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You are here: Home / Archives for Web and Technology / Web Design

Working on our sites – Odd Planet gets makeover

March 10, 2007 by Tricia

I busy working on redesigning some of Chris and I’s websites! The first one to get a major makeover is Odd Planet. It has a totally new look!

I’ve been busy trying to get that site organized. I added a new wordpress plugin called SimpleTag to all of our WordPress sites. I haven’t activated it on all the sites yet, but it’s working on Odd Planet. Check out the Tag and Category cloud that I added to that site. Now it’s easy to see what kind of topics are posted about most often or to bring up all the posts under a specific category or tag – like “Strange Happenings” or “Dumb Criminals” for example.

I was using Jeromes Keywords and Related posts on our sites, and still am on some, but it hasn’t been updated for use on WordPress 2.1 and the tags would disappear whenever anyone would leave a comment on one of the sites. Now we can have tags in posts and show related posts with this new simpletag plugin too.

It’s taking a bit of time since I have to convert the keywords that I was using with Jerome’s Keywords to SimpleTag format. It’s easy enough and doesn’t take much time but it’s an extra step that I’ll have to go through on each site as I activate the plugin.

Anyway, go check out Odd Planet and leave Chris a comment if you like the new look. It’s certainly easier to leave comments there now that the site isn’t using a mucked up theme!

Update: For some reason this post was marked private. I never mark posts private. I wonder if my messing around with things caused a little glitch? Weird thing is that I haven’t even begun to work on the mess that is this site! Oops!





Filed Under: Software, Web and Technology, Web Design Tagged With: new look, odd planet, organize, plugin, simple tag, Software, Web and Technology, Web Design, Wordpress

Getting organized

March 8, 2007 by Tricia

Thirteen Things about re-organizing my days

This is Thursday Thirteen #36

1…. Get a better sleep schedule – because of my illness I tend to stay up late or have trouble getting to sleep at night. As a result I tend to sleep in late in the mornings. I have to get out of that cycle in order to get organized. A better sleep cycle might also help make me feel better too.

2…. I want to dedicate at least one hour a day to visiting the blogs and web sites that I enjoy.

3…. Several reasons to visit other sites – one of them is that I don’t want my friends to think I’ve forgotten them. Bloggers like feedback, and I can’t expect to keep getting comments on my sites if I don’t start getting into the habit of visiting sites and letting other bloggers know that I like what they are doing.

4…. Another main reason to leave comments on sites that I visit (new and old) is of course to help bring some visitors back here. People do click on links in comments, or visit people that leave them comments. I’ve discovered some bloggers that I really like by clicking on comments that they’ve left me.

5…. I feel that some of my sites – this one is the worst- are getting cluttered, and I’d like to set aside at least an hour each day to work on maintaining my sites. Some are going to have new themes installed soon, but if I don’t make the time to do it, it will never get done. My gigantic web site needs a total overhaul. It’s so big it will take a solid week to redesign. I need to get working on stuff like that.

6…. It’s still winter here, but it is warming up. Again, I’d like to set an hour aside each day to get outside for a walk or bicycle ride. If I’m ever going to get back to work I need to get back into shape. As a nurse I lift, turn and even catch people all the time! I’ve got to be in shape so I don’t injure myself too! Plus, getting outside and getting some exercise will be good for me not only physically but mentally too. I spend far too much time indoors lately.

7…. If I can’t get outside for a walk or some outdoor activity because of weather or because of how I’m feeling I still need to try to do something indoors to increase my activity. I have one of those balance balls – maybe I should start using it?

8…. As the weather gets even better and my garden starts to come back to life I’ll need to add at least another hour to my schedule for garden work and garden maintenance. Gardening is good for the soul. It’s also good exercise- at least the way I do it. Remember I’ve coined the phrase “Extreme Gardening”.

9…. Since I’m still not back to work, the internet is my work place. I need to set aside a specific amount of time to work on my sites and to work on the type of things that help me earn money. Namely paid blogging. so ….

