Comments (20)

By kilax, January 28, 2010 5:41 pm

So, someone was a bit of a crankypants last Saturday!

I am so incredibly far-behind in my blog reading that my brilliant solution to send email comments to blogger/blogspot blogs just isn’t going to work. I don’t have the time.

I am trying to come up with a temporary solution that still allows me to leave comments on these blogs. Half of the running blogs I read are hosted by blogger/blogspot! That is a lot to miss out on.

I decided to limit reading these blogs to one computer – that way, if I get a virus, I still have the other computer to use. However, it was hard to decide which one to use. My large computer is easier for reading blogs, but too heavy to carry to work, and has too many programs on it to reinstall when reformatting. The baby computer is lightweight, has no programs and no files… but no CD drive. So when I go to reformat it, I have to borrow my neighbors 1 GB jumpdrive so I* can put Windows back on it. Wah.

So, blah blah blah… the baby computer it is. It is loaded with anti-virus and spyware software, so let’s see where this gets me. Now I will know if this software works at all.

It’s interesting that many other bloggers have had problems leaving comments on blogger/blogspot blogs, but have not had this virus issue. Only a few other people have, but think it came from Facebook, or ads. So, if I get it on the large computer, I will know it isn’t blogger/blogspot, and I can quit being a whiny baby!

Thanks for being patient!

*Meaning Steven.

Comments (53)

By kilax, January 28, 2010 5:00 am

Have you heard about Dunbar’s number – the theory that your brain can only manage “stable social relationships” with 150 people?

Robin Dunbar, a professor* at Oxford University, developed this theory in the 1990s. He theorizes that the size of our neocortex limits us to managing social circles of about 150 friends – that’s 150 friends that you contact each year and can remember how they relate to each other.

Of course, the study was in the news this week in relationship to Facebook. There are many articles out there saying even though we amass hundreds of friends on Facebook, our brains are only capable of managing that core 150. Dunbar is revisiting his study to see how it relates to Facebook. From the UK Times article:

Dunbar is now studying social networking websites to see if the “Facebook effect” has stretched the size of social groupings. Preliminary results suggest it has not.

“The interesting thing is that you can have 1,500 friends but when you actually look at traffic on sites, you see people maintain the same inner circle of around 150 people that we observe in the real world,” said Dunbar.

“People obviously like the kudos of having hundreds of friends but the reality is that they’re unlikely to be bigger than anyone else’s.

“There is a big sex difference though… girls are much better at maintaining relationships just by talking to each other. Boys need to do physical stuff together.”

So, what do you think of his theory? How many friends do you have on Facebook? Do you know who they all are and keep in touch with them all? Do you think you stick to the core 150? Do you think he is right about the “sex difference”?

I have 112 friends on Facebook. I try to keep it limited. And I still don’t keep in touch with about 25% of my “friends.” The thing is, it doesn’t matter if you don’t keep in touch with people on Facebook. I don’t think that’s the point! It’s more for “networking.” They are not relationships you absolutely have to maintain.

I suppose I am just naive in hoping that some relationships are not ONLY maintained on Facebook.

After reading these articles, I really started to think about how the 150 rule may relate to reading blogs. I mean, how many blogs can you really keep track of? I subscribe to about 350 (and believe me, that number is WAY down!) but can only keep straight the ones I keep in my “daily read” folders, which is probably close to 150 or 200. To me, it just means so much more to read a blog and feel like you know who the person is, even if you don’t have a real life relationship with them. So, one more set of questions:

Do you think the 150 relationships theory could apply to reading blogs? How many blogs do you keep track of?** Do you think you could manage more than 150?

*Of Evolutionary Antrhopology
**As always, my apologies for the prepositions.

Comments (30)

By kilax, January 23, 2010 9:14 am

I didn’t want to talk about this, but it has become ridiculous.

I have gotten viruses from visiting websites hosted by blogger/blogspot on December 20th, January 20th, and again this morning, January 23rd.

I am reading the blogger/blogspot site in google reader, then click on the post title to leave a comment, and when then post opens in a separate tab, a “virus scan” pops up that is actually the virus.

My sweet and patient husband has had to reformat both my large laptop and baby laptop already and now will have to do it again.

NO MORE.

This is extremely infuriating.

If you have a blog hosted by blogger/blogspot*, I will not be leaving comments on your site anymore (unfortunately, half the blogs I read are hosted by blogger/blogspot). I will be reading, and maybe send you an email with my comments.

Until I figure out what the hell is going on.

