<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<rss version="2.0"
	xmlns:content="http://purl.org/rss/1.0/modules/content/"
	xmlns:wfw="http://wellformedweb.org/CommentAPI/"
	xmlns:dc="http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/"
	xmlns:atom="http://www.w3.org/2005/Atom"
	xmlns:sy="http://purl.org/rss/1.0/modules/syndication/"
	xmlns:slash="http://purl.org/rss/1.0/modules/slash/"
	>

<channel>
	<title>How To Blog &#187; email</title>
	<atom:link href="http://bradtheblogboy.com/tag/email/feed/" rel="self" type="application/rss+xml" />
	<link>http://bradtheblogboy.com</link>
	<description>blogging 102</description>
	<lastBuildDate>Fri, 14 May 2010 06:03:26 +0000</lastBuildDate>
	<generator>http://wordpress.org/?v=2.9</generator>
	<language>en</language>
	<sy:updatePeriod>hourly</sy:updatePeriod>
	<sy:updateFrequency>1</sy:updateFrequency>
			<item>
		<title>5 WordPress Plugins That Drive Comments</title>
		<link>http://bradtheblogboy.com/comments/5-wordpress-plugins-that-drive-comments/?source=rss</link>
		<comments>http://bradtheblogboy.com/comments/5-wordpress-plugins-that-drive-comments/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Fri, 25 Jul 2008 15:11:51 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Blogboy</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[comments]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Akismet]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Blog]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Blogs]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[bot]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[comment.php]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[commentator]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[CommentLuv]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Comments links could be nofollow free.]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[deep link]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[email]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[google]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[google search phrase]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Hell]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[How To Blog]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[link]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Links]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[nofollow]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[nofollow free]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[php]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[ping]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Plugin]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Search]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[search phrase]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[spam]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Theme]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[website]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[WordPress]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[WordPress Plugin Editor]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://bradtheblogboy.com/?p=87</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Reading time: 3 &#8211; 5 minutes
The biggest means to increasing regular readership is involving your occasional readers through a better comment experience.  These five pugins will do just that if you do it right.
1) Nofollow Free:  Without going nofollow free few small blogs have a hope in hell of drawing lots of comments straight out [...]]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>Reading time: 3 &#8211; 5 minutes</p>
<p>The biggest means to increasing regular readership is involving your occasional readers through a better comment experience.  These five pugins will do just that if you do it right.</p>
<p>1) <a href="http://www.michelem.org/wordpress-plugin-nofollow-free/"><strong>Nofollow Free</strong></a>:  Without going nofollow free few small blogs have a hope in hell of drawing lots of comments straight out of the box.  You will get some spam, but nothing worth having comes without a little bit of work.  there are easy ways around this too.  Akismet will block most spam.  Moderated comments will hold all of them until you can look at them.  You can also moderate them so regular commentators can post without moderation. You can also set it so the nofollow doesn&#8217;t kick until you have X number of approved comments.  At the very least the  plugin writes <strong>&#8220;Comments links could be <a href="http://www.michelem.org/wordpress-plugin-nofollow-free/">nofollow free</a></strong>&#8221; to the end of the comment form, and this is a popular Google search phrase.<span id="more-87"></span></p>
<p>2) <a href="http://www.fiddyp.co.uk/commentluv-wordpress-plugin/"><strong>CommentLuv</strong></a>: This is one of the best ways you can reward your visitors.  CommentLuv will give a title and link to the latest blog post of the commentator.  This deep link will help them in the Google rankings.  It also makes you a popular destination spot.  Once again you can get some comment spam, but that is trivial as having a link directly to their website paints them as an asshole should you choose to publish it.  The same rules for moderation apply with <strong>CommentLuv</strong>.  This plugin also adds <strong>&#8220;Enable <a href="http://www.fiddyp.co.uk/commentluv-wordpress-plugin/">CommentLuv</a> which will try and parse your last blog post</strong>&#8221; which is another popular Google search phrase.</p>
<p>3) <a href="http://meidell.dk/threadedcomments/"><strong>Brian&#8217;s Threaded Comments</strong></a>: This plugin requires a little bit of work.  You have to replace your themes <strong>comments.php</strong> with the provided <strong>comments.php</strong> before activating the plugin.  This is a simple matter and you will likely want to edit the plugin itself through the <strong>WordPress Plugin Editor</strong>.  I find the default border color and width too light to really stand out and show the threads, but it is an easy fix.  This plugin also moves the trackbacks and pings to the bottom of the post rather than intermingling them with actual comments.</p>
<p>4) <a href="http://www.damagedgoods.it/wp-plugins/quoter/"><strong>Quoter</strong></a>:  With <strong>Quoter</strong> you and your readers have the ability to both quote article text, but other comments.  If you run a hotly contested blog like politics or other charged subjects you almost certainly will want to use this with some sort of comment moderation.  It is powerful, and like the others has the power to be misused.  This is just one more instance where you need to actually work your blog rather than thinking you can sit back and do nothing.  Quoter is another plugin that will require you to add a bit of code to the <strong>comments.php</strong>.</p>
<p>5) <strong><a href="http://txfx.net/code/wordpress/subscribe-to-comments/"title="Visit plugin homepage" >Subscribe To Comments</a></strong>: This plugin makes it easy for people to track new comments by email of posts they care enough to comment on.  &#8220;<strong><small>Subscribe to comments via email</small></strong>&#8221; is another Google search phrase popular with people looking for blogs to post on.</p>
<p>All in all you have to ask yourself do you want people who are searching for places to comment?  My answer is most definitely.  There will be some assholes who leave spam, but most people are going to read the article and post something relevant to avoid linking their name and blog with spam activity.  Not everyone who searches for these terms will comment on your blog if it isn&#8217;t interesting so you must have good content.  in the end you really have to decide what level of commitment you your blog and its readers you want to have.  If the answer is very little you probably should just quit blogging.</p>
]]></content:encoded>
			<wfw:commentRss>http://bradtheblogboy.com/comments/5-wordpress-plugins-that-drive-comments/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
		<slash:comments>28</slash:comments>
		</item>
		<item>
		<title>What Are You Doing For Your Commentators</title>
		<link>http://bradtheblogboy.com/comments/what-are-you-doing-for-your-commentators/?source=rss</link>
		<comments>http://bradtheblogboy.com/comments/what-are-you-doing-for-your-commentators/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Sun, 20 Jul 2008 04:11:30 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Blogboy</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[comments]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Blog]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[blogger]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Blogs]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[CommentLuv]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[D-List]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Digg]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[dofo]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[dofollow]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[email]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[free pugin]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[google]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[google juice]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[How To Blog]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[HTML]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[keyword]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[KeywordLuv]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[link]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Links]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[nofollow]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[nofollow free]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[noob]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[PageRank]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[php]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Plugin]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Theme]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Traffic]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[TypePad]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[WordPress]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://bradtheblogboy.com/?p=83</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Reading time: 3 &#8211; 4 minutes
