BLACK TUESDAY

I woke up yesterday morning to every computer owners nightmare; or least my nightmare.Something happened in the dead of the night. When I went to sleep my computer and I were in 2008. I woke up yesterday morning still in 2008. My computer didn't. It thought it was in 2003. In fact it thought it had just been taken out of the box. That's right. It wanted to take me by the hand and guide me down the path. I wasn't ready to deal with it so I got ready for work and left it secretly hoping it would come to it's senses and come back to the present.I got home after work and decided to check the computer. It was still in 2003. Man that's bad. It doesn't recognize the keyboard. I had to drag the old keyboard and mouse out and reattach them before I could do anything. Gack!!! The screen, the drivers, everything.....all screwed up. It wanted to install things and do things that it shouldn't be doing. Most of my programs, KaBlooey!I guess the hard drive reformatted, sooooo----Hard Drive City, here I come.I am able to blog though. If things look a little different or blogs are a little late it's because of the current computer situation. Bear with me and I will endeavor to work through it.© 2008 Barry T Horst


This work is licensed under a
Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.

Please visit the Giveaway of the Day near the bottom of the left sidebar for free software downloads daily.

New Blog-Please Visit

Hello all. I have just published a new blog. It is called Visions of My World. On this blog I plan on sharing some of my photos that I've taken through time. Please visit when ever you have a few moments. I will endeavor to post weekly. Which is better that weakly posting. Thanks all and visit now since all you are doing is just reading my blog.© 2008 Barry T Horst


This work is licensed under a
Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.

Please visit the Giveaway of the Day at the bottom of the page for free software downloads daily.

More Blog Tools

Yesterday I wrote about a few of the tools I use. Today I will mention a few more. One source of great tools and gadgets has been The Javascript Source. This is a great source for all sorts of tools and fun stuff to use on your blog or website. Anytime I visit I end up spending way too much time exploring and playing. I have a link button for them down below with the RSS buttons.

Another tool that I use for my advertising is Commission Junction. All ads placed on my site are through Commission Junction. I have learned that you can be more selective with the ads through them. Google AdSense seemed a little restrictive on ad size and selection. Commission Junction allows you to select specific advertisers from their list and then from many types and sizes of ads. I currently advertise for eBay, Half.com, Zoobooks, eBay Pro Stores, Disney Movie Club, 123 Inkjets, The USO, LifeLock, Trac-Fone, and The Checks in the Mail. I have a lot more fum with this set-up than I did with AdSense.

Another tool that use are the various widgets for Weather, News, and Sports feeds. They come from Accu-Weather, MSNBC, and NewsGator respectively. They are all easy to customize and easy to place.

Another important tool I use is not actually a tool at all, but a resource. It is the licensing information from Creative Commons. Through this resource I am able to copyright my work and then give notice to all at the end of each post and on the blog in general.

As I said yesterday, these are all great tools and resources. I use them not necessarily because they are the best, but because I found them after searching the web. There are many more resources on the web waiting to be found. Take some time and look. Maybe you can come back and share some of your great finds with me in the future.

© 2008 Barry T Horst


This work is licensed under a
Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.

Some Of My Blog Tools

There are several blog tools available for the novice blogger. I will mention a few that I use. This is by no means a complete list or necessarily the best tools. they are simply the ones I use and have become accustomed to. Lets face it. When you get to be my age one you learn something it is best to stick with it a while and then ease into something new.

One of the first things you need, after a blog site and a host service (Sometimes these are one and the same) is an image host or server. I use Picasa for three reasons: 1. They host a relatively large amount for free; 2. It's easy; and 3. It's what I started with so I know how to use it. (Refer back to the last sentence of the first paragraph.)

After getting my blog started I decided that I wanted to find out where the visitors came from. That is how I came upon Feedjit. They give a nice tool that you can use to post a map on your blog that shows where the traffic comes from. They also supply the Live Traffic Feed that lists where your traffic comes from and sometimes how they exit the site. Both of these post on the blog and give your visitors a good idea of the scope and reach of your blog. I use both.

