Expert tips and services for building successful blogs
That's it, folks! The next version of WordPress – 2.0.5, codenamed Ronan, is finally available for download. For those of you who haven't seen the highlights of changes in this version, I strongly recommend you to have a look at a summary post by Mark Jaquith, Changes in WordPress 2.0.5
According to the announcement, this version brings fixes to 50 or so bugs, which alone is quite an effort giving the complexity of this ever-evolving blog engine.
Thanks to Ryan from CyberNet Technology News, I've just downloaded the latest Firefox 2 build from the releases folder. It has no RC in the filename, so it's as close to the release (scheduled for tomorrow) as it gets :)
You can download Firefox 2 release from here: Firefox 2 @ releases.mozilla.org.
It's Saturday again, and this means I have a few articles I'd like to share with you. I'm sure you will find them useful.
Darren Rowse has created a list of all the RSS advertising options available to you at this moment. As always, he adds his own opinion and short description which is the most valuable feature of his posts. Thanks, Darren! I think as soon as I gain enough readership for my feeds, I'll be definitely considering one of the options he listed.
Joe Hauckes from Working at Home on the Internet shares his thoughs on overly aggressive ads placement with blogs in his How To Lose A Visitor Before They Become A Reader article:
This particular Blog had an ad in every Hot Spot and a few of the Cooler Spots, and even some of the Spots that were Below Freezing. I understand the need to use advertisements for income and support of the site, but at least allow people to see the Name of the Blog without being slammed in the face by Flashing Banners.
I absolutely agree. You've probably noticed me using AdSense as well, but I try and not make it block the actual content. I strongly believe that any online project should provide tons of useful content before making any attempt to financially benefit from it through ads.
Just learned from Ryan's post at CyberNet that IE7 is officially released, and thought I'd mention this here for historical purpose: Internet Explorer 7 is available for download.
I don't think I'll even try it, cause I'm a solid Firefox guy, but for everyone interested, here's some useful info:
Internet Explorer 7 – direct download links:
32-bit versions: IE7 – Windows XP and IE7 – Windows Server 2003
64-bit versions: IE7 – Windows XP/Server 2003
Internet Explorer blog: IEBlog @ blogs.msdn.com
If you haven't seen this search engine yet, go check it out: Ms. Dewey is a fairly interactive search engine with a sexy girl sharing her wisdom based on your search queries.
Try searching for some general yet very deep topics like love, life, work or woman. I'm sure it's only a matter of time before there's a list of the best search queries for Ms Dewey is posted on one of the websites, but even now search is fun and interesting.
It's not a new idea, but definitely a successful, witty and funny implementation.
Ms. Dewey is definitely worth a look!
Just thought it's about time I start sharing some of the useful posts I come across during my week.
Here are a few for the past week:
Rajesh Setty from Life Beyond Code has written a very good article: 10 things they didn't tell you about blogging. Some of the points he made are simply brilliant, for example this one:
You can't get rich blogging.
Again, there are exceptions. Then, you don't include Las Vegas and Lottery in your growth strategy. Do you?
It did make me laugh. Surely, there is a different "rich" definition for every one of us, but in general he's right. It takes a lot of effort and time to get so good in blogging that it pays you enough to live off it.
It's easy to start but hard to maintain.
In fact, it is VERY hard to maintain. Since most bloggers are not depending on blogging for their living, it is walking an extra mile almost everyday. Plus, how do you motivate yourself to do something that does not have a short-term return?
Again, a very common problem. You've got to be really passionate about your blog's topic, otherwise you will not be able to stay motivated for long enough to see it gain traffic and your readers start commenting and motivate you to write more.
A few days later, Rajesh had posted another 10 things they didn't tell you about blogging, sharing some more of his experience with us:
Don't write if you don't have anything to write
You know – writers block affects bloggers too. It is REALLY OK to not post anything if you don't have anything valuable to post. Weak posts bring down the average value of your posts. Why take that risk?
The reason that you write should not be because you have a blog but because you have something valuable to contribute.
I totally agree on this one. I'm constantly struggling with myself over days of quietness on my blogs – whenever I don't have enough time to share an idea or some knowledge in a quality article. At first you feel really compelled to post ANYTHING, because your blogs have to appear dynamic and regularly updated. But when you realize that a weak post will have a much more negative impact than no post at all, you eventually learn to be patient.
Chris Pearson shared his observations after his website had finally got out of the Google Sandbox (congratulations!), and compiled a Graphical Look at the Effects of the Google Sandbox:
It really is amazing how powerful Google is in terms of pushing traffic all over the Web. I have literally been wowed by the rate at which my traffic and other metrics have increased over the last two months, which is basically the time frame in which I crawled out of the Google sandbox.
If you're interested in learning more about Google sandbox and ways to get out of it, I have previously posted an article about it, so please have a look: Simple Ways To Get Out Of Google Sandbox.
And last, but certainly not the least, is Paul Scrivens, explaining to some of us Why Your Web App Sucks with well-known examples. And excellent read with some links to other interesting articles from the same Wisdump site:
The reason it is so hard to make a great web application is because it is so easy to make it suck. The greatest ideas do not always translate into the greatest applications because of poor execution.
That should make 10 minutes of your reading today worthwhile. Enjoy!
It's been only few days ago when I felt the need to experiment more with AdSense ads formats on my local server, and I couldn't find a way of doing it without breaking the terms and conditions: they strictly prohibit showing AdSense blocks on your temporary/internal pages which are "under construction", and even more strictly prohibit clicking on your own ads.
Luckily, I've read a recent post by Thilak of TechBuzz: Running AdSense Ads in Test Mode, and it motivated me to find out more about the topic of testing AdSense.
I ended up sending an email to the Google AdSense support team, and they confirmed once again that this solution is absolutely correct and valid:
All you have to do is add google_adtest = ‘on’; to each AdSense block you're testing on your website. It will still show all the ads, but will ignore any clicks on your part until you remove this test option from your code. It is allowed to change the AdSense block source code to add this line, so you will not violate any terms or conditions.
This is how your code might look (I've obviously blanked the ad client ID of mine:
<script type="text/javascript"><!–
google_ad_client = "pub-xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx";
google_adtest = ‘on’;
google_alternate_color = "FFFFFF";
google_ad_width = 728;
google_ad_height = 15;
google_ad_format = "728x15_0ads_al_s";
google_ad_channel ="9517067767";
google_color_border = "FFFFFF";
google_color_bg = "FFFFFF";
google_color_link = "336699";
google_color_text = "000000";
google_color_url = "336699";
//–></script>
Yep, it's that easy. Enjoy!
Feed Button is a service to help you get a cleaner look of your blog sidebar by replacing all the possible ways to subscribe to your feed via various online services like Google Reader, My Yahoo!, Pluck and others with a nice-looking button and a bit of code attached to it.
The idea behind the feed button is that you conserve the precious space by showing only one button, but when your visitor hovers the mouse pointer above the button, it automatically expands to show you all the possible subscription options.
The idea is simple, and I believe any blog which currently has more that 5 feed subscription buttons can probably benefit from using it. All you need to do is give their feed button generator a link to your blog, and your piece of code is going to be provided in just a few seconds, ready for you to copy & paste onto your blog's sidebar code.
Go check it out: FeedButton Beta.
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