Every blogger wants a reaction to their posts.  Whether or not everyone will admit, this is the whole reason we do what we do it.  It is no fun talking out of your ass if everyone ignores you.  So ask yourself what are you doing for those [...]]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>Reading time: 3 &#8211; 4 minutes</p>
<p>Every blogger wants a reaction to their posts.  Whether or not everyone will admit, this is the whole reason we do what we do it.  It is no fun talking out of your ass if everyone ignores you.  So ask yourself what are you doing for those people?</p>
<p>I have put a lot of thought into this of late.  I know how to get a lot of diggs when I want, and a lot of traffic too.  What I was missing though were lots of comments.  I read what the big guys were saying.  Then I realized many of them were just talking out of their asses, because if it were really great advice they would be doing it themselves.  <span id="more-83"></span></p>
<p>When big name Blogger X loses a lot of credibility by saying remove the <a href="http://www.adammoss.co.uk/news/a-nofollow-free-blog/"><strong>nofollow</strong></a> from your comments, but doesn’t do it themselves.  I am taking a stand.  <a href="http://www.niessuh.com/commentluv-and-highlight-author-comments/"><strong>Nofollow</strong></a> is gone from all my comments as of now.  I am not stupid enough to not moderate my comments, but I am going totally nofollow free in the comments.  This is step one.  I recommend the <a href="http://www.ideapro.com/free-high-quality-backlinks-updated-list-of-277-free-web-directories-pagerank-8-to-3"><strong>nofollow</strong></a> <a href="http://i4p.biz/2008/07/create-your-own-wordpress-memberships-site-using-free-plugins/"><strong>free plugin</strong></a> for <a href="http://www.themelab.com/2008/07/17/home-free-wordpress-theme/"><strong>WordPress</strong></a>.  I also recommend using the <a href="http://thewordpressplugin.com/231/free-unique-wp-plugin-wordpress-plugin-nofollow-free/"><strong>nofollow</strong></a> from home and <a href="http://www.katagraphais.com/index.php/2008/06/to-wordpressorg-users-get-this-plug-in/"><strong>nofollow</strong></a> those dupes to keep <a href="http://blogd.com/wp/index.php/archives/3889"><strong>Google juice</strong></a> flowing the right direction from there.</p>
<p>Secondly give back to your commentators.  I not only have I made the link to their blog <strong><a href="http://www.darrensingleton.com/dofollow-blogging">nofollow</a> </strong>free, but using <a href="http://www.fiddyp.co.uk/commentluv-wordpress-plugin/"><strong>CommentLuv</strong></a> and <a href="http://www.scratch99.com/wordpress-plugin-keywordluv/"><strong>KeywordLuv</strong></a> the link to their last post is <strong><a href="http://www.explore-studios.com/2008/07/18/how-to-build-free-links-to-your-site/">nofollow</a> </strong>free.  This will pass along some serious <a href="http://speechwriting-ghostwriting.typepad.com/speechwriting_ghostwritin/2008/07/the-new-freelan.html"><strong>Google juice</strong></a> when you are indexed.</p>
<p>The third thing I am doing is providing subscribe to comments by email.  Your commentators will know when someone else posts a follow up comment.  Last but not least I am using <a href="http://meidell.dk/threadedcomments/">Brian’s Threaded Comments</a> plugin.  Commentators will be able to respond to each other.  If you run a political or religiously minded blog you will probably want to be careful how many levels deep you let that one run though.</p>
<p>Lastly I intend to do a better job than most of the big guys when it comes to interacting with you.  This is another area you see top name blogging gurus telling you to be social but never have anything to do with the people commenting on their own blogs.  I can promise you this if you comment and leave your site I will at the very least give your site a visit, which usually will translate into an ad click or comment of my own if your subject interests me.  Also be sure to check out the weekly <a href="http://bloggingfornoobs.com/blogging/commentluv-links-7-18-2008/"><strong>CommentLuv</strong> </a><a href="http://bloggingfornoobs.com/blogging/commentluv-links-7-18-2008/"><strong>Link List</strong></a> posted every Friday at <a href="http://bloggingfornoobs.com">Blogging For Noobs</a>.</p>
]]></content:encoded>
			<wfw:commentRss>http://bradtheblogboy.com/comments/what-are-you-doing-for-your-commentators/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
		<slash:comments>8</slash:comments>
		</item>
		<item>
		<title>Problems At Technorati</title>
		<link>http://bradtheblogboy.com/rank-and-ratings/problems-at-technorati/?source=rss</link>
		<comments>http://bradtheblogboy.com/rank-and-ratings/problems-at-technorati/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Fri, 30 May 2008 15:56:05 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Blogboy</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Rank and Ratings]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[advertising]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[anchor links]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Authority]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[automatic ping services]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Blog]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[blogger]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Bloggers]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Blogs]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[board admin]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Bulletin Board]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[discussion board]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[email]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[fraudulent principal]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[http://www.bradsotherblog.com]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[http://www.technorati.com/ping]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Indexing]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[link]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Links]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[MIL]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[mouths]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[paid advertising]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[ping]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[reply]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Search]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[search traffic]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[second time]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[software]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[suggestion]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Tags]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[technorati]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[tracking]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Traffic]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://bradtheblogboy.com/?p=69</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Reading time: 4 &#8211; 6 minutes
Something is up at Technorati.  For more than a month now I have been having problems with them properly indexing one of my blogs.  Despite the fact that it was being updated either manually or automatically with daily digest posts, http://www.bradsotherblog.com was simply not getting its ping through [...]]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>Reading time: 4 &#8211; 6 minutes</p>
<p>Something is up at Technorati.  For more than a month now I have been having problems with them properly indexing one of my blogs.  Despite the fact that it was being updated either manually or automatically with daily digest posts, <a href="http://www.bradsotherblog.com">http://www.bradsotherblog.com</a> was simply not getting its ping through to Technorati.  This just isn’t me, either.</p>
<p>The first suggestion they made was to manually ping your blog at <a href="http://www.bradsotherblog.com">http://www.technorati.com/ping</a> this works for all of my blogs except <a href="http://www.bradsotherblog.com">The Other Blog</a>.  After trying that and a ticket submitted with no answer I finally complained on the post board and the blog was quickly taken care of.  They apparently want to take care of people who open their mouths in public a lot faster than they do those who wait patiently for returned emails.  Well that one ping they did worked exactly once, the blog updated and jumped from an authority of 8 to 14 when all was said and done.</p>
<p>I checked back a week later and nothing since that day had been indexed.  I sent another ticket and posted on the bulletin board the same day.  Three days afterwards I received a reply to the first email and was told the blog had been indexed, what they didn’t say was it was done shortly after I made the problem known on the bulletin board.  I have since had to make more than half a dozen posts in order to get the blog regularly indexed.  Who ever is in charge of doing that does it pretty speedily and should be rewarded for it.<br />
<span id="more-69"></span><br />
I have received several answers as to why this is happening from the board admin, and none of them are very likely.  First I wasn&#8217;t given an answer.  The second time I was told there was just a delay in indexing.  The next time they blamed it on the number of anchor links some of my posts contain.  They have blamed it on the number of tags.  They have always fixed it an done an auto update but they refuse to address the key issue many bloggers are having.  Neither the automatic ping services nor the manual ping at Technorati are working for many of us.</p>
