Testing The Blogs Series and Helpful Blog Tips

I'm Playing Again, This Time With OpenOffice.org

2011-11-08T04:14:00.000-05:00

I've been playing, yet again. This time it's with OpenOffice.org and I have to tell you I'm loving it.

Just writing that my computer shook. My Microsoft Publisher program doesn't like that comment one bit. It's getting nervous thinking I'm about to abandon ship.

Hold on to your hats "Publisher" I'm just playing. You know I just LOVE to play and recommend things I find to my readers.

I think you all know how much I LOVE Microsoft Publisher as it has been able to handle everything I have needed over the years for my business, websites, and blogs.

However, not everyone has Publisher and since I started using Publisher back in the stone ages, well - a LOT of wonderful programs have come along that are very helpful to small business artists and crafters on the web. Including me. Well, one such program, that I have been playing with lately is OpenOffice.org.

According to OpenOffice.org: OpenOffice.org 3 is the leading open-source office software suite for word processing, spreadsheets, presentations, graphics, databases and more. It is available in many languages and works on all common computers. It stores all your data in an international open standard format and can also read and write files from other common office software packages. It can be downloaded and used completely free of charge for any purpose.

Unlike GoogleDocs.com, which I told you about in a previous post, you have to download the OpenOffice.org software to utilize it. So, I downloaded it and started to play. And, I kept playing, and playing and playing.

This program can create text documents, Spreadsheets, Presentations, Drawings, Databases, Formula's, and more. The drawing program saves your file with an OpenOffice.org extension (.ODG) so if you want it to be saved as a .JPG, .GIF, .PNG, etc. you have to export it. All of the programs have a separate export to .PDF link for creating .PDF documents.

I found EVERYTHING to be easy to understand and use. Within a few minutes I was able to utilize just about every program - almost as if I was an old hand at it.

If you want to create e-patterns, e-tutorials, e-articles, e-projects, e-printables, graphics, slideshows, etc. or just have some fun with your pictures and are looking to purchase software do yourself a favor and download the free OpenOffice.org suite first. You will not be disappointed.

I'm sorry Microsoft Publisher, but this is a GREAT suite of programs and I do like the drawing program. Just like Publisher it works with my Bamboo drawing pad and within a few seconds I was creating all sorts of shapes, sizes, circles, curves, etc. And, when I went to rotate them, well, the capabilities here are simply AMAZING. I may never stop playing with it.

With that statement my computer literally started sputtering. If I didn't know better I would think Publisher was "crying."

Not to worry Publisher I still LOVE, LOVE, LOVE you and while the capabilities of the OpenOffice.org drawing program are good it still can't replace you. I can do everything I need to do to create my e-patterns and e-books in one Publisher file. Creating e-patterns and e-books with OpenOffice.org would require using both the text document program and the drawing program. Plus, the drawing program doesn't seem to have the capability for a two-page spread, which Publisher does, and which is required for creating an e-pattern booklet cover.

With that statement I think my Publisher program just breathed a sigh of relief.

However, because I love to play I may create a few new things in OpenOffice.org just to get the real lay of the land.

Don't worry, Publisher, just because OpenOffice.org is the new kid on Linda's block it doesn't mean this "old gal" is going to give up her #1 best software program of all time. We've been through thick and thin together and I don't see any need to change that.

With that statement my Publisher program started crying - tears of joy!

Posted by Linda Walsh Originals- "Doll Patterns for Grown-up Girls!"
Linda Walsh Originals E-Patterns - "Instant Download E-Patterns for Grown-up Girls!"
Linda Walsh Originals Dolls - "Handmade Dolls & Crafts for Grown-up Girls!"

GoogleDocs For Creating and Displaying .PDF's

2011-11-06T03:43:00.003-05:00

I've been playing again testing a few different avenues for small business crafters who have .PDF free e-patterns, e-tutorials, e-projects, and e-articles that they have created and want to display on their websites or blogs. I recently posted about Scribd.com which is a document hosting website in a Linda's Blog post entitled "I Decided To Try Scribd For Some Of My Free E-Books and E-Patterns." Today I experimented with GoogleDocs.com which is not only a document hosting website, but a document creations website.

Now you might be thinking that all hosting document hosting websites are the same. Au contraire!

Not only can you upload .PDF's to GoogleDocs.com to obtain a linkable URL, but you can CREATE a document right on their website using a suite of office type programs. Their programs are free to use and do not require you to download anything to your computer and include documents creation, presentations, spreadsheets, forms, drawings, and tables. Each of these programs automatically store the items you are creating in your Google account. So, they are available to you everywhere.

If you've been a reader of my Linda's Blog for awhile you know that I LOVE Microsoft Publisher which is part of Microsoft Office. For me, Microsoft Office and Microsoft Publisher are still the best for me to use for my purposes, but GoogleDocs.com is a great way to get started if you want to create .PDF e-patterns, e-tutorials, e-projects, and e-articles and don't have Microsoft Office.

Yesterday I told you that I am very fortunate in that I have all of my free e-patterns and e-books on my own Linda Walsh Originals E-Pattern website. However, some of my small business artist and crafter friends don't have websites that are capable of housing their free e-patterns, e-tutorials, e-projects, etc. They want to share them on their blogs so, what do they do? Well, they use one of the many document sharing websites available and either provide a link on their blog or embed the code into their sidebar or post.

As mentioned GoogleDocs.com will not only upload already created .PDF's, but will let you create your own document. In creating them you can download your document as a .PDF to your own computer or you can PUBLISH your document online. If you create your own .PDF in another program and upload it to GoogleDoc.com you can only obtain a distinct URL that you can link to and which would display your .PDF.

However, if you create the document using GoogleDocs.com office suite you can PUBLISH it which creates an HTML version of your document that can then be embedded within your blog or website.

Since I already had created my own free e-patterns and e-books I decided to upload those and obtain distinct URL's that I could link to. If you'd like to see how my free e-patterns, e-books, and e-catalog look on GoogleDocs.com just click on the link you want below:

LW207 Hang-10 Bunny E-Pattern

LW188 Oh, My! It's So Late Santa E-Pattern

LW048 It's me Ginny E-Pattern

LW225 Marsh Me Snow E-Pattern

LW161 Punkin Ornaments Are We E-Pattern

LW236 Trio of Annies E-Pattern

HTEBFREE3 Linda's How-Do-I Series? How To Create Fast and Easy Cloth, Paper, and E-Printable Ornaments E-Book

HTBFREE2 Linda's How-Do-I Series? How To Host A Folksy Family and Friends Bridal Shower E-Book

HTEBFREE8 Lindas's How-Do-I Series? How To Make A Pinecone Wreath E-Book

HTEBFREE7 Lindas's How-Do-I Series? How To Make A Small Pinecone Tree E-Book

HTEBFREE4 Linda's How-Do-I Series? How To Make A Painted and Stenciled Terracotta Pot Decoration E-Book

HTEBFREE5 Lindas's How-Do-I Series? How To Make A Little Sachet Basket E-Book

HTEBFREE6 Lindas's How-Do-I Series? How To Make A Green Painted Pinecone Basket E-Book

HTEBFREE9 Linda's How-Do-I Series? How To Make A Fabric Covered Round Basket E-Book

LWOECatalog Linda Walsh Originals E-Catalog

I like how the GoogleDocs.com displays the .PDF with the separate pages showing as clickable icons in the left hand sidebar. You can search the document, zoom in or out, download it, print it, and make a copy of it. You can move from page to page via the sidebar or using the left and right arrows.

You can also view it one page at a time or two pages at a time like in the picture shown below:

As far as visibility is concerned you can share it as follows:

1) Public on the web - Anyone on the Internet can find and access. No sign-in required.
2) Anyone with the link - Anyone who has the link can access. No sign-in required.
3) Private - Only people explicitly granted permission can access. Sign-in required.

Using the office suite to create a .PDF takes a little getting used to, but you can create a document and then insert images into it. I think this works best for e-tutorials, e-projects, e-articles, and e-books as all their pages are generally letter size.

However, for e-patterns if you intend to create a two-page cover that can be turned sideways and folded to pattern size then you will have to create this in a separate picture program and then insert the image into your GoogleDocs.com document. GoogleDocs.com only accepts .jpeg, .gif, and .png image files so if you have created your pattern piece sheets as .bmp (to keep the size of your .pdf down) you'll have to convert them to .jpg before you could insert them into your document.

You can also use the suite to create a response form that users can fill out which you can email or embed into your website or blog.

I'm still partial to Publisher, but that's me. I'm old school and very loyal to programs that have worked wonderfully for me for years. However, I do like to play so the next time I'm in the mood to create another free e-book I'll give GoogleDocs.com another try.

Posted by Linda Walsh Originals- "Doll Patterns for Grown-up Girls!"
Linda Walsh Originals E-Patterns - "Instant Download E-Patterns for Grown-up Girls!"
Linda Walsh Originals Dolls - "Handmade Dolls & Crafts for Grown-up Girls!"

Do You Have A Viewable E-Catalog?

2011-11-05T04:43:00.005-04:00

After finishing a 10-month long pattern revision project the first of October I was finally able to update my e-catalog and posted abut it on my Linda's Blog. In that post I told you that I had updated and created a new Linda Walsh Originals Print Pattern & E-Pattern Catalog and that you could download it from my Linda Walsh Originals E-Patterns website.

Well, the other day I decided to upload it to Googledocs.com to allow you to view it online. So, if you don't want to download my e-catalog you can easily view it HERE.

I like how the GoogleDocs.com displays my catalog with the separate pages showing as clickable icons in the left hand sidebar. You can also search my e-catalog, zoom in or out, download it, print it, and make a copy of it. You can move from page to page via the sidebar or using the left and right arrows.

You can also view it one page at a time or two pages at a time like in the pictures shown below:

I created my e-catalog and .PDF file with Microsoft Publisher and then uploaded my .PDF to GoogleDocs.com. If you'd like to view my e-catalog please CLICK HERE.

So, what do you think?

Posted by Linda Walsh Originals- "Doll Patterns for Grown-up Girls!"
Linda Walsh Originals E-Patterns - "Instant Download E-Patterns for Grown-up Girls!"
Linda Walsh Originals Dolls - "Handmade Dolls & Crafts for Grown-up Girls!"

Scribd.com For .PDF Document Sharing

2011-11-04T04:42:00.000-04:00

View my profile on

The other day I decided to give Scribd.com a try for some of my free e-books and e-patterns.

I am very fortunate in that I have all of my free e-patterns and e-books on my own Linda Walsh Originals E-Pattern website. However, some of my small business artist and crafter friends don't have websites that are capable of housing their free e-patterns, e-tutorials, e-projects, etc. They want to share them on their blogs so, what do they do? Well, they use one of the many document sharing websites available and either provide a link on their blog or embed the code into their sidebar or post.

One of these document sharing websites is Scribd. I've been thinking about Scribd for a little while now and haven't had the chance to test it out until today. If you don't know what Scribd is it is the fastest growing social reading and publishing company on the web today.

Here's what they say about themselves on their "About" page:

Scribd is the world’s largest social reading and publishing company. We've made it easy to share and discover entertaining, informative and original written content across the web and mobile devices. Our vision is to liberate the written word, to connect people with the information and ideas that matter most to them.

And, here's what they offer for quick facts:

Scribd. \skribbed\ the world’s largest social reading and publishing company
Stats
>75 million readers every month
>20 million embeds
>1 billion pages converted to HTML5
Tens of millions of documents published
Millions of Readcasts every month

So, why was I interested in Scribd? Well, I thought it might be a good place to test some of my free e-books and e-patterns, and could potentially be a website I might be interested in selling of some of my e-products on in the future.

