Stealing Content - How to Fight Splog

This is a follow up to my recent post about the psuedo blogs which are stealing content from legitimate food blogs and using it to entice people to pages loaded with ads. I have since learned that this type of thing is called SPLOG (which means spam blog) and that it is becoming more and more widespread.

If you have a way to check who is linking to you, like Technorati, I believe that a great many of you will find your content is being used in this way by this particular group. I've now seen nearly 25 of their psuedo blogs which have my content, often the same post repeated over and over on every one of their "blogs". You can identify them by their practice of using *recipe* as the final word in their "blog" names.

My brother found this site called Fight Splog which gives a lot more information about SPLOG, and also information about where to report it and how to report violations of Adsense policy to google. I hope others will join me in reporting these people.


This Post was written by Kalyn from Kalyns Kitchen.

(Blogger) Run Time Errors?

At first I thought it was just my site (since I did a recent redesign), but got the same runtime errors when I just came onto Food Blog S'cool's site too. Anyone else getting them, or know how to make them stop?

This post written by Cate at Sweetnicks.

Stealing Content (again)

I use Technorati to check who is linking to me and a few days ago I discovered something that I am getting quite alarmed about. Someone has apparently created a whole network of "psuedo-blogs" and are copying content from a wide variety of food blogs, including mine. They summarize what your post is about in a kind of weird way, and then give a link, (which does go to your blog) but the link is credited to Google Blog Search. It looks like the purpose is to get people to click on other links which are google search ads, but I can't find any contact information anywhere.

Here are some examples of their "blogs"

Salad Recipe


Cheesecake Recipe


Soup Recipe


South Beach Diet Recipe


Easy Recipe

There are at least 10 of these "psuedo blogs" with my content and maybe more. There are lots and lots of other blogs I recognize too who are also having their content used this way. In fact, in the short time I spent looking through their "blogs" I bet I saw 50 blogs that I recognized.

Advice? What can we do about this?

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

[misc.] Feedburner frustration

I really love Feedburner but it's very annoying that I can't display my feed stats on my blog just because I don't have my own domain (feedburner requires a "unique IP address " which cannot be obtained through blogger. It seems like Blogger is the only platform that cannot use the feedburner circulation icon. Is there any way for a blogger blog to show stats on their feed besides through feedburner?


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

Trackbacks - Do you use them? Do you like them?

For those of you who have the ability to use trackbacks on your blog, do you use them? For those of you who read blogs, do you like to see the trackbacks?

I am seriously considering removing the trackback option because it is used so little by readers and is just a magnet for spam. I am constantly removing trackback spam. It's something I am willing to do if trackbacks in general are beneficial, but right now I am feeling a little down on the whole functionality.

Wondering what a trackback is? Read this.

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

(Blogger Template) How do I shorten my main text ....

What I mean is: When certain posts are really long I would like to have the main part of the text on my main page and then add a "Continue reading" which takes the reader to the actual whole story. Now, I have tried all sorts of stuff.

E.G. using the span class ="extended" tags

And other variations. However, it just does not seem to work. When I click on the "Continue reading" link on my main page I am directed to the actual story page but it too is shortened with the rest of the text missing.

On several other blogs from blogspot I have noticed this does seems to work so the issue does not lie with blogspot. After viewing the source they too were using the same tags like I intended to. So, what could I be doing wrong? I'd appreciate your help on this.

One last thing ... I am one of the new pupils here and it's nice to be back at s'cool (NEVER thought I'd be saying that ;-))

This Post was written by Meeta from The Daily Tiffin

(Misc) Help with Pixelated Pictures

Say THAT three times fast! :) Once in awhile when I load pictures to flickr and post them on my site, they come up pixelated. My post yesterday is a good example. Two of the three food pictures are pixelated (the macaroni salad and the tostados). I load them all onto flickr and my site the same way ... any idea what's causing this and how to fix it? Thanks in advance.

This post was written by Cate at Sweetnicks.

[Members] New Pupils Welcome

In the interests of you all being introduced to new food blogs, I thought it might be a nice idea to let you all know every time I sign up a new bunch of pupils to the Food Blog S'cool Blog Roll. Today I filled an entire class of Quinces, followed by some Rutabagas. Please check them out and give them all a hearty welcome to our little community...

