Kudos to WordPress

I just made a mistake in commenting on a WordPress blog and then saw a little “e” where I could go back and edit or delete my comment!  I LOVE this WordPress!  Thank you!  They also have some new technology that makes your blog work faster…check under your wordpress dashboard for more info.  I’ve not tried it yet, but look foward to when things slow down for computer maintenance.

Want a Custom WordPress.com or Blogger.com Blog Header?

Well, ya’ll.  I’ve come to a startling conclusion. 

I love to do blog headers.

I just can’t seem to stay away from it for long. 

I have to take breaks now and then because life has demands that can cut off the flow of creativity, but I can always tell when I’m starting to feel refreshed because I can’t stay away from it for long!

You know what I LOVE?  

• I love to see you happy and cheered and “at home”in your on-line home.
• I love to see you smiling about “what you’ve got on”. 
• I hope it inspires you and everyone else.
• I hope you are pleasantly surprised.

I’m going to be doing it as a business this time.  I’ll consider all my work as income, take some icky taxes out, then give all the proceeds to our building fund debt retirement.  I told the Lord I’d try to give whatever he put my hands on to give to whack out this church debt.  This came up quickly after that prayer, so I feel it was His answer.  I don’t usually share things about giving, but this is a big answer to pray for me, and I want to encourage paying off this debt, so I am making an exception.

WHAT YOU GET:

I’ll do an initial demo (and I may send you more than one demo if I’m not sure of your style) to ask if you have inputs through the design process.  After that…I need to fine-tune and will ask for approval as we move forward.

We stay in constant communication throughout.  If we get to the end, and you are not happy with an element, I’ll do my best to make you happy, though I’ll be up-front about my energy limits as well.  I usually give more than you expect.  I hope you are happy.

FULL BLOG TEMPLATE (CODING/INSTALLATION):

Full blog templates can be time-consuming and are hard work whereas a great header takes about 3-4 hours.  A full blog like mine takes up to a week and loss of other focus.  Sometimes I can do those, and sometimes I just don’t have the time. 

If I already know the template you want to work with, (so far, I know the Christmas Theme code well and Mistylook for WordPress’s $15.00 CSS upgrade.  I can do full blog themes with those two for less, probably $60-$80 range, depending on what you want done).  A maxxed-out blog can reach the over $150 range if you want a ton of added extras (See “Little Red Hearts from God” on the Designs Page,  blogger.com design). 

TIME:

Supply and demand can kick in at times and I may pricing responds to that; catch me when I’m slow and have time–that will be great if you are on a budget.  I usually indicate how fresh I am on the blog as I write.  I usually get them done in a 2 day turn-around once we start, depending on how well you know what suits you and what you are willing to work with. 

If you want to be first in line, local people, now is the time.  I’ll do some very basic headers for WordPress for $20.00-with your photo and title.  If you want me to find a themed photo from open stock or more creative things done…$30.00.  I’m picky about that work and it takes me a couple uninterrupted hours of concentration and another hour or two available for tweaking.

Business, church or group blog headers could be more depending on the amount of work:  Just drop me a line,  I usually respond the same day. 

GETTING STARTED with WORDPRESS.COM CUSTOM HEADER SERVICE:

If you want a header for WordPress.com, choose a template you can live with for a while.  Work with it and make sure you like how it works…I can’t change most elements of their blog template functionality, I can just build on it.   

GETTING STARTED WITH BLOGGER:

For blogger.com, right now I’m only offering headers.  (If you want to integrate font colors or sidebar colors,  I can send you the hex color –do your own installation of the font colors= very easy.) 

With that, if you are interested, let me know!  I’d love to help.  I have a little bit of time here and there. 

Oh, about payment:  Payment is through PayPal.  They take major credit cards, or draw from your PayPal account.  I’ll send you the link when you are happy with the work and say we’re done.

More info is updated here regularly.  Thanks! 

 

Design Note

Quick note:  pressing some limits with the new WordPress because I’m such a geek.  We were all maxing out one 3 column blog and I found another and wanted to see if it’s more flexible in tone than the demo.  Love the demo, but want more spring in there, so I’ll probably play with it again soon!  (I really just love changing clothes without having to do laundry!)

So, You Want to Put Your Pic In Your Sidebar?

Well, I put a pic up in my sidebar.  Frankly, I hate it.  I hate looking at my own self when I go to read  my blog.  It’s a little scary to look at myself.  It’s like talking and looking in the mirror at the same time, which I don’t make a habit of doing.

However, many people do not know who is who locally, some are confused, I thought it may help.  Some days, I think I’d rather them not know who is writing, but I’ll try it for a while and see if I grow into it!

I am me, after all…not much hiding from that fact.

If you want to join me in this endeavor of boldness, putting your picture in your sidebar, here’s what you do:

1. Upload a pic of yourself to wordpress in a post like  you are going to post…but, don’t post. 
2. Grab the little sizing handles on your picture in the post , size it down to about the size you think would be about right for the sidebar. 
3. Click the “code” tab there by the “visual” tab.  Copy and paste that line of info (your picture in code) and paste it into a widget text box under “Presentation”. 

There you go!  Any pictures or text you can do this way to add things to your sidebar as well.

Tip:  If you are unsure about the size, open a second wordpress browser window to instal your picture to widget, leaving your pretend post open so that you can play with the sizing/test it on your blog.

I know, I know, that flew over your head and sounds like Greek.  The good news is:  this is a Greek lesson!!!  What a perk, eh?  Tackle it slowly.  Print it off, do each step one at a time, crossing off each step as you go.  Once you learn it, you’ll know how forever!  Have fun! 