<p>As I said this isn&#8217;t just my problem either.  If you surf over to the <a href="http://support.technorati.com/discussions/">Technorati discussion board </a>you will find quite a few people who have gone a couple of days without being tracked to those who have gone weeks.  One blogger reports his blog hadn&#8217;t been indexed for more than a year.  I have no idea how often he posts, but Technorati simply can&#8217;t say his problem was a simple delay in indexing.</p>
<p>If you are a serious blogger with a Technorati account don&#8217;t just assume it has been working for you, go check it out.  I know some of you are asking what the big deal is.  First off if you are displaying the Technorati logo on your blog, you are advertising them in exchange for a service which includes indexing and providing search traffic.  If they aren&#8217;t providing that, then they are operating on a fraudulent principal and should be paying you for the advertising.  Secondly they are getting paid advertising because of the service they provide, I think the advertisers that pay them should be made aware that they aren&#8217;t getting everything they are paying for.  I know I certainly would if I were paying big bucks to advertise on a site making claims of tracking a hundred million plus blogs, but only updating three quarters of their claim.  The fact is they are a corporation and all corporations private or public need to be held accountable to proper standards.</p>
<p>I won&#8217;t debate whether they have the right or not to deny tracking of individual blogs, but the fact is they have an obligation to tell people that their blogs will not be tracked.  They don&#8217;t even have to provide a reason, they just have to be honest about doing it.  Of course none of us know if this is a softwarer glitch, which they have never admitted to, but they need to come out and say something one way or another.  Failure to do or say something is the best way for them to lose their credibility.  I can live with it being some sort of technical problem, we have all experienced those, but the fact is something needs to be done and done soon.</p>
]]></content:encoded>
			<wfw:commentRss>http://bradtheblogboy.com/rank-and-ratings/problems-at-technorati/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
		<slash:comments>2</slash:comments>
		</item>
		<item>
		<title>Must Have WordPress 2.5 Plugins</title>
		<link>http://bradtheblogboy.com/wordpress-2/plugins/must-have-wordpress-25-plugins/?source=rss</link>
		<comments>http://bradtheblogboy.com/wordpress-2/plugins/must-have-wordpress-25-plugins/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Sun, 11 May 2008 13:08:28 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Blogboy</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Plugins]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Akismet]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Andy Beard]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Author]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Blog]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[blog software]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[blogger]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Bloggers]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Blogs]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[bot]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[coffee]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[CSS]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[del.icio.us]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Delaware]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Digg]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[dofo]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[dofollow]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Duplicate Content]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Editor]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[email]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Excerpts]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[functionality]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[google]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[HeadSpace]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[How To Blog]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[HTML]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Indexing]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[keyword]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[link]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Links]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[LiveJournal]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[MySpace]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[nofollow]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Plugin]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[SEO]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Sitemap]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[social tools]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[software]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[spam]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Tags]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[technorati]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[the LJ post]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Theme]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[thingy]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[tracking]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[twitter]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[twitter tools]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[widget]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[WordPress]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[writer]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[XML]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://bradtheblogboy.com/?p=83</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Reading time: 7 &#8211; 12 minutes
There were several old combinations that worked well together but since WordPress 2.3 came out many of them stopped working properly or stopped working altogether. Fear not there are replacements out there. Unlike many of the regurgitated idiot lists currently out there, everything I list will work in WordPress 2.5 [...]]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>Reading time: 7 &#8211; 12 minutes</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">There were several old combinations that worked well together but since WordPress 2.3 came out many of them stopped working properly or stopped working altogether.<span> </span>Fear not there are replacements out there.<span> </span>Unlike many of the regurgitated idiot lists currently out there, everything I list will work in WordPress 2.5 the only version of the blog software you should be running.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Ultimate Tag Warrior hasn’t been supported by the author since WordPress 2.3 came out. Many of its features and those of Bunny’s Technorati Tags, Jerome’s Keywords, and other tagging programs are easily replaced in better plugins. <span> </span>The All in One SEO Pack can even be replaced now.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">The new power plugin combination consists of Headspace2 and Simple Tags. Between these two plugins you can hand every task that you used to require half a dozen plugins and tweaks.<span id="more-62"></span><span> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Simple Tags takes over most of what was done by most of the old tagging plugins did.<span> </span>While it alone doesn’t do everything UTW did that can be handled by Headspace2.<span> </span>There are two more tagging plugins you may wish to consider as options.<span> </span><a href="http://gormful.com/projects/wp23-technorati-tags/">Gormful’s Technorati Tags</a> will give you another formatting option.<span> </span>Tag This will allow users to add/suggest tags at will or with the parameters you set.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><a href="http://urbangiraffe.com/plugins/headspace2/">Headspace2</a> while a more complicated option than the much love All In One SEO Pack, is simply a <a href="http://knowledgeconstructs.com/tag/headspace2/">more powerful tool</a> and one you would do well to learn.<span> </span>Mani at the Daily SEO Blog has a very good <a href="http://www.dailyseoblog.com/2008/03/seo-green-version-101-updated-and-some-headspace-tutorials/">tutorial on Headspace2</a>.<span> </span>He also confirms my suspicion if you are using Google XML Sitemaps you can’t use both Headspace2 and AIOSP without causing plugin clash. <span> </span>This video will give you a nice look at Headspace2.</p>
