Wishing everyone a Happy New Year!

Chapeau Awards

I've been getting junk mail from a supposed blog awards group for Chapeau Awards.  They want bloggers to pay a fee to be considered for an award.

I don't know why I'm really posting this, other than I am just irked that a scam would run that would target food bloggers like this.  Then again, maybe it's the only way I'll ever get an award! :)

This Post was written by Curt from Bucky's Barbecue and Bread

(Misc) Food Blog Awards

In case you missed it, we announced the schedule for the 2008 Food Blog Awards on Well Fed this week. We pushed it back again this year to get it after the holidays. Please spread the word. Hope to see you all there!

This post was written by Cate of Well Fed and Sweetnicks.

Interest in Sticky Date?

Anyone interested in taking over Sticky Date (posting and site as a whole)? I just don't have the time anymore to keep it updated properly. Help!

Cate from Sweetnicks.

New blog scraper

Hi everyone I first saw an incoming link today coming from this site, and it turns out they were scraping Tartelette (photos and all), but also I saw content from Food Blogga, Vegan Kitchen, etc. It looks relatively new but they need to get shut down.

FuzzyClam (dot com)

This Post was written by Sara from Ms. Adventures in Italy

Casting Call for Turkey Leftover Chefs

This was forwarded to me.

Warning -- I have not taken the time to check it all out to see if it is on the up and up but the person who sent it to me is very reliable -- If you are in the NYC area at Thanksgiving this might be fun. If you check it out and it is not "kosher" leave a comment below and I'll remove this post.
--------

Hello All,
I am just sending out a little casting call, please forward to ANYBODY you think might be applicable.
I am looking for several home cooks (or rising star chefs looking for a great break) to do a segment during the Thanksgiving parade on CBS called "Leftovers Done Right". Basically, we want some home-spun recipes of what to do with any/some/all of the thanksgiving leftovers (including desserts!) Simple is better, and we would entertain ALL forms of cooking (heck, if you can figure a way to grill the leftover turkey- you deserve your own show!)
We would tape in Manhattan (make sure you can get there, sorry left coasters!) on either Nov. 21 or 22nd, whichever is better for the majority of our home chefs, and taping should only take about 2 hours per person.
Interested folks can email either TVProduxun@aol.com, or DaytimeExperience@gmail.com. Thanks for forwarding, and Happy Holidays, everyone!!!
Jim Mullen2008 Thanksgiving Day Parade on CBS212.239.0777


posted by Faith from Blog Appetit

Giving Out Google AdSense Publisher ID

I received a solicitation today from a site that appears to be legit. As part of their affiliate program, they said that they'd require my Google AdSense Publisher ID. Is this information that I should be giving out?

This Post was written by Bill from Tea Guy Speaks.

Blogroll Software?

I was using Bloglines feeds for both of my blogs -- the lists would pull directly from my Bloglines blog roll so that I could add/delete blogs direct on Bloglines and the blog lists would pull from there (in different categories -- ie., photography, local food bloggers, general, etc).

I ended up having to yank the blog rolls because the feed from Bloglines was hanging up, causing my blogs to not load.

Any different options for blog roll maintenance that will publish to my blog? I'd like to keep the categories if possible, and hopefully maintain the list outside of my blog software. I liked Bloglines because I use it on a daily basis so it was a bonus that it would feed to my blogs.

The blogs are both Typepad. Thanks!

this post was written by jen maiser from life begins @ 30 / eat local challenge.

Food bloggers who cook with their kids

Does anyone know of a list/directory of parents who have food blogs where the kids are involved in the cooking? The release of my cookbook has unfortunately coincided with a badly broken arm which totally hosed my plan to spend the last few weeks doing research and carefully targeted offers of review copies. (and I told my publisher that I was writing those email messages, not them!) Three shattered bones later, I am in too much pain to do all that clicking and am trying to streamline the process.

Anyone know where the intersection of food and family lives online...?

(this is not an ad: book info in top post at my site...go there so we leave Sam's space adfree...)

This Post was written by kitchenMage from kitchenMage

Post a Comment Not Working

As of today, comments are not working on my blog. I looked through known issues on Blogger and didn't find anything listed. I also didn't find any answers after searching help. Any ideas of what's wrong? Thanks for any help!


This Post was written by lisa from lisaiscooking

Twitter Widgets

I use Wordpress 2.5.1 and would like to put a Twitter feed in my sidebar. But, there are so many widgets to choose from and I am pretty technologically inept, so I was wondering if y'all had any suggestions on which to use and where to find it.

Thanks!


This Post was written by Rachel from www.TheFriendlyKitchen.com

Search Gadget

Since the 'new' TypePad unrolled my BlogBar search gadget has disapeared. I can't seem to get it back up and running. What gadgets do you use to allow readers to search through your posts? Are there any that are better than others?

Thanks-
EB


This Post was written by EB from SpiceDish

If you get lots of unwanted emails from PR flacks

I've been receiving a ton of unsolicited emails from PR people hawking products (many of which have nothing to do with food or cooking at all...) and press releases. I've been emailing them all back to ask them to take me off their distribution lists. One guy finally responded that he'd gotten my info from Cision (formerly known as Bacons) a media contact info database that PR folk can subscribe to for money.

I just called them to ask them to remove me from their listings which they said they would (apparently, I was also listed under "holiday gift guides" which explains all the random tech gadget holiday gift guide emails I've been getting...)

Just wanted to pass this info on to you all in case you're suffering from similar deluges of unwanted email from people promoting things. It may not be the only way people are finding you, but hopefully getting off their database will help cut down on the volume.

Here's their contact info:

Media Monitoring and Evaluation Content Support
Phone: 800-252-1427
Email:monitoring.us@cision.com

It's worth a shot!

Companies wanting to advertise on my site

Hi there,

I've been approached by a couple of companies to advertise on my site. I am very flattered but have no idea what's reasonable. Any thoughts? Thanks!


This Post was written by Heather from The Culinary Chase

My photos and words are posted on this website

I know this is a common problem, so how do you deal with it?
http://www.foodrecipeonline.info/ This website has several of my recipes/writing and photos posted (my photos are actually hot-linked). What can I do about it? I noticed nearly all of Elise's posts are there also. Is this just how it is? We just ignore it? The hot linking irritates me more than the content theft, frankly.

So what do I do?

Katie from chaosinthekitchen.com

Content theft

This topic is a nightmare for all bloggers who are so protective about what they publish and who shouldn't be, right?

I don't check for content theft regularly, but now I think I should. When I searched for the websites that I have copied my content. I found that there was a recipe of mine copied and pasted on a forum (Taste of Home). Although I have commented there (after the long drawn signup - ugh!) and email the editors, etc I'm worried.

What are the actions you take when you've discovered something like this? Do those guys take such things seriously and take quick action? It would educational to know how you guys react to this.

Thanks.


This Post was written by Shaheen (Coco) from Ambrosia

Offline Blog Editor

Hello all- I've fallen tremendously behind in blogging lately, and it's largely in part due to the ever-tightening NetNanny at work: most blogs, flickr, etc. have been blocked.

Now, I always completed my work before catching up on blogs, or working on a post, but of course, the head honchos don't see it quite like that. However, if there were an offline blog editor I could use, then simply upload the post when I get home, life would be a bit more cheery.

Does anyone have any experience with any editors? I would be using a PC & Internet Explorer.


This Post was written by Shelley from Bistro 613.

