tips

There are 33 posts tagged tips (this is page 3 of 6).

Movable Type: Faded and Beat Up a Bit but not Forgotten

movabletypeMovable Type can run several different blogs from a single domain. It gives you the basic features, just like WordPress. But, Movable Type doesn’t have as much community support for extra plugins, themes and widgets.

There are trade-offs when you want to run alternative software, the underdog. But, Movable Type works, even if it’s not the hugely popular and well known content management software it once was.

I’m making slow progress on re-learning Movable Type for my own site. But, I want a slow start while I decide on my direction and overall plan. One thing I do know – I don’t want to stick to the mainstream and use WordPress or Blogger. So, there’s going to be a learning curve, some adventure, some frustration and I’ll see how it all turns out in the end.

An Alternative to WordPress

movable typeToday the books I ordered for Movable Type arrived. Both are for out dated versions because almost no one is writing books about Movable Type now. But, it used to be the most popular blog software – it was beating out WordPress when WordPress was still new. Then, Movable Type decided to change their marketing plan.

They offered to let people pay for it. It was a bad decision at that time. People were used to the Internet being free. Yes, you paid for your ISP but once you got online it was all free. Sure there were some shareware and software you had to pay for, but there were always free alternatives. There wasn’t anything you really had to pay for.

So, when Movable Type changed their policy, they lost the final battle and WordPress had an easy victory – they didn’t have to lift a finger. In just a few months Movable Type had lost almost all the ground it had gained. A shame, it was still the same software, still a great way to run your blog wtih a lot of features and room to be creative.

I’m glad Movable Type hasn’t disappeared in the years since then. It’s changed owners, Ben and Mena Trott have moved on. But, it’s still a good package and another option for anyone who wants something less mainstream than WordPress but still reliable (and free). Movable Type brought back the free software plan years ago. Give it a look.

Movable Type Links and Resources

Open Melody: The Open Source Version of Movable Type (The Project that Died Out)

melody CMS

Other Alternatives to WordPress

b2evolution is a free open source project.

Text Pattern is also a free and open source CMS.

28 Ideas to Avoid Blog Burnout: Keep it Fresh

Ideas to Save You from Blogging Burn Out

Burnout happens when we have too much to do, too much we are trying to do and we lose that time we need to recharge our own batteries. The best way to help yourself is to bring back the creative impulse and inspiration which you started out with. Also, to realize you have limits and can’t do everything all the time.

  • Set priorities. Decide what you really want to work on and what you can set aside or just don’t have the time and energy to work on.
  • Focus on what you get back (in return) from the work you are doing. What gives you the most satisfaction, or a decent pay in money? Limit anything that doesn’t give you something back and get rid of things that are just draining you.
  • Take a break, a real break. Some bloggers are working more than full time hours, every day of the week. No wonder they get burnt out.
  • Put time into offline activities. Not only do you recharge your batteries with a change of scenery but you will pick up all kinds of ideas and new topics to write about.
  • Change of format. If you tend to work with mainly text make a change and work with images. Create a post with hand drawn doodles or a digital photograph you took yourself.
  • Treat yourself to a new blog layout. Put your sidebar on the other side of the blog. It sounds simple and silly but you see your site in a new way with one small change.
  • Go for a bigger blog change and create a new header. Put your own face on it.
  • Give yourself a new blog theme, even a paid/ premium theme if you can spare the cost.
  • Rework all your categories and/ tags. Whittle them down to just a few. Free yourself from category and tag clutter.
  • Consider discontinuing extra blogs if you have more than one. Or, start a spin-off blog to post extra content to but give yourself an easy posting schedule.
  • Use scheduled posts so you can keep a few posts ready to publish those days you want to get away from the computer.
  • Exchange guest posts with another blogger you trust to deliver great content.
  • Brainstorm for new topic and side theme ideas relevant to your blog. Stay focused but combine ideas to create something new.
  • Use online forums and email lists to keep in touch with others who share your interests and will (more than likely) give you new and fresh ideas to write about.
  • Plan a series of posts on a theme. Give yourself a bigger project which gives you a goal to work towards.
  • Writers often keep an idea journal, a way to store ideas at the time you have them.
  • Get to bed at a regular time, keep a schedule you can live with.
  • Come up with a new plan for promoting your blog. Be your own PR person – don’t think like a blogger or SEO guru.
  • If you have a tight posting schedule, reconsider. Write a longer post with more information, something you actually feel is worth the time you take to write it. Give yourself quality to sign your name to rather than quantity.
  • Let yourself have the occasional personal day, and don’t feel you owe anyone an explanation.
  • Review other blogs. What are other bloggers doing right or what could they improve on. Offer them your thoughts, in a constructive feedback way.
  • Pick someone relevant and interesting to interview for your blog.
  • Look over your blog stats, what are the type of posts people are reading? Could you find a new area to branch out into from your blog statistics?
  • Change your blogging style to try get more comments and feedback from readers. Find out what works for other bloggers who get a lot of comments.
  • Don’t try to be perfect. You can always come back to a post and rewrite it, revise it, add to it or link to it as your original thoughts on the topic when you write a new post.
  • Write several short blog posts. Just share a quick idea or thought and don’t put a lot of time into elaborating on it.
  • Follow readers who comment in your blog. See what they are writing about and leave them comments too.
  • Take a day to immerse yourself in the topic you blog about. Use Google search, your local library, and any other sources for information and grab every nugget of new information you can.

