Creating a Following with HTML

Spice Up Your Blog with a Dash of Code

From time to time, I get the urge to do something new with my blog. The same thing manifests itself at home with an irresistable desire to rearrange the furniture. Fortunately for the blog (unlike moving furniture), the only heavy lifting involved is learning something new.

Now you code masters are probably laughing your closing tags off at me but I, unlike Al Yankovic, am fluent in neither Klingon nor JavaScript. However, I have picked up a few bits and pieces of HTML which you might find useful too.

How’d I Get Those Follow Buttons at the Top of the Page?

Some time ago, a friend asked me how I put my follow buttons at the top of the blog.

Come to think of it…I’m not sure if I actually sent the directions or totally forgot…sorry Selena! *hangs head in shame*

If you want to add follow buttons to your blog, you can drop them into image widgets and stack them in the sidebar and some WordPress themes have built-in follow buttons at the top of the blog. Of course, if you have a self-hosted site, you can install a social media plugin.

But, with a little code know-how and a lot of copy/paste, you can line up your follow buttons in neat row all by yourself.

Note: instructions for uploading images and using widgets are specific to WordPress. Other blogging platforms may function differently.

You can view the video version of these instructions here.

First, you need to do is find and download the follow buttons that fit your blog and turn them into hyperlinks to your social media sites. I found mine on Webtreats. They have tons of free buttons and icons. This is especially great if you want all your follow buttons to have the same style. Alternatively, you can download the free buttons provided by your social media sites.

Then, you need to upload the images to your Media Library and grab the image URL.

Don’t worry too much about image size as you can resize in the code. You can also edit the image to size (in Paint or some such…can you tell I’m a PC user?) before loading it to Media Library, edit and save the image in an online editor such as Pixlr or edit the image within your Library. If you opt to edit the image in your Media Library, just make sure you grab the updated image URL.

Note: If you edit the image in Paint, the transparent background will be lost. If your blog background is white, this isn’t a big deal but, if you have a dark background, you might want to work in Pixlr.

Next, you want to fire up an online HTML editor. You could use a Word (Open Office, etc) document to work with your code but I like the online editor because you can see each of your changes as it will look on your blog. I like the Real-Time HTML Editor.

One thing to note about the Real-Time editor is that it seems to work great in Chrome but not Firefox (for me anyway). If you try it in your browser and it doesn’t do anything, try Chrome.

You can use the following code to make any one of your follow buttons into a link to your social media.

<a href=”SOCIAL MEDIA LINK HERE” target=”_blank”><img src=”IMAGE URL HERE” width=”38″ height=”38″ border=”0″ />

The SOCIAL MEDIA LINK is the URL for your profile page. If you’re not sure how to grab it, go to your profile page on your social media site and copy the address from the address bar. Facebook is usually http://facebook.com/YourName, Twitter is http://twitter.com/YourID, etc.

The IMAGE URL comes from your Media Library.

You can change the size of the image by changing the number associated with “width” and “height.” You’ll want to keep proportions in mind when you’re working with icons that aren’t square. My Webtreat icons are all square transparent images with the social media symbol in the middle.

You can place several of these codes side by side (one after the other with no spaces) to create a follow button line up.

Here’s how it looks on the “front side” with Facebook, Twitter and StumbleUpon buttons:

Drop the completed code into a Text Widget on your Widgets Dashboard and you’ve got the makings of an epic following.

In the not too distant future, I’m planning to make the follow buttons light up or change on mouseover. When I do, I’ll be sure to share the secret with you.

What do you think? Is this something useful and fun for your blog? Any code wizards out there have suggestions?

Where Can You Find the Best of the Blogosphere?

Image by Shena Pamela on Flickr CC BY-NC-SA 2.0

It’s February. Time for hearts, flowers, chocolate and a ginormous bloggy love-fest.

So, in the time-honored tradition of pimp-and-promote, it’s time to share your very favorite blog posts. What are the best blog posts you’ve seen (new or old)? Share someone else’s and share one of yours.

Note: ginormous bloggy love-fests may be illegal in some states…always follow the law…and always use virus-protection software.

Happy Valentine’s Day!

Do You Talk Too Much?

Muffin finally clears his inbox…only to discover he’s received 562 new messages.
*Image by Cassandra Leigh Gotto on Flickr CC BY-NC 2.0*

Conversations at home. Hollering at the kids. Coaxing the puppy out from under the bed. Phone calls. Work conversations. Email. Texting. Novel writing. Blog writing. Commenting on blogs. Twitter. Facebook.  Email. Email. Email. Text. Text. Text. Phone call. Phone call. Phone call.

