Technology

Today, Carrie read one of the book reviews I’d linked up to 5 Minutes 4 Books’ “I read it” carnival and commented thus:

“So – do you have two blogs and am I horribly confused? I’m subscribed in Google Reader but I never see these book reviews pop up! What’s with that? Am I blind or something? I’m always surprised when you link up and then I scramble back through and catch up. Is it me?”

No, Carrie, it isn’t you.

It’s a rather nefarious plot of mine to completely befuddle my readers.

Okay. It’s not really that either.

[What follows is the long story–and the short. Feel free to skip ahead to the “short” if you’d rather not read my whole blogging history.]

Long Story

You see, before I switched to using the WordPress blogging platform almost a year ago, I did my entire website by hand. I started with a blank text document in Microsoft’s notepad and ended with a web page, coding the html, css, php, and whatever else I needed as I went.

This was fantastic for building and maintaining my web-authoring skill set, but not so nice for getting daily posts done in a timely manner. So after a year of regular blogging (I’ve had a website since 2001 but have only consistently blogged since April or May 2008), I decided to switch to using WordPress.

I didn’t want to let my skill set decline, though, so I continued building my “static pages” from scratch. I use the “old-fashioned” text-file edited html to create my Bible study, book review, and recipe pages (and use a completely different program to create my photo albums).

Unfortunately, these pages aren’t connected to WordPress’s auto-feeds. I realized this from the outset and tried to solve the problem by continuing my hand-coded RSS feed. The problem with that was that some people were only subscribed to my hand-coded feed–and therefore missed my regular blog posts. It was quite a conundrum. I deleted the hand-coded feed and directed those subscribers over to the blog feed.

But that left me without any way to let my readers know when I posted a new book review, recipe, Bible study, photo album, etc.

Short

In short, because I hand-code my book reviews, they don’t show up on my RSS feed. This is tragic for my readers (and potentially for my blog statistics), but I really want to maintain my html skills.

In order to help readers find the static content I’ve recently added to bekahcubed, I’ve started to post a weekly “Recap”. Recap posts follow a predetermined format, first showcasing any new pages that I’ve added to bekahcubed over the course of the week and then sharing any interesting links I’ve discovered on the web over the same week.

So if you’re looking for new book reviews or recipes (or if you want to see the photographical evidence that I really am real), take a quick scan of the “Recaps” that are posted every Saturday night at 11:59 pm Central time–and click the links to anything that looks interesting.

And there you have it: my nefarious plot to befuddle my readers (and my attempt at a workaround to still engage the most persistent of them all.)

Blogs have a way of taking over one’s life–filling every spare moment unless one takes deliberate steps to control them.

This is true of the writing of blogs–of which there is no end–but it is even more true of the reading of blogs.

There are hundreds of absolutely amazing blogs out there–from those that update multiple times a day to those that update only a few times a year.

RSS makes things easier by allowing one to only visit those blogs that have been updated recently.

I have had moderate success using Firefox’s “Live Bookmarks” to manage my blog reading. All the blogs I follow are organized into a folder, with subfolders for each “category” of reading. I have the “Bloggers I know”, the “Book Bloggers”, the “Mommy Bloggers”, the “Thinking Bloggers”, the “Political Bloggers”, etc. By categorizing them this way, I can avoid certain classes on certain days (for example, I don’t read politics on the weekends–it’s just a personal rule.)

This hasn’t been a bad system, per se–but it hasn’t been a spectacular system.

The problem is that I had almost 100 blogs that I was following regularly–and I simply didn’t have enough hours in the day to read them all. Still, I was trying to read every word of every post as soon as it came out.

I tried to impose control by only checking blogs once a day.

But even this was insufficient. There were so many blogs that even checking them just once a day meant that I was spending hours reading every day.

I don’t have that kind of time.

So now, I’m trying something new. I kept my thirty(!) favorite blogs in my blog feeds folder on Firefox. I divided another sixty between the five weekdays (12 per day) and added them to a nifty little Firefox Add-on called Morning Coffee. Morning Coffee allows me to press a little coffee cup icon () on my toolbar and load the twelve preselected blogs for the day.

The plan is that I’ll read my thirty as normal and load my “morning coffee” blogs. I’ll skim what’s been written on the morning coffee blogs over the past week, reading in depth only what really sparks my interest. In doing so, I should (my fingers are crossed) be able to reduce my blog reading time somewhat.

