[RSS] google breaks my heart

Usually I am excited about new software updates because they ordinarily represent an understandable improvement and flow. I pick up new ideas quickly, and am fast to grasp better methodologys.

Google's new reader upgrade from two days ago has stopped me in my tracks. I havent been able to read any blogs in the last couple of days because their darned new reader has flumoxed me so.

My main gripe is that is is really slow! Sometimes it takes a couple of seconds to get from one blog post to the next when it used to be instantaneous. And I keep getting an error window popping up that says some script has 'stopped running - should I end it now'. I never got that before. It is very irritating.



When I go to its 'Home Page' it shows up 'What's New' it awlays shows the same three blogs every time i visit. I know its not always those three blogs that are the newest. it is bizarre and a waste of space.

Luckily Joy advised me to switch it to using it the old-fashioned way, so hopefully I will be able to catch up a little on my reading.

But really I was hoping I would simply 'get' what google was trying to do with this change. I am really going to have to play with it hard to try and understand the direction they are heading. It certainly didn't align with my own brain this time.

I would have been happy if they had just put a search function in there. That would have been the most useful change I could have thought of.


Anyone else loving it, have some tips for how I can learn to love it too?


*ADDITION SUNDAY OCT 1st:*
I have been playng with it and I love it even less...

Now, at the time when you add a subscription you are no longer invited to "add labels"This is a step backwards in functionality. I have over 800 feeds and unless I add the necessary labels at that point in time, when I actually subscribe, then I have to go and find that blog i just added and give it a label after the fact. This is way too much work for me. This factor alone is enough to make me want to switch back to the old version. I used to love that the labels had little drop downs so you could pick from previously used labels. Why have these disappeared?

OK - so now I am migrating back to the old version forthwith.

This Post was written by sam from Becks & Posh

Problem with my 3 Blogs - I need your help please

Hi
We just came back from Paris and now I can see 3 problems in my 3 BLOGS:
1. In My main Blog :My mom's recipes and more
September is not in the "archives" list
Many photos, I mean older are now with an x instead of the real picture ..
when I click on that picture with an X I get this:
"The page cannot be found "
HTTP 404 - File not found Internet Explorer like this one
2. In my second Blog with 'Selected recipes and photos'- Lemon And Ginger Blog ,
there are No photos anymore.. only X .. the same problem .
3. In my flower Blog : one apple a day, the same problem..
[I don't use the blogger in beta, I use IE]
Can you help me with these please? is this a temporarily problem ?
Thank you very much !
This Post was written by chanit from My mom's recipes and more
This Post was written by chanit from Lemon And Ginger
This Post was written by chanit from one apple a day

[Tools] Video blogging is easier than you think...

I'll be the first to admit that I'm no Orangette when it comes to writing a food blog. I have been preparing a post that involves cooking eggs, and I couldn't for the life of me put my technique into words. So I went and embedded a video into my post. I'd never done it before, and I was surprised how easy it was given a few important tools and web sites.

Here's what I've learned.

1. Take video - Most (if not all) digital cameras take small videos. Since this video is internet-bound, it doesn't have to be hollywood quality. Even a 640x480 video is overkill for embedding into a post. It helps tremendously if you use a tripod or some other stable base to film. This will avoid the dreaded "home movie shakes".

2. Edit video - All Windows XP machines should have Windows Movie Editor. This is an excellent program for beginners. There are a host of fancy transition and editing functions in this free program. This is important to me, since my camera only takes 30 second videos and the video I needed was 45 seconds long. WME allowed me to trim excess video off each clip and splice them together. If you don't have this on your WinXP machine, you can get it by upgrading (for free) to service pack 2.

3. Create a YouTube account - YouTube allows you to post videos for free, and it has html code for embedding the video in your post.

4. Upload the video - YouTube has easy to follow instructions for this.

5. Embed in your post - I use blogger, which had a cow with the HTML code. Don't worry, it's fine. Just check "Stop showing HTML errors for this post" and save as draft or publish. The video won't appear in your composer, but it'll pop up on the preview.

Voila! Video in your blog. Here's the finished product.

This sounds really complicated, but I went from idea to internet video in less than 30 minutes. Once you get good at it, I'm sure it'll take considerably less.

Have fun!

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

[Blogger] Importing to TypePad

I'm seriously contemplating moving my site from Blogger to TypePad and switching to teaguyspeaks.com, which I'd registered some time back.

I see that TypePad has instructions for importing from Blogger. Has anyone tried this and what was the result? My site's been up for about a year and has about 600 posts. I can't help thinking that there would have to be some hitches in this process.

