When I first noticed the major flickr changes yesterday I absolutely LOVED them! They looked similar to the changes Google+ recently made. However, now that I’ve been using it for a day or so, there are a few things that are kind of bothering me a little bit that I wanted to talk about; so I’ve decided to make a list of things I like and dislike.

What I like about the new Flickr!

1. The pictures are MASSIVE. You’ll notice this one on the other list as well but I’ll tell you why I love this, it’s making them stand out more and look even more beautiful. I’m faving more pictures than I did before because of this reason.
2. I miss my collections but I do like how the sets are displayed. The sets are only an easy click away and are displayed with a nice big picture. They are easily modifiable in the “organize” option of flickr.
3. Easy scrolling of contacts’ pictures. I’ll admit that before the new flickr, I very rarely clicked through to look at my contacts’s pictures. However, now flickr has made that a lot easier by eliminating a bunch of steps and clicks. I’m actually enjoying just continuously scrolling through the main page looking at all the gorgeous images my contacts create.
4. Newer and sleeker design. The old flickr design was getting old and boring compared to all of the sexy new changes that were happening on other social networks. I really do like the design, it just seems so much more current and the scrolling option makes it easier to see more pictures a lot faster.
5. Sexy new Android App – Today my flickr app started updating itself and I got a little scared because I must admit I am quite attached to it. I absolutely love the update though, it’s very smooth and fast and easy to use.
6. Cover Photo idea is totally hot! I love the idea of the cover photo. All of the major social networks have them now (Twitter, Facebook, Google+, Youtube, etc..) and it’s about time flickr stepped up. I love looking at what pictures people choose for their cover photos as it can tell a lot about a person.

This is my current cover photo on flickr. I estimated the cover photo size by creating it at the following dimensions: (2000×300) I will probably play around with it some more to see if I can get it to look more polished but for now I believe that ratio + dimensions works well.

What I dislike about the new Flickr!

1. Fewer image and blog hits. Now that the pictures are MASSIVE on flickr, more people are scrolling their contacts’ pictures and that has made the faves on the pictures increase. However, now less people are actually clicking on the image to see what’s written in the description. What does that mean? That means less views for the individual picture itself and also fewer clicks on any links listed in the description of the image, thus decreasing blog hits. A lot of people also share quotes or poetry with their images that add more to the experience of viewing the image and now that people are less likely to click over, that experience is lost.
2. I miss the white space. As you can probably tell by my blog theme, my plurk background and a lot of my pictures, I love white backgrounds and nice, clean white spaces. Now everything is black on flickr. This is not a huge deal, but for example if you click over to this image on flickr, you’ll see that I designed it with the previously white flickr background in mind so the avatar would stand out better.
3. Pro accounts can no longer be purchased. If you were a Pro member from before, than you are lucky to be grandfathered into it, however if you weren’t now the only option to get an ad-free experience is by paying double the price that Pro was for an ad-free account.
4. Massive pictures may be a bit too massive and inappropriate. Now we all know that I have nothing against nudity and some of my favorite pictures I’ve taken are my nude ones. However, seeing a massive huge penis or vagina or boobs across my screen can be a bit jolting. I’m thinking of changing my account status so safe search is on, but I’m not really sure I want to do that. Plus, a lot of people don’t set their content filters correctly anyways. I did a Flickr Content Filters Tutorial a while back that may help you understand them better if you are not familiar with them.
5. Not sure if I want to keep my Pro Account. I discussed this with my plurk friends earlier. Basically free accounts have everything a pro account has except for unlimited uploads, storage, bandwidth and also stats. The ability to replace a photos is now also available for free accounts. This has got me wondering if it’s really worth it to stick with a pro account as I can’t imagine I would ever exceed all of the benefits of a free account. So I’m not sure and it’s a bit of a dilemma. However, I have until October to decide as I’ve got pro till then and I can see what I want to do after that.

Why I’m not going to leave Flickr for another photo sharing site.

