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Tricia's Musings

Random Thoughts about life in general, living in the big city of Toronto

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Translate Tricia’s Musings!

October 18, 2007 by Tricia

I don’t know if anyone noticed one of the new features that I’ve added to Tricia’s Musings and As the Garden Grows yet, but both sites are now using the Google Translate plugin.

I decided to add this feature because I know that both sites have quite a few readers who’s first language is not English. I, of course, don’t speak most of the languages that my posts can now easily be translated into, so I’m not sure how beneficial translating my articles will be in the long run.

It’s worth a try anyway.

I know that translators work best when the author uses proper syntax, grammar and spelling. I try. I know my grammar isn’t perfect, but I do make an effort.

The Google Translator plugin can translate a site or posts into the German, Spanish, French, Italian, Portuguese, Japanese, Korean, Russian and Chinese languages. I wish there were also a Nordic language feature.

As I’ve mentioned many times over the last few months this site will soon have a new look. It will happen soon!

None of my husband or I’s blogs currently use widgets. That’s about to change. I haven’t been using widgets because many of the codes that I use in my sidebars just didn’t work well in Widgets. I’ve known about a plugin called PHP-Exec for a while now, but it’s never seemed to work well for me.

I’ve recently discovered a similarly named WordPress Plugin called Exec-PHP and it works! Even better – it’s easier to use than the other plugin. You don’t have to wrap PHP code in another code. You just activate the plugin and tada you can use PHP code in your posts (in code mode) or in your widgets.

I stayed up quite late last night working on widgetizing my gardening blog on a test blog site. It was necessary to use the Exec-PHP plugin in order to use widgets on that site. Later this evening I’ll work on transferring the contents of my test widgets over to my gardening blog and it will officially be the first blog of ours that is fully widgetized.

I’m sure I’ll move quickly and use widgets for all of our blogs sidebars.

The great thing about using widgets on your wordpress site is that if you want to change your theme you can do so very easily as long as you pick a theme that is widget ready as your sidebar widgets should transfer over to the new theme quite nicely.

This theme is not widget ready at all. In fact the code used to make up the sidebars is very outdated coding indeed. It uses tables instead of unordered lists. Tables … that’s partly why this site takes a little longer to load than it should! So yes, a theme change is necessary.

So watch for the changes in our blogs and in the meantime if those of you who speak one of the languages that this site can now be translated in can give the translator a try I’d appreciate it. I’d love to know if the translations make sense! The translator buttons are located in the top left sidebar.





Filed Under: Blogging, Cool stuff, Internet, The Blogisphere, Web and Technology, Wordpress, Wordpress Plugins, Writing Tagged With: article, articles, As the Garden grows, blog, blogs, google, husband, PHP plugin, posts, site translation, sites, translate, translate plugin, Wordpress

Great daily reading at The Foo Logs

October 15, 2007 by Tricia

foo.gif Have you ever visited The Foo Logs? If you hang out at my pal Fab’s site, Pointless Drivel, you’ve probably encountered The Foo from time to time and might have even already visited his blog.

The Foo likes to blog about a number of topics, but the main topics of the blog are Tech trends & life’s ramblings. I guess this blog is a little like The Foo’s in some ways as I tend to write about those two topics quite often as well.

If you believe in Karma there’s an excellent post up right now called What Goes Around, Comes Around. It’s a true story and I’ve heard it before, but it’s a classic. The story will make you believe in Karma if you don’t already!

Then there’s a post that I think most everyone might find helpful at one point or another.

Do you ever tinker with your sidebar widgets trying to find a color that matches your blog themes colors? Perhaps you don’t want to change your websites theme, but want to spruce it up by changing the color of the links or other areas?

Well, I’m sure you’ve encountered some sites that offer very limited colors for you to choose from when you are customizing a widget. You often have to know what the actual code is to create the color you want. Well, The Foo, was frustrated with sites like this and the time it took to find the right colors so he went ahead and created a page with a table of color swashes as he calls it.

