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Thursday, January 13, 2011

Back It Up, Baby! How to Backup Your Blogger/Blogspot Blog

Posted on 5:32 AM by Unknown
Yes it happens.  True Story. A girl owned a blog. She poured her heart and soul into her blog. Then one day her email account (gmail) that was associated with her blog (blogspot) got hacked by some nasty hacker type.  This girl was unable to login into her email and was not able to access her blog.  So this girl called Google, talked with all sort of smart people and was not able to get her blog back. Google said the only way she could get her blog back was if she had backed it up. Really? Backed it up? Duh.

Back up your blog RIGHT NOW.

1. Go to your blog's DASHBOARD or CONTROL PANEL.
2.  Click on the SETTINGS tab.
Picture 3


3. At the top you will see the options: IMPORT   EXPORT   DELETE.
4. Click EXPORT to save your blog on your hard drive.
Picture 4


5. Click DOWNLOAD BLOG.
Picture 5
5. Breathe a *sigh* of relief.

XOXO-
Beachbrights
(guest blogger)
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Posted in Guest Blogging, Ideas and Suggestions | No comments

Tuesday, January 11, 2011

Book Review Party Wednesday (& Starbucks Giveaway)

Posted on 2:55 PM by Unknown


$15 GC
StarbucksCard

CymLowell



Welcome to Book Review Party Wednesday.

It is real simple. Link up any (old or new, any genre) book review that you have written to the below MckLinky.

A couple of things to remember while you're linking.

1. Add a permalink to your specific post, not the main page of your blog (only one review per blog).
2. Add my Book Review Wednesday Badge or a link-back to the party at the end of your review post.
3. List the name of your blog, Title of Book or Genre. Be sure to use spaces and limit characters to 50. For example: The Lost Symbol, thriller or you can just name your web site.
4. Become a follower of my blog, pretty please (not mandatory).
5. Visit the other linked up reviews and leave comments....it's a party, have fun!
6. I will announce the winner in a weekend post. The winner is chosen from the linked up reviews using Random Number Generator. All included.

I am so excited to be reading all the reviews! This is always so much fun and gives me the opportunity to add new books to my list (& now check out book covers). If you have trouble with Linky, leave your review link in the comments. I will add it to the list for you.


-CYM

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Monday, January 10, 2011

Quo Vadis by Henryk Sienkiewicz

Posted on 5:58 PM by Unknown
Book Review Wednesday STARTS this week!


quo

Quo Vadis
by Henryk Sienkiewicz
Xander Cricket Library 2009;
original in 1896 contributing to a Nobel Peace Prize

What is your relationship to God? What are your religious beliefs? If you believed in one way and met the love of your life who believed another way, would your faith evolve into the other person’s? What if such a change would cause you to lose all social privilege and financial power? Would you still evolve?

These are fundamental questions.

Quo Vadis is a book originally written in Polish in 1896, and contributed to the author’s Nobel Prize. I had never read it before.

Not surprisingly, there are as many reviews and analyses of this phenomenal story as anyone could ever one to peruse. I ignore reviews and commentary before reading any book, so that I can form my own impressions.

I have strong religious feelings. This story is set in A.D. 64 when Nero was Caeser, which is the same time that the Romans undertook to drive the last Jews from Palestine (with the standoff at Masada being, the Romans hoped, one of the last battles. Rome had degenerated.

Marcus Vinicius is a military tribune, a patrician, a potential Caeser. In his own right. He meets Lygia. She is a Christian. Nero burns Rome, blames the Christians, then rounds them up to be fed to lions among the many means of group murder.

Saints Peter and Paul are in Rome. Lygia is imprisoned to be the supreme spectacle of punishment. Will the faith of these people be rewarded with anything other than martyrdom?

I found it difficult to get into the story, largely because of the idioms of the 1890s writing, and a style that is, to me, a lot like a drawn out Biblical story, which it could be. Once into it, I found myself thinking through my own religious and emotional feelings. How would I react under these circumstances?

When I closed the book, I felt confirmed.

If you feel like a serious story that will cause you to evaluate your own feelings, then put Quo Vadis on your list. It will also make for an excellent basis for book club discussion, as our Philosophers’ Club will do next week.

Warms, Cym

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Sunday, January 9, 2011

* * * * * * Snow * * * * * *

Posted on 1:24 PM by Unknown




Lake House OUTSIDE

Lakesnow


Lake House INSIDE

fireplace


Stay Warm & Safe-
CYM


*Lake house located at Cedar Creek Lake, TX
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Posted in Personal Info | No comments

Friday, January 7, 2011

Here and There...

Posted on 12:30 PM by Unknown
Picnik collage


1.  Book Review Wednesdays starts back next week.  Linky will be open Tuesday (1-10-11) night to allow all time zones to link up.  Remember, any genre review (old or new).  Lot's of good prizes this year :)

2.  The World's Most beautiful Libraries from The Great Geek Manual.  Have you visited any of these?

3.  "How-To" build a kid's library cart from Anna White.

4.  Have you registered for BEA or Book Blogger's Convention (or both!)? Drop me a line if you are going!



Additional Stuff:

  • I registered for NetGalley this week: NetGalley is an inexpensive and green way for publishers to share their digital galleys securely. Professional readers—reviewers, media, bloggers, journalists, librarians, booksellers and educators—can all use NetGalley for FREE to read and request galleys they want to review.
  • Mindful Musing's Bookblog has a great "Reader's Choice Awards" for 2010.
  • The New Dork Review of Books reviews Super Sad True Love Story by Gary Shteyngart.
  • Bookalicio.us is giving away a Nook. Happy Anniversary!!

Have a safe weekend and see you at the link up next week~
CYM
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Posted in Spotlights | No comments

Monday, January 3, 2011

Blue Collar Crime ~The Band~

Posted on 9:17 PM by Unknown
prison1
Click Here to Listen: House of the Rising Sun, Instrumental
Click Here to Listen: One Scotch, One Bourbon, One Beer


My friend, Marty Lowey, is a member of the band Blue Collar Crime, a phenomenal blues group. Marty married my Sweetheart and me over a year ago. He also has a new album on the street "To a Life of Crime." You'll love it as I do.

(picture taken w/ my iPhone)
Band


{From Blue Collar Crime}
In the summer of 2001, River Guy decided Dallas guitar legend Mark Pollock needed to be playing in public again. No one disagreed and Blue Collar Crime, a Texas Blues Brotherhood, was born kicking and screaming and wailing the blues. The band plays the blues Texas style and draws from classic Freddie King, Muddy Waters and Jimmy Reed as well as more modern influences such as Stevie Ray Vaughan, Tracy Chapman, George Thorogood and The Fabulous Thunderbirds.

50% of Blue Collar Crime's profits go to the Southern Poverty Law Center.

Warms-CYM






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Posted in Events, Family, Personal Info | No comments

Saturday, January 1, 2011

A New Year

Posted on 8:08 AM by Unknown
IMG_9542
(credit)

These are my thoughts for the New Year, not necessarily resolutions, but some working thoughts to help guide me in 2011.

1. E-Publishing. Amazon Create Space is the way forward for Dust Scenario. Maybe also to put Riddle of Berlin there (in addition to iUniverse, which is a dead end I have decided vs. Amazon which has the market clout).

Just watching Miss Dale download books is convincing about the potential of offering $ 2.99 or free downloads.

2. E-Marketing.  In addition to Amazon Create Space for Dust Scenario,  I need to devise a marketing plan, including how to get cover art done. I paid the designer about $ 5,000 for the covers done to date. I think the covers are too complex. We should explore the Create Space approach or the designer that Joe Konrath suggests, Carl Graves.

It will take time for me to devise a marketing promotional campaign on the internet, as well as beginning to attend meetings where on-line marketers gather.

3. Agent and Standard Publishing. I still think we should pursue AgentFest and contact other agents that come across our sights using the manuscript 30,000 Camels. I have re-written much of Harvest of Gold, but it needs serious attention to make it far more riveting. I need to cut about 60,000 words to get to 100,000.


Happy New Years-
Cym

Dust Scenario
Riddle of Berlin
30,000 Camels
Harvest of Gold
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Posted in Ideas and Suggestions, Personal Info, Riddle of Berlin, Self Publishing, The Dust Scenario | No comments
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