[Event] Weekly Guest Bloggers

I just announced my first event, so please take a look and if you're interested in participating contact me via my email link.

Michele ~ Chef Michele's Adventures

A better ad network?

Hey all, I am sure lots of you all use adsense, as I have, but I wanted to let you know about this other adnetwork called Chitika eMiniMalls that I cruised by today and added to my blog at Nika's Culinaria (you can see two different types of ads from them throughout the blog).
They have a higher payrate than adsense and the ads seem to draw people in by ther interactive nature as well as their targeting ( am waiting to see how well it does that but you do get nice ads for wine and Fois Gras on my site now)

In addition to those, I also suggest putting up an affiliate button because the number one thing people say about our visitors is that they are very likely bloggers too and might be interested in a new blog ad network.

Check it out at:





Remember that they are dynamic so each page load brings different ads to different people.


This post was written by Nika at Nika's Culinaria.

Media: Food Blogs hit the Christian Science Monitor

Good coverage for a few food bloggers is in Thursday's issue online here.


This post was written by Alanna from A Veggie Venture.

(Podcasting) A Fun Way to Use Podcasting

I am guessing that most bloggers are interested in learning about new technologies. I am way behind most of you in this area, and have appeciated all the help I've gotten from many of you. I have learned so much! I recently had a chance to take a class in podcasting at the University of Utah. I came up with the idea of making this podcast of a Christmas Message for the people who read Kalyn's Kitchen. I thought other food bloggers might be interested in seeing this use of podcasting.

This post was written by Kalyn from Kalyn's Kitchen.

[blogger] Pictures
I can't for the life of me get a picture into my profile. I went through the whole "hello" file and still can't get it to work.
Any clear help?


This post was written by heather from eating4one

Chronicle article on making $ off your blog

In case you don't live in the SF area, the Chronicle had a story about bloggers selling merchandise and in other ways trying to make a living off of their blogs.

The link is
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2005/12/19/BUG07G9CT61.DTL&hw=blog&sn=030&sc=346

The story ran on 12/19, so if you are interested, out of inclination or horror, check it out soon in case it becomes unavailable in the future. I believe there is also a podcast on the topic.

[blogger] Recent Comments hack when viewed on Safari

Is anyone on blogger using the Recent Comments hack on BloggerHacks? I've noticed that in Safari, the recent comments are in some random order, it works fine on MSIE and Firefox though. I've seen other people noticing it too, but haven't found a fix. Anyone?

This post was written by Gerald from Foodite

[Stats] Question about links

.

So yesterday my stats indicated hundreds and hundreds (and hundreds) of people came to my blog via a post on Slashfood from August, that I had left a comment on with a link.

It just seems super-super weird to me. I am (just out of curiosity) wondering if anyone knows if that post (About Grilled Cheese Day) was featured in a newspaper or a magazine or something? (Andrew? Sarah? Beth? You all post on Slashfood...don't you?)

I looked around at Technorati and whatnot couldn't find anything that would explain this (excellent) phenom.

I know this is silly, but I really am curious why a post from August with a comment and a link would suddenly have people swarming to my blog.

Thanks!

Rachael

This query brought to you with lovin' care by Rachael from Fresh Approach Cooking

(Misc) Blog Polls

Help! I'm doing a contest this weekend, and need Blog Poll to cooperate. It's having trouble with the code - can't get the results graph to appear. Anyone have any experience with it/Blogger before?


This post was written by Sweetnicks from Sweetnicks

[idea] would anyone like to?

I've just been brainstorming ideas for my blog and have something I want to try for the first week of 2006. If this works out well I will make it a weekly event on my blog. This is what I would like to do. Each day for week 1 of 2006 I would like to feature a guest blogger. Each guest will write a post for my blog. In exchnage all that I ask is that the day before your post appears that you mention (with a link back), on your blog that you will be guest posting for me and on what day. Seems to me this will be a great way to help each other gain more readers. If interested, please email me at chefmichele@gmail.com. I will accept posts with content related to my blog subject matter and pictures are certainly welcome!

Michele from Chef Michele's Adventures

Typepad down: Menu for Hope campaign pages gone!

Hi everyone!

Those of you on Typepad would have known this already, Typepad went down last night. When they came back up they used a backup copy from a few days ago, and lost all the posts from the last few days!

The problem is all the Menu for Hope pages are GONE! They might come back, I'm sure folks at Typepad are working on it, but I don't want to lose momentum on this. We've been doing so well and go up by over a thousand every day! The last I checked we were at $6,473.00 and unfortunately there had not been any donation since Typepad went down. People must be wondering what is going on when they come to Chez Pim and couldn't find any of the post on Menu for Hope.

Would those of you NOT on Typepad put a post up about this? Please inform your readers that the fundraising page is temporarily down, and we are working to get it up as soon as possible. In the meantime, the donation page at FirstGiving is still up.

Is there anyone who has a copy of the entire menu? If you do you might want to speak up so the rest of us can point to your copy while Typepad works on the problem. Thanks so much.

keep your fingers crossed!
Pim



This post was written by Pim from Chez Pim

[Blogger] HELP! My page is off center!

What am I doing wrong? When I look at IE part of my page is not showing properly. How do I fix this problem?

http://chefmichele.blogspot.com

Michele

[RSS] new reader in gmail

Read more details here.

I haven't tried it out yet. Will do.


This post was written by Sam from Becks & Posh

VenderPro.com: BEWARE!

On Friday, I was very excited to receive this e-mail:

I've spent a lot of time at the Gastro Gear website and I think your T-shirts are perfect for our stores. I especially like your "Garlic me all over" and "Great legs" designs. We work hand in hand with the largest stores in the country, plus thousands of small to medium sized specialty businesses stretched across the U.S.. If you want the opportunity to sell your products through major retailers like Sears, Macys, Nordstrom, Robinsons May, JC Penney, Target, QVC, HSN, etc ... plus the other 51005 gift stores, 11329 men's clothing stores, 39089 women's clothing stores, 7129 children's clothing stores, and over 24000 mail-order catalogs ... check us out at http://www.VendorPro.com

Sincerely,
Mark Adams
VendorPro.com

And I mean really excited. I called my husband and told him about it (he also has a line of t-shirts designed around poker and playing cards), and we were considering whether to pay the $350 and join this outfit.

