Audio Player inserts a small, unobtrusive flash object into your blog post. This player reads an audio file such as an mp3 from a specified location on your server and streams it into your post when a user clicks the play button. It’s been around since 2005 and apparently even Digg.com has used this handy little tool.

Stripped of all unnecessary bells and whistles, Audio Player is an easy-to-use audio solution for blogging.

It is available as a plugin for Wordpress, but the good news is that a lady called Mindy McAdams has written a tutorial on implementing Audio Player in non-WP sites, including Blogger (provided that you have your own server space to upload the content to).

If you are using Wordpress, the control panel under Options > Audio Player, gives you a good amount of control over the behaviour and appearance of the player. It can be adapted to play a sequence of audio clips or for use in a podcasting blog. You can also insert multiple instances of Audio Player in a single post.

A problem:

I have tested Audio Player on one of my other Wordpress blogs. Since RSS Feeds don’t allow embedded flash objects, the control panel offers you three “Feed options”:

• A download link: Choose this if you are OK with subscribers downloading the file.
• Nothing: Choose this if you feel that your feed shouldn’t contain any reference to the audio file.
• Custom: Choose this to use your own alternative content for all player instances. You can use this option to tell subscribers that they can listen to the audio file if they read the post on your blog.

Of course I don’t want subscribers to have access to the address of my audio source files because that defeats the whole purpose of the player. No matter which of the three options I choose, my RSS feed displays the file path linking to the mp3 on my server. It looks something like this:

MEDIA ENCLOSURE: http://www.blogdomain.com/audio/audioclip.mp3

My feed is hosted by Feedburner, so I don’t know where the problem lies:

Is it a. the plugin, b. Wordpress or c. Feedburner?

I searched Google for a solution and all I found so far was an article explaining how to edit your WP RSS and Atom includes. I’m not sure if that is best practice but I tried it anyway to no avail.

I hope somebody can point us in the direction of a solution - feel free to comment!

I try and limit my collection to about 50 RSS feeds, because I just can’t keep up with more than that. I check all of them in my Firefox Live Bookmarks daily and then click only the headings that perk my interest. Among my feeds are a few that I hardly ever read, but I keep them in case something interesting pops up. I know that using Live Bookmarks is a little old school and that there are more efficient ways of managing your RSS feeds, but hey, I like doing it this way.

Just for fun, I have decided to share my current collection of feeds with you. I have also loosely categorized them according to subject:

Blogging:

• Copyblogger
• Daily Blog Tips
  
• ProBlogger
• North x East

Blogs of my Countrymen

• Adii
• Coda
• Mark Forrester

Design Inspiration:

• FaveUp
• I Love Typography
• ISO50
• Logo Pond
• Styleboost
• Typesites

Design Resources:

• PSD Tuts
• Tutorial Blog
• Vectips

Personal Interest

• Bible
• del.icio.us hotlist
• digg
• Fanboy
• Hi My Name Is Mark
• Oddity Central

Online Magazines

• A List Apart
• Freelance Folder
• Freelance Switch
• Smashing Magazine

News

• BBC News
• News 24

Web Development and Technology

• Cameron Moll
• Etc
• Perishable Press
• Posh CSS
• Webmaster-Source

Along with these sites I subscribe to the blogs of personal friends and of course my own blogs to keep an eye on things.

Do you subscribe to any of these? Any recommendations?

Lorelle VanFossen reported on it for Blog Herald in February already, and you are able to test-drive the latest developments in a special WP 2.5 demo site.

If you would like to stay abreast of the latest WP developments, you could try subscribing to the official development blog or the development updates, but both were lacking in any recent news when checked a moment ago.

As far as improvements are concerned, nothing I have read so far excites me greatly, which is probably another reason why there does not seem to be much buzz about the release. If you have 2.3 or higher, the built-in notification system should automatically (or should that be “automaTTically” :) ) inform you of new releases. If you have not taken the brave steps to upgrade beyond 2.3 yet, you may have to go to wordpress.org and download the new release.

After upgrading, take some time to thoroughly browse your own blog to test and make sure everything is in working order. Keep in mind that your plugins may not be compatible with new releases of Wordpress since they are provided by third party contributors. If you find that a plugin is not functioning as it should, check for an update on that as well.

Please be so kind as to post your findings, tips and upgrade tricks in comments so we can all benefit!

This is an example of the default feedburner “chicklet” for Blogsolid.

Here are a couple of examples from other blogs where some style has been applied to the subscriber number:

Georgia Bold featuring a bright background image - Lesley G

Stylish Georgia - North x East

Plain and subtle Verdana - Posh CSS

Large Arial with a yummy RSS icon - Freelance Switch

If you blog in Wordpress, use Feedburner to host your feed and have some basic knowledge of CSS, you are in luck, because a clever Italian guy by the name of Francesco Mapelli created a WP-plugin for this purpose - Feed Count.

