Retiring this blog

Just a quick note to let you know I am retiring this blog, and will be concentrating on my new blog about photography - www.simonsphotoblog.com

Thanks for reading "Simon Says"!

Perils of free web sites

I've been thinking about adding a page to this blog to show case my favourite photos that I've taken since getting my DSLR camera.  Simply adding a page in Blogger maintains the same layout as the rest of the blog, complete with the search, archive, labels and adds that appear in the right column, but I'd like my best photos to be shown using the full available width of the blog.  
I could pay to make some really nice pages using SmugMug or SquareSpace, but so far my hobby of an online presence only costs me a nominal amount for domain names and a Pro Flickr subscription, so I'd rather not throw money into the cloud when there are free options available.
Free options?  Yes, there are still plenty of ways to maintain an online presence without costing a cent (and I'm not thinking about social media at all);

• As my photos are already on Flickr, the easiest for me would be to simply add a link to a Flickr set or slideshow.  However this is hard to incorporate into my blog, as I cant link back to my homepage.
• I tried starting another blog using Blogger, but a blog format would make a new dated post whenever I wanted to add more photos.  So I added a page to that blog (formatted without the extra column) for my best photos, but that gets awkward because even though I can link back to my homepage, I cant remove the link to the homepage of that blog.
• I thought I'd give WordPress a try, this is a very popular platform, but ran into similar problems of dated posts in a blog format or a page with links to it's own homepage that I couldn't remove.
• The next option to try was Google Sites.  I originally tried Google’s free web site building service a few years ago to a make a family page, but found it very hard to work out and far from user friendly. I ended up going to Blogger for our family site.  (I now use Blogger for the site you’re reading now and my Web Links site.)  Having another look at Google Sites recently I still found it difficult to work out, but they have made some improvements from a few years back.  The advantage this time for me was that it doesn’t have to be a blog format, so I was able to create a photo page that linked back to my homepage.

Sure it took some trial and error with cursing and head scratching, and it’s not as pretty as a paid site, but I got there in the end.  That’s why I enjoy my online hobby.

 https://sites.google.com/site/simonyeophotos/

Windows Live Writer

As I’ve previously mentioned, my blogs are hosted and written on Google’s Blogger platform.

This post is something different; I’m writing this using Windows Live Writer to see if it’s any easier, if it has any advantages over using the Blogger web site. 

Sure I can insert a smiley face but when would I need that in regular blog posts?

I can insert a table / grid	like this…
	but I don’t think I’d use it much

There are lots of plug-ins available for Live Writer too, but most don’t seem to add much more than you can do on the blogger web site.

There are more font options available… Comic Sans, Calibri, Jokerman and many more options you don't get on the web site.

I can even insert a map…

Maybe I will just keep Windows Live Writer as an option, depending on what I want in a particular blog post.

Change the blog look

I've had this blog for a few years now, so I thought it might be time for a change.  I'm using the free Blogger platform from Google, so there isn't as many options as some of the paid blogging hosts, but they still have several templates to play around with.

So, as I fine tune the look of "Simon Says Blog", here's one last look at the original layout... 

My photo on Planet Earth blog

It's nice when strangers like my photos.


In October 2009 I told you about one of my photos (showing motorbikes on their way to Phillip Island for the Grand Prix) appearing on the blog site A PHOTO A DAY FROM PLANET EARTH.


From time-to-time I will add photos to their flickr group, and this week they chose my photo of the Cape Schanck Lighthouse to publish on the site.

Photo a day from planet earth

Last week I blogged about taking Brad down to Tooradin to watch the bikes heading to Phillip Island for the Grand Prix. 
One of my photos from that morning have been used on the photo blog site "A photo a day from planet Earth".

iPhone blogging

Testing out a new iPone app for posting blogs from my phone.

I can even add photos direct from the phone.
This is Brad and Karla as seen from my spot on the couch.


- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Blog Imports

I've been able to import entries from my earlier Blogger site to this one, so any entries prior to August 2009 originally appeared on simonyeo70.blogspot.com

At this stage I haven't been able to import my much older posts at Wordpress.

Below are some of my favourite blog entries from my old Wordpress blog, hopefull I'll be able to import them here at a later date.

Baby Karla,  Ultrasound,  Josh the photographer 

"Web Links" blog

I've just started a "Web Links" blog, with the intention of posting regular links to interesting stuff on the World Wide Web.

Check it out... www.simonsweblinks.com

Windows Live Writer

This is just a quick post to check out Windows Live Writer to post blogs rather than the blogger web site.

Blogger Adds

Even though I've decided to use Blogger from Google for my blog, sometimes it can be frustrating. A few of the reasons for choosing Blogger are; free hosting with custom domain and AdSense to maybe make a couple of dollars as well, but regardless of changes I make in "Edit Layout" the adds remain big and square instead of long and skinny.

UPDATE 22 SEPT 2009 - I've finally worked out how to change the ad banner inbetween posts.

New Blog

Well here we are with my new "SimonSays" blog.

I've always liked the concept of blogs, allowing anyone to publish their ramblings to the world. I experimented a while back using both Wordpress and Google's Blogger (blogspot.com). Even though I usually didn't have too much too say, using Wordpress and then Blogger allowed me to learn about blogging and to choose a platform.

Recently I switched my primary email to Gmail, but signed up with Google apps to use a custom domain (www.smjbk.com) rather than gmail.com . Having the new domain available, has now motivated me to start this new blog. I'm sticking with Blogger (mainly to keep as much of my online stuff within my Google account), but am obviously making a fresh start and not importing my old posts. Links to my old blogs are below.

http://simonsaysblog.wordpress.com/ http://simonyeo70.blogspot.com/

Cheers!
Simon.

UPDATE 26 SEPTEMBER 2009: I've imported my old blog entries, so anything appearing below this post was originally posted on my earlier blog.

Experimenting with my "Blogger" blog

Ok, my first blog post on Blogger.com is online. Something else I'd like to try is embedding a picture from my flickr.com site.

This picture is of my newborn baby girl. I've embedded HTML from flickr for it to show here.

My new blog

Ok, I've been blogging (on and off) for a few months now on my Wordpress site, and I'm wondering about my next step in the blog universe so I thought I'd check out the competition here at Blogger to see if this might be a better option for me. I will make a few general blog posts and then decide where to go and what to do after that.