The Ever-Twisting Evolution of a Blog

   This article is for those of you who are starting a blog, and are wondering how to do it, what to make it about and how to become successful at it. Its been a while now since I launched my blog, Urban Life.  Four months to be exact.  The central idea was to do a website loosely formed around all things "City".  So, in that vein, I put in 4 sections, Urban Music, Urban Art, Urban Food and Urban Thought.  This seemed a doable and unique idea, easy to accomplish, and allowed me plenty of room for full expression of ideas. I already had the music.  The art was focusing on photographs I take with my iphone.  'Food' would include recipes and restaurant reviews.  And Urban Thought, was the catch-all-anything-goes clearing house where I would talk about any subject and also feature guest bloggers.  "City" soon evolved into thoughts on anything from politics, world events and technology.  

   As for the basic underpinnings, there are many platforms you can choose from.  Whereas before you had to know 'code', now its a very simple process of simply adding modules, chosing widgets and clicking and dragging.  I chose Squarespace for that very reason, its utter simplicity.  I will not go into here how that is done, ie, templates, layout, form etc, only to say that remember, when people go to your site, they want to see something unique.  Maybe beautiful and at the very most interesting.  So try to make your template pleasing to the eye and easy to navigate.  That's the easy and fun part.  The real work comes with CONTENT.  

   As I mentioned in the first paragraph, I have 4 sections to my blog.  And I have tried to provide content in all areas on a regular basis to keep people coming back and to keep them all fresh.  Most hosting sites have a section where you can track what is the most popular area of content in your site.  In my blog I originally had hoped it would serve as a platform for people to hear my music and BUY it.  I hadn't planed for it to be a food blog.  Specifically.  However, as time moved on, I have found that my recipe/cooking section has become very popular.  In my case people like to see what I can cook.  And how I do it.  In your case, it probably will be something different.  The point is, biting off more than you can chew is very easy when one starts a blog.  And going all over the place is easy too.  BE FOCUSED.  Focusing your blog on your strengths is not only going to help you by making your job a bit easier, its going to let people know that you're committed and you have something to say.  Its YOUR BRAND.  And people will come to trust a reliable, committed brand.  

   Remember this, its very simple, yet somehow slips the mind.  Especially in novice bloggers.  You must write content all the time.  In the beginning, pretty much every day.  And its WORK.  You MUST post regularly.  Why is that?  Because if people want to go to a museum, they can go downtown.  People want to see new things, living things, things that are going to teach them something.  Entertain them.  But there are ways to 'cheat the system' and make your job a bit easier.  One way is to post video.  I do it all the time.  People love to see videos.  And pictures.  Even if its your personal blog about how you live your day, people will want to see it and hear it as well as reading about it.  And with today's technology in smart phones, its very easy to shoot a short, post it on You Tube, and then post it on your blog.  

   There are so many steps to consider and execute on the way to a successful blog.  Is mine successful? Well, one would have to define 'sucess'.  Each month  have doubled my readership.  And I have reached certain goals, however, it is an evolving process.  I have learned a new craft, a new modality in the creative process.  To me, that is a success.  Traffic, like money, is a symbol of success.  Here are some ways you can increase traffic.  As I've already mentioned, focus on your strengths.  Your brand.  Make YOU an expert on YOU.  Whatever that may be.  

   Use social networking sites like Facebook, Twitter etc to launch your blog.  I am a member of long standing in a Harley message board and so of course I have posted many blog entries there, although Harley riders might not be so interested in learning about the virtues of a Cotes de Nuits.  These are my friends, but never the less, know your target market.  Facebook serves 2 purposes.  First it lets all your friends know that you have a site and you should be putting the 'like' button on your posts so THEIR friends know they 'LIKE" YOU.  Second, posting directly on the internet, attracts web bots. Robots. These are the automated web crawlers used by search engines to index content.  A lot of postings by you and the corresponding activity, eventually, by the attraction of these bots visiting your site, gets you ranked higher.  It lets the search engines know there's a new dog in town.  Now, if I meet someone and I say I have a blog, I don't have to give them the URL.  I can simply say, "Google John Rivera Urban Life dude" and a lot of my posts and articles will come up.  Pretty cool huh!  That is due to the actions of robots.  A word about Facebook.  Its not enough.  Unless you are content with a few friends and family visiting your site, you must find other ways to drive traffic to you.

