Email subscription service/plugin for a Wordpress blog?

Hi everyone. I've been trying to find an email subscription plugin or service for a site I launched in December - The Gastronomer's Bookshelf. As the site is for culinary book reviews, I know that many readers will want to subscribe to updates, but might not be used to RSS.

I've been testing the Subscribe2 plugin, behind the scenes, but I feel its interface could be quite daunting for new users (it lets you choose which categories you subscribe to by email, and as the site has a very large number of book categories to choose from, the list is daunting!).

I know I could just direct the RSS feed to Feedburner and let people do a Feedburner email subscription, but I was wondering if people know of anything else that might offer a little more flexibility (eg, I'd love a subscribe field on the front page where people could just enter their address and click "subscribe").

Any suggestions appreciated.

This Post was written by Duncan from Syrup & Tang

Michelin Break Their Own Embargo

It's not exactly something you'd normally expect, but the Michelin awards for Great Britain & Ireland 2009 - due for announcement next Wednesday - have been published this weekend... on the Michelin news website. Still, as almost every change was trailed in advance on several food blog sites, I suppose there's not much point keeping it secret.

Alain Ducasse being tipped for 3* status and Nathan Outlaw getting a tip this year instead of his second star were the major surprises, although we appear to have been awarded more new first stars than for many years. I'm personally delighted to see Fergus Henderson of St. John amongst this list - about time too for someone ranked (albeit a bit excessively to put it mildly) above Alinea, Troisgros and Martin Berasategui in the San Pellegrino World's 50 Best Restaurants 2008.

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

This Post was written by Joanna from Joanna's Food


Can anyone tell me how to disable comments in an individual post in blogger? I don't want to disable all comments, just on one or two archive posts that attract staggering amounts of inappropriate diet-related advertising type comments ....

Thanks
Joanna

Tracking amyrecipes

Following up to the previous post, I've compared her most recent few recipes and the source where she copied them from. (No live linkage to her site for obvious reasons)
I found the sources within the first 1-2 results. Just to show how busy this person is. (Oh, and she also stole her Twitter avatar pic from leahdemilio, though she's since replaced it with another photo, which I wouldn't be surprised is also nicked from someplace.)

BTW this output is just from the last 2 days. I didn't have the time or will to go back further.

'Grilled Chicken Recipe with Sage, Rosemary, and Garlic Dried Herb Rub' - http://www.southbeachrecipe.info/grilled-chicken-with-sage-rosemary-and-garlic-dried-herb-rub: original - on Kalyn's Kitchen (heavily edited but the same recipe)

'Zucchini and Tomato Gratin' - http://www.southbeachrecipe.info/zucchini-and-tomato-gratin: original -
on Pinch My Salt

'Baked Eggplant with Tomato Mushroom Sauce' - http://www.southbeachrecipe.info/baked-eggplant-with-tomato-mushroom-sauce: original: on Cheap Healthy Good


'Baby Bok Choy with Garlic and Shrimp' - www.southbeachrecipe.info/baby-bok-choy-with-garlic-and-shrimp - original: on Rasa Malaysia

'Great Vegetarian Dish - Rajma with Green Peppers' - www.southbeachrecipe.info/great-vegetarian-dish-rajma-with-green-peppers - original: on Ahaar (even copying the rather unique way of writing 'tspoon')

'South Beach Diet Sausage and Pepper Skewers' - http://www.southbeachrecipe.info/south-beach-sausage-pepper-skewers - original: on Green Lite Bites

'Lemon Chicken' - http://www.southbeachrecipe.info/lemon-chicken - original: on Kalyn's Kitchen (she has altered this more than the others)

'Beef or Chicken Fajitas' - http://www.southbeachrecipe.info/beef-or-chicken-fajitas - original: on About.com Low Carb Diets

'Oven-Baked Salmon With Herbs' - http://www.southbeachrecipe.info/oven-baked-salmon-with-herbs - original: on About.com Low Carb Diets (they both 'happen to have lemon thyme in my garden')

'Cabbage and Blue Cheese Salad With Sunflower Seeds' - http://www.southbeachrecipe.info/cabbage-and-blue-cheese-salad-with-sunflower-seeds: original - on Kalyn's Kitchen (also altered a lot)

'Chicken Soup with Roasted Asparagus, Mushrooms and Shallots' - http://www.southbeachrecipe.info/chicken-soup-with-roasted-asparagus-mushrooms-and-shallots: original - on French Kitchen in America

'Breakfast Quiches' - this was the only one I couldn't find the source of easily, though there are lots of Breakfast Quiche recipes out there

