Ask MetaFilter questions tagged with Blog and blogs

Interesting blogs about weird technology?

GenericUser — Tue, 12 Feb 2013 02:17:58 -0800

I'm looking for blogs that cover old and/or niche technology, in the vein of Something Awful's "Obsolete technology" thread or JWZ' "retrocomputing" tag. Suggestions?

Philly Blogs

Rory Marinich — Thu, 03 Jan 2013 03:00:53 -0800

Help me find the best-written most interesting blogs writing about Philadelphia.

Blogging for IRL friends?

zeek321 — Tue, 18 Dec 2012 13:22:55 -0800

Have you deliberately used your personal blog(s) to make IRL friends completely outside your social circle? I would like to make IRL friends who share my SFW and NSFW interests, of the vague, sprawling, intellectual variety.

There aren't any existing meetups in my area for my interests, and previous attempts at creating said meetups (I tried hosting a few for months) brought in people who were very nice to chat a bit with but who I wasn't interested in being friends with. (If my interest were meditation, just as a pretend example, I would get tons of new-agey types, when I really wanted people who were interested in ancient texts. And this would happen no matter how carefully I worded the meetup description, with multiple ongoing experiments over a year. Again this is just pretend, but this is the kind of thing that kept happening.)

Do you have a range of difficult-to-classify, sort of introverted interests? And they're outside the mainstream but not halr-splitting minutiae that only a handful of people in the world would be interested in?

Do you blog? Did this accidentally or deliberately lead to IRL friends? Do you have any tips for me? I have SFW interests and NSFW interests. If you do too, do you have two blogs or just one?

Basically, I'm trying to decide whether to commit to blogging for a year or five or if I should put almost all of my focus on mingling at IRL events that don't quite fit my interests and referring to stuff I'm interested in, in conversation. A few minor hits so far. (I'll probably keep doing that anyway.) The blogging into a black hole has been gratifying but emotionally draining and time-consuming, and I'm wondering if I should stick with it until I become more googleable. I would also start getting more involved as a blog commenter, have a blogroll of somewhat related blogs and that sort of thing.

One thing that concerns me is that if I focus on a handful of interests instead of one main theme, would that make it much less likely for people to be able to google for my content? Another concern I have is that I've personally never found someone's blog incredibly awesome to the point where I've emailed them to say hi. Should this tell me something?

(Part of the problem, if you're going to ask me to actually post my interests here, is that it's difficult for me to summarize and classify them, except for listing lots and lots of thick books that are all interconnected to me but seem to come from lots of different subfields, and I'm not interested in the subfields in isolation, and the people in those subfields don't seem interested in stuff outside their work. So, I'm thinking writing might be a way to help articulate and clarify what I care about while serving as beacon for other potentially interested people.)

Would you commit to this route if you were me, specifically as an IRL friends strategy? I would also be actively working on making my writing less dense and run-on-y. I might just have to keep writing, for my own sanity, but it would be motivating if people had success stories and said, "Yes, write with your blog in mind."

Need sources for new mashups

flatluigi — Tue, 31 Jul 2012 19:55:23 -0800

I used to be really into the mashup scene, but in recent years I've really fallen behind and only have one or two blogs that I'm following that don't really post new things that often. Does anyone have any recommendations? General remix blogs are fine, too, but I'm mostly looking for the classic 'multiple songs shoved together to make new ones' type.

What is the best solution to setup different wordpress blogs and have one central blog which combines all the postings from these?

jfricke — Mon, 14 May 2012 08:58:39 -0800

What is the best solution to setup different wordpress blogs and have one central blog which combines all the postings from these? I would like to setup different blogs with various authors within one domain. The blogs are related thematically but each one covers only some aspect of the overall topic. Besides the different blogs I would also like to have a central blog which combines the postings from all blogs chronologically. The design of all blogs should be the same. Only the header-image needs to be different.

What is the best solution to this problem? I know about the multisite function. However, I couldn't find anything about having a blog with combined postings from other blogs. Are there special themes for my issue? Maybe it would be easier to use categories instead of different blogs? Any suggestions are welcome.

Thanks!

