Here’s a video of Caleb trying his bouncy swing for the first time!
I finally started playing with the video function on my camera and Anita has helped me with editing them. So here’s my first video blog post.
How to share a video on a blog
Here’s how to share a video on a blog:
- Capture a video. I use the video function on my camera and then upload it just like I do my pictures. One tip: make the video twice as long as you think it needs to be.
- Edit the video. Anita uses Windows Movie Maker that comes free with Windows XP SP2. You might need to:
- Shrink the video. Anything larger than 4-5 MB will take a long time to upload.
- Rotate it.
- Combine videos. The one of Caleb in his bouncy swing is actually three videos. (If you watch closely, you’ll see him bonk his head on the door frame and then it cuts to the next video! He didn’t get hurt – it didn’t faze him at all – but it worried me enough to stop video taping!)
- Upload it to YouTube.com. You’ll need an account.
- Once you’ve uploaded it, YouTube will give you the code to paste in your blog. Under "Edit Video Information," at the bottom of the page, there’s some code in the box called "Embed HTML."
A BVI beach that you should not miss
White Bay, Jost Van Dyke, is a great beach that meets just about everyone’s beach expectations.
- Lots of white sand for those who just love to play in sand or sunbath.
- Almost nobody on the east end for those that like to have a beach to themselves.
- A great view for those that like to just sit and enjoy.
- Lots of beach bars on the west end for those that like to play with others.
- A water trampoline for those who really like to play.
Highly worth the trip.
Commenting on blogs with coComment
Blogs are about conversations. In order for a blog conversation to happen, people have to comment. One of the reasons I never used to comment on blogs was because I felt like I was dropping into a party, dropping a question or comment and then leaving without waiting to see if anyone had a response. And I’d never go back to a blog post to see who responded to my comment!
coComment solved my problem. If you use FireFox (and you should use Firefox!
), you can install their extention and then everytime you comment on a blog, it makes not of it. Once a day or once a week you can log into your coComment account and see all the blogs you commented on and whether or not anybody responded after you. You can then follow up on the comment … or not. You can also see who is commenting on the blogs you commented on. It’s a very useful tool if you like commenting on blogs. And if you don’t comment on blogs, well, maybe it will help you get started.
Photo by rougerouge.
Cute dog stories and pictures
If you haven’t seen it yet, I’d like to show you Humans For Dogs, a blog about everything humans need to understand dogs. I’ve included a lot of cute pictures that people have shared on Flickr!
Photo by Altweibersommer.
Best domain name tool
Want to know if a domain name (the "address" of a web page) is available? Start typing in the Instant Domain Name widget, and it will let you know.
What kind of blog should Stormy’s Corner be?
Common wisdom says that successful blogs are niche blogs. Actually Ben Casnocha puts it well when he says blogs are either niche blogs or personality blogs and each blog post gets evaluated by:
a) Does the post cover one of my preferred topics?
b) Is the post from someone I like and want to stay connected with?
So I struggle with Stormy’s Corner. I have lots of regular readers that probably read all posts because they want to stay connected with me and secondly because the topics may or may not be interested to them. But at the same time most of my blog visits are from somebody searching for an answer – at the moment they are searching for help stopping breastfeeding or about dogs and alcohol. I even created a "niche blog," Humans for Dogs, since a lot of the searches came from dog related topics from alcohol to chiropractic care to sleep. (Breastfeeding posts are by far my most popular but I don’t feel like I have enough to say about breastfeeing to create an entire blog about it so I will just continue to post the occasional story on Stormy’s Corner.)
I’ve been reading a lot about blogging about blogging and how to make a blog successful and while I want Stormy’s Corner to be successful, I think it is right now.
If there’s a way Stormy’s Corner could be more to you – could meet your needs more – let me know! Comment now!
Stormy’s Corner has its own domain!
Stormy’s Corner now has its own domain at https://stormyscorner.com! (You can continue to read it at http://stormy.blogs.com as well.)
Blogging about blogging
I’ve always read a lot of blogs but only recently have I checked into blogs about blogging. Wow! There’s a whole other world out there, a whole community, that blogs about blogging and all the things associated with blogging like how to get more traffic, how to make money, how to create a good blog, etc. There are also some celebrities. People everyone in the "blogging about blogging" world know – like everyone in the open source world knows who Linus Torvalds is or everyone into football knows who Howie Long is. One of the celebrities in the blogging world is John Chow from JohnChow.com.
In order to see how links can drive traffic, I’m taking John Chow up on his offer to link back to my blog if I write a review about his blog. So this review is honest but it’s driven by the motivation to get a link. (So you are duly warned!)
Here are some of my observations about JohnChow.com:
- Great content about how to write a good blog. John Chow follows his own advice and writes great original content. (Although giving advice on blogging doesn’t seem to be his primary or only focus.)
- Integrity. He offered to link back to every blog that reviewed his blog and it looks like a lot of people took him up on the offer and he’s honoring his word!
- Communication. He’s very good about writing blog posts and about promoting his top commentators but maybe not so good with email. I originally wrote this review on 2/20/07 and submitted it via email. I never heard back – not even a thank you or I’ll get to it later. I’m assuming on 2/25/07 that the reason I haven’t been listed on his blog yet is because I didn’t include a link back to the rules page but some type of feedback that it had been received would have been great. Feedback on why I wasn’t going to be listed would have been terrific. If you’re going to have an email form promoted on your website, you should answer it.
- Navigation. I like the navigation tabs at the top of the blog and I liked that the subscribe buttons were at the top.
- Memorable logos and banners.
- Lots of good pictures, especially of food! (And pictures of food are hard – I’ve been trying on My Man’s Man.)
- Lots of community building tools like listing the top commentators and using MyBlogLog to show recent readers.
- I like how he mixes content about blogging (what most people probably read the blog for) and personal stories about restaurants he’s eating at and places he’s been to. I think that adds "voice."
It feels a bit weird to review someone who is supposed to be the expert. Maybe I should ask John to review my blog!
[Edited on 2/25/07.]
My grandmothers have blogs!
Both of my grandmothers have blogs now! I’m very proud of them and I’m very proud of my mom for typing in the stories and creating the blogs:
Check them out – they are/were amazing women!