Brads Blog

I just read that the Crocodile Hunter, Steve Irwin was killed by a stingray! Holy Crap! Read the story here – ‘Crocodile Hunter’ Irwin Killed by Stingray

I recently purchased the Olympus Digital Voice Recorder WS-100. I bought it at Best Buy for $89.99. I’m sure I could have bought it for a lot cheaper at Amazon.com or other online outlet, but I had a hair in my ass to get it so I paid full price.

I wanted to buy this for a couple of reasons. First, I was itching pretty bad to record my first podcast, and didn’t want to deal wth microphones, etc.

Second, my son needs to record himself reading, so he will now be able to play back his recording, to help him read better.

Ok, so on with the review!

The recorder came with a single AAA battery, which is all it needs. I was up and recorded my podcast before I even got out of the car. I like te quality of sounds it records!

You are able to store audio files in five different folders. This helps me keep things organized.

This recorder also serves as a mass storage device and can record up to 27 hours!

Once I am ready to pull my recordings off, the bottom of this recorder pulls off to reveal the USB connection, and plugs straight into my computer.(a cable is also provided)

Recrded files are automatically exported as .wma type files, so will be ready to go with Windows media player.

So far, I am very pleased with this recorder and would recommend it to anyone.

After I posted my first podcast the other day, I was thinking about my next one. (It was kinda’ fun!)

Like all webmasters should do, I think about accessability. I think about what the page will look like when displayed on other browsers, resolutions, etc. Then I thought about how many people out there are unable to listen to podcast on their computer and do not have an iPod.

I have no clue how to figure this one.

Sure, I have speakers and can listen to podcasts if I wanted, but what about you? Several years ago, the computer I owned could not produced any sound so this is probably why I’m concerned about it.

I am not planning on going podcast crazy on here, but I think that this is something webmasters should be aware of.

I browse around many different blogs, and notice that a lot of blogger like to use the weekend to post links that they like, other bloggers etc.

I really am not going to do that, but instead I am pondering a series of posts called “Blogger Blos That Don’t Suck”

I already know of one or two, as most blogspot blogs I come across are either splogs or people start them and never return.

So, as my first post in this series, I’ll introduce Midwest Right Wingers (adult language, be warned)

While I admit I don’t visit every day, I do go back once in a while to see what’s posted. He’s runnng a Pro Republican blog and can go a bit extreme someimes but still worth a glance.

Today I answered Yvonne’s call for a Podcast. I thought I’d start by giving a brief inroduction as to how I started blogging. When I have more time this weekend, I’ll put out a more elaborate bio, and post it in the About Page.
HERE IT IS!

Links mentioned in podcast:
http://bschneider5.blogspot.com

What do you think?

While doing some remodeling of my blog, one of the things I wanted to do was put avatars in the comments by using the Gravitar plugin. The way it works is, you simply sign up by giving up yor email and a password, then you will be able to have an avatar to display in other blogs that have this plugin.

I went to sign up for this, but after hitting submit, the page simply reloaded. I tried this several different times, then I even went with a different email that is on a different pop server.

After failing all attempts, I went to the forums. I thought there was hope. Many others were having this same problem, and the administrator was manually activating everyone. I was disheartened to see that there hasn’t been an administrator reply to any requests in a LONG TIME!

Just a few minutes ago, I sent the admin an email, and I hope I get it worked out soon!

Here what I really have a problem with. This is an excellent idea and all, and seems to be promoted pretty well throughout the blogosphere. The big problem is that someone is asleep at the wheel! If you don’t want to mess with it anymore, I’m sure someone would buy the site!

Well, it’s official. I’m on vacation. I punched out this morning not to return to the grindstone until Tuesday night.

We are traveling to Iowa to attend Katie and Kent’s wedding. We are putting the dogs in a kennel and we’re only going for the weekend.

We figure the trip should take about ten hours driving. Strangely, I’m looking forward to it. We have been planning ths trip for nearly a year now, ever since they announced the engagement.

We are staying in a hotel, but my wife has made the arrangements and I haven’t mustered the balls to ask if they have WiFi available there. She knows how I am! I’m suprised she hasn’t scolded me for wanting to take my laptop with me!

Maybe you’ve seen it, maybe the spammers slipped one in on you. It’s the blog comment spam that doesn’t appear to have any links in it until you realize that the punctuation at the end of a sentence is linked.

Would someone really benefit from dominating the keyword, or keyperiod or keyquestion mark?

When someone does a Google Search for Bradsblog, I’m number one. Lucky me there’s not a lot of Brads Blogs out there)

It works out because I have many links out there with “Bradsblog” as the anchor text.

When I do a Google search for a single punctuation mark, the search does not execute. I tried Yahoo and MSN search as well, with the same result.

What is the goal of punctuation spam? Are they really trying to gain strength in SEO or are they actually thinking someone will hover and click on the period?

Earlier this week, I posted that I was shopping for a new theme for my blog. I got to tinkering around and realized that if I did that, I would be spending weeks working on getting all the plugins I have moved over to a new theme, and that simply isn’t worth it.

However, I have decided to start making some changes to the current theme.

After reading Yvonne’s Blog, I was inspired to Spice up my comments area.

I went ahead and installed the Comments Quicktags plugin, and as you can see in my comments area, the neat little buttons it created. I like this a lot.

One of the other subtle changes I have made was I added a sitemap for Bradsblog. I did this by using the Sitemap Generator plugin for WordPress.

There are a lot of other ideas bouncing around in my noggin about the design/layout and will continue to make improvements. One day soon I’m going to do a major makeover, and maybe even go away from the green and black.

I was reading today an article that explains how a new website called Spiral Frog will offer up free music downloads, legally. They will be able to do this by selling advertising on the site. I will be anxious to see how this pans out!