An extra sixty or so blogs that I’ve bookmarked at some time or another are now kept in a subfolder at the bottom of the “blog feeds” folder. I can peruse these at a leisurely pace during the weekends when I don’t have any “morning coffee” blogs and don’t read any of the political or “news” related sites.

At least, that’s the plan.

Do you ever struggle with spending too much time online? How do you keep your blog-reading under control?

I know what you’re thinking. “Of course you like links. What blogger doesn’t?”

But I’m not talking about links to my site (although I do like those too).

I’m talking about links to…
well, just about anything.

I love it when my dad e-mails me an article he read online that he thinks I might be interested in.

I love it when someone posts a blog or article on my Facebook page because it reminded them of me somehow (or they just want to share a favorite teacher who blogs with the other person they know who blogs–Thanks, Steve!).

I love perusing a few choice blogs that are primarily just an amalgam of links, such as the political Instapundit and Reformed bloggers Vitamin Z and Tim Challies.

I enjoy clicking the links that occasionally pop up in my TweetDeck as I’m going about my daily business (to be read at leisure sometime after I’m done with my “daily business”).

And I love sharing links with others.

That’s why I have my weekly recap posts–to share my links with others.

That’s why I often tweet links (indeed, it’s about the only thing I tweet.)

That’s why, if you’re a good friend, I might just drive you nuts by sending you links to articles, blogs, whatever as I stumble across them.

I’m not a part of one of those linkie social networks like Del.icio.us, StumbleUpon, Digg, or Google Reader–because I’m not sure if I need another thing to take up more of my time. But I do occasionally wish that I could get more variety in my link reading–except that I want that variety to be, well, proven/pre-read by friends I trust won’t send me duds. So maybe a social network is the way to go…

So tell me, what do you think of links? Do you love them, like them, hate them? Are you completely ambivalent to them?

Do you like to send them but not receive them? Do you like to receive them but not send them? Do you belong to a linkie social network? Which one? Do you like it?

And whether you like sending links or not, if you find something that you think might interest me, PLEASE send me a link. I absolutely love them! (Send links via Facebook, Twitter @bekahcubed, or e-mail.

I would have broken that last post into four mini-posts in order to achieve the golden rule of 300-500 words per post.

Alas, I am not a good blogger.

I am simply bekahcubed.

And since I need to be fresh to work on my thesis tomorrow I should probably go to sleep.

Hah!

This is the contents of my disclosure statement, now linked in the footer of every page. If you’ve read this, you’ve read it–so you don’t need to follow the link. Unless you’d like to, of course.

Have you ever tried reading the copy of a Federal Trade Commission (FTC) Guide to something like, say, the use of endorsements and testimonials in advertising? I hadn’t until tonight, when I decided to finally get around to posting a disclosure statement for bekahcubed.

The FTC Guide includes the worst of legalese and that unique governmental syntax that makes documents virtually unreadable. From my quick scan, the gist appears to be that it’s hard to figure out who to trust and whether someone’s being honest when they say something’s great or if they have ulterior motives.

Enter the blogging disclosure statement. Lots of bloggers include these as a little blurb in their sidebar. Others have a disclosure statement or a link to a disclosure statement on every page that might be construed as a recommendation. For my part, I already have uber-busy sidebars, and have enough difficulties with remembering to include vital things like links and apostrophes in my posts–I don’t think I’m ready to add a disclosure statement to that mix.

So I’m compromising with a disclosure statement (that would be what you’re reading right now) linked from the footer of each page.

General Disclosure

I am an independent blogger/website owner. I do not receive anything (except pleasure and occasional comments) for what I write on bekahcubed. All opinions expressed on bekahcubed are the opinions of the author (that would be me, Rebekah Menter) unless exlicitly noted.

I am a Registered Dietitian and a graduate student and teaching assistant at the University of Nebraska Lincoln. While these roles do inform my opinions, I do not claim to speak on behalf of either the American Dietetic Association, the Commission on Dietetic Registration, or the University of Nebraska-Lincoln.

Books

I am an inveterate reader and acquire the majority of my books from my local library based on perusal of the stacks and recommendations from other readers, blogging and otherwise. Other books are purchased by myself or given/lent to me as gifts from (so far as I know) disinterested individuals.

