Candidates' Communication Tools . . .

Thanks, fubiz.

How to subscribe to a blog...

I am going to attempt to teach you how to subscribe to my blog. Notice I said my blog but my tutorial will enable you to subscribe to all blogs or anything that has an RSS feed. Confused? Don't know what an RSS feed is? Well I didn't either until I watched a video on YouTube. You will thank me a thousand times once you master this simple technique.

First I have to ask you a few questions. How do you log on to my blog? Do you have a shortcut on your desktop? Am I listed in your favorites? Do you click on my blog often only to be disappointed that you have already read my current post? Wish you could be notified when I post something new? Well you could if only you had a Google RSS Reader.

A really cool dude from Common Craft will now teach you in a very easy to understand film.

Now wasn't that easy? I found a page on Google.com that has picture icons of all the products they offer. I couldn't possibly exist on the internet without a great number of these items. I am a Google Girl all the way! When the page comes up, look on the right side under communicate and click on the icon for the Reader.

Now I will teach you how to subscribe to MY BLOG in your reader. At the top of the page under SUBSCRIBE TO I have two boxes. Click on the one that says posts on the little arrow to the right and some choices drop down. I have no idea what the first few mean...just look for the little orange box at the bottom with the word Atom. Click on that. Then copy the URL in the address box at the top of your toolbar. Then paste it in the add subscription box in your reader. And there you are! Aren't you proud of yourself?

Still can't do it? Don't know how to copy and paste? We could never be friends! Just kidding ~ I will do it for you. Here is the URL: http://contentinacottage.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default

Now go and ask someone to teach you how to copy and paste. I read somewhere that if you don't know how, you should just put your computer and monitor out at the curb on trash day. Just bite the bullet and do it...it will make your on-line life so much easier.

PS...UPDATE: I just tried something new and it's awesome. When you click on my POST box a little icon pops up with a + sign and a Google box. If you click on that another box pops up that will enable you to put the subscription directly in your reader. Cool. I try to learn something new every day and just did! Please share your new-found knowledge with a friend.

My desktop is completely full!

This is a photo of my computer monitor taken just a minute ago. As you can see, it is completely full. Now I have to delete a whole bunch of computer shortcuts so I can add more. I am slowly adding links on my blog for many of my favorite sites...some are blogs; others are websites. These links are really bookmarks for me but hopefully my readers will enjoy them too. It is hazy, hot, and humid in New Jersey today. Looks like I will have to pretend that I am back in Alabama again! Enjoy your Saturday.

P.S. ~ I just noticed that my desktop theme matches my blog theme. This was not intentional but shows that I have always liked the dark gray background. I have had my totally awesome 21" HP f2105 monitor for almost two years. It is the best!

Blueberries for Breakfast

I ran out of yogurt so I put my blueberries on cottage cheese this morning for a nice summer breakfast. Yum. It is going to be a scorcher today so I am thinking cool. Actually I have yet to turn on my central air. I am amazed that I still have been able to hold out. The AC in my car hasn't worked for years and I spent a great deal of my childhood in the deep south so it's not that hard for me. I just pretend I am in Alabama. I was born in Georgia and moved to Alabama before my first birthday. We lived there through the third grade. Air conditioning hadn't been invented back then. Or at least if it had, I never experienced it. I still love a fan and have several vintage ones with the big grills that you can fit your fist through. I can still remember seeing how close I could get my fingers to the blades before cutting off part of a digit. It is a wonder children live to be adults.

Now are you ready to learn something very cool indeed? Have you ever wondered how people put symbols in their posts? Do you ever have to type something in a foreign language and need to put in an accent or other symbol? Do you get tired of writing the word cents and wish you could just put a cent symbol? Well...me too! For years I had to do it the hard way with html. Recently I did a Google search for Windows Alt Symbols and a fabulous cheat sheet came up on someone's blog. It listed 255 symbols you can get just by hitting the ALT key on your keyboard and while you are holding it down add a number or numbers using the Numpad. That's the part of your keyboard that looks like a calculator.

These all work perfectly in Microsoft Word but all of them did not work with the font I am using in this blog. Look here to see the chart. I keep a shortcut for this on my desktop and use it many times daily! Now I have to give credit to the Blog's author, Brown Thoughts. You might also want to bookmark another site that shows these symbols in another format...though some of the fun ones are missing. Enjoy and let me have your thoughts in the form of a comment or an email. Enjoy your day.

Lady's Mantle with Dewdrops

I love the way the dewdrops collect around the edges of my lady's mantle. I added the postage stamp border with a great free on-line photo editor called Picnik. I am off to recycling. Enjoy your Saturday.

Feel free to leave a comment if you are enjoying my new blog.
I would love to hear from you!

Fun with Photoshop Elements

This beautiful apple is from an antique natural history engraving dated 1806. I deleted the background and placed it on a one of my leaf studies. Nice, isn't it.

So much to learn.

Well, my first post was a disaster. I have to learn how to use Blogger, won't I? I wanted the picture to be under my post...not above it. And there is too much white space in between. I will try again. I really have to organize my photos so I can find them more easily too. I am going to add my logo to see if I can make it appear below this text.

That's better. Just what I wanted to do. Hooray! This is going to be harder than I thought.