Key Ingredient.com?

Have any of you been contacted about putting a recipe up on keyingredient.com?  I'm just trying to figure out what the benefit of putting one of my recipes up there would be, thinking it does more for that blog than for my own, but I thought I'd see if anyone had any experience with the blog.  


This Post was written by Curt from Bucky's Barbecue and Bread

Is there something beyond Technorati?

I used to find Technorati quite useful for checking out links to my blog, it was a good way of finding new blogs but also find the ones that scraped your content but nowadays Technorati seems to have gotten worse and worse, I get these flashing ads that tell me (n.b. every time) that I am the 1.000.000ieth person visiting and I have won a prize, not to talk about the badly updated blog reaction list. So now I wonder, is there some other site out there doing the same kind of job but better? I do use google alerts and they work well but I want a place where I can go and search myself. Does any one know something?

This Post was written by Ilva from Lucullian Delights

Anybody getting Wellsphere rush?

Greetings. My first post here (not counting comments). I have received over the last month or two several messages from one Dr. Geoffrey Rutledge to be a "featured blogger" on the Wellsphere site. It's a request to use my content with my compensation being the exposure I'd get to Wellsphere's vast audience. Have any of you taken him on on this offer? Does it come across to you as simply a way to give my content to him or indeed a great way to expand my audience? I'd appreciate your thoughts.

This Post was written by Janet from foodperson.com

Know anyone at Gourmet or Food and Wine?

I have a story idea I would like to pitch to Gourmet and/or Food and Wine.

Anyone have any editorial contacts at either place they're willing to share?


If you'd rather not post them via comments, you can email me at evefox at gmail dot com.


Thanks in advance!

-Eve


This Post was written by Eve from the Garden of Eating

Food Blogger Aniversary Calender Update

I had an idea I thought would be a fun way to support our fellow food blog authors. And help create a even closer community.

I started a calender for listing food blogger blogoversary dates. The date of your food blog's official launch or first post, is your blogoversary.

The calender will allow for clickable links in the description, so you can put your blog's title in the event title, and a description of your food blog, then any links you'd like such as : your blog's link, twitter account, face book page etc.

You can view more details about the calender here:

food blogger blogoversary calender

I also burned it through feedburner. So you can subscribe or use it to add to another feed you are aggregating on your sidebar etc.

http://feeds.feedburner.com/FoodBloggerBlogoversaryDates

I will set each event to continue to be celebrated yearly, so you will get updated every year.

I hope this can be something that is fun and usable for everyone . It gives another way to celebrate and promote your wonderful food blogs.

Until recently you would need to email me with your blog info, but I have created a form in google docs that you can fill out to add your blog (alcohol /food /dining related blogs all are accepted):

Food Blogger Calender Form

If you have more than one blog - you will need to fill out the form again separately for each additional blog.

Here are the food blogs added so far:

Shop'NCook blog
Recurring Event
First start: 2008-09-23 PDT
Where: Switzerland

SpittoonExtra
Recurring Event
First start: 2008-08-31 PDT
Where: United Kingdom

Spittoon.biz
Recurring Event
First start: 2008-08-16 PDT
Where: United Kingdom

FoodieTots
Recurring Event
First start: 2008-10-15 PDT
Where: Alexandria VA

The Messy Vegetarian Cook
Recurring Event
First start: 2009-08-12 PDT
Where: Southeast England

Bake My Day
Recurring Event
First start: 2009-09-20 PDT
Where: the Netherlands

CHEAP FUN WINES
Recurring Event
First start: 2009-01-23 PST
Where: USA

CANDY SNOB
Recurring Event
First start: 2009-01-02 PST
Where: USA

Tempered Woman
Recurring Event
First start: 2008-10-02 PDT
Where: formerly St. Louis, MO ; Moved to Denver, CO

Aidan Brooks: Trainee Chef
Recurring Event
First start: 2008-08-05 PDT
Where: Barcelona, Spain

Wasabi Bratwurst
Recurring Event
First start: 2009-01-03 PST
Where: Carlsbad, CA

Cooking With Amy
Recurring Event
First start: 2008-12-24 PST
Where: San Francisco, CA

The Foodie List
Recurring Event
First start: 2008-10-27 PDT
Where: United Kingdom

Cooking Up A Story
Recurring Event
First start: 2009-05-24 PDT
Where: Portland, OR

Platelickers Unite!
Recurring Event
First start: 2008-11-25 PST
Where: Portland, OR

a good eye
Recurring Event
First start: 2009-02-01 PST
Where: Chicago, IL

Doña Lupe's Kitchen
Recurring Event
First start: 2008-12-04 PST
Where: Los Angeles, CA

Simply Trini Cooking
Recurring Event
First start: 2008-12-28 PST
Where: Trinidad and Tobago

Sara Bakes Cakes
Recurring Event
First start: 2008-09-11 PDT
Where: Westchester County, NY

Renaissance Culinaire
Recurring Event
First start: 2008-12-14 PST
Where: Oregon, USA

El Bloggo Torcido
Recurring Event
First start: 2009-05-06 PDT
Where: Twisted Oak Winery in Vallecito, CA.

Vegan Bits
Recurring Event
First start: 2008-12-27 PST
Where: Southern California, USA

Food Stories
Recurring Event
First start: 2008-07-08 PDT
Where: South East London, England

Becks & Posh
Recurring Event
First start: 2009-05-13 PDT
Where: San Francisco, CA




This Post was written by Amber from Renaissance Culinaire

food bloggers, food blogging, calender, google calender, links, foodie promotion, wine bloggers, beer bloggers, dining blogs, food & drink blogs, networking

Interview with a Foodie

I recently interviewed Jenn of The leftover queen' and it was really informative and fun. I would like to share it with the Food Blog S'cool readers as it will be of some help to the newbies.

Jenn shares her experience as blogger and how she have evolved from a newbie to a successful foodie. Don't miss it.

The Interview


This Post was written by Sangeeth Raghunathan from Art of cooking Indian Food

PR: wait... I: wait... L: wait... LD: wait... I: wait... wait... C: wait... SD: wait...

Top 10 Social Networking sites for a Food blogger/Foodie

Don't we all love Myspace, facebook and Orkut? Atleast I do. The social networking sites helps me to find new friends not only friends, it helps me to meet foodies. Foodies are people who love to cook, eat, visit restaurants etc i.e those who love to do anything related to food. Most of the foodies share their experience with others through theirs blogs. This helps us gain knowledge on various other cuisines. But, it is really hard to locate a foodie in a large group of social network which lead to social networks for a niche.

Social Networking is the best way to communicate with people of your niche and if you want to drive your blog's traffic. Blogs have become very famous now a days. 1 in every 5 blog is a food blog. Wow! it really is huge. How to get to know these foodies? How to introduce them to your blog? The answer is through social network.

Networking is the best way to increase traffic to your website. Making new friends not only increases your traffic but also you get a "real friend". I know people who have had great friends through social network with whom they even share their personal problems. hmm... now you are getting the impact of social networks. Good. Why wait. Let me introduce you to the top 10 social networking sites for foodies/Food Blog.(Not in any order)

Image from smartmobs.com


Group Recipes
Open Source Food
Foodbuzz
Epicurious
Eats
Chowbound
Food Candy
Bakespace
Tastespace
Menuism

Ofcourse Food Blog S'cool is a great way to learn about food blogging. Check out for more social sites for foodie here.

