Blogging Ministry » -Blog Apps http://www.bloggingministry.com Exploring the Use of Blogs and New Media in Ministry Thu, 29 Jul 2010 06:40:18 +0000 en hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.0 Some Real Help in Blogging Video http://www.bloggingministry.com/2009/10/21/some-real-help-in-blogging-video/ http://www.bloggingministry.com/2009/10/21/some-real-help-in-blogging-video/#comments Thu, 22 Oct 2009 04:03:16 +0000 Dr.D http://www.bloggingministry.com/2009/10/21/some-real-help-in-blogging-video/ Last year I brought back Zemanta and Apture from the BlogWorld Expo. This year at the Expo I was introduced to two sites that really help in finding and putting up Video: Yubby and RedLasso.

1. Yubby allows you to find, collect, and publish videos from 30+ different video sites. First you search and find what you want. Second, Yubby gives you your own space—‘channel’–to save and collect your favorite videos in. Then finally you can publish the vids when you want on your blog.

2. RedLasso provides access to 1000’s of media news videos and more. Then provides you with the opportunity to edit, clip, and embed only that part of a video that you would like to share.

The raw news videos may contain minutes of extraneous material that you don’t need but maybe 30 seconds that you do want. RedLasso lets you edit out all the junk and makes it possible to share and embed just that part which is relevant for your blog. What a handy tool.

3. Also when it comes to video—don’t forget Apture. Apture can provide all sort of media including video for your posts –even after you have published them—check it out.

4. Don’t forget Tangle–it provides all sorts of ‘family friendly’ video for Christians. Also lots of other good stuff on their website—here’s a great vid to share about Jesus (3:19):

Related articles by Zemanta
Enhanced by Zemanta

Related Posts?:

  1. Capture with Apture
  2. Why Blogging?: It’s "What People Need From Their Pastors"

]]> http://www.bloggingministry.com/2009/10/21/some-real-help-in-blogging-video/feed/ 0 Taking Care of Broken Links http://www.bloggingministry.com/2009/09/29/taking-care-of-broken-links/ http://www.bloggingministry.com/2009/09/29/taking-care-of-broken-links/#comments Tue, 29 Sep 2009 14:15:25 +0000 Dr.D http://www.bloggingministry.com/2009/09/29/taking-care-of-broken-links/ 404. Page Not Found. Konigi

(Image by mansikka via Flickr)

Ever click on a link and end up on a 404 page? Everyone has–it is one of those little frustrations that we endure on the net. That’s why it is a good idea every once in a while to check out the links on your own blog. Some suggest that it be done once a month at least since search engine like Google supposedly downgrade or penalize your site if you have too many broken ones. Another good reason to take care of it is for your readers.

I was recently surprised to find that a good number of the links on my ‘Getting Started’ page no longer worked. Not only did I have to get rid of the broken links but in this case find new articles to replace the issues I was trying to cover on that page in the first place.

Actually I was just scratching the surface. Anyone who has been blogging for a while has far more broken links in the archives than one would ever suppose. One thing to keep in mind, anytime you link to an online newspaper, magazine, or news source site after about a month or so they stuff it into their archives and the links you used no longer work. Now what do you do—actually what can you do?

WordPress Plugin: Broken Link Checker

In the process of checking my links over the weekend I remembered that a month or so ago I had come across a WordPress plugin that was suppose to help you find every broken link on your blog: Broken Link Checker

What does it do? Once installed it finds every single broken link on your blog and makes it possible to correct them all. Actually an incredible plugin. Each bad link can be edited or unlinked directly from your dashboard on the ‘Broken Link Checker’ page without manually having to go to and edit each individual post or page separately.

I had 46 broken links on this blog but it only took a half an hour to correct it all—amazing.

The only draw back is this– When the plugin is first activated it sort of locks up the backend for a while till it goes through your entire blog and finds all of the bad links. I found it difficult to do anything else with the blog till it was done. In the case of this blog it took nearly 10 minutes or so. It was much longer for my news commentary site which ended up having 135 broken links.

What was really great—after I fixed all the broken links the home page actually loaded way faster than it did before.

Update: After using it for a week I found that the backend continues to lock up each time I go to the dashboard and you really can’t do a thing until the Broken Link Checker checks for bad links. It’s no big deal on some of my smaller blogs but those with several hundred posts take way to long to load and resolve.

Solution: I deactivated the plugin and will turn it on at least twice a month to correct any broken links.  

*See some of the articles below for more on this issue–Xenu Link Sleuth is another program that some recommend. Also LinkPatch is a service that will monitor your site for a small fee.

