I have been trying an experiment on Squidoo for the last two months to see how much republishing lenses made a difference on lensrank. What I have been doing is refreshing and republishing my top two tier lenses every day. What I noticed is that while my lenses do not go up in rank too much, they also do not go down in rank as much as they do if I leave them alone. With the drain on my time, I have found that I normally do not republish a lens more than once every two or three months, and that affects my lensrank quite a bit. So while I cannot continue to republish every lens daily, (because   read more

Dorothy Shinn’s (Art and Architecture Critic) art review in the Sunday, June 20th Akron Beacon Journal hit the mark, especially the last 3 paragraphs. To quote, “But what’s really needed is a forum with local speakers …to thoroughly explore contemporary art issues.  That’s the only way local artists will be able to measure their own interests against new developments.” You can read the entire article at:  http://www.ohio.com /entertainment/shinn /96745374.html And, yes, it’s hard to find the time, the room and sometimes, the desire to work on one’s   read more

I thought that I would preface this post by saying that I really do like Squidoo as a site in general, and will continue working with Squidoo for quite some time. I have had success, and learned numerous things as well as become part of a very interesting and dynamic online community because of Squidoo. However, I have to say that I am very frustrated by the very slow load times that I face on a daily basis on Squidoo. I have come to realize that the best times for me to work on Squidoo are either extremely late at night or very early in the morning, most likely because the bulk of Squidoo   read more

Squidoo has just made a new change, that in my opinion is a very long time coming. That change is moving from a star rating system to a thumbs up system. In the past, we had to choose how many stars to give a lens, and it was extremely subjective. Many people used the 5 star or no star method of rating. On the other hand, it was also a attraction for jealousy and mean spirited behavior. There were people who would rate lenses with one star just to bring down the star average for that lens.With the new system, you either like the lens or you don't. Very simple. I like the lens, it gets a   read more

I just found out about a brand new contest for all artists being sponsored by Delphi and ArtFire which is open to all artists called the Ring of Fire Artist Challenge. You get a free gift just for entering, plus you can win a kiln! You do have to buy the products from Delphi to make the project but you get a 15% discount on what you purchase. This contest was designed for all artists of all crafts and abilities. All you have to do is create a project of your choice using one or more of the products from the Ring of Fire. You can also incorporate elements from your favorite craft. *Offer valid   read more

I just finished writing a hub on Hubpages about my experience on Hubpages and what I have learned so far.I wanted to discuss one of those lessons further because I think that they can be applied to any webpage you write and somewhat to blogging as well. The lesson is that writing a hub or a lens on Squidoo for that matter, cannot be specific enough.What exactly am I talking about?The most successful, easily searched pages are extremely specific in topic. For instance, it is not enough to make a page on great Versace products. You need to break it down to what type of product category, and what   read more

For those of you who do not already know, Ning is changing their system to a paid network within the next few months. This is a sad moment for many of us who have used Ning for all kinds of networks, but I have wondered for a long time how Ning paid for such an involved and complicated site.As many of you know, I have been advocating and recommending that you check out Professional Squids since I found out about it. Professional Squids is really a wonderful network for all level of Squidoo members and it is really just getting off the ground. Unfortunately it is set up on Ning, so that will   read more

If you haven't been on your Squidoo workshop in the last few days, you may not have realized that there have been some more changes.I just wrote about the new sidebar widgets recently, and now the entire workshop has been updated. The new workshop is not much different than the old one. The look has changed slightly, and it is a sleeker look, but the biggest difference is that it is loading faster than the last version.Load time is a frustration on Squidoo mostly for the workshop and behind the scenes pages, although somewhat for the public face.I emailed support recently that I would trade   read more

Recently, Squidoo added some new sidebar widgets to the modules that we can add to our Squidoo lenses. I thought that I would try them out, and I just finished a new lens using the sidebar widgets, called How to Create a Retro Chic Vintage Wedding. So far, we don't have a lot of widgets to choose from and you can only add three of them to your sidebar.I decided to add two Amazon Spotlight widgets, and one RSS feed widget. The other choices are Featured Lenses, Squidcast, and Facebook Fanbox. So far I have to admit that my favored widget is the Amazon Spotlight. It gives me another chance   read more

The March meeting for the Ohio Arts Community was held Monday, March 22nd @ 4:30pm at Panera Bread, 2855 West Market Street, Fairlawn, Ohio. In attendance were: Karen Thomas, Stan Hywet/ Ohio Mart, Akron Jennie Thewlis, Beadtini Boutique, Copley Tony Durtschi, Celebrative Arts, Mansfield Deb Selden, Stan Hywet/ Ohio Mart, Akron Bryon Decker, Fluxusmetalworks, Canton Kristina Malcolm, Fluxusmetalworks, Canton Paula Atwell, Lake Erie Artists Gallery, Shaker Heights, Cleveland Bud Graham, Canal Fulton Glassworks, Canal Fulton Katie Mullins, Bonya’s, Seville 1. Gallery Hop and Bus Tours Several   read more