Comments on: Building a Better Blog

By: Some Interesting Articles … « Jessica's Genejournal

Some Interesting Articles … « Jessica's Genejournal — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 23:53:09 +0000

[...] “Building a Better Blog” at the same blog as above [...]

By: Liane

Liane — Tue, 01 Apr 2008 01:33:31 +0000

I believe in the same points. I always think that turning feeds to short is really cheap especially if the blog updates are low.

I was really telling some of my blogger friends the same thing. Good post!

By: Bronwyn Klimach

Bronwyn Klimach — Mon, 25 Feb 2008 13:08:31 +0000

Hi Donna,
I have just gone back and saved your image – it shows up as a Bitmap Image, size 446 KB (457,654 bytes) when saved direct from the blog page, or 19.4 MB (20,365,312 bytes) after clicking on the image! I don’t THINK I am doing anything unusual with it – saving it as a bitmap is the only option I am given. However I have to confess to not understanding many of the workings/settings of public library computers (I’m in the UK).
Images I save from Steve Danko’s blog come up as jpegs.
I found the “Can Your Grandparents Teach You About Love?” article most interesting – thank you for sharing it.
I’m hoping more Polish records come your way and you are happy to show them!!
Bronwyn.

By: Apple

Apple — Sun, 24 Feb 2008 18:06:24 +0000

Hi Donna,

The IBC was created by a web-bot so I really didn’t think there was much concern for genealogy bloggers. Seems I was wrong! With my content I’m still not going to shorten my feed but I will be monitoring my content to see where it turns up.

Kathryn,
Could you send the url for your scraper? You say she is creating sites for all 50 states and this really worries me.

fallnappl at aim dot com

By: Kathryn Doyle

Kathryn Doyle — Sun, 24 Feb 2008 04:06:42 +0000

Apple and Donna,

I haven’t heard the term “scraper” before but I was the victim of one just this week. She claims that she was “trying to provide another avenue for genealogy researchers to get the information” and not stealing my content. She has taken all of my posts off (which were her only content) and has replaced them with mostly newspaper matter and she has started including the sources of her material. She seems intent on creating “Genealogy Headlines” sites for all 50 states. I’m off to change my blogger settings to shorten my feed. Thanks, both of you, for educating me.

By: djpoint

djpoint — Sat, 23 Feb 2008 02:16:24 +0000

Apple,

Thanks for your comments. Good points – I obviously hadn’t thought of that!

Donna

By: Apple

Apple — Fri, 22 Feb 2008 20:56:08 +0000

Three reasons why you may want to shorten your feed.

1. It encourages comments because people have to actually visit your page.

2. If they actually visit your page they see whatever you have on your page that is not picked up by your feed.

3. Scrapers use your feed to steal your posts and repost them as their own.

I have have shortened my feed on my garden blog because of the scraping issue. I use full feeds on my other blogs. Just some other thoughts.

By: djpoint

djpoint — Fri, 22 Feb 2008 18:19:27 +0000

Bronwyn,

I thought I did upload it as a jpeg. I don’t even have the record on my computer as a bitmap, so I’m not sure how it could have shown up as one! I always upload images as jpegs since they are smaller.

Donna

By: Bronwyn Klimach

Bronwyn Klimach — Fri, 22 Feb 2008 16:14:16 +0000

Donna,
I always enjoy seeing people like you and Steve Danko publishing records from Poland (in Polish or Cyrillic) with translations to help me improve my own – thank you.
I wish I could pretend to understand today’s article on blogging, but alas I do not. I am however rather perplexed by your publishing the birth entry in yesterday’s posting as a bitmap rather than a jpeg or other smaller file. Am I missing something here that is easy for you to explain?

By: djpoint

djpoint — Fri, 22 Feb 2008 15:23:11 +0000

Hi, Lisa,

I started blogging with Blogger for my Gene Kelly site and I really like it because it’s so easy to use and has a lot of great features. When I wanted to start this blog, I choose WordPress for two reasons: 1) the ability to have “pages” for static information without having them reside on another server, and 2) several variations of the “What’s Past is Prologue” name were already taken at Blogger! I thought the page feature would be useful to show my genealogy writing as well as put up family information for each of the surnames I am searching (which I haven’t done yet).

While I think WordPress is easy to use as well, I think I enjoy Blogger more. Unless you host your WordPress blog elsewhere (other than on wordpress.com), you are unable to use Google Analytics, any script on the page, and you’re not allowed to use affiliate advertising sites such as Amazon.com. I didn’t know that when I started on WordPress (I guess I didn’t read the fine print). On my other blog, using Google Analytics provides much more information on visitors – where they come from, what search terms they used to find you – that WordPress’s “cheap” version of Google Analytics. Just in terms of posting, etc, both are about the same but I find Blogger slightly more “user friendly”.

Thanks for commenting!
Donna