Where Do You Find Blog Inspiration?

February 10, 2010 by Kathy Drewien · View Comments
Filed under: Social Business - Strategy & Networking

fear of being real

This morning I shared in our Team Meeting, “reading is a great inspiration for blogging.”

A catchy headline here.
A top 10 list there.
Perhaps a sign on a butcher shop.
Thumbing through magazines in the checkout line.
Bumper stickers during your commute.

Inspiration is free floating. We need only become aware.

Tonight, after everyone else went home; when the chaos and hubbub of the day was washed away by quiet solitude, I read.

A blog post by Chris Garrett caught my attention. The post explored the personas and pseudonyms we often create when developing online connections for the first time. There are certainly good reasons to maintain privacy, and yet blogging demands your writing to be real.

By being an authentic you there is much more potential for creating real connections with people, and through these connections opportunities and friendships. If you are faking it then you will either be found out at worst, or at best be unable to have great face to face meetings and successful joint projects.

Real people rock. If anything, I would always rather meet an imperfect human being than a fake robot. Be proud to be you, mistakes and all.

It is our “realness” that forms bridges between people.

What do you think? Do you feel you have to hold back on your personality? Does comparing yourself to others hold you back? Please share your thoughts… I’m listening.

Photo Credit: Tiago Ribeiro

How High Is YOUR Bar Set?

February 4, 2010 by Kathy Drewien · View Comments
Filed under: Social Networking

The excerpt below is from Mack Collier’s blog.

The post struck a chord with me tonight as I reflect on our day, our week and my new journey in Community Sherpa.

I share it with you as an example of a good blog post:

A strong headline draws me in with an open-ended question
A compelling story evokes emotion and triggers personal memories
An image supports the compelling headline
A call to action invites me to try something new

I think the lesson is to remember that you sometimes need to lower the bar to encourage interaction. It could be on your blog, your community site, Twitter, where ever. Believe it or not, there really ARE people out there that have never left a comment on a blog. AND some of them are a bit intimidated at the idea. Read the full story…

Are you moving the bar?

Missing Your WordPress Scheduled Posts?

December 31, 2009 by Kathy Drewien · View Comments
Filed under: WordPress - Blog Tips, Plugins & How-To

Many WordPress users report their self-hosted WordPress site missed scheduled posts. The earliest reports of the “missed schedule” posts date back to WordPress version 2.7, with more frequent reports noted with the WordPress version 2.9 upgrade.

I believe this is because the timeout value is too short: wp_remote_post($cron_url, array(‘timeout’ => 0.01, ‘blocking’ => false));

When making a request to wp-cron.php, it won’t return until all cron jobs are executed. And 0.01 is too short. It doesn’t hurt to extend the time span, as much as 10 minutes even. It will return as long as the mature crons are fired up and executed; in most cases only a few seconds.

For those of you who know how to edit the /wp-includes/cron.php file, simply edit 0.01 to 10 and extend the time allowed for running future scheduled posts.

Detailed instructions for extending the timeout value in /wp-includes/cron.php are below. You need ftp access to your server and a text editor. I use Notepad++, however Notepad2 or Notepad may work well for you.

How To Correct Missed Schedule Posts in WordPress

Login to your ftp server account and locate the /wp-includes/cron.php file.

The cron.php file is located within the wp-includes folder.
Open the cron.php file in your source code editor.
NOTE: Save a copy of the original file to your desktop prior to editing.

Locate the following source code in the cron.php file.
}
set_transient( ‘doing_cron’, $local_time );
$cron_url = get_option( ‘siteurl’ ) . ‘/wp-cron.php?doing_wp_cron’; wp_remote_post( $cron_url, array(‘timeout’ => 0.01, ‘blocking’ => false, ‘sslverify’ => apply_filters(‘https_local_ssl_verify’, true)) ); }
Change ‘timeout’ => 0.01 to ‘timeout’ => 10
Save the edited cron.php file and upload to the /wp-includes folder, overwriting the current cron.php file
REMEMBER: Backup the original file before overwriting.
Schedule a post and test for success.