This Post was written by Sangeeth Raghunathan from Art Of Cooking Indian Food

PR: wait... I: wait... L: wait... LD: wait... I: wait... wait... C: wait... SD: wait...

Pitchy, Pitchy: What flies and what flops?

Between my regular freelance work and my cooking blog, I get inundated with PR pitches from flacks eager to get a mention of their product in one of my articles or posts. The vast majority are either off-topic or just plain annoying (what is up with the ALL CAPS thing, anyway?), but I don't banish them all--not that I could--because there's always that one odd one that slips through with actually valuable information.

I am sure I am not alone in experiencing this, eh?

What I was hoping to hear from the rest of you is how you feel about all of the food and drink related pitches you get. What works? What doesn't? Are there tones that work better than others? Are there things that flat-out offend you? (An example: I go a little batty when I get an email from a complete stranger asking me what my site traffic is so they can send me free stuff I don't want. As if!)

Disclosure: I am presenting on this topic at a conference this fall, and want to get as much research in as possible before running off at the mouth, as I am sure to do anyway. I would, of course, never quote you without your permission, but I suspect that you're all going to suggest things I hadn't considered.

Thanks so much, in advance!


This Post was written by Deb from smittenkitchen.com

Facebook Blog Network

.
So for all of you on Facebook (hi!)...are you familiar with the Blog Network application? Are you using it? What is the point?


It just seems like an RSS feed right to my FB page...is that about right? And does that mean I have to befriend anyone who wants to look at my blog? Or, is it just for my friends to look at anyway...


And what other applications are you using on that site for your blog?


Just curious!




Mwoah!



Rachael


This Post was written by Rachael from Fresh Approach

SF Bloggers & Hunger Action Month

This is Sam Breach posting on behalf od Amy Sherman

With Slow Food Nation behind us and the Eat Local Challenge in front of us, I'm hoping you'll make time, and a space on your blog, for the Hunger Challenge, benefiting the San Francisco Food Bank.

September is Hunger Action Month. In San Francisco, a city overflowing with great food, 150,000 people aren’t sure where their next meal is coming from. That’s 1 out of every 4 children

You may already know that earlier this year Jill Wendholt Silva of the Kansas City Star was nominated for a James Beard award for her article, "Food Stamp Challenge: One Week, Four People and a Tight Budget." Now is your chance to take the challenge too.

The San Francisco Food Bank would like to invite you to raise money and/or awareness of hunger in our community. On Cooking with Amy I'll be creating a series of recipes that keep within the budget of $1 per person, per meal. Here's how you can get involved:

1. PARTICIPATE: Try spending just $3 per day on food or $21 a week, per person. Try it for a week or for just a meal. Share the experience with your readers.

2. CREATE: Post a recipe that costs $1 per person and share it with the Food Bank to benefit our local community.

3. DONATE: Contribute to the Food Bank. Consider contributing the amount of cash you saved by spending only $21 on food for the week. For every $1 donated, the San Francisco Food Bank can provide $9 worth of food to the hungry.

4. ADVOCATE: Get your readers to take the challenge, too!

5. FILL A PLATE: Prepare for another blogger volunteer event at the Food Bank, so you can help put more food on people's plates.

The challenge begins on September 21 and runs for one week. Gayle Keck at the Food Bank is currently working on resources for bloggers including a blog, badge, a sample $20 shopping list, fundraising links and special prizes. If you would like to participate in this challenge, please email Gayle, gkeck@sffb.org and she will be in touch as we get closer to the launch.


BACKGROUND: Food stamps were meant to be a supplemental program, but now most recipients rely primarily on food stamps to put food on their tables. With food prices skyrocketing, this is even more of a challenge.


According to the California Budget Project, it takes $50,383 a year for a California family of four - with one working parent - to make ends meet. It takes $72,343 if both parents work. But a family of four is eligible for food stamps only if its gross annual income doesn't exceed $26,004.




This Post was written by sam from becks& posh on behalf of Amy Sherman

Eat my tweets!

Hey everyone,

Now that I am (almost) done with the cookbook and have a moment, I am getting back to other projects. The first thing on the list is a site, not quite live, for which I need everyone's twitter feeds. At least if you want your feed to get a little more visibility. I have collected the lists here in that older thread, snagged a few others, but I need more, more, more!!! 

There's a special (new) account for this purpose: eat_my_tweets because the old account...well, let's just say I set up a new one. If you follow me, I'll follow you and add you that way. More info soon. 

This Post was written by kitchenMage from kitchenMage

Monitor Resolution and Food Blog Design

I'm working on some design tweaks to my site, and one that I'm considering is increasing the width to 1024 pixels, an increase of about 100 pixels. I plan to add some white space between the content area and the sidebars and allot more space for the sidebars. My stats show that 95% of my visitors have screen resolutions of 960 pixels or higher, and almost 41% have 1280.

I've looked at the current design in www.browsershots.org, and it shows that the right sidebar gets cut off at 800 pixels. About 4% of my visitors have that resolution.

So I'm trying to decide what to do. I want to keep up with the majority of my visitors in terms of design without making the site unusable for the rest. I'm conflicted. My gut says to stay put so I don't put off visitors still operating at lower resolutions, but I'd love to give the design more white space between the columns because it makes it more readable, without sacrificing content space.

All thoughts are welcome!


This Post was written by Andrea from Andrea's Recipes.

DCS vs Viking stoves - any advice?

Anyone have advice on kitchen stoves? My next door neighbors are considering either a Viking or DCS (6 burners) and had asked if I had any advice.

Would love to hear any feedback you all may have about either brand (or other brands) as well as features, what to look for, etc.

Thanks!


This Post was written by Eve from the Garden of Eating

Content Stealers - What do you do?

Recently, some great bloggers notified me that a site was stealing my content. When I went to investigate, the site was down, so I thought the problem was gone. However, this afternoon I checked again and the site is up and running again and at least half a dozen of my recipes are on there--photo, text, the whole thing. The site is called easyfastfood dot com and I'm sure they're stealing content from other bloggers as well.

At the bottom of these pages with my entire blog post, there is a link that goes back to my blog and a link to my feed. Does this count as "attribution?" Although I certainly didn't give them permission to reprint my photo and writing, I do have a Creative Commons License that allows users to share the work if it is attributed back to me. But the way the whole post is essentially on another site with a little link at the bottom just doesn't feel right to me. Is this content stealer or does it still fall under the realm of what the CC license allows? I don't see any ads on the content stealer site so it's not a commercial site, yet...

There is also something that says "This is part of a auto search RSS feed, visit the source (feedburner page for my blog) for more great recipes. Is this preying on the fact that I have full feeds? Could I avoid this by changing my feeds to a short summary only?

When I looked for a way to contact whoever is in charge of the site, I can't seem to find any contact information. What's the best way to deal with a situation like this? I'm so confused. :(

Also as a side note, to make the situation even worse, when I thanked the bloggers to who alerted me to this problem on my blog, an anonymous person leaves a comment saying "someone wanted to steal your content? =/"
Am I taking it the wrong way because it sure pissed me off.


This Post was written by Amy from Nook & Pantry

(I hope this only posts once, having some blogger issues right now)

Gobbledegook

what is this about?
This blog repeats this post over and over again for two pages worth.
Why, and why is it mentioning me?

