Blogs vs Websites

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Before I begin I want to state that in my opinion they are both websites. They both have an online presence. A blog  or weblog is really a type of website. Many people are even considering using a well-formatted blog as their brochure website.

If you have the right template or theme, you can actually put your brochure on a blog.

To be very honest with you Ray and I love blogs because they give us the opportunity to make rapid changes.

 

BLOG

WEBSITE

Static

Only if you seldom post

***

Dynamic

*****very interactive

You can put up surveys, polls and visitors can leave comments.

Can be but seldom

Search engines

Love blogs, fresh content makes it search engine friendly

Will have to work real hard to get good rankings

Fresh, updated content

**** You can update yourself whenever you want without a webmaster

Depends on how often you update pages. Most of it is dependent upon a webmaster. Creating a non-blog website can be hard.and the challenges discourage frequent updates.

Software

Runs in the background of a blog. This software makes it easy to frequently add content to a blog.

Many blog programs and ready-to-use-out-of-the-box blogging services gets rid of the labor intensive function of setting up and building web pages.

Many website software programs depend upon you knowing HTML. Building a page the old way

Style and Design

 Oodles of templates available free with many blogging programs. If you run installed software, like wordpress from wrordpress.org there are thousands of free themes. 

You can even have someone help you in changing the themes or  go with the ones available.

You can also purchase themes or templates with more bells and whistles.

 Yes, you have zillions of templates out there. And if you have a great designer you will have a good design.

 

 There are more things that can be said about the differences. But we wanted to present some of the points now and will share more along the way. 

Now you can create a blog page without it being any harder than writing and sending an email or posting a message to a discussion forum. Fun and informative blogs can be done with as much technical knowledge that it takes to send an email to your grandchildren.

Do you have some insights you would like to share?

Ray and Rosie

Boomers-Protect Yourself Online-Pt.1

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It is true there are some real sneaky scams online. It is the fear many of us as Boomers have when it comes to the internet. Nevertheless, we can protect ourselves.

This month’s issue of Consumer Reports gave a great overview of some common swindles and some prevention tips. I will share part of them today and another part later.

Do Our Homework!

It is harder to be taken advantage of if we do our homework. Consumer reports suggests the following:

  • Always check out the license, reputation and references of any company or individual before we do business with them
  • Give up the dream of GETTING SOMETHING FOR NOTHING.
  • Trust our gut when something smells fishy.

2 Common Scams

  • There is a problem with your bank account.

You may get a message by email saying there is a problem with your bank account. Often you are asked to give your online password to a phony email account or web site. Consumer Reports indicated that that one recent e-mail “security alert” claimed to be from Bank of America and directed online users to “reconfirm” their a count information by going to a fake Bank of America Web site and entering their online banking ID and password.

  • “Help me move millions” unsolicited emails

Many of us have already gotten these emails. Now I notice they say catchy phrases in the address line like “God Bless you”. It is an opportunity to share in a percentage of millions of dollars that a supposedly government official is trying to transfer illegally out of a foreign country in return for bank account numbers or some other identifying information.

The best thing we could do is “Just Say NO! I also send the email to SPAM in my email service.

Many of us are just putting our toes in the water of doing things online. Now my grands want me to Blog? Ha! But it can we done with safety and security. We will just learn how to do it and keep our eyes open.

Source: Consumer Reports-September 2007

Pt. 2 will cover Identity Theft.

Do you have some online protection information you could share?

Rosie

What is a Blog?

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We thought this first post should tell you what a blog means. We never knew until we asked. So here is a quick and simple definition. Wikipedia is a great online encyclopedia. Now we know some folks may not like some of the postings which are all done by volunteers. But we think they are right on with their explanation of a blog. Here it is:

A blog (a portmanteau of web log) is a website where entries are written in chronological order and commonly displayed in reverse chronological order. “Blog” can also be used as a verb, meaning to maintain or add content to a blog.

Blogs provide commentary or news on a particular subject such as food, politics, or local news; some function as more personal online diaries. A typical blog combines text, images, and links to other blogs, web pages, and other media related to its topic. The ability for readers to leave comments in an interactive format is an important part of many blogs. Most blogs are primarily textual, although some focus on art (artlog), photographs (photoblog), sketchblog, videos (vlog), music (MP3 blog), audio (podcasting) or sexual topics (Adult blog), and are part of a wider network of social media.

In May 2007, blog search engine Technorati was tracking more than 71 million blogs.[1]

Note: This blog will never ever deal with Adult blog material. Just thought we should let you know right from the start.

Of course there are many many more definitions. So if you have a favorite one just click on the comment button below and leave it.

Thanks and we are going to have an exciting time.

Ray and Rosie

Art Coach and Idea Coach