This Post was written by Bill from Tea Guy Speaks.

[Typepad] Make your own book

FYI for Typepad users--I'm not one but I thought I'd just pass this along...

This morning Blurb, the creative book publishing service, released its Blog to Book beta service to 200 SixApart TypePad bloggers. As a blogger, thought you’d be interested in hearing about this. Blurb thinks there are hidden books in many blogs, and that you don’t need Simon & Schuster to get your work out there in a professional-quality format. They’ve made a product that makes it easy for bloggers to do that, and we’d love to hear your thoughts.

Blurb looks at this beta release as a great opportunity hear from its users, and they’re putting their money where their mouth is – literally, with free books for everyone invited to try the service. With this beta release, Blurb hopes to get some quality feedback from a key audience before the company distributes Blog to Book more broadly.

The full press release is pasted below, and following are a few highlights:

- Each TypePad blogger will be invited to test the new service that enables them to convert their blogs into bookstore-quality books.

- In return for some honest feedback, each beta tester will receive a complimentary copy of their first book.

- They’ll also have an opportunity to invite a fellow TypePad blogger into the program (who will also receive a complimentary copy of their first book).

More information follows below. If you’re using TypePad, let me know and we can look into adding you to the beta list. If not, we’ll be sure to give you the heads-up for the full release after Blurb works out some of the kinks with its beta testers. If you’d like to chat with someone at Blurb about the product, let me know and I can set that up as well.

Best,
Mike

Mike Barash
Senior Director
Atomic PR
415.402.0230 (office)
650.520.0120 (mobile)
mike@atomicpr.com

Blurb Introduces Blog Slurper in New Blog-to-Book Program Blog Slurper Automatically Creates Draft Book

San Francisco, Calif. — September 27, 2006 — Blurb, the creative book publishing service, today announced that its new BookSmart™ blog-to-book beta is now being released to a select number of SixApart TypePad™ bloggers. These TypePad bloggers have been invited to test the new service that enables them to convert blogs into bookstore-quality books automatically, using Blurb’s new Blog Slurper.

“We’ve met with many, many bloggers, and a surprising number expressed a desire for the technology-free permanence books provide,” said Eileen Gittins, founder and CEO of Blurb. “In some cases, bloggers just want an archive of their work. Others want to share with their off-line friends and family, and many would like to sell their books for profit to the audiences they’ve amassed.”

Blurb’s Blog Slurper allows each blogger to identify how they want their blog slurped — by date or topic — and whether to include pictures, comments, and links. Blurb’s BookSmart application then inserts the slurped blog directly into a professionally designed book template, producing a draft book in minutes. The blogger can publish the book as is, or embellish it with more pictures and text, different fonts, borders and backgrounds, and other design details.

In return for their feedback, each beta tester is offered a complimentary copy of their first book, as well as an opportunity to invite a fellow TypePad blogger into the program. Support for additional blog services including Moveable Type, Blogger and WordPress will follow, incorporating feedback from this first beta release.

BookSmart™ runs on a Mac or PC and is free to try; users pay only when they publish. Each book is then printed on demand, in any quantity – whether that’s one for a gift, a couple dozen for family members, or several thousand to reach a wide audience. Besides blog books, popular book types include conference books, portfolio books, travel books, cookbooks, and photo books. Books cost as little as $29.95 for a single copy of a 40-page hardcover 8”x10” book, custom dust jacket included.

About Blurb
Blurb is a company and a community that believes passionately in the power of books: making, reading, sharing, and selling them. Blurb’s creative publishing service is simple and smart enough to make anyone an author — every blogger, cook, marketer, photographer, traveler, entrepreneur, poet, everyone. Founded by Eileen Gittins in 2004 and funded by Canaan Partners and Anthem Venture Partners, Blurb is bringing book publishing to the masses. For more information about Blurb and the Blurb BookSmart™ software, visit www.blurb.com.
# # #

This Post was written by Amy from Cooking with Amy

[photography] SF Chron on taking pics in restaurants

From today's SF Chronicle an article on foodbloggers taking pictures in restaurants. Becks&Posh, Chez Pim, Bunrab, Gastronomie and My Epicurean Debauchery are all mentioned. It gives some good tips on taking unobtrusive photos.

I've gotten less wimpy about taking pictures in restaurants, but still somewhat dislike doing it, especially in a quiet, dark spot (and then the photos don't turn out anyway!). Also, sometimes I just want to focus on enjoying my meal and my company--though I'm often with my husband or close friends, I worry it's a bit rude to my dining companions if we're not as close. Anyone else have tips for getting good photos in restaurants? Or thoughts on whether or not you like to take the pictures?