Download the plugin and upload it to the wp-content/plugins folder on your server. Then log into your Wordpress control panel in a browser and activate the Feed Count plugin. Now go to Options> Feed Count and you should find a screen that looks like this:

Once you have filled in the details required, you need to stick the following bit of PHP code into your blog template wherever you wish for the subscriber number to appear (probably the sidebar):

<?php if (function_exists('fc_feedcount')) fc_feedcount(); ?>

The resulting HTML looks like this:

<div class='feedcountdiv'>
<p><a href='http://feeds.feedburner.com/Blogsolid'>
<span class='feedcount'>
<span class='before'>±</span>
<span class='subscribers'>465</span>
<span class='after'>so far...</span>
</span>
</a></p>
</div>

I threw in the little “plus-minus” sign just to be fancy, you are free to fill in whatever you want.

At this point it would be a good idea to log into Feedburner and check that the “Awareness API” for your feed, found under “Publicize” is activated. This is important because it makes the whole thing work!

Now that everything is in place, you should see your subscriber number appear on the page when you view your blog in a browser. It might not be pretty yet, but that’s where your creativity and CSS skills come into play!

The result of my efforts is visible in Blogsolid’s sidebar:

Why not give it a try, then post a comment so we can click on your name and check out the work you’ve done to the subscriber number on your blog!

Blogsolid: “Hmph.”

Me: “You look great. Have you lost weight? Wait, don’t tell me… It’s your header?”

Blogsolid: “Nice try. It’s the exact same random header I had before you left on your little holiday.”

Me: “Ohhh, I see - you’re upset that I left you here all alone?”

Blogsolid: “Without so much as a guest blogger! Why did you not invite me to go along?”

Me: “Don’t be silly, bloggers don’t take their blogs on holiday.”

Blogsolid: “Oh yeah? ALL the cool blogs are travelling. Scott Hansen just took his blog to Tokio, Bangkok and Amsterdam!”

Me: “That’s redicu… What? He did?”

So… Should you take your blog on the road?

In recent a thought-provoking article about boosting your creative process, Brian Clark of Copyblogger says this in favour of travelling:

One of the worst things we do to ourselves in terms of creativity is to stay within the realm of the familiar.

So, you want to take your readers on the journey with you, but you don’t own a laptop. What to do? In an article called 3+4 Tips for the Travelling Blogger, Daily Blog Tips shares some interesting advice:

Don’t be afraid to use pen and paper. You may or may not have access to a computer on your trip. As it turns out, though, it’s possible to manually etch your writing onto paper with a stylus. I know it sounds crazy, but it actually works.

It may surprise you that Problogger’s Darren Rowse advises that despite the advantages of taking your blog on vacation, it is not good for a holiday - you’ll never rest! In another Problogger article, he JD Roth reported on how a little planning in advance allowed his blog to flourish while he was away on holiday.

It really boils down to 3 options:

1. Go on vacation and just try forget about your blog for a while like me. (I do not endorse this idea!)
2. Make blogging a part of your holiday and take your readers on your travels like Scott.
3. Do thorough planning in advance to keep your blog rocking in your absence like Darren JD.

So, what do you think? Is there room in your travel bag to take your blog on the road with you?

2008 is approaching at the speed of light and soon this year will be a colourful memory. Blogsolid has shown a great deal of potential for development and I know that change will be necessary to create opportunities for growth. I have some ideas for better blogging in 2008 and I’m sure you have some of your own.

A sincere thanks to you for reading, writing, discussing, linking, subscribing and blogging along with Blogsolid. I am looking forward to picking up in January an taking it to a new level!

May you experience God’s love this Christmas, and have a new year filled with ideas and opportunities!

Imar

P.S. Use the “comments” section of this entry for season’s greetings and festive linking :)

Without further ado, Favicons…

What is a favicon?
A favicon, also known as a “shortcut icon” is a small square icon that usually appears alongside the URL in the web address bar of a web browser. Some browsers allow favicons to appear in your list of bookmarks too. If you have never seen a custom icon appear next to the web address, it may be time to update your browser!

Why use a favicon?
The best reason to add a favicon to your blog is simply branding. Most new versions of browsers allow for tabbed browsing. This means that users may open several websites in the same browser window at once. A creative favicon will distinguish your blog among the many other tabs. In a great article about favicons, Perishable Press says:

Yet, beyond making it easier for people to identify and locate their favorite websites, favicons also play a critical role in site branding and product recognition. Popular browsers such as Firefox, Opera, and Internet Explorer are virtually re-branded when favicon-enabled sites are displayed.

Favicon Formats
The .ico file is probably the most commonly used and widely supported format for favicons. This format is unique in the fact that .ico allows you to incorporate several images of different sizes and bit depths into a single file. This functionality is great, but it’s pretty useless for favicons since the majority of browsers only support a size of 16×16 pixels. Image formats such as .gif and .png are also commonly used for favicons. You can even add some fun to your blog by using an animated gif as a favicon. As far as I know these are only supported in Mozilla Firefox, but Wikipedia explains how you can incorporate links to more than one version of favicon to ensure yours shows up in most browsers.

