What It Takes to Have A Good Video Blog

Hi, time to relax, I should say thanks to YouTube. Happen to view this video on "How to make Popular/good video blogs on youtube". Well I think it is fun, but I am not a girl....(click on the link on the title to view the viedo). Enjoy friends!

TRUTH or DARE

Truth or Dare, Episode 2

Host by Flying Dutchman, this programme is about blogging.Telecast 31 Oct.Place you mouse on the title to know more.

How To Clean Up Blogger Side Bar

We tent to be carried away by putting eye-catching banners, external links and icons on blogger sidebar.

It is very easy to clean up your sidebar,if you are using a Blogger template. It makes viewing easy and it may give a smooth look.

Standard Blogger template is designed in Cascading Style Sheets (CSS). You can use an external source to re-design blogger template, but it is not necessary. You will be working on line with the blogger template.

Knowing the width of the sidebar is very important.Items that are bigger than the sidebar will not fix well in it. Therefore, knowing this information is crucial. Inserting an image bigger than the width of sidebar will make your sidebar appear on the bottom of your page instead of being parallel to your post.

To find the width of your sidebar is a little tricky as CSS style codes differ from one template designer to another. You need go to the template tab, and if X does mark the spot, you will be able to get your sidebar width by entering Control F on your keypad and using "sidebar" as the search word. The first match should be sidebar-wrapper (or a variation) and about 2 or 3 lines underneath it, you should find 250px (example). Most sidebar widths are about 200px - 275px.

Remember, your sidebar by itself, already contain a pre-set sections such as profile, links, and archives. To add more sections, you will need to copy starting from

<div>to</div>
When you make changes to your template, I suggest you do a preview, before you chose to save it. Alternatively you can save the template right after the changes, if you like it.You are editing on line, save after changes before preview may result in not getting the old template back.

SOME SUGGESTION FOR A NEAT ORGANIZING OF YOUR SIDEBAR~

Use a good font size and color for clarity and readability.

To create a line below an entry or image
<hr size="1" color="#e6e6fa">
Size determines how thick your line is. You can change 1 to any number. To change the color, you can enter the new color codes between # and ">. You can visit this color hex hub to get the color codes -
http://www.december.com/html/spec/color.html

Use the smallest bookmarklet button 16x16 instead of the 80x15. Change your standard sidebar header into something more funky and bold. You can pick up some free fonts at
http://www.fontface.com/fonts/a.html

Match the background color of your Google Adsense to your sidebar background color. It just makes for better reading and creates a seamless look.
Align your content properly. <p align="center">align center</p>
<p align="left">align left</p>
<p align="right">align right</p>

Get rid of the Add-To RSS Buttons. I've seen blogs that have 20+ RSS bookmarklets! Get yourself a Feedburner account and it will let your visitor save your feed into the service that they prefer.

Google Adsense for Search - make sure you adjust the length of the text box before you cut and paste to your sidebar. If you keep the default of 31 characters, it might not fit a standard blogger template sidebar.

Maintain a good proportion of your blog posts to your sidebar. You can minimize the amount of posts that appears on the of Blog by going to the Setting Tabs.
Create a border around your sidebar sections / content
<div style="border: 1 dashed #e6e6fa"> sidebar header </div>
<ul style="border: 1 single #e6e6fa"> sidebar content</ul>

You can change the size of the border by substituting another number. The appearance of the border can also be changed to dashed, single, inset, outset, double and ridge. Color can also be changed.

Blogger Categories: Easy Method

With Compliment to Blogger Tips and Tricks

How to Add Categories, the easy method

---

Here is a very easy method to do categories using del.icio.us tag rolls. If you are not familiar with del.icio.us, surf over to Introduction to del.icio.us. It is much easier than the method outlined in Blogger categories: A simple method. You don't even have to write the HTML. The script will be generated by del.icio.us software. An example of categories using this method can be seen at this blog Natural Remedies. The steps are as follows:

• Sign up for a del.icio.us account. Even if you already have a del.icio.us account, sign up for another one with a different user name.
• Log into your del.icio.us account
• Tag each of your post with a suitable tag or category. For example, see Natural Remedies
• Open your "My del.icio.us" homepage. This would be easiest if you are using Firefox. Click on the My del.icio.us button.
• At the "My del.icio.us" homepage, at the top right-hand corner, click HELP, then under BLOG INTEGRATION, click TAG ROLLS (or go directly to http://del.icio.us/help/tagrolls). You will then see a page like in the screenshot below

• Adjust the size, max font, min font to the size you desired. (When you are adjusting the size, make sure that all the tags are included as if you set the size too small, some of the tags may be left out.) If you wish, alter the color of the fonts to blend with your website. Clicking on the color square will unveil a color palette from which you can select your color. Or even better, download Color Pic to determine the correct color from your website.
• If you wish, change the TITLE to something more suitable. I suggest CATEGORIES. Uncheck the icon box if you don't want the del.icio.us icon to be displayed.
• Select whether you want to sort alphabetically or by frequency.
• Select whether you want the tags displayed as a list or as a cloud
• Tick tag counts if you want the number of tags shown
• Highlight the script generated in the box below, copy and paste it into your template in a suitable position. I suggest pasting it after <$BlogMemberProfile$> which will display the categories just after the profile in the sidebar.
• Preview, and if you are satisfied, save and republish.

Visit my Other Blog about Cool Spouse Million of MP3 Songs For Download

---

Blogs and blogging: advantages and disadvantages

With Compliment to Gerry McGovern

Isn’t it interesting that some of the most significant ‘revolutions’ of the last twenty years have all had to do with writing? How retro is that? First we had email, then webpages, then mobile phone texting, and now blogs. All this reflects a trend whereby the world is becoming more formal in how it communicates. Instead of body language and endless conversations, communication has shifted towards endless words on a screen.

Bloggers are people with attitude. They say there’s a book inside everybody. Well, the Web and blogs have let the book out! There has literally been an explosion of opinion. Traditionally, public relations was about honing a silvery message that communicated exactly what the organization wanted us to hear. Now, we can hear all sorts of voices on the subject. It’s true democracy at work. The advantages of blogs from an organizational perspective include the following:
1. The consumer and citizen are potentially better informed and this can only be good for the long-term health of our societies and economies.
2. Blogs have potential to help the organization develop stronger relationships and brand loyalty with its customers, as they interact with the ‘human face’ of the organization through blogs.
3. Blogs, in an intranet environment, can be an excellent way of sharing knowledge within the organization.
4. Blogs can be a positive way of getting feedback, and keeping your finger on the pulse, as readers react to certain pieces, suggest story ideas, etc.
5. Blogs can build the profile of the writer, showcasing the organization as having talent and expertise.

The disadvantages of blogs are:

1. Most people don’t have very much to say that’s interesting, and/or are unable to write down their ideas in a compelling and clear manner.
2. I have often found that the people who have most time to write have least to say, and the people who have most to say don’t have enough time to write it. Thus, the real expertise within the organization lays hidden, as you get drowned in trivia.
3. Like practically everything else on the Web, blogs are easy to start and hard to maintain. Writing coherently is one of the most difficult and time-consuming tasks for a human being to undertake. So, far from blogs being a cheap strategy, they are a very expensive one, in that they eat up time. As a result, many blogs are not updated, thus damaging rather than enhancing the reputation of the organization.
4. Organizations are not democracies. The Web makes many organizations look like disorganizations, with multiple tones and opinions. Contrary to what some might think, the average customer prefers it if the organization they are about to purchase from is at least somewhat coherent.

There’s money in words; real value, real worth. I’m not a blogger but I do have this newsletter and I can tell you that these 500 or so words that I publish every week have seen a major return on investment for me.

As an individual, I would highly recommend that you have some sort of publishing strategy, whether it be a blog, newsletter, writing articles for magazines, website or whatever. This is an age where you will build your professional reputation word by word. Start off by finding something people care about and that you care about.

Visit my Other Blog about Cool Spouse Million of MP3 Songs For Download

---

To Be A Successful Blogger

What I think of a Successful Blogger

Good Content

Content have to be interesting and relevant to your audience, in order for your blog to work. It is not difficult to write, provided you are on a lookout for new thing to write. It could be your personal experience, news, product updates, interviews, personal insights into topics of importance to your target audience.

