Blogging on a Social Network

Blogging is becoming increasingly popular and social networks are also becoming more and more popular as well. Social networks include popular websites such as MySpace.com where users can create personal websites and interact with other users. These websites may include a wide range of components including text, images, audio, video and blogs. Here system users can voice their opinions, provided updates on their life, offer insight into current events or accomplish a number of other goals. However, bloggers who utilize a social network to maintain their blog should consider a few different factors. This article will discuss some of these factors including whether to make the blogs available to the public or keep the private, considering the audience of the blog and dealing with harassment through the blog.

Making Blogs Private or Public

Most social networks enable users to make their website either private or public. Private websites are only available to the user and other users he specifically approves to view his website while public websites are available to all users of the system. These same capabilities also apply to the blogs which are maintained on a social network. For this reason bloggers must determine whether or not they wish to make their blog posts available to the entire social network or to only a fraction of this network.

This decision will be largely based on a matter of personal preference. Social networks can be quite extensive and some bloggers may be apprehensive about their blog being available to such a large audience while other bloggers may have no apprehensions about the size of the potential audience. Bloggers should carefully consider this option before staring a blog but always have the option to change these settings after the blog has been established if they change their mind about the choice they originally made.

Considering the Blog Audience

Bloggers who utilize a social network to maintain a blog should also carefully consider the potential audience for the blog. Most social networks include a broad cross section of the general public. Therefore bloggers should be aware of this audience when posting a blog and should consider how the blog entries will be interpreted by blog audience members. While it will never be possible to avoid offending all potential audience members some bloggers may wish to consider at least attempting to ensure the blog entries they post are appropriate for all members of the social network. If this is not possible the blogger may consider making the blog private.

Dealing with Harassment through the Blog

Another aspect bloggers who use a social network to publish their blog should be aware of includes the potential for harassment from other members through the blog. This can be in the form of offensive comments posted in response to blog entries. Depending on the degree of the harassment the blogger may choose to ignore these comments or take stronger actions. Bloggers should review the policies of the social network and solicit their assistance in dealing with harassment from other users. In most cases dealing with the problem may be as simple as blocking the user from making comments on the blog but in some cases it may be necessary to contact the social network administrators in an attempt to get the user banned from the system. In this situation the administrators will review the situation and make a judgment regarding whether or not the user has violated the terms of service.

Blogging for Fun

Although blogging can be used for a variety of other purposes such as generating income, promoting a cause and providing information there are many bloggers who enjoy blogging simply because it is fun. These bloggers enjoy blogging for reasons such as staying in touch with friends, expressing themselves or keeping a record of important events. This article will explain how blogs can be used for these purposes.

Blogging to Stay in Touch with Friends

Staying in touch with friends and family members is just one of the many reasons a person may wish to start a blog. This is especially useful for those who move far away from their friends and family members. Staying in touch by phone, regular visits and even email is not always easy. This is because it can be difficult to keep up long distance interactions with several different people at once. However, by maintaining a blog, a person can greatly simplify the process of staying in touch with friends and family members because they do not have to repeat information in individual phone calls or emails or make time to visit several different people.

When maintaining a blog, the individual can choose to post a variety of information and photos. Through this information and photos the blog owner can keep others informed about current events in his life. Friends and family members can view the blog at their convenience to catch up on important events in the blog owner’s life and in most cases can post comments to the blog owner. They can also read comments from others. This is beneficial if those viewing the blog know each other because they can not only stay in touch with the blog owner but also have a chance to communicate with other friends and family members through the comments section of the blog.

Blogging as a Form of Expression

Some bloggers begin blogging as a form of expression. They may right poetry, songs, short stories or even use the blog to vent about personal events or politics. These bloggers may wish to keep their blog private or can make the blog available to the public. Keeping the blog private is sort of like keeping a diary or a journal. It gives the blogger a multi-media form of expressing himself without the risk of others discovering his true feelings, innermost dreams or frustrations. Other bloggers opt to make these blogs public. This may be for a number of different reasons. Sharing these feelings with others allows the blogger to reach others who may have the same interest as the blogger.

Bloggers who use their blog as a form of personal expression may want to be cautious and consider the decision to make a blog public. This is important because the blog owner may initially not see problems with allowing others to view his personal thoughts. However, over time he may realize his blog could either be offensive to others or could result in problems if friends or family members view the blog.

Blogging to Keep a Record of Events

Another common reason for blogging is to keep a record of important events. Examples of some types of events which a blogger may wish to document include a pregnancy, weddings, vacations, sporting events or completion of school events. Using blogs to keep a record of these events gives the blogger an opportunity to record daily events in one simple location where they can easily look back on the blog or share the postings with others who might be interested in the events. In these cases the blog can serve as a form of scrapbook documenting the events as they occur. The blog owner can post as often as he desires and may choose to include elements such as photos, music, audio files and video files into the blog. The blog can also be designed to suit the events being documented. For example a journal depicting a vacation may have backgrounds, fonts and colors representing the vacation location while a pregnancy blog may feature elements which represent pregnancy, babies and being parents.

Golf Tips Involving Golf Equipment

Blaming your moves, shots and swings for your golf mishits and mishaps? Well, no matter how much time and effort you have been spending over practicing your moves to perfect your game, you still won’t achieve your goal if you use unsuitable or defective types of golf equipment, will you?

Now is high time for you to consider the following golf tips that involve checking on your equipment’s quality.

If you plan to choose used golfclubs as beginner’s tools, scrutinizing before purchasing is a must. The clubheads, the shafts, and the grips are golfclub parts that should pass inspection first before landing a decent spot in your golf equipment cabinet. Another excellent golf tip that will get you through the game is making sure that the set of used golfclubs you’re eyeing have set consistency. It will also help a lot if you check first the price of new clubs vs. used.

A golf tip for a golfer that plans to regrip his clubs: Be cautious. This is because the grips are the only contact points one can access to affect the shot. Before carrying out the regripping, know the core grip of the club and your hands grip size. To determine your core size grip, measure the diameter of the butt of the shaft you’re going to re-grip. The shaft’s diameter should match the grip’s core diameter. In determining your hands grip, the available size grips are regular, mid-size, oversize and jumbo. Use only the best re-gripping materials that will provide optimum performance for your golf clubs.

Another golf tip or advice is that using ill-fitted clubs will be an obstacle to your golf playing success. A golfer must consider his or her body type in choosing the best-fitting equipment to support and deliver his backswings efficiently. Too steep angles in carrying out backswings may be avoided if one selects the perfect fitting equipment available.

Custom golfclub fitting makes a better option than just buying new golf clubs. Getting custom fitting golfclubs is a golf tip that translates to a very worthy investment. The uniqueness of each person is attributed to the need of this way of buying new golf clubs. A custom fitting produces golfclubs that specifically suit the height, strength, swing characteristics and clubhead speed of the golfer.

The type of club shaft also helps in predicting whether you’ll do good in a game or you won’t. There’s a choice between a steel club shaft and a graphite-made club shaft. This golf tip aims to make you realize which type of golfclub shaft will benefit your game. Observations tell that the steel club shafts are more preferred by professional golfers while graphite shafts become more popular with women, senior players and beginners. Steel shafts are less expensive than graphite shafts though.

One more golf tip that could help you is that the golf clubs that must be the main content of your bag must suit your skill level. Since various skill levels need various golf clubs, it won’t be wise to just use or bring a golf club that is just lying around. And, don’t ever forget about the maximum golfclub load your bag is allowed to hold. You can only bring 14 golf clubs in your bag. No more. No less. Aside from your skill level contemplation, your mastery of a certain golfclub and your being comfortable with using it must also be put into consideration in deciding which golfclub to hit.

A good combination of the right moves and good choice of equipment will better arm you to become the best golfer you could ever be.

7 Tips for Fighting Fairly in Marriage

Fighting fairly is one of the most important skills you can learn in order to keep your marriage healthy and strong. While it may first seem that fighting only happens in “bad” marriages, fighting actually happens in all marriages.

Researcher David Olson of the University of Minnesota estimates that 25% of marriages are happy. 50% of couples will never be happy without very good therapy. 30% of marriages are considered “empty”, with little love or joy. 25% of marriages could be really happy if the couples learned better how to communicate and how to resolve conflict.

It is this latter 25% that should be focused on. Learning to fight fair can be the difference between a bad fight/bad marriage and a bad fight/good marriage. You can have a bad fight but still have an overall good marriage. In fact, couples who fight productively report more marital satisfaction once the fight has ended.

What separates out the couples who fight and make up from the ones who don’t? In two words: fighting fairly.

Couples who fight fairly demonstrate several subtle, but crucial traits, that keep them from becoming overly angry and hostile. What are the traits which separate fair fighting couples from those who don’t?

1) Fair fighting couples focus on the behavior, not the person. “Honey, can you please put your dishes in the sink?” rather than, “You’re so lazy. Why can’t you put your dishes in the sink?”

2) Fair fighting couples state their requests directly. If they want their partner to behave differently, they ask for it. They are able to communicate clearly about what they desire. “Please put your dishes in the sink from now on” rather than, “I need you to change.”

3) Fair fighting couples limit their focus in arguments. Rather than “kitchen sinking” an argument (where you complain about everything at once and throw in the kitchen sink for good measure), fair fighting couples focus on one issue at a time.

4) Fair fighting couples maintain healthy respect and good nonverbal communication. The importance of good nonverbal marital communication has been highlighted by John Gottman, a well known marital researcher at the University of Washington, who has identified four behaviors leading to relationship distress. One of these behaviors is contempt. Couples who show a high degree of nonverbal contempt for each other (through behaviors like eye-rolling, avoiding eye contact, shaking their heads) are more likely to have relationship distress.

5) Fair fighting couples allow the fight to be over. One important element of fighting fairly is to let the fight be over when it’s done with. FC’s find it easy to forgive, if not forget. They do not bring up old issues again and again just to prove a point. Fair fighting couples’s take the chance to make up and reconnect at the first opportunity.

6) Fair fighting couples discuss issues sooner rather than later. They know that it’s easier to talk about an issue while it’s small, before it becomes overwhelming or leads to extreme resentment.

7) Finally, fair fighting couples focus on winning in the relationship, not on winning the fight. They remember that they are on the same team, working for the same goal, and are, really, allies rather than enemies. They keep the relationship as their main focus rather than focusing mainly on their personal ego.

Fair fighting is a skill that can learned. If more people learned to do it, it’s likely that fewer marriages would end in divorce. All marriages will have fights- it’s how you handle those fights which determines whether your marriage is a happy (or unhappy) one. Remember:

“Success in marriage does not come merely through finding the right mate, but through being the right mate.” ~~ Barnett R. Brickner .

Researcher David Olson of the University of Minnesota estimates that 25% of marriages are happy. 50% of couples will never be happy without very good therapy. 30% of marriages are considered “empty”, with little love or joy. 25% of marriages could be really happy if the couples learned better how to communicate and how to resolve conflict.

It is this latter 25% that should be focused on. Learning to fight fair can be the difference between a bad fight/bad marriage and a bad fight/good marriage. You can have a bad fight but still have an overall good marriage. In fact, couples who fight productively report more marital satisfaction once the fight has ended.

What separates out the couples who fight and make up from the ones who don’t? In two words: fighting fairly.

Couples who fight fairly demonstrate several subtle, but crucial traits, that keep them from becoming overly angry and hostile. What are the traits which separate fair fighting couples from those who don’t?

1) Fair fighting couples focus on the behavior, not the person. “Honey, can you please put your dishes in the sink?” rather than, “You’re so lazy. Why can’t you put your dishes in the sink?”

2) Fair fighting couples state their requests directly. If they want their partner to behave differently, they ask for it. They are able to communicate clearly about what they desire. “Please put your dishes in the sink from now on” rather than, “I need you to change.”

3) Fair fighting couples limit their focus in arguments. Rather than “kitchen sinking” an argument (where you complain about everything at once and throw in the kitchen sink for good measure), fair fighting couples focus on one issue at a time.

4) Fair fighting couples maintain healthy respect and good nonverbal communication. The importance of good nonverbal marital communication has been highlighted by John Gottman, a well known marital researcher at the University of Washington, who has identified four behaviors leading to relationship distress. One of these behaviors is contempt. Couples who show a high degree of nonverbal contempt for each other (through behaviors like eye-rolling, avoiding eye contact, shaking their heads) are more likely to have relationship distress.

5) Fair fighting couples allow the fight to be over. One important element of fighting fairly is to let the fight be over when it’s done with. FC’s find it easy to forgive, if not forget. They do not bring up old issues again and again just to prove a point. Fair fighting couples’s take the chance to make up and reconnect at the first opportunity.

6) Fair fighting couples discuss issues sooner rather than later. They know that it’s easier to talk about an issue while it’s small, before it becomes overwhelming or leads to extreme resentment.

7) Finally, fair fighting couples focus on winning in the relationship, not on winning the fight. They remember that they are on the same team, working for the same goal, and are, really, allies rather than enemies. They keep the relationship as their main focus rather than focusing mainly on their personal ego.

Fair fighting is a skill that can learned. If more people learned to do it, it’s likely that fewer marriages would end in divorce. All marriages will have fights- it’s how you handle those fights which determines whether your marriage is a happy (or unhappy) one. Remember:

“Success in marriage does not come merely through finding the right mate, but through being the right mate.” ~~ Barnett R. Brickner

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The Power Of Blogging

Blogs are becoming more popular nowadays. You will notice that the numbers of blogging sites are increasing. In addition, there are innovations already making its way into blogging.