Related articles by Zemanta
Enhanced by Zemanta

Related Posts?:

  1. Updating or Changing Posts?
  2. Featured Blog: "Blogging Basics 101"

]]> http://www.bloggingministry.com/2009/09/29/taking-care-of-broken-links/feed/ 1 26+ Places to Find Free Multimedia for Your Blog http://www.bloggingministry.com/2009/08/06/26-places-to-find-free-multimedia-for-your-blog/ http://www.bloggingministry.com/2009/08/06/26-places-to-find-free-multimedia-for-your-blog/#comments Fri, 07 Aug 2009 03:41:00 +0000 Dr.D http://www.bloggingministry.com/2009/08/06/26-places-to-find-free-multimedia-for-your-blog/ My Media System

(Image via Wikipedia)

From Mashable.com : “26 Places to Find Free Multimedia for Your Blog”

A real helpful article by Barb Dybwad with 26 different places to go for ‘free’ pictures, audio, and video for your website and blog.

Also remember three great sources or plugins that I’ve posted about in the past—these apps help make the process quick and easy for finding appropriate media to incorporate into any blog post:

1. Need Pics and Links?–There’s Always Zemanta!

2. New WordPress Plugin: PicApp for Pictures

3. Capture with Apture

*Top

Enhanced by Zemanta

Related Posts?:

  1. Capture with Apture
  2. New WordPress Plugin: PicApp for Pictures

]]> http://www.bloggingministry.com/2009/08/06/26-places-to-find-free-multimedia-for-your-blog/feed/ 2 The Importance of Browser Checks http://www.bloggingministry.com/2009/04/17/the-importance-of-browser-checks/ http://www.bloggingministry.com/2009/04/17/the-importance-of-browser-checks/#comments Sat, 18 Apr 2009 01:56:35 +0000 Dr.D http://www.bloggingministry.com/?p=495 image A couple of weeks ago I noticed that some of my blogs were loading slowly (30 seconds) and at other times not at all. At first I attributed it to a possible database attack like I had experienced early last year.

After checking everything out with my hosting co. and doing a bunch of different things to get a grip on the reason for the slow load I finally figured out that it was my dated theme that was not working so well with the WordPress 2.71 upgrade and with the latest Firefox browser which upgraded about the time when I started noticing the problem.

In the meantime, overnight I had lost nearly 1/2 of my traffic on those sites using that particular WP theme. I checked it out on Internet Explorer and found that it still loaded ok using that browser, that’s why I still had at least retained half of my normal visitors. Then I checked out how the sites worked on Safari and found that they would not load up on that browser either.

So here is a lesson to be learned at my expense:

It is a good idea to check out how your blog or website reacts and loads on different browsers!

I have known this in the past and have noticed that by blogs look somewhat different using different browsers. My daughter alerted me one time a couple of years ago that my site looked somewhat distorted on her Mac–she was using Safari as many Mac folk do. After that I had her checking it out once in awhile. Also another time by accident I discovered that some of my blogs looked different on IE 6 than they look on IE 7. So it is important to even check out different versions of the same browser at times.

Right now I have the current versions of Firefox, IE 8, Safari, and Chrome installed on my computer just for a quick check. However, it takes up a lot of memory. Here is a great site where you can check out how your blog or website resolves on all of the different browsers and versions currently in use:

<<<Browser Shots>>>           *Top

Related articles by Zemanta
Reblog this post [with Zemanta]

Related Posts?:

  1. -Some Helpful Internet Stats for the Year 2009
  2. Re: WordPress Plugins—What I’ve discovered.

]]> http://www.bloggingministry.com/2009/04/17/the-importance-of-browser-checks/feed/ 0 Re: "Favicon Generator" http://www.bloggingministry.com/2009/03/10/re-favicon-generator/ http://www.bloggingministry.com/2009/03/10/re-favicon-generator/#comments Tue, 10 Mar 2009 07:10:14 +0000 Dr.D http://www.bloggingministry.com/2009/03/10/re-favicon-generator/ Movable Type, WordPress.org, Blogger, Tumblr, TypePad

Here’s a link to a site that can help you make a “favicon” for your blog. Quite a clever tool:

Favicon Generator

What is a “favicon”? It’s that little symbol or icon that shows up in front of your URL address. Take a look above at my URl, I made that little red cross with an A using the favicon generator tool on the site above–crude but fun! I actually made it for my ANSWERS For The Faith blog but liked it so much I put it up on this one too.

If your blog is hosted on Blogger, WordPress.com, or TypePad you already have one automatically generated by your web host like the ones under the post title. Also, you do not have access to the code on these hosted sites so will not be able to make your own custom favicon.

Process: After making the icon, you save it on your computer than upload it to the root directory of your website. Then place the following code on the code page for your ‘header’:

 <LINK REL="SHORTCUT ICON" HREF="http://www.yourwebsite.com/favicon.ico" />

Make sure you replace “http://www.yourwebsite.com/favicon.ico” with the exact address of where you uploaded your icon.

