For the Non-Blog Savvy Folks

This morning as I was packing my lunch, I sampled the Chavrie goat cheese I planned to use in my lunchtime sandwich.

Chavrie Goat Cheese

HOLY COW (or should I say goat?). This stuff is insanely delicious.

I easily could have inhaled the entire block.I loved its silky texture and the mild flavor. Though strong goat cheese is delicious, I actually prefer the more muted flavor of this brand.

I probably ate two servings while packing my lunch, but fortunately enough of the cheese remained to include in my cucumber sandwich this afternoon.

Though this goat cheese is freakishly delicious, I’m not sure how often I’d be willing to shell out $6 for it. For a special occasion (like a Wednesday, apparently), it’s definitely worth the extra dough.

Along with my goat cheese and cucumber sandwich, I enjoyed a freshly sliced green pepper and a cup of grape tomatoes.

Cuc + Goat Cheese Sandwich with Green Peppers

Green Pep

Grape Tomatoes

For a little sweetness, I rounded out the meal with a cup of Oikos honey Greek yogurt.

Honey Bee

All Togetha Naw

Mmm, mmm, good. 🙂

For the Non-Blog Savvy Folks

I am not a very computer-savvy or blog-savvy person. It literally took me a year to discover Google Reader and realize you could subscribe to blogs.

If this sounds foreign to you, then this section of today’s post is just for you!

(Picture Source)

If you are a blog-reading pro, then the following content will likely bore you to bits! 😀 Just warnin’ ya.

In talking with some of my non-blog savvy friends, I realized there are a couple of things I should probably touch on that may seem so obvious to those of you immersed in the blog world, but are completely over the heads of those of you  more like me who tend to pick computer-related things up rather slowly.

Let’s get crackin’:

  • Subscriptions: If you read certain blogs every day, you may want to subscribe to these blogs. This means that every time the blogger posts, you’ll receive an update. Most blogs have an icon on their homepage that you can click to subscribe (you may see mine at the top, left of this page or simply click here to subscribe to this blog).
  • Google Reader: When you choose to subscribe to a blog you can receive email notifications or have the blog updates populate in certain blog-reading programs like Google Reader. I subscribe to a bunch of blogs and check all of them through Google Reader since it keeps everyone’s blog updates in one spot. This allows me to keep up with blogs I love without having to individually check the sites or type in the website addresses every day.
  • Bookmarking: If subscribing to a blog isn’t your cup of tea,  you may be more interested in bookmarking a favorite site. To do this, simply hold down the “Ctrl” and “D” keys on your keyboard and click “Done” and the site will be bookmarked!
  • Commenting: I was shocked when one of my very best friends told me she didn’t know she could comment on my blog! She was confused by my “Questions of the Day” and didn’t understand why I’d ask them when no one could answer. 😀 Well, you can! At the bottom of a post, you’ll see red text with a whole bunch of links. If you click the one that says “Leave a Comment” or “15 Comments” etc., then you can simply type in your name (or nickname), your email address (which no one but me will see) and your web site (if applicable) and then comment away!
  • Twitter: Many bloggers are really into Twitter. I recently started “tweeting” a couple of weeks ago and absolutely love it. It’s a great way to follow some of your favorite bloggers, venues and companies. I especially love it when companies or actual cities “tweet” about promotions and sales. Twitter is a great tool to use to be “in the know.” You may follow me on Twitter here.

I apologize to those of you who were rolling your eyes and saying “DUH!” as you read the above content, but hopefully it helped at least one of you out there have a bit of an “Ah ha!” moment! 😀

Questions of the Afternoon

  • Do you consider yourself blog-savvy?
  • What’s something that took you a while to pick up regarding blogging or blog-reading?

60 Responses

  1. I looooove cucumber sandwich 🙂

    It took me forever too to discover Google Reader. I used to bookmark all the blogs I loved and it would take me forever to go through them all to see wich ones were updated! heehhe

  2. I feel like I’m becoming more blog savvy now that I have my own blog. It’s amazing how huge they’ve gotten lately, and I am so thankful I finally dipped into the world of blogging! I still have trouble with subscriptions, since Blogger makes it very difficult to figure out!!

  3. I love goat cheese!

    I am only blog saavy because I have my own blog. Before, I had no idea!

  4. I am not very blog savvy. I started up my own blog a week ago and I still have no idea what I’m doing (ha ha 😀 )

    Thanks for clearing up the google reader, subscription thing! I constantly check 7 or 8 websites a day to see if the blogger has posted anything… slightly annoying! haha. That will help me a lot. Do I have to set up a “google reader” account or will it automatically link to my email?

