Successful Blog

Tired Eyes? Got XP? Switch to Clear Type

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If you’re like me, you spend too much time staring at a computer screen. By the end of the day, your eyes can let you know they’ve had enough. While I was reading through my feeds I came across this tip from Lifehacker. If you use XP, give it a try. I noticed a difference in a matter of minutes.

How to Switch Your Screen to Clear Type

Before you start: You need XP with a video card and a monitor that support at least 256 colors. It’s recommended that you have 24-bit or 32-bit color support for best results.

Then, go Control Panel>Display>Appearance>Effects.

Click the box that says:

Use the following method to smooth the edges of fonts.

clear type check box

Choose Clear Type.

Click OK. OK.

My eyes are still saying, “Thank you.”

–ME “Liz” Strauss

Great Find: Tlog Blogging Tips Series

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Great Find: The Tlog Blogging Tips Series
Type of Article: A Growing Series of Articles on Setting Up and Running a Blog
Permalink: The Blogging Tips Series
Target Audience: Any blogger who wants to think about blogging or rethink the direction his or her blog is going.

Content: Pedro Timoteo, the Tlog owner and developer of this series is a network administrator. I’ve read through these posts and they put out in sequence the step-by-step basics of blogging. It’s well worth looking over for a thorough blog review. The organization has a programmer’s knack of parsing out knowledge in manageable chunks. They are delivered in language that is clear, accurate, and respectful of the reader. This belongs in everyone’s survival kit.

Look at this list.

What’s not to love about this? The thought that went into this series shows in the list alone.
AND there’s a whole blog beyond this.

–ME “Liz” Strauss

Related articles:
Blog Review Checklist
What Is Content that Keeps Readers?
How To Beat Writer’s Block
Why Dave Barry and Liz Don’t Get Writer’s Block

Introducing Brianshih.com

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SOB Directory Entry:
BrianShih.com by Brian Shih

Type: Technology and Usability

brianshih logo

Brian Shih is a junior studying Electrical and Computer Engineering at Franklin W. Olin College of Engineering. This blog is focused on usability, new technology, and making the world better for humans, not robots.

Notes from Liz: You might recall that Brian was the first of our guest writers. His article on using sidebars prompted a lively discussion that caused us to visit sites and discuss design questions regarding how sidebars can serve both readers and writers. Brian also recently introduced us to “Cropper,” the shareware program that cuts time in making screen shots down to seconds. I’ve been using it constantly since the moment he turned me on to it. Take a minute and check out Brian’s blog.

–ME “Liz” Strauss

Has your SOB Blog Been Introduced to US?
Blog Promotion: May I Introduce You?

Blog Improvements by Chris Garrett

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haqmmer 3

Chris Garrett offers a great post on Quick and Easy Blog Improvements over at Performancing. He features Sumeet Jain’s in-depth NoFollow article and gives hands-on, “use-right-now” advice that’s well worth checking out. I’m particularly taken with Number 4 which says:

Show your most popular or best posts – a new visitor to your blog needs help in deciding if this is going to be a blog they want to return to. Show them your best and brightest content. There is code available for WordPress and it is really easy to do on Drupal using the statistics module, others will have plugins or you can hard code it into your template.

I like a guy who cares about readers.

Thank you, Chris.

–ME “Liz” Strauss

Related articles:
No More NoFollow
Blog Construction–What’s Your Function?
Five Design Basics to Never Forget
Editing for Quality and a Content Editor’s Checklist

Top 10 Ways to Become a Miserable Blogger

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Photo of White Arrow in Road pointing down

January, February, and March are boring. They leave me feeling like I have nothing to look forward to. New budgets, new plans, and New Year’s resolutions hover over. Everyone’s working and often everyone’s miserable. So I offer a list of 10 things you might do, so that when everyone’s having fun being miserable, you won’t feel left out.

Before you begin reading, prepare yourself. Adjust your thinking to realize that, no matter the season where you are, next winter is too near and next spring is too far.

Top 10 Ways to Become a Miserable Blogger

      10. Spend your first quiet morning hours checking your stats to see who was not reading your blog at 2:18 a.m. When you’re done, check 4:47 a.m. and 1:31 a.m. too.

    9. Read the feeds for the exact idea you will write about, rather than just looking for fodder. Then decide all of the good ideas have already been done, because you know that five seconds ago someone took the last one.

    8. Keep your mind focused on all of the things you have to do and how little time there is to do them. Check the clock often to see how behind you are in getting them done.

    7. Don’t prioritize or make a plan.

    6. Answer every email, important or not, as soon as you get it. While you’re there, think of the ones you might write and write them before you do anything else. If you’re going for the gold, do the same with telephone calls. Heck while you’re at it, call my mother-in-law.

    5. If you finish with email and it’s still the same day, read other blogs that have no relationship to yours. In fact, choose blogs in a language you don’t even know. When you stop to eat lunch, clean the refrigerator.

    4. As you read and comment on blogs, notice how much better every other blog is. Then think of the reasons you wouldn’t read your own blog.

    3. Spend hours tweaking your template over details no one will ever notice.

    2. When you finally sit down to write, know you will have writer’s block. Think about it. Talk about it. Then watch the clock.

    1. Count your value as a human by links, stats, and number of comments.

There you have it. Follow this Top Ten List, and you will be miserable when you need to be. It will serve you well into Spring–which we know will be rainy, cold, and ugly this year.

If you’re an overachiever and you just need one more, here you go . . .

Definitely, positively, and for sure, buy into all of your own PR, and believe whatever other folks say about you, because everything put into print simply has to be true. 🙂

–ME “Liz” Strauss

More fun:
Desperado: The 7 Payoffs of Making Your Blogging Relationships Suck
65th Crayon Finds that Google Doesn’t Use Search
Internet Slang Dictionary and Translator

Sunday Night Blog Discussion

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For those who come looking for a short, thoughtful read, a blogging life discussion, or a way to gradually ease back into the week, tonight I offer a Blogging Discussion.

This one’s serious.

Here you go. . . .

This week the Blog Herald reported that WashingtonPost.com has turned off comments on its blog . . .

“Because a significant number of folks who have posted in this blog have refused to follow any of those relatively simple rules, we”ve decided not to allow comments for the time being,” Jim Brady, executive editor of Washingtonpost.com, wrote on the subject.

In August, Aaron Wall of SEO Book fame, was sued for comments left by someone on his blog . . . a good discussion is covered at The Intuitive Life Business Blog ( which I found via the Blog Herald) in which writer Dave Taylor says

“I’m well aware that legal precedent holds that if you moderate, edit, or prune comments on your online forum — or blog — in any way at all then you stop being able to defend yourself as a common carrier and become a publisher who is, indeed, liable for the content that they publish.”

My question is this.

How do you respond?

–ME “Liz” Strauss