Simon’s Notes

There’s a new social kid on the block. SocialSpark is still in it’s beta stage, but I’m already noticing a fair amount of activity. Social Spark is kind of similar to PayPerPost, except that it has a much more social feel.

Social Spark makes it very easy to connect with other like minded bloggers, but it also allows me to connect with advertisers, which is something that I find quite unique.

I’m still finding my way around, but basically, you want to sign up and make as many friends as you can, you can browse and make friends with other bloggers and with advertisers. If an advertiser likes you, he might give you an opp, which you could earn money from. It is more likely that an advertiser will pick you for an opp if you are one of his friends, so don’t be shy.

There is also a marketplace, just like PPP, where you can browse the public opps. There are 3 types of opps, the ’sponsored post’, the ‘blog sponsorship’, and the ’spark’. A sponsored post is just like a sponsored post in PPP; if your blog qualifies, you can accept the sponsored post and get paid for it.

Blog sponsorship is exactly that, you get paid per day to display a banner from the advertiser. Just like with sponsored posts, your blog has to be approved first.

A spark has no monetary gain (I don’t think), it’s more like a post idea, but some advertisers offer a link back or a review back of your spark.

Why are you still here, go check it out. And while you’re there, check out my profile http://socialspark.com/bloggers/thebaptist, and give me a prop and add me as a friend, I’ll prop you back.

Enjoy

Simon

Filed under: Blogging, Reviews, web 2.0 by Simon Rodrigues
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Ok so I’ve been blogging for about a year now, and while I haven’t been as successful (or as faithful) as I would have liked to be, I do believe that I’ve learned a thing or 2 about blogging, and I’ve certainly identified some thing that I would do differently.

If you’re planning on starting a blog of your own, you’re in for quite a ride. I remember when I started my first blog, and to be honest, it was quite crapy; but the feeling of starting something like a blog is definitely one that I won’t forget (kinda like the same feeling one gets from building something really cool out of Lego, for me anyway). I don’t think it’s easy to get it perfect the first time around, in fact, this blog was the fifth blog that I ever created, and even though it is a marked improvement from the other 4, it’s still far from perfect. So don’t worry too much, just start and everything else will fall into place.

Having said that, read the rest of this post, and maybe you’ll pick up a few pointers that could make your blogging life easier. So here goes.

What I would do differently if I were to start over:

• Have a clear plan for my blog’s theme - This is critical. When I started this blog, I had a vague idea of what I wanted to write about, but I didn’t really sit down and decide exactly what I wanted. If you’re starting a personal blog, then this point isn’t so important, but if you plan on turning some sort of profit from your blog, either from monetization or selling later on, then this point is absolutely vital. If I were to start over, I would spend a good amount of time and energy on this point.
• Develop an SEO strategy - This point ties in closely with the previous one. I’m always kicking myself for having neglected this in the beginning. SEO doesn’t have to be such a huge deal either, I know it can seem daunting, but basically all you’re doing is deciding on a key-phrase (or several) and then just adding it anywhere you can. Of course it can get more complicated than that, but if I had at least done that, I would have been happy. As it stands, I don’t even have a key-phrase that I’m targeting (if you have any ideas for key-phrases that suit this blog, please let me know).
• Curb the over-enthusiasm - I know the feeling, you start your blog with at least 10 posts in mind that the world needs to read today. The reality is that nobody is going to even see them, EVER. When I started this blog, I was churning out new posts daily, often it was more like 2 or 3 daily. I don’t think that many people have read those early posts, and as a result I quickly ran out of things to write about. Pace yourself, that burst of information overload that you experience in the beginning is good, but save those posts and publish them over time. It is much better to publish 3 posts a week, then it is to publish 15 a week for the first month, and 1 a month (if that) thereafter.
• Beware of monetization overkill - For a lot of us, we get attracted to blogging because of the prospect of doing something fun and making money in the process. But that can be a dangerous trap sometimes. Nobody likes a blog that is full of ads, so you much rather sacrifice the few potential cents that could be earned, and concentrate on content, and building a loyal reader base. Once you build a loyal base of followers, you can afford to throw up some ads, and maybe even look at other forms of monetization such as paid reviews, but if you put that as your focus from the beginning, you might find that some people are just not coming back.
• Commenting on other blogs - If I was starting this blog over, I would spend a lot more time commenting on other blogs in my niche. That might seem a little silly, but think of it as handing out your business card. When you start a new business, one of the first things you should do is print up some business cards and get them out there. Commenting on other blogs, in my opinion, is the best way to let the world know you exist, and that you know your stuff. So get active, blogging is about community.
• Wordpress - I started this blog with blogger, but unless you really can’t afford it, you should really go with wordpress (not the free one). Wordpress is the bloggers best friend, there are so many plugins that make life so much easier, and your blog will definitely be of more value if you’re not using a free hosting service (such as blogger). Wordpress also has a large community that is very interested in it’s well being and improvement.

Wow, that was long. I’m sure there is still a lot for me to learn, but I’m sure this would help. If you have anything to add, please let us all know in a comment.

Enjoy

Simon

Filed under: Blogging, Personal by Simon Rodrigues
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In my quest to create a perfect environment for my blogging activities, I decided to look for a text editor that allows me to write posts away from my browser and save them onto my PC’s hard drive.  I believe the correct term is ‘desktop blogging client’, or something in that vein.

Anyway, you might be wondering why I even need another editor.  After all, if I really don’t want to use the wordpress editor, I can always use ScribeFire (awesome firefox plugin).  But I want more.

