Technorati for my Blog

I just pointed one of my other blogs to a Custom Domain today. Now, I have to start all over again, building Page Rank, lowering my Alexa score, increasing my authority in Technorati. If I had known I could use my own domain back in the beginning of the year when I really started using that blog, I would have done it then. Of course, that means I would have had to come up with a good domain name back then, and who knows what I would have come up with.

I ended up using www.alwaysbcmom.com, and while I was updating my Technorati Profile and claiming that blog - even though it's the same blog as before - I realized that I hadn't added this one. So now I'm doing it. I really like Technorati. It's a great way of keeping track of who links to you, if you care about things like that. I do. I think it's fun to see who is linking to me and then being able to visit them.

Learn Firefox

I finally downloaded and installed the Read it Later extension I mentioned earlier. After I downloaded, installed, and restarted Firefox, I got a box asking me to drag the 'read later' and 'reading list' buttons to my toolbar. I hit OK, and it opened a box for me, but I didn't see those buttons to drag. I ended up closing the box, and then I couldn't figure out how I got it. I finally figured it out - right-click on the toolbar, and select 'Customize' - so that was pretty easy. When I reopened it, the buttons I was looking for were there. I simply dragged them to the toolbar, and they are waiting for me to use them.

Somehow I found this page that explained it all. I'm looking through the pages I was on, and I still can't figure out how I got there. One of these days I am going to keep track of my path through the Web. It would be quite interesting. I did pay attention to the main site that this page is a part of, and I think it should be quite useful. It's called Learn Firefox, and it's a visual guide to the Firefox browser. I just jumped in, downloaded, and started using the browser, but I don't think it can hurt to go back and see if there's something I can use here. For instance, there's a page here called Rearrange the Order of Your Tabs. I wish I had read this earlier, because I was using Firefox for ages, and loving the tabs, before I realized I could rearrange my tabs.

Learn Firefox has different categories such as themes, extensions, bookmarks, news, and more. It's nicely organized and easy to read, and it just might help you learn something you didn't know about Firefox.

DVD Copy Software

I was reading the comments for today's Giveaway of the Day, which is a DVD copy program. There was a lot of discussion about the legalities and illegalities of copying DVDs. However, I believe that, if I have a copy of a movie on DVD, then I should have the right to make a backup copy of it. Disney has a program that lets you register your DVDs, so that, if anything happens to them, you can get a replacement, for a nominal fee of $6.95. It's not free, but it is cheaper than you can usually go out and buy the DVD in the store. I don't know that any other DVDs can be registered and protected that way, so having a backup seems to be a very good idea. We already do it with all of our music CDs so we don't have to carry the originals in the car.

In the comments on the Giveaway of the Day program, several people mentioned DVDFab as good DVD Copy software that is always available for free. So, if you miss today's Giveaway of the Day, and you have some DVDs you'd like to backup, you can try this. I think I'm going to try the one from Giveaway of the Day, just because today is the only day I can get it for free. If I don't like it, I can always go back and and download DVDFab.

Design and Layout for Your Site

#2 from the list I mentioned before, 75 Ways to Increase Your Site's Traffic is:

2. Have a good design and layout. If your site or blog’s design is messy, sloppy, hard to navigate, a rainbow of colors that don’t match or are hard on the eye, or full of errors, you will instantly go down the drain.

We certainly don't want to go down the drain, do we? I keep an eye out for nice looking blogs and websites. When I find one, I look to see if I can find out where they found that design. Some people pay to have a professional design their site. I'm cheap, and I look for the free designs and layouts. I know they say you get what you pay for, but I have found quite a few very nice FREE layouts.

1. FinalSense.com, where I found the layout for this blog, has some really nice ones with all kinds of themes.
2. Blogskins, layouts and designs of all kinds. Not all of them are good as far as being easy to read, but there seems to be something for everyone.
3. Pyzam also has a whole bunch of free Blogger templates. The hard part is picking one.

Once you find a layout you like, it doesn't hurt to know a little html and css so you can tweak it and make it yours. Just watch that rainbow of colors!

