Helping You Rock Out Your Site Like A Rockstar!

Wow, sometimes when I have good ideas, I find out it takes a lot more effort. For example, this new layout… I want the pages to have different templates depending on what it is.

For right now, I have excluded the Literary section and Movie Reviews. Those will go to different sites as they no longer are part of the focus I have been trying to make with this site.

Here is a list of some of the changes:
- Exclusion of Literature and Movie Review Pages
- Site Map was moved to domain section
- Graphics section is now named Resources
- Scripts (for my php scripts I developed) are under Resources
- Tutorials were moved to Resources
- Website Reviews were moved to Articles

This is a big revamp. Be excuse the mess as I am literally revamping over 200 static pages. Yes, I have a LOT of material. I would though appreciate your feedback on the layout at least. Thank you!

I just had to say it. I already said it on Twitter, but this whole big deal with Facebook coming out with usernames was really dumb. There was so much hype into it that I felt like people would be seriously worried about their username being taken. It kind of sounds like when you hear those Black Friday stories from Walmart goers that stand all over the store and when it hits 7AM, everyone goes bonkers. Or, the one analogy where you (that is, if you are a woman) end up fighting over a bra at the Victoria’s Secret Semi-Annual sale.

Well, there were those who acted like it, and I laughed when people were counting down the minutes and seconds until Facebook allowed users in as if they pushed a button to let people through their virtual turnstyles. Once they got their usernames, they were said “I got my username that I wanted.” I could just hear the thrill…well read it. Yeah, I know… I am not enthusiastic.

My response – Well, good for you. I did get my username over 20 minutes after because I was not in a rush, and did not care. It was easy to pick my username, but I kept thinking on why in the world Facebook did not think of it sooner. I feel special that I am no longer a number, but I that have a username. It was the worst hype ever since the recent KFC grilled chicken (which my local store cannot cook the chicken to what I need it to be. It was a whole debacle that was tramatizing for me…physcially. Enough said on that before it goes over that WTMFI line.)

Frankly, Facebook is becoming too much like MySpace. All the applications that you can use for it are similar and with MySpace trying to keep up, your real-time activity stream now appears. All the ads are annoying too. I have ads that have nothing to do with me as a person.

Did you get your username? What did you think of the whole ordeal?

Technically Blondish.net turned 3 years old during May. With the layout to be unveiled, it will be the 8th version. If all goes well with this version, I will be retiring the others (Premium Blondish and Mustang), and giving them out as free WordPress layouts. I have already been asked about the Premium Blondish layout and I will strip it of the ‘blondish’ information for the layout. If anyone wants customizations of it, I charge $50 and I allow you to do anything you like, plus you get support for your layouts. (Yeah, sorry, had to slip that in, but I have already done a few customs using this template.)

I am a bit late on a layout change, but the one previewed (It is just the top part), should be up and unveiled by Sunday evening! Some of the things on the site are getting moved to their more comfortable places, like another domain of mine. This is all tied in with the re-focus of the blog that I had mentioned months ago. Some of the pages will have their own templates. I am hoping with WP-PageNavi and Yoast Breadcrumbs to do away with the older navigation to come up with something more clean. From the preview, you can see that it will retain the black, white, pink and golden tones. The guitar is a vector I made. In fact, I will have a vector tutorial on it ready as a wonderful addition.

I have also asked a few people to please write some guest posts. I would not mind if anyone else wanted to. Just give me a shout out at Twitter or here in my comments.

So, what do you think? Does the preview image look promising?

Yes, I did the blush and giggle as I shook Matt Mullenweg’s (@photomatt on Twitter) hand at the end of Day 2 for WordCamp Chicago. I could not help it. He was cute, and actually, I am a fan of WordPress. I use it almost religiously. And yes, I just said he was cute. It is true! Hey, I am allowed to look even if I have a boyfriend.

