Category Archives: Blogging

Goals & Resolutions 2019

Getting focused on 2019! Setting goals and starting to work on some old projects. I’ve had this website for several years, and it’s always taken a back seat to all my other projects. That’s changing in 2019. I’ll be doing a lot of design work to this site, adding many offers and trying to finally get the business aspect of this site off the ground.

Blogging will be another big part of my 2019. I’m currently managing several different blogs. I’ll be posting about those and also blogging here regularly. I’ll be offering blogging services too, like setup, and design for anyone that might be considering a blog but isn’t sure on how to get started.

The content on this site will be centered around blogging, HTML, and graphic design, social media marketing, and working as an internet freelancer.

Wishing you all a wonderful 2019, and wishing you health, wealth, and prosperity in the new year.

Tumblr Changes TOS and Community Standards of Platform.

Today is December 17th and the social blogging platform tumblr has decided to ban all NSFW (not safe for work) content from its platform. In protest, many users have logged out of their accounts in solidarity to show their dismay at the new policy. Since it’s inception, Tumblr has always been a platform that allowed content creators to post adult content, and were always very liberal on their censorship policies. Many users flocked to the platform for that exact reason. It was a place on the net where content creators, artists, and alternative lifestyle bloggers could post their content without fear of being banned or censored.

I’ve used Tumblr on and off for years. I have mixed feelings about the new policy change or TOS (terms of service). I’m not an easily offended person, but I will admit I’ve closed a blog or two, & left the platform on several occasions due to viewing extremely questionable content that I maybe would of rather not seen. For this reason part of me understands why Tumblr is trying to clean up its act, or in their words, “promote a more positive user experience.”

On the other hand, it has always been a platform where you could freely express alternative points of view. Artists who might occasionally sketch a nude found a welcoming home there. People living alternative lifestyles, fetishists, the LGBTQ community, swingers, sex workers, and others all found a welcoming home for their voice and words.

At what cost will this new content policy come though? For years content creators have flocked to the platform for the freedom the platform afforded them. People from all walks of life, and various lifestyles have embraced the platform as a place they could express themselves freely. Now, with a single decision all these bloggers will have to find a new home, or post content that is a little more “sanitized”.

Censorship of any kind is always a slippery slope especially when dealing with adult content. Ask any serious artist, in the eyes of most blogging platforms there is very little difference between artistic expression and pornography when it comes to various depictions of the human naked body.

It’s going to be interesting to see how the users respond to the new TOS and community standards of the platform. Due to the former policies, the platform attracted users looking for a place to post their NSFW and adult content. There aren’t a lot of blogs on the site that don’t post the occasional nude, or some other form of “questionable” content. I feel the platform is isolating a huge chunk of their user base, and straying far from the original idea and concept behind the platform. For this reason I think it’s going to be interesting to see how many users actually stay on the site, how many leave, and what will seperate them now from so many other competitors with the similar content policies. I for one think this is a bad move from the company and feel they may find themselves getting “Myspaced”. They have just changed the one thing that separated them from so many other social blogging competitors. It’s going to be interesting to see how these new policies affect the overall health, and sustainability of the platform.

Content Creation and Stock Photography

One of the projects I’ve been working on is a Spanish language blog. I’m not fluent in Spanish, yet I wish to be. So I decided to create mi-palabra-del-dia.com as a way to stay motivated each day and learn and practice my Spanish.

Each Monday, I usually spend the afternoon editing photos I’ve taken over the week and creating that weeks content for the blog. This morning I realised I really didn’t have any good photos pertaining to that subject matter. What to do ? morguefile.com is the answer.

When you’re in a pinch morguefile.com is a great place to grab some free stock photography for your blog or website. The term morgue file comes from the old newspaper days when journalists would need a picture for a story but didn’t have one. The photographers had what were called “morgue files” of images that could be used in a pinch. In a pinch the journalist would go to the morgue file and look for an image that pertained to their subject matter. I’ve used this site in a pinch for a long time now and you can find some really great photos there. The site really lives up to its name.

As far as I know , the only rule is that you can’t use the image in a standalone manner. In other words you have to edit the images a bit and personalize them for your content. Just what I needed. Here’s a couple examples of some things I created using there content.

Strawberries for my Spanish blog. Las Fresas Amigos !

La ardilla, a squirrel for my Spanish blog.

la ardilla, the squirrel. Cute little guy isn’t he.

