MOMETEK's Guide: blogging

Showing posts with label blogging. Show all posts

Tuesday, July 4, 2017

I have a confession to make.

self portrait of sadness (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

I know that this blog is supposed to be a tech blog. However, I think the post I'm about to write is just as useful. Maybe.

For some reason, when I come close to a small success, I start to falter. I second guess myself, procrastinate, or let little "bad luck" situations get in the way.

My story-blog, something that I have been working on for a while, is almost done. The last few posts were late. There are a few times I had to take a "hiatus" because I couldn't bring myself to write anything.

Before, I would make several posts and schedule them every other day at 7:00 am. If something came up (as it always did), there were no worries. I knew a post was all ready to go.

Forcing myself to write makes matters worse. I know that I say that I will be writing all day to get ahead. Instead, I realize that the grout in the bathroom needs to be clean, a section in the drawer needs to be organized, or most commonly, I stay on Facebook and Twitter too long.

The more I try to force myself to write, the more things pop up that need attention.

I wanted to write a book a long time ago. I had this story, percolating in my head for quite some time. Years passed, and most of the story is faded. Most of my notes were lost in three moves and an accident with our travel trailer.

I started this story-blog as a continuation of that book. I hoped that it would jog my memory. It seems, however, that I am sabotaging myself again.

This book isn't the only thing I've started and could not finish. I won't get into that in this post.

So, my question is, how does one overcome this hurdle? How does someone, who recognizes their own sabotage, finally get over it and continue?

Let me know your thoughts.

Wednesday, August 13, 2014

Making a Website for Profit. Part Three

George dollar (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Part One | Part Two | Part Three

There's yet another blog site. Not that I recommend going away from blogger, but this might be best for those who don't want the bells and whistles that blogger provides. The same bells and whistles that could distract you from getting your thoughts onto the screen.

It's called Medium and it was created (surprise) by the original founder of blogger. It's also one of the apps that you can put on to you strikingly website.

The app allows you to either put your own profile on there, which will post your own unique content. Or, if you are not that creative, you can create your own category, and add your favorite story, or if you are lazy, you can just add a random category.

At the time of this writing, I don't have any content or categories of my own, but I did find a category called "Matter". Matter had a few interesting tech articles, so I figured that was the best choice.

Call me lazy, but really, I'm just impatient.

Okay, I was distracted. I wanted to get this article out sooner, but spent most of the time reading articles that had nothing to do with this post. This brings me to my warning: The articles are written by very talented people and if you are not careful, you will not be able to get anything done.

Anyway, Medium is fully integrated with Strikingly making it easier to get content onto your page. Getting fresh content onto your page will draw potential customers.

Thursday, February 6, 2014

Looking for Ideas

Question mark (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Okay, I have been posting about stuff that has helped (or is helping) me make my life easier so I can spend more time with the kids.

Now I'm looking for suggestions. What do you want me to post about? Do you have a problem that you think that could be solved with today's tech? Do you want me to research websites that could help you?

Thanks for your time.

Saturday, January 25, 2014

Blog Promotion with Zemanta

Image via CrunchBase

My experience with Twitter, Facebook, and Google+ had been awful when it comes to getting shares or even hits. I think it’s partly luck as my post gets pushed down by a wave of cute kitten memes, political rants, and timewasting, but very interesting videos. It’s also partly because I don’t feel comfortable spamming people with links to my blog.

I had better luck with a plugin called “Zemanta”. It inserts a sidebar that allows you to quickly find images for your blog as well as articles that are related. When you click on the articles, sometimes, you get clicked-back. Almost all of my comments came from these links.

I had stopped using Zemanta as it is a bit flakey with Windows Live Writer (WLW). WLW is something I use when I want to blog offline. I can’t get to blogger when I’m in the car and there’s no free wi-fi around. When I get home, I usually would connect to the internet, allow Zemanta to load, add all of the extras, then publish it to my blog.

At one point, WLW started to crash before I could type anything, so I finally just turned off the plugin. Sure enough, my legitimate hits went down.

A couple of days ago, I tried Zemanta again on live writer and found that it worked – somewhat. It seems that when WLW cannot connect to the internet, which happens frequently, it crashes.

That said, I manage to get a few more posts up using Zemanta (mostly on my newer blog) and sure enough, my legitimate clicks went up again.

Even if I have to edit my blog later in blogger online to include Zemanta content, I will continue using it.

Saturday, March 3, 2012

My Tablet adventures - Intro

My mother-in-law bought me an andriod tablet, a Coby Kyros mid8120, for my birthday. I've been setting it up with apps so it's much easier to do things, like read emails, books, and even post to this blog.

If you just want the basics, this tablet is as basic as it gets. It costs around $130 on Amazon.com, which for you convenience, you can check my store (powered by Amazon, of course).

I'm still trying to get used to the on screen keyboard which is a little more difficult than I had anticipated. I've certainly memorized where the delete key is, but as I use my tablet more often for blogging and emails, I should become a little more accurate in hitting the keys.

For the cost, it's a decent tablet. It's a resistive screen, but it's surprisingly responsive. It does take a little while for it to boot and I seem to have to resart the wi-fi once in a while. Especailly when it goes into sleep mode, but I suspect, it has a little more to do with the apps I installed. I'll have to get back to you on that in another post.

While it does come with "Getjar", a form of app store, the apps are limited. I had to get around the lack of the android market by searching the forums. Fortunately, I did not need to "root" my tablet, as in, going into the root directory and risk "bricking" it.

For those of you who aren't familiar with the term, "bricking"a tablet means that you make your tablet as useful as a brick, either by messing with the wrong files, or dropping in water.. Even if someone doesn't brick a tablet, in most cases, it does void the warranty.

I will be adding a new page, which will have resources for tablets, along with some useful sites that will help you streamline your life (yeah, I had to say it).

Thursday, March 1, 2012

Free! From... Microsoft?

Microsoft has changed. When I was growing up, getting anything free from Microsoft was as fictitious as Santa bringing in free gifts. Well, almost. One of them is real (explain that to your kids).

Recently, I had downloaded free "Live Essentials" and I was impressed by the quality of the programs. The old adage "you get what you paid for" is no longer true. I've already blogged about Windows Live Writer which I switch back and forth with Scribefire - depending on my mood. Live Writer is pretty decent as it supports many blog formats including Blogger and Wordpress, two of the most popular blogging sites. Unfortunately, (and this is the real reason why I switch), Live Writer does not support Tumbr or Posterous.

Recently, as I was hunting for a better free, web design software, I came across this gem from microsoft: Visual Web Developer It's a bit over the top for just making templates (as in templates for modx) but if you are interested in starting a whole new website from scratch, this would be an excellent product for you to try it. So far, I'm impressed. It has so many features that I haven't discovered yet. I don't think I will be using it much, yet, as it's a bit over the top for what I need.

As a matter of fact, I'll probably stick to Kompozer - which, by the way, was aquired by Mozilla. How much do you want a bet that we will finally start seeing some improvements? They've already improved their website.

Another little know WYSIWYG editor is Amaya. Amaya is made by w3.org which sets the standards for website design. If you are within their standards, then the majority of your audience can view your website the way you intend them to view it.

The problem with Amaya and Kompozer is that it's difficult to be "cutting edge" Both don't support HTML5 tags, but you can always put the tags in anyway. It just won't show up in the preview.
I have a page with some freebies for you to check out. These are all programs that I have used and like. It's here: http://mometek.blogspot.com/p/free-software.html.