There are also tools that you can insert in the site code that tracks the visitors. Among these tools are Google Analytics and Stat Counter. Both of these tools are interesting. Stat Counter especially gives you a wealth of information; such as Country/State/City/ISP information. Stat Counter will also give browser information, time on site, entry point, and exit point. This is good information for designing your site to be compatible with certain browsers, and also determining what type of information your visitors are looking for.

Another tool that I use to try and increase my reach is to burn an RSS (Really Simple Syndication) feed. In this way readers can subscribe to the blog and receive each new post via their RSS reader. I have links to many of the more popular RSS feeds on the bottom of the blog page. My RSS feed is burned through Feedburner. If you would like to subscribe go the bottom and look for your feed service and click. If you don't see your contact and I will try to add it. You can also subscribe to my blog by e-mail. I have those links in the same area.

If you have any advice, questions, or comments drop me a line. You can comment on the blog post or e-mail me. The e-mail link is at the top of the sidebar just below the date.

© 2008 Barry T Horst


This work is licensed under a
Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.

Blog Tweaks

I hope that you like the minor tweaks that I have made to the blog. As you can see I have kept the same basic layout and design.

I have tried to place similar things together in the sidebar on the left. I kept the Headline animator at the top and then tried to place all blog raters next. There is still one on there bottom of the page since the code for it has to remain where it is in order for it to work.I have moved the Bible Verse of the Day just above the Feedjit widget. Below Feedjit I have added the Live Traffic Feed. Below there I placed the Neighborhood from BlogCatalog. Below the Neighborhood is My BlogMap. This is interesting because it shows the location of nearby bloggers that belong to the BlogMap site. It also indicates when any of them are online.

Next comes the venerable Kitten that we all know and love. Kitten keeps perch above the Donation and Shopping Section. Yes you can actually make a donation to Kitten through PayPal at the link here. We accept MasterCard, Visa, American Express, Discover, and E-Checks; but then you probably can see this. Next in this section is new advertisers interspersed with links to my stores at Cafepress and Amazon. Next in the sidebar are my favorite links as well as some of my del.icio.us links. You can add me to your network here.

Then we have the Blog Vault which contains the blog archives. Following this I have placed the News Center with various weather, news, and sports feeds. Enjoy this section. It took me a while to get what I wanted.

Then more Shameless Commercialization. Yes more ads to help pay the bills. You will also see an expanded commercialization section at the base of the blog with various banner ads. Below the sidebar commercialization I have updated the About Me picture. Next we have our copyright information. Finally, in the sidebar we have our USO link.

At the base of the blog is the first banner area that contains the various catalogs and directories which I am affiliated with. There are also links here to subscribe by e-mail or perhaps rate the blog. You Tube is still here to but it has been moved to the bottom.

Tomorrow I will try to briefly explain the various affiliations. For now, Have A Great Day. I know I am!

© 2008 Barry T Horst


This work is licensed under a
Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.

No Time To Rest

Spring Break for teachers can be a time of rest and relaxation. It is also a time to catch up on important tasks. Like filing income taxes. I completed and E-Filed income taxes this morning for Chris and I. I also completed and filed for Julie. My next task is completing business tax appraisal for the county.

Yesterday I spent half the day at the doctor. He said I am fine and has released me to fend for myself for the next six months. The other half of the day was spent tweaking the blog. I have tried to arrange it more logically and I have changed weather and news feeds. It's amazing how long that takes when you are trying to watch movies at the same time.

I am also getting ideas together for a new web-site. I want it to be educationally themed, targeting Kindergarten. I am needing to plan the page design and content but I can't find the html editor I like. If you have any ideas, shoot them my way.

It is raining today. Hopefully it will stop today and dry out enough to put the garden in on Thursday. I am shooting for Thursday because that is the only day that Scott can help.

© 2008 Barry T Horst


This work is licensed under a
Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.