<p><object classid="clsid:d27cdb6e-ae6d-11cf-96b8-444553540000" width="425" height="355" codebase="http://download.macromedia.com/pub/shockwave/cabs/flash/swflash.cab#version=6,0,40,0"><param name="wmode" value="transparent" /><param name="src" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/T8um7a0fUfc&amp;hl=en" /><embed type="application/x-shockwave-flash" width="425" height="355" src="http://www.youtube.com/v/T8um7a0fUfc&amp;hl=en" wmode="transparent"></embed></object></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">The two standard plugins most people list and I will confirm is the default Akismet for spam control and Google XML Sitemap plugin for indexing.<span> </span>Both of these are pretty standard among power WordPress Bloggers because they work.<span> </span>There are other options like GT Site Crawler that may be better for indexing your site if it contains more than just a blog.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">The next problem one faces with their blog is linking.<span> </span>In my opinion if you are using a good spam plugin like Akismet and practice good comment policy like requiring name and email and a previously approved comment then turning off the nofollow will gain you more than you lose in time.<span> </span>I have used the <a href="http://kimmo.suominen.com/archives/2005/02/dofollow/">DoFollow</a> plugin for some time but have just recently started looking at the more customizable <a href="http://www.michelem.org/wordpress-plugin-nofollow-free/">NoFollow Free</a>.<span> </span>Either way you go the plugin works well in WP 2.5, but don’t use them both.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0in;">Once you decide which nofollow plugin to use.<span> </span>You need to think about how the nofollow and duplicate content affects your SEO.<span> </span>To clue you into this plugin I give you the words of Andy Beard the plugins creator.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0in;">“This plugin is intended to be used in advanced linking structures such as those described in <a href="http://andybeard.eu/2007/06/wordpress-seo-masterclass-for-competitive-niches.html">Wordpress SEO Masterclass For Competitive Niches</a></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0in;">Rather than blocking duplicate content pages, they can be used to your advantage…. (NFTD) has a method of channeling &#8220;Google Juice&#8221; away from pages that are receiving the majority of links, to pages that you wish to rank well, and also to your homepage to enhance monetization.”</p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0in;">For the record I recommend <a href="http://andybeard.eu/2007/06/wordpress-seo-masterclass-for-competitive-niches.html">Wordpress SEO Masterclass For Competitive Niches</a> wholeheartedly.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0in;"><span> </span>WordPress comes with the Tiny MCE editor, but the <a href="http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/tinymce-advanced/">Tiny MCE Advanced</a> plugin will greatly expand the functionality to almost the point of being as good as MS Word for features.<span> </span>The good thing is depending on the kind of blog you run most of these features are useful and easily added or removed.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">The next three are really optional plugins, but I have included them because of how useful they are.<span> </span>First as a writer and avid reader I like two spaces between sentences. This is what you get with the <a href="http://coffee2code.com/wp-plugins/extra-sentence-space/">Extra Sentence Space</a> plugin from Coffee to Code.<span> </span>The <a href="http://urbangiraffe.com/plugins/disable-wpautop/">Disable wpautop</a>, removes WordPress’s automatic paragraph formatting.<span> </span>This is useful for those who wish to have more control of elements from their style sheet.<span> </span>Excerpt Editor does a great job auto-generating your excerpt and can easily be customized.<span> </span>This is important for your front page SEO and channeling Google Juice to the right places.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Along with post style controlled<span> </span>from your style sheet I believe that most of your image and video styling should not be plugin control, but rather be a function of either WordPress’s native image/video functions or controlled from your CSS.<span> </span>There are a few image video plugins that I do find handy though.<span> </span>The only Image related plugins I use at the moment is <a href="http://blog.japonophile.com/flexible-upload/"title="Visit plugin homepage" >Flexible upload</a> and <a href="http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/seo-image/"title="Visit plugin homepage" >SEO Friendly Images</a>.<span> </span>Flexible upload handles some of issues that were present in 2.5’s first release.<span> </span><a href="http://www.prelovac.com/vladimir/wordpress-plugins/seo-image"title="Visit plugin homepage" >SEO Friendly Images</a> takes care of some of the extra bits like image description and alt info automatically.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Last but not least important are your social plugins.<span> </span>The first one to mention is the LiveJournal Cross Poster (LJXP) I am hosting the hacked version of this that is friendly to both 2.3 and 2.5 installs.<span> </span>If you still have friends there or want to simply post excerpts with links back into some of the promo communities this plugin will be your best friend. You can also download the excerpts from LJ and post them to any number of other blogs easily enough.<span> </span>I aggregate all 4 of my blogs LJXPs on WordPress.com.<span> </span>You can also snatch the HTML code from the LJ post and post it to a fair number of other blogging communities like Blogger and MySpace.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">(There is a MySpace crossposter but I have never made it work and no one I have ever met has been able to either.<span> </span>If anyone gets it to work please let me know)<span> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0in;"><span> </span><span> </span>The next group of social tools includes <a href="Twitter%20Tools">Twitter Tools</a> which is very good about posting your blog post updates to twitter, but it sucks for posting your tweets on your blog.<span> </span>For tweet posting I prefer <a href="MyTwitter">MyTwitter</a> which will allow you to hard code your tweeting and place it anywhere you want on your blog.<span> </span>You can also use the hard coding methods described on your Twitter account.<span> </span>The one thing you do need to know about twitter tools and the 2.5 widget layout.<span> </span>You have to uninstall the plugin or change themes to remove the widget.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0in;"><span> </span>The plugin I feel you almost certainly need to have if you are a serious blogger is a social bookmarking plugin.<span> </span>I prefer <a href="http://sharethis.com/index">Share This</a> for two reasons.<span> </span>One it has a small footprint and can be hard coded for exact placement.<span> </span>Secondly it has tracking available for your blog.<span> </span>If you want a bigger selection of Social Sites on hand, especially if you are using non US English sites I suggest using <a href="http://push.cx/sociable">Sociable</a>.<span> </span>You will have a bigger footprint and its gaudy but it gets the job done.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0in;"><span> </span>The last plugin in the category I want to mention is <a href="http://wp.uberdose.com/2007/11/09/auto-social-wordpress-plugin/">Auto Social</a>.<span> </span>This handy little plugin will automatically submit your posts to Del.icio.us for you using all your own tagging information.<span> </span>It makes a powerful end of day digest post when you combine it with the Del.icio.us Thingy.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0in;"><span> </span>There are some site specific plugin for Digg, Sphinn, Reddit, and Technorati.<span> </span>I however think it is far better to hand code these links for better layout control.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0in;">
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0in;">In the end there are other tools and new ones will come along, but with this list you can quickly turn an ordinary blog into a power blog</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">
]]></content:encoded>
			<wfw:commentRss>http://bradtheblogboy.com/wordpress-2/plugins/must-have-wordpress-25-plugins/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
		<slash:comments>45</slash:comments>
		</item>
		<item>
		<title>Blogger/BlogSpot Themes</title>
		<link>http://bradtheblogboy.com/wordpress-2/theme/bloggerblogspot-themes/?source=rss</link>
		<comments>http://bradtheblogboy.com/wordpress-2/theme/bloggerblogspot-themes/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Fri, 25 Apr 2008 14:25:04 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Blogboy</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Theme]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Blog]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[blogger]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Blogs]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[BlogSpot]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[bot]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Brad Blogging]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[comments]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Content Management System]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[CSS]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[electricity]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[email]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[graphic editor]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[How To Blog]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[HTML]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[link]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Links]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[MIL]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[moving]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[resource]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[suggestion]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Tags]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[URL]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[widget]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[XML]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://bradtheblogboy.com/?p=68</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Reading time: 6 &#8211; 9 minutes
I am in no way an expert in Blogger or BlogSpot, but I am passing along to your a nice free article on how to write a theme there since I know some of you blog there.
How To Create A Blogger/Blogspot Theme by Brad
This tutorial will cover the steps needed [...]]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>Reading time: 6 &#8211; 9 minutes</p>
<p>I am in no way an expert in Blogger or BlogSpot, but I am passing along to your a nice free article on how to write a theme there since I know some of you blog there.</p>
