Random Thoughts
« Previous Entries8 Things You Don’t Know About Me
Saturday, June 23rd, 2007
Lisa Sabin-Wilson was kind enough to hit me with a tag for the "8 Things You Don't Know About Me" meme, and in my usual fashion I have failed to get it done when I said I would. Sorry.
Now, in rectification:
- Family. I am a middle child, but my younger brother was killed in a road accident when he was 6 (I was 9). My older sister has 4 children (1 boy, 3 girls). Parents divorced, Father deceased. 1 surviving Grandparent.
- Alcohol. I like Guinness. It's an acquired taste, I know, but one worth acquiring. It took me to the age of 3 to really get a taste for it. Real Ales, Whisk(e)y and Wine are also acceptable forms of imbibing.
- Food. I am generally Vegetarian, but not based on any principle, I just never really liked meats. I like to eat Italian, garlic is one of the greatest tastes to exist. Indian food is fine too. I will eat some white meats on occasion for the convenience of others.
- Work. I am self-employed working mainly as a commercial window cleaner, though I do some domestic work on occasion. Though never my own, of course! ;-)
- Fun. I love movies, mostly on DVD these days since vandals burnt down the local cinema. I don't watch TV, though I do watch some shows on video/DVD that catch my attention. Or the wife makes me watch. I also love reading, Jane Austen being my favourite. I like Fyodor Dostoevsky too, but I am not all 'high-brow', Sci-Fi and Detective novels are my staple. I am not much of an outdoor person, I have enough of that while working.
- Pets. We have Joey Cat, which is my wifes first pet as she never had one while growing up. I have had all the usual suspects: canary, Guinea Pigs, tortoise, goldfish, dogs and another cat.
- Religion/Politics. Yes/No. I find religion fascinating and politics boring, except wherein the two interact throughout history in forming each other.
- General Life Philosophy. To try and leave things better than when I found them. Success and ambition play no real part in my life or desires, which is probably why I am usually very happy and content and have very little stress in my life.

Getting To Know You
Friday, May 11th, 2007
David Airey has started a picture meme to help us bloggers get to know one another a little better and StevieB at 5 months of age. Ahh, bless!
Me with my big sister Sally and little brother Edward (deceased).
StevieB at school, age 11.
Laura and myself on our wedding day 27th April 2002
StevieB and our Parrot Cat, Joey (Kitchen being rewired 2003).
StevieB May 2006 in Milton Keynes
Obviously some of these images have been scanned, in fact I am pretty sure that only the last one was taken with a digital camera, so sorry for the lack of quality. Also participating in this meme are: Gayla at Mom Gadget Char at Essential Keystrokes Paul at Reflections Rob at 2Dolphins Zep at The In-Sect Stixster Sorry if I have missed off any of the other participants, and I tag Lisa Sabin-Wilson (Revenge!) and Carolyn Manning .
Working With ibox
Sunday, April 8th, 2007 Well I tried to use the Slimbox on this site along with Sweet Titles, but unfortunately there seemed to be some conflict between the two, Sweet Titles stopped working if Slimbox was turned on. So now I have changed to the ibox, which I knew worked at the same time as Sweet Titles because I have used them both with a previous theme. Seems the most sensible thing to do. But one of the main reasons I implemented Slimbox was because I wanted to use the iMP Auto Slimbox plugin, saving me the hassle of remembering to add the rel=ibox tag every time I used an image, so I spent some time this weekend rewriting the plugin to work with ibox. Seems to work OK so far.It even adjusts the picture size, another problem I was having with Slimbox, so all in al I am a happy (non-easter) Bunny! :-)

