zoo but I’d like to hang out at Darling Harbor and go back to Sydney Aquarium myself – looking at fish without a snorkel. I don’t know if we’d have time for both. For those of you who have never been to Sydney, Darling Harbor is just incredible. There’s no describing it.

blogrolls, commenting on blogs, feed readers, IKEA, Snoskred Art