Random post: claiming Bloglovin

google.com

I did a boo-boo.  The only reason for writing this post today is followers.  I screwed up Bloglovin.  What is Blogloving?  For those of you not familiar with the site or what it does.  Blovlovin to me is like a newspaper for bloggers.  Bloggers write a post as normal on their blog.  Simple, right?  what happens next is more or less behind the scenes work.  A code in HTML sends a copy of this blog post to Bloglovin's website, and it allows readers to read this blog.  You do not have to go to that person's website, in order to read that blog post.
Does it work?  Sure it does, or Bloglovin would have shut down by now.  It does not take much to close a website these days.  The whole point of this website in the first place is to streamline your reading.  
How do I go about getting new readers for my blog?
Well, first thing is you need a blog.  It does not have to be an exiting blog, although, it would not hurt.  You do not need a ton of followers (readers) either.  Next, sign up for an account.  Go to www.bloglovin,com and sign up.  It is free, and it is free to list your blog.  This next part is a little technical, but easy.  Once approved, you want to go to claim your blog.   (sorry for the lack of photos, as I am in a hurry, and I want to reclaim this blog.) So you go to:

•         Search for your blog's URL
•         Highlight it
•         and hit Claim It 

What will come up is a HTML string, and you copy it.  Next, write a new blog post.  You only have to do it once, not every time you write a blog post.  You would do that in you blog program, and do not worry, WordPress, Blogger, and Tumblr all allow it.  One thing:  before you write anything, make sure you turm on your blog's HTML writer, and paste the code FIRST.  Now you are ready to write you blog post.  Write something random like I am doing, or write your planned post.   Now hit publish on your platform.
 It is easy, fast, and takes no longer than to write a blog post.  Just some techie stuff.
Well, I need to publish this, and I will catch you next time.  Oh and subscribe to this blog, while you are at it.  You can subscribe to other blogs through Bloglovin.

Follow my blog with Bloglovin

Day 4: So many fonts, so little time

from Shabbycreek.com

(Warning: sorry for the different types of fonts.  I was trying to make a statement.)

I have a little confession to make- I am a font junkie.  Sorry.   OK, I am not, but I feel that as a stationer (one who designs stationery) and a freelance writer, a girl cannot have too many fonts on their computer…. or can they?

Pros:

1.    I am always prepared.  I will never have to grab a certain font from a font store (I have several I go to) when a client wants that perfect script for a wedding invitation, (hey, this one is cute... It is called Brush Script Std.  The previous one is called Segoe Print.

2.    I am creative…. Duh, and as a creative person, I can have as many fonts as I want, especially if it looks cute in a Photoshop image (Lightroom, any Adobe software)

3.    I am a collector of stuff.  Just ask my dad.  On second thought… don’t!

Cons: (this one is Adobe Fan Heiti Std. B):

1.       It can bog down the computer.  Fonts (and images) are like Lays® Potato Chips.  You can’t have just one.  You get one, then two, and then the next thing you know, this program uses this set of fonts, while another program needs another set of fonts.  Every font on your computer gets integrated by all of these programs, and then you have a traffic jam.  You can just sit there, wondering why your computer is taking so long to load one program.

2.      You may not have what the client wants.  When that happens, you may need to go to a font store.  Sometimes when you get there, and you need something like a Segoe Script (this is a Segoe Script), you do not know if you can get it for free, part of a bundle (which are not cheap), or they do not have it at all.  If the latter happens, you may have an upset client.

But sometimes, when it is late, like tonight, and I have closed up shop, and I have shut down Photoshop, my Cricut Die Cut Machine, and software, and the paper has been put away.  I go into my journal in MS Word, and I just type in plain old Times New Roman.

Yes, a stationer cannot have too many fonts, as long as she does not have to call for Geek Squad to speed up the computer.

Day 21: Making a list, checking it twice. Maybe more.

(c) 2015 P. Lynne Designs

The original title was Making a List.  I added the last part, because of a boo-boo I made with this computer.   My computer is having a search engine crisis.   It all started with me clicking on a link to check the authenticity of the link to a document on a series I will disclose later.  Now for internet security people, this link did not originate from an email.  It originated from a document I found on Google, so it was legit, and whatever else they called it.