Frequent Updating

Often updating of your blog will lead to increase of visit to your blog. But friendly speaking, I sometime find that I do not have time to post new item. No post mean no coming back audiende.Like reading newspaper, daily people are looking for news to read. Post often and your audience will keep coming back. And regularly adding fresh content to your blog also gives you a boost in the search engine rankings.

Your own Expression

It's important that you write things that express your own expression. A blog is no place for formality and corporate speak. It's more of a forum... a place where ideas can flourish, and topics of current interest can be debated. You don't even need to be a brilliant writer... you just need to be able to relate to your audience and give them good content.

Changing the Look of the Template

Working with blogger template is fun !

Different Blog with different Profiles

Most Bloggers have more than one blogs. Likly that the blogs are created in the same account, and all of them having same profile. The good news is that you canhave different profiles for different blogs, this is what you can do. It would be easy if you have more than one browser otherwise, you will have to log in and log out a few times depending on how many blogs you are doing it. This is especially true for those using Blogger Beta.

Now, back to the topic. To get your blogs into different account:

1. Start a new Blogger Account with a different email address from your original account.
2. Open a different browser (if you want to use the same browser, you will have to sign out)
3. In the new browser, sign into your original Blogger account (Dashboard).
4. Select the blog you want to be in the new account.
5. Click the SETTINGS > MEMBERS tabs
6. Click "Add Team Member/s"
7. Enter the email address that you used for the new Blogger Account in the New User(s).
8. Go back to the previous browser. Sign into the email address referred to in no. 7
9. Look for the invitation. Accept the invitation.
10. Go back to the browser where you have the original Blogger account and the blog in which you want to be in the new account. In the MEMBERS setting, you should see a new member. Make him an administrator (be very sure of doing this).
11. Go back to the first browser and get into your new Blogger account and confirm that the blog is in your Dashboard.
12. Now that you are sure things have worked out, in your original Blogger account and the relevant blog, in the MEMBERS setting, remove yourself as a member.

Now you should have 2 blogs in two different Blogger account and you can set different profiles for the 2 blogs. And if you are using 2 different browsers, you can be logged into both at the same time

Visit my Other Blog about Cool Spouse Million of MP3 Songs For Download

---

How to Change Date and Time of Your Post

Click "Post and Comment Options" to display the tags. If you want to change the order of display of your posts, the only way to do it is to play around with the dates and time.

Visit my Other Blog about Cool Spouse Million of MP3 Songs For Download

---

WHY BLOG

Why Blog? You May Ask

---

Why Blog ? It is the best way to build some thing that you want to express. Blog allow you to express it professionally online. Get connected with the people who matter Blog to find a new friends and to write about the thing you have. Blog to broadcast news to the world or to share your individual passion. Use a blog as a business tool to engage with your customers or to find new ones. To start and maintain a blog is easy You don’t need to be an IT staff or a degree in computer science to start a blog. Designing a blog is as easy as ABC, and updating your blog is simply point and click.You can be up and running like lightning. Blogger is a free Use blog as an alternative to website or email newsletter. No need to spend money on design and web hosting.Blogger provide you with great-looking templates, to start off with nice looking blog. Visit my Other Blog about Cool Spouse Million of MP3 Songs For Download

---

SETTINGS

I Guess You Have No Problem With the Posting Tag and Its Sub Menu Next Is the "SETTINGS" Tag and Its Sub Menu

---

Let take a look on the Settings tag. At the Dashboard panel, click on your blog title that you want to update. Then click at the Settings tag. We called the "Settings tag" the main menu and the rest below in blue wordings, we named it sub-menu or the Eight Wonders of Blogger. Those in the Sub-menu are, "Basic", "Publishing", "Formatting", "Comments", "Archiving", "Site Feed", "Email" and "Members". These are all the little little parts that control the beauty of your blog. You have to plays with all the sub-menu to understand how it works. Blogger make it very simple for you by putting a "?" as help for you. If you need more information you can click on the "?" to know more. I suggest that you take some time to explore the Eight wonders of Bloggers. You may found out more than I know. Please share it with me, if you happen to find some gold over at the eight wonders. Visit my Other Blog about Cool Spouse Million of MP3 Songs For Download

---

SHOULD TEACHERS BLOG?

Hi, this article appeared in today (1/10) Sunday Times. Please read.. Should teachers blog? Oct 1, 2006 While indiscriminate venting undermines the authority of colleagues, some say blogs can act as a support network By Nur Amira Abdul Karim WHEN her principal shouted at three teachers in the school hall as they arrived 15 minutes late on a rainy day, Ms Jeannie Yap kept silent even though she was seething with rage. But the 29-year-old, who has since quit teaching, gave vent to her emotions online. On her blog, she slammed her principal for being unreasonable and also recounted incidents when the 'uninspiring, unmotivated leadership' had no qualms about using words like 'stupid' and 'donkey' on the students. She also wrote that the school was 'extremely political' and was run like a 'sweat shop that broke the confidence of students'. Asked about her blog, she said: 'I wrote those things in my blog to help me detox. I was working 10-hour days and interacting with people who disgrace the education system while trying to hold myself together so that I could do my best for my students.' Although she withheld details about the school and teachers, her blog entries about her life as a teacher attracted an average of 300 hits a day. Technorati.com, which tracks blogs worldwide, lists more than 800 teacher blogs. The figures may not tell all since the website tracks only those who have attached Technorati tags to their blogs. While the rising popularity of the medium is certain, what's being questioned is the right or wrong of it in a profession that expects its teachers to be role models. Blogging about mundane issues is fine, some teachers say, but they draw the line at talking about work. Voicing grievances on a platform easily accessible to students can undermine the authority of fellow teachers or confidence in the school, they say. Mr Shane Kwek, 25, the winner of Stomp's Hot Male Teacher award, alluded to this recently in an interview: 'Blogging tends to get quite personal and the language one uses might get mildly offensive. What fun is blogging if you can't complain about your workmates? If you do complain, the students will get a totally unique and undesirable image of their teachers.' Mr Abdul Hisyam Noh, 27, a secondary school physical education teacher, went so far as to call it 'irresponsible'. He said: 'Your students and colleagues trust that you maintain confidentiality when you interact with them.' The practice came under the spotlight in the United States recently after teachers had to quit or were sacked because of their blogs. According to a report in USA Today, a teacher in Arkansas lost his job after blogging about having to teach a design and technology class without any equipment, while a teacher in Chicago's Fenger High School who blogged about students' wild behaviour in school resigned, fearing for his safety after students figured out who he was. At home, teachers who blog defend themselves, saying they exercise discretion when penning their thoughts. Mostly in their 20s or early 30s, they say they use pseudonyms to maintain anonymity on their blogs. A 28-year-old teacher, who goes by the online moniker Gecko, said: 'I blog as I want to be heard. I blog about social issues mainly and personal issues in very vague terms, leaving out identifying markers, but enough descriptors for myself to register the issues.' He admits to having complained about colleagues but says he discloses the 'barest details'. 'I do not complain about my students - they are, after all, still young, developing lives,' he added. Schools in Singapore do not appear to have an explicit policy on blogging by teachers. Piper, a 20-something secondary school teacher, believes that such a measure is unnecessary. She said: 'It has never been an issue in my school. I think most teachers know what is appropriate and what is not appropriate to blog.' Apart from documenting her trials and tribulations as a teacher, Piper has blogged about sex and moral education as well as the streaming policy. Ms Lim Tze Mien, vice-principal of St Margaret's Secondary School, said that teachers are entitled to blog but should be responsible in expressing their views. She said: 'I think it is appropriate for teachers to blog anonymously if their blog is meant to be a platform for emoting. If they choose to identify themselves or make others in their professional circle identifiable, they should know they are accountable for their opinions and any public impact.' Both Gecko and Piper say their blogs have not drawn flak. And indeed, the two point to blogs as not just a means for catharsis but also a potential support network for fellow teachers. Piper said: 'A lot of teachers who blog link to one another and it forms some sort of informal support group. 'You know you are not the only one facing problems in the classroom, and comments from other teachers can go a long way towards boosting one's self- esteem after a hard day at work.'