The former I could do right away. The latter requires more research on my part as to what the best website is for that and researching each websites terms & conditions are. I want to make sure I pick the right website for supplementing the selling my e-products. For now, the "freebies" are fine for Scribd.

So, I set-up a Linda Walsh (Linda Walsh Originals) account and profile page. If you'd like to see my profile page just click on the icon at the beginning of this post or CLICK HERE.

Scribd allows you to post documents in the following formats: You can upload documents in the following formats: Adobe PDF (.pdf), Adobe PostScript (.ps), Microsoft Word (.doc/ .docx), Microsoft PowerPoint (.ppt/.pps/.pptx), Microsoft Excel (.xls/.xlsx), OpenOffice Text Document (.odt, .sxw), OpenOffice Presentation Document (.odp, .sxi), OpenOffice Spreadsheet (.ods, .sxc), All OpenDocument formats, Plain text (.txt), and Rich text format (.rtf).

Upload is very easy. You just select the file you want and then follow the prompts. You can make you documents public or private. In the case of the latter, they can only be viewed if you've given someone the URL.

Documents can be viewed on Scribd in Float mode, or they can be downloaded and printed, can be downloaded to a mobile device, or added to a collection. Documents can also be shared (i.e. readcast) on Facebook, Twitter, Buzz, or embedded within a website or blog.

The Float mode viewer displays a pop-up control bar on the bottom of your window that allows you to scroll through the document page by page, zoom in or out, convert to full screen mode, search the document, add a comment, embed/share, add to a collection and download. You can also "readcast" your document which is basically sharing it with your friends across multiple social networks.

You can embed your document in a website or blog utilizing the HTML coding they provide and it would look like the following:

How to Make a Little Sachet Basket

According to Wikipedia the technology used for this is: Scribd uses iPaper which is a rich document format similar to PDF built for the web, which allows users to embed documents into a web page.[27] iPaper was built with Adobe Flash, allowing it to be viewed the same across different operating systems (Windows, Mac OS, and Linux) without conversion, as long as the reader has Flash installed (although Scribd has announced non-Flash support for the iPhone).[28] All major document types can be formatted into iPaper including Word docs, PowerPoint presentations, PDFs, OpenDocument documents, OpenOffice.org XML documents, and PostScript files.

All iPaper documents are hosted on Scribd. Scribd allows published documents to either be private or open to the larger Scribd community. The iPaper document viewer is also embeddable in any website or blog, making it simple to embed documents in their original layout regardless of file format.

Scribd iPaper requires that Flash cookies are enabled, which is the default setting in Flash.[29] If the requirements are not met, there is no message; the white or gray display area is simply blank.

If you don't want to embed your document you can just provide a link that would display the document in full screen mode for easy reading. Here's the link for the document above: http://www.scribd.com/fullscreen/70100063?access_key=key-1fjo1x20uz80b7ctbszx

You could add the above link to the sidebar of your blog to provide your blog readers with a way of seeing and downloading your free e-product. Or, you could embed the code directly into a post or, in the case of Blogger.com, onto one of the ten tab pages they offer per blog.

In Scribd you basically have bookshelves where you can store your uploaded documents, store other Scribd docs you like in collections, or store the readcasts you are sharing with your friends.

You can also set-up a profile page with information on yourself, links to your website, etc.

Plus, Scribd maintains pretty detailed statistics for you on your documents, such as: recent activity by document, by region, by jeywork, by referrer, embeds, readcast, etc.

Pretty cool, huh?

There are lots of document sharing websites out there like:

Box.net

Docstoc.com

Docs.google.com

Issuu.com

Slideshare.net

MediaFire.com

FileDropper.com

RapidShare.com

DropBox.com

DocShare.com

Esnips.com

wePapers.com

I was impressed with how quick and easy Scribd was to learn and navigate. Depending on what you have to share, if you are a small business artist and crafter on the web and you want to share some of your free documents you might want to consider using Scribd or any of the websites shown above.

I'm going to check my stats on Scribd in a few days to see how many views and downloads there have been. Hopefully there will be lots and lots.

I only uploaded two of my free e-books. If they seem to be getting a lot of viewing maybe I'll upload some more. We'll see.

If you'd like to see my profile on Scribd and the documents I've uploaded there please CLICK HERE. If you like what you see please FOLLOW ME. Just click the green button next to my name at the top of the page.

Posted by Linda Walsh Originals- "Doll Patterns for Grown-up Girls!"
Linda Walsh Originals E-Patterns - "Instant Download E-Patterns for Grown-up Girls!"
Linda Walsh Originals Dolls - "Handmade Dolls & Crafts for Grown-up Girls!"

I Just Created My First Lens on Squidoo

2011-10-27T04:35:00.001-04:00

Well, I finally had the time to create my first Squidoo lens. I joined back in April of 2007 so I've only been a little delinquent in creating my first lens - ya think!!!!! Four years is not a little delinquent, Linda. It's a lot delinquent.

Well, in my defense, I have been just a little busy during these past four years. So, today I decided to give Squidoo a try. After floundering a little at first I finally got the lay of the land and figured out how the modules for the lens worked. And, I ended up loving it. I may just have to create more lenses.

If you don't know what Squidoo is it's a combination of a social community and publishing community that allows users to create pages (called lenses) for things they are interested in.

According to their FAQ's:

What kinds of lenses can you make?

All kinds. Every kind.

Not sure what you can make a lens about? You could make an About Me lens (well, about you). Or a review lens. Or a lens about your blog, to help point traffic to it. Or a lens about your art. Or your eBay or Etsy or Zazzle or CafePress shop. Or about your hobby. Or your dogs. Or your hometown. Or your favorite books or movies or video games.

For a small business crafter on the web who is trying to draw some attention to their website or blog Squidoo is a great way to do this. Why I waited four years to do so is beyond me.

In any event, I decided I'd create my very first lens based on my "History of Faceless Dolls" Linda's Blog post. It had a LOT of really good information in it that I thought everyone would love to read.

If you'd like to see my first lens "The History of Faceless Dolls" please CLICK HERE.

There's a guestbook at the bottom of the lens so if you decide to visit please leave me a comment. I'd love to know how you liked my first lens.

And, if you really like my lens please give a big "thumbs" up for "liking" it. It's the button in the upper left hand corner of the lens.

Posted by Linda Walsh Originals- "Doll Patterns for Grown-up Girls!"
Linda Walsh Originals E-Patterns - "Instant Download E-Patterns for Grown-up Girls!"
Linda Walsh Originals Dolls - "Handmade Dolls & Crafts for Grown-up Girls!"

How Fast Does Your Website Or Blog Load?

2010-08-31T06:13:00.002-04:00

I've been viewing articles and statistics lately concerning the speed at which my website(s) or blog(s) load and how important that may or may not be. I had seen a reference to a website that allows you to test the loading speed of your website or blog and thought I'd test all of mine.

The website I used was Numion.com and I selected their STOPWATCH tab. When you click on the STOPWATCH tab it brings up a window that allows you to enter your website or blog URL.

I decided to test my websites and blogs on two different days (each time clearing my cache first) to see if there would be a difference. The results are displayed in seconds. Here's my results:

Linda Walsh Originals - 5.428 then 5.384 seconds
Linda Walsh Originals E-Patterns - 4.87 then 5.296 seconds
Linda Walsh Originals Dolls - Handmade Dolls & Crafts - 4.424 then 4.514 seconds
Linda Walsh Originals Dolls - 4.26 then 3.514 seconds
Gray Is Beautiful Products Gallery - 4.759 then 4.157 seconds
Linda's Doll Bookstore - 1.511 then 1.363 seconds
Linda's Crafts Bookstore - 1.712 then 2.633 seconds
Everything E-Directory - 8.754 then 5.851 seconds
Everything E For Crafts E-Directory Blog - 12.65 then 8.989 seconds
Linda's Blog - 12.69 then 11.196 seconds
DOLLS Blog 9.193 then 8.639 seconds
Victorian Dolls, Victorian Traditions, The Victorian Era and Me Blog - 11.868 then 12.186 seconds
Gray Is Beautiful Blog - 10.945 then 11.430 seconds
The Dollie Storage Room Blog - 8.466 then 5.477 seconds
The Best FREE Craft Articles - 8.275 then 5.701 seconds
The Book Review Corner - 12.125 then 11.432 seconds
Linda Walsh Originals Instant Download E-Patterns Blog - 12.945 then 11.5 seconds
Top Blogs By Crafters Toplist - 6.211 then 4.339 seconds
About Linda Walsh Originals - 2.129 then 2.179
I Love Crafts & Crafts Blogs - 13.793 then 13.316 seconds
Tips For Crafters On The Web - 10.382 then 9.903 seconds
Testing The Blogs Series & Helpful Blog Tips - 9.534 then 5.587 seconds
Linda's Twelve Months Of Sewing Club - 9.282 then 5.394 seconds
Tips From The Blogging Queen - 8.956 then 8.229 seconds

So, the question was whether or not my results were good. Depending on which point of view you believe the answer is yes and no. For some points of view if your website or blog doesn't load in 4 seconds or less you're in trouble. Other points of view might have it at 7 seconds or under. Their opinion is based on the fact that most of the Fortune 500 companies load on the average of 7 seconds or more. Others say 5 - 10 seconds is good while others say never more than 15 seconds.

So, you might think based on the above that most of my results were okay while others should be reviewed. Well, you'd be right and wrong. You see, there are so many factors that influence loading times that to know which is right or which is wrong is mind boggling.

For example all of the following influence website or blog loading times:

1. A users particular Internet connection speed (i.e. using dial-up, DSL, Fios, etc.)and load of their particular network.
2. The type of browser being used to access the Internet.
3. A users computer age, size, configuration, and settings.
4. The number of programs the user has open, number of tabs the user has open, the number of windows the user has open, whether or not their computer needs to be defragmented, etc.
5. Whether or not the website or blog being accessed is in the users browser cache (i.e. pages already in the browsers cache load faster).
6. Amount of traffic to the site being accessed and the server's access speed.
7. Anti-virus, anti-spam, etc. programs the user has protecting and running on their computer.
8. Design and size of the website or blog.
9. Amount of coding, widgets, images, etc. on the website or blog.

My results above were based on the fact that I have a medium range upload/download Fios connection, have a computer that is close to 7 years old, had multiple tabs open, had cleared my browsers cache, and had anti-virus and anti-spam software running.

As a website designer and blogger of the 9 things above I only have control over #7 and #8. The first 7, which play a big part in page loading speed for my customers and my blog readers, are totally out of my control.

If you only have control over 2 of the 9 items on the above list do you need to pay attention to how fast your website or blog is loading? Basically, yes.

Do you need to go crazy and remove everything you've added to make your website or blog enticing to your customers or readers? The answer is no.

Sometimes the reason why your customers and readers keep returning to your website or blog is they find it of use. So, first and foremost you need to look at the purpose of your website or blog and based on this determination decide whether you need to modify your website or blog at all.

If you decide to modify your website or blog there are some things you can do to help your website or blog load faster. First and foremost you should know that four things can greatly reduce loading time: large images, music, video's, and widgets.

So, reduce the size of your images or graphics if you can and try to make sure your images and graphics and include their height and weight tags in the coding. The latter, from what I understand, helps speed up the browser. I do reduce the image and graphic size for all my websites and blogs, but have to admit that not all of the coding includes their height and width tags.