I’ve heard some buzz of people leaving flickr for other photo sharing sites such as Pinterest, DeviantArt, ipernity, 500px and more… I actually do have accounts on three of these sites and I have to tell you, the community is just not the same as flickr. I have been a member of flickr since July 2007 and I have so many memories there. If you scroll back to my very first images on there (please don’t :P) you will see how horrible they are but I would never ever delete them as they show my past and how much I’ve grown and progressed. They include images of friends and loved ones I’ve met over time and fell in love with, along with all the fun comments I’ve shared with them over the years. If I leave flickr, I will lose all of that!

Flickr to me is more than just another social network. It’s the first social network that I ever joined with my SL avatar and was the first place I started sharing my SLife on, even before my blog. It’s like a second home to me and I’m just not ready to leave it. Flickr has been a very huge part of my Second Life journey. So, even with all my complaints about the new changes, I still love it dearly and I’m definitely not going anywhere.

Earlier this morning I asked people on plurk to share their flickr links so we can have a flickr link exchange and that plurk has exploded with everyone adding each other. If you’re on plurk, please feel free to add your flick link to this plurk as well.

So these are my thoughts about the new flickr. Overall I must admit I am very happy with it. I do wish for certain changes but I know that nothing is ever perfect so I’m willing to work with it. What do you think of the new flickr? Is there something you would like changed?

Related Links:
Flickr link exchange on plurk. Add your flickr link!
Flickr Content Filters Tutorial

If you have a Facebook profile for your Second Life avatar, you probably already know that the SL community on Facebook is very friendly and active. Everyday that I login to my SL facebook, I am greeted by at least 5 to 10 friend requests from other SLers. I always accept, as long as I can clearly see that they are in Second Life, because to me that’s what social networks are about: friending and socializing and sharing. However, as your friend list grows bigger and you like more and more facebook pages you will start to lose control of your newsfeed and might even miss important things in there that you definitely do not want to miss. So I thought I would do a quick tutorial on how to fix a few of your FB settings so you don’t miss anything important from close friends or your favorite facebook pages.

Close Friends:

I have a few close friends on Facebook and I want to make sure I don’t miss what they are posting because I’m always curious about what’s going on in their lives (and also cuz I’m a total stalker). So all you have to do is go to their profile and hover over the “friends” button on their cover page and you will get the above menu popping up. From there you can activate “close friends” and make sure “show in news feed” and “get notifications” are also checked. But don’t worry, Facebook doesn’t tell your friends that you’ve done this and are stalking them in any way whatsoever. This way you won’t miss anything they post on Facebook and can stalk them like a pro!

Favorite Facebook Pages:

Did you know that Facebook doesn’t always show you every update a Facebook Page makes? So if you’re a fan of a Facebook Page and you want to support them or just want to stay in the loop, getting notifications is the best way to do it. All you have to do is go to the Facebook Page you want to follow (here’s a link to mine). Hover over the “Liked” button and make sure to activate “Get Notifications” and “Show in Newsfeed” this way you’ll never miss any posts from them. I’ve done this to a few pages I want to keep track of: the Second Life facebook page and also some pages of designers and bloggers that I don’t want to miss posts from.

That’s about it, pretty easy huh? Now you won’t miss an important post again! Also, don’t forget to click over and friend & stalk me on my FB profile and like my FB page! Here are my links:
My Facebook Page: http://www.facebook.com/StrawberrySinghinSL
My Facebook Profile: http://www.facebook.com/berrylovesmangoes

I hope you found this tutorial helpful, not just for your Second Life Facebook accounts, but also perhaps your real life accounts.

» For more of my tutorials, check out my tutorials page.

Related Posts:
> Creating an Effective Facebook Page for your SL™ Brand
> How Facebook Graph Search might affect Second Life Residents

Today’s post isn’t really Second Life related, but I figured I’d blog about it since I did a few months back when they were introduced inworld, and also because I am having so much fun playing it on Facebook right now! :D

Back in November I did a post about the Strangelings. For a quick recap, Strangelings is a real world game of a genetics based pet design where players have 3D pets which breed and produce offspring with unique traits based on genetics. The brilliant team behind Ozimals has teamed up with two former Lindens and a financial expert to form Flying Monkey Interactive, Inc. The team at FMI have been developing the product platform called Toto for several months now and Strangelings is their first game.

Strangelings finally went live to the public yesterday. I’ve been playing it on the web and learning more about it slowly. You can login through facebook and play the web-based version of this game. It is also available for download on iTunes. An android version is in the pipelines and I’m really hoping it’ll be out soon because I’m having a lot of fun with it. I’ve shared a couple of pictures on my Facebook as well, here’s one of me showing off my purple tiger.

I’ve already breeded mine a bunch of times and had many babies and now trying to learn about all the genetics and how to breed some cool looking strangelings. Once I do that, I’m looking forward to participate in the Auction House and possibly make some real money in the process! The Auction House is in beta right now, but should be going live soon.

Here are a few links for Strangelings so you can get started:
Strangelings Website
Strangelings Web-Based Game
Strangelings on iTunes
Strangelings Community Forums
Strangelings Facebook Page

You can also friend me on Facebook if you want to see my progress. I’m sure I’ll be sharing lots more pictures of the game in the future. Let’s get breeding!

I’m so excited about this that I had to share it with you guys. A couple of years ago, a very dear friend of mine made a logo for me which I adored and have been using since then on my marketplace items. However, there were some aspects of the logo that I wanted changed. I wanted to keep the same concept but just add more pink/purple color to it (which are my favorite colors btw) and I wanted to add more “berryness” to it. This is all I told LiquidH3ll Carter and he came up with this so quickly. He really listens to you and gives you exactly what you want in a very professional manner. I’m so pleased.

If you’re looking to get a new logo, banner or ad for your brand or business, I absolutely recommend him! You can check out more of the logos he’s done for others on his flickr and contact him inworld for a quote.

I’m going to slowly start incorporating this logo into my marketplace store listings, my Facebook page, my Google+ Page and also my Google+ Profile. I’m totally in love with the new cover photo size and presentation on Google+ btw, it’s making me want to use the social network even more now!

Have a wonderful Sunday! <3

I often get people asking me which blogging platform to use when starting a blog. I refer them to my Fashion Blogging 101 tutorial (which is a bit dated now, but still has a lot of good advice). I also say that I have tried and have blogs on all three: wordpress, blogger and tumblr and my preference is definitely WordPress. That’s just what I prefer though, mainly because of all of the features and customization it has to offer, but I also do like blogger and tumblr as well. I find this article comparing the two platforms, blogger and wordpress, very informative and unbiased: Blogger vs. WordPress @ ComputerWorld They were pretty fair with their comparison and didn’t bash one or the other. Once you read that, you can decide for yourself what you prefer.

Self-Hosted WordPress Blog

If you decide on wordpress, you can create a free blog on wordpress.com and start blogging right away at no extra cost or expense. However, because I wanted my own domain and hosting and wanted to be able to really customize and have ads on my blog, I decided to go the self-hosted wordpress route. I currently use GoDaddy for all of my domain and hosting (which I’m thinking about changing) but here’s an article that can help you find a good wordpress host: How to Choose the Best WordPress Hosting? I also want to add that WPbeginner is one of my favorite blogs. I’ve learned so much from them!

Three WordPress Plugins I Love!

So once you have your self-hosted wordpress all setup and you start blogging, I really recommend you install and use the following three plugins. They are, in my opinion, must haves and the best plugins for wordpress bloggers!

1. Jetpack – This plugin is a must have! It brings you so many features, especially those beloved ones you loved while using wordpress.com. You can check out the Jetpack.me website for more details but this plugin provides me with awesome statistics, free and easy to use contact forms, useful widgets, and so much more but my most favorite…the awesome social media buttons and the “like” button at the end of each post so people can like and share your posts (and my sincere thank you to all those that do)!
2. WP Super Cache or W3 Total Cache – These two plugins are supposed to speed up your load time. I am not familiar with this technology, however in the 3 years that I’ve had a self-hosted wordpress blog I’ve used both of these plugins and they both worked well for me for the most part. Except, one time something happened with W3 Total Cache and it was buggy and slowed down my whole site. I couldn’t figure out what was happening until one of the guys at my hosting place told me it’s one of my plugins. Since I disabled and removed that, my blog’s been working fine. I have a feeling I probably did something to the plugin to mess it up though, since I’m not that familiar with it so now I stick with Super Cache because it’s simple and easy for me to use. I also found a great discussion about these two on the wordpress forums a while back that you guys might find useful and informative: WP Super Cache vs W3 Total Cache.
3. WordPress SEO by Yoast – I recently started using this I have to tell you, I am loving it. It took me a long time to understand and grasp everything, a lot of reading! But once you have it all setup and working, you’ll notice that it really makes a big difference. I learned so much from the plugin itself just by going through all of the features. I recommend reading WordPress SEO resource by yoast for an in-depth guide. I also learned a lot from Canary Beck’s posts on irez.me she did a few months back. She covered this topic well in three separate posts, you can read them all here: Search Engine Optimisation for your Blog Part 1 & Part 2 & Part 3. Part 1 and 2 are great for those that don’t understand SEO at all and need a simple “what is and how to guide”.

And a few more Plugins

Those aren’t the only plugins I use, but I do feel those are the really important ones that everyone should have. I don’t use many plugins though, I’ve been told that it’s not good to have too many plugins running as it can really slow down your site. I am currently using less than 10. Another plugin I use a lot is Akismet. However I actually switched to another plugin for spam recently but went back to Akismet as I felt it was working better. I also use a plugin for my blogroll page, lame I know, lol but I found it helps me keep it kind of orderly. And the last plugin I wanted to share but definitely not a must have is the Follow Button which lets you have that little follow button that you’ll find at the bottom right hand corner of my blog. This plugin encourages your readers to sign up to receive your blog updates via email, which I hope you guys do! :D

WordPress.com Reader

Another thing that I love about wordpress is the new reader they have implemented. If you have a wordpress.com account, this link should take you to their reader. I have linked my wordpress.org and wordpress.com accounts so now I can use the reader with ease and add and follow all of my favorite blogs on there. You can like and comment directly from the reader as well. I admit, since the sad news of Google Reader going down, I have been trying out many different readers in hopes that one will catch. These days I’m kind of liking wordpress but there are 5 or 6 others that I am also switching back and forth with. I am planning a big post about readers very soon and will tell you which one I like best and have decided to go with once I’m done all of my investigating. But for now, wordpress is definitely a good reader to try! Here’s a screenshot of what it looks like on my screen so you can get an idea.

I think that’s about everything I wanted to cover in this post. I’ve been thinking about writing this post for a long time since I get so many questions from people who want to start blogging and are not sure how to go about it. I hope it’s not too confusing or overwhelming. If you do have any further questions, feel free to leave them in the comments and I’ll try and address them if I can.

This isn’t really a typical tutorial but I think I will add it to my tutorials page just because of all of the recommendations in platforms and plugins. Thanks for reading, I hope you found it useful!

Credits:
*Skin: -Glam Affair – Zara – India Clean RED by Aida Ewing
*Hair: >TRUTH< Elisha - chestnut by Truth Hawks
*Dress: Zaara : [Mesh] Aamani wrap dress (S) *print-sorbet* by Zaara Kohime
Furniture & Decor: A mix of [what next] The Blogger’s Office and {what next} Blogger’s Office Accessories by Winter Thorn
(click here for a raw shot of the image above)