Entries Tagged 'Blogging' ↓

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Seth’s Blog: The internal blog

What a great idea.  This could be something to track all of your thoughts…similar to what I am doing here.  Maybe track expenses and meetings.

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I have been stressing the move to Bluehost for about the past month.  I have been digging up everywhere looking for the answer.  Cheryl has started playing with WP.org and offer some advice…ALL THE ADVICE HAS BEEN VERY HELPFUL, but it didn’t answer my the specific question I had in my mind…Ya See, here was the situation…I spent soo much time on my wordpress.com blog and google was loving it, Everyone was reading my blog via readers, and accessing it through my domain http://focusonfrederick.com/  My domain was a part of Wordpress.com.  My mind was racing…how do I get this over to Bluehost without disrupting service and risk losing my google juice.  I first ran a couple test blogs on Bluehost, but I never took that last step…make the change to the domain!!!  Well, it turns out…that is the first thing you do and the rest falls into place…whew!!!  So here you go:

1. On your wordpress blog (you can move others here too) go to manage
   1. Click export 
   2. Save this xml file on your hard drive (remember where you put it)
2. Move Nameserver to bluehost on your godaddy domain.  You can click either one to change it.
3. In cPanel goto manage domains 
   1. Create Addon Domain
   2. This is your domain with godaddy
   3. Get EPP code from godaddy 
   4. Paste it in the space & hit verify.
   5. Close that new window if you aren’t transferring the domain
   6. Scroll to the bottom click accept or ok.  (I forget what this says because at the time I created a ticket for my “problem” The problem was me.)
   7. Verify that your domain was just created as an addon domain.
4. Now go to your cPanel and find Fantastico De Luxe 
   1. You will see Wordpress on the left hand side
   2. Click New Installation
   3. Pick your domain
   4. Follow the instructions for creating your account
   5. Now you are set
5. Open a new browser window and type in your URL.  You should see a generic looking blog.
6. On the bottom right you will see the admin link.
   1. Click on it and sign in with the name you used in the set up with Fantastico
   2. Bookmark this page.  This is how you will go back into it.
   3. It looks just like your wordpress.com panel with some changes.
   4. Click manage and then import this time
   5. Browse for your file.  The one you saved in the 1st step.
   6. Wahlah… you have all of your post and comments
7. Now you have to set up your themes and widgets.  That will be a different post
8. All of your pictures will be links to your old blog…so don’t delete your old blog until you transfer all of your pictures.  Otherwise leave it up.

The process was pretty painless (20/20 hindsight)  If you don’t have an outside blog yet, I would suggest Wordpress.com as a place to start.   If you already have an outside blog, I suggest Bluehost.com as a place to host it.  There is a lot of bundled up software in there…I will have to figure it out and get back to you.  (like photo gallery software to create your own gallery website) See below for more information.

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Wikipedia saysA blog (a portmanteau of web log) is a website where entries are written in chronological orderand commonly displayed in reverse chronological order. “Blog” can also be used as a verb, meaning to maintain or add content to a blog.

Webster Dictionary says: Pronunciation: ‘blog, ‘bläg
Function: noun
Etymology: short for Weblog
: a Web site that contains an online personal journal with reflections, comments, and often hyperlinks provided by the writer
- blog·ger noun
- blog·ging noun

I don’t maintain my website now, why do I need anther website? This is the wave of real estate as it stands today. Blogging is great for Google. The first place I would recommend is Active Rain. This is where you can start understanding what Blogging is all about. Active Rain members are the best for support and knowledge.

I would challenge you to open your new account with Active Rain using the link below to get started. If you already have a profile created, I want you to go to BLOGS at the top of the screen. Then click on Most Subscribed. These folks are there for a reason, they write good stuff!!! I want you to comment on 10 blogs a day. You don’t have to comment on just their blogs, you can see on the left side of the screen. All the blogs as they are created are posted here. Be the first to comment on their material. They might be new to this just like you.

This will help you adjust to this new machine. I call it a machine because you have to constantly oil it, fine tune it and tend to it on a regular basis. As you find friends here, you will soon become addicted to its power. The addiction is for the points, the google ranking, the most comments, the quest for the coveted Gold Star… Once you get bit you can’t stop. When you get that first phone call or email from another agent with a referral or an actual customer…you are completely done. This is why you do this.