Designing your favicon
Designing a creative and interesting favicon is fun. The challenge lies in the tiny size of the graphic - only 16×16 pixels. You could design a larger square graphic, like 64×64 pixels and then scale it down, but sometimes this is not effective since detail tends to become fuzzy when the image is shrunk.

If you have Adobe Photoshop, there is a handy free plugin that allows you to save graphics in the .ico format. Jennifer Apple has a tutorial on creating favicons in Photoshop.

A Google search reveals a large number of websites that assist you in generating a favicon by uploading an image and others even allow you to create an image online which is then converted to a .ico file.

For some favicon design inspiration, check out:

• MpP Favicon Gallery
• Smashing Magazine: Favicons
• The Favicon Gallery

The code
Once you have created your 16×16 work of art, it is time to display it on your site. A good idea is to name the file favicon.ico and upload it to the root folder of your blog. Some browsers will automatically detect your favicon and display it. It is a good idea to add some code within the <head> tag of your HTML to tell browsers about your favicon, especially if you have opted to go with a format other than .ico or if for some reason you have chosen to place the favicon in a directory other than the root folder of your blog.

What is this code supposed to look like? 

I prefer learning by example, so let’s take a look at how some of the pros go about it:

Cameron Moll
The favicon.ico file is simply placed in the root directory of the site without linking it in the XHTML 1.0 Transitional document. The favicon is automatically detected.

Jakob Nielsen
The well known usability expert places the following code in the head of his HTML 4.0 Transitional document:

<link rel="shortcut icon" href="/favicon.ico">

Jeffrey Zeldman
The favicon.ico file resides in the root directory of the site and the following code appears within the head of the XHTML 1.0 Transitional document:

<link rel="Shortcut Icon" type="image/x-icon" href="/favicon.ico" mce_href="/favicon.ico" />

Jonathan Snook
Like Moll, the favicon.ico file is placed in the root directory of the site with no link in his HTML 4.01 document.

Matt Mullenweg
The favicon.ico file resides in the root directory of the site and the following code appears within the head of the XHTML 1.0 Transitional document:

<link rel="shortcut icon" type="image/ico" href="/favicon.ico" />

Veerle Peters
Peters includes links to two different favicon formats and lets the browser decide. One is the regular .ico and the other is a .png. The following code appears in the head of her XHTML 1.0 Strict document:

<link rel="Shortcut Icon" href="favicon.ico" type="image/x-icon" />
<link rel="icon" href="favicon.png" type="image/png" />

Virb
These guys use a .gif image. The following code appears within the head of the XHTML 1.0 Transitional document:

<link rel="icon" type="image/gif" href="/_graphics/favicon.gif" />

That’s it. A favicon is the ideal Christmas gift for your blog! If you know more secrets about favicons, please don’t hesitate to share your knowledge in comments.

1. Deciding on your niche & adding the content

choose your topic niche well and then stick to itWith so many blogs around, it is important that you choose your topic niche well and then stick to it – it also needs to be well-defined in order not to be too general, since that would just get your blog lost in the crowd.

After that, your first step should be writing some quality content. Since you’ll be launching your blog to the public with this content, it is of absolute importance that these initial articles show your readers what they can expect from your blog in future. See these first articles as a showcase of your talent, which will need to entice your readers to subscribe to your RSS feed or at least decide that they’ll check back in two weeks (after the launch) and then decide whether your blog is worthy of RSS subscription.

2. Social networking & making friends

Second step is to get a few people reading your blog… Obviously you’ll have to start small (especially if you don’t have a budget for paid marketing), but starting small does have some benefits. It will enable you to create a very loyal reader-base at the beginning. The best suggestion is to tell all your friends about your blog – e-mail them and simply ask them to visit it – this might be a very elementary first step, but I can assure you that you’ll feel a lot more positive when you see some traffic coming your way and people actually start commenting on your entries. There’s also the possibility that your friends will be impressed and that they’ll tell other people about it… Can you say free viral marketing!?

Another tactic which I have employed with quite some success on my own blog, is to e-mail the big guys with the big blogs (in your niche or related at least) and tell them about it. They won’t notice it on their own, but if you take the first step and tell them about it, they might just give you some linklove via their own blogs. This type of publicity is invaluable and you should really have a go at this – if you get shot down or ignored, you haven’t lost anything have you?

3. Keep it up! Don’t let it die!

Many bloggers struggle to follow through after the initial “I’m excited! I’ve got a new blog” phase and it’s those blogs that end up dying a quick and silent death… The easiest way of negotiating this journey, is to write a whole bunch of new posts and keep them for scheduled entries (this can be done very easily in WordPress by just scheduling your posts for a date in the future), which means that the blog will have fresh content when your initial visitors come back in a couple of weeks’ time.