I should not be getting a virus just from clicking over to leave a comment on someone’s post.

Comments (54)

By kilax, January 11, 2010 5:06 am

I feel like I am having a bit of a blogger identity crisis.

I am passionate about what I am writing, and I really enjoy writing, receiving comments and interacting with all of you. It’s so fun. And I like the style I’ve developed and the blogging schedule I am following.

But… I have this itching feeling that I could be more personal here. I just worry about doing that without comprising my “in real life” relationships.

I suppose most bloggers struggle with this.

Have you ever felt like you were having a blogger identity crisis?

Maybe I will work on a “FAQ” page or update my About page in the meantime. Do you have any questions for me? Is there anything you would like to know about me? Me, me, me, me, me. It felt weird asking you guys that. But I have always wondered!

I have a non-traditional giveaway for you. It is more of a “pay it forward” giveaway, but I didn’t just want to say “whoever comments first gets it!” So I will do a traditional giveaway and draw a name.

Have you heard of the book Such a Pretty Fat by Jen Lancaster? The book is about Lancaster’s weight loss journey (warning: if you have/had an eating disorder, this book may be triggering). She tells her story with a sense of humor and does not apologize for who she is. And bonus! The story is set in Chicago. Leah wrote about the book a few weeks ago, saying how much it made her laugh, and I thought, “Jeez, instead of letting this book sit on my shelf never to be read again, I should pass it on!”

So, I decided to. Let me know if you like this idea, because I used to have a book purchasing problem and could probably find a few more to pass on!

If you are interesting in having my meticulously well taken care of copy of Such a Pretty Fat, you’ll be excited to find out there are three entry possibilities! And, I decided to throw in some LastLine bookmarks for fun!

Contest Rules:

1. To enter the contest, simply leave a comment below recommending a fiction or non-fiction book to me.
2. To get an extra entry, link to the giveaway in your blog, and leave me another comment linking to your post.
3. And for the bonus extra entry, related to the first half of this post, leave me another comment below telling me something you like or dislike about this blog. Example? I dislike how RIDICULOUSLY long my posts have been lately. (And while I do write for me, but would love some feedback.)
4. This contest is open until 5:00 PM CST on Sunday, January 17th. I will probably use the old “name out of a hat” drawing to select a winner on Sunday evening. I will announce the winner on Monday, January 18th.
5. This contest is open to readers everywhere.

Comments (43)

By kilax, January 4, 2010 5:19 am

Ha. I had two posts written for today. The first one was a rant on some article I read yesterday and it made me sound crazy. I decided not to use that one and wrote another semi-rant that made me sound bitchy.

Pause.

I must have been in a weird mood yesterday morning. I decided to table those for another day when I have more time to think and am not writing in the “heat of the moment.”

Do you write your posts ahead of time? Or are you more likely to write and immediately hit “publish”? What’s your blogging style? When do you blog?

I generally write all of my posts ahead of time (except for the random “spur of the moment” posts) and schedule them to be published in the morning. I even work on my Sunday training recap post throughout the week so I can publish it after my last workout on Sunday.

During the week, I write posts in the morning or evening train ride. Sometimes I write 2 or 3 at a time. Sometimes I just write them the night before. On the weekends, it’s more sporadic.

And I usually DON’T censor myself! But I have a hard enough time communicating as it is, and if I go back and read something and it doesn’t make sense… then it is not ready to publish! We’ll have to see if I ever use those!

We figured out what to do with the leftover Vegan “Meatloaf” – Vegan “Meatloaf” tacos! I kept joking to Steven that we should make them, but he kept saying no. Then he was too sick to argue so I made them and he LOVED them. Ha!

Comments (39)

By kilax, December 18, 2009 5:35 am

How do you find new blogs to read and what makes you subscribe to a blog? Or is your feed reader maxed out with “no vacancies”?

I love having a lot of blogs to read. I spend 2.5+ hours on the train on weekdays and it keeps me entertained.

And I feel like I have been finding a lot of great ones lately! My method on finding new blogs is by reading the comments on the other blogs I subscribe to (when I have time or the topic is really something I want to see what people are saying about)… if someone is saying something I can relate to, I go check out their blog. And often, when I am there, I may find links to other blogs I may enjoy. Sometimes, I can’t even remember how I ended up at a blog in the first place!

The first thing I do when I go to a new blog is check out their “About” page. Then I usually check out their writing style and see if the topics they talk about interest me. If they do, I put their blog in a “TBD” folder in my reader to check out for awhile and see if enjoy their blog.

