This week I wrote about a very important subject for mommy bloggers over at MommyBlogger.me.  There are a host of responsibilities that come with being a blogger, and they can be hard to get used to at first.  Some are real (to provide truthful and ethical information), some are ridiculous (to live your life as a perfect example to the world), but that doesn’t mean you won’t encounter them all from your readers.

The good news is that there are plenty of probloggers you can model as you learn to cultivate your thick skin, and plenty of support from bloggers who have been there and experienced the downside (myself included). Here’s a quick excerpt from the article The Responsibility of Being a Blogger:

• “As a blogger, you are now a public figure. 
• People will expect more from you than they do of themselves or their friends. 
• People will feel you owe them explanations for your actions, blog posts, even the choices you make in your personal life.
• People will say negative things sometimes.  Never believe what people say about you. YOU decide what you are, no one else has that right.”

Read the rest of The Responsibility of Being a Blogger here.

Responsibilities That Come with Mommy Blogging is an article from Home Ever After.
Copyright 2007-2009 HomeEverAfter.com by Danelle Ice/IS World Media. All rights reserved. Reproduction of content in this feed is prohibited.

17 Free Downloads – Personal Finance, Business,

Amazon is offering 17 free downloads throughout the month of February on the topics of investing, business and other related subjects.  If you’re a fan of Forbes magazine, Inc. magazine, Fast Company magazine, or Mental Floss magazine, then you’ll love these free downloads that will be available until the end of February 2009.  Download these brain-vitamin articles by clicking links below.

(Editor’s Note- I am a huge fan of Inc. magazine and incidentally, got hooked on it after receiving a free subscription last year!  It is a goal of mine to appear on the cover of Inc. magazine, following in the recent footsteps of 2 of my  inspirations: Kevin Rose (of Digg ) and Markus Frind.)

• Download “The Most Important Questions of 2009: Answered!”
• Download the Forbes Investors’ Guide
• Download Forbes’ “The Big Picture”
• Download Fast Company’s “The Most Influential Women in Technology”  (I’m not on the list this year – but I plan to be next year!)
• Download Inc.’s “The Believer”
• Download Forbes’ “Fantasy Island”
• Download Forbes’ “Supercharged Munis”
• Download Forbes’ “Tapping Your IRA Early”
• Download Forbes’ “Building Boom”
• Download Forbes’ “This Home Boom is Still Alive”
• Download Forbes’ “Home, But Not Alone”
• Download Inc.’s “How I Did It”
• Download Inc.’s “Street Smarts”
• Download Forbes’ “Subtle Shades of Green”
• Download Forbes’ “Pipeline to Profits”
• Download Forbes’ “Inside Track”
• Download Forbes’ “The Government Oil Play”

17 Free Downloads for Entrepreneurs is an article from Home Ever After.
Copyright 2007-2009 HomeEverAfter.com by Danelle Ice/IS World Media. All rights reserved. Reproduction of content in this feed is prohibited.

Have you ever wondered why some people’s names look like this on twitter:

@homeeverafter

Instead of looking like this:

@HomeEverAfter  ?

For a long time my username was all lowercase because I didn’t know the way to change it.  When I signed up for twitter, I put my username in with all lowercase letters out of habit more than anything else. Soon, I began seeing people who had capitalized their names, and they looked much easier to read than mine. 

I wanted to capitalize my username, and I knew it was possible because I saw others who had done it.  I didn’t want to look silly for asking, in case it was a really easy solution!  One day, I finally asked a man who had a regular looking capitalized name how he changed it, and he wouldn’t tell me…

We’d like to spare you the curiosity, wonderment (and possible snubbing by the guy who wouldn’t share the knowledge) by bringing you this quick and easy tip for how to capitalize your name on twitter!

How To Capitalize Your User Name on Twitter

If you registered your account at twitter with the name in all lowercase letters, you CAN change the capitalization without losing any of your followers or tweets.  Here’s how:

1. Login to your twitter account.
2. Click the “Settings” link on the top right toolbar.
3. You should now be on the “Account” tab.
4. The second box from the top says “Username”, and in it you’ll find your unique twitter username that identifies your twitter stream.
5. Click inside the box and change the letters you want to be in uppercase to capital letters.
6. Make sure not to change the spelling of your username or add characters or take away characters.

There you have it!  A quick and easy way to capitalize your username on twitter.  As long as you don’t spell your username differently or change it to add or subtract letters, your followers and tweets will remain unchanged.

If you found this tip useful, look for more upcoming tech how-to articles on Twitter, Blogger, WordPress, gadgets, and more in our new Mommy Tech Department.  Subscribe today for free so you won’t miss a thing!

Now go ahead- go change your username in the settings.  Then come back here and leave a link to your twitter name in the comments so people can find you.

Twitter badge courtesy of 7son75.

How To Capitalize Your User Name on Twitter is an article from Home Ever After.
Copyright 2007-2009 HomeEverAfter.com by Danelle Ice/IS World Media. All rights reserved. Reproduction of content in this feed is prohibited.

156 Free WordPress Templates for Mommy Bloggers

We’re constantly scouting for free and cheap tools to help mommy bloggers / probloggers.  This week we found a great site that has free WordPress themes for you to download and use, no strings attached.  You can view the previews of all the templates here: Web 2.0 Wordpress Themes (then click on “Free Wordpress Themes” to view ALL the free ones).  Most of the themes even have demos, so you can navigate around in the sample blog to see if you really like the design’s layout. 