For instance, instead of pure text content, there is now photo blogging where you can now share your pictures with other bloggers. Aside from the usual call and text features of cellular phones, now you can use it if you want to post your blog. It just manifests that blogging is really becoming popular to people.

If you are not reached yet by the popularity of blogs, continue reading and see for yourself why blogging is just popular to almost every Internet users.

What is Blog?

Before anything else, what is a blog? Generally, it is a web page that has brief and distinct information also known as posts. These posts are arranged in reverse chronological order (that is, the latest comes first) and each post entry is identified by an anchor tag which is marked by a permanent link that can be referred to by others who wish to link to it.

Blogs are considered to be a means of communication and there are numerous types of messages carried by blogs. Some you will find are just vacuums that points to other websites, others displays their greatest essay, some are personal diaries, and others promote newest technology. In other words, bloggers can write anything they want.

Why Blog?

There are hundreds of thousands of blogs posted on the Internet daily. With these numbers, one question will just pop-up in your mind: Why do people blog?

The reason behind is through blogs, people can express themselves freely. Yes, there are other mediums you can use to show to the world what you have got. You can write articles and columns on a local newspaper. But the question is, are you sure all what you have written can be printed? Writing blogs gives you the power to get what you have written printed immediately. No questions asked, nothing more to be asked.

Another reason why many people are blogging is the freedom of design, layout, and its structure. You do not need to have navigation architecture designs of a website nor a structured menu. You can write anything about what you want regardless of what it looks like. Your point is to attract readers in the way that you think is the best. That is the power of blogging—giving you the freedom of what you want your blog to look like.

Before you start your blogging hobby, you need to know first the blogging tools. These tools enable you to post your blogs either on your own website or to a certain blogging community. One popular blogging tool is Blogger software, a web-based tool that does not require you to install software to your personal computer or on your server in case you have your own website. You can access the tool through the Blogger website and your blog pages can be posted to your own site or to a community blog server.

These are just some of the basic things you need to know about blogging. Remember that blogs give you the power to publish anything you want. However, you need to keep in mind that it can be successful if you will be discussing interesting things on it. And do not forget to place a link directing to your own website. It can help you generate the traffic you needed.

Free Blogging Software

With the widespread use of the web service, many web hosting providers have created an alternative of free blogging which has an open source of blogging software packages. There have been popular blogging tools such as the WordPress, B2evolution and Nucleus.

These programs offer basic features that are similar and a lot of people are confused as to which program is easiest to use and which is appropriate for the requirements of a particular website.

In getting the free blogging software, you should first know the purpose of your blog website. There are different tools for different goals. Some people use blogs as a way to share opinions and ideas to the public while some use it as a means to advertise and create a commercial sales effort.

Free blogging software for search engine promotion has different requirements. The uses of this free software have viable reasons on how to create a blog but each of them requires different features to make it successful. You will read in this article the different requirements and comparison of the free software that you can have.

The WordPress is known to be the most popular free blogging software. Other software finds WordPress hard to beat because this is used for general personal blogging. If you wish to create your own blog and update it regularly, there are available intuitive graphical surface that you can use.

You do not have to compile your work with WordPress. You can just simply write your column on you own easily. You just need to select that features that you want and your blog will instantly be created and published to your website.

Now if you are on vacation, you can make a schedule for your uploads in some other days in the future. You can also e-mail your column to the server. This will allow the multiple users who have multiple blogs to have it divided into categories and sub-categories to make it more specified.

This also allows multiple family members and friends to make their own blogs along with yours. Blogs will allow you to keep in touch with them.

There are easy pug-ins that you can use in order to provide functionality and easy customization in your web site. This free blogging software is a very good choice for people who want to have their own website.

The B2evolution is also a good and advanced free blogging tool that can feature an integrated XHTML validator. This enables the user to support recursive subcategories and cross posting which has a cool incorporated skinning system.

The skinning system will allow the users to create the multiple blogs into separate categories with can have different appearances for each of the blogs that you make. Changing the skins will give your blogs a different view and look.

The Nucleus is and extreme and robust free blogging tool which has its own right. This tool also contains some of the powerful features which can provide the users with benefits in the promotion of your blog. This Nucleus gives the user the ability to optimize the URLD and create simple page addresses. This makes the pages more user-friendly and easy to navigate.

The free blogging software packages mentioned above offer the basic tools that you can use in order to create a successful blog.