Is there any alternative of hello? bloggerbot is dead!

Hey guys, have encountered a problem with hello? I cant post pictures anymore from there and using the blogger upload is taking much time to upload one picture. Any suggestion?

Thanks ahead.

This Post was written by Grace from

The Kitchen Journal

Where's my sidebar?

Does anyone know where my sidebar may have gone? It has not sunk all the way to the bottom--it does not seem to be anywhere. Might this have something to do with this thing all the way at the bottom:


This Post was written by the chocolate lady from In Mol Araan

An Insider's Guide to Food Blogging, $70

I just stumbled across this information that might interest/amuse/irritate you, via The Gurgling Cod.

So, how much should I start charging for a term at Food Blog Scool?


This Post was written by Sam from Becks & Posh

Another Writing Opportunity

I'm passing along another opportunity to write in another venue. Don't think this one pays, but here's the deal.

A site is looking for local food, wine and travel writers in cities all over the world to contribute. Contributors will not get paid but will get bylined with a link to their blogs etc.

Here's a direct quote from the original listing

"Looking for Contributors for new blog on Food, Wine, Travel offering local perspective on places the world over

Would some of you be interested in contributing to a new blog I am starting which will provide information and ideas on Food, Wine and Travel (the world over) from the eyes of a local person rather than a tourist?
Your contribution cannot be used to sell your product but your name, activity, web link and blog link will be mentioned after your piece. "

Don't know more than that but anyone interested should contact info@njconcierges.com (I do not think njconcierges is the site in question).


This Post was written by Owen from Tomatilla.

[Blogger] Adding another Sidebar

I was wondering if anyone can guide me through something that I have been trying for a while. With no luck. I'd like to add a third sidebar on my blog. I put this project aside for awhile thinking to take it up again after the switch to Beta. However, it seems to be taking forever to make the switch to beta and I really need to get that second sidebar up.

I am using what used to be the Rounders 4 template. As you can see after all my changes, there is not much left of it but that is the basis template underneath.

There are 2 things I would like to do:

1. Extend the entire length of the page (Banner, main posting area) and get the second sidebar up. I have not decided on the exact position - either left, so that the main posting area is in the middle of both sidebars, or on the right, so that the main posting area is on the far left and both side bars are next to each other.
   
   
2. For the sidebars (both the one that is there now and the new one) I would like to be able to break these up so that instead of one long vertical bar, I can have boxes (or sections). If you take a long on my blog, the darker long vertical sidebar is just one long box. I would like to be able to section each category in a separate box, like the profile container is separated from the sidebar container.

I would really appreciate step by step instructions of how to go about doing this. Or simply point me in the right direction where I can read about this.

Thank you in advance!


This Post was written by Meeta from What's For Lunch, Honey?

What? My blog is pornographic?

A few days ago I was checking out the big-league blogs, noticing all the little icons some of them have. Chef's Blogs, Globe of Blogs, Blog Flux, etc.

Just for the heck of it, I applied for a listing on the Blog Flux site.

So, I get this reply back, saying I have been rejected because of one of the following reasons: It is not a blog. It is down. It is too new and I have not posted enough. It is a shill site. It contains nudity. It construes something illegal.

But the Blog Flux Team is too busy to explain which of the reasons I have been rejected. (Was it that provacatively-posed carrot photo I posted a week or two ago?)

I'm a big girl. I can deal with rejection. But c'mon. There's gotta be a better reason that the ones above, none of which are the case.

I know, I know. Someone somewhere said a while back that Kiplog is THE list to be on. So how does a relative newbie get on these lists? There are blogs on Kiplog that haven't been updated in months.

Since my blog does not provide an income, all this is not the end of the world. But I'm curious.

Any comments?


This Post was written by Mimi from French Kitchen in America

Photos, now that BloggerBot is gone?

I am really trying to come up with a good way to post photos on my blog. Up to now, I've been using Hello to upload a bunch of pictures to a specific photo blog, "Annes Food Pics". Then, when I want to blog about a photo, I've linked to the larger size of the photo, and having the small size shown on my actual blog. This has worked so well - but now Hello is no more (or at least BloggerBot is dead) so I need to come up with a new way to do it.

So far, I've tried:

1. Uploading photos directly in blogger. Not great, because it gives different addresses for the large and the small size of the photo. (With Hello, it was just a matter of changing "640" to "320" for the sizes.)

2. Using Picasa to upload. Same problem as above, plus it also adds an annoying Picasa logo, and besides, I don't like using Picasa at all.

3. Using Flickr to post to my blog. Bigger problem - not only is it not stored on Blogger anymore (which I rather liked), it's also the wrong size since Flickr sizes are different from Blogger sizes.

