Trimming the sails

This weekend, I’ve concentrated on adding a few features to this new blog, after taking a fresh look at what far more experienced bloggers than I are doing out there. I’m blogging about these to help fellow newcomers out there – maybe even elicit some helpful advice from other bloggers. I’ve also listed some helpful resources at the bottom of this post.

Picasa Web Albums. I added a collection of photos of our glorious cat Stinker into a free online photo album on Picasa. This now runs as a thumbnail-sized slide show in the left hand column of The Good Ship Venus. Picasa has many great features that I will enjoy tinkering with, and provides 1GB of free storage.

Afrigator. I added my blog to Afrigator, a ‘social media aggregator and directory built especially for African digital citizens who publish and consume content on the Web'. See the logo on the left hand column. This is a great way of locating African blogs, and of letting people know about your little stake in the blogosphere. It also provides statistics on traffic to your blog. Immediately on signing (for free), my blog appeared in their listing of new blogs on their home page.

Subscribe button. I added a ‘subscribe’ feature to make it easier for people to follow the blog (working on the assumption that someone is actually reading it).

Updated my Profile. I added several blogs onto my ‘Blogs I Follow’ list, more books that I have enjoyed reading, and some more personal interests. These can be found on my 'View My Complete Profile link'. By clicking on say, ‘Merry Christmas Mister Lawrence’, I can see who else in the Blogger world rates this fairly obscure movie (436 people). Click on ‘cats’ and you get 391,000 people’s profiles. Interestingly, ‘female nudes’ only generates four profiles including mine, and two of these are women’s...

Webmaster tools. Google provides some tools to help ensure your blog has some chance of being noticed, and does not contain errors that prevent search bots from locating you. This is a user item and is not visible on the blog.

Gmail. I’ve added an email address for people to be able to contact me off-blog without cluttering my work or private email. Using Google’s free Gmail service I created an online email account. Find this on the ‘View My Complete Profile’ page: see ‘contact’.

Other bits and bobs. Google has a useful interface called a Google Account. By signing on to my account all Google affiliated products that I use can be accessed simply, using a single password. From my account I access my Gmail, Google Reader (creates my very own aggregated magazine composed of new articles posted by the 60 or so feed-enabled websites and blogs that I try to keep up with, Webmaster Tools, Blogger, i-Google (a customizable webpage), YouTube, Picasa and even a very useful online Calendar (this will even email you to remind you about your anniversary, meeting etc. An instant messaging chat service called Google Talk and a document storage and viewing repository called Google documents add even more functionality.

Recommended Offline Reading (you know, actual books)
• The Rough Guide to Blogging, by Jonathan Yang. Penguin Books Ltd. 2006
• The Bookaholic’s Guide to Book Blogs, compiled by Rebecca Gillieron and Catheryn Kilgarriff. Marion Boyars Publishers Ltd. 2007

Recommended Online Reading
Blogging Pro
Daily Blog Tips
Copyblogger
Bloggerhelp on YouTube (good video tutorials for new Bloggers)