da-AL was gracious enough to host me via a guest post. It features the story of why I wrote my Leonberger book as well as the story about our Leonberger Bronco’s hamster rescue operation. I would like to direct all comments to her post. See da-AL’s post below.
Category: Blog News
This category consist of posts featuring blog news, such as blog anniversaries
Recent Commenting Difficulties on WordPress
This post is just a public service announcement. Have you noticed that it recently has become significantly more difficult to leave comments on certain WordPress websites? Your website might be one of them and you may not know about it. The people having difficulty leaving comments on your website may have a hard time telling … Continue reading “Recent Commenting Difficulties on WordPress”
This post is just a public service announcement. Have you noticed that it recently has become significantly more difficult to leave comments on certain WordPress websites? Your website might be one of them and you may not know about it. The people having difficulty leaving comments on your website may have a hard time telling you.
I like to use the emails I get by subscribing to certain WordPress websites. I can often read the post in my email inbox and then press the comment link. I also like to go straight to the webpage and read and comment there. When I do this (both cases), I have issues with leaving comments on some people’s posts, and I’ve come to realize, it’s not just me, it is a general problem. There is an alternative way of leaving comments, and that is to use the WordPress-Reader. This is an indirect way of leaving, or sending, a comment, and this seems to always work. A friend of mine, Alex, pointed this out to me and I finally got around to doing it this way instead. However, if people have issues with leaving comments on your website you may not be aware of it, for quite understandable reasons. You will just get less comments.
This is typically what happens when you try to leave a comment on the websites that have commenting issues. Again, this happens only on some websites, but it is a quite common problem.
- The Reply button is greyed out. You are asked to login to WordPress even though you are already logged in.
- So, you login to WordPress (despite already being logged in).
- After logging in two duplicate WordPress-Reader windows popup and cover almost the entire page.
- To get rid of them so that you can write your comment you have to reload the page because there’s no close feature. Doing this will erase whatever you have already written in the comment box.
- Now you can typically write and post your comment (but not always)
- In some cases, it does not matter what I do, I cannot leave a comment directly from the webpage (but it is possible using the Reader).
I talked to a Happiness Engineer about this. I was told that they are streamlining the commenting feature and there are currently some issues. He did not seem to know the extent of the problems but appreciated people’s input on the issue. He did not have an exact date as of when it will be fixed.
Have you noticed these problems?
If you see this on my webpage, please use the contact page to tell me (or comment if you can).
I am testing themes with sidebars
I am trying out a new wordpress theme. I previously had twenty twenty. This is twenty sixteen. Twenty twenty did not have a sidebar and I wanted a sidebar so I could remove all the book cover images and have them placed in the sidebar. That way the posts could be about just the post topic. I am not sure what to think about it. The comment/like link (to the left) is hard to see and all 160 posts I’ve ever made are crammed on top of each other on the landing page, well that’s https://leonbergerlife.com/
Do you have a sidebar on your site? Which theme are you using?
I have to think this through. Any opinions are welcome.
One Year Anniversary of My Leonberger Blog
One year ago, I launched my Leonberger blog. Alex Diaz-Granados another blogger I know gave me some advice so I could get started. Well, that was one year and one day ago today (March 13, 2022). I was too busy yesterday to work on my blog, so this post is one day late for a one-year anniversary, but I am doing my one-year anniversary today.
The purpose of the blog was to inform people about Leonbergers, a truly remarkable dog breed, as well as advertise my then upcoming book “The Life and Times of Le Bronco von der Löwenhöhle, Stories and Tips from Thirteen Years with a Leonberger.” I invited friends and announced the existence of my blog on Facebook and Instagram. Later in July of 2022 my book would be released, and a couple of months after that I started interacting with other WordPress bloggers upon the advice of Alex. At this point I am blogging just because it is fun.
I read somewhere that when you launch a blog you should make five posts at once because having a blog with just one or two posts makes it look empty. Therefore, I made five posts on launch day. Below I am posting five pictures corresponding to each of the five posts. If you click on the picture, you can look at that original old post.
My Leonberger Blog Goals for 2023
I launched this Leonberger dog blog in March of 2022. The purpose of the blog was to promote my upcoming book “The Life and Times of Le Bronco von der Löwenhöhle, stories and tips from thirteen years with a Leonberger” and to spread the word about Leonbergers, a rare but very special breed of dog. They are very large, friendly, unafraid but sensitive and loving, protective and strong, energetic and funny, especially when they are young.
In addition, Bronco was a very special Leonberger. Purebred Leonbergers typically live 8-10 years, but Bronco lived almost 13 years. He was two weeks short of 13 when he died from heart failure. Therefore, he received an award for longevity from the Leonberger Health Foundation International and we donated his DNA for research. I can add that I donate all royalties from sales of my book to the Leonberger Health Foundation International. It is a great organization that has improved the health of Leonbergers and other giant dog breeds substantially.
My on-line friend Alex Diaz-Granados, who is an experienced blogger (see “A certain point of view”) helped me get started. He suggested that I use wordpress.com, and here we are. I can add that Alex and I have been on-line friends for a long time. It started with epinions.com, a review site that paid reviewers for writing reviews. I joined epinions.com in 2008. He had joined a few years before that. I focused on software, travel, books, computer hardware and electronics. He focused on books, film, travel, and I think on-line stores and a few more topics. He can fill me in. I can add that sometimes epinions.com paid pretty well, so after a while it became more than a hobby for me. It became a source of supplementary income. I joined twitter and Facebook in 2010 and he was already there, and we both eventually joined Instagram. Unfortunately, epinions.com went belly up in 2014.
