Archive for March, 2008

WordPress 2.5’s new interface is quite a bit different from the current one. Currently, many WordPress users aren’t entirely sure what they think about it yet (myself included). I will have to use it for a few weeks until I’ve decided what I think.

Astheria has an in-depth review of the new WordPress 2.5 interface.

Overall, I think the new interface is a great improvement, but there are many things that leave me wondering if it’s had enough polish yet. I am sure the folks at both Wordpress and Happy Cog will make the final release a great experience, and I am excited that they are having a period for feedback prior to that release.

There is some nice commentary and creative criticism in the full article, and I would say it’s worth reading. WordPress developers, I hope you’re paying attention! Especially to this part:

The most important screen in the whole application is also one of the most drastically changed. While I love some of the new additions, such as the permalink preview and tag path there are a lot of things here I find questionable.

Everyone seems to be talking about Yahoo Buzz these days, and about how it’s going to give Digg a run for its money.

I don’t get it.

Sure, the site is new and shiny. But they have nothing on Digg so far.

• Users of Yahoo Buzz can only vote on stories, they cannot submit them.
• Only select sites can have their articles featured (read: really big blogs). Yahoo says they are in beta, and are currently not accepting publisher applications.
• I doubt Yahoo will ever let smaller sites be featured. They’ll most likely keep it weighted towards the bigger sites, with some lame excuse like “all the traffic would kill your site!”

I admit that the potential traffic from Yahoo Buzz is great. As Daily Blog Tips pointed out: (more…)

Need to add information from Twitter to a website? I needed to recently, for a project I’m working on, but I wanted to do more than Twitter’s widgets provided. Searching for a viable solution, I discovered Remy Sharp’s Twitter.js.

The script, once included in your page, allows you to use the getTwitters() function to display tweets the way you want them. The statuses are loaded dynamically after the page is done loading, cutting a few seconds off your page load time.

The function has numerous options, as well as a templating variables you can use to display the statuses the way you want. You can show just your tweets (and specify the quantity), or you include your friends’ tweets too. One of my favorite features is the ability to display avatars along with the statuses.

At 3.2k, the script won’t add much to your pages’ loading times either.

What’s your opinion on paid reviews? Do you think it’s okay to accept payment to review a product on your blog, or not?

I think that paid reviews are okay, as long as it’s an honest review, and the payment does not influence you. I think of it like this: They’re paying for a chance to have their product reviewed, because it may not be otherwise. You, as a blogger, are receiving additional incentive to write a review. If the company demands a positive review, then you’re just being yet another marketing robot for them.

I’m not against paid reviews, so long as their honest reviews, and you don’t post too many of them (as opposed to normal posts). However, I’d like to know what you think of them. Paid reviews are a controversial topic, and I would like to hear your opinions.

I installed the Internet Explorer 8 beta a few days ago, and I’ve tested some sites in it. So far, I’m not really impressed. It seems to pass the ACID2 test, but there are plenty of rendering bugs that drive me crazy…and they had better be fixed by the time the final release is out.

I’m very well aware that the browser is in beta, but I can’t help but be worried about this. Some pages seem to render worse than ever, and I can’t help but think “Are these bugs, or some sort of ploy to keep things as they’ve been?” It’s not really in Microsoft’s best interests to be fully standards compliant, after all.

Here are just a few examples of the render bugs I’ve noticed: (more…)

ZDNet has recently redesigned their website.

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• How to Easily Boost Your Technorati Rank - I’ll have to try that sometime. First I need to find a list of linking sites that aren’t in Technorati… Perhaps Google and Yahoo can help?
• WordPress, Open Source & Giving Back
• Desktop Blogging Clients, The Ultimate List - If you find WordPress’s Write Post page too inefficient for your tastes, maybe you should try using a desktop blogging client? So far I haven’t found one suitable for my uses, but you may have better luck.
• 63 Essential Wordpress Hacks, Tutorials, Help Files and Cheats - A nice big list of WordPress hacks and tutorials. There are some really good ones that I was previously unaware of.
• 99 Ways to Improve Your Blog - “This post will hopefully give you plenty of ideas for making some improvements to your blog. We all have room for improvement but sometimes it’s just a matter of knowing different ways of doing things.”
• The Secrets Of Grunge Design - If you’re ready to be smashed with information yet again, Smashing Magazine has a new post on “Grunge Design.” In grunge designs, “dirty stains, torn images, ‘broken’ icons and creased pieces of paper are as popular as hand-drawn elements and dirty textures.”
• Some bloggers aren’t too happy about the design of the new Admin in the upcoming WordPress 2.5. If you’re one of those bloggers, you may find this useful: The Fluency WordPress Admin Theme, designed for WordPress 2.5, offers a style similar to the “Tiger” Administration theme that people have been using lately, only for WP 2.5. It’s a little less “Mac-like” than Tiger, and less colorful, but if you like it better than the default Admin theme, go right ahead and install it.
• Google’s bid to buy DoubleClick has been approved, and they are launching a new way to manage your banner ads. Too bad the new Google Ad Manager is in an invitation-only beta.

When it comes to Search Engine Optimization, most bloggers fall into three groups.

1. SEO Maniacs - They’re obsessed with improving their PageRank, and driving up their rankings using any means possible. A.K.A. John Chow before Google caught-on.
2. The SEO Disinclined - The sort who just blog and ignore the SEO aspect.
3. The SEO Neutral - Serious bloggers who do a little SEO, but don’t focus on it that much.

No matter which group you fall into, consider implementing the following tips. (more…)

Two of the most common AdSense placements on blogs are

1. A rectangular ad (such as the 250×250 unit) in the post, floated to the left, with the text wrapping around it.
2. A 468×60 “banner” unit between the post title and the content.

In some posts, though, the floated ads get in the way of other elements, such as images. Suppose you want to have an image floated to the right, at the top of your post. That could conflict with your ad, couldn’t it? If the image is wide enough, it would run right into the ad. Or what if you wanted to have a wide image above the content, like on Copyblogger? That left-floated ad would get in the way. What’s the solution? No, you don’t need to switch to a 468×60 ad, which often doesn’t perform as well as the floated ad. It’s time for a little WordPress magic. (more…)

Back in December, I wrote an article about recovering after your blog has been vandalized. Of course, you want to avoid having your blog trashed in the first place.

The Lost Art of Blogging has recently released an informative article on securing your WordPress-powered blog. “Fighting Blog Hacks: Preventing And Eliminating Intruders” covers several things you should do to help avoid having your blog vandalized. They’re mainly simple tweaks, and you should definitely consider implementing them.

A few weeks ago I had the unpleasant surprise of finding out that my blog [The Lost Art of Blogging] got automatically hacked by spam bots, due to a Wordpress exploit, and in course also got infected with malware. Google, vigilant as always, was quick on scanning LOAB for any malicious software, found some corrupted code and immediately flagged the blog. What happened next was very predictable: who ever tried to search to for something on Google and found LOAB among the search results wasn’t able to access the blog, as it was “quarantined.” I lost hundreds of visitors daily during the course of two weeks, my rankings were shattered and of course the blog’s reputation was stained; as a side note I’d like to thank all the loyal readers that confidently continued to read my blog during that tough period.

Don’t let it happen to your blog.