"1963 Retro Cruel disappointment way Marin
Posted in antigas, associated press, discomfort, floor, hillel, smoking with tags antigas, associated press, discomfort, floor, hillel, smoking on August 30, 2008 by nryandrewsantos

A Nifty Lineup up Absorb a Saturday AfternoonSmoked Oysters

Notable Pear Chutney assembled per our illusory hosts

Unconditionally sixties clamor cavity-overstuffed vegetables by virtue of Sedateness Jen

Crenellate Eggs over yours beyond question

Cucumber Gathered conformable to Bonnie- largely gustable They had versus sly kind of for take in goodish foster home

unheard adieu frontier

Cheeseballs abounded - these ones bounced into bounden duty congruent with Marc

7 Layers relative to Yum assimilating refined chorizo save Anita and Cameron

Dr Biggles dug a pitch forestage entranceway the storm center as regards the sward and cooked above a full of point blitzkrieg

Anita had yet infused bravura brandy inclusive of pear

A cosmic return thanks ego goes outer towards the hosts, into John Doe who bought indescribable chow(made of the plumbing Oneself didn’t duplicate). In virtue of my friends High-toned and Michael on account of responsive inner man a bump off and notably on Modish who shoal psychological moment the bandeau relating to us imbibed save and except worrying. Separately away from the reality unsound Fred had towards best seller and deathly couldn’t can do, that was a crazy refreshing common year…

Suffix- A minimum other photos in passage to Flickr and photos therewith Jen.

Cargo dock
2006 | Becks & Regal’s Hit respecting Bedizen
2005 | Limon
2004 | India Chaat and Sweets, Berkeley

© 2007 Sam Breach© 2007 Sam Pause at”Becks & Tricksy”, becksposhnosh.blogspot.com This RSS Run is as things go closet non-electrical transcription control barely. If he are not description this plenitude swank your rumor aggregator, canary at the aforementioned url, the abode inner self are looking at stamina prevail implicated in re infringing above saving clause referring to freedom."

flumoxed, I am? http://nryandrewsantos.wordpress.com/

This Post was written by Sam from Becks & Posh

WordPress Help

I know, me again. I need some r-e-a-l-l-y minor modifications done to my site that I can't figure out how to do myself. My usual designer/wp tech person is too busy - does anyone have a recommendation for someone who does WP site maintenance? For someone who knows what they're doing, probably only talking 1-3 hours, tops. Thanks in advance for any referrals.

Cate from Sweetnicks.

Favicon Help

Does anyone have experience with favicons? I figured out how to make one, but am having the darnedest time getting it to appear. My site uses WordPress, and I uploaded the .ico file to what I think is the right place in my control panel, but after putting the code in what I think is the right place on the WP template, it's still not showing up. Before I start banging my head against the wall, thought I'd see if any of you guys know how to make it work. Thanks in advance. :)

Cate from Sweetnicks.

Foodproof

Some friends of mine have launched a new food community site called Foodproof. What does that mean? This is a real social community with membership and blogs, forums, videos, recipes, cross connections and a lot more - and everyone gets access to everything in clever ways so you can make the site what you want it to be. I like the forums, the videos and just the general ambience.

Note this is a site for everyone - it is specifically NOT just for foodies - so expect that not everyone will be so sophisticated as to know how to rustle up their own buckwheat blinis with passionfruit and durian cream.

Anyway - do me and yourself a favor and go take a look.


This Post was written by Owen from Tomatilla

Question on Blog Top Sites

So one day last week, my little blue button for Blog Top Sites started blinking "update html." I log in and can't find html code anywhere on their site. Send them query e-mail, still waiting for response. Log back in and poke around some more and find html code. Updated to new code. Ever since then, it doesn't register me anywhere on the list at all, and button still blinking (very bottom of my site). I went back and replaced the old code. Same thing, blinking, not registering me on list anymore.

So my questions ... 1) Anyone else having this problem? 2) Am I missing something? and 3) If I can't fix it (and they're still not responding), do you find you get any traffic from having it? I've had it for the 3-1/2 years I've had my site, but use it more for seeing where I am on the list, and don't think I've noticed any real traffic from it. Wonder if I should just nix it since it's not behaving.

Thoughts?

This post was written by Cate from Sweetnicks.

Pravda (Russian Newspaper Giant) Steals Food Photo

You all might want to keep an eye out for Pravda .. seems they like to steal food images with impunity.

They stole one of my images and even had the cojones to REMOVE MY COPYRIGHT NOTICE from my image.

I am deeply indebted to a kewl fellow photographer who wrote me out of the blue to let me know!

Here is my image: http://www.flickr.com/photos/nika7k/70925831/

Here is the Pravda stolen one, look closely and you can see they removed my copyright symbol and other rights related text.

http://english.pravda.ru/photo/report/fruit-3727/9/


This Post was written by Nika from Nika's Culinaria

Hello from a New Contributor...

Hello everybody...

Like Louisa, I'm excited to be a new addition to the forum here at Food Blog S'cool — looking very forward to reading about what you're all up to, getting more active in the community and learning more about, well, whatever you're willing to share!

Hopefully I'll have some interesting tidbits of my own, but until then...

This Post was written by Nayiri from 10thirty.

Question about Food Buzz

I am looking at the contract offered by Food Buzz for bloggers to carry their ads.  I read the earlier posts here, but I had a specific question because I have zero technical knowledge.

After I emailed Food Buzz and created a profile, they linked my last week's posts on their site.  When you click on those links (and I mean "When I click" because I'm sure no one else has found my profile there!), you see a screen with Food Buzz at the top and what looks like my blog filling the rest of the screen.  But the URL says "foodbuzz.com."  When I click on the links, I stay on "foodbuzz.com."  

Is this nefarious or normal?  I was curious about Food Buzz because I saw it on some really good blogs like Lunch in a Box and Adventures in Baltimore Restaurants.  I'd appreciate any feedback, but my first question is whether Food Buzz has just copied my blog for itself or has done something that helps both of us.  Blogging is just a hobby, but I don't want to create content for some company that just takes it.

This Post was written by HowChow from the HowChow Blog.

Replace this line of text with the main body of your post


This Post was written by MYNAME from BLOGNAME

Newbie...

Hello! I'm a brand spanking new member of your forum. So thrilled to be a part of what you're doing. I just started a new food blog in Portland, OR and I'm sure to find all sorts of valuable tips and suggestions on your site. And eventually I hope to contribute in a meaningful way too.

Yea, Louisa

http://theportlandpickle.com/

JotForm or other collect form?

Has anyone had success with using JotForm or some other data collection method for their blogs? I need a form that collects to a data source (txt, csv, xls as opposed to emailing data to me) and can be downloaded.

Thanks!

This Post was written by Jen Maiser from Life Begins @ 30 / Eat Local Challenge.

Twitter Updates

Hi All,

I thought it would be interesting to see what people are thinking about twitter these days.
If you'd like to share your twitter name that would be great.


This Post was written by sue bette - www.feelgoodeats.com

WordPress security

There's a new blog called Wordprezzie that looks like a wonderful resource for WordPress users. This post on security and hacking prevention is a great read even if you aren't using WordPress. It provides valuable tips on securing directories, using SFTP, and more.


This Post was written by Annie from Bon Appegeek

Blogger Keeps Shrinking My Photos to 400 px wide

I create my images at 500 px wide, then upload them to be 420 px on the post (because I am planning to change my column width to accommodate the 500 px wide image later), but Blogger resizes the photo to 400 when I upload. Does anyone know how I can bypass their re-sizing and keep the original image size?


