URW Blogs?

On Apr 17, 11:09 am, "Paul Saunders" <[email hidden]>

Quoted message said:

I just mentioned this, but perhaps I should start a separate thread for it.

I'm planning to start a blog of my own soon, and I notice that a few members
of this newsgroup already have blogs. Would you mind giving me a show of
hands so that I can bookmark you?

Anyone else here considering doing the same?

I've been nagged about the advantages of blogging for some time now, and
I've finally given in to the pressure. I'm currently experimenting with
WordPress and am well impressed with it. I'd recommend it to anyone who's
considering starting a blog, rather than using a blog on someone else's
webspace, like Blogger or MySpace for example. Apparently it's in the terms
and conditions that any photos you post on Blogger can be used by Google, so
that's an issue to be aware of if you're a photographer. Far better to host
the blog on your own webspace.

Paul
--http://www.wilderness-wales.co.uk

Paul,

My first personal blog is at http://goatifiedcreature.wordpress.com/
and I for one totally agree with your Wordpress impression. Its very
easy to use and you can get a free account at wordpress.com - a good
playground to learn the technology and how to blog. I was particularly
impressed with the easy plugins for flickr.com and delicious etc. The
themes are really nice and professional - the look and feel took about
1 hour to sort including clipping the image at top etc.

I also agree with your suggestion of hosting your own blog. I found
that whilst wordpress.com (the free hosting site for the wordpress.org
opensource blogging software) was good for playing with, I have now
become a little frustated with the limited control of the look and
feel. Last weekend I stopped uploading content and have started my
new blog - http://paulswilliams.me.uk/walkingwithwilliams. This is as
can be seen, in incrediably heavy development as I have taken the
silly step of creating a new outdoorsy theme from scratch;
unfortunately walking keeps getting in the way of my ruddy walking
blog 😉

Ysgrifennodd "Paul Saunders" <[email hidden]> mewn neges
newyddion:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

I just mentioned this, but perhaps I should start a separate thread for it.

I'm planning to start a blog of my own soon, and I notice that a few
members of this newsgroup already have blogs. Would you mind giving me a
show of hands so that I can bookmark you?

Anyone else here considering doing the same?

I've been nagged about the advantages of blogging for some time now, and
I've finally given in to the pressure. I'm currently experimenting with
WordPress and am well impressed with it. I'd recommend it to anyone who's
considering starting a blog, rather than using a blog on someone else's
webspace, like Blogger or MySpace for example. Apparently it's in the
terms and conditions that any photos you post on Blogger can be used by
Google, so that's an issue to be aware of if you're a photographer. Far
better to host the blog on your own webspace.

Paul
--
http://www.wilderness-wales.co.uk

Ditto.

Self hosting as i dont want some corporation getting it's grubby little
hands on anything i do!

Mainly started writing it as i'm not doing many new routes that can be put
on my site, but doing a fair few repeats and other things. But i won't tell
people too much, they can visit the blog!

I'll do the same and put a list of related blogs on my blog once i get
around to it.

I use some software i installed from my domain control panel and i'm so far,
impressed with it. The only thing i cannot do is insert an object like a
youtube video.

T Dave R
--
The Snowdonia Blog.....
www.blogs.walkeryri.org.uk

Goatified Creature said:

My first personal blog is at http://goatifiedcreature.wordpress.com/
and I for one totally agree with your Wordpress impression. Its very
easy to use and you can get a free account at wordpress.com - a good
playground to learn the technology and how to blog. I was particularly
impressed with the easy plugins for flickr.com and delicious etc. The
themes are really nice and professional - the look and feel took about
1 hour to sort including clipping the image at top etc.

Nice. One small point though, I notice that you're main page is showing your
posts in their entirety. This leads to long pages. I've read that it's much
better to use the "split post" feature (Alt + t) to split your your posts.
That way you can show just the first paragraph of each post and people can
click on the "more" link to read the whole post. This is good for a number
of reasons:

1. It makes the page shorter and thus easier for people to browse through
your posts to decide which ones to click on and read in their entirety.

2. It helps avoid the duplicate content issue. When search engines crawl
your blog, if they find exactly the same content on different pages (which
they will on both your main page and the individual post pages) they'll
penalise your search engine rankings. Duplicate content is frowned on
nowadays and the search engines are cracking down on it. By splitting your
posts, each page will have different content on them.

3. RSS feeds. If anyone subsribes to your blog via an RSS feed, they'll be
able to read the entire post in the feed, so they won't have to visit your
site! Not only does this bloat the feeds, but it loses you visitors. By
splitting the post they'll only be able to read the first bit, so they'll
have to visit your site to see the rest.

Quoted message said:

I also agree with your suggestion of hosting your own blog. I found
that whilst wordpress.com (the free hosting site for the wordpress.org
opensource blogging software) was good for playing with, I have now
become a little frustated with the limited control of the look and
feel.

Can't you install any theme you like with them?

Quoted message said:

Last weekend I stopped uploading content and have started my
new blog - http://paulswilliams.me.uk/walkingwithwilliams. This is as
can be seen, in incrediably heavy development as I have taken the
silly step of creating a new outdoorsy theme from scratch;

Hmm... Yes, pretty basic. Surely it would be easier to start by choosing a
theme that you like, then editing the templates to customise it? That's what
I plan to do. Much easier to modify an existing theme I'd have thought. I'd
recommend using one that supports the Widgets plugin, to make it easy to
customise your sidebars.

Here's the Widgets plugin:
http://automattic.com/code/widgets/

And here's the Widgets blog:
http://widgets.wordpress.com/

Quoted message said:

unfortunately walking keeps getting in the way of my ruddy walking
blog 😉

Terrible isn't it? Having to go out walking to get material for your blog!
;-)

Paul
--
http://www.wilderness-wales.co.uk

T Dave R said:

Mainly started writing it as i'm not doing many new routes that can
be put on my site, but doing a fair few repeats and other things.

I've given some thought to what a blog is good for compared to a website,
since some people now are creating websites using blog software. Some argue
that there's no need to design a conventional website anymore, that blog
software is the way to go.

I'm not convinced, I still think that traditional websites have their place.
My take on it now is that a website is more like a book, a useful reference
filled with "permanent" information, like for example summit lists, area
guides, route descriptions, photo galleries etc, while a blog is more like a
newspaper, something more "temporary", filled with topical information,
random musings, announcements and date based information, like trip reports.

A blog is therefore a good place to announce updates to your website (so
that RSS subscribers can be instantly informed of that fact), trip reports,
photos of the day (remember my October Project?), topical musings and
articles about a variety of topics which aren't so easy to categorise, but
which can be easily keyworded for convenient browsing later. For example, if
I write various posts about GPS I'll keyword them as such, then it will be
easy to find all my GPS posts by clicking on the GPS keyword. Or not if you
can't stand GPS posts! ;-)

Quoted message said:

But
i won't tell people too much, they can visit the blog!

Quite. And provide incentives to visit your website too. I see a blog as a
kind of doorway to a website.

Quoted message said:

I'll do the same and put a list of related blogs on my blog once i get
around to it.

Same here.

Quoted message said:

I use some software i installed from my domain control panel and i'm
so far, impressed with it. The only thing i cannot do is insert an
object like a youtube video.

Try this:
http://www.xyooj.com/blog/plink/technical/27/wordpress-youtube-video-gallery-plugin/

I'm sure there must be others, just search for "wordpress youtube plugin"

I've been thinking about adding video too. I've got a load of vhs-c videos
from years ago, which I can convert to mpeg with my TV card. The quality's
very good, but the files are massive. Does anyone know of some decent free
software to convert mpeg files to another format suitable for web use?

Paul
--
http://www.wilderness-wales.co.uk

Paul Saunders said:

very good, but the files are massive. Does anyone know of some decent free
software to convert mpeg files to another format suitable for web use?

Mencoder does this, which is part of the mplayer package (linux freeware).
http://www.mplayerhq.hu
--
Rudi Winter, Aberystwyth, Wales

I've been following this thread with interest

Quoted message said:

I'm planning to start a blog of my own soon, and I notice that a few
members of this newsgroup already have blogs. Would you mind giving me a
show of hands so that I can bookmark you?

If you wander over to http://walkaboutuk.blogspot.com/ you'll find a host of
walking blog links, most of which are UK based and all suitable for
bookmark.

There's quite a thriving community amongst the UK Outdoor Bloggers, we even
manage to meet face to face occasionally, so feel free to dive on in.
There's also a UK Outdoor Bloggers forum which is used solely by us for
swopping notes, tips meet-ups etc.

Quoted message said:

I've been nagged about the advantages of blogging for some time now, and
I've finally given in to the pressure. I'm currently experimenting with
WordPress and am well impressed with it. I'd recommend it to anyone who's
considering starting a blog, rather than using a blog on someone else's

As for Wordpress - a couple of bloggers have been using it for some time,
and have plenty of tips n tricks they should be happy to share.

If you want more detail about any of this please drop me an e-mail

Meanwhile I'll look at all these new links (ta muchly folks) and I'll try
get the word out a bit wider amongst the UK walking fraternity if that
helps..

Ysgrifennodd "Paul Saunders" <[email hidden]> mewn neges
newyddion:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

T Dave R said:

Mainly started writing it as i'm not doing many new routes that can
be put on my site, but doing a fair few repeats and other things.

I've given some thought to what a blog is good for compared to a website,
since some people now are creating websites using blog software. Some
argue that there's no need to design a conventional website anymore, that
blog software is the way to go.

I'm not convinced, I still think that traditional websites have their
place. My take on it now is that a website is more like a book, a useful
reference filled with "permanent" information, like for example summit
lists, area guides, route descriptions, photo galleries etc, while a blog
is more like a newspaper, something more "temporary", filled with topical
information, random musings, announcements and date based information,
like trip reports.

A blog is therefore a good place to announce updates to your website (so
that RSS subscribers can be instantly informed of that fact), trip
reports, photos of the day (remember my October Project?), topical musings
and articles about a variety of topics which aren't so easy to categorise,
but which can be easily keyworded for convenient browsing later. For
example, if I write various posts about GPS I'll keyword them as such,
then it will be easy to find all my GPS posts by clicking on the GPS
keyword. Or not if you can't stand GPS posts! ;-)

Hadn't thought of the advantages of the update notification feature. I can
redesign my website front page then, and put update info on the blog.

I don't see the blogs replacing a website either. Like you said, a website
is like a book and a blog possibly like a newspaper/magazine or journal.
I'll just have to bear that in mind when i update it next.

T Dave R

Rudi Winter said:

Mencoder does this, which is part of the mplayer package (linux
freeware). http://www.mplayerhq.hu

Thanks for the suggestion, but I'm not using Linux.

Paul
--
http://www.wilderness-wales.co.uk

Bryan Hall said:

If you wander over to http://walkaboutuk.blogspot.com/ you'll find a
host of walking blog links, most of which are UK based and all
suitable for bookmark.

Thanks a lot for that! I suspected that there must be a walking community
out there but didn't "stumble upon" it straight away from my initial search
on Technorati.

Quoted message said:

There's quite a thriving community amongst the UK Outdoor Bloggers,
we even manage to meet face to face occasionally, so feel free to
dive on in. There's also a UK Outdoor Bloggers forum which is used
solely by us for swopping notes, tips meet-ups etc.

Noted. Are any of you rejects from urw? Which is your blog by the way?

I wonder if we can encourage a mass migration from urw? ;-) Anyone else here
fancy trying their hand at blogging?

Quoted message said:

As for Wordpress - a couple of bloggers have been using it for some
time, and have plenty of tips n tricks they should be happy to share.

I've been reading a ton of information about anything and everything to do
with blogging in the last week. It's overwhelming, there's just TOO much
information! But it's all good stuff and I can easily see how addictive it
can become.

Quoted message said:

If you want more detail about any of this please drop me an e-mail

Okay, but you didn't leave an email address, or tell me which one is your
blog!

Quoted message said:

Meanwhile I'll look at all these new links (ta muchly folks) and I'll
try get the word out a bit wider amongst the UK walking fraternity if
that helps..

Yeah! Spread the word! UK walkers go blogging! :-)

Paul
--
http://www.wilderness-wales.co.uk

T Dave R said:

Hadn't thought of the advantages of the update notification feature.
I can redesign my website front page then, and put update info on the
blog.

Exactly! This is one of the main features that a friend of mine has been
nagging me about. Normally, when you update a web page, it can be a month or
two before the search engines pick it up. But with a blog this information
can be picked up immediately. I'm still not sure exactly how it works,
whether the search engines are pinged automatically or whether you have to
do it manually, but it is possible to "inform" them immediately so that your
blog post gets picked up straight away, and with it the link to the new
section on your website. So your blog post gets indexed immediately, and of
course you include a link to the new bit of your website, so that gets
indexed too.

If you don't already know this, Technorati is the "Google" of blogs
apparently, so that's the place to search for anything to do with blogs. It
uses keywords, so be sure to add keywords to each of your posts.

The main advantage though, is that blogs provide built-in RSS feeds, so that
anyone who "subscribes" to your blog, will receive immediate updates.
Earlier today I tried this for the first time, installing Wizz RSS News
Reader as an extension to Firefox, and then subscribing to a number of
blogs, including yours. So any time you add a new post to your blog I can
quickly find that out from my RSS window without having to actually visit
your blog.

Checking your existing blog posts I should point out that I can see your
entire blog posts, with pics, in the RSS window, without having to visit
your blog. So I'd suggest the same as I did to Paul, that you use the
"split" feature to split your post after the first paragraph, so that people
have to click on the link to visit your actual blog instead of just reading
the whole thing in the RSS reader. Are you using Wordpress by the way?

Also, I notice that your posts are being repeated in their entirely, so
you're actually providing double the content in the RSS reader. I have no
idea what's causing this, whether it's your fault or something to do with
the reader. Anyone know?

Although Paul hasn't been using the split feature (until his most recent
post I notice), his posts are truncated in the RSS reader. Perhaps there's a
different setting that governs this.

Quoted message said:

I don't see the blogs replacing a website either. Like you said, a
website is like a book and a blog possibly like a newspaper/magazine
or journal. I'll just have to bear that in mind when i update it next.

Glad you're in agreement! :-)

Paul
--
http://www.wilderness-wales.co.uk

Quoted message said:

Thanks a lot for that! I suspected that there must be a walking community
out there but didn't "stumble upon" it straight away from my initial
search on Technorati.

Your welcome ;-)

Quoted message said:

Noted. Are any of you rejects from urw? Which is your blog by the way?

Not rejects. Just seems more of a natural community, and very active in a
number of disparate areas. not just geographical.
I've e-mailed you some detail on blog id, so now you've got the details
;-).

Quoted message said:

I wonder if we can encourage a mass migration from urw? ;-) Anyone else
here fancy trying their hand at blogging?

20+ at last count so far

Quoted message said:

I've been reading a ton of information about anything and everything to do
with blogging in the last week. It's overwhelming, there's just TOO much
information! But it's all good stuff and I can easily see how addictive it
can become.

oh yep! thats where the RSS feeds come in

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

If you want more detail about any of this please drop me an e-mail

Quoted message said:

Okay, but you didn't leave an email address, or tell me which one is your
blog!

oops - its on its way

Ysgrifennodd "Paul Saunders" <[email hidden]> mewn neges
newyddion:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

T Dave R said:

Hadn't thought of the advantages of the update notification feature.
I can redesign my website front page then, and put update info on the
blog.

Exactly! This is one of the main features that a friend of mine has been
nagging me about. Normally, when you update a web page, it can be a month
or two before the search engines pick it up. But with a blog this
information can be picked up immediately. I'm still not sure exactly how
it works, whether the search engines are pinged automatically or whether
you have to do it manually, but it is possible to "inform" them
immediately so that your blog post gets picked up straight away, and with
it the link to the new section on your website. So your blog post gets
indexed immediately, and of course you include a link to the new bit of
your website, so that gets indexed too.

If you don't already know this, Technorati is the "Google" of blogs
apparently, so that's the place to search for anything to do with blogs.
It uses keywords, so be sure to add keywords to each of your posts.

The main advantage though, is that blogs provide built-in RSS feeds, so
that anyone who "subscribes" to your blog, will receive immediate updates.
Earlier today I tried this for the first time, installing Wizz RSS News
Reader as an extension to Firefox, and then subscribing to a number of
blogs, including yours. So any time you add a new post to your blog I can
quickly find that out from my RSS window without having to actually visit
your blog.

Checking your existing blog posts I should point out that I can see your
entire blog posts, with pics, in the RSS window, without having to visit
your blog. So I'd suggest the same as I did to Paul, that you use the
"split" feature to split your post after the first paragraph, so that
people have to click on the link to visit your actual blog instead of just
reading the whole thing in the RSS reader. Are you using Wordpress by the
way?

Also, I notice that your posts are being repeated in their entirely, so
you're actually providing double the content in the RSS reader. I have no
idea what's causing this, whether it's your fault or something to do with
the reader. Anyone know?

Although Paul hasn't been using the split feature (until his most recent
post I notice), his posts are truncated in the RSS reader. Perhaps there's
a different setting that governs this.

Quoted message said:

I don't see the blogs replacing a website either. Like you said, a
website is like a book and a blog possibly like a newspaper/magazine
or journal. I'll just have to bear that in mind when i update it next.

Glad you're in agreement! :-)

Paul
--
http://www.wilderness-wales.co.uk

In reply to the split posts and stuff, i'll admit i haven't a clue!

I will look further into the settings when i have time.

It's B2Evolution i use, as it was the best that my hosting company had
installed. I suppose it would be more correct to say that it appeared to be
the easiest to use after 5 mins of playing - which tends to be my criterion
for using software (not always successful, but often enough if your use is
not overly advanced).

I've got to check out technorati too, and some other features (keywords)
before i'm up to speed on this. So it's good that people are sharing their
experiences and information with others on this.

T Dave R.

--
The Snowdonia Blog.....
www.blogs.walkeryri.org.uk

Quoted message said:

I've got to check out technorati too, and some other features (keywords)
before i'm up to speed on this. So it's good that people are sharing their
experiences and information with others on this.

Best of luck Dave - it takes a few iterations before the blog visitors
start to cotton on, but the real trick is to keep them coming back for more.

Meanwhile, as mentioned to Paul early on this thread, there's a community
of kindred uk outdoor bloggers out there if you want any advice etc

Non of us have commerical interests, so no axes to grind. Just healthy
competition
;-)

Paul Saunders said:

Checking your existing blog posts I should point out that I can see your
entire blog posts, with pics, in the RSS window, without having to visit
your blog. So I'd suggest the same as I did to Paul, that you use the
"split" feature to split your post after the first paragraph, so that people
have to click on the link to visit your actual blog instead of just reading
the whole thing in the RSS reader. Are you using Wordpress by the way?

Also, I notice that your posts are being repeated in their entirely, so
you're actually providing double the content in the RSS reader. I have no
idea what's causing this, whether it's your fault or something to do with
the reader. Anyone know?

Although Paul hasn't been using the split feature (until his most recent
post I notice), his posts are truncated in the RSS reader. Perhaps there's a
different setting that governs this.

There's a setting within Options >> Reading >> Syndication Feeds and
select Summary to display a truncated post in RSS feeds.

AFAIK truncation in a post on the blog requires a plugin or a setup
within the theme. I could be wrong though.

I'm not sure that Google will penalise for duplication of information
within a blog and IMO the truncation of a main post is a PITA

Bryan Hall said:

I've e-mailed you some detail on blog id, so now you've got the
details ;-).

Well you thought you'd emailed me... ;-)

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

I wonder if we can encourage a mass migration from urw? ;-) Anyone
else here fancy trying their hand at blogging?

20+ at last count so far

To be honest, that isn't very many. I thought there'd be a few more than
that. Have you just not found them all, or is that it?

Paul
--
http://www.wilderness-wales.co.uk

T Dave R said:

In reply to the split posts and stuff, i'll admit i haven't a clue!

In Wordpress it's simple, just click on the split button where you want the
split.

Quoted message said:

I will look further into the settings when i have time.

It's B2Evolution i use, as it was the best that my hosting company had
installed. I suppose it would be more correct to say that it appeared
to be the easiest to use after 5 mins of playing - which tends to be
my criterion for using software (not always successful, but often
enough if your use is not overly advanced).

Don't know anything about that. Wordpress is dead easy too, installs in a
couple of minutes and is and extremely customisable, with loads of cool
plugins you can add.

If you're not too committed to your existing blog you might want to try it
out.

Paul
--
http://www.wilderness-wales.co.uk

thats it so far
"Paul Saunders" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

Bryan Hall said:

I've e-mailed you some detail on blog id, so now you've got the
details ;-).

Well you thought you'd emailed me... ;-)

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

I wonder if we can encourage a mass migration from urw? ;-) Anyone
else here fancy trying their hand at blogging?

20+ at last count so far

To be honest, that isn't very many. I thought there'd be a few more than
that. Have you just not found them all, or is that it?

Paul
--
http://www.wilderness-wales.co.uk