So enjoy my blog, even if the posts get really off topic.

Using RSS feeds is really simple with the latest version of Mozilla Firefox.  Mozilla Firefox 3.0.1 will show the RSS button at the end of the address bar. It looks like an orange square with three parentheses pointing up and to the right. Single left-click on that orange button to bring up the subscription window.  I choose Google from the drop-down list and the selected feed is automatically added in a section of my iGoogle home page.

I use iGoogle to view my feeds, I only track a few.  Google also offers the Google Reader application that provides even more functionality for tracking many RSS feeds.

RSS feeds can be used by businesses for many things.  A pastor may podcast his sermons and by using RSS feeds so he can distribute the podcasts automatically to his parishioners instead of using more traditional methods such as e-mail or a phone call.

A website designer might use RSS feeds to let people know about his latest design accomplishments.  A non-profit organization might use an RSS feed so the people donating money can easily see where the money is going or be notified of upcoming events, without spending money on e-mail campaigns.  Anything newsworthy or unique is a prime candidate for RSS technology.

A share holder might even use an RSS feed to monitor the blog of the companies he has a stake in. A sports fan might want the latest information about a certain team or just scores and highlights.  RSS feeds provide customized content delivery to your desktop.  You don't have to search manually, you can setup an RSS feed on a search term as well.  If you want to make sure noone is using your business name or imposing on your brand, setup an RSS feed to monitor yourself based on selected search terms.

The easiest way to start an RSS feed is to start a blog.  Fantastico can be used to add a WordPress blog to a website.  Check the control panel on your hosting providers website to see if the Fantastico option is available.

Internet Explorer or Mozilla Firefox for receiving RSS feeds?  Mozilla Firefox is far easier to setup and use for inbound RSS feeds.

WordPress or Blogger?  We techie guys went with WordPress.  WordPress gives me results from Google quickly. It generally takes less than an hour before I start getting search hits from Google each time I post an article.

Frequent updates to your blog help a lot to keep the Google search hits coming.  It doesn't always have to be an essay.

We talked some more about MyBlogLog and began to look online at MyBlogLog communities to join related to what our own blogs are about.  MyBlogLog is a great way to find other people with similar interests and related blogs.

del.icio.us is a great way to organize your favorites and bookmarks so you can share them with other people.  You can add your del.icio.us account links to your blogs and social networking sites by using widgets. The tags are used to help del.icio.us users to find the information they are seeking.  Tags are slightly different than keywords in that there are times when people are browsing del.icio.us and not searching.  The tags help guide del.icio.us users to the sites and other users that share similar interests. Keywords are used more for search engine searches.  Tags are set manually.  Keywords are found.

A signature file is a powerful e-mail based tool to get more visitors and business.  Your custom signature file can be set to automatically insert each time you send an e-mail.  You can use your signature file to reach people you already know with links to your blog or LinkedIn.  Add HTML code snippets to your signature file to make it real fancy.  The LinkedIn Outlook Toolbar for Microsoft Outlook has a real nice signature generator if you need help creating one.

dmoz.org is a pain in the butt. It's that simple but don't give up.

We covered a lot today.  It was a great meeting. Thank you to all that attended.

When it comes to starting a blog...

• Your blog won't be popular without a lot of quality content (one hit wonders don't succeed at blogging.)
• Write about something you are passionate about (it will show.)
• It helps your ranking to link obscure words and lingo to a wiki page or some other respected informational site.  Try not to link to your competition though.
• Take full advantage of picture tags and captions.  Google likes to see keywords in those places too.
• Decide what action you want your visitors to take (buy something, subscribe to RSS feed, visit your website, click an ad...)
• If readers are to click an ad, how will you integrate the ads? (text ads (AdSense), in-text ads (Kontera, VibrantMedia) , pay-per-click (AdSense), pay-per-transaction (Commission Junction) or maybe just ads to your own site/products...)
• Are you going to host the blog on your web server and integrate directly the blog format into an existing page on your website site (the usual way for blogs without ads, just bring them to the site directly to read the content) or leave it separate from your actual business web page (the usual method for blogs with ads).

http://www.mybloglog.com/ is a good place to start getting involved in the blogging community.  Join other users communities and add contacts to people with similar interests.  To me the best blog readers are other bloggers.  They will help spread the word if you post interesting articles.

