How To Blog

Review of Yahoo 360 by Javed Mandary - first impressions = not very impressed..

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Javed Mandary wrote up a review of Yahoo360’s new blogging tool.  Here's the rundown on what Javed had to see (although I recommend reading his review in its entirety)

Pros

• no ads (yet…whether that’s because it’s still in beta is unknown)
• blogroll feature
• ability to moblog (publish to your blog from your cell phone)
• “has most of the features to keep you a happy blogger”
• entries published in RSS 2.0 feeds

Cons

• Main focus seems to be on socializing/community building aspect.  However, currently not enough members for this to be considered a feature at the moment.  And is there really such a need for yet another social networking utility with Friendster, Orkut, Hi5, etc?
• Photo management inferior to that of Blogger, and that says a lot since I personally think Blogger has prettty crappy photo management
• dull user interface
• inferior to msn spaces (which most people say sucks, so that can’t be good news about Yahoo360)
• nothing new and innovative (yet)

Javed is also offering up a limited supply of Yahoo 360 invites to those who comment on his post, so if you’re looking to give Yahoo 360 a spin for yourself, you’d best head over to his full review

Modifying WordPress 1.5 Themes - a guide to good manners

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Root wrote a very excellent article entitled “WordPress - themes made simple” that is dripping in enough well written sarcasm to get a good chuckle out of you while at the same time making a very valid point that I think needs reiterating.   It’s a reminder about a little thing called common courtesy.

If you’ve downloaded a theme that someone else has spent an awful lot of time making, and you implement it on your site, it’d be nice if you (at least somewhere on your blog) gave a nod to the theme author.

But more importantly, if you make modifications to that theme, and especially if you then make your ‘new’ theme available for download for use by others, please, for the love of god,

• Give it a new name so it isn’t confused with the original author’s theme
• GIVE CREDIT TO THE ORIGINAL AUTHOR AS IS RIGHTFULLY DUE, even if you just leave it in the comments or the readme.  Just because someone was generous enough to make their template freely available to the WP community to download and modify as they see fit, it’s just rude to do so and not in any place indicate that your theme is “based on SuchAndSuch theme”

You can feel Root’s frustration in his post – and rightfully so.  Everyone remember the golden rule?  You know – do unto others?  I feel like Emily Post here, but a little ettiquette in theme use and distribution is certainly warranted.

First Impressions on myblogsite - to be determined..

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[UPDATE – please read through to the bottom of this post, as I’ve now discovered that myblogsite wasn’t working properly on the day that I first tested it seemed like a big ol’ piece a crap at the time.  That may not be the case, but I don’t have time to fully evaluate it further at the moment – rest assured, I’ll give it a thorough testing and review down the road (especially when I’ve been able to ascertain whether the glitches in the system that  I experienced are intermittent problems or were a one time deal).]

Decided to check out myblogsite’s free blog service.  So far, I’m not impressed.  I created my account, logged in, and realized I’d specified the wrong time zone for myself.  Should be easy to fix – but it’s not.  There are tabs on the top of the page, some of which are just ads, one is for your blog, one entitled ‘admin login’ (except I’m already logged in, and clicking it doesn’t provide any setup options), ‘help’, and ‘reader account’ (which allows you to set whether email notifications are sent when a site visitor posts an article or comment).  Where’s the place to modify my settings?

So I clicked the ‘help’ tab.  Up pops up a window (last revised 1/6/2005, so you know they’re not regularly working on this..), with a Dec 22, 2004 link that says they’ve “Updated and reorganized the Settings & Security section”.  Now you’d think this would help me fix my setup, right?  I clicked the link, only to get a help page that says, “From the Settings & Security tab, the following options are available from the Publishing Defaults page….<snip>”  Excuse me?  What Settings and Security tab???  Sure don’t see one in the account I just created.

Even worse, I decide to click on the help links for changing the layout of the blog.  Here I’m told: “To change your column layout: From the Look & Feel tab, click the Layout link at the top of the page…<snip>”.   Um, yeah, I’d love to – but there’s no Look & Feel tab, just like there’s no Settings & Security tab.