PS--Thanks to Sarah from the Delicious Life for passing on the article.

This Post was written by Erin from Erin's Kitchen

[Comments] Commenting from your web-enabled phone

Hi!

I have a Sidekick phone and I use the internet feature mostly for reading food blogs while I should be doing something else. (Like paying attention to the road. Doh!)

The bit that frustrates me is that if the comment anti-spam thing (you know, that part where you type a bunch of random letters) is enabled I can't post comments because it (the phone) doesn't have flash or java or some such.

Does anyone else have a Sidekick and if so, do you have a suggestion or solution?

Random, I know...but hey...


This Post was written by RACHAEL from FRESH APPROACH

[Members] Spring Cleaning Invites

Hi Everyone

I just did some spring cleaning in the members section of this blog. There were dozens and dozens of food bloggers who had asked to be pupils but who had never ever completed the signup by accepting the invitation. Some of them dated back a year and a half. So I removed them all and wrote to each individual to tell them what I had done. Everybody is welcome to reapply for membership, of course. I think some people thought they were memebers because a link to their blog appeared in the pupil's blogroll, but the truth is I would make the link before double checking they had finished the signup process and I want to try and stop this from happening going forward. So, in addition to removing the links of the pupils who never finalized their sign-up there will be a new two-week window going forward for new pupils to accept the invitiation. Only after that two weeks will the new pupils be added to the blog roll. Hope that all makes sense.

"This invitation is only guaranteed valid for two weeks from now. If you do not accept this invitation to join the school within that time period, the invite could be removed and your blog will either not be added to the blog roll,or it runs the risk of being removed if it has already been added."

This is all fairly time consuming, so if anyone has any better ideas of how to handle this, please don't hesitate to suggest alternative methodology.

Thanks


This Post was written by Sam from Becks & Posh

[Members] signing up members

New-members-to-be...
thank you for your patience.
I currently can't get to the members section of this site in order to sign you up.
This has been a problem for several hours and I am not sure when I will regain access.
Rest assured it is on my list of things to do as soon as I am able.


This Post was written by sam from becks & Posh

[Events] Hosting Etiquette

When hosting an online blogging event, I always try to make sure I visit and comment on the blog of every single entry I recieve. I feel very lucky when having the opportunity to host such an event and the very least I can do is to thank those that entered for their efforts.

But a lot of hosts don't seem to do this. Or they comment on a select number of the entries, but say nothing to the others.

What do you think about this?

Do you feel a little bit slighted if you join in an event and don't hear anything back from the host?

Do you think that I am being oversensitive and that a general thank you to everyone on the hosts blog is enough.

Or do you prefer a more personal touch?

Or do you prefer an email? Some people do this, but I always felt the comment was the best place to thank participants. Maybe I am wrong? But I think an email and comments are both equally acceptable forms of thanks accoring to the hosts preference.

Some new bloggers never even get a single comment despite their participation in an event. This is not a good welcome to the community in my opionion.

Please weigh in on this subject. What is your experience, what are your feelings?


This Post was written by sam from Becks & Posh

HTML: What is nbsp

For several weeks now I've been getting an error message about half the time when I publish my blog. It says "error" and if you click on more details it says "file not found" but if I hit the back button it takes me back into the post and I've always been able to publish.

It is freaking me out, so I took a look at the template in Firefox web developer, where I hear that things show up in red when there are errors. The only things I have in red are two places where the letters nbsp show up red. Both places they are inside brackets where text should go like this:

>nbsp<

(Even to my totally html challenged brain, they don't look like they should be there.)

I have no idea what nbsp is and why it is there. Can anyone tell me if this could be what's causing the error message, and what I should do about it. Should I just delete them?

(I'm seriously html challenged, so speak slowly and use small words if you can.)


Thanks for any help anyone can give!!

This Post was written by Kalyn from Kalyn's Kitchen

by request: how I got a book deal

The other day, I put up a thank you to everyone, explaining that I have a book deal. In the comments, Sam asked if I could comment on the process, how this happened, and how someone else might learn from what I experienced. Of course. I wrote a lengthy comment and was happy to share.

Sam asked me this morning if I might make a new post out of this, in case anyone missed it. Gladly, Sam. Here you go.


