Will you indulge me in a suggestion and a whine?

No pictures today. No inspiration. No fun. What?! No fun??!! Before you all run away, there might be a funny at my expense.

I have had a couple of things on my mind about blogging. Or reading blogs to be more specific. First, I’ll say I let the shop take over my life for the past couple of years and totally got out of the blogging habit. Reading and posting. You’ve seen me whine about that, swear to be more regular, etc. I took the month of January off from the shop and, among other things, tried to get back in the blogging habit. You know we’re told that if we do something so many days straight we’ve formed the habit. Maybe it’s working. I hope so ’cause I love blogging. I love seeing what you all are doing in your homes, shops and booths and what cool art you are creating. And I love sharing my life through my blog. Anyway, now that I’m making an effort to keep up the reading – and I have to keep my reader open all the time and catch your blogs as they come in or I get so far behind it’s too overwhelming, and Heaven forbid I’m away from the computer for a few hours – these two things kinda bug me. Please understand they’re not criticisms. We all enjoy reading blogs in our own way and who the heck am I to try to tell you what to do?! Nobody. That’s who. You have a right to have your blog just as you want it and I’ll keep coming back. But #1 can help and #2 is a personal preference that I share with a lot of people.

1. This one involves being able to comment. Most of you are Blogspot users. Nothing wrong with that at all. I think they’re some of the prettiest blogs out there and easy to use. But the default for comments only allows people who have Google accounts or a few other blogging platforms or – something – I don’t even understand what the other options are – these are the only people who can comment. That was a convoluted way to say anyone who doesn’t have a Google account or one of those other… things… can’t comment. We all love comments and there’s no reason to make it hard for anyone to comment. Most Blogspot bloggers don’t realize the default is set like this or that it’s a problem or that it can be changed. So. What to do? Go into your dashboard “Settings” and under “Comments” (I think), choose “Anyone can comment”. This allows those of us who host our own blogs and prefer to send folks there instead of our Google account which would then send people to our non-Blogspot blog, if they even bother after that, to comment using Name/URL. It also allows Grandma and Aunt Glenda, who only read your blog and aren’t interested in a Google account to comment either with their name or anonymously. Some people think not using these two options keeps out spam, and it might a little, but use Captcha or something to help with that. Usually when you see a comment that includes the person’s name and their URL inside the comment box, they’re not being self promotional. They’re just making sure people can get to their blog as easily as they can to the Blogger people’s blogs. Did any of that make sense?

2. And now my whine. Music on blogs. A lot of people enjoy music on blogs. A lot more don’t. Or maybe the people who don’t are more vocal about it. I’ve seen the surveys. Sure, you’re setting the mood. Sometimes I like your choice of music. Sometimes not. And those are the songs that get stuck in my head. LOL And do you realize we never get through the first song? Even if we’re reading the whole blog, every time we go to another page, the song starts over. But, aside from that, I have two problems. Even though I have DSL at home, it’s not as strong as it should be. Things like that can bog my computer down. But that’s OK. Not a biggie. I’m used to getting bogged down. And even if it doesn’t affect the speed, I’m probably watching TV while blogging. But again, I can mute the computer. No problem. But here’s a funny that has happened a couple of times to me lately. The store music comes through my computer. Now that I’m trying so very hard to keep up with you all, I’ll read blogs at work, too. So, I’m sitting there with the shop music going, start logging onto somebody’s blog, a customer comes in and before you know it, two songs are playing at once! I have to leave the customer and go hunt the place to turn off the music on the blog.

Am I suggesting you not use music on your blog? Not at all! Well, OK. Yeah. Maybe. Or think of it like this. My suggestion is to have the music player at the very, absolute, tip top of the sidebar. If you elect to keep it off, those who love to have the background music see it readily and can turn it on. If you keep it on, those of us who don’t need or want the music don’t have to frantically search for the player to turn it off.

Are you still with me? And not mad at me? Please don’t be mad. Or hurt. Who’s blog is it? Yours! Like I said. You do your blog the way you want to do it. I just wanted to raise awareness. I’m certainly not the first person to mention these things. AND… If I enjoy reading your blog, I’ll keep coming back. Music is NOT a deal breaker for me. I promise, I won’t think less of you if you chose to keep the music.

I’ll be away for the next few days. Way down in south Florida. Go ahead. Hate me. For that. Not the blog things. But it’s not a pleasure trip. It’s a sad, funeral trip. But I will be there long enough that hopefully I can hit a few thrifts. Is that tacky? Have I overspent my allotment of tacky tonight?

Published on: February 3, 2011