I could spend more time trying to get this to work, but you know what – I’ll pass.  I’m pretty technically savvy, and even I couldn’t figure out how to customize my blog.  Oh, and did I mention that the blog I created, which only has its default post on it, is slow to load, too?

I’m giving myblogsite a big THUMBS DOWN, with initial impressions saying its not worth bothering to fully evaluate this blogging software.   I’d be happy to be proven wrong, as it’s always nice to have more choices of free blogging platforms, especially with free hosting, so comment away if I should give it another look.

Update – the help files and the demos all reference blogware.com, which supposedly has all the features that myblogsite purports to have – except its not free.  You’ve got to find a reseller, and pay a monthly fee.  They’ve got a free trial, and I’ll explore that when time permits, but it would appear that the free hosting on myblogsite.com (which is powered by blogware) has been abandoned by its creators for the pay-for-service blogware.  Funny, you’d think they’d stop paying for ads for myblogsite.com on google then (since I found the site in the first place in the google ads listed on my own blog!)  Further inspection indicates that FortuneCity is hosting blogware powered blogs for free on myblogsite in exchange for a slew of unrelated ads on your site, including the ever-tacky ‘lose weight’ ads.  Yeesh.

UPDATE 3/24 – It would appear that on the day that I created my account at myblogsite, the control panel was not functioning properly, and as a result I was unable to access their dashboard.  I got a really rude email from someone regarding my review of myblogsite, so I decided to give it another look.  When I logged into myblogsite today, the admin control panel WAS working, although several of the changes that I made didn’t ‘stick’ even after clicking the save button.  Changes to the layout (like removal of the ‘photos’ component) didn’t update on the blog itself.  The site still has slow load times.  I have too much on my plate right now to try to fully evaluate this free blog host, especially if it’s as glitchy as it’s been seeming to me.  However, I will do a full eval on this when time permits.  If the site functionality starts working consistently, then this COULD be a good competitor to TypePad (their drag and drop of components for changing the layout is quite similar actually, except myblogsite is free).  If you want to try it yourself, the first thing I’d recommend doing is getting those tacky ads off there.  The way to do it (if the system is in the mood to let you), is to click on the Look & Feel tab in the dashboard, then click on Layout, then deactivate the component entitled Favorite Links (they’re not YOUR favorites –  they’re cheesy ads), click Save, then click the Header tab, and deactivate the Blog Control component that is currently sitting in the left column, and click Save again.  Now your blog will look more like YOUR blog – w/o FortuneCity’s ads for weight loss, etc, all over it.

BlogJet allows Windows users to create and edit posts for any blog through an easier, more feature-rich interface

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Just came across a very interesting application called BlogJet.  Basically, it’s an easy to use Windows program that acts as a front-end  for posting to your blog from the BlogJet client instead of from your blog software’s own interface (usually your browser). 

From their website: Works with all leading weblog services:

 

Blogger b2evolution Blogging.com BlogHarbor Blogware DasBlog DeadJournal DearDiary Drupal LiveJournal Manila

ModBlog Lockergnome.net MovableType pMachine PUSHlogs Squarespace TypePad .Text WordPress Blogger API MetaWeblog API

Right now I’m using it to post to my ‘How to Blog’ blog on TypePad (the post you’re reading right now, actually).  You can download a free trial copy of BlogJet here.

I’m only just starting to tool around with it, but my first impression is a good one!  Make that great, actually.  Because I think it may provide me with the best of all worlds interface-wise.  For example, one of my gripes about TypePad is that you have to pop open a new window when you want to select multiple categories for your post (which, for me, is all the time).  WordPress, on the other hand, has a bunch of checkboxes and you can check as many as you want w/o having to open another page (it’s just faster, and hey, doing things inefficiently is a pet peeve of mine..).  Well, using BlogJet to compose this post, I notice there’s a drop-down box which - surprise – provides checkboxes next to a list of all my categories.  One less TypePad gripe.  Make that three – I can now change fonts mid post (except it’s a little buggy because I actually changed fonts and switched to BOLD, and clearly this text isn’t bolded when viewed from my actual TypePad site)

 

and I can(NOT) modify the alignment of the post (or a part of the post) w/o editing the html, so for example, this paragraph happens to be centered – at least in BlogJet, but as you’ll notice when this gets posted (meaning, as you read it), this sure isn’t centered – it’s aligned left just like the rest of the post.  Darn.  And while I’m bitching, how come there’s no ‘strikethrough’ option for text?