 

Know What Type of Blogger you Are

Figure out what type of blogger you are and work with it.

Are you blogging to create something, to be informative, or do you want to find fame and fortune?

Know what you want to get out of blogging and go back to that. Don’t try to change who you are to suit your blog.

Write a mission statement for your blog and keep that in mind when you make decisions about what you will post and why you will post it. This also works for other aspects of your blog such as the format you use, the amount and type of ads you will run, the layout of the blog and how much navigation and social networking you will use.

More Resources

How to Start a Writer Blog: 8 Helpful Tips | WritersDigest.com

5. Ask Commenters to Contribute

This is very, very important. Whenever you make a list of things, end it by asking readers what you left out. This makes the inevitable “You left out xyz awesome thing!” comment a happy collaboration rather than an indictment of the blogger’s intelligence. I can’t tell you how many times people have commented: “I can’t believe you didn’t include [some obscure nerd thing], furthermore [you are an idiot] and [should be fired].” But when I invite people to contribute, they do so gladly.

Such a simple lesson. Worth so much. Do it. Also, you’ll often get people giving you links that lead to new posts down the road.

6. The Past: There’s Always More of It

Credit to John Hodgman for the headline here.

When I started blogging, I sat down and wrote a long list of interesting trivia: topics I knew something about, interesting historical tidbits, lots of computer nerd stuff. Literally a big long bulleted list, in a file on my desktop. I then proceeded to write a blog post for every single one of those items. When I ran out, I panicked. What would happen? How would I keep coming up with a new thing every day forever? I had run out of interesting stuff!

When it’s your job to find and highlight one interesting thing every day, you quickly become a specialist at spotting interesting things. If you have any human interaction, and you keep your eyes and ears open, you will constantly encounter topics. You just need to notice them, then write about them. Go to the post office and listen to people talking in the line, look around the room, look at what’s for sale — something about that experience is almost certainly bloggable. (Forever Stamps, anyone?) So my job as a blog writer changed when I ran out of ideas in my back catalog — I became a finder of interesting things, and worked to become good at briefly describing those things. The finding skill can be harder; you need to develop a clear sense not just of what’s interesting to you, but what’s interesting to your audience, and also what can be briefly described.

via How to Start a Writer Blog: 8 Helpful Tips | WritersDigest.com.

Twitter/ ASCII Artist Interview with Andrea Pacione

The Portfolio of Andrea Pacione 

Andrea on Facebook and Twitter

Q: How did you first find ASCII art, ANSI art, Twitter art or text art? Which style came first for you?