"The first part is getting the agent. In some ways, that's the hardest. I was lucky. I made friends with someone who is also a writer, but not a blogger. We were friends for a good six months before she suggested that she introduce me to her agent. I didn't ask -- I thought it would be crass -- but I did send her the URL of my website, early on. It was through reading my blog that she was convinced I was a strong-enough writer for her to introduce me.

Then, I had to pitch myself to the agent. This was back in December. SHe was intrigued, immediately, because I have a blog.

Here's what I have learned: the publishing world is fascinated by bloggers. More than other first-time writers, who sit at home and write for themselves, we bloggers have fervent fans and a built-in audience. Marketing is king in publishing. Use your blog to market yourself.

So I did. I pitched myself to the agent. She wanted a two-minute pitch, and I gave her one. Work on this, to hone what your vision is, before you ever talk to an agent.

She asked for a book proposal. This took six weeks to write. Ay. It's a different language. If anyone here is writing one, let me know. I'll be glad to offer some broad suggestions.

When I sent that in, late in January, it took the agent until March to sign me. Everything moves slowly in publishing, until they want something from you, and then it's FAST.

After I signed with my agent, I did a dance in the hallways. And then I revised the proposal. Then, revised it again. I worked with her, closely, to make every word count. We weren't done until July.

Because I had that spot on the Food Network -- an opportunity I found out about on Food Blog S'Cool -- and it is still running there, twice or three times a day, the agent was able to send out dvds of my spot with the proposal. I'm sure that helped.

At this point, I did nothing. I had to just sit back and wait. The agent took care of it all.

I'm lucky. My agent is very well connected. She sold my proposal in under two weeks. And then, after we looked at a couple of offers, we decided to go with this one at Wiley and Sons.

And then, they said, "We need the entire manuscript in four months." YIKES!

So, it's a lot of work, a lot of waiting, much luck, and then a mad dash to the end. It's amazing."


This Post was written by Shauna from Gluten-Free Girl

[wordpress] Hacked!?

Our blog has apparently been hacked. Our login page is redirecting to a page with a nasty piece of javascript on it. Also, when you view the blog, sometimes it looks fine, sometimes it's missing photos, and other times the entire template and formatting is missing.

Anyone else seen/seeing this kind of behavior?

This post was written by Anita & Cameron from Married ...with Dinner

Dear Fellow Bloggers,

Recently, I was so proud of myself for "burning" my feed, being the technical ignoramus that I am. Then it took me another week to figure out how to make my full posts, as opposed to excerpts, come through the feed. Now, my problem is that many--most, actually--of my photographs don't show up on the feed. You just
get a box with a little red "x." Some of my photos are from Flickr, and these pop up just fine. Of the ones uploaded from my computer, a few come through but most don't. I haven't a clue why this is--let alone how to fix it. Does anyone know what the problem might be? Thank you so much! --Sarah

My blog: http://www.avenuefood.com

My feed: http://feeds.feedburner.com/AvenueFood

This Post was written by Sarah from Avenue Food

(Misc) HELP with PHP ASAP

I am having major site issues with our Well Fed Network. The main site works/loads fine. Some of the offshoot sites, i.e., Wine Sediments, for example, only the left sidebar and banner load, not the center articles or the right sidebar.

The PHP designer we use threw it back on the site host. This is what the site host says. Any idea what I'm supposed to do? This has been going on since late morning yesterday, right as I signed on a big advertiser ... not helping.

Help?!

Your site's IP address has been blocked by a Sysadmin. This is done when an address performs a large number of concurrent connections. Opening many connections at once overloads the server.

It seems that your web pages is including parts of itself using PHP includes over the web server. This unnecessarily loads the server with HTTP connections that can be easily avoided by including the PHP code directly in your scripts.

For example, in /home/wellfed/public_html/skins/Wine/_main.php, instead of:

require( 'http://www.wellfed.net/_contrib_WineSediments.php' );

you should use

require( '/home/wellfed/public_html/_contrib_WineSediments.php' )

good god -- a book deal.

My dear fellow food bloggers,

I just published the post on my website announcing this, but I'd like to share the news here too.

Wiley and Sons, in New York, has offered me a book deal, to write a narrative cookbook. It's a book about becoming a gluten-free gourmet after growing up on bad junk food and never feeling well. It's filled with stories and recipes that anyone can cook. It really is a life-long dream come true for me.

I'm putting up a little notice here, not to brag, but to thank all of you. When I started my blog, I had no idea the community that was awaiting me. You have all sustained and inspired me. Many of you have become friends. When I started my blog, I had no idea that anyone other than my friends would be reading it. I certainly had no idea that it would lead to a book deal.