In March of 2022 I invited friends and Facebook friends to visit and follow my blog if they wished to do so, and many did. I had some traffic and comments in the beginning but then it died down, and it didn’t seem like search engines picked up my blog. In July of 2022 I released my book in honor of Bronco’s birthday on July 3rd. In the beginning I sold many books, well for a Leonberger book anyway, and I also had more visitors to my blog, but after a while the activity on my blog as well as book sales died down.
Alex suggested that I visit, comment and like the posts of other bloggers and in August I started doing that using Alex’ blog as a starting point and now I was getting more visitors and a lot more comments and likes, and search engines started to pick up my blog a lot more. Lately I even had a couple of posts go sort of viral with thousands of visitors in a couple of days. Those unknown visitors tend not to leave comments (or likes) but other wordpress bloggers do. That was not the best part though. The best part was meeting other bloggers and authors on-line, reading their blogs, reading their books, typically great books. This was fun. Blog visits and book sales became secondary. Blogging is now a hobby.
So, what are my goals for my Leonberger blog in 2023?
- Continue my Leonberger blog and keep promoting my book on the blog for at least six more months.
- Virtual Book Blast For Natural Selection with Jacqui Murray on February 13 2023.
- I still have a lot to learn more about wordpress.com. I don’t know how to do inline images, I don’t know how to store images for later use, I don’t know how to make those little icons, hearts and clover, etc., that people put in comments, I only know the basics of the 20/20 template, I don’t know other templates. I have a wordpress book that I am planning to read. I need to learn more.
- I will read more books by authors I know online. Knowing an author and reading their book(s) is a completely different feeling compared to reading someone you’ve never talked to (I have a long TBR list).
- Post 20-30 book reviews on my blog. I don’t post all my book reviews on my blog. Most of my book reviews are only for Amazon (or Goodreads). On my blog I just post reviews for Leonberger books and reviews for books by fellow bloggers that I love and want to promote.
- I want to start a second blog that is about facts and insights that could have a high impact on someone’s worldview and yet may not be well known, understood, believed or are controversial, yet are fully backed by the expertise in that field. As someone who have studied modern physics, loves gapminder, and have read a ton of books on all kinds of topics, I’ve come across quite a few, and I have radically changed my view of the world several times. However, I am hoping for good suggestions from visitors so I can expand the collection. I can be in charge of the fact checking, at least to begin with.
I wish you all a Happy New Year and a Great 2023!
The Five Most Commented Posts Among The 20 First
This post features a list of the five most commented blog posts out of the 26 posts I’ve made. Click on the photo to see the blog post. Check and see if you missed one or maybe more of them, and feel free to add more comments. I love comments.
Post-4: 21 comments so far – Bronco’s Hamster Search and Rescue
Post-5: 21 comments so far – The Grey Muzzle Award
Post-12: 14 comments so far – A Shocking Walk
Post-6: 11 comments so far – The time Bronco accidentally pushed Baby into a storm drain
Post-16: 10 comments so far – Bronco the Very Big Dog Bites My Behind
The Five Most Liked Posts Among The 20 First
This is my 25th blog post and I decided to make it a collection of my five most liked posts. Most of you cannot like posts. You need a wordpress.com account for that. That’s just the way wordpress.com does it to incentivize people to get an account. I don’t like that, so I am not going to ask anyone to get an account. However, everyone can comment, and I like both likes and comments. So what do you think about these five posts?
Post-12: A Shocking Walk
Post-13: Bronco the Great Swimmer
Post-16: Bronco the Very Big Dog Bites My Behind
Post-17: When Bronco Swallowed our Neighbor’s Head and Teaching Dogs How to Greet People Properly
My First 20 Posts
This is post number 20 for my Leonberger/Bronco blog. I decided to make it a list of posts. Not all posts were equally popular and maybe you missed the posts you would have liked the most. You can click on the link or the picture to see a post, then click back or “Home” (at the top) go back. If you read a post I certainly would love to get a “like” or maybe a comment.
Post-1: What is a Leonberger?
Post-2: Our Leonberger Bronco
Post-3: The Time Bronco Saved the Neighborhood
Post-4: Bronco’s Hamster Search and Rescue
Rosenblatt)
Post-5: The Grey Muzzle Award
Post-6: The time Bronco accidentally pushed Baby into a storm drain
Post-7: The Worldwide Independent Leonberger Database
Post-8: The Day Bronco Stumped the Geek Squad
Post-9: Some Fun Leonberger Facts
Post-10: History of the Leonberger
Post-11: The Day Bronco Sniffed Out an Oncoming Insulin Shock
Post-12: A Shocking Walk
Post-13: Bronco the Great Swimmer
Post-14: The Eye Drop War
Post-15: The Day an EF3 Tornado Ravaged Our Neighborhood. It was a tough day for us and Bronco
Post-16: Bronco the Very Big Dog Bites My Behind
Post-17: When Bronco Swallowed our Neighbor’s Head and Teaching Dogs How to Greet People Properly
Post-18: How to Publish a Dog Book on Amazon (and elsewhere)
Post-19: Are Leonbergers like bears, lions or wolves? Ask the Boy Who Cried Wolf!
Post 20, well that’s this one. Please like this post or any other post if you do or leave a comment.
Leonberger Life 