Category: blog

blogger payola?

Unsolicited email becomes fodder for blog post — learn from their mistake.

From my email inbox:

Dear eclectic librarian,

My name is **** and I am the webmaster of the book price comparison site: **********.com . Recently we released a new redesigned site and we thought it might be interesting to you:

http://www.**********.com is a free service of finding the best price on books among the major online stores. Our real time price comparison can help you save as much as 60% from the retail price. At ********** you can look for the cheapest price on new & used books, and also compare the price on a purchase of several books together.

I will appreciate if you can post a comment on your eclectic librarian blog about our service, to inform your readers about this useful and free service.

We understand the effort that is involved in our request, and would like to offer you a small gift in return:

Please choose one of the books from the Price Nobel Winner Orhan Pamuk: “Snow” or “My name is Red” and we will be glad to send it to you.
Just reply to this e- mail with your chosen book and your shipping address and we will send the book to you.(Don’t forget to write us your feedbacks, too).

This offer is not connected to posting our site on your blog but we will be very happy if you will write about us!

I hope that you find the service interesting. If you have any queries or you’d like more information, kindly contact me.

Sincerely,

**** ******
Webmaster
****@**********.com
www.**********.com

Thanks, but no thanks. I don’t blog for bribes.

blog day 2006

So, apparently yesterday was Blog Day and I’m supposed to recommend five other blogs for you to read. I could come up with only four I’m really keen on at the moment, aside from the ones everyone else reads, too. In any case, I’m a day late. Thinking Out Loud – This is Jenica Rogers’ … Continue reading “blog day 2006”

So, apparently yesterday was Blog Day and I’m supposed to recommend five other blogs for you to read. I could come up with only four I’m really keen on at the moment, aside from the ones everyone else reads, too. In any case, I’m a day late.

  • Thinking Out Loud – This is Jenica Rogers’ sometimes library but mainly personal blog. I really like the way she writes.
  • A Year In Pictures of Working – I went to high school with Arnie, so I was thrilled to find his old photo blog last year. This is a new one, but still the same daily pictures with entertaining commentary from Arnie. Even after all these years, he still makes me laugh in a way only he can.
  • WWdN: In Exile – Not quite the same as the original, but I think he’ll be leaving exile sometime soon. I’ve been reading Wil Wheaton’s blog for over three years now, and it just keeps getting better.
  • Out of Ambit – Diane Duane is quite possibly my most favorite Star Trek author. Her blog is worth reading, too.

updates

General update about blog stuff and things happening in my life.

My recently read/reading list is gone for a little while. I tried upgrading the plugin last week, and it broke. The author says he’ll have a fix for it sometime this week. I’m heading out to NASIG on Wednesday, so it will probably be sometime next week before I can get it up and running again, if all goes well.

Speaking of NASIG, the hotel this year has free wifi in public areas and some meeting rooms. The conference organizers have a blog available for attendees to post and comment on. If you aren’t able to attend the conference and you have an interest in all things serials, then do keep tabs on the blog. I’ll be attempting to some live blogging both here and there.

As you may know, I write reviews for a website called Blogcritics.org. I’m trying to catch up on the backlog of review items in my house, which is why that’s about all I’ve been posting lately. Hopefully things will get back to normal once I get caught up. You can keep tabs with what’s pending, if you’re interested. I’m really behind on the books. Arg.

tagging

So, I’m finally hopping on the blog tag bandwagon. I thought my categories were enough, and I didn’t know how to make the keyword field show in the entry creation process. But now that I have a brand new plugin, I’ve started adding keywords to my posts with Technorati links. I tagged the last however … Continue reading “tagging”

So, I’m finally hopping on the blog tag bandwagon. I thought my categories were enough, and I didn’t know how to make the keyword field show in the entry creation process. But now that I have a brand new plugin, I’ve started adding keywords to my posts with Technorati links. I tagged the last however many entries just now and I will tag future posts, but at 457 entries, I don’t plan to do any retrospective tagging. Heck, I think some of my earlier entries aren’t categorized, either. Probably for the best. There are some things I’d like to forget.

