Monthly Archives: November 2007

Blogging Directories-Pt.2-Truth Laid Bear

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Today I want to share a blogging directory called , truthlaidbear.com.

Now notice that one of the words in the name is ‘bear’. When you go to the clearly laid out site you will see it is a nature oriented site. Very creatively laid out and the blogging community is called an ecosystem.

Take the time to look at the types of blogs and interesting conversations and opinions that are shared.

Signing up is easy just be sure to click on add another site when you are ready to add your site for the first time. They also give you the option to add up to two other url names for your site.

Do not be confused by this because some people have what is called a redirect on their names. For example, I own the name rosiesboomerreview.com but I also have rosieboomerreview.com. I set up the redirect on my host because I was misspelling the name and thought others might also. They both go to the same site.

Once you have submitted your blogs you will get code t hat can be placed in your site.

The code for my blog submission was placed into my code section of the blog and it generated the information below:
My Ecosystem Details

Now back to the article directory. It has excellent testimonial reviews. And what I am excited about is the section on blog carnivals. Ok, I hear you asking, “What’s a blog carnival?”

A Blog Carnival is specific type of blog community. . Blog Carnivals typically collect together links pointing to blog articles on a specific niched topic. Often the editors who gather all the articles will give their opinions and remarks.

So explore this directory and see if it is a good fit for you.

Does anyone else have any experience being in this directory?

Rosie

What is the Difference between a Blog Search Engine and Blog Directory? New Blogging Boomers Want to Know

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There is a big difference between a blog search engine and a blog directory. I know most of you reading this have experienced using both but for those new blogging boomers I thought this explanation might be helpful.

A blog search engine’s main focuses on finding blog entries that match specific keywords and blog entries that link to whatever website addresses are entered by the person doing a search. Search engines use spiders and bots to get Web pages and software programs to get listings indexed. However, blog directories are predominately run and maintained by human beings.

“Now wait a minute”, someone is saying, “what in the world is a “bot” and “spider?” Well, I am glad you asked. The Wikepedia definition of a bot is:

Internet bots, also known as web robots, WWW robots or simply bots, are software applications that run automated tasks over the Internet. Typically, bots perform tasks that are both simple and structurally repetitive, at a much higher rate than would be possible for a human editor alone. The largest use of bots is in web spidering in which an automated script fetches, analyses and files information from web servers at many times the speed of a human. Each server can have a file called robots.txt, containing rules for the spidering of that server that the bot is supposed to obey.

In addition to their uses outlined above, bots may also be implemented where a response speed faster than that of humans is required (e.g., gaming bots and auction-site robots) or less commonly in situations where the emulation of human activity is required, for example chat bots.

Special note: If you host your blog yourself many of the hosts will provide a statistical breakdown of traffic to your blog that includes the activity of those spiders and robots traveling around your site.

Now let’s go back to blog directories and blog search engines. It is important to note that blog search engines have huge databases. Whereas, blog directories do not have such a huge database.

Special note: Some of the blog directories like Dmoz.org use human editors to help index the blogs submitted. If you are a boomer blogger with editing skills this is a great opportunity. Usually the sites will have a place for you to make inquiries.

If would probably help if I share some examples of blog search engines and directories. Many of you have probably heard the names. If I said blogcatalog, blogwise or bloggernity do they sound familiar? Well they are all blog directories. Of course I am only scratching the surface. There are lots of them.

If would probably help if I share some examples of blog search engines and directories. Many of you have probably heard the names. If I said blogcatalog, blogwise or bloggernity do they sound familiar? Well they are all blog directories. Of course I am only scratching the surface. There are lots of them.

Examples of blog search engines are Google’s Blogsearch and BlogSearchEngine. But once again there are others worthy of exploration.

Well, I hope that helps it sure helps me to share it with you.

Rosie

 

Blogging Directories-Pt. 1-DMOZ and Wills Domain

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I am going to begin a series on blogging directories. This is essential for bloggers because you can submit your site to them and get increased traffic and higher search engine rankings.

Now, note that there are a lot of directories. Some are more popular than others so I am going to list a few at a time with each post.