Thank goodness my business mentor told me, "Google them and see what you find out." I did so, and learned that they have a Better Business Bureau rating of F. More than that, complaints are scattered all over the internet, discussing how disreputable they are.

The moral of the story is: "If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is."

Beware. Most of the complaints were that the letter is just a template into which the slurky salespeople insert Your Name Here...although this guy clearly had seen my designs, which he cited.


This post was written by Tana from Small Farms: A Blog from the Heart

Using an image as your title *on a modified* blogger template

Due to bandwidth issues, I have to change from typepad to blogger for one of my sites.

As far as I can tell, I cannot just copy and paste the template into blogger. So I found a suitable
modified template from an online source to use.

My problem is the fact that previous food blog
school posts about how to use an image for your title/header are no longer applicable to this modified
template (at least that is what I think, forgive me if I am mistaken)

Can anyone tell me what to change in my template (that follows) so that the image i want to use (found here: http://static.flickr.com/34/72546532_fe0d06bbeb_o.jpg )
shows up as my title/header for my blogger site?

Modified Template


This post was written by Ali from Something So Clever

Requesting Opinions on Convection Ovens

This is not a blog related question, but it is a food-related question so I hope no one minds me asking it here. (I don't know of a better place to get opinions from highly skilled home cooks.)

Every year for Christmas "Santa" brings me some kind of new cooking toy. I have a 1940's era gas stove that I love and want to keep (especially since Dr. Biggles taught me via the internet how to turn up the burners), but the oven is not that reliable. It's ok for something like a casserole, but anything where you need to cook it at a very specific temperature is iffy.

I was thinking of getting one of those new countertop toaster oven - convection oven combinations since I have tons of counter space. I like the idea of the convection oven cooking more quickly. I'm wondering if any of you use a convection oven, and do you like the results? Are they mostly just for baking, or are they good for roasting? I'd love to hear from anyone who has one.

Thanks in advance.

Posted by Kalyn from Kalyn's Kitchen.

(Misc) Graphics Help

I want to make business cards and labels that feature my banner. I have it as a jpeg, but when I shrink it down small enough, it gets either fuzzy or distorted or both. Can anyone help? I need it small enough to put on the upper half of a business card, so I can put text on the bottom. I'm also trying to make labels to put on Sweetnicks Cookie Care Packages for the holidays. Suggestions? Advice? Help?!


This post was written by Sweetnicks from Sweetnicks

Blogger won't upload my images!

I was so excited tonight because I just wrote up my first restaurant review. And then I was completely deflated when I could not get Blogger to upload the one pic I wanted for the post. Everytime I try to upload and it completes it (with the blue button that says "Done"), but there's not image in the post! Has anyone dealt with this before? Is it just Blogger being finicky or something I'm doing?


This post was written by Rose from The Hungry Rose

[Blogger] making the extended post link

I was looking around the FBS archives as well as on Blogger's help page but couldn't find any information on the code to shorten my post and create a link to extend it. Is it done in the template or can it be done in the post itself?

This post was written by Rose from The Hungry Rose

[Feedburner] What Am I Doing Wrong?

I have a Feedburner animated graphic that I use on some message boards but often times it will display "JP: Watch This Spot For Future". When I log into feedburner it says my atom feed is obsolete. It says I need to update it, but there in no info on HOW to update it. Any ideas? Usually this happens when I post any type of pic on the blog. If it's just a text post this does not happen. You can see the graphic I am speaking of at http://crockpotadventures.blogspot.com on the left side towards the top.

Michele - Chef Michele's Adventures

[Digital Cameras] Shopping For A New Camera?

When my digital camera had a massive stroke two weeks ago, I panicked (because I knew next to nothing about buying a new camera.) And then I posted a little cry for help on my blog, asking for advice from readers. The response was overwhelming and incredibly helpful. Several readers told me that the info helped them, too, so I thought I would share it with my school mates.

My two main criteria were that the camera cost $300 or less and that it have a fully automatic option so I could use it right away and figure out the rest at my leisure. People offered up advice on everything from specific models (including great sounding pricier ones) to buying rechargeable batteries. There are also several excellent links. So if you're in the market for a new camera and don't know much about the zillions of choices out there, click here to read all the comments.

For more info on digital cameras, you can do a search through the Food Blog S'Cool Archives.

So what camera did I end up buying? The Canon PowerShot A520 from Amazon. $175, no tax, free shipping, and tons of favorable reviews from various sources. So far I love it. All the photos posted on Farmgirl Fare from 12/8/05 to the present were taken with it (and none were retouched, etc.). Downloading photos into the computer is a snap (even for me).

I also followed the advice to invest in rechargeable nimh batteries and a charger. I bought this Sony Battery Charger with four 2300 nimh AA batteries for under $20 at Amazon. It works great. You can charge two at a time and always have two fully charged and ready to go.

NOTE: I have also discovered that nimh batteries burn out a LOT faster in very cold weather.


This post was written by Farmgirl from Farmgirl Fare

[HTML] Columns?

Does anyone know how I can have columns in my post. Is it possible.
I am thinking of two or three columns going down instead of one body of text. This is just for a one off post - I am not planning to be columned for the rest of my blogging life.
Ta, tarra...

This post was written by Sam from Becks & Posh

[Event] Food Fete

Are you going to the Fancy Food Show in January in San Francisco? If so, you may also want to attend the Food Fete. I went last year, along with a few other bloggers and it was a good event. Head over to the web site if you are interested. At the site, click on "press" for more information about attending.

Food Fête is a public relations and marketing event for the gourmet food and beverage industry. We produce sponsored press receptions that showcase gourmet food and beverage products driving current food trends.

Oh! to attend the Fancy Food Show, pre-register here. FYI a business card with your title and blog is about all you need as "credentials" to qualify as press.

This post was written by Amy from Cooking with Amy

(Misc) New Blog Directory

Got an e-mail today about a blog directory (as I'm sure some of you also received). I assume it's new since when I went to register, I was the first food blogger (!), but I thought you guys might be interested.