Anyway, I received a note that said that my organization did not authorize me to click on the link, and I must contact the help desk.  “Huh”, I thought as I read the note on One-Note, a note-taking product from Microsoft Office (I have the full suite).  I never encountered this before.  Later, I encountered the same thing in Outlook, where I get and read my email.  First off, the desktop is mine, not a work computer.  Second, I use it to work in my own business.  Third, it is in my home, I am my own help desk.  As I started searching my way around the situation, I realized that I have been here before.  Let me explain.

Microsoft does this real clever but annoying little thing:  it makes sure you are running only their products.  Crazy, huh? Windows will set it so that if you are running, say, Google Chrome, and you set it as a default search engine, Microsoft programs are not allowed to open links.  At least that is my belief.  So I have to default to Internet Explorer, uninstall Google, reinstall, then set it back to default. (I cannot stand IE).  Now here is where it got worst….

I went into my usual routine; Read Facebook, have Blogger.com on another page, Pinterest on another, My Longaberger website on another (in case you have not been following my blogs, I am an Independent direct selling consultant for them), Etsy on another (I have a P. Lynne Designs shop on Etsy and Amazon), Youtube on another, and Cricut Design Studio on the last page. Except it did not go to these pages at all, it defaulted to Yahoo.com.   What’s worse than that, Google Chrome defaults to Yahoo as a search engine default. 

I have done the following:  ran a PC cleaner I got from HSN (Home Shopping Network), ran my antivirus.  Nothing….

(12 hours later….)

Day 22: checking it twice

It has been 12 hours later, and I could have submitted my post, but I did not want to risk affecting anyone, so this is why it is a double post.  I originally had something else in mind for Checking It Twice, but this happened.  It was going to be more on the side of holiday/Christmas, but my motto has always been, “God has a sense of Humor”. It means to be flexible, because your plan is not God’s plan, and God’s plan may not be what you want, but it is what you need, and as Mama Ode from Disney’s Princess and the Frog says, “Dig a Little Deeper”.

The computer is now clean, thanks to two agents at Geek Squad.  I had something called an MBAM virus that affected the Google Chrome program.  It is so funny to see these people work as they have remote access to your computer.  Just to be clear, this process cost about $199.99 for a whole year of help.   In case you are outside of the United States (and maybe Canada), Geek Squad is Best Buy’s answer to a computer tech, and instead of coming to your home, you give them permission to gain access to your computer via the internet.  Don’t worry, the purpose of me watching them while they work is if I see anything suspicious on their part, I had a little red “x” to click on to terminate the process.  I was so glad that my choir rehearsal was canceled because I would have lost more control over my computer, if I had left my computer on while they worked on it.

Anyway, I gained two new programs because if it, and a full year’s protection.  Basically, this virus would not let me have access to my internet without an ad coming on the page, and a fake Microsoft page warning me that if I turn off my computer, my ID was compromised.  I knew right away that I had to call someone or risk yanking my 1 year, 6-month old computer out of the socket and drop-kicking it into the nearest dumpster.   Now it is time to upgrade it to Win 10 January 1.  I know some of you Mac users are laughing at me right now, saying, “just get a Mac”, well, I have an Ipad Mini 3, and that is good enough for me.  Plus, I like to keep my options open.  Maybe when I am ready to change computers.

Tips for your new Christmas computer present:

·         Run a virus program the moment you turn it on.  Make sure that the computer sold to you do not have any malware or viruses on it.  You do this by installing yourself a fresh copy of your favorite antivirus software.  Do not go by the experts, unless this is your first computer.  I like Norton (old school), but do not take my word for it, because I have not had Norton Antivirus in a while.

·         If you are not sure of the person sending a link, DO NOT OPEN!!!

·         If you did not request any information in email or text form, DO NOT OPEN!!!