Reduce the size of the embedded video you may have or eliminate the embedded video in favor of a link to the video page. I try to keep the video's in my blog posts to no wider than 350. On the sidebars of my blogs I try to keep this at no more than 250 in width.

Resist the urge to include music on your website or blog. I don't have music on any of my websites or blogs as I've found that when I've accessed websites or blogs the music tends to freeze my computer.

What else can you do? Well, take a look at the widgets you're using. For the social networking websites widgets that just display a communities badge load a lot faster than those that include member's pictures and streams. A widget including a stream is going to load much slower than any other type.

However, just because you have a widget or some other coding that loads slowly that doesn't mean it's always bad and should be removed. For example, I know that the Linked Within coding I have on my "The Best Free Crafts Articles" blog slows down the load time. However, I believe for that particular blog that the coding not only enhances my blog but makes it easier for my readers to find posts that may be of interest to them.

I, for one, just LOVE widgets and I'll be the first to admit I probably have too many of them on my blogs. If you love widgets (like I do) then try to include them toward the lower half of the sidebar or end of the website or blog so users scrolling down aren't immediately affected. I need to review all my blogs for this. If the widget is beneficial to my blog then it will stay.

For blogs you can make sure that your posts aren't too long. I, for one, have to admit I'm really guilty here. I tend to have blog run-on.

Blog posts with multiple numbers of images and links are going to load a lot slower than just a few so limit the number of images and links to those you really need. As mentioned above I reduce the size of my images before I post them.

Before I ever took a look at all this I knew that certain things could bog down my website and blog load time. But, for the most part, some of those were out of my control and some may have only been a temporary problem.

For example, your Twitter or Facebook module or link might be hung-up. Your Google ad sense module can sometimes be problematical and slow loading. Image and links for Amazon Associates, Etsy, etc. modules can be slow loading at times. If you have Blogger.com blogs then you know that Picassa tends to load slowly. And, subscription links or overseas websites links can sometimes hang you up. I've even seen embedded statistical coding like Google Analytics hang up a website or blogs loading. You just never know.

So, the upshot of all this is you should pay attention to your website or blog load time - but, don't go crazy. There are just too many factors to this statistic that are out of your control. If you have a good design and there is logic to what you are including then don't lose any sleep over this statistic.

Posted by Linda Walsh Originals- "Doll Patterns for Grown-up Girls!"
Linda Walsh Originals E-Patterns - "Instant Download E-Patterns for Grown-up Girls!"
Linda Walsh Originals Dolls - "Handmade Dolls & Crafts for Grown-up Girls!"

Clipart Courtesy of Pierce Free Clipart Collection

Oh, What Fun! A Halloween Photo Collage!

2010-08-31T06:08:00.001-04:00

I've been playing, again! This time with a collage photo tool website. If you want to see how I created the above collage, please read my Tips For Crafters On The Web blog post entitled "I've Been Playing Again! This Time With A Collage Photo Tool Website."

I had fun playing around. Now I'd better get back to work - or maybe not. Maybe another collage would be fun.......

Posted by Linda Walsh Originals- "Doll Patterns for Grown-up Girls!"
Linda Walsh Originals E-Patterns - "Instant Download E-Patterns for Grown-up Girls!"
Linda Walsh Originals Dolls - "Handmade Dolls & Crafts for Grown-up Girls!"

A Terrific Widget From Box.Net For Blogs and Websites

2010-08-31T06:00:00.005-04:00

I'm always looking for new ways of doing things and thought you'd like to see a new feature for previewing files over on Box.net.

All of my free e-patterns, free e-books, and free e-catalog are available on my Linda Walsh Originals E-Patterns website, but you have to set-up an account (which is just a couple of extra steps) before you can download my free e-product. So, I was looking for a another way to store and distribute my free e-patterns, e-books, and e-catalog and decided to set-up a Box.net account.

Well, in doing so I noticed this wonderful new preview feature that allows you to embed the HTML code for a widget within your website or blog. The widget allows your readers or customers to preview the WHOLE free download before they download it.

Plus, there are buttons on the lower right hand side of the widget that allows them to share the .PDF file, download the .PDF file, and even print the .PDF file right from the Box.net widget. They don't have to go to the Box.net website to do so.

Is that cool or what?

Of course, you can still just give them the download link that would take them to your .PDF file where they can also preview, download, and print your .PDF file.

If you have free e-patterns, e-books, or a free e-catalog, like I do, this new feature from Box.net is a GREAT way for your blog readers and customers to preview and then download your file.

Copyright © 2010 - All Rights Reserved - Written By Linda Walsh of Linda Walsh Originals, Linda Walsh Originals E-Patterns, and Linda's Blog. Linda is a doll maker and doll pattern designer. http://lindawalshoriginals.com/

What Are E......????? - All Those "Social" Websites? Who Are They?

2010-07-16T06:57:00.001-04:00

If you are a reader of my "Linda's Blog", my "Tips For Crafters On The Web" blog, and my "Everything E-Directory" you know that I LOVE researching and I LOVE lists.

Well, a few weeks ago I decided to do some research on "social" websites. As you know, tht Internet is constantly changing and what may have been in a few years, months, or even days ago might not be in now. One thing that does seem to be gaining in popularity is all the social networking services, social news sharing services, social cataloging services, social shopping websites, and social bookmarking services websites.

While they are all just a little different what they do have in common is they are basically social media type websites where you can interact with them and contribute to them in a various number of ways, either by joining their community, suggesting URL's and anything else you might like to them, sharing your lists, sharing your likes and dislikes, rating various items, commenting on various things, blogging, sharing photo's or video's, sharing news stories, interacting in their forums with people who share similar interests, or buying products.

If you're unfamiliar with the terms social media, social bookmarking, social networking, social cataloging, social shopping, social news sharing, or social network aggregator here's what they mean:

a) Social media are interactive websites and tools that use the internet to communicate and share information either using: text, audio, video, images, podcasts, blogs, forums, and other means of communicating. Also known as user-generated content (UGC) websites.

b) Social bookmarking websites allow users to share, manage, search, and organize bookmarks of their favorite URL's. Sometimes they contain descriptions, comments, tags, keywords, and votes for or against. Sometimes the bookmarks are public or they have your restrictions on who may see your bookmarks. They may or may not have web feed capabilities, and other social networking features like groups, email capabilities, etc.

c) Social networking websites are usually groups of people who share common interests or activities. Usually they contain individual users profiles, social website links, email or instant messaging capabilities, blog capabilities, photo storage capabilities, etc. Usually there is a sharing of ideas, activities, events, and interests by each user. The focus is individual versus forums which would have a group focus. The social network's niche might be old friends, classmates, books read, music liked, interests, services offered, and more.

d) Social cataloging websites help users to catalog and share things owned or of interest to them, like: books, CDs, DVD's, etc.

e) Social shopping is basically shopping over the Internet in a social networking and information sharing setting.

f) Social News sharing services are websites where you can submit and share a news story and have the users of that website vote on it. Social news sharing websites may also be aggregator type news sites that gather and catalog articles by interest and then provide an RSS feed for those interests.

f) Social Network Aggregators are tools and services that collect all the information from multiple social networking services and gather it in one place for you.

The various social bookmarking, social networking, social news, social shopping and social cataloging websites are always evolving - even to the extent that it's difficult to tell some of them apart. For sure - there are many of them, with many more to come as the trend towards connecting, communicating, and selling over the Internet continues to gain in popularity.

For sure, you see the buttons to share this URL, page, comment, or blog post on the various toolbars, blogs, websites, and social networking clubs. But, who are all these social networking services, social news sharing services, social cataloging, social shopping, and social bookmarking service websites?

Yesterday I posted my massive list of all the social networking, social bookmarking, social news sharing, social cataloging, social shopping, and social tools websites entitled "Just Exactly Who Are All These Social Networking, Social News Sharing, Social Cataloging, Social Shopping, and Social Bookmarking Services Websites?" on my Tips For Crafters On The Web" blog.

Then I decided to break the list up into separate sections to make it easier for all of you who are only interested in any one of the different categories and posted the individual posts on my "Tips For Crafters On The Web" blog today. The individual category posts are as follows:

There's a LOT of "social" websites listed for sure, but a lot of interesting information too. I'm off to do more exploring of the lists.

Posted by Linda Walsh Originals- "Doll Patterns for Grown-up Girls!"
Linda Walsh Originals E-Patterns - "Instant Download E-Patterns for Grown-up Girls!"
Linda Walsh Originals Dolls - "Handmade Dolls & Crafts for Grown-up Girls!"

New Fan Box and Live Stream Widgets From Facebook For Pages

2009-09-13T06:19:00.001-04:00

Facebook.com has several new widgets that you can add to your websites and blogs that can be beneficial for small business crafters on the web who have set-up Facebook pages.

If you have set-up a small business page on Facebook.com (like my Linda Walsh Originals page) then one of the new widgets is a fan box widget. Basically, it can show pictures of all your page fans (like the picture shown above), show the wall stream from your page, or show both the pictures of your fans and the wall stream from your page (like the picture shown below).

I like the fan box widget and have added it to my main Linda Walsh Originals website, Linda's Blog, my Linda Walsh Originals Zibbet.com shop, my Dolls Blog, my Linda Walsh Originals E-Patterns website, my Victorian Traditions, The Victorian Era and Me blog, and my Linda Walsh Originals Dolls website.

I especially like the option that shows the pictures of my Linda Walsh Originals page fans (like the picture at the top of this page). That's great and can be beneficial to small business crafters as it's a way for us all to link together and get us all noticed. Think of it as a small linking exchange module instead of page after page of traditional banner exchanges. And, if you post a lot of things to your page's wall or have a fairly active wall of fan comments then you might want to display the fan box widget that contains fan pictures and your page's wall stream.

Facebook.com also has a Live Stream widget which basically allows for a porthole for anyone with a website or blog to add the widget which then allows Facebook.com users to sign-in to their profile and post to their stream or to the live feed stream.

So, for example, if I was visiting a website or blog that had the widget installed and wanted to check my Facebook stream while I was there I'd select the friends tab and my Facebook stream would be displayed as shown below. Please note my friends comments would be shown on the widget. I have blocked them in my post for privacy purposes.

However, this widget also has the capability to display a live feed for an event and is like the widget pictured below. If you want to either make a comment to your Facebook wall or participate and make a comment for everyone watching then this widget will connect Linda Walsh Originals with Facebook and allow you to sign-on under your Facebook.com username so that you can interact with your friends on this site and to share this event on Facebook through your Wall and friends' news feeds. The bottom of the widget has a text link that you can click to visit the Linda Walsh Originals page on Facebook.

This widget has a little box that says "share with everyone watching this event" that you can check. Then when you add a comment to the update box of the widget your comment will appear on your Facebook stream and also on the stream that is shown under the "Everyone Watching" tab like in the picture shown below. Please note the comments would be shown on the widget. I have blocked them in my post for privacy purposes.

So, everyone at the event who is a Facebook user can add their comments in a continuous feed whenever they visit the website or blog that has the widget embedded on it. So, if you have embedded the widget on your website or blog and have an event going on at your website or blog then all of your visitors with Facebook accounts can comment on the event and their comments will be posted to the "everyone watching" tab.

Please note that when you sign-on your Facebook privacy options will be in effect for the friends tab. However, Facebook's privacy statement indicates that if you check the share with everyone watching this event box then this may or may not change some of your privacy settings on Facebook.com. So, you may need to re-check your privacy settings after participating in an event and posting a comment for everyone watching.