Add URL Blog


This post was written by Sweetnicks from Sweetnicks

Blogger and photos

This may be old news to some, but I was delighted to discover that I could use the blogger image uploader to put in a series of photos and then go to the edit html (as opposed to the tab labeled compose) and then cut and paste the photos to where I wanted them in the post.

Since I have been having issues with Hello and haven't tried flicker yet, it seemed a simple solution.

If you try this, I think it is easier to write your post and then move the photos.

Hope this helps someone.

Posted by FJK of Blog Appetit

[Blogger] Too Many Posts?

Last night as well as this morning, Blogger has been running extremely slow for me. I now have over 700 posts so I am wondering if that is the problem and if so, will switching to a paid service take care of it? (Switching all my posts over is not something I look forward to, but I'm willing to pay the price - literally and figuratively - if that will resolve the issue.)

Thanks in advance!

This post was written by Cathy from Chief Family Officer

[Recipe] Stollen MEME

Hi Guys,
I know as foodies most of us are very "prepared" for christmas and have the finer details down pat. But just incase there is any extra room on your Christmas table, or you feel like trying something different, I have posted a recipe for Weinacht Stollen (A yeasted german christmas cake). If any other bloggers want to make the stollen and share their experiances then I will post a round-up.

Merry Christmas Everyone!

This post was written by Clare Eats from Eatstuff

[Posting] Help! How do I make the pictures, links?

Hey kids,

I have a Mac (gack) and use Firefox.

While trying to do my round up for My Blog Went Up In Flames, I thought it would be super nifty to have the photos be links, only I have no clue how that could happen.

Can anyone explain this in super layman's terms?

Merci!
Rachael



This query was written with lovin' care by Rachael from Fresh Approach Cooking

Google Adsense - Promoting Your Blog to Advertisers

FYI - For those of you who use Google Adsense on your blog, Google is now putting an "Advertise on this site" message on many of the ads. You can can customize to some degree the look and content of the landing page when someone clicks on this link from an ad on your site. Advertisers can now specifically request your site to have their ads run on in the Google Adwords program.

To find out how to customize the landing page with your logo and content, log into Adsense and select, "My Account" from the menu options. Scroll down to the bottom to "Onsite Advertiser Sign-Up" to edit.

This post was written by Elise of Simply Recipes

[event]Menu for Hope II: last call for participation

Hi there,

I'd like to drop another note to invite participation to my Menu for Hope II. We are raising money to support the victims of the earthquake in northern India and Pakistan.

You can read more about it in my previous Foodblogscool posting here. Basically, I'm asking food bloggers to offer up a gift for your readers to raffle. Each $5 donation will get a virtual raffle ticket. The donor can specify which gift they want. Each blogger will only be responsible for coming up with the gift, and the shipping cost to send that gift to the winner. Oh, right, and for a blog post about their gift, I will run the roundup of everything on offer on our Menu for Hope II next Monday.

I've already got a lot of bloggers who agreed to participate, but most of them are of the usual suspects variety, which is a good thing, mind you. Who wouldn’t want to be in the company of Clotilde, Adam, David, Alder, Heidi, Sam, Kate, Amy, to name but a few? But I'd really like to include a lot more of you whom I don’t' normally have an opportunity to play with. The more the merrier, no? And it's also for a very good cause.

Don't be afraid that you might not have anything fancy enough to offer. I've got pledged gifts ranging from a jar of home-made jam, to cookbooks old and new, to a fancy basket of goodies solicited from gourmet shops --and even to a chance to 'own' your very own sheep (guess who that's from). Anything you think your readers wouldn't mind giving just $5 for a chance to win it would be enough.

Please email me, chezpim@gmail.com, or leave a comment here to let me know you'd like to participate. And tell your blogging friends! As I said, the more the merrier! Hopefully we could raise a good amount of money for this very worthy cause.

Thanks so much,
Pim

This post was written by Pim from Chezpim.typepad.com

does anyone know some shortcuts.

Does anyone knows some shortcut ? I have created several blogs to sort out the category of my posts, now, I decided to have 1 blog that I call home.. I just knew recently that it doesnt show my old post when u search in technorati under "search this blog" I'd like to have my other posts to show in my homepage when being searched for the sake of filing... is there anyway I could do some shortcut other than posting old posts in my home page? I dont like to post a list of links either in my home page. The thought of doing everything again is getting into my nerve especially that hello isnt working.

[RSS] new Reader (Beta) from google

Check it out here at Reader/lens. I just started playing with it.


This post was written by Sam from Becks & Posh

DNS for typepad

I know someone must have worked this through and I am getting absolutely nowhere with Typepad support and today's the deadline to switch things. I am hoping for a simple answer here.

Typepad recently sent out mail saying they needed DNS changes for all their mapped domains; all they are asking for is a single CNAME that maps the subdomain to their server, like this:
blog (points to) kitchenmage.typepad.com

This is how I tried to set it up when I first mapped my domain to the blog and it fails, so I added an A record to point to the IP address of kitchenmage.typepad.com, which works. However, the address is apparently subject to change so it may not work for long.

When I go back to just the CNAME it all stops, due to no DNS resolution. (duh)

Their help says stupid things like, leave the A record at the default. Default? There is no *default* for A records.

I've got five blogs mapped and if they all stop working I'm going to be a very unhappy mage. (and it's seldom good for people when mages get unhappy, for people are crispy and taste good with ketchup...no wait, that's when dragons get mad...never mind)

So, who wants to show me their DNS settings? I'd prefer to hear from someone with a DNS server, not DNS set up at a registrar, mostly because I need to know what was done and registrars are notorious for doing things behind the scenes where you can't tell that they did it...so stuff works, but not for a discernable reason.

This post was written by kitchenmage from Kitchenmage

Photography Help Needed

I would love some tips of how to photograph food to get a good clear picture with nice bright lighting. Just ordered my first digital camera and have no idea about photography. Hoping to add some nice pics to the blog. any tips appreciated! TIA!

Michele from Chef Michele's Adventures

New Style of Comment Spam

I came back this evening from a delicious, icy, snowy weekend vacation in Seattle to discover a new type of comment spam on my blog.