<p>How To Create A Blogger/Blogspot Theme by Brad</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-indent: 0in; line-height: normal;">This tutorial will cover the steps needed to create your own blogger template. Many people have used blogger to run blogs and have wondered how they can make their own theme to use with it. There are a very few hard to find guides on how to do this, so I&#8217;ve decided to take up the task to help as many people as I can, create one. Incase you are skimming over the content, this article is teaching you &#8220;<a href="http://bradblogging.com/blog-design/how-to-create-your-own-blogger-template-theme/">How to create a blogger / blogspot theme</a>&#8220;</p>
<p style="text-indent: 0in; line-height: normal;">To create a blogger template, you will need a graphic editor (Such as Photoshop, GIMP, or even Paint will do) to create images for backgrounds, post headers, sidebars, etc.. We will get to that later. You will also need an idea or vision about what you want to create. Without that, you are just wasting your time and electricity. Lastly, you will need to know about C.S.S (Cascading.Style.Sheets) and how to operate them. If you do not know how to do that, you cannot apply interesting effects to your newly designed template (Such as: Positioning pictures or text, creating repeated backgrounds, moving around pictures and text and more). A great guide on how to get started with this is available here.</p>
<p style="text-indent: 0in; line-height: normal;">Once you have got everything you need, you should start the C.S.S Framework by putting properties such as</p>
<p style="text-indent: 0in; line-height: normal;">body[ background-color: #000000; margin: 0 auto; font-family: “Trebuchet MS”, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;}</p>
<p style="text-indent: 0in; line-height: normal;">#title [ font-size: 32px; color: #000011; }</p>
<p style="text-indent: 0in; line-height: normal;">so-on and so forth. A basic list of these tags that were taken from Blogger&#8217;s simple white theme are available here: (PDF File) XML Tags Blogger List Of CSS. An easier way to do this would be to find a theme that you like and copy and paste the C.S.S, editing it along the way so that time is saved. The only problem with doing that is that every theme is engineered differently so the tags will change.</p>
<p style="text-indent: 0in; line-height: normal;">After configuring your CSS Stylesheet, you must piece it together in HTML. This can be achieved using similar structures.</p>
<p style="text-indent: 0in; line-height: normal;">&lt;div id=&#8217;main-wrapper&#8217;&gt; &lt;b:section class=&#8217;main&#8217; id=&#8217;main&#8217; showaddelement=&#8217;no&#8217;&gt; &lt;b:widget id=‘Blog1â€² locked=‘true&#8217; title=&#8217;Blog Posts&#8217; type=Blog&#8217;/&gt; &lt;/b:section&gt; &lt;/div&gt;</p>
<p style="text-indent: 0in; line-height: normal;">Do not forget to reference blogger templates that have already been created for the required widgets that you are supposed to put in certain spots. Without doing this, you could not complete making your own template.</p>
<p style="text-indent: 0in; line-height: normal;">Now comes the grueling part that you can either do yourself which could take hours to finish, or copy from another site and edit accordingly. Blogger is configured using widgets. All your posts are just one big widget hence the code up there. An Example of the code that you could type yourself or copy is:<span id="more-55"></span></p>
<blockquote><p>&lt;div class=’post-footer’&gt;<br />
&lt;p class=’post-footer-line post-footer-line-1′&gt;&lt;span class=’post-author’&gt;<br />
&lt;b:if cond=’data:top.showAuthor’&gt;<br />
&lt;data:top.authorLabel/&gt; &lt;data:post.author/&gt;<br />
&lt;/b:if&gt;<br />
&lt;/span&gt; &lt;span class=’post-timestamp’&gt;<br />
&lt;b:if cond=’data:top.showTimestamp’&gt;<br />
&lt;data:top.timestampLabel/&gt;<br />
&lt;b:if cond=’data:post.url’&gt;<br />
&lt;a class=’timestamp-link’ expr:href=’data:post.url’ title=’permanent link’&gt;&lt;data:post.timestamp/&gt;&lt;/a&gt;<br />
&lt;/b:if&gt;<br />
&lt;/b:if&gt;<br />
&lt;/span&gt; &lt;span class=’post-comment-link’&gt;<br />
&lt;b:if cond=’data:blog.pageType != “item”‘&gt;</p>
<p>&lt;b:if cond=’data:post.allowComments’&gt;<br />
&lt;a class=’comment-link’ expr:href=’data:post.addCommentUrl’ expr:onclick=’data:post.addCommentOnclick’&gt;&lt;b:if cond=’data:post.numComments == 1′&gt;1 &lt;data:top.commentLabel/&gt;&lt;b:else/&gt;&lt;data:post.numComments/&gt; &lt;data:top.commentLabelPlural/&gt;&lt;/b:if&gt;&lt;/a&gt;<br />
&lt;/b:if&gt;<br />
&lt;/b:if&gt;<br />
&lt;/span&gt; &lt;span class=’post-icons’&gt;<br />
&lt;!– email post links –&gt;<br />
&lt;b:if cond=’data:post.emailPostUrl’&gt;<br />
&lt;span class=’item-action’&gt;<br />
&lt;a expr:href=’data:post.emailPostUrl’ expr:title=’data:top.emailPostMsg’&gt;<br />
&lt;span class=’email-post-icon’&gt; &lt;/span&gt;<br />
&lt;/a&gt;<br />
&lt;/span&gt;<br />
&lt;/b:if&gt;</p>
<p>&lt;!– quickedit pencil –&gt;<br />
&lt;b:include data=’post’ name=’postQuickEdit’/&gt;<br />
&lt;/span&gt; &lt;/p&gt;</p>
<p>&lt;p class=’post-footer-line post-footer-line-2′&gt;&lt;span class=’post-labels’&gt;<br />
&lt;b:if cond=’data:post.labels’&gt;<br />
&lt;data:postLabelsLabel/&gt;<br />
&lt;b:loop values=’data:post.labels’ var=’label’&gt;<br />
&lt;a expr:href=’data:label.url’ rel=’tag’&gt;&lt;data:label.name/&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;b:if cond=’data:label.isLast != “true”‘&gt;,&lt;/b:if&gt;<br />
&lt;/b:loop&gt;<br />
&lt;/b:if&gt;<br />
&lt;/span&gt; &lt;/p&gt;</p></blockquote>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0in; line-height: normal;"><span> </span>That code translated into <strong><span style="font-family: ">human terms</span></strong> controls what goes at the bottom of every post…In this case its the author, time, comment link and labels. To extract the code from other templates, just click the “Expand Widget Templates” button and it is below the stylesheet on a certain template.<span style="font-family: "> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0in; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: ">Most of creating a template is just trial and error. If you look at the code and try to piece it together bit by bit.. you will eventually succeed and reap the rewards of creating one. I hope this tutorial has covered everything that you will need and comments/suggestions would be greatly appreciated as it would be great if this tutorial would become a one-stop source for all of the Blogger CMS(Content Management System) users.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-indent: 0in; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0in; line-height: normal;">About the Author<strong></strong></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0in; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: ">This post was created by Brad. This article is from <a href="http://bradblogging.com/"><span style="color: blue;">Brad Blogging.com</span></a>, which is also where he blogs about tips to make your blog better, through personal experience. If you run a blog, or will be considering about creating one in the future, this blog may be the ultimate resource for you to achieve maximum success!!</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0in; line-height: normal;">
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0in; line-height: normal;">
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0in; line-height: normal;"><strong>BlogBoy Notes:</strong>To me everything looked quite sound, but I am not expert on blogger or BlogSpot so make sure you back up your current themes and templates.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">
]]></content:encoded>
			<wfw:commentRss>http://bradtheblogboy.com/wordpress-2/theme/bloggerblogspot-themes/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
		<slash:comments>23</slash:comments>
		</item>
		<item>
		<title>New WordPress 2.5 Plugins</title>
		<link>http://bradtheblogboy.com/wordpress-2/plugins/new-wordpress-25-plugins/?source=rss</link>
		<comments>http://bradtheblogboy.com/wordpress-2/plugins/new-wordpress-25-plugins/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Wed, 23 Apr 2008 17:55:25 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Blogboy</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Plugins]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Blog]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[blogger]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Blogs]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[coffee]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[comments]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[CSS]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[email]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[HTML]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[link]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[MIL]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[novelist]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Plugin]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Plugins. WordPress]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[spam]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[URL]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[URLs]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[web authoring]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[WordPress]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://bradtheblogboy.com/?p=64</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Reading time: 2 &#8211; 4 minutes
