Tips & Tricks #4 - Blog Safety while vacationing

First I want to apologize for not having our Tips & Tricks in past 2 weeks. I went with my family on vacation and I make it a rule, never to announce when I am going for protection for my home and family.

These tips may not be received by all but its something everyone needs to hear.

This is a Tip I want to encourage more bloggers to use. Please do not announce (as tempting as it is) that you will be gone for a while.  There are too many predators, hackers, and just bad people that would like to do you harm.

Did you know that most of the apps for Twitter have a way for you to see who is "tweeting" around where you live? Yes!! You do not have to be a "friend" to do a GPS search on your phone app for Twitter to see.
What if you had "Leaving for vacation in the morning!!" on your Twitter status and someone decided lets see if anyone's vacationing this week!
All it takes is a bored teenager (we've had some 2 summers ago that were bored and damaged something on our house late at night and we have a super quiet neighborhood) for the summer come along and damage your property because they have nothing better to do. Thieves have it way easier now because we help them. We let them know when our home is going to be sitting empty. I have 3 neighbors watch my home but they are indoors and they sleep too, so they cannot protect you. Please do not announce you are away from home!

With today's technology it can be too useful in the wrong hands. So instead of announcing your leaving and PLEASE do not update with pictures of your trip and how its going until you are back. This is the same thing as announcing you are leaving.  Instead, do the following:

Tip 1 - Pre-Post

• 1-2 weeks before you are leaving, pre-type your posts for the week or time frame you will be gone and schedule them to post on those days you are gone. This way, it looks as if you aren't on vacation. 

Tip 2 - Safe Statuses for Twitter and Facebook

• Be just as careful on your status on Twitter and Facebook. Do not tell them how wonderful the beach is or your trip to your family, etc. Keep it more general like.. "having a great day today", "busy, busy busy" (they dont know your busy shopping on vacation!), etc.

Tip 3 - Posting Photos

• This is one I hope you really get. As tempting as it is, to share those adorable photos of your children, please protect them! So many predators, search for photos of children (especially for those summer shots in their bathing suits) and thanks to you, they can just take them and copy and save them to their harddrive. Then many of these photos are taken and put on the internet in terrible places. They also are photoshopped so PLEASE PROTECT YOUR FAMILY!!!!
• Do not think if you put a "NO RIGHT CLICK" on your site, that it stops them. It doesnt. Even I could easily take your photos from your site, its VERY EASY!
• If you want to share, create an album in Snapfish, Flickr, or Photobucket and put a passcode on the photos of your vacation. Please be smart and make it hard to hack that passcode. Use letters and numbers. Then only give it to the family you trust and ask them NOT to share it with anyone or you will have to remove the album.

We all want to keep our family safe and have a great summer, so please remember these 3 tips.  Pre-Post, Safe Statuses and Protective Photos.

Have a great SAFE internet Summer!!!

Tips & Tricks #3 - Backup-Part 2 - DownThemAll Plugin for Images

Last week, we talked about how we need to backup our blogger blogs.  I see that many of you enjoyed that Tip and tried it out.

This week we are going to learn how to use a neat tool called DownThemAll.
This is the neatest tool I've ever played with. You use it to quickly back-up/download all your images, videos and links from your blog.

How to Use Down them All

1. First make sure you have downloaded both Firefox Browser and the firefox plugin Download Them All.
Go to these two links to do that first.
http://www.firefox.com
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/201/developers



*you will have to close the firefox browser after downloading the DownThemAll plugin so it can upload it into the Firefox browser.

2.  Okay, now that you've downloaded both the Firefox browser and the Download Them All Plugin, we can begin.

First open your FIREFOX browser because this plugin only works in Firefox browsers.

Second, in your firefox browser type the url to your blog you want to backup.

Third, you will now go to the top menu of your firefox browser and click on TOOLS, then choose DOWNLOAD THEM ALL Tools and choose Download Them All.

Now you are ready.

The Download Them All Tool Window should have opened and it will automatically add all the image links into the window.

Look at the top of the window and you will see 2 tabs. One is called Links with the number of links found in parentheses. The second one is your pictures and embedded images. 

Click on the Pictures Tab to see what you will be saving/downloading.

You will not want the http://www.google.com/friendconnect pictures becasue these are just your followers profile pictures. They should automatically not be checked to be saved.

Once you have chosen all the files you do and don't want saved, you can now move on to the saving process.

Below the DownThemAll list, you should see
'Save Files In:', click the folder next to that box below it.
Now a pop-up window will open up for you to go choose your folder or create one that you would like your files to be saved into. When you are done, click OK.
* there is a Make New Folder button at the bottom of the pop-up window you can use to make a new folder.

Now you can leave the Renaming Mask as it is.

Next, 'FILTERS'
You want it to choose both the Image and Videos.
If you do not want videos or images, just unclick one of them.
*this is a great tool if you only want to backup videos or only images with no videos.

Next, "FAST FILTERS'
You can leave this as is.

If you are ready, now just click START!
A pop-up window will open showing the Progress and Completion of all the images being saved.

*if you get a FILENAME CONFLICT! pop-up window, this means you have TWO images/videos with the same file-name. So you need to choose to rename it or overwrite the one that is saved(i dont recommend this one) or skip saving it. I like to choose renaming.
*if you have more than one file for this, then choose under "REmember this setting" _ Just for this session. and click OK.

when it is complete, all itms will be checked and in green and say 100%. You can now close that pop-up window.

And you are done!!

EASY RIGHT!?!?!

I know I personally do not want to lose any of my precious photos or images I have found and used in my blog posts.

GOOD LUCK and let me know how it went!!

Tips & Tricks #2 - How to Backup Your Blogger Posts

If you are like me and  have been on Blogger  or Blogspot as some may know it, since the beginning of time, well not quite the beginning of time but over a year or more...(me, since 2007!); you have precious information, posts you dont want to lose or may even want to use in a scrapbook.

So, how do you back-up your posts on Blogger / Blogspot?

Well there is really only one secure way to do this and it can take some time, but who of us doesnt have all the time in world to do that, right!? Not me!!!

So to back-up your Blogger / Blogspot posts, just do the following:

When you use your archive or labels, you notice on the URL it will list the latest N (number) posts from your blog for that search request (archive, label, etc.)

http://blogname.blogspot.com/search?max-results=N
In place of the N, type the number of posts you want to show maximum of. If your blog has less than 1000 posts, you can save the whole page at one time. Just type the following, replacing with your blog address.
http://yourblogname.blogspot.com/search?max-results=1000 OR
http://yourblogname.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default?max-results=1000

Now what??? Open a Notepad window (Start menu>Accessories>Notepad or Wordpad)
Now highlight all your Blogger / Blogspot post results and copy/paste them into Notepad.
Save them to your harddrive in a folder

Okay but what if you are like me and have over 1000 posts?
You will use the first URL and at the end just click Older Posts and it will give you the next 1000 results.

My advice for backing up your blog through Blogger, is to do this either weekly (if you are a daily blogger) or monthly.

Just imagine what you would feel like if you lost everything in your blog.

Now, how do you backup all your videos and photos? Well, if you dont use Flickr or Photobucket and Youtube for all your photos, graphics and videos, then I might suggest you doing that from here on out.
If you maximize your accounts with Flickr, Photobucket or youtube, just open another one!

Another great tool is called DownThemAll.  This is a Firefox Plugin extension, so if you don't use Firefox as your browser, just go to Firefox.com and download it for free. You can have more than one browser service. I have Google Chrome, IE, Firefox, Safari and Netscape, but my most used and favorite is Firefox because they keep up to date with the latest and are much faster!

Down Them All allows your to download all the images.  Just click here to go get the plugin and install. It will show up on  your tools or toolbar. https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/201/

Next week, I will feature using Down Them All and would love to hear your comments this week if you try it.

Okay, now I have to go back-up my blogs! See ya!

**TinyTip** If you are like me and busy and easily forget everything you really "want or need" to do, just put a weekly reminder in your google calendar to alert you to backup. If you don't want to back up weekly, you might still put in a weekly reminder just in case you "intend" to do it that week but "snooze" that timer that week and that way you will just get reminded again the following week and will hopefully be okay!!

Tips & Tricks #1 - Using Linkwithin.com to Feature Other Posts

Every Monday, I will be featuring a Tip or Trick for you to use on your blog to enhance or improve your blog! I know you are so busy, so just subscribe to my blog posts (theblogcafedesigns) or follow me, so you automatically get the latest each week.
If you have a tip or trick you'd like me to feature, just contact me with your idea or request!

How to Add Linkwithin to your blog
Have you ever visited someone's blog and noticed they have these neat little boxes that show other posts listed at the bottom of their post using Linkwithin?  

I personally, love seeing Linkwithin boxes at the bottom of posts. Using Linkwithin, helps you get visitors to stay longer on your blog and that is good for both your rating. You ad sponsors have a better chance of being seen if you use Linkwithin, because people will have more chances to notice all the great blog buttons and ads on your site.

So if you are a PR friendly site, sell ad space, Linkwithin is a great tool you want to use.

So, how can you use Linkwithin on your blog?

It is so easy. Just visit their website at http://www.linkwithin.com.  It's Free, and easy. It is actually a widget, that you place just below your "main post area" for those using Blogger. 

Just put in your Email address, Blog URL, Blog type (blogger, wordpress, etc) and choose a width (how many links you want to show).  If you have a dark background instead of white, you want to make sure you click that special link "My blog has light text on a dark background" just above the GET WIDGET button. 

So now, you've clicked GET WIDGET.. what now? 

Linkwithin is so easy, they have a quick tutorial of exactly what to do. They show you, based on your blog type (blogger, wordpress), step-by-step how to install. It's almost as easy as boiling water.

Are you ready to Linkwithin? Just click here to get started.  If you have any problems or questions, they have a support box at the bottom of the page or you can email them directly at support@linkwithin.com

Happy Blogging!