Antbag.com

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?

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.

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!

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…..?

(A New Post about Blogging!!!)

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!

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.

For those of you who are visiting my site, you’ll notice that I’m experimenting with a new design. This is actually one of the themes that I was working on for release, however I’ve decided that I would like to use it here. I really like my old design, but I’m thinking it’s time for a change. I’ve included a picture for those reading via feedreader or email. Come on by the site and check out the design.

Unfortunately, there are still a few bugs I’ve run into that I’m trying to work out. I *think* I have most IE issues worked out. I’m having a small problem with the header displaying correctly in the Opera browser. I hope to get that fixed right away.

If everyone would just use Firefox, life would be so much easier.

Today I’m introducing YellowJacket, my new theme for Wordpress. I’ve noticed that themes with a black background are very popular downloads on the theme-viewer site, so I thought I would offer my interpretation. What better color to accent black than yellow?……none that I can think of! Aside from the colors, one of the main differences between this theme and my previous two, is the width. The other two were very wide themes - 900px to be exact. This theme has a width of 775px, which will make it look better on a 800×600 resolution screen(I guess there are a few people who still run with this resolution).

The theme is a two column, widget-ready design that will give your site an awesome look!

Preview or Download.