I remember seeing ascii or text art appear in some old-school programs on my Apple IIgs family computer that I grew up with back in the 80s. Since graphics were limited, a lot of these sorts of images appeared in games and educational software. I didn’t come across twitter art until about two years ago. I met a friend in my Color class who was facebook friends with New York City artist Larry Carlson, who claims to have invented the #twitterart hashtag. I began studying the posts that would appear in this hashtag, from a wide range of people from all over the world. I was entranced by this new language of expression through images and something about lining up the characters in 140 blocks was highly appealing to me. One very boring winter just before I started school, I would spend hours a day creating these little text arts or twitter arts, and after a few months of this, instead of taking two hours or more just to make one, I could bang them out in five minutes or less. It seemed like a useless hobby at the time, but I think that learning this skill has given me an advantage in my design classes, especially when working with the grid.

Q: What was helpful for you when you started creating text art? Any mentors, FAQ’s or other tutorials or guides?

I remember asking advice from Tom, also known as @140artist on twitter, who gave me a few tips and secrets. Back then, the first line of text on twitter started after your name, so it didn’t line up exactly with the other lines. This was my biggest problem, because what looked like it lined up right in the input box would look very different once you had posted it. Tom gave me the hint to put the hashtags first. Now that twitter has been remodeled, this is no longer necessary as every first line begins on the line below our names now.

Q: What tools do you use?

I use the Special Characters Map that was built into my MacBook Pro.

Q: Do you use a fixed width font or have particular fonts you especially like to work with?

I haven’t played around with different fonts much, as I only really got into this on twitter, which only uses one standard font.

Q: I hadn’t known about creating text art on different systems but now discovered PETSCII and AtariSCII. Have you experimented with a few of these, beyond the standard Windows Notepad?

Nope, haven’t used any program of any sort. Just the characters map and the twitter palate.

Q: Do you turn your art into an image file to display it or rely on HTML code or something else to keep text art formatted?

I have not used either of these methods as yet. For one or two pieces, I used the ‘Grab’ tool in my Mac to take a snapshot of the twitter art post, to post it as a picture on facebook, as the text art doesn’t line up the same on facebook as it does on twitter. But for the most part, I just create it in the twitter input box and hit the send button.

Q: Is it important to you to have set definitions and guidelines as to what is ASCII art, what is ANSI art and etc.? How do you decide which is which for yourself?

I’m honestly not that educated on the definitions. I just did it for fun and learned a new language in the process, which I don’t fully understand but enjoy greatly.

Q: Do you keep an archive of your art? If so, please include the link(s).

Right now I have a word processing and .pdf file storing about 2,000 pieces of text art I have made on twitter. A friend of mine, John the Baker, who has his own punk band and hired me to create a CD cover for his new album with my twitter art, has suggested that I publish it as a book on twitter art. I may do that someday when I’m not so busy trying to earn a college degree.

Hand Written Customer Thank You Notes

The first sale is so exciting! Now once you have calmed down, check out the transaction page and make sure your buyer has paid. Package up your item and get it ready to ship (a hand written thank you note is always good customer service!). Send your buyer a quick little convo (or conversation)  thanking them for their purchase and letting them know when you are going to ship.

via A Beginner’s Guide to Starting a Shop on Etsy | The Etsy Blog.

A basic thank you goes a long way. I haven’t done a lot of shopping online but each time I am impressed and get a little happy feeling when there is a note from the seller. Not something that feels like a form letter or too short and not so sweet, but something that makes it seem they connected with me in some small way. You can give that connection in one sentence. You need to find something to connect with, something you have in common.

You already have something in common if you are selling something the buyer wanted. Whether it’s a handmade craft, a book, or a service by selling something you create yourself as an authority on whatever the topic is. So just add something related to your note. A tip about using the service. Another book in the series or one due out later in the year by the same author. Information and resources about the craft or art involved in making the product they bought from you. Pretty simple if you think about it and well worth it to put some time into thinking about.

Further resources for starting an online store:

Netbook Needs a Better Name

Netbook Gamer
Facebook: Netbook Owners (Small group)
Netbook Users
Which Netbook

Netbook News
Netbook Files
Netbook Nomad

Netbook Network: 5 Tips for Netbook Owners
Gizmodo (2008): Why I Love Netbooks

This is the Netbook I bought. HP Mini 110 – 3744ca

The Unofficial HP Mini Blog
My HP Mini – User forum.
HP Mini Guide – User forum.
HP Mini Note PC