Aussie Bloggers

When I first embarked on blogging early 2005 I had no idea the journey I was going to be travelling. There has been so much to learn, so many people to meet virtually online, so many experiences. It has opened a whole new world to me and I’ve made new connections, found new clients, made new friends, and been pushed into a role of leadership that I didn’t really feel quite ready for but am now starting to feel more comfortable in.

Why did this happen? I don’t know, other than I answered a call for help in the form of a client who wanted me to explore this ‘new’ medium back then. And I followed it up with curiosity and exploration and today I’m a published author and expert in my own particular field because I answered that call.

Have you thought about blogging but wondered if it is really worth it? If you’re looking at it from a monetary value, then I would say not, only from personal experience. Don’t get me wrong, there are people earning but I really feel a very large percentage of people blogging are doing it for other reasons. Like being able to express themselves and their thoughts and share them with others of a like-mind. Like keeping in touch with family and friends. For testing out ideas. To be controversial. To attract attention. To get known. There are many, many reasons why people blog.

I have a daughter who was offered a job because of her blog. She writes about her studies in the equestrian industry and her posts were found by a college seeking to develop an equestrian studies course. Everywhere they looked online they kept finding her posts and the information she gave was valuable and along the lines of what they wanted for their course. So they contacted her and offered her a teaching job – she accepted. How many people have you heard of who have been offered paid work because of their blog? Blogs are a great way to demonstrate your expertise in a topic.

Recently Aussie Bloggers celebrated their 6 month anniversary and we look forward to celebrating our first year and far beyond. Although I wasn’t there at the beginning I did join only a few weeks after they started up and have witnessed the growth of the group during that time.

It is wonderful to be able to mix and mingle with such a diverse group of people who have a wide range of interests and reasons for blogging, but we’re all united in that one thing – blogging, irrespective of the software platforms we choose or the reasons we write. And together we achieve great things, learning from one another and improving our overall experience of blogging. Why don’t you join us?

Have you ever wanted to join the exciting field of aviation journalism? Have you ever seen a story of horror on a plane caused by what, outside of overzealous media, would have been a simple situation on a plane? Then, here’s the solution for you: The Lazy Journalist’s Plane Story Generator.

Yes, now you can detail the horror on board a plane featuring an instant quote from a horrified, terrified, or just plain upset passenger! Their quote will always describe the exact emotion that they, along with all their fellow passengers, were feeling in the cabin.

You even get a photo of a real airplane – some of them have even flown! These photos are perfect to go along with your story, no matter what airline it affects and what type of airplane which the “instant” tragedy befell. (Well, you know that the public really doesn’t care if the pictured plane doesn’t match the details – the horror is enough! )

In case you were wondering, The Lazy Journalist’s Plane Story Generator was created a few years back by Snoskred, who is an avid fan of aviation along with her Other Half. And, yes, this was the inspiration behind the tremendously popular Lazy Blogger’s Post Generator.

Just as an example of what kind of heart-wrenching story you can “write” with The Lazy Journalist’s Plane Story Generator, here you go -

Flight Goes Horribly Wrong

Foreign passengers told of their dread aboard a Melbourne bound Ansett flight which was strong armed to return to Darwin yesterday due to running out of Kath & Kim episodes.

Some passengers were disappointed that the 247 passengers were told few details of the unpleasant incident.

They said the plane “Flew slowly with the engines screaming like Shannon Noll trying to sing” before turning around.

As a precaution, fire trucks were on standby when the BAe PA-31 landed.

Passenger Mr Tahiti last night was still recovering from the ordeal.

“It’s a good thing I was wearing the brown underwear”, the passenger said.

So, what are you waiting for? Go ahead and try your hand at the challenging field of aviation journalism – and do just a little bit less work than the real journos do – by using The Lazy Journalist’s Plane Story Generator! You know you want to.

I recently went to Perth for a holiday (and a tiny bit of work). I don’t know anyone in Perth so put the word out via the Aussie Bloggers forum to see if any bloggers wanted to meet up. It just so happened that a bloggers meetup was happening on the Wednesday I was there and as it was close to where I stayed in Northbridge I went along.

This was the first blogger meetup I’ve attended. There have been Adelaide blogger meetups organised and I’ve never been able to make one for various reasons which makes me feel a bit guilty.

