That freelance experience those past few weeks was a race against time. That had really put my time management skills to test. I had to make the best use of my time. I had finally reached the point where I have a constant stream of clients both old and new ones. When my long term projects  runs dry, new opportunities keep coming up. It’s a fact that full time freelancers don’t just work with one client – they have to very good masters of their time to be able to work and earn from different projects coming from different clients.

During that time I was semi-active in social networks, Plurk and Twitter. Since both networks allow only 140 characters, it was easy for me to get interactive without the need to write a full well-researched or well-thought out blog post.

For those very hectic days I just get down to do my freelance work. At the end of the day, I find myself mentally tired to compose a well-researched blog post on any of my blogs.
This next week is yet another busy week for me.

I will not say anymore that I am back to blogging, as other do. I am always here. If you don’t find me on blogs, you could always contact me through other social networks, or through my email. Some of you are even in my chat. If you don’t find my updates here, you can always interact with me in Plurk or Twitter.

blog's upgraded look

My primary goal for putting down the blog was to troubleshoot the cause of this blog’s slowdown even if I have those WP Super Cache and WP Widget Cache installed. It turned out that the problem was on one or more of those activated plugins. I was not able to pinpoint which plugins caused the slowdown: what I did was to deactivate those unused ones.

Along with that downtime, I decided to switch the template to the new newest release from its developer. The recent release is now made for WordPress 2.7, and what’s cool about it is that  threaded comments is supported. I’ve been using WordPress thread comments plugin to “force” the previous layout to support threaded comments. This time I enabled the built-in option of using threaded comments and I was pleased that the previous threaded conversations still work. That’s one less plugin that might have caused the slowdown of this blog!

One small problem on this theme is that the image captions on the grey background that envelopes the whole image does not work. That’s also the case in the older version. I was hoping this issue was resolved in the new version, but it was not.

images should have looked like this

I would like to solve this issue, but I don’t know where to look on this part of the template yet. So far, I’ve isolated this already as a template problem.

Anyway, I see this as a minor issue and I’m using this template for free! If you have any idea on how to proceed on this (I know CSS and HTML and I can trace PHP code), please let me know.

The template change might not be too obvious but it was quite a lot of work for me. The navigation bar is now at the top of the site and I’ve used a darker blue color for the header. I’ve also used a combination of different colors that don’t clash – I was able to make those blue, red and yellow colors work together. My own comments are now highlighted with a light yellow color. Those additional colors puts some more spice away from the conventional blue color of most technology sites.

At the backend of this site, I’ve deactivated “heavy” plugins in favor of those that are compatible with the current version of WordPress. I have also decided to use a different set of anti-spam plugins: WP Spamfree and Bad Behavior to replace the three plugins that I’ve previously used together – Akismet, Simple Trackback Validation and Cookies for Comments. So far, it looked like the usual spam comments and the ones that put links on their blogs don’t go to the spam queue anymore: these are automatically deleted.

I am done putting up the most essential parts of this template and over a few days, I’ll be fixing all the minor changes that I still need to do.

Unlike the spam that I’ve been receiving before, these spam comments really sound funny. I decided to get snapshots of those images days ago so that I can share them with you. I find them personally amusing. I just don’t know if you had been receiving similar messages.

(click each of the images to view the original size)

super site?

Did not understand what I’ve been saying

Sukrat huh?

This is my favorite of all!

It is actually a WordPress blog that is made to look like a website. The blog is just a subset of the design:

The site is not exactly new. This was its past design.

The site owner, Michelle, decided to host this site on Bluehost to save on paying for the $20 per month. The Bluehost package that she had taken allowed her to create as many blogs as she like to have. She included this one with her existing set of blogs in Bluehost to take advantage of the deal.

Since this site advertises professional piano services, I had decided to adapt a clean classy look for it. At one point I had considered black or even a combination of red and gray, but I decided to settle on browns and yellows.

The template was customized from the header to the background. I had also changed the RSS icons and the individual “bullet” icons at the sidebar. I’ve configured this one so that the sidebar appears only when the blog section is clicked by the visitor.