One of the fun parts of blogging is changing your theme and layout so that it reflects your personality.  Finding a really great theme can sometimes even give you an idea for a new blog you’d like to start. Free templates make it easy to test out different looks for your blog without committing to (and paying for) a design that you may not end up liking.  Plus, some of these themes are so sophisticated that they look like premium, custom-designed themes.  Only you and I will know it was free!  The Wordpress Themes site also offers custom design work if that’s what you’re looking for.

There are so many cool designs in this collection that we’ll be using a few in our blog network (so don’t be surprised if later on some of our layouts look familiar)!

WordPress Pumpkin photo courtesy of Flickr’s Eric Martin.

156 Free WordPress Themes for Mommy Bloggers is an article from Home Ever After.
Copyright 2007-2009 HomeEverAfter.com by Danelle Ice/IS World Media. All rights reserved. Reproduction of content in this feed is prohibited.

I am employed full time (well, more than full time, if such a classification existed) even though I work from home. My job title reads: business owner, corporate vice president, problogger, editor, freelance writer, and work at home mom (WAHM). When I tell people I work from home and that I’m the editor and contributing writer for Homemaker Barbi, I’m often asked, “Do you actually get paid for that?”, “But do you get any money from it?”, “But you don’t have a real job other than that, right?”

It can be hard for people to understand that working from home is real work.  Jennifer at Network Blogging Tips inspired this article when she wrote Typical Conversations I Have. Her article is about friends and family not understanding that as a full-time blogger and WAHM, she does have a real job. Writing online is just as important as writing for paper print (e.g. magazines, newspapers, etc.), and a writing job has just as many responsibilities as any other job.

It is a difficult and delicate issue for WAHMs to set boundaries with their space, their time and their priorities. If you are currently a work at home parent (this includes dads), you can understand Jennifer’s frustration when people say, “You’re lucky you don’t have a real job”! Just because you don’t commute doesn’t mean you don’t work hard in your own home office. The work is even harder for parents who don’t use childcare, because the interruptions from kids are constant and unavoidable.  This brief guide should help both those of us who are WAHMs (and dads) and those friends / family members who love us but just don’t understand yet!

Establishing Understanding and Boundaries For Working at Home

For Bloggers / Freelancers / WAHMs (and Dads)

1. Be patient. With time, either they’ll understand or they won’t. Don’t spend time worrying about it though – use that time productively!

2. Set clear boundaries for outsiders (people outside your house). Let people know very clearly the days/hours you work and that when you are working, you can’t be doing other things. If you don’t call your friends while they’re at work and expect them to drop everything and chat, why should they expect that of you? Drop in visits, phone calls, outings, play dates, IM chats: all these activities are distractions which mean work doesn’t get done. Nicely but firmly remind people that you have deadlines, which aren’t met if you can’t do your work in the allotted time.

3. Set clear boundaries for INSIDERS (this means your children and spouse). Just because you can see mommy (or daddy) doesn’t mean she’s available to play! Be clear about designated work times. For younger children, a helpful tool is a kitchen timer. Turn it to set an hour, or whatever time you’re setting aside, and let your child know that while the timer is going mommy has work to do. When it goes off, you can take a break together to do something fun before the next work segment. As with all new routines, this may take a while to get comfortable. For your spouse, you may need to gently remind that when you are in a certain location (in your office, at your desk) or during designated times, you’re working and are unavailable. Of course, uninterrupted mommy time means more of a happier mommy to go around later (who is not worrying about missing a deadline!).

4. Refer people to your finished product. Send them to your site so they can see and experience what your time goes towards building. It may help them to link something tangible to the intangible concept of you “working at home doing writing.”

For Friends and Family of Bloggers / Freelancers / WAHMs (and Dads)

1. Publishing online is equivalent to publishing in paper print (magazines or newspapers). It is just as important and takes as much (or more) time and effort.

2. Never say that working at home is not a real job! If your loved one spends their precious time and energy doing it, then it’s a job to them, whether or not it’s financially successful yet! They need your support and understanding to succeed.

3. Respect boundaries. Since working at home is a real job, your loved one has certain days and hours they designate as work times. Find out what they are and respect them. That means don’t drop in unannounced, call for chats, pop up an IM window, or ask them to babysit during those work times! I’m guessing they don’t ask you to use your vacation time at work to do those kinds of things, so practice the golden rule.

4. Understand deadlines. Deadlines are deadlines, whether you set them for yourself or someone else sets them for you. Respect your loved one’s need to get things done when they say they will, and don’t ask them to rearrange deadlines for you just because you think they should be able to.

4. Check it out for yourself. If you don’t understand what your loved one does, ask if you can see the finished product. Visit their website and read some of their articles.

Homemaker Barbi Says: Working at home is a different kind of arrangement which can take some getting used to by all parties involved. With clear boundaries, patience, and willingness to understand, everyone can be happier with the situation!

My Job: Problogger, Freelance Writer, Work at Home Mom is an article from Home Ever After.
Copyright 2007-2009 HomeEverAfter.com by Danelle Ice/IS World Media. All rights reserved. Reproduction of content in this feed is prohibited.