The Blog Studio

There’s been quite a bit of buzz about Google Buzz since the rollout this week. Terrible puns aside, we’re always curious to try out the latest, and possibly greatest tech toys and social media tools. Google Buzz is no exception, and we couldn’t wait to get our grubby mouse pointer all over it.

Because we’re special, important and extremely good looking, The Blog Studio team noticed Buzz pop-up in our Gmail accounts late Tuesday afternoon, so we’ve had a bit of time to take it for a test drive. The easiest way to explain Buzz, which I’m sure Google will hate, is that it’s a built in Twitter for your Gmail account. It also offers quite a bit of integration with many social media platforms, bringing them all into one easy to manage place. Buzz offers you the option to follow and be followed by the people you Gmail with. While this isn’t anything special, it is nice to use a new service that you don’t have to invite your friends to. If you’re a heavy Gmail user, your contacts are already in place. You don’t have to chase down your contacts and convince them to sign up for something new. It’s been a while since we’ve experienced that luxury.

You’ll notice a multi-colored balloon under the inbox icon in your Gmail account, which is the Buzz button. When you click the button, you’re brought to a screen that is aesthetically familiar to most Google users. You’re offered the option to use your Google Public Profile as your Buzz profile, or you can create a new one. Next, you’ll see your photo icon, with a comic book like speech bubble coming out of it. This is where the action happens.

You can type a random thought snippet, similar to Twitter, or post a picture, video, or a link. You have the option of sharing this information publicly, with your followers, or keeping it completely private. The interface is nice, and it definitely has that Gmail snappiness to it. It feels very solid right out of the gate.

Look down the page a little farther, and things start to get interesting. You’re given the option to connect other social media sites you participate in. This very simple interface allows you to link up your YouTube, Blogger, Flickr, Google Reader and even...your Twitter account to Buzz. It works like a charm. I imagine over time, Google will begin to offer support for more and more services as the number of Buzz users increases. Whenever you update one of your other social media sites, your buzz followers will see that update in their stream. It’s a social media catch all. There’s a mobile, location based sharing feature as well with features similar to Foursquare.

Google has managed to bring your entire online life into one place, with no hassle and no fuss. It’s just there. It’s like Friend Feed on steroids with great UI. You can comment on the updates of the people you follow, ‘Like’ their updates a la Facebook, or email that person, all from the same screen. In the short time we’ve been playing with Buzz, we can already say it’s extremely convenient. If you spend a lot of time in Gmail as it is, you now have access to all of your other social media networks right from your inbox. That’s a timesaver as well as a powerful sharing tool.

We haven’t really scratched the surface of all the features and potential uses for Buzz. Hey, it’s only been 48 hours, give us a chance! It’s too early to make any predictions, but we’re betting Buzz is hugely popular in the very near future. With so many built in Gmail users, and the simple to understand interface, Buzz may be what brings microblogging to the masses. We will say this: for hardcore social media geeks, Buzz is a convenient way to ride herd on all the accounts you have. What does everyone else think so far? Leave us a comment and let’s discuss. 

Isn’t it great that something so simple and beautiful as words can make such a lovely little art piece.

This image was created using Wordle – I noticed it on a clients site and just thought it was so pretty I had to try it out for The Blog Studio domain.

Wordle generates word clouds based on words you enter, url’s or tags through del.i.cio.us.

Email sucks. Ranging from a torrent to a trickle, it brings a never ending series of chores directly to my inbox. The chores themselves are not the problem. Managing them is. I’ve found an effective routine for doing just that.

This routine is based on the key principal of doing as little as possible. I am not in the business of managing email. I am in the business of building great websites for great clients. Anything that distracts from that takes me away from my purpose.

Principals

I did not sit down and think through the following principals. However they are the key underlying reasons other email management techniques have not worked for me in the past. This new routine embraces these, and thus, works beautifully for me.

The fear of not knowing is the root of all fear. That which lurks forgotten in the pit of an inbox causes fear, stress, and mental noise.

My time is mine. Nothing is more precious than my attention. I cannot possibly respond to all the requests for that attention. That is not my problem.

Act only when it’s necessary. Assign my attention to an issue when it is time for that issue to be handled. Minimize the number of times an issue must be brought before my attention.

Use the power of my tools to work for me. Use search tools to draw out the information I need, when I need it.

Software Used

This routine uses a couple of Mac specific programs. There are Windows equivalent programs that Google can help you find.