Quince

La Vida Dulce
Fat Free Vegan Kitchen
Just Really Very Hungry
Albion Cooks
Tigers & Strawberries
Pease Porridge
The WebSorceress Cooks
Chocolate in Context
Word of Mouth
Erin's Kitchen
Magari
A Chicken in Every Granny Cart
Pleasure Cooker
Stalking the Waiter
Black Salt

Rutababga

The Daily Tiffin
Posie's Place
The Unemployed Cook
A Few of My Favourite Things
A Little Note
Tongue & Cheek
Tea Guy Speaks


This Post was written by Sam from Becks & Posh

Refining Our Craft- a Tantric Taste

by McAuliflower from Brownie Points

When I'm writing a post about a new recipe I am currently infatuated with, I tend to get caught up with my image taking. Getting nice light, a good angle, and nice color saturation all lends itself to a yummy landscape. Sure a picture speaks a thousand words, but what I'm often finding in my posts and others' is a lack of description on how it tastes.

A quick scan of a recipe will usually give us a sense of the general idea, but it doesn't serve as a complete substitute for a good description of how these flavors played themselves out in your mouth.

What I'm ultimately seeking is a moment frozen into a sentence or two, a virtual lick of your spoon. A description that will seduce me beyond looking at your blog's picture and move me to recreate your scoop of bliss.

Do you smell your morsel before the spoon gets to your mouth? Does it taste like it smells? Is it crunchy, limp, smooth, gritty? What flavor hits first? What note remains in your mouth one minute later? After your dishes are put away, do you still taste your meal? What else did it really taste good with?

Flavor/Aroma and Texture

A quick scan of some of my favorite cookbooks and blogs yielded the following quotes. Some seem trite, some hit a memory spot. however, they build expectation and trigger a sense of what the dish will yield.

• delicate texture


• enhance the velvety finish


• succulent in its richness and luxuriously smooth on the palate


• tender, crumbly crust- almost like a cookie


• adds a fruity sourness to sauces that works well with the umami sweetness of seared food


• tastes simple, intense, even more like itself: clean, delicate, and verdant. It melts seamlessly into a light custard, morphing into a smooth, silky thing


• has an intense fruity, sour taste which enhances the delicate sweetness of the fish


• salt enhances the sweetness of butter


• adds a sweet sour note that refreshes


• earthy and soothing, a rich yolk running to meet sweet, garlicky broth, inviting slurps, burps, and other lapses in decorum

A list such as this can read like an episode of Iron Chef. Every recipe doesn't have to be so grand, but a little bit of tantric tasting every now and then won't hurt your readership.

CopyScape & Plaigerism

Go read this post from top Indian blog The Cook's Cottage.

Deccanheffalump is quite rightly angered.

And she also mentions Copyscape - a useful tool for checking for incidences of your blog being copied. I didn't know about it before and thought some others of you might find it interesting.

This Post was written by Sam from Becks Posh

PS - comments are disabled on this Cooks Cottage post, or at least they appeared to be when I tried to leave one.

Bloglet subscription = not working

Gaaaaah. I have come to hate Bloglet subscriptions, but people keep signing up for them.

Right now, I get the notification that something is wrong with my weblog. When I "Test Connection," it tells me:

Connecting to XML-RPC server [http://www.typepad.com/t/api]

msxml3.dll error '80072efd'

A connection with the server could not be established

/includes/xmlrpc.asp, line 411

Does anyone else have regular problems with Bloglet? (And the fact that it is not supported!)

Also, is there any way for me to delete e-mail addresses of subscribers that I know are not working?

Thanks.

Grrrr, Bloglet.

A journalistic view of Blogs

From a journalistic point of view.
Its not about food, it's about environmental issues, but I think it is an interesting view of blogging, in main stream media.

Well done to LAgreengirl for getting a shout, some of you may be familiar with her as she crosses into food issues from time to time. Too bad our Jen didn't get a mention too.

This Post was written by Sam from B&P

Fellow Food Blogger Wins Pillsbury Bake-Off

Not directly related to how to manage and maintain your blog, but I thought you might be interested nonetheless and indulge me. A fellow food blogger, Cookie Madness has just earned $1 million dollars for winning the Grand Prize in the Pillsbury Bake-Off for her Baked Chicken and Spinach Stuffing. Congratulations, Anna - WOW!

This post was written by Cate at Sweetnicks.

Posts That Load a bit Oddly

As usual, it seems that I spent a great amount of time attempting to layout my posts with blogger. They look fine in one window, then once the official 'post' button is punched, they look completely different.

I spent some time today on a different system (a pc at work, but don't tell the folk I work for), and eventually, I was able to make it look alright.