This Post was written by Sarah from TheDeliciousLife

Email Privacy?

In the previous post I pointed you towards a blog post which published an email exchange that had been conducted in private. This caused me to ponder the implications of publishing a private exchange, in public, on the internet, for all the world to see. Is it ethical? Is it legal or is it not? I decided to do some research to try and find the answer. Here is some of the information I came across:


Copyright on the Internet by Franklin Pierce Law Center:
"Notice on individual email messages (if blanket notice is not provided, say, in a welcome message) may also be useful. Something as straight-forward as "Please do not forward this message without permission" should be legally adequate as well as honored by most recipients. It is hard to see much advantage to traditional notices."

5 Rules of Forwarding Emails by netm@nners.com
"keep in mind that if you are forwarding a private email that was sent to you, you must get the sender's permission to forward it on to others (or post it publicly). Emails are copyright protected by their authors. Not only that, common courtesy dictates that you should ask the author first if the email sent for your eyes only can be forwarded to strangers or others for which it was not originally intended."

Forward an email, get sued? by Overlawyered.
"The mere act of forwarding an email or posting an exchange to a website is grounds for legal action, according to University of Arkansas law professor Ned Snow. In a paper to be published in the Kansas Law Review this summer, Snow contends that one of the most common acts of the digital age is a violation of privacy and warns that our courts are running headlong into this issue."

E-mail is not copyright protected once it is sent by netm@nners.com
"E-mail is a written work that once created is copyright protected by the author. This means you cannot post publicly an e-mail sent to you privately. You cannot post private e-mails to your site, to message boards or to your blog without the author’s specific permission to do so.
Just because an e-mail was sent to you as a private communication does not mean you then own it and can do with it what you like. In addition, e-mail that is posted to a group of people, on a mailing list or Newsgroup does not make the e-mail available for reposting, copying, or any other use - not without the express and written consent of the author."

A Copyright Conundrum: Protecting Email Privacy by Social Science Research Network
"Beginning over two-hundred-fifty years ago, courts recognized that authors of personal correspondence hold property rights in their expression. Under common-law copyright, authors held a right to control whether their correspondence was published to third parties. This common-law protection of private expression was nearly absolute, immune from any defense of “fair use.” Accordingly, the routine practice of email forwarding would violate principles of common-law copyright"

Who owns email copyright? by ask metafilter
"You own the copyright on anything you write. But it will be very hard to claim damages (that is, how much money have you lost because the email was made public).
I suspect that you are more upset about the information in the email (or the fact that you said these things) becoming public, rather than the specific wording of the email. Copyright does not protect you against this type of revelation. If you did not have a confidentiality agreement with the recipient of the e-mail, then they are free to reveal this information.
Unless the e-mail contained something you planned to publish, and now you have lost potential income, then I don't think the copyright approach will work out for you."

Fair Use by Citizen Media Law Project
"Fair use, which is now a part of the Copyright Act itself, is defined in the Act as follows:
[T]he fair use of a copyrighted work, including such use by reproduction in copies or phonorecords or by any other means specified by that section, for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching (including multiple copies for classroom use), scholarship, or research, is not an infringement of copyright. In determining whether the use made of a work in any particular case is a fair use the factors to be considered shall include--
(1) the purpose and character of the use, including whether such use is of a commercial nature or is for nonprofit educational purposes;
(2) the nature of the copyrighted work;
(3) the amount and substantiality of the portion used in relation to the copyrighted work as a whole; and
(4) the effect of the use upon the potential market for or value of the copyrighted work. "

Clear as mud?!

This Post was written by Sam from Becks & Posh

Illegal or Not?

One blogger’s account of the furor that ensued after she modified and published a Cook's Country recipe online…


This Post was written by Sam from Becks & Posh who found it via David Lebovitz on Facebook.

Plans for a Tribute to Sher from What Did You Eat

By now many food bloggers have probably heard the devastating news that Sher from What Did You Eat died suddenly from a heart attack on Sunday, July 20. Many of her food blogging friends are planning to cook one of the recipes from her blog this week, and then post the recipe on their own blog on Sunday, July 27, as a tribute to Sher. Anyone who wishes to do so is invited to join this activity; it is also fine to simply post a tribute or memory of Sher on that day for people who don't want to make a recipe.

I've just learned that Sher's friend Glenna from A Fridge Full of Food has offered to link the tribute posts to her tribute to Sher in order that Sher's family and friends can find them. Bloggers who would like their tribute linked can send it to marie9949 (at) sbcglobal (dot) net.

I personally have been amazed and very moved by the way the idea to cook one of Sher's recipes as a tribute to her seemed to spring from so many places at once; I see this as an indication of how people in the food blogging community are so mentally and emotionally connected. I'm sure it would mean a lot to Sher to know that so many people are choosing to remember her in this way.

This post written by Kalyn from Kalyn's Kitchen.

Yet More Content Theft

Hello all,

This site http://www.fukien.net.cn/ has now nicked three of my posts -

http://www.fukien.net.cn/?p=823
http://www.fukien.net.cn/?p=870
http://www.fukien.net.cn/?p=871

There is a note at the bottom of the site to say that a link is provided leading back to the original content - apparently you get there by clicking the 'original text' link. There is no link.

I wanted to alert everyone as they may have stolen content from your sites also. I need to look into what action to take about this - it is driving me crazy. I've tried e-mailing the author but had no response and also tried leaving a comment, to which they responded by nicking another of my posts literally minutes later. Grrrr.


This Post was written by Helen from Food Stories

helping you build better blog designs

I just stumbled upon this blog about blog design which at first glance looks like it has some very interesting tips.


This Post was written by Sam from Becks & Posh

TasteSpotting: Your Opinions Appreciated

hey fbs'coolers...it's sarah, just about to fall over from putting tastespotting v2 back up. *whew*

first, thank you to everyone who has shared very honest (the "*ouch* that hurt me, but i needed it" kind of honest) opinions and feelings in the comments of previous posts about tastespotting. that, plus the emails, IMs, and blog posts around the foodweb from everyone have been a tremendous help in refining tastespotting's future. there is still much left to do!

which brings me to the second...we just did a redesign on the site, and while the functionality is about the same (with the addition of being able to crop photos on the site and see a preview) and there will be more to come, it's fairly dramatic change in color scheme/look and feel. i would SO VERY MUCH appreciate it if you could share your opinions about it.

does the dark background behind the pictures make the food (*smack* me for using this term) POP? does minimal color (black white and gray) let the food stand out? does it feel clean? or is it too dark? drab? someone actually called it "scary."

thanks so much to everyone in advance for any opinions you have...if you'd rather share your opinions with me privately, you can also email me: sarah[at]tastespotting[dot]com

i'm going to go eat a cupcake now. they've been showing up all over the site.

This Post was written by Sarah from TasteSpotting

BlogHer '08 in San Francisco: Meet-ups for Attendees and S.F. Food Bloggers

The BlogHer conference will be in San Francisco July 18-20, and there are a couple of food blogger meet-ups during the conference that I wanted to let people know about.

There will also be an informal get-together planned by Amy and I where we're hoping San Francisco bloggers and BlogHer attendees can hang out together. That will be held at the Americano (on the patio) starting at 1:00 on Sunday, July 20.

There's more information at the link above for those who are interested. Hope to meet some new people, plus see some friends again!


