[Tags] Why do they tease me so?

I am stumped as to why when I cut and paste the technorati tag for IMBB "Trick Someone Into Eating Vegan" from Sam's post into my post (and just to double check, todays post which was vegan anyway) it doesnt work. I mean, it doesnt come up on technorati.

I claimed! I pinged! I refreshed! I didn't change any of the code! I even emailed them (technorati) a few days ago, but haven't heard back. Sigh. Any thoughts? I'm not so concerned about the roundup as just not being able to get the dang tags to work. It all seems so simple...and yet...

This post was written by Rachael from Fresh Approach Cooking

[Events] Suggestion for Event Round-ups

Perhaps the round-up/winner links for Paper Chef and similar events might be made available beforehand, at the time the event is announced?

This way they could be included in our own posts without going back later, e.g., "Check [here] in a few days to see all the creative entries and winners!" or "When the round-up / winners are announced, it'll be posted [here] at [suchnsuchblog]."

I've been trying to think if there are RSS/other implications but think it's workable. Thoughts?

This post was written by Alanna A Veggie Venture.

(Comments - Blogger) Spam Comments After Using Word Verification

Tonight I got a comment on a recent post that was obviously spam. I was confused because I have selected the anti-spam word verification feature in Blogger and that seemed to be taking care of the spam problem. I was wondering if anyone else has had this problem. I suppose someone could be typing them in by hand, but it doesn't seem likely. (Pretty much a waste of time if they are doing that, but then it would serve them right.)

This post was written by Kalyn from Kalyn's Kitchen

[event] for Breast Cander Awareness

This post is posted on behalf of emily from La Dolce Vita who is not a member of FBS but wanted to publicize her event for a very good cause. It sounds like a fun one too.Who can resist the lure of pink?

You are invited to participate in “In The Pink”, which is a food event designed
to raise awareness for breast cancer.

The event is set to take place over the first weekend of October, which is
National Breast Cancer Awareness month in Canada, and the idea is to make
some pink food and blog about it, thus hopefully sparking something in our
readers to either take some action or to just simply take note of this
disease.

More information is available RIGHT HERE



This post was written by Sam from Becks & Posh

[comments] to delete or not to delete?

i know we've covered this topic before but wanted to bring it up again because, well, i am still undecided and need some help.

in the last few days, an anonymous reader has left a few comments on my blog that aren't very nice. i don't expect comments to always be sweet and lovely and agreeable. in fact, disagreements and intelligent discussion are things i like to see. however, these comments are just mean. here are a few:

"You are so full of "I should have" You should have a brain if you want to be a food critic."

"Why don't you get a real job?You taste food with your ass.Try your mouth, thats where the taste buds are. "

"Might I suggest you not go out to eat when you are on the rag.You aspire to be a food critic?!!First learn how to spell.Swining door? Or did you mean your swine like ass?!Half a dozen means six. There are more than six tables at Fioretto.I guess math was not one of your strong points either.I was born in Florence and Fioretto is about the best trattoria in Los Angeles bar none.You would have to venture into Beverly Hills and pay a kings ransom to get close to the quality.I am curious to see if you have the balls to post this.I wonder how many of the following posts will be put up by you, pretending to be someone else.Get a life! And find a job that you can do competently."

i am not sure that they are the same person, but that doesn't matter, i guess.

now i wonder: should i delete these comments? so far, i don't delete ANY comments, only the obvious spam ones (viagra, mortgages, etc.) because i want people to feel like they can say what they want, since i certainly do. but i am not sure how i feel about comments about me specifically, and i also wonder if i am just being overly sensitive.

any thoughts?

thanks guys.

This post was written by Sarah from the delicious life

Food Blog Calender

I'm a dingbat- I still have the old IMBB link in my code. Oddly, the old url http://imbb2.lovesicily.com/ does not redirect to the new site. So uh, never mind and cheers to all!



I've been a bit saddened to see that IMBB is no longer the gathering place for scheduled event announcements like it used to be. Nothing is listed on the September and October calenders except for the Euro Blogging by Post event. No SHF, no IMBB?

My food blogging world is in need of more organization now than ever. Events are flying all over the place! I have several people use my comment fields to announce their new gatherings, and I want to direct them to a more official place to pin these up.

It seems that people are informally using Food Blog S'cool as a place to new announce events. Should we take this to the next level and actually display a calender here with dates and announcements and such (I'm talking out my blogger-hole with this idea... I have no idea how feasable it is, but I'd love it if some one here could prove themselves to be a blogger know-it-all...)?

In addition, should we all send edible thank you treats to Sam( you are the Food Blog S'cool Principal/Head Mistress afterall)?


This post was written by McAuliflower from Brownie Points, who's happy to see so many posts here on a Monday!

(General) Accent marks

How can I get accent marks into my posts? I have tried changing to the French or Spanish keyboard installed with Windows, and I have tried to use the method of holding down the ALT button and keying in the numerical code. It shows up just fine on either the Edit Html view, or on the Compose view but when I post I get odd things. For example, this should be e with an accent slanting to the left: è .

Well, I'll be darned; that worked! How come it doesn't work on my blogger blog? I get a Z with a funny mark on top.

You can go to my blog and note the sidebar link to Blog Appétit to see what I mean.

Has anyone had this problem?


This post was written by Alyce from Mantia's Musings

woppy-jawed fonts in Blogger

Okay, I'm trying to practice patience with Blogger. Really. But it has been freaking out and breaking down lately, and causing me more trouble than I'd care to say. For example (and this is where I need your help), my post on September 24th.

I put the entire text in Georgia normal size, which is my template standard. I even typed it into the blogger box, where I normally write in a word processing document and copy it in. Everything seemed normal. But there are three different fonts and three different sizes in one post. And no matter how many times I go back and try to fix it, make it all one font, it stubbornly remains woppy-jawed.

HELP!

This post was written by Shauna from Gluten-free Girl.

[Calendar] The (Second) Really Big Cook Off

Hi ev'body!

In calendar news, I have posted the recipe for The (Second) Really Big Cook Off: Short Ribs with Celery Duo. Entries should be in by September 30th. I hope you will all join in!

This post was written by Rachael from Fresh Approach Cooking

[p.s.a.] Blog Depression & You

Public Service Announcement:
The seasons are changing and a certain feeling is kicking around... you being the established blogging curmudgeon that you are, can't help but feel a bit jealous of the endless spunk of some of these blog spring-chickens.

Are you not posting to your blog everyday?
Are you feeling pissy about people posting a dish that you already blogged about 2months ago?

Perhaps it is time to go visit the Blog Depression Pamphlet at nonist:

"there is a growing epidemic in the cyberworld. a scourge which causes more suffering with each passing day. as blogging has exploded and, under the stewardship of the veterans, the form has matured more and more bloggers are finding themselves disillusioned, dissatisfied, taking long breaks, and in many cases simply closing up shop. this debilitating scourge ebbs and flows but there is hardly a blogger among us who has not felt it’s dark touch. we’re speaking, of course, about blog depression.

we here at the nonist have spoken before about the “blog life crisis" which is a natural part of any blog’s life-span. what we turn our attention to now, however, is the more insidious, prolonged strain of dissatisfaction which stays with a blogger, right below the surface, throughout a blog’s lifetime. the diligent and self aware blogger can resist this destructive undercurrent, make changes, adapt, rationalize, but for many, untreated, it can cause much needless suffering in the form of full fledged blog depression."

You are not alone. And we can help. Please make sure you don't push your blog out the window of a tall building.

Go bake some cookies and read this pamphlet.

Thank You.


This post was written by McAuliflower from Brownie Points

[Code] Looking for help with Template code

I've gotten a couple responces after I did a redesign of my template that when they go to the main page they can see the title of the first post but have to scroll way down to see the body of text that goes with it. I viewed it in Firefox and IE and do not have these issues - can anyone help me with what I am missing?


This post was written by Joe from Culinary in the Desert

(Blogger) Profile Question

I started another blog, specifically for our Supper Club. I don't want my "Sweetnicks" picture to appear on it - is there a way to remove it from just that blog?


This post was written by Sweetnicks from NJ Supper Club

[Ads] Requirements/Sponsorship For BlogAds

Does anyone have any tips or pointers for getting sponsored for BlogAds?


This post was written by Jeremy from A Cooking Site

[Apps] A two part question

I would say for every 5 posts I make, one will not register/show up on Food Porn Watch. I am just wondering if this happens to anyone else, and if there is a solution or if you know of ways I might be blocking it.

