I’ve used Pinterest for awhile and notice it is really taking off. It is a great way to collect a visual set of bookmarks. Like a cross between delicious, twitter, and tumblr is how I would describe it.

Anyway, you might already know about it, but one feature that is a little harder to track down is how best to add a “pinit” button to your website. On the Pinterest site is the direction to add a bookmarklet ( recommended if you have joined Pinterest), or having a separate button for each post, but if you want a whole site application for having a a button that works like the bookmarklet you need something a bit different.

Page on Pinterest for creating buttons, ‘Pinterest Goodies‘.

My own solution was found on Chykalophia.com.
Pinterest button for WordPress
She also has a post for those on Blogger, Pinterest button for Blogger.

Another post on the topic is found at Clickinmoms. The instructions are a bit more complex, but you might be up for the task

I have noticed an increase in traffic that comes from Pinterest- small, but then I don’t actively use my Pinterest account with any regular use.That may very well change!

Problogger blog always has useful posts, and that iw why it is a top blog (among a number of other reasons). It has a plethora of guest bloggers and today an exceptionally good post centered around this piece of advice:

If you think blogging is a bed of roses, or if you think everybody will be your friend, then you need to think twice. There are hateful people online hiding under the cloak of anonymity. There are also people who are ready to vent their anger on you as a result of some personal problem they’re facing. The best way to deal with this is to be prepared, and to get ready for the worst at any time.

Read the rest of a very good post,here. I have seen many a fine blogger- most better -by far- than me, go down because of this one point.

Besides life providing me with an exceptional tough skin, I learned to handle such attacks while participating in forums, but I can well remember the sharp attack of a fellow blogger toward my work on TrueGrit, which so disabled my confidence that I never recovered my ability to blog as freely as I once had on that blog.

I still blog, though. I still try to maintain my original goal of contributing something of worth and truth to others via the web.

I wasn’t sure I liked it at first, and might have turned it down… but after seeing it on other friends pages, came to appreciate it.

The Timeline feature basically sets up your Facebook page like a news website, and makes the older posts accessible without tedious clicking back through every single set of posts. Now you simply select the year, and go from there. Improved. Success.

I like the large header, too.

Once I made up my powerful mind to change…oops I couldn’t find how. My kids told me “go to someone’s page who has it and get it from there.” I did, but no button was apparent to me. Finally I found the link.

Get Facebook Timeline

This article tells you how to revert if you find yourself unhappy with the new Timeline style.

Experiment with things and see if you like the new look and feel of the Timeline…

I read that Facebook will make everyone adopt the change anyway ( which is typical FB policy).

Advice on the new Timeline:

Think carefully about what you want to highlight when people scroll through your past. Facebook has a secret formula for determining which items are included in your highlights, using such factors as how many friends commented on a post. That may not necessarily be what you want to showcase.

Read more tips and instructions

I decided to change my OLD old theme from the Advent blog and couldn’t find anything I liked… so I decided to try out the theme that comes with the updated version of wordpress (I always keep the backend of the blogs updated, now that it is so easy).

Surprise! It has high functionality and has great features. so now I am learning more about it since it is a little different from what I’m used to. One thing to learn was how to use the “showcase” part of the theme. that is not found in the options, but in the “settings” part of the admin panel. It gives a very nice magazine look to the blog.

I am looking at child themes and how to easily customize the header.

The twenty eleven is definitely worth using- it works as well as many premium themes and i might even change this blog over to it, once I figure how to make the changes I would like.

Tentblogger Series on Making Money

See ‘How Professional Bloggers Make Money‘ for the list of pertinent posts. I started out slowly with Amazon and Google adsense. For more than a year I was convinced that no one could make money from those, due to my ignorance of how to implement them. They do make money. However, one important ingredient is the “niche” factor. Niche, keywords, etc are things to find out about, but first things first: try to add an area or two of affiliates or ads to your blog and make your first dollar- it will give you incentive.

Tentblogger’s series covers such topics as

• Affiliate Marketing
• Paid Reviews, Sponsored Posts
• Blog Networks, Guest and Paid Posting
• Selling Products, Merchandise, and Expertise

…and more than that! I have always liked Problogger and Copyblogger, but Tentblogger is up and coming and gives excellent first hand advice. I think, perhaps because of that, his information is easier to find and implement.

Gardens of Ohio Lens

Gardens to see in Ohio won awards of LOTD and Purple Star on Squidoo.

Each blog and website niche has its own style, and ‘Gardens to see in Ohio’ is an example of a lens that the Squidoo community approved of, and it is a very helpful resource for those wanting to visit Ohio and see some gardens.