The above widgets are new and are only available for Facebook.com pages and not for profiles.

Posted by Linda Walsh Originals- "Doll Patterns for Grown-up Girls!"
Linda Walsh Originals E-Patterns - "Instant Download E-Patterns for Grown-up Girls!"
Linda Walsh Originals Dolls - "Handmade Dolls & Crafts for Grown-up Girls!"

Linda's How-Do-I Series? Now Comes In E-Book Sets

2009-09-07T06:39:00.003-04:00

Boy, it seems like I just keep announcing more and more with regards to my "Linda's How-Do-I Series? of e-books. I must have inhaled "the energizer bunny" or something! LOL LOL Maybe I'm subconsciously telling myself to slow down. Whatever it is - I seem to be getting a LOT off my "to do" list and I couldn't be happier.

The latest item off my "to do" list is creating e-book sets for my "Linda Walsh Originals - Linda's How-Do-I Series? of e-books. I've grouped them into sets that I think you will like. And, of course, because they're a set they are at a discounted price from buying them separately.

I was going to try and combine my e-book sets into one big .PDF file so you could "instantly download" them from my Linda Walsh Originals E-Patterns website, but changed my mind because the file size for some of the sets would have been way too big for some of you to instantly download easily. So, my e-book sets will be sent as attachments to an email back to you once I've been notified by Paypal of payment. That way all of you can easily download each of the e-books individually.

Here's my new e-book sets:

Linda Walsh Originals E-Book Sets- Linda's How-Do-I Series? E-Pattern Two E-Book Set

Learn all about E-Products and E-Patterns and learn how to design a print pattern and e-pattern in this two e-book set. You'll receive Linda's complete "Linda's How-Do-I Series? How To Design a Print Pattern and E-Pattern?" e-book and Linda's complete "What Are E... Series E-Book #9" e-book. If you are an artist or crafter who wants to sell e-patterns our new e-book set can help.

Linda Walsh Originals E-Book Sets- Linda's How-Do-I Series? Going Online Two E-Book Set

Learn all about what to consider when setting up an online crafts business and learn all about social networking, forums, and groups in this two e-book set. You'll receive Linda's complete "Linda's How-Do-I Series? What To Consider When Setting Up A Small Business Website" e-book #5 and Linda's complete "Linda's How-Do-I Series? All Social Networking, Forums, and Groups" e-book #8.

Linda Walsh Originals E-Book Sets- Linda's How-Do-I Series? All About Blogs Part 1 and Part 2 E-Book Set

Learn all about blogs and blogging in this two e-book set. You'll receive Linda's complete "Linda's How-Do-I Series? All About Blogs - Part 1" e-book #6 and Linda's complete "Linda's How-Do-I Series? - All About Blogs - Part 2" e-book #7. If you're an artist or crafter with an online business and have been thinking about creating a blog to support your online business our new e-book set can help.

Linda Walsh Originals E-Book Sets- Linda's How-Do-I Series? Helpful Tips For Crafters With Websites and Blogs - Book #1, #2, #3, and #4" Four E-Book Set

Learn all of Linda's helpful tips for crafters with websites and blogs from her Linda's How-Do-I Series. You'll receive Linda's complete "Linda's How-Do-I Series? E-Book #1", "Linda's How-Do-I Series? E-Book #2", "Linda's How-Do-I Series? E-Book #3", and Linda's complete "Linda's How-Do-I Series? E-Book #4" e-books. You'll learn basic html and CSS coding for your websites and blogs from the simplest of signatures up to building simple tables. You'll also learn a ton of other tips and tricks from widening your blog to adding wallpaper, learn about plugboards, building clickable advertising links, and so much more.

Linda Walsh Originals E-Book Sets- Linda's How-Do-I Series? Helpful Tips For Crafters With Websites and Blogs - Book #1, #2, #3, #4, #5, #6, #7, and #8" Eight E-Book Set

Learn all of Linda's helpful tips for crafters with websites and blogs from her "Linda's How-Do-I Series" revised Books #1- #4 to her new Books #5, #6, #7, and #8. You'll receive Linda's complete "Linda's How-Do-I Series? E-Book #1", "Linda's How-Do-I Series? E-Book #2", "Linda's How-Do-I Series? E-Book #3", "Linda's How-Do-I Series? E-Book #4", "Linda's How-Do-I Series? E-Book #5", "Linda's How-Do-I Series? E-Book #6", "Linda's How-Do-I Series? E-Book #7", and her complete "Linda's How-Do-I Series? E-Book #8" e-books. You'll learn basic html and CSS coding for your websites and blogs from the simplest of signatures up to building simple tables. You'll also learn a ton of other tips and tricks from widening your blog to adding wallpaper, learn about plugboards, building clickable advertising links, and so much more. You'll learn all about what to consider when setting up an online crafts business and learn all about social networking, forums, and groups. Plus, you'll learn learn all about blogs and blogging.

I hope you enjoy my e-books sets and the savings that come from buying a set.

Posted by Linda Walsh Originals- "Doll Patterns for Grown-up Girls!"
Linda Walsh Originals E-Patterns - "Instant Download E-Patterns for Grown-up Girls!"
Linda Walsh Originals Dolls - "Handmade Dolls & Crafts for Grown-up Girls!"

E-Books From Linda Walsh Originals

2009-09-07T06:39:00.000-04:00

Well, we now have a grand total of ten e-books for Linda Walsh Originals. They cover a wide variety of subjects all intent on helping small business crafters on the net.

After we revised out original 4 Linda's How-Do-I Series? of e-books I decided to add to the collection. So, e-books # 5, 6, 7, 8, and 9 were created. I hope you enjoy our series of e-books and hope they help you with your small business.

If you'd like more information on our e-books please click on the article links below:

NEW E-Book #9 - Linda’s What Are E… Series? Helpful Tips for Crafters With Websites and Blogs E-Book #9 All About E-Patterns and E-Products

Learn about our “What Are E…?” series, learn what e-products are, learn what e-patterns are, learn what e-articles, e-projects, and e how-to’s are, learn what e-books and e-pamphlets are, learn what e-tutorials and e-pictorials are, and learn what podcasts are. You’ll also learn a little bit about using Microsoft Publisher to create e-products learn about our e-patterns, learn why a small business designer would want to sell e-patterns, and learn about our e-pattern website and instant e-patterns. Plus, you’ll learn about how and where to sell e-patterns, learn how to create a clickable e-product ad for the sidebar of your blog or website, learn how to add an e-pattern ad and PayPal BUY NOW button to the sidebar of your blog, learn how to reduce the file size of your e-patterns, learn about creating an e-catalog, learn how to set-up a free .PDF file, and read about “Designing An E-Pattern and The Price of Gas!” Plus, you’ll learn about the “Everything E-Directory – The One Source For Everything E For Crafters Needs.”

NEW E-Book #8 - Linda’s How-Do-I Series? Helpful Tips for Crafters With Websites and Blogs - E-Book #8 All About Social Networking, Forums, and Group

Learn about forums and online communities, learn about some of the NING communities and Etsy groups we joined, find out if you are a blog hopper, learn about the various blogging communities, learn about some of the different blogging directories, find out whether blogrolls are important, learn about Google alerts, and learn about out “Top Blogs By Crafters” toplist. You’ll also find out about the writing websites that are available, find out about all the free craft articles and projects websites, find out about all the free online newsletter, magazine, e-zine & traditional paid magazine content driven websites out there, and find out about all the free crafting content that is available and how you can contribute. You’ll also discover whether a team blog is for you, learn about Facebook.com and some of the fun things to do with Facebook.com, find out if you’ll get dooced, learn about Twitter.com and Twitter widgets, and learn about YouTube.com and whether you should become a vlogger.

NEW E-Book #7 - Linda’s How-Do-I Series? Helpful Tips for Crafters With Websites and Blogs – E-Book #7 All About Blogs – Part 2

In Part 2 you'll learn all the blogging terms and definitions, learn how to take a screenshot of your website or blog, learn why your sidebar is at the bottom of your blog, learn how to widen your blog, learn how to add wallpaper to your blog, learn how to create drop down menus for your blogs sidebar, and see if you need a blogiday. You’ll also find out if you’re a multi-blogger, learn about podcasting and whether you should jump on the podcasting bandwagon, find out about all the free crafting podcasts online, and determine is you are a blog hopper. Plus, you’ll learn why a blog is not your Grandfather’s newsletter, learn about web blog blidgets, learn whether you should become a vlogger, whether you've become blistless, and why blogrolls are important. You’ll learn whether you’ll get dooced, and whether you should join a team blog. Plus, you’ll learn why videos are a great addition to a blogs sidebar, learn how the Twitter widget is the coolest thing for your blog, and learn how following on Facebook’s networked blogs helps all of us.

NEW E-Book #6 - Linda’s How-Do-I Series? Helpful Tips for Crafters With Websites and Blogs – E-Book #6 All About Blogs – Part 1

In Part 1 you'll learn why you should have a blog for your craft business, learn what to write in a blog, how many blogs there are now, learn about eliminating your newsletter in favor of your blog, learn how to provide subscribers for your blog, learn what the #1 mistake is of crafters with blogs, learn whether blogs are really helpful, and learn about blogs and their features. You’ll also learn about some of the old and new features of the “Cadillac” of blog service providers, learn how commenting on blogs can be helpful to your small business website, learn who your audience is and what you should tell them, and learn why you might want to create generic posts. Plus, you’ll learn why you would want to bleg your readers, learn how to incorporate “keywords” into your blog, learn why labels are important, learn all about pinging, and find out about all those blogging communities. Plus, you’ll learn about a million different blogging directories, learn about using Google reader, learn about Google alerts, learn about Google blog search, learn about backing up your blogs, learn whether you should add blogvert and blogvertsing to your blog, and learn if you’re blogstipated. Finally, you’ll learn if you have blogophobia, learn about Twitter widgets, learn about the Feedblitz multiple blog subscription widget, learn about having some fun with your blog, learn about blogs as heirlooms and family fun, and read about our Top Blogs By Crafters toplist and why you should join.

NEW E-Book #5 - Linda’s How-Do-I Series? Helpful Tips for Crafters With Websites and Blogs E-Book #5

Learn many of the things you should consider when setting up a small business crafts website, such as what to name a website and how to define your niche. You’ll also learn about getting started and where to begin, learn about using Microsoft Publisher, learn about creating an e-catalog, learn about the browser distortion between Internet Explorer and Firefox, learn about splash pages and why they are bad for business, learn about topsite gateway pages and why they are bad for customers, learn about graphics and graphic websites, learn what blinkies are, learn about using an online photo album as a portfolio, and learn about setting up an internet morning routine.

Linda's How-Do-I Series? Helpful Tips for Crafters With Websites and Blogs - Revised E-Book #4

Learn how to add a banner rotation to your website or blog, learn how to build a simple table, learn how to add images to a simple table, learn how to center those images within a table and make those images clickable, learn how to add padding, spacing, and borders to images within a table, learn how to add clickable text links to a table, learn how to all wallpaper or images to the background of a table, and learn how to handle different size banners within a table.

Linda's How-Do-I Series? Helpful Tips for Crafters With Websites and Blogs - Revised E-Book #3

Learn about coding for promotion, copyright, and bio signatures, coding for clickable links to another section of a page, how to take a screenshot of your website or blog, what a plugboard is, learn how to make your plugboard bigger, learn why plugboards red x’s are bad for business, how to add wallpaper to your blog, how to widen your blog, why you would want to create generic blog posts, how to create clickable e-product links, learn how to create drop down menus for your website or blog sidebar, learn what to do about the size of your e-patterns, learn how to set-up a free .PDF file, and learn about some of the best photo hosting websites out there for crafters.