'Beef or Chicken Fajitas' - http://www.southbeachrecipe.info/beef-or-chicken-fajitas: original - on About.com Low Carb Diets

'Stuffed Green Peppers' - http://www.southbeachrecipe.info/stuffed-green-peppers: original - on Group Recipes

A blatant rip-off artist

If you are on Twitter and follow some other food bloggers, you may have heard about this already, but in case you haven't: There is a blatant rip-off artist in operation who seems to have no idea that copying other people's recipes, altering them a tiny bit (but not nearly enough to easily discover the source) and then posting them as her own without any acknowledgement of the source is a problem. The site in question is called southbeachdiet.info. When Kalyn of Kalyn's Kitchen, who as you might guess was ripped off a lot by this persion since she has one of the top South Beach Diet related sites on the web, complained to her about it apparently she was not at all responsive. All she did was to take down her site for a bit, alter the recipes slightly e.g. taking out some text and removing photos, then - back to the same old thing.

Anyway, you should check her posts to see if you too have been copied by this person. She is posting recipes at a rate of 1 every couple of hours, following tons of people on Twitter and being followed back. Her Twitter username is @amyrecipes. If you see this page, you can see what she is up to without having to follow her.

There are several things that could be attempted to stop this person with DCMA and so on, but one thing you can do as a food blogger is to block her on Twitter so she cannot follow you, especially if you post your blog updates there, and you have a lot of low-carb recipes I guess! I don't know if this will stop her (I noticed several recipes she's almost copied verbatim from About.com for example) but at least you can put up one barrier against her.

This just shows that trying to stop people with technology like putting copyright notices on RSS feeds or actual posts, or only serving excerpts in your RSS feeds, won't stop those with no conscience. I have not been ripped off myself (I guess onigiri has too many carbs :P) But as someone who takes time to actually cook and test and photograph the recipes I publish online, as I'm sure you all do too, seeing people thanking her for her 'terrific recipes' on Twitter as she copy-pastes and pumps them out like poop is really galling.

One more thought: It might be useful to occasionally check who is following you on Twitter, and what they might be doing, so to speak, if you are concerned about similar things occuring from elsewhere.


This Post was written by Maki from Just Hungry and Just Bento, and @bentotips on Twitter.

Adobe Lightroom Tutorial for Food Photography

For those of you thinking about switching to RAW images for your food photos, I thought you all might be interested in a tutorial I recently wrote on shooting in RAW and processing using Adobe Lightroom.

If you find it useful or have other questions leave a comment and I'll try to answer your question or write another tutorial about it.

Adobe Lightroom Tutorial for Food Photography

This Post was written by Marc from norecipes.com

Making a full feed a half feed

I have a question that I think is impossible to solve but it is worth asking in case someone knows a solution. I use the short rss feed on my Blogger blog because of constant content theft but I would like be able to make a longer rss feed that is not a full feed. So now I wonder if there is some kind of html code I could put in the text that would cut a full feed into a half? Or some other way maybe?



This Post was written by Ilva from Lucullian Delights

Libel Law? in a Comment?

I don't fully understand libel law. Say someone, with a handle/user_name that wasn't their real name, but otherwise anonymous, at least to readers, left a comment about me on a website somewhere. Let's pretend I am called Mr Smith for this example. So the comment says "Mr Smith is a dumb idiot", (it doesn't actually say that but something similar.) I have asked the website to remove the comment several times but they will not. They refuse. They say their policy is not to remove comments, except in extreme circumstances. Do I have anything legal I can throw at them? Or do I just have to suck it up? Personally I find it a little extreme to have my reputation sullied publicly by someone lacking in so little backbone, that they say these kinds of things undercover of a false name.

This Post was written by Sam from Becks & Posh who would like to reiterate that this example is fictional and that any resemblance to any real Mr Smith, living or dead is not the intention.

Food Blog Awards - Nominations Open

The nomination period for the annual Food Blog Awards opened up this week ... tomorrow is the last day to nominate your favorite food or drink blog to get them in the running. Would appreciate your help in spreading the word.

This post was written by Cate from Sweetnicks.

SF Fancy Food Show -

The Fancy Food Show at the Moscone Center in San Francisco begins in two weeks!

I just booked my hotel (and got an awesome deal - SF must be having trouble with folks staying in hotels right now, everything is on sale). I'll be there for all three days, probably just cruising the floor. I don't think I'm going to go to any sessions.

I was wondering if other food bloggers would like to get together, meet up and maybe dish on the show together.

This Post was written by Cybele from Candy Blog