…what’s in a blog…

We’ve come to realize that a number of people who are visiting and following us do not use blogs very often, if at all.  If that’s you, no worries!  We just want to let you know how this all works -

Blogs – I hate the word…

Really, of all the words to use, «blog»  just rolls off the tongue terribly, doesn’t it?  I could think of a thousand better words I’ve love to say every day – something that’s a palindrome maybe?  But I digress…

A blog is a noun, a verb, a functionality.  It’s designed to allow you (well, me really) to post things on an on-going basis and to have them appear in a way that you (this time really meaning, you, the reader) can follow along.  As I go throughout the day and see something interesting I want to share with you, I can just go to my administration screen and click ‘new post’ and when I’m done, I click ‘publish’ and it’s just done – up there on the first page ready for you to read.  There is no html/coding/geeky fandango/hoops on fire that I have to jump through to update the blog.  It’s designed to easily just work.

That’s really the entire concept – a way to post new information anytime, easily, instantly.  Of course, now that we can do that, there is a lot more we can accomplish.  We can post images, videos, we can even post other people’s images (linked through the web), and links to other pages on the web.

And you – you can do things, too.  At the end of each post (or article, two words I use interchangeably at times)  you have the opportunity to have your say.  Congratulate the artist being mentioned, add further information you think others would like to hear, even make corrections to what we post.  Feel free to write anything (constructive of course, we reserve the right to delete anyone being rude, unfair, or because we didn’t get enough coffee that morning and went on our own little rampage…).  Seriously, we’re not that bad, so just write what you will.

We can also organize the information by putting them in categories, sort of like sections of a newspaper (and in fact, our current design is based on a very slimmed down and minimalistic newspaper).  And if categories aren’t good enough for you, we can also ‘tag’ words to each article.  Tags are subject words and references you can use to see very specific posts.  For example, all painting, photography, watercolors, and pastels posts are all put under visual arts.  Maybe you’re completely fascinated with watercolors (I love them!) but photography just isn’t your thing.  Instead of having to go to visual arts and sort through a number of things you do not want to read about, you can just click on the ‘watercolor’ tag and we will only show you things tagged with watercolor… brilliant isn’t it?  We also try to do the same for locations, like Port Jervis, Middletown, and for things outside of Orange County, we try to tag the county to those posts as well.  I’m saying «try» here because it’s my responsibility to tag them, and I do my best.  Information is only as good as it is entered…

You can also use the «search» area on the blog to find anything – a name, a location, a really general word like «art».  Any text that is in our entire blog is search-able.

…but wait… there’s more!

That’s all fine and good – you can come to our bog and read things, find things you want, search for things.

Now if you are new to blogs, you might find that you like our blog, and then you find you like a LOT of blogs – dozens you wish you could read all of the time.  But then you think, I need to go to each of these pages, all of the time and try to keep up?  I’m a busy and important person!  I can’t be messing around online with this junk!

You’re correct.  Well, hopefully not about the «junk» part, but that is a lot to do.  For me, I read about 50 blogs every day – from interior design to art, from politics to organic farming.  I couldn’t image having to visit 50 web sites a day just to see if there is anything new going on.  I’d go crazy, literally!

So blogs have another feature that is just very cool.  You can subscribe to it, and when we post something, it will be send to you.  Well, not to YOU directly, as in you being bombarded with posts like you do with email spam, but to you as in your blog reader.  They are also, and more often called, RSS readers.  RSS meaning ‘really simple’ syndication.  And it is really simple, for the computer and hopefully for you.

Here is where things get a bit complex.  This is only because we all connect and use the internet in our own way.  Some of us are on PCs, some of us are on Mac’s, some use Internet Explorer and Outlook, some of us use Firefox and Gmail.  Exactly how you subscribe all depends on what you use when you are online.

If you use Outlook, most current versions out there have an RSS reader built into them.  It works like a folder under your Inbox – the main folder says RSS Feeds, and if you open that up, each RSS feed you subscribe to is listed as if they were a folder as well.  Each post is listed like they were an email to you.  They aren’t, but they look like it.

If you use Google’s products, like Gmail, Google has its Google Reader that integrates all of your blogs into one page.  This is what I use, and I personally like the fact that it’s in its own place where I can go.   My Google Reader is like a fully customized newspaper in itself, which each blog I subscribe to acting like a section of the paper, and blog writers like columnists.

You can also add RSS feeds directly to your browser, such as Internet Explorer, Firefox.  And you can add them to your mobile phones, like the blackberry and iPhone.

In other words, it’s terribly flexible and easy, and the technology just makes it work. You just need to decide how you want it to work.  For me, I have an iPhone and I use Google’s applications – Gmail, Google Calendars, etc.  So using Google Reader makes sense for me.  Because Google makes it possible to integrate with a number of other applications (playing nice we like to say), I can read my blogs everywhere – from Google’s application for my iPhone, to my laptop, and I can even log on to the internet at the library or on any computer with internet access and read my blogs from there, easily.  If it’s confusing, it’s only because you haven’t put some extra thought into how you want to organize things.  Once you decide what works best for you, it’s intuitive… honestly!

So I hope that helps – enjoy!