These are comments that are relevant, don't contain links, are personal, have obviously read the entry and are typically responding favorably. So why did they set off my spam alarms?

In the field for a commentor's url, name, and email, this commentor has put in a blog address that leads to a content non-sense blog that looks to be up only to drive search return ratings.

So... approve the comment? Delete as spam?

Sweets gave me a good suggestion to try at first. He says keep the comment (since it is relevant, and not the part I am objecting to), and break the commentor's url by changing http to hxxp and putting a space after every character in the url.

I'll see how that goes. I definitly get the impression that these commentors are watching to see what my response is before they flood me.

Example of the comment change is exhibited with the last two comments on this Harry Potter recipe.


This post was written by McAuliflower from Brownie Points Blog

Message from Noodle Cook re Paper Chef

HAPPY BIRTHDAY PAPER CHEF!!

Dear Headmistress

I couldn't work out how many people are particpating in this weekend's Paper Chef based on the low number of ingredient nominations and no announcement on Is My Blog Burning?

I have organised an Aussie judging panel, with some "secret" surprises :) to help celebrate Paper Chef anniversary and the holidays, it would be disastrous if everyone has forgotten... Would you be kind enough to put in a reminder for Paper Chef participants to head to Tomatilla for nominations and details. Thank you in advance.

Noodle Cook


Note from Sam - people who wish to announce things on Food Blog S'cool are encouraged to simply sign up and join the Scool for full posting priveleges. Food Blog S'cool Mail is only checked once a week or less. For more urgent issues email me directly via Becks & Posh.
This post was written by Sam from Becks & Posh

Adding video to your blog?

does anyone know of an easy way to add a small video clip to your blog?


This post was written by Darell from Darell Eats

[Event]

Hey kids,
If our headmistress Sam is willing to show her un-glam shots, why not you?

Email your bad food photos to me, Rachael@FreshApproachCooking.com, for My Blog Went Up In Flames. So far I have six awesomly bad entries...but somehow I'm sure there are more icky pictures out there!

Thanks ev'body!

Rachael
(Bitter Melon)



This post was written with lovin' care by Rachael at Fresh Approach

what to do with a heckler?

Hey everyone, I'm wondering what you would suggest I do with someone who's leaving insulting comments on my blog. It started yesterday, with a post I put up about beets. He critiqued my cooking method, then my writing, and then questioned whether or not I have celiac disease at all. I probably made a mistake in responding to that comment, given that it goaded him, but what he was saying was medically inaccurate. And my readers need to know that. Now, he has come back twice more, saying that my site is indecent (with all these hungry people in the world, I shouldn't be posting about all these "feasts" I have). And now, he's making comments about a typo I made. (As a writer, he says, I "...obviously care more about quantity than quality.")

I suppose this happens to all of us, doesn't it? If so, what do you do?

I have to say, as well, I sort of think it's a hoax. I think someone is hiding behind this persona of someone with celiac disease. It doesn't ring true, and now it's so ridiculous. Do I delete the comments? Never answer him? What do you think?


This post was written by Shauna from Gluten-free Girl

RSS Comments Feed

Can you tell that I am really hung up on RSS feeds this week?

Ok ... does anyone know if there is a way to offer an RSS feed of the comments on your site? There are a very few blogs ... this one is one of them ... where I would like to receive a feed ping whenever there is a comment added to the site ... and to be able to read them through an RSS feeder.

If you don't know of a way, have you ever seen this on any blog? Could you point me there?

Thanks!

P.S. For those of you who have questions about RSS feeders in general, I just stumbled upon a great explanation page by Elise. For those of you who don't know, in addition to her recipe site, Elise has a fantastic Movable Type tutorial site -- she is quite a renaissance woman!


This post was written by Jen from Life Begins @ 30

Organizing RSS Feeds

Ok, for the moment let's put aside the "do you or don't you" discussion and talk about the organization of RSS feeds. IF you use an RSS reader on a regular basis, have you figured out a good organization system for said feeds?

I am a database person by profession, but I am having a hard time with the overarching organization for my groups of blogs. If you have a system that works for you, would you share?

My categories, flawed as they are:

TECHNORATI (This is just keyword searches, etc)
FOOD
LOCAL
GENERAL
EAT LOCAL PARTICIPANTS
FOOD ISSUES
FRIENDS
PHOTO BLOGS


This post was written by Jen from Life Begins @ 30

[Event] My Blog Went Up In Flames!

My Blog Went Up In Flames!

While trying to rationalize posting my hideous looking (but delicious tasting) Shortbread Cookie pictures for this months IMBB/SHF I had an idea.

I thought as a one off, people could submit your WORST food shot. Obviously, it does not have to have been posted, but bonus points if another more glam version was.

Winners will be judged on the following:

- Title
- Is is obvious what it was? The less obvious, the better
- Lighting
- Backstory
- General Unappetizingness (Not a word, but you get my point)


I certainly have a huge back log of terrible shots (Pallid Swedish meatballs in garishly violet lingonberry cream sauce with a blinding glare, anyone?) and would love to see what YOU have too. Like the owner of the worlds ugliest dog, we should take pride in ALL of our foodie photos and share!

So, if you dare, please email your shots, links and/or stories to Rachael@FreshApproachCooking.com by December 4th, I will compile a list with links for the next week.

Happy Holidays!

Rachael

This post brought to you with lovin' care by Rachael at Fresh Approach Cooking

[Blogger] Self-linking

I tried to run a search on this forum, and I discovered that in order to categorise and archive my recipe links I have to start a new blog for each section.
However, above and beyond that, why can I not link to my own archives? Eg. I created an archive page for each recipe subcategory, but when I try to link to them in my sidebar, I get an error message. Am I missing something? Or is this just Blogger being Blogger?

(if you look at my blog, to the right hand side, first section titled recipes, I tried to link)
This post was written by Linda from Kayaksoup

(Blogger) Posting Pictures

For some reason, Hello hasn't let me log in/post pictures for the last few days. In the meantime, I've used Flickr, but don't really care for it. Any other programs out there that fellow bloggers can recommend? I love Picasa for editing the pictures, which is why I've been using Hello, and have never had any problems before but it keeps telling me it "cannot connect to the internet," while, of course, the cable modem is running fine and I can access every other site. Suggestions? Getting desperately behind with picture posting...


