Proud Teacher

Kinda like a grandparent is proud of the grandkids and wants to show pictures of them – that’s how I feel about these blogs. I didn’t have anything to with them, but my teaching did help in the ‘birthing’ process. Hmmm, does that make me a Blog-midwife? These two bloggers sent me emails this week with links to their blogs … so, I just have to show you.

Mike and Pat’s Blog. Mike used my videos to master the art of map-making!

Travels with Lucy included their first video this week! Odie is SO proud of you Lucy!

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Proud Teacher

Kinda like a grandparent is proud of the grandkids and wants to show pictures of them – that’s how I feel about these blogs. I didn’t have anything to with them, but my teaching did help in the ‘birthing’ process. Hmmm, does that make me a Blog-midwife? These two bloggers sent me emails this week with links to their blogs … so, I just have to show you.

Mike and Pat’s Blog. Mike used my videos to master the art of map-making!

Travels with Lucy included their first video this week! Odie is SO proud of you Lucy!

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Blogger vs. WordPress

WordPress is another, very popular, blogging platform. We teach people how to use Blogger because it is easier, but I like to keep checking in on WordPress so I stay informed on the alternatives. I just helped a friend get set up on WordPress and I’ll stick to my original assessment … Blogger is easier! I have my own blog on WordPress, http://www.wifisavvy.com/ and I find that I don’t post very often. That’s probably just because I’m lazy, but it’s also partly because I’m not very comfortable with the structure. My weekly post to the RV.net blog is also done on WordPress. It is certainly not difficult, but it’s clearly more difficult than Blogger.

So, why even consider WordPress? It has more features than blogger. You can create a complete website with multiple pages using WordPress.

There is one, very cool feature of WordPress that I had been meaning to try … you can import entries from other blogging platforms into a WordPress blog. I’m always looking for a way to back up this blog effectively, could this be the answer? I gave it a shot. It only took a few minutes to set up the account and the blog. I went into the management area and clicked on Import and chose ‘import from a blogger blog.’ After identifying my blogger account, I saw this blog listed – all 962 posts. Certainly it’s going to choke on this. Nope. It took about 15 minutes to import the whole thing. So, I now have a ‘mirror’ blog over on WordPress. How cool is that! You can check it out at odiesroadies.wordpress.com.

This method does not make a backup copy of the pictures, it just backs up the written posts, including the links to pictures. I teach another way to backup if your purpose is to be able to have your entire blog on a CD or some other offline backup. See my video on how to backup your blog.

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Hello world!

Welcome to WordPress.com. This is your first post. Edit or delete it and start blogging!

Diane beat me to the punch!

We had a great visit with Diane and Andy the other night, and I haven’t even gotten the pictures out of the camera yet. Diane has already posted about it to their blog! So, I’ll just refer you there. Thanks Diane!

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My Google Earth Video

“Hey Mikey! They LIKE it!” Remember that commercial? Well, I think people liked the Google Earth video I posted on the RV.net blog yesterday.

How do I know?

At the end of the post I suggest that people can see more video by visiting our website at GeeksOnTour.com. I checked my Google Analytics statistics page and see that visits to Geeksontour.com were double the normal number yesterday. hmmm – that last spike was exactly one week ago … and I post to RV.net every Thursday … interesting.

We also had a spike in Newsletter subscriptions yesterday. Instead of the 1-3 per day that come in when nothing is going on, we had 17. Cool! That brings our total to over 1300 now. The newsletter is free, but developing a following like that is what will enable us to charge small amounts for our videos and have it add up to something.

This spike in readers is still nothing like what we got when George mentioned us though. Speaking of George, we expect to see him next week as he passes through Miami on his way to Israel. I don’t know if we’ll recognize him without Ms. Tioga! He is leaving his motorhome in Mexico while he takes a trip to Israel for a few months. That George is such an adventurous guy.