So. What's a girl to do? Right now, I'm thinking that either I'll just use Flickr, and not minding so much that the photos are smaller than I like. However, I mainly use my Flickr accout for my cat pictures, so having the food there too - well, I could, I suppose. Another option is simply linking to the small size of Blogger pictures, but then visitors wouldn't have the option of clicking on them to get them larger. Then again, maybe not very many do that.

I'd really, really love some input here! What do you do? What should I do? :)

This Post was written by Anne from Anne's Food.

"Beta" Blogger Gremlins?

Compared to the rest of you, I am pretty naive about blogging. But I'm curious. Since beta appeared, every once in a while, certain links on my site no longer work, Tonight, I cannot use links to several blogger sites, and I think — but am not sure — they are all blogs that have converted to beta.

Non-Blogger bogs — Typepad, etc — are not afftected.

I can get to these blogger blogs through other means. But not through my links.

Very bizarre. Is it just me?


This Post was written by Mimi from French Kitchen in America.

[Website Help]

Hi, I hope this is okay to post here...

I have built a website using DreamWeaver as an extension of my blog. I own a domain name and have a hosting service. The only trouble is, I have no clue how to put the three together. Can any of you help me out with that? I am in a bind and at a loss...

This Post was written by Rachael from Fresh Approach

[Blogger] More Code?

Is there a way to place a more tag or "continue reading" thing in Blogger posts? I know it's not shown as an icon, but wonder if there's another way to do it that I may be missing?

Written by Cate at Sweetnicks.

Food Writing gigs in major cities

Dining Out Magazine has some food writing gigs for restaurant reviewing in several major cities

see here:

http://sfbay.craigslist.org/sfc/wri/261744542.html


This Post was written by Owen from Tomatilla

[Network Neutrality] Temporary Victory for Network Neutrality

Last summer there was a bit of excitement about possible Congressional action to change the rules of the internet, including a day of blog action. But in the end, Congress could not pass a bill. The debate, however, led to some great entertainment in the form of a techno remix of a speech by Sen. Stevens (R-AK) and a great Daily Show segment about Stevens' speech.

At the end of 2006, net neutrality advocates got a temporary victory in an agreement by AT&T to maintain network neutrality for the next two years. Tom Abate covered the story for the SF Chronicle in Net neutrality advocates hail AT&T's concessions:

[...]

On Dec. 29, it [AT&T] agreed for roughly two years to abide by much the same "network neutrality" rules that it had spent 2006 strenuously opposing in Congress.

[...]

When asked by The Chronicle, Verizon, Comcast and Time Warner declined to say whether they will continue to honor this unofficial moratorium while AT&T's hands remain tied.

But the prevailing wisdom on Capitol Hill is that the big four won't rock the boat while Congress is considering whether to make AT&T's temporary agreement the basis for a net neutrality law that would bind them all.

AT&T chief lobbyist Jim Cicconi said, "We continue to believe that net neutrality regulations are unwarranted and unwise."

As for what comes next, a House staffer said Rep. Ed Markey, D-Mass., who championed net neutrality last year, will introduce a bill soon to make something similar to the AT&T concessions binding on the entire industry -- and this time he will do so as chairman of a key subcommittee.

But Jessica Zufolo, a telecommunications expert with the Medley Global Advisors policy research firm, said that although momentum has shifted to a coalition that seeks to preserve neutrality on the Internet, it is too early to tell whether proponents will be able to convert a majority of the House and Senate, and ultimately the president.

Meanwhile, the merger concessions create a deadline for Congress to either act or not.

[...]

Read the whole thing here. More commentary at Save the Internet.


This post was written by Marc of Mental Masala.

Stupidest blogging mistakes?

So what's the dumbest blog mistake you've ever made? Here's what I managed today. I published a post and put my computer into standby. Later I came back and saw my WordPress editing window open with my post still in it. "Oh, I better save this!" I said, and without thinking, I did. This caused two problems.

1) If you hit Save after you've already hit Publish, usually it simply saves the changes to the published post. That didn't happen this time. The post was pulled from the blog and turned back into a draft. Why?

2) Because it turns out that the editing window was an old one I never closed, and the version I just saved was a very early version of my post, sans pictures, sans categories, sans coherency. I had no backup copy of the published post.

After I stopped hyperventilating, I managed to salvage the correct post by copying and pasting text from the published post already in my feed reader back into the draft and manually reinserting the formatting and photos. Despite my haste I even remembered to check the right categories. But I forgot to change the title of the post and the permalink to match the deleted one, so that's all screwed up now, and I don't want to change them and trigger the third duplicate feed of the day.

