So, you know by now that I’m obsessed about Pinterest right?

Well, it seems like it’s use is slowly changing.

When it started, people only pinned images that inspired them on their pinboards.  And that’s how I’ve been using it.

And in fact, if you pinned your own work, it was shunned and you got a lot of people unfollowing you!!

Well, now, in the last few months, I’ve noticed a slight shift.  Photographers and event people and brands have discovered how powerful the network is.  So many US photographers have blogged and tweeted recently about how they’ve been referred via Pinterest and are now getting quite a lot of clients that way.

There have been so many articles on tech and photography and marketing blogs that I’ve read recently about it’s power, and how brands should really get on the site, and be able to track how their products and images are shared.  Especially if your market is a visual market.

And all of a sudden, everyone has started boards showcasing their own work (and not just the stuff that inspires them from other people).  Not every shoot thankfully in the case of photographers, but a select number of absolute favourites.

I’m so very tempted to do the same, yet I’m feeling that I’m going against the network’s designed intentions.

As someone that’s been blogging for so many years, I can see why people are changing the way it’s being used.  Apart from the Facebook “like” button and the G+ buttons on your blog which are invaluable, you’re not getting that much feedback anymore.  Commenting on blogs has virtually stopped.  The connection with your readers (who are definitely still there) is happening on other networks like Facebook, Twitter and Google +… so this is one way of seeing what is really liked.  Because you’re connecting with your friends and your network and not the bloggers network, it seems that people are commenting on Pinterest rather… and spreading individual images rather than a whole blog post’s worth of images… and that’s more digestible for the internet generations who have very short attention spans.

Not sure… not sure… damn it’s tempting.  What do you think?

Anyway, if you’re there, hook up with me, I’d love to see your boards… I’m Jenty there too

All the Girlguides bloggers were invited to the iStore last night for a shindig with Core Group.

Was so very awesome and entailed lots of chocolatey goodness and champagne. In between loads of chats and giggles we got our faces mapped by Dermalogica and we got to know the Core PR peeps a bit better.

Oh and then there was a fun handstand competition on the lawns outside… Sans cameras of course because most of the girls were wearing skirts and dresses. Was quite impressive actually

Anyhoo, the Dermalogica thing was good and I think I’m going to try out the range… now that the shock of having my face mapping has waned. Hearing about “deep lines” and “dehydration” is not pleasant and brought home the fact that I’m not getting younger

Ooh and we got to take home some goodies too. The boys were thrilled with their Pokemon playing cards and Mario bros stickers. And I really like my docking station for my iPhone and iPod

It was an awesome evening

A few days ago, Laura asked me how to add Facebook “like” buttons and Twitter’s tweet buttons to her blog.  Instead of replying by email, I’ve decided to blog about it… because I’m convinced that a lot of bloggers don’t know how to do it.

I’m specifically referring to owned domain WordPress blogs here, not the free WordPress blogs.

Before I get into how to do it, here is a list of the sharing links that you HAVE to add to you blog:  Tweet, Facebook Like and Google +.  The others like Stumbleupon are a nice to have but normally Stumblers have a stumbling toolbar on their browser that’ll add your link to Stumbleupon and there’s no real need for a button on the post.

But why do you need this? It’s extra clutter on the page, I hear you asking…

Well, it’s quite simple really, if your article is good, people will want to share it.  The easier you make sharing, the more people will actually send it to their friends.  The majority of my click-throughs on my photography blog (other than Google hits), is from people clicking the “LIKE” button on my blog.

People are inherently lazy online… it’s a schlepp to copy the link and paste it into a tweet… it’s a whole load easier to click on a tweet button, slightly edit the text and press submit.  And there’s an added bonus… you can actually see how many people clicked the button!!

As for Google +, yes I know it’s the new kid on the block, but Google is using it in the search indexing… it’s already made an impact on my blog stats.

OK, so now you know why you need it, and what to add… the last bit is to show you how to add them.

It’s actually very easy if you have a WordPress blog.  All you need to find is a good plugin, if your theme doesn’t have them built in (my photography blog theme has the links built in).  There’s no need for coding at all.