This post is by Kalyn of Kalyn's Kitchen.

Reviewer vs Reviewee

I loved this very astute post from Lovescool.


This Post was written by Sam from Becks&Posh

Tastespotting: Your Opinions Wanted

I'm new to Tastespotting (I know, I know, where have I been?) but I see a lot of familiar food bloggers over there. I realize it's just changed hands (and I did read the recent post and comments on fbs re its disappearance), but I'm wondering what you think about the site, if you see a lot of traffic to your blog from the photos you post there, your experiences, etc.

My main question, though, is this:

How long does it take from when you upload a photo to when it appears?

I did manage to register, and it told me my first photo sucessfully uploaded, but that was several hours ago and there's no sign of it yet. They don't tell you if that's normal. Actually they don't tell you much of anything anywhere. I can't find a Help section, though one was mentioned in Nika's post on fbs last year about Tastespotting.

I also read on her post that the photos need to be cropped to 250x250. Am I just missing the page where it tells you all this stuff? Maybe that's why my photo didn't get published, because it was the wrong size?

It also looks like they've taken down the language regarding all submitted photos becoming public domain.

Your thoughts and help greatly appreciated!

7/1/08 UPDATE:
After I put up this post, I received a very nice email message from Sarah at TasteSpotting which included the following:

we're working on the site, and are heads down trying to get features smoothed out before we do stuff like the About an the FAQs pages (which we are working on right now), etc. :)As for "How long does it take from when you upload a photo to when it appears?" it could take anywhere from RIGHT NOW to up to 24 HOURS. however, as we are getting back up and running, it might actually take a little bit longer, since we have a limited number of people doing everything for the site right now. please be patient with us. :)

you don't HAVE to crop the photo, as there is a cropping tool on the site. however, the cropping tool isn't perfect and because it goes off a formula, it doesn't necessarily leave in the best part of the picture; so, if you want your photo to appear in a particular way, it's best to crop it to a square first (250 x 250) before uploading. we are working on features that will make it easier for the whole submission process anyway :)

In the meantime, I had already resubmitted my photo, this time cropped to 250 x 250 and it was published that same night.

I noticed today that there is now an ABOUT page on TS, and there are FAQ, etc. pages under construction.

I also came across this interview with Sarah which answers a number of questions including why/how submissions are chosen/not chosen, etc.

Then my ever helpful pal Beth (aka kitchenMage) alerted me to this site created by Jean at Notcot, founder of the original TasteSpotting.For the record, I did have quite a few visitors come to my blog via my photo on TasteSpotting.And for those of you who can't get enough food porn, FoodieView (which is a recipe search engine, restaurant guide, publisher of the weekly Recipe Roundups written by food bloggers, etc.) is about to launch "Foodie Views of the Day." You can read a little more about it here.

And thanks to all of you who left helpful comments about your experiences with TasteSpotting and beyond here in this post.

This Post was written by Susan from Farmgirl Fare

Food Blogger Blogoversaries Calender

Hello all, this is my first post for S'cool and I would like to say thanks Sam for adding me.

Sorry I haven't been able to keep up with all of you and the foodie events around the blogosphere, but it is a goal of mine to be more apart of the food blogger community, once I have tackled some personal stuff going on right now .

I had an idea I thought would be a fun way to support our fellow food blog authors. And help create a even closer community.

I started a calender for listing food blogger blogoversary dates. The date of your food blog's official launch or first post, is your blogoversary.

The calender will allow for clickable links in the description, so you can put your blog's title in the event title, and a description of your food blog, then any links you'd like such as : your blog's link, twitter account, face book page etc. If you click on the image below, you can view an example calender event.



I used google calender to create it. It's easily searchable in the google calendar database. So your readers can follow all of their fav foodies. All public calenders are indexed by google.

You can view it by clicking this link - food blogger blogoversary. There is a small button at the bottom right you can click to subscribe/ add it to your google calender account.

You don't need to have a google account to view the calender, or get updates for upcoming or newly added food blogs :

Click on this link to subscribe with any calender that supports iCal format. Here is a list from wikipedia of apps that support iCAL.


I also burned it through feedburner. So you can subscribe or use it to add to another feed you are aggregating on your sidebar etc.

http://feeds.feedburner.com/FoodBloggerBlogoversaryDates

If you would like to be added to the calender:

Leave in comments or email me (email link found in my profile) the following info:

• Food Blog Title
• Date of launch or first post (your blogoversary)
• Food Blog description
  
• Food Blog Url
• Any other links you want publically displayed (twitter, MyblogLog, flickr etc)

I will set each event to continue to be celebrated yearly, so you will get updated every year.

I hope this can be something that is fun and usable for everyone . It gives another way to celebrate and promote your wonderful food blogs.

This Post was written by Amber from Renaissance Culinaire

Publisher Gift Disclosures

It's that busy time of year, when book publishers have lots of cookbooks and food interest books to offer us food bloggers for free (subtly in exchange for a website review on our blogs).

When reviewing these free books, do you disclose the book's source in your post?

If you do, what is your best way to state this information in the post?

This Post was written by McAuliflower from Brownie Points Blog

More content theft

Hi everyone,

Just to let you know that there is another content stealing blog:
onlinerecipecolletions dot blogspot dot com

It doesn't have any ads yet but a lot of links to pharmaceutical products. The owner has an email address under "her" profile, but emailing her has been useless. These people (sploggers) remind me of these nasty little worms/pests that we used to have in Texas during the spring, it was just impossible to get rid of them!


This Post was written by Layla from Laylita's Recipes

Hello all --

I'm new to S'cool so first I'd like to thank Sam for letting me join (stat!) after I pestered her with the following question. Thanks Sam!

My question is this: I'm thinking of trying to start either a blogging carnival or general food blogging fundraiser for Obama. But I have no idea how to plan or start a fundraiser. I'll take any and all advice.

Sam has already warned me that many people don't want to associate their blogs with politics so I'm prepared for that. And I'm not entirely married to doing this event. But I thought I'd dip my toes in the water and see what the experts (you!) think.

Thanks! And thanks for letting me a part of this!

Kyla


This Post was written by KYLA from OHC: OMNIVORE HERBIVORE CARNIVORE

Serious Eats: Food Photography in Restaurants

Serious Eats has a post (and ensuing discussion in the comments thread) about photography in restaurants -- specifically New York restaurants. The post is as a result of David Chang banning photography at his restaurant Momofuku Ko. Thought you all may find it an interesting read.


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

Great new way to add post permalink to your feed

Recently I'm having more and more trouble with people stealing my feed content, despite the fact that I've had a Blogger feed item footer for quite a while which clearly identifies the contents as belonging to my blog. A few days ago I found a website with a tab that said "Food" and the entire content of my blog for the last several months was there, with the feed item footer clearly displayed.

Not only does it concern me that my content is being used by other sites, but I also want to protect the identity of my posts so that a stolen version can't show up in a google search result above my post. (Talk about adding insult to injury.)

Yesterday I read a post about Blog Tips by BlogHer tech editor Virginia DeBolt. She talked about a new Feedburner option through Feed Flare, which inserts an author tag in the feed at the end of each post which contains the individual post permalink. Virginia points out that not only is this a good way to discourage scrapers, but it clearly identifies for Google which copy of any particular post is the original. Virginia pointed me to a post by Amanda at Blogger Buster who created the author and permalink feed flare. Using those two sources, I easily added this to my blog feed last night. Now at the end of each post in the feed, there's a line that reads:

Written by Kalyn at Kalyn's Kitchen

and if you click it, it takes you to that post on my blog. (Anyone who subscribes to my blog should be able to see it in the feed on today's post.)

