How To Follow A Friend's Blog For DUMMIES

Friends, we have a problem.  You find a terrific blog, and excitedly press on the "Follow" button, only to be taken into a deep dark hole -- the unknown of the Cyber Underworld.  Quickly, you close the page, your heart beating wildly as you sink back in your chair and think, "Phew!  That was close!"  You are glad you obeyed your instinct and that your computer did not blow up in the process.  You pursue it no further.

OR, you just HAVE to post a comment on a post you thought was hilarious.  The same thing happens.  You pull down on the drop down box, and it gives a myriad of choices.  You see words that you have never laid your eyes on in the past.  It does not compute.  "What do I doooo?!" you exclaim in your brain, and you immediately give up.

Friends, THESE THINGS MUST NOT BE!!!  Your friend writes a blog because your friend wants YOU to follow it.  When their friend follows their blog, other people will see their blog and more traffic will be sent to their blog, which is what your friend wants and needs.  That is how your technically advanced friend finds their way into Cyberspace.  Your friend NEEDS YOU.

Here is your remedy for this, and please understand that there ARE a few steps that you much take on your own, but DO NOT BE AFRAID.  Once you follow these simple steps, you will no longer be an ignorant techno-slug (as my friend Kim calls it), but a well-respected functional, productive, valuable and contributing member of the Techno Society.  Your life will again begin to have meaning.

1.  The FIRST and easiest thing to do is to open a GOOGLE account.  If you already have a GMAIL account, you are set.  If you don't have a GOOGLE account, GO HERE and create one.   With a Google account, not only will you be able to follow blogs, there are a whole bunch of other cool things you can do with your account.  I would suggest "exploring" Google once you get in there.

2.  The next thing is to GO to the blog you want to follow.

3.  From here, there are several different options.

Option A:  

If the blog has a "FOLLOW" with Google Friend Connect, click that.  Lots of blogger want a LOT of FOLLOWERS. 

From here, you will be sent to either a "Sign in to your Google account" message, or to another pages which says:  "ADD TO GOOGLE HOMEPAGE" or "ADD TO GOOGLE READER".  I always use Google Reader, because that's where I like to look at my blogs.

 
From there you will be taken to Google Reader, where you it will list the blogs you are following, on the left. If there is a yellow message that says, "You have not subscribed to this blog" then click the SUBSCRIBE button and you will be subscribed (which means that you will get all of their blog updates here on Google Reader).

You're done!  You can check back with Google Reader to read the updates.

Option B:  


Sometimes a blogger just has a "Subscribe" button on their blog (in either the right of left side bar) .  Click on the box and another box will open up such as this:

Click on the Add To Google Box, and then continue the steps from Option A.

Option C:


Sometimes a blogger does not have any kind of follow box.  Or, they might have a "Subscribe by Email" area where you enter your email address and the blog entries get sent to you when they are posted.  You can do that, too.

Option D:

If the blog you want to follow does not have a box, but is a BLOGGER (as opposed to WordPress or other type of blog format) you can use the FOLLOW button at the top of the blog itself, IF you have your own blog.   It will look like this if it is a BLOGGER blog:

Once you "follow" this way, it will show up in Google Reader, and also in your BLOGGER account.

AS FAR AS LEAVING COMMENTS:  

I know this is confusing.  You want to leave a comment, but don't know what to do when it asks "Choose An Identity"  You can do one of two things:  You can either sign it via your "Google Account name", (or any of the other options is you have them), or as ANONYMOUS (but you can still leave your name and stuff in the actual content that you write so that your friend will know it was actually you.)

Well, I hope this all makes sense!  Please understand that if you do follow these rules and decide to help your dear friend out and follow their very cool blog so others will have a better chance of finding their blog, not only will you be UBER Cybercool, but you will make your friend VERY happy.

Welcome to CyberWorld!  I know you will like it!

OH...P.S.  Please follow my blog!  (see Follow gadget on the right)....

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CHICKY GROOVY COOLNESS GADGET

How to cause the Pages gadget to not stretch across the width of the page

With my particular Blogger template, the pink "Pages" gadget originally stretched across the top of the page like this:

I didn't really like this, so I found this great tutorial on how to make it stretch only across the width of my actual postings (as the page looks now). 


This is taken from:
http://www.southernspeakers.net/2011/01/blogger-pages-gadget-no-stretch.html



Place the following code directly above "HEADINGS" in your HTML: 

/*--Pages Gadget No-Stretch Starts--*/

.tabs-outer {

background: transparent !important;

}

.cap-top, .cap-bottom{

border: none !important;

}

.tabs-inner .widget li a{

border: none !important;

border-right: 1px solid $(tabs.border.color) !important;

}

#crosscol{

background: $(tabs.background.color) $(tabs.background.gradient);

border: 1px solid $(tabs.border.color) !important;

}

/*--Pages Gadget No-Stretch Ends--*/

/* Headings
----------------------------------------------- */

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Centering a Picture in a Blogger Gadget

For those of you who don't like the way the photos aren't center when you add them to a "Picture Gadget" in Blogger, go to this great link to show you how to center them:


http://www.southernspeakers.net/2010/12/centering-blogger-picture-gadget-image.html

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The internet has opened up many new ways to earn money

The internet has opened up many new ways to earn money. Now almost everyone can easily start making money online. While there are many methods and techniques to earn money on the internet, selling ebooks, using the Amazon affiliate program and starting your own Yahoo Store are some of the easiest for people who do not have much experience in internet marketing.


Making money with ebooks

Ebooks are basically informational content that is being sold online. Most of the ebooks being sold on the internet are instructional how-to guides which answer people's questions about a specific need. These could be guides on making money online, fixing computer problems, training your dog, relationship advice and more.