Comment Pop-Ups

For a while now, I've had problems with the comment pop-ups on Blogger. If someone has selected 'show comments in a popup window' in their blog settings, whenever anyone clicks on the comments link, it opens a pop-up window with all the comments and the comment form. While I don't know why someone would want this option, it wouldn't cause a problem, except - the pop-up window is this tall, skinny box. It can't be resized or maximized, and only about three words show up on each line. Actually trying to type a comment in? Practically impossible. If word verification has been enabled? Completely impossible, because none of the letters can even be seen, let alone typed into the box.

Now, I'm not willing to go away without commenting, so there must be a way to get around this. Yes, there is. First, I mouse over the comments link. If the link ends in 'Popup=true' I right-click and select 'Open Link in New Tab'. Then I go to that new tab to submit my comment. It opens full size, and I can read all the comments and type my comment in easily.

Now, if someone can explain to me why so many pop-ups, and not just in Blogger, are popping up in such strange sizes, I would really appreciate it.

Where Do You Host Your Images?

That was the question in a forum I visited the other day. Since I haven't settled on any one place or service to host my blogging images, I was interested in what people had to say. Several people mentioned Photobucket and ImageShack. I had heard of both of those, but there was a new one I hadn't heard of called Shareapic.

I started using Photobucket recently when Yahoo discontinued their photo hosting so they could focus on Flickr. One of the options they gave me was to transfer the photos I had on Yahoo Photos to Photobucket, so I took them up on it. I haven't been too disappointed with Photobucket except for the time I was trying to use one of my images as a background for my blog. No matter what I did, it just didn't look right. Then I realized Photobucket had resized the image when I uploaded it, so it wouldn't work the way it was supposed to. One of my favorite things on Photobucket is that I can add an image I find on the Internet without downloading it to my computer first.

I've never used ImageShack, though I have seen their logo around the Internet. You know the one I'm talking about - the little yellow 'bandwidth exceeded' frog that takes the place of the image you really want to see. It doesn't give me much faith in the service. I'd be worried that an essential image wouldn't be available all the time. If you've had good results with ImageShack, go ahead and let me know.

The image hosting I hadn't heard of was one called Shareapic. This one sounds really promising, so I ran over and signed up. They say you can upload unlimited pictures with no size restrictions. They also say they'll pay you when other people view your pictures. Hopefully that means no 'bandwidth exceeded' messages. They also claim one click posting to Blogger, Xanga, MySpace, and more. It sounds like I should be able to use this for all of my blogs. Why no image here? Well, I haven't figured out exactly how it works yet, but I will.

What Browser Do You Use?

I've been using Firefox for quite a while now. Before that I used Netscape, and I still use it when I need to create or edit a web page. I'm linking to the Netscape Browser Archive because, when they came out with version 8, I think, it was just a browser. I like the complete Netscape package - browser, email, and composer. Those people who never create or edit a web page don't need the composer, so they don't really miss it. I haven't upgraded since version 7.1, and I probably won't. I appreciate that they keep the older versions available here so that you can download and install the version that meets your needs.

I know there are people who use that browser that comes with their Windows operating system, but I refuse to use it. There are a few times I have to open it to see what a web page looks like in IE, but I even try to avoid that. Usually I can assume that, no matter how nice the page might look in any other browser, it is going to be messed up in IE. I don't know why that is, but it irritates me to no end, and I usually don't know how to fix it.

In Firefox, I have the IE Tab extension installed so that I can check things, without opening that other browser. That's pretty handy. There are over a thousand useful add-ons for Firefox, making it easy to customize your browser and make it do what you want. Usually I just start browsing and installing the ones that interest me, but today I found this list of the Best Firefox Extensions - compiled and broken down into categories. Each one has a brief description of the extension and what it does, and the link to download it. Instead of having to browse through endless extensions trying to find the right ones, you might appreciate starting with this list. I'll be going through it to see what great extensions I've missed and don't have yet.

Also, in the future, I will be listing my favorite extensions here, too. Maybe I like some that haven't made this list.