Under its hood, I had added a number of WordPress plugins for the site, such as the sideblog, Google sitemap generator and a number of useful plugins to catch spam and allow cache on the site.

Here is the working site: http://www.strictlypiano.com

He had been a lot of help and yet he was still inviting me to his Christmas Giveaway contest – well this is my first time ever to join a blog contest, really!

Although the contest had been announced last November, I was able to blog about it this very last day. As I’ve said, I got knocked off from the net, then I had to catch up on everyone. Just recently, I had accepted an outsourcing job that would make up for the lost money-making opportunity when I was offline.

I am particularly interested in any of the prizes that are offered – really. I’m falling in love with self-hosted WordPress and all the power that comes with it. Sadly, Jaypee doesn’t want to give all the prizes for one person. Well, I still hope luck smiles on me on this New Year.

• 3 Revolution Two Pro Plus Memberships (each worth $149.95) – courtesy of Brian Gardner
• 2 Mimbo Pro Single-License Copies (each worth $89.99) – courtesy of Darren Hoyt
• 2 FlexxTheme Single-Use Copies (each worth $79.95) – courtesy of Cory Miller
• 1 WP-Member Plugin Ten-Site License (worth $67.87) – courtesy of WP-Member.com
• 3 WP-Member Plugin Five-Site Licenses (each worth $44.78) – courtesy of WP-Member.com
• 5 WP-Member Plugin Single-Site Licenses (each worth $27.13) – courtesy of WP-Member.com
• 2 Elegant Themes Membership Licenses (each worth $19.95) – courtesy of Nick Roach

As I am writing this, I am three hours  hours from the contest deadline which is December 30, 2008 midnight US Pacific time. If you happen to read this post, have a self-Wordpress blog and want a chance to upgrade to a new look this New Year, then hurry up (like me) and join this one!

Let’s not also forget the sponsors of this wonderful contest:

1. Revolution Two WordPress Themes
2. Pro Theme Design
3. iThemes Premium WordPress Themes
4. WP Member – Advanced WordPress Membership Plugin
5. Elegant Themes – Premium WordPress Themes

new look on a new home

A good thing to have this Christmas, and just in time for me to realize that I have just turned to be a one-year old blogger!

I was so so very very happy to be given this push by Jaypee, a interesting Plurker behind the blog JaypeeOnline. He offered me the chance to move from Blogger platform to WordPress. As I prepared my blog weeks before, he had helped me with some things that he already know about setting up a self-hosted WordPress blog.

I did the header and took a fitting theme and made more changes. I have also decided to change my Entrecard widget while I modified the theme extensively. I still have some few loose ends left, but I think this blog is now ready.

I hope you like the new look!

I’ve used both platforms for each of my blogs for several months now. This blog is done using Blogger and my other blog is hosted with WordPress.com. Don’t confuse WordPress blogs because there are two types of WordPress blogs – the first one can be hosted with WordPress.com and the other one can be downloaded free from WordPress.org for self-hosted WordPress platforms.

As a serious blogger, I still go for the hosted one. I wish I had enough money to invest into my own hosting. Spending for the domain is cheaper, but owning a host will require me to spend serious money for a good host and support even for just a year.

photo credit: konr4d (SXC)

Before plunging cash into self-hosted blogs, try out free blogging platforms first. Blogger and WordPress are the most popular ones used, but both have its set of advantages and disadvantages. There are also other blogs that are hosted with Typepad, and those blogs that come with MySpace. I will just focus my sites on two platforms that I’ve used: Blogger and WordPress. I’m trying to spell out the differences below:

Blogger: Advantages

• Allows the use of JavaScript widgets. I love Blogger because of its ability to accept JavaScript codes. Google Adsense, Adbrite, Alexa traffic ranking, sitemeter, Entrecard as well as some BlogCatalog and MyBloglog are some widgets that can be installed easily with Blogger blogs.
• Allows full control over the blogger template. This is also what I like about blogger. I could easily put in Javascripts directly into the XML template of my Blogger blog. I could change the design look of my blog or upload custom designs from other websites.
• Paid posts are accepted. I have no problems putting up paid posts and being penalized by Blogger. Majority of my paid posts have that “nofollow” code, so I was able to get some page rank from Google.