On the flip side, one of my gripes with WordPress is that they don’t have a rich text editor – you can’t just copy something from your browser and paste it into WordPress’ edit post textbox and expect it to preserve it’s formatting (and linking) structure.  But BlogJet does have this funcationality – and so now you could have rich text editing and a WYSIWYG display for your WordPress posts.  Which might sway me towards choosing WordPress as the ultimate blogging tool (when used in conjunction with BlogJet) because the features, plug-ins and customizability of WordPress are the best I’ve seen thus far.

Initially I though BlogJet had a huge drawback - no place to enter URIs for sites you want to send a trackback ping to. And a search through their online help (at the BlogJetWiki) for ‘trackback’ came up blank.  But on a lark I clicked the ‘Properties’ tab at the bottom of the window, and lo and behold, there are all of my advanced post options, including Trackbacks!  It’ll be interesting to see if and for how long I’ll actually be using BlogJet to create my posts.  As always, I’ll keep ya updated (oh yeah – BlogJet’s got tons of built-in smiley’s, if emoticons are your thing…)

It will also be interesting to see how BlogJet compares with it’s competition – w.blogger, which calls itself “The best interface between you and your blog” and is Freeware (vs. the free 30 day trial I’m using of BlogJet).  Oh, so much to do, so little time!

Update 3/22 – I’ve done all of my latest posting using BlogJet, and one of the things I’m really liking about it is that I’m not limited to a small edit box for creating/designing my post.  Hell, I can go full screen if I want to.  On the other hand, I’ve noticed yet another bug in the product — my posts are appearing in the reverse order of when I’ve created them for each particular date.  In other words, I publish Post 1, then later I publish Post 2, and then even later that same day I publish Post 3.  In the blogosphere, posts that are archived by date should be displayed in the following order:  Post 3, Post 2, followed by Post 1.  For all of my posts created on 3/22, they’re showing up in the reverse order of when they are published – Post 1, Post 2, Post 3.  So my newest post isn’t at the top.  That’s no good…  Hopefully w.blogger won’t have this little glitch… (I still haven’t had a chance to try it)

Update 3/31 – Inconsistent behavior when dragging and dropping from IE 6 pages – sometimes is retains formatting from original site (and linking), other time not.  Sometimes crashes (I was trying to retrieve my list of posts and got the following error, “Access violation at address 00435113 in module 'BlogJet.exe'. Read of address 00000000 Class: EAccessViolation” — note that this has only happened once in the entire time I’ve been using the software, and shutting it down and relaunching solved the problem..).  Can’t create new categories from w/in their interface – must log into your blogs control panel to do so.

WordPress 1.5 Header Replacement options for default Kubrick theme

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Digital Westex Image Gallery has 60 different header art replacements that you can use instead of the one included in the default Kubrick Theme for WordPress 1.5 to more personalize your blog.

 

 

 

Yahoo to buy Flickr, the popular photo sharing service used by many bloggers

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Link: Yahoo! News - Yahoo Buying Photo-Sharing Service Flickr.

SAN FRANCISCO - Yahoo Inc. (Nasdaq:YHOO - news) is acquiring a Canadian photo-sharing company that lets people share digital images with select groups or the whole world, expanding its portfolio of self-publishing and "social networking" services.

I’m expecting this will work hand in hand with Yahoo’s recently announced Yahoo 360 virtual community,which will include blogs and photo sharing.  While Yahoo already has their own photo-sharing service, Flickr is far superior.