These are the Most Popular WordPress Tags Today

Life News Music Politics Family Random Personal Travel Love Books Photography Blogging Technology Humor Religion Thoughts Friends Food School Art Writing Video Media Work Health Sports Entertainment Movies Poetry Education Culture People Iraq Events Blog Internet Faith Photos Relationships Science Business Christianity History YouTube Environment Videos Rants Kids Miscellaneous Fun Women God Philosophy Funny War Me Sex Design Musings Pictures] Knitting Quotes Television Announcements TV Inspiration Nature Parenting Football Society Bible Marketing India Children Software Film Humour Games Random Thoughts Community Club penguin Literature Human Rights Fiction World Fashion Advertising Ramblings Church Money Baseball Misc Iran Blogs Current Events Government Apple Japan Spirituality Military Islam Reviews Tech Research Economics Reading Recipes Web 2.0 Shopping Law Home Jesus Daily Terrorism Bush America Theology Dreams Crime Leadership Daily life USA China Rant Updates Links Microsoft Comedy Opinion Web Exercise About Me Dating Creativity Journal Motherhood Real Estate Democrats Cooking Marriage Anime Fun stuff Weather Training Men Celebrities Global Warming Canada Cats Fitness

I’ve highlighted a few in color we could ALL be using for better WordPress exposure. 

Why do you need to be tagging your posts using “Categories”? 

Here’s why:  If you want spiritually seeking people to find authentic Christianity through your blog. 

When people look at “what’s new” on WordPress, they see these subject categories. 

SO…bottom line:  MAKE SURE YOU ARE “TAGGING” YOUR POSTS WITH THESE GOOD, EASILY RECOGNIZED KEYPOSTS PEOPLE ARE CLICKING ON…MAKE WORDPRESS’S LIST! 

COMMON MISTAKES:

If you tag your Christian-Spiritual posts “My Walk With Christ”…that may sound cutesy and original, but your post won’t make this list above!  FIX:  if you want the cutesy tag, also add a couple of the above CATEGORY tags and also tag them.  Some say to limit your categories.  I disagree.  Why?  Because if you use more category words, you make more WordPress lists.   The person searching under “faith” may not be the one searching under “spirituality”.  So, bottom line, tag your posts with BOTH. 

I see that I’ve made the mistake of using some keywords that I need to re-thing based on this list.  I hope you’ll join me in making Christ’s name known using WordPress’s published lists as tools!

Blessings!

~Maggie

Askimet Hassles

A note of help to WordPress Users regarding Askiment:

If askimet is still making you have to scan through a bunch of words you don’t like to see in order to make sure you aren’t missed legit comments sometimes occassionally caught (askimet is supposed to self-train based on the number of blocked hits, but I’m getting a bunch of repeat garbage words it should be set to filter through already), try this:  (I’ve done it a few times with repeat offenders and have had success). 

Go to My Dashboard|Options|Comments|.  Scan down to the bottom.  Add repeat words you don’t want to ever see again in any of your comments.  It will delete them.  You don’t have to see the offensive words again.  It’s like scrolling through Hades.  I hate it.  I waited until there were 340 this time before I just deleted them all the words were so icky.  I didn’t like my eyes exposed to those words at all that number of times!  Ugh!  Eck.  Just bad stuff.

YouTube’s new policy says: we own your content.

A week ago, I sent a concerned letter to WordPress regarding the TOS for the video hosting service they were pimping who make it easy to link on WordPress.  The wording was similar to YouTube, apparently: they own it.   Any part of it. 

I didn’t read YouTube’s, I read Grouper’s, which may be similar.  Groupers said, they can publish it, they or any of their “associates” can dismantle and use any part, any way they want: any song, picture, or video, WITHOUT YOUR CONSENT.

I did not finish the sign up due to concerns, more thinking of my kids than any artistry, though I think that is warranted.    

Obviously, with so many people posting other people’s YouTube content on their blogs, they have to give a heavy disclaimer.  But this seems a bit much.  In the article link above from Boing Boing, a reader says that in looking at the whole TOS agreement, if you pull your stuff off of YouTube, their ownership is over and they have to stop using it.  So,  there is some protection I suppose, if you know your stuff is being used against your wishes.   

Before you post too much of your own work, you may want to review the TOS just to be sure your comfortable with the terms.  Link: 

YouTube’s new policy says: we own your content. UPDATED

  

Using WordPress Categories or “Tags” Well

If you blog WordPress, you need to know that your category subjects are very important.  Tags (slugs, in wordpress) and categories DO NOT function the same.  

Click the category words at the top of your posts.  I am assuming the viewer gets taken where you do…to blogs of other WordPress.com users who are currently posting in the same category subject as you–they are NOT taken to YOUR category posts.  This is a great way to find bloggers who are interested in the same subjects as you! 

This could be helpful…or not.  Say, if you list, say “Sex” as your category title , as I did last week, realice if a Christian clicks on those words, they are not taken to other related posts because of your category title.  I learned this by clicking my own category word.  Only those “searching” would even click around enough on your posts for this to be an issue most likely.   I didn’t want that mixed content so I renamed “Sexuality and Relationships”.  This takes them to a page full of other posts I’ve written on the subject because nobody else has published in that category title.  I’m not trying to isolate them to MY posts, but useful posts to them.

If you want to find friends with the same interests as you:  Choose common category names.  (I tried to be cutesy the first few days and realized I was losing a good resource WordPress offers.)

If you want people to find your blog by the most popular key words, check the “tag cloud list” wordpress publishes the most often tagged key words.