30 Day Better Blogger Challenge continued

I've been faithfully participating in the better blogger challenge, just not necessarily posting about it. I've added an RSS feed to the blog, put in Clustr maps, and considered feedburner. Today I added an email contact. I actually used my husband's hotmail account for now as my "regular" email address would reveal too much about my location. I'll eventually get around to setting up a gmail account and posting that instead. You can also contact me through the comments and possibly through my About Me page. Comments is actually the best as I can get them at school, whereas yahoo and gmail are both blocked. Other challenges included a blogroll audit (I think mine is fine) and decluttering the side bar (since I don't like a whole lot of "stuff" there, that was an easy one). I've introduced myself to more than one blogger and reviewed my blog in various formats. I'm a fairly frequent commenter on others' blogs, depending on the week and content. I also invited a guest blogger, who will hopefully get me the entry soon.

30 Day Blog Challenge Days 5 and 6

Yesterday's challenge hadn't been posted yet before I went to bed so I'm combining both that one and today's into one blog post.

Yesterday's challenge was to add a widgit, specifically something like clustr maps to see where visitors hail from and if you should add other features such as a translator button. I think the clustr map widgit is cool and there is something similar in Stat Counter. I found it interesting that I've had visitors from Australia, the Netherlands, the UK, Brazil, Israel, and Germany as well as the expected U.S. and Canada.

Today's challenge was to have your blog looked at by somebody with "fresh" eyes. My blog really hasn't been up and running for all that long so I wasn't sure how helpful this would be. I know what I like and don't like from other people's blogs and that has guided me in making decisions for mine. For example, there are soooooo many fun and cool widgits out there, but I think there can be too much of a good thing. Too many widgits make the blog look crowded. Pretty much, if I'm not going to use them for something I'm probably not going to add them. My husband recently spent some time on my blog for the first time. He seemed to like it, was most interested in the photos vs. the "non-kid" content (he knows "my" kids and since we do respite care in our home has spent time with several of them), and had no trouble navigating my (very simple) blog. I've been trying to get him to work on the blog I helped him start (he's restoring a WWII era military vehicle to add to the collection at the World War II History Center he is helping to develop), but so far we haven't moved passed the set up stage. Maybe now that football is over....

30 Day Blog Challenge Day 4

Today's challenge was to consider protecting your blog content using Creative Commons licensing. At first I thought, I don't mind/care if others use my work. Then I thought, wait! I have photos of the kids on here and, while they are mine to share, they are not mine to give away. And then I thought, you know, I work pretty hard to do the things I do and I think my writing is half way decent. I don't really want someone else taking credit for that (note to self, learn how find out if someone is "borrowing" from my blog and not giving credit). So I signed up for a CC license. Easy Easy Easy Easy. And you get a nifty badge to display on your blog. I decided to be very restrictive with my license. I don't really mind if others take what I write and rewrite and adapt it to make it their own, but the license doesn't differentiate the content (narrative vs. images vs. audio, etc.) and I decided the photos needed better protection than that.