Networked Blogs December 4, 2009

As all of you regular readers (thanks, btw!) know, I like to write quite often about technical tools, gadgets and websites that can help make our lives and businesses easier.

The latest one I’m enamored of is Networked Blogs. Introduced to me by Mary Melinski, Networked Blogs is a Facebook application widget that imports your RSS feed onto your Facebook personal profile or business Fan page. Not only can people read your latest blog post, they can use Facebook as an alternate RSS feed, and be updated every time you publish a new post. I love it, because a. it saves me work, and b. it’s introducing my blog to a new audience.

I have created two screencasts to show you how to use this tool for yourself.

Part 1

Part 2

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Get Flocked! November 20, 2009

I’ve been test-driving a new tool over the past couple of weeks, and it’s fantastic!

Flock is a web browser, an alternative to Safari or IE or Firefox. But it’s so, so much more…

Here’s what I love about Flock:

1. You can seamlessly integrate all of your social networking into the browser’s sidebar. Set up your Twitter, Facebook, and pretty much anything else you might use (You Tube, Flickr, Photobucket, etc…), and you can see what’s going on all the time without needing to even flip between tabs. You can also post to Twitter and Facebook through the sidebar, or drag-and-drop your photos into the sidebar for immediate upload to Facebook, Picassa, Flickr, Photobucket, or whatever photo-sharing method you use.

2. It also works as a blog reader (again, teasers are shown in the sidebar).

3. It has an awesome web-clipping feature. Let’s say you see something while you are out browsing the web that you want to write about, or a photo that you think would look great in your next blog post. You simply highlight it, open up the “Web Clipboard” sidebar, and drag and drop it in. So much easier than bookmarking.

4. An offline Blog Editor. I use WordPress. I love WordPress, but occasionally, I get inspired to write a blog post when I am in a place where there is no internet connection (the Ferry is a common one). Flock allows you to write your post offline, then simply publish it when you go back online.

Flock has an office in Victoria, and a YouTube channel full of “how to” screencast goodies.

Click here to download Flock.

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Mind-mapping September 7, 2009

I’ve had the opportunity to work on a few website re-designs over the past year. Several of my clients have allowed me to be a part of the process. I’ve been really happy with the results, especially http://www.itsazoo.org.

Designing or re-designing websites is tougher than you might think. One tool that is often used for designing websites is mind-mapping. Basically, it’s a brainstorming exercise that starts with one, central idea, then branches out into sub-categories, then sub-sub-categories. What’s great about this tool is that it allows you to see the big picture (literally!). And it’s good for more than just building websites.

Darren Rowse, who writes ProBlogger, uses this technique extensively to help come up with new topics for blogging.

Read about his technique of using Google’s new Wonderwheel feature for mind-mapping blog topics.

Using WonderWheel to explore the topic of "Theatre"

Check out FreeMind, a free mind-mapping software program.

For the Mac: Omnigraffle

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Blog success August 28, 2009

At the risk of sounding “boasty,” I wanted to share something with you.

As you know, I went on vacation for two weeks at the end of July and beginning of August. During that time, I didn’t put up one post, in fact, I don’t think I logged into my WordPress account at all. I was, after all, on vacation!

When I came home and looked at my blog stats (not that I’m addicted, or anything), I expected to see a straight line across the bottom. I expected that basically no one had visited my blog, because I hadn’t been putting up fresh posts.

Imagine my surprise and happiness when I saw this:

The period of my vacation is the part on the left, from the beginning until August 14, when I put up my first post after coming home. Not bad. In fact, not terribly different than my “normal” stats.

I’ve been committed to putting up three posts a week, now since October 2008, and this is where I am happy to say, I am really starting to see it paying off.

Additionally, I am so grateful to you readers for your amazing and insightful comments. There have been more of them than usual lately, and I wanted to thank you. You’re awesome, and it gives me a charge every day when I read them.

There are lots of things in store for the fall. I’m working on lots of guest posts with people, interviews with interesting people, and I am, more than likely, going to migrate my blog over to my website, so that I can take advantage of all of WordPress’ excellent add-ons and widgets.

So, continue to stay tuned! (and thanks again.)

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