If I should ever receive a review copy of a book or otherwise receive compensation for a review, I will note that along with my review. Even in these instances, opinions are still entirely my own, regardless of the book’s source.

I select books for review using a highly specialized process commonly called “whatever I feel like doing.” I link to other reviews, to publisher’s websites, or to online marketplaces when I feel that the link may be useful to my readers. I do not receive compensation of any sort for links from my website.

Other Products

As for the other stuff I might accidentally review–I still only post my own opinions. So far as I know, I have only ever mentioned things that I have personally bought or that have been given to me by disinterested individuals–except if I’ve mentioned some sort of give-a-way item that was given with no expectation of a review (like the mousepads and water bottles they give away at street fairs and the like). If I were to ever receive something from a vendor who requests that I review it on my site, I will review it at my discretion, using my own opinions, and clearly stating any compensation within the review post.

Note to the FTC:

I’m sorry, I didn’t read your article. I found it to be completely abstruse and much too arcane for an ordinary BS bearing, professional credential holding, MS candidate such as myself. If I missed any important details, I apologize–and beg that you not prosecute me. After all, it’s not like I’m getting paid for anything I do on this blog. I promise. Really.

My life is pretty much an open book. Anyone is free to read however much they like.

Case in point?

I’m a blogger.

Do I really need to say more?

But honestly, I share the events of my life, the thoughts of my head, the longings of my heart, and my journey with Christ within this blog. Body, soul, and spirit–you get it all right here on bekahcubed.

Well, mostly.

You can see quite a lot of me here. But I don’t share everything. Some things, I keep a little more hidden.

Did you know that I like stalking people online? Well, I do.

**Disclaimer: I don’t stalk in a creepy way, really!**

I like to read people’s blogs. I like to see what they’ve written and what’s been written about them. I like to see their Facebook pages. I like to see their wall-to-wall’s with their friends (even if those friends aren’t also my friends.)

**Disclaimer: I don’t do this all the time, honest. But when somebody comments on somebody else’s status and the comment intrigues me, it’s fun to click on the little wall-to-wall link and see the entire conversation.**

I don’t have any problem with people internet-stalking me right back. I have made no attempt to hide myself in the online world. Google “bekahcubed” and you’ll get me–a whole bunch of me. You’ll see my blog, yes, but you’ll also see the other blogs I’ve commented on. You’ll likely see old message board posts from my early high school days. You’ll see an awful lot.

But if you’re a friend of a friend but not my friend yourself, you won’t see any wall-to-walls on Facebook. I only let my friends see what I put on Facebook.

I love it when other people do the friend of a friend thing. I really enjoy reading my friends’ back-and-forths with others. But I’m keeping my Facebook life secret, thank you very much.

Why do I have this secret(?) life?

Actually, that’s kind of a funny question. I have it because I teach at the same University I graduated from. I have siblings and friends in the same University I teach at.

And undoubtedly, some of my friends are friends with my students.

I don’t have a problem with letting my students see my life–but something has to be private. I have to have somewhere where I can tear out my hair about grading or rage about something or the other related to the University without my students hearing.

I’m very cautious, even on my private Facebook account, to never share anything that would make someone else look bad. I’m not griping about students on Facebook. But it’s good to have just one place where not just anyone can access–where I can unload about my overflowing e-mail inbox or my embarrassment over a personal classroom bungle without crossing student/teacher boundaries.

Yes, it’s a small thing, but I’ve got to have SOMETHING that’s kept secret.

Emoticons. We use them all the time. Some people like to have them converted to smileys (see above). I prefer that they stay as ASCII characters.

Even when they’re ASCII, we generally know what they mean.

:-) means happy face or smiling
:-( means sad face or frowning
;-) means winky face or winking
:-D means grinning
:-P means sticking out your tongue

Emoticons are supposed to help us express emotion. They’re supposed to add some non-verbal information to our text conversations.

And they do. But sometimes they don’t really give enough information. Because yes, the above descriptions are true–but what do you mean by them?

I use a limited emoticon library, but what I use has very definite meanings (and not really exactly what they look like.)

What my emoticons mean

:-) means I’m happy, content, all is well
:-( means I just wrote something that I find sad
;-) means “inside joke alert”, that not everybody will get this but I think you will
:-P means I’m teasing you

What do your emoticons mean?