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Joeychgo.com Book Store > Joeychgo.com books beginning with C
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Create Your Own Photo Blog |
Author: Catherine Jamieson
Published: 2006-04-03 |
List price: $24.99
Our price: $22.49
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As of: January 07th, 2009 05:28:01 PM
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Customer comments on this selection.
 Not for professional photographers
Photoblogs are a very popular and useful marketing tool for professional portrait photographers. They're a great way for studios to stay in touch with their customers. With this in mind, I was very surprised to see that this book does not treat this area at all. In fact, there's maybe three sentences, total, about marketing and driving traffic to your photoblog. (Basically, the advice given is: participate in online communities, and stick some metatags in your code, and wait for people to show up.) The other surprising thing was how narrow the focus was. What we have here is a book about how to recreate exactly what the author created, no more nor less. She used Movable Type, so that's all that's discussed here. (The author claims MT is the most popular blogging software out there. Not true. People are leaving it in droves for Wordpress, since MT has no spam-protection, and Wordpress kills spam in its tracks. ) She even tells you exactly what webhost service to use, going so far as to include screenshots of their website. Very odd.
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br /I don't know of a good book for portrait photographers looking to add a blog to their marketing program. However, two books I would recommend just because they're very well written and useful as all get-out are:
br /WordPress For Dummies (For Dummies (Computer/Tech)) and How to Do Everything with Your Web 2.0 Blog (How to Do Everything)
Excellent book on photoblogs; poor on setup instructions
I found this book to be a very good overview of photoblogs with plenty of online examples and great tips and techniques. I did not need to signup with Nexcess.net to setup my photoblog since I already have my own ISP with Movable Type 3.35 installed. Unfortunately, I was not able to get the templates and skins (offered as a free download from the book's website) to work, even though I followed the instructions step-by-step. The book's website has not been updated for a while and there's no documentation or forums to help potential photobloggers troubleshoot installation or blogging problems.
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br /There are a lot of great photographers using MT for their photoblogs but there is a dearth of documentation on how to create a photoblog with MT. I was really hoping this book would feel this void.
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br /This is a great book about photoblogs and is inspirational. Unless you signup with Nexcess.net, which is kind of expensive, I would recommend not using Movable Type to create your photoblog. There are a couple of other photoblog tools out there that seem easier to install and to customize. I would give this book three stars but for its lack of support for those who don't use the recommended ISP, I am giving it two stars.
 Room for improvement
This book isn't bad. It covers a wealth of material and gets into a fair about of detail on how to set up a photoblog, mostly on the suggested Nexcess.net.
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br /This is fine should you choose this route, as you will have all the information on how to do that.
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br /What could help the reader is a better organization of the material presented to keep one from having to go back and forth between pages to take in the examples presented. This will probably happen in the next edition.
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br /Other than that, I admire the author's talent, knowledge, and enthusiasm for photography and blogging.
 Good initial ideas but then a let down
There were a couple of good ideas in the book but then I felt it became an installation guide for using Movable Type.
Great Photographer, Terrible Book
As someone who makes a living structuring information for maximum usability, I have to say that this book and the accompanying website are frustrating, maddening, and pretty much useless unless you're willing to sign up for the hosting deal with the author's suggested web host.
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br /Some of the most glaring errors include:
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br /1) Placing content that should be relegated to sidebars (i.e., the section on signing up for TypeKey authorization) right in the middle of crucial instructions for setting up Movable Type on your system. It breaks up the flow of information, and forces the reader to flip back and forth several times to ensure that she hasn't missed a crucial step.
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br /2) Files at the accompanying website are only available as Windows executables. I'm a fairly savvy Mac user, so I knew enough to drag the .exe files to Stuffit Expander to open them, but how many other Mac users might miss this crucial step? Make the files available as .zip or .tar.gz files for maximum compatibility.
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br /3) Workflow inefficiencies: how efficient is it that the reader is forced to create a new blog after installing the author's blog templates? Why can't these templates be applied to the default photo blog that is created when Movable Type is initially configured?
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br /While I'm sure the rest of the book has some useful information -- I particularly liked Jamieson's photo assignments - I'm so thoroughly frustrated with the installation/configuration instructions and information design of the book that I can't help but give it a negative review.
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br /This is but the first edition of the book - do yourself a favor and wait for version two, or check the website at createyourownphotoblog.com to see if an errata section is made available.
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