Ben posted his list of WordPress plugins, in 3 parts. In the last post he mentioned a plugin for putting your writer profile/ bio at the end of each post (which I do) or keeping it at the footer of your blog, not in the sidebar. I disagree with this. Yes, there may be other things you would like to give that blog space to, but… what else gives people their first impression of your site and yourself more than a little blurb about you and what your site is about? I really think this is important. Here is what I wrote in the comments on Ben’s blog. It’s in two parts because I made two comments and Ben replied in between. Go read it from his blog to see everything. I only quoted myself.

I don’t agree about the author bio being relegated to the footer or just at the end of the posts. The first thing I look for on a new blog is something about the author and the intent of the blog. I can skim down the list of posts and guess at who wrote them but it’s not the same. If I read the about or a quick bio/ profile I am far more likely to identify with the blogger and become interested in reading the blog. I will also link to another blog just because I liked the bio and felt it was someone worth keeping track of. (Even if none of the current posts really caught my interest).

I come to read your blog because I know you. Over years online you’ve become a familiar face. When I visit a blog for the first time, it’s stepping into a strange land, new territory. Finding something familiar, that I can identify with makes a huge difference in my first impression and it will decide me on whether or not to stay and read. If I don’t find something to identify with I’m very unlikely to return to the blog. The content would have to completely amaze me and almost no blog does that any more. A lot of people won’t see your footer to find you on your site. It can give the first impression of being empty content, written and left out like a brochure. I think people need to see that there is a person behind the site. I think I just gave myself my post for the day.

Ben posted his list of WordPress plugins, in 3 parts. In the last post he mentioned a plugin for putting your writer profile/ bio at the end of each post (which I do) or keeping it at the footer of your blog, not in the sidebar. I disagree with this. Yes, there may be other things you would like to give that blog space to, but… what else gives people their first impression of your site and yourself more than a little blurb about you and what your site is about? I really think this is important. Here is what I wrote in the comments on Ben’s blog. It’s in two parts because I made two comments and Ben replied in between. Go read it from his blog to see everything. I only quoted myself.

I don’t agree about the author bio being relegated to the footer or just at the end of the posts. The first thing I look for on a new blog is something about the author and the intent of the blog. I can skim down the list of posts and guess at who wrote them but it’s not the same. If I read the about or a quick bio/ profile I am far more likely to identify with the blogger and become interested in reading the blog. I will also link to another blog just because I liked the bio and felt it was someone worth keeping track of. (Even if none of the current posts really caught my interest).

I come to read your blog because I know you. Over years online you’ve become a familiar face. When I visit a blog for the first time, it’s stepping into a strange land, new territory. Finding something familiar, that I can identify with makes a huge difference in my first impression and it will decide me on whether or not to stay and read. If I don’t find something to identify with I’m very unlikely to return to the blog. The content would have to completely amaze me and almost no blog does that any more. A lot of people won’t see your footer to find you on your site. It can give the first impression of being empty content, written and left out like a brochure. I think people need to see that there is a person behind the site. I think I just gave myself my post for the day.

Are you making full use of all the proofreading features available with the newest version of WordPress?

If you put some time into understanding how the features work (mainly how to understand what they are suggesting to you) you can have an editor look over your post before you publish it to your site. This is something people should be taking advantage of. I didn’t know they had so much packed into it beyond spellcheck.

English Grammar and Style Options

The proofreader applies many of its grammar rules by default. These extra options find patterns of poor writing style:

• Bias language may offend or alienate different groups of readers.
• Clichés are overused phrases with little reader impact.
• Complex phrases are words or phrases with simpler every-day alternatives.
• Diacritical marks are accents and marks attached to letters in some nouns and words borrowed from other languages. This option helps restore these marks in your writing.
• A double negative is one negative phrase followed by another. The negatives cancel each other out, making the meaning hard to understand.
• A hidden verb is a verb made into a noun. These often need extra verbs to make sense.
• Jargon phrases are foreign words and phrases that only make sense to certain people.
• Passive voice obscures or omits the sentence subject. Frequent use of passive voice makes your writing hard to understand.
• Phrases to avoid are wishy-washy or indecisive phrases.
• Redundant phrases can be shortened by removing an unneeded word.

I’m working on a blog to display my ASCII art and the art from other artists which I have collected and gathering electronic dust bunnies on my hard drive.

I had a struggle to get the ASCII art to display in plain text without warping to the left. Then I found the Preserve Code Formatting plugin. It works! I just have to keep the art from getting too close to the left margin, that seems to throw it off a bit.

If you want to format your text as plain text, with a plain fixed font this will work for you as well. Might be a nice change from using blockquote as a method of highlighting text. At times the text we are using wasn’t a quote, just something we want to give an extra emphasis to.

I’m working on a blog to display my ASCII art and the art from other artists which I have collected and gathering electronic dust bunnies on my hard drive.

I had a struggle to get the ASCII art to display in plain text without warping to the left. Then I found the Preserve Code Formatting plugin. It works! I just have to keep the art from getting too close to the left margin, that seems to throw it off a bit.

If you want to format your text as plain text, with a plain fixed font this will work for you as well. Might be a nice change from using blockquote as a method of highlighting text. At times the text we are using wasn’t a quote, just something we want to give an extra emphasis to.