I use the following plugins on this blog:

• 1-click Retweet/share/like - you can choose which sharing buttons to add, and where to put the buttons on the page.  It also includes an automatic feed to social media sites, but I don’t use that because I don’t like publishing all my posts automatically… it becomes spammy.
• Wordbooker - this plugin has added buttons to the top of my post, but I mostly use this one to send selected posts to Facebook.  I like this plugin because I can choose which ones to send, and it syncs the Facebook comments back to my blog.
• Another alternative is Slick Social Sharing buttons which have a slideout version of the buttons

I hope you find this article helpful Now please add them to your blog so that I can share your content with my friends!

A few weeks ago a very good friend of mine, Natalie, who lives in the USA said on her Facebook status that she wished her friends and family in other countries could come to her babyshower.  And then I got an email from her friends invited me to her babyshower, and I thought that was sweet, but pity I couldn’t just fly there… even though that is one of the things on my bucket list.

And in steps her amazing husband Brian to make this a reality

After spending a few minutes setting my Mac up with him remotely a few nights ago… today was the day of her babyshower.  So I duly made sure I was at the flat, and ready and setup with my red wine and dried wors… ready for her virtual and real-life babyshower that happened at 5PM SA time, and 11AM Maryland time

And with the sea in the background, and the kids and Lance watching TV… I attended Natalie’s real-life babyshower along with her mom and dad and gran in the UK, and our friend Charmaine in New Zealand (it was 3am in Auckland… now that’s dedication).

There was a huge amount of squealing when she arrived at the venue, and realised that not only her were her friends and family there, but we were too.

If you’re wondering how it was done… we all connected via GoToMeeting.com using our webcams.  It was fantastic considering I was on a 3G connection actually… there was hardly a delay on my side.  Brian had set up 2 laptops at the venue so we could see everything going on… and there seemed to be a lot going on, and it was quite funny to watch the kids so enthralled by the setup.

I just wish I could give her a real life hug! But it was awesome spending that special time with her.

I bought myself a Kindle with the idea that I would have time to read a lot this holiday.  It arrived on Friday just in time for my holiday. We arrived in Ballito today…  and I have yet to use the Kindle.

And the reason… because Bradley discovered that it’s got a dictionary built into it.  I showed him the dictionary, and he spent a few hours reading a book about animals and running upstairs to look up words that he wasn’t sure about.  And then I bought him a Famous Five book by mistake (seriously it was by mistake, I got a sample to see if he would read the book on the device, and then pressed “buy” by mistake).

And guess what he did for most of the journey down to KZN?  Read his book on MY Kindle.  And in fact, after there was a tussle around Pietermaritzburg, I quickly bought a story about a dragon for Connor too, and the book read to him using the “text to speech” function (thankfully he’s not that enamoured by it yet)

***sigh*** so now I’ve, in essence, lost both my favourite toys… my iPhone gets nabbed by Connor to play Talking Gina and Angry Birds as soon as he sees a gap… and now Bradley is reading books on my Kindle.

I supposed I should really get him one.  Now that’s one device I really have no qualms buying the kids! Something to encourage reading.

I’ve just finished revamping my photography blog (well it’s almost done, the portfolio pages need some work), and after the endless swearing and cursing that was involved I thought this would be a good blog topic.

I’ve been blogging for almost 5 years, and in that time I’ve changed themes umpteen times, and I’ve now used all the options available.  I’ve fought with endless free themes, until I succumbed to buying themes, and for this blog I was lucky enough to win a custom theme.  So in no particular order, I hope this list will help you if you’re on the hunt for a new WordPress theme.

1.  Know your limitations.  I may be quite happy to fiddle around with settings until I get them to work and find plugins to make my life easier, and I’m a google fundi when it comes to finding help, but I’m no code-head.  I can guess fumble my way through HTML and CSS to adjust the colours and the basic layouts, but I cannot possibly write a piece of code that’ll hugely improve the blog… so I need to find a theme whose blog code is stable, and well documented.  And the problem with free themes is that you do end up having to change the code quite a bit to get it to do what you want it to do.  If you’re happy doing that for hours on end, then go that route, it’ll save you money… but definitely not time.