10…. I’ll set aside at least three hours each day to write articles for my various sites. I have 7 blogs and 2 websites that I actively work on (ok the websites aren’t daily work, but they do need some attention). My husband only has two blogs but I do help him maintain their design etc. I like to write articles in advance when I can. Why? Well some of my sites need me to stay on top of things – like the gardening site for example. I need to put a little research into some of my posts if I want to have quality information on that site. So setting aside some time for research and writing articles in advance helps me ensure that the quality of posts on each of the sites is good. I don’t like posting just because I should – and I don’t like posting drivel.

11…. Having articles for my sites written in advance helps on those days when I’m not feeling well and just can’t make myself write anything. It also helps when I’m working on my paid blogging posts because I have some good posts already in draft to put around the paid work.

12…. Working on the sites in order to make money needs at least three hours a day. At least on good days when there are decent writing opportunities available. I haven’t been doing as much paid blogging lately because I’ve gotten very picky. I want to write about things that suit my many sites. So hunting down worthy items that I think my visitors will appreciate takes some time.

13…. Ok so how many hours do I figure my days have to be? 1 hour for commenting and socializing, 1, hour for exercise, 1 hour for site maintenance, approximately 6 hours for writing, researching and paid blogging and an extra hour during gardening season so that I can keep the garden in top shape. That’s not too bad. 9 to 10 hours a day working from home and improving my health. That’s not too bad. Notice I didn’t list house-keeping? Oh oh … well some days there won’t be as much maintenance or writing needed on the sites so those days will have their extra hours devoted to keeping the home clean etc.

Sounds like a plan. I already do a lot of this, but it’s scattered throughout the day. Some of it, like the paid blogging will still be scattered here and there because the opportunities to make some money pop up at different times of the day. I think that if I can get myself to start working on this schedule I’ll feel a little more organized and perhaps a little healthier.

Get the Thursday Thirteen code here!

View More Thursday Thirteen Participants

Filed Under: Gardening, Health Fitness and Beauty, Home and Lifestyle, Recreation, Thursday Thirteen, Web and Technology, Web Design Tagged With: Gardening, Health and Fitness, Home and Lifestyle, organize, Recreation, site maintenance, Thursday Thirteen, Web and Technology, Web Design

What do you think this blog is about?

March 1, 2007 by Tricia

As I was saying in an earlier post “Time to take stalk and work on our blogs” I’m going to be giving a number of Chris and I’s sites a makeover.

This site might get a makeover too. This is where my readers and visitors come in.

What do you think? Should I stick with this theme? Just tidy it up a bit, and get it a little more organized so it’s easier to find anything that you’d like to find on this blog?

I know that many of my visitors really like the look and feel of this site and I’d hate to change it if a little tidying and organization would be enough.

When I started this, my first blog, a little more than a year ago I did it with the intention of talking about my illness (Crohn’s disease), but I quickly decided that I didn’t want to talk about how sick I feel or how much pain I’m in as that just brings me down and if it brings me down … well I’d probably have few readers other than those that felt as bad as I do.

So I began talking about everything and anything that interested me. As time went on I discovered that I talked about gardening and photography quite a bit. So I decided to create blogs where I could post about those two subjects. Well, my photoblog is just photos. It would probably be a good thing if I made yet another blog where I also spoke about my passion for photography as well.

I think it was a good idea to create new blogs so I could focus my other interests better. This blog would be even more cluttered if I hadn’t done that.

Along the way I think I’ve found this blogs voice, but I’d like to get your opinion on that as well. Yes it’s a general blog. There’s no hiding that. However, which topics or genres stand out as being main topics when you read this blog? Please don’t count the last two months or so, because I’ve been feeling awful and haven’t been writing from the heart as much as I used to. Go back a couple of months and decide what you think this blog is about.

I know I discuss Toronto, my neighbors and neighborhood quite often – and interactions with my crazy neighbors too! I also talk about life here at home, life with Chris, shopping adventures and home renovations, and cool web related finds. My feeling is that this blog would fall into the Home and Living, Shopping and perhaps entertainment genres with a side of web technology.

What do you think?

I want to be clearer in my topics on this site. More focused. Which direction do think this blog is heading?

