Because There are 41 posts in my drafts

I am currently trying to throw a lot of old stuff out of drafts and onto my blog (or shifting it into my journal.) That's why some of this stuff is out of order, outdated-

-or just plain boring.

Housecleaning it's called.

Its just a blog.

But it's a little awkward lately.

I think it is a mix between not wanting to be one of those people who go around telling strangers, "I have a blog. Please read it." and sounding like a desperate friendless person... (I feel like a friendless person at the moment, but I'm really not. They've just all gone ...somewhere.)

And

Well I might have a story about some of these people in my drafts... I try really hard to not post identifying information if I'm posting awkward stories about someone else, and there is a lot that I don't post. But if you do really weird things I might talk about you; I mostly talk about myself though so relax.

(I think I just admitted to writing awkward stories about my friends. Maybe I should reword that eh?)

I actually don't go all off telling everyone's secrets, but I did once give an explanation because untrue things were said about me to everyone. But she complained and I deleted it.

Currently thinking about a conversation I had a few Sundays ago with a friend who kept adamantly insisting, "You should never have to change yourself."

Was trying to figure out if he reads my blog, because I've talked about changing myself some lately here, and because he kept just randomly throwing, "Do not change yourself." and "You shouldn't ever have to change yourself for anyone." into a non related conversation, but I didn't ask for in case he didn't read my blog.

I don't know why I care. Maybe I don't. It is a blog. It's not my journal. I've always tried not to post anything that I would mind anyone reading.

Also thinking about how I told Sharon and Michele's's family, "It's weird for my friends dad's to read my blog."

I don't really mind, if people read what I write. In fact I rather like having people read my blog. (Including my friends parents, Most of them are my own friends in addition to being my friends dads.)

But there was that time Chris was asking, "So Esther who is the guy who wears flowers in his hair?" AND THE GUY WAS STANDING RIGHT THERE. Then I freaked out. Not because I was mean to him in my post, but because other people could warp it that way if they wanted to. I later explained to the guy that yes I did write about him, and he said, "I must be really important to get into your blog." (Don't flatter yourself dude, but yeah.)

And this girl, who was snobby at a wedding, I ended up at a party with her and she was sweet and nice, and I wondered, 'maybe that was just an off day for her?'

So yeah, about all those stories in my drafts. Hmmm.



(Nah probably not)

How To Receive Blogger/Blogspot Comments Via Text

I don't do much with my blog except post stuff, so this makes it easy to respond (or at least know when I should respond) to a comment. I have used Gmail Filters for years, so was aware that this would work, but only set it up recently...

To do this you must first have blogger comments sent to your email address. You're probably already set up for that. If not click here for easy instructions.

1) If you don't already know your picture text email address, find it by texting a picture to your email.

(Leave this email address for later)

2) Open an emailed-from-blogger comment email;

3) Click on the More Actions tab, then choose Filter Messages Like These.

4) Click on Next Step (You should see  noreply-comment@blogger.com to the upper left in the From: box)

5) Check the Forward It To box, then in the white space enter your pix message email address

(The from email address as saved in step 1)

6) Click Update Filter (But Don't check the box for 'Also apply to conversations below'.)

And that's it. Pretty simple huh?



(You will also receive comments that you've signed up for on other people's Blogspots)

How To Receive Blogspot Comments Via Email

I'm working on a post showing how to have your blog comments sent to your cell phone.

But to automatically send Blogger comments to your cell phone via text you must first have blogger set up to send all comments to your email address.

This step was taking up too much space, and I think this is an opt out thing, so you're probably already set up this way. So anyway I gave it it's own post...

If you don't receive comments to your email, then here's how to set that up...

Go to your blogger Dashboard. Choose the Settings link.

Then choose the Comments tab.

At the bottom of the page enter your gmail address in the space provided.

Save the settings.

And that's it....

If you delete it then it is saved forever / Blog Damage Control

...But if you save it, you can delete it, (Maybe forever. Maybe not)

Was talking about blogs with a friend who rushes to delete anything that could be awkward every time she finds out a new person who reads her blog...

It's best to not post anything online that you would mind anyone reading. Ever. (Unless your blog is private.)

But if you've post something to your blog, and wish it hadn't been posted. The best thing to do is NOT to delete it.

The problem with deleting a post is that the RSS it is still forever saved in feed burners memory. If you delete something you've written it's removed from the blog, but it is left in feed readers. Anyone who is subscribed to you, or anyone who subscribes in the future, can still read it.

But there is a way to get around the feeds. Instead of deleting the post just open the post in 'Edit Posts'. Save it to drafts. Then write a new post to replace the saved one in the feeds. (The old post will remain until you post over it.) In a few hours Google Reader will update your RSS Feed changing the old post to the new one. In other words If you save it (to drafts) you can delete it by writing over it.

Short and Sweet:

1. Save as draft
2. Write something else
3. Post the replacement

I'm not sure if all Feed Readers update saved posts when they are changed. Google Reader is the only one I've ever used.

*If a person has already read the original post, any post you write over it will not show up as new in the feed reader. (So whatever you write over the post probably won't get read as much.)

[Edit: Google reader only updates changes made on the last 30 posts, You can't change a post farther back than that in the feed readers via overwriting. Any changes will only show up on the blog itself. If you have unwanted things in your blog past life you can request Google to delete the RSS which will keep anyone who doesn't already have you saved in their feed burner from pulling up the blog you thought was deleted. I hope I didn't give anyone a false sense of security.]

Happiness And Stay Safe Sweetie

How To Set Up Mobile Blogging & Limitations

So have been playing with mobile blogging and have figured out a few things of interest as well as a little info to make things easier. You could also check out Blogger Mobile for info


For SMS and MMS you'll 1st need to verify your cell phone number with blogger, and set mobile blogging up in the blogger settings. SMS and MMS both recognize your cell number, so that posting only works from aproved number/s.


To enable SMS send a text saying 'REGISTER' to the number 256447 (BLOGGR) then go to Blogger Mobile and verify which blog you're registering the cell with. After that you can send texts to 256-447, and they will post directly to your blog.

You can't sent pictures to this number--only text. You can also only send 160 charactors. If you send more than 160 you will receive the automatic text saying, "Sucess! Your post made it to your blog..." --BUT you will end up with 2 or 3 ...or 7 posts that are a garbled mix of numbers, letters, and symbols, not the blog you sent.

To enable MMS send a text from your cell to go@blogger.com. Then use the claim code they send to link your cell with your existing blog. After that is set up you can send a picture message or a text message to go@blogger.com and it will post to your acount. The subject line of your picture message will become the title of the post.

MMS is my favorite way; You can send up to 9 pictures, but only the subject line, and the message in the 1st text box you send will make it to blogger. Don't bother with notes under each picture; they will be eaten in cyberspace. If you send a text message to go@blogger.com the message will go through, but 160 characters is the maximum allowed, You can, however send many more characters in a picture message--It looks like you can send 1000, but per verizon's FAQ's site 400 is the max-- I've not tested more than 250 yet. (If you send more than 160characters in a picture message there will be verizon advertisements at the bottom of your post. Ugh)

I chose to also use the email feature because it gives the option of saving a message to drafts. I already have the option of posting without delay when I send a message to go@blogger.com. I love having the choice of saving a post for later.

To enable E-mail posting (AKA mail2Blogger)

1st go to Blogger Settings.

Choose the Email and Mobile link.

Choose your 'secret word' for the email posting

 (You'll want to choose a strong secret word especially if you set blogger to publish emails immediately)

Then enable the option, choosing save-as-draft or publish-immediately..

As with Go2Blogger the subject line of your picture message will become the title of the post.

(So far there are always advertisements on the bottom of these email blogs, but it's easy to remove them if you are editing the blog anyway)

Jessie, if you want to text a blog, and have a title for your blog as you mentioned. Just send a picture message with your blog title in the subject line to either go@blogger.com or to your blogger-secret-email address. You can leave the picture out if you don't have one; it'll still work and you'll have a title.

Michele; You'll probably need to use email and SMS since your iphone doesn't support picture messaging. It must be awful to not have picture messaging.... La la la verizon rocks.

-Happiness

3 Ways to Mobile Blog

Am learning to send info from my cell phone to my blog lately. So far I've found 3 ways, and now that I'm starting to undestand the limitations and how to work around them I really enjoy mobile blogging.

I've listed the 3 types below:

SMS (Short Message Service) AKA text message (no pictures.)

MMS (Multimedia Message Service) Aka Picture message; You can send pics, and/or text, and/or sound this way. For mobile blogging you will be sending an email via MMS from your preapproved cell phone number to go@blogger.com.
(Incidentally texting a picture or sound to a friend's cell also uses MMS).

Email (Electronic Mail) If this posting option is enabled you can email from your cell to your blog, or from any email acount, or any cell phone to your blog. (This can be scary because anyone can email to your blog if they know your mail2blogger email address. I've set this up to save-as-draft just to be safer.)

About those limitations though...

I Love S.O.S. (Dressing room graffiti)

From the walls; I had to snap a pic or two.

~Esther~

Edit: So hey, I sent this via mobile blogging. It worked ok, though I had to separate the pics, as it overlapped them slightly.

-Happiness (for now)

"Mobile Blogging Stinks"

?? ?79? ?Om ? ???g?=MG??oq?] ????9?>??n2??N??i? ??t ?} ?????\v?Ai :l/?????] ???v 4.?? 8??.?@IP}^&??oP?=O?? ::L ?A?4?}????2 ?v?Y??? 2??

Yeah when I saw my blog this morning there was 7 posts that consisted of the above numbers letters & Symbols.

Ugh.

Friday on the way home from work I typed out a blog on my cell and sent it to one of 3 addresses from which it should've be sent to my blog.

I even received a reply from Google, "Sucess! Your post made it to your blog littlegalbiggrin.blogspot.com..."

Weird. I had played around with this sending things to my blog to see if everything worked, and it seemed to, but I had only sent short messages and pictures.

Perhaps my blog was too long. I'll mess with it a little more before deleting my Send-to-blogger contacts from my cell.

Ugh.

-NonHappiness