Check out The Foo Logs. As I said, if you like this site you’ll probably enjoy The Foo Logs as well. The posts are a mix of humor, life and some really great tech finds that might help you with your own website or blog.

Filed Under: Blogging, Cool stuff, Entertainment, Great Reading, Home and Lifestyle, Humor, Linky Love, Recreation, Web and Technology Tagged With: blog, Blogging, change, color, color swashes, color swatches, content, custom, frustrated, funny posts, help, Humor, Karma, life, Life ramblings, Pointless Drivel, post, posts, rambling, read, site, Tech, Tech Trends, The Foo Logs, visit

In the last 36 hours I’ve spent a LOT of money!

October 4, 2007 by Tricia

Ahhhh!

I was just adding up my receipts and in the last two days I’ve spent a lot of money.

My most expensive purchase was of course my husband and I’s trip to Las Vegas in November. I booked us a hotel room for three nights and paid for return flights. I think I got a fairly good deal at the cost of about $1700. Of course I’d be a whole lot happier if that were several hundred dollars cheaper.

You see, my husband and I are going to the Blogworld convention and also attending P0stieCon. I expect to have a lot of fun meeting bloggers that I’ve only known through talking with them on the Internet, learning how to blog better and how to be more successful at monetizing our sites.

It will also be my husband and I’s first trip to Las Vegas so we’re excited to see the city too. The trip is only two weeks after our 13th wedding anniversary too so if we can we’ll do something special just for us too. (Like win some money at the Casino??? 😉 )

Since we’re going to a blogging convention I figured that if they provide Wi-Fi at the convention I’ll probably have my laptop with me and might even do a bit of live blogging while at some of the conferences. So the next big purchase was a 12 cell battery for my laptop. It came with a 6 cell lithium that has never held it’s charge for more than an hour or hour and a half when unplugged. So I hope the new battery will give me at least 3 or more hours of unplugged time.

I believe they are supposed to last even longer than that, but whether I’m plugged in or not I’ve always got two browsers and my email program open so perhaps that eats up the resources.

Other expenses … well … as you know I’ve been stuck at home sick for almost two years. Many days I don’t even go outside into my lovely garden let alone work in it so I’m terribly out of shape.

I’ve gained a bit of weight due to my inactivity. Nothing too bad as it’s very hard to become drastically overweight when one has Crohn’s, but enough that I can feel it. Also, the lack of exercise has caused me to lose a lot of muscle tone. I can really feel it when I get outside in the garden to do some work or even when Chris and I go out shopping or do other things around town and I must walk around for hours.

My pain doctor is always telling me to get outside and walk each day, but after the two very nasty falls I had last year I’m hesitant to go for much of a walk on my own and with my husbands shift work I can’t always count on him to have the energy or time to go out walking with me. So walking outside is not really in the cards for me right now. My falls were caused by either my innate clumsiness and or the fact that I sometimes get dizzy when I walk around. I’m not walking alone. Sorry.

So the next best thing to help me perhaps loose a little weight over the next month, but most definitely tone up my muscles, was to get some exercise equipment in the house.

So last night when Chris came home from work we went out and I bought one of those exercise balls and and some of the hand held sand weighted balls that go with the ball and pilates type of exercise routines.

I also bought an elliptical trainer. I’m sure my knees will whine when I start using it, but since my muscles are out of shape and due to this darn Crohn’s my knees are already whining.

So I guess I’ve spent about $2,700 or so in the last day and a half. We bought other things last night too and that’s why last nights spending ended up being close to $1000 but the bulk of the money spent in the last 36 hours has all had to do with our upcoming Vegas trip.

Just wait until I go clothes shopping!

Hey, I want to have fun while I’m there and I know getting in a little better shape will give me more stamina and boost my self confidence too. Hey getting my muscles toned up might even lessen some of that klutziness that I was born with too. Gawd only knows I don’t want all my fellow bloggers to see me “Pull a Trish” as my acts of clumsiness are fondly known in these parts.