This post was written by Sweetnicks from Sweetnicks

Your Blog's Listed Info on Amazon

I was trapsing around the web tonight, checking on some referals and came across a food blog directory at chefblogs.com.

What was notable on this directory is that every blog listing has a thumbnail (a lot of them really crappy screenshoots with the food blog site overlapping a different site).

Actually, that wasn't the really notable part... each blog listing has a set of links at the bottom that give each blog's popularity stats (Technorati listing, Google links, etc). One of these links is called AlexaInfo.

The AlexaInfo link goes to an Amazon.com listing of blogs. I urge everyone to check out their blog's listing as I was quite surprised at the explicit contact info listed for mine. I think this info is editable, though when I tried to edit mine, the system coughed a hair ball and now my entry isn't in the system at all. While I know that smart people can deduce my home phone number and home address, I don't want it to be posted so blantantly.

Here's a sample listing for IMBB.




This post was written by McAuliflower from Brownie Points

Happy Thanksgiving

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone.

Now, I know that many of you reading this aren't in the States as you read this. I hate to be Americentric and wish everyone here a holiday you may not be celebrating. But this is really the only holiday we have that's solely centered on food. And who couldn't use more time to stop and be grateful?

So I just want to say how grateful I am to this marvelous food community. You are a feisty, funny, alive bunch of people. Discovering this world has been the best part of my year.

Enjoy your turkeys! (Or Tofurkeys. Or gluten-free stuffing, as it may be.)

This post was written by Shauna from Gluten-free Girl

[Blogger] New Book on Hacking Blogger

I found this blog and book, Blogger in a Snap, and thought I'd pass it on to the other Blogger users here. I'm a total idiot when it comes to HTML and Blogger so my site is a bit on the boring side (from a design standpoint, of course!).

Once I get the book and read it, I'll post a short review.

This post was written by Valyn from Hope It's Good!

IMBB looking for volunteers

Ronald over at IMBB is looking for kind and enthusiastic volunteers to help keep the IMBB events calendar site up to date. It would be great if one or more of us could take this bull by the horns and help out Ronald. It's information we all rely on, after all. If you have the time and the inclination, please consider volunteering to help him out. I for one would love to see Sarah's Dine & Dish, and the French Blog Appetit up on his list too. I am sure there are others.

Thanks to anyone who considers helping him out


This post was written by Sam from Food Blog Scool

[Connection speed] Sprint 1 : SBC 0

I HATE SBC

For the last few months I have been having internet problems making it very difficult to blog. If I tell you I resorted to driving to work with my laptop open in the passenger seat, my post written offline and ready to publish, making sure to pass through a favourite set of traffic lights (Seventh and Folsom) where I had just enough time to connect to a wifi hotspot and publish my post before driving on, maybe you will think I am just a little bit crazy. Just a little.

After we got back from our vacation we got to the bottom (finally) of what our problem was: Check this out. It's crazy. SBC have distance limitations for their DSL customers. If they are more than a certain distance away from the hub, the DSL is not provided. For 6 months we had a perfectly acceptable DSL connection. But then SBC decided the quality of the service they were providing to the people on the furthest stretches away from the hub was not acceptable/good enough. So. What did they do? They shrunk the distance at which they would provide internet access. As we were in the outer area, we got our DSL connection cancelled.

Unfortunately we have no cable in our block. It is an industrial area and they don't deliver. We tried Covad, they couldn't do it either. SBC were our saviours but not anymore. They told us we could have dial up instead. Hang on a minute - they cancel our perfectly reasonable DSL because it is "not good enough", and then offer us dial up instead???? Their bad version of DSL was a zillion times better than dial up, but they force us to have no other choice. Have they ever tried blogging on dial up???? Talk about a return to the dark ages.

When I said no other choice, that wasn't quite true. For anyone in a similar position to us, there is an alternative. We have discovered the Sprint PCS Aircard 580 and it it is totally cool! I just plug this card into my laptop and I can have internet access where ever I go. Itis amazing. It is not quite as fast as DSL, but I don't notice it being slow. It is fast enough for me and a world ahead of dial up. It isn't the cheapest, but blogging is my hobby and so I decided it is worth spending the money on. I totally recommend it to anyone who finds them in a similar frustrating situation.

This post was written by Sam from Becks & Posh

[syndication] Knowing your rdf from your xml from your atom

I'm interested in other people's experience of syndication. Have many people signed up for it, if so through which service e.g. Rojo, Newsgator etc? Or do most people read your site by visiting it directly? I find I get an equal mix of both, although personally I like using an aggregator - it makes it much easier to read a lot of posts, on numerous websites, very quickly.

Also, can someone explain what exactly is the difference between rdf, xml and atom? As far as I can tell, rdf and xml are interchangeable. All the aggregators seem to read both sorts of urls. However, I don't really understand what an atom feed is and all the wikis I have read haven't really helped. Can anyone put this into plain English?

thanks


This post was written by Silverbrow from Silverbrow on Food

Guess My Weight Event

Well, not my weight exactly, but the weight of the giant pumpkin I posted a picture of at http://clickblogappetit.blogspot.com/2005/11/thanksgiving-pumpkin-contest.html

Bonus points for figuring out how many pumpkin pies you think it will make. If you have something at your site that you think would make an appropriate link (pumpkin recipes, pie crust tips, thanksgiving thoughts, etc.) please include the link in your comments.

Just a little fun thing to thank you all at Food Scool for the great support and encouragement I receive from this site.

[Formatting] How many front page posts are enough?

As a blogger user, I have an option as to how many previous posts appear on my front page. I think at this point, it's like 12. Some sites (example, 101 Cookbooks or C&Z) have one. Some have more.

My question is, how many do you have, and why did you opt for that number?

I personally find when there is only one post on the front page, that I spend less time at a site and have a harder time finding past posts I was interested in. Are you like that too? Archive browsing is rare for me...

