Friday, August 22, 2008

Blog, Blog, Blog - 2008 Genea-Blogger Group Games





My task today is to write a post about my blog - why I started doing this, how it's gone so far, what I'd like to do in the future.

I started this almost as a lark. I’d been reading so many genealogy blogs, and talking to people about what was being written, that I thought I might as well try it myself. It turned out blogging was mostly free and that it didn’t take too much time to learn the ‘how tos’, so that was that.

When I started, I thought I’d use my blog to share information about genealogical events and activities that I’m involved with myself, and as a place to post information useful to the students in my genealogy sessions or to friends in the discussion groups I’m in. These purposes are still important to me.

About the title – usually I’m using Canadian genealogy examples, and there aren’t many Canadian blogs, thus ‘CanadaGenealogy’, but my big interest in life is women’s history and I do like to give a womanly twist to clichés – so ‘Jane’s Your Aunt’. One of the earliest posts I wrote in 2005 was about my title: http://canadagenealogy.blogspot.com/2005/02/janes-your-aunt-whats-with-this-title.html

This year, I made a new resolution or two about blogging. I did update my template as planned, since then I’ve started using more photographs, even added a widget.

Participating in the Summer 2008 Genea-Blogger Group Games has given me an incentive to check out Blogger's new features. I've added 'subscribe to' links and I’ve learned how to e-mail a post, this may come in handy in the near future. I thought I remembered a mention of pre-posting in Blogger Beta. That doesn’t seem to be available yet, but I did have someone give me an idea for a solution, if needed.

In my New Year’s Resolutions, I said I wanted to:

“Blog more! I’ve just started with the Carnival of Genealogy and I’ve had fun, so I do want to continue. And, as a bonus, my family is reading my blog, if only to see if their own photographs might appear.”

This is all still true - and I don’t see why a blog (or any other personal writing project) can’t serve more than one purpose.

People seemed to like my book recommendations so I’ll be making that a weekly feature, as with ‘Wordless....’, Wednesday! I think, as that’s my ‘anti-procrastination day’ so not much dallying on-line that day.

I’ll definitely be keeping up with the Carnivals and I'll try to keep up with the Genea-Bloggers (lots of energy in that group!) – it’s fun to do the posts and fun to read everyone else’s. Now, how to encourage more comments? Lots of people tell me they read, but never leave a mark...

Fortune Cookie courtesy of Image Chef: http://www.imagechef.com/ic/make.jsp?tid=Fortune+Cookie

3 comments:

Kathryn Doyle said...

Diane,
All you have to do to "schedule" a post in blogger is click on "Post Options" located on the left bottom side of the "Compose" box. That opens up the "Post date and time" box. You can change the date and time to anything in the future (or the past for that matter). When you "Publish Post" Blogger automatically schedules it to publish on the date and time you indicated. You can edit up until the time it posts if you change your mind. Email me if you have any questions.
California Genealogical Society and Library blog

M. Diane Rogers said...

Aha! I am trying that right now.
Thanks Kathryn!

M. Diane Rogers said...

Nope, doesn't work - but now I know why, I think. Someone or something thinks I'm a robot.

"Blogs that require a word verification (CAPTCHA) for each post cannot schedule posts to publish in the future. Those posts will be saved as drafts. Blog owners should click the “?” help icon next to the word verification for instructions" from May 2008

I've requested a review of my status. Funny as the post I tried to schedule was saved displaying a note with the scheduled date & time. The note then just disappeared after the scheduled time.

And, I didn't even realize not every one had to peer at the letter image before posting - 'captcha' - another new word.