If I had been asked that question a year ago, my answer would have been a resounding no. I would have said people will still want to gather in forums and bulletin boards regardless of facebook or twitter or google plus. But it appears I would have been wrong. The concept of 'community' online has been changed forever with the advent of social media and as even our parents, and in some cases, our grandparents finally climb on the social media bandwagon, I fear death is very near for the forum model. The idea of community is shifting to a more individual perspective. People can now create their own, personalized, community with circles and groups. Years ago, if you wanted to connect with quilters (for example) you would join a community forum just for quilters. You would make friends there, share your love of quilting and perhaps have off topic conversations. Your online life was quite compartmentalized into specific areas of interest. Now, quilters just have to add each other to their google plus circle or 'like' their favorite quilting bloggers on facebook and it is all filtered into them, aggregated into their streams and merged with their love for say, ...
Blog Security For WordPress
*I don't know what is up with this formatting! It is spaced and bulleted correctly on my end but it is a mess published. GRRRR. I will look into it after more coffee* I wrote this a bit ago and was just going to pass it on to friends who need to increase their blog security but I have seen so many hacked wordpress blogs lately that I hope by posting it I am able to help someone else remove a blog virus and protect themselves from going through this in the first place. These steps apply to self hosted wordpress blogs. If you have been attacked then you should ideally get go through each step systematically. If you have not, it is still in your best interest to take action on as many of the preventative measures as possible. BACK UP USING THE EXPORT FUNCTION OF YOUR WP ADMIN BEFORE STARTING. IT IS ALSO A GOOD IDEA TO USE FTP TO BACKUP YOUR CUSTOM THEME FILES!!! Make sure you have the most current ftp download version on your computer. I like and trust Smart FTP. As of writing this the most current version is 4.0. It is a paid program. It initially costs around $60. It is worth it. Login to cpanel (at the host level) and change the password. Make it easy you are ...
3 Premium WordPress Plugins Worth Having
Why pay for premium wordpress plugins when there are so many free, quality plug-ins available? Believe me, it is a question I asked more than once while setting up this blog. The answer I always came back to was this: I spend a lot of time and effort blogging! Why would I not invest in something so close to my heart? I wouldn't skimp on something for my boys, so why should I skimp on my writing platform? The paid plugins I talk about below all make my blogging life easier and the readers experience here better. They help to make sure my content is noticed by search engines and easily read by visitors. So, the reason to why I spend money on plugins? I value your time and effort as well as mine! WPtouch Pro- One of the complaints I would get on the old blog was that the site was really hard to navigate from a mobile device. This plugin makes my blog mobile friendly by creating a mobile theme. Go ahead, try it. Get out your smart phone and visit Mom Off Track mobile version. The PRO version of this plugin has a one time fee of $39. There is a free version of this available as well at ! I chose to go with the Pro version so that I could customize it more to look like ...
Why I Will No Longer Run Giveaways
Once upon a time I wrote an article on how to host a blog giveaway. But with all the blog changes I have going on I began doing some research on blog giveaways and realized it is just not something I am comfortable with anymore. Lots of blogs are writing about the subject and I have had a few very smart conversations with friends regarding this topic. Let's begin with why I personally choose not to run blog giveaways going forward.A month ago a ran a giveaway here on the blog to win a field trip with my family. I got ONE entry! Big ego slap! But I puzzled and I puzzled til my puzzler hurt and then I finally asked some friends why they didn't enter. The biggest two reasons were that my friends see me all the time anyway and they are totally over blog contests. Fair enough. I realized my readers (friends and family) don't come here for a chance to win something. That made me happy.I started having conversations with smart friends in social media who brought up the fact that blog contests may not be exactly legal. I did some research (easy to read discussions here, here, here, here, here and here) and found there is a lot of gray in this area. I don't monetize this blog and don't ...
PR Monday: Balancing Act
UGH! It is 5 pm on Monday and I still don't have my PR Monday Post up. I usually write it on Sunday but we spent the weekend unsuccessfully furniture shopping. This AM I ran to Boot Camp, then ran home, picked up one kid for an appointment, dropped him off, turned right back around and picked up the other. Spent almost 4 hours at the eye doctor and ordering glasses for them both. Looks like the youngest is blind as bat. I feel like a great mother. I swear his eyes were checked two years ago. Then it was off to grab something to put in their growling stomachs and back to Barnes and Noble to get Romeo & Juliet in a version Con could half way understand and A Tale of Two Cities, both need to be read ASAP for K12. PHEEWWW! I am exhausted just typing all that and I still have dinner to make. Which brings me to why Dustin's guest post could not be more timely!Spending Too Much Time Online? 5 Tips to Master the Virtual Balancing ActIf you are reading this post, it's probably safe to assume that you enjoy spending time online. You're probably a busy parent, and you may even be a fellow blogger.Do you sometimes feel like maybe you are spending too much of your time on the internet? I ...