As people living in the 21st century, many of us have smartphones (myself included). While I’m still waiting for my hover-car and teleporter, I am quite fond of some of the apps on my phone – which led me to decide to showcase my top five favourite apps that makes keeping editing photos, uploading photos and keeping in touch with dolly people all around the world that much easier.

I don’t have an iPhone (or other Apple products) so I can’t comment on the pros and cons of the apps found on iTunes. Most (if not all) of these apps mentioned below should have an iTunes equivalent that may or may not be exactly the same. All of these apps can be found over at the Google Play store (bonus, they’re all free)

Flickr

Pros: It has some filters for your photos, you can add photos to sets and set up the tags on your pictures. You can leave comments, add your friends’ photos as your favourites.

Cons: It’s a stripped down version of Flickr (very close to what the mobile version of the Flickr website looks like) and doesn’t allow access to groups (so no discussions or anything like that). And if you can access Flickr mail with it, I haven’t figured out a way just yet.

Photo Editor by Aviary

Pros: Aviary is a bit like a mini-Photoshop. You can do a lot more than add filters – you can crop your images, enhance colours and there are many different packs from Aviary that you can download as well (‘stickers’, frames, effects). I love how much that you can do with the basic Photo Editor app though, you don’t need the additional packs to do some great changes to your photos.

Cons: I find that Aviary is slow at times. If you want to make the most of the app, you do need to download extra features separately. Additionally, not all of the extra features are free (but most are minimally priced so it shouldn’t break the bank).

Pixlr-o-matic and Pixlr Express

Pros: I love both of these apps so much. Pixlr-o-matic has a lot of fantastic effects/filters, as well as borders, to choose from. You can download additional ones, but they’re contained within the apps so you don’t need to download anything outside of the app. For Pixlr Express, which is much like a mini-Photoshop as well, you can easily crop, auto-correct colours and overlay your photos with a lot of effects.

Cons: It can take quite a while to load all the filters, but that’s the price to pay of editing photos on the go. I think both apps pair together well, but it’s still two apps instead of one (bonus though: both are available via the Pixlr website so you can photo edit with them on the computer too).

Instagram

Pros: It’s like Flickr, but less about filters for groups. There’s a bit of a community feel, there are some filters and small amount of editing capability to Instagram. You can make your entire account private and add only people you know if you so choose to do so.

Cons: You can’t selectively make photos private. I find it difficult to go back to look at photos that I’ve commented on before (that weren’t mine). There‘s a small amount of photo editing options, but that’s not the main point to it. There’s no way to edit comments or to delete comments (as far as I know), which can lead to problems if you have an ‘open’ account and random people leave rude or spam comments.

Twitter

Pros: Everyone’s favourite app in 140 characters or less! Yes, a lot of dolly people are on Twitter and it’s a fantastic way of keeping in touch with people or popping up a question here or there that you don’t think really needs its own thread on. If you haven’t already, you can follow me/the blog @blythelifecom

Cons: A lot of people are on it. And when you put a lot of people in a small space, it’s hard to control what happens. But if you keep a level head, you can definitely avoid any drama. The great thing is that you can block people, set your account to private and be selective about who can or cannot read your tweets – but if you ever set yourself as public (even briefly), all that goes away.

This is a somewhat-intentional continuation of a post that I had published in January 2013 (cleverly titled “Doll Blogger: Tips and Tricks #1” as I figured I would eventually come up with more tips and tricks). If you missed it back in January, just click the not-disguised link to see what I wrote!

To CAPTCHA or not to CAPTCHA? That is the question.
CAPTCHA, for those unaware, are those really annoying things that you see when you’re trying to set up a new account or enter a password or okay a new comment on a blog. It’s usually a mangle of letters and/or numbers that make little to no sense that is required to be put in correctly in order to “prove” that you’re really a human (and not a bot). I can actually (sort of) understand having CAPTCHA for people to enter when they’re setting up accounts. You don’t want a million and three meaningless accounts clogging up a server. But for comments, you probably don’t want to have it around.

But “Why not, Michelle?” you ask? Because it’s annoying. As a blog owner, you want to make it easy for readers to comment and to publish their comments. Things that make it difficult (e.g. passwords, CAPTCHA, needing to log into something) hinder readers from commenting and make it less likely for them to do so. As a blog owner, you also want commentary. If you didn’t, you’d be writing in a paper journal and not all over the internet. Bonus, in WordPress there is a plugin called Akismet. It’s very handy, filters out the spam and it can “learn” from what you tell it is spam or not spam.

