Food Blog S'cool

Getting Banned from Google

2008-05-13T05:53:00.002-07:00

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

2008-05-09T07:18:00.003-07:00

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?

2008-04-27T06:55:00.003-07:00

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

2008-04-26T21:44:00.006-07:00

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

2008-04-25T10:02:00.000-07:00

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

2008-04-25T08:24:00.000-07:00

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

2008-04-25T08:08:00.012-07:00

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...

2008-04-19T16:43:00.003-07:00

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

2008-04-19T16:43:00.002-07:00

Foodproof - new web 2.0ish food site

2008-04-15T12:14:00.001-07:00

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

2008-04-10T20:22:00.002-07:00

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/

Chewing on a blogger's privacy

2008-04-08T17:23:00.003-07:00

Quick Quiz
- Have you ever regretted how personal you made your food blog*?
- And how many months/years have you been blogging?

*Beyond the power of the almighty edit- have you regretted how "out" you've been on your blog? Do you regret not being more anonymous?

thanks

This Post was written by McAuliflower from Brownie Points

46 Tax Deductions that Bloggers Often Overlook

2008-04-05T16:00:00.003-07:00

This is my first year for filing taxes regarding my blogs, and I found the information in the following post very helpful.

46 Tax Deductions that Bloggers Often Overlook

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

Answering questions from some New Bloggers On The Block (NBOTB?)

2008-04-05T02:35:00.003-07:00

Please forgive the rather terse tone in this post, but I am genuinely fed up at this point.

Ok, the food blogging community is lovely, everyone helps each other, yadda yadda. I try and do my part by having my contact details on my blog so that people can email me directly with any queries they have. About 80% of those are recipe inquiries, but the other 20% are either photography or blogging questions from relatively new bloggers (and the odd request for a link exchange, which I delicately push towards Kalyn's post which answers it far more politely than I could).

Despite some of the questions that I get sent (including the manner in which they're asked!!), I try and answer in a quick, polite, informative and friendly manner. Many times these questions have answers that would be readily available to the asker if they chose to use Google, but I still take the time to answer, and depending on the question this can be quite time-consuming.

However, I'm beginning to lose patience with the attitude that I'm beginning to perceive - there has been many an email that I've sent in reply (that has required quite a bit of thought and typing), always ending with an offer for them to feel free to ask any more questions and I don't get any acknowledgment that they received the email, found the information useful or even a thank you.

I'm looking for advice for any bloggers who deal with a large amount of these sorts of inquiries - do you bother answering every email that is sent to you? How do you cope with the occasional rude and demanding request for help, and keep your cool when you get nary a thanks for your effort?

This Post was written by Ellie from Kitchen Wench

P.S. Apologies again for the rather short tone here, am also extremely hungover which didn't help my mood when I got the most recent of these sorts of emails this morning...

P.S. I don't mean to condemn all new bloggers - for every rude/demanding person that contacts me, there's 5 very sweet, lovely and very polite ones. The rude ones just affect me more as I'm generally a bit of a grumpy sort, especially in the mornings which is when I do most of my email-answering.

Hosting for Wordpress blog

2008-04-02T17:51:00.000-07:00

I've been using Dreamhost to host my various blogs for a couple years now, but they've been going down more and more frequently. Last week they were down for a whole day and this week they've been so slow at times that the blog won't even load.

I'm thinking about moving to Domatic or Mediatemple. Does anyone here have any experience with either? Recommendations for other hosting providers that I can stick Wordpress on would be helpful as well. Thanks!

This Post was written by Marc from [ No Recipes ]

Stealing. But why?

2008-03-31T15:50:00.004-07:00

Okay, so A Collection of Cooking Recipes was stealing my content. (http://cooking-recipes-collection.blogspot.com/)

I complained and complained and finally, their ads were taken down.

But, they continue to steal my content.

And this site (http://www.choicecooking-recipes.com/2008/03/31/spring-corn-soup-with-chive-biscuits/) too, but again, no ads.

Any thoughts on WHY if they aren't getting any revenue?

Thanks,
Rachael

This Post was written by Rachael at Fresh Approach Cooking

Room shares for BlogHer conference in July?

2008-03-25T14:04:00.001-07:00

I'm going to BlogHer this summer, woohoo! I don't know the conference room rates, but usually it's cheaper for two people to share a room, right? If so, I'd like to find another female food blogger who is interested in sharing a room.

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

Team Blogs - over 100 members

2008-03-24T13:33:00.005-07:00

Hi, I'm hoping someone can help (possibly yourself Sam!).

I run the UK Food Bloggers Association, a team blog for all the food bloggers based in the UK. This evening the members have reached the 100 mark and Blogger is giving me an error message saying I can't have more than 100 authors. Eek! Is there anything I can do? Will I have to resort to posting on behalf of members? I'd appreciate any help or advice.

This Post was written by Julia from A Slice of Cherry Pie

Twitter

2008-03-24T10:33:00.002-07:00

Is anyone using Twitter? I just signed up this morning and added a link on my blog. I like the idea of using it the way Derrick does (of Obsession with Food) to update what I've been cooking, eating, etc.

Thoughts? Also if you are letting people follow you, please let me know so I can follow you too!

This post was written by Amy Sherman from Cooking with Amy

Sorry! One more thing...

2008-03-20T20:30:00.002-07:00

Hi again...I thought my website would show up in the last post and I am not sure it did, so here it is www.feelgoodeats.com
Thanks again for your time,
Sue Bette

New Blog - Looking for Feedback

2008-03-20T20:25:00.001-07:00

Hi All,

I have been reading for a couple of months but this is my first post - so thanks for all of the tips and advice I have gotten already.
I am basically looking for feedback on my blog (design & content) and would love to hear any advice on increasing readers and just getting the blog out there.

Thanks again,
Sue Bette

Just Conversation

2008-03-20T11:31:00.003-07:00

I was thinking about this the other day and thought I might pose the question here, curious to hear what y'all think. For those that have been blogging awhile, what has changed with regards to your feelings about blogging since you started?

In the beginning, and probably for the first year, I used to obsessively check my stats daily, at the very least; now three years later, I doubt I check it more than once a month, if that.

I also used to blog daily, and did so probably for the first two years. I've definitely relaxed in that aspect too, and now take 2-3 nights off a week.

What's changed for you?

Your turn! :)

Watermarking

2008-03-17T15:30:00.002-07:00

Great info from today's SF Chronicle newspaper...

Q: I'm starting a personal Web site that will include photographs I've taken through the years. I'd like to make it so viewers can't copy or save the photos. I've visited sites where a pop-up will appear saying something like "You are not allowed to copy this" when you right-click and attempt to save an image. How can I enable this feature for my page?

A: You can prevent right-clicking of images by adding a simple piece of code to your Web site, but it's not a foolproof solution. A clever user might be able to extract a photo from a browser's cache or use screen-capture software to save it. Also, the right-click trick may not work if the user has disabled JavaScript in the browser.

A better option would be to watermark your photos with your name, a warning about unauthorized use, or a copyright notice. Watermarks can be placed so they don't interfere with viewing photos, but might dissuade Web site visitors from copying them.

Programs including Photoshop Elements and Paint Shop Pro let you watermark groups of photos. Or, you could use a software program designed for the task, such as Picture-shark (free at picture-shark.com) or Visual Watermark ($34.95 at visualwatermark.com).

By the way, you don't have to register or pay in order to copyright a photo you've taken. Just add a notice that includes the copyright symbol (press the "c" key while holding down the Alt and Ctrl keys).

Very weird link

2008-03-16T03:37:00.003-07:00

Something odd, puzzling, has happened, and I wonder if anyone could throw any light on it. I have discovered a link to my blog, apparently in Australia, which is a single page inviting people to an Easter barbecue, giving an address which looks real, a telephone number. At the bottom is a list of possible guests, all of which are hyperlinks, one of which says Joanna, and links to my blog.

I do not have any known connection with anything on this page ... I am puzzled as to what it's about (it's not like I blog about barbecuing, or anything). Can anyone throw any light on it? the domain name is odium ...

This Post was written by Joanna from Joanna's Food

What do you do if your domain name has been registered?

2008-03-13T21:16:00.009-07:00

Gosh I'm really smacking myself in the head about this. I've been beating around the bush about registering a domain name (www.nookandpantry .com) and it didn't seem like a very popular name at all so I just decided to wait. I finally decide to register it and I was shocked that it's been registered, only two days ago!

So I have 2 questions:

1. What do you do if the domain name you want is taken. It seems like www. blogname.com is the most logical. Do I have any other options?

2. I'm also very newbie about this whole process but how do you go about buying/registering a domain in the first place. I looked at some older topics about this and it seems like I have a few options:
000domains.com, GoDaddy, Domain Direct, or Yahoo

Any recommendations?

This Post was written by Amy from nook & pantry