Antbag.com

Have you ever wondered how to cloak links with longer url’s or affiliate links on your website? It’s actually a pretty easy thing to do. There are a number of reasons you might like to do something like this. One way I used this method, was on my email subscription link. Instead of http://www.feedburner.com/fb/a/emailverifySubmit?feedId=677566, I gave the link a better appearance by cloaking it with this: http://antbag.com/go/email-updates. Either link will take you to the same destination, however the second both looks better, and it’s a much easier url to remember. You can also use this method for affiliate links which are usually long and generic, or any kind of links for that matter. Here’s how…

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Like most people, I have new goals for myself for year 2010. I really prefer not to call these New Year Resolutions, because that sounds to me like something that I’ll never achieve. I know that many people have New Year Resolutions, and NEVER stick to them. I’m not sure I know anybody who has ever stuck with one. There are some who would prefer to put a more positive spin on this term by calling their goals – destinations, but that doesn’t do much for me. So, I will simply call these goals.

I do believe that putting your goals out for others to see makes these goals much more likely to be accomplished…..and that’s what I’ve decided to do. I do have other (and more measurable) goals than what I’ve listed here, but these are what I desire the most. [Continue reading →]

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I want to wish all my readers a very Merry Christmas! I hope your day is filled with love and laughter, and your hearts filled with thankfulness for the blessings that God has placed in your life. James 1:17

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If there is any part of this post that doesn’t make sense, it’s because I’ve changed the theme again since I wrote it. …I needed more color. It’s still pretty minimal. Scratch that. Changed my mind.

I decided it was time to make a change here, design wise. I wanted to make more of a minimalist type of design, without it looking completely plain. So, the design has a few splashes of color here and there. I was mostly inspired to go this route after navigating through minimalsites.com, which is a gallery of minimalist website designs.

Another thing I wanted to get away from, are the normal link colors such as blue. There’s nothing wrong with that, but I was ready to do something different, so I’ve gone with a purple(#990099) as my primary link color. Also, as you can see, I added a yellow background to the site title, as well as to the links within an a-side post.

One thing that runs the risk of being confusing to some folks, would be the fact that I used the same font properties on several different elements. For instance, the headings in the sidebar are the exact same font as the post meta information. Some of that text being links to comments, etc., some of the text is not. The reason I did this was that I thought it gave the design a more polished look. In my opinion, minimalism shouldn’t be plain and boring, but should have subtleties that add a touch of class. I hope I accomplished that with this.

The Future of the Design

I plan to make this theme publicly available in the near future. It won’t make any big splash in the Wordpress community. I won’t promote it. But those who like it and would like to use it, it will be here.

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