Actually this was far easier than I expected. If you’ve fooled around with your blog code before and uploaded images, plugins, and themes you should be able to get it.

Notice that the generator also has a color palette generator that gives you the code for any color you might click on, quite a handy tool that I’ll probably use in the future when I’m looking for that special color.

Google also has a favicon generator and WordPress.org has a ‘Favicon Generator’ plugin available but not highly rated (1 star). I haven’t tried out either of those yet–I’ll have to report back later on those apps.           *Top

Related Posts?:

  1. 26+ Places to Find Free Multimedia for Your Blog
  2. Getting Started: “Blogging For Dummies”

]]> http://www.bloggingministry.com/2009/03/10/re-favicon-generator/feed/ 2 New WordPress Plugin: PicApp for Pictures http://www.bloggingministry.com/2009/01/14/new-wordpress-plugin-picapp-for-pictures/ http://www.bloggingministry.com/2009/01/14/new-wordpress-plugin-picapp-for-pictures/#comments Thu, 15 Jan 2009 07:42:45 +0000 Dr.D http://www.bloggingministry.com/?p=364 image Here is a new WP Plugin for adding pictures and images to your blog. PicApp has 1,000′s of pictures available in their library for immediate use. From their website:

“The images are fully licensed, come from the most prestigious content partners such as Getty Images, Splash News, Corbis and alike, these are full size images that come tagged so they improve your SEO and indexing to drive more traffic to your site (beyond the obvious value of enriching your blog and enhancing readership:)”

Once the plugin is installed, the PicApp appears beneath your WP editor while writing a new post. All you have to do is search for an appropriate image to go with your article and then point and click. Way too easy and the program gives you placement options to boot.

Below is a picture of  Tim Tebow I chose just for a fun demonstration:

FedEx BCS National Championship Game - Oklahoma v Florida

I typed in ‘tim tebow’ in the PicApp search beneath the editor and chose this picture from 24 different ones offered.

Click on the picture and it lets you chose where to put it–I chose to put the picture on the right.

Click on ‘embed picture’ and there it is.

The only thing that I don’t particularly care for is the blue and white PicApp ad under the picture. PicApp needs to work up a less intrusive ad link that blends better with the picture.

*Top

Related articles by Zemanta
Enhanced by Zemanta

Related Posts?:

  1. WP Plugin: Freebie Images
  2. 26+ Places to Find Free Multimedia for Your Blog

]]> http://www.bloggingministry.com/2009/01/14/new-wordpress-plugin-picapp-for-pictures/feed/ 4 Plugin: WP Easy Uploader http://www.bloggingministry.com/2008/11/12/plugin-wp-easy-uploader/ http://www.bloggingministry.com/2008/11/12/plugin-wp-easy-uploader/#comments Thu, 13 Nov 2008 04:27:19 +0000 Dr.D http://www.bloggingministry.com/2008/11/12/plugin-wp-easy-uploader/ Image representing WordPress as depicted in Cr...

Image via CrunchBase

A couple of weeks ago I put the WP Easy Uploader plugin on my WordPress blogs. What a great time saver this one is! Now I can upload the entire program for a plugin or new theme into my WordPress files with only a couple of clicks.

In order to try out a plugin or a new theme, I use to have to download the program then open it up and upload each individual part into my plugin or theme files. Use to take forever–especially on new themes–now it only takes two clicks! Well maybe three-download–browse–and upload.

This makes it fast and easy to check out new themes and plugins. It does take some time and effort to set it up, but it’s well worth the initial effort. Here’s a link to the download site.            *Top

Enhanced by Zemanta

Related Posts?:

  1. Re: WordPress Plugins—What I’ve discovered.
  2. -WordPress: What’s the best Caching Plugin?

]]> http://www.bloggingministry.com/2008/11/12/plugin-wp-easy-uploader/feed/ 1 Capture with Apture http://www.bloggingministry.com/2008/11/06/capture-with-apture/ http://www.bloggingministry.com/2008/11/06/capture-with-apture/#comments Fri, 07 Nov 2008 03:36:41 +0000 Dr.D http://www.bloggingministry.com/2008/11/06/capture-with-apture/ image Another blogging app that I was introduced to at BlogWorld Expo last month. Little by little I’m trying them all on for size and affect. This one is a keeper for sure!

Apture allows you to add pictures, pop-up articles, videos, music and all sorts of good stuff to your post after you have published it!–without re-editing or republishing!

It works different than Zemanta, which is connected to the editor and you use as you’re writing. The good thing about Apture–you can use Zemanta first, add pics and links available from Zemanta, then publish the post. Go to the front page of your blog and take a look at the new post, turn on the Apture editor, find more stuff that you can add and embed in the post, and then put it all on without having to re-edit or republish it. Actually it is unbelievable!