I also got to gush a bit over Lisa Sabin-Wilson (@LisaSabinWilson on Twitter). She did an awesome job with the convention and I just have to say that I cannot wait to see another. I actually plan to ask advice for future WordCamp’s… perhaps there could be a future WordCamp Nashville OR WordCamp St. Louis?

Brian Gardener (@bgardner on Twitter)was great. Everyone was having fun gushing over his big pecs. They did look great, in my honest opinion.

Also, I wanted to thank all of the above and then some for the opportunity to go and to learn and connect with people who can ‘speak my language’ – the language of social media, blogging and WordPress.

Anyway, I had a blast at WordCamp Chicago. I stayed at the Holiday Inn on Orleans Street. By the way, I got woke up by the people upstairs running around and slamming doors for over an hour. Note to staff there: if someone is complaining, you should really be quick about it. Also, your maids have no reason to knock on the door before 9AM. My boyfriend was rudely awakened despite the fact there was a ‘Do Not Disturb Sign.’ Last complaint… I promise: Think about changing your parking lot rates, especially for guests. It is a ripoff to pay $31 a night to park. Other cities I have stayed in the past have put theirs around $15 to $20 a night.

I met a lot of people. I am kind of at a point where I have so much information that I am processing from WordCamp Chicago that I have a lot of blog posts to share. I think I will try to make it one blog post about each of the speakers from WordCamp. I want to thank my new twitter and internet diva blogger friend (well, she is new, but I see the potential) @interactiveAmy for offering to send me the notes in detail to make my blog posts possible in the coming days.

What is WordCamp? Well it is according to the WordCamp Central site:

WordCamp is a conference that focuses on everything WordPress. WordCamps are informal, community-organized events that are put together by WordPress users like you. Everyone from casual users to core developers participate, share ideas, and get to know each other. WordCamps are open to WordPress.com and WordPress.org users alike

The WordCamp conference I will be attending is in Chicago, Illinois, on June 6th and 7th. I am excited. I was almost unlucky as I had bought the very last ticket! Yes, somehow through the excitement, I procrastinated on buying the ticket. I am sure I will learn a lot and have a blast. I will even be able to meet some of the people I tweet with too on Twitter!

I promise to take pictures, but I also am offering to ask any questions in your stead. Now, I am not sure if there will be any time to as there are 200 people that are attending the event. However, feel free to comment and leave any WordPress questions that I could pass on.

In the past 2 weeks, I received contact forms from various places basically asking me to blog about their product. I like to blog about a lot of stuff, but some of the applications, means I will need to sign up and download. Usually that is no problem, but it takes time. I am not necessarily saying that I will not write about those tools. From browsing, the desktop tools and phone tools look great, but I try to stick more to internet websites. It is far easier for me to blog about things that happen online as they are there.

New desktop tools leave me a bit squeamish to sign up and download as I they are new, and I am not sure if they might my computer funky. I have had it happen before and it was not exactly fun to fix the issue. In fact, I was more than happy to complain and just about send a bill for the time it took to fix what their application screwed up. As of current, the one desktop application even tells customers they can buy storage on their site to access the different things. Sorry, but it is either fully on my desktop or strictly online. That is NOT a desktop, at least in my opinion, it is not.

On top of that, several emailed back and wondered why I did not have the article up. Well, for one… there is me, me, and then there is me. Oh wait, that means one person runs this blog: me. Again, just because you sent in your seemingly interesting tidbit does not always mean in makes my blog schedule.

I want to apologize if this sounds like a rant, but I hope this gets out there to those wanting to spam me or harass me to write about their products. It is my time and as much as I would like to hold my hand out, point at it with the other hand, and at the same time, ask ‘how much are you going to pay me’, I am not.
However, I do ask that those that do press a product across my email to be courteous, and be honest about what the product is exactly. Remember, if I write a negative review on an article, it may be seen by more than 5,000 people on Twitter. If I feel the product might be spam, I may reply and ask to be paid as I am doing a favor and giving a valuable link.