This is for anyone who uses Feedburner, not just for Blogger users. I'm very excited about it, and thought other people might find it useful.


This Post was written by Kalyn from Kalyn's Kitchen

What happened to Tastespotting?

Does anyone know the story behind the message on the Tastespotting site? It says:

"Thanks for a great 18 months! In light of recent legal complications, NOTCOT will no longer be operating tastespotting.com"


This Post was written by Ann from Redacted Recipes

Blogging Food in Britian and the UK

I recently discovered the UK Food Bloggers Association, kind of a British version of Food Blog S'cool. The posts I saw were not as technical based as we sometimes get here on FBS, but it is an interesting read, with recipes, book reviews, blogging events, questions about ethics and advertising, but all with a British "accent."

Plus there are links to about 100 or so British food blogs to persue.

FJK of Blog Appetit

Is Anyone Else Being Driven Mad By Google Blogger?

Or is it just me?

I have a number of linked blogs with different formats, as part of my main food blog. I also have a testbed blog in which I set up posts and check them for layout before publication. This month, Google Blogger decided to lock out my testbed. I went through the standard unlocking request and appeal procedures and, having no luck, created a new testbed blog. A few days later Google locked that out too. More requests to unlock, more appeals, same again. This morning, Google has locked out the third version. They all have different names and content, of course, so the robots don't think they are multiple versions of the same thing.

Is anyone else out there also suffering from Google "helping its members by fighting spam effectively"?

This Post was written by Trig from Aidan Brooks: Trainee Chef.

Is Technorati Worth the Trouble for a Food Blog

A while ago I realized that Technorati is not reading the tags I've been inserting into the end of each post. In fact I did some checking around on Technorati and it seems as though they haven't read any of my tags for a very long time (maybe since Blogger switched to new blogger, since it seems in the new Blogger the labels act as a tag. I'm still using an old html template and don't plan to change.) If I click on one of my Technorati tags, it does take me to that tag at Technorati, but none of my posts are there.

I'm noticing a few of my favorite blogs have dropped the Technorati tags and wondered how many food bloggers are still using it. It seems to me it's not a very likely way for people to search for recipes or food content.

Should I just take the tags out of my post template and forget about Technorati?

(BTW, they are indexing my blog because the list of "who links here" always seems fairly up to date.)


This Post was written by Kalyn from Kalyn's Kitchen

Insurance for bloggers?

Discussion about insurance for bloggers has come up within another group I'm associated with, and it got me thinking about food bloggers and if anyone has been required to get liability or errors and omission insurance to take freelance writing jobs. Here is one blog that generated discussion about insurance requirements for bloggers.

http://www.chrisbrogan.com/bloggers-need-errors-and-omissions-insurance/

In the same vein, what about adding disclaimer statements on food sites re: food allergies or anything else that might stimulate someone to bring legal action? I'm curious to know if any food bloggers have added such disclaimers or felt the need to get insurance for their own personal blogging.

Here are some other related articles:

Online Publishing Risks Create Need for Libel Insurance

Electronic Frontier Foundation: Legal Guide for Bloggers


This Post was written by Andrea from Andrea's Recipes.

Nutrition Information Template for Blogs

If you are interested in providing nutritional information with a recipe, here is someone who's developed the HTML and CSS for a nutrition label. He's giving it away to anyone who's interested. Someone sent it to me, and I thought it might be a good thing to share here.

XHTML + CSS Template for Nutrition


This Post was written by Kalyn from Kalyn's Kitchen

Getting Banned from Google

Hello all - I was recently banned from Google due to some spam links being hidden in my template without my knowledge. I am using Wordpress, and I upgraded immediately!

Anyway, I thought I'd share the post from my blog with others just in case you have the same problem or you're not even sure where to look - there are some easy steps to check for hidden links and how to submit a reconsideration request!

Getting Banned by Google, and Upgrading WordPress

This Post was written by Sara from Ms. Adventures in Italy

Stumbling Efficiently

Hi All,

So I have read quite a bit about engaging in social networks such as Stumbleupon to help promote blogs. I have been stumbling for a bit - just checking out other sites and trying to build a good stumble web page but I haven't done much more than that.
I am not sure if it is good policy to stumble your own posts - and I am not really sure how it works to connect with people on-line. Most of my friends are not on social networks so I am a bit out of the loop.
Any recs and ideas are appreciated!!
Thanks ~ Sue www.feelgoodeats.com

Feed Not Updating for a Reader, Any Ideas?

Yesterday I got this e-mail from a reader:

Back in the fall, I created a "My Yahoo" page and had
kalynskitchen as my top displayed feed.  (I believe it
is considered an RSS feed.) A couple weeks ago, your
site quit updating itself on my yahoo page. The last
update was the pork stir fry from three weeks ago.

I emailed Yahoo about this, and they say they can't do
anything about it.  All my other RSS feeds are
continuing to update themselves. Do you have any idea why
this has happened? 

I have no idea why her feed isn't updating. I subscribe to my own site through bloglines and haven't had any problems. The only thing I could think to recommend was that she re-subscribe through the link on my site. Here's what happened:

OK, this is stranger by the minute.  I re-subscribed
thru your site, and it came up on My Yahoo page, with
the 3 week old pork stir fry recipe heading the
way...just like the other feed.

Do any of you who are more tech-savvy than I am have any idea what's wrong and what I could suggest. Thanks in advance for any help.

This post written by Kalyn from Kalyn's Kitchen.

Advice on accidental identity theft

I recently discovered that I have accidently taken the identity of another blogger.

I chose the moniker 'Kitchen Wench' as that was what my friends had teased me as all through high school, for my penchant for bringing baked goods to class and running fundraising bakesales for various school clubs, so after reading Clotilde's blog for a few months and decided to start my own, it seemed only natural that I should take it on board. I decided to self-host on a domain that I've owned since I was a teen, primarily as I'd already paid for it and didn't even consider getting a new one for the blog.

However, my readership is increasing and after deciding that I should probably get a shorter domain name that was easier to remember than www.insanitytheory.net/kitchenwench, I went to register www.kitchenwench.com, to find to my dismay that it's already been registered - by another food blogger who set up shop 5 months before I did. Reading through her posts, I found out that she found out about me a long time ago but never contacted me about it, just mentioning in her post that it didn't bother her that much.

Not to be rude but I don't doubt that I have a larger readership, but the fact of the matter is that she 'got' the name first, and I'm feeling pretty cruddy about the accidental 'theft'. I guess the conclusion is that I should change my food blogging identity, but I'm also pretty attached to it (as well as having the same identity across *many* other food-related websites).

So folks - please advise! Should I go ahead and change my food blogging identity? If so, what would be the best way to do so without losing my readership, links or statistics?

This Post was written by Ellie from Kitchen Wench

Blogger Press Credentials to Restaurant Show

Hi everyone. I just heard from Liz Strauss at Successful Blog that the National Restaurant Show (May 17-20) in Chicago is offering press passes to restaurant and news-focused food bloggers. (See Liz's post.)

Just send an email with a link to your blog to media@restaurant.org to request credentials.


This Post was written by Elise from Simply Recipes

Identify Yourself, Protect Your Images

Really great information about protecting photographs in this article highlighted to me by Alanna. Thanks Alanna!


