Top Entrecard Droppers for August 2008

With thanks to my Top Droppers for August 08. I will try to keep the link love flowing if you keep dropping. Who is going to make the list for September?

1. PipeB Web Hosting
2. Red Pine Mountain
3. Mariuca's Perfume Gallery
4. LOL Cats
5. Cat Lovers Site
6. Snapshotcap
7. Picture to People
8. Brazoscowgirl
9. From A Yellow House In England
10. The house that Koen & Claire (re)built.com

And thanks go as well to all those who chose my blog to display their cards :-)

To all my American Readers - Have a great Labor Day Weekend!

Scrapbook Saturday 30/8: 20's flapper girls

This week I have a very simple scrap for a photograph of my Grandmother(right)with her sister and my Mother in the 1920's, when the fashion was for flapper dresses and cloche hats. This is one of my favourite photos as my mother would have been about 2 years old at the time and I think it is a lovely picture, especially with the Shirley Temple curls.

As MammaDawg is away this weekend and is unable to host Scrapbook Saturday head over to Jess at Nothing But Purple to add your name to this weeks blogroll.

Watch out for a post I shall be doing on a great program I have just bought for making your own kaleidescopes! Here's a sample I made earlier using an old WW1 postcard.

Click on the image to enlarge and then right click to save it for yourself. It is .png format so has a transparent background and can be used as a a frame. I will be posting more next week when I tell you all about this clever program and where you can find it.

Recommended Widget:: Blog Stir

If you run a blog one thing that causes concern is how to show old posts. One traditional way is to use Archive method, but most of us don’t use that because of lack of ease factor.

With Blog Stir from Stuffablog and Widgetbox one can now show random posts on a sidebar widget. You just have to insert a javascript that points to a blog or website URL to make this possible. The outcome is very neat and you can select a keyword for specific JavaScript code for this service.

Customization options are available to use your own background color but there is no border and you can specify title alone or with a snippet. This service is great for blogs with lots of posts. Have a look on the sidebar for an example of the dynamic version.

CLICK HERE TO GET YOUR OWN BLOG STIR WIDGET

Recommended Widget:: PlugMe.net

PlugMe.Net is a very useful widget for your blog, that lets your readers plug in their own blinkies and buttons, saving you the trouble! Have a look at the one on my sidebar for a working example. PlugMe offers free remotely hosted advanced plugboards to use on your very own website or blog. Each plugboard can be easily customized and administered through your online control panel. There's no tricky installation to do and you could have a plugboard on your website in seconds, just register (for free) and enter the code from your control panel onto your website.

* Easy to use.
* Have up to 60 buttons showing at a time.
* 10 buttons secretly archived - They will show if buttons are deleted in your admin panel.
* Ban users IPs including ranges.
* Ban domains from plugging.
* Plug deletion and editing via admin panel.
* Flood control to prevent spammers.
* E-mail notify option - Receive an Email whenever someone plugs on your plugboard.
* Porn protection.
* Disable posting.
* Background colour or transparency ability.
* Customizable sized board.
* Completely free!
* No scripting abilities needed, just insert a short piece of code into your site.
* Works on almost all websites.
* Plugboard directory - Gets your site listed and more visitors.

Coming soon

* Ability to stop a button/url showing on the plugboard more than once.
* Sticky buttons ability.

CLICK HERE TO GET YOUR FREE PLUGBOARD

Wordless Wednesday 27/8: Pepsi puppy!

Coming or Going?

Well, I don't know whether I am coming or going at the moment! I have so much on the go I'm beginning to know how a hamster feels running in circles in it's wheel - and it has my sympathy!

Since joining Entrecard my visitor numbers have increased dramatically, which is great, I love having so many people from all around the world drop in, even if it's only to drop their card. But I like to think my blog is interesting enough for some to stop and pause a while and they must do judging by the number of comments I get, which is lovely. I have now installed a Recent Droppers widget and a new Chatterbox for anyone that want's to say hi!

Plus I have my other 2 blogs, News, Views, Thrills & Spills & Family History for Beginners on the go as well! And I spend a good couple of hours in the evenings going round dropping my cards and always try to read as many blogs as possible. I spent hours at the weekend tweaking the coding for this blog and installed dropbars on the sidebar to hold my galleries of blog buttons & blinkies plus the BlogCatalog, MyBlogLog & SpicyPage widgets and an over 50's blogroll. If you haven't already, do check them out. I also managed to install a fancy post divider - but haven't worked out how to stop it overlapping the comments etc :-( Give me time though!

Then of course I compile family histories for family and friends. I am in the middle of winding one up now for a friend. She wanted one for her father in laws 80th birthday next month. I have been working on it for a couple of months and have a couple of branches back to the 17th century. Now just as we are coming in to the home stretch she has handed me 4 pages of tiny writing with details of all the grandchildren which I have to decipher and add to the tree tonight, and which I have been trying to get her to produce for weeks. Then I have to produce a narrative that makes sense and print it all out plus at least half a dozen different diagrams. I use 4 different programs because some produce better diagrams for one aspect than another and so on, bind it all and burn a CD with the complete tree produced like a web site that can be opened in a browser. Whew!!

I also like scrapbooking and enjoy producing something for Scrapbook Saturday. I have just bought a new program I am enjoying playing with at the moment which is a bit different and am hoping to have something decent ready for this weeks SS. I intend writing a post about it when I have some spare time (she laughs hysterically!)

I work full time and have 2 dogs to entertain when I get home (fortunately no kids at home now!)as well. Hubby often has to leave early in the morning to go on a software installation and has a long journey. This morning he dropped me at work at 6.30am (fortunately the building is manned 24/7 so I was able to get to my desk and log on for a couple of hours :-) But he had a 3 and half hour journey to go down to Clacton on the south coast, and won't be back until nearly 8pm.