Themes Are The Theme
Saturday, April 7th, 2007 Is everyone talking about themes? I guess it's probably because my awareness has been raised as I am in the middle of changing my own theme, but as of late it appears as though every other post I read is looking at the subject. A couple of weeks ago there was a discussion over at Weblog Tools Collection looking at whether two or three column's was best. Mark had this to say:I personally prefer one column themes with a minimal second column. Most information that is put on my sidebar(s) is extraneous and could be placed elsewhere. I have also found that some of that information deters from the original content of the blog. The landing page concept is nice for search engine traffic where extra links and information on the content might help you draw in the user to explore some more. However, the face of the blog is cleaner and chock full of good stuff to read with lesser distractions.It's well worth clicking through to see the various comments, plenty of food for thought there. This weekend Lorelle On WordPress has also raised the issue. Her viewpoint?
I believe that above everything else, your blog must “look†like what you want it to look like. It must reflect who you are and what you blog about. The choice of how many sidebars the blog requires must service those points.I agree with most of the commenter's over there, it's not how many columns but how you use them. Overall I think that more than three columns can be a bit overwhelming, but all in all it is not how many columns you have, but making good use of them. Provide good content in your main column and make it easy for your readers to navigate your site with the side columns, keep them as uncluttered as possible. Obviously advertisements are the things that ruin most sites looks, this is where real care needs to be taken. So far I have not tried to monetize this site in any real way, a couple of affiliate links in posts but I have kept my sidebars clear. The sites that make real money out of blogging are the ones that manage to keep their blogs from becoming to cluttered, allowing their revenue sources to stand out without being too obtrusive, a neat trick but not easy to pull off. I guess this is why a lot of them have custom made themes. Which leads to the next point. Being discussed over at Pro Blogger is the subject of free themes versus custom made. Guest blogger Mathew Coddington from Net Business Blog had this to say:
At one point in every blogger’s career he or she has to make a choice between investing in a custom template or staying the course with a premade, downloadable template. There are important factors that you have to keep in mind with each ranging anywhere from funds to brandibility.Most commenter's seem to feel that the middle road is the best way to go, customize a theme you already like, which is the way I usually go. It doesn't take too much skill or time to turn a free download theme into something that no one else on the interweb has. And as a final point on the subject, more and more of the free WordPress themes you see on the WordPress Theme Viewer seem to be sponsored, and there were two posts about this that caught my interest. The Blog Herald looks at the pro's of sponsored themes:
I know several designers who give away WordPress themes to blog hosting services for free, so long as they get a link back to their sites. Now this seems to be a great business model for people who want to monetize their theme creations. Not all bloggers can afford to pay for your themes. But there are companies and businesses that would be willing to foot the bill. In the end, everyone’s happy: users get great themes, designers get good money, companies get inbound links.But there has been some negative thoughts about it too, as expressed by Small Potato over at WP Designer.com:
sponsored-theme designers are pushing it. Let me remind you I don’t have a problem with sponsored theme designers and the practice of theme sponsorship, as long as the designers make it clear to the users of what they’re downloading. However, sponsored theme designers are really pushing it. Some are blatantly spamming the theme viewer.Plenty of food for thought on both sides, but once again it seems to be not whatis being done but the way it is done. Anyway, enough from me, what are your thoughts? How many columns do you prefer? Would you pay for a customized theme? How do you feel about the sponsored themes that seem to be more and more prevalent? Let me know in your comments.

Up-grading your WordPress blog just got a lot easier!
Tuesday, March 13th, 2007 Thanks to Zirona, an open source consulting company, upgrading your WordPress installation has just become a much easier affair. They have released their "InstantUpgrade" plugin, and having just tested it out on my sandbox site I can only say that it does exactly what it says on the box, my upgrade was pretty much instant and hassle free. Zirona are a company from Aachen, Germany specializing in OpenSource web applications such as WordPress, osCommerce and Joomla. Head on over to their site and check it out for yourselves, you won't regret it. Are there any other "upgrade" plugins you can recommend?
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Security up-dates
Wednesday, March 7th, 2007 There has been a lot of posts around the blogosphere about the attack on WordPress 2.1.1 and the need to update to 2.1.2, hope you have your's done by now! Anyways, the good news is that you will probably need to do another update in the next week, Secunia.com is warning of another vulnerability that could be exploited. Oh happy days.
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Finding the words
Monday, February 26th, 2007 I am having a little trouble finding something to blog about today. I was planning on writing about the divShare WordPress plug-in, but having set up an account with them and installing it I then found that I couldn't get it to work. Every time I uploaded an image and tried to add it to my post it was rejected and the plug-in interface disappeared, so I guess I will have to try and work out what I am doing wrong before I get to do a post on that feature. So I thought as I couldn't think what else to write about, I would write about writing, looking at finding a subject, how to get your post underway, what it should include and how to wind it up.- Finding something to blog about
- Beginnings
- ContentÂ
- Tell your readers what you are going to blog about
- Blog about it
- Tell them what you have blogged
- Continuing the ConversationÂ

Joining The Conversation
Wednesday, February 21st, 2007 One of the things that seems to be constantly mentioned in the blogosphere is "the conversation", a lot of the Web 2.0 sites and applications seem to be set up just to do that very thing, whether it be through tracking your comments on other blogs with "coComments" or trying to build a sense of community with "MyBlogLog". Our on-line conversation situation is really no different than that in real life. But a major problem with this is that most of us don't really know how to converse. Conversation is often called "the lost art", many blaming the hectic pace of life in the western world and the evil TV that sucks up so much of peoples leisure time. Sitting around for a whole evening with friends just eating a meal and listening to each other when there is so much else we just "have" to do can at times seem more of a trial than a pleasure. Darren Rowse over at ProBlogger.net has posted a very interesting article about blogging and how to add to the conversation rather than just repeating what we may have read elsewhere:One of the criticism that is often levelled at the Blogosphere is that it is an echo chamber - that the same stories get blogged about in the same ways by blog after blog - without anything constructive or unique emerging.This has set me to thinking about some of my own posts and how much value they may or may not have added. I guess I am as guilty as most new bloggers of making that basic mistake, but hopefully having read through Darren's article I will be a little more aware of this and do what I can to rectify the situation. Take the time to go read it, digest it and see what you think you can apply, in blogging and in the real world. This is one of the points that he made that really struck home to me:
I suspect most of us as bloggers don’t really put enough time into our blogging. We want to get posts up quickly - we want to report the news and be first with it - but we rarely stop and hear what is going on behind the story and hear what others are saying about it.That is something I will be trying to take to heart a little more in the future. Which point do you think you might find most helpful to you?

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