One thing I did learn--WordPress saves any comments to the post and migrates it to the new permalink, so I didn't have to worry about that. I suppose it's not as bad as accidentally posting pictures of me in compromising attire, not that any such photos exist (STAY OUT OF MY DESK DRAWERS), but still, I have vowed never to go through that again. No, I'm sure I'll come up with a completely new mistake next time.


This Post was written by Annie from Bon Appegeek

[coding] How To Insert Links Into Comments

Just recently David Lebovitz called for self submissions to his blog roll. When I went to put my blog URL in comments, I noticed that pretty much everyone did so as a link to their sites. Not poor old neanderthal me, I just typed my address in to be cut and pasted. Can someone tell me how to do nifty links in comments?


This Post was written by neil from At My Table

[blogger] continuing beta switching confusion

From one of our new pupils:

Thanks so much for the invitation to join Food Blog Scool.
I'm on the new version of Blogger and when I tried to sign up to the scool it couldn't find my user name, so I've had to create a new account on the old style Blogger.
Do you know if there's any way around this, as I'd much rather use my new blogger sign-in? I did have a look around on the scool to see if this had already been asked but couldn't find anything.

and from another want-to-be pupil:

Thanks for the invite and I would love to sign up.
However, I am having issues with the link. When I click on the link below it takes me to the blogger invite page where I have to sign in but since I have changed to Blogger Beta I then have to sign in a second time and it then takes me straight to my own blog rather than yours [FBS].

and this:

I did do what you've written, but still when I signed in with my blogger username, it didn't work. I wonder...

and on a slightly different note, but only slightly, some people still can't switch, and our little scool could be to blame?

Could not switch you to the new Blogger
Thanks for your interest in the new version of Blogger! Unfortunately, we cannot switch your Blogger account at this time, because one or more of your blogs cannot be moved.

any ideas anyone?

This Post was written by sam from Becks & Posh

Educating Media People About Blogging

I am frequently having PR people send me information about products they think I "might be interested in mentioning" on my blog. It's become rather an annoyance and I've decided that rather than just deleting them, I would start writing back an honest response pointing out how I feel about these "offers." Today I sent this to a company wanting me to write about a weight-loss product:

"The product you're representing sounds like it might be interesting. I can appreciate that this is a new product and you're trying to get the word out about it. However, what you're asking is whether I would like to advertise it for you for free. Since I spent many, many hours working on my website and currently have paid advertising on the site, promoting a product without compensation is not something I'd be interested in doing."

Much to my surprise I got this response:

"Thanks very much for your speedy reply and honesty – I truly appreciate it and understand your reasons. Have a wonderful weekend!!!"

I'm just mentioning this here in case others are not sure how to handle "offers" like this. If my site did not accept advertising or promotional materials at all, I would have also made that clear. This product was something I might have considered having an ad for; it did look very interesting. However, obviously they were not offering that, judging from the response.

(Edit - In re-reading this I realized that I should clarify that I talk about products all the time without compensation when it's something I personally use and love and think my readers will love it. However, I don't need PR people giving me suggestions about what to write about.)

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

The wonderful journey of a blog post

I found this interesting article on the behind-the-scenes processes that occur when you post to your blog.

"The wonderful journey of a blog post" over at Weblog Tools Collection.

Its been helpful for me to understand some of what happens and how it might be optimized. Sometimes awareness is enough to help solve this or that issue.

Edited to add:

At the same site you will find another instructive article, "The Need For Substantive and Well-Written Blog Content", that will likely help the newer bloggers here in becoming better writers. I know its not food-specific but good writing is simple and universal.


This Post was written by Nika from Nika's Culinaria

Selective .XML Feeds?

Last night I cooked a meal, with my father helping out and taking photographs so I could publish a photo recipe afterwards. I posted a piece on the meal, with one photo, on my main page and asked my dad to upload all the best photos and set up a proforma recipe in my Blogger archives for me to add the text to when I got back from college. Assuming that articles not on the main page were effectively hidden unless linked to, he published the proforma only to receive a comment (from Silverbrow). He then realised that this archive posting (and a second one) was sent out to .xml feed aggregators such as Google Reader.

For work in progress like this you could keep everything in draft form, but it's much easier to see it in published layout and just make final changes and then link to it from the main page. So does anyone know a simple way to select whether postings are sent out as feeds by Blogger?

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

I have to admit to being a bit of a cranky pants about blogs this week for various reasons that I don't need to go into here. I think because of my grumpiness, this post cracked me up even more than it normally would. I especially love comments #19 and #325. (via Jeanne.)

Have a delightful weekend, everyone!

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

I need a way to build a mailing list in a blogger blog. Anyone have any suggestions?

This Post was written by Kevin from Seriously Good