http://www.technorati.com is a blog search engine.  You should eventually be listed in here as your readership expands.  Technorati basically ranks your blog based on how many different blogs link to your posts.  The more appealing, unique and interesting your posts are --> the more different people link to you --> the higher your authority.  Don't expect much from this site in the beginning.  Getting people to respect you online is a difficult thing and it takes time and effort.

http://www.socializr.com/ is the site I am going to use to track the meetings & attendees for our discussion group.  Please join this site so you can RSVP for the meetings.

http://www.talkshoe.com/ is a site to host & record Podcasts over the phone.  Another similar site is http://www.gcast.com/. Both are a great way to get started with Podcasting for those that loathe typing as much as I do.  The problem with Podcasting is that Google doesn't search voice recordings.  You don't get the same exposure as with a blog.

Finally we talked a little about LinkedIn.  A few attendees have gotten business through LinkedIn.  I use Yahoo Groups to meet people from LinkedIn.  The link to the LinkedIn forum search is this:
http://groups.yahoo.com/search?query=linkedin

If you want a jump start on meeting people through LinkedIn then I suggest joining MyVirtualPowerForum and introducing yourself to that group.  It's 4th or 5th in the search list.  This Yahoo group was founded and is moderated by a local Hartford resident.  He is very nice.  Vincent can also open doors online and help make connections if properly motivated.
Some of the other groups are spammish and some are heavily moderated to keep the spammers out.  You can expect the amount of e-mails you receive to go up from joining a group such as MyVirtualPowerForum but you have access to the brains of many helpful business people should you need assistance one day.  You can learn alot by just lurking but the real benefit of the forums is quick access to answers when you need them.  I have made more money from my involvement with Vincent's group than with any features or services LinkedIn offers.  They do go together though.  MyVirtualPowerForum has changed the way I view and use LinkedIn.

It's now open in a new url my new blog with brand new photos. My goal is a new photo every new day. Now, in summer time i know i can't update this every day but i promise 7 photos per week.

Hope you like.

Welcome ;)

I thought I would start this blog to help organize and share things I find interesting about Korean Pop culture. That includes Music, Movies, and even TV.

So stick around for the latest Pics and Vids of all your favorite Kpop stars.

Donc, juste un mot à dire: merci !

Les coups de coeur du samedi vont revenir bientôt, tout comme des nouveaux articles, il faut juste que je prenne un peu de temps pour bouger un peu le blog :)

The previous piece I posted was actually from an article that was written in an issue of last weeks Daily Mail that I copied and posted because I agreed with it. If someone has a post on their blog praising Barack Obama in many ways I would never attack them on their blog just because I disagree with what they have written. After all that is what democracy is all about. Differing opinions and ideas. I am pretty sure that Barack Obama has the makings of a fine president but that certainly doesn't mean I have to like him. I happened to think that Bill Clinton was great in his role as president but as a personality I didn't really like him either. I will never shy away from saying what I want on my blog because I know I am not endangering anyone's life or committing any kind of hate crime. I have other blogging friends who happen to love Barack Obama and I admire their passion for him and his bid to become president. They also know I am not one of his biggest fans but it does not affect our friendship. They obviously realise differing opinions are part of a modern day democracy. Such a pity more people don't realise that too. I am just as much an individual as anyone else and I will not be suppressing MY OWN opinions on MY OWN  blog for anyone!!!

Beginning next week I'll be posting from Dhaka. I'll be there for five months teaching multimedia at the Independent University of Bangladesh and working on new projects. Bangladesh has over 150 million people and is about as far from Portland, Oregon as one can get. It has an dynamic photography community and will be hosting the Chobi Mela Photo Festival this January. Newsha Tavakolian, a wonderful Iranian photographer introduced me to Saiful, both of whose work I'll be featuring in the near future.

About the Photograph:

Saiful Huq is a young Bangladeshi photographer who graduated from the Pathshala School of Photography in Dhaka. This photograph is from his series "Heros Never Die: Tales of Political Violence in Bangladesh, 1989- 2005." Sheik Abdul Wadud was praying in a mosque when a grenade attack took his right leg and a portion of his right hand in 1999. Nine people died and numerous other people were injured.