Linda's How-Do-I Series? Helpful Tips for Crafters With Websites and Blogs - Revised E-Book #2

Learn some of the common HTML and CSS tags and attributes, learn how to center banners, button, text or pictures, learn how to add scrolling banners, learn how to add vertical advertising banners, learn how to add horizontal advertising banners, learn how to add colored borders to your banners, learn how to change the background colors between the borders of your banners, learn how to space banners of different sizes, learn how to make your banners clickable back to your website or blog, learn how to build rows of clickable banners, and learn how to add color to the borders and background of rows of clickable banners.

Linda's How-Do-I Series? Helpful Tips for Crafters With Websites and Blogs - Revised E-Book #1

Learn how to set up an email and forum signature, add text links and clickable link lists, change your font type, change your font size, change your font color, learn how to create an email link, learn how to use margins, learn how to use padding, learn how to create borders, draw a line, underline, skip a line, create a paragraph, add color to your border and text, change the background area within your borders, and create a simple banner out of html code. You’ll also learn what the names and #’s are for the 16 CSS colors, what the various size standard advertising banners are, what the difference is between the different picture file types, what the standard video formats are, and what the standard shortcut computer keys are.

Linda's How-Do-I Series? How To Create A Print Pattern and E-Pattern Revised E-Book

Learn how to create a print pattern and an e-pattern.

We hope you are enjoying our Linda's How-Do=I Series? of e-books.

Posted by Linda Walsh Originals- "Doll Patterns for Grown-up Girls!"
Linda Walsh Originals E-Patterns - "Instant Download E-Patterns for Grown-up Girls!"
Linda Walsh Originals Dolls - "Handmade Dolls & Crafts for Grown-up Girls!"

NEW E-Books - All About Blogs and Blogging!

2009-08-27T07:36:00.000-04:00

Our Tips From The Blogging Queen Columns Are A Big Plus In Two Of Our NEW E-Books
We have terrific news to tell you. We've created two new e-books in our "Linda’s How-Do-I Series?" and they are all about blogs and blogging. And, we have to thank our "Tips from the Blogging Queen" column for providing a lot of the articles for our two NEW e-books.

Our NEW E-Books are entitled "Linda’s How-Do-I Series? Helpful Tips for Crafters With Websites and Blogs – E-Book #6 All About Blogs – Part 1" and "Linda’s How-Do-I Series? Helpful Tips for Crafters With Websites and Blogs – E-Book #7 All About Blogs – Part 2."

In Part 1 you'll learn why you should have a blog for your craft business, learn what to write in a blog, how many blogs there are now, learn about eliminating your newsletter in favor of your blog, learn how to provide subscribers for your blog, learn what the #1 mistake is of crafters with blogs, learn whether blogs are really helpful, and learn about blogs and their features.

You’ll also learn about some of the old and new features of the “Cadillac” of blog service providers, learn how commenting on blogs can be helpful to your small business website, learn who your audience is and what you should tell them, and learn why you might want to create generic posts.

Plus, you’ll learn why you would want to bleg your readers, learn how to incorporate “keywords” into your blog, learn why labels are important, learn all about pinging, and find out about all those blogging communities.

Plus, you’ll learn about a million different blogging directories, learn about using Google reader, learn about Google alerts, learn about Google blog search, learn about backing up your blogs, learn whether you should add blogvert and blogvertsing to your blog, and learn if you’re blogstipated.

Finally, you’ll learn if you have blogophobia, learn about Twitter widgets, learn about the Feedblitz multiple blog subscription widget, learn about having some fun with your blog, learn about blogs as heirlooms and family fun, and read about our Top Blogs By Crafters toplist and why you should join.

Linda’s How-Do-I Series? Helpful Tips for Crafters With Websites and Blogs – E-Book #6 All About Blogs – Part 1

Linda Walsh Originals E-Books
Linda's How-Do-I Series? E-Book #6
Buy Instant E-Book NOW

Here's what you'll find in e-book #6:

Table of Contents – E-Book #6

Introduction – Page 4
Should You Have A Blog For Your Craft Business? - Page 8
I Wouldn't Know What To Write In A Blog? – Page 9
Has Anyone Noticed All The Blogs? - Page 11
Taking A Big Bold Progressive Step and Eliminating My Newsletter In Favor Of My Blog - Page 13
Providing For Subscribers To Your Blog – Page 15
The #1 Mistake Of Crafters With Blogs Page 18
Tips From The Blogging Queen – Are Blogs Really Helpful? – Column #1– Page 20
Testing The Blogs Series – Part 1 – Blogs and Their Features – Page 22
Testing The Blogs Series – Part 3 – The “Cadillac” of Blog Service Providers – Page 28
Testing The Blogs Series – Part 8 – The New Blogger.com – Page 34
Tips From The Blogging Queen – Commenting On Blogs And How That Can Be Helpful To Your Small Business Website Column #2 - Page 39
Tips From The Blogging Queen – Who Is Your Audience And What Should You Tell Them? – Page 41
Linda’s How-Do-I Series? Why Would I Want To Create Generic Posts? – Page 44
Tips From The Blogging Queen – Why Would You Want To Bleg Your Readers? – Column 4 – Page 45
Tips From The Blogging Queen - How To Incorporate "Keywords" Into Your Blog - Column 5 – Page 47
That’s Too Much Work! It’s Not Worth It! Why Labels Are Important – Page 49
Tips From The Blogging Queen - Are You Pinging? - Column 6 – Page 51
All Those "Blogging Communities" – Page 53
A Million Different Blogging Directories! For Crafters - Which To Choose? – Page 57
Do You Use Google Reader? – Page 62
Have You Tried Google Alerts Yet? – Page 63
Google Blog Search – Page 64
Tips From The Blogging Queen - Don't Forget To Back-Up Your Blogs - Column 7 – Page 65
Tips From The Blogging Queen - Should You Add Blogvert and Blogvertising to Your Blog? - Column 8 – Page 67
Tips From The Blogging Queen - Are You Blogstipated? - Column 9 – Page 69
"Tips From The Blogging Queen" Column 10 - Do You Have Blogophobia? – Page 71
Gotta LOVE Twitter Widgets! – Page73
Cool New Widget From Feedblitz.com – Page 75
Oh, What Fun I’m Having! Having A Little Fun With Your Blog! – Page 77
Blogs As Heirlooms And Family Fun! - Page 79
We've Got A “Top Blogs By Crafters” Toplist and Why You Should Join – Page 81
About Us – Page 84

In Part 2 you'll learn all the blogging terms and definitions, learn how to take a screenshot of your website or blog, learn why your sidebar is at the bottom of your blog, learn how to widen your blog, learn how to add wallpaper to your blog, learn how to create drop down menus for your blogs sidebar, and see if you need a blogiday.

You’ll also find out if you’re a multi-blogger, learn about podcasting and whether you should jump on the podcasting bandwagon, find out about all the free crafting podcasts online, and determine is you are a blog hopper.

Plus, you’ll learn why a blog is not your Grandfather’s newsletter, learn about web blog blidgets, learn whether you should become a vlogger, whether you've become blistless, and why blogrolls are important. You’ll learn whether you’ll get dooced, and whether you should join a team blog.

Plus, you’ll learn why videos are a great addition to a blogs sidebar, learn how the Twitter widget is the coolest thing for your blog, and learn how following on Facebook’s networked blogs helps all of us.

Linda’s How-Do-I Series? Helpful Tips for Crafters With Websites and Blogs – E-Book #7 All About Blogs – Part 2

Linda Walsh Originals E-Books
Linda's How-Do-I Series? E-Book #7
Buy Instant E-Book NOW

Here's what you'll find in e-book #7:

Table of Contents – E-Book #7

Introduction – Page 4
Blogging Terms and Definitions – Page 8
The Fun Is In The Learning - How To Take A Screenshot Of Your Website or Blog – Page 23
Why Is My Sidebar At The Bottom Of My Blog? – Page 24
Linda’s How-Do-I Series? How Do I Widen My Blog? – Page27
Linda’s How-Do-I-Series? How Do I Add Wallpaper To My Blog? – Page 29
Linda’s How-Do-I Series? Drop Down Menu’s For Your Blog Sidebar – Page 31
Tips From The Blogging Queen - Column 11 - Do You Need A Blogiday – Page 33
Tips From The Blogging Queen - Column 12 - Are You A Multi-Blogger? – Page 35
Tips From The Blogging Queen - Column 13 - What Is Podcasting and Should You Jump On The Podcasting Bandwagon? – Page 37
What Are Podcasts? – Page 39
Do You Like Free Crafting Podcasts? If So, Check Out Our List! – Page 41
Tips From The Blogging Queen - Column 14 - Are You A Blog Hopper? – Page 43
Tips From The Blogging Queen - Column 15 - A Blog Is Not Your Grandfather's Newsletter – Page 45 My Tips For Crafters On The Web Blog Blidget – Page 47
Tips From The Blogging Queen - Column 16 - Should You Become A Vlogger? – Page 4
Tips From The Blogging Queen - Column 17 - Have You Become Blistless – Page 51
Tips From The Blogging Queen - Column 18 - Are Blogrolls Important? – Page 53
Tips From The Blogging Queen - Column 19 - Will You Get Dooced? – Page 55
Tips From the Blogging Queen - Column 20 - Should You Join A Team Blog? – Page 58
Video's Are A Great Addition To A Blog's Sidebar! – Page 60
Twitter! The Coolest Thing For Your Blog! – Page 62
Facebook.com Networked Blogs - Following Helps All of Us! – Page 64
About Us! – Page 66

If you've thought about starting a blog there's no better time than now and our new 2-part e-book series can help.

Posted by Linda Walsh Originals - "Doll Patterns for Grown-up Girls!"
Linda Walsh Originals E-Patterns - "Instant Download E-Patterns for Grown-up Girls!"

Great News - We've Revised Our Linda-How-Do-I Series? E-Books #1 - #4

2009-08-23T14:42:00.001-04:00

We have great NEWS. We not only revised Our Linda-How-Do-I Series? E-Books #1, #2, #3, and #4, but we've added a few new articles as a surprise that we think will also be helpful to you.

Several years ago our blog readers asked if we would be converting our Linda's How-Do-I Series? Helpful Tips For Crafters With Websites and Blogs to .PDF versions and we decided to not only convert them into .PDF format for you, but to make them available as "Instant Download E-Books" as well and did so in February of 2007.

Well, over the past few years some of the HTML coding has become more standardized and some of the original HTML coding wasn't appearing in some of the browsers as it should have. So, we decided it was time to revise our e-books. In doing this we also went back and corrected all of our original blogs posts that may have been having a browser distortion problem as well. Not only have we corrected for the browser distortion, but we've added to the e-books as well.

Just like before, some of the articles contained within the e-books are the exact contents of some of the articles in our blog except they do not contain the 3 ***'s that were necessary for the HTML code to be displayed on our blog. That's a wonderful advantage and incentive for buying the .PDF "Instant Download E-Book" version.

So, you can copy/paste the code from the e-books and just add your own information. There are no 3 ***'s in the HTML coding that you need to remove here. So, you can save the .PDF instant download e-books to your computer and when you need them you just open them up in Adobe Acrobat and copy/paste the code you want and change whatever information you need to change for your website or blog.

How GREAT is that?