• iGTD
• Mail.app
• MailTags
• MailActOn
• * gMail

Workflow

Mail comes in to Mail.app and is run through a series of rules. Email from my workmates is coloured red. Email from basecamp goes into a specific folder. Certain cron jobs generate a ton of mail, and those too go into specific folders. The goal here is to minimize the number of messages hitting the inbox, and to make those that need my attention more obvious.

Going through my inbox, I use four options to deal with each message:

• respond right away, then move to archive using my MailActOn key combo
• hit F6 to send the message to iGTD
• send directly to archive folder for possible future reference
• delete it

See what I’m doing? I take anything email that requires action and either respond to it immediately, or move it out of Mail.app and into my action manager, leaving my inbox free of unknowns and hidden job bombs.

Once in iGTD, I can assign the email a priority, a due date, add notes and files, and link it to a project. Everything I need to do is kept in one place. iGTD imports the content of the email, and better yet, links directly to the message, regardless of where in Mail.app it’s stored. This gives me single click access to the original message

iGTD will in turn sync my actions with iCal, which can in turn sync with my portable device du jour.

I lean heavily on Mail.app’s search function to help me find specific messages from my archive. While this is occasionally tedious, it’s much less so than organizing thousands of messages into an ever growing tree of nested folders. It’s possible to save searches as smart folders if you need to access the same group of emails more than once. Just save the search, then trash it when you’re done.

Summary

This routine is fast, dependable, and clean. It requires the minimum of thought, and more importantly, puts all my actions into one container. I have the ability to prioritize my responses, and even set due dates. Keeping my inbox empty is simple and automatic. I hope you find this useful.

Uploading Images to your blog post is a basic but essential technique to add visual impact to your content.

Search your blogging software for an image upload feature. This is generally the simplest and most straight forward way to add images to your site.

One alternative is to sign up for an account on flickr, store your images there and then post to your blog.

Here are a few links that will help you depending on which content management system (blogging software) is being used.

WORDPRESS

When using wordpress: you can go to the following link to learn all about using images and file attachments.

http://codex.wordpress.org/Using_Image_and_File_Attachments

EXPRESSION ENGINE

In Expression Engine if you’d like to Post photos from your flickr account, here are a few links to the step by step process:

http://www.pmachinehowto.com/index.php/weblog/info/howto-ee12-post-photos-from-my-flickr-account/

Here is how you upload photos to your post when using Expression Engine:

http://www.bkdesign.ca/ee2/index.php/blog/comments/photos-and-expresssion-engine/

MOVABLE TYPE

Here is a link to guide you through uploading images through Movable Type:

http://www.bkdesign.ca/movable-type/photos-and-movable-type.php

TYPEPAD

Here is a link to guide you through uploading photos using Flickr with Type Pad:

http://support.typepad.com/cgi-bin/typepad.cfg/php/enduser/std_adp.php?p_faqid=276

Adding photos to your blog post can also be spruced up by adding borders and or design elements to your pictures. Stay tuned for tips and tricks on how to make this happen on your blog.

What’s the point of a recent posts list? That’s the question I asked in a post a few days ago. If your blog page lists 10 posts, why list those same 10 post titles on the sidebar?!? (this is a pet peeve, can you tell?)

Now, let’s say you’re listing 10 posts on your blog. If your recent posts listed the next 10 posts – ie the next batch of posts that had “fallen off” the home page, you’d be listing something of value.

Here’s a very brief overview of how to make your recent posts list more useful. As an aside, it’s also an insight into the difference between WordPress and Expression Engine

If you’re using Expression Engine, it’s very easy. In the Templates section of the control panel, find the template for your sidebar (or wherever the recent posts list lives). Look for the bit of code that says something like

All you need to do is add offset=”10” (within the curly brackets) to the code above, and you’re set.

If you’re using WordPress, it’s a bit trickier. Look in sidebar.php (or footer.php, if your recent posts list is in the footer) for the bit of code for your list. How that code looks may differ according to who coded the template you’re using. Once you locate the code, replace it with the following:

This little example highlights one of the core differences between Expression Engine and WordPress. In WP, you’re working directly with the guts of the system. It’s messy, but also very powerful. Expression Engine by contrast, hides a lot of the background code that goes into making a site work. By no means is it less powerful though – you can use raw php in your EE templates.

Hopefully this gives you a bit of insight into changing your recent articles list from duplicating the info already on the page to something more useful. If you have specific questions about how to accomplish this using your blogging platform, leave a question in the comments, and I’ll try to get the answer for you.