Blog Chain - A Great Networking Tool

Activity and interaction on a blog increases its popularity and raises its ranks in search engines. One good way to do this is with a blog chain.

What is a blog chain?

A blog chain involves twelve people who have a blog and want to participate in a fun group activity. You can certainly have more or less than twelve, but visiting more than a dozen blogs in a week may be difficult for some people. I try to keep it simple and easy for everyone.

Each participant will visit the blog of each person on the chain within a certain number of days. I usually set my time limit for one week when I ask people to do a blog chain with me.

When visiting the blog, you will read and comment on several posts that interest you. By leaving your name and the URL of your blog in the comment, you have established a link back to your blog. This works like a link exchange on Web sites, but you do not have to permanently feature a site in the valuable space needed for promoting your own goods or services. The comment is usually hidden on a blog, but the link is there indefinitely. The link helps you; the comment helps the other blogger.

If the blog you are visiting is set up for technorati, digg, del.icio.us, newsvine or another popular news site, click the link under the blog post and bring this post to the attention of the media. You will need to be registered as a member of each of these news sites to do so, but it only takes a minute to create and account and it costs no money.

When you visit and comment on twelve blogs and receive comments from twelve people on your blog, you have increased your interaction

How to Find Participants

To get a group of bloggers together for a blog chain, ask your friends, family members, other online companions, who have blogs to network with you.

If you do not have an established circle of online networking friends, you can browse the Internet for blogs that interest you, contact the blog owner and ask them to participate in your blog chain. If they do not understand what a blog chain is, you can have them read this article.

I've had some very positive comments from participants in my current blog chain. Carma Dutra wrote, "Yvonne, the blog chain is such an excellent idea. Much more meaningful than a meme. I am happy to have the opportunity to meet new people and learn about new books and projects. Thanks for including me. "

Taryn Simpson commented recently on my post about blog chains, "Not only is doing the blog chain a great marketing tool, it helps those of us fixated on our own writing to stop and see the originality of writers around us."

Decide for yourself if a blog chain is worthwhile. Start your own blog chain or simply sign up for my next blog chain by contacting me through my Web site http://www.yvonneperry.net/contactUs.asp.

Yvonne Perry is a freelance writer and editor who assists people with any type of writing project. She is available to assist you with telling your story or writing your book. See http://www.yvonneperry.net for more information about her writing and editing services, books, newsletter, podcast and blog. Her podcast Writers in the Sky is filled with information about the craft and business of writing, publishing, marketing and networking. New subscribers to her F*REE monthly newsletter receive a complimentary eBook "Tips for Freelance Writing".

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Can I edit the HTML of my blog's layout?

Can I edit the HTML of my blog's layout?

Yes, just go to the >Layout tab and click the Edit HTML sub-tab. Keep in mind that Blogger's Layouts feature makes it easy for anyone to customize the look of their blog with little or no technical knowledge.

The first thing on the Edit HTML page is an option to download a copy of your template to a text file on your hard drive. We highly recommend doing this if you've made any interesting customizations to your design at all. Then, if you make a mistake editing your template, or if you just don't like the way it comes out, you can revert easily by uploading the same file again.

Next comes the actual code for your template. You'll notice it looks somewhat like regular HTML and CSS, but also includes lots of custom tags that make it compatible with our drag-and-drop layout editor, and with the font and color picker. If you want to make extensive changes to your code, you'll want to read up on these tags first:

• Page Element Tags
• Fonts and Colors Tags

You'll also see an option to 'Expand Widget Templates.' By default, each page element is shown in the code as a one-line placeholder, whose options can be set in the graphical interface on the Page Elements tab. Turning this option on will show the complete data and template for each element. The code is simpler the first way, but you have more control the second way, so use whichever option you prefer. Learn more by reading this help article:

• Widget Template Tags

Below the code, you'll see three buttons for Clear Edits, Preview, and Save Template, which do what you'd expect them to.

There are also two links referring to your 'classic template.' If you converted your blog from the older style of Blogger templates to the new Layouts version, then your classic template is the last template you used in the old system, with all your customizations. If your blog was created on the new system and has always used Layouts, then your classic template is a default, classic version of the original design you chose when you created the blog, without any customizations. The View link will show you the code, in case you just want to check up on something, or copy a piece of it for your new design. The Revert link will erase all the customizations you made in the Layouts feature and set your blog to use the old-style Blogger template again. Note that you won't be able to use the graphical Layouts interface in this mode (though you can convert back to Layouts again later).

How Does Acupuncture Work?

How Does Acupuncture Work?

by: Peter Games, L.Ac.