  5. Ok, so can you help me with this? I created a Twitter account, but I cannot seem to link my blog to it. I went to Twitterfeed, which then asked for my RSS feed. And… now I’m lost. I thought I put the link to the feed in, but apparently I didn’t. I don’t even know if you can help since you use wordpress and I use blogger, but it’s frustrating. And I am really NOT technically-inclined.

    • ehhh i wish i could! wordpress actually had a twitter widget that i used. i’m not sure how it would work for blogger. maybe someone out there can help???

  6. haha great post! i should show this to my fam 🙂
    & i love that goat milk cheese spread- so delicious.. i bought a trader joe’s version & love it on a wrap/sandwich

    xoxoxoox
    shelley

    http://findinghappinessandhealth.wordpress.com

  7. Hah, I am so non-blog savvy its hilarious! All this talk of subscribing and Google Reader… I just went along with it like I knew what everybody was talking about, but really I had no clue! Thanks for the explanation!

  8. I am middle of the road blog savy. I started out with blogger and built up my list of blogs that I follow, and there blogger has a blog roll that is updated when the blogs are updated. Though I blog with wordpress now, I stillgo back to my blogger account to check the blog roll there. I haven’t had enough time to play around with google reader to follow that way, but I might just stick with the blogger blog roll. *shrugs*

  9. I discovered Google Reader only a couple of months ago and it revolutionized my blog reading! I can’t believe it took me so long to figure it out.

  10. Google Reader still confuses me. Some blogs update regularly others don’t, but it still is better than logging onto each site individually.

  11. What a healthy lunch!!!

    My friends say the same thing, they can’t figure out how to comment!

  12. I am pretty blog savvy but it did take me a while to figure out the whole custom template and header thing. I was actually using Google Reader before I even had a blog, thank goodness.

    I think I subscribe to about 50!

  13. We must have been having blogger ESP today! Sadly I finished the Chavrie last night.

    We need to have a bloggie meet up one of these times! A downtown lunch date maybe??

  14. I’ve just become more blog savy in the past year, but I certainly still have a LOT to learn! 🙂

  15. I’d consider myself blog-savvy. It makes me laugh when people don’t know how to leave a comment! I love Google Reader. It makes my blog following life, so much easier. 🙂

  16. I also love goat cheese. It’s my cheese of choice (if such a thing is real) I just started commenting! I felt like I needed to have my own blog before it was okay! Who know why. I now want to check out Google Reader

  17. If you’re feeling REALLY ambitious, check out Google Analytics (if you haven’t already). You get a bunch of stats on your page including where the visitors of your page live, how they found your page, how long they spend on your site. Plus there are a bunch of fun pie charts and line graphs with stats!

  18. Thank you for posting this. I literally found out about Google Reader a week ago because someone mentioned it in their blog and I typed it into a search engine.

    I do have an unrelated question about bloggers though: Do companies send bloggers free stuff to promote? I’ve noticed a couple times you give away free stuff from companies. Other times I’ve seen other bloggers try out products that were sent to them. I’m surprised how honest these bloggers are; saying they hated the taste of a certain fruit bar or whatever. I would expect they’re getting paid to post a picture of the product and rave about its nutritional qualities.

    Thank you! Your blog is definitely my favorite blog; it makes me so happy to read and you have a beautiful life!

    xoxo

    • yes, many companies do send bloggers free stuff to sample. it’s required by the FCC for bloggers to say that they received something for free though, so if this is the case, the blogger should say so. when i’ve been contacted by companies to try products, i always say i will post honestly about how i feel about the product, which means if i don’t like it, i’ll say so. they’re almost always okay with that and if they’re confident that they have a good product, they’ll send a sample anyway. i’ve never been paid to try a product, so i’m not sure how that works, though i would assume (and hope!) a blogger would have to say that they’re getting paid to try/review it on their blog otherwise that would be pretty shady!

  19. It definitely took starting my own blog to figure most of the above out. I love that you put this together, though. I’m sure there are so many people out there going “so THAT’S what that means.” hahaha

  20. thank god for google reader! it keeps me so organized!

  21. The first week of using wordpress I wanted to throw my computer down a long flight of stairs….now I have a love/hate relationship with it depending on the day.

    Never hurts to share helpful hints 🙂

  22. I’m still not on Twitter…I know I should be…but I just can’t help but think that I don’t need any more computer stuff in my life, what with blogging, facebook, etc.! But– I do feel like I’m missing out, so maybe some day soon…

    I love that kind of goat cheese. Yum!