I should point out that I do sometimes edit my posts almost immediately, and I wonder if that is what is doing it...or could it be that sometimes I change the time/date?

______________

ALSO (and maybe this should be another post, but anyway) last night when reading through this site I learned about BlogTopSites. It was here too that I learned about Technorati and Blogshares. Are there any other fun things like that I might not know about yet? Does someone have the inclination to create a linked list? ;-)

Thanks!

This post was written by Rachael from Fresh Approach Cooking

(Blogger) Help Needed ASAP!

I know, what else is new, right? So I have my post all done for tonight. I can view it and it looks fine, as does the preview. When I go to publish it, I get an error message that reads: 001 java.io.IOException: EOF while reading from control connection. I've searched Blogger help and it comes up with nothing. I haven't done any other changes to my blog. Help!


This post was written by Sweetnicks from Sweetnicks

[Event] Introducing CTOFW - AKA Disaster Preparedness

In view of the recent disasters that hit Southeast Asia last year and America this year, I would like to challenge you to practice now picking up the pieces and getting on with life. What would you do if tomorrow morning you have nothing left but a pile of mud, little or no potable water and cooking implements you are not familiar with? What will you cook if you know how to use that round bottomed cast iron kettle (can it be used without a crane since the round bottom will not rest easily on a pile of rocks surrounding an open fire) or the lone ceramic pot that somehow has escaped the mass destruction around you? How will you start a fire to cook—there are no matches (they’re all wet) nor gas nor electricity?

Introducing the quarterly event, Cooking the Old Fashioned Way (CTOFW). Where I live it is now the middle of autumn—across the world it’s spring. Quick, stop where you are, no matter what your climate, season or country, and look around you, really look. Are there communal ovens in the village square? Is there a windmill or watermill nearby? Are you in a city where no one raises a Victory garden—just concrete? Make friends with the elders in your communities, raid the attics for dusty journals and recipes and look into the cellars for old pots. Learn now how they are used. Learn how to make potable water or other beverages. Discover alternate methods of cooking, other than “in” something. Can you think of ways to cook on something with natural energy? Can you find growing in the hedgerows and meadows and estuaries food items that will feed people of all ages and health/dietary conditions (some cannot eat foods for religious reasons or because of injuries)? Once you’ve managed to prepare it, can you store it?

Blog about what you’ve learned on or before October 22, 2005 at midnight--give us pictures of the cultural differences in food preparation, storage and the food in your area that might survive catastrophe. If you do not have a blog, send your entry to me and I will post it for you. Please send entries to: info@carolynsmith-kizer.com with “Old Fashioned” in the subject line. If you cannot blog this time around, you will have another chance at the end of January. Let’s prepare now—before we have no choice.


This post was written by Carolyn from 18thC Cuisine

[Code] Google ads and Blog top sites code

Talking of code, I've noticed that most people don't enter my blog through the front door so my Google ads and Blog top sites counter miss a lot of visitors. I use MT and was wondering if anyone had any ideas to get ads and counters to show up in the archives, RSS etc. I've had some success modifying the CSSs and html but am lost on this.

Posted by Ed from Tomato

[Code] More advice on code dabbling

Some advice to those who haven't dabbled before - as an addition to the last post -

The majority of page-breaking errors I see when I'm troubleshooting someone else's code, whether here or professionally (or mine own, for that matter) are small things - unbalanced or badly nested tags, and missing quotes, slashes or brackets. It's decieving how important this is, since in many browsers, some bad syntax is forgiven, while others choke on it and spit it out horribly rendered.

You can use an online syntax checker or validator, but validation is a complex subject, and if you check your code with an online tool (this W3C validator or this HTML syntax checker for example) chances are it will find lots of tiny things that don't won't effect how the page appears in any browser, and you'll have a hard time trying to figure out what to fix. However, these tools will help you find basic code typos.

Before you tear out your hair and retreat to the default template, check the basic structure of the code.

Are all the div's and p's balanced? Are they nested correctly? Do they all have a beginning and an ending tag? Tags can contain other tags, but they must end after the contained tag ends.
In other words:
≤div>≤p≥Hello≤/div≥≤/p≥
is wrong.

Do all your URLs (addresses in links AND in image tags) have quote marks surrounding them?

Are all brackets and slashes in place where they should be?