Blog me

showbiz_liz — Tue, 27 Mar 2012 11:05:11 -0800

I want to read more NYC-specific blogs. Lay 'em on me. I have been slowly filling my rss reader with interesting blogs, and I especially want to find more New York-y ones. I currently follow Gothamist, Brokelyn, the Awl, Scouting NYC, and Fucked in Park Slope. I'd like to find more super-niche-y blogs- I love Scouting NYC because it's just a location scout blogging about neat places he checks out for his job. A few decent food blogs and local music blogs would also be welcome. But really I'm looking for anything at all, especially if it has a unique perspective (aka not necessarily just 'ever-so-slightly above-it-all late 20s writers/comedians', although that's also fine!)

Help me get my knit on!

kanata — Tue, 07 Feb 2012 09:23:39 -0800

I've asked you about crochet blogs. Now help me find the greatest knitting blogs or tumblers. I've taught myself to knit in the last year and have fallen in love with it. I'm already on Ravelry but I'm looking for knitting blogs. The cream of the crop.

They should have drool worthy pictures, and have great writing. I'm looking for personality and fun reads. Humour would be great. Knitting tips included is always a bonus but not necessary. I want to read about what is on people's needles to inspire me to knit more.

Additional categories of knitting + dogs, or knitting + mental health, or knitting + meditations would be delightful as well!

Help me get my knit mojo super charged!

Soliciting Quotations

Bobby Bittman — Mon, 26 Dec 2011 21:16:21 -0800

My wife is starting a new blog to kick off the new year, and it's going to be based on an idea that revolves around inspirational quotes, one a week throughout 2012. My daughter and I are in charge of finding the quotes. Care to donate one? Basically, she wants to be surprised by the quote at the beginning of the week, so she doesn't want to know what they are before each week.

Please contribute your favourite inspirational quote about life, love, time, work, good, evil, pain, or anything. They can be from any source - books, songs, movies, plays, comics, etc.

Thanks, can't wait to read them!

Help me find anonymous/pseudonymous bloggers?

waxpancake — Sun, 13 Nov 2011 03:04:04 -0800

Can you help me find currently-active anonymous or pseudonymous bloggers? Niche is fine (e.g. mommybloggers, warbloggers, foodbloggers), but more popular/well-known is better. It seems like every anonymous blog I knew about's come out from under the veil, willingly or not, including Belle du Jour, Waiter Rants, Fake Steve Jobs, Gay Girl in Damascus, etc. I'm doing research for a blog post about the topic, and would love as many currently-maintained anonymous/pseudonymous blogs you can throw at me. Thanks so much.

Internet stalking Toronto

zix — Mon, 25 Jul 2011 10:12:51 -0800

What blogs/twitter lists should I read to get a sense of the Toronto/GTA zeitgeist? I'm moving on up, or at least north, from Boston to Toronto and I was wondering if Toronto has anything similar to Boston's Universal Hub. (twitter). The best I can describe UH is that it's curated crowdsourcing - highlighting blog posts, links, pictures about what's going on in the city in a daily slice of life way.

I realize that it's likely there is no equivalent, so any blogs/twitter lists recommendations to get a feel for the various neighborhoods/areas of Toronto/GTA would be great.

I'm not looking for things like blogTO, Torontoist or the Grid that have more of a news/lifestyle approach (what to do/eat with a major headline wrapup). Thanks!

Help me learn more about social media (prefer interactive contests/blogathons) and how I can learn more about the potential for small businesses that blog.

Wolfster — Wed, 25 May 2011 17:21:04 -0800

How can I learn more about social media (prefer interactive contests/blogathons) and how I can learn more about the potential for small businesses that blog? Background if this helps: I’m a medical writer/freelancer and have thought that I should learn about blogging at least or social media. Recently, I randomly came across a “contest,” or not even a contest but everyone agrees to blog daily for a month (the word for this event is a “Blogathon,” but I did a google search and the term is not being consistently).

Just because I know a bunch of strangers all have the same goals, it really has motivated me to post daily and learn about blogging tools. Also, even though everyone is a stranger, there is a social component to learning this (people check in and comment on other blogs, or pose questions on a google email list.

I know that at this point I’m a baby, tiny blog (disabled on my profile momentarily because I don’t want to be self promotional or spammy) that may go nowhere, but I already am seeing numbers increase a lot (started with no one and now I see ~ 50 hits daily and I see more and more people googling my specific niche and entering the blog. ..within weeks, maybe it is normal, though, but now I’m addicted and want to learn more although this may take years.

My questions related to this:

• Are there contests/competitions/everyone agree to tweet, blog or whatever for X days like this? I think that I like learning via the social aspect and that there a goal. I googled Blogathon but keep seeing a reference to the same event so I’m not sure if I should be searching for another word. I’d also like to see if there are similar things for twitter, too (which I absolutely do not get or understand) or other forms of social media. Are carnivals still done? I googled this but find things from years ago or disorganized messes.

• Have you seen examples of how small business, freelancers, or even someone (individual or group) does something …whether it be promote a business or create something very effectively through the use of social media? I’d love to see examples. This previous post was very useful, but maybe someone has seen other things. I’d love to see the creation of a story/art work/etc.

• (Consider ignoring this question, this may not be realistic). I really want to really invest in learning this as a tool to see what it can do for small business. Not myself necessarily, but to also work with/help others and at the moment I know a lot of small business owners (1 person type businesses) or people who will start soon. Right now I obviously can’t reach enough people and probably don’t know very much. But if this was a goal to eventually try/do, where do I look or is there a way to do this?

Any "previous" post references would be great, too. I tried plodding through the 400 tagged “blog” ask metafilter, but it is overwhelming. I've tried a combination of search terms in ask metafilter and then get nothing or only a few hits, often unrelated.

How do I not let my website show up on 'Incoming Links' sections in a website's stats page?

WalterMitty — Wed, 23 Mar 2011 03:44:20 -0800

I'm setting up a personal blog/ site and need some advice on not exposing my blog's URL through outgoing links. I have a blog. On its stats page, I can see a section labelled 'Incoming Links', where I see other websites which have links to my own and have had people click through them to my site.
In particular cases, I wish to include links on my own website which link to external websites, but I do not want my website to show up on their 'Incoming Links' in their stats pages. How can I achieve this?

Jalopnik alternatives?

Tom-B — Thu, 03 Feb 2011 09:45:00 -0800

What are some fun car blogs? I used to love Jalopnik, but now it's been destroyed by the stupid "magazine like" redesign. Any good alternatives?

Stuff I like: fixing old cars, toolblogging, DIY, hot rods, rat rods, 4x4s, especially old Willys Jeeps, rally racing, rust, old muscle cars, etc. I love Coop's blog and Hoopty Rides, but they seem kinda dead. Anything good out there?

Crochet blogs?

kanata — Wed, 05 Jan 2011 13:01:27 -0800

What are you favorite crochet blogs? They can include knitting and other crafts but crochet should definitely have a main part. Bonus points if they include modern projects (not just clothes), good photos and are well written.

Move a Wordpress blog to a new URL?

toomuchkatherine — Sat, 26 Jun 2010 09:46:56 -0800

How can I move my self-hosted Wordpress blog from one domain to another? I have a web hosting account at one domain (let's call it www.domainone.com). I installed Wordpress and am blogging at that domain. I have another domain (let's call it www.domaintwo.com) that redirects visitors to www.domainone.com and my blog there.

But I want my blog to be at www.domaintwo.com, which just has a more professional and grown-up sound to it. Is there a relatively easy way to move my Wordpress installation and the blog and all the info to www.domaintwo.com?

Alternatively, is there a way to make my blog seem to be on www.domaintwo.com? I'd be content to go with that solution until my hosting account at domain one expires, at which time I'd like to let that domain go and just keep domain two and have everything be there. Thanks!

Looking for good blogs about ADHD

lunasol — Tue, 01 Jun 2010 19:30:55 -0800

I was recently diagnosed with, and started treatment for, ADHD. I'm looking for some good blogs or other online resources written by/for adults with ADHD. Thanks to this amazing AskMe post about ADHD, I finally got myself screened for ADHD/ADD. Sure enough, it appears that I have it, and have since I was a kid. I've been on Ritalin LA for a little over a week, and the results are shocking and awesome - I have no side effects, and I'm able to do things like get my work done, clean my house and stay focused in meetings like I never have been able to do before.

But I'm still in the very early stages of dealing with this and I have a lot to learn. I would love to read blogs or other online writing by adults with ADHD. I've read (parts of) You Mean I'm Not Lazy, Stupid or Crazy?! and Delivered from Distraction, but it would be great to read personal accounts of how people deal with ADHD.

I'm especially looking for stuff written by people diagnosed in adulthood and I would especially love to read about how other folks have been able to get organized and be more effective post-treatment. Extra bonus points for good writing!

I've done some google searches but most of what I find is poorly written, about kids with ADHD, or is mostly about medication or comorbid conditions like depression or anxiety. The big ADHD forums have been especially disappointing. During an afternoon of some intense hyperfocus before starting treatment, I read most of the previous AskMe ADHD threads.

What's the opposite of a "mommy blog"?

oinopaponton — Tue, 30 Mar 2010 10:41:07 -0800

Help this special snowflake find some witty, urbane blogs? I'm looking for some blogs to start reading. I'm into big cities, history, academia, neat and/or weird things on the internet, fashion (modern classic/minimalist, not vintage or frilly) and travel, but mostly I'm just looking for a unique perspective and high-quality, polished, or at least witty and engaging writing. I'm really not interested in reading about babies, cooking, or Scary Sadshaws. If Oscar Wilde wrote a blog, I'd be all up in that.

I already read: kottke, Garance Doré, Park & Cube, Molls... she wrote, The Awl, Sea of Shoes, The Sartorialist, and Hark, A Vagrant!

What are your favorite DIY blogs?

nitsuj — Thu, 25 Feb 2010 10:13:54 -0800

What are your favorite DIY blogs? Looking for blogs big and small that cover all things DIY -- interesting projects, creative solutions to common problems, etc -- especially if they're focused on around-the-house stuff.

Blog Mitosis

ocherdraco — Fri, 19 Feb 2010 07:10:38 -0800

I've got a personal Wordpress (2.0.4) blog at my domain. I'd like to archive that blog, and create a new one (at the same domain) for work-related blogging. What's the best way of going about it? The link to my blog is in my profile.

And yes, before anyone asks, I've got permission from my company to blog about work.

I don't want to delete the personal blog (it is, after all, an account of my life) but I'd like the new work blog to be separate from it. Is this as simple as moving the old blog into a new folder on my domain? Can I have two wordpress blogs on the same domain, or will they interfere with one another? I haven't tinkered with wordpress since the initial installation several years ago (which I had help with from my hosting provider), so I'm woefully unprepared.

An example of a site which does the kind of thing I'd like to do (though I'm fairly certain it's custom built) is this one, which has links to its previous incarnations (home and travel) in its footer.

These are subquestions: I'd love for both the personal blog (which I might continue to post personal things to) and the work blog to integrate Twitter, Flickr, and other such sites, ideally in line with normal posts. Can I continue to use Wordpress and do this? Would that be possible to do with this theme?

The world needs my New York walking blog. I need you to name it.

Anonymous — Sun, 07 Feb 2010 08:27:55 -0800

I'm starting a project wherein I walk each and every block of every street in Manhattan, at least once, over the course of roughly 2-3 months. I want to chronicle this process of walking all of Manhattan in a daily blog, preferably with a daily picture and some text. What do I call this blog? (And should I use tumblr? And anything else to keep in mind?) I'm writing this as an anonymous post because I've written some highly personal questions with my AskMefi account, and this blog will possibly be written in my own name, so I'd prefer it not being tracked back to this AskMeFi account.

The blog would be pretty simple - a daily account of which streets walked, maybe a little description/essay if the mood moves me, perhaps a picture of two, and definitely a picture of a complete streetmap I have of Manhattan, with the blocks covered so far markered out. (My inspiration is this guy.) I've lived in NYC for about six years, don't know how much longer I'll be here, and want to combine the need to exercise more often with an opportunity to see as much as my city as possible before I leave.

So, what to call it? Some (probably lame) ideas thus far:
Walking Manhattan
Peeling the Big Apple
NYC Block By Block
Strolling the Empire

Also, so long as I'm asking, is tumblr the right platform to use? Any other ideas for this blog or overall project? (If you've done something like this, whether it be walking the entirety of Manhattan or this kind of daily chronicle, any advice would be much appreciated.

I've set up a throwaway account at walkingmanhattan@gmail.com. Thanks.

Is there a BldgBlog for technology?

bshort — Wed, 13 Jan 2010 12:28:09 -0800

I read MeFi. I read Boing Boing. I read Slashdot. I read lots of other blogs, but what I really want is something like BldgBlog but for technology / programming / networking / futurism. Does this mythical blog exist? There are lots of enthusiasts' sites, like Engadget, Gizmodo, Slashdot, etc. that focus on products, tools, and the like, but I have yet to find a blog that takes a BldgBlog-like approach to technology. What would you recommend in this vein? What am I missing?

What other awesome frugal cooking blogs are out there?

marsha56 — Wed, 30 Dec 2009 22:21:06 -0800

I've just discovered 30 Bucks a Week and I love it. What other awesome frugal cooking blogs are out there? (more detail inside on what I'm looking for.) What I love about 30 Bucks and what I'm hoping to find in other blogs:

Focus on cooking frugally. I'm NOT interested in other aspects of frugality right now.

Focus on fresh ingredients and very little processed food. No coupon clippers since they almost always are using lots of processed food.

Simplicity. I like recipes that don't have a long list of ingredients. Also prefer cooking to baking as baking often seems to require more time, more measuring, more precision, more ingredients.

Eclectic influences, including Middle Eastern, Asian, Indian, Mexican, etc, etc. Emphasis on interesting flavors.

Looking for meals with little or no meat, but would prefer not strictly vegan. I still enjoy eggs, yogurt and occasionally cheese.

I like lots of recipes and enjoy enticing pics of prepared food and/or food prep.

I really like it when the blogger explains how and where they shop and how much they spent and what they are eating for every meal, including breakfast, packable lunches and snacks, not just dinners.

Looking for blogs. I'm not asking for your own frugal ideas. Lots of other AskMe posts cover this.

In search of cultural grammarians!

ElectricBlue — Sun, 28 Jun 2009 13:39:29 -0800

What are some interesting blogs that touch on both the language and culture of a country? Hello! I'm looking for blogs that combine both cultural studies and linguistic insights. The two examples I have in mind are Sinosplice and No-sword.

What I like about these blogs is that they aren't purely linguablogs or travel blogs. When they bring up a cultural idea, they tend to apply linguistic analysis to it. This has the benefit of both helping language studies and giving the language's mother-culture a chance to shine.

I'd love to check out other blogs of this sort, especially some based in Europe. If you could hook me up with a German language-cum-travel blog in particular, I'd be stoked. It's best if the blogs are in English. If you have any picks in either Japanese or German, I could probably wing it enough to enjoy reading.

(I prefer reading blogs written in a casual tone, though more "academic" blogs are welcome as well!)

How do I create an online poll which users can permanently add to?

kmccormi — Thu, 04 Jun 2009 13:41:10 -0800

How can I create an online HTML form poll, preferably for free, wherein the list of multiple choices can grow when users decide to add to the list of choices? Many poll creators allow for the creation of multiple choice polls that give the viewer the option of selecting "other" with a text field for comments. However, usually this entry does not then become visible to viewers who visit thereafter.

I want my list of choices to be able to grow. If a user sees an existing choice that he likes, he can add his vote to that one, but if he doesn't see an existing choice I would like him to be able to add that choice permanently to the list. Any user who visits afterward will see his choice in the list and be able to vote for it.

I also would love for this poll to be clean, ad-free, and preferably embeddable into a blog or personal site. Does anything like this exist? Thanks.

Offline Blog Reader?

tesseract420 — Thu, 12 Mar 2009 09:04:46 -0800

Offline blog reader? I've backed up my blog into an XML file. I'd like to read it offline. Open Office has XML support but this is not an efficient solution. There are online solutions--importing the xml file into a new blog, for example--but I'd just like to read while offline from the xml file. Is there a program that will permit this?