Making it easy for readers to comment in Blogger.
By default, your readers (if you have a Blogger/Blogspot blog) need to log into some account prior to making a comment. (Please refer to my CAPTCHA bit to see why this is a bad idea. Got it? Great!) So if you want to make it easier for people to comment (which is a good thing, unless you’re a hermit), that’s great! Log in. Pick the blog you want to change the setting for, click “More Options” (it looks like a down-arrow), then click on “Settings”. After the page loads, go to “Posts and comments”. What you want to look for is a section called “Who can comment?” and then click on “Anyone”. This allows people who are not logged in to comment – making it easier for commentors to give you feedback on your post. And for a recap:

More Options > Settings > Posts and comments > Who can comment? > Anyone

Blog Planners: Yes or No?
I’ve noticed, not really in the dolly blogging community, that a lot of people use blog planners. What is a blog planner, you ask? Very good question! If you look it up via Etsy, you can find a bunch of examples (alternatively, if you’re cheap frugal, you can Google blog planner templates and print your own or make your own, adjusted for your own personal use). Basically what it is is an agenda (like for school) but it outlines monthly blogging schedules (much like the WordPress Calendar plugin I talked about in Tips and Tricks #1), but you can also include information on posting ideas, if you’re doing a giveaway (either sponsored by you or someone else). Here are several that I really like (each word is a separate link to a different blog planner template! All free and printable!). If you want to use less colour ink, you can always print in black and white. I will be publishing a Blythe/dolly blog-themed blog planner template (weekly style) very soon. After I finalize what I need/want in a blog planner template and then I’ll share it with all of you!

Using blog prompts to help with what to blog about
I’m personally a fan of blog prompts. I don’t use them very often (mostly because blog prompts come out on a weekly basis and I blog so much more than once a week!), but a lot of people do – and sometimes the topics can be very interesting and thought provoking! One of my favourite methods for prompts for writing (not on this blog, I’m afraid it wouldn’t work!) is to take a dictionary, randomly flip to a page and then (as randomly as possible) select a word. Then, somehow utilize this word in the blog entry or use it as inspiration to come up with a post. It’s interesting to see what you can come up with! Plus you can expand your vocabulary at the same time.

If you look at any number of threads where people are selling things these days, many people are asking that you send payment as “gift” or to add on 4% of the purchase price to cover the fees that the sellers will end up out of pocket for. For small things, it may seem like, ehhh, why not? 4% of $10 is only $0.40, after all. What if you were paying for a custom doll though? Let’s say that the doll is $500 (shipping included – a bargain by today’s standards) – that doll would be $520. And why should you, the buyer, be responsible for another $20 when you’re already paying $500 for a doll and shipping?

It’s the norm now for sellers to ask for this – payment as gift or adding on the fees associated with using Paypal’s services.

Pros for the seller:

• They get the full amount that they priced their item at

Cons for the buyer:

• There is no recourse if something goes wrong and whatever it is that you bought goes missing – Paypal assumes you’re telling the truth when you say it is a gift and not payment owed
• The seller does not have to prove to Paypal that they really sent whatever it is that you bought
• You’re out an additional 4%

Additionally, Paypal frowns against users violating their Terms (you know, the ones you agreed to when signing up/registering an account). By sending “payment as gift” when the payment is not a gift, they don’t like that very much. So you could put yourself at risk for having your account suspended – especially if you’re the seller and the one having people send you ‘gifted’ money all the time.

Secondly, a lot more people nowadays in the Blythe community are frowning on those who request ‘payment as gift’ and are actively avoiding purchasing from those that do that on their sale threads. I get that it’s tempting to have someone else pay your fees for you, but that’s part of the cost of doing business. If you really want to not have to pay the fees, you can just add the fees into the overall cost of the item itself. So if you’re selling a dress for $9 and don’t want to pay the additional fees for it, just do a little math to figure out how much you should sell it for. That way you end up with the amount that you really want and the cost of fees with using Paypal come out of what you asked for from the buyer. Another bonus of receiving payment for goods through Paypal is that, if you wish to print out shipping labels directly – you can! If the buyer pays as a ‘gift’, you’re not given that option because the money was a ‘gift’.

Lastly, there are people who do get burned (badly) from having paid for things (sundries, dolls) as a ‘gift’. This results in Bad Dolly Deals and public shaming in the community from the BDD. But, of course, it is always a good idea to find out if someone you’re dealing with has ever had a BDD written up about them and, if so, how was it resolved.

Much like the saying that ‘good fences make good neighbours’, there’s also ‘protecting yourself in a sale makes for less Bad Dolly Deals’.

Pip is my LPS Petite that was given to me as a gift from a dolly friend. She’s the smallest of all my dolls but she has a really big mouth and she likes getting to go places. Because of her size and her ability to fit into my pocket, she’s gone to more places than most of my Neos have.

Here are some photos from the Adventures of Pip:

If you share a love for Petites, what kind of places do you take your little one?