Oh and I almost forgot. Our muffler. Well the cars manifold had a hole in it for the last year, and Chris only got it half fixed a few months ago. We still had that bad muffler noise. So on Monday he took the car in and had the muffler replaced so add that to our spending spree too! Argh.

So wish me luck in my effort to look and feel a little better for my November trip! Those of you who meet me can let me know if my efforts paid off or not.

Oh and if anyone wants to contribute to the “Trish depleted her bank account fund” well … go right ahead. LOL

Filed Under: Blogging, Chronic Pain, Health Fitness and Beauty, Home and Lifestyle, Home Decor, Inflammatory bowel disease, Life with Chris, Money, Recreation, Shopping, Vacation and Travel Tagged With: account, balance ball, bank, bills, blog, blogger, bloggers, Blogging, blogging convention, Blogworld, car, Chris, clumsiness, crohn, deal, doctor, eat, elliptical trainer, email, energy, exercise, fall, fun, garden, get in shape, help, home, hotel, house, husband, inactivity, Internet, klutz, knees, laptop, laptop battery, lose weight, Money, muscle tone, muscles, nasty falls, new battery, pain, Pilates, program, shop, Shopping, sick, spend, spending money, trip to Las vegas, vacation in Las Vegas, Walking, Wedding anniversary, work

Join AutionAds and instantly get $25!

October 4, 2007 by Tricia

I’ve been using AuctionAds on my blogs pretty much since Auction ads started up in March, 2007.

Do you see the widget in my right sidebar? About a third of the way down? There’s photo’s of items and it says “Current Bid $” below them? Well that’s how I’m using AuctionAds on this site.

You can create vertical or horizontal widgets to use on your site. You can use them in posts, pages or in your sidebars if you’d like. It’s very easy. Plus, once you sign up you not only instantly get $25 added to your account immediately, but you are also automatically entered into their referral program so that anyone that signs up via your link gains you a referral.

You pick the keywords that fit with your site, article or post and AuctionAds finds products on Ebay that are being sold that fit the keyword descriptions.

For example, I just quickly created a widget that would display ipods, digital cameras or cellphones and this is what my widget looks like:

So what are you waiting for? Try AuctionAds Today!

BTW anyone who signed up, but hasn’t earned anything is apparently getting $25 added to their account too, so check your accounts! and yes, all my links are affiliate links. I’d love it if I could refer you and help you start making some money too.

Note – I’m only posting this to make you aware that you can get a free 25 bucks for signing up. This is not a paid post.

Filed Under: Affiliates, Blogging, Cool stuff, Make Money, Sales and Marketing, Web and Technology Tagged With: ActionAds, affiliate, blog, blogs, camera, cell phone, color, Digital, digital camera, earn money, Ebay, help, instant 25 dollars, links, Make Money, Money, posts, Products, program, recent auctions, widgets

Moody

October 3, 2007 by Tricia

Wordless Wednesday

trees at beach

I feel bleak, cold, gray ….

Sorry. I haven’t posted for a few days because I’ve been very sick.

I’ve had fevers high enough to melt the little pads off my mouse (that make it glide easily) when I lie on my side on the couch looking at my laptop computer. Now that’s hot.

Just as I was about to start posting on Tuesday afternoon I looked at the stats for several of my sites and discovered that some very hypocritical elite bloggers had made a post about my gardening blog. My first post after my illness imposed blogging break was a rebuttal on my gardening blog against hypocritical bloggers.

So yes this old picture of trees in early spring that I took at Toronto’s beaches a few years ago reflects how I’m feeling right now.

Sad. Angry. frustrated. Bleak …

Filed Under: Blogging, Health Fitness and Beauty, Home and Lifestyle, Inflammatory bowel disease, Photography, Toronto, Wordless Wednesday Tagged With: angry, Art, beach, blog, blogger, Blogging, cold, computer, couch, fever, garden, Gardening, hot, ill, illness, laptop, my sites, photo, picture, post, posting, sick, spring, the beaches, Toronto, Toronto beach, Wordless Wednesday

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