A list of podcasting links I started collecting last year. Posting them today, just out of the blue. I thought I would get into podcasting (and I may yet) but I don’t seem to be heading that way right now.

• Podcast Awards
• Blubrry PowerPress Podcast plugin for WordPress
• Marketing Latinos: Podcasting FAQ
• Womens Radio on Twitter and Facebook too.
• PodPress – WordPress plugin for podcasters.
• Free Podcasting Course available from ALISON

Our world is shrinking. The Internet was predicted to bring sweeping changes to the way we communicate, to bring the world together, connecting us all as a community over distances.

Maybe the changes aren’t working for everyone. Have you noticed there seem to be more cases of shut ins, people with agoraphobia and other social related issues which cause them to close down or hide themselves away?

The information age is bringing us too much information, too much social connectedness and too much time of being available versus giving ourselves some down time. It’s not just the Internet now. People seem to be attached to their mobile phones like chain smokers. Is it really just a way to communicate without ever being face to face, in the same room with someone?

Far more people claim to be introverts than extroverts. So why are we pushing social interaction so much? Why are we filling every available surface, every form of media with information, far more than any human being could ever absorb? What is the rush to share? What is so important that it needs to be shared, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week?

No wonder some people want to get away from it all. There is a lot of ‘all’ to get away from. It’s not even easy to remove yourself now. Go to a remote location and you will still find some form of social communication creeping in. There will be advertising, likely a phone, radio, maybe even a television, if not a laptop computer. When do you get away from all the noise? When do you have that down time?

I never get away completely. The best I can do is lock the doors on the house, stop answering the phone and don’t turn on the television or the radio, or the computer. I take a book to bed with me. A real, paper printed book. It’s very quiet and though it does have ads for other books – it saves them for the back of the book which I only see when I have finished reading the book. They don’t pop out at me, they don’t demand my attention in any way.

If you watch an old movie or a movie about people surviving after the end of civilization… doesn’t it seem kind of peaceful and simple? Communication tends to be the spoken word, or a printed page. I watched a movie about people surviving after alien plants took over. Some part of my mind was thinking how nice it would be… locked away in that big old house they found. They made it safe against alien plant invasion and there were so few people left in the world that there was no outside noise left. How cozy to be there, a huge fire for warmth and all that quiet, the information highway, the mobile phones, the television… all of it silenced.

After awhile I’d miss the Internet. Not the phone. I had a mobile phone for a week and returned it to the store. I just don’t want to be available to the world 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. I’m a social hermit by choice.

–

See my other posts related to taking or needing a break from it all:

• Hikikomori
• Digital Sabbatical

From CopyBlogger: The 3-Step Cure for Boring, Useless Content

1) Create an editorial mission

Most trade journals and top-tier blogs have editorial missions. The editorial mission provides a compass, always guiding writers toward relevant subjects.
What do you stand for? What do you offer customers and readers?
Every company has unique knowledge it can share with customers. Understanding the middle ground between your company and the customer opens the door to value creation.
For more complex subject areas, develop specific topic areas. You or your writers can develop content for these “beats.”

I’ve never written out a detailed plan. I’m actually not good when it comes to things like focus, discipline, planning and details.

Are you into infographics?

I think it’s good to have a new way to show your point, visually rather than text. But, I’m not a big fan. Usually the graphic is too small for me to read them without squinting at the monitor. If I can’t resize it I often can’t read the fine print.

Anyway, there are pros and cons for everything. If you were going to make an infographic what would be about and how would you pull it together? Go ahead and try one, just for the heck of it!

ScoopIt: Infographics

Infographics Archive

Visual.ly

Data Appeal

How To Resources:

• Make Use Of: 10 Awesome Free Tools to Make Infographics
• The Next Web: Tips, Tricks and Resources to Make your Own Gorgeous Infographics
• Queness: How to Design your Own Infographics
• HubPages: How to Create Viral Infographics
• Bit Rebels: How to Turn your Own Life into an Infographic
• Instant Shift: Infographic Designs: Overview, Examples and Best Practices

This blog is almost 6 years old (anniversary January 2, 2006). This blog has over 1750 posts. The archives for this blog are extensive. Very few people would want to look back and try to find anything in particular in the archives. It would take awhile. Instead people search using words, not dates.

But, here we have all these nice archives. Built up over years, something to look back on with pride. It’s a shame to waste them.

I’ve been feeling I need to make changes with this blog. A new outlook, something to make it more personal for me again and something that focuses on what I really do know about and experience versus what I think I should be and do. I don’t give myself credit for anything I can do well, instead I pick on myself for anything I’m not great at. So too much of my focus goes into trying to become someone else. Meanwhile, the great things I already have get pushed to the back.

Looking into my own archives, everything I’ve been doing these past 6 years in this blog, is a way to reconnect with myself and figure out how to get where I want to be and how I can change and create something fresh.

Resources to Read:

Confident Writing: What’s Hiding in your Archives and How to Find the Treasure in your Archives

ProBlogger: Updating Old Posts on your Blog

Franklin Bishop: 6 WordPress Archive Plugins