Pathetic huh? You don’t have to be a pro to realize– “This Is Seriously Out of Balance!” Last weekend, I had a strong urge to put down my online work completely, and really try to reconnect with my family.

The Day I Completely Sealed Away from Online Routines …
It was Father’s Day. My husband and I took a drive back to my parent’s. My mom greeted the door, welcomed us in. I gave my dad a big hug and wished him Happy Father’s Day. Then mom told me secretly – dad was baking (pic.1) just now! I thought that was cute ’cause very rare I would see my dad in the kitchen. So that’s how special occasions do to people huh. *chuckle*

We gave dad his presents — a very nice shirt (pic.2) and a piece of article (pic.3) I wrote for my dad. It was published on the newspaper a week ago. I got it trimmed, laminated, well-wrapped, as a surprise. While my dad read through the article, I saw a tear rolling down his cheek! He had never shred a tear in front of us as long as I can remember, then he told me, “this is one of the best gifts you’ve given me. You told the story well and I’m touched.” It was an emotional moment. We had a long chat with my dad. He told us the stories back in his teaching days and his specialty in woodcrafts, then he showed us the crafts he made from Belian Wood (pic.4). Pure art! Funny I used to play with them when little, but never knew!

Back to our place, I tidied up the house and waited for the gamers to arrive – my husband’s siblings. All 5 of us setup the network and all up for Need For Speed 2, Off Road Arena, even the classic game we loved so much – Serious Sam. So lots of yelling, laughing, screaming in the house. Felt rejuvenated!

Later, we all took a ride to my husband’s dad’s, and brought him a cake (pic.5). We chatted awhile, ate the cake, and hung out till 8pm then my husband and I left for supper before headed home.

What Prompt Me To Write This Post?
Not to be contradictory to the usual posting for Social @ Blogging Tracker, but to maintain a healthy relationship with our family (and friends) is vital. Family support has been the backbone to my blogging career, and I’m sure for most of you too. Do have ourselves constantly reminded — being occupied and busy, is never an excuse to ignore our family. While working hard on those postings, let us not take the loved ones for granted, instead make an effort to bond.

Inspirational Read: How I Work 2 Jobs, Blog & Still Find Time for My Wife & 6 Kids

Please Share With Us…
How do you handle your busy schedules between family and blogging?

Please Retweet if you like this post! Thanks. ^^

Copyright © 2009 by Wong Ching Ya, All Rights Reserved, “Family & Blogging — Who Comes First?“

**To get yourself an invitation code for Su.pr, follow @Stumbleupon and wait for the code. Be quick! I’ve waited 5 Days to get mine. **

StumbleUpon & Su.pr …

I’m not a 24/7 stumbler but if I lay my eyes on some great posts, I won’t leave without a stumble. The StumbleUpon toolbar made the process so much easier and effortless: I don’t have to log in every time when I need to stumble a page, it’s all there on the browser. Have been a fan since then.

I’m not sure how involved you are in StumbleUpon, but if you’re a dedicated tweeter, it would be impossible to miss those shortened URLs. Check out 6 URL Shorteners as Stat-Trackers if you still have a vague idea about them. To be a stumbler and a frequent tweeter at the same time, Su.pr provides a fantastic platform to handle postings not only to social media sites, but also submissions to StumbleUpon as well! How cool is that.

8 Features You Should Know About Su.pr…

Buckle up ’cause here we go!
1. URL Shortening; Post Scheduling on Twitter & Facebook

You could either ‘Just Shorten‘, ‘Post‘ it directly or ‘Schedule for later‘ posting to both Twitter and Facebook. User only needs to authorize the accounts as instructed to activate this feature.

Review:
In this context, Su.pr is similar to Hootsuite, but has a slight edge over it with Facebook integration. It would be a home run if Su.pr allows multiple Twitter accounts as in Hootsuite. This suggestion had been submitted so we will see how Su.pr respond to this request.

Also, you won’t be able to edit post in ‘Schedule for later’, except delete it.

Another great news is that Su.pr has solved the 302 redirects issue due to the Su.pr framing.Now, Su.pr is all about 301 redirects so.. Shorten Away!