Remember to use the shoutbox in the right sidebar if you have anything to say about this. It’s so easy. Just type your name or nickname, add your website or blog if you’d like, type a comment and click on ‘Shout.’

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My Google Earth Video

“Hey Mikey! They LIKE it!” Remember that commercial? Well, I think people liked the Google Earth video I posted on the RV.net blog yesterday.

How do I know?

At the end of the post I suggest that people can see more video by visiting our website at GeeksOnTour.com. I checked my Google Analytics statistics page and see that visits to Geeksontour.com were double the normal number yesterday. hmmm – that last spike was exactly one week ago … and I post to RV.net every Thursday … interesting.

We also had a spike in Newsletter subscriptions yesterday. Instead of the 1-3 per day that come in when nothing is going on, we had 17. Cool! That brings our total to over 1300 now. The newsletter is free, but developing a following like that is what will enable us to charge small amounts for our videos and have it add up to something.

This spike in readers is still nothing like what we got when George mentioned us though. Speaking of George, we expect to see him next week as he passes through Miami on his way to Israel. I don’t know if we’ll recognize him without Ms. Tioga! He is leaving his motorhome in Mexico while he takes a trip to Israel for a few months. That George is such an adventurous guy.

Remember to use the shoutbox in the right sidebar if you have anything to say about this. It’s so easy. Just type your name or nickname, add your website or blog if you’d like, type a comment and click on ‘Shout.’

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Lots of Writing

All of a sudden (so it seems) I’ve accumulated a whole lot of writing ‘jobs.’ I put jobs in quotes because most of them don’t pay anything! My writing job of keeping this blog has ended up in last place I’m afraid. And, I seem to believe that entries in this blog need to be non-work related. I don’t know why I’ve started following that path. I like writing about the computer help stuff. In the overview of this blog I write,

At first this was a ‘personal’ blog only. I used it like a journal, I wasn’t even sure I would tell anyone it was there. Well, maybe just family and close friends. Then, I wrote a little about the work we were doing. Hmmm, is this a personal blog or a business blog? I finally decided that it’s both. That is a great thing about our lives, we blend personal and business. We love what we do and we do what we love, and we write about all of it!

So, with this blog post I am re-deciding to write something about our vocation – Computer Education for Travelers, as well as our avocation – living and traveling via RV.

I just finished my latest Geeks on Tour newsletter issue with 3 articles. If you don’t already receive it, it’s free, but you need to subscribe. I always try to write 3 articles, I seem to have a ‘thing’ for the number 3

• Article #1 is about burning DVDs with Vista.
  Article #2 is about organizing pictures with sortable dates
  Article #3 is for beginners; reboot = #1 troubleshooting technique

I write every Thursday for RV.net’s blog. Last Thursday I wrote about how to make a map of visited states. If you want, you can see all the articles I’ve written for RV.net blog.

And last, but definitely not least (I actually get paid for this one!) I’m writing another article for FMCA magazine. If I can get it done soon, it may even make the July issue, just in time to promote the fact that we’ll be giving our seminars at the FMCA National Convention in St. Paul Minnesota.

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Emily’s Green Yard

In my last post, I commented how much I enjoyed the greenery here in S Florida. Emily’s yard really shows it off. She invited me, Jim, Mom, Chris L, and Richard over for dinner.

Emily has become quite an accomplished watercolor artist, winning many prizes at local shows, and even selling some paintings for $$!! Emily, we really must update your website! Here she is with a painting inspired by one of our photos from Big Bend.

But, the real work of art was dinner. Paella!

Thanks Emily!

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Emily’s Green Yard

In my last post, I commented how much I enjoyed the greenery here in S Florida. Emily’s yard really shows it off. She invited me, Jim, Mom, Chris L, and Richard over for dinner.

Emily has become quite an accomplished watercolor artist, winning many prizes at local shows, and even selling some paintings for $$!! Emily, we really must update your website! Here she is with a painting inspired by one of our photos from Big Bend.

But, the real work of art was dinner. Paella!

Thanks Emily!

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