PureBlogging

Hello, my name is Arstan Jusupov and I am the author of Jusupov.com where I blog about Open Source, Hardware and Software reviews. I took David’s offer and I will be a guest blogger here. Mostly my posts will include hints and tips about softwares, mainly open source or free, which will enable you to blog better. So stay tuned!

David, thanks for the opportunity!

Now, many people have blogged on how to start blogging, giving out many tips and hints. They say that you must start straight from your own domain. If you follow this advice then you would probably also follow my advice on using yourname@yourblog.com email wherever possible. So it’s kind of letting people know there’s a blog of yours at this address. Also it is good to have this kind of email account for your online image.

I understand if you don’t like to use E-Mail clients like Outlook, Thunderbird etc. You are always on the move, you are a blogger! Not an office rat

Now this trick on how to use your domain email inside Gmail is a quick and dirty one. I’m sure most of the readers will agree with me that Google’s Gmail service is an awesome piece of software. Almost no spam, intuitive and yet simple GUI, great use of tags instead of folders etc etc…

So let’s see the list of things needed:

• A domain name for your blog
• Gmail account
• Access to your Control Panel at your ISP
• Some patience

If you have the above listed things that means you are ready to go. Now, login to your domain’s hosting Control Panel and make sure emails coming to yourname@yourblog.com is forwarded to yourname@gmail.com account. Afterwards, login to Gmail, go to your Gmail Settings on your top right corner of your browser. Pick Accounts tab and click on Add Another email address. In the popup window type in your name and your yourname@yourblog.com email. Click Next Step button and in the next screen click on Send Verification button when you are sure you have made no mistakes in typing your email address.

You wait for the confirmation code to be sent to your Gmail account (remember we redirected all incoming emails to your Gmail account?) . Once you receive confirmation email from Gmail just follow the instructions written there and follow the long link they sent to you.

At this point you have emails sent to yourname@yourblog.com and you can sent email in behalf of yourname@yourblog.com.

To see if this really works try sending emails from other emails, for e.g. Yahoo!, to yourname@yourblog.com and see if you receive. Then reply to the message to see if sending is ok.

Further suggestions:

• Make yourname@yourblog.com account as default. This means whenever you write email it will be sent from your yourname@yourblog.com account.
• Create a filter based on Sent to address. This helps you to separate emails coming to your blog email address and your original Gmail account.

So if you have a domain name it’s time to use your emails from it!

Note: It won’t however totally replace your email needs, if you want more take a look at Google Apps for your domain. I am myself moving there actually after having used the above trick for 3-4 months now.

Asking questions like, “what’s your favorite color?” may generate a response in real life, but asking questions like that on the web is about useless. The question will usually fall into the chasm known as the series of tubes, never to be heard from again. These type of questions, while sometimes may go answered, are only answered with one word. RED, or BLACK, or whathaveyou.

I recently reviewed John Chow’s website for that wonderful link back thing that he does. I always hear that commenting on other’s pages is a good thing and it’s always a good thing to respond. So, I asked a simple question, twice. And, you know what I got? Nada.

What I’m illustrating here is that you want to inspire conversations with your readers. I can think of several ways to do this:

Firstly, state your opinion and why you think the way you do. Secondly, maybe give an anecdote or a story behind your thoughts and opinions. It’s like if I prefaced my music-related posting with “Once when I was about nine years old, I found my first fill of Def Leppard and can still remember the rush I got listening to Pyromania for the very first time. It’s funny that music can usually bring certain memories instantly to your mind.”

Can you think of a memory that is attached to a specific song? What made that special to you?

See what I’m trying to do there? I’m attempting to engage you, my readers, in some conversation. You’d probably start thinking of the first concert you went to or the first song that really made you form what your opinions of music are today…..and share that with me.

What you can do after someone decides to comment or share an experience with you, is comment back. Always respond. Always.

So, share with me. What’s your favorite color? Just kidding.