   Submit articles to article hubs like ArticleBase.  What these places are, are sites where you submit your content and if it passes their editorial standards, you are published.  And your article is sent out and made available to sources ALL OVER THE WORLD.  Not bad eh?  I have seen my traffic DOUBLE because of these sites and you do not have to relay on your friends and your mom for readership.  However, you must remember that posting on an article site will not attract bots and crawlers which give you ranking. However it will bring viewers.  I want both, so I do whatever it takes to accomplish that.  There are many other ways, posting on other quality blogs and inserting your site name, telling people you meet, even making out cards with your logo and site name-ANYTHING to get your name and brand out there.

   I hope I've given you, the reader, some idea of the ins and outs of the world of blogging.  As I've said, I, like you, am new to this.  However, I am doing my homework, its not work when its passion, and I'm willing to pass my observations onto you from that unique perspective, not totally brand-new, and not old and jaded.  Just fresh!  BTW, here's a practical example: If you like this article, hit the 'like' button at the top!  Good luck and good blogging!   

Two more great iphone photography apps

  

   As I said in a previous article, the iphone is an amazing device.  Actually, I think I mentioned 'incredible', but amazing will certainly work.  One of the reasons it is so amazing is its user-friendly adaptability. There are over 350,000 apps currently to chose from!  Right now I'm going to tell you about 2. 

   Since the iphone 4's camera is so advanced for a 'simple' phone, it lends itself well for upgrades and adaptations.  These apps truly turn a good camera into a great one.  However, most cameras these days multi-task.  Not only do they take still shots, but video as well.  And that is what I'm going to talk about first.  Video.

   Yes, your iphone 4 can take pretty decent video.  But what do you do if you want to make a MOVIE?  Well, you download Splice of course!

   Splice is a video editing app.  A movie maker!  Lets say you went on a vacation to the North Pole.  And you took 10 cool videos of Polar Bears eating baby seals, Polar Bears chasing your friends with the intention of eating them, and a great video of the Polar Bear giving up and taking a nap on an ever dwindling supply of ice-bergs.  What do you do with the 10 clips?  You load them into Splice.  And you make a movie.  Splice enables you to chose wither you want 'landscape' or 'portrait'.  Chose landscape, portrait when enlarged gives a thin shot with huge boundaries, not good.  However, it gets better!  You then have the option of composing a title and chosing a soundtrack from your itunes library or other sources.  Splice will only take one song or piece of music but it gives you the option of raising or lowering the volume by scrubbing through the clips you chose.  That way, in the clips that have dialog, the music will be background music, or silent and in the dramatic shots, you can bring it into the forefront. But Splice is not limited to video only.  You can add stills as well, and edit how many seconds you want them to run.  

   In between clips and shots, you also have the ability to insert transitions, fade outs, fall left, fall right etc, and also audio which you can record using your iphone's mic.  All of this can be edited and viewed in a timeline and also previewed.  

   When you are satisfied with your movie, you can then render it into your camera roll in hi def.  It can also be shared on facebook etc.  One feature that is very impressive with Splice is its rendering speed. Its very fast, which is a very good thing!  That, and it is very intuitive, that is, easy to learn.

   Ok, so now you have your movie on your camera roll and you want to email it.  Problem is, its too big a file.  Most likely.  So what do you do?  All the videos on my site, Urban Life, were shot with my iphone 4 and cut with Splice.  And every one, unless made with stills only, were over 100mb!  Not a small file.  So I recommend Photo Transfer App.  

   Photo Transfer App is the fastest way to get your videos and all of your photographs onto your computer, or you can do the reverse.  Load from your computer to your iphone.  This is done with your wireless, ie, WiFi.  As anyone who's owned an iphone can testify, it can be infuriatingly time consuming to synq your photos to your computer.  Before I discovered Photo Transfer App, I would synq my pics and invariably would come up with dupes.  MANY DUPES.  Not only that, sometimes you just want to download 1 special picture and the only other option was email.  Forget video.  And really forget a movie, its just simply too big.  

   So with PTA, once in the app and on the PTA page on your computer, you simply browse through your camera roll, check the pics you want to download, select the file destination on your computer, then hit 'send'.  At which time you hit 'refresh' on the PTA page on your computer and the download begins.  It can do numerous pics, but only one video at a time.  And if you've made a movie with Splice, that one file can be 150mb so its a very valuable app.  The last impressive feature of PTA is, like Splice, the small amount of time required to complete the task at hand.  In short order, you have your movie downloaded to your computer and then its on to You Tube and you're GOOD TO GO!  The whole world can now see how you saved an entire family of baby seals and your friends from hungry Polar Bears, and you'll be a hero!  

   Get these apps, They're really useful and FUN!  If you like this article, hit the LIKE button! 

