The MyBlogLog Blog The source for all things MyBlogLog.

The Transferable Community

An observant blogger noticed today that allowing users to change their Url and Name at will could be damaging to the community's members.  In essence, communities could rack up thousands of members on one topic, and then the community owner could switch over to a completely different url and name and hood-wink their current members into effectively joining a new community they had no interest in joining.

We've discussed this in house, and we'd like your take on it.  My first thought is that allowing people to change their Url and Name is important, and we'd like to keep it for users who move from one blog platform to another.  However, we have to find a way to protect the members of that community from finding out later that the site they joined to learn about horticulture is now a joke site.

We considered sending a community message to members of your community automatically when you change your url or name.  What are your thoughts on this?  Don't you deserve to know when your favorite mommy blog becomes a political blog?  Should any user be able to go from a photo blog to a med shop and retain their users?

Our observant blogger suggested something less invasive, just warning a
community that any changes to name/url are monitored and that you will
not be allowed to reinvent your community, at the expense of your
community members. This one sounds good too, we just need your help deciding how best to respond to this.  Any suggestions are appreciated.

MyBlogLog In The Wild – The Ultimate Guide To MBL

Today I came across this great post by Kyle Eslick called The Ultimate Guide To Using MyBlogLog.  I thought it was a great post, really explaining the MyBlogLog machine in a thoughtful and concise way.

Note the CSS and Javascript help it offers people who are not perfectly happy with the display of the widget, as it relates to the individual design of their own page:

Luckily, there are several ways to alter the appearance to have your
widget look however you want. Where it says width=200 in my example
above, you can change this to the width of where you want to put it
(usually about 10px less than your sidebar if placing in your sidebar).
You can add and subtract rows by setting the rows=7 code to the number
of rows you want.

There are even some CSS layouts that the author has created for use on your own blog, including one for light and one for dark pages.  As well, pay close attention to the SoloSEO tools listed in the post.  Many of our members brag on these tools and use them daily.

As well, speaking of integration into your blog, a while back I noted that Drupal has a module for MyBlogLog now (MyBlogLog Drupal Community).  While preparing this post I also noticed that Joomla, one of my favorite CMS platforms, also now has a Joomla MyBlogLog extension. 

Take a look at The Ultimate Guide To MyBlogLog and be sure to tell Kyle how much you appreciated it on his blog or at his community on MyBlogLog.  Thanks for the great post Kyle!

Have you written a guide to MyBlogLog or anything that you think we should call attention to here on the blog?  If so, send me an email alerting me to your post at robyn@mybloglog.com.

Updating Your Screenshot

UPDATE:  Firefox users have several easy options.  Thanks Amit!

I get quite a few emails every day from members who want to update their screen shot.  Sometimes I end up doing them myself, and sometimes members who are tech savvy figure this one out on their own.  However, I know that most of you want to see an up-to-date screen shot, and if you've been a long-time MyBlogLog user (Thanks!) then your screen shot may be 1-2 years old. Nia suggested I write up a quick screen shot tutorial to make it easier on you.

So, without further ado, here are some easy ways to take a screen shot.

On a Windows PC:

The easiest way is to utilize the PrntScrn button on your keyboard.  It's usually found in the upper right-hand corner, just a bit above the Enter key.  You can depress that button and it will cause the picture to be placed in your PC's clipboard.  You can then open any image editing software (Photoshop, PaintShop, Gimp (free), etc.) and paste the image into the software. Crop the image to your satisfaction with the crop tool
.  Save the picture.  (continue below to To Upload)

*Easy tip:  If you don't have an image editing software, hold down Cntrl while you depress PrntScrn and you will only take a snapshot of the active window (ie your browser). 

**Vista users have it easier.

On a Mac:

Life is easier on a Mac, I guess.  To create a screen shot on a Mac, simply press the Apple key+Shift+4 and your mouse will turn into a crop tool.  Click and hold while dragging over the area that you want to capture.  When you release the mouse click, your image will be saved onto your desktop.  Double-click it and save it as a .jpg so that it can be uploaded to MyBlogLog.

To Upload

To upload the picture to MyBlogLog, go to your main profile.  Click 'Edit Settings' directly underneath the current image of your blog.  Look for the screenshot, and click "Update Screenshot".

Browse and upload the image you created.  Once it's uploaded, click "Create Picture Preview" and if it looks as good as it should, click "Use This Picture".  Voila, you have created and updated a recent screen shot of your blog.

As with all things, if you get stuck, don't be afraid to call for help.  You can email us at customerservice@mybloglog.com and we'll help you through the process.  Need MyBlogLog tips?  Send me an email to suggest a specific tutorial on the blog. 

MyBlogLog Meeting in Paris Sunday

Per TechCrunch France, "la rencontre MyBlogLog est dimanche 10 18h30 à 20h30 est au Sir Winston 5 rue Presbourg 75016 PARIS"

That's right, I'll be in Paris starting tomorrow for Loic's LeWeb3. I hope to meet a few of our many French users for a drink beforehand.  A toute suite!

Partially Blocked in China?

One of our Chinese members let us know that we were "blocked in China" on Saturday. We're not quite sure what this means in concrete terms and would appreciate all suggestions and tutoring. We are still seeing a range of page-tracking traffic and account registrations from dot-cn domains.

Can’t we all just get along?

Now that we've gotten our Privacy Policy in order, we're going to start working on our Terms of Service.  We figure it's always better to commit to how we're going to act before we submit a framework for anyone else.  And the more that I think about it, our new ToS is really just a further expansion of how we're going to act.  We'd rather have an express set of guidelines for when we're going to suspend an account or ask for a change or decree that something is spam.  There are always exceptions to the rules, but arbitrary sucks.

So as we're formulating the ToS, feel free to point out others that you think are cool, or fair, or well written.  Also, if there's anything you'd like to make sure we're clear about, post a comment about that too.

Can’t we all just get along?

Now that we've gotten our Privacy Policy in order, we're going to start working on our Terms of Service.  We figure it's always better to commit to how we're going to act before we submit a framework for anyone else.  And the more that I think about it, our new ToS is really just a further expansion of how we're going to act.  We'd rather have an express set of guidelines for when we're going to suspend an account or ask for a change or decree that something is spam.  There are always exceptions to the rules, but arbitrary sucks.

So as we're formulating the ToS, feel free to point out others that you think are cool, or fair, or well written.  Also, if there's anything you'd like to make sure we're clear about, post a comment about that too.

New blogs to make you happy

It's getting harder and hard to keep up with all the new sites that are signing up for MyBlogLog.  Here's a couple of highlights from the last 48 hours:

Zillow's Blog
Our very first AimPages blog
Innovation Creators - A very cool tech biz blog
Prop Your Hips Up Afterward - The next Dooce?
Soccer Sweep - USA Today's World Cup coverage
alarm:clock - Tech startup coverage; part of FM Pub

If you're using MyBlogLog and want a shout out, send us an email and we'll drop by for a look.