____________________
My name is Roberta Ferguson and I’ll be putting my two cents in here and there regarding the very basics of blogging. Even though a lot of you already know about some of this stuff, some don’t. My normal haunt is music blogging at Earsucker, but what I’ve learned in my journey in blogging, I’ll be telling you here.

I know when I have a great idea for several posts, that sometimes I make the mistake of blogging until I can’t blog anymore, then posting them all in one day. This is not a good habit to get into, mainly because what if tomorrow you can’t think of a single thing to write about? Then what? Perhaps then you’re putting up what I’d call “garbage posts” just because you have nothing to talk about.

If you’re having a creative spike, then write if you’re so inspired. Put the brakes on hitting the publish button, though. Edit that timestamp for tomorrow and the next day, and so-forth. Otherwise, you’ve got terminal bloghorrhea one day and nothing the next.

Why not make a series and schedule those posts out throughout the week? Your readers will thank you by continuing to read what you have to say. Don’t put all of your eggs in one basket, so to speak.

What do you think?

____________________
My name is Roberta Ferguson and I’ll be putting my two cents in here and there regarding the very basics of blogging. Even though a lot of you already know about some of this stuff, some don’t. My normal haunt is music blogging at Earsucker, but what I’ve learned in my journey in blogging, I’ll be telling you here.

PayPerPost recently announced the release of a new product called PayPerPost Direct. This new product allows bloggers to display a badge on their site which when clicked sends potential advertisers to a purchase page where they can buy a review on the blog. In essence, PPP Direct now allows for a more direct relationship between the blogger and the advertiser.

In the past, bloggers had to browse through listings on the PPP website looking for sponsored post opportunities. The result was typically a fee of around $5 to $10 that would never attract the more established blogs. Now, similar to ReviewMe, bloggers will be able to set a price and let advertisers come to them so we may see a few of the larger blogs begin to use the new system.

From the PPP blog:

You have two badges on your site, both for $200. An Advertiser clicks one of them and you make $100 and the blog marketplace makes $100. They click the PPP Direct badge and you make $200 and the blog marketplace makes $20. Why would you ever want to take less money? Why would the advertiser want to give half to the blog marketplace? With PPP Direct the advertiser gets more bang for their buck and you make more money.

I’ve never really considered using PPP mostly because it allows advertisers to require positive writeups and they do not require bloggers to disclose that posts are sponsored. But I have to admit that I am intrigued enough to actually create an account and check it out.

I guess time will tell if PPP Direct will be able to attract larger blogs and be a viable competitor for ReviewMe.

I wanted to wait a while before upgrading to Wordpress 2.2 but with the news that it is a mandatory update I decided to go ahead with the upgrade. I would suggest that all other Wordpress 2.1.x users upgrade as well. If you don’t upgrade, your blog may be vulnerable to malicious hackers because no security updates will be released for the 2.1.x branch in the future.

Other than having to update a few plugins my upgrade went pretty well and as far as I can tell, everything is working as it should. If you spot anything that looks broken or out of place please let me know.

Welcome to this week’s edition of Weekend Links! Every Friday, I reward the active members of this community by featuring an interesting post from the top commentators.

If you would like to see your post featured here, just join the conversation by commenting regularly and next week you just may make the list.

Here’s this week’s list:

• Top 10 Best WordPress Plugins (According To Me) by KidBlogger
• Google Trends by Search Engine Marketing (Don’t forget Darin still has a Nintendo Wii up for grabs.)
• “Dam It” or “Damn It”? by Bobs
• “Eat That Frog” in Your Weight Loss Program by JoLynn
• Creating a great post = massive inbound links by Neo
• Paula Abdul breaks nose, saves Tulip by Roberta Ferguson
• Give your site personal appeal by Community Building Blog
• 10 reasons the Iphone will succeed by jake
• Why It Is Important To Have Title Tags by Grace
• AppleTV Plugin: Watch YouTube Videos by Saman Sadeghi

Have a great weekend everyone!