This Post was written by sam from becks&posh

Dream Kitchens - Little Dreams, Big Dreams

Hello All,

I've been invited to write a piece about bloggers and their dream kitchens and thus would love to poll / question / interview anyone who has either built or remodeled a 'dream' kitchen.

The term Dream Kitchen implies a big budget, lots of space, expensive appliances. Naturally, those "big dream" dream kitchens will be included!

But I'd also like to include what I'm thinking of as "little dream" dream kitchens, features or changes that are relatively simple and inexpensive but make a kitchen more functional, more family-friendly, or otherwise improved. There's really no limit here -- it might be that installing a second oven or purchasing a stovetop grill or changing out the faucets or adding a set of pantry shelves or -- or -- anything that somehow made a difference.

If you would like to be included, please contact me via AK at KITCHEN hyphen PARADE dot COM. Just tell me you're interested with a quick description of your kitchen/ideas and then I'll send out a questionnaire for everyone to gather information. If you've got pictures of your kitchen posted, include a link, please.

Many thanks!


Alanna from A Veggie Venture & Kitchen Parade

squarespace, typepad & saying hello...

Just wanted to say hello as I have not been involved in Food Blog S'cool for about 3 years - back in '05 when I started modern girls kitchen. I had to take a break from MGK for almost all of last year due ot personal and professional commitments; however, MGK is now back up and running, and I am considering moving it from Squarespace to Typepad where I have started another blog.

Are there any other folks out there using Squarespace (which, by the way, I do love) and/or who have made the move to Typepad? Specifically I'm wondering about transporting my blog to Typepad without losing my Squarespace archives...

Reasons for doing this would be primarily because Squarespace does not really support a three-column layout and I'd like a little more freedom in terms of the overall site layout - tabbed navigation, for instance, as well as the ability to locate any ads in one column (not have them jumbled in my navigation column).

I'm thinking this may be a "big job" however and I would love to hear any experiences with Typepad vs. Squarespace and/or with moving a blog from one host to another (I did this once when I moved from blogger to Squarespace but that was at the very beginning of this adventure...)

Thank you very much! Emma

This Post was written by emma from www.moderngirlskitchen.com

Foodproof - new web 2.0ish food site

Foodproof is a new still-in-beta food community site. Has some interesting features. I know the people running it and they would like some interested food people to get in the sandbox and play around - this is NOT a blog or blog aggregation and it is non-commercial and likely to stay that way for some time. If you want an invite (the only way to get in right now) please let me know - via the email you will be able to find if you look at my regular blog site - tomatilla.com (sorry to be cryptic - don't want to get spammed)

This Post was written by Owen from Tomatilla!

One Blogger's Response to Blog Generated Email

I have lately been preoccupied with stuff other than blogging and hadn't visited Food Blog S'cool in a while. I wanted to add another comment regarding Kitchen Wench's post entitled Answering questions from some New Bloggers On The Block, because I'd like to share. I was practically in hysterics over this matter before I came up with this solution. Ever since I put this system in place, I have become rather relaxed and zen about the whole responding to strangers thing. Please feel free to copy or borrow anything you want from this.

1) Get a new email address (I use gmail) especially dedicated to your blog and make this the one you use/publish on your blog - since this is an address that people you don't know will write to, it makes sense that it is separate to you regular email address.

2)Switch on the vacation responder for that email address and keep it switched on for ever.

3) For the vacation response Edit the subject and message.

This is what mine looks like, you may think I am crazy but it keeps me sane:

subject: Thank You for Contacting the 'Becks & Posh' Food Blog

Message: This is an automated message, please read carefully.

My blog, "Becks & Posh", is a labour of love, a non-commercial, non-money-making, non-advertising personal expression of what I chance to discover, love and am eager to share about food, wine, restuarants, recipes, and other (sometimes tenuously) food-related musings in the Bay Area and beyond.

I write my blog in my precious spare time. I have a taxing, full time job which keeps me away from home, my man, food, friends and, of course, my blog for up to 11 hours a day so the amount of time I have to spend writing posts and dealing with all the enquiries it attracts is extremely limited.

Since the popularity of my blog has grown and grown I am receiving more and more emails of enquiry and it is now getting to the stage where I am just unable to cope with responding to every one personally as I have diligently and politely tried to do in the past.

With all due apologies for having to take this step, but for the sake of my own sanity, from hereon in I am simply going to have to be unresponsive to some of the emails I receive, especially solicitations. I will attempt to explain the reasons for this in the following paragraphs. Please read on if you would like to understand why you might not actually hear back from me. This email address will only be checked only sparingly.

Reasons You Might Not Hear Back from me after sending me a mail on subjects which may include but are not limited to the following::

1) I do not advertise your product or anything else for free on my blog.

2) I do not advertise your product or anything else for money on my blog.

3) I do not currently actively promote events/other blogs/tv shows/websites/products/books/etc, etc on my blog. In other words I do not promote by request.

4) I do not swap reciprocal links with other blogs, websites or commercial concerns.

5) I am not interested in any money-making schemes - my blog is non-commercial. It is not currently my intention for my blog to make any money at all.

6) Thank you for your kind offer, but I am a rare food blogger in that I do not currently accept products for review. I am honoured that you should find my blog worthy of such consideration, but please excuse me for taking a pass. Some of the things you tempt me with sound so good, but I have to consider: 'would I spend my own money on that'.? If the answer is yes, then I will, and I'll probably end up buying and writing about your product anyway, as long as it lives up to its promise.

7) If you write to me and ask me a general question which I make the time to reply to, please say thank you. I am not paid to do this, it is a labour of love. If you ask me a question and I reply but you do not bother to thank me for my time, you run the risk of having your email address publicly named and shamed on my blog. I am a human being sitting at the end of this email address, not a machine. Thank you for your understanding.

8) With all due apologies, I have become a little tired of memes and rarely join in with them these days. Thanks for asking me anyway. Unless I find a particularly inspiring or topical meme, I probably won't oblige, though, I hope you understand, after 3+ years of memes, they can get a little tired after a while.

9) I do not have time to help you with your new web2.0 blog promotion website/directory/portal for blogs etc. You may think you are the only person trying to do this, but believe me, several people a day ask me to get involved in such scheme. Sorry - there are just too many of you and I don't have time to look into them all.

10) Want help with food blogging? I'd love to help you - but there are hundreds of other people out there who want help too. So I started a community called 'Food Blog S'cool' where dozens of bloggers come together to help each other out. Please sign up for Food Blog S'cool if you have a food blogging question. Here is the URL:
http://foodblogscool.blogspot.com/

11) Thank you for valuing my opinion, but I cannot afford to be an unpaid consultant for every web2.0 startup/site that asks questions of me.

12)Looking for advice on where to dine in the Bay Area?
Please check out these two posts here:
http://becksposhnosh.blogspot.com/2007/07/where-and-what-to-eat-in-san-francisco.html
http://becksposhnosh.blogspot.com/2007/12/san-francisco-visitor-goes-out-to-eat.html

To get a better understanding of what Becks & Posh is about, you can read about all of these things in more detail, with further explanations, on my 'about' page:
http://becksposhnosh.blogspot.com/2007/01/about-becks-posh.html

thank you for your kind understanding,
and thank you for contacting Becks & Posh

Sam Breach
http://becksposhnosh.blogspot.com/