View Commentators as Party Guests
A personal blog is your controlled equality, so you are truly free to prohibit whomever you like that rubs you the wrong way from commenting on your site.
The problem is that going all commando on a rogue commentator that may annoy you or disagree with you is its not exactly in the spirit of the freedom of speech on the internet.
Some of the best blogs out there allow a certain amount of controversy and if you are going to write and publish to the net then you should accept the fact that responses are not going to be 100% in view of what you say.     Â
This is merely common sense and something that writers have known for years. However it does not mean you have to put up with foul mouth commentators on your site that may ruin the overall atmosphere you are trying to provide for your readers.
When taking action you have to give the benefit of doubt and view your commentators as party guests. Suggestion, if one of these rogue commentators is in fact making an uncomfortable blog environment for the other readers it’s time for a firm warning informing them that the next offense will result in a permanent ban from the site.Â
Setting guidelines as of what constitutes a ban from the site from the beginning is an excellent method and is completely your call. Just figure out what type of atmosphere you want to maintain on your site and then set your guidelines.
Returned Home Earlier Than Expected
I’ve returned home to Belgium from Romania much earlier than I expected. Anyway really happy to be back with my family and my one year old son no longer thinks I’m a computer screen (Skype & Messenger).
Transportation wasn’t so bad a four hour flight on a private six passenger plane.
What Makes a Great Site?
Build it and they will come, yeah right! I‘m not sure exactly who came up with this quote but it could not be further from the truth when it comes to websites and blogs.   Â
When reading this blog what is it you are looking for? Is it content, graphics, the story, content style, entertainment or combination of things? I’ve listed 20 tips below that potentially make up a great blog site. Â
20 Tips What Makes a Great Site?Â
- Original, credible, valuable, timeless content
- Share what you learn
- Let visitors no who you are
- Custom site design
- Be responsive / interaction
- Optimize graphics
- Optimize HTML
- Easy to read format
- Well organized
- Fast loading
- Try and stay focused
- Collect email addresses
- Simple navigation
- Consistency
- Right use of colors
- Choose background wisely
- Good headlines Â
- Creative links and linking
- Ad optimization and strategy
- Fresh consistent content
The 20 tips above just plain common sense and more than likely listed on over million or more sites out there for you to read. Overall my impression of the net is sites either got what it takes or they don’t.
Which leads me back to my question what exactly does it take to make a great site? Not simple or easy – something (original) viral global that spreads by word of mouth like crazy. What makes a site viral?
Unfortunately I’m still looking for the viral answer. Â
WordPress Rotating Header Images no Plugins
The first time that I saw rotating header images was on Chris Pearson’s personal blog Pearsonfied.com and I really liked the feature a lot. If you do not already know Chris is the man responsible for the well designed Cutline WordPress Theme that actually comes with an implementing tutorial for adding the rotating image headers including the images. This may be the answer you’ve been looking for if you do not mind changing your entire theme just to get image rotations up top.
Anyway since I do not want to change my entire theme and with a little from my friend Google I was able to locate quite a few methods in which to accomplish the fabulous image rotation. As always I will only be explaining the route that I choose for my site. If you are interested in some possible plugin solutions you can find a few at Lorelle’s site.Â
Unfortunately for the novice I did not decide on a WordPress plugin this go around and instead I with some good old code manipulation. Given the fact I am not an expert by far in the department of; php and css it took a little time to figure out how to make this work with my theme.Â
Rotating Header Images Step 1:
- Copy the php code here (below rotator apart header)
- Save it to notepad
- Save the file as rotator.php
- Open your FTP program
- Make a new folder (random)
- Upload the rotator.php to the random folder
- Find images now that meet header height & width
- Upload those images to the random folder
Rotating Header Images Step 2:
The coding if your using the Misty theme your in luck because that is what I use and I have already figured out the coding to make this all work.
Go to your style.css file in your dashboard and you have to find out what attribute your theme uses to place your header image and you have to place the URL to the random folder which has the images and the rotater.php file. Once again if you are using the Misty them then just find #headerimage and copy the code below.Â
#headerimage {
 clear: both;
 background: #fff url(http://jakeldaily.com/random/rotater.php) no-repeat 0 0;
 margin: 0px;
 color: #fff;
 height: 175px;
}
Congratulations to those of you that have finished this task and successfully made it work for your theme. I must admit immediately after I got it to work with my test images I went directly to Flickr and starting stealing images to put into my new rotation. Â
Then thirty minutes into my image stealing frenzy I realized something! This is my personal blog and why am I putting other people’s pictures into the image header focal point of the site.
A light blub went off at this moment and that is when I decided to start looking through my personal travel pictures and use them (travel date & place right hand corner) in my rotating image header. My intentions are to have ten images in total in the next few days and at the moment I have six to include; Ferrari Vegas, Venice Italy, Attre Belgium, Bognor Regis UK, Maldives, and Alicante Spain.Â
Turn Reader Questions into Content
A great way to connect with readers and get more ideas for your next post is to open the site floor for questions. Since I’ve only addressed a limited number of questions that readers my have today I’d like to encourage you to comment and ask questions.
In the beginning stages of starting my personal blog to present I’ve received emails and comments from readers asking questions on; general, opinionated, technical and many other topics for which I’d written about or had not.
Turning reader questions into content is simple and straight forward.
- What are your questions post?
- Answer questions in comments
- Turn the question into a post
- Create a questions folder for inspiration
Ok, time for some Q & A. Questions must stay general in nature relevant for everyone to blogging and not personalized to suit your site. Note – I will not be able to answer every question received but will do my best to answer all questions that I feel I can honestly give good advice on. Readers are also welcome to answer commented questions.
The above cartoon by Peter Steiner has been reproduced from page 61 of July 5, 1993 issue of The New Yorker. I had to crop it for the post and cut off the quote at the bottom. “On the internet, nobody knows you’re a dog.â€
The same goes for questions “On the internet, nobody knows you’re puzzled” unless you ask.
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