  23. Great post idea to share those tips! Would you mind if I posted them on my site tonight? I have quite a few friends who have been asking the same thing! I’ll link it right to yours – if you’re cool with it of course! I want to give ya the credit you deserve! 🙂

  24. Great post. I’m with you on Google Reader… took me probably seven months… 😉

  25. I’m still not very blog savvy. I have all of the blogs I like in my favorites bar in IE, except for yours and one other because I can actually get an e-mail when a new post comes in. I haven’t been able to find that on most of the blogs I read.

    And I have absolutely no desire to join Twitter as I don’t need any reason to spend MORE time online! lol

  26. I also came across Google Reader about a month ago and it makes life SO much easier. (I still spend way more time than I should reading blogs, but at least it’s less than I would spend if I didn’t use the Reader!)

  27. It took me SO long to discover google reader too. This is actually great info!

    I’m jealous of these Chavrie samples I see floating around. I LOOOOVE goat cheese.

    • you can get a free one too if you buy their cheese once & then type in the product code on their web site!

  28. It took my mom a long time to realize she could comment on my blog. She saw the other comments but just couldn’t figure out how to add her own….

    LOVE my Reader – I don’t know how I lived so long without it.

  29. Some of your unique ingredients always get me wondering where you get your inspiration. Where do you do the majority of your shopping?? Publix?? Whole Foods?

    • i do the VAST majority of my shopping at publix. the other 10% i do at netrition.com or whole foods (or my parent’s pantry when i go home to visit). 🙂

  30. I’d say I’m mostly blog savy because I have my own blog. I love google reader and it took me awhile to discover it too!

  31. AWESOME! I am not computer or blog savvy at all! What I want to know is how some blogs send me an email when the owner leaves a response to my comment. Any ideas???

  32. I had no idea about the Ctrl D bookmarking shortcut – ya learn something new every day. Thanks!

  33. I’m sooo not tech savvy! It’s all good! But i’m now addicted to twitter!

  34. Chevres means “goat” in french…

  35. I’m definitely not blog savvy, and it’s a bit disconcerting because I plan on moving my blog to a new host in the next month or so from WordPress.com. I’m terrified I’m going to mess it up…gulp….this website stuff is all new to me, so here’s hoping it goes smoothly.

  36. It took my forever to figure out what reader was when I first started reading blogs. I actually remember googling “Google Reader.” I’m sure you’ve helped more than a few people!

    My mom loves Chavrie cheese too, and I recently printed her out a coupon from the manufacturer’s website for a free container. Worth it if it saves 6 bucks, right?

  37. You’ve seriously not had the goat cheese? OMG, I eat the stuff just about every day! I measure my 1/2 an ounce and that’s all I need.

    I found out a few months ago that you can copy and paste a picture and not have to upload it from your computer.

  38. Goat cheese is seriously the best! I am a HUGE nerd and joined the Chavrie fan club online and got a coupon for a free goat cheese – just FYI!

  39. I love goat cheese and since I was in the grocery store tonight I checked out Chavrie and it was on sale so I had to get it to try. 🙂 I also picked up some cucumbers because your lunch looked so delicious!

    I’ve heard of Google Reader but never really gave it a shot but will now. Thanks for the tips!

  40. I’m not a cheese fan so the thought of goats cheese makes me shiver, ewwww!

    I only just figured out that wordpress will send your twitter updates out for you. I was doing it manually before that.

  41. I can’t tell you how helpful this post was!!!! I read 66 blogs (according to google reader) and before today I would look at each one individually. Needless to say I would never get to them all. I’ve been meaning to find an easier way to check all the blogs I love, but hadn’t gotten around to it yet!!! After this post, I went directly to Google reader and subscribed to all the blogs I follow. It took me a while, but the time it’s going to save in the long run is all worth it!!! Thanks you so much!!!

  42. I thought I was pretty blog-savvy. I’ve had my Google Reader for a couple years now (although I am behind a bit right now….107 posts to read). I was really disappointed with Blogger because it wouldn’t let me upload videos. I knew that it was capable because my friends were doing it, but for some reason, I couldn’t. So I switched to WordPress and I STILL can’t upload videos. I’ve been leaving the YouTube links. Any body have any ideas? I’m desperate.

  43. I looooooooooooove goat cheese, it’s so creamy!

    I’d like to consider myself blog-savvy, I’ve been doing Internet marketing, web design and all things Internet related for 12 years now. My blog is actually a side project that turned into way more. I also administer some of the bigger food blogs. 🙂

    Jenn

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  46. I am definitely new at blogging and totally appreciate the user-friendly hints! I’m trying out my own blog and this will help tremendously. Thanks! 🙂

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