Oh! I had a brainstorm yesterday evening for an article topic, so maybe I’ll get cracking on that soon. After all, I just have to have stuff submitted. If it gets published, well, so much the better.

blogga blogga blake

Here’s a blogga. There’s a blogga. And a tiny little blogga.

I’m a bit behind on reading the librarian blogs (despite my resolve to keep up with them), so it’s probably all over the librarian blogosphere by now. If you haven’t seen Brian Smith’s tribute to librarian bloggers llama song take-off, what rock have you been hiding under? …Oh. Probably the same one that’s been giving me some shelter. [thanks Library Man]

rules for the blogger/writer

I’m not much of a writer. I don’t sit around pondering my “craft” and thrilling over perfect sentence structures and exquisite word pictures. Nevertheless, I do want my readers to enjoy what I write. It’s been a while since I had a formal grammar class, and English was never my favorite subject. Thus, Lori Mortimer’s … Continue reading “rules for the blogger/writer”

I’m not much of a writer. I don’t sit around pondering my “craft” and thrilling over perfect sentence structures and exquisite word pictures. Nevertheless, I do want my readers to enjoy what I write.

It’s been a while since I had a formal grammar class, and English was never my favorite subject. Thus, Lori Mortimer’s response to John Scalzi’s suggestions for nonprofessional writers is more useful to me that the original essay. Scalzi uses accessible language, but Mortimer explains why a rule is important to follow. Both are worth reading, particularly if you’re a lazy writer like myself.

frappr

I’m hopping on the Frappr bandwagon. Go ahead, add your self to the map. You know you want to. Incidentally, in case anyone was wondering, I have nearly fully recovered from last week’s illness thanks in part to a course of antibiotics over the weekend. Aside from some sinus junk and inexplicable tension in my … Continue reading “frappr”

I’m hopping on the Frappr bandwagon. Go ahead, add your self to the map. You know you want to.

Incidentally, in case anyone was wondering, I have nearly fully recovered from last week’s illness thanks in part to a course of antibiotics over the weekend. Aside from some sinus junk and inexplicable tension in my jaw, I’m fine.

brb

Karen Schneider makes an argument for notifying readers of extended absences from blogging. This wouldn’t work for me, because I rarely know when I’ll be taking a break from blogging, and these times don’t necessarily occur around holidays and other such things, because often time away from work allows me to catch up and write. … Continue reading “brb”

Karen Schneider makes an argument for notifying readers of extended absences from blogging. This wouldn’t work for me, because I rarely know when I’ll be taking a break from blogging, and these times don’t necessarily occur around holidays and other such things, because often time away from work allows me to catch up and write. Still, if someone is prolific, it makes sense to let readers know that they’ll be gone for a bit. But, don’t expect any BRB notices from me.

wordpress

Wow! WordPress really is that easy to use! It took me about ten minutes to set it up on my server with an appropriate theme. Over the past 48 hours, I have added 80+ entries, three static pages, two plugins, and tweaked almost all of the templates for the Chartreuse Girls archive. I know nothing … Continue reading “wordpress”

Wow! WordPress really is that easy to use! It took me about ten minutes to set it up on my server with an appropriate theme. Over the past 48 hours, I have added 80+ entries, three static pages, two plugins, and tweaked almost all of the templates for the Chartreuse Girls archive. I know nothing of PHP, but my experience with Perl and MovableType coding informed me enough to know what to look for. It’s not quite to where I want it, but leaps and bounds ahead of where it would be if I had been using MT. I don’t plan to convert this blog over to WP. While it is tempting, there are too many tweaks and hacks that make this blog what it is. However, I will strongly recommend it to any new blogger looking to host a CMS on their own site.

MT 3.2

For those reading this via RSS, I appologize for the repeat entries that went through today. I just upgraded to MovableType 3.2, which refreshed my index pages, including the feed. I must say, I’m quite impressed with the snazzy new look for the admin interface, as well as the relatively simple upgrade installation. I’m also … Continue reading “MT 3.2”

For those reading this via RSS, I appologize for the repeat entries that went through today. I just upgraded to MovableType 3.2, which refreshed my index pages, including the feed. I must say, I’m quite impressed with the snazzy new look for the admin interface, as well as the relatively simple upgrade installation. I’m also looking forward to reducing the trackback spam via the new plugin integrated into version 3.2.

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