I got home tonight, and because there was nothing else better to do just before I pop into bed, I checked the layout.

All wrong.

I'm on a little laptop, so don't know if that is why it looks so odd (really, it's not that little).

The pictures towards the end are triping over each other, and even straying into text territory. I'm totally verklempft. How to fix? Here's the offending post that I'm seeing so badly displayed on the home pc: http://skatandthefood.blogspot.com/2006/03/its-good-to-live-in-south.html

Oh, help would be so gladly appreciated- the computer world seems to flow along so nicely for awhile, and then- MEH! Not so much. :)


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

How Can I Remove My Old Blog From 'Blogger'

Hello,

Few months back I started a blog on Blogger (mahanandi.blogspot.com) and later I decided to buy my own domain and hosting services. I moved my contents to my new domain (nandyala.org/mahanandi).

I tried to delete my blog from Blogger and I followed the steps described on Blogger for deleting a blog. I also deleted the related contents I saved on my domain in WordPress folders (I used WordPress to create my new blog). But neither of these steps has worked and my old blog still comes up at mahanandi.blogspot.com.

I'd greatly appreciate if anyone could tell me how to delete the blog from Blogger completely.

Thank you in advance.

Indira

(This Post was written by Indira from Mahanandi .)

Can't upload images

Waaaaaaa!!! (sorry, i had to let that out)

I have been trying to post something last night to no avail. My problem is uploading images. I've never had this problem before until now and it's doing my head in. I'm just wondering whether i am alone in this. Please help?

Right. I started by creating a new post - entered the title, drafted the content, etc. Then came upon uploading the image. It went through opening the file, chose to have it left indentation, etc... then the message : 'waiting for image to upload' came then a BLANK screen. I did this over and over about a zillion times already and the same thing happens. I finally gave up on it last night as it was getting late and as i tossed and turned in bed, i kept thinking, it will be alright tomorrow. But that tomorrow is now and the same thing is happening.

Few thoughts... have i exceeded blogger's generous capacity they have given me? Since there's no obvious information on how much memory we are allowed to upload on blogger, one cannot know, huh? Or is it just me that don't know this info? How do i find out?

Guys and gals, i need your help. THANK YOU in advance.


This Post was written by mae from riceandnoodles

Moving to your own site

A few posts ago, some of us had the courage to admit we're addicted. One of the real danger signs is moving up to the harder stuff. I'm talking about blogging here folks, not drugs or charcuterie.

Someone asked, so I thought I'd offer a few suggestions on how to easily move up into paying for your own domain and hosting. If the need to be able to reach your site 24/7 (nevermind being able to reach knowledgeable support) is as important to you as to any professional site owner, you'll have to start paying, but there are some very reasonable hosting values out there. Note that neither I, nor the School is making official endorsements of any of the products listed below, but I can vouch for them, since I either use them, or have had clients that do.

Step 1. Your own domain name.
This should be a separate post but I'll mention two of the cheapest places to get one - GoDaddy.com and Yahoo Domains. Plans start as low as a few bucks. Please read the fine print, some of the cheap deals require hosting with these companies.

Any reputable web hoster will offer domain registration. Having your hosting and domain registration in the same place makes billing and DNS stuff easier. So easy that you won't have to learn what DNS stands for. You shouldn't pay more than 20 bucks a year no matter where you are.

2. Get a web hoster with a blogging tool built in.
For those of you that don't want to learn what CHMOD stands for, or aren't curious where your mySQLadmin tool is, choose a hoster where all you have to do is sign in, put in your credit card #, login and start blogging. You can find hosters with Wordpress installed already for less than 8 bucks a month and Hosts with Movable Type installed for $8 and up, depending on your needs.

Wordpress and Movable Type are the examples I choose here since they both have features that allow you to import all your old blogger content with a few clicks. Exporting and moving content is a different subject, but there's lots of resources on how to get it done painlessly.

3. Cheap alternative for all your blogs
Many of you have multilple blogs, or have other family members that blog - I've just found a hoster - successfulhosting.com - with plans starting at 6 bucks a month for 6 sites!. It doesn't have a blog tool pre-installed, but with the Unix hosting, and without too much know-how you can do Wordpress's Famous 5-minute install for free, install Movable Type or pay for Movable Type's support to install MT for you.

There are other options like Typepad, that allow you to have your own domain, but my advice is if you're going to move up into the harder stuff, choose a real host with a real website. There are many benefits to a real hoster, the main one is they all offer 99% or higher guarantees, something Typepad and Blogger can't offer as they go through growing pains.