You see, this morning I started my day by checking out ProBlogger.net, and I happened across a video where Darren explains how he goes about taking a post from an idea to a published post.  The video was very insightful, and I definitely suggest that you check it out.  After I saw that, I kinda got into thinking how cool it would be to have a desktop editor (like word) where I could start writing posts, and save them onto the desktop till they were ready to be published.  That way I could do what Darren talks about, which is have a folder full of post ideas, except that when I refine the idea to the point that it can be published, all I have to do is hit the publish button and magic happens.

So I started searching, and found some cool stuff, some free and some not so free.  And to save you some time, I’m going to be a pal and list the three editors that appealed the most to me (so far)

1. Windows Live Writer - This one looks real nice, and I’m actually writing this post with this editor.  The one thing that stood out for me, and that I don’t like about it, is that you can’t specify which directory you want to save your drafts into, they automatically go into ‘my documents\my weblog posts\drafts’.  The reason why I like it, is cause it’s easy to use and looks so cool.  If you want a better review for ‘windows live writer’ check out this post.
2. w.blogger - With w.blogger I can choose which folder I want to save my drafts into, I like that, but that’s about all.  It’s a very ugly looking editor, and not very user friendly, judging by my very limited user experience.
3. BlogDesk - BlogDesk will probably become my editor of choice, it is very simple, user friendly, and I can choose the directory to save my drafts into, and it even looks goodish (not as good as option number 1 though).  All in all, I’m quite chuffed with this editor, and look forward to some happy blogging with it.

A really cool feature that all of these editors have is the ability to set a future date and time to publish the post.

That’s it, I know it isn’t a very detailed review of either of them, but that’s because you have to test them out for yourself.  Oh, and in case you’re wondering why it’s so important for me to specify where I save my stuff, it’s not cause I’m organized or anything, cause I’m not, but it’s actually because I have like a phobia of ‘my documents’ I’ve never saved anything there in my life, and I only go in there when it’s an emergency, true story; maybe things will be different when I get a Mac.

Cheers all, and good night

Simon

Filed under: Blogging, web 2.0 by Simon Rodrigues
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Hi guys, in the last video I mentioned a bit about paddings and margins in css, but I fear that I may have left things a little more confusing. So I made this video where I explain paddings and margins in a bit more detail. Hope it helps.

Enjoy

Simon

Filed under: Blogging, tutorials, web development by Simon Rodrigues
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Hi guys, here’s the second part of my blogger template tutorial. In the first tutorial I showed you how to resize your template, and in this one I’m basically going to show you how you can add a header image, and also how you can get rid of some of the unnecessary borders.

Cool, hope you guys liked it, and don’t forget to give me some feedback, even if the tutorial wasn’t helpful to you, I’d still like to know what you think of my style, and what I can improve for future videos.

Enjoy

Simon

Filed under: Blogging, tutorials, web development by Simon Rodrigues
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This is my first video tutorial, and it’s the first in a series of tutorials where I will go through making your generic blogger template look kickass. Let me start off by saying that you should switch over to wordpress, but this tutorial is for all of you that are starting out, or maybe you just love blogger, who am I to judge.

Anyway, here it is:

I hope you enjoyed it. This was my first ever video, so please critique it. And if you have any ideas for tutorials, or any computer related questions, let me know.

Cheers guys

Simon

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Filed under: Blogging, tutorials, web development by Simon Rodrigues
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I know I’ll be using this tool. I just realized that I should probably check how my blog looks in explorer, and as always, they never fail to disappoint (partly cause I only checked it on IE6, it looks ok on IE7). If you’re using firefox, please stay that way, and if you aren’t maybe now is a good time to start.

Anyway, my new blog theme looks very ugly, indeed, in explorer and I’m going to have to do some major repair work. Thankfully, I stumbled (literally) upon this nifty tool called browsershots. Basically, with this tool you can take screen shots of what your site will look like in different browsers, that should save me some time having to always load it up in explorer (the less I see of that browser the better). It’s amazing how pretty much every browser understands whats going on except explorer, you’d think that with all the money that users throw at Microsoft, that something would come right, anyway, enough ranting.

Simon

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Filed under: Blogging, web 2.0 by Simon Rodrigues
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Block Posters is a very very cool tool. Some people might think its a bit useless, but I have a friend that would have been very pleased to find out about it a few days ago.

Basically you can upload a photo, then you slice it up in as many parts as you want, then you download the slices in A4 size, after that you can do what you like. That would be useful if you wanted to take a photo and make a large poster out of it.

One of the coolest things about this little tool is that there is absolutely nothing else to it, you don’t have to register an account or anything like that, everything is pretty painless and straightforward.

Simon

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Filed under: Blogging, web 2.0 by Simon Rodrigues
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Ok, I know I just updated my blog theme a few weeks ago, but I wasn’t quite happy with it. The theme I had before was pretty cool… if I was only reviewing awesome computer games, sounds like fun but thats not what I do.

I think this theme suits me and this blog a lot more.

Hope you guys like it.

Simon

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Filed under: Blogging, Themes by Simon Rodrigues
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If you are reading this, that means that the firefox add-on, ‘ScribeFire’, works. This is an absolutely awesome extension. With ScribeFire you can write posts to your blog directly from anywhere in your browser.

To get going with ScribeFire you firstly need to download it from the firefox website, once its installed you will get a very small link on the bottom of you firefox browser that opens the post editor. You have to configure your scribefire with your blog which is quite easily done by using the wizard on the right panel. After that you’re all ready to go.

Have fun

Simon

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Filed under: Blogging, web 2.0 by Simon Rodrigues
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