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Jun
09
Put RSS On Your Blog
Frustrated with all the dead end searches in trying to figure out how to put RSS on your site? I was. It seemed that all the searches were either telling me how to pick up someone else’s RSS to read, or was a lengthy article explaining all the boring technicalities about what RSS is, not how to put it on my blog. You already know that you want RSS on your blog and it will help your traffic. So when I finally figured it out, I decided I would chronicle my stupidity and give you the short answer on RSS.
First of all, if you are using WordPress.com, or Blogger, your RSS tag is probably already there. Duh. Most of WordPress.com themes include it as part of the template, or you can ‘plug it in’ . On Blogger, at the bottom of your blog page, if you see a “xml” icon, then you have a version of it. If you want a pretty orange RSS icon at the top of your blogger blog anyway, Feedburner makes it extremely easy to generate the html, and then you just put it in ‘Add html or javascript’ (NOT ‘Feed’) in the ‘Add Elements’ part of the ‘Design’ area. Then, just move your elements around so it’s at the top. *see note at end of post
If you are on WordPress, Become a Blogger tutorial #10 shows you how to get your RSS feed from Feedburner and put it on WordPress. There is also another site on toprankblog.com that creates the html you need for a large variety of RSS buttons. Be sure to watch the video at becomeablogger.com before you start anything, it’s a lifesaver…well, at least a time saver!
Feedburner is now owned by Google, and has some great tutorials designed for beginners, according to what type of blog you may have (Blogger, WordPress, TypePad, etc). You can learn everything you need to know – and you NEED to know this – here.
RSS video tutorial
Feedburner
Jun
06
My Vision for this blog….(aka Our Story)
This is your traditional ‘Welcome to my blog’ first post. The first post is always the hardest, not sure why that is but I have a feeling that I won’t be at a loss for words.
So, I would like to share with you my vision for this blog. Homeschooling has changed a lot since 1989 when we started homeschooling our 11 year old daughter. Actually, we tried to start in 1983 when Rachael’s kindergarten teacher (Calvary Christian Academy in Denver, CO) told us that due to her ‘precociousness’, she would do much better in a home school situation! I really wasn’t sure how to take that, but being somewhat of a 60′s throwback turned newborn Christian, I found the unconventional idea of homeschooling intriguing. However, at the time we were “professional” foster parents for an unwed mothers home and the administrators of the program did NOT like the idea at all. I guess they thought the young mothers might want to try it themselves or something.
Homeschooling is so much more accessible now, with abundant support available in almost every capacity, more curriculum choices than we know what to do with and last, but certainly NOT least-the internet! You could almost design an entire curriculum from online resources alone.
Aside from all the wonderful changes that the early homeschoolers didn’t have, there is one thing that hasn’t changed at all. The homeschool family’s finances, or lack thereof. It is a rare family that successfully homeschools without one parent staying home full time with the children. Homeschooling is definitely a full time job!
Our economy is geared around a two income household, which makes surviving on one income very difficult for the majority. Not that it can’t be done, and done well, I personally know many that have taken up the challenge enthusiastically, but I know more families that struggle with it immensely.
We were one of those families that struggled with it immensely, and found our solution in a variety of home business endeavors. Finding ideas and resources were scarce and scam awareness was not in my biological data base. As a result, over the last 20 years I have researched 100′s, if not over a thousand various ways a homeschool family can make money and maintain a respectable homeschool at the same time.
One day a friend was over and we were looking at an article on “How to Choose Your Perfect Business” and one of the questions was, “What do you know the most about?” While I was musing over the last 20 years of homeschooling, playing ‘soccer mom’ and all the other mini businesses that I had run, my friend pops up with my long sought answer: “Your perfect business is finding home businesses!” I was always coming up with new ideas, or new takes on old ideas, and actually, was probably almost annoying at my constant obsession with finding another “new” idea that could solve someone’s financial woes, but now I finally began to see how God might be able to use those countless hours searching every knowledge source I could lay my hands on.
All that to say is my vision for this blog is to put in print all the possible ideas and resources for homeschool families to make money at home while still keeping up with the kids’ home school. Part of the solution also lies in teaching your kids to start their own business and make it part of their everyday school. But that’s another website, and would love to have you stop by HomeSchool-Entrepreneur.com sometime and say ‘hi!’.
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Jun
06
Is Twitter for the birds?
I recently signed onto Twitter as part of an experiment called the ‘Black Ink Project’ and my first impression wasn’t good. It seems like such a trivial pursuit, telling people that you’re ‘brushing your teeth now’, or ‘going to bed, good night!’ and if you use it for that it most definitely IS for the birds…or you have way too much time on your hands!
However (you knew that was coming, didn’t you?) I have spent the last 2 days ‘twittering’ getting the hang of it, and using it in a way that I’ve never used a social network before. Being a homeschool mom with over a dozen blogs and websites (all in need of something!) 5 grandchildren that live locally, a son getting married in 2 months and a disabled husband, I definitely don’t have time for chit-chat. I do have a Facebook account, but mostly just to stay connected with another son that is in college, and I’ve never really gotten the hang of it.
The two days on Twitter has shown me a new dimension of online networking that I have read about but never really embraced. Your comments on Twitter are limited to 140 characters which is extremely challenging to someone like me, but I’m getting the hang of it quickly. It’s fun to watch and read what goes on, sort of like watching a merri-go-round, only on fast speed. Of course, it depends on the kind of people you are watching (following), but I’ve gotten a glimpse of a different world, and learned many new (business-related) things!
The jury is still out on this new twitter-thing, anyone else have experience on it? Even tho I’ve enjoyed what I’ve learned and experienced so far, doesn’t mean it’ll be a long term thing for me and time will tell if it’s worth the extra time over the long haul.
My twitter ID is homeschoolbiz – check it out, maybe we should start a homeschool network on there?
Be sure to say ‘hi!’
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