A few recommendations for your blog hopping pleasure

I haven't had time to make cards yet, but while I was sitting here having my coffee, I thought I'd jot a few thoughts about making blog-hopping and web-surfing a bit easier and more fun.

The other day on the Gingerwood stamping forum, someone made mention of TinyURL as a quick way of making long URLs into short ones that are easy to paste into messageboard posts, replies etc. You can go to the site and convert a long link. I use the Firefox add-on version that's called TinyUrl creator. This will convert long URLs with just a right-click, or a control-click for Mac users.

This discussion then turned to CoolIris, which is a cool 3D way of looking at stuff on the internet. I have this as a Firefox add-on, too, but haven't used it much. One thing that's fun to do with it though is to go to a blog, click on one of the images to view in CoolIris, then all of the photos on that blog end up on the 3D wall for viewing. That's kinda fun!

I've mentioned being an avid user of Google Reader. I love to keep track of the blogs that I follow by subscribing to them via GR. I like reading feeds without being surprised by unexpected music. I also like accessing them via Blogger when I want to add a blog roll or something similar to my sidebar. Most of all, I like being able to see new blog posts and read them all from one spot!

Recently, GR did some revamping. In doing that, one of my favorite tweaks was 'broken'. I'd added, via a Firefox Greasemonkey add-on, a script that added a Preview button to Google Reader. It was called GPE. I loved that! Not everyone posts full feeds of their blog posts, so I could click on that little button to see the full feed in Google Reader without leaving GR. I found a tip for fixing it, tried it, didn't work for me. I was bummed. :-( Then I found a different Firefox add-on that claimed to add a preview button called Better GReader. I tried it. It works! I'm happy again!

And since I'm talking about making web surfing easier, I'll mention one more Firefox add-on that I'd hate to do without, and that's Linkification. It basically turns any text link into a clickable link. So, if someone copies and pastes a URL into a message, linkification will turn it into a link that you can just click on. I've always loved this add-on.

So, to make your blog hopping travels easier or more fun, those are just a few recommendations. :-)

Two awards from Down Under

It's the busy time of year around here as you might be able to tell from the lack of any new posts with my latest creations. We've been to Christmas parties and Christmas shows. I've been trying to finish my shopping and my brainstorming. I have managed to squeeze a little bit of cardmaking, but I actually sent them all off before snapping pics. Yeah, I was in a rush and a little too focused and determined to cross that off my list.

I've also received two more blog awards, and I wanted to acknowledge them before too much more time passes. This week promises to be even busier as we get closer to the holidays.

Here is the first one....


This was given to me by Wendy. Thanks so much! The rules for this award are as follows:

"These blogs invest and believe in PROXIMITY - nearness in space, time and relationships! These blogs are exceedingly charming. These kind bloggers aim to find and be friends. They are not interested in prizes or self-aggrandizement. Our hope is that when the ribbons of these prizes are cut, even more friendships are propagated. Please give more attention to these writers! Deliver this award to eight bloggers, who must choose eight more and include this cleverly-written text into the body of their award."

I love the spirit behind this one. The internet certainly makes the world feel much smaller and others feel much closer. It never ceases to amaze me that meaningful relationships and friendships can take place over such vast distances of time and space.

This is the second one....


This was bestowed by MrsDB. Thank you! And here are the rules for this award....

The rules are you must post the award on your blog, name your bestower, then bestow the award upon 6 other bloggers and leave a message on their blog that they've received the award.

As with the first award, I really like the notion of an award being given for spreading love as well as spreading friendship. It's really neat, particularly this time of year. :-)

Now because of time constraints, I'm going to bend the rules a bit. When I first started this blog, I had a blog roll that grew by leaps and bounds. I thought it got a bit out of control after a while, so when I updated the look of my blog, I left it out. Now that Blogger has a nifty gadget for listing favorite blogs, I've decided to add this back. It's really simple to do if you use Google Reader. You can easily import the information that you want to include with just a few clicks. It's great! So simple. Give it a try!

So, I'd like to invite you to take a look over at the sidebar and scroll down a little ways to where I've listed some of the blogs that I enjoy reading. You're getting 24 suggestions, hm, actually recommendations is probably a better word, for blogs that I find to be worthwhile reads. I'll likely add to this list, but I think it's a good start for now.

Thanks again, Wendy and MrsDB! Appreciate you both thinking of me and presenting me with these lovely blog awards. :-)

Why I like Google Reader

Google has always been one of my favorite search engines, and it's not just because of the nifty artwork that they have on special occasions or because you could change the language interface to Elmer Fudd or pig Latin. ;-) It was just easy to use and easy to read. Then Gmail came along and I got an account. I like that, too. The iGoogle homepage can be very nifty. You can add all sorts of fun widgets and content to it.

When I started blogging, I wasn't sure where I was going with it or whether I'd keep it up. I wasn't even sure what blogging was really about or why one would want to blog. I went with easy and started on Blogger. Blogger has since become affiliated with Google. I may have changed my template, but I've stuck with Blogger for now, even though I can host a Wordpress blog on my own site. It's just easy.

And the evolution continues.... I blog regularly now. I also read blogs out of interest and for inspiration. At last check, I was following roughly 50 blogs, and I seem to keep adding to the list. Needless to say, it would be a mess to click on each one daily to see what's going on. This is where we get to the beauty of RSS feeds and feed readers, aka RSS readers, aka news readers, aka feed aggregators.... Blogs, podcasts, news headlines and the like can be checked regularly for updated content, and that content can be sent on to a subscriber. There are many different aggregators and readers out there. That's why I have a couple of subscription options in my sidebar. I'm not sure what folks typically use. People can receive this info via email or via their reader of choice, and there are lots of both out there.

I like Google Reader. It was easy to set up. I already had a Gmail account. I just had to configure Google Reader to my liking. It's easy to add new subscriptions. You just click on a box, enter the blog URL, and then click on Add. The list is alphabetical. You have the option of seeing all of the subscriptions or just the ones that have been updated. Google checks for updates to all of the blogs and you can read them right there on the main page. If the bloggers have configured the settings of their blogs so that a full blog feed is sent, you don't even necessarily need to navigate away from the Google Reader page. This can be very nice for folks who are on dial-up. It's also nice if you don't like being surprised by a sudden blast of music when you land on a blog page. I hate having to scroll madly looking for a pause button, or having to mute my machine until I can find the player. But you can see and read all of the new, or old, content of blogs that you're interested in. You can also filter your feeds so that it's easier to navigate to specific blogs in your list. I have a filter (or tag) for weekly stamping challenges and one for non-stamping-related blogs, just as a couple of examples. You can also star a blog post to make it easy to find.

Another perq is that you can share blog posts. Google compiles them all on a page for you. You can add them to your blog as a widget, too. I have one in my sidebar for the weekly stamping challenges that I participate in. I change the shared posts in Google Reader from week to week by ticking or unticking the box next to "Share" at the bottom of each post, and those changes are automatically updated to my blog. Easy peasy.

There are other settings that you can tweak, but I think that gives you an idea of some of what Google Reader can do. I've had occasion to use Google Documents. I use Google Calendar regularly. I guess it just makes sense that I do my blog reading via Google, too. But I think if you're new to reading blogs and figuring out subscriptions and RSS, then Google Reader is an easy way to get your feet wet. Just offering my 2 cents worth. :-)