"August is not the month of winter. Winter was yet to come. Winter would come. I would wrap myself with my dark brown shawl, I would travel on a richshaw and with a single step I would arrive at Tongi bridge. Standing on the bridge I would bend down towards the Turag river and shout out loud and listen to how far the echo reaches...This time I would go to the sea and stand on the mountain and touch the clouds. Could tears come to my eyes for once? The whole country shattered into pieces. Bombs exploded in 63 districts at once. Two people died and more then 100 were injured. That wasn't enough, more was on the way. None of us was stupid enough to not understand this. The winter deserted me taking it's entire aroma with it. Ah! intense winter of my youth! I had to wrap it away for an unknown future, shoulder my camera and leave my house. The whole country was my destination."

... no matter, it's better, anyway. Plus I have the satisfaction of knowing NRT has a broken link until James can get back online and fix it.

Source citation is going to be a key element of my book, as most historical works written around here at any time, recent and distant, have had little or no sourcing (highly annoying!), and I think it's about time someone did it right. So, I will need frequent endnotes (I think they are easier to manage than footnotes, since they don't get in the way of those readers who aren't looking for sources, and they are compiled in easy-to-find groups).

Well, I first thought of having several separate documents, one for each chapter, so that when the endnotes were placed at the end of a document, it would actually be at the end of a chapter. Conveniently, endnotes were given an automatic page break this way.

Then I discovered the master document system. This way, I could link all of these separate documents to one, large master document. I figured that this would have the same result as unlinked documents, only it would be more convenient as I would be able to treat them as a single document. This meant that I could also add an automatic index for the entire document. Sounds perfect, right?

Now, for some reason, it turned out that endnotes in a master document were placed at the end of the master document--not at the end of the subdocument, i.e., chapter. So, even though the endnotes were added in the subdocument, they did not take effect within the subdocument, they just got added to the end of the entire thing, the exact thing I wanted to avoid which is why I started using the master document system.

This morning, I discovered that if you go to the Sections area under Format (which, in a master document, will list the subdocuments just like the Navigator does), you can tell it to gather the endnotes at the end of a section (subdocument). Now this seemed as if it would solve my problem, but it turned out that the endnotes were gathered directly under the text--no page break!

I've been sitting here for hours trying to figure out how to give it an automatic page break. You can do it manually by directing the amount of space between text and endnote (in inches, you can't just tell it "start on new page"), but then this will have to be done separately for each chapter, and I figured if they're going to give me this complicated system which is supposed to save me time by doing things automatically, there ought to be a way to do this very, very simple automatic process. No? Maybe I'm just picky, but the master document system seems to be messing up the very things it was designed for. It's supposed to give you individual control over individual documents, but allow you to compile them and treat them as one. Right?

Well, anyway. This morning I also finally remembered to call the Trinity Episcopal Church. (I need a planner! I'm forgetting things already, two weeks in a row!) I asked if they had any old records, and they told me they'd need to talk to some other people about it, and perhaps I could meet them at the church in a couple of days. I said I could, and we arranged a date and time. So this week I am headed off on another research trip. I hope they have something there!

Also, many thanks to Ruth of Bluebonnet Country Genealogy for the BFF (Blogging Friends Forever) award! I am honored, and happy to hear you've enjoyed my blog as much as I've enjoyed reading yours!

Unfortunately, although I'd love to, I can't really accept the award yet as the rules are you must pass it on to another blogger, and I'm afraid I don't know of any other genealogy bloggers who are regular readers of this site, except for Ruth herself. So, I suppose I'll have to hang onto the award for a while until a few more readers come along! But, thanks again, Ruth!

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C-ya,
Larry

We have also hit over 1,000 pageviews on the blog tonight. However, the fact is 30 or so of those views were actually me back when I first set up this blog, viewing the site while not logged in and not thinking about the impact on stats. Still, it's a milestone, although I'm saving the jubilant post titles for when we get to about 1,030. :)

For another small but meaningful milestone tonight, this is my 50th post. Finally, I'm actually keeping a website and working diligently on it!

So this blog, Complex Thought, is going to be used to write about whatever I want. I'm not going to share the URL much, I don't care if no one really reads these posts either. I'll just get on and write and see what happens.

Stick with us, there is lots to come!!

Also, the next Carnival of Genealogy is August 1, and I am planning to write a blog article for this event. Carnival of Genealogy is a semi-monthly program where various genealogy-related blog articles are presented at a single site. You can read the most recent issue of Carnival of Genealogy and learn more about the next one at 100 Years in America, where it was last hosted.

