Actually Making a Bit of Money!

Hi!

It's been a while since I posted here... is anyone still reading.  I've removed / merged a few sites so I can make better use of my time.

I merged both photo blogs into Photo Curios.  This makes a couple of $ from Adsense every month.

I moved the programming blog to a custom URL, Retro Programming.  This makes another couple of $ every month!

I set up my own web shop selling Candle Bags.  It's so much easier to make a bit of extra money online if you have a product to sell!  It only takes a couple of days to set everything up.  Give me a shout if you're considering it and need some advice :-)  All the SEO, advertising and marketing techniques picked up while blogging transfer over nicely.

John

The Prolific Blogger Award

English Wilderness was recently awarded the Prolific Blogger Award by Sandra at My Mother Thinks I'm a Good Writer. Thanks Sandra, it's great to hear I'm doing something right :-)

The award was orginally created by Hazra of Advance Bookings. The award is to recognise those prolific bloggers who blog tirelessly and have made the blogging community such a vibrant place.

Here are the rules:

1. Every winner of the Prolific Blogger Award has to pass on this award to at least seven other deserving prolific bloggers. Spread some love!
2. Each Prolific Blogger must link to the blog from which he/she has received the award.
3. Every Prolific Blogger must link back to This Post, which explains the origins and motivation for the award.
4. Every Prolific Blogger must visit this post and add his/her name in the Mr. Linky, so that we all can get to know the other winners.

Finally, here are my nominations:

• North-Country Ramblings - Peter spends his time hiking and camping some of the U.K.'s most beautiful wild places. Amazing photos.
• Little Sealed Packages - a photo blog I discovered recently, a fascinating blend of Derbyshire life, history and curiosities.
• A Postcard a Day - Sheila takes us on a journey through some of the world's most interesting history and places with her postcard collection.
• The Everyday Adventurer - Ratty explores his local reserves and nature trails, capturing some amazing photos of the wildlife he discovers.
• Mostly Maths - I found Ruben's blog a few months ago and have been a regular ever since. An enticing mix of programming, gardening and book reviews.
• Redcode: Random - An entertaining mix of algorithms, math and recreational programming are covered by Roy's blog.
• The Reinvigorated Programmer - Mike started 3 months ago and has attracted 570,000 visitors! Covers programming and Doctor Who, intermingled with pictures of sushi!

Fixing Comments on Blogger

A few people mentioned Blogger's embedded comment form is awkward to use on certain browsers. Here's a template tweak that makes it possible to offer the old pop-up comments as an alternative.

Here's the tweak:

Please try the <a
expr:href='&quot;https://www.blogger.com/comment.g?&quot; +
&quot;blogID=BLOG ID&amp;postID=&quot; +
data:post.id + &quot;&amp;isPopup=false&quot;'>alternative
comment form</a> if you&#39;re having trouble commenting.

The tweak can be installed as follows:

1. go to Layout then Edit HTML,
2. expand Widget Templates,
3. make a backup of your template just in case,
4. search for <data:blogCommentMessage/>,
5. paste the code for the tweak after <data:blogCommentMessage/>,
6. replace BLOG ID with the number at the end of the URL,
7. Finally save the template and double check it works as expected.

If you'd like to see the tweak in action, please take a look at my daily photo gallery. :-)