Years ago, while working as an engineer in Boston, I received acupuncture treatments focused on reducing the high level of stress in my life. I had been on a very taxing project at work and after hearing a co-worker rave about an acupuncturist, I became curious enough to begin weekly acupuncture treatments. I found the treatments to be incredibly relaxing. Though difficult to describe in words how I felt physically or emotionally after a treatment, I was certain that I wanted to experience that physical and emotional state at all times, one of extreme contentment, comfort, and awareness.

It was apparent to me that acupuncture treatments brought about a change, but as an engineer, I sought a logical explanation and became curious about how acupuncture could elicit such a response in a patient. It seemed implausible that inserting about ten extremely thin needles into a patient's body for approximately twenty minutes could result in such a dramatic change, and yet that is precisely what was happening. The more treatments I received, the more I was able to feel the therapeutic effects, and the more fascinated I became with acupuncture.

During these treatments, I was frequently frustrated when I asked the acupuncturist to explain how acupuncture worked. The acupuncturist would state tersely that unbalanced energy was being balanced. Each subsequent question seemed to be met with a similarly brief, matter-of-fact response. I assumed that my acupuncturist was actually avoiding my questions. I got the impression that he couldn't really explain how acupuncture worked, so instead he filled the air with incomprehensible, new-age jargon. I just wanted an answer to my question.

Several years later, while living in Santa Fe, New Mexico, I met a student who was studying at a local acupuncture college. She had studied acupuncture for two years and would be graduating in another year. Now, I could surely get an answer to my question. I asked her very specifically how a needle inserted into one part of the human body could bring about change in a different part of the body. I asked her what physiological or even chemical changes were taking place to explain that phenomenon. She didn't hesitate at all before telling me, "I don't know. I have no idea." Again, I found this answer very unsatisfying. Wouldn't her education, an accredited master's degree program, focus on that very topic? How could she be incapable of answering this question after two years of studying acupuncture?

After another year had passed, my continued interest in acupuncture led me to apply and enroll at Southwest Acupuncture College in Santa Fe, New Mexico. The 3,000 hour program, leading to a Master of Science in Oriental Medicine, helped me see my questions and their answers in a new light. With the benefit of hindsight, I can now fully understand why the answers to my questions had been so unsatisfying. I was unaware at the time that I had been seeking a Western explanation of a very Eastern concept. In asking my questions, I was not only interested in learning about how acupuncture worked, but I was also implicitly expecting an answer in my language, in terms understandable by someone living in the West.

In the academic programs teaching traditional Chinese medicine in the United States today, there is little emphasis placed upon the subject of how acupuncture works from a scientific point of view. Rather, the educational programs focus upon helping the student understand the Eastern explanation of acupuncture, the one that I originally found so evasive and confusing.

This isn't to say that research studies aren't focused on determining how acupuncture works from a modern scientific viewpoint. In many such studies, acupuncture has been shown to trigger the brain to release endorphins and enkephalins, chemicals with pain relieving properties. Other theories propose that acupuncture needles jam the neuronal pathways and thereby prevent pain signals from reaching the brain. Additional studies have shown that acupuncture needle insertion activates the brain's regulation of neurotransmitters and hormones, affecting many primary systems in the body, including the nervous, endocrine, and immune systems.

Yet during my acupuncture studies, I finally began to see the value of understanding the traditional Chinese explanation of acupuncture, since that was the paradigm within which instructors and practitioners had worked for thousands of years. If we try to talk about Chinese medicine strictly from a scientific viewpoint, then we are not really talking about Chinese medicine. We would be excluding a large quantity of important Chinese medical philosophy which is inextricably linked to what this medicine is and from where it has come. During the course of my studies, I began to see and eventually embrace the fact that in order to learn how traditional Chinese medicine works, it is necessary to understand those who have a history of practicing it.

Thus, acupuncture works because with extremely thin, sterile, disposable acupuncture needles, an acupuncturist accesses a patient's energy and restores balance. Traditional Chinese medical theory is based upon the fact that there is an energy that flows in the human body through specific pathways, or channels. The energy flowing through these pathways can become blocked or obstructed due to emotional stress, unhealthy lifestyle choices, harmful environmental factors, poor diet, or physical injury. When this energy becomes blocked, the result is pain, discomfort, or disease. An acupuncturist uses acupuncture needles (and other methods) to mildly stimulate certain specific points on the body to restore balance to the normal flow of that energy, relieving pain, and treating disease. Hopefully, you don't find this explanation unsatisfying. If you do, you may not be alone.

Peter Games operates an acupuncture clinic in the state of Idaho. To learn more about the clinic or the Boise acupuncturists at their clinic, please visit www.acuboise.com.

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