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Do We Need Multi-Column Layout Web Page Designs? July 8, 2006

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Given how long desktop publishing software has been around, and how powerful it is, have you ever wondered why (X)HTML and CSS have such a hard time producing multiple column web pages? Sure, you can create multiple columns with XHTML tables, but you cannot auto-flow text between columns. Sure, you could try replacing tables with CSS code, but try to properly align a layout with more than three columns with CSS, and you’ll be tearing your hair out. Well, UXD (links below), User eXperienced Design, has an exciting post about the new multi-column feature for CSS 3.0 - something I’ve …

Create Your Own Wordpress Themes + Plugins June 30, 2006

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If you’re a fan of the WordPress blogging platform, you’re probably well aware of the wide range of plugins and page themes that are available - many for free. While this weblog is generally aimed at bloggers/ online writers who want to tweak their existing blog platform setup, occasionally you may want to write your own themes and plugins from scratch. Or not. Here are some of the resources I’ve been using for all the (free) plugins I have planned for you for this year and next. These resources range in target from beginner to advanced WordPress user. (I’ll …

5 Types of Tag Clouds May 2, 2006

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Markus wrote a post over at Performancing about tag clouds and started an interesting discussion. Yours truly added a few comments. At first glance, it may seem that a tag cloud is a tag cloud is a tag cloud, but there are several distinct differences, as far as the source information used to build the clouds is concerned.  I’m summarizing here my conclusion about tag clouds, based on the discussion that Markus started.

Types of tag clouds:

  • Category-based, using the category names that you have defined on your blog platforms.
  • Content-based, using the full text of all your posts to build …

    • An Article Assignment System For Blog Networks April 28, 2006

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    One of things I really enjoyed about being a print publisher was actually meeting the writers that were contributing to my magazine. The cameraderie was in itself worth the effort of travelling from city to city - for me, within a 2 hr drive. Another thing I enjoyed was being able to sketch out a list of topics that I wanted to see covered over a a specific duration of time. And because I had met my writers, it was easier to assign story ideas to particular writers or contributing editors. I could tell whether they’d really be interested in …

    Sharing Information and Gaining Web Traffic - Two Birds With One Stone March 21, 2006

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    One of the obviously great things about the Internet is that there are unlimited, innovative ways for people to interact with each other. Right now, one of the popular ways is social bookmarking. Social bookmarking sites like Del.icio.us, and Digg are wildly popular, and could be what a blogger needs to increase their profile and web traffic. Related sites like Newsvine go one step further and include both reader-submitted stories and original newswire content.

    While there are several purposes for social bookmarking sites, sharing stories and gaining traffic are some of the reasons bloggers should look into them. …

    Shoutboxes - More Communication Tools For Your Weblog March 17, 2006

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    Of all the ways you can communicate with your weblog’s visitors, shoutboxes have the potential to be the most interesting. That’s because shoutboxes turn your blog into a chat room of one focused channel.

    Over the past year, I’ve come across one shoutbox after another. Most of the freebies required you to register and then serve up popup or popunder ads after someone used the shoutbox. No good, at least not for me. I despise both types of ads, and wouldn’t wish them on my visitors.

    Now while I’ve come across a few WordPress themes that incorporate a shoutbox, if you don’t …

    Building A Tag Cloud in WordPress March 15, 2006

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    Some weblogs display a feature known as a tag cloud. This consists of the blog’s categories shown in varying font sizes. (See the bottom of the navigation sidebar.) The larger the font used for a specific category, the more posts that category has. Each category in the tag cloud links to a page containing all of the posts falling into the category. [MINOR REVISION: Mar 28/06]

    The idea behind the tag cloud is that it gives visitors a visual cue as to the focus of the weblog. It’s much easier to tell, compared to a list of categories and their post …

    Getting To Know Your Blog Platform Database

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    Having surfed the blogosphere regularly, I ‘ve come across a fair number of bloggers who are non-programmers but have either written a plugin or otherwise modified their blog platform. Since many of the most popular blogging platforms are built on the PHP web programming/ scripting language, that’s actually not surprising.

    PHP is a friendly language, relatively easy to use, and widely available for domains hosted by most Internet hosting providers. PHP is OpenSource, and is often paired with the equally OpenSource mySQL RDBMS (Relational Database Management System) package, especially for blogging platforms. MySQL is used to store information about a blog, …

    Want To Really Talk To Your Site Visitors? March 13, 2006

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    Alright, you’ve installed an Odeo audio-comments button on your site and have had a bit of feedback from your site visitors. Then you tried offering computer-generated audio versions of your weblog posts, but it’s not quite what you wanted, despite the ease of setup. So what are you left with? Real podcasting of course. (The remainder of this entry is based on a post at my RSS Cases journal.)

    I’m currently using the PodPress plugin for WordPress by Dan Kuykendall. The plugin produces an altered RSS feed that includes a link to your podcast audio files. …

    Yet Another Web Statistics Package? March 10, 2006

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    The guys at Performancing are creating a buzz in the blogosphere regarding the about-to-be released beta edition of their new website/ weblog analytics/metrics package. Like the other bloggers linked to here, I got in on the Alpha tester list, and I’m happy to say that this package shows tons of promise.

    There are two aspects about it that excite me most: the ability to track an unlimited number of blogs, and the API that’ll soon be released as well. In fact, the latter is the point of this post. I was approached today, via GoogleTalk, …



      

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