I wonder if the pricing structure at Flickr will change as a result of their new parent, and if free accounts will still exist for non-users of Yahoo’s own blogging service. 

Currently, Flickr is one of the most popular methods of posting pictures on Blogger / Blogspot (which does not host its own images).  Seeing as how Blogger is owned by Google, Yahoo’s biggest competitor, it will be interesting to see how these plays out for Flickr users on Blogger.  I’m surprised Google didn’t try to snap up Flickr themselves – I guess they thought Picasa was good enough (not, especially for photo sharing).

Feature-by-feature comparison of Blogger vs WordPress and step by step guide on how to switch from Blogger to WordPress

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Bambit has created an excellent layman’s analysis of Blogger vs WordPress, which is a good overview of two of the most popular free blogging tools. 

She compares availabilty and demands on the user, setup speed and requirements, pages and pagination, look / feel / templates, interface and user-friendliness, and image handling.

As she pointed out, WordPress does require you to have a webhost that supports MySQL databases and you have to know how to use FTP.  However, many hosting companies will actually create the MySQL database for you, in which case I found that doing the actual WordPress install and getting up and blogging takes less than 5 minutes.

Ultimately, Bambit decided to make the switch from Blogger to WordPress (and appears quite please with her decision) - and, even better, has even gone so far as to publish a step-by-step guide to moving from Blogger to WordPress.  Thanks Bambit!

Blogs coming to Yahoo with new Yahoo 360 virtual community

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I just heard that Yahoo will be releasing a new service called Yahoo 360 which will provide blogging and photo sharing abilities to users, as well as a virtual community intended to rival that of Friendster and Orkut.

Apparently initial signup for the service (which is in beta) is by invite only.  If I'm able to secure an invite, I'll let y'all know how their blogging tools size up compared to TypePad, MT, WordPress, et al.

Anyone have any Yahoo connections so I can get on the beta list?

Alex King's WordPress 1.5 Theme competition and lots of WordPress templates

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Well I finally installed WordPress 1.5 and am pleased to report that it is just as much of a piece of cake to install as previous versions were.  The new dashboard is more pleasing, and the concept of Themes (more elaborate than templates) has been introduced.

This is a great change, but one might worry that there aren't enough themes available for WordPress 1.5.  Well that ain't the case - and the list of existing themes keeps growing, much thanks to Alex King's blog hosting a WordPress 1.5 Theme Competition.

There are various different prizes being offered from different organizations, each with its own criteria.  For example, one random lucky person will win a $150 Prize just for submitting a theme to the competition and also checking it in to the themes repository at wp-themes.org.  There's a $25 amazon gift certificate for "the best theme that looks like a real paper diary", a $40 starbucks giftcard for the Wordpress theme with the "most versatile design", $55 to the best overall design, etc.

Alex's site uses the theme switcher so you can easily switch from one theme to the next and experience how they'd look on your blog.  All themes submitted to the competition are available for download and use by WordPress 1.5 bloggers.

While I haven't gone through all of the themes yet, some are rather basic, others quite elegant.  So far my favorites include Devenir En Gris (which sports a three column layout) and Gespaa Theme Two Columns.

When I last checked, there were 80+ WordPress 1.5 templates to choose from.   Nice.  Thanks Alex!

update: I've compiled a comprehensive list of over 130+ WordPress 1.5 themes that I found by hunting around the blogosphere, so if you're looking for a new theme for your wordpress 1.5 site, be sure to check out that post, which I'll be updating as new themes become available.

Comprehensive list of 615+ Free WordPress 1.5 and 2.0 Themes / Templates available for download

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(Last updated: 01/30/06 – Now listing 616 WordPress 1.5+ Themes available for download!) Themes which I have tested as also working with WP 2.0 are labeled as: tested with WordPress 2.0

Note that most wordpress 1.5 themes are likely to work with wordpress 2.0 unless they require specific plugins to work properly (in which case they’ll only work if the required/included plugins ALSO work with 2.0, which is iffy) 

Click here to go to the comprehensive wordpress theme list!

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