The top image has really been manipulated using Gimp. I did a cut out of the image using a font as a mask to cut the image. I then added a border, some more plain text, and the original image of strawberries. For the second image I simply added a little text and my site url.

I’m pretty sure using the images in a stand alone manner pertains to offering the images by themselves for download. However, you could simply add some text, a border, or create a collage out of a couple different images. I’ll explain more on these things in future post and maybe even use some of these photos for examples.

For the tweeted version of this post: “If you need stock photography in a pinch, try www.morguefile.com

If you open an account, make sure to follow me here. http://morguefile.com/creative/newaeondesign

May News Letter

Like the spring weather here in Western New York, I’m getting a late start on the May news letter and monthly update. Things have been real busy around here, and I’ve started building a portfolio, and cleaning up some of my blogs and designs.

First things first, I’d love to explain the current theme of the blog. I haven’t gone soft, I’m simply trying to bust out of my comfort zone. Being a d00d many of my designs have a darker theme, and also a more manly feel to them. I thought for spring I would try to force myself out of my comfort zone and create something with a softer more feminine feel to it. Thus we have pinkish purple flowers, with a floral theme. I may have went a bit overboard but it’s my first attempt at this type of designing. I’m going to be changing it up in June with a more summery theme that I haven’t really decided on yet. However, for the next several months I am going to be focusing on getting out of the comfort zone.

I’ve been adding blogs to my portfolio. Currently, I’m maintaining 4 on Blogger, 2 using WordPress, and I’ve been playing around on Tumblr. I don’t really know what to think about Tumblr, but with Yahoo purchasing the company earlier this year I think it’s going to be an up and coming platform in the future. For that reason I’ve been giving it a little bit more attention than I believe it really deserves. Currently here’s what my blogging portfolio looks like. If your bored and any of these topics interest you check em out.

Blogger Blogspot Blogs

Maintained for clients :
Helene’s Mostly Jewelry – Jewelry Blog

Hobby blogs by me :
Notes On Using Linux
My Amateur Photo
Mi Palabra Del Dia

WordPress Blogs

The Bitcoin Blog – Whole Site Currently Under Development.
The Design Blog – This blog that your currently reading.

Tumblr Blogs

Because Tumblr is a really different type of blogging service, I’ve been using it to mirror some of my current blogs. I try to post different information but also link the post from my other blogs to it. This has proven very effective in traffic generation. I think Tumblr really falls somewhere between social networking, or maybe social blogging. It’s a very different platform then the other services available. For example, users really can’t comment, only share posts. I’m going to be doing some more posts about blogging this month. I’ll be sure to add more information on Tumblr. For now here are the blog mirrors.

New Aeon Design – Sort of a mirror to this blog.
Mi Palabra Del Dia – Mirror to my learn Spanish blog on Blogger.

Staying with the busting out of my comfort zone theme. I tried my hand at a retro redesign. This was a really fun project for a customers news letter. I learned a lot with the design, and on my next attempt I’ll be changing more than a couple things, but I had fun designing it and the customer was happy.

The concept is to take some old public domain ad stock and recreate the design. I found the above image, cleaned it up a bit, added some text with a basic font to maintain the old style theme. I went with a bold sans-serif and some classic script for the business name. In the future I’d like to maybe add an additional font and make the business name more pronounced. The customer however loved it and that’s really all that matters.

So, that’s what I’ve been working on over here at New Aeon Design. This month, expect some posts about blogging and blog design. I plan to change up a bunch of stuff on the Blogger blogs, and I’d also like to talk a little about WordPress. You can also look forward to some social networking posts, tips, tricks, and what I’ve discovered.

With that said, thanks for checking out my blog portfolio, thanks for reading, and thanks to everyone following members, rss, Tumblr, Twitter, Facebook (Just started nobody following yet, you could be the first !), Pinterest, and G+. Feel free to comment and ttys ! SEE YA !

Created A New Bitcoin Blog

As some of you have probably noticed, I recently took an interest in Bitcoin. I was looking for an alternative form of payment for the website and thought I would give it a try. I’ve learned a lot and have become fascinated by crypto currency. The good news is if your not into Bitcoin, I probably wont be posting about it here anymore. I’m sure there will be a mention from time to time but for the most part I will only be posting about the crypto currency here. If your into Bitcoin and bitcoin related things check it out !