2.  Richness of the CMS/admin section This is almost always non-existant on free themes (unless they’re premium themes, but even then the free theme’s admin sections are basic).  On a paid theme, like my photography blog theme, I expect the admin section (or plugin) to do everything for me.  I don’t want to have to fiddle in the code.  It has to be self explanatory, or very well documented (not one or two lines where you can see that the developer couldn’t think of what to write… it has to be written for laymen).  Now this is where the problem comes in… apart from a few screen dumps on trial pages, you can’t actually play around with the admin sections until you actually buy the theme… this is a massive flaw because you could end up with a blog that’s cost you a bomb and you need to be a code-head to get the thing to work!  Try and look at the sample images to work out how rich the admin section is and my advice is to also go through the support forum to see how to install it before you buy the theme.

3.  Flash headers and slide shows don’t work on iPad or iPhone, so if like me, you’re getting more and more hits from those devices and you don’t want to reduce your users experience of the site, steer clear of themes that use these (where you can’t change it for another type of slide show for example)

4.  Support.  Make sure the support for the theme is good.  I can’t stand having to email someone to get help.  That takes time to get a response, especially if you’re sitting in Africa and the developers are in the US or something.  The documentation online needs to be robust, and if you use Twitter like me, make sure the developers have a Twitter account and use it!!

5.  Flexibility.  Play around with the sample blog.  Make sure it’s as flexible as you need it to be.  Also make sure that you can adjust it in some way so that your site does look unique.  There’s no point spending a fortune on something and then your blog looks generic.    This is particularly relevant for custom blogs where it’s really not a cheap exercise.

6.  Usability.  Again, play with the sample blog.  If you struggle to find our way around it, then guaranteed your readers will too.  Think about how easy it is to navigate around it… a blog may be a personal journal… but it’s online for other people to read.  If they can’t understand how to get around it, then they won’t come back again.

Let me know in the comments if you’ve learnt any hard lessons about blog theme buying recently.

Anyhoo, that was quite a braindump… let me get back to my editing. Hope you found it interesting and slightly helpful.

Connor threw an almighty tantrum when we got home from a photo delivery this afternoon, because he wanted to play Xbox and I wouldn’t let him.

And my camera was on the table next to me… so I needed evidence… thought it would be good for bribery later

Then I left him watching TV, made myself some tea… and heard music which sounded familiar… I followed the sound… and found him hiding behind the couch playing Plants vs Zombies on my iPhone!

I’ve seen the Wonderbag being used before… in fact, last year my mom blogged about how she used one to cook my birthday dinner because the power went out on the day we celebrated my birthday at her house… so, I was intrigued when I got invited to Microsoft for today’s launch.  But the launch ended up not being about the bag… but about how the company intends distributing it to communities.

Oh and we got to eat lunch that was cooked in the bag!!

Before I start, it probably makes sense to explain what it is.  It’s a bag that looks almost like a duvet with a cushion that you tie around the top.  The way you use it, is to boil your food in a pot, and once the cooking process has started, you take the pot off the stove and put it in the bag, seal it, and leave it.  And the bag’s insulation acts like a slow cooker and cooks the contents of the pot.

So, as you may think, this save electicity or fuel or whatever it is that you cook with, and is good for the environment… and effectively saves you money if you use it regularly.

What’s interesting about this product though, is the way in which it’s being “sold”.

Natural Balance has now reached agreement with some municipalities to distribute/sell the bags to the residents to reduce the power consumption as well as household costs.  The mayor of Newcastle spoke at the launch today and told us how 22000 of these bags will be distributed to the residents of the town who are on the ingident register (those households registered as only earning < R1900 income per month.  And then other residents will get bags if they prove that they pay their electricity bills for 3 consecutive months… as an incentive to paying for electricity.  They’re hoping to encourage the use of the bags to reduce power bills… and effectively giving the residents more disposable income to spend on other things.

Interesting hey?

I really hope that the community project is successful, because I think it’ll really help those that are struggling to pay for electricity… and to keep their consumption under the minimum “free” limit. In fact, there was a guy from the Ekhuruleni municipality at the launch trying to understand how he could get the concept working in his area… good sign!!

