Are You Interested In Starting to Blog?

If you are not a blogger but are curious and interested to know if blogging is for you, there are ways you can give it a go without making any commitment to it, time wise or financially.

Two of the major and popular hosted blogging programs, Wordpress.com (not wordpress.org which you host yourself) and Google’s Blogger (blogspot), are free and simple to use. Once set up (which is easy to do) the only skill you really need is being able to type; two fingered will do.

You can set your preferences to private if you are not ready to publish your words to the world, if you only wish to communicate with a chosen few or just want to journal your own thoughts or experiences for future reference..

• Blogs are a wonderful way of keeping far away family and friends up to date with the happenings in your world in words, photos and video clips.
• You may want to journal just a particular time in your life: a holiday, your baby’s rapidly changing first months, a child’s wedding, your own wedding, the renovation of your house….
• If you are researching a subject for work, study or hobby, recording it using a blog gives you an easy to access record, with more flexibility than a word processing program.
• You can just use a blog as a private personal journal, recording your thoughts and feelings. Writing stuff down can be very therapeutic, helping rid yourself of of frustrations or depressed thoughts or helping you organize your thoughts if you have a problem to solve.

The possibilities for a subject matter are endless and blogging software allows for ease of categorization and dating, making it simple to find things again later. Online blogging software allows you to post entries from anywhere - while at work, travelling or visiting friends.

If or when you wish to make your blog available for all to read, remember that everyone can write and share something that someone else, somewhere in the world, would be interested in reading about - knowledge, expertise, skills, experience or experiences, favorite pastimes, opinions, beliefs, a sense of humor….

Writing publicly and having your blog read by others can be a wonderful confidence boost although blogging is not all about one way communication. Having contact with others that share your interest areas is the real bonus with blogging. Communication takes place via the blog commenting system initially but email or real life contact can be established and you will likely find your way into other online groups of like minded people. It can take some time for people to find your blog, so do not be discouraged if you do not have many readers for a while. There are many ways of helping people to find your blog.

If you are not ready to set up a blog of your own you can still venture into the world of blogging via community sites, such as Ning where all you need to do to start is to join up; your blog is then ready for you to start entering content. Some of these also allow you to maintain your privacy or share with a chosen few.

Although you usually do not have the same control or amount of features and are less likely to reach a lot of people these sites do have some advantages. Some have existing groups that you can join or you can start one up yourself, some have features that cater for particular subject areas such as travel.

I will give more details of these community blogging sites in my next posti - if you are a member of any you find worthwhile please let us know in the comments to this post. In the meantime if you are interested in learning more about blogging please join our forums where you will find information and motivation to help you get started (or ask questions and someone will help you)

Mataranka Springs

My favourite stop on the trip from Port Augusta, South Australia to Darwin, Northern Territory would have to have been Mataranka Thermal Springs.

We only stopped there for a couple of hours but it was a very rejuvenating and relaxing couple of hours. We could easily enjoyed a couple of days in such a tranquil environment.

At the time we had a 4 year old and an 18 month old with us and they really enjoyed the warmer swimming water.

What I found most interesting was that our 18 month old’s skin started to heal up. She had struggled with dry skin and excema since birth and yet by the time we returned to South Australia, her skin was completely soft and clear. Given the humidity should have theoretically exacerbated the problem, we can only put this down to the benefits of the minerals in the waters.

What also amazed me about some of these tourist locations in the Northern Territory was that accomodation was easier to come by if you DIDN’T have your own caravan. Finding a powered site beyond lunch time was almost impossible in many places. At Mataranka I actually heard the staff explaining to a caravanning couple that they couldn’t have a site but they did have onsite accomodation available (ie cabins and motel rooms) if they wanted. It was certainly caravan city up there!

Mataranka was a lovely location to visit and I would definitely recommend going there. I can’t wait to go again myself.

Giving TV the flick

An interesting thread popped up on the Aussie Bloggers Forum the other day. New member nicholap wanted to know how other forum members managed to juggle their blogs and social networking sites with “real” life (work, partners, family, pets etc).

Lots of members responded, and the main theme was that you need to pick and choose the services that you use – no one can be expected to keep up with everything! But another idea that emerged was that often, it’s TV that gets “the short shift” (in the words of moderator jeanie).

I know this to be true. In our house, we barely watch broadcast TV at all anymore. In it’s place, we watch TV shows that have been downloaded or bought on DVD – so we can watch when (and if) we choose to do so. And, the times we choose are often while we are doing other things.

Wireless internet and small laptops have made this even more convenient – so a Sunday night at home around our house often involves an after-dinner episode or two of The Office or Gordan Ramsay’s F Word in the lounge room with our laptops - reading blogs, debating on forums and chatting with friends over instant messaging.

I can’t help but think this is a good thing. TV is a passive medium whereas the internet is very much participatory - rather than just watch, you are encouraged to explore, to contribute, to write, to interact.

At the same time, I think we’re becoming more discerning - interest in good quality TV shows is higher than ever before. You only have to look at the Kaos and Mayhem forum to see that our community can’t get enough of shows like Dexter, The Deadliest Catch, and Top Gear.