While Active Rain is a safe place to blogand a place to find your “voice,” you may want to start your own business blog with your own domain name. You can start a free or a relatively cheap blog at a few different locations;

• Blogspot.com - Free

• Wordpress.com - Free

• Wordpress.org - Fee

• Typepad.com - Fee

• MovableType.com - Free & Fee

• MySpace.com (not just for kids) Free

Now that you have got your feet wet…What next? Just like anything else, create a plan. When will you blog? What will you write about? Not sure, that’s why I want you to do your homework on the other blogs. You will find information about Photography, Horse, pets, life’s little problems, Real Estate Marketing, Mortgage News, Title Fraud, Finding Buyers, and the list goes on… Whatever you want…it’s YOUR voice!

Did you notice how the other blogs looked? Everyone’s first reaction when they start a blog is to copy and paste everything from their website or god forbid someone else’s website. BIG NO-NO. Lenn Harley will hunt you down if you steal her maps. Copyright infringements are against the law. But not only that…no one will read your stuff. Seriously, you can spot “canned” articles a mile away. Your consumers are going to want to hear from you, about you and what you know.

Were they pleasing to the eyes? No wall of words, useful links, pictures and graphics. Add photos to spruce up the post. DON”T steal them off the internet!!! You can buy clipart or subscribe to sites that offer photos. We’ll talk more about all the details later.

For Now…go get your feet wet!!!

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If you follow Cheryl Johnson or Kristal Kraft(whenever she writes here again…KK did your google alert go off yet?), you have seen the uses of Screen Capture or Screen Prints.  They usually use Snagit.  Everyone using a PC with windows has a screen capture program built-in.  (MAC Users I am sure have something more elaborate than this…write your own post Turner!!! :-)) The “Prnt Scrn” button will work for you.  By pushing that button you now have captured a copy of the whole screen.  You can paste that into any MS program like Word or Publisher, etc.  If you need to doctor it up, you can paste into  Paint to modify it.  (Crop and write text on it)  Save it and use it in any program as a picture.  Let say you don’t want the whole screen but only one window.  Click on the window to activate it and Push ALT+Prnt Scrn and this will only copy the active window not the whole screen (providing the active window isn’t the whole screen)

If you read my post before, you know I like FREE.  Especially Free Software.  I usually get it at the Give-Away-Of-The-Day (today is a Photo to Film Software)  I picked up along the way a program called TNT Screen capture.  I used it to capture the finger on the keyboard and the Snag It picture.  It has built in feature like the Print Screen but you can also adjust what you what you really want instead of the whole screen.  It will also add nifty little features like torn corners or rounded, shadows, etc.  You can add pictures and arrows to this also right in the program and save it for use in a blog post or marketing material to show off a feature of your website.

Since I have become addicted to Flickr, I have found another FREE program offered by them called Flickr and Webimager.  It is not as fancy as the other two, but you don’t have to send to another program to crop it.  It will let you take what you want.  You can save directly to your harddrive or straight to your Flickr Account.  They have plenty of third party software for you to manage your photos.

Short and sweet…Just a couple of programs to help you get your point across with illustrations.

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Of course, this isn’t something new if you have checked out Kristal Kraft’s blogs before.  She has a camera phone photo blog.  I thought this was really cool.  I tried finding a post explaining this since she is the “unofficial tech support” and found nothing.  I checked Tool Boy’s Blog for information since he knows all of the gadgets, but nothing.  I thought, how can you email a post to your blog?   I am new to all of this blogging stuff and my idle time is spent reading the master bloggers like Kristal Kraft, Teresa Boardman and Jeff Turner.    There are plenty others, but I just don’t have enough hours in a day to read them all.  (You are probably wondering, why in the heck do you need a camera phone blog in the first place?)  Well it helps with your blogging addiction… a quick fix when you start to shake.  And also, when you’re bored hanging out somewhere your wife drags you and want to be productive or atleast creative, you can tap out a quick post.

I dug around and found out that you couldn’t do email post directly with Wordpress.com but there is a work around in Flickr.  In your Flickr account (create one if you don’t have one yet) Under account settings is the “email” tab.  There, Flickr will allow you to create a photo upload email address AND a blog email address.  It will walk you through the steps to marry your blog and flickr accounts.  I created a new blog just for photos like Kristal.  So, now when I am sitting around doing nothing, I can do two things, snap off some photos and send them to my Flickr account or blog about it on my Wordpress Blog.  Either way the photo is stored on your Flickr account.  If you decide to blog about one of your pictures later, there is a “Blog This” button above each picture in Flickr.  You will be able to post directly from Flickr.

Here again to help me with my mobile craving.  I found out that Wordpress.com has a mobile version and yes you can post from your internet capable phone.  You just have to goto http://m.wordpress.com  Flickr offers the samething… just go to http://m.flickr.com  Both fit on your screen nicely and are very functional.

Hope this helps you get your blogging fix…I am sure it will mine.

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