Just curious!

Thanks ev'body!

Rachael

This question brought to you by Rachael of Fresh Approach Cooking

Crap, not Craps!

Evil Nasty Popups that landed on my blog :(
Yesterday a kind Annymous commenter left this worrying message on my blog:

At 9:12 PM, Anonymous said…
maybe it was just me, but today when i went to your page i got a flash floating pop-over for an online casino on top of your page. that made me sad.

I wasnt quite sure what they meant until today when the same thing popped on my blog when I was checking it at home. It made me more than sad. It made me angry.



I have no idea how it got there. But my first suspicion lies at the door of the free software that allows you to see how many people are currently looking at your blog. I don't know if it is possible that by having a link to them, they could send pop-ups, but I don't have anythig else to go on right now. I am certain it wouldn't be blogger. So, right now I am going to go and delete that facility from my personal blog. I am going to leave it on this blog now so we can all look at it for investigatative purposes. If anyone knows for certain that it couldn't be that, then please let me know. Or if anyone has any other ideas as to what caused it, also please let me know. And if anyone still gets these popups once I have deleted the code please let me know that to. I am certain it wouldn't be blogger themselves.

This post was written by Sam from Becks & Posh

Banner/Browser problems

Banner Help


I have two banners at the top of my blog and they look fine on IE 6.0 but both are too far the the right on Firefox and Netscape. Any idea how I can fix this?

This post was written by Michele from Chef Michele's Adventures

Another camera post...

I know a while back there was a discussion about buying a new camera, but since it's been quite a number of months and new models have come out, I was wondering if anyone had bought something recently that they liked, didn't like, found useful etc. I'm in the process of getting a new camera.

I'm looking for a pocket size (i.e. one that will fit into a moderately sized handbag) model with good macro settings. A sizable screen and fairly easy to navigate function buttons are other aspects I am looking for in a camera.

I'm dissappointed in my Canon A70. It doesn't do very well with macro shots (i.e. my food shots are always from quite a distance). And it's too bulky to carry around and too conspicuous in a restaurant.

Any feedback would be appreciated.

The post was written by Rose from The Hungry Rose

(Ongoing Event) Weekend Herb Blogging

I was hesitant to post a notice earlier about Weekend Herb Blogging because I honestly didn't know if it would catch on since it basically started as a joke between Sweetnicks and myself. If you don't know what I'm talking about, WHB was born when I left a comment for Weekend Dog Blogging saying I would have to post a picture of my plants, since I didn't have a dog or a cat. The next week I happened to have a whole bucket of fresh basil I picked in my garden, so I posted a photo and called it Weekend Herb Blogging. Gradually others joined the fun, and we are now in the seventh week of sharing photos of plants on the weekend. There have really been some interesting submissions from around the world, with recipes and information about the herbs or veggies.

This is an event with no real rules. Simply write about an herb, plant, veggie, or flower sometime on the weekend, post a photo, and send me the link by mid-afternoon on Sunday (Utah time) and I will include you in the roundup on Sunday night. Use your imagination if you don't have any live plants growing. (It's getting very cold in Utah so I will soon be scouring the local ethnic markets looking for interesting plant ingredients to blog about myself.)

This will continue as an ongoing weekend thing until people get sick of doing it and stop sending me links, but so far participation has been increasing every weekend. If you don't want to enter anything, the posts are really informative and fun to read.

This post was written by Kalyn from Kalyn's Kitchen

http://socalfoodie.blogspot.com/

HCE #1 Holiday Cookie Exchange #1
There are several of the newer bloggers who wanted to sponsor an exchange and this is the very first one. SoCal Foodie will be hosting Holiday Cookie Exchange #1. Please check out her site for what the concept is.


This post was written by vlb5757 from The Moveable Feast

[event]Menu for Hope II

All,
Pim of Chez Pim sent me this to post on her behalf. She hadn't signed up for FBS yet. I'm sure she'll be happy to answer any questions/concerns in the comments section.

---

Hi blogging friends,

It's that time of year again. Last year, with the help of many of you and your readers, we raised a substantial sum of money for the victims of the Tsunami with our first Menu for Hope campaign.

This year, the holidays are near again, and while we celebrate our good fortune with our loving family and circle of friends, I propose that we, as a food blogging community, do something together to help some of those who are less fortunate.

You must have heard of the devastating earthquake in the Kashmir region of India and Pakistan. With the remote nature of the region and some political stupidity on the part of the two governments, help still hasn't come quick and adequately enough to the victims. Now, the fast approaching Himalayan winter is yet another menace to the survival of these people. Perhaps we could all pitch in to do something for them?

I have an idea that I think might help us collect a lot of money to donate to this particular cause. It will be our second Menu for Hope, and this year it will be a little different, so that we could have more participation from this ever expanding foodblog community. I will
again use the Just Giving site, which we did earlier this year for the first Menu for Hope, Adam also used it successfully for his campaign for Katrina.

This time, I would like to ask each of you to donate something to be added to the menu. It can be anything, an old or rare cookbook, a special gadget, a treasured recipe, even an autographed photo or a chance to have dinner with you. Anything that you think your readers might want to have, and might be willing to donate 5 dollars for a chance to participate in a drawing to win it.

My plan is to have people donate $5, or the equivalent in other currencies, and buy an 'electronic raffle ticket'. When they donate the $5 they can choose from the menu and specify which one of the donated gifts they would want to have. At the end of the campaign, we have a drawing and pick a winner for each item.

I am a big believer of micro donations. I think a lot of people each helping a little can add up to a huge helping hand. Before I settled on this idea I thought about doing an auction for each item on eBay, but I think getting more people to give $5 would probably be easier than getting people to outbid each other.

When we have a list of winners, I will ask each of you to be responsible for the shipping cost as well. If this shipping cost is too much of a burden, please do not let it stop you. Email me
privately and I will find a way to help.

As for the recipient organization, the Red Cross comes to mind, or perhaps UNHCR. I am willing to hear suggestions and perhaps run a vote amongst those bloggers who will participate. If anyone has a lead on a local organization, I'm willing to look into that as well.

