Monthly Archives: June 2007

50% Still Using Internet Explorer 6

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I read a post at Daily Blog Tips that gave some internet statistics, and I thought it was interesting. Being fairly new at building WordPress themes, I especially took notice of the percentage of internet users still using Internet Explorer 6. While I’m more of a Firefox man myself, I can understand why a Windows user would just use Internet Explorer. If you are an IE user, please UPDATE TO VERSION 7.

The image “http://www.dailyblogtips.com/wp-content/uploads/webbrowser1.gif” cannot be displayed, because it contains errors.Internet Explorer 6 is one of the biggest thorns in the side for a web designer. You can have a design complete and looking awesome……..until you test it out in IE6. Internet Explorer displays things differently than what is considered a more standards compliant browser. I’m sure IE5 and older are probably even worse. So the question is, why not update? It won’t cost you anything.

I’m not one of these people who are hostile towards Microsoft, but I think if you gave Firefox a try, you certainly wouldn’t miss IE. I’m sure no browser is perfect, but Internet Explorer 7 is leaps and bounds better than version 6 in every way. It looks better, it’s faster, and it’s much more likely to display a web page like it’s suppose to be.

*Statistics were compiled by W3Counter.

I’m Now Trying Out the AJAX Comments Plug-in

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ajax?

Have you tried AJAX lately?

AJAX?….as in that cleaning product?

Of course not. I’m talking AJAX….as in….web application language. Or Asynchronous JavaScript and XML to be more specific. Mike Smullin has created this super cool plug-in that, through the use of AJAX, your page doesn’t have to re-load when someone leaves a comment. There are two options:

  1. You can download the plug-in here, and upload to your WordPress plug-ins directory, or
  2. follow Mike’s instructions on manually integrating the code in your comments.php file

It’s really smooth. If you want to see how it works, just……leave a comment on this post.

Now that’s low huh? Will I do anything to get comments? :-)

* I got a couple of complaints from some of my regular readers that they were having to re-enter all their details everytime they comment. It’s been determined that the situation is due to the plugin. I haven’t spent the time trying to fix this. For the time being, I’ve turned off the Ajax comments plugin and disabled comments on this post.

Fastway – Theme for WordPress

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If you look around the net for WordPress themes, you’ll notice that there are tons of them that are freely available. But the design you choose for your site says a lot about you. IMHO, when someone visits your site for the first time, your design is probably what they will remember most……dare I say it……….maybe even more than your great writing. ;-) That’s why I think it’s important to have a theme that looks clean, uncluttered, and professional. That’s where Fastway comes in.

Enter FASTWAY!

I’ve used this theme right here on my site for the past week. After checking it out, Jonathan-C. Phillips shared his impression:

I have to say, this new theme is incredibly good looking, stylish, pro, wow!

Simply put, this is the one you’ve been looking for!

Screenshot of Fastway

While I really like this design, my original intention for it was to be a publicly released theme. After briefly using it myself, I’ve made a few improvements and am ready to offer it to you! This is the first 3 column theme I’ve made available. From the nice color scheme, to the vast amount of white space, this theme is an excellent platform for any type of blog.

Download it or take it for a Test Drive today!

p.s. – did I mention that it’s widget ready…..?

The Great Blogging Conflict

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(A New Post about Blogging!!!)

blogging conflict illustration

If you have a weblog, don’t you just love to get thoughtful comments that add new ideas and discussion to your posts?

I do. In fact, as many have pointed out before, it’s sort of the life blood of a blog. It certainly gives off an impression to a new visitor whether or not the blog is active or dead. So, I suppose, we all like comments.

On the other hand, Don’t you love to take a look at your Feedburner stats, and see that your subscriber count has grown? I know I do. Not that I’m necessarily trying to reach any certain number, but seeing that someone is actually reading what you’re writing adds an element of motivation similar to what a good discussion through comments can provide.

The Conflict

The idea of their being some conflict may seem silly to some people, but have you ever thought about the fact that you can only get comments from someone actually visiting your site? I realize you can place a link to comments in your feed, but I’m not sure it’s the same. While I love to read through my RSS Feedreader, I was thinking about how I’m much more unlikely to comment on a post if I’m not already on the site I’m reading from.

So the conflict would be this: Which is better between having more comments….or more RSS Subscribers? Have you ever thought about it?

For me, I love to check fairly often to see if the number in my feedcounter is getting any larger. However, I believe I much prefer the comments. I love the interaction, and every now and then, I learn something. Now if your reading this through a feedreader, don’t mis-understand! I’m definitely not asking you to unsubscribe! By all means……..stay with me and tell all your friends! – and if you would like, drop by and leave a comment! :-)

Powerful Post Award - June 13, 2007


…When Others Take Credit For Your Work

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What should you do…….when others take credit for your work?

If you’ve read this site much in the past month, you know I’ve released a few WordPress themes. This is something I’ve wanted to do for a long time, and finally, I decided to just do it. I have quite a few theme ideas hidden away in the proverbial closet of my mind.

Putting that into action has been a lot of fun for me……and it has brought some traffic to this site(which is one of the main reasons to offer a theme for free).

For those that don’t know, if someone links to your WordPress site, that information is revealed to you in the WordPress dashboard. Every now and then, I take a few minutes and look at sites that link to me – especially since I’ve started releasing themes. I like to not only see what types of sites are using my theme, but also what changes they make – some make some very creative changes. I don’t look at all of them, but I enjoy checking them out randomly. This past Friday, a new website activated my new YellowJacket theme. The title sounded interesting enough to me that I wanted to see what it was.

The first thing I noticed was the change in the header image – which is fine with me. However, I also noticed that they removed the attribution link in the footer of the page.

    *NOTICE: This has been resolved.