More Tutorials On the Way

I have not done many tutorials this year, but lately, I feel the need to start back up again. The tutorials will include: HTML, CSS, and even PHP.

Aside from having more tutorials, I would love to know from you, what questions do you have. You can ask about blogging, website design, freelancing, and even social media. I would like to make sure I am covering topics here that interest you the most.

I do want to let everyone know that I have not allowed many guest bloggers on this site due to the fact that my directions were not followed. It is imperative to keep this site focused more on assisting you, the reader, versus stuff my site with articles that include keywords that the author of the post got paid to write. I have seen a lot of complaints in the blogging community about this and I decided to put a stop to it on my own site.

If you are from an honest to goodness blog and want to provide a guest post, I will happily link you to help you out. I love those types of submissions because it really is a breath of fresh air to get a person who is passionate about blogging in their niche for the right reasons.

That said, if you would like to contribute a tutorial anytime, please do considering guest writing here at Blondish.net. :)

WordCamp Louisville 2011: Otto Unleashed

WordCamp Louisville 2011 was privileged to have Otto come and present a question and answer session. I have done my best to keep up with the questions, but a few were lost along the way, but here is the recap.

When did you start using WordPress?

5 or 6 years ago. Got on using WordPress and got into the support forums. After 1 yr… got invited as a mod. Eventually invited to start working for WordPress. :)

How does WordPress.com make money?
1/3 on ad, 1/3 on VIP, 1/3 on upgrade sales.

What 5 things should you do to make your blog ‘happen’ in WP.com?
Write good content and pay the upgrade to be able to play with the CSS in WP.com. The rest is basically taken care of. You do not have to worry about plugins or scalability.

What is a good example of use for BuddyPress?
Maybe good for a local community site.

What are some future releases you know of for WordPress?

  • Drag and drop files in when uploading files (pics, media, etc)
  • Sidebar tabulated (looks somewhat like the Fluency Admin plugin’s menu)
  • Fixed problem with permalinks — postname is an option!

Any news on improving backend searchability?
Yeah, we know search sucks. Can add your own but it puts more load and umpteen other reasons not to. Recommend putting a google custom search for front end. Sphinx might be another option.

Are we going to see more e-commerce stuff in the future with all these releases to BuddyPress and bbPress and WordPress?
Not sure at this moment. Could be possible in the future.

What are your thoughts on SEO plugins?
Don’t waste your time on an SEO. I don’t use any plugins. If you have a good content, well written clean semantically coded theme, and google search, you should be okay without a SEO plugin.

What is semantic markup?
“Semantic” is more about structuring the HTML to fit the content instead of structuring it to fit the display. That one is hard to explain, I know.

What is the next release of WordPress?
End of November. Target date for 3.3 is Nov. 29th.

You can follow Otto at http://ottopress.com or on Twitter at otto42.

Anyone Else Feeling Squeezed in Facebook Lately?

I like Facebook. I really do, but some of these changes they have made, suck. I actually feel kind of squeezed in Facebook with the chat and the constanting updating stream.

No offense, but I do not want to know everyone’s ongoings, especially where it is distracting to the eye while I am trying to use Facebook. Not only does the livestream keep rolling on, but that little blue popup note on the bottom right hand corner of Facebook also functions. WHY!?!? This is redundant and for anyone on a poor Internet Service Provider, it makes for a longer load.

The great thing about Facebook before this change was how simple and uncluttered the site was. This addition is making for one busy page and frankly, I’d hate to see Facebook put more on the page. It is literally a design disaster!

Will I stop using Facebook? No. Will I complain to Facebook? Yes. Will Facebook listen to my complaint along with the thousands of others who have complained about this change? Probably not. Kimberly Castleberry put a great collection of comics in a post about the reactions to Facebook and their changes.

Where is the big dislike button for this?

What are your thoughts?

Poll: Make Money on Twitter?

I was recently going through some of my older posts on sponsored tweetings and making money twitter, that even though there are a lot of people who have read, shared, and commented, I wondered, how many of my readers actually make money on twitter?

It does not matter if you are using Sponsored Tweets, Twtmob, Fiverr, or another service, I thought it would be cool to see the results. Also, if you do, mind commenting and saying what services you use and what has worked for you?

Do you make money on twitter?

View Results

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What Has Blogging Taught You?

So, you started blogging. For whatever reason it was (teaching, personal, entertainment, or other), you must have learned something. What has blogging taught you?

For me, blogging has taught me a lot. I am a person that has a wide range of interests. I started with one site and ended up with several. However, a couple of them, I ended up knowing that I loved to help and teach others where I learned practically by myself. No many taught me b2 or WordPress. Not many taught me how to create graphics.

I painstakingly read books, and experimented. Every success was shared and my readers exercised those between 2002 to 2007. In 2008, I started refocusing. I also was a little burnt out. I networked with a lot of bloggers and they were more into not engaging so much. The few who did actually still blog today. Those who blogged the old way fell into three results: either having several blogs for different topics, totally quitting the blogging scene, or moved onto the social network scene for personal and entertainment reasons.

It was also in 2008, a new breed of bloggers started. They were new and had the same goals in mind. Some with good intentions, and others still not quite at the point to be teaching… however their readers learned along with them. Since then, I have enjoyed seeing the blog community grow. Although I am practically an evangelist for WordPress, I was happy to see what others were talking about and their opinions no matter the blogging platform or content management system. It adds a unique twist to anyone’s day. It also encouraged my own drive to continue on.

