Do you like to read news about Mexico? The News is an excellent daily paper in English. Most of the paper is on line, and if you wait until after 3 pm Mexico City time you can download a pdf of the entire edition.
I said I’d give an update on the peace walk in Mazatlan….well, it’s kind of a funny story. People were supposed to gather at the Fisherman’s Monument at 5 pm, with the walk starting from there at 6 pm and heading towards the Plaza Republica.
So, Paul and I headed down to the Fisherman’s Monument (maybe a mile) but no one was there at 6:05. We walked along Najera up to Serdan and walked along to Zaragoza (another mile I guess.) We didn’t see anyone who looked like a marcher, so we were thinking it had been called off. No police, or leftover candle stubs or anything.
By now we were about to expire from the walking in pretty much the hottest part of the day so we stopped at a tienda and bought cokes. Sat in the park on Zaragoza and drank our cokes. Paul’s hip has been bothering him lately and he decided he wasn’t up to continuing over to the Plaza Republica to see what was up.
I regret we didn’t go over there because as it turned out there were 2,500 people and they left EARLY, go figure. The local paper, the Noroeste, has a video of the march here. Live and learn.
As an aside, (two days after the peace march) this morning’s paper reports that a young couple and their 5 year old son were shot in their car in Mazatlan yesterday. The child has survived so far. We assume it is drug related, with the story of white pickup trucks, black pickup trucks and a Hummer, but it is pretty unsettling.
You can see from the picture above that the ginger is growing! I got inspired by LaGringa’s post, and am looking forward to my very own ginger farm!
While we are waiting for the permit from INAH, the historic preservation department, for permission to build the roof in the backyard, the guys are preparing to pour footings. They’ve cut out the cement where they need them and are putting all kinds of rebar, etc. there. They are going to pour the new slab over the existing, which will be the tiled area under the new roof. The rest of the concrete in the yard will be removed, but not right now. They can use the surface for mixing concrete, and since it is still rainy season keeping the slab until the last minute will prevent a muddy mess.
Paul and I read the Noroeste every morning without fail, our trusty dictionary by our side. Here’s something we read in the paper and have been chuckling about. Maybe it is our “new word of the day?”
Two kids, aged ten and twelve, stole a car here in Mazatlan. Somehow they started it with a spoon, the paper says. Here’s the funny part: “Los muchachitos iban zigzagueando por las calles, no sabían manejar bien, por eso los policías los vieron y es cuando les marcan el alto.” So now our favorite word is zigzagueando!
Brenda
September 2, 2008Quote: “Why is it when I comment on some Blogger blogs you have a check box for receiving follow up comments by email and sometimes it doesn’t?”
Depends on how the person has set up their blog, I think.
Gary Denness
September 2, 2008You can import your Blogger blog into WordPress. Personally I use Blogger because it is free. It is much better than the free version of WordPress, although the pay version of WordPress,as you would expect, has its advantages.
For writing blogs, have you tried the Scribefire extension for Firefox? (Have you tried Firefox?!) It’s a thing of wonder.
The tags you mention are meant to be there. The Compose mode is for WYSIWYG blogging. The Edit section allows you to add code yourself.
As for comments, I did try a while back to encourage people to try out Disqus (http://disqus.com/home/) which replaces the terrible ‘standard’ version (versions!) of Bloggers comments system with the Disqus comments system. It’s really pretty simple to add to a Blogger blog. Its three biggest features for me…
1. Threaded comments. You can reply to the post or a comment, and it will display like a forum thread.
2. Keeping track of comments! When someone comments on my blog, I get it in an email and can reply by email – it will appear as if by magic on my blog, in the correct place! I can also see all the comments I’ve made on other Disqus enabled blogs on my Disqus profile.
3. The comments section is embedded in the post with no annoying pop out windows. It looks nicer and has video comments available too.
Every Blogger blogger should make the change!
Nancy
September 2, 2008Brenda I have looked and looked, and I can’t see anything in the blogger settings. Some blogs don’t have the check box so when I go back to see further comments there it is. Weird.
Gary, Thanks for your comments. I don’t want to lose my URL so wordpress wouldn’t work for me. I even have my own domain but I just don’t want to change the address.
I downloaded Scribefire and it looks great. As soon as I think up another post I will try it.
I tried Disqus and must have done something wrong even though I followed the instructions carefully – my blog had NO comments for some reason so I reverted to the blogger commenting. I am usually able to work through this stuff but I threw in the towel maybe a bit hastily. I may try again.
Thanks!
Brenda
September 2, 2008Sorry I went back and looked and I guess what I was thinking of was the area where you get the comments emailed to yourself as the blog owner. My mistake.
Rambunctious Rambles
September 2, 2008I am new to blogger and wondered the same about image placement. Here are two links:
http://www.splitdecisionz.com/2008/03/image-placement-in-blogger.html
http://www.splitcoaststampers.com/forums/showthread.php?t=369618
I have followed your blog for some time now and you are in my blog list in the state of Sinaloa category.