So, what's in each of the revised e-books? Well, here's what's contained in each of the revised e-books #1, #2, #3, and #4:

Linda's How-Do-I Series? E-Book #1 (LINDASHDISEP1) - Revised 8/16/09

Learn how to set up an email and forum signature, add text links and clickable link lists, change your font type, change your font size, change your font color, learn how to create an email link, learn how to use margins, learn how to use padding, learn how to create borders, draw a line, underline, skip a line, create a paragraph, add color to your border and text, change the background area within your borders, and create a simple banner out of html code. You’ll also learn what the names and #’s are for the 16 CSS colors, what the various size standard advertising banners are, what the difference is between the different picture file types, what the standard video formats are, and what the standard shortcut computer keys are.

Linda Walsh Originals E-Books
Linda's How-Do-I Series? E-Book #1 - Revised August 16, 2009
Buy Instant E-Book NOW

Linda's How-Do-I Series? E-Book #2 (LINDASHDISEP2) - Revised 8/16/09

Learn some of the common HTML and CSS tags and attributes, learn how to center banners, button, text or pictures, learn how to add scrolling banners, learn how to add vertical advertising banners, learn how to add horizontal advertising banners, learn how to add colored borders to your banners, learn how to change the background colors between the borders of your banners, learn how to space banners of different sizes, learn how to make your banners clickable back to your website or blog, learn how to build rows of clickable banners, and learn how to add color to the borders and background of rows of clickable banners.

Linda Walsh Originals E-Books
Linda's How-Do-I Series? E-Book #2 - Revised August 16, 2009
Buy Instant E-Book NOW

Linda's How-Do-I Series? E-Book #3 (LINDASHDISEP3) - Revised August 16, 2009

Learn about coding for promotion, copyright, and bio signatures, coding for clickable links to another section of a page, how to take a screenshot of your website or blog, what a plugboard is, learn how to make your plugboard bigger, learn why plugboards red x’s are bad for business, how to add wallpaper to your blog, how to widen your blog, why you would want to create generic blog posts, how to create clickable e-product links, learn how to create drop down menus for your website or blog sidebar, learn what to do about the size of your e-patterns, learn how to set-up a free .PDF file, and learn about some of the best photo hosting websites out there for crafters.

Linda Walsh Originals E-Books
Linda's How-Do-I Series? E-Book #3 - Revised August 16, 2009
Buy Instant E-Book NOW

Linda's How-Do-I Series? E-Book #4 (LINDASHDISEP4) - Revised August 16, 2009

Learn how to add a banner rotation to your website or blog, learn how to build a simple table, learn how to add images to a simple table, learn how to center those images within a table and make those images clickable, learn how to add padding, spacing, and borders to images within a table, learn how to add clickable text links to a table, learn how to all wallpaper or images to the background of a table, and learn how to handle different size banners within a table.

Linda Walsh Originals E-Books
Linda's How-Do-I Series? E-Book #4 - Revised August 16, 2009
Buy Instant E-Book NOW

We hope you enjoy our revised Linda's How-Do-I Series? Helpful Tips for Crafters With Websites and Blogs E-Books #1, #2, #3, and #4 and our new articles.

Posted by Linda Walsh Originals - "Doll Patterns for Grown-up Girls!"
Linda Walsh Originals E-Patterns - "Instant Download E-Patterns for Grown-up Girls!"

The Browser Distortion Once Again!

2009-07-05T08:40:00.000-04:00

Last June I wrote a post on my Tips For Crafters On The Web blog entitled "Mozilla - Firefox Versus Internet Explorer" How Does Your Website Fare?

My post concerned using Microsoft "Publisher" to create my websites. At that time I was using Internet Explorer and FTP (File Transfer Protocol) to update my websites.

When I checked last year 86% of my traffic was coming from Internet Explorer and 12% was coming from Mozilla - Firefox.

Shortly thereafter I switched to Mozilla - Firefox because I was having a horrendous time with Internet Explorer 7.0. It was SLOW as molasses, was freezing during printing from my blogs, and causing a multitude of other issues. After using Internet Explorer exclusively for over 30 years I'd had enough and made the switch. A year later I am happy to report that I'm delighted with Mozilla - Firefox and have had few, if any, problems with it.

I have found that Mozilla - Firefox, for the most part, is much more stringent on the HTML coding than Internet Explorer is so when I've made changes to my FTP websites using Firefox and then viewing them in IE everything has displayed just fine.

Well, something must have changed in Internet Explorer during the last few weeks as last week when I made some changes to my Everything E-Directory a friend of mine told me that some of the avatar links were not displaying properly. I was getting X's. YIKES! I hate x's!

So, I decided to check it out. Indeed, there were x's where two of my avatar pictures should have been and I was getting text boxes at the top of each page that shouldn't have been there. They disappeared once the page loaded, but were there initially. I didn't like that and knew there had to be something wrong in the HTML coding.

Well, after hours of work I finally resolved the problem in Internet Explorer and everything is now displaying properly. Mind you now, it was displaying correctly all along in Mozilla - Firefox. So now both IE and Firefox are displaying my websites correctly.

So, why am I telling you this? Well, if you are a small business website owner or blogger you might want to check your website and blog to see if both Internet Explorer and Mozilla - Firefox are displaying your website and/or blog properly.

Last year 12% of my traffic was coming from Mozilla - Firefox, with 86% from Internet Explorer and 2% from the other browsers. This year 19% of my traffic is coming from Mozilla - Firefox and 76% from Internet Explorer with 5% from the other smaller browsers.

So, why am I telling you this?

Well, if your website is displaying correctly in one browser it doesn't necessarily mean that it's displaying correctly in all the others. So far I've only been concerned with Internet Explorer and Mozilla - Firefox. For now, the others are really too small percentage wise to make it worthwhile to see if they are displaying properly and, if not, to spend the time to correct them.

I'm hoping that since I use Mozilla - Firefox and since it's pretty stringent on the HTML coding then I should be okay in the smaller browsers. However, I thought this would be true for Internet Explorer until recently. Obviously I was wrong about that. So, now when I make any changes I'm checking both.

Another reason I am telling you this is that from time to time in my blog hopping I have noticed that some of the blogs of some of the bloggers who deviated from the standard blog providers templates are not displaying as the blogger may have intended. In checking the blogs of several of my blogging friends who have gone to 3-column templates I have noticed that they aren't always displaying properly either.

So, the good news for Mozilla - Firefox is that it's certainly gaining ground over Internet Explorer. The bad news is that for small business owners who have websites and/or blogs on the internet it means more work. You need to see how your website and/or blog is displaying both in Mozilla - Firefox and in Internet Explorer. The % of users to Mozilla - Firefox is steadily increasing and to not have your website displaying properly in either one means lost business.

We'll check in next year around this time to see how both are faring. Happy browsing.

Posted by Linda Walsh Originals - "Doll Patterns for Grown-up Girls!"
Linda Walsh Originals E-Patterns - "Instant Download E-Patterns for Grown-up Girls!"
Linda Walsh Originals Dolls - "Handmade Dolls & Crafts for Grown-up Girls!"

We've Got GREAT NEWS - We Launched A New Website and Blog

2009-06-01T09:08:00.001-04:00

If you've known me for awhile you know that I have a LOT of websites and blogs so starting another website and blog might sound a little crazy to you.

Well, it is and it isn't.

You see I've been mulling something over in my head for close to a year now. It has to do with being a small business crafter online and has to do with my experiences with that and with my experiences trying to find everything I need in one place.

There's just SO MUCH that you need for your websites and blogs and just SO MANY places to look. I wanted to make that a little easier, especially when it concerns e-products.

So, I thought that an EVERYTHING E-DIRECTORY to be "YOUR ONE SOURCE FOR EVERYTHING E FOR CRAFTS" would be a perfect solution for small business artists and crafters and e-hobbyists alike. Everything in one place.

Whether you’re looking for E-Patterns, E-Books, E-Tutorials, E-Pictorials, E-Classes, E-Printables, Graphics, Video’s, Podcasts, Blogs, E-Zines, E-Tailers, E-Stores, E-Directories, E-Communities, Handmade Crafts Websites, Crafts Suppliers, Crafting Plugboards, Website Hosting, Picture Hosting, Crafting Topsites, Crafting Twitters and FACEBOOK Crafters, E-Products Classifieds, E-Products Specials, Free Craft E-Products and more we are your one source for EVERYTHING E for your crafting needs.

One place to list all your websites and blogs - even your products. Something suitable and affordable for the newest of small business crafters to the more experienced artist and crafter.

You can list your websites, blogs, and even single products, and you can have your website, blog, even single products as featured advertising. We've got lots of options and lots of possibilities. And, of course, plenty of "freebies."

And, like I do with everything, I have an EVERYTHING E FOR CRAFTS E-DIRECTORY BLOG to support the Everything E-Directory. All our listings members and 12 month featured advertisers will have links back to their websites, blogs, and/or products on the sidebar of the blog. And, we'll have monthly posting for our listing members and 12 month featured advertisers "Latest News", "Contest" and "Specials." And, whenever anyone lists their website. blog, or product or advertises their website, blog, or product we'll post about it during that month. It's a win-win for small business crafters and more experienced crafters alike.

Listing in the Everything E-Directory is FREE and easy to do. Your listing contains a clickable 125x125 button banner for your website and/or blog, or clickable 125x125 product picture on the applicable e-directory category page. It also contains a clickable text link back to your website, blog, or product page as well as a short website, blog, or product description on the applicable e-directory category page.

Advertising in the Everything E-Directory and/or Everything E For Crafts E-Directory Blog is also easy to do and is very affordable. For the featured advertising we offer you a choice of either a button banner or product picture on the applicable section of the HOME page of the Everything E-Directory, top of the applicable Everything E-Directory category page, top of the Everything E For Crafts E-Directory Blog, or sidebar of the Everything E-Directory for product advertising.

For the button banner advertising or product picture you can choose 1 month, 3 months, 6 months, or one year of sequential advertising. The prices for months 3 through 12 reflect a discount for placing sequential ads. The longer sequential period of time you advertise the less you pay per advertisement. Featured advertising button banners and/or product pictures run for the length of your sequential advertising period and needs to be 150x150 in size.

We are a family-friendly website and do not allow websites, blogs, banners, or product pictures that are not family-friendly.

I hope you'll agree that this was a great idea. If you'd like to visit our Everything E-Directory please CLICK HERE.

If you'd like more information on listing in our Everything E-Directory please CLICK HERE.

If you'd like more information on featured advertising in our Everything E-Directory and Everything E For Crafts E-Directory Blog please CLICK HERE.

I hope you decide to join us.

Video's Are A Great Addition To A Blog's Sidebar!

2009-04-26T06:46:00.000-04:00

YouTube Finally Got Me! I finally took the plunge and set up a LWOrig channel on YouTube.com and added two slideshow video's to it.

I'd been resisting doing this for quite some time. I'm not exactly sure what my rationale was, but maybe it had to do with the very nature of YouTube.com and the video's that were first placed there. Maybe I didn't see the small business and advertising potential for my online business at first.

Well, YouTube has become so mainstream that I decided I'd give it a try. Besides they didn't just have video's - you could also have slideshows, etc. And, in thinking about promoting all my websites and blogs I decided that video slideshows would be just the thing.

So, I created two of them without music to promote my Linda Walsh Originals business and my "faceless" doll creations. I decided not to add music as these were being used for my small business purposes not being created for personal use. I respect copyrights and didn't want to have a copyright or royalty issue by using music.

