New Blogging class to begin Wed March 4

A new Blogging class begins on Wed March 4th at 10 am.

This one will be for only four weeks and I envisage the members working their way through the tasks set up last year.

There are still vacancies if you would like to enrol.

The end of this journey, for now

 Well, in 10 weeks we achieved some quite difficult tasks.

Not everyone will continue blogging, but most have discovered the joy of telling stories, creating online journals, collaborating with others, and some have even decided on creating a new, special purpose blog.

For me I have been really pleased with the fact that we have often jointly collaborated on solving problems and learning new things. Well done!

The pleasure of achieving the unexpected

Adding a Picasa slide show into a blog post

Every now and again you manage to do something that seems difficult. We've been working on doing this for a few weeks now in our blogging class and I'm still only vaguely sure about how I managed it. Thanks to Pauline, one of our classmembers for finding the links to these YouTube videos.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N06kXgVSW2E

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2jYxXRW-J3c

I used the instructions in the second YouTube video to produce the slide show below.
They utilise some photos that are publicly available online in my Picasa Photo Album.
The clue is that they must be publicly shared. My album is here.

I've also put these links into Usefuls

Herer are step by step instructions
1. Open your blog
2. Decide whether you want to put the slideshow in a Gadget or a new post
If a gadget look for HTML Gadget. If a new post create new post and go to html side of page
3. open a new window and load Picasa Album (and login if you aren't logged in)
4. Choose an album to display. It needs to be shared and public.
5. In the right hand margin look for Link to this album and click on that
6. Click on embed slideshow - this will display code
7. choose size - if a side gadget probably Medium is ok, if a gadget at the bottom of the page or in the post, then you can use large or extra large.
8. Copy the code (Ctrl-A then Ctrl-C) and Paste the code into your blog (Ctrl-V) and save.
Slideshow should work - check preview

Online Communities, Conversations, Blog Tours, Memes, Challenges

When you became a blogger you probably didn't see yourself as becoming part of an online  community but by now you will have realised that you are.

People mainly blog because they want to share and pass on their experiences, and while you may be quite happy to remain a casual blogger, there are online communities and challenges that you can join to make new friends and to share the experiences of others.
They go by the name, among others, of blog tours, memes, and challenges.

Quite often you formally join the challenge/community through an online form (Mr Linky) and the duration of the challenge is the calendar year. (However you can join at any time - or drop out if you wish)
The challenge may be to make a daily blog post, or weekly, or monthly, on a particular theme. The extent of the task is up to you. Participation in a challenge does help to stimulate your blogging.

Here is a search to start you off but you can modify this Google search to suit yourself.
e.g. Blog Challenge Sewing
Blog Challenge Garden
Blog Challenge Travel
Blog Challenge Reading
Capture 365 (Photos)

See how a Mr Linky works