Abrazos — Beto
Rambunctious Rambles
September 2, 2008Hola — Beto again
Here is another URL for images:
http://blogger-tricks.blogspot.com/2006/09/uploading-and-manipulating-photos-on.html
If you upload a “small” option image using the “none” placement option, you can copy and paste the image anywhere. Then you can resize by dragging a corner to maintain perspective to enlarge or reduce the image. You can drag by the side also, but you will lose the correct perspective, or whatever it is called. There is also a tutorial about edit HTML on this page.
The comment issue, I believe, is a setting attribute controlled by the blog, not the commenter. There is a setting to check, or un-check, to allow email follow-up.
If the blogger allows email follow-up, and the commenter is a Blogger blog blogger and is logged in, then you see the email follow-up box to check or not. Does that make sense? But I get your point. Your blog did not recognize me in my first comment and did not offer the check box. For this comment, it does recognize me and does offer the box.
The compose/Edit HTML issue ??
You should be able to toggle back and forth without causing a problem.
I have confined my HTML edits to using the HTML/Java gadget thingee. Now there is some professional language, right?
I hope this is helpful
Abrazos — Beto
Rambunctious Rambles
September 3, 2008Hola Nancy —
I have left two comments, which after further research, I would disregard. There are official blogger methods to use which will greatly help you.
Please email me and I will explain and provide you the needed links.
Abrazos — Beto
Beto’s Rambunctious Rambles
rambunctiousrambles.blogspot.com
rambunctiousrambles@gmail,com
Malcolm
September 5, 2008Um, paid version of WordPress? I think maybe Gary is thinking of Movable Type. WordPress is free, and it is awesome. Nancy, you can port everything over to it, use the real URL you bought, and then we could just set up a redirect from Blogger (I assume…will have to research that part). Then, people coming to your existing URL will get forwarded to your new URL.
Gary Denness
September 5, 2008I could have phrased the description of WordPress better. You have two choices, the WordPress hosted version which will cost you nothing (wordpress.com) and the self hosted version (wordpress.org) for which you’ll have to pay hosting fees.
It really depends what you want to do with your blog. The free WordPress has it’s own plugins but won’t allow you to add Javascript to your blog. It’s also not very customizable. You choose from a smallish menu of themes (compared to Blogger) and can only change the header image. That kills WordPress for me personally.
Malcolm
September 5, 2008Agreed, I wouldn’t go with hosted WP, either…but self-hosted WordPress is SOOOOO powerful, it’s sick. And what are we really talking? $2.99 for some webhosting somewhere? It definitely comes down to personal preference and wherever you’re most comfortable.
Nancy
September 5, 2008Guys, It looks like this might work for me – I am just so tired of how limited Blogger is.
http://laffers.net/howtos/howto-redirect-blogger-to-wordpress
What do you think?
Malcolm
September 5, 2008Yes Nancy…that’s exactly what *I* was looking at, too!
Malcolm
September 5, 2008Best thing about that, too, is that you can totally develop it on the side, at your own pace…and then just pull the redirection trigger when you’re good and ready.
One of my problems with Yolisto is that I don’t have a testing server set up for it, so I tend to develop for it live…which is a bad idea on several levels.
Michael F
September 6, 2008Thanks for the like to “The News”. I am hooked.
I’ve never ever heard of anything starting early! Maybe your watch was wrong? Maybe peace will start early.
Looking Forward to seeing your new and improved improvements.
WordPress isn’t all that either. It used to make me crazy with pic. placement as well.
Just got back from a nice canoe trip up here in Canada. Mosquito free! We zigzagueanoed around the lake most gracefully.
See you soon (Nov)
Gary Denness
September 9, 2008In Blogger’s defense, I really don’t think it is limited. It is an extremely flexible platform. The problem is that is hasn’t got the community that WordPress has, developing elegant and professional solutions. You can code Blogger to do pretty much anything you want to, but who wants to spend months learning how to do it? WordPress (esp self hosted)offers that flexibility is a far more user friendly fashion.
Nancy
September 9, 2008Gary, I think the thing about Blogger that I didn’t like was that in order to do separate pages for things you needed to create fake posts and bury them in the past which you then link to.
I had managed a couple of websites (using Frontpage, so you know I’m not too techy) and I just could never stand not being able to make real navigation.
I loved Blogger’s easy customization of the template colors and fonts. But WordPress has so many easy to use plugins and widgets and I have taken to the way it works right away.
I really appreciate your help – oh, and the self-hosted WordPress is free. All I have to pay for is my domain name and hosting.
Nancy
Gary Denness
September 9, 2008That is a downfall of Blogger, for sure. You can create Link Bars that look like pages, but they still go to posts. I know WP is free – I just referred to there being a WP hosted option which is totally cost free. How much did you get your hosting for btw? I’ve forever been surprised that more web hosts don’t do simple WP only hosting packages.
Although I insist on totally free these days! Hence Blogger. I used to have a web hosting account and all sorts of things taking a few dollars outta my account every month, but when I came to live in Mexico on pesos, I scrapped the lot. Almost – I do still pay for Flickr.
Blogging sure has come along way though! My first online presence was a hand coded effort back in….must be 1999. And it really looked hand coded!