Blogsolid - Ideas for better blogging

Audio Player for Blog Posts

April 14th, 2008

By Imar at Blogsolid

If you are looking for a clean and easy way to embed your own audio content in your blog posts, check out Audio Player by Martin Laine.

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.

Read the rest of this entry »

Posted in Solid Power | 5 Comments »

RSS Feeds - My Collection

April 9th, 2008

By Imar at Blogsolid

The old adage goes, “you are known by the company you keep.” If you think about it, the same principle may apply to the RSS feeds you subscribe to! I think it is important for any blogger to keep up with trends and ideas by reading others’ blogs, and what better way than to subscribe to sites that interest you?

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:

Read the rest of this entry »

Posted in Solid Basics | 10 Comments »

Wordpress 2.5 - Where Is It?

March 10th, 2008

By Imar at Blogsolid

So you may or may not be aware of the fact that Wordpress 2.5 is about to be released. The date planned for the release is today, yet the internet seems to be ominously quiet… So where is it?

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. Read the rest of this entry »

Posted in Solid Growth | 1 Comment »

Style Your Subscriber Number

February 14th, 2008

By Imar at Blogsolid

You know that ugly little semi-3d Feedburner box that displays the number of people who subscribe to your blog? Well, you can totally pimp it! This is something I have been meaning to do for ages, but days became weeks, weeks became months and… you get the picture. I finally knuckled down to the task tonight and it took me less than an hour to complete. North x East published an article explaining how to do this on June 12th last year, but unfortunately it had a misleading title, so I overlooked it until now. Here’s my version: Read the rest of this entry »

Posted in Solid Power | 10 Comments »

Taking Your Blog on the Road

January 20th