Get out there and GET IT!

   I've got a great friend who I've known for 20 years.  Damn it, he's younger than me and he's always kicking my butt out there to do stuff!  Cool stuff.  Adventures.  Not that I mind, keeps me sharp.  On my fiftieth we climbed Half Dome, up and back in 10 hours.  Some people do it in 2 days.  So anyway, I asked him to give some words of inspiration to my readers, especially older guys who've seen too many couches, too many potatoes and too much TV.  For those who live the 'Urban Life', you have to keep in shape, you have to keep your soul as well as your body in shape.  Cars, bars and rich food take their toll.  This is what he told me:

   Hello, my name is Craig Koenig and I've know John, the proprietor of this web site for about twenty years. I was excited when he asked me to share my thoughts but I was perplexed when he told me the topic was fitness. For you see, I am not an athlete or fitness expert. I am an average Joe, husband, father and I work at a stressful job that requires a great deal of my time. I enjoy an occasional beer, I have a sweet tooth and I like to sit and watch TV with my family. However, i have been fortunate and have had a few noteworthy accomplishments in my life. I have ridden numerous challenging cycling events (centuries, double centuries, the Death Ride and a 24 hour mountain bike race), competed in several triathlons (including an Ironman), raced numerous foot races (a marathon PR of 3:30), finished several adventure races and dragged my carcass to the top of some of Yosemite's most technical and majestic peaks. I have shot competitively, fought competitively, hold several black belts, surfed the greatest surf breaks in California and generally tried to experience life to its fullest. And there lies the one piece of advice that i'm comfortable giving, find your zeal, live the adventure, have fun and blow all those preconceived notions of what your capable of, away! Change your paradigm and realize if one person can do it, than you can do it to, the sky is the limit. Make a list of all the things you think would be cool to accomplish then find the one that makes you say, "im not sure if I can do that one". That's the one to set your sights on.

   When you realize that you don't have to win to have fun, it becomes alot more doable. The prep work alot less daunting. I have a friend who had never completed a triathlon. He was at least one hundred pounds over the weight of the heaviest triathlete. He made the mistake of telling me, "that looks like fun". A year later he completed Ironman Couer D'Alene after loosing over 100 pounds. Not only did he finish but had a great finishing time and an enjoyable experience. He focused on the fun, the sense of accomplishment and the adventure of participating in the event. When he first started training, salesmen at bike stores ignored him and salesmen at running stores smirked when he told them his goal. Screw the naysayers and their preconceived notions. Realize there are idiots everywhere and don't let them get you down. Surround yourself with "can do" people who are fellow life adventurers and understand the love of trying.

   You must also humble yourself. Most accomplishments that are worth challenging yourself with involve a certain amount of expertise in their field. There is nothing wrong with being a beginner, in fact its quite liberating. Novices enjoy an advantage in that their learning curve is significantly better. Think about it, the basics of most skill sets are learned quickly and the finer aspects are only mastered after a great deal of effort and time. Take advantage of this and learn from the best. When I took up fencing I found an Olympic Medalist to train with. I thought it was extremely cool and I learned from a man who had been there done that and I didnt need to relive any mistakes he may have made on his road less traveled.

   Remember the goal but don't focus so intently you forget to enjoy the process. The culmination may be months or years away, the preparation is here and now so enjoy it. When changes to your mind, body and spirit start surfacing, remember its the effort put forth up to this point that allowed those changes to happen.

   This is probably getting too long, so let me recap. FIND YOUR QUEST, no boundaries, if one person can do it, YOU can do it. Then get out there and find people to support you and some semblance of an expert to help you (even if its in books or magazines). Enjoy the process and reap the rewards, even if they are secondary. Think of how awesome it will be on your 100th birthday telling your great grandkids how you accomplished this incredible feat!

If you like what you've read, hit the "LIKE" button on the page!  

If you have an iphone and you like photography, you NEED these apps

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The iphone is an incredible device.  Its gone far beyond a phone.  Its a hand-held computer and for an artist, its a tool, an extension of the minds vision.  I use it in many applications, my favorite two being music and photography.  I have dedicated an entire section of my blog to photographs I have taken with my iphone 4.  http://johnriveraurbanmusic.squarespace.com/urban-art/  Will it replace the point and shoot?  The debate is ongoing but the numbers don't lie and the numbers are indicating that it will.  It is so much easier to have your camera, your walkman/boom box, your phone, your calculator et al, in one thin, smooth, sexy glass container.  Its all there, and the iphone's specs are very impressive with one caveat.  Here are the specs for you geeks:

5.0 Mpixels (2592 x 1936)

1/3.2" back-illuminated CMOS sensor

4:3 aspect ratio

35 mm film camera crop factor: 7.64

Low ISO 80 (or better)

3.85 mm lens focal length

f/2.8 lens aperture

Autofocus: tap to focus

   The caveat is 'digital zooming'.  I don't really think it works, there's too much 'noise' in it, in other words, its grainy. 