Blogger: Disadvantages

• No “recent posts” and “best posts” widgets. “Recent posts” and “best posts” is a good way to turn first-time visitors into all-time readers and visitors. I do not rely on the list of Blog Archive to keep visitors clicking on my blog.
• No “related posts” widget below the post. Related posts also retain readers so that blog visitors keep clicking more. 
• Comment editing is not enabled. I still like to have better control over comments. I am not able to edit comments in Blogger; some commenters leave out ads in the comment section. Instead of deleting the undesirable comment, sometimes editing is better. 
• Renaming post filenames is not possible. Renaming post filenames contributes to Google search engine results. 

Blogger: Recommendation
I would use Blogger if I want to run Entrecard and Alexa to improve my traffic. If I prefer to earn residual income from Google Adsense and other ad networks, then Blogger is the best route to go. Additional widgets for installing “recent posts”, “best posts” and “related posts” can be provided from third-party bloggers, but I think one needs the technical know-how to install such widgets successfully.

WordPress blog hosted on WordPress.com: Advantages

• Top posts, top clicks and recent posts are readily available. This keeps readers reading more entries in my blog, not just the first post that they had landed on. At least this keep my previous posts very useful and are not left deep into the archives.
• Spam comments are protected by Akismet. WordPress.com hosted blogs are protected by Akismet so that those comments that are flagged as spam by other users are automatically queued to the spam section.
• Access to WordPress.com traffic. I’ve successfully got some traffic from other WordPress.com blogs as long as you put some tags in your posts. WordPress.com bloggers often visit neighborhood blogs with the use of tags, to see what’s being discussed on other blogs. I also get commenters this way.
• Renaming blog posts is possible, so these can be optimized into improving Google search engine results.

WordPress blog hosted on WordPress.com: Disadvantages

• Blog layout cannot easily be changed. I’ve wanted badly to change the blog layout to something that is not included in their default layout. One has to pay a bit more to change the CSS styles.
• Paid posts are not allowed in WordPress.com. It violates their Term of Service.
• JavaScript widgets are not allowed. You cannot use it with Entrecard and Alexa widgets to improve site traffic ranking. Google Adsense, Chitika and Adbrite ads are not also allowed.

WordPress blog hosted on WordPress.com: Recommendation
I think personal blogs fit perfectly into this category because of the Terms of Service that WordPress.com imposes on its users. However, anyone who plans to have a blog without any sponsored posts should find WordPress.com a perfect match at no cost.

Self-hosted WordPress Blog: Advantages

• Full flexibility over change in blog layout. Self-hosted WordPress blogs are a sure way to go for full control in the blog layout. The flexibility is even better than that provided by Blogger blogs.
• Paid posts are allowed. Unlike those that are hosted in WordPress.com paid posts are permitted.
• JavaScript widgets are fully supported. There is no limit to which JavaScript widgets can be placed on the blog.
• Better widgets. Self-hosted WordPress blogs come with the “top posts”, “top clicks” and “related posts” widgets.
• Posts can be renamed. Choosing the right words to name a post is crucial to Google search engine results.

Self-hosted WordPress Blog: Disadvantages

• Self-hosted blogs cost quite a great deal of money to get a hosting package. Self-hosted WordPress blogs always require the technical know-how. Full-time bloggers often go to this route, but they often had to learn the technicalities involved in putting up a blog. If one decides not to bother with the technicalities, the blogger has to pay for someone to do the maintenance for him.
• Prone to spam. Unlike blogs that are hosted with WordPress.com, self-hosted WordPress blogs do not come with spam filtering capabilities such as the one that is provided with Akismet. Installing also requires technical know-how or hiring someone to do the job.

Self-hosted WordPress Blog: Recommendation
These blogs are the true nirvana of blogging. It combines the best of both Blogger and hosted WordPress.com blogs. But this is worth spending so this is a better fit for true-blue professional freelance bloggers.