4. Ignore the slow growth

Contrary to many opinions, it takes some time to become a prominent blogger… Growth is normally very slow at the beginning of the blog’s life, but often the growth thereafter increases exponentially. The important thing is not to lose your motivation for blogging and thus to stick to your original blog plans – eventually the traffic, returning readers and comments will come, but you will have to work for it.

5. Making money in the beginning is a big no-no…

Most new blogs are set up with the aim of earning some kind of passive income and although guys like John Chow & Darren Rowse have proved that big bucks can be made from one’s blog, it is important not to try and monetize your blog right away. Wait until your RSS stats show some decent traffic, before you start monetizing your blog – people tend to be more receptive of advertisements on blogs, when they sense the blog has become somewhat popular. But if you decide to monetize it straight away, readers might just discard your blog as another money-making scheme.

Conclusion

I’m not suggesting that these 5 steps will work for everyone nor do I guarantee you any success, BUT these steps do shed some light on a few key aspects of getting your blog up and running after you’ve handled the technical side of things.

A WordPress blog running on your own server is a very powerful tool to have and if leveraged correctly, could open a vast amount of opportunities to you. I hope that the advice contained in this post will contribute to your success in running your own WordPress blog.

Good luck!

* This is the second contribution from our guest author Adriaan “Adii” Pienaar. If you liked this article, be sure to visit Adii.co.za.

Have you noticed the similarity in layout and design of many “successful” blogs? The following popular blogs all generate revenue by placing ads and seem to follow a tried and trusted recipe for their layout:

Copyblogger

Freelance Switch

North x East

ProBlogger

Smashing Magazine

So, what’s wrong with these designs?

Well, nothing I guess. They are orderly, well structured, functional and they make money… but I do find the look and feel of these blogs to be pretty monotonous and uninspiring.

Is the design centered around prominent ad placement? It does look like the advertisements are limiting design possibilities to a large extent. These websites also attempt to deliver the maximum amount of content within a confined area. The result is very little open space for the layout to flow.

The alternative

The following are a few examples of blogs that do not place ads. The freedom to explore layout possibilities without the constraints of ad placement is evident in their designs. Of course this means sacrificing the possibility of revenue, but the goal of these blogs is not to make money.

Drew Wilson

Lokesh Dhakar

Okapi Studio (via Styleboost)

Tobias Baeck (via Styleboost)

Best of both worlds?

Lastly, I have to mention WebDesignerWall. They have used the same layout seen in the first examples - accommodating ads in the right hand side-bar - yet design flair (albeit very ornamental) enjoys prominence.

Is there a way to resolve this conflict between form and function, or has money killed blog design?

An interesting observation is that as the subscriber count for Blogsolid has been growing, visits to the site have been on the decline. During the past week, visitor numbers have been lower than subscriber numbers every day - on some quieter days up to 50% less! So what has caused this shift?

I believe that the answer lies in the fact that Blogsolid offers full feeds.

Blogs usually offer RSS feeds in one of three different ways:

• Full Feeds
  Each article appears in its entirety.
• Partial Feeds
  Only post titles appear. Sometimes these are accompanied by a short excerpt from the article.
• Choice
  Offer both and let your readers decide which feed they prefer.

Full feeds vs. partial feeds has long been a popular discussion among bloggers. A recent poll by ProBlogger reveals that the overwhelming majority of participating bloggers support full feeds, yet in reading comments it is interesting to note that some people claim to prefer partial feeds.

Let’s take a quick look at some pros and cons of full feeds:

Good

• Full feeds grow your subscriber base.
  • DailyBlogTips quotes Matt Cutts of Google saying full text RSS gets more loyal readers.
  • Darren Rowse of ProBlogger says:
    

    The debate over full versus partial feeds rages on but my own findings having made the switch to full feeds here at ProBlogger is that my subscriber numbers went up significantly in the weeks after giving my readers my full posts.

• Full feeds are convenient to read on mobile devices.
• TechDirt argues that Full feeds offer complete information that can be scanned, read and understood without having to “read more”.
• This creates an opportunity for further reach since a reader may forward it to a friend or post it on a social network.
• It is possible to monetise full feeds effectively through advertising.

Bad

• Fewer visitors to your site. Subscribers can read your blog content in feed aggregators without ever visiting your website
• Full feeds are susceptible to content scraping.
• Although full feeds offer complete content, readers have to scan an entire article to see if they are interested in reading it instead of being offered a short excerpt summarising the post.
• Full feeds can do some funny things to layout elements such as your pictures and pullquotes.

As a designer, I have come to the conclusion that full feeds are the devil! Although content is king, I believe the design of a site is very important because it creates a visual context adding value to content. Content is robbed of the website’s context when read in a sterile black-on-white feedreader and so, runs the risk of losing value and impact.