1. www.wilsdomain.com

When you go here it will allow you to search for other blogs. When you click on submit a site it will take you to the DMOZ open source directory. Now this is the papa of website directories. You must be very specific in the category you are submitting your site to.

Now, If you are already in dmoz.org do not submit your site to wilsdomain. It will be a waste of time. Now, with that in mind lets look more closely to DMOZ.com

2. www.dmoz.org

They state:

Open Directory Project is the largest, most comprehensive human-edited directory of the Web. It is constructed and maintained by a vast, global community of volunteer editors. on their site.

Just a note, this is really good for any retired editors who could contribute a lot of value to this open source directory. They have a link where you can sign up.

If you seriously consider becoming an editor I strongly suggest that you also visit their blog.

Blogrovr.com

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Blogrovr  save you time. Just like a good dog RovR fetches posts from your favorite blogs about anything you’re browsing, and shows you summaries. You can open read posts without leaving the web page you were on. Blogrovr will also suggest popular items. You can download blogrovr directly if you are on the firefox browser. Of course it does lots more.

Bottom line is if you have subscribed to lots of other blogs this will help you keep up and read the posts that are relevant.

Many of you, I know, are on Explorer and I may be wrong but I think you need a firefox browser installed for it to work. I personally think everyone should have Firefox installed. Just don’t think it is healthy to have only one browser.

So do check it out and I welcome comments from some seasoned blogging boomers out there to share their experiences.  In all honesty I have it installed and only put 4 blogs into the feeder. But Ray on the other hand has trained that puppy to fetch all his blogs. Every time I go onto his computer the dog is barking and showing his excitement about the new posts that have been generated since he was gone.

So join me in checking it out and going deeper.

Rosie

Blogging and Thanksgiving

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As I sat at the thanksgiving table several of my relatives asked, almost at the same time, “Whats a blog?” “Why blog?” As my husband and I explained they became more interested. Later that evening I searched on google blogsearch to answer find blogs on areas of their interest.

If you go to google and enter the term blogsearch it will bring you to a wonderful link called blogsearch. This is a special google search engine in beta status (That means it is still now and they are working out the bugs.)

Blogsearch will allow you to key in any search term and enjoy seeing all the blogs in all kinds on platforms out in blog world talking about that topic. For example, my sister-in law had a specific  sims2 gaming question. Guess what, we found the answer!

So check out the site and search on your topic of choice. I also strongly suggest  observing the different blogging platforms.

Hope you had a great thanksgiving. So very much to be thankful for.

Rosie

Get Boomer Friendly Themes/Templates

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It has come to my attention that it is important to have themes or templates that are designed for the older eyes in mind. Not don’t get me wrong I am not one of those folks that say everything is old for boomers. But the reality is that some themes or templates have real small font sizes in the posts.

I really became aware of this when someone in a blogging community was kind enough to let me know they had a hard  time reading my posts in a new blog I just set up called rosiesboomerreview.com

I must tell you  that if you go there now you will see a theme that I am changing but trying out called “Notes” . It is real hard on the eyes with bright colors and the print is not that great but I just like it. But don’t worry I am changing it.

Now if you are real tech savvy you can go into the theme editor and change the code to reflect the new font size in some themes or templates. However, if you can separate from the allure of the design just consider downloading a new theme.

I went to google to search for a new theme by saying “lime green large font wordpress themes” (I really like lime green this year) Many free wordpress themes came up and I had fun reviewing them. But did not fine one with lime green and large fonts that works for me. So the search continues.

My Blogging Boomer Husband Has A Brand New Site

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My gifted husband of 30 years (Feb. 18) and co-writer for this blog has a brand new site called Camera Boomer

On a recent post he shows me on a really bad hair day with pensive thought lines in my forehead. Now you can really see that I am a boomer but I have a youthful mind.

We are in a historic church in Elizabeth, NJ. He had some of his artwork there in a show. He had just taken a photo of me outside looking at the writing on a tombstone and saying “There is not enough space to write a full summary of a person’s life.” Any one who knows me knows that I felt a keynote coming on…

This is a picture I took of him while walking the park early one morning. He is facing a lake. Of course the picture he is taking probably came out better than the one I took but you get the picture. (Smile).

