Category: Blogging

I was always having problems writing blog posts in Microsoft Word and then pasting them into TypePad as a post.  I learned one thing to try.  Save a copy of your document in Microsoft Word as a "Web Page, Filtered."  This will get rid of a lot of that nasty Microsoft Word formatting that messes everything up.  Then paste it into your blog.

Be careful though that you have another copy of your document because you will lose all of the Microsoft Word formatting except for links.   

Here is Microsoft Office’s article entitled About using filtered HTML

You can also try using this tool after you have filtered the HTML: http://www.textism.com/wordcleaner/

Note from later that night:

After reading the comment below, I couldn’t resist downloading the Beta version of Office 2007 because you can blog with it.  Beta means it still has errors they are working out.  They say you should backup everything before using it.  It costs $1.50 and is good for free until Feb 1, 2007.  If you do get Office 2007 Beta, when it comes time to install it, click "Customize" and keep your previous version of Office.  This is what I did.  The big news with the new Microsoft Word is that the new documents will not be: .doc but rather .docx so you won’t be able to open them in an older version of Word!  Yuck!   

From now on I am going to be telling people to go to www.andyrowell.net for my blog rather than www.andyrowell.typepad.com though they will both actually point to the same webpage.  For example, I will have www.andyrowell.net on my email signature. 

Why I got my own domain name:

1. I think the advantage is that I will be able to keep andyrowell.net for as long as I keep paying for it.   I can change blog platforms or website providers and I can take www.andyrowell.net wherever I go.  For example, if I get tired of TypePad, I can just move andyrowell.net to another blog provider. 
2. It is also easy to remember for people: andyrowell.net. 
3. I found a couple of people who are using .net after their name (www.brianmclaren.net or www.laurenwinner.net) so I thought I would do that too.  (www.andyrowell.com was already taken by an investigative journalist who has written a book). 
4. I could have called gotten churchleadershipconversations.com  But that seemed kind of long to me and I thought perhaps my interests might morph over the years. 
5. I also thought this would be valuable experience.  For the next organization I’m involved in, I will know how to get our own website name.
6. Sorry if this seems egotistical to have my own website named after me.  I was driven to this because I had an old blog with a name even I couldn’t remember: www.FirstMoveThyself.blogspot.com and there are a lot of other annoying, distracting, obscure, confusing, "cute," "clever," names for blogs out there.  See my list of blogs I check for a sampling.  I don’t mind the names but I hate it when I have to look more than 2 seconds for the name of the author once I get to the site.   

How I got andyrowell.net

I bought the domain name andyrowell.net from GoDaddy.com I was sorry to use GoDaddy for my business because of their tasteless SuperBowl ads but TypePad has directions on how to set up a domain with them.  (For you TypePad users see: Domain Mapping with GoDaddy)  I felt like registering a domain was trying something "really technical" so I went with the most popular provider. 

Here is what I paid for at GoDaddy:

12001-1 .NET Domain Name Registration – 1 Year                $8.99 + $.25  = $9.24

7001-1 Private Registration Services – 1 Year                                        = $4.99

=

Total (US Dollars):                                                                             $14.23

This is a $14 experiment I suppose.

Note about too much blogging about blogging:
I admit I have had a number of recent posts about blogging.  It is really annoying when bloggers blog about blogging all the time.  But I’m trying to help people who are new to blogging by sharing the tricks I’ve learned.  It may save someone some pain and frustration.  Click on my category "Blogging" to the right to get all of my posts where I have talked about the tools I use for blogging.  Thanks for bearing with me.  I’m aware that in general I want to talk about church leadership on this blog.       

A couple of days ago I added a Google Search to my blog. 

Here are a couple of helpful links on how to do it:

1. For TypePad users: Adding Google Search to your Weblog 
2. How can I add a Google search box to my Web site?
3. Google Free

I ended up using #2. 

This was one of the biggest things I missed at Blogger.  (At the top of Blogspot.com blogs, you can search that blog which is great).