So, where to from here? Two possibilities come to mind: switch to partial feeds and regain site visitors or keep the full feeds and grow the subscriber base…

Blogger’s regret is very similar. In a brave/foolish/ignorant moment you posted an entry that you really just shouldn’t have published…  Watch out for these logic-defying pitfalls:

• In love
  Hey, that’s what roses and chocolates are for. Blogs… not so much.
• Angry
  You ever noticed how you say things you don’t really mean when you’re angry?
• In a hurry
  A recipe for disaster.
• Jumping on the bandwagon
  Do you know where it’s going? Joining the hot topic of the moment could get you into trouble.
• Blogging a topic you know nothing about
  If you enjoy the taste of your foot in your mouth, go ahead.
• Unreliable source
  Where are you getting that info?
• Secrets
  Please make sure that the information you blog about is not confidential, whether it’s personal or work-related. Secrets make for dangerous blog content.

I know, I know, at that moment it just seemed so right to post it for the world to read, but now what? It’s already online, so how do you fix it? You have a few options:

• Remove the post and pretend it never happened
  This is possibly the worst way out. It could result in dead links, confused subscribers and lost credibility.
• Remove the post and publish a new one explaining the disappearance of the first
  This may be your best option if you are requested or ordered to remove the post.
• Leave the post and publish a new one explaining or apologising for the first
  Not a good move. This could make you look bumbling and unprofessional.
• Edit the post
  Editing a post that has already been published is seen as unethical by blogging purists. A more acceptable way of editing live posts is to leave the current text in place, but strike it out. Like this.
• Just roll with it
  Leave it up and see what happens. If your post upsets some people or causes a stir, it could mean some publicity for your blog. It is often said that there’s no such thing as bad publicity, but this is risky.

Blogging can be dangerous if your content is not considered properly. Publishing an entry online means anyone in the world can read it. Apply healthy judgment and don’t blog anything that you wouldn’t want published in a popular newspaper or magazine. People have lost their jobs over blogging! Don’t let that be you.

Have you ever fallen victim to blogger’s regret? How did you deal with it?

“Wordpress can be installed in five minutes” is a commonly stated advantage of the popular blogging software. Unfortunately, it’s not entirely true. I may be able to install Wordpress in five minutes, but I’m fairly experienced with it. Beginners could take up to half an hour, and that’s after planning.

Planning? Yes, there’s more to installing Wordpress than the technical process. Before you fire-up your FTP client, you have to decide, first of all, just how you’re going to install Wordpress.

URL

What do you want your blog’s URL to be? Do you want www.myblog.com? Would you prefer www.myexistingsite.com/blog/? Do you want a sub-domain, like blog.mydomain.com? Consider this before uploading the Wordpress files.

For a standalone blog, installing in the domain’s root is normally the best option. The only time you really need to install WP in a location other than the root is when you’re adding your blog as an addition to an existing website. In that case, you may want to install in a subdirectory called “blog” or something of the sort. Installing in a directory is better, SEO-wise, than a sub-domain. If you install in a directory, the inbound links coming to your blog will count towards the entire domain’s PageRank, though they won’t necessarily if you use a sub-domain.

Multiple Blogs

Do you want to have more than one blog hosted on your domain? If you do, then you have two options:

1. Install Wordpress several times, each in a different directory.
2. Use Wordpress MU (WPMU).

I’d advise that you read up on WPMU, taking note of it’s advantages and disadvantages, before making your decision. It will depend on your needs. If you go the multiple installations route, then you should probably place an index.php file in your domain root to link the blogs together.

Well, now that you’ve got all that settled, how about a few tips?

• Use a different DB Prefix
  When you’re editing that tricky wp-config.php file, you may want to change the database table prefix to something other than “wp_”. You’ll have no choice if you’re installing more than one copy of Wordpress in the same database, but even if you’re only going to have one copy, it may make things more secure.
• Fix the Double Username Dilemma
  Wordpress automatically creates a default account called “admin” during the installation. When you log-in for the first time, create a new administrator account with a more personal name, and delete the old one. That way you have a less boring name listed as the author, and you’re fighting “hackers.”
• Kill Spam
  After people start visiting your blog, be prepared to be hit with comment spam. Junk comments linking to questionable sites will be added to your site. What can you do to stop them? Activate the included Akismet plugin, sit back, and watch as the technical wizards at Akismet.com filter out all of the spam comments for you.
• “Embed” Wordpress into an Existing Website
  Is your new blog an extension of an existing website? People adding blogs onto a standing site often ask how they can make the blog share the same design as the parent site. All you need to do is put PHP includes in your blog theme’s header.php and footer.php. Just replace everything above the <body> tag (and below the </body> tag) with PHP commands to include your own header and footer from your site.

Well, that’s all for today. What are you waiting for? Grab a copy of Wordpress and get started!

A big word of thanks to our guest author redwall_hp. Be sure to visit Webmaster-Source.com for loads more useful tips, ideas and web related info.

