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5 Years of Blogging

October 27, 2017 – Columbus, IN

A little over 5 years since I’ve purchased the site FamMijangos.com and started writing. There has been many changes since that first post on the new site. I have learned to write faster, to edit images faster, I am more comfortable using WordPress, and more intentional in what I write.

A couple of years back I read this quote from Howard W. Hunter, and hit me that this is central to the FamMijangos.com Blog: “Giving consistent effort in the little things in day-to-day life leads to true greatness.”  This further cemented the Mission and Vision, which I’ve had in a note.  I’ve worked a bit on the wording, and in this Anniversary Post I can share it, they can also be found at the Mission and Vision page.

MISSION (Why it exists)

Recording life’s small things to remember how greatness came about.

VISSION (What we want to accomplish)

Provide a window for the world to peer into our daily life.

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Blogging: Blog printing

I year ago I started a new project, printing the family blog. At the time it looked like a quick enough project, convert all the 2014 posts into a book. Each post was fast enough, copy-pasting from the web to a word template. It did take me longer than I thought, and the result was good enough. Here are some pages:

Book 2014 - Example 1Book 2014 - Example 2

I was very happy with the result, but I wanted something better for 2015, and I wanted to complete the project early 2016 (I finished with 2014 the end of July 2015, over 2 months of work). To accomplish this I converted all previous 2015 posts into the Word format I was using for the book, and all new post where first written in the new format. Also, all images were added to the book in full resolution, the 2014 book since it was copied from the web had the images in a lower resolution. Also, the 2015 book is a bit more aggressive in the page design and flow: not all images from the web are included, smaller images, more attention to image collages, etc. Here are some example pages:

Book 2015 - Example 1Book 2015 - Example 2

I am very excited with the results from the 2015 book, and I feel that creating these books has helped me understand the importance of page flow and composition. I’ve also learned a lot about how to format well in Word and the importance of negative space (white on pages). It also ups the ante for the 2016 book.

Somethings that I learned with the 2015 book:

  1. The book file became unmanageable after 100 pages, because it was heavy with images.
  2. I had to stop writing directly on the book file, but rather wrote in separate files.
  3. The best way (so far that I know) is to write each post on a file, add all images and format the way you want it, then import the file to the book file. Importing is much better than copy/paste.

For 2016 I’m writing all my posts in separate files using the book template. I’m formatting each post to look as best as I can. I want to explore some new formatting and try to keep the look consistent across the whole book.

I created a Yearbook page (it’s in spanish) in the family blog to showcase these works. You can download the pdf or even order a book from Lulu.

http://fammijangos.com/anuarios-del-blog

Have anyone else gone down this path of printing a blog? What have you learned from doing it? What has stopped you, if you’ve never printed?

 

*headline image courtesy of unsplash and Patrick Tomasso

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Tool: RSS Reader

I wanted to tell you about a tool I use every day, an RSS Reader. My reader of choice is Newsblur.com. According to Newsblur I’m subscribed to 114 RSS feeds.

Newsblur01

“RSS uses a family of standard web feed formats to publish frequently updated information: blog entries, news headlines, audio, and video. An RSS document (called “feed”, “web feed”, or “channel”) includes full or summarized text, and metadata, like publishing date and author’s name.” via Wikipedia

Some people think of an RSS Reader as an inbox, and they see 100 unread stories, and feel overwhelmed, don’t do that. RSS is about scanning, not reading. If there is a feed you don’t care about what happened the last week, mark it all as read and go on. You can also skim through the titles and only read the ones that are interesting.

Newsblur02

One of the things I love about Newsblur is that I can train it to show me only the authors or topics I’m interested in for each particular site. There are some sites that have hundreds of stories each week, but I only care about 1 author that writes a weekly on a particular topic. I can train Newsblur to only show me that topic from my favorite author.

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The last thing I love, and it might be counter intuitive, is that I pay Newsblur $24USD each year. I love the value that I get from Newsblur that I don’t want them to go away. I think that $24 is a good value proposition and hope to see them succeed.

