The Fat Chronicles

Blog Name: The Fat Chronicles

URL: http://fat-chronicles.blogspot.com/

Description: Follow me on my journey as a fat woman as I embark upon the road to gastric bypass and thinness. I tried every diet known to mankind and decided that weight loss surgery was the only option left to try.

Email Experiments

I usually just add /removethis/ to my email address to confuse the spambots. This works but it can confuse people too. I redid the email link in the "Submit Your Blog" post using one of the anti-spam generators I mentioned in my last post.

I also added an email graphic to the sidebar to help people contact me. I made it using the E-Mail Icon Generator.

Fun Blog Tools

There are a number of blog tools that can be fun to play with. They either make blogging easier or they provide some amusement when you visit blogs.

Putting your email on your blog or profile allows readers to contact you. It makes you more approachable but also attracts spambots and spam is not fun. Pingoat has some cool anti-spam generators to protect your email thus allowing you to concentrate on the fun aspects of blogging.

Here is a screenshot:



Sometimes you may want to learn more about a blog. Technorati Blog Info is a browser toolbar button you can click on to find information about many of the blogs you visit.

Have you ever wondered how popular your blog is? Social Meter scans the major social websites to analyze a webpage's "social popularity". It is a fun way to get find out what is being said about your blog.

The final item I want to present shows how much your blog is "worth" based on the number of links it has. Hmmm, looks like BBD has to grow a little before I can retire.

My blog is worth $6,209.94.
How much is your blog worth?

Happy blogging!

Technorati Etc

I just claimed this blog in Technorati using "Post Claim". Now it appears in my Technorati Profile. I also some a button-links to the blogs/groups I support.

I like the Add This "Bookmark" button I added to the template. I do find it changes the look of the blog a little. The white areas become more noticeable. I will have to experiment some more.

Spurl Hit With DoS Attack

I was researching Social Bookmarking services this morning and found that Spurl had suffered a Denial of Service attack.

This is what was on their website tonight:

We are currently forced to offer reduced functionality due to heavy spam attacks. The lists with New and Hot spurls are therefore disabled until further notice.
Our apologies for the inconvenience.

I get tired of the spammers attacking websites. It makes it harder for legitimate users. When stricter controls are enforced innocent people can get mislabeled as spammers.

Search Google Using Blogger Labels

I like finding interesting blogs to read and I frequently visit Blog Search or Google Blog Search. These sites are great when keywords are used but they don't support searching by Blogger labels yet. I have found a way to search the Internet using Blogger labels.

Searching with labels in a (beta) Blogger blog takes one to a page called "Showing posts with label blogging." (for example).



Since this is a web page it is searchable in any search engine. You need to use "advanced search" and search for the exact phrase.



Here is an example from Google using "posts with label blogging".

This method doesn't work with every label. The following labels confuse search engines: my starred bbd blog labels (*search for example), #, and 0-9. Since these are only used in BBD that isn't a problem.

Music For Blogs

Fandalism is a great place to find music for your blogs. The selection is a bit sparse yet but there is a lot of variety. (via)

I heard it from Adele by Trevor Jackson

Share and vote on music Fandalism Music Community

I added another song to the sidebar at Braindance. Check that out for layout ideas.