This post is being written using the offline blogging tool by Microsoft called Windows Live Writer. How good is it…? Its pretty near, no messy edges here.The ability to copy and past from the clipboard also makes it a welcome edition rather than waiting for the WP upload .And the formatting is really nicely done ,as by now we are more used to Win Word typing than anything else.
Tag: blogging
Blogger’s Block and Better Blogging
Some tips for beating blogger’s block.
Patience -Everyone gets blogger ‘s block. This too shall pass .
Fermented Idea -When your ideas are hot , don’t publish immediately. Use the draft posts – they are there for a purpose.
Timing -Use and manipulate time stamps to space out your good posts.
Make your blog better by doing the following
Think and invest-Use free software for analysis at lower traffics and higher ,cost softwares for higher traffic.
Dos-Use wordpress – it is good. Or any software .But do avoid big big links.
Earn when you burn-Use ad sense or Yahoo or at least 1 ad software even though your blog is non commercial.
Dont kid yourself-Free Blogging in my view is against the principles of economics as your time and your readers time has a value ” There is no such thing as a free lunch”
Work smart is better than work hard-Use basic Search Engine Optimization (also known as GBO or Google Bot Optimization after the Yahoo-Google deal).
The simple little things-Avoid spelling mistakes. .Use spell check.
First Impressions-Titles should be catchy but to the point.
Give The Reader a break-Use the RSS or Email subscriber to avoid hit and run visitors.
Parting Shots-Sum up the post in last two sentences.
Pictures vs a 1000 Words-Use at least one graphic per page to increase appeal. A thing of beauty is a joy forever.
Uh -Oh—Trust in God but use anti spam software.
Network on the Net-Read other blogs , comment . Praise lavishly and avoid criticism-leave that to the rest of the world. What goes around in the online world often comes around in the offline world.
Techie Tip-Use the more <—-> tag in WordPress to build suspense in reader if he reads just the first four sentences. First impression will be the last impression.
Now that you have a better blog, get back to blogging….:)
Pretty Fly for A Website Guy
And so we decided one day , that our website is going astray.
We brushed off our HTML help, only to mess up website ourself
CSS,Java, Widgets, Themes,linkware,Copyright Policy
Ever felt so overwhelmed by trying to create a website that you
1) handed some hard earned money to smoother talking web designer
2) didnot make the website at all.
I am not talking about professional or organization websites who truly deserve the aesthetic value that comes from customized design , and functions. I am talking of people who need more serious platforms than blogs and wont ever , ever make money out of it..and didnot want to earn money from the website anyways.
Well basic steps to make a website are in the January 2008 Post— https://decisionstats.com/2008/20-steps-to-creating-a-website-business/
This new post now talks about revamping design of neglected websites without neglecting too much quality time for yourself and family. We are assuming you used wordpress because its the fastest SEO enabled content software for smaller websites.
Select and upload your wordpress theme from the official site itself- http://themes.wordpress.net/
A) modifying wordpress themes-
Its painful but should be done.
Try going the widget route.
If your new pretty wordpress theme is not widget enabled ,try these three steps
superbly mentioned here-
1) create functions.php by pasting these lines
<?php
if ( function_exists(‘register_sidebar’) )
register_sidebar();
?>” AND
into a notepad file and
saving it as use qutation marks “functions.php” “
And then upload to the wp-content/themes/”pretty theme in this case” folder .
upload using the filezilla software mentioned in https://decisionstats.com/2008/20-steps-to-creating-a-website-business/ .
2) Add Widgets to Dynamic Sidebar – go to design -theme- “pretty theme in question “-widgets using the new wordpress dashboard. Now use whatever widgets you want including pasting custom stuff like adsense,feedburner forms , in the text widgets.
3)Add Dynamic Sidebar to Template -go to design -theme- “pretty theme in question “-edit theme
Paste this in the sidebar.php
<?php if ( !function_exists(‘dynamic_sidebar’)
|| !dynamic_sidebar() ) : ?>
<?php endif; ?>
B) Using some HTML help for tweaking fonts within the theme
The following site is good for basic HTML copy and paste tweaking. http://www.w3schools.com/HTML/html_fonts.asp
3) Knowing when to stop designing the pretty website. If you need more help, call a professional but with more money. If you are taking more than 1 week with dedicated 1 hour daily or 7 work hours, call in a pro or change to a new wordpress theme.
And speaking of fun and simple websites please check out www.thadguy.com who have great cartoons and very nice linking policy as well.
The New WordPress
WordPress : For people who would rather spend time on the content than the code.
Easy to install,maintain,upgrade, beautiful themes,lots of plug-ins –
The easy -sleek dashboard
The best is of course the ease by which I can now insert pictures-
This is much much better than Blogger..though other Typepad-s like blogging platforms are said to be good too. Google seems to have forgotten re designing blogspot and news.google.com- and the competition is taking it all.
DECISION STATS 