Let me know if you want to participate, and let me know what you want to donate. I'm going to ask some graphic savvy friends to create the menu, with the listings of all the donated items from all of you. In a few days, I will send out the file so we can all post it on our blog and try to entice our readers to donate. We should try to wrap up sometimes before Christmas, mid December or something, so people can get their gifts before the end of the year.

Thanks so much for your help!
Pim

This post was written by Derrick from An Obsession with Food on behalf of Pim from Chez Pim

Please Click on My Profile

I think something is up with my Blogger profile view counter. (I refuse to believe no one has looked at my profile in weeks.)
Has anyone else had this issue with Blogger? How did you resolve it? I searched help to no avail and sent an email to support but have yet to hear.

Meanwhile, do me a favor and click on over to www.clickblogappetit.blogspot.com and check out my profile.

You don't have to, but it would be good to know you where there so I can get a better picture of the issue. You can email me from the profile, leave a comment below or let me know at fjkblog1@sbcglobal.net.

Thanks for your help.

Faith from Blog Appetit

Jumping to the Top?

Link question...when I have scrolled down to the bottom of my website and I click on a link to an outside website, the new window opens up from the link, but I automatically get jumped up to the top of my website (the website I got the link from) page - therefore I lose my place on my original website.

How can I write a code to prevent this Jumping or is there something in my code I should look out for and delete?


This post was written by Shanna from Fine Dining Solutions

[Admin] Blog Roll Update

I took an opportunity to update the blog roll for this site.
In order to neaten it up a little bit, I decided to use dropdown blog link menus.
I divided the s'cool members into classes of 15 pupils, since this is a "s'cool"
The sites are listed in the order in which the request to sign up for the s'cool was received.
Please just oblige me and simply smile sweetly at my attempt at having a little fun with the class names.

Unfortunately - I don't think that linking in this way shows up as a "proper link" whatever that means. Ie, after doing some tests, I think if you click on a site in the pull down, it will only show up in their stats as coming from "unknown". I don't know why this is. Maybe someone can explain?

Also - I don't think these links are recognised by technorati and the likes.
Still, I think they make the site look cool and more organised and that is more important to me, at least. Hope everyone else agrees.

I plan on putting links to Sweetnick's new Sticky Date and IMBB and other community resources on the blog rollsometime in the future too.

PS - those blogs marked with an * have administrative capabilities too, you know just in case.

PPS - if I left any of you off the blogroll - it is not on purpose.
If you are a member all signed up and you appear to be missing - please let me know,
thanks

This post was written by Sam from Becks & Posh

[Blogger]Categories for posts

I have started a team blog for a local supper club and am wondering if I am able to create categories for the posts. For instance, I would like to have the option to put all posts related to a specific month's meeting in one category. Or any posts with pictures of the evening in one category. Thank you for any information you can give me.


This post was written by Punky from 2 Drinks Minimum Supper Club

Problem with Masthead

A short time ago, I changed my blogger header by adding an image to it, and changing the font to small caps. It looks fine in Internet Explorer; in Firefox, however, the top portion of the font turns black, and the stroke has disappeared.

Would anyone have an idea as to how I could fix this?

Thanks so much.


This post was written by s'kat from s'kat and the food

StickyDate is Born

OK, Ed, I swiped the title after all - hope that was still ok. Sam's right, The Date Place sounds like a single place -- we just looking for something easy for everyone to remember.

StickyDate will be a place for any and all food and wine blogging events, big and small, one-time or regular.

If anyone wants posting capabilities, just shoot me an e-mail (at sweetnicksplace@aol.com for now) and I'll take care of it.

My thought was to list the events in date order by month, i.e., have a post for November and the events listed underneath it in date order, with links to the hosts.

Open to any and all ideas. Just seems to be so many events that I keep missing because I forget about them and they're not listed everywhere, and I know I'm not alone. For instance, I blanked about the Donna Hay event, and definitely want to join in the fun for that one, and Jennifer's Entertain MeMe and I always forget about Stephanie's Blog Party until it's too late.

Pass on the info about StickyDate to your fellow bloggers, so everyone knows about another place to spread the word about their event.

Nothing on the blog yet, but will work on it tonight and tomorrow to get November events up.

This post was written by Sweetnicks from Sweetnicks

[Misc] Special Weekend Cat Blogging Edition For Clare & Kiri

Just a note to invite everyone (even if you are catless) to join in Weekend Cat Blogging this weekend. This event is usually hosted by Clare at Eat Stuff, who, you have probably heard, has been in the hospital for the past week after sustaining serious injuries while trying to save herself and her cat from an attacking dog. For more information about this special WCB, please click here. Thanks.

This post was written by farmgirl from Farmgirl Fare

[calendar] november events

** a few updates **

sweetnicks has been posting about a possible central calendar, but until we get one going here (or there, or anywhere!), here are a few events that are coming up that i've spied...if i'm missing any, drop a comment in the box and i'll edit this list.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------
NOV 07-11 entertain meme

THU NOV 17 blog party - holiday party

SAT NOV 19 hay, hay! it's donna hay

SUN NOV 27 sugar high friday a joint with...

SUN NOV 27 is my blog burning? it's a holiday cookie swap!

WED NOV 30 end of the month eggs on toast extravaganza

FRI DEC 02 the paper chef - the holiday anniversary edition

and all this so i could slip in a little announcement that DINE & DISH is back from its lazy summer vacation... *giggle*

TUE DEC 06 dine & dish no. 5 - asian persuasion

WED DEC 07 wine blogging wednesday no. 16 - judge a bottle by its cover
---------------------------------------------------

we still have to see announcements for another theme day for slashfood and does my blog look good in this?

:: this post was deliciously brought to you by sarah from the delicious life ::

Adding Site Name to Images?

Just curious as to how many people add their web site name to their photos and the reasons for it. Is it to deter people from using it as their own? Has anyone noticed a decrease in people passing off photo's as their own, consequently?

I notice that most times the web site name is in the bottom/top corner and seems to be easily cropped out if someone were to want to copy it. Any thoughts?


This post was written by Alicat from Something So Clever

Anyone been fed to the lawyers?