Among all the other stories and guidelines and ideas for how to make great food, I will be talking about the joy of reading food blogs, about this community, and profiling some of you for all the readers to see. I may be calling on you soon, for quotes and images, if you would like to share. The manuscript has to be finished by January 2nd, so I'm up against the wall. But I know I can do it. Keeping my blog has taught me how to meet deadlines, day after day.

Thank you again, everyone. And if anyone has any suggestions, let me know. Or, any ideas about writing jobs after January. My school decided to not hire me back, once they heard I needed four months off. Politics -- too entangled to tell -- also played a part. In some ways, the administration was always nervous about my blog. Ah well. I don't miss the 6 am alarm clock, anyway. But let me know if anyone has ideas for that too!

Thank you, thank you, my fellow food bloggers. You are a mighty community.


This Post was written by Shauna from Gluten-Free Girl

[Write for Money] in Europe

Just spotted this on Noodle pie's blog, click this link for details and his email address

"Are you a food blogger? Based in a European city - but not UK, Madrid, Stockholm or Paris? Want to earn some cash writing for a big name food magazine and you can knock out 350 words to a very tight brief by this Friday, then [email HIM now...] "



This Post was written by sam from becks & posh

Promoting Your Blog: Cute Little Cards

Boing Boing just posted a bit about business card company, Moo, that is hosting a special variety pack of mini business cards specializing in using your Flickr photostream of images on the cards.

Cory of Boing Boing fame is really taken with these mini cards: "It's hard to convey just how cool-ass these cards are. They feel like a fetish object, the thick card and soft laminate finish create a great hand-feel, and they're visually stunning -- playful and intensely personal."

Currently, FLickr Pro members can get 10 free mini business cards, and an order of 100 cards is $20 dollars.

Using a variety of yummy photos really appeals to me with this deal, as does the description of the card texture. Just noted: you specify the crop to make your photo fit their card format.

Links:
- Boing Boing post on Moo
- Moo's FLickr Offer

This Post was written by McAuliflower of Brownie Points.

[Blogger] Firefox crashing

Hi. I just posted an entry and wanted to add a few more photos I found afterwards and everytime I tried to switch from HTML to Compose in Blogger. It crashes my firefox browser. I just updated the browser and it is crashing more but only in a preceived pattern with blogger. ANy suggestions?

This post was written by Chrispy from Experimentation of Taste.

Share the Love

Hello, classmates.
I have an idea for a fun food blog project. This is not a promotion for an event on my own blog; I want to learn how to make it universal.
The idea is that we all might occasionally have something extra in our pantries to share. Something that doesn’t really take more space than a first-class envelope. A little too much imported pepper; some special home-grown herbs (I have tons of Turkish laurel leaves); things like that.
I was thinking of calling this project Share Package – after the ubiquitous Care Packages of our college days, when mom would send much-needed provisions.
So here’s my question: Would this idea spread out if we all tagged our occasional share-posts with a Technorati tag saying “Share Package”? For instance, if I put up a post about a glut of wild fennel seeds in my area (now’s the season), I’d tag it “share package” and I would hope – wonder – if anyone might go check the Technorati tag once in a while and notice that Cookiecrumb has fennel seeds to offer. Then you could e-mail me with your address and I would mail you an envelope.
Is this the way Technorati works? (Provided, of course, that I ask you to send me a request.) I’m really not interested in starting some clearinghouse that needs an administrator; I want us all to participate on an ad-hoc basis. I would also like to know how to get a ripple effect so this idea spreads, but I’m cool with it being a lazy development… if at all. (I really don’t want to bother people with memes.)
Love to hear from you.


This Post was written by Cookiecrumb from I'm Mad and I Eat

Blogger busted?

Anyone having major issues with blogger? First my template vanishes, now parts just won't show up. My Technorati, Sitemeter, and other buttons are in the template, but refuse to show. Any ideas?


This Post was written by Garrett from Vanilla Garlic

[Fonts and different Browsers]

I am really trying to understand a few things about different fonts and how each Browser shows one font differently.

I recently changed a few font settings on my blog. I normally only work with Firefox and wanted the Blog Title, description title, post date and post title in one specific font - Papyrus. The rest I wanted in Verdana. In Firefox as I made these changes it looked exactly the way I imagined. However, in IE I had it did not! I had to tweak a bit here and there to make the fonts for IE acceptable but still not really the font I was looking for. It seems it does not recognize Papyrus as a font. I have left it with the fonts of my choice for now, so anyone interested can have a look at what I mean.