Here’s the theory: if you can build a blog that is so good, people will fear missing out on your next entry, they will have no choice but to subscribe. I know, it sounds so crazy it just might work! But where do you start? Here are my top five ideas for cracking open a big can of FOMO in your blog:

1. Start a Series
   People love series. Whether it’s the World Cup, a television drama or the adventures of a boy wizard - series are a surefire way of getting people to return. No matter what your topic, experiment by splitting one big idea into a couple of posts rather than spilling all the beans at once.
2. Converse
   Although many readers tend to only consume and move on, the culture of contribution is growing on the web. People enjoy having their say - especially if it is a hot or controversial topic. Start an ongoing conversation on your blog:
   • Enable commenting on your blog
   • Write “commentable” entries. In other words, consider your style of writing - is it “preachy” or does it allow for feedback?
   • Encourage commenting
   • Respond to comments
3. Exclusivity
   Keep finding exclusive content that nobody else can offer, for example interviews, scoops, tutorials, research or inside info.
4. Freebies
   Give people stuff for free, they seem to like that for some reason. Here are a few examples of blogs that give away free stuff to designers:
   • Spoon Graphics
   • Vecteezy
   • Muse
   • BenBlogged
   • Smashing Magazine
5. Regulars
   How about introducing a regular feature? Much like your eager anticipation of Half Price Wednesday at the local pizza place, a regular weekly or monthly feature could give readers a sense of routine and something to look forward to.
6. Bonus idea: Become a Hero
   I have no idea how to go about achieving this, but the bandwagon is a strange phenomenon. Once it gets going, even skeptics jump aboard just so they don’t get left behind. If you can manage to become a celebrity in your niche, people will subscribe to your blog just to see what you’ll say or do next. Take The Big Noob as example - three self proclaimed geeks run this blog, yet it is hugely popular in their niche, simply because they have managed to create a hype through their web development work.

Although “linkbaiting” is a different topic, it is relevant to FOMO so you may be interested in ProBlogger’s 20 Linkbaiting Techniques and Webmaster-Sources Top (Known) Linkbaiting Techniques.

A question: what gives you the Fear of Missing Out and gets you to subscribe to a blog?

When deciding on a blogging platform, there are roughly 3 categories to choose from:

1. Online blogging service
   If you want to set up a quick and easy blog, this is your solution. The blogging software is already installed and hosted on the service provider’s site, so you don’t have to worry about technicalities. Of course this means there are limits to personalising and extending your blog.
   A few examples of free blogging services are MySpace, Blogger.com, LiveJournal, Tumblr, Yahoo! 360°, Windows Live Spaces and Wordpress.com (don’t get confused - Wordpress offers this free an online option as well). See Mashable’s list of free blog hosts for more options.
   More sophisticated blogging services such as the popular Typepad, come at a price.
2. Installing your own blog
   This is a little more tricky because it requires you to buy a domain name and hosting package, then install blogging software on the server. Movable Type and Wordpress are two of the more popular examples of such software. If your web host does not offer a “one-click” automated option, installing Wordpress can be fairly complicated, because it requires you to create a MySQL database on the server and tweak some settings. You will need an FTP client to transfer the folders and files from your computer to the server.
   Once the blog is installed, it is simple to update and manage. Using a normal internet browser, you log into the control panel from where you are able to write, edit, post and manage all content without having to use an FTP client.
   Having said that, the allure of running a Wordpress blog on your own website lies in the complete control it gives you over the design and functionality of your blog. It is no surprise that Wordpress is favoured by many designer- and techie types. To get the most value out of Wordpress, you should be prepared to “pop the hood” and get your hands dirty with some PHP template code and CSS.
   If web development is not your bag, Wordpress remains a powerful tool for blogging, but you may fare equally well using one of the services mentioned above.
3. Code your own blogging CMS
   If you have ‘em mad scripting skills, why bother with Wordpress?

These three categories can all be sub-divided into hundreds of others, but this should help you decide whether starting a Wordpress blog on your own site is for you. In the next part, we’re going to discuss installing Wordpress, so if you suffer from the fear of missing out, subscribe to the RSS feed.

So, over to you… Why Wordpress?

I have noticed that a number of my favourite blogs have gone quiet in the last couple of months. Even worse, some bloggers have resorted to writing about their lack of inspiration. This has actually caused me to delete a number of feeds from my collection! There could be several reasons for this blogging slump, but I think the most obvious is that the year has started winding down and many people simply find themselves flooded with all sorts of projects (work and home related), causing the blog to take a backseat.

Before I start hurling too many accusations, you may notice that this is my first entry in almost two weeks. Before this 11-day-silence I tried to maintain a rate of at least one or two entries per week. Now, bear with me while I interject with a quick joke (one of my all time favourites):

A Polar bear walks into a bar and says to the bartender, “I’ll have a gin…… and tonic.” The bartender asks, “What’s with the big pause?” The bear says, “I dunno, I’ve always had them.”

At this point, you probably find yourself asking me the same question the bartender posed to the bear. Well, basically I broke my blogging rhythm by going away for a couple of days. If I was the diligent blogger I spoke of in the first paragraph, I would have had a few posts on ice just waiting to be auto-published in my absence, but alas, I am no such blogger.