Some browsers ignore such little things, but others react violently. So the page may look fine to in your browser, but it could be throwing temper tantrums in some one else's.

The basic syntax of your code really needs to be tight as a drum before you go messing with margins, floats, clears or other complex issues to try to fix cross-browser issues.


This post was written by Paul from KIPlog

[Code/Tips] Avoiding Doing it Again

A suggestion to those modifying their blog templates. Before making changes, copy the current template, paste it into a Notepad document, and save it. Then if you screw up you can drop back to where you were before the changes by pasting the saved copy back into the template editor.

I go a step further by keeping the starting template and then a separate copy each time I make and test a change. This enables me to back up to the last valid alteration without having to go all the way back to where I started.

This post was written by Kevin from Seriously good

[Events] Weekend Dog Blogging

Clare from Eat Stuff, has graciously allowed me to start a spin-off of her Weekend Cat Blogging with a regular Weekend Dog Blogging event. I'll host it every weekend and post the pictures you send me, along with the direct links to your blog. So now's your chance to show off your pups at their cutest. Start snapping away and spread the word. Hope you join me.


This post was written by Sweetnicks from Sweetnicks

[Apps] Food Blog S'cool

Is it me or is Blogshares out of service a little too often at the moment? And that kinda makes it pointless.

[Code] Google Indexing

I read here quite a bit and have been studying up on the best ways to get Google to index your blog so that people can find it when they search for things. Is there any "danger" in letting Google index your blogs content? I noticed today that it looks like this blog is no longer indexed by Google. I took a peak at the source and noticed this in the header:

< meta name="ROBOTS" content="NOINDEX,NOFOLLOW" / >

Is there a reason why you would want to block your blog from the search engines?


This post was written by jeremy from A Cooking Site

[Design] Pictures in the background

Ok, I'm relatively new to blogger, and totally clueless when it comes to web design. Unfortunately I didn't realize that by changing my background template this morning ALL customizations I'd made to my site vanished into the wind. What a bummer...
My site looks pretty boring right now..how do you put pictures in the background of your site, and in the background of the main title? A couple I've found sweetnicks and oranges are free do a great job of this...
Please help!
Mona

(Blogger) Does having too many URL's really confuse the search engines

I'm not a brand new food blogger, but I am very new in terms of knowledge compared to most of you. In fact a few weeks ago I took about a week and "toured" through all the blogs that are listed down the sidebar of Food Blog S'cool. Wow, what a talented group. I got a lot of good ideas, most of which I have no idea how to implement. However, even though my site is not as fancy or technologically interesting as many, I do have some good content. Now I'm working on making search engines "find" me.

A while back Andrew, (who has been a great help to me) published a post about a meta tag checker site that I found very useful. Here is the link, in case you missed that post:
http://www.widexl.com/remote/search-engines/metatag-analyzer.html
I've been checking it and found some things that I changed on my template. However as I have been adding links to my sidebar now the meta tag checker is telling me that my site has too many URL's. Along with the error message, it tells me "Some search engines have problems with too many URL's on a page".

I ignored that for quite a while because it seemed like there are lots of sites with more URL's than I have. However now I am starting to notice when I check my stats that there are hardly ever any google searches any more, whereas I used to have tons of those. (Well ok, not tons, but a lot for my humble little site.) I feature recipes that are kind of geared to ordinary cooks, so I used to get a lot of hits from people who searched for something like "spagetti squash" and ended up on me. Now, sometimes when I check I don't see any search results at all. I know this could be a coincidence, but I am wondering.

I would love any input from someone who know lots and lots more about all this than I do. I know that Blogger is considered kind of a "beginner" site so maybe that is one of the limitations, that all the links show up as being on the main page. I considered setting up another blogger blog just to host the links for now (until I change to a different host, which I will do someday when I know enough.) Thanks in advance for any input anyone can give me.
This post was written by Kalyn from Kalyn's Kitchen

Bay Area Bites is a blog that is hosted by San Francisco's NPR station, KQED. There is a very interesting conversation going on over there right now involving a review of a new local restaurant by Shuna of Eggbeater. If you haven't read it, the review (and subsequent comments) bring up interesting questions about blog reviews of restaurants, the responsibilities of reviewers, and the responsibilities of food blogs. An interesting discussion, which is complicated further by the fact that this review was by an independent writer on a site hosted by a major media source in the Bay Area.

Just a head's up.


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

(General) Browser problem with blogger.com

For the past week or so whenever I go to blogger.com, my blogspot.com or anyone else's, I then have to reboot to be able to go to any other web page or blog site. I get the "This page cannot be displayed" message. This only happens on the borrowed laptop I am using (while I recover from a stupid accident involving trying to put up a patio umbrella, resulting in a totally trashed leg). But it was fine until the past few days. I have added no other programs, nor have I intentionally changed any settings. I am able to get to work and it doesn't happen on my computer there, and I used a neighbor's PC to post the Wine Blog Wednesday, and had no problem there. I've written three times to Blogger support but got only one automated answer that did not address the problem.

Has anyone had this problem before and if so how did you fix it? It will still be a while before I am able to get up the steps to my own computer!

Also I seem to be having problems understanding how to get the font on this template down to normal size....


This post was written by Alyce from Mantia's Musings

[Events] September challenge: Eight cookbooks of separation

We've been inspired in our brief time blogging to throw down the Eight Cookbooks of Seperation Challenge.
Simply blog publish a pic of your cookbooks and blog about the most significant titles.
Give each a stainfactor on a scale from 0 (hardly touched) to 10 (filthy, and always open in the kitchen).
Tell us whatever you like. Who gave you the book (a jilted lover?), favourite and worst recipes or point out the annoying mistakes.
Check out the first of several Tomato efforts here and which fat lady signed our book.
Just ping us here and we'll run a commentary through the month of September with all sorts of statistical Freakanomics-style stuff.
Oh, and we'll give a final round-up on October 3. This could turn out to be a pretty cool study.
Suggestions welcomed.

This post was written by Ed who has decided Tomatom is really Tomato.

(Blogger) Desperate Banner Help Needed

At the top of my site, I had a banner with a strip of pictures. I had it exactly the way I wanted. All I wanted to do today was the change the pictures, keeping the size, format, etc., exactly the same. I uploaded my pictures, made a collage, everything the same as last time. When I put the pictures in the template, they do not appear the same, and I've now spent the last two hours trying just to get them close to how it appeared before, but I'm really stuck. I'm trying to make the pictures a lot smaller, height-wise, but still retain the whole picture. Was fine before, but I don't understand why it's different now. The whole banner is just way too big, but if I reduce it, it chops the picture in half. Help! Help! Help!

This post was written by Sweetnicks from Sweetnicks

[Events] Auto-Round-up Experiment

IMBB # 19 has just been announced. For the first time, I am trying an experiment with an auto-roundup using Technorati Tags. There is a piece of code that you can easily cut and paste into your post.
Once you have done that, your post should show up here. (It's not instant, it can take anything from minutes to a day to show up)

**Derrick has suggested you might also have to claim you blog at Technorati in order for this to work. I am not sure about this. I will look into it when I get back from vacation. In the meantime, claiming is easy.

If your blog software doesn't automatically ping technorati, you will have to ping it youself to make your tag active. More info here.
You can manually ping your blog here after you have posted up your IMBB19 post.It's much easier than it sounds.

Tagged with: <a href="http://technorati.com/tag/IMBB19" rel="tag">IMBB # 19</a> + <a href="http://technorati.com/tag/Vegan" rel="tag">Vegan</a>

I am off on vacation. If you can't get this to work, come back here to Food Blog S'cool and ask your fellow food bloggers for advice.
Amy, Jen, Sarah and NS have kindly agreed to keep an eye on Food Blog Scool in my absence and have been granted administrative powers.

I won't be able to sign up any new members until I return. Please be patient. Thank you.


This post was written by Sam from Becks & Posh

(misc) Human Relief Blog Day

I will be participating in this today and would love it if my fellow food bloggers will join me. Together we CAN make a difference.

hurricane relief blog day

I have already donated to the Houston SPCA and the Red Cross. I feel so helpless, but if we all band together on this one, it will help tremendously.


This post was written by Brigitte from Sweetnicks

Hurricane Relief and the Paper Chef [calendar] addendum

[calendar] addendum
After a talk with a friend of mine from New Orleans I have opened Paper Chef early and will let it run late with an additional challenge to use it as a reason to eat in rather than dine out and donate the savings to the Red Cross for hurricane relief


This post was written by Owen from Tomatilla!