Mockingbird Hill Cottage

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Blogging Tips

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Hello fellow bloggers! Thought I’d share a couple of tips today.


1. No Reply Comments – I love, love getting comments. Sometimes those comments include a question I’d like to answer or a particular thought I would like to acknowledge. I have my comments linked to my email address, so they appear in my inbox. If there is a question involved and your email address is part of your Blogger Profile, I usually respond immediately. However, when I receive a comment that has the dreaded ‘No Reply Comment,’ there is no way to answer you directly. In that case, I either have to try to track you down or I have to hope my already overloaded brain retains the question so that I can address it in a future post.

The retention? Doesn’t happen too often these days.

It’s so easy to take care of this problem!

a. Go to your Dashboard and click on Blogger Profile (right by your photo in the upper right hand corner.) Then click ‘Edit Profile.’
 
b. In the Privacy section, check the boxes next to ‘Show my profile‘ and ‘Show my email address.’

c. Then move on to ‘Identity‘ and enter your email address.

d. Save.

Easy. It just takes a moment. Then, when you ask a question, I can answer you directly. We can actually have a conversation! Isn’t that nice?

2. Photo Resizing. My friend Rita ran out of storage space for her photos yesterday. She had to buy more space. I know that this has happened to several of you in the past. I suppose at some point it will happen to me. However, I’ve been blogging for close to 4 years now. I post a lot of photos. I haven’t run out of space yet. Why? Because I resize my photos in a photo editing program. The one I use is Picnik. You can do the same thing in Photobucket or any number of other editing programs.

When I upload photos to Picnik, like this one of my piano, I usually get a message in the lower right hand corner:

See the large numbers there? That means that my photo is 2640 x 1980 pixels.  That takes a lot of storage space. That’s why you see the exclamation point next to the size. If I click on that exclamation point, here is the message I get from Picnik:

It only makes sense that if Picnik thinks this is a large photo which has a large file size, that size photo will take up a lot of storage space in Picasa, which is usually where all your Blogger photos are stored. In Picnik, there is a resize button. Photobucket has one, too. Picnik’s is on the left hand side of the screen. When I click on Resize, the current dimensions of the photo are displayed.

Too big. So I change them. In my case, I usually change the first number to 800. I know others who change it to 600. Either will work. You just want a more manageable file size.

Click apply and you’re done. Same photo but much less storage space. When you use the resized photo in your post, you can still make it small, medium, large or extra large in the body of the post. Resizing it prior to posting just ensures that the file size will take up much less space in storage. Some of you may have another way you resize. That’s fine. If you don’t normally resize or if this has not been on your radar, the next time you are ready to post a photo, quickly check its size. If it’s too large, resize it.

I learned this early on from Connie at Living Beautifully. It’s been invaluable. Thank you, Connie.

I know this will help those of you with storage issues. If Connie hadn’t passed this information on to me, I would have had to buy more storage a long time ago!

In other news, it’s finally sunny here.

And my birthday is Monday. How did another one come around so quickly?

Comments

  1. I agree with you about the noreply-comment thing. I know a lot of people leave replies in their own comment section which does allow other people to see that reply (in case they had the same question) but it’s so much quicker to reply to them by e-mail. I like to acknowledge people as much as possible but it takes a lot of time to keep going back in to the post to comment.

    Also regarding photos, I usually select the photos I want from iPhoto and then e-mail them as a medium size (or large size if there’s a lot of detail). When the e-mail pops up, I drag them to my desktop where I can rearrange them in the order in which I want them in the story. No resizing needed.

  4. Dear Claudia, yes ,:-the no reply comment- is not easy to work with- and I for one never goes back and comment in my own comment space,- much more prefer to directly write people.The same with followers, whom does not have a profile with their blogadr. Not easy to visit them back.
    SO I`M glad for this post. I also alwayes resize my photoes ,already when downloading them and working on them- so I know they are ready for my blog- and Picasa.
    Thankyou for a great post.
    Hugs,Dorthe

  6. Thank you so much for the info. I am going to check this e-mail thing out. Happy birthday. Mine is next friday. I use to hate when it fell on Thanksgiving as a child! Never liked the attention. Now what kind of child was I….very shy!

  7. I can’t find an answer for this .. what if you get default mail client is not properly installed. I can’t e-mail anyone! Sometimes I would really like to. (trh1955@hotmail.com)

  8. We all learn as we go when it comes to Blogger, the Internet, our computer… I probably still do a lot of stupid things that could be done in an easier way on my computer but the word ‘Lazy’ comes to mind for me.. LOL

    Happy birthday Monday!

  9. Thanks for telling people! I have told a bunch of bloggers to do this on an individual basis. I learned from Kim @ Savvy Southern Living when I first started. Bless her and all the “educators” out in Blogland!

    That and the word verification are my two biggest pet peeves~ xo Diana

  10. First, big birthday wishes on Monday. I hope you have something very special planned.

    Now, about the photos. I plug in my camera and it loads into Picasa first. That is where I do most of my editing/croping. Than I upload to Picnik the album of only the pictures I like. In the Picnik album, is where I do the framing and shadowing. I do not play with the size at all there. Then I start my post and pick the album and that is where I pick my size and make it bigger. Does that make any sense, I hope. Off to check the other setting you were talking about. A while back I did create a separate blog email as my normal life one was getting to crazy. So, this is a good reminder with all the recent changes… which by the way, I’m liken’ a lot and there was no need to panic like I did.

    Enjoy your birthday weekend,
    Kate

  11. I too get frustrated when I cannot reply to someone who has left a nice comment or question. I hope more people will check out their options for providing a way for us to thank them for taking the time to stop by. Have a wonderful birthday weekend – glad the sun is out in your honor! Ann

  12. Hi Claudia! Isn’t Connie a peach? I just love her. Did you know she lives not too far from me? Anyway I am wishing you an early Happy Birthday and a great year ahead filled with good health, prosperity and surrounded by the love of family and friends!

    Big Hugs,
    Susan and Bentley

  15. Well, honey, thanks for posting that to the bloggers. Yep, it makes a huge difference. I’ve done 1,080 posts at this point and have never ever run out of space. I store them at Photobucket and re-sized them at 800 px. proportionately. Works wonders at keeping your storage space down. I actually use PhotoShop Elements for all resizing but other image hosts offer storage and editing also.

    I’m so happy to know my “student” learned! Now, if I could just get my KIDS (48 and 49) to listen to me and learn, I’d be thrilled!

    xoxo,
    Connie

  16. Hi dear Claudia – no time for saying much I’m afraid, re-packing today and doing all required to leave again……gosh life is much too hectic! However, not complaining – as you can see I’m having a very wonderful time lately!!!!!

    Good tips Claudia and I really should be storing my pics in smaller format – I have to buy storage from Picasa every year! A lot of Bloggers don’t even realize that their pics are stored there.

    Another Birthday is fine, we all keep having them, ha! ha! Mine was celebrated on the ship and was so much fun that turning 68 didn’t bother me one bit!

    Gotta run – have the best birthday ever and know I’ll be thinking of you.

    Hugs Mary X

  19. Thank you for your blogging tips! I added my email address–done! But my pictures ARE too large. I’ve just been using Picasa, not Picnik. I’ll have to see if Picasa will do it. If not, I’ll have to venture over to Picnik. Thanks for the warning! :-)

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