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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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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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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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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