·         DOWNLOAD A PROGRAM FROM THE SOFTWARE’S WEBSITE, NOT CNET OR ANY COMPANY WEBSITE CLAIMING TO HAVE THE PROGRAM.  That is what happened to me.  When I downloaded the new copy of Google Chrome, I was not paying attention to where it was coming from.  I needed to download it from Google.com. I thought I was doing that.   The difference is when a person claims to have a program other than the program’s originator website, they can place malware in the coding.  Well, when I finished installing it, it looked normal. And the only thing I did in the installation part has declined some programs, but it still overwrote the original program, and started overwriting my search engines’ (Google Chrome and Internet Explorer) programs to accept the malware as part of the norm.  When I would click on a link or did anything that I normally do on the interwebs, a new program’s advertiser’s page would pop up instead of the article I wanted to read.  I was so frustrated until, at one point, I wanted to cry, and toss the computer in the dumpster. That was when I had to call Geek Squad.

So the checking it twice part comes today, 2 days before Christmas, is to make sure you have dotted all “I’s” and crossed all “T’s” in the technology world. 

One other thing...

There is one more virus you need to check for, but it is not run on computer, tablet, or smartphone.  That virus is called the Hate virus. I will speak more on this virus through 2016.  It has an even more mean virus called Racism, whose sister is called intolerance.  There are ways to use and not use them, but the current way is not the answer.  Stay tuned.

Monday musings: Research tip

(c) 2014 P.Lynne Designs

Before I get to today’s post, I want to give an apology to those who have been following this blog:   I goof up again.  I am trying to make my life a little easier by automatically uploading blog posts from Blogger to pinterest.  I often use a website called Ifttt.com to perform little tasks for uploading stuff.  Unfortunately, instead of getting a recipe that uploads my posts after I publish them to my pinterest board, it is posting everything I repin from my feed (like a greeting card idea I like), and posting it to Blogger on this blog.  It is not doing it to my other blogs.  It has gotten traffic, just not the traffic I wanted for this blog.  The ones that were repined, should be for my P.Lynne Designs blog, NOT this one.  

If you are here to learn about different writing techniques and my musings, I again apologize, and if you do not mind the posts, ignore my apology.  Either way, I have stopped the recipe from automatically posting pins that have nothing to do with my post.  I am, however, learning to create one on my own, and not rely of others.   With that being said, I hope you will enjoy today’s post.

Research can be a bear (I had another name, but I am trying to keep it G).  In case you have lived under a rock, this is how research used to be:  Come up with a subject.  Narrow down the subject.  Go to the library.  If your family was lucky, you had a set of encyclopedias and you looked up information that way.  You wrote out your information of 3x5 cards (10 points if you showed it to the teacher as proof you did it).  You arranged your cards in order of appearance in your report (essay, dissertation, thesis, Et. all), and that was the hard part.  Now, you have to write the little bugger.  Typing was, and still is not my strongest skill, so using the typewriter was really grueling, and you spell check was the dictionary (my parents had Webster’s, the only game in town according to them).   If you messed up, you had to either use whiteout, a typewriter eraser, or rip the whole thing out and start the page over again.    Thank God I had caring teachers who did allow students to write the report in their own handwriting.  When I was a teen, computers were introduce to the home, and life got a little simpler.

Today, I do not know how we got along without computer.  You do not have to go to the library, take notes on a 3 x 5 index card, and so forth.   I do not remember the last time I was in a library.  I just look up my information on Google to research my subject, type out my post (or article), but what do you do with all that information you find.   Well you can store it on an external drive, your internal drive on your computer, or on a cloud drive.  How about your browser?   If you have not made this discovery, let me show you have it is done.

I am using Google Chrome, but any browser can actually do this.  You just have to know how to save.

(c) 2015 P. Lynne Designs

First of all, make your folder.   On Google Chrome, go to bar which is right under the URL bar.

 Click the right button on the mouse to bring up the menu, and go to “add folder”.

This should bring up a menu like this:

(c) 2015 P. Lynne Designs

Type in a name such as “research”, “musings” (you come up with the name)

And your folder should look like this on the saved bar (what I am calling it from now on)

Next, you want to save the website that you are researching on, so highlight the URL.

Then drag it to the new folder.

(c) 2015 P.Lynne Designs

Now if you need to go to the website, instead of typing in the URL each time, just go to your research folder in your browser.   It saves time, no need to think of the URL each time, and a bunch of trees (no more little pieces of paper with the URL floating around your desk).