Why aren’t you Celebrating this?

Alvin : Wow why aren’t you celebrating 200k views?

Me: I know I know if I only had a $1 for each view.

Alvin {Thinks}: Be real even 1c would be OK.

Alvin :  So why don’t you have Ads?

Me:  No simple answer there. First I don’t like pop ups and Ads. Second I did try to monetize the blog with the Google's AdSense but I was disapproved (for a strange reason? My blog was considered unsuitable!). At the time a troll/lowlife was skimming off my blog posts and posting them unaltered on a site that looked like a legit camera review web site and it had Google AdSense ads  but it the content all totally fake (thanks to copyscape for helping in this research) . However Google was clearly paying him for my content. Didn't seem fair at the time. After a lot of investigation and DCMA notices, with the troll changing the countries hosting his rip-off website many times the hassle eventually stopped. I also wrote to google many times during this period via links in blogger and forums but never once got an answer back about why I was considered unsuitable. So I just lost interest.

Alvin: Ok makes sense but why are you still blogging?

Me: Good Question. I must like it.

Alvin: You mean a fun way to waste your time then? What happened to your enjoying the social media silence?

Me: No comment

The Challenges of Blogging while Travelling.

My Endless Summer project should be giving me lots of content for this blog. Certainly there have been some considered post mainly around my art but the more routine posting of photos has suffered.

There are a few reasons.

1. When you are travelling, taking photos and sketching there isn't a lot of time left to blog.
2. My travels have been in poor low band width areas (eg NBN satelitte service in East Gippsland is pathetic).
3. My mobile phone was dying.
4. My 4G mobile WiFi modem often just refused to work (related to point 2, lowband width poor reception).
5. Instagram is easier to use.

I have replaced the phone, and this blog post is directly from it (the blogger app is still a bit tedious) but I'm not sure how to address the other issues. Keep tuned as I look for and hopefully find some solutions

Sharing Post from Known into Blogger (via Flickr)

Whilst blogger does have an api of sorts, (via a http: request) I’m not certain how to include this in a known add-in (basically I’d probably rather wait for a more savvy developer to work it out). I have found it is pretty simple to share your post (with a picture) into blogger, by firstly sharing it to flickr (which is one of the current social media share links built in.)
The sharing process involves two steps in flickr, and three or four steps in blogger. Thus I have found it best to have both flickr and blogger open in separate tabs in your browser. To begin open the photo page for the image uploaded from Known, click on the share icon (which is the right facing curved arrow on the right hand side of the image. This brings up the share dialogue, click on the HTML radio button and copy the HTML code in the bottom dialogue line (see example on the right). This is HTML code that will display the photo in blogger while the photo itself stays on flickr. Now go to the blogger page and select the Create New Post (it is a pencil icon up on the top left, but I’m sure if you blog you already know that). Firstly change the edit mode from compose to HTML on the blogger post page. Now paste in the HTML code from flickr into the post text area,(see the example below in the blue dashed line highlight box). Next return to the flickr page and click on the small edit icon (again a pencil icon) beside the title and comment section. This will them show you the actual HTML version of the text from your know post (see example on the left). Copy this and return to the blogger page and post it under the image HTML (also shown within the green box below). You know have a post almost identical to the post back in known. unfortunately like the google+ link any hashtags will not be automatically transferred so if you want to use any you will need to enter them manually using the lables button on the right hand side of the blogger page. 

Perhaps this is not as nice as an automatic share, and it doesn’t add a flag back into your Known post that it is also posted in blogger but it is pretty simple once you understand the sequence, and it still has the link to your original Known post to establish your ownership and provenance.

Sharing Post from Known into Google+

I have been experimenting in the Indie web for the past few weeks, specifically with the known blogging platform. (which I hope to bring back to my own website soon, even though the withknow,com site is very easy to use and update, having my web post under my control is my ultimate goal.) The big advantage of the indie web principles, for any creative person is that you control the original post location and can determine who it is shared with. This goes by the acronym POSSE, Publish (on your) Own Site, Syndicate Elsewhere. This can be a massive advantage in trying to establish ownership of the intellectual property. Also I see this approach to social network being perfect to establish reliable provenance particularly if I also discuss a little of why and who I am doing a particular work or project. It also means that I am are not beholding to a third party having control of my works (please also read your social media of choice’s term of service because you are probably surrounding ownership to that social media service by posting your work!!!)

The Known project is open source, with a strong academic/education focus at the moment, and offers a very simple and easy to use blogging/microblogging platform. A basic principle is to allow the POSSE style syndication. so at the same time to publish to the block you can click on extra share buttons for well known social network services, like facebook, flickr & twitter, the post are also submitted to these services via their api so they look and feel exactly like native post on those services. The system is designed to allow development of add-ins for other sites and publishing approaches.
Publishing to google+ in this way is a problem because google does not offer an api (application programmiong interface) to publish into google+ from another party (eg your Known blog) and given the apparent back peddling on google+ generally I doubt it will ever be made available. So I went looking for an alternate approach and it is pretty straight forward. Once you have published on Known, you just need to click on the date entry under the post (see example above) and you will be shown just that post with the permalink to that post displayed in the URL address at the top of your browser. Next you need to select that address and copy it into your cut/paste buffer. Now you can go into google+ and select the link icon, which brings up the link dialogue, shown on the right. Now paste the permalink to you known post onto the Attach: line. Google+ will soon check your post and make a sort of summary selecting a photo (if one exists in your known post) and the title of your post. If you want to use hashtags your need to type them in the google+ status box (at the top of the dialgue screen). You may also want to change who to share with,(eg Public, Circles, Communities) on the To: line. Then finally click on the green share button.

Google Plus-ness arrives at blogger

I suppose it was only a matter of time, but the moment bloggers on blogger were dreading has arrived, and the sky hasn’t fallen in.

I was among many bloogers that were quite apprehensive about blogger being gobbled up into virtual vastness of google+ and the possibility that our normal audience (who may, dread the thought, may not be google+ers) might never see us again. Well the day has arrived and google has integrated google+ into blogger, not gobbled it up. Further that integration is largely unnoticeable. At its simplest you are encouraged to create a google+ page that is associated with the blog and then links back to all blog post will also be automatically created as posts on that blog page. I must admit I have noticed that this link to blog posts is exactly how many others use google+, and I have done it a few times myself. In retrospect it is a very obvious way to invigorate the google+ post stream with some fresh blood.

Mobile Blogging : Self Regerence or Self Indulgence

I guess it is logical, being able to blog from a smart phone. It just seams strange standing back from the computer and feverishly typing into my hand (I will need more practice to get used to this virtual keyboard). At the same time it is probably very liberating. I'll be able to blog anywhere, any time, including photos

Look mum ...no hands!



bought to you by the blogger app on android

BOOKED OUT

BOOKED OUT, originally uploaded by imageo.

I was going to share this invite on this blog but the course is already booked out. Sorry about that!

Don't despair there is plenty of on-line help both within flickr and externally to get you started.

Flickr was actually one of the earliest Web 2.0 social services. Sure there are a multiplicity of other sites serving up photo hosting place now but flickr has evolved into something much more than just a photo publishing place. With an actve community still finding creative & interesting ways to interact.

Avoiding the Black Hats & Spammers

I have become aware that at least one of my blog posts has again been “scrapped” and reposted as an exact copy of my original post, including picture and layout, on a spam site (I will not give you the link because you should not go there, and specially never every click on links you find on these dodgy looking “content farms”). At worse they will contain links to other spam and potentially malware. At best these lazy spamdexers are just trying to attract innocent links, thus page views and a higher google ranking, to their site using lots of plagiarized (aka stolen) content. It is a dishonest practice, and sorry I can do nothing about it.
What disappoints me most about all this black hat SEO trickery and blog scrapping is the fact that Google in many cases is paying the very spammers and thieves for the stolen content! The content farms have mostly been greedy & also monetized their site using Google’s own adsense. So try reporting this Google??? I have found there is a massive blankness, no response from anyone. You may remember my previous post on a lesson of theft versus sharing. Well that site, which looks a lot like a legitimate camera review site, still exists, it just keeps changing its name slightly, its ISP, its country of origin and its owner name, so that DMCA notices to cease and desist also go unanswered. At least that low life now acknowledges my posts and links back to my site (he may think technically he doesn’t breach my Creative Common Licence, but what he does is still not legal because he is expecting Google to still pay him for my content and my CC license is for NON commercial).  I can not find him, but Google obviously still can because he still displays an adsense badge. Am I being too cynical about Google’s apparent hypocrisy and will to fix this? Rant over for now.

As I indicated above there is little I can do, but there might be something you can do if you use chrome as your browser, Google has released an add-in that gives you a personal blocklist of such sites as you come across them. It will also transmit your blocking patterns back to Google, in theory they will then get a good crowd sourced blacklist of such websites and thus downgrade these undesirables in their famous search algorithms. Let us hope Google will follow through on this.

A couple of surprises

I’ve been searching the blogosphere, vodcasts & twitterverse looking for social web photograph inspiration (not to copy but to colour my blog customization) I was struck by all the black & grey (a la lightroom) and such vitriolic warfares between nikon .vs. canon or the the apple mac .vs. windows. Then I realised I was looking at the past, “so 2010 really”.

The vast majority of those that have read my blog last month where using windows (and the same ratio goes back forever). And what is this one person used an iPhone  and another an iPad? Is this a new trend?

The most popular camera for uploaded images on flickr is about to become the iPhone 4, not a nikon or canon!

So here’s the rub I’m neither a nikon or a canon fanboy, I have windows computers and thus use and write about windows software, I don’t have an iPhone and I think black or grey backgrounds make what I write very tedious to read.  Call me “uberly unpretentious” but I think I’ll stick with the simple blogger template (with a couple of personal touches on the header) and just keep writing about the same stuff that I find interesting about digital photography. With a few photo projects thrown in for fun. Alas the new blogger page view graphic is reading about 40,000 views light but it looks neater and I’m not so worried about view counts anyway.

Now Truly mobile

Blogger has been updated in several ways. Prompting me to finally to look at updating my template (at last many might say) to take advantage of more screen real estate available on most computers these days. There is also something I have been wanting for some time Mobile Phone templates, that automatically reformats this blog to fit on the smaller screens when access via a smart phone, or alternatively use the QR code above to set the link directly into your phone. The layout insert on the left shows and example of the typical mobile screen. Whilst a few post might display thumbnail photos, in most cases you will need to click on the large > (chevron bracket) on the right to see the photos.

After a short play around with the new templates, I decided they all made my previous posts look terrible. So I might just investigate a more customised approach. So watch this space for some gradual changes

Windows Live Essentials

View Full Album

I have just updated my Windows Live Writer, which I use a lot for preparing these blog posts, other than support for tables and maps which I haven’t tired out yet. It has a couple nice insert features for photographer (and movie maker). You can now insert a photo album,like the one to the left, but only by uploading the photos directly or using the windows live on-line album feature. The insert video feature is much the same but also has the ability to add video from common on-line services like You Tube. A similar feature for the photo gallery that read from Flickr, photo bucket and/or picasa web albums would have been a winner. Windows live essentials can be downloaded for free and includes a few other neat utilities, but just getting windows live writer will make your blogging life easier.

The other surprise was that sky drive, also free, now gives you 25 gigabytes of space for free! Yes, I got that right 25Gb! That is a lot so I have started to use it as a trial place to do my daily backups (of photos) so they are not just on one storage media (ie my camera card then my whichever computer I am using) even when I am travelling. Will keep you posted on how this goes.

opening up your ability to share

Windows Live, or the latest beta update, available for down now by clicking here, is Microsoft's attempt to catch up into the web 2.0 social networking- , photosharing- and blogging- -verse. Yahoo's Flickr and Googles, Picasa and blogger already have done this for some time. the software comes with four tools, the Window Live Messenger, a rebadging of the tried and true instant message system, Windows Live Email, which is Hotmail on steroids that give you a workable way to also access multiple pop mail services, next comes the nice looking Window Live Photo Gallery, which is a stripped down version of the tools in Vista, with nice web publishing/upload features, and finally Window Live Writer, a nice and simple tool to edit blog posts in a WISYWIG way.

I'm not convinced Photo Live Gallery is a patch on picasa, but it is simple and free. If uploading photos to your web presence is frustrating, give it a try. the only downside is it does the thumbnail versions of your photo on the fly and this can be slow

Live writer works nicely with blogger, much better than the word macro I downloaded for blogger I uploaded some time ago. The nicest feature is writers ability to find the format template of your blog by uploading a temp post (which it also them deletes. The only downside is it doesn't do blogger's labels, something I have been routinely.