2. Article Submission & Review Made Easy for Su.pr links

If the webpage is yet to be discovered by StumbleUpon, a ‘Thumb-Up Now’ image would appear next to your post. Stumble it or add a review with just one click away.

Review:
I’m impressed with such convenience. Upon hitting ‘Thumb Up Now’, a pop up browser will appear for you to fill up the page details with reviews (optional). A nice boost to page-stumbling while encouraging reviews from the stumblers. Plan to tweet your review? Sure, it’s well taken care of:

3. Click Stats

It records and displays the statistic of how many people have clicked the Su.pr link. Also, including :

a) Results showing in graph- optional for a time range of today, 7 days and 30 days. Stats are downloadable in CSV file.

b) Number of retweets and tweeter details

c) Top Traffic Sources for the link & StumbleUpon users who liked the page.

4. Promote Your Website

By clicking the ‘Promote Your Website’ button (or via ‘Setting‘) you could add at most up till 3 sites so your visitors could catch a glimpse on the promoted site(s) and its most popular content and number of views.
Review:
Think about the page impressions if you have thousands of followers. Even if you’re not owning any site/blogs, perhaps a support for some of your favourite sites with great stories to share. And the StumbleUpon frame works fantastically to suit your viewing pleasure with Stumble, Like/Share etc:

However, do make sure the promotion sidebar is not interfering your post viewing, especially for those who have the same right-aligned content layout as mine.

Another reason I love about this feature is the easy navigation to check on previous stumbles and reviews for my blog post. At least now I know who are the angels behind the support.

An in-depth graph depicting the total traffic of the page received over time is revealed once this feature is activated.

5. Suggested Posting Time

This helps to monitor your traffic while determines the best posting time for maximum traffic exposures.

Review:
IMHO, this may be an analytical source for your readers or followers. Which types of posts are suitable at certain time range? What are the readers’ behaviors towards it? When will your most likely visitor/stumbler be online? By combining the traffic source data, perhaps you could work out a focal timing for your social networking. A reader-type data base may be discovered from the statistic.

6. Self-customized URL shortener with Own Domain

Great news for webmasters! Now user can customize his/her own domain within the shortened URL. Since it’s StumbleUpon we’re talking about, chances are that the links will be discovered by other stumblers. It’s something that none of other URL-shorteners could provide.

Review:
I haven’t got the chance to test it out yet. Will update once it’s done. To get your own domain-customized shortened URL, some setups are required. Kindly refer to StumbleUpon official page for details.

7. Launching of API key

Developers or users are now flexible to work on integration of Su.pr with third party apps via API key.

Review:
This improved feature will attract more fans and extend Su.pr‘s performances. My little suggestion for Su.pr would be to incorporate its service with Twitter Desktop Clients. Surely it’ll boost up the usage tremendously.

8. Bookmarklet

Su.pr wouldn’t be complete without this feature. It’s now well fixed on my browser and ready to greet me with a drop down box anytime for a quick posting/shorten feature.

Best known as the prestigious site for promoting interesting web pages, StumbleUpon has indeed up its game this time. Seems to me it’s far more impressive comparing to Diggbar. With whole bunch of features mentioned above, it’s like getting the best of both worlds for stumblers/tweeters!

The only concern would be the issues revolving quality and self-submission from publishers, will StumbleUpon come out with a decent control system? Where’s the line to be drawn while submitting numerous URLs all of a sudden? Will such convenience leads to spamming?

While leaving the headaches to StumbleUpon, I’ll keep my optimistic view towards Su.pr for the time being. How do you find Su.pr? Do you think it will help your site to gain extra traffic from StumbleUpon? Kindly share your thoughts.

If you happen to enjoy this post, do subscribe via RSS Feed or email so you won’t miss the next post. Thanks for reading. ^^

Please Retweet if you like this post! Thanks. ^^

Copyright © 2009 by Wong Ching Ya, All Rights Reserved, “8 Features You Should Know About Su.pr“

What Is ‘Podcast’?