Just shy of a decade, and I am happy to be where I am at. I do have ambition to be a better blogger, but I know this one thing.

A long time I drove myself to be the top in the blog world, in a time where social networking was not emphasized much. I did well and had a lot of traffic, a lot of comments, and even visited and commented at other blogs. However, my blog was everywhere and just was not where I wanted to be. I did not want to mix my extremely personal life in the midst of sharing my love for teaching. I was not happy with this as I climbed too quickly and some of my better friends got left behind. I had to go back recently to search and reconnect.

Blogging has taught me many things. I have learned to try to stay humble about my blogging and not seem ‘know it all’ or forgetting those who helped my site grow. I have learned how to write and express myself better. I have also learned exactly what I want to do with my blog… well, blogs. :)

I know there will be a lot more to learn, even after 10 years of blogging. Please remain on my journey to keep learning if you have been for a while. After all, I have learned a lot from my readers too. :)

If you are a blogger or have been in the past, what has blogging taught you?

How You Can Discourage or Even Stop Cyberbullying

Cyberbullying can happen to anyone, at any time, and for any reason. As a blogger, you can be a victim of cyberbullying too. How can you can discourage or stop it on sites or services online that you use? Well, hopefully I will cover that today.

Cyberbullying, according to Wikipedia is:

the use of the Internet and related technologies to harm other people, in a deliberate, repeated, and hostile manner.

Tips for discouraging cyberbully behavior on your site or blog

Moderate comments. Whether you allow automatic approval of comments or carefully moderate each comment before approving, you do need to moderate. One person can turn into more if they see that you really do not care. You should be paying attention to comments anyway, so this is really your first line of being able to stop a cyberbully incident.

Establish a Terms of Service or User Policy. Make sure to add that inappropriate or harassing comments will be immediately removed.

Be aware of your local, state, federal, or countries laws on cyberbullying. In some cases, when the incident is extreme, you may be able to report such activities to law enforcement agencies to handle.

Do not reply back to cyberbullies. They want attention. They will argue against you for the sake of arguing. They will say whatever they want, even if it is not the truth. By not replying (whether by emailing through your site or through your comments, you are not fueling their fun.

Tips for discouraging cyberbully behavior on other websites

Be active about reporting cyberbully incidents. Not every site has a lot of moderators and frankly, the more active, the more chances of something happening, even arguing. The sooner the report, the sooner the incident is ended.

If the site you use does not have a user policy against cyberbullying, contact the site and urge them to adopt a plan against it.

Do not reply to cyberbullies in forums or any type of social network site. As said earlier, it only proves to escalate the problem and better to leave it alone.

Overall, use your common sense when approaching a cyberbully situation. As said earlier in this article, it does not matter your age, gender, race, social status, financial status, religious preferences, or sexual preferences, or your opinion in general, there are always people out there looking to start trouble. It is up to you on how you react.

Have you been cyberbullied? How have you stopped it? Any advice to others?

Host Solutions – Hosting As Little As $30 Per Year

You heard it! Host Solutions has been open since 2008 and has been a small web host company I have been running to provide quality hosting as little as $30 per year.

Throughout these past few years, I have worked with the technicians at HostGator to optimize my servers for WordPress and developers alike, mostly due to the fact I am a designer and developer myself. I got tired of crappy hosting and wanted to deliver a personalized hosting experience, not an automated one lacking the answers I required.

Recently Host Solutions had its Apache and PHP updated, and also, memcache was installed for our WordPress users. Memcache works great with W3 Total Cache, and it was a worthwhile and wise investment.

My close friends and clients alike keep poking at me to speak up about my hosting service, so here I am speaking about it.

What can Host Solutions offer?

Well, Host Solutions shared hosting services can offer you the same services that HostGator’s main clients can, but with extras that are only available for dedicated server clients to buy and request, like memcache, more memory, speedier customer service, cPanel with Fantastico Deluxe (has auto-install of WordPress), and much more.

My smallest package at Host Solutions is 5GB diskspace and 25GB bandwidth for $30 a year, and if you are a new client that has no domain, it includes your choice of a .com, .net, or .org package.

It is a great starter package and cPanel is easy to learn. You even get unlimited email, ftp, and parked domains. I do offer free account transfers as long as the account is under 5GB diskspace.

If you have any questions, feel free to ask. :)

Simple Social Network Icons Set

I made a set of simple social network icons for my clients as a default method, but after some careful thought, I decided to release this set. Currently there are 30 icons available. I am sure I will be adding more, but this is only the beginning.

I will be colorizing this set into several colors for your use. I know I will have my own colorized set to match my own website and from past experience, I know others look for specific sets and colors to match their site too.

In making these, I wanted to be simplistic and use some of my pixelling skills, but all keep some of the integrity of the brands.

Icons available are:

  • Blogger
  • Yahoo! Buzz
  • Delicious
  • DeviantART
  • Digg
  • Email icon
  • Facebook
  • Flickr
  • Foursquare
  • Friendfeed
  • Friendster
  • Google
  • Last.fm
  • LinkedIn
  • LiveJournal
  • MySpace
  • Meetup
  • Plurk
  • Posterous
  • Reddit
  • RSS feed icon
  • Squidoo
  • StumbleUpon
  • Technorati
  • Tumblr
  • Twitter
  • Vimeo
  • WordPress
  • Yahoo!
  • Youtube
Simplistic Social Icons - General Set (959)

Let me know any requests you all have. Please only request those that you actually do use.