Hello everyone, just a short post today and a bit of a question really to everyone that reads Blazing Minds in its many forms, either direct here on the blog or via email or RSS readers.

As some of you may know, Blazing Minds is going to be two on September the 4th, so I thought it would be great to shout out to other fellow bloggers and ask:

How Old Is Your Blog?

Suffice to say that on the 4th of September I will be writing a special post to celebrate Blazing Minds second year in the world of blogging.

I do have some plans on what I will put in the post, but for now, it’s a closely guarded secret

So for the time being, let me know the answer to the question above and lets see how many comments we can get on this subject, the more the merrier

One of the things that does annoy me is those that don’t follow the commenting rules, so I thought I would bring to your attention my comment policy for posting your comment here on my blog.

It’s quite easy to remember. Blazing Minds uses both Comment Luv and Keyword Luv, but, I would like those commenting to follow these simple guidelines.

Comment Policy Guidelines

Please be aware that all comments made are moderated and SPAM will not be tolerated, make sure you use your real name or your blogging name, you can also use KeywordLove, do not use keywords as these will be removed/edited, if we consider a comment to be SPAM then it will be edited or deleted! SPAMMERS are not welcome here!

Editors have the right to moderate or delete any comment they choose.

Using KeywordLuv correctly:

When entering your name on the comment form enter yourname @ websitename as an example if I was to comment it would read Karen @ Blazing Minds this is the correct way to comment on my blog, do not use keywords, only use your site name.

So please follow the rules and then you comment will be listed quicker without the need for any editing

Get paid to share your links!

Earlier today, I took my blog offline while I experimented with the new Tweet button from Twitter and though it does look nice, I still prefer Topsy!

Saying that though I did have some fun with updating the code that is used to creat the new button from Twitter, yes I know my coding skills are nothing to boast about but if they work, that’s fine by me

Anyhow this is the code that I grabbed from the Twitter Goodies page for adding the Twitter Button on my blog:

<a href=”http://twitter.com/share” data-count=”horizontal” data-via=”BlazingMinds” data-related=”RemBeatZ:For some awesome music”>Tweet</a><script type=”text/javascript” src=”http://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js”></script>

Need to find out more! Then read on

Here’s my list of 10 things I want from a free Wordpress theme.

You may of read a post I wrote about branding the Blazing Minds name and how I have used Twitter @ Anywhere to add the Blazing Minds name on Twitter.

I have added the code to my blog for Twitter @ Anywhere by hand and though it is rather easy to do, sometimes there comes a time when you may want a little more, so along comes Twitter @ Anywhere Plus.

This handy WordPress Plugin allows me to not only add the hover boxes, but also a Tweet Box (standard and custom), auto link of Twitter names, custom follow button and a tasty Twitter ReTweet button that opens up an on-screen overlayed Tweet Box for the ReTweet text, which can be customised as well.

And all this can be set up from your WordPress Admin panel, no coding required, you will have to get yourself a Twitter @ Anywhere API key, which is thankfully free.

So now if you want to add a little extra marketing to your blog, then by using Twitter @ Anywhere Plus you can by having your name mentioned in tweets in the “via..” link in Twitter.

If you are not to sure about editing your themes files and want an easy way to add Twitter @ Anywhere to your blog, then is certainly the WordPress Plugin to go for, simple easy and quick, what else could you ask for

Yesterday, was my tinkering day and I decided to update the way the authors posts are displayed when you click on the author’s name in the blog posts.

So after creating a new author.php file and taking the information for the layout for the theme I am using and adding it to the new author file, I decided that it would look even better if I utilised the “author box” that is at the bottom of all the posts here on my blog, just thought it would look even better.

So after adding that piece of code, I added the section for the articles that an author has written, with the information such as date posted, comments received etc. Giving the author page something that little bit more.

Over time I may add snippets from the blog posts to the lists of articles in the author pages, but for now, I think they look a lot better than the default author archives that I originally had.

Check out the my new look author page and let me know what you think.

Yesterday, I was a bit stuck for a blog post so I stopped by the amazing BloggerLuv and posted an update which read “I’m not sure what to blog today, any ideas?”. Suffice to say my blogging buddies never fail to lend a helping hand.

Several of my fellow bloggers rallied to the call and came up with some fantastic ideas on different topics on what to write about and even places to visit to get ideas. All of which I can use and most probably will do.

So when you do get stuck for anything, you can always count on your friends and if you are a BloggerLuv member then even more so as the blog is called “BloggerLuv” it goes to prove that those in the community are there to help and are willing to take time from their blogging schedules and show some support.

The call also went out on Twitter via BloggerLuv, now how cool is that?

So if you are ever in a predicament where you need a little help from fellow blogger or even a fresh outlook on something, then I would highly recommend getting over to BloggerLuv, also use other social networks by asking others for ideas, ok you may not get everyone answering, but those that do will certainly of helped you out