Do you want to know how to take better photos? I sure do

Kelly of Live.Laugh.Rowe is doing a Photography 101 series of posts.  So far she has done ISO and Aperture.  I found them interesting and can certainly do with improving my photography!

Making a signature for your emails in gmail

OK, I'm no doubt the last to the party on this but I finally figured out how to get an automatic signature for my emails in gmail.  I haven't done anything fancy - just my name plus a link to Carole's Chatter.  But it all helps to save time.

If you are a gmail user, just click on the gearwheel icon (like the one above) toward the top right and then click on Settings.  If you scroll down you will find something called Signature.  Then click the button below No Signature and put the signature you want in the box using the tools you'll find there.

Click save changes at the bottom and you're good to go!

Now I just need to figure out how to do something similar in comments on blogs... any ideas?

A simple guide to SEO (that's Search Engine Optimisation) by Simply Clarke

 I thought this Simple Guide to SEO was one of the best ones I have read.  A shout out to Simply Clarke who posted it. I hope you  find it helpful.  Search Engine Optimisation - ie blogging in ways that make more people find you - is important to know about - although I haven't got a grip on it yet!

Link to article about Google+ Circles

I thought you might like to see this article by Happy Kids, Inc about Google+ circles.  I still haven't got my head around Google+ but this helped me.

That's right - I am looking for guest bloggers

If you have posts about blogging, or are about to write one, please consider being a guest blogger on this blog.  Or I could simply provide a link to your post if you prefer.  Looking forward to hearing from you.

Just in case you don't know how to take a screen shot to use in your blog...

 I wanted to share with you how to take a screen shot of something and save it to use in a blog post. The screen shot can be of anything you like.


First, you probably all know how to do a screenshot - I didn't - probably one of the last few in the Western World! But just in case, for most pc's you will find a button labelled "Print Screen" just above the "Insert" key in the block of buttons to the right of the main keyboard. On my laptop it is the row of buttons at the top just to the right of F12 and is labelled "prt sc". On some laptops you might need to push the function or shift button at the same time to get to it.


Now, it doesn't actually print the screen - it saves it to your clipboard. Then you need to crop it to just show the bit you want to copy in to your blog.
 There are probably heaps of different ways you can do this but I did this (sorry Mac users I don't know if you can do it like this):

Open Paint. You will find this by clicking the Windows icon right at the bottom right of your screen. Then click All Programs, then scroll down to Accessories and you will find Paint listed there. I actually dragged it onto my bottom toolbar so I can get to it quickly each time I want to use it.


Then click Paste - at the top left and bingo, your screenshot will appear. Then you have to select the area you want to copy. I found the best way to do this was to click select (just a bit to the right from paste) and then click free form selection and then go back and click rectangular selection - for some reason this makes selecting easier. You then click at the top right of the part you want to copy and drag it diagonally until you have it all in the box. Then click Crop (which is one to the right of Select).


Then all you do is go to the Blue tab above paste and click on the little arrow beside it and it will give you an option to Save As - save it in whatever folder you want (I now have one called Blog Tips).  You can then also edit the image to include an arrow or circle etc if you like.


Then you just insert it into your post the way you would any image.

Do you need a light box to take better pics?

Diana from Diana Rambles has posted here about the collapsible light box she made for less than $10.  I need me one!

Making it easy for your readers to find what they want

I am quite often surprised just how many blogs don't have search boxes where their readers can search for subjects that interest them. Or, if they do have them, they are hidden towards the bottom of the page. If you have a search box like that I suggest you try searching for something - often the results show up right at the top of the page and then if you want to search again you have to scroll down to find the search box again.


So my suggestion is that you make sure you have a search box and that it is towards the top of one of your sidebars - probably right at the top under the header is the very best spot.


The search box is one of the basic gadgets available in Blogger - and I imagine in other blog platforms as well. To move it around you just need to go into Layout and drap and drop it where you want it to be.