Now comes the weird part. In Safari it is displayed completely differently. Only the blog description is displayed in Papyrus.

I admit I work with tweaking the templates mostly by trial and error but am I doing something wrong here and if I am how can I get the fonts I want to be displayed universally across all browsers.

BTW: it is a real pain working with IE!!


This Post was written by MEETA from WHAT'S FOR LUNCH HONEY?

[blogging] Slashfood is looking for writers

hey hey all!

in case you haven't peeked over there yet, just wanted to let you know that Slashfood is looking for two more writers (one for weekdays, one for weekends). The post is here: Want to write for Slashfood?

Here are the basics:

"First and foremost, you should love food, dining out and cooking. You must also enjoy writing about it and be capable of expressing yourself in a clear, engaging way. If you enjoy photography, that's a plus; we love food porn. You don't have to be a professional writer, or even have you own blog, but you should be familiar with blogs including Slashfood and other members of the food blogging community. And, all glory aside, we do pay our writers.

We need someone who can commit to blogging daily or every weekend, but we're extremely flexible about the schedule. To apply, we need:

• Three sample posts (original material, please, not links to existing posts on a blog)
• A few words about yourself and why you're interested in food or writing about food
• Your contact info
• The position you're applying for, your location, and scheduling, including a ballpark number of posts per week

No attachments, please. Put everything in the body of your email. Once your application is complete, send us an e-mail at leadsATslashfoodDOTcom."

Good luck to anyone who applies!

This Post was written by sarah from The Delicious Life

Update on Ilva

For those of you who know Ilva from Lucullian Delights, I wanted to let people know that her father passed away on Thursday, September 14. He was elderly and had been sick for some time. The funeral will be on September 27 in Sweden. I know she has a lot of admirers in the food blog community, and I thought people would want to know so they could express their support to her during this difficult time.


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

[BLOGGER] Missing main page

My blog's main page has gone missing and I'm not sure how to find it again. I posted late on Thursday night, and everything was still okey Friday morning. However, since Friday lunchtime or so, the main page comes back blank. Other pages (like my latest post or the archives) are still there, so the blog itself seems to be fine.

Any ideas how to retrieve and show my main page again? Is it me or is it Blogger?

Thank you.

This Post was written by Pille from Nami-nami

UPDATE. It was me after all, and not Blogger. I reduced the number of posts on the main page from 12 to 6, and everything looks fine now. I guess I simply had too much information to be displayed.

[Blogger] Template Troubles

I that that whatever hit Garrett's template earlier might be catching. Except for me, it's just the Blogger template stuff that's gone, posts and other add-ins by me are still there.

I am trying not to freak out because I do have my template backed up (thanks Garrett), but I think there is something seriously wrong on my little blog. Instead of showing the cutesy green images for my template and a white background for posts, the entire background is gray. It's as if the template images are no longer on the server?

I am okay with re-doing my template and in fact, was thinking of doing that anyways, but wondered if the S'cool might help me fix the problem now so that my blog doesn't look so icky in the short-term. Thanks, all.

This Post was written by Madeline from Everything Rachael Ray

UPDATE: According to the Blogger Help Group on Google, this has hit many users of the TicTac template, as well as other templates. The site supporting the images is down, so no images.

Syndication

As a new blogger, I thrive on feedback and encouragement from my readers. I love to see all the different countries people visit my blog from, and simply adore receiving comments on my blog. It interests me to see that I'm on google's first page for people searching on bamboo handled grapefruit spoons and that a japanese chat room has been clicking through to my 'divintiy' post! The silly things that thrill new food bloggers! But all of you must have been there at one time. Do you remember the thrill as you watched your readership grow? Hey, I'm there right now!

I have taken the time in the past few days to get a picture of what people see of my blog through the feed services, and I'd like to share what I've found. It would be a good idea for other new food bloggers to learn the steps to take to make sure your blog looks as good as possible in the syndicated feeds.

For example, I've noticed that many of the feed services cut out most or all formatting. That means that your subsccribers don't see the banner you have designed, your blog's page layout or the formatting of your photos. Your page width may change, italics inserted for emphasis or clarity when using foreign terms might not show up, and recipe formatting might appear to be askew. Embedded instructional photos might float in some random area of the reader screen and your typeface is sometimes changed. What does it mean?

This means that the appearance of your content can really go haywire in the syndicated feed readers if you don't take into consideration a few simple formatting principles like line breaks after photos. I know I am going to be putting some time into making a list of little things I can do to make sure my posts look better in the feeders in the weeks to come.