I hit the jackpot on good plugin finds today for all you junkines. This morning I found myself sitting face to face with a site called Coffee 2 Code and a long list of WordPress 2.5 compatible plugins. I won’t go through the whole list but here are the ones [...]]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>Reading time: 2 &#8211; 4 minutes</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">I hit the jackpot on good plugin finds today for all you junkines.<span> </span>This morning I found myself sitting face to face with a site called <a href="http://coffee2code.com/">Coffee 2 Code</a> and a long list of WordPress 2.5 compatible plugins.<span> </span>I won’t go through the whole list but here are the ones you can bet will find their way into my blogs very soon.</p>
<p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpFirst" style="margin-left: 1in; text-indent: -0.25in;"><!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: Symbol;"><span>·<span style="font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; font-size: 7pt; line-height: normal; font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal; font-family: &quot;Times New Roman&quot;;"> </span></span></span><!--[endif]-->Auto Hyprelink URLs.<span> </span>It does just what it says by coding any plaint URL from your post or comment into a clickable link.<span> </span>While this has the potential for abuse with spam, it does mean you can remove the linking feature from the comments that might redirect someone elsewhere.</p>
<p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin-left: 1in; text-indent: -0.25in;"><!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: Symbol;"><span>·<span style="font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; font-size: 7pt; line-height: normal; font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal; font-family: &quot;Times New Roman&quot;;"> </span></span></span><!--[endif]-->HTML Special Character Helper.<span> </span>I don’t this very often, but when I do I really hate looking it up in an external program.</p>
<p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin-left: 1in; text-indent: -0.25in;"><!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: Symbol;"><span>·<span style="font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; font-size: 7pt; line-height: normal; font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal; font-family: &quot;Times New Roman&quot;;"> </span></span></span><!--[endif]-->Post to Post Link.<span> </span>While this is easily done with some preplanning normally, the description makes it look even simpler.<span> </span>I haven’t gone through the full trial on it, but it looked too good not to mention.</p>
<p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin-left: 1in; text-indent: -0.25in;"><!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: Symbol;"><span>·<span style="font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; font-size: 7pt; line-height: normal; font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal; font-family: &quot;Times New Roman&quot;;"> </span></span></span><!--[endif]-->Extra Sentence Space.<span> </span>As a novelist, this is one of those things that really, really bugs me about writing online.<span> </span>I see single spaces between a period and the next sentence and I want to correct it, which is bad because I have been web authoring before we were even calling it the web so I should be used to it, but I’m not.</p>
<p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpLast" style="margin-left: 1in; text-indent: -0.25in;"><!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: Symbol;"><span>·<span style="font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; font-size: 7pt; line-height: normal; font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal; font-family: &quot;Times New Roman&quot;;"> </span></span></span><!--[endif]-->Obfuscate <span> </span>Email.<span> </span>This is another one I really don’t need since I already use another method to prevent harvesting.</p>
]]></content:encoded>
			<wfw:commentRss>http://bradtheblogboy.com/wordpress-2/plugins/new-wordpress-25-plugins/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
		<slash:comments>1</slash:comments>
		</item>
		<item>
		<title>Deterring Spam</title>
		<link>http://bradtheblogboy.com/comments/spam/deterring-spam/?source=rss</link>
		<comments>http://bradtheblogboy.com/comments/spam/deterring-spam/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Thu, 17 Apr 2008 03:11:46 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Blogboy</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[spam]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Askimet]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Big Name Bloggers]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Blog]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[blogger]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Bloggers]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[bot]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[contact]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[domain]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[email]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[google]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[internet]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[internet business card]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[internet noobs]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[JavaScript]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[link]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Links]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[noob]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[partial solution]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Plugin]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[WordPress]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[yahoo]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://bradtheblogboy.com/?p=50</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Reading time: 2 &#8211; 2 minutes
We all know it and we all hate it, and believe it or not we have all participated in it to some degree as internet noobs.  There are several ways to deter spam on a blog.  First is the use of plugins, I like Askimet WordPress.  it [...]]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>Reading time: 2 &#8211; 2 minutes</p>
<p>We all know it and we all hate it, and believe it or not we have all participated in it to some degree as internet noobs.  There are several ways to deter spam on a blog.  First is the use of plugins, I like Askimet WordPress.  it works really well and used by most of the big name bloggers so that is good enough for me.</p>
<p>The second place to deter spam is with email.  if you are a pro blogger you need to have your contact information out there.  It is your internet business card and people need to access it.  There are some nice forms that will do, but those are only a partial solution, because unless you are able to program it to accept attachments, links, etc it doesn&#8217;t have the functional range of email.  Posting your email address openly though is a call for spammers, and while many companies like Yahoo and Google do a good job at filtering it for you others don&#8217;t.  I have found the javascript code below however works very well and keeps bots from collection your email, yet displays it just like it would a normal link.</p>
<hr />
&lt;script language=&#8221;JavaScript&#8221;&gt;&lt;!&#8211;</p>
<p>var name = &#8220;your_name&#8221;;</p>
<p>var domain = &#8220;your_name.com&#8221;;</p>
<p>document.write(&#8216;&lt;a href=\&#8221;mailto:&#8217; + name + &#8216;@&#8217; + domain + &#8216;\&#8221;&gt;&#8217;);</p>
<p>document.write(name + &#8216;@&#8217; + domain + &#8216;&lt;/a&gt;&#8217;);</p>
<p>// &#8211;&gt;&lt;/script&gt;</p>
<hr />
<p>I didn&#8217;t write the code but I have been using it for years and can tell you that it does work when it comes to bot harvesting.  it doesn&#8217;t stop assholes from giving it out and listing it elsewhere but nothing does and you just have to live with that if you want to play this game.  Check the header and you will be able to see it in action.</p>
]]></content:encoded>
			<wfw:commentRss>http://bradtheblogboy.com/comments/spam/deterring-spam/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
		<slash:comments>1</slash:comments>
		</item>
		<item>
		<title>On The Seventh Day He Rested&#8230;</title>
		<link>http://bradtheblogboy.com/how-to/on-the-seventh-day-he-rested/?source=rss</link>
		<comments>http://bradtheblogboy.com/how-to/on-the-seventh-day-he-rested/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Tue, 15 Apr 2008 01:52:11 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Blogboy</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[How To Blog]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Blog]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[blogger]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Bloggers]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Blogging as a Job]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Blogs]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[comments]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Courtney Tuttle]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[email]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[god]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[HTML]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Jamie Harrop]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[link]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Links]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[money]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Personal Time]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Seth Godin]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Slumps]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Social Media]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[suggestion]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Traffic]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[TypePad]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://bradtheblogboy.com/2008/04/14/on-the-seventh-day-he-rested/</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Reading time: 2 &#8211; 4 minutes
