Archive for the ‘blog platforms’ Category

How are we doing so far with the 31 Days challenge?

We have some catching up to do, so here’s my notes and a question or two.

1 – Write an elevator pitch	Do you know what I say when someone asks about my blog?  “It’s just a Mommy Blog.”  I don’t even want to go there with that pitch! This is my new pitch: A place to collect the funny parts of life; tips to keep dust bunnies comfortable.  And my super secret goal is to make supermom wannabes think; and encourage brand new mommies to relax! What do you think?  Add yours to the comments so we can be lured to your blog!
2 – Write a List Post	I have a question for you – do I have to instruct on something?  Cause that’s really no fun, except for here, where I get to espouse all my WordPress knowledge.
3 – Promote a Blog Post	I’ve run out of time, can someone sum up the idea here?
4 – Analyze a Top Blog	This I find discouraging, because I think that most top Mommy bloggers are so much better writers than I am.  And I’m unsure how to proceed with becoming a better writer other than to practice.  I have, in the first year of blogging sought advice from bloggers that I admire, one of whom was Heather Jacobson, my sister-in-crime on this blog.  And we struck up a friendship from that conversation.  (at least, I call her a friend.  She calls me a stalker, potAEtoes, potAWtoes)
5 – Email a blog reader	Does it count if I’m begging, no pleading for comments?  (it’s an addiction, i swear)
6 – Reading List of 27 Posts	Okay – who did this?  And which did you like the best?  Which ones MUST I read?
7 – write a link post	I’ve been trying to do this on my Mommy Needs Motivation blog in order to link up all kinds of fun things that I find during the week, to introduce my readers to more blogs, and especially to find a comic or cartoon.  Frankly, you don’t want to see my ‘cartoons’.  (more like stick people)
8- Interlink old posts	This one I do quite regularly with my recipe blog – linking one meal together with the sauce, salad, and side dish.  I use an awesome plugin that inserts teh link for me as soon as I tell it the post ID – I use “Reveal Ids for WP Admin” and “Cross References”.  I love both of them!

Okay, I’m really looking forward to reading the responses to this one, and I’ll be by to visit your blogs and see what you’ve done with it this week!

Wishing you bloggy best,

Cathy

You know what makes WordPress different from other “big” companies? The people are real. You can follow Matt Mullenweg and his family around the world through his blog. The boy just turned 25! You don’t even want to KNOW what I was doing when I was 25.

At this conference today there was an Automatic employee Lloyd who took time to answer questions. At a table were two people with “WordPress Help” scrawled on a paper and taped to the front. From my experience today, I can completely understand why everyone likes Mom Summit, and BlogHer and Blissdom Conferences. The only thing that would make this conference better is if it was full of friends and mommies! At Northern Voice 09, they DO, however, have a giant room put aside to accommodate childcare and encourage a childcare- ad hoc organization between parents. How cool is that?

So I do have a point to make here, WordPress brings to the table so much more than software, free software at that. It brings, at least to me, a human, approachable, entrepreneurial aspect. And I can really get behind that!

I got to discuss some of the world’s top designing firms with Jahzel Misner. She’s going to send me links. I got to get some top level help on our server migration from Lloyd at Automattic. And of course, this is a VERY important site for every. single. reader. 8Chocolate: a local chocolate fiend, and reviewer, and blogger of all things chocolate. You’re welcome.

I encourage twittering!  It’s fun, and its good marketing for your blog!  Sign up at Twitter.com.  Fo’sure your first order of business will be to follow me!  @multimom, and then ya know, if there’s time, there’s Heather too:  @relocatedyank. 

You might even be able to ask questions there, since ya know, we do it! (unlike the posting around here!)  Sorry ’bout the posting bit… I got a little carried away.  But no worries.  I’m carried right back. 

1.  Sign up for twitter

2.  Upload this great plugin:  Twitter Tools, and then you can put your tweets in the sidebar of your blog.

3.  For Firefox, use TwitterFox addon to add or read tweets from the status bar of your browser.  (If you use Internet Explorer, you really should take my advice and go here.)

4.  Then go find a pretty icon like these: Twitter Icons, and upload it to Photobucket.

5.  To put in your sidebar, copy and paste this code to a Text Widget (Found under “Appearance” in the 2.7 version):

<a href="http://www.twitter.com/multimom"><img src=
"insert photobucket url here - begins with http://
and ends with .jpg" alt="" style="padding:5px;
border:none;" /></a>

Replace the red text with your twitter name, and the green text with the direct link of that twitter image you put in photobucket.  If you want your image to line up next to another item, insert this

float:left;

in the style quotation marks (in blue).

Any problems?  Leave a comment and I’ll answer them.  Happy tweeting!