Friday, November 21, 2014

7 Tips To Beat Procrastination For Bloggers


7 Tips To Beat Procrastination For Bloggers
Doubt and Inconsistent thinking are the behavioral patterns responsible for Procrastination. Regret, Anxiety and constant brooding are the consequent behavioral outputs of Procrastination. What is commonly evident is a sort of confusion and apprehension that things will not work out, inspite of your best efforts. It is pre-decided that, no matter, ‘how well you do to put in your best effort’ – you will fail!

BUT (and this is a big but) LET US NOT FORGET THAT WE CAN WALK THE PATH FROM NOTHING TO SOMETHING, AND SOMETHING THAT MATTERS! ONE STEP AT A TIME! THAT IS HOW WE LEARNED TO WALK AND TALK AS KIDS, RIGHT?

In this article, we will study the 7 measures to counter procrastination by maintaining coordination between the mind and the body. The maintenance of mind to body coordination essentially means that: ‘the way you think in your mind’ and ‘the way you act with your body’ can be ‘balanced’.

1) Self-Reflection

What is Self-reflection?

Self-reflection is necessary to counter the tendency of doubting that good things will happen to us. Self-reflection essentially means: Talking to the ‘Self’ and telling your mind about the plan that you have for next year, next month, next week or even the next day. You can self-reflect to decide about your course of action for the next day. This habit of questioning your mind and getting the answers will lead you to the fine habit of ‘knowing where you stand and how you can progress’.

How to commit yourself to Self-reflection?

It is necessary to reflect upon your own thoughts and understand – ‘where are you going wrong’ and ‘where are you going right’. This method of observing your actions and learning from those actions is worthwhile, rather than regretting the past.

It is easy to tune into the self-reflective mode. All you have to do is contemplate and believe in the greatness of your mere existence and great things will begin to happen. If you begin to appreciate the smaller things in your life then you will value your own existence. And once you understand, the real meaning of value, you will certainly value your time, work and the satisfaction that you receive from the action of doing the work.

2) Difference between a ‘drop of water’ and the ‘ocean

It is often difficult to view the big picture and recollect its beauty; but committing to the self-reflection activity mentioned above will certainly help in viewing the big picture. However, first do not try to look at the big picture, it is for later. First, it is necessary to experience small beginnings and learn from them. The difference between a ‘drop of water’ and the ‘ocean’ is that the ‘OCEAN IS GRATEFUL TO KNOW THAT IT IS SO BIG, AND YET IT WAS A SMALL DROP OF WATER ONCE; WHEREAS, THE DROP OF WATER IS ALSO GRATEFUL TO KNOW THAT WITH THE HELP OF OTHER WATER DROPLETS, IT WILL ALSO BECOME AN OCEAN SOMEDAY’!

3) Commitment

The act of committing yourself to action is the effort required from ‘thinking about doing an action’ to ‘initiating the action’, and ‘maintaining consistency in action’. It is necessary to acknowledge that – ‘we as humans can commit ourselves to doing anything we want. And hence, we can either remain idle or become the being of action’.

Did you ever wonder why you continue procrastinating? It is bad enough that we procrastinate but why do we continue doing so every day without fail. The reason is simple – we continue doing so because we are creatures of habit. Hence, if we can remain idle for days, then we can also remain active for days, weeks and months. A habit once formed is difficult to break and hence, if we commit ourselves to forming the habit of putting in little effort everyday then big results will certainly follow.

4) Reasoning

Simply asking ‘why’ to your mind will give you enough answers. And if questions bother you a lot, you should only acknowledge them. I am not saying ignore questions or forget about questions. The basic characteristic of mind is its consciousness and consciousness can be experienced in every moment of the life. Consciousness can be perceived in your ability to think. Your effort to commit yourself to reasoning, self-reflecting and believing will bring success when you begin to envision clarity. This clarity will further strengthen your ability to self-reflect reason and believe in the cause.

5) Write it down

Writing down random thoughts can also make you feel lighter. Your mind is free to flow in any direction with its thoughts and hence it is essential to control it. A mind cluttered with unnecessary thoughts can make you feel burdened with complexity. Writing down your apprehensions is another way of countering the negative beliefs and sowing the seeds for the fruit of wisdom. DON’T GIVE UP! BECAUSE IT ISN’T OVER UNTIL IT’S OVER, YOU ARE STILL BREATHING! AREN’T YOU!

6) Less Planning, More Action

Many of us have the habit of doing too much of thinking and planning to the minutest detail. However, ‘Thinking without doing is similar to nothingness’. Hence, it is said that action speaks louder than words. Even understanding this phenomenon is enough to bring ourselves into the action mode.

7) Your work is a set of first steps taken to reach your goal

The ideal end product of your work is success. And your work is nothing but a series of individual steps taken to reach a goal. These series of steps will make you strong enough to accept and appreciate the power of success.

Thus, we should get our beliefs right and take those small steps to gain bigger results. RESULTS ARE A PRODUCT OF OUR UNDYING SPIRIT OF APPRECIATION TOWARDS OUR EXISTENCE. WE BELIEVE WE EXIST AND SO WE DO!

Image credit: stuart miles




Author Bio:
Yohana Petrovic is a freelance writer and professional educator. She has 10 years experience of educating. She is a guest blogger, writing about blogging, writing skills and education. Yohana is also a regular contributor to http://globalessays.org/ website

Tuesday, November 18, 2014

How to turn on a mobile theme / template for blogs in Blogger

This article explains why mobile mattes for some blogs (but not all), what tools Blogger has provided to help with this, and how to set up a mobile theme (aka template) for your blog.  It also links to Google's mobile testing tool, which shows you how your blog looks on a mobile device.



By default, when someone uses a smartphone, tablet or other mobile device to look at your blog, they see the "full site" just like they would if they were using a PC.   The pages aren't set up to work well on their small screen, but they have access to all the features and gadgets you've installed.

In some cases, this is fine.  For example, when I first wrote this article, I looked at the statistics for this site and hardly any of the visitors were mobile.   However now, a couple of years later things have changed and I've implemented a mobile theme for this blog.

But for other blogs, especially ones that have maps and other location-information or which people read on the go, having a mobile-friendly theme is very important:   for example, on my public-transport blog, over 25% of visitors are using mobile, and that figure is growing.  Making my site work well for these visitors is definitely important for its long-term future (and my short term advertising revenue!)


What's available

Blogger have made a set of mobile themes, to match the standard Designer Themes, and so far only one to match the Dynamic theme(s).

We cannot control the layout of gadgets on these - when the screen is only 300-ish pixels wide, there's not much room to move.

But we can add and remove gadgets, and also by choosing a custom template get colour settings that match our main blog.


How to enable a mobile theme / template for your blog

Log in to Blogger using an account with administrator rights to the blog.

Go to the Themes tab.

If your blog has a Designer or Dynamic theme, then there will be a Mobile option to the right of the "Live on Blog" area.



If the blog is not set up to use a mobile theme ,then the word Disabled will be in the middle of the picture area - although it may be hard to read if your base template (chosen in the Live on Blog area) has a picture behind it.

Click on the gear-wheel underneath the picture to see the mobile options.

Select "Yes.  Show mobile template on mobile devices."



Either leave the mobile template on Default, or select one of the other options.
  • If you choose Default, your mobile template will use the standard template matching your desktop template.
  • If you choose Custom, your mobile template will use the colour-scheme and various features from your desktop template, and you will be able to makes changes to these settings.

Use the Preview button if you want to see what your blog will look like with the selected template on a mobile device.

When you are happy with your selection, press Save.


What your readers see

Visitors to your blog who are using a desktop PC (or laptop or netbook or any other machine with a full-size screen) won't see anything different.

Readers who are using an internet-enabled cellphone (ie smartphone), tablet, iPad, etc will see a different view:
  • They won't have a sidebar
  • The gadgets will be limited (unless you add some extra ones) and in the header and footer only
  • On the home-page there will just be the title, thumbnail and snippet for each post, and a button for read-more (this is irrespective of where you've put the jump-break) - notice that the usual methods of giving your blog a home-page don't always work.
  • Custom styles that you have added to the template may not be applied (this has happened on one blog where I use styles, I'm still investigating whether it's a feature of all mobile templates, or just due to the way I added these particular styles).
  • There will be buttons at the bottom of the page for Home, <   and > .    I think that the latter two refer to older and newer posts (though possible they are the opposite way around from what I expect).
  • There will be a link to "view web version", which lets your visitor switch to to see the blog using the desktop template.

I have a  feeling that there may be some other differences too - very keen to hear about any others you've spotted.


Seeing what your mobile readers see

The absolute best way that I've found to accurately experience my blogs as mobile visitors see them is to use a mobile device myself:
  • Just like preview mode in the Post-editor, the mobile preview mode shows a "look and feel" view, which is not entirely accurate.   For example in the picture above, it shows part of the most-recent article insteaod of just the post title and mini-snippet that I see when I look at the site on my phone.
  • The screen-size testers that I've tried out (ie software tools that mimic showing your website in various different screen sizes) don't actually use the mobile template - I suspect that this is due to the way that Blogger detects mobile devices.

However you can see any blog as it would be on a mobile device by appending /?m=1 to the end of the URL.    For example, to see this blog in mobile, I would look at http://blogger-hints-and-tips.blogspot.com/?m=1      If you're going to use this approach, it's best to re-size your browser window so that it's about 300px wide - from my netbook, that's about 1/3 of the screen size, but it would be less from machiens with bigger screens.


Another approach is to use Google's Mobile Friendly Testing tool, which will
... analyze a URL and report if the page has a mobile-friendly design.
As well as showing you how your blog looks, it also reports on any issues that have been found.






Related Articles

Adding gadgets to your mobile template.

Removing the attribution from moblile blogs

Showing a Google custom map on your blog

Advertising programmes for websites

Types of Blogger template

Administrator rights to your blog

Seven Ways to Prevent Software Viruses from Infecting your Personal Data


Seven Ways to Prevent Software Viruses from Infecting your Personal Data
Computer viruses are manifested through software programs that replicate and infect other computers. Normally these are spread through emails and data transfer devices such as flash disks. Other than infecting your computer or laptop, viruses can be transferred to your cell phone, e-reader or tablet. So long as these gadgets can get into contact with the internet, they are always at risk. A viral attack can lead to a malfunction or expose your personal data such as the passwords you use. If an intruder gets hold of your password he/she can hack into your phone or emails.

There are three basic ways to steer clear of viruses:

  • Avoid opening email attachments from people you don’t know
  • Always use sites that are trusted when downloading files
  • Scan suspect documents or devices that you use

Below are some measures you can take to prevent viruses from getting into your personal data:

1. Exercise caution when opening email attachments either from your phone or tablet. The same way you treat suspect attachments with caution when working from your computer should be replicated in other gadgets. If you get an email from someone who is not in your mailing list, don’t open it. Do the same in case the message title or sender’s name looks suspicious.

2. Be on the lookout for links that look questionable. These are normally sent through text or email messages. The people who send them are spammers or hackers. Some do this on purpose with the intention of establishing whether that email address has a user. Once you open it, some trigger is raised on their end and they get an opportunity to either spam your mail box or send viruses. Others may not be aware that their phones are infected. You can try sending a text to the sender to inquire whether he/she sent the link. If the person is genuine and honest you will get a response and an apology. Otherwise, delete such messages instantly.

3. With respect to applications, download only those that are legitimate. You can tell whether a store is legit by reading online reviews about it. Since there are many people looking for mobile phone applications, some malicious people have taken advantage by spreading viruses in form of fake games, social networking applications and financial tracking apps.

4. While using Bluetooth, apply undiscoverable settings. There are viruses that pass through Bluetooth connections. This is a tricky attack. If you walk near a device and your connection is in discoverable mode, the virus in the infected device can easily be transferred to your tablet or smartphone. Currently, there are some malicious viruses that disable your phone and steal your contact details.

5. In order to protect your smartphones, iPhones, e-readers and tablets download anti-virus applications. These can be obtained from trusted providers. Make sure the company you source the app from is well known. Examples include Lookout Mobile Security app and SmrtGuard Solutions’ Snap Secure app. These help protect iPhones as well as provide data backup. The applications are available from Lookout Inc. There are a host of many others.

6. For Android phones, you should be able to get reliable anti-virus such as Kaspersky Mobile Security app. This incorporates spam and virus protection. Other examples are Norton Mobile Security and Bullguard Mobile Security. These protect data during an attack, theft or loss of your phone. You can download them online.

7. Look for anti-virus applications that help secure your personal information from falling into the wrong hands. Some can help keep track of your phone while others rid your phone’s memory from a remote location. This works well when someone steals your phone.

Image Credit: jesadaphorn



Author Bio:
Agency Fusion, located in Salt Lake City, Utah, is an ad agency focused on the intersection of design and technology. They specialize in web design, web development, branding and software development. Learn more about Fusion Agency here.

Thursday, November 6, 2014

How to include the blog post description when you share on Facebook

This article shows how to make that the description is correctly shown when one of your blog-posts is shared on Facebook.




When you share one of your blog-posts using either the via the "what's on your mind" space on Facebook or the Facebook share button on your blog, you may find that the only information automatically shown is:
  • A picture (hopefully, but not always from the post)
  • The post title
  • The blog URL or the post URL

But many people want the post-description to be included too.

There are two things which you need to do to make sure that this happens correctly.


Step 1: Add search descriptions to your blog-posts

If a post does not have a description, Facebook will sometimes try to estimate one based on the contents. But this is not reliable, and it depends on the blog template you have used, and possibly even on other factors, eg at one stage, Facebook just looked for the the first
(paragraph) tag with at least 120 characters in it - which gave very odd results for some Blogger users. Alternatively it may try to use your post.summary but this also depends on your template.

A more reliable approach is for you to provide the description-text for each post.

For Blogger, the way to do this is described here.

For Wordpress, you need to to use an SEO plugin like SEO Ultimate to do this.

Step 2: Add Open-Graph tags to your template

Some templates already contain code which causes Facebook to estimate the description correctly. But some don't - and some may use two-step methods, eg relying on schema.org tags to imply Open Graph tags.

So, as with descriptions, it's more reliable to ensure you are using the set of tags that Facebook officially supports. These are the Open Graph tags.

You can see how to apply them in Blogger  or there are various plug-ins you can use on Wordpress.

Job Done! Once you have made these two changes, when someone shares your blog on Facebook, your own post-description should be shown. Don't forget to test your changes - as described in the Adding Open Graph tags to Blogger article.


What your readers see

Nothing! People who get to your blog using a web-browser, or who subscribe to your RSS feed or who follow-by email don't see anything different after you have done the steps above.

The only different is when they share a post from your blog in Facebook:  the initial description will come from your Description tag for the the post, not from the overall blog.


What happens for posts that do not have search descriptions

This depends on your blog's template, and on how Facebook is interpreting the information that it provides. You can see what Facebook will do for specific posts using the tag-debugging tool which Facebook provide.

Adding descriptions to old posts is tedious. But if your posts are often shared on Facebook, it may be worthwhile for you to allocate some time each day to edit a few posts LINK and update them with a current description. Provided you don't spend too long working out what the description should say, it should be possible to update 200 posts in a three weeks if you spend ten minutes each day doing just this.

What's more, it is possible that adding descriptions to your posts will make them look more attractive in regular Google search results too, which is A Good Thing if search-traffic matters for your blog.




Related Articles:

How to add a Description meta-tag to posts in Blogger

How to apply Facebook's OpenGraph labels in Blogger

Reasons why SEO and search-traffic don't matter for many blogs