A friendly note to my fellow foodbloggers: I hope that those of you who subscribe to my full feed from the various services will be kind and click through to my blog if they like what I'm doing that day, at least as a symbolic gesture of support. I know I always do. Hey, if a person clicks on my blog name in their reader to read what I'm putting up, how much more difficult is it to just click through once to my blog? You might even consider leaving a comment. You see, to a new blogger, these visits can mean a world of difference. Thanks!

This Post was written by Lucy Vanel from Lucy's Kitchen Notebook

Who's been getting celebrity spam?

Has anybody else been getting unsolicited emails (with tracking links) from chef Benjamin Christie asking us to visit his posts and comment?

A couple of us down under were wondering if this was a bit spammy as he's using professional emarketing companies to track clicks and is overtly trying to ssell stuff on his site.

This is what Matt said at Abstract Gourmet and I said at Tomato.

What do you think?

[RSS] Reposting, is it annoying?

I try not to have typos on my posts, but sometimes they get past me, and I have to go back and fix them...sometimes more than once. Plus, I sometimes just feel like making changes resulting in my slightly altered post going up five, ten, sixteen times in a short span of time...

My question is for you all who use RSS feeds...

Does my post show up every time I make a change? If I go back six times in an hour, do you get all six versions? Or does your RSS filter that sort of nonsense?

Yeesh. It sure would be annoying to get the same post eleven times in a row!

Just wondering...

Rachael

This question was written by RACHAEL from FRESH APPROACH COOKING

[typepad] About page template issues

So a few months ago I lovingly redesigned my blog on Typepad, using their tools as I am far from proficient in CSS. (My HTML education ended in 1998...) For some reason, though, even tho I have elected to apply the same template to my About page (http://hedonia.seantimberlake.com/about.html), it renders in only two columns, truncating my banner image. I've tried applying the custom CSS directly to the template to no avail, tho again I am rather a CSS neophyte. Little help?


This Post was written by Sean from Hedonia

[Making money] Business 2.0 article

Hi Ev'body!

I saw this article in Business 2.0 and thought I might share...it's about making money from your blog. Granted, a lot of it is pretty obvious, but there is some good info too. Enjoy!



This post was written by RACHAEL from FRESH APPROACH COOKING

When Looking for New Employment...

Has anyone changed jobs since having their blog? Do you tell people about it? Especially if you are in the food service business, as I am, I'm just wondering if anyone has had any positive or negative experiences talking about it with perspective employers.

This Post was written by Lisa from Restaurant Widow.

(Misc) Web Designer Needed

Anyone know someone who is familiar with PHP coding? I need some help with a food-related website, and haven't found anyone who really knows their way around it yet. I'm able to do some stuff myself, but have a list of a few things I can't. Help?

This Post was written by Cate from Sweetnicks.

[Ranking and Search Engines] StumbleUpon.com?

I'm wondering if anyone else has been assaulted by stumbleupon.com. Yesterday, I saw a huge spike in traffic and found that it was all coming from that site. Apparently it is a blog surfing tool that lets members "stumble upon" random blogs and then rank them or comment on them. However, I think the whole thing might be a vehicle to sell bloggers a service where stumbleupon claims to drive receptive web surfers to your site by creating a "campaign." I don't know how my blog got on their radar, but it has been quite annoying. I don't think any of those hits are coming from genuine people. Has anyone else run into this? I'm hoping it will just stop if I don't do anything. Thanks in advance!

This Post was written by Julie from A Mingling of Tastes.

[Photography & Pictures] Black Borders?

Hey S'coolmates -

Does anyone know the name of the freeware that puts black borders around your photos? Someone gave me the name but it was a long time ago and I lost the name of it.

Thanks!

(Misc) Food Blogger MIA

Clare from Eat Stuff hasn't posted since the end of July and her Weekend Cat Blogging event has been passed around to other hosts. E-mail to her has gone unanswered. Anyone know if she's ok?

This Post was written by Cate from Sweetnicks.

Back from the Freakin' Dead

Sam and the people here and a lot fo tinkering and testing has brough Vanilla Garlic back from the grave. Still no word from Blogger as to why the template was erased to begin with, but there you have it.

TO EVERY BLOGGER OUT THERE, PLEASE REMEMBER TO MAKE A COPY OF ALL YOUR POSTS AND TEMPLATE ON A DISK OR PORTABLE DRIVE.

This Shibby Post was proudly written by Garrett from Vanilla Garlic

The Blog is Dead...