What about you? Has the internet changed your TV viewing habits? Do you think it’s a good thing?

Managing Blog Subscriptions

Back in June on this blog, Sueblimely wrote a great post on Searching For Blogs of Interest. This post will show you one way in which you can manage your blog subscriptions you may have found since then.

I started my blog in January this year and only really started reading other blogs a month or so before that. To keep up to date with what was happening on my favourite blogs, at first I just saved the blogs to my online favourites and would check them when I went on line.

Then I found the wonders of RSS (Really Simple Syndication). RSS is a format which is used to publish frequently updated content such as blogs, news, Twitter and podcasts. A feed (RSS document) contains either the full text of the content or a summary of the content.

The RSS Icon as shown above, is found all over the internet and tells you that this site has a feed to which you can subscribe to. The benefit of RSS is that you collate the content from multiple sources into one place.

You read the RSS content using software called an RSS reader or a feed reader. These can be web-based like Bloglines or Google Reader or desktop-based like in Outlook 2007.

When I first set up a reader I was using the one provided in Outlook 2007. Two major laptop crashes and wiped hard drives which saw me lose my subscriptions to blogs twice, made me look for an online alternative.

I chose to set up an online reader with Google. Since establishing it back in July, I now have over 130 different subscriptions from blogs, news alerts and Twitter. With so many subscriptions if I don’t check my reader for a couple of days, it can easily be then exceeding 1000 items.

Naturally this is a little overwhelming and it wasn’t until I learnt a trick from Ed Dale on the 30 Day Challenge that I found a way to easily manage this volume of items in my reader.

The image below is a screen shot from my Google Reader. Note where the red arrow is pointing. It is set on the default Google Reader setting of Expanded view. While this view is great as you get to see the post without clicking on it to open it, it doesn’t allow for quick scanning.

In this next image below, I have returned my Google Reader to List View which is how I now use this service. With all my subscriptions listed, I can skim through them quickly, stopping to read those that I want to. Once I have made my way through the list, I click on “Mark All as Read” and I have emptied my reader.

Since making this very simple change to my reader, I have now been able to keep the number of items in my reader under control and best of all, keep up to date with my favourite blogs in a time efficient manner.

Another feature of Google Reader which I love, is that even if I have, as noted above, marked all as read, but realise that I actually wanted to refer back to one of those posts, I can still retrieve the post.

The above image shows a folder that has all posts read. If I want to go back and see a previously read post, I simply click on “View all items” and all previous posts will be retrieved. Effectively they are never really deleted and can be recalled at any time while you are subscribed to that blog.

This is one way to manage your blog subscriptions. How do you manage yours?

What is it about Australian Rules football?

As the Australian Rules Football (AFL) season draws to a close, many people will be mourning its end and some will be rejoicing. For those who are rejoicing it means getting television back on the weekends and it means that people in the workplace who are die-hard footy fans won’t be talking about who won or lost, or who might win or lose, or whose team’s better than another.

I must admit I’m in the rejoicing camp. I turn a blind eye to football and pretty much remain blisfully unware of what’s going on except when I’m flicking around the television stations and come across a football game or that dreaded Footy Show. I could do a whole post on why I dislike it so much but I don’t want to waste my breath.

I’ve also been stuck in a hotel in a largish country town where a football team were having their end of year piss-up (for those who don’t know, piss-up is a very Aussie term for getting extrememly drunk). My friend and I had been to see a band this particular night and we went to our room for the night but it wasn’t quiet at all. The footy guys were smashing glass - both of the bottle kind and the window kind. They even knocked on our door. We stayed really quiet as we didn’t want them to know there were two gorgeous women in this particular room and we prayed that they weren’t so drunk they’d try to bash the door down. I know footy players aren’t the only ones who get extremely drunk but they don’t do themselves or the game any favours I don’t think.

All this aside, I actually went to a football game earlier in the season. I thought it would be a good birthday outing for my son. Unfortunately he didn’t agree which was a shame. Even though I’m not a football fan, I don’t mind going to a game every few years because the atmosphere is fun. It’s not a cheap family outing though!

So, for those who are die-hard footy fans, what is it about this sport that you love? Conversely if you’re not into the game, why not?

An Aussie icon

Photo by The Noodleater

I’m pretty sure that in every country there’s a food peculiar to just that place. In Australia, it’s Vegemite. Vegemite is a savoury spread that as the example in the picture above shows, we put on toast, crumpets, and savoury biscuits etc.

It has an unusual flavour and if you haven’t grown up with it, it’s not something that you’ll probably like. I know I’ve asked many people that have moved here if they’ve tried Vegemite. More often than not if they have tried it, they don’t like it.

As written in an Illawarra Mercury news article about people new to Australia:

‘They wrapped themselves in Australian flags, plastered their faces in flag tattoos and munched on lamingtons - but one Aussie tradition repeatedly got the snub.

“They’re turning their noses up at the Vegemite, but they want the Tim Tams,” said Ronelle Peardon from her Everything Aussie Festival stall.’

I could get completely sidetracked here and talk about how lovely Tim Tam biscuits are, but I’ll save that for another time. Back to Vegemite.