I created my video slideshows using Microsoft Movie Maker software (MSMovieMaker) and found that it was very easy to do. It actually took less time to create than it did to upload it to YouTube.com. Uploading was time consuming due to the size of the video's, but very easy to do from the YouTube.com website.

In fact, it was so easy to do that I decided I should add more video's to my LWOrig YouTube Channel. If you'd like to visit my LWOrig YouTube Channel please CLICK HERE.

I don't know why I didn't create video's before as I can now see what a GREAT way they are to promote your business and what a wonderful small business tool they are. I have added either the video's or links to the video's on the sidebars of all my blogs and links to them on some of my websites.

The first video is all about Linda Walsh Originals and how much there is to do on our websites and blogs. It's entitled "So Much To See And Do At Linda Walsh Originals" and is shown below:

The second video, which is shown below, is about my "faceless" beauties and is entitled "Faceless Beauties By Linda Walsh Originals" and is also shown below:

I hope you like the videos.

Posted by Linda Walsh Originals - "Doll Patterns for Grown-up Girls!"
Linda Walsh Originals E-Patterns - "Instant Download E-Patterns for Grown-up Girls!"
Linda Walsh Originals Dolls - "Handmade Dolls & Crafts for Grown-up Girls!"

Twitter Dee and Twitter Dumb!

2009-04-25T06:36:00.000-04:00

If you are a reader of my Linda's Blog then you know I just LOVE to experiment with new websites, widgets, applications and gadgets for my blogs.

Well, for the past few weeks I have been learning the ins and outs of Facebook.com and all the applications that have been written to interface with it. One of the applications that I have been using for awhile is Twitter.com . I have had the Twitter widget on the side bars of all my blogs for awhile so that I could update my "Latest News From Linda" modules with one Twitter comment otherwise known as a Tweet.

With my new interface with my Linda Walsh Facebook.com wall I have found myself Tweeting more and more. Actually I have found myself spending way too much time on Twitter and Facebook, which is a story for another day.

If you are not familiar with Twitter.com I should tell you that it is a social networking service (i.e. Internet community) that allows you to post instant text-based messages (i.e. Tweets) up to 140 characters per post to the Twitter website and your profile page. It retains all your messages and lists them in a continuous stream under your profile page. The text-based messages are sent via Instant Message services, email, via RSS feeds, via any one of the various Twitter interface applications, or to your mobile phone to other users who have signed up to receive them and/or that are following you.

They also have many widgets now that you can add to your blogs or websites that can be customized as well. I used the basic Blogger.com Twitter widget so that it would add the module to the sidebars of my various blogs using the style of that particular blog. If you want to see what they look like just go to any one of my blogs and scroll down the sidebar until you see the module entitled "Latest News From Linda."

The Twitter widget lets me determine how many of my instant messages I want to display (right now I have 5) and provides a link to my profile page at Twitter.com.

Besides the latest NEWS any time I use one of the Twitter applications that I have signed up for it will automatically update my LWOriginals Twitter stream, which also updates to my Linda Walsh Facebook.com wall. Now how cool is that? Better yet - how wonderful for saving me some time!

Besides spending too much time on Twitter and Facebook I have been trying to investigate all the various applications that have been written to interface with Twitter and/or Facebook or both. There seems to be hundreds if not thousands of them.

Some of the applications are organizer programs that you can download to your desktop to organize all your Internet communities into categories of your choosing. Their aim is to speed up the time you are spending on the more well known Internet communities you may belong to.

Others are directories whose aim is to make you more visible on Tweeter or groups that help you to network and connect with your friends or other individuals with similar interests.

I am hoping that one of these applications may help me as I know that I have been spending way too much time doing this. After I've investigated the different applications, directories, and groups I'll let you know what I think.

Of course, I'll also Tweet about it so if you're a friend of Linda Walsh on Facebook.com or are following LWOriginals on Tweeter.com you'll already know.

Posted by Linda Walsh Originals - "Doll Patterns for Grown-up Girls!"
Linda Walsh Originals E-Patterns - "Instant Download E-Patterns for Grown-up Girls!"
Linda Walsh Originals Dolls - "Handmade Dolls & Crafts for Grown-up Girls!"

Twitter Bird Courtesy of ProductiveDreams.com

Facebook.com Networked Blogs - Following Helps All of Us!

2009-04-09T07:26:00.001-04:00

I just love the Facebook.com networked blogs. They're a great way to not only promote your blog and websites, but a great way for you to help promote your friends blogs and websites. And, they're something we can all do together to hep each other.

The way they work is that you add your blog and they will link your blogs, the blogs you are following, and your Facebook.com profiles together. They pull the RSS feeds for the last 5 posts and also provide an avatar widget that you can add to the sidebar of your blog for promoting your own Facebook.com blog and profile as well as your Facebook.com friends blogs and profiles.

What's really neat about the Facebook.com widget with followers avatar pictures is that when you click on the avatar of one of the friends in the widget it displays not only a link to their blogs profile page, but a link to their Facebook.com profile page, and a listing of all the blogs they follow. This is a terrific way to link all our blogs and websites together and promote each other.

I wasn't able to add this to my post and show you as when I tried to it affected the Facebook avatar widget I have on my sidebar and added a message to this post that my "Facebook widget not installed properly." YIKES!!!! They tell you to only install it on the sidebar and not in a post. I guess they really mean that and know when you don't!

For Facebook.com they only pull the RSS feeds for blogs that have 7 followers or more on the blog profile page. I added the Facebook.com widget to the sidebar of my Linda's Blog , The Best FREE Crafts Articles blog, and my I Love Crafts and Craft Blogs blog already as I have more than 7 followers for each of those blogs.

I would LOVE to add the widget to the sidebars of all of my blogs but will only do so when I get 7 or more Facebook.com followers to each of these blogs. I know I have a LOT of blogs (ya think! LOL LOL) but would love for everyone to follow them and then I can add the widget to all of them.

This is a GREAT way for all of us to gain exposure for all our blogs. Please come and follow my blog(s) and I will follow yours. And, you could do the same by adding your blog to the Facebook.com networked blogs and then adding their widget to the sidebar of your blog.

If you have a blog and are on Facebook.com you might want to consider adding your blog to their network. It seems to be one of the fastest growing blogging communities on the web.

Just CLICK HERE for my Facebook.com profile page and then click on the "Blogs" tab at the top of the page for all my blogs.

Happy blogging.

Posted by Linda Walsh Originals - "Doll Patterns for Grown-up Girls!"
Linda Walsh Originals E-Patterns - "Instant Download E-Patterns for Grown-up Girls!"
Linda Walsh Originals Dolls - "Handmade Dolls & Crafts for Grown-up Girls!"

Tips From the Blogging Queen - Column 20 - Should You Join A Team Blog?

2009-04-07T06:34:00.001-04:00

Last September in my TFTBQ Column 19 our definition was "Group or Team Blog." This is a blog maintained by two or more bloggers. Also known as a team blog. Our question was -"Should You Join A Team Blog?"

If you are a small business crafter on the web you probably know that networking is very, very important to getting your website and/or blog seen. Not only has networking blossomed from communicating and mingling with friends with the same interests, but has mushroomed into multiple ways in which to promote your websites and/or blogs.

You can join any of the thousands of social communities out there, become an active member of any of the thousands of online forums, or participate in groups with your interests. You can write FREE articles and gain a following on any of the FREE articles content websites. You can even create your own channel and video's on YouTube.com that other viewers can add to their favorite video's play lists.

You can gain followers on Twitter.com and update them minute to minute with what's going on. Or, become a member of Facebook.com and provide updates to your network of friends. Plus, if you set up a business page for your website and set up a networked blog page on Facebook.com you can update your fans with what's going on with you and your business. You can join any of the hundreds of blogging networks and communities and add "friends" or "admirers" of your blog.

And, you can even become a member of a "team blog" which is nothing more than several people writing posts for the same blog.

Team blogs are usually centered around a common theme or idea. They might contain content about any number of different crafts or interests for the members of the team. They might even be formed by any one of the various clubs you might belong to and used for updating the other members on the various activities of the club and its' members. Team blogs are even being used to create monthly e-zines.

They can be very helpful and versatile for promoting your interests, products, website, and blog and may be maintained by one or several of the team members. Posts may be contributed individually by each of the team members and published by each or they might all be filtered through a team leader who publishes the posts and maintains the blog.

The advantages are that they are being maintained by more than one person and therefore updated more frequently. Less pressure for you to constantly be coming up with a post for your blog. Plus, with more members of the team promoting the blog the wider the spectrum of readers.

The disadvantages are that they may be being maintained by more than one person or persons who may or may not have your posting style and posting demeanor. You might like your blog posts and blog to be maintained in a certain way and style and might not like the style of any one of the team members. Plus, with a wider spectrum of readers comes a wider circle of connections that you may or may not like for your small business image.

It may seem confusing that the advantages of team blogs and disadvantages of team blogs are, well, basically the same. Team blogs can be very beneficial to helping you to promote your website and/or blog, but like everything else on the web it's important to know who the other team members are, what their style is, and who their audience is before deciding to become a member yourself.

Are team blogs beneficial? Yes!

Do they help promote your small business and/or interests? Yes!

Should you join a team blog? If the team blog is conducive to your small business and will help promote your small business to a wider audience then after a careful review of the other team members - yes!

"Tips From the Blogging Queen" Column 21 Definition - "Labeling and Categories"

This is a method of organizing blog entries by assigning each entry to a predetermined label. Each label will link to a list of entries, all with related content. See also "categories." Be sure to tune in to my TFTBQ Column 21 "Should You Label Or Categorize Your Blog Posts?"

Copyright © 2009 - All Rights Reserved - Written by Linda Walsh of Linda Walsh Originals, Linda Walsh Originals E-Patterns and Linda's Blog. Linda is a doll maker and doll pattern designer. http://lindawalshoriginals.com/

New Updates and A Fresh Coat of Paint!

2009-01-25T06:03:00.001-05:00

Well, it's been awhile since I've updated my Testing The Blogs and Helpful Blog Tips blog. So, I decided it was time for a fresh coat of paint.

I've updated it, reformatted it, and added a few tweaks here and there.

I haven't tested any blog service providers in quite a while and there are so many more of them now - with so many different benefits. I'm hoping to be able to test more during the course of this year. So much has changed - all of it SO EXCITING.

I hope you like my Testing The Blogs and Helpful Blog Tips blog's new paint job!

Stay tuned. We've got a whole LOT more planned.

Posted by Linda Walsh Originals - "Doll Patterns for Grown-up Girls!"
Linda Walsh Originals E-Patterns - "Instant Download E-Patterns for Grown-up Girls!"

Tips From The Blogging Queen - Column 19 - Will You Get Dooced?

2008-09-24T06:33:00.002-04:00

Last June in my TFTBQ Column 18 our definition was "Dooced." This is having lost a job because of entries posted to a blog. Our question was -"Will You Get Dooced?"

I read somewhere that at last count there were over 185 million blogs out there and that hundreds of thousands are being created every day. In fact, if you key the word blog into Google you get 949,000,000 results. That doesn't mean there are that many blogs out there. It just means that there are that many results on the Internet for the keyword word "blog."

Blogging has become so mainstream that Human Resource departments of companies are now creating "blogging" policies for their companies and employees. With blogs becoming so mainstream and with that many blogs out there you have to be saying to yourself, "That's a lot of blogs. Mine will never get noticed."

You might also be thinking that with so many blogs out there the chances of your being fired because of entries posted to a blog has to be minuscule. Besides you have a right to post whatever you want to your personal blog or your small business blog. Right?

Well, you have the right to post what you want to your blog, but if you're a small business blogger who is trying to attract business and customers doing so might just hurt your business. If you have a small business blog where you're trying to personalize yourself to your readers and attract business then hot button issues and controversial images and/or opinions would not make good business sense. So, you stay clear of that for your small business blog. Right?

Well, what about your personal blog. Certainly your have the right to say and post what you want there. Right? Besides the likelihood of something being seen has to be minuscule. Right?

Well, the chances aren't as minuscule as you might think and the reason for that is due to the search engines. You see, the search engines have a funny way of uncovering exactly what you don't want uncovered. Even things you think you've deleted.

If you are like many small business crafters on the web you probably have a full-time job. With Human Resource departments creating "blogging" policies you have to know that employers are very aware of the power of the Internet to disseminate information rapidly and are therefore watching what is said about their company.

Does this mean they're "googling" their employees? Probably. As a small business owner - wouldn't you? In fact, how many of you "Google" your own name, your small business name, your product names, etc. to see what is being said about you and your business. Most of you I would bet. It only makes good business sense to do so. After all, it's your small business reputation that is at stake. So, you have to "Google" things about you and your business as a prudent business measure. Right?

Well, employers are no different. It is their job to maintain the reputation, integrity, confidentiality, security of copyrights and trademarks, and good standing of the businesses they work for. Right? And, in doing so they are going to go to the Internet to see what is being said.

Which brings us all back to the likelihood of your blog posts being seen. Will they be seen? Absolutely. There are just so many variables for how you could be uncovered by a search engine that I'd be here all night just listing them. Suffice it to say that despite your best efforts to remain anonymous you will be seen.

What about your Facebook page, your MySpace page, or any number of social networking websites? Will employers be looking here? Well, the idea of these websites is to create a profile containing your real name. Right? That's because they are set-up for all your friends to find you. And, old school chums aren't going to be able to find you if you use a pseudo name. Right? Does that mean your employer can find you, too? Absolutely.

Does that mean you shouldn't post the pictures you want and say whatever it is you want? Right again. You shouldn't and here's why. If you use your blog or your social networking pages to post objectionable material or post about your frustrations with the company you work full-time for or your boss then you are going to have an issue with your employer.

And, if your full-time employer can find you, well so can your small business customers. Whether or not it has anything to do with the small business products you are selling or not you can bet that a customer will think twice about doing business with you if you are posting objectionable material or venting your frustrations on the Internet.

That's here and now. What about the future? Well, if you're looking for a prospective employer to hire you then in this day and age you'd better check yourself out on Goggle to make sure their isn't anything objectionable about you anywhere on the web. Will prospective employers Google you? Absolutely. A comment you might have made about your employer in a forum is fair game for the search engines, too. In fact, anything and everything on the Internet is fair game for the search engines and for prospective employers to find.

Are employers Googling existing employees and prospective employees? Absolutely. They'd be foolish not to. If you do anything that might reflect badly on your employers good name, reputation, business standing, etc. with anything you may have said or posted in your personal blog, social networking website, forum, etc. then they are not going to be happy with you and you may or may not get "dooced." That all depends on your employer and their respective "blogging" policies.

A good rule of thumb to follow is this. Do not post anything that you wouldn't want anyone else seeing or reading. This includes blog posts, images, social networking pages, emails, chat rooms, instant messages, video's, groups, forums, etc.

For those of you with small business websites a good rule of thumb is this. Do not post anything that any of your small business customers might find objectionable. With worldwide customers this encompasses a huge area of objectionable material.

My grandson and I were having lunch and I happened to mention that I had seen his MySpace page. He then asked "Did you read my wall, Nana?" I, of course, said, "Well, ya!" His response was, "Don't read my wall, Nana. That's private!" Well, in this day and Internet age the only thing that is private is something you keep to yourself.

So, will you get dooced? Maybe, maybe not! But, do you really want to test that?

"Tips From the Blogging Queen" Column 20 Definition - "Group or Team Blog"

This is a blog maintained by two or more bloggers. Also known as a team blog. Be sure to tune in to my TFTBQ Column 20 "Should You Join A Team Blog?"

Copyright © 2008 - All Rights Reserved - Written By Linda Walsh of Linda Walsh Originals, Linda Walsh Originals E-Patterns and Linda's Blog. Linda is a doll maker and doll pattern designer. http://lindawalshoriginals.com

How Do You Do It All? What's Your Internet Morning Routine?

2008-09-18T06:08:00.001-04:00

I get a lot of comments about "How can you handle so many websites and blogs? You must be extremely organized!"

Well, I do have to admit that I am organized and do something everyday that helps. It's my daily morning routine.

I know we all have routines for things we do every day. Without them it's hard to be organized. Especially if you have multiple numbers of websites and blogs - which I do!

To keep up with everything I have a morning routine where I check what's been going on with my Internet business overnight. I start with my emails and try to answer all of them in the morning or do whatever might be requested of me in the email.

Then, I check my plugboards to make sure there aren't any RED X's. I hate Red X's and think they are bad for business. So, if I have a red X on my permanent plugboards or changing plugboards they get deleted.

I do the same for the banners on my Top Blogs By Crafters topsite except instead of deleting the blog I make the banner inactive. If the blog is no longer available then I delete the account, but if it still is available then I assume that the blog owner just changed the URL of their banner and didn't update their account.

After this I check all my business accounts to see the overnight activity and handle whatever it is I need to do there. If there is any activity that requires posting to my small business accounting system then I try to do that as well. Sometimes this activity tends to pile up. This is my least favorite activity and sometimes gets postponed until the pile gets so large I can't ignore it.

Then I check my various community pages to see if there is anything I need to respond to there. After that I check some of the forums I belong to to see what's been going on overnight.

After doing this I go to my Google Reader to read all the posts of the blogs I am tracking. Google Reader is a time saving tool that I couldn't function without and I highly recommend it to anyone who follows different blogs.

And, last I post to my blogs. This is where stockpiling blog posts can be very beneficial as all you have to do is just post the article you'd written ahead of time.

I also try to write a few blog posts daily if I'm in a "blogging mood." If not then I wait until I'm really in a "blogging" mood and write multiple posts at the same time and hold them for releasing at a later date.

Every few days I back-up all my files, folders, websites, and blogs to my external hard drive. And, just recently I started utilizing an online folder at GoDaddy.com, which I absolutely love because it makes me "mobile!" There will be more about this in a later post.

After all this I'm done with my morning routine and I'm free to work on my new creations, research places I might want to advertise with, review some crafting books for my "The Book Review Corner" blog, or do some research for some posts I might want to write about on my blogs.

It really doesn't take that long to maintain a daily routine for your small business and definitely helps to keep me organized.

So, what's your daily routine?

Posted by Linda Walsh Originals - "Doll Patterns for Grown-up Girls!"
Linda Walsh Originals E-Patterns - "Instant Download E-Patterns for Grown-up Girls!"

Blog Terms and Definitions Updated

2008-09-17T05:23:00.001-04:00

It's been about a year and a half since I updated my blog terms and blog definitions list. Well, in the blogging world that's a lot of time. Lots of things have changed and a lot of new terms have been added.

So, to help my craft blog readers and anyone who is starting a blog for the first time I thought I'd update my blogging terms and definitions list. It's not a definitive list by any means and doesn't intend or claim to be so. I provide it as nothing more than a tool for my craft blogging readers and friends.

Blogs and bloggers have a language all to their own that might seem strange for anyone being introduced to blogging for the first time. So, I thought it might be helpful to compile a list of the more common blogging terms and their definitions that crafting bloggers on the web might run into.

Because the list now contains hundreds of words and phrases I decided to only post the complete list on my "Tips From The Blogging Queen" blog.

Just CLICK HERE or go to http://dearlindabloggingqueen.blogspot.com/2008/09/blog-terms-and-definitions-updated.html for my post.

Just like text messaging, forum commenting, etc. bloggers have their own shorthand, words, and definitions, too. You don't have to be an expert on them right away or know what everything means.

If you're new to "blogging" don't worry. If you decide to create a blog before too long some of these words will become common language to you. I'm sure you may have heard some of the terms already. Some may be more obscure and you may never use them or know what they mean. I gave them all to you because I like to be thorough.

Posted by Linda Walsh Originals - "Doll Patterns for Grown-up Girls!"
Linda Walsh Originals E-Patterns - "Instant Download E-Patterns for Grown-up Girls!"

Tips From The Blogging Queen - Column 18 - Are Blogrolls Important?

2008-06-07T06:18:00.001-04:00

Last month in my TFTBQ Column 17 our definition was "Blogrolls." This is a list of links or your blogs sidebar. They can be a manual list maintained by the blogger or a list provided by a "BlogRolling" service. Our question was -"Are Blogrolls Important?"

Given that there are hundreds of millions of blogs out there nowadays you have to wonder if your blog will get noticed.

For some of you your blog is a personal blog that you write for yourself and your family and/or friends. Getting noticed isn't paramount to you.

For others your blog is written in support of your online small business and helps to personalize you to your customers and keep your customers in touch with what's going on with your small business. Getting noticed is paramount to the survival of your online small business.

So, what do you do?

Well, just like your website you need links to help you get noticed and, most importantly, to help with search engine optimization. Search engines love blogs because they are filled with so much text. So, they crawl all over them and while doing so they follow the links from one blog to another. You want you blog to be one of those links.

It has been customary for bloggers for a long time to add the name and URL of other blogs that they like to the sidebar of their blogs. Bloggers just love to jump from one blog to another and the link on the sidebar provides the opportunity to easily do so. This also provides customers with the ability to check out other blogs as well.

So, how do you get linked with other blogs?

Well, just like with websites you can email other bloggers and ask if they'll exchange text links with you, join blog communities, join blog link exchanges, or join blog linking services like "Blogrolling."

Emailing other bloggers is a nice way to establish communication with other like minded bloggers and helps you with networking within your field of interest.

Blog communities are springing up all over the web and provide for a linking of blog URL's via their widgets. The widgets are small snippets of HTML code that you add to the sidebar of your blog and contain links back to other member's blogs, the bloggers avatar, etc. This is also another great way to network with other bloggers.

Blog link exchanges usually require their members to visit other members blogs in exchange for points. The more blogs you visit the more points you earn and they more often your blog is displayed for other bloggers to visit.

The blog linking service providers make linking easy by providing you with the ability to easily add the URL of a blog that you like to the sidebar of your blog. They do not, however, link your blog URL to the blog that you like. It's a one way link which according to some SEO experts is also good for search engine optimization.

Personally, I prefer an email exchange of links. I love to blog hop and if I find a blog that I like I will leave a comment so the blogger knows that I visited their blog. If I like their blog then I might add a link to their blog on the sidebar of my blog and I might ask them if they want to exchange links with me. If I like their blog and establish a relationship with them I may just refer someone to it.

Just like in the business world word of mouth is important. In the blogging world word of mouth is a text link on the sidebar. It says that the blogger likes your blog and is recommending it to their readers and/or customers.

Word of mouth is paramount for a small business and is why I prefer an email exchange of links over blog communities, blog link exchanges, and blog linking service providers. The latter three are very useful for exposure, but to me personalization, which is why you are blogging in the first place, is crucial. It doesn't get more personal than word of mouth.

So, the long and short of it is that blogrolls are very important for blog exposure. Which way you choose to blogroll is entirely up to you.

"Tips From the Blogging Queen" Column 18 Definition - "Dooced"

This is having lost a job because of entries posted to a blog. Be sure to tune in to my TFTBQ Column 19 "Will You Get Dooced?"