Commenting Problems

Blog commenting.

This is what I want to ask you guys about today.

Not very exciting I know but I could use some help with this.

I will throw in random pictures of our very windy day at the beach because…..well, just because.

Maybe it will help keep you reading :)

(this was like a giant sculpture on the beach)

The other day one of my followers emailed me and let me know she could not leave a comment.

I was perplexed. I googled and googled and I think it might have something to do with browsers.

But then I decided to try to switch from embedded comments to a pop out window type.

And it helped her. I was thrilled because I figured there must have been others out there that were having issues too. I was so happy she took the time to let me know.

But then soon after I made the switch I started getting spam.

They are being caught by blogger and not getting posted. 

Well, except for that one dude that really hates women from the USA. Oh he’s a delight.

But the rest are just advertising type spam. They are going to my email but that's it. 

Good but still annoying.

 (tail of a shark that was getting weighed)

I’d still like to figure out how to get them to stop coming in my inbox.

I can not figure out the connection to having the pop out comment window and the spam. 

The spam usually comes from anonymous. Big surprise there. 

Should I just ban anonymous comments? 

Do you think that doing that will leave some people out? 

I usually just mark them as spam and then delete them.

But since they are anonymous they are sometimes connected to the same email thread of the “noreply” people.When this happens I can’t mark them as spam because the noreply people that are stuck in this thread will be marked as well. At least it's like that in gmail. 

The noreply people get lumped together.

Are you following me on this?

Those of you still in the “noreply” mode should read this post that Donna wrote on the how and why you should consider changing that. She also goes over a few other things  like getting rid of word verification!

I think that if you are having problems commenting on people’s blogs then perhaps you need to update your browser. I use google Chrome and I really love it. 

My son and I finally convinced my husband to switch over from Internet Explorer and he even said it was a lot faster. IE seems to have a lot of glitches when it comes to blogger. 

I may have to switch back to embedded comments and see if it helps get rid of those pesky spammers. I hope you’ll consider updating your browsers as well. It really helps.

I’d love to hear your opinions on this.

Embedded vs pop out comment windows.

Allowing anonymous vs blocking them.

Or anything you know of that might help out.

Thanks so much for all the wonderful birthday wishes for #3.

You guys are all so sweet. 

He read my post and got up and gave me a big hug! :)

Linking up with:
Kat Eye Studio: Exploring with a Camera/Opposing Lines

It’s a Blogiversary Celebration!

Could it really be a year already? Well it’s actually been over a year. April was just a busy month for all of us.

 Maureen, Suzanne and I all started our blogs within the same week. We were some of the first to comment on each others blogs. I have loved getting to know the two of them.  We have always said we’d love to be able to shop and just hang out with each other because we’d get along so well. Both are extremely talented and have a great sense of humor. We have so much in common.

We love all that is old, chippy and just a little bit different. A lot of people would look at the stuff we pick up and scratch their heads. That is what I love about blogging. I have found so many of you out there love the just a bit different too! It is so great to make a connection with others that just get it. Our families might not always get us but I can always count on you guys to get it.

So we decided to celebrate together with. We thought it would be fun to see if you can guess which blogger did which project. So put your thinking caps on or rub that lucky rabbits foot.

We’re making it simple. All you have to do is leave one comment on each blog. Leave me a comment and tell me which project you think I made. Then go visit Suzanne @ Meridian Road and Maureen @ Cottage 960 and let each of them know which project you think that they made.

  

Then each blog will pick a random winner from those that guessed correctly. We’ll wrap it up on Sunday night 6pm central and announce the winners on Monday May 16th. What will you win you ask? Here is what you will win from Going a little Coastal.

A vintage grain sack, a silver plate creamer, a cute cut glass tray, 2 lavender filled sachets and a German glass glitter banner.

But wait there’s more!

We won’t leave you out if you are a sucky guesser. We will also pick a random winner from everyone that guesses. That person will win a $30 gift card to Home Depot. So you can start on a project of your own.

I told you that it would be easy! Just make sure that we can access your profile or that you leave us your email in your comment. Otherwise we can’t find you and someone else will win.

Thank you all that come to this little blog and leave such great comments. Comments that both make me laugh and that make my heart swell.

Now go skidattle and visit Meridian Road and Cottage 960 and pin the project to the blogger. Don’t forget to comment here first though :)

see ya,

Camera Flare and a Celebration

Hope everyone enjoyed their Mothers Day. I want to let you know that tomorrow a couple of my bloggy friends and I are going to be having a bit of a celebration. It’s going to be fun and there may be some giveaways involved. So you need to come and celebrate with us!

I have been trying to capture the sun’s rays, or flare. It can be challenging. It’s a lot of fun to see how much of it that you can get. The tips I have read always say,

make sure you see it in your view finder.

Some times there is a surprise and you get more then one.

No, I don’t have stuff in my coffee.

The light was coming in through the screen and left little colorful reflections. 

You can see it better when you zoom in.

 

To get the more defined sunburst type of flare I used a higher aperture.

f22 I believe.

So look up and try to catch a little sun in your lens. Just don’t stare at it too long.

There is an article here at MCP Actions that gives great tips. 

