For the Curious - Thing 25

Using Dynamic Favicon, I created favicons for my blog (SZSRocks), the Minnesota Mineral Club blog and the ERHS Media Center blog. I uploaded the images that I wanted to use and the conversion to favicon was quick.

Following the instructions provided by Blogger Book, I successfully added customized favicons to each of these blogs. This is a very easy and fun way to customize your blog!

Bloggers' Toolkit - Thing 25

Wow, there was a lot of information in Thing 25! In previous posts, I have commented on posting by e-mail (very cool!) and Blogger for Word (aargh!). I am familiar and very comfortable with widgets, gadgets and stuff. I have created a widget for the Minnesota Mineral Club (pictured here) using Sprout.

As a result of Thing 25, I have added Twit This, a search box and Apture to this blog. I also added a Clustrmap to the Minnesota Mineral Club blog. Even though I didn't add some of the items to my blog for this "thing," I have used PollDaddy, Animoto, PictureTrail, and SlideShare in the past.

Odiogo is something I wanted to try, but I was having trouble getting it to work. I have sent a help request to Odiogo, but haven't heard back from them yet. If I get a reply from Odiogo, I may try this at a later time. I may also investigate FeedBurner further.

The gadgets that I don't intend to use at this time are comment tools, statistics collection and the "get social" gadgets. These tools seem, to me, to be for more professional bloggers with higher readership.

I spent approximately 8 hours learning and trying the things in Thing 25. Apture is, by far, my favorite thing that I learned (refer to previous separate post). I think the possibilities of this application are almost limitless and it really enhances the information you deliver to your readers. The second runner up, in my favorites list, is posting by e-mail. Learning how to back-up my blogs was very valuable!

Trying Out Apture - Thing 25

I would like to see how Apture works, so I'm trying it out with this post. Let's see how it works!

On Sunday, Steve and I went geocaching at Otsego Regional Park in Otsego, Minnesota. There are five caches hidden in this park and we found all five. Our Jack Russell Terrier accompanied us and had lots of fun running and playing in the snow. The park sits on the bank of the Mississippi River. We were fortunate, on Sunday, to see a flock of swans land in the river and we took some photos of them.

Blogger for Word - Thing 25

I was excited to try Blogger for Word, which allows you to type posts in Word and then publish to Blogger. I successfully downloaded and added the Blogger for Word toolbar to Word and typed a test post to publish to my blog. Unfortunately, when I went to publish it, it didn't work. I went to Blogger Help and discovered that Blogger for Word is no longer available or supported and they are not planning on bringing it back at this time. I left a comment in Thing 25 regarding this. Bummer!

Copied from Image:Monkey-typing.jpg on Wikipedia. The image description page states it is public domain.

Posting to Blog from E-Mail - Thing 25

I'm just sitting here watching Modern
Marvels on the History Channel while
working on Thing 25 (that's
right...I'm multitasking!). Today's
episode is on technology in the 90's,
i.e. the internet, world wide web,
Amazon, Google, Furby's, etc. Talk
about a trip down memory lane! It is
amazing how quickly technology is
changing. I am actually typing this
post in an e-mail and when I click
"Send", hopefully it will post to my
blog. I think I have my Blogger
settings set up to do this. The
"Subject" in my e-mail should be the
post title and I am going to try and
attach a picture to see where it is
placed in the post...hopefully! Well,
here it goes, wish me luck!

P.S. The picture is from "The Commons"
in Flickr. It is copyright free from
the Smithsonian Institution.