Filed Under: Web and Technology, Web Design, Website Promotion Tagged With: Web and Technology, Web Design, Website Promotion

Time to take stalk and work on our blogs

February 27, 2007 by Tricia

I’ve been going over all of the sites that my husband and I work on and I think I’m going to re-organize and revamp some of the sites.

I think we’re going to work on a new theme for Odd Planet since the current theme is a little bit messed up. The sidebar scrolls into the bottom bars in the footer, and the comment area is messed up for first time commenter’s. I think that’s the site that needs the most immediate attention because I’m sure that with the comment area being a little screwy that some people who’d like to leave a comment have probably ended up leaving without giving the feedback that they’d intended to leave.

Celebrity Scoop and Guitar Licks are both using the same theme. I like the theme, but I haven’t done a thing to customize it. All of my long time readers know I re-work themes or make my own for our sites. I’m embarrassed that I haven’t had the time to work on the themes for those sites and give them the personality that they desperately need.

Speaking of needing more time. I have two more blogs that I’ve started! I created The Web Files on this feverishthoughts.com domain. It was meant to be a technology blog – talking about different things that website owners and bloggers could use on their sites, or news from the world of the Internet. I had also started creating a number of “How – To” files. You know – tips like how to put a blogroll in your sidebar, or how to make a drop down menu. I have about 50 posts in draft on that site.

What I think I’m going to do instead … well what I’ve already done is put the posts from the original Web Files site onto a new domain called thewebfiles.com . This new site, on a new domain will continue where I left off, and the old “Web files” will become a true web design site.

I’m still writing Watching House, but since there’s only been three new episodes of House so far this year I’m starting to have a hard time finding something to write about each day. If House doesn’t start airing new episodes regularly beginning in March I may quit writing that blog.

Why am I telling you this? Well, if you start to see changes occurring on some of the blogs I’ve listed above please feel free to give Chris and I some feedback. We’d love to know if you like the sites and their design as well.

I don’t talk about our other sites very often, but if you like them please feel free to bookmark them or add them to your blogroll. The newer sites could use a little linky love if anyone is interested in writing up an article or post about them please let me know.

Filed Under: The Blogisphere, Web and Technology, Web Design, Website Promotion Tagged With: blog themes, blog voice, new theme for blog, organize blog, re design, re organize blogs, The Blogisphere, Web and Technology, Web Design, Website Promotion

Working on new blogs

November 30, 2006 by Tricia

Did I tell you that I’ve been slowly working on creating three new blogs? Yes that’s right folks, soon I will officially have 8 blogs … oh actually 9 but the 9th one is for a separate post.

One of the new sites is going to be my husbands. At this point it’s called Guitar Licks. He’s going to write about music, musicians and I suppose the various types of guitars. He’s also trying to think of a way to teach guitar online, so the site will probably have guitar tabs and possibly video of him teaching parts of songs. Maybe he’ll take requests if there’s a song that you want to learn?

Another blog that I’ve decided to create is a celebrity blog. At the moment it’s tentatively named Celebrity Scoop but I might change the name. If anyone has suggestions please let me know. I’ve found that I like reading about all the crazy thing celebrities end up doing and I thought, why not write about it? So I’m creating a site that will hopefully have fairly up to date news on celebrity sitings and happenings. I’m sure I’ll have lots of stories about which celebs are feuding or causing scenes at the latest hot spots. I’ll probably have updates on celeb cosmetic surgeries too as in “who just had nose surgery” or breast augmentation? Will any of my readers be interested in visiting a celebrity blog written by me?

The final blog is going to be a combination of internet tips, “how to” articles, nifty techno gadgets and will be a front for my web design and site repair business that I suppose I can say that I’ve just started this month. I hope that some of you might end up wanting my services. I haven’t set any prices just yet but they will be reasonable.

I’m currently working on 4 blogs for a good friend and he’s officially my first client. So I’m working on his sites, and working on my own – mostly his right now. Busy busy!

Filed Under: Web and Technology, Web Design Tagged With: blogs, celebrity blog, guitar blog, teach guitar online, Web Design

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