All of this technology affords us so many ways to talk to one another. In seconds, we can make a connection with almost anyone anywhere, meeting new people, renewing friendships, reaching out to family, and sharing ourselves with the world. It’s an amazing things.

But with the power to talk to communicate anytime anywhere comes the expectation, from ourselves and others, that we should be available to talk all the time.

Maybe we’ve even become addicted to talking all the time.

What do you think? Do we talk too much? Have we lost the value of quiet time?

Do you ever get to the end of the day and feel like you just talk too much, out loud and in writing? How do we balance all the opportunities for communication with the time we need to just be quiet. What do you do for quiet?

Possibly Probably Related articles

• Smartphone addiction disrupts Canadians’ lives (vancouversun.com)
• Theater Offers ‘Tweet Seats’ To Smart Phone Addicts (huffingtonpost.com)
• Peeling Back the Layers of Modern Communication (tufts.uloop.com)
• Why I am leaving Facebook (roseofeurope.wordpress.com)
• “Technology Addiction” in the Electronic Age: Worldwide Progress or Servitude? (prn.fm)

The CAPTCHAS Are Gonna Get Ya

Do CAPTCHAs Help or Hurt Blogs?

Spam. No, not the kind you might serve with eggs, fried rice or ramen. We’re talking about email and blog spam.

Especially blog spam.

Those pesky automated comments from sites shilling their wares. Folks looking for a backlink without any real contribution to the topic at hand. The saccharine flattery for your genius layout and “certainly distinctive understanding” of the subject, though the subject is never defined in the comment and the same flattery appears for more than one post.

That kind of spam is likely to give you indigestion.

Okay, the other kind might give you indigestion too. But anyway…

What are we to do about it?

The answer for many blogs seems to be CAPTCHAs, those twisted words

you’re required to decipher and type in to prove you’re not a computer. CAPTCHA stands for Completely Automated Public Turing test to tell Computers and Humans Apart.

Oh yeah. Now I can read what it says.

As a blogger, I appreciate the desire to ixnay the amspay, I find them rather irritating as a reader. When I have to squint, stand on my head or repeatedly type in collections of letters that look increasingly like the names of some Lovecraftian beast because my ability to type what I see the first time around seems to have inexplicably failed, I get a wee little bit cranky.

Sure, I keep commenting on blogs regardless of the presence or absence of CAPTCHAs because I do respect another bloggers desire to keep the spam at bay but I can’t say that I always will.

The FuzzyLogic Spam Filter Fur-Point-Oh defends against the sneakiest of spam.

Surely, there’s a better way to best the SpamBeast. The free version of WordPress offers a built-in Akismet Spam Filter that neatly wrangles the spamsters. WordPress.org also offers a free spam filter plugin. It seems likely that other blogging platforms have spam filters either built-in or available as a plugin.

Maybe we don’t need CAPTCHAs to keep our blogs spam free.

In my experience with Aksimet, virtually all spam is detected and collected in a spam folder. I can then delete the comments, save them for when I need a smile or future Gems from the Spam Filter posts. Aksimet alerts me to comments that seem iffy but may be legit and allows me to check comments from new visitors before approving the comment. This does take a little time but not much. Of course, I don’t get hundreds of comments a post either.

As my only experience with spam busting is through the built-in filter on my blog, I’m interested to hear other’s take on the situation.

So what do you think? Do CAPTCHAs work better than spam filters? Do they save valuable time for bloggers that get high traffic? Do CAPTCHAs irritate you as a reader? Enough to stop you from commenting?

Image Attribution (In Order of Appearance):
CAPTCHA Insanity by JillOW, on Flickr CC BY-NC-ND 2.0
DiffAngle by ColKorn1982, on Flickr CC BY-SA 2.0
Kitten vs Hand Wrestling by pinguino, on Flickr CC BY 2.0

Possibly Probably Related articles

• Are You a Human: CAPTCHA Alternative for WordPress (wpjedi.com)
• CAPTCHA-busting service relies on CAPTCHA to block bots (go.theregister.com)
• Civil Rights CAPTCHA Technique Fends Off Spambots with Human Empathy (hothardware.com)
• People, Please! Turn the Captcha off! (heartfeltbalancehandmadelife.com)
• CAPTCHA’s Effect on Conversion Rates (seomoz.org)

Night of the Living ROW

Final ROW80 Check in for Round 2, 2012

Having reached the end of another ROW80, Mortimer decides to take a well-deserved nap.