At least in 3 weeks time we are taking the caravan to the Lake District for a week and have a nice pitch on a lovely site right on the banks of Lake Windermere - where there is no internet! And I can't wait :-) (It'll probably pour with rain knowing our luck!!)

Ruby Tuesday 26/8: Vistascreen Viewer & Viewmaster

Featured this week for Ruby Tuesday is a 3D Vistascreen Viewer for viewing pictures in stereo. Vista was a competitor of the more well known Viewmaster system. I have a small collection of both the Vista slides and Viewmaster viewers, reels and albums which you can see below, which I have been collecting for a number of years now.

Why not join in and post a Ruby Tuesday picture yourself, the rules are simple. Just post a picture with red in it, but it must be one of your own and it can be of anything you like. For more details hop over to The Teach at Work of the Poet and check out the blogroll.

Scrapbook Saturday 23/8: Caravanning Capers!

This week I have scrapped a couple of lovely pictures of my darling Hubby, Ian in our caravan. I have used Background, Overlays & Elements from Adeyeo.com She has lots of great collections for scrapbookers, including FREEBIES, of which these are some. Her latest collection is called Endless Love and is just gorgeous. She also has lots of links to other Freebies and sites on her blog and her collections can also be found at Scrappers Zone & Scrapping Whispers, which are 2 more great scrapbooking websites.


The other site I have found, which is very exciting is a blog called DigiFree digital scrapbooking freebie search engine! Here I found thumbnails with links to 182 freebies on blogs, which changes daily, depending on what's available. a fantastic resource for the Scrapbooking community. This blog is dynamically constructed by a computer program. You can think of it as an automated search engine for freebies found in digital scrapbooking blogs. The program works by going through a list of over 2000 blogs that it has found and it scans those blogs to identify (1) if they have been updated since the system last looked and (2) if they contain any freebies. If both of these are true, then the system lists it. It also keeps a lookout for new blogs that are mentioned and tests each one to see if it can detect freebies there.I am sure you will find loads of interesting stuff on both these sites, just make sure you leave enough time for the blogging & scrapbooking!

Pixel Dust has got a load of FREEBIES on her blog as well so don't forget to drop in and give her a visit. And dont forget to hop over to MammaDawg and have a look at the Scrapbook Saturday Blogroll, or even better join us.

Funny Video! worlds smallest car

I've just posted a VIDEO over on my other blog News, Views, Thrills & Spills! This is the Prime Ministers Office video response to the petition for Jeremy Clarkson for PM. I have also got a very funny video of Jeremy and the worlds smallest car which I have also now posted on here. Bearing in mind Jeremy is about 6ft 5inches and the car is absolutely tiny the video of him driving it around the streets of London as well as the BBC offices (yes, you read that right!)is hilarious. THIS IS A MUST SEE!!!

Wordless Wednesday 20/8: My eBay mirror

Click to enlarge

I got this great mirror on eBay for $90 (£45) as no one else bothered to bid on it (can't imagine why!) It's 3'6" high by 5' wide so we had to go and pick it up from Kent, a round trip of 300 miles! It only just went in the car and we had to prop it up sideways with cushions & blankets. Everytime we went over a bump or pothole I kept waiting for an ominous cracking sound! At least we have a wall big enough to take it, and Hubby was very forbearing in letting me buy it as it's not to his taste at all (although he has admitted it's grown on him:-)

I know this is supposed to be WORDLESS Wednesday and I did initially post just the picture, but I thought you might enjoy the story behind it and thought what the heck! :-)

Yahoo! Buzz: opens doors to one and all!

Now you can get your webpages listed on Yahoo!Buzz. As of today it is opening its doors to all publishers and could well give Digg a run for its money.

Yahoo said that Web publishers from large players to the niche blogs will be able to add content to Buzz via simple code by going to this site. If you don't already have a Yahoo! account you can register HERE. For an example of the Buzz button have a look at the bottom of this post, but there are quite a few variations availabe.

Meanwhile, Yahoo says that any page on the Web can be added to Buzz. That addition means that Web pages that theoretically aren’t in a news or blog format can be submitted as notable content.

"Any of the Web's best current event stories, gossip, photos, videos and more can be submitted and shared on Yahoo! Buzz," explains Tapan Bhat on Yodel Anecdotal.

He then continues, "You've already seen the 'Buzz Up' buttons on many of your favorite sites, including New York Times, Us Weekly and BoingBoing. Now, as any site is able to add our button, you'll have even more places to buzz to your heart's content. And if you don't see that button on a Web story you just have to share, you can submit a story right on Yahoo! Buzz."

Ruby Tuesday: a crab in a cube!

This is my photo for Ruby Tuesday. It is of one of my two red clawed crabs. His name is Buster - the other is Biff! They live in our aquarium with a selection of tropical fish. They are also called Thai Crabs as they originally come from the mangrove swamps and mudflats of South East Asia. Their proper name is Sesarma Bidens. The biggest problem we have with them (apart from their tendency to eat fish!) is that they are great escapers. We often find them in the filter or even out of the tank! This despite the fact we have taped up every means of escape we can see! Here's some more pics of Buster & Biff!

This is the original photo I used for the Rubik's Cube which was created at Dumpr.net

Why not join in and post a Ruby Tuesday picture yourself, the rules are simple. Just post a picture with red in it, but it must be one of your own and it can be of anything you like. For more details hop over to The Teach at Work of the Poet and check out the blogroll.