Also,  the Pioneer Woman has one too that was very helpful. 

Sometime you need to read a few different articles for something to click. 

So don’t stop at one.

Don’t forget to come back tomorrow. Grab a glass of wine or beverage of your choice and come and celebrate with us. 

Linking up with:

Tracy’s Trinkets and Treasures

see ya,

Guest Blogging Today

Two posts in one day, shocking I know. But I wanted to let you know that I’ll be over at My Repurposed Life today. Gail is having fun at her daughter’s wedding. Have some cake for me Gail, I love wedding cake. You need to come by and see what I’ll be doing with all this stuff.



I’ll give you a couple of hints. It’s bigger then a bread box. And it’s going in my sewing/guest room.  If you’ve never been to Gail’s blog then now is a great time to see what My Repurposed Life is all about. You will be amazed. It’s my first time guest blogging so come by and say hi!

see ya,

A New Lens

I also got to play with my new lens today. It came in a day early from Amazon. It is way too easy to order stuff from Amazon. I ordered a 50mm for my Canon T2i. I think it will help with my indoor shots since it has an aperture of 1.8. But I went out in the garden in search of something pink.

f2.2- 1/320- ISO: 100

Tricia of A Rosy Note is having a photo party and the subject was pink. With 3 boys, a husband and even a male dog I don’t have a lot of pink indoors.

f2.2 - 1/250s - ISO:100

It will take some getting used to. I have to remember that with the aperture open that wide I will get less detail. So I stepped it down just a bit to get more.

f1.8- 1/160s- ISO:100

Here is the same shot, or close to the same, but the one on the left I had the white balance on auto and on the right I tried shady. I was in the shade so I thought I’d try it. It gave it a more golden tone. A little blurry but it was a good example of the difference in color you can get.



This guy was ticked off and kept squawking at me. I was just waiting for him to jump on my back while I was taking a picture.

 
This guy could care less and let me get pretty close. I did crop it some. Isn't he cute?








see ya,

Time to Lay it on the Line

Gail @My Repurposed Life and MeganDVD @ Beauty in the Attempt are hosting “The Bold and the Beautiful-your blog reviewed.”

I am in need of some blog sprucing up and I thought why not get some opinions before I dive into the craziness of html. Before I’m up until 2am trying to find the right code to make those cute little tabs. Before my neck tenses up and my eyes are blood red.

I’d love to know how you feel about my photos, font, layout or whatever else you think could use some oomf. And to those who hang around here, I’d like to know about my content. Is it all over the place? I’d appreciate your opinion.

There are some things that I have in mind to change. But I’m not telling you. I would like you to tell me. I love getting constructive criticism. Kind yet sincere. Gentle yet straightforward. Considerate yet honest. So go for it. I can take it. *snif*

see ya,

unrexc: plicrom: tegunt: Just Say No

Lets talk about blogging tips for a moment shall we? Word Verification. These words (lets face it they are not words) are getting a little wacky. I wrote two separate comments today. Rather lengthy ones because I tend to ramble. Word verification sometimes takes forever to pop up so you don't always realize it's there. I closed the window just as it came up and POOF my comment was gone. Even if you see it you don't always get the "word" correct. Won't you please consider turning it off? There has been NO problem with spam for me. Blogger does have spam control now and all spam goes into a folder. Mine has been empty. You can always switch it back if you feel you must. Come on Mikey, try it you'll like it! Okay, did I just date myself?

Here is what you need to do. Go into your dashboard; settings; comments. Your page will look like this after you scroll down:

Where the red arrow is pointing, you click NO. Then while you are there, see the blue arrow? If you fill this out all of your comments that you get on your own posts will go to your email address. You can set up a separate email address just for your blog with gmail. That way all your blog stuff is together and not mixed in with your bills or your emails from your mom. See, easy.

Okay, now since you are in your dashboard there is one more thing that is VERY helpful when you leave comments. That is allowing your email address to be seen by those whom you leave comments for. Otherwise those people you leave comments for get a "noreply" and then they can not reach you. And you want to be reached right?

You just need to go back to the main dashboard and click on Edit Profile. Did you know that if you click on the word Blogger with the orange B it will take you home to your dashboard? Yeah, it took me awhile before I figured that out. Anyway, you will see this:

Just click on the box next to the pink arrow. "Show My Email Address". Now, when you leave a comment and it goes to someone's email box they can read it and just click reply and send you an email back.

If you have any questions let me know and I will help if I can. I'm still learning too. I just like to pass on what I do know. Maybe help make things a little easier for everyone. Feel free to spread the word and pass this along :)

Sidenote: I'd like to thank hubby for showing me how to "print screen". I was trying to take a picture of my monitor with my camera and not getting good results. Doh!  I told you I was still learning.

see you later,

Fear Not

Have you noticed the blog changes? I've been obsessed with learning HTML and changing up my blog. I'm learning. Slowly. Google is my friend. Coding is not. I have spent many late hours with thoughts of this going through my head.

Some of those codes are starting to make sense and things are starting to work. I am also trying to learn photoshop so designing my button and header was the first part of my hair pulling experience. Son #3 helped a bit. Layers, transparency,.gif vs .jpg, these are all important things when trying to figure it all out. Always helpful to have a snarky teenage son around to go to for guidance.