    Now,  these specs are very respectable, and by itself, the iphone can take a good picture.  But there are apps which make this camera, a GREAT camera.  They are a 'must have' if you want to be an exceptional iphone photographer.  And I'm going to tell you about 3 that I think are really cool, useful, and in my case, invaluable.  

                                                                 The Apps

   The first app that I want to talk about is Pro HDR.  Its $1.99 at the App Store.  Which cracks me up because people talk about 'app money' like its money spent on a TV or something and a $12 app (OMG!) is an astronomical fee.  But I digress.  Pro HDR allows you to take a pretty good facsimile of an HDR photo. HDR stands for high dynamic range imaging.  cool.  Ok, what it does it take two pictures, a light one and a dark one, and then blends the two, combining all the range of light in the image.  You can take a direct shot using the app instead of the iphone camera, or you can load from your iphone photo library.  Once the shot is taken or chosen, you then have 5 tweaking options- brightness, contrast, saturation, warmth and tint. So though the app gives you a pretty good HDR image, you can change it just like you have your own personal photo studio.  Which brings me to app 2.

    ProCamera, $2.99.  The price raises the eyebrows of savvy app customers.  I suppose the difference is jumping from a Chrysler 200 to a Mercedes.  But only in the 'price' :).  They're both great apps. Actually ProCamera is too complex to go into here with any detail.  You have 2 modes, expert and regular.  Its a fantastic app.  You can adjust the 'white' balance, which is basically exposure, as well as the focus by dragging 2 boxes around with a finger swipe.  Once you get the desired look, you use the white balance button and it locks in.  You can take the shot by touching any area on the screen as well as fast multiple shots.  You can also shoot video with the exposure you desire by using the same locking boxes.  There is also an album option where you can load pictures from your album and apply cropping, rotation, color and light adjustments and effects like sepia and other vintage modes.  There are so MANY things you can do with this app, its really like having a professional studio at your fingertips.  As a matter of fact, there is so much you can do with it that they have created another app called iCademy which is a user manual for ProCamera!  

   The last app I want to mention is AutoStitch.  A bargain at $1.99.  This is how it works.  Lets say you are in downtown LA, or in the outback of Australia.  Perhaps the Gobi Desert.  For my example I'll use LA. You want to take a shot that encompasses a sweep of the city buildings but one shot won't get it.  So you take 5 pictures, each one overlapping where the last one leaves off.  Then you fire up AutoStitch and go to your library and load the 5 shots. You hit the 'stitch' button and it creates a panorama.  A beautiful panorama if you've got a good eye! You can then crop it by touching the crop icon.                                                                                               

   Of course all the photographs you create by using these apps can be saved to your phone library or you can email them or upload them to facebook.  They all have these options.  Your artistic imagination is the only limitation to what you can now do.  I'm now going to take you behind the screen in the Wizard of OZ and tell you how magic is done.  In the picture at the top of this article, I originally took 5 shots of LA with ProCamera.  I saved them to my camera roll.  I then loaded them into AutoStitch where I created a cityscape panorama.  I then cropped it and saved the crop in my camera roll.  I then loaded that into Pro HDR and adjusted the exposure.  Saved it again in my camera roll.  Then I loaded that into ProCamera and used the lab to further adjust the contrast and then put it into one of the effects to give me the final high contrast black and white city panorama!  A lot of work, yes, but worth it.  You can view a high quality enlargeable version in Urban Art.  What used to be a series of darkroom processes, or a series of lens on a digital SLR and then using a professional lab or Photoshop can now be done in the palm of your hand.

   Iphone- not your dad's phone.  Or the flip phone you had 5 years ago.  No, its finally playing in the big leagues.  And if you get these apps, so can YOU! 

   If you like this, hit the facebook like button! 

Believe In Yourself

This is a promotional video for my song Believe In Yourself on my new CD, Urban Night.  Its a song about never losing faith in yourself and always trusting your inner self to lead you right.  Its jazzy and I"ve got some great guys playing on it.  I hope you like it as I did in making it.  You can find Urban Night at CD Baby and here is the link: http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/riveraj