So where do you look for ideas? Books, Magazine, Blogs, and Online Portals… the list are long and extensive. If you try to bookmark all the blogs and online portals, you will find that there are millions of them that you can use as your references.  But not all the contents might interest you. So you will have to select a few that you might use for your next writing. But checking on millions of blogs and portals will take a lot of your precious times. So what’s the best thing that you can do?

I don’t know about you but I like to spend some time at digg.com. It’s a social network site where members post interesting stories and articles. All the good ones will be listed on top as members can vote by clicking the “Digg” button. That way it saves your time of going through all the nonsense, no-good articles posted by members though there are a few good ones (like by me ha ha) that will be buried down below and nobody will find it.

I suggest you create an account with Digg (If you don’t have one) and spend some time there. Add me as your friend and do me a favour by “Digging” my articles. Let me know when you do so and I will return the favour. If you are using WordPress platform, make sure you add the necessary plugin to make it easier for your readers to “Digg” your post. Have fun and enjoy yourself using Digg. Thank you for reading this article, feel free to leave your comments in this blog.

- DIGG – Digging All The Great Stories

Passionate About Blogging

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Designing a blog is NEVER an easy job to do. It gets worse when someone so particular like me is involved in the process and become so fussy even on the slight detail. It took me almost a year to be 90% satisfied with my blog apperance, browsing hundreds of wordpress themes and testing more than 20 themes before I managed to reach that level of satisfaction. It’s absolutely a headache.

Several things come to mind when designing a blog. What to add and what not to add to the designer’s mind as he/she is weighing the options on which plugin to use or which widget to add.  What is the colour scheme to use? What fonts to choose? And how many affiliate links (if any) to put.

Themes
Choosing a theme is not as simple as it seems. One must decide whether to use one or two or three columns for his/her blog depending on his/her needs. Blogger that promote affiliate products normally will prefer to have more than one column, preferbly three – to have more spaces for the ads. Those with little knowledge of css will prefer to use themes that are ready-to-use or requires minimum editing while those with photoshop skills will try out as much as possible to make use of the skills by editing the header, banners, etc. As for background, I will prefer to use plain white background with black Tahoma or Verdana fonts as it will be easier for my readers to read the content.

The Plugins

Plugins are normally installed to make life easier for the blogger to run his blog. Choosing the right plugins for your blog will reduce your headche and problems while maintaining your blog. There are plenty of plugins to use with functions such SEO, Admins, Spam Controls and Money Making plugins. Most blogger will install at least one from every type of function and certain plugin such as Aksimet, All-In-One-SEO,  Subscribe To Comments and Deal Dot Com pluging are very popular and widely used  among bloggers.

The Widget and The Ads

Widgets and Ads are the most common tools used by blogger to enhance and monetizing their blog. Careful selection will make the blog look better and profitable to the owner. Nevertheless, do not be too anxious putting up too many widgets and ands to your blog. They can slow down your blog and prevent visitors from viewing your blog. It can also turn your blog into an ugly one if not carefully selected. Use plugings when installing your ads. There are many plugings that can help arrange your ads and make it more presentable.

There are several other things that you might need to consider as well but you may find sorting out the three above will help you get better result for your blog. There are no easy ways to create a cool, nice looking blog and there ain’t no pills to cure the headache as well. Plan what you want to do, picture it in your mind and slowly begin on your project. You might enjoy it too.

- Passionate About Blogging

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As always, I warm myself up a bit by slightly re-designing the blog.  No theme change this time around, just change of colour and arrangement.  I have deleted my free directory page as I don’t think I have enough time to upadate the page.  I’m sorry to those who have submitted their blog to the directory.  You may remove link to my blog (if any) – feel free to keep it if you wish to, much appreciated.  I also removed the blogroll as I need the space to put up something else.  Again, I’m sorry and you may remove the link to my blog if you wish to.  Nevertheless, I have created a link page that display your blog there with link to your blog. [See it here].

I’m looking forward to a great weekend and hope that Roger Federer will win at Paris to complete the grand slam.  Can’t wait for Transformer 2 – Revenge of The Fallen to hit the theatre but for the moment I will settle for Terminator Salvation & Star Trek first. Adious for now and Happy blogging everyone!

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