I don’t eat Vegemite a whole lot so a jar will last a fairly long time in my house, but it’s great to have because sometimes Vegemite on toast is just the thing to get a savoury fix.

Luckily for Australians living overseas many places sell it. I know I was able to get it in London when I lived there (I had to get Tim Tams sent to me though). Similar looking spreads like Marmite are quite different in taste and I’ve never acquired a liking for Marmite.

If you’re a person who hasn’t grown up with Vegemite, do you eat it? If you have tried it, did you like it?

Aussie Translations

Some of our Aussie slang gets a little confusing for visitors, to put it mildly. In fact, even for other Aussies at times. Because this is such a large, sparsely-populated country, you often find differences in language as you travel from state to state. You won’t come across many ocker terms in the cities – but it can nevertheless get puzzling.As a start, here are some of the most common, and most confusing, Aussie-isms.

Aussie Phrasebook

English: Good morning, how are you?
Aussie: G’day mate, how’s it hangin’?

English: Excuse me, where might I find a toilet?
Aussie: Hey mate, can you point me to the dunnies?

English: I wish to buy 6 sausages and some bread.
Aussie: Half-a-dozen snags and some buns thanks mate.

English: I appear to be slightly tipsy.
Aussie: Maaaate… I think I’m pissed.

The Hollowmen

Brought to you by Working Dog Productions (Frontline, The Panel and Thank God You’re Here), The Hollowmen is a modern day “Yes Minister” for Australians. From The Hollowmen’s website: The Hollowmen

The Hollowmen is a comedy-drama set in the offices of the Central Policy Unit, a special think tank set up by the Prime Minister to help with the most important job of all - getting re-elected.

Their brief is “long term vision”; to stop worrying about tomorrow’s headlines, and focus on next week’s.

The episodes are fast paced and when they finish I’m left looking at my watch wondering where the last half hour went, always the sign of an excellent show that leaves me wanting more. I have been known to watch the episodes twice a week and again on the internet.

Juggling the balancing act between the Public Service and the Prime Minister,

Fan’s of Yes Minister remember Sir Humphrey’s manipulation of the Minister (and then Prime Minister) to achieve the best outcomes for the Public Service despite the efforts of the Minister to gain re-election.

We don’t vote for them, we don’t even know their names and we’re not quite sure what they do. But they wield enormous influence. They are the power behind the power. They are The Hollowmen

For political fans The Hollowmen doesn’t disappoint. Recent episodes have tackled such issues as a budget without a centerpiece, a “blippy dip” in the Prime Minister’s appearance and a recruiting drive for the defence force in light of negative publicity.

While researching for this post I came across the T.S. Elliot poem “The Hollow Men”

This is the way the world ends

This is the way the world ends

This is the way the world ends

Not with a bang but a whimper. T.S. Elliot - The Hollow Men

The Hollowmen screens on ABC1 at 9:00pm Wednesday, and ABC2 at 8:30pm Thursday.

Show me some discipline

Some discipline is what I need when it comes to writing posts, so I don’t leave them till the last minute.

Those of us old enough to remember some of the great Australian music of the late 70’s, early 80’s, should remember the Sunnyboys. Fantastic band, based in Sydney but originally from the NSW North Coast, made up of brothers Jeremy and Peter Oxley, Bil Bilson and Richard Burgman.

The music was power-pop at its finest. Songs like “Happy Man”, “Alone with You”, “Love to Rule”, “What You Need” and others do stand the test of time and I still listen to them regularly (hey I’ve got “Happy Man” as my ringtone on my mobile).

Probably their best known and most successful song was “Alone with You”. This was actually written by Jeremy Oxley while he was still at school.

Unfortunately, the Sunnyboys never did achieve mainstream success, nor did they last long. They had broken up and stopped by the end of 1984, reportedly due to internal dissent within the band. In recent years however, band members have spoken of the reasons for the band’s disintegration, which largely coincided with singer Jeremy Oxley’s mental breakdown due to his schizophrenia,apparently brought on by the constant pressure he felt about performing.

There was an excellent article about Jeremy Oxley in the Good Weekend magazine a few years ago - I can’t find a copy online anymore but if you’re keen to look for it : “Lost Chord” by Richard Guilliatt, Good Weekend, 11/9/2004. Tragically, after several years fighting drugs and alcohol, Oxley has lived as a recluse for over 20 years.

In that article, and in some other stuff I’ve read, some warning signs about Jeremy’s mental state are evident in some of his songs. For example, “Trouble in My Brain”:

I was always ill-at-ease,
I feel the pressures of my dreams,
Got a trouble in my brain…

Its very sad that such a talent is lost, and the wonderful songs he wrote and played with the Sunnyboys limited to only 3 albums worth. Also that the band didn’t enjoy the success it so richly deserved.

Still, to reflect on the Sunnyboys’ earlier, and happy times, and also my feelings at having completed this post, here’s one more song to enjoy.

Future generations will know: what’s for dinner tonight

After commenting on the ‘What’s for dinner’ thread on the Aussie Bloggers Forum (it’s up to around 28 pages as I write this post) I couldn’t get this idea out of my head: