Sunday, June 13, 2010

Bloggiesta Accomplishments

Bloggiesta finish line

The Bloggiesta is over (at least for me) and while I did get quite a few things accomplished in the 12 hours I worked on it, I could spend a whole other weekend on my blog and still not get through my to-do list!

What I did do:
  • I fixed almost all the dead links on my blog using both Xenu’s Link Sleuth (which I found via Karen’s mini-challenge at Karin’s Book Nook) and Link Evaluator (a Firefox add-on).

  • I added pages to the top of my blog and transferred my review indexes to them (and removed my homemade menu bar); however, I still need to write a proper review policy.

  • I publicized my current giveaway, which resulted in several new entries.

  • I ran my blog through Website Grader (for Ruth’s mini-challenge at Bookish Ruth) and realized I no longer had any metadata, so I added some (which improved my score by over 30%).

  • I visited several new-to-me blogs (and hope to visit more next week).

  • I created several new Google Alerts for Emily’s mini-challenge at Emily’s Reading Room.

  • I worked on four different reviews (although none of them are finished to my satisfaction).

  • I finished one of my BEA/BBC posts.

  • I wrote up my Mailbox Monday post for tomorrow.

  • I responded to some of the comments on my blog.

  • I created a favicon for my blog, finally, thanks to Trish’s mini-challenge at Hey Lady! Whatcha Readin’? Even though this might seem silly, this is the change I’m the most pleased with (and it took no time at all)!

  • I had tacos for supper tonight, which seemed like an appropriate way to end this event!

What I didn’t do:
  • I didn’t stay up all night like I did for the first Bloggiesta and I didn’t stress too much about the things I wasn’t managing to accomplish.

How did you do on the Bloggiesta?
Thanks, Natasha, for organizing this great event!

10 comments:

  1. I didn't stay up all night either. If I did that, I'd probably want to throw my computer out the window. :) Just kidding there. It looks like you did a lot of great things!

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  2. Love the favicon! Congrats on a day well spent!

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  3. I'm marking this post so I come back for what look like very helpful links. Great job!

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  4. Becky, after too many short nights while I was in New York for BEA, I couldn't afford a sleepless night -- I would have been a basket case. Thanks for stopping by!

    Thanks, Michelle! I think my favicon is so cute!

    Thanks, Jenners. I must admit I wasn't totally happy with Xenu’s Link Sleuth: it produced a huge list of dead links for me, but I had trouble finding some of them on my blog (which is where Link Evaluator came in). I'm still on the lookout for an easier way to find dead links. (It's also possible that I just didn't figure out how to use Xenu properly.) Note that Karin's post linked to a Problogger post that offers several other software options.

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  5. Nice work. I bet you are happy you did it. :)

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  6. Wow, you accomplished a lot!

    --Anna

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  7. Thanks, Wisteria, I am! I do wish I'd done more writing, but what to do. Can't do everything at once!

    Thanks, Anna! There were actually a couple of others things I did (some of which were not successful) that I forgot to mention on this list!

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  8. It sounds like you got a lot done! I still have to figure out what Metadata is! Lots to learn.

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  9. Wow! I have some tie off at the end of July - I really need to do some upkeep and upgrading. Yours looks great!

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  10. Shelley, if you check out Ruth's blog post (at Bookish Ruth, which is linked in my post above), she has links for how to create metadata tags in both Blogger and Wordpress. The Blogger one is super easy to do.

    Luanne, thank you and good luck with your upkeep and upgrading!

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