Unless someone is able to help. It's gone. Blogger basically said, "Sorry for the freak accident." I tried to repair the template myself, but it's more than I am capable of. As for how the blog is unless someone know's how to do a magic recover with html (i'm more than willing to pay and provide the password/username) Then... that's it. The blog is dead...

I guess I'm going to try and just purchase a space on typepad. That's the only thing I can think of at the moment that I can afford. I have all the old posts saved, but the recovery process is going to be a while...

Any and all advice is welcome. thank you.

This Post was written by Garrett from Vanilla Garlic

MY BLOG WAS DELETED

Does anyoen wknow what is going on? I logged in to look at my blog today, and it was all gone! Just vanished! I looked at the template and it was wiped clean! WHAT DO I DO?!

This Post was written by Garrett from Vanilla Garlic

How do I redirect viewers to my new site?

Dear Fellow Bloggers,

This past weekend, I switched my blog from http://www.avenuefood.blogspot.com to http://www.avenuefood.com, recreating my site with GoDaddy’s Quick Blog. (And I’m glad I did—I'm happy with the site's new look and I haven’t experience photo upload problems like I often did with Blogger).

But to the point: I put a note on my Blogger site, with a link, telling people about the change. My question is this: is there a way to automatically redirect people to my new site when they visit the old, without them having to click on the link? Let me clarify further—is there a simple way to do this? (My technical skills are rudimentary, to state it generously.)

Thank you so much for any help you can provide!

--Sarah

(blogger) Request for help

All weekend when I looked at my blog in Firefox it looked fine. However today at work when I look at it in Internet Explorer it's completely messed up. The post for today (Sept. 5) is fine. Everything after is messed up, with the font being too big on most posts, and even the font title (which isn't even something you can change in Blogger) being too big on some posts.

Whatever it is, it's happening starting with the logo for Festa al Fresco posted yesterday; everything from that point on is messed up as far down as I can see on the main page.

I did notice all weekend when I tried to publish I kept getting an ERROR message and I'd have to hit the back button and publish again.

Anyone who has any suggestions, they will be greatly appreciated.


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

Have you been tagged as a Spam Blog?

I have been treated recently to profiling by Blogger. Every time I want to do a new post they force me to do codeword verification because they seem to think that my blog is a spam blog.

I have to now submit my blog for review by someone at Blogger before they release me from the codeword verfication magilla.

Anyone else have this happen to them? I wonder how my blog could possibly be considered a spam blog, boggles the brain.

This Post was written by Nika from Nika's Culinaria

[Comments] Comment notification

Hi Ev'body!

I was leaving a comment on The Wednesday Chef a minute ago, when I was reminded of a question I have for you all...

When I leave a comment (as I am prone to do), is there any way to, uh, sorta, remember where I did that? (Oh dear, that makes no sense. Lemme try again) I just tend to leave remarks/questions all over the blog-o-sphere and might not get back to that site for days/weeks to see if the writer responded. Is there a way to track that/be notified if and when they do respond/comment (even if its not specifically to me?)

Hmmm.

Thanks!

Rachael






This Post was written by Rachael from FRESH APPROACH COOKING


Oh, and as for my last question about saving my blog, thank you all for your responses, I have decided NOT to quit (obviously, to those of you who pop by) but am instead newly invigorated...but have taken your advice on how to archive just in case...xoxoxox

Post Composers

Hello All,

I have been lurking for a little while and finally have taken interest in beating my blog into some form of my idea. Thank goodness my husband has volunteered to do anything HTML related.

I am frustrated by composting my posts in Bloggers composition area. I tried the Qumana. I liked it some but the photos would not attach for me. Right now I am writing my posts in Word and then transfering them. This is ok but I have to manually transfer any links I have put into the post. Is there a better method or program? I like the posting ability from Picassa except it did not transfer my template for truncating posts plus it is a glorified Blogger composer.

I think because of this frustration I hate the way my recipes look. Hopefully ya'll can help me and I get focus on telling my husband what kind of code I want.

Thanks in advance


This Post was written by Chrispy from Experimentation of Taste

[Members] New Pupils invited to join us today:

bake or break
food for thought
veggie friendly
i think food is great
sonoma napa foodie
crumbs
paris breakfasts
flavor junkie
avenue food
gustoso
wit, wisdom & food
the diet cast


Welcome!

sam of Becks & Posh

Blog-O-Holics Top Sites

Hi Everyone,

I found this today - Blog-O-Holics TopSites. It's fairly new and there's only a few blogs on it so far. I just thought that maybe some of you may be interested in joining?




This Post was written by Mae from riceandnoodles.