News From the Hill

Posts Tagged ‘Media’

Before I started to blog myself I was reading a few blogs and I still am reading most of them on a regular basis.

One of these blogs is “Small Notebook, for a simpler home.” I have always enjoyed the warm way in which Rachel Meeks shares her life experiences, stories and struggles as she raises her two lovely children and manages to balance writing a successful blog while not missing out on her home life.

Like many of us Rachel has struggled with the juggling act of finding time to keep up with her busy family life, not let the house-work overwhelm her and also find time to blog. Now she has written a wonderful new e- book entitled Simple Blogging: less computer time, better blogging.

Simple Blogging: Less Computer Time, Better Blogging by Rachel Meeks

Whether you are new to blogging or have been writing a blog for sometime now I think you will find something in this book that speaks to you. The tone of writing is not overly techy, neither is it too simplistic so Rachel has found a great balance here, making it a comfortable read whether you have years of blogging experience or are brand new to the subject.

It’s broken down into 17 well focused chapters so that you can read it through from start to finish or simply pick a chapter to focus on something in particular. There are questions at the end of each chapter which you can use to help focus your thoughts about your own blogging.

There is a wonderful bonus chapter which has thoughtful insights from 7 well known bloggers: Nesting Place, Simple Mom, Life… Your Way, The Happiness Project, Owlhaven, Made by Rae and Inspired to Action.

Rachel has done her best to keep the price low and this book is only $8 which is great in these days of tight budgets. It is available to download immediately so there is no waiting around or running to the bookshop…

Click here to find out more or to buy it now…

If you do decide to buy the book I would really appreciate it if you used the affiliate link above, it’s the first time that I have tried out an affiliate link and I would be so excited if you buy this great book through my blog

The Booby Prize for Packaging Waste goes to O2.

We became fed up with the coverage of the Vodafone mobile broadband modem, we had become quite frustrated with the intermittent coverage that we had changed over to O2 and got one of their little modems instead. I have to admit that we are very satisfied with the coverage and glad that we changed.

Recently we needed another modem for a guest that was staying and for my use when I travel by myself that we unlocked it the unused vodafone modem and ordered an O2 mobile modem sim card to use with it instead.

Yesterday a small box came in the post and we wondered what it could be, we weren’t expecting anything, we hadn’t ordered anything big enough for a box.

Imagine our surprise on opening it…..

Open the box to find...

an itty bitty sim card

Do you often find yourself reading web-pages that have lots of ads, tabs, login buttons, animations etc?

I find that some web-pages are distracting and that it takes longer to read the story that brought me there or that it is harder to focus on the story and ignore the background images.

This situation can sometimes lead me to click on other links that lead me astray and then I become frustrated about wasting time or loosing track of what I was researching/reading.

There is a great solution to this distraction and I love it – it is called Readability and works simply by clicking on a button on your shortcut toolbar – and the web-page magically becomes simplified.

First you need to visit the Readability website and make a choice about which page format you prefer – you get to choose from a variety of styles, sizes and margin layouts. Once you have decided which style suits you best you simply add the bookmarklet to your bookmark toolbar and the next time that you are faced with a web-page like this…

Very Busy web page, lots of distraction

and turn it into something much easier to read, like this…

Clearer page, simple with just the relevant text and pictures