This is final, promise!

Posted by sterndal in blogging career, personal thoughts on Oct 26th, 2009 | 1 comment

The problem with me is that everytime I’d stumble upon a great-looking theme, I’d immediately download the files without even thinking twice. Even if it’s not compatible with WordPress 2.6 or if its installation requirements are too complicated, it doesn’t matter. You see, I’m not scared of modifying (or ruining) any blog template mainly because I attended a short training on basic xml, html and LaTex tagging (LIAR! LIAR!). It was one of the prerequisites to become a Certified QA (JOKE! HEHE). But whatever I learned from that orientation was totally irrelevant to my blogging ambitions. It only gave me a little understanding on how to read simple equations and mathematical taggings. That is why, when I first opened a PHP file in my FTP, it didn’t look like a bunch of undecipherable characters. At least, that training familiarized me with start tag and end tag.

So, going back to changing themes, yes, I’m guilty. I simply couldn’t resist the urge. I change themes as if I’m just changing clothes. Imagine this, there are only 6 posts in Manila Street but I’ve changed its layout more than 10 times already! Instead of updating my blog during my spare time, I’ve been too busy trying different themes. Such a waste of time! I should have temporarily used the WP default theme until my blog reaches 20 posts or until the next Google Page Rank update

Anyway, I’m not really regretful about that. Regrets are nothing but a waste of time, so I say. I’ll just try to keep my current themes for a longer period of time. HOPEFULLY! Six months, perhaps? Besides, I’ve also grown tired of modifying errors like undefined call to function, missing stylesheet, etc. By the way, in case you are searching for new wordpress themes, try templatepanic dot com.

New Manila Street

Posted by sterndal in blogging career on Oct 15th, 2009 | 1 comment

I’ve really worked hard on this and I’m so proud of my self Hihi! The screenshot below is the new Manila Street. The theme’s name is Urbane by Blogohblog! It’s template is a bit complicated, still having trouble on how am I going to make those thumbnails work. Chatbox is not working too! In fact, everything was malfunctioning when I first installed it. It took me hours to fix all those syntax / fatal errors, call to undefined function and all those chenylyn. I wasn’t able to fix the errors in the comments section so I decided to replace all the tags with a complete set of tags, which I copied from WP’s default theme. Is that valid? I don’t know but I think the appearance is cool. I’m so loving it! I also think it gave me a renewed zest for blogging, maybe I will update this blog more often. But I’m not done yet! I’m still thinking of new things (maybe widgets) to add, I’m in the mood for designing

Should I pay for a premium theme?

Posted by sterndal in blogging career on Aug 31st, 2009 | 3 comments

Surprisingly, I am not tired yet of my three blogs’ identical themes. I’m so loving WP Premium because the total appearance is clean and simple, it’s very easy to organize the sidebar and most importantly, tweaking its template doesn’t require professional knowledge about php, html and java script. It’s such an amazing thing that the creator has provided a short instruction on how to modify the tags for each part of the blog. The only problem I see is that the available colors for the free version is too limited. Only red, black and brown. I got red for Penned by Sterndal and black for Manila Street which seems appropriate. But I’m just not satisfied with brown for The Starlit Sky and I can’t update my blog as often as I want if I am bothered with something. My initial plan was to immediately change its layout as soon as find a suitable theme which I thought will take only a few days. I thought it’s gonna be easy to find something white with a little shade of blue, seo optimized, widget-ready, advertisement-ready and basically just something plain and neat-looking. I don’t like anything complicated so choosing templates that still need customization is never an option. I’ve seen a lot of elegant magazine themes in the web but they are not cheaply priced :-( Purchasing the license will cost me around 100 dollars and HELLO! That’s 5000 pesos when converted to my country’s currency, that’s worth more than my annual web host plan, and well, that’s worth a shopping spree at Divisoria Mall! Waah! I really don’t think I can spend a big amount of money for my blog’s beautification. NOT NOW. Maybe in the near future but not now.

US Immigration Support Link Exchange Program

Posted by sterndal in Consider This, blogging career, happy sterndal! on Aug 26th, 2009 | 5 comments

Today is a very pretty day I’ve been searching for ways on how to get free backlinks and I’m very lucky to discover about U.S. Immigration Support Link Exchange program. Somebody told me that I will need to spend lots of money if I want to have PR6 or above backlinks. But why will I pay if I can have it for free? All I have to do is go to this site tomorrow (because I’m too busy right now with some other things plus I’m too lazy to open my FTP):

http://www.usimmigrationsupport.org/linkexchange.html

Then add their link in my websites. Looks like the one below or if it doesn’t look good in my sidebar, I can also opt for banners and images.

Title: USCIS
URL: http://www.usimmigrationsupport.org/uscis.html
Description: The USCIS, or the United States Citizen and Immigration Service, is a department within the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). The USCIS was created by the Homeland Security Act of 2002. The USCIS consists of approximately 15,000 employees and 250 field offices around the world.

Next, fill up a short form about my sites and where they can find the reciprocal link and finally wait for two business days for processing.

I’m confident my blogs will be accepted because the only requirement is to add their link and as soon as they are able to locate it, a reciprocal link to my websites will be posted on their Resources Page. USCIS has a page rank of 6 and has more than 45,000 unique hits per day that’s why I really really really want to exchange links with them. I’ll let you know once my blog gets approved.

My 2 Blogging Dilemmas – Solved!

Posted by sterndal in Consider This, blogging career on Aug 3rd, 2009 | 1 comment

Do you often work on long hours to gain traffic for your blog? I do, and I know how tiring it can be. Reserving whole days or weekends just for blog hopping is extremely frustrating knowing there is no guarantee that they will also visit back to me. My blogging techniques, just like those of many aspiring bloggers, obviously need improvement. I’ve thought about this overnight and here are my findings and solutions:  

Problem # 1 Very Low Traffic  

I suppose one of the many reasons why a lot of people are soo into blogging is because of the opportunity to earn money. This is my primary motivation, I admit. Unfortunately, I can’t do that without an impressive Alexa rank.  

Simple Solutions  

• Register my other blogs to Blogexplosion and alot at least 30 minutes every other day to surf sites. The more I surf, the better chances of getting free hits for my sites. I’m just not sure if bestfriend google will be happy to know about this because based on the quality guidelines, autorotation is not allowed. There is another site that offers the same function (Globalautohits) but it’s so effortless I’m hesitant to join.  
• I will also register my blog to Linkreferral to get constructive criticisms and reviews.
• Leave greetings and messages in blogs that have chatboxes or tagboards so the owner will be notified that I was there. I will leave my url and hope to get a visit in return.  
• Although I have an entrecard in my sidebar, I haven’t really used it that much. But I’ve seen a lot of bloggers attesting to how effective it is, so I’m gonna drop my EC to 300 blogs this coming weekend and see if it really works. It should, lol.  

Problem # 2 Need free backlinks  

I now understand why bloggers and website owners are going gaga over page rank. Although I still don’t have any idea on how it is computed (my blog I Love Sterndal has more than 100 backlinks while this one only has 4, but both got PR2), I am certain about one thing: it is a requirement to get approved in paid to blog sites like PPP. More incoming links means higher chances for a better PR. But the question is, where will I get free backlinks?   

Simple solutions:  

• Based on my personal experience, the easiest way to get free backlinks is through submission in popular blogging communities. My plan is to submit my blogs to Blogoria, MyBlogLog, Blog Catalog, Blog Hub, Zimbio, Technorati, etc.  
• Leave meaningful, sincere comments on other people’s blogs.  
• Ask other bloggers to exchange links with me.    

The only problem now is I’m too lazy to do all those solutions. LOL