What was also interesting was that a product design agency Frog has built a mobile USSD application for field agents to capture basic information about the people that use the bags (and the data is then sent real-time to a cloud based database and system provided by Microsoft) in order for the company to monitor the use of the bags… and then enabling them to claim carbon credits.  Carbon credits are tradeable in Euros and will essentially mean that that money  received from the sale of the credits will be plugged back into the project enabling more bags to be produced and distributed.

Some facts about the bags which I found quite fascinating:
- The Wonderbag saves approximately 0.5 tonnes of carbon per year if it is used 2 or 3 times a week.
- With regular use, the Wonderbag can save at least 15kWh of electricity and 1.6 litres of paraffin a week, and as much as 50% of the energy needed of cooking.

Oh and it’s pretty!
I think it’s a really worthwhile project they’re embarking on… I think I want to get one for my domestic worker… I’m sure it’ll save her some money.

However, even though it’s so cool, I’m not sure how often I would use it… other than what my mom did… use it when the power goes out and you want to cook something for a long time.  We don’t really eat a lot of stewy stuff.  But if we did… this would make a huge amount of sense

PS. Some of the images taken with iPhone and Instagram and the others with my DSLR

On Sunday I met up with a bunch of girl geeks, who like me, write reviews for Girl Guides. In between tucking into cocktails and sushi at the Southern Sun Hyde Park pool bar (which is awesome btw) we had to introduce ourselves to the PR reps that were there too.
I found that surprisingly difficult! I couldn’t figure out how to explain who I was in a geek sense, and what kind of gadgets I like using.
Instead of saying that I like ALL gadgets and want to try them ALL, I went on about how I’m a photographer, a blogger, that I do social media strategy and banking strategy and that I’m a mom with 2 boys who are enamored with Xbox at the moment. Lame that explanation, isn’t it?

Anyhoo, I was listening to everything the others said around the room and it struck me how different we were, if compared to a bunch of male geeks in a similar environment.

We all love gadgets and blogging and social media. But… We don’t necessarily have the gadgets to support that love. If you had to ask a bunch of tech reviewers on a male dominated site guaranteed the majority of them actually own the gadgets already or something similar anyway.

In fact, it may surprise you to know this but even though we have an Xbox and my camera equipment is fab… We don’t even own a flat screen TV at home!! LOL!

When I thought about this topic on Sunday driving home, my feeling at the time was that it was because there’s always something else that seems more worthwhile spending money on.

I mean, I would give my eye teeth for an iPad2 or a Kindle or flat screen TV, but paying school fees and getting a new lens and clothes shopping and kids entertainment… and in fact, a new couch, is more of a priority.

And then on the way to work yesterday, I heard an interview on 5fm with a lady from FITE who is in South Africa working with local woman entrepreneurs and she was quoting some stats that astounded me, and also made me realise that my thoughts were in fact right. Do you know women on average, plough 85% of their income back into their family?

That makes complete sense to me. If the kids asked for a gadget I would buy it in a flash if I thought they’d gain from it. But I wouldn’t buy it for myself. I think it’s selfish.

Strange but true. Is this the case for you too?

Connor is obsessed with Angry Birds.  As soon as I get home in the evening, he grabs my iPhone and that’s the end of that… until the battery goes flat!

He’s so comfortable navigating around my phone now, and can basically show you where everything is and how it works.

Even though I’m quite relieved some days to get him out of my hair for a while, while he plays games… I’ve discovered that I’m not getting the phone calls I should be getting.

It turns out he’s also become my call screener!! Now if it was a marketer that was trying to sell me something, I wouldn’t be so bothered, but this week it was my new boss!!

LOL!

I was chatting to my parents and my sister, and Bradley came running into the kitchen with Connor throwing a tantrum behind him… he was yelling that I had a phone call.  By the time I got the phone though, the person had put the phone down.

He phoned back a minute later though, and then told me that he’d tried phoning about 4 times, and had had long conversations with Connor… but couldn’t convince him to give the phone to me.

LOL!! Thankfully he has kids and thought the whole situation was quite funny.

He told me the next day that when Connor answered the phone, and he’d said he wanted to speak to me, that Connor just replied “My Mommy’s busy, she’s talking to my granny” and promptly put the phone down!

Nothing was going to get in the way of him and his game.