Son #1 designed my original page. He took the photo of the seagulls that were in my header and with son #3 they put together the header. He also took the photo of the fabric which is my background. I still like it but might try changing the color a bit. I just wanted to learn how to do it so when I got bored with looking at something I could change it myself.

I am learning not to fear the edit html page like I once did. Just save the template first! Just in case you go off the deep end and hit save when you meant to hit preview. 

There are little things like spacing that can drive a woman to drink. Finding the correct spot to put the code to move things just slightly without wacking out everything else is hard to do. Take the date of my post for instance. I can't get it to move to the left without moving the whole body over with it.

I am amazed at how fast time flies by when you are so engrossed in trying to figure something out. You look at the clock and you scream 1:30?? What happened to 11:30 or 12:30?  Did I just go through some sort of time warp? But I will not quit. I will keep going and see how much more I can learn. But when my butt starts feeling numb that's a good sign to step away from the computer and do something else. Dinner might be a good idea.

 

I am linking up with Donna for her Gitter Done challenge. It might not be done but I'm gitten there.

Sharing A Laugh

Humor is something I think we all need more of in life. So, I would like to share a little with you. I follow a blog called Catalog Living. It's written by a very funny lady named Molly Erdman. You may have seen her in the hilarious Sonic commercials. It's a tongue in cheek blog about the lives of Gary and Elaine who live in the pages of your catalogs. Admit it, you get just a teensy bit excited when a new one arrives in your mail box. But as you flip through all of the glossy pages don't you ever pause sometimes and go, Huh? Here are a couple of examples of her witty look into the lives of Gary and Elaine. The video cracked me up because I have been doing the same thing, putting away the starfish (well some) and bringing out the gourds. :) I have a list of a few blogs that I go to for some pee your pants laughing. They are listed over there on my sidebar. A new to me blog that I'm adding is Absolutely Narcissism. Sandra is just so to the point. I love that about her. She tells it like it is, and cracks you up whiling doing so. Just make sure you go potty first.





Gary always resented the bird for being the least useful of the living room wildlife.



Sorry, Gary can’t come to the phone right now. He’s working on another “masterpiece.”



Gary and Elaine have put away the starfish and set out their latest seasonal display. Music by The Film Society; follow them on Facebook or download the album at thefilmsociety.bandcamp.com!

Where Do I Blog?

Right here. On the other side of my bedroom that I never showed you.  Kate from Centsational Girl was posing this question today. I've told her that I always envision her with a cape on and a big CG on it. I think she needs one.  I'm still working on this space so I was a little reluctant to do so. I need something to bridge the gap between the desk and the shelves. But then I thought, why not, it does help me see things more clearly when I take pictures of spaces. It's been so cloudy and rainy that I couldn't get good pictures. What happened to this being the sunshine state? And why is my monitor white when so many of yours you can see so clearly?

I have some things around me that make me smile. Like my picture of my kids when they were little. I remember that day at the park clearly and I love seeing their smiling faces. My Dwight Schrute bobblehead. A lot of laughs from that show. The photograph on the shelf my son took when we were all in Italy together. It's of the narrow streets in my father's hometown of Lucca. That was such a great trip. I do have a bit of a confession to make. It didn't look quite this neat this morning. It looked more like.........

....this. Whoa, I know. I can't believe I am showing you this. Yes, I tend to work in chaos. Which might be why I forget a lot of things. I am happy to say I have a bag full of trash now and well, I'm still working on filing the rest away. It's all piled on the bed behind me. But thanks for giving me a shove to do it. I have to if I want to go to bed tonight. Now, let's all forget we ever saw this.

Craftyland, New Blogger Sneak Peek

Hello everyone. I want to share with you a new blog I came across last week. I stumbled upon Kimberly's blog Craftyland when I was looking through the link ups at The CSI Project. She had submitted two chairs that she gave an amazing makeover to. So pretty. I loved the fabric. You can see her chair before here. She's a jack of all trades it seems. From sewing to cooking to DIYing. That's a word.

Then I did a little browsing around on her blog and came across something that really caught my eye. Painting trim. I showed you how I recently painted a lot of trim around my house. Yes, yes, I still have lots left to do. Including my handrail getting stained darker. Hey, I ran out of primer. You can see the results of my white trim painting madness here. But Kimberly's results are amazing. She took an ordinary pale oak railing and really made them rich and lovely by darkening the handrail and then made it all pop with the white spindles. Go on over there and see exactly how she did it all.

Here is her before

Here is her after

Amazing right? The railing now goes so well with her beautiful floors. The white wainscoting is just gorgeous and now the white spindles just ties it all together. Makes me want to open up that can of stain and finish what I started right now! Okay, maybe tomorrow.

Kimberly just started her blog this month. I can tell already that she is going to have some great projects in the future and I can't wait to see them. I hope that you will spread a little blogger love and visit Kimberly @ Craftyland. I know how encouraging you all can be. I'm sure you will want to stick around to see what she'll do next. Tell her I said hello!