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.