Another reason for giving Blogsolid a rest was perhaps just to see what happens. Since starting this blog I have felt a certain amount of pressure to keep rolling out fresh content, so the break in my schedule gave me an opportunity to just let go and experiment with “the pause”. Would this be a suicidal experiment for my blog? Would I lose half my subscribers? Would my visitor stats take a dive? All these questions begged answers, so here are my observations from the last 11 days:

• Approximately 8% less unique visitors in the last 11 days than during the previous period of 11 days. (Not too much of a tragedy if you ask me.)
• Number of subscribers has remained fairly constant. So they didn’t unsubscribe! (yet…)
• According to Technorati.com, seven different websites have posted links to Blogsolid. (So people have been talking behind my back!)

My conclusion: It is OK to take a break from blogging. Dont be too hard on yourself, the world will probably not go to pieces if you recharge your creative batteries for a couple of days. The way I see it, I gave readers a chance to catch up with some of Blogsolid’s older articles they may have missed. You can thank me in comments ;)

On a more serious note, if you feel that your blogging schedule is getting the better of you and you find it hard to keep up, don’t lose hope just yet. I recommend reading Leo Babauta’s article on “minimalist blogging”. It inspired me to adapt my approach to blogging and possibly even adopt a few Zen Habits.

So, what do you think - is taking a break from blogging really that bad? And how long is too long?

Ladies and gentlemen, I bring you Michael Pinto - the man behind fanboy.com.

Welcome to Blogsolid, Michael. During the last few months, your blog fanboy.com has made a fanboy out of me. How did fanboy.com come about and how long have you been blogging?

Around 2002 I started updating fanboy about once a month using Dreamweaver using a template that I designed, but even doing one page would chew up hours so after about a year or so I gave up. In early 2006 I wanted to learn about blogging so I played with Blogger and did a personal blog (which is now williamsburgnerd.com) to get to know the medium. And by July of 2006 I put my knowledge to work with fanboy.com. However to me fanboy.com is still very much an experiment, so in my mind the site is currently in beta.

Somehow you manage to post something interesting daily - how do you maintain this momentum with your blog?

I’ve been a fanboy since my childhood, so it helps to have a passion for your subject. I set aside a bit of time to blog at the end of each day no matter how tired I’m feeling. I always try to create at least two entries for the next day. In addition I’ll also create evergreen entries in advance for posts that are more about “cool hunting” than say breaking news.

Fanboy.com is not your only online project, would you mind mentioning some of your other web initiatives?

With two other friends I run anime.com. Currently anime.com isn’t using any sort of CMS and is still done using old fashioned templates, although we’re now working on coming up with a system. In fact I’ve been using fanboy.com as a sort of testing site for things we might try with anime.com.

On anime.com I’m lucky as one of my partners Brian Cirulnick does all of the writing, and my other partner Jesse Erlbaum does all the tech. We’ve all been anime fans since the early days, and in fact not many people know this but Brian directed a fan film Desslok’s Revenge in the 80s which was based on Star Blazers (Space Cruiser Yamato).

Fanboy.com and anime.com must both be very sought-after domain names! How did you get hold of them?

I’ve worked in the field of interactive media since the late 80s, so I was there at the birth of the web back in the 90s during the first dot.com era in New York City (then known as Silicon Alley).

Fanboy.com was purchased on a whim in 1997, this was still the early era of the web when a common name would pop into your head and you’d register it right away if it wasn’t already taken. However, with anime.com we purchased it from another party around the same time, but it wasn’t until 2002 and 2003 that we started to do anything with both sites.

People forget this now but even as late as 2002 there wasn’t a clear business model for content sites – things like being an Amazon affiliate or programs like Google AdSense were only just getting started.

It seems like Wordpress is catching a lot of the limelight in the world of blogging software at the moment, but you use Movable Type. Could you mention a couple of things you enjoy about Movable Type? Can you mention anything you don’t like about Movable Type?

For me it’s not so much about the tools, but about creating A+ content! I’m currently thinking of switching to WordPress, although with the new version of MovableType I may upgrade. The main selling points for me with the previous version of MovableType were the ability to schedule articles in advance and also to publish static pages. The downside of the old version of MovableType was the interface which didn’t show all of the full features under Safari on the Mac. The new version of MovableType looks better, but I’m seriously thinking of going to WordPress. For me it’s not so much about the tools, but about creating A+ content!

I believe that the design of a blog can contribute greatly to its success. Please tell us a little about the design of fanboy.com

I’m embarrassed to say this because I’m a professional designer, but the current design of fanboy.com was created with a template that I found and hacked a bit to customize. The name of the template is “TV Signal” and it was designed by Alen Grakalic who is based in Rijeka, Croatia. I’m currently working on a redesign for the site.

I realized early on that as a visual designer my writing skills are somewhat lacking, so I tend to look for visual images to lead a story. In fact often I’ll pass on a story if I can’t find a strong visual image that’s associated with it.

