Successful Blog

A Message for Everyone!

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This is a motivational link that was sent to me by a very close friend.

It was developed at The School of Computer Science and Engineereering at the University of New South Wales, Australia.

Thanks to them and to my friend, KB.

Who says that flattery can’t be fun?
Hope you enjoy it.

How This Link Works

  • Click on the link.
  • A screen prompt will come up.
  • Type your name in the prompt.
  • Sit back and enjoy the message.

Share it with friends.

This is the link:

Do come back to see me again!

–ME “Liz” Strauss

WhosWhoo?! at Yahoo?

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Yahoo Logo

And now for something completely different . . . and a lot more FUN!

Looking for an expert on anything?

Yahoo Search is powering a people search engine called “WhosWhoo?!” that’s currently under development by Daily Caffeine. It’s a cool concept. You can search by person or by category and get results in documents, news, talk, and images.

Be kind though, if you try it. It’s still in BETA testing. One search and you’ll start to realize how hard this must be to get right. It’s not quite there yet, but that could be part of it’s appeal. It’s fun to poke around in, just to see what comes up.

Daily Caffeine has a form asking for input, and you can suggest categories all day.

I did a search for Jeremy Wright.

Jeremy Wright via WhosWhoo

Now I have to ask, “Will the real Jeremy please stand up?” For all of the email that Jeremy gets, he probably wishes there were that many of him–except for the guy who was in jail. . . .

Click the logo to play with WhosWhoo?! beta.

www_dailycaffeine_com_whoswhoo

At this stage WhosWhoo?! beta is like mixing an ego search with a Quentin Tarantino Movie, possibly more fun than the real thing. Try it. You’ll probably be using it for real research one day.

–ME “Liz” Strauss

The Great Neighborhood Link Post

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Being new to b5media , I wandered down the block to my neighbor’s blogs. I’ve always heard the b5folks are a very friendly bunch. I started with the

Blog Herald Logo

because I needed the fresh air. When I walked in, I was greeted by Duncan’s post on Blog Links Building Traffic and it lead me to a post on

where I could finish reading the original post where Duncan mentions the Weblog Empire Blog Link Exchange Forum.

Thinking I should visit at least one more neighbor before the day was over, I stopped by to see what had been going on this week at Blogging Tips at

Darren has been talking about receiving offers to carry links for payment on your blog and what you should consider before you do. While I was there I found two more links from his article on Hate Links.

These aren’t really about linking, but about not linking up with bad things.

Checking My Google Neighborhood

Google says I should link with my neighborhood, blogs that are relevant and related to my own in some way. I guess I just did. If you want to check who Google thinks your neighborhood is, go to Google Search and type in this search text.

related: [yourdomin.com]

Now I know who in my neighborhood I can visit next.

Making New Neighbors

If you’re looking for more links about links and linking you’ll find these worth linking, uh, looking , into:

Think Before You Link
Blog Promotion Basics for Everyone
Intra-Linking as Promotion
Think Before You Intra-link
Checklist for Linking to Quality Blogs

Got Another Link Post?

Of course, there’s always room for more neighbors to stop by here. So if you have a post on linking add it to the comment section of this post. We could start this massive chain of links to posts on linking–just for the fun of it to see where it goes.

–ME “Liz” Strauss

Talk about Google-ing

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Did you notice the new feature in your Gmail?

Gmail logo

Gmail now has a link called Gmail Chats.
Click the link in your Gmail to open a list of contacts.
Click the contacts and you’ll open IM sessions in your browser IE and Firefox.

Google Talk logo

You’ll be set to have voice conversations with your pals for FREE–that’s NO money.

What’s WAY COOL is the way the Google Talk works inside Gmail. Check it out. To quote Google

About Gmail
Gmail is an experiment in a new kind of webmail, built on the idea that you should never have to delete mail and you should always be able to find the message you want.

Search, don’t sort.
Use Google search to find the exact message you want, no matter when it was sent or received.

Don’t throw anything away.
Over 2692.883065 megabytes (and counting) of free storage so you’ll never need to delete another message.

Keep it all in context.
Each message is grouped with all its replies and displayed as a conversation

Don’t have Gmail?
You might have to wait a while. I tried to open a second account and got a message saying that it’s by invitation only. Guess they figure they’re going to be busy keeping current customers hooked up and going. They’re probably right. Someone tried to call me with this service already tonight. Like I said, “It’s WAY COOL.”

–ME “Liz” Strauss

Fun Find: Button Generator.com

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I was looking at some sites around the Internet that had unique and personal buttons for their blogs last night. That seemed like a fun thing to do. Fun is something there just isn’t enough of in my life during the gray Chicago winter months. So I went hunting for a button maker. I figured it was one more way I might brand my personal blog.

Boyhowdy! Did I find one! What kind of button would you like? Will you be having a menu to go with that?

FUN Find: Button Generator.com
Type of Site: Webmasters’ resource for creating buttons and menus
Target Audience: Anyone who wants a one-of-a-kind button
Content: This site has an easy and a pro generator. It has a huge variety of free choices for making buttons and menus and provides member services. The free choices are extensive and quite elegant. In fact, I found myself enjoying the experience of making choices a relaxing change from a stressful day. (But that could just me be. We know I have that weird side.)

Before you enter there are two things you should be aware of:

All buttons also come with their own code. We’re talking Super-Buttons. You can use hex charts to change every color. If you use the advanced format you can change every layer of color. You could be here all day. You could be here until next Friday morning!

buttongenerator_com

There are 11 pages of sample buttons. This is just one of them. The menu generator designs menus that match the buttons. How cool is that?

I can’t believe you won’t be able to find something that perfectly expresses you and your blog’s design. In fact, the bigger worry is that this site could very well get you into a button collecting mood. You might even start a button-trading club. Then you’ll have to join Button Generators Anonymous. Please use this information with caution. This site really is addictive. I might just have to become a member so that I can play with the button generator everyday now and forever.

C’mon. You know, you wanna.

–ME “Liz” Strauss

More Fun:
Internet Dictionary and Slang Translator
A Message for Everyone
Top 10 Ways to Become a Miserable Blogger
65th Crayon Finds that Google Doesn’t Use Search

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