To learn more about Squidoo:

You can join Squidoo, to write your own pages, earn some income, or just participate in the community.

Join Squidoo here.

For the extreme basics:
What is HTML?
The abbreviation of Hyper Text Markup Language.
It was invented by “the father of the internet”. It is the code that writes the information you see in a visual and organized manner. A programming language, it uses a combination of tags which are encased inside the greater and lesser signs:<>

There are all sorts of tags which rule how words and images are set up on the browser screen. It has been changing in order to give a more uniform set of commands across systems and browsers.

What is CSS ?

It is an abbreviation for Cascading Style Sheets. Another programming language that is used in tandem with the HTML language, it directs the details of how the HTML tags look, the appearance or styling.

Size, position, color are all examples of details that CSS is now used to dictate. CSS creates some of the same style and look that used to be only available through the use of images, all with different typefaces, additions such as borders, and more.

I have some links to online help, but if you really want to learn it right and know what you are doing, get a reference book. The one illustrated here is for beginners.

Links I refer to:
HTML tags
CSS Tutorial

Generally, begin learning the HTML and then add skills in CSS.

I changed my theme on Ilonasgarden.com, my garden site, again. Elegant themes created one that was far superior to the others that I had used previously. The others were clunky and slow loading, this one is much faster; it also has all the slots for a garden site: lots of images to draw interest and videos along with widget spaces, etc.

Still if I was going to go back to one of the previous ones I would choose the Studiopress type based on Genesis. I was always happy with that, but I had used an early free one and they no longer supported the free themes, so I stopped using it.

These are the companies I would most recommend, although I know Thesis get a lot of love from many people. For a free theme I like this one, ‘Swift’. I wanted to learn how it worked and that is why I keep it. It has lots of power and customization for a free theme.

I highly recommend a couple premium theme sites for those who use WordPress:

handy script

I recently changed my theme template for blogger again. They have a vanilla one that is much like the one ported from Elegantthemes that I was using. I had changed the theme on my garden website, so I no longer needed something that related as closely. Still, I should brand it to relate to the whole “Ilona’s Garden” group of sites. Something else for the to-do list.

But -as usual- when I pressed the save button to change the template, I also had forgotten my customized add-ons. Using the related post’s scripts and the collapsible scripts means they should be added manually -before saving! Duh.

Anyway, the original post with both the code and directions for installing it are on the post, “Related Posts Widget”.

Now everything works again (still have to get the analytics and the collapsible code in place). One day I will remember to do all the fine points… I change themes and templates enough that it should be second nature by now.

Anyway, I love this code, it is so much better than the LinkIn one that I used before. I don’t like the way it takes over your keyword and has the link to distract people from what you hope they will do …read more of your posts!

See it in action

I’ve started in some new directions with my writing and webpage work, it is requiring lots of time to acquire the knowledge and do the work. That is the number one lesson for those who want to build a career in an online business: it takes work, time to learn, and time to show results. Patience and grit are two very good qualities to cultivate.

OK, what new directions exactly?
One of the main ones is Squidoo, and I will be writing more about that in this blog, the other -which seems to ride sidecar in about every online endeavor I know – is marketing. So posts here will have sections on Squidoo and on marketing.

I’ve had one online guru tell me essentially that Squidoo is not a good use of my time and effort. I respect that person immensely, but I am willing to follow what I think is a good direction for me at this time in spite of that advice.
The cons cited:
Squidoo is “home to more spam than you can believe”.

“don’t do stuff that lends itself to that kind of associated company. There’s very little upside when Google bans or downgrades your stuff because of the rest of the content in there.”

As I have been digging further into Squidoo’s forums and related blogs I know that is a concern in their community and one that they are attempting to address. It is unclear how effective those steps are or will be…. they are fairly new and vastly stepped up due to Google’s “Panda” algorithm, which has rearranged how search traffic is directed towards some of the big “site farms”, places which have loads of people making their webpages, like Hubpages and Squidoo, etc.

Why is all this important? On two counts. If you write online in a blog or have a website, you want that sight to have eyeballs to read and interact with it. If you want to make money online you have to be seen, be known (branding), and be trusted along with knowledge of marketing. It takes a specialized type of knowledge and effort, lots of effort, for both. this site can help provide the first part…. the second part is totally up to you (but you can be encouraged and supported in the endeavor!)

That is it for now, friends. Next up I will start writing about the Squidoo experience.

Expect to see ( then linked here)

• What Is Squidoo
• How to Build Lenses
• Marketing and Moneymaking on Squidoo
• What I’m Doing on Squidoo