This Post was written by Paul from Food Blog

Slow scrolling in IE

I've recently been getting e-mails from some of my readers saying that they're having very slow scroll rates or even difficulty loading my site at all. After questioning, it seems to come down to specifically people using Internet Explorer, but not all of them - perhaps different builds? I tried it in my IE, which I don't normally use, and it's definitely slower to scroll than in Firefox, but not significantly - it sort of has a slight stutter to it as you scroll down. Any thoughts?

[images] photoshop or other tools

i have been using photoshop to manipulate photos, and today, for some reason, when i try to open the application, it goes through the usual startup window, with it saying that it's loading all the files, blah blah blah, but then it just closes. not freezes, but the application just disappears from the screen. i have no idea why. i haven't touched anything.

does anyone know what might have happened? i have tried looking for answers on the www.adobe.com site, but to no avail, and their customer support is mon-fri. if nothing else, is there a free downloadable image manipulation tool anyone can recommend?

i am beginning to think that the blogging gods are trying to tell me something.

(by the way, blogger is still having issues, but at least my blog is visible on the web - thanks to everyone who helped me stay sane over the last 48 hours)

This Post was written by sarah from the delicious life

A question

I just got a mail from the owner of recipes365.net, asking me if I want to be a contributor of recipes and now I wonder what this is all about. Anyone who knows anything? After reading some of the posts here lately I'm very wary about everything I am offered to participate in but I wouldn't like to turn down something that could turn into something interesting. I did check out the site and it looks ok but I couldn't find any info there.


This Post was written by Ilva from Lucullian Delights

[MISC] blog addiction

happy st. patrick's day everyone!

okay now that that is out of the way, perhaps this post is not quite appropriate for school, but sometimes i look at fbs as therapy. LOL!

the last few days, blogger completely whacked out. a few days ago, it was down for about 45 minutes, and i was like, "okay, no big deal." plus, it was planned, i.e. they put a notice up on the "status" page saying it would be down. like i said, no big deal, because um, i guess i could find something else to do with my time (but what?!?! just kidding, i had to take a shower or something right?)

last night, blogger wonked out BIG TIME.
~ about 8:30PM - someone emailed me and said - "i can't access your site."
~ i went to my site. and received a 403 error. i thought, "not a big thing, they have done this before - must be maintenance"
~ i got a few more emails and IMs
~ FOUR HOURS LATER, the site was still down.
~ i woke up this morning, i had three emails, one even as late as 7 am saying they couldn't access my site
~ the blogger "status" page says something about a filer and replacing it. still. this is almost 12 hours later

i can't tell you what this did to my traffic, which i know will be fine once the site is back up.

but i will tell you that i didn't know how insanely addicted i was to blogging. when the site was down for the first hour, it was an irritiation, but i remained calm. after two hours, i was sort of nervous. i was constantly refreshing my site's page (ever 20 seconds?) like i had a nervous tick. after more time, i couldn't take it. i got up and paced around my apartment, drank some water, and started muttering to myself, and i'm sure i was using very nasty language when referring to the evil dark overlord called "blogger." i opened up ms word to just simply write. i couldn't. i kept clicking over to the internet to check. every time, i got the error message, and every time, i swore and wanted to punch my laptop, pull my hair out, scream, etc. i think...it might be a problem. i mean, those are withdrawal symptoms, right?

sorry for the rant-ish post. i think i just needed to get that out, and you know, see if anyone had the same thing happen, and if they were psychologically scarred like me after that. lol!


This Post was written by sarah from the delicious life

(Misc) Checking on the Thieves

I happened to do a Technorati search tonight and one of the most recent hits was this link where someone has blatantly copied my About Me section verbatim. It seems odd that he would choose my About Me text, but it's my words nonetheless and still stealing. I have left him a comment, and well as reported it to MSN AND put a note on my website. If you don't do a regular Technorati (or similar site) check on your blog (I do it weekly), might be a good idea to start; that way you get a heads up when people are stealing your words. :)

This post was written by Cate from Sweetnicks.

Large, large pictures

I've visited a few new food blogs recently (finally having time to read again!) and have noticed that many bloggers seem to have a misconception about how images work on the web. If you have a large image and you set the size to be something different than your original in the html code, your readers are still waiting for the huge image to download and their browser merely rescales it to fit in the size you've decreed. If you want to create a reasonably sized image for download, resize it in a graphic program before uploading it somewhere and linking to it from your blog. For me, something under 100k is reasonable although I usually shoot for less than 50k but if you're taking full size images from your digital camera and not resizing them, you're forcing your readers to wait for a huge file to download very slowly. And they also, by the way, blows up to the whole screen on RSS readers. The one I just ran into, the third blog with huge pictures in the half a dozen blogs I've read this evening, was a 1.2 Meg file, although it was set to display only in a roughly 200 x 200 pixel space.

