One of the lesser-used features of blogs are trackbacks, probably because they are not something that is easy to get your head around.

Trackbacks in simple terms are links. They are not like a regular links though, they are special in that they will send a comment to a site from your site, when used.  This works both ways, if someone writes about an article on your blog, and uses your trackback link then you will receive  a notice in your comments area showing text from the other persons post. It is a way for you to know that another person has referenced your article or post.

Ok, so that sounds good, but how do you find the ‘special link’ and what to you do with it?

Ok, let’s use an example. Go to the link http://newsletter.blizzardinternet.com and look at any of the articles on the site. Notice, that when you view the home page, or a category or archive page you are viewing an excerpt of the article, so to view the whole article you need to click on the title. (more…)

What is the Best Size Image to Use?

To keep the download time to a minimum and to have a good quality image, make sure that your image is no bigger than 500 pixels along the longest edge and no smaller than 150 pixels.

How Can I Change the Size of my Images?

Here are some free software programs that we have used and find really good. You can use any of these to edit your images. Both require you to download software to your computer.

The Gimp – an Open Source software program with many of the same features as Photoshop. Available for Windows, Unix and MacOS X systems.
Cost: Free

Picasa Photo Editing by Google – free software from Google that allows you to locate and organize photos on your computer. Has simple editing tools to add effects and edit images. Gives you the option to share photos online. Available for Linux & Windows systems – no MacOS version yet.
Cost: Free

If you would rather not download more software onto your computer, then try the Flickr site. This online photo site will resize your images when you upload them to your account. For a more detailed explanation go here – ‘Using Flickr to Resize Images’.

For more info on other editing tools visit the About site at Top 8 Free Photo Editors for Windows.

OK, onto the tutorial: (Sections of the editing area and Buttons are written in Bold, while actions are in italic) (more…)

You’ve decided to start a blog on your favorite topic. Great! Where do you start? There are so many options out there – what steps do you go through to make sure your blog is set up in the most user and search engine friendly manner?

Recently, we started a blog about travel destinations across the US, Canada and Mexico. I kept a journal of the stops and starts we made along the way. I’m not going to go into the details of my endless pages of ranting about my very flat learning curve – but I wanted to share the things that helped, and the things that DIDN’T help to alleviate some of the frustrations I felt in the beginning.
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