The cold and wet weather kept a lot of people home but there were about eight of us and it was good to meet some other bloggers face-to-face. There was a familiar face as I’d met one of the bloggers at Web Directions South last year. A big crew of Perth people go all the way to Sydney for this conference, and it sounds like they will do so again this year – with a couple of them to present.

But, back to the blogger meetup.

I felt a bit awkward at first because I wasn’t sure what to say and the others knew each other so I initially felt like I’d joined in on a conversation that had already started at a party. But once I got over my initial shyness and once I asked if anyone watches Dexter the conversation went from there. At that stage I’d nearly finished watching season 2 and now I have. I’ve finished the rollercoaster ride Gary! Anyone who’s watches season 2 of Dexter will know what this means.

Just before I had to leave (to put my boy to bed) I passed around a piece of paper to get the URLs of the blogger’s blogs to have a look. They were, Gary Barber – Man with No Blog, Al – My name is Al, Simone – Enjoy Perth, Bret – Free beer, Teresa – ChiBits, and a couple of people left before I got their blog addresses.

The above crew weren’t the only bloggers I met during my week in Perth. Cellobella from Red Sultana met us on Saturday morning, also in Northbridge. It was lovely to meet her, have a coffee, watch my son (the photographer) take a heap of photos of us and everyone else in the establishment, and talk blogging and other things. I haven’t yet tried the no-knead bread but I want to give it a go.

If I had the money, it would be great to travel and incorporate blogger meetups around Australia and the rest of the world into part of the travelling. It would be good fun, provide blog fodder, and you could find out the good shopping spots from a local before you arrived rather than on your last day.

Making the world an easier place to live.

Many companies, organisations, managers and designers recognise the importance of testing new ideas on users and customers before putting them into practice. Unfortunately user-testing is often bypassed with the excuse that there is insufficient time or money. Even worse, some designers think they know their client’s or employer’s customers well enough that they don’t need to bother asking them.

The fact is that it is simply not possible to read the minds of the potentially vast range of users and customers that a web, print or industrial designer, architect, engineer or other design professional has to develop a product or installation for.

Usability Challenge 2008 raises awareness of the importance of user and customer testing by saying “Hey, we’re customers … we’re suffering from bad design decisions … and we’re going to let you know about it”. But it’s more than simply complaining about being on the receiving end of bad design decisions and process. It’s rising up to the challenge to invent a better solution and suggesting it to a company or organisation.

This year’s Usability Challenge is being held on 1 August so if you want to get involved then quickly pick one of the many design frustrations you face daily, come up with a way to fix it and then write to the offending company and let them know!

Hopefully through this united effort we can ensure that user testing is integrated into all design projects, be it designing websites, supermarkets, ATMs, movie ticket queues, elevators, pay parking machines or toasters.

For my contribution to the Usability Challenge this year I think I’ll be writing to the ANZ bank with some suggestions on how they could improve some of their online loan application forms as well as fixing their Canberra Centre branch because currently from the seating area you can’t see the numbers of most of the desks in the branch – a bit of an oversight.

So head over to the Usability Challenge 2008 home page now and get involved!

If you want to have a snazzy button to link to the Aussie Bloggers Blog and Forum, and don’t have the time to make one up on your own, we have a selection of 29 different buttons – in all varying sizes from the “antipixel” (80x16px) all the way up to photograph size, which, of course, you can resize to fit your own needs.

They also come in all different colours from green and gold, to the colours of the flag, and even black-and-white. Most of the images feature a map – some have Tasmania, some don’t, but can always add them back in, right?

As another part of the celebration of six months of existence, we present to you the Aussie Bloggers button collection, suitable for posting on your own site, but remember that you should host it on your own site, as displaying the images as hosted on here is considered hotlinking, and you might wind up facing a surprise.

To help you out with getting the images hosted on your own site, here are a couple of tutorials, the first designed for those with access to their own site’s FTP, and the second for those who don’t have access at all to upload files to their own blog (i.e. Blogger users) -

• How to upload files using FTP
• Host images online for free? Yes, you can!

Before showing the images, you can download all the images by simply saving this Zip file and choosing the one you want out of the selection.

And now, without further ado, here are the 29 buttons that make up the Aussie Bloggers button collection: