How do you stay in touch? - RV-Dreams Community Forum

bjoyce · RV-Dreams Family Member

How do you stay in touch?

Terry and Jo · RV-Dreams Family Member

Mary,

I made the mistake of asking one day of the bloggers here to be sure and set their blogs so that those of us without blogs could comment on their blogs. That led to a long discussion of the folks here encouraging me to start one. Well, like it or not, I did so and it has been a fun journey.

I use Blogger because it is free. However, I was advised to use LiveWriter as well because it would make creating each post easier. It is a simple process to insert hyperlinks (those being links to other sites), photos, and videos as well. Also, LiveWriter is free as well.

In my writing process, I first use Microsoft Word to compose my posts because it gives me a lot more capability with checking spelling and grammar. Once my post is "created" in Word (with appropiate titles for photos or videos), I then copy and paste the Word document into LiveWriter. Then, I can easily insert the links, photos and videos where needed.

Then, LiveWriter makes it simple to "Publish" the created post into the blog itself. When first using LiveWriter, one does have to fill in a series of items to "link" LiveWriter to the blog.

I will see if I can find the thread where the folks encouraged me and advised me of good tools to use.

Terry

EDIT: Heh...I just found it. The "Search" function of the forums can be a lifesaver. My process began with the request at this link:

For Those With Blogs - A Request

-- Edited by Terry and Jo on Thursday 24th of May 2012 09:42:14 PM

Jo And Craig · RV-Dreams Family Member

I would like to start some kind of blog, etc. to keep my family and friends up-to-date on our travels (when the day comes). What is the best way to do that? I have never "blogged", don't have Twitter or Facebook, so what is your advice? Any pointers and/or suggestions would be greatly appreciated!

P.S. Something like Howard's journal would be perfect so I can upload photos. I would also like to be able to store the information so I can maybe (?), one day, print our journal as a keepsake.

Many thanks!

laurly · RV-Dreams Family Member

A lot of us use blogspot (see my signature). I find it easy to use, it's free as well (Google product). I know my parents follow what is going on with us by reading it too :)

Jo And Craig · RV-Dreams Family Member

Great ideas, and thanks! Keep the ideas coming.

P.S. I haven't enjoyed learning so much since I was a kid!

Gary · RV-Dreams Family Member

Blogging is one way of communicating.

Being on business travel and spending the last 1.5 years on the road, Skype is a wonderful tool to stay in contact with the Family back home.

I wish I had an RV right now!

Full Time Adventures · RV-Dreams Community Member

While my husband and I are still five years away from full time rv life, we currently camp often in tents and love sharing our "adventures" with our friends and families. Initially we just used my personal Facebook account as a way to share the stories and photos. And while it is a great base (especially for our kids who live on that site), our parents are not interested in tracking us on FB...my father in particular. So we decided to give a Blog Site a shot and it has been alot of fun and the feedback we have gotten tells me that even our FB friends and family like the Blog best. And it is really very easy. I did generate a FB page for our adventures as well (again for the younger ones) and linked them to eachother. One thing I do know for sure, is that this site is where to ask the questions! The information and willingness to help here will have you up and running in no time. Good luck and Congrats on your new life smile

Becca~

Jo And Craig · RV-Dreams Family Member

WOW! Some GREAT ideas! What do you all suggest using to save and store photos... a place where they will remain safe?

laurly · RV-Dreams Family Member

Mary:

We predominantly use SmugMug. I like the way things can be organized on the site, and for me it's easier to use than Picasa (another Google product). We do pay a nominal annual fee, but we have a lot of pictures uploaded there. You can make the pictures private and send links to family members or friends to view at their leisure.

Hope that helps! smile

Technomadia · RV-Dreams Family Member

The folks over at Wheeling It recently did a post about how to start a blog:

http://wheelingit.wordpress.com/2012/04/04/5-tips-to-creating-growing-an-rv-blog/

We run ours on a self hosted WordPress site.

As far as SmugMug, we tried them for a year... biggest problem I had with them was that if you don't renew every year, they delete all your photos, forever. And any links you had to them (such as embedded in blog posts) quit working. Unlike Flickr (which we use), where they just inactivate all but the most current 200 photos, and all your old links still work. If you decide to renew the Pro level account in the future, all your old photos come back to life.

- Cherie

Speedhitch · RV-Dreams Family Member

Sherri and I have used our Blog at Blogspot (Google) for many years now and the kids keep up with us reading it. It is the simplest
writer I have used and believe I will stay with it. Picasa...is where my pictures go...but I don't know how to use it. I copy all my photos to a memory stick and then post the ones I want on Blogspot. This way I have the pictures no matter what happens. Keeping a journal of your travels is great but don't forget to write down all the events leading up to your leaving out on the road. It is really neat reading about what you did years ago...sure brings back a lot of memories.

Joe and Sherri

NorCal Dan · RV-Dreams Family Member

For storing pictures, you should be able to find inexpensive backup harddrives at places like Office Depot or Staples. They come pre-loaded with backup software and you can specify what you want to backup. As others have already mentioned there are sites that allow you to store data with them. And you can burn the data to CDRom as a tertiary backup for long term permanent storage. How important the data is will dictate how many backups you should keep.