Blogs

Rich shares info on the Polldaddy service and plugins for your Wordpress blogs:

Polldaddy

Matt Mullenweg announces acquisition of Polldaddy by Automattic

A great tutorial by Leland at Themelab on how to install the plugin

Rich also shares some experiences on installing the plugin on two of his sites.

Take the poll here (if you are at Blogs, Views and Blues you can use the built in widget).

Views

Rich really dislikes Microsoft Internet Explorer.  It messes up his web sites. 

He also recommends that you visit Dave Jackson’s School of Podcasting to learn more about improving your podcast — or even starting one of your own.

Blues

Janiva Magness
“That’s What Love Will Make You Do” (mp3)
from “What Love Will Do”
(Alligator Records)

Buy at mTraks
More On This Album

The theme music for Blogs, Views, and Blues was created by Chainsaw Dupont. The tune is called “Funky Foot”. Find his music at ChainsawDupont.com and at the Podsafe Music Network.
Original guitar interludes are by Rich Palmer.

Blogs, Views, and Blues is also sponsored by GoDaddy.com. Visit today and use coupon codes blu16 or pod16 to receive up to 10% off your web hosting and/or domain name needs.

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Blogs

Rich shares a few simple SMS blogging resources that he has discovered:

LetMeParty.com

SMSGupShup

Views

Rich feels that these services are not as robust as services that have already become popular, such as Twitter, Jaiku, Pownce, Utterli and others.

However, simple services like this may be very attractive to those that want to blog and manage messaging to small groups or communities, perhaps without going out “to the globe.”

Blues

Altered Five
“Beast of Burden” (mp3)
from “Bluesified”
(Cold Wind Records, Inc.)

Buy at iTunes Music Store
Buy at Rhapsody
Buy at Napster
Stream from Rhapsody
More On This Album

The theme music for Blogs, Views, and Blues was created by Chainsaw Dupont. The tune is called “Funky Foot”. Find his music at ChainsawDupont.com and at the Podsafe Music Network.
Original guitar interludes are by Rich Palmer.

Blogs, Views, and Blues is also sponsored by GoDaddy.com. Visit today and use coupon codes blu16 or pod16 to receive up to 10% off your web hosting and/or domain name needs.

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Blogs

Rich shares some great plugins for your Wordpress blogs:

Facebook Sharer by Sævar Öfjörð

Tweet This by Richard X. Thripp

YouTuber by Roy Tanck

Views

Rich shares his views and comments about people and companies that send email without the option to unsubscribe from their mailings.  These are typically list items that promote a company, cause, music artist or similar.  Also, these promoters don’t always do their homework to determine if they are reaching the right target.

Matthew Ebel has also been seeing similar issues.  He recently blogged about his frustration.  He called it “What Is It With the Stupid?”

Thanks to Daniel Johnson Jr. for pointing out this recent post by Matthew Ebel.

Blues

Elvin Bishop, Warren Haynes, Kim Wilson
“The Blues Rolls On (feat. Warren Haynes & Kim Wilson)” (mp3)
from “The Blues Rolls On”
(DELTA GROOVE PRODUCTIONS)

Buy at iTunes Music Store
Buy at Rhapsody
Stream from Rhapsody
More On This Album

The theme music for Blogs, Views, and Blues was created by Chainsaw Dupont. The tune is called “Funky Foot”. Find his music at ChainsawDupont.com and at the Podsafe Music Network.
Original guitar interludes are by Rich Palmer.

Blogs, Views, and Blues is also sponsored by GoDaddy.com. Visit today and use coupon codes blu16 or pod16 to receive up to 10% off your web hosting and/or domain name needs.

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Blogs

Rich tried the Twitter Grader available from Hubspot.

He scored 96.7.

Views

Hubspot also offers a web site grader.  Rich tried the service and reviewed the results. He explained some of the areas of his site that might need work based on the results.

Find the grader at www.websitegrader.com.

Blues

Boo Boo Davis
“I’m Comin Home” (mp3)
from “Name Of The Game”
(Black and Tan Records)

Buy at iTunes Music Store
Buy at Rhapsody
Buy at Napster
Stream from Rhapsody
More On This Album

The theme music for Blogs, Views, and Blues was created by Chainsaw Dupont. The tune is called “Funky Foot”. Find his music at ChainsawDupont.com and at the Podsafe Music Network.
Original guitar interludes are by Rich Palmer.

Blogs, Views, and Blues is also sponsored by GoDaddy.com. Visit today and use coupon codes blu16 or pod16 to receive up to 10% off your web hosting and/or domain name needs.

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Blogs

While Rich was traveling he wanted to update his blog.  He thought that the opportunity to blog using audio from his mobile phone would be useful.  He shares three services:

LiveJournal.com

PhoneBlogz.com

Utterz.com

Views

Not too much on the views category, other than Rich still says he likes Utterz.com best of the services mentioned.

Blues

Papa Don McMinn
“Key In The Lock” (mp3)
from “Home Blues”
(LocoBop)

More On This Album

The theme music for Blogs, Views, and Blues was created by Chainsaw Dupont. The tune is called “Funky Foot”. Find his music at ChainsawDupont.com and at the Podsafe Music Network.
Original guitar interludes are by Rich Palmer.

Blogs, Views, and Blues is also sponsored by GoDaddy.com. Visit today and use coupon codes blu16 or pod16 to receive up to 10% off your web hosting and/or domain name needs.

Rich has recorded this episode of Blogs, Views and Blues with
StudioRack developed by Mike Versteeg.  You may know Mike as the
creator of CastBlaster.

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Blogs

Some people like to blog through video.  Many of these create
content and upload it.  Others like to do things “on the fly.”  Here
are a few of the services that Rich reviewed or talked about in this
episode:

Ustream.tv

Justin.tv

Blogtv.com

Qik.com

mdialog.com

Views

Last week Rich experienced a lack of connectivity while on
vacation.  He attempted to do much of his social networking via his
Blackjack II mobile phone.  Here are a few services he enjoyed — and a
few that didn’t work so well.

PockeTwit - big thumbs up

Gmail.com - wonky this past week, was it the service or was it the phone?

Brightkite.com - good job for the most part

HelloTxt.com - Rough issues with the mobile app.

Utterz.com - One of Rich’s favorite services, but mobile app has some shortcomings.

Blues

Samuel James
“Sunrise Blues” (mp3)
from “Songs Famed for Sorrow and Joy”
(Northern Blues)

Buy at Rhapsody
Stream from Rhapsody
More On This Album

The theme music for Blogs, Views, and Blues was created by Chainsaw Dupont. The tune is called “Funky Foot”. Find his music at ChainsawDupont.com and at the Podsafe Music Network.
Original guitar interludes are by Rich Palmer.

Blogs, Views, and Blues is also sponsored by GoDaddy.com. Visit today and use coupon codes blu16 or pod16 to receive up to 10% off your web hosting and/or domain name needs.

Rich has recorded this episode of Blogs, Views and Blues with
StudioRack developed by Mike Versteeg.  You may know Mike as the
creator of CastBlaster.

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Blogs

Rich asks you to visit MommySpice.com to read the writings of Paula C. Brown. Be sure to comment on her posts! Your input and your visits will help her publishers know that she’s a writer to keep on the roster! You can also visit her personal journal at whitehousemom.livejournal.com.

Views

Rich reviews the cool widget and tools available at Kadoink.com. This is a great service for anyone that wants to share content, stay in contact, or promote. (Podcasters, non-profit organizers, musicians, group leaders, etc.?)

Find an example of the widget at Rich’s site for virtual music promotion: RichDesoto.com. Click on the link for “phone stuff.”

Blues

Jackie Payne Steve Edmonson Band
“Overnight Sensation” (mp3)
from “Overnight Sensation”
(DELTA GROOVE PRODUCTIONS)

Buy at iTunes Music Store
Buy at Rhapsody
Stream from Rhapsody
More On This Album

The theme music for Blogs, Views, and Blues was created by Chainsaw Dupont. The tune is called “Funky Foot”. Find his music at ChainsawDupont.com and at the Podsafe Music Network.
Original guitar interludes are by Rich Palmer.

Blogs, Views, and Blues is also sponsored by GoDaddy.com. Visit today and use coupon codes blu16 or pod16 to receive up to 10% off your web hosting and/or domain name needs.

Rich has recorded this episode of Blogs, Views and Blues with StudioRack developed by Mike Versteeg.  You may know Mike as the creator of CastBlaster.

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Blogs

Rich found a site called The Hype Machine. The Hype Machine tracks a variety of MP3 blogs. If a post contains MP3 links, it adds those links to its database and displays them on the front page.

Some of the frequently accessed tracks are cached by the Hype Machine server, much like Google Search caches web pages, to reduce load on the bloggers’ servers and protect their bandwidth.

Those tracks are NOT available for download, but you can preview them via the play buttons that are next to each track. If you like the tracks, you can use the Amazon.com and iTunes links to buy them. This supports the actual artists!

Views

Rich is using a service that he absolutely loves! It’s called TextMarks. He originally heard of this service from Dave Jackson at the Musicians Cooler. With this service you can set up keywords and refer people to them for updates and news, or simply give them information about yourself or your service. They text the keyword to 41411 on their mobile and get a text message in return. You can set it up so that people can subscribe to the keyword. Anytime you update the information it sends it directly to their phones!

Here is one of the widgets that Rich has set up:

Blues

Music today comes from Alligator Records. The artist(s) are:
Albert Collins, Johnny Copeland and Robert Cray!
The track The Moon is Full can be found on their album Showdown!
Purchase via Amazon.com:
Physical CD

mp3 Files

The theme music for Blogs, Views, and Blues was created by Chainsaw Dupont. The tune is called “Funky Foot”. Find his music at ChainsawDupont.com and at the Podsafe Music Network.
Original guitar interludes are by Rich Palmer.

Blogs, Views, and Blues is also sponsored by GoDaddy.com. Visit today and use coupon codes blu16 or pod16 to receive up to 10% off your web hosting and/or domain name needs.

Rich has recorded this episode of Blogs, Views and Blues with StudioRack developed by Mike Versteeg.  You may know Mike as the creator of CastBlaster.

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Blogs

Rich has been using a great WordPress plug-in recommended by Paul the Music Lover from Indie Music Sampler.

This plug-in lets you build a variety of forms into your WordPress blog.  You can build comment management forms, file upload forms, password forms, reservation forms, and the “Tell-A-Friend” form program.

Find cforms II at Delicious Days.

Want to try it?  Click on the post header for this entry to be sure that you are on the individual show page.  Then look fill in the fields for the “tell-a’friend” form.  Me sure you do this at the official Blogs, Views and Blues blog.

Views

How are YOU using FriendFeed?  Rich has not been able to figure out the best way to use this.  It is a service that he has yet to be able to make productive.

Unfortunately, Rich views this service as RSS “noise.”  There are too many people that cross-post to a variety of sites — which results in redundant items coming through FriendFeed.

Please contact Rich at podcast [at] richpalmer {dot} com (be sure to include yoru audio file if you want to share your thoughts on the show).  You can also call (888) 223-5108.

News

Rich has recorded this episode of Blogs, Views and Blues with the new alpha version of StudioRack developed by Mike Versteeg.  You may know Mike as the creator of CastBlaster.

Blues

Tobin James, Damaged Goods
“Lonely Dog Blues” (mp3)
from “Rules of the Road”
(Tobin James)

Buy at iTunes Music Store
Buy at Rhapsody
Stream from Rhapsody
More On This Album

The theme music for Blogs, Views, and Blues was created by Chainsaw Dupont. The tune is called “Funky Foot”. Find his music at ChainsawDupont.com and at the Podsafe Music Network.
Original guitar interludes are by Rich Palmer.

Blogs, Views, and Blues is also sponsored by GoDaddy.com. Visit today and use coupon codes blu16 or pod16 to receive up to 10% off your web hosting and/or domain name needs.

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Blogs

The Disqus service has chosen Seesmic as their option for letting you offer video comments on your blogs.  Imagine how well the message might be interpreted if you could actually see the body language, hear the voice inflection, and experience the overall mood of the person leaving comments.

Want to try it?  Click on the comments field for this post at the official Blogs, Views and Blues blog.

Views

According to their web site, Evernote is a service that “… allows you to easily capture information in any environment using whatever device or platform you find most convenient, and makes this information accessible and searchable at anytime, from anywhere.”

The Evernote service is available across many platforms.  You can use the desktop client on Windows and Mac operating systems, on the web, and even on your mobile phone.  Everything you put into Evernote synchronizes across all of your devices.

Rich has been trying it and is quite please so far.

Blues

Michael Burks
“Strange Feeling” (mp3)
from “Iron Man”
(Alligator Records)

More On This Album

The theme music for Blogs, Views, and Blues was created by Chainsaw Dupont. The tune is called “Funky Foot”. Find his music at ChainsawDupont.com and at the Podsafe Music Network.
Original guitar interludes are by Rich Palmer.

Blogs, Views, and Blues is also sponsored by GoDaddy.com. Visit today and use coupon codes blu16 or pod16 to receive up to 10% off your web hosting and/or domain name needs.

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