For well over 5 years, I have been in the webhosting industry. I do not press it. In fact, some people think I do, but truthfully, I am the type of person that just leaves a link or banner out. If someone clicks on it, great! If not, oh well.

For hosting, I have purchased well over 8 years, as long as I have been designing professionally (for pay.) Yep, for those haters, I have been designing that long, and my resume (forgive the lack of accents and correct spelling on that word) contains almost 100 sites I have played part in the design. Not only that, my free graphics have been used on numerous sites. Personally, I enjoy more that people love the free graphics I give out. In fact, I encourage people to make suggestions on what they would like to see. It is practice for me and something else that is free for anyone.

People often forget the simple and honest things, especially in hosting, hence why I began a bit awkwardly in this post. It is to prove my honesty. With over 400 pages, I better be honest about what I do!

So, here is a guide to how to select a webhost:

1. Choose several webhosts before you begin. There are so many, that you should choose at least a dozen and go from there.

2. Look up the host in search engines. As much as some people like to be positive, you need to be careful. No matter if a webhost has a thousand or ten thousand clients… as they say, you need to look up their company name and words like “scam”, “bad webhost”, “reported to Better Business Bureau.” Trust me, after a personal learning experience, I can attest that you really should.

3. Look up the company you want to webhost with in the Better Business Bureau.

4. Read the forums, that is, if that webhosting company has a forum. Even if you have to sign up, it is better in the long run.

5. Check out what kind of services it offers. If the company offers a special admin panel other than cPanel or Plesk, you may run into the fact that you are limited on creating databases or other features. You could even have troubles moving to a different host later on if you choose a host with a different control panel platform (like Powweb… sorry, I do not even link them because I do not like their services.)

These are just general considerations when you select a webhost. Although price may seem great, in the end, you could get screwed. Do your research first before choosing.

Last week I blogged Follow Frenzy with MyTweetFollowers.com?. While in a way it does own up to what it says, there was one thing I did notice as well as some of my followers.

The following message was sent more than once in the stream in a day.

100 NEW FOLLOWERS A DAY!!!

http://mytweetfollowers.com

From what it was told from the creator, Cord Marston (@cordm on Twitter), you only send out 1 tweet when you sign up and then once a day. I noticed I was sending out more than 4 tweets a day with this system. This ends up as spam to my members.

I asked if a person has to re-join when their profile is off of the “rider” rotation, which you have to join at least 20 of them and all of the paid VIP people. This was what I was told:

Answer: The regular riders are taken off the regular list after 40 new people join. So for every 40 regular riders that join you are taken off and have to follow new people to join again.

So, if you join 5 different times, you are going to get more than 1 tweet a day than what was originally told. The other does not fall off? This is a bit confusing. If there are 40 people as regular riders, you get 40 possibly followers… that is if they choose you out of the 20 others. You are guaranteed a follower if you are a VIP.

My only thing is that it is unsettling to me to pay to get followers, especially when the user is not even employed by Twitter itself. It would be like someone making good money off my graphics when they are not for commercial use. Yes, I have to credit the general idea, but I think it should be free and based on the point system that goes with it. Twitter does not currently have anything in regards to people creating applications to make money off of their services, so I should not be complaining. My big reason is a recent tweet that came through Cord Marston’s twitter stream:

yes everybody i make money on twitter. no you can’t have vip on my site. and you will suck my dick if I get on aim? lol. aim – cordonmyspace

I am not sure after that one if I would want to even purchase a VIP account from him. That is not very professional. If you have tried it out, but no longer wish to be a part of it, you can opt out.

As for the type of people that I came across through MyTweetFollowers.com, most were real people and no bots. However, I only have spoken with a few that also tried the program, so I would say it is more a program for those who want bulk up their followers.

If the site comes back up, I would recommend using the free section, but not going back a second time as you may put more than one tweet plugging that site. Otherwise, I would stick to the organically old fashion way of getting followers – by connecting with them first.