Other Screen Shots

*headline image courtesy of unsplash and Manu Schwendener

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Dropbox Family Plan

I’ve been a loyal Dropbox user since 2010 and have now incorporated it into our family’s workflow. I started using the free version mainly for myself, over the past years I upgraded to the Pro version and added my account to all devices in the family. Here is an overview of the workflow.

Dropbox Diagram

As you can see most of the devices are connected to 1 dropbox account, right now the Pro price is $9.99 USD per 1TB per month. Our family is using about 24% of the capacity, and we are only adding about 60GB per year.

The way we have set it up is mainly for images, this way either one of us can take a picture and it’s uploaded to Dropbox. I can use images from either phone to add to the blog or share in social media.

Notice that I also do a backup of the whole system to a local hard drive, just in case.

I am sure there are other ways to do this, but I am happy with our current set up. Except for the following and maybe they are deal breakers for you:

  1. You have to trust your family members, they will have the power to delete files, you can undo anything within 30 days, but still you have to trust them.
  2. To share in social media a picture my wife took on her phone, I have to download the image to my phone before I can use it. Dropbox is smart not to upload it again, but if you are trying to get a lot of images, it takes time. A video, a lot more.
  3. When I hit the 1TB mark the next level up is $15 / month with unlimited data.
  4. I don’t consider Dropbox a backup solution, mainly because it mirrors deletes. Right now I have a local backup, but there is room for improvement.

I have in the back of my mind some possible upgrades to this workflow:

  1. I know I need an offsite backup solution, I really like Amazon’s Glacier service and at some point I want to embrace it.
  2. Phones are essential part of our digital life, I do have the phone backed up to Apple’s servers every night, but I might have to give in and add iCloud Photo to have a second line of defense to my images and to easily navigate past images.
  3. I have to upgrade my home computer, the drive is only 500GB and I want that machine to have at least everything on Dropbox. Hopefully this year I will build an HTPC.

As always, let me know your thoughts, I especially want to know your family workflow.

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More Blog Stats

I mentioned before that views are not the focus of my blog, but I do love stats.  Previous post on numbers.  July is the new record holder for page views, it get’s me excited, I try to only post twice a week when there are relevant things.

Our newest member of the family came en of June, so that has been no shortage of things to post in July. And thus it was easy to have 8 posts, all with high interest.  It’s been cool.

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What I want my blog to be when it grows up…

I’ve been looking at websites, blogs, pinterest and following links trying to find a good example of what I want for my family blog (FamMijangos.com).

I had some good guiding points, I mean there are some really good work out there.  I didn’t want the blog to be a product review site.  I didn’t want to be a soap box.  I truly wanted a family meet up.

Here are some place that I think are really good.

  1. 71 Toes (71toes.com):  This is a great blog that started with just a few posts.  As time went by the followers grew.  Shawni, the author, is a good example of constant writing.  I’m impressed by the amount of writing she does.  The site is also a great example of a simple setup and wonderful images.
  2. Sunshine, Lollipops, and Rainbows (JocelynAndJason.blogspot.com): This blog is this persistent flow of good vibes.  I don’t read the posts, because I don’t think I’m the intended audience, but I’m sure the children and family members love reading it.  Jocelyn, the author, chronicles the adventures of her children.  She strives to capture the minutia that truly are the essence of our lives.
  3. The Anderson Crew Blog (theandersoncrewblog.com): This is a really cool site, minus the product placement.  It chronicles the lives of a family with several children, and the quirks and personalities of all the members.  I love the energy of the images, and wish I had a cool logo for my images, one day I want a watermark for my images.

I want to highlight a site I recently found, that really is what I want when my blog grows up:  www.laceymeyersphotography.com.  This is a great blog and great images, the theme is professional and modern.  All the images tell a story, but there is also a story behind the images, very cool.

I know that what I have right now makes sense, but at some point the blog will have to grow up.  I’ve talked to a few bloggers and it seems that around year 5-7 things really pick up; this is when the audience grows.  I’m only been doing this for a few years now, and my audience are my Facebook friends; maybe other people will find interesting my adventures, just as I found valuable these sites.  Only time will tell.

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Getting over being overwhelmed

I’m here writing this post, because the post I should be writing is not moving forward, because I feel overwhelm.  What I’m going to tell you is not a magic pill of how to write the post you want to write.  It is not the solution from going from a pile of picture to the perfect 9 images for your post.  Last year I wrote a process I use to go from a pile of images to a post, but just starting can be overwhelming.

My hope is for you to move from doing nothing to doing something. Here are 3 things to consider:

  1. You wanted to do this.  When you started there was a goal: you wanted to share, to record, to remember, or just write.  Remember that goal, at that starting point there were no strings, no word counts, no minimum number of images, no perfection implied.  reconnect with that feeling.
  2. Baby steps, small bite, one step at a time, or any other cliché. You took 600 pictures on your trip, you need 5 and can’t decide? Does it matter? You found one that you really like? Use it only that. No time to write 1,000 words to describe your epic adventure?  Write a paragraph and move on.
  3. You are the author, you pick what gets recorded.  Yes you had a lot of adventures, but you get to decide what gets recorded.  Move to the next exciting thing; better to have a hole than to stop the story.

Now pick a topic and start writing; you might even surprise how much you accomplish.

 

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New Project: Printing my blog

A few days ago my wife was talking about a presentation she saw on printing blogs.  She thought that it would be a great idea so that we could have those memories in print.

Blog2Pring - ExampleI looked at several different companies that do automatic printing, pulling the blog and creating a printable PDF.  All the ones that I tried (Blog2Print, Sharebook, Shutterfly, Blurb) didn’t offer good control of how I wanted the book to look like.  Most created too many pages, figures since they charge by the page, the margins were too wide and there was no flow.

Lulu PostThen I came across this blog post, and this blogger’s experience with a site called Lulu.  She explains all the things you have to do to publish in their platform. This was the other side of the spectrum, you got a Word template and you have to pull in every post from your site!  How long would that take.

I gave it a try, open the Word document, opened a web page with a short post, copy-past, 5 minutes later was a post I was really proud of.  I mean, I was really proud of what it looked like, it looked like the web, but formal, something you would expect of a printed book.  Here is a side by side comparison of the same post from Blog2Print and my template:

Blog2Pring - Lulu

I started with the Year 2014, it is one of the most complete, after that I hope to order 2015 soon after this year is over.  I hope to be able to catch up 2015, and then every time I publish a post I added it to book.  Wish me luck.

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Why I blog

(This article appeared in the Latino Afinity Group Newsflash in April 2015)

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In the edge of the cyber sphere, alone, unbothered is a small window that peers into the comings and goings of our family. FamMijangos.com was born a little over 2 years ago, with the purpose of preserving our family’s history, to have a central place for family and friends to connect with us, and to be a window for the world to peer into our daily life.

My family was generating about 30 GB of images and videos a year, many memories were recorded and then forgotten. For Christmas 2012, as a gift to my wife, I purchased the site FamMijangos.com, short for Familia Mijangos (Mijangos’ Family). I brought in a few posts and pictures from other blogs we were doing and centralized them to one location. From that point on we have tried to preserve our history, where we go, what we do, the mundane, and the extreme. Family History is important to us, and sharing it has become delightful.

My parents and siblings are scattered from Hawaii to Atlanta, and in Guatemala, we have friends all over the world. With changing platforms and technologies that come and go, we needed a central repository for people to connect with us. Constantly adding posts has enabled us to keep in touch with our family and friends. We have been able to reconnect with past acquaintances, and strengthen the bond with others. The site is our digital home, and provides a window to the outside world.

Although there are configurations that would make the site invisible to the world, we chose to have it as a public window to the world. This makes us conscious of what we write, which images we share, and what things we keep private; but we don’t want a fake portrait of our life. We want this to be the history of our lives, for our children know how we were; the happy times and sad times. In other words, to keep it real.

I enjoy writing and putting together all the components of a website together, but the real value is in opening an old post and showing my little girl a video of the first time she held a butterfly. A picture is a thousand words, but sometimes you need five more words to know the context. So come and visit our little corner of the internet, we’ll keep a light on for you at FamMijangos.com