Posted by Ellen from Chronicles of a Curious Cook

They're Stealin'! I'm Reelin'!

Forgive me if I sound a bit indignant. Flabbergasted is how I feel.

Through a quick scan of Stat Counter I discovered a new food blog that simply copied the source code for my site and is using my custom template. Everything is the same. They didn't even bother to take the designer's name out of the code.

I wouldn't be so bothered if this was a generic template available through Blogger, Typepad, or Wordpress. But this was a custom, hand coded template. It wouldn't have even bothered me if they borrowed a few lines of code. But the whole damn site!?! What really gets me is that it is for another food blog. Audacity!

Any thoughts? Am I taking it just a little too personally? Has this happened to anyone else?

This Post was written by Jennifer from Taste Everything Once.

Quick (and probably dumb) question about Slashfood

Forgive me if this is the wrong place to post this, but I was wondering if someone could direct me to contact information for the bloggers over on Slashfood. We've been covered a couple times recently, and both times I've wanted to either thank the blogger or correct a false assumption, but not only have I been unsuccessful at locating Slashfood contact info, my comments to the posts always get eaten. Am I missing some trick to the Slashfood site? Does one have to be logged in somewhere to participate?

Mozilla/Blogger Problems?

Has anyone noticed problems with Blogger using Mozilla? Over the last week, I've had guaranteed publishing failures, slow load times, etc.

What gives?

This Post was written by William from Never Trust a Skinny Chef...

Yes, Ingrid IS Real

I emailed Ingrid - purportedly of the food Network back about her intial email (outlined below). She says it is OK to post here, so here goes.

Hi Owen - My name is Ingrid Escajeda and I am a producer for the Food Network. I am currently working on a new series of short pieces called “The Power of Food”. They’re basically little 60-second mini-documentaries that tell the story of real people whose lives were changed by food.

I’m in the process of researching these stories and ran across your blog. Since you’re clearly a fellow food lover, I’m hoping that you might know of some that you could share with me. Either something you’ve heard or maybe something from an article that you've run across? I’m looking for personal stories that really capture the transformative power of food. They can be funny, touching, or both. Things like how being part of cooperative garden in the middle of the inner city maybe changed a kid’s perspective, or say, how someone trying to track down a certain ingredient met a future spouse in the one store they found it in. Basically, anything where food has really changed someone’s life.

If you do know of anything like that, I would greatly appreciate any help or suggestions you could give me. I can be reached by email or by phone – (323) 874-7678.

I look forward to hearing from you. Thanks in advance for your help!!

Ingrid Escajeda

Producer

The Power of Food

That was the first email. Here is her response to me asking about letting you all know and for more detail.

Hi Owen - that would be fantastic!! Yes, they will end up being filmed. If their story is chosen, we would come out and shoot them talking about their story, intercut with footage that corresponds to their story, i.e. them in the kitchen, garden, etc.

There's going to be a submissions link in the "Be on Food Network" section of the Food Network website, but I don't think it's up and running yet. It's probably better to have people email me directly at:

foodshorts-power@yahoo.com

We're looking for stories that have a real emotional hook. Something that people can grasp onto. Does that make sense? Let me know if you have any other questions at a

Thanks you SO much for your help!!!

This Post was written by Owen from Tomatilla!

Is Ingrid Real?

I received an email from an Ingrid Escajeda claiming to be a producer for a new Food Network show. She was looking for story ideas. Just curious if others received this and if you think it is legitimate.

The phone number does link to someone with the same name in the Los Angeles area and there is an Ingrid Escajeda listed on IMDB but with a very short list of credits. The email address seemed off to me however. There was no evidence of the domain name connected with the address.

Thoughts?

This Post was written by Jennifer from Taste Everything Once.

Photo Placement on Blogger

Whenever I try to upload a photo to Blogger it places it at the top of the post, and I have to drag it to where I want it. I'd like to have it inserted where my cursor is. Is there any way to get photos placed in the body of a post in progress when you upload?