Of course, from time to time, I get new commenters, and I always go check out their blog as well, and often, I end up subscribing.

I go through phases where I am looking for new blogs to read, just for fun, and then I go through phases where I cannot stay caught up with reader, and am not looking at all. And of course, I continually purge – I unsubscribe to those that ended up not suiting my taste. If I didn’t do that, I would get way too overwhelmed. Reading blogs is supposed to be fun, after all!

I have been continually updating my blogroll, and may move it to its own page at some point in time. I’ll keep you posted. (Does anyone else look at blogrolls besides me?)

Comments (29)

By kilax, December 8, 2009 12:32 pm

My apologies for the double post. I just want to ask a quick question.

For a few years, I responded individually to each and every comment on the comment’s post. I appreciate your comments and want you to know I love your feedback!

But it is very time-consuming, as you all know. And it stressed me out. So I’ve stopped doing that, and reply to many comments via email. Lately, I have also been replying to just a few comments, within the comment, in bold (confused yet?).

My question is what do you prefer? Do you even come back to read comments or do you prefer email? Please let me know in the poll below.

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Side note: I tried to install a plugin to reply to specific comments, but it did not work.

Comments (19)

By kilax, November 11, 2009 8:10 am

This weekend, I was introduced as a blogger to some new people and they asked me, “What is your blog about?”

Um, uh… um…

I’ve actually been borrowing Nilsa’s idea and calling this a “life blog,” at least, over to the right in my intro*. And duh, she even mentioned in point #2 of that post to be prepared to talk about your blog! But I sure wasn’t.

I said I talk about exercise, a little bit about food, a lot of rants… I explained that I started this blog the summer before I went to Rome to keep in touch and that it has kind of expanded off of that…

zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz………..

Sometimes, it’s just really hard to define who you are. That reminded me of when I had to come up with three interesting facts about myself for a class I took back in May. It also made me realize that I am more likely to be the one asking questions when I meet new people. I usually don’t do much talking myself. I do more probing. Ha ha.

So… I think I should work on that – being able to talk about me, intelligently, that is.

Do you ever get the question, “What is your blog about?” How do you answer? Or if you don’t blog, are you prepared to answer when people ask you what your hobbies are?

*As a side note, I think it’s REALLY important to have an intro or “About” page on your blog. That’s the first thing I look for when I am checking out a new blog!

Comments (4)

By kilax, November 8, 2009 8:44 am

I am having major Akismet issues on this blog. It stopped working because it cannot connect to a firewall, or is blocked by a server or something. My webhost has not been able to help, and as a result, I am getting HUNDREDS of spam comments.

I deactivated Akismet and installed WP-SpamFree. Has anyone had this issue on a wordpress blog before? Any insight?

These are the types of things that make me so frustrated, I consider shutting down my blog. This shouldn’t be so difficult to figure out.

Comments (3)

By kilax, October 12, 2009 7:23 am

Julia gave me this Over the Top Blog award. Thank you Julia! You’re such a sweetie.

To accept this award, I have to answer the following questions* with one word answers, and pass the award on to six others. I usually don’t pass awards, but I thought it would be fun to read the following six people answers (if I read your blog and comment, I have always thought it’s over the top in its awesomeness!). Please grab the meme if you want!

Tori, Diane, Erin, Hotch Potchery, Andrew**, Etta

1. Where is your cell phone? counter
2. Your hair? unruly
3. Your mother? optimistic
4. Your father? supportive
5. Your favorite food? sweets
6. Your dream last night? realistic
7. Your favorite drink? water
8. Your dream/goal? health
9. What room are you in? living
10. Your hobby? blogging…
11. Your fear? gain
12. Where do you want to be in 6 years? promoted
13. Where were you last night? home
14. Something you aren’t? proper
15. Muffins? vegan
16. Wish list item? practical
17. Where did you grow up? evansdale
18. Last thing you did? blog
19. What are you wearing? warm
20. Your TV? boring
21. Your pets? entertaining
22. Your friends? few
23. Your life? varying
24. Your mood? good
25. Missing someone? always
26. Vehicle? perfect
27. Something you’re not wearing? earrings
28. Your favorite store? NY&Company
29. Your favorite color? orange
30. When was the last time you laughed? recently!
31. Last time you cried? hmm?
32. Your best friend? Steven
33. One place that I go over and over? work
34. One person who emails me regularly? Gina/Courtney***
35. Favorite place to eat? home-cooked

*These answers are from Sunday night
**Something besides quotes PLEASE, Andrew
***Tie, because we email as a group