What most people don't realize is that while the sales pages may tout the guides as being the ultimate sources of exclusive, top secret information that is impossible to find anywhere else, this is actually far from being actually the case. The same information found in these guides can usually be located by spending a few hours of searching and putting together your findings. All that the authors do is rewrite common methods, advice and information, and sometimes add their own advice based on their knowledge of the subject. This means that you do not have to be a professional writer to put together a successful ebook, but you should at least have some knowledge and interest in the topic of the guide you are writing.

Once you have your ebook written, you need a way to sell it. You will need to set up a website with a sales letter that tells people what your product is about and most importantly why they should buy it. While writing good sales copy takes some practice, you can get some ideas from the sales pages of other products on the internet. To take payments and deliver the product, you can set up a "buy it now" button in your PayPal account that will redirect buyers to download your ebook once they have made the payment.

To sell your ebook, you can buy text advertisements and banner ads on sites which deal with the topic your ebook is written about, such as forums.

While it may seem like a challenging task at first, after you gain an understanding of the details of how to write and promote ebooks, you can have a lot of success. For more information, you can visit popular internet marketing forums such as The Warrior Forum (http://www.warriorforum.com) and Digital Point (http://forums.digitalpoint.com)

How to make money with the Amazon affiliate program

Amazon.com offers an affiliate program with which you can earn money by placing links to Amazon products on your website or blog. Depending on the item that was bought by the client, you will receive a commission ranging from 4% to 15% of its price.

Joining the Amazon Associates program is easy, and can be done by visiting their website at https://affiliate-program.amazon.com .

To make money from Amazon's affiliate program, you first need to have a website or a blog. For example, if you have a blog that talks about books, you can put Amazon affiliate links to the books that you recommend. You will then earn money if one of your visitors makes a purchase using your link.

How to start your own Yahoo Store

A Yahoo store is a great tool that lets small businesses sell their products online. To start building your store, simply go to http://smallbusiness.yahoo.com/ecommerce/

You will then be able to choose the package which suits your needs. Packages start at $39.95 and up, and vary depending on the features offered.

Once you have signed up, you can begin designing your store front, adding items, as well as customizing options such as available payment methods. Yahoo makes it brain-dead easy for you to accept payments online, prepare orders for shipping, track sent orders, as well as manage your customer's information.

***********************
CoffeeShopMillionaire.com is the new, Internet revolution that's helping people like you to start their own dream business, create absolute financial freedom, and escape the rat race for good--faster than they ever thought possible.

Click the link below right now to learn how you can join the new class of "lifestyle entrepreneurs" and make a full-time Internet income, or even generate millions of dollars working online from any coffee shop, anywhere in the world.

CLICK HERE TO GET STARTED

Good luck!

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How To Add a Facebook "Like" Button After Each Post on Blogger

Here's what you do:

• Go to the "Design" tab under your Blogger Dashboard.
• Click on the little words beneath the tabs that says "Edit HTML".
• Above the html box, click the box that says "Expand Widget Template".
• Go to your browser "EDIT" button at the top and go to "FIND"
• In the FIND box at the bottom of your browser screen type in:  <data:post.body/>
• Click the "Next" arrow next to the FIND box.
• Right after <data:post.body/> add the following (Put a return or two after it so that you can see it easier in the Template box -- you can just copy and paste this from here):

<br/>
<br/>

<!-- Facebook Like button Start -->
<b:if cond='data:blog.pageType != &quot;static_page&quot;'>
<div style='float:left;padding:5px 5px 5px 0;'>
<iframe allowTransparency='true' expr:src='&quot;http://www.facebook.com/plugins/like.php?href=&quot; + data:post.url + &quot;&amp;layout=standard&amp;show_faces=true&amp;width=450&amp;action=like&amp;font=verdana&amp;colorscheme=light&amp;height=35&quot;' frameborder='0' scrolling='no' style='border:none; overflow:hidden; width:450px; height:150px;'/>
</div>
</b:if>
<!-- Facebook Like button End -->

If you don't want faces showing, then change the word "true" (highlighted) to "false".  Also, you can adjust how many faces you see by adjusting the height (also highlighted).

That's it!  You should see the "Like" button under every post, like the one after this post.  If you find you don't like it, you can just reset the template by clicking on "Revert widget templates to default" beneath the template box.

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The best website creator and host -- and a free domain!

I'm not a chick who has much patience and like to do things with as much ease as possible.  I have created a lot of websites, and honestly, was soooo happy to find 1&1.  This is the easiest and best I have found!

One of the great things about 1&1 is that you can get a website for as low as $3.99 per month, and this includes a domain name.  What I've found is that if you want to use this domain name for your blog, what you can do is FORWARD the domain to your blog, which is cheaper than purchasing a domain name within Blogger or Wordpress.  I do this with my website domain "www.chickyrama.com".  I bought the website and domain for $3.99 per month (it's one of 1&1's LINUX packages) and just forwarded it to my blog.  Check it out by clicking on the link and it will take you right to my blog's home page. 


My Chord Piano Is Fun website is created with 1&1 MyBusiness Site.  It's a little more expensive, but gives a LOT of flexibility and also help with SEO (search engine optimization) as well as submitting your site to the search engines.   With this, as with ALL of the 1&1 websites, you get a FREE domain.  You can get your business online with just a few clicks--it's quick and painless!

Create your website in 3 easy steps:

     1. Select your business type.
     2. Pick a color scheme.
     3. Enter your customer details.

Your website is created, complete with professionally written text and optimized layouts specific to your business. And the best: you can try it FREE for 30 days!  AND, the technical support is GREAT and available 24/7.


I would recommend anyone who is considering creating their own website, or who wants their own domain name for their blog, to go to 1and1 and check it out!

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