We’ve reached the end of another round of ROW80. This round, I haven’t been as attentive as I would have liked. Of course, lots of life intervened. But all we can do is all we can do.

My plans for this round:

• Update ROW80 page, for last round and this one: I updated the page at the beginning of the round but it needs another update.
• Spend 15-30 minutes minimum 4 days a week on new novella. I’m working on expanding Postcards from Hell and its sequel, Ants in the Mailbox into a novella. My MIP is on hold for now: For the last month, I’ve tried to catch up with work projects and a big move. I put a hold on writing work until I get settled.

What Do We Do When We Miss the Mark?

Sherry Isaac is over at the Life List Club talking about what happens when we miss our goals. Head on over and check it out!

1999. The year the artist formerly known as Prince asked that we party like.

That summer, chauffeur to soccer games, school dances and babysitting jobs, a familiar beat reverberated in this mother’s minivan. ‘Steal My Sunshine’, a one-hit wonder released by Toronto-based band, Len.

Click here to read more.

Also be sure to check out Jess Witkins’s post on fast drafting and Lara Schiffbauer’s post on not wasting energy on negativity (I know I need to be reminded of that over and over again).

Stay tuned. The Life List Club Milestone Party is coming up in two weeks! And it’s gonna be a whopper because the Life List Club is turning one year old.

Ray Bradbury Lives On

Last week, I was in the throes of the move (the last one for the next 20 years, at least, if I have anything to say about it) and bereft of Internet. Since I rarely bother to turn on the TV (unless it’s to watch Netflix or something from the DVR) and even more rarely bother to pick up a newspaper, I did not hear about the passing of the great Ray Bradbury until last Sunday.

I wonder what Mr. Bradbury would say about our reliance on the digital word. E-books. Blogs. Google News. Yahoo! News. Search engines. Chat boards. Wikipedia. Facebook. Twitter. Books can be burned at the digital word can be altered. While I delight in the digital, I wonder…

The Get Tossed Mashup, Volume 1

As I sit here on this fine Tuesday, I realize it’s high time for another Tuesday Toss-Up Blog Mashup. However, since that’s a lot of “ups” in one title, I decree that the mashup will henceforth be called the Get Tossed Mashup.

So there.

Welcome to the first Get Tossed Mashup. I hope you’ll enjoy the following selections as much as I did…

Sometimes it’s “out of sight, out of mind” and sometimes it’s “absence makes the heart grow fonder.” But which is it when it’s your writing project that you’ve been away from? Natasha McNeely asks, “How Do You Return to a Project After a Break?“

Writing an ensemble can sometimes feel like a case of too many cooks in the kitchen. Jen J. Danna takes a lesson from Joss Whedon and explains How to Write an Ensemble.

The world seems to move faster everyday…maybe too fast. In another Avengers-inspired piece, Marcy Kennedy asks us “Do We Need to be a Little More Old-Fashioned?”

The mighty Bearded One, Chuck Wendig, shares another of his stellar “25 Things” with us in 25 Ways to Earn Your Audience.

Got Dark Tower? Anthony R. Schultz reviews Wizard and Glass by Stephen King.

A great teacher can inspire us to reach for incredible heights. But every once in a (hopefully) rare while, there’s a teacher that makes us want to fake a fever to get out of school. Cynthia Herron shares a difficult experience with a difficult teacher and asks “Can Great Leadership be Faked?“

What can humor do for readers? Margie Lawson guest posts at Jenny Hansen’s, telling us how Humor Hits Hook Readers.

Share the love: Do you have any favorite links or blog posts? Share them in the comments.

Is There a Good Way to Waste Time?

I’m over at the Life List Club blog talking about wasting time and whether (or not) it’s possible to waste time well. Come on over and join the conversation.

Hi-ROW, Hi-ROW, It’s Off to Work We Go

ROW80 Check In 5/2/12

These last two weeks have been pretty decent. I felt a little lost when I didn’t check in last week but I think I’ll adjust to an every other week check in quickly. In fact, I think the longer-term planning will help me both relax and up my productivity.

Where I’ve been since last check-in:

• Update ROW80 page: Yep.
• Open Scrivener file for Postcards (working title) novella and layout storyboard: *ahem* Not yet. But I have written tons of notes and outline points longhand.