SnapIt Screen Capture Review

Dear Readers,

As a writer, there are times when you are doing some research online and have a need to immediately capture what you're seeing.  It usually isn't enough to "cut and paste" because something isn't going to translate into Word or whatever other place you're "pasting" it to.

SnapIt is a program that allows you to quickly and easily capture a screenshot of anything that is on your desktop, save it to a file so that you can use it later.  I've been asked to try this product and write a review of it.

Because I don't use a lot of technology in my line of work, I found that using SnapIt wasn't as intuitive as perhaps it could be.  I had hoped that by downloading the software and installing it, it would open up a Quick-Start window or a Tips page that would tell me right away how to capture a screen shot.

Fortunately, I found this information on their FAQs page of their website. Once I realized that the "hot-button" was the print screen button on my keyboard, immediately the cross-hairs appeared and I managed to capture a shot of the product from SnapIt's website.  By drawing with the crosshairs, I could outline a rectangle of what I wanted to capture.

Here is the screenshot of SnapIt's Overview of the product:

By taking quick screen shots, I have found that my research into particular writing topics has improved because it saves me a great deal of time.  Any tool that saves time is well worth it.

Would you like to get this for free?

If you create a review in any blog/forum/twitter/facebook, etc. and contact julia.taylor@digeus.com with a link to the review, she will issue a registration code and name for you.

Just think how much time this tool could save you when you're putting together your projects.

If you'd like a chance to try SnapIt for free, click here:

http://www.digeus.com/products/snapit/snapit_screen_capture_3_5.html

Try this and see if screen capture saves you time.

 

Looking for Writing Markets?

Periodically in this blog I will provide links to pertinent markets that, as a writer, you may be interested in.  Here is one that specializes in the personal essay.  As a follower of memoirs, the personal essay falls well within this market, however it is a much shorter narrative.

Participate | The Pedestrian

The above link will send you to their current publication calendar, complete with themes, deadlines, and links to their essay contests that will pay up to $500 for the winning essay.

Your Blogging Personality

On the topic of blogging...

You need to develop your blogging personality. 

This is basically a combination of you, what you believe in and represent...and your audience.  Consider who is going to be "listening" to your rantings.  Your audience is who you're writing for.  If you didn't think you'd be writing for an audience, you wouldn't be writing on the web, you'd be scribbling away in your private notebook or journal in your garret, and no one would ever know you'd penned a word until one day, long after your death they discover your "writings".

Back to your blogging personality...

You want to consider who is going to be reading your blog, and address your posts to that audience.  Generally speaking, you'll be addressing like-minded people who are interested in what you have to say, what you have to share with them.

In the case of Auntie Kit and Cousins, she is blogging to a community of people who hold family life, homespun goodness, and simplicity above all else.  With that in mind, she needed to "decorate" her blog to reflect that audience.  When people land on a blog that makes them feel "at home" they tend to linger a little longer.  There are many ways to get your viewers to linger, but the very first is to make sure their initial exposure to your blog will keep them there.

This means you have to decorate it appropriately.  In "Auntie Kit's" case, she needed to reflect the warm glow of simple yet elegant living with an appropriate wallpaper.  She was able to find one from among the myriad of free offerings available on the internet.  Once she incorporated that wallpaper, her hits began to increase dramatically.  Her first two weeks she got about 50 visitors.  By her third week she was up to 150 visitors.

While I know that she's actively trying to direct more traffic to her site, she is now getting responses based on how her site "feels" to the people who land on it.

If you don't keep your target audience in mind, you're doing no more than scribbling into a notebook.  If you really want your blog to be read, you need to make it visually appealing to the people who land there.  If they're your target audience, make 'em feel comfortable!

Who Should Blog?

This is an interesting post.

I'm currently working with a young woman who has decided to use blogging as an outreach to augment her resume for job applications.  This young woman wants to be in the Hotel/Restaurant industry and dearly wishes to get another job in this area.

She had once worked in a small cafe and was quite successful in her position.  She had to resign because she was under-age and her family was relocating to another state.  Once in that new location, the economy tanked and no one was hiring.  In order to fund her college aspirations, she has taken a job at a day-care where she is doing very, very well.  However, this is not the industry she wants to pursue for her career.

In order to make her resume look more attractive, this young woman has decided to approach her new life in a new city as an opportunity to discover new places to go.  One of her pet passions is a coffee shop.  Not long ago she compiled a short list of small, unique coffee shops.  Once a week she would visit a shop on her list, order something that is "what they're known for" and evaluate it.  If she has people who accompany her, all the better because they all order something different and give an even more broad assessment of that establishment.

To the point of blogging, this young woman has started a blog where she identifies the shops she has visited and makes notes about her experience.  How will this help her in her job search?  She will list her blog as something to reference for her future employers.  They will be able to see that her approach is unique, that she truly does have the intention of pursuing a career in the hospitality field, and that she is telling the world about her experiences.

Every person has the right to their opinion, and blogging is one to express that opinion.  When someone takes a blog and uses a laser focus as this young woman is doing, it makes the purpose of a blog even more important.  People who discover her blog will use it as a reference for places they would visit when they come to her town.  Her future employers will see that she has a deep-seated interest in the hospitality field and one of them is going to recognize the initiative that she is showing and snap her up because she is going places!

In answer to the question posed in the title: Who Should Blog?

The answer is:  Anyone who has anything substantial to say.  If people are interested in what you do, you should blog.  Blogging is one way to fight the uniform mediocrity that comes from standardizing our society. America was founded on originality...long live blogging as a way to highlight and celebrate that originality!

Branding a Name

What's in a name?

In some cases absolutely everything.  As I mentioned in a previous post, I am following a new blogger who is writing under the name of Auntie Kit and Cousins.  She said she purchased the domain name about four or five years ago but couldn't find any information about getting that domain name set up into a web site. 

Fortunately, she was able to contact the company (GoDaddy) who she purchased the name from and they are in the process of establishing her identity.  She originally paid for the domain name on a recurring purchase agreement through PayPal.  Unfortunately, she had an identity issue and had to close all those accounts and name new ones.  In the meantime she moved from one state to another.  By the time she decided to use that name, all the documentation from that original web-domain name purchase had been lost.  She couldn't access the information.  Fortunately, a reputable site for purchasing domain names will work with you to establish your identity and verify that you are the correct individual. 

In Auntie Kit's case, she was nearly out of luck, but because she DID own the domain name and actually remembered it, she is currently in the process of re-establishing her identity so that she can legally re-obtain the information so that she can eventually set up a website with the same name as her blog.  We'll continue to follow her escapades because the Branding of a Name is ever so important in today's world of internet commerce.

People may have no idea who you are, but they will certainly remember your name!

Acreage - October 2010

Acreage - October 2010

You might like to see my latest articles in Acreage Magazine...truly a magazine for a rural lifestyle!

This is one way to drive traffic to a blog site.  Linking to other sites. In this case, I'm linking to some of my own articles under the name Kathleen Birmingham so that I can see if it directs traffic to my blog.

The only way to determine this is to try it, test, test, test, and then evaluate the results of the testing.

Blogging - What's all the Fuss About?

Sure, I'm on board with the blogging phenomenon, I'm writing here, aren't I?

The real trick is to figure out what the point of blogging is.  Initially, I wanted to share my ideas on writing in general in this blog, but I'm realizing that blogs need to be more personal.  They  have to have a personality as unique as your own.

To this end, I'm following a brand new blogger. She started her blogging site about two weeks ago.  She had a really neat name chosen years ago because she thought at that time she might make a business out of it.  The blog is called Auntie Kit and Cousins. Cute name.  Brings to mind family, homespun feelings, country, apple pie, and a big warm kitchen where everyone gathers.

Her life isn't quite that, but because her life is missing some of those elements, she decided to blog about things that gave her great pleasure once upon a time, and in this way she wants to continue to find pleasure in her daily living. It's a good lesson, that we can often overlook wonderful things that are happening to us just because life circumstances have changed dramatically.

She had a name and an idea.  Her first blog was about sharing the story behind the name about a group of people she met over a common idea and ideal, and how that impacted her life.  The name grew out of that experience, but it became more than just that experience. The experiences almost grew because of the name.

Interestingly enough, Auntie Kit decided to get the domain name from Go Daddy. She didn't have a defined business idea yet, but the concept was there, and concept is absolutely everything in marketing.  She believed so much in the idea all those years ago that she purchased the domain name and continues to pay for it even though she has not created a website based on it yet.

The first blog is just that, a foray into the unknown cyber world of blogging. You never know who is going to read it.  Actually, unless you tell someone about it, for the most part, it won't be read.  Some blogs go entirely unread.  Others get only a few hits a day and can sometimes go weeks without any hits, especially if there are no new updates.

My next posting will talk about that...how to direct traffic to your blogsite. But FIRST! Creating the personality of the blog is essential. That's the next blog...traffic will be one or two after that.

Mashugana

I recently heard the term "mashugana" when my husband was in the hospital after sustaining a badly broken leg after a motorcycle accident.  His cardiologist's associate visited with us and called him "mashugana", which she said was Yiddish for crazy.  

Now I just read that Tony Curtis died and his daughter, Jaime Lee Curtis called him:

 

"a little mashugana" - Yiddish for crazy - but always full of life.

 

Maybe being "mashugana" isn't such a bad thing...