Ray with camera

I am posting this announcement in this site as an illustration for new boomer bloggers. Observe the following:

1. I included a picture in my post by using the upload feature in wordpress.org. After I resized the picture I uploaded it and clicked the option for thumbnail. I did that because I did not want the entire post to contain the picture.

2. I wrote the name of the blog in the post and clicked on the link in the visual editor to create a hyperlink to the blog. This will provide a link from my site to his site.

3. I mentioned the last post to his blog. What you cannot see is the fact that I clicked on the trackback option which is after the upload feature. When you click on the (+) it will become (- )then I placed the exact page location from his blog that has his post in the blank space provided. He will be notified via a comment that his blog was mentioned in my blog.

4. I encouraged all of you to visit his blog. Hopefully, you become part of his traffic and keep going to see the awe inspiring pictures and glean from the information he provides. The added benefit is the emotional relaxation you will get with each visit.

5. I shared more about the “old school” team so you know that we are real and not just machines trying to get your traffic.

So I hope this post was helpful and I also hope you visit the new site.

Thanks for listening.

Rosie

What is a Boomer?

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We have been asked the definition of a boomer. Well we like the wiki encyclopedia

definition below:

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia


a baby boomer is a person (human) born between 1946 and 1964 in the United Kingdom, the United States, Canada, or Australia. Following World War II, these countries experienced an unusual spike in birth rates, a phenomenon commonly known as the baby boom. The term is iconic and more properly capitalized as Baby Boomers. The terms “baby boomer” and “baby boom” along with others (e.g. “boomies” or “boomers”) are also used in countries with demographics that did not mirror the sustained growth in American families over the same interval.

Another site, who calls themselves The Baby Boomer HeadQuarters, www.bbhq.com ,
makes the following observations:

In 2007, that would make us between 43 and 61 years old. There are about 75 million boomers in the U.S.; we currently represent about 29% of the U.S. population. (In Canada, we are sometimes known as “Boomies”; there are 6 million of us there. In Britain, our generation is known as “the bulge.”)

The term is used (nobody knows who coined the phrase) to define the “boom” in births after WWII. Our Boomer Stats page identifies the number of U.S. births during the 40s, 50s and 60s.
However, there may be other definitions or insights you like, so please share them.

Ray and Rosie

Blogging Platforms You Can Use-MSN Spaces-Pt.6

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I just completed a blog on MSN Spaces in less than 30 mins. with only 3 phone call interruptions. It is really boomer friendly. Go to spaces.msn.com and sign up for an email identity. I was able to then create a space, customize it, upload pictures and make a blog entry.

The blog you create will be hosted on msn’s site. Thus, you will have the .spaces.live.com just as you would if you did wordpress.com’s or blogger’s platform. If they host it you will then have to use their stuff as part of your blog name.

This blog platform will allow you up to 8mgs of space for pictures. Plus you can upload flash videos and photos in your blog post.

The name of my new blog is creativeideasforyou.spaces.live.com. So give it a try. I will post more when I get other insights as I use it.

Rosie

PS You can create a list of links to other sites if you pick the list feature on your space.

Take Advantage of A Free Webinar Series For Computer Skills

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A friend of mine has a great free webinar series that is perfect for boomer bloggers who can use more computer tips. Well that includes me thats why I attend. I am posting a section from an email I received with the link to the webinar sign up.

It’s really a lot of fun and she is a great teacher. Her name is Toolie!

In tomorrow’s  F r e e  Laptop Skills Webinar, we’re going to look at 3 types of online project management software: personal, groupware, and virtual office management. Each of these types has a purpose and can help you get a handle on your workload.

Choose a convenient time to join us tomorrow!

12 Noon Pacific / 3 pm Eastern
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Reserve your Webinar seat now at:
https://www.gotomeeting.com/register/906270843

6 pm Pacific / 9 pm Eastern

 

PS If you read this post after Nov. 14 just email her toolie@tooliethetravelguide.com so you can be on her list for the next session.

Rosie