If you have already added a link to a Wikipedia article through Zemanta, the Apture program automatically turns it into a pop-up when you point at it.

For example, in a recent articles on one of my blogs I linked Dr. James Dobson, and Knights of Columbus to articles in Wikipedia. Notice how Apture turns them into pop-ups when you hover over them. Also, Apture will allow you to capture any other media that might be available under that title or name–at the bottom of Dobson’s article you can click on and view a YouTube video of Dr. Dobson at TheCall. Later with just one click, I embedded the video below–between this paragraph and the next.

Last week, after writing an article about revival on one of my blogs, I found all sorts of great videos in the Apture mode and added some on. Hover over ‘revival’ above and see what I mean–here’s just one.

At first I didn’t think it would be all that useful for a Christian blog, but I was wrong. Also, it just takes a minute or so to ‘capture with Apture’ and transform your blog into a multi-media source.

Apture can be installed on the following platforms:

  • 1 Blogger
  • 2 TypePad
  • 3 WordPress.org
  • 4 MoveableType
  • 5 Ning
  • 6 Tumblr
  • 7 Blogsome
  • 8 Wikispaces
  • 9 Drupal
  • 10 Xanga
  • 11 LiveJournal
  • 12 Squarespace
  • 13 Related Links

Check it out, it actually has far more features than I can tell you about in one post.            *Top

Related articles by Zemanta
Enhanced by Zemanta

Related Posts?:

  1. 26+ Places to Find Free Multimedia for Your Blog
  2. Some Writing and Editing Tips

]]> http://www.bloggingministry.com/2008/11/06/capture-with-apture/feed/ 0 Need Pics and Links?–There’s Always Zemanta! http://www.bloggingministry.com/2008/10/21/need-pics-and-links-theres-always-zemanta/ http://www.bloggingministry.com/2008/10/21/need-pics-and-links-theres-always-zemanta/#comments Wed, 22 Oct 2008 06:08:51 +0000 Dr.D http://www.bloggingministry.com/2008/10/21/need-pics-and-links-theres-always-zemanta/ Image representing Zemanta as depicted in Crun...

Image by Zemanta via CrunchBase

What is Zemanta? It is a very helpful application for blog publishers.  It provides the writer with possible pictures and images in public domain, links to websites, links to Wikipedia articles, and a list of possible related articles to choose from all while you’re in the process of writing.

The program picks up key words from your article and automatically provides you with a number of different media choices that might enhance and enrich your post.

For example, in this article, the ‘Zemanta’ image was provided by the program, also with a point and click I was able to add a link to the Zemanta website, Windows Live Writer, and all the ‘related articles’ at the bottom. What a handy tool and a real time saver!

I’m using the Zemanta plug-in for Windows Live Writer, they also have applications for the following:

Check it out! For some platforms the application works through the browser, for self-hosted sites there are plug-ins.             *Top 

Related articles by Zemanta

Enhanced by Zemanta

Related Posts?:

  1. Desktop Editors: A List of "Desktop Blogging Clients"
  2. Ministry Today: "Got Blog?"

]]> http://www.bloggingministry.com/2008/10/21/need-pics-and-links-theres-always-zemanta/feed/ 7 “The Everything Blogging Book” http://www.bloggingministry.com/2007/03/29/the-everything-blogging-book/ http://www.bloggingministry.com/2007/03/29/the-everything-blogging-book/#comments Fri, 30 Mar 2007 05:45:00 +0000 Dr.D http://www.bloggingministry.com/?p=108 By Aliza Sherman Risdahl (Avon, MA: Adams Media/F+W Pub. Co., 2006, 305 pages)

This is a comprehensive book on blogging. It starts at the beginning and defines what blogging is and introduces you to all the major terms that everyone uses and identifies the differences between blogs and regular websites.

Next there are chapters helping you to get started. Very good help in choosing a host and a blogging program. Then there is help in actually getting started with some of the most popular blogging hosts and programs like Blogger, LiveJournal, and TypePad. See my evaluation of the Blogger info. at my Blogger site.

The middle chapters deal with improving your blog design and evaluating different blogging tools that can be added to the blogging experience. Then the book finishes with more advanced topics of how to promote your blog, analyzing traffic, and possible legal issues.

This is a very fine book and helpful for those getting started but also for those who have been around a while. Even though I have been blogging for over a year I found the chapter on legal issues worth the price of the book.             *Top

Related Posts?:

  1. "Blogging for Dummies": Chapter 7 -TypePad
  2. Getting Started: “Blogging For Dummies”

]]> http://www.bloggingministry.com/2007/03/29/the-everything-blogging-book/feed/ 0