This is not new, but you NEED to know about Podcasting. The word ‘podcast‘ originated from the combination of ‘ipod’ and ‘broadcast’. Why ‘ipod‘? A thorough explanation could be found in wikipedia in case you’re interested. Basically, it is a form of audio broadcasting on a website. Think of it as a personal radio station, ranges from 3 to 45 minutes, or longer. Reasons to have Podcast within your blog post, are simply to create a personal touch for your content, while given an interesting alternative to connect with your readers.

Here are some readings to help you understand more about podcasting:

12 Ways to Promote Your Podcast
How Long Should A Podcast Be?
What is a Podcast and How Can I Use One?

Now let’s get practical.

How To Podcast?

Today, we are going to try 2 types of podcasting:

1. Text to Speech (TTS) Podcast from RSS feed
- literally from your article. Downloadable / Subscribable for iPod, iPhone etc.

2. Audio Speech from the author to the audiences
- embed within your blog post after edit & personalizing the content.

Text-To-Speech (TTS) Podcast:

We are going to use a very basic, FREE service named Odiogo. Reason?

- Allows podcasting with easy control panels (On/Off at will)
- Provides MP3 download for your podcasts.
- Blog Widgets available: convenient subscription for listeners
- Statistics on podcasts downloads (on a periodical basis)
- Hosting provided for audio files

How to Activate Odiogo Service?

1. Sign up at Odiogo for FREE by providing your blog URL/Feed and email address.

* Odiogo will send you a confirmation email with user ID, although it may take awhile to reach your inbox. I had waited for almost 20 minutes for it. If you have troubles getting your blog URL confirmed, do contact Odiogo using the form provided. *

2. Upon submitting your blog, you will be given the code for Podcast Subscription widget for your blog. Here are the step-by-step setup for different platforms: WordPress, Blogger, TypePad, BlogEngine.NET and Terapad

* Subscription will only be activated after you click on the link as instructed in the confirmation email*

3. Now you’ll find beneath each blog post a podcast marked with ‘Listen Now’.

Audio Recorder/Editor:

This is slightly complicated, but it gives the author flexibility to record and edit the speech content at will. A PC microphone is needed. Be
fore we proceed to the How-To’s, let’s check out the example of self-customized podcasting by yours truly. Forgive my silly tones and me being nervous and spontaneous:

My First Podcasting

1. Download the Audacity setup file here. I’m using Audacity 1.3.7 (Beta)

2. Run the setup file and adjust the settings before commencing your first recording.

* Here’s a thorough post about the settings for microphones, volumes and file formats at Create Podcasts Using Your PC by Jake Ludington.*

3. Now, it’s time for the recording. You may need to know some basic control buttons:

a. To Record Audio (only) Clip:
Make sure your microphone is intact; then hit the ‘Record’ button. ‘Stop’ when you’re done > Save Project As raw data so you could modify/edit/combine with other audio files later on.

b. To Save your Recordings in:
- WAV format:
File > Export > Edit Metadata > OK > File Name & Format (.Wav) > Save

- MP3 format:
File > Export > Edit Metadata > OK > File Name & Format (.MP3) > optional: Specify MP3 options > Make sure you’ve downloaded LAME to enable MP3s be created in Audacity.

c. To Include Background Music in your Audio Clip:
- Firstly, import the music file via: File> Import > Audio (or other related files)
- Then proceed as in (a) or (b).

d. Upload your Audio File to Self- or Third Party Hosting Sites:
Audacity does not provide hosting service. Here are some third party audio hosting sites you could choose from: Snapdrive , Archieve, Fileden etc.

* for self-hosting via WP platform, kindly refer to the Podcasting – WordPress Codex for details on the setup

Audacity requires self / third party podcasts hosting. Slightly complicated but flexible in adding multiple audio effects; personalized contents and comes in various file formats.

Now It’s Up To You…

Please Retweet! I’ll be forever grateful.

If you happen to enjoy this post, do subscribe via RSS Feed or email so yo
u won’t miss the next post. Thanks for reading. ^^

Copyright © 2009 by Wong Ching Ya, All Rights Reserved, “How To Create Podcast For Your Blog?“