THE WEDNESDAY EVENING POST DECEMBER 30TH 2009

Evening Everyone!  I hope your holidays were everything you hoped and more!  Jay and I spent a quiet one with my Mom and his Mom here for dinner on Christmas evening.  I wanted to thank all of you who sent me beautiful Christmas cards!  I was thrilled with each of them and I will keep and cherish them always.

On to tonight's post.  I'm not posting any projects tonight, because I wanted to dedicate tonight's post to a movement that is going on in the blogging world of card makers.  It is the subject of how everyone has their comments settings set for their blogs.

As we visit our favorite people's blogs, we are asked to jump through hoops (sometimes many) just to leave a comment on a blog.  First you have the word verification, then some have it set when you leave a comment and hit submit it takes you to another window where you have to do word verification and then click another button just to leave your comment.  Then there are others that you have to scroll down past all comments before you get to leave your comment.  This is very time consuming, and I personally feel that if our visitors are kind enough to want to leave us a comment, we shouldn't make them work so hard to do it.

On some blogs that are joining this movement, some folks are stating that they will no longer leave comments on those blogs that make them jump through these hoops.  I don't subscribe to being that over the top.  I'll leave a comment on everyone's blog no matter what.  But I would like to ask that you at least think about changing your settings so that you can make it easier for people to leave you comments.  Here is what I have done (have for a while now) and these settings make it the easiest for people to leave comments while giving you complete control:

1.  Click on "customize" at the top of your blog (in Blogger).

2.  Click on the "settings" tab.

3.  In settings,  click on the "comment" tab.

4.  Look for "Show Word Verification" make sure "no" is checked.

5.  Look for "Comment Form Placement" and click "pop-up window".

6.  Look for "Comment Moderation" and click "always".  Then make sure you enter your email address in the box provided so that you are notified when there are new comments waiting to be approved.

7.  Click save settings.

It is so simple to do.  I changed mine a few months ago, and I've had absolutely no problems.  The annoying posts that idiots try to leave can easily be rejected when you moderate your comments.   The advantage to the pop-up window is that it allows the commenter to see your post or scroll to a place in your post without having to come back to the comment window.  This makes it easy for them to comment while looking at what they are commenting on.

I do agree with one of the bloggers that I visited last week when she said "Why would we want to make it harder on our visitors to leave us a comment?"  That is why I have made several changes to my comment settings over the last few months.  Not once have I had an issue by taking the word verification off of my blog.  That was taken off 5 months ago.

So, I urge you all to think about this and to go in and change your settings.  It will save so much time for your commenters.  How about making it a New Year's Resolution!?!  LOL

Well, that is it for this subject.  I hope you all can jump on this bandwagon with me and make it easier for all of us to comment on each other's blogs.

I will close this blog post with a very sincere wish, in an original poem I wrote for all of you:

May your sorrows be few and far between,

may your laughter be loud and strong,

May your blessings be the biggest you've ever seen,

may your life be happy and long.

May you be surrounded by the ones that you love,

may your worries be little and few.

May the angels protect you from the heavens above,

may your skies be sunny and blue.

May your enemies be few and your friendships be many,

may your riches be plentiful too.

May this coming New Year be better than any,

for these are my wishes for you.

Written by:  Curt O'Brien

The Happiest of New Year to all of you!

Best,

Curt O'Brien

"God, please help me be the person that my dogs think I am."