Stolen Blogspot.com name
This morning I was posting on EatStuff for the cat blogging and clicked on my url and some other stuff popped up there. Has this happened to anyone else and how do I prevent it? I was lucky it wan't porn or something disgusting but it is frustrating!
This Post was written by Vickie from The Moveable Feast Food Blog

Help! Sidebar now a bottom bar

I was fiddling with ad formats and some freaky things happened, mainly my right hand sidebar fell to thebottom of my page and the main content column now spans the whole page.

I use Movable Type. Four months ago I upgraded to MT3.2 but this particular blog in stil in MT3.1

I've been through the index.html with a fine toothcomb and tried adding and subtracting / div in the arrow brackets (this page won't acept html)– adding one does cause the column (still down under) to shift left.

I've been through the CSS and can't see anything obvious although I did changemy link colours to green today.

I'm sure it's something simple but can't put my finger on it.

Any ideas out there?

Thanks

Ed from Tomato

Help! Sidebar now a bottom bar

I wa fiddling with ad formats and some freaky things happened, mainly my right hand sidebar fell to thebottom of my page and the main content column now spans the whole page.

I use Movable Type. Four months ago I upgraded to MT3.2 but this particular blog in stil in MT3.1

I've been through the index.html with a fine toothcomb and tried adding and subtracting

Locked Out of My Site
I have tried numerous times this am. to get into my site to do a post. I keep getting this error message:

553 Permission denied.blog/1/44/14/themoveablefeastpcs/archives/2006_03_01_themoveablefeastpcs_archive.html

I went to Blogger's Help site and changed my password and that didn't work. Has anyone else had this problem and how on earth can I gain access to me own site? When I click on my favorites list to my own site it said that I am not allowed to view that site.

You are not authorized to view this page
You might not have permission to view this directory or page using the credentials you supplied.
If you believe you should be able to view this directory or page, please try to contact the Web site by using any e-mail address or phone number that may be listed on the themoveablefeastpcs.blogspot.com home page.
You can click Search to look for information on the Internet.
HTTP Error 403 - Forbidden Internet Explorer
So it doesn't matter how I try to get into my site, I am denied access every which direction I have tried.
This Post was written by Vickie from The Moveable Feast Food Blog

[navigation] previous/next navigation on individual post pages

on many blogs, i have seen very helpful navigation at the top of an individual post page that allows a reader to navigate to one previous post (with a symbol like this <<) or forward to the next post (>>).

is there some way to do this on a blogger blog?

any help would be very very much appreciated!

this post was written by sarah from the delicious life

[Misc] [GMOs] [Food Labeling] [Politics Of Food] Please Say No To GMOs & More--now!

Hello Fellow Foodies,

I don't usually mix politics and blogging, but this is something that (no matter what your political leanings/beliefs/etc. are) directly affects you. It is about OUR FOOD SUPPLY.

I know how much food bloggers (and food blog readers) care about what they eat, where it comes from, the quality of their food. Eating locally, organically, healthfully, and naturally are concurrent themes running through many of your blogs. And eating in general is, of course, the subject of them all.

So I thought this would be the easiest way to reach the greatest number of people. I received this information this morning in an email from Baker Creek Heirloom Seed Company, whom I have been ordering from for years. They are a small but rapidly growing company here in Missouri (you may have seen them in Martha Stewart Living or read about them in The Sacramento Bee or numerous other publications). They are deeply committed to keeping heirloom foods alive, keeping our food supply safe, and keeping GMO foods from taking over. They are not a bunch of kooks.

The bill discussed below will be voted on THIS WEEK. Please take action now (it only takes a few minutes to send an email or make a phone call). And please spread the word! Thank you.

Dear Gardening Friends,

We want to tell you about a new bill that will take away local food labeling rights and help keep gene-altered ingredients in our food. Here's the low-down:

Tell your Congressman or Congresswoman to vote "No" on House of Representatives Bill H.R. 4167, the "National Uniformity for Food Act," coming to a vote in Washington, D.C on March 8.

The House of Representatives will vote this week on a controversial "national food uniformity" labeling law that will take away local government and states' power to require food safety food labels such as those required in California and other states on foods or beverages that are likely to cause cancer, birth defects, allergic reactions, or mercury poisoning. This bill would also prevent citizens in local municipalities and states from passing laws requiring that genetically engineered foods and ingredients such as Monsanto's recombinant Bovine Growth Hormone (rBGH) be labeled.