Yeah right, not if you are talking about a blogging god.  The one thing Bloggers need to do is realize that they have readers who want to see something new out of them every day.  Frankly that is also the quickest way to burn out as a blogger, [...]]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>Reading time: 2 &#8211; 4 minutes</p>
<p>Yeah right, not if you are talking about a blogging god.  The one thing Bloggers need to do is realize that they have readers who want to see something new out of them every day.  Frankly that is also the quickest way to burn out as a blogger, especially for those of us managing multiple blogs.  There are a few tips though that will help reduce the stress.</p>
<ul>
<li>Write posts ahead of time either for scheduled publication or keep them around in draft form until they are either finished or you need to pull something out of your ass.</li>
<li>Make a schedule of posts and keep to it, it is even better if you post it somewhere on your blog so when you get a few nasty emails wondering where your daily blog post is you can point to it.  Yes it does happen, in fact that is why I am writing this damned list now.  I was tired and needed a day off yesterday and I too it from this blog.  One of these days I will manage to take one off from all three at the same time.</li>
<li>Make a quick post about anything relevant.  Don&#8217;t make it a crap post, or it isn&#8217;t worth your time to even do and you will suffer from it in the long run.</li>
<li>Make sure you have some great links to provide and tell your readers why they should go read these other people&#8217;s blog too.</li>
<li>Remember even Blogging Gods have bad days and don&#8217;t post everyday.</li>
</ul>
<p>In honor of the suggestion here are my favorite blogging links of the day.</p>
<ul>
<li>From Jamie Harrop <a href="http://www.jamieharrop.com/2008/04/11/20-ways-to-get-more-blog-comments/"title="Permanent Link to 20 Ways To Get More Blog Comments" >20 Ways To Get More Blog Comments</a>. It is a good little list and everyone should be bookmarking it.</li>
<li>Courtney Tuttle gives us<a title="Permanent Link to 6 Steps To Overcoming A Blog Traffic Slump" rel="bookmark">6 Steps To Overcoming A Blog Traffic Slump </a>If you aren&#8217;t reading her blog regularly you are missing some really good insight.</li>
<li>Dosh Dosh:<a href="http://www.doshdosh.com/building-a-popular-social-media-profile/"title="View Details: Building a Popular Social Media Profile: Seven Essential Characteristics" rel="bookmark" >Building a Popular Social Media Profile: Seven Essential Characteristics</a></li>
<p>We could all stand to do better with this one.</p>
<li>Darren talks about the new breed of bloggers who are getting into blogging for the express purpose of making money. <a href="http://www.problogger.net/archives/2008/04/15/making-money-as-a-side-effect-of-blogging-and-a-new-breed-of-blogger/"title="Click to read: &amp;amp;quot;Making Money as a Side Effect of Blogging (and a New Breed of Blogger)&amp;amp;quot;" rel="bookmark" >Making Money as a Side Effect of Blogging (and a New Breed of Blogger)</a> He also gives us a good link over to Seth Godin on how to write like a blogger from a few days ago.  <a href="http://sethgodin.typepad.com/seths_blog/2008/04/write-like-a-bl.html">Write like a blogger</a></li>
</ul>
]]></content:encoded>
			<wfw:commentRss>http://bradtheblogboy.com/how-to/on-the-seventh-day-he-rested/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
		<slash:comments>2</slash:comments>
		</item>
		<item>
		<title>RSS &#8211; What The Hell IS IT?</title>
		<link>http://bradtheblogboy.com/feeds/rss-what-the-hell-is-it/?source=rss</link>
		<comments>http://bradtheblogboy.com/feeds/rss-what-the-hell-is-it/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Sun, 13 Apr 2008 01:00:06 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Blogboy</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Feeds]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Atom]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Blog]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[blogger]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Bloggers]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Blogs]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[bot]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[calendar]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[cell phones]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[comments]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[email]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[feed]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Feedburner]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[google]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Hell]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[How To Blog]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[K.I.S.S]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[link]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[MIL]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[noob]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Outlook]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Pajama Professional]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Professional]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[RSS]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Syndicated]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Syndication]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Technology]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[television]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[web syndication]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[website]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[XML]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://bradtheblogboy.com/?p=37</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Reading time: 3 &#8211; 5 minutes
I am surprised these days how many people still don&#8217;t know what an RSS/XML/Atom feed is.  Almost every website be it a blog or anything else has some variation of that nice little orange symbol that looks like this:














Okay now that you all know what those are, the question [...]]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>Reading time: 3 &#8211; 5 minutes</p>
<p>I am surprised these days how many people still don&#8217;t know what an RSS/XML/Atom feed is.  Almost every website be it a blog or anything else has some variation of that nice little orange symbol that looks like this:</p>
<table border="0">
<tbody>
<tr>
<td><a href="http://bradtheblogboy.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/04/012.jpg?source=rss"><img class="alignnone size-medium wp-image-38" title="rss 01" src="http://bradtheblogboy.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/04/012.jpg" alt="rss 01" width="120" height="103" /></a></td>
<td><a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/BradTheBlogBoy"><img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-39" title="rss 02" src="http://bradtheblogboy.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/04/022.jpg" alt="rss 02" width="101" height="121" /></a></td>
<td><a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/BradTheBlogBoy"><img class="alignright size-full wp-image-40" title="rss 03" src="http://bradtheblogboy.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/04/032.jpg" alt="rss 03" width="129" height="118" /></a></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/BradTheBlogBoy"><img class="alignnone size-medium wp-image-41" title="rss 04" src="http://bradtheblogboy.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/04/042.jpg" alt="rss 04" width="103" height="107" /></a></td>
<td><a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/BradTheBlogBoy"><img class="alignnone size-medium wp-image-42" title="rss 05" src="http://bradtheblogboy.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/04/052.jpg" alt="rss 05" width="65" height="128" /></a></td>
<td><a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/BradTheBlogBoy"><img class="alignnone size-medium wp-image-43" title="rss 06" src="http://bradtheblogboy.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/04/062.jpg" alt="rss 06" width="93" height="63" /></a></td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>
<p>Okay now that you all know what those are, the question some of you still have is yeah, but what do they do.  First lets explain RSS.  In the guise of K.I.S.S. (Keep It Simple Stupid)  RSS is Really Simple Syndication.  As my MIL (mother in law- in case you are really knew to acronyms) would say RSS and Atom are the same meat, just different gravy.  They are syndicated feeds of blog posts.  XML is just the technology that both of those things are built on.</p>
<p>So what is syndication?  I knew you were going to ask that.  Simply put, it is anything you subscribe to, just like television stations get reruns of shows or newspapers buy advice columns, but web syndication is free.  You click on the link and add to any number of web based readers like Google or into your favorite reader program.  I personally like MS Outlook for this since it is what I read my email from several a dozen different sources, have my daily calendar and so on and so forth.  So the question is why would you want to subscribe to a feed when I could just go to the website. The answer is pretty simple time.  You are already opening a program or going to a single site for your email, so adding one more thing to check saves you time.  If you are a voracious feed reader like me, I can quickly check to see if over a hundred blogs I read have new posts in just a few minutes.  I can decide if I want to go and comment read the full article if it wasn&#8217;t posted in the feed, or just skip on by.  I literally save several hours a day by using a feed reader.</p>
<p>So which is the best method to use a program or a website?  That is really a personal things.  For me it is a program, because that is how I check my email and it is open all the time.  If you are on the go and want to check it from any number of computers or cell phones, then a website reader is probably better.  Can you use both?  Sure, though if you check as many as I do regularly you would probably only want a small list in for going mobile.</p>