In fact I think of the blog as a way of sharing images I want my friends to see, sort of like curating an art show or programming a video room at a science fiction convention.

I also feel that the role of a critic is to show people what they like, rather than rant about things that they don’t like. As a designer I’m very inspired by other designers like Paula Scher, Tibor Kalman and Milton Glaser who always looked for high art in low places (like comic book covers).

I have always thought that comments are a very important aspect of blogging, but fanboy.com does not allow commenting. Why is that?

I used to but sadly I got too much comment spam! In fact the one thing I hate about the current version of Movable Type is that it is pretty bad at handling spam, and with my next upgrade I’ll be looking to turn comments on again.

Finally, what is your beverage of choice when blogging?

My current favorites are:

• Ito En Tea’s Tea: Pure Green, Green Jasmine, White Tea (Summer), and Oolong (Winter)
• UCC Coffee: Milk and Coffee Original Blend
• Suntory Boss Coffee Café au Lait

A huge word of thanks to Michael Pinto for sharing his thoughts and for keeping fanboys and fangurls everywhere entertained. Check out fanboy.com!

There are promises of many great improvements, but as far as I can tell, there are two main features to look forward to in WP 2.3:

1. Tags
   The inclusion of these descriptive tidbits of info will now be supported within the Wordpress platform without the use of a third party plugin. I am looking forward to implementing this feature on Blogsolid straight away. Wordpress recomends this article to help you update your theme for tag inclusion.
2. Plugin Update System
   According to Matthew Mullenweg (original creator of Wordpress), checking for the latest updates for your plugins will now be dealt with ”magically behing the scenes”.

Has the WP development team been kind enough to patch some of the holes in the current WYSIWYG editor? We can only hope…

Do you know any secrets about Wordpress 2.3? Please do share!

Decide on a web host

I suggest you start doing some research about web hosting even before thinking of a name for your website. Consider the following:

1. Most hosting providers offer the additional service of helping you register a domain name for your site, so once you have found a host, you can register the domain name and purchase a hosting package all at once.
2. Many hosting providers offer automatic Wordpress installation. Look for a host that offers this service. You will not be sorry - installing your own Wordpress blog can be a nightmare!
3. Make sure that the host you choose will cater for the needs of your site. Consider things like technical support, software platforms (some hosting providers don’t support PHP), databases, monthly bandwidth allowance, disk space and e-mail accounts.
4. Be careful of “Unlimited Bandwidth” and “Unlimited Disk Space” offers. Read the fine print, because chances are you will have to pay for any excess you use.
5. It is ideal to find a host offering support 24/7. Trust me, your site will not crash during office hours!
6. Find out how many e-mail accounts will be available to you. Remember, “aliases” are not separate accounts, they are simply multiple names for one e-mail account.
7. It is ideal to make personal contact with someone from the hosting provider. Ask them any questions you may have. A phone call or e-mail can make the whole process a lot simpler. If you do not experience friendly service, tell them they have lost a potential customer and move on to the next possible host. It is important to have a helpful hosting provider who can offer you friendly support in the future of your site.
8. Be careful of “Virtual” web hosts. They just re-sell hosting services at a profit. You will probably find more affordable hosting at the original service provider.
9. Once you have decided on a web host, work alongside a sales person at the hosting provider to choose the best package for your needs. Don’t opt for an expensive package with loads of features when you could do perfectly well with a more affordable package.
10. Be wary of lock-in contracts that will prevent you from moving your hosting. Make sure that moving your site to a different host will be painless in case you find that you are unhappy with your current host.

Blogsolid recommends JCW Hosting.

*Update (25 September 2007) Webmaster-Source.com has posted an article with more great info and links.

Feel free to add your web hosting tips below!

All the newest photos that get uploaded to Blogger.com blogs around the world are presented in the form of a never-ending slideshow. You can pause the slideshow and view information about the blog the photo belongs to.

It’s fun to watch for a minute or two, but personally I think watching a slideshow of random photos from random bloggers is just another new way to waste time online!

For more information about Blogger Play, read their FAQ.

What’s your opinion on this? Is it at all functional?

Hi Greta.

You are able to ditch the Blogger navbar if you are hosting your Blogger.com blog on your own domain and publishing via FTP. If that sounds like Greek to you, don’t worry, read on.

If your blog lives on blogspot (hosted by Blogger.com), apparently the “ugly toolbar” is there to stay. Your best option would be to change the colour of the Blogger navbar to suit the design of your blog a little better. Unfortunately your choice consists of only four different colour schemes.

To find this setting, log into your blog, then on the Dashboard, click Manage > “Layout”. Under Template > “Page Elements”, click “Edit” on the Navbar, right at the top of the layout diagram.

A “Navbar Configuration” popup window should appear presenting you with the four options. Not much of a “configuration” if you ask me!

Know of any hacks or other ways to pimp the Blogger.com navbar? Let us know in comments :)