Just wondering, has any food blogger been threatened with legal action for a bad review or anything. Or been kicked out of anywhere for taking pics or writing bad things?

Posted by Ed from Tomato

(Misc) Calendar ... Just a Thought

The comments lately last week and today about calendars to keep track of events has got to me thinking. I'd be willing to put together a completely separate blog and maintain it just to list upcoming food/wine blogging events. It could be separated by month, with a link for each event going to the host/info. Would you guys be interested in something like this? Then you can just e-mail the info of your events and we'll have everything centralized. Thoughts?


This post was written by Sweetnicks from Sweetnicks

[Events] There is a website called upcoming.org that is effectively an open source calendar. It works a bit like other websites such as del.ic.ious and flickr, that use tagging to link particular themes, in this case, it links those themes through events.

There are so many food and wine related events that it's quite tough to keep track of them - so this is my attempt. I've organised a group on the site called Global Grub and stuck in some events I've been able to find. This will only work if people add their own and join up.

Whether it's full-on food fairs, local food festivals, conferences etc etc. Also if you join it will stop me feeling like billy no-mates. The site is particularly good, because you can add some events that are public for all and sundry to see, and others that only registered members can see. So for example I put in a dinner hosted by the forum Opinionated About as private - it can't be viewed by all - but other things, like a Slow Food event, is public. It's worth taking a look.

edited to clarify that this is aimed at real world events, I'm not recommending competition for IMBB.

This post was written by Silverbrow from Silverbrow on Food

[Promotion] Gather.com wants food articles

Hi kids,
I got this email from (the very sweet) Lisa@gatherinc.com. If you are interested, check it out. They are looking for people to post to their site. I asked and she says all content remains your own...

I wanted to get in touch with you about possibly re-posting some of your content
on our site, gather.com.

Gather was founded in 2004 in conjunction with American Public Media
Group with a mission of bringing all of the U.S. public radio listeners together in an online forum (a la Friendster and MySpace), where they can share their views on everything from travel and wine, to religion and politics. The public radio audience is informed, intelligent, curious, and passionate and Gather gives them a space to discuss things they have heard on the radio or read and to post their own thoughts, reviews etc. Posting articles on Gather is a great way to reach a new audience, drive additional traffic to your blog, and contributors
receive a percentage of the advertising revenue we collect. At this point, writers are earning points which will be redeemable for goods and services in the next few months. Power writers, who post large volumes of highly rated content, will eventually be able to redeem points for cash. I have attached a link for the Gather site below and would love for you to take a look at the site.

Although I am just beginning to contact food bloggers, we are already working with Lynne Rossetto Kasper of public radio's The Splendid Table; and have had significant interest in additional food and cooking content from the Gather community. Given this initial feedback from our members, we are looking to expand the breadth and depth of content in this area.

If you are interested, go on and email her...I sent her this link and she is looking forward to hearing from you!


This post was written by Rachael from Fresh Approach Cooking

McDonalds Around the World Round-Up

For anyone outside of the Tri-State area who reads my blog, I need your help. Do you have a local McDonalds? If so, please take a picture of their menu board or some featured items (particularly ones you think might not be available elsewhere) and send it to me via e-mail (as a jpeg). I'm working on a future event and thought this would be something fun. One of our employees is a recent college graduate and returned from some exciting trips to India, Cambodia and Thailand. He's actually worked with us off and on since he was in high school and is a big help in the office, especially to me since things are kinda hectic there now. Anyways, he has gorgeous photographs from all of his trips (he's done 11 countries in the past 4 years), each in its own album. I happened to be going through the India album the other day and spotted a picture of a menu board from a McDonalds he visited, and it was really interesting to see the differences in what they offer there versus here. Being a worldwide chain, you kind of just assume that they all carry the same basic items. Of course I know they don't, just not to what extent. In fact, even the McDonalds in Massachusetts, just a few hours away, have things we don't have here (lobster rolls!). So, take a picture of your local McDonalds menu board and send it in. Feel free to highlight your favorite items, or point out unique selections. If you have a blog, include a link to your blog so I can include that in the round-up. I'll post a McDonalds Around the World Round-Up at the end of the month. Can't wait to see what you all send me!


This post was written by Sweetnicks from Sweetnicks

[General] "Clare Eats" is in the Hospital

Just a head's up for anyone who knows Clare Eats from Eatstuff -- she is in the hospital after a freak accident with her cat. If you have a chance to go leave her a comment or send her a card electronically, Casey is printing out all notes for her. Clare is a frequent contributor to this forum.

(via Farmgirl Fare)


This post was written by Jen from Life Begins @ 30.

Paper Chef Reminder!

Hey everyone -- Just a quick reminder that this is Paper Chef weekend! I noticed that the event isn't posted over at IMBB, so I thought I'd mention it here. There's still time to participate as we'll be happy to take entries till Monday evening. (And if your excuse is creative enough, we might even let things slide till Tuesday!) For details and the four ingredients, head over to Belly Timber.

This post was written by Mrs D from Belly Timber.

Blogger updated with new comment control

Just a quick heads up for people who use blogger as their host. They implemented a moderate comment switch that allows you to approve or reject comments left on your blog. Click here for more information.

This post was written by Joe from Culinary in the Desert

Refreshing instead of auto. updating in sidebar

Hi all,
For some reason the blogs I have in my sidebar are not being updated. When I click on a link, the link takes me to old posts, and I have to click on the refresh button to see the most recent posts on my friends' blogs?! It never used to do this. Does anyone know what might have happened? It happens with some blogs and some not. SO WEIRD! And aggravating!

Mona from Monas Apple

Movable Type Format Bar Question

Movable Type Format Bar:

I use Movable Type with Safari and was never able to get the 'format' bar to appear (the one above on the right, where you Post New Entries in MT, that allows you to italicize, link, bold, etc..with buttons rather than HTML).
They didn't apprea in Explorer either, but did in Firefox (which I don't use, though.)

So I upgraded to MT 3.2 and I still can't get it those buttons to appear.
Anyone have this problem or a solution? I'd like to continue using Safari...

-David

(I use a Mac with 10.4)


This post was written by David from DavidLebovitz.com