<p>That is the long and short of it. Syndicated feeds are good for people who surf blogs, which means as bloggers you should learn to make the most use of them.  Secondly you can get a feed of comments posted to your blog which is extremely helpful for bloggers who want to respond to comments on their blogs.</p>
<p>A new feature for me is a link to another great blog post about blogging.  Today&#8217;s goes to, Sara at the <a href="http://pajamaprofessional.com">Pajama Professional</a> with <a href="http://pajamaprofessional.com/2008/04/11/how-to-develop-mad-skills-and-market-insight/"title="How to Develop Mad Skills and Market Insight" >How to Develop Mad Skills and Market Insight</a></p>
]]></content:encoded>
			<wfw:commentRss>http://bradtheblogboy.com/feeds/rss-what-the-hell-is-it/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
		<slash:comments>1</slash:comments>
		</item>
		<item>
		<title>Link Exchange &#8211; Stick Post</title>
		<link>http://bradtheblogboy.com/traffic-building/link-exchange/link-exchange/?source=rss</link>
		<comments>http://bradtheblogboy.com/traffic-building/link-exchange/link-exchange/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Thu, 03 Apr 2008 18:54:26 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Blogboy</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Link Exchange]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Blog]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Blogs]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[BlogSpot]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Brad Hart]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Brad's Tiny World]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[email]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Featured]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[google]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Hart]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[How To Blog]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[link]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Links]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Mailboxmoney]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[MIL]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[millionaire]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[money]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Online Income]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[PageRank]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[php]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Reciprocal]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Reciprocal Link Exchange]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Technology]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[URL]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[website]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[WordPress]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://bradtheblogboy.com/?p=14</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Reading time: 4 &#8211; 6 minutes
Featured links


]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>Reading time: 4 &#8211; 6 minutes</p>
<p class="linkman"><b>Featured links</b></p>
<table border="0" cellspacing="1" cellpadding="1">
<tr>
<td valign="top" class="linkman"><img src="http://open.thumbshots.org/image.pxf?url=http%3A%2F%2Fbradtheblogboy.com" style="vertical-align: middle;" border="0" onload="if (this.width>50) this.border=1;&#8221; />&nbsp;</td>
<td valign="top" class="linkman" title="Google PageRank: 0/10"><img src="img/pr0.gif" width="40" height="5" alt="Google PageRank: 0/10" border="0" style="vertical-align: middle;" />&nbsp;</td>
<td valign="top" class="linkman">
<p class="linkman"><a href="http://bradtheblogboy.com?source=rss" target="_blank" class="linkman" ><b>Brad The Blog Boy</b></a>&nbsp;<span class="linkmanURL">-&nbsp;http://bradtheblogboy.com</span><br/>A Blunt Blog About Blogging.<br />&nbsp;</p>
</td>
</tr>
</table>
<p class="linkman"><b>Reciprocal links</b></p>
<table border="0" cellspacing="1" cellpadding="1">
<tr>
<td valign="top" class="linkman" title="Google PageRank: 1/10"><img src="img/pr1.gif" width="40" height="5" alt="Google PageRank: 1/10" border="0" style="vertical-align: middle;" />&nbsp;</td>
<td valign="top" class="linkman">
<p class="linkman"><a href="http://www.bradstinyworld.com/" target="_blank" class="linkman" >Brad&#8217;s Tiny World</a>&nbsp;<span class="linkmanURL">-&nbsp;http://www.bradstinyworld.com/</span><br/>Current Events and Technology</p>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td valign="top" class="linkman" title="Google PageRank: 0/10"><img src="img/pr0.gif" width="40" height="5" alt="Google PageRank: 0/10" border="0" style="vertical-align: middle;" />&nbsp;</td>
<td valign="top" class="linkman">
<p class="linkman"><a href="http://bradsotherblog.com" target="_blank" class="linkman" >The Other Blog</a>&nbsp;<span class="linkmanURL">-&nbsp;http://bradsotherblog.com</span><br/>Brad Hart&#8217;s Pop Culture Blog!</p>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td valign="top" class="linkman" title="Google PageRank: 2/10"><img src="img/pr2.gif" width="40" height="5" alt="Google PageRank: 2/10" border="0" style="vertical-align: middle;" />&nbsp;</td>
<td valign="top" class="linkman">
<p class="linkman"><a href="http://mailboxmoney.blogspot.com" target="_blank" class="linkman" >Mailboxmoney</a>&nbsp;<span class="linkmanURL">-&nbsp;http://mailboxmoney.blogspot.com</span><br/>A blog about making money online</p>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td valign="top" class="linkman" title="Google PageRank: 0/10"><img src="img/pr0.gif" width="40" height="5" alt="Google PageRank: 0/10" border="0" style="vertical-align: middle;" />&nbsp;</td>
<td valign="top" class="linkman">
<p class="linkman"><a href="http://www.experiments-experiments.blogspot.com" target="_blank" class="linkman" >Experiments</a>&nbsp;<span class="linkmanURL">-&nbsp;http://www.experiments-experiments.blogspot.com</span><br/>This website talks about blogging and making money online</p>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td valign="top" class="linkman" title="Google PageRank: 2/10"><img src="img/pr2.gif" width="40" height="5" alt="Google PageRank: 2/10" border="0" style="vertical-align: middle;" />&nbsp;</td>
<td valign="top" class="linkman">
<p class="linkman"><a href="http://arc-earn-online.blogspot.com/" target="_blank" class="linkman" >ARC&#8217;s Earn Online</a>&nbsp;<span class="linkmanURL">-&nbsp;http://arc-earn-online.blogspot.com/</span><br/>The purpose of starting this Blog is primarily try out all possible avenues in making money online and share the status and the outcome here.I am not here to make you millionaire but I could guide you</p>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td valign="top" class="linkman" title="Google PageRank: 0/10"><img src="img/pr0.gif" width="40" height="5" alt="Google PageRank: 0/10" border="0" style="vertical-align: middle;" />&nbsp;</td>
<td valign="top" class="linkman">
<p class="linkman"><a href="http://makeonlineincome.wordpress.com" target="_blank" class="linkman" >Make Online Income</a>&nbsp;<span class="linkmanURL">-&nbsp;http://makeonlineincome.wordpress.com</span><br/>Learn to make a full time income online for no charge.</p>
</td>
</tr>
</table>
<p class="linkman"><strong>Submit your website</strong></p>
<p class="linkman"><span id="more-20"></span></p>
<p><ins datetime="2008-04-01T23:24:29+00:00"><em>Please add a link to our website <a href="http://www.bradtheblogboy.com">http://bradtheblogboy.com</a> to your links page before<br />
submitting this form!</em></ins></p>
<form action="http://www.bradtheblogboy.com/linkman14/addlink.php" method="post">
<table border="0">
<tbody>
<tr>
<td><strong>Your name:</strong></td>
<td>
<input maxlength="50" name="name" size="40" type="text" /></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><strong>E-mail:</strong></td>
<td>
<input maxlength="50" name="email" size="40" type="text" /></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><strong>Website title:</strong></td>
<td>
<input maxlength="50" name="title" size="40" type="text" /></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><strong>Website URL:<strong></strong></strong></td>
<td>
<input maxlength="100" name="url" size="40" type="text" value="http://" /></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><strong>URL with reciprocal link:</strong></td>
<td>
<input maxlength="100" name="recurl" size="40" type="text" value="http://" /></td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>
<p><ins datetime="2008-04-01T23:24:29+00:00"><strong>Website description:</strong></ins></p>
<p><ins datetime="2008-04-01T23:24:29+00:00"></ins></p>
<p><ins datetime="2008-04-01T23:24:29+00:00"></ins></p>
<p><ins datetime="2008-04-01T23:24:29+00:00"></ins></p>
<p><ins datetime="2008-04-01T23:24:29+00:00"><br />
<input maxlength="200" name="description" size="60" type="text" />
<input type="submit" value="Add link" /></ins></p>
</form>
<p>Your link can immediately be seen on the main <a href="http://www.bradtheblogboy.com/linkman14/links.php">Link Exchange Page</a><ins datetime="2008-04-01T23:24:29+00:00"><a href="http://www.bradtheblogboy.com/linkman14/links.php"> </a></ins></p>
<p><ins datetime="2008-04-01T23:24:29+00:00">I will give a free 60 Day Featured Link on my side bar to anyone who tell help me autoload this links table using the free php script <a href="http://www.phpjunkyard.com/php-link-manager.php">PHP Link manager </a>1.4 from <a href="http://www.phpjunkyard.com/">PHP Junkyard</a>. </ins></p>
]]></content:encoded>
			<wfw:commentRss>http://bradtheblogboy.com/traffic-building/link-exchange/link-exchange/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
		<slash:comments>5</slash:comments>
		</item>
	</channel>
</rss>