I am sorry to report that the webhost for the photo gallery is not working right today. The gallery is still online but may load like the proverbial January molasses, so if you're a member or planning to register as one, hang in there. I'm not sure when it will be working properly again, but it shouldn't take long.

Au hasard de mes vagabondages sur le web, je suis tombée sur le blog Ekologeek, qui présente tout un tas d'initiatives simples écologiques et citoyennes par des articles mais aussi une BD (Mister Ekolo Guy, trop la classe !). Bref, un bon blog que j'ai adopté dès ma première visite. Depuis peu, le blog a pris la forme    d'une association pour mener à bien des projets dans l'esprit du blog.

Un des projets que je trouve le plus intéressant est celui de "consommez responsables". Le mieux, c'est d'aller voir le projet sur le blog, je ne ferai que paraphraser ce qui est si bien dit dans l'article. Donc, pour ce projet, c'est par ici: http://ekologeek.free.fr/?p=275

Je mets également dans mon blogroll le lien vers le blog général. Voilà, n'hésitez pas à y faire un tour et si ça vous plaît, à diffuser l'info, ça en vaut la peine !

I'm going to give this a try, wish me luck!

http://brooklynblogger.wordpress.com/my-101-in-1001-days/

Als Jeanke 15 keer de nul houdt, wint hij een bak bier. Doet hij dat niet, dan win ik een fles bruine rum.  Indien Jeanke 3 keer wordt uitgeroepen tot man van de match, komt dat overeen met 1 keer de nul houden.

Het weddenschap zal terug te volgen zijn in de linkse zijbalk.

Good luck Jeanke!

The tags handle specific individuals and families, while categories take over the broader subjects. For space, I have placed the categories in a cloud format. Too bad tags can't be put into a list format, as categories can. That would be truly ideal...

A little clarification regarding the Photography and Images categories: Generally, the Photography category will refer to the larger subject of photos, such as studios, searching for portraits or photos, analyzing them, or just talking about them--while the Images category will typically refer to posts containing, or linking to images.

So I went over the long, long list of organizations that M.H. Kulp, the foremost individual in my research, belonged to. As listed in Floyd's biography of him:

...the Elks, the Eagles, the Red Men and the Masons, in the latter
associating with Shamokin Lodge, No. 255, F. & A.M.; Shamokin Chapter, No. 264, R.A.M.; Shamokin Commandery No. 77, K.T.; Philadelphia Consistory, thirty-second degree; and Rajah Temple, A.A.O.N.M.S. He was one of the organizers of the Cresco Club of Shamokin, was a member of the Rosa Club [think they are referring to the Ross Club] of Williamsport, of the Manufacturers Club of Philadelphia, and Union League of Philadelphia.

Where to start?? Well, I began by consulting my local telephone directory to see if any of these Mason or Elk chapters are still around. Apparently not. The closest Elk lodge is in Mt. Carmel and the closest Masons are in Sunbury and Danville (!).

I thought about contacting the Mt. Carmel Elks anyway to see if they knew anything; according to another of Floyd's biographies, MHK's brother Gilbert was once an exalted ruler of some Elk chapter or other, so it seemed as if the Elks were a good place to start. However, I also thought I had better look into the Philadelphia organizations, as that's a major city and their organizations might be more long-standing.

Sure enough, the Union League of Philadelphia is very long-standing. Their website explains that the League was founded in 1862 as a society supporting the policies of Abraham Lincoln. They have been around ever since and appear to be highly classy, to say the least! :)

The site said that those looking for further information on the League's history should contact the director of the library and historical collections, which is what I did. I explained in my email that I was writing a biography of a legislator from Shamokin, Pennsylvania, who became a member of the League between 1894 and '99. However, I received an automatic reply explaining that the director is currently away from his office, and for immediate service I should contact the librarian. I then forwarded my message to there, and this morning received a message from the librarian saying she was going to forward the message to the archivist...well, after that, I received a very quick reply from the said archivist, who seemed eager to assist. I explained to her exactly what I was looking for, and am currently awaiting a response. Hopefully, this may turn up something. I get the impression that the League keeps very detailed records, so there should be some info.

Also, readers may have noticed that the category and tag system here has changed. Actually, I'm still in the process of reorganizing it, so you'd best be using the search engine for a while! I'm afraid I shall never be a good taxonomist. :)