Big food corporations and the biotech industry understand that consumers are more and more concerned about food safety, genetic engineering, and chemical-intensive agriculture, and are reading labels more closely. They understand that pesticide and mercury residues and hazardous technologies such as genetic engineering and food irradiation will be rejected if there are truthful labels required on food products. Industry-sponsored H.R. 4167 is gaining momentum and must be stopped! Act now! Preserve local and regional democracy and protect yourself and your family from unsafe food by sending an email or calling your Representative and urging them to vote "No" on H.R. 4167.
=====================================

Please Take Action Now--Send a Message to Your Congress Member in the House of Representatives to Vote "No" on H.R. 4167. Read more at OrganicConsumers.org, or immediately call or email your State Representative. Time is almost out; Please act now!

=====================================

Also, Missouri residents need to take action on a new pro-GMO bill that will keep local communities from blocking GMO seeds. This pro-Monsanto legislation needs to be stopped now! Act before March 8! Please visit OrganicConsumers.org for more information.

For more information about this bill, please see these links:

Reuters

NY Times

Washington Post

NRDC Call to Action

Center for Food Safety Call to Action

(The Center For Food Safety link takes you right to a page where you can send an e-letter to your congressperson opposing the bill in about 30 seconds.)

And on a more positive note, one of the google ads that happened to pop up next to this gmail from Baker Creek was for "Authentic Foodies" (the new buzzword?) Eliot Coleman and Barbara Damrosch's wonderful website, Four Season Farm. If you need a little hope and inspiration, take a look. Lots of good stuff there.


This Post was written by farmgirl from Farmgirl Fare.com.

Expandable post - HELP!

I am having technical difficulties trying to expand and collapse my posts.

I followed the instructions from the post
Expandable Post Help, by Mona, Friday, January 20, 2006

but the Read more! is appearing at the beginning of my post even if I placed it where I want it to appear in my post, as per instructions. So I am obviously doing something wrong because I can see from the comments in the Jan 20 post that it worked for everyone else.......

And, In step 1 of the instructions, I inserted the listed "mainorarchive" text under:
"style"

which I found under:
/* Footer
----------- */
#footer p {

Maybe that is the wrong place ?? UGH!

Can anyone help me fix this? Thank you!


This Post was written by kishko from kishko.blogspot.com

(Misc) Subscription Services

Any recommendations for subscription services so my readers can sign up to get regular e-mails? I've been using Bloglet since I started, but 3 weeks ago, it stopped working. I went in and re-enabled it, but keep getting an error message. Two e-mails to them have gone unanswered. Suggestions?

This post was written by Sweetnicks.

(Blogger) Drafts Posting When Publishing

How come every time I go to publish a post, it will include any drafts I have sitting there? Is there a way to prevent this? It's frustrating because I try to be ahead of the game and start a few that I know will be in the next few days (i.e., ARF/5-A-Day templates, etc.)., but then it goes and releases them... help?

This post written by Sweetnicks.

What do all these people have in Common?

What do Arianna Huffington, Will Wheaton, DJ Amber and Elise Bauer from Simply Recipes all have in common?

Scouting around on Technorati should help you find the answer.

Is our Elise now a member of the blogebrity?
Or the blogeratti.


This Post was written by Sam from Becks & Posh

(Misc) Taking Better Pictures

I'm trying to focus on getting more "food porn"-worthy pictures, and found this link and thought you guys might be interested.

This post was written by Sweetnicks.

[Events] How to Host a Food Blogging Event

Promoting Guidelines for your Food Blogging Event
There are four main places you can promote any food event that you hope will attract entries from Food Bloggers. Please do not promote your event by putting up a blog post about it on Food Blog Scool. This option has been replaced with the calendar. Thank you.

1) Your own Blog.
This is the most important post.
Make your post attractive.
Make sure it is something you really want to do.
(Events are better not looked upon as merely a promotional exercise for your blog)
Make sure you have time in your schedule to follow it through.
(Hosting a Food Blog Event requires commitment, hard work and dedication).
Make sure the theme will appeal to your audience and that it sits well with what your blog is about).

2) Request a listing at the IMBB site.
You can fill in the contact form on the IMBB site
or/and you can email the very on-the-ball and accommodating Andrew at Spittoon using the following address:
spittoon AT andys-scribblings DOT co DOT uk
Andrew has administrative powers at the site in addition to the IMBB site host Ronald.

3) Request a listing at Sticky Dates too. This is another place that Food Bloggers scout for food blogging events.
Email Sweetnicks here: Sweetnicksplace AT aol DOT com to get your event listed.

4) The Food Blog S'cool Calendar.
Guidelines to using the Calendar will come at a later date.
Briefly, please make sure the event is food-related.
Where possible, include a link to the announcement post on your own blog.


This Post was written by sam from Becks & Posh

Help--parts of my blog have disappeared!

Help--my blog has disappeared--only a portion of it shows.

In reading the code that is still there I found this:


var ID = 8528348;var HATE_INTERSTITIAL_COOKIE_NAME = 'dismissedInterstitial';var FLAG_COOKIE_NAME = 'flaggedBlog';var FLAG_BLOG_URL = 'http://www.blogger.com/flag-blog.g?nav=1&toFlag=' + ID;var UNFLAG_BLOG_URL = 'http://www.blogger.com/unflag-blog.g?nav=1&toFlag=' + ID;var FLAG_IMAGE_URL = 'http://www.blogger.com/img/navbar/1/flag.gif';var UNFLAG_IMAGE_URL = 'http://www.blogger.com/img/navbar/1/unflag.gif';var ncHasFlagged = false;var servletTarget = new Image();

Can anyone tell me how to fix it?



This Post was written by Carolyn from 18thC Cuisine

[Event] Food Blog S'cool is no longer a Calendar

But Food Blog S'cool has a calendar - over there in the right column.

Since we now have a calendar - please can we try and lay off the events promotion posts on this blog. It was never the intention for FBS. It started with delightful Sarah from The Delicious Life doing a little events roundup for everybody and that was really cool, especially as the IMBB site at that time was often not up to date. I am grateful to her for having taken the iniative on that when it was needed. Thanks Sarah!

But now we have the calendar, event hosts can simply pop them in the calendar. I think everyone knows to look there - it is prominent at the top of the roll - and the need of promotions is mute here now.

Sometimes the calendar has too many users and doesn't work for a few minutes. If this happens to you, just try and access it a few minutes later.

Sam

PS - If someone is seriously having problems finding a certain event, say like IMBB, and they cant find it on Sticky Date, IMBB or the FBS calendar, then, of course, in this sort of *dire* situation, it would be fine to post a search requrest for it. Please check all 3 resources first, because no one of them seems to cover the entire spectrum of events.

This Post was written by Sam from Becks & Posh

Thank you for your kind understanding.

Food blogging event

I am hosting my first blogging event over at my site this month. I hope you will all check it out.
I am officially declaring March and Meatloaf Madness month! So make up your tried and true recipe or try a new one and blog about it. Posts are due March 30th and the roundup will be displayed the first week in April.


This Post was written by heather from eating4one

Sidebar fix on Internet Explorer

Hi. Seems like i have been posting alot lately. I am trying to fix the way my blog (using blogger) appears in IE. Has anyone figured out a fix? Couln not find one with a search here. Thanks.


This Post was written by The Blissful Glutton from www.blissfulglutton.com

Customizing sidebar font

I really tried to solve this problem on my own, but to no avail :(
Sorry guys.
I'm trying to make my sidebar look cleaner. I hate how longer blog names wrap around and take up 2 and even sometimes 3 lines. I added the gmail button below my rating system, and with that change my whole sidebar font went to pot.
Every time I try to make the font smaller and preview it, it looks ok, not great, then I republish and goes right back to before.
Basically I want to shrink the size of links and spacing between letters AND between lines, overall shrink everything.
But cain't figure it out.
Thanks for anyone who can help.

Mona from Mona's Apple

Comments on my blog

I get lovely little email alerts that tell me when someone has posted a comment on my blog....but I have no idea which posting they've commented on! Since lots of people comment on posts back in the past, this is a real problem - how (apart from going through the comments of every previous post ever) can I find out which post they commented on?????????????


This Post was written by Fahara from Souperior

Changing my header in blogger

How do I change the color the color of my header text in blogger to black?
I was also trying to put a picture in the header and the picture never fills it all the way. Can someone help me? Thanks.

This Post was written by the blissful glutton from www.blissfulglutton.com

Article on the cheese sandwich saga

I just found this: CBS News Story

I thought some of you would find this article interesting. The first part is about the cheese sandwich saga.

[BLOGGER] Color of text in header

When I click onto a "previous post" the color of the header text changes from red to white. How can I tell it to maintain the same color as the text in the header on my mainpage?
A big thank you goes out to anyone who can help!!

3 minutes later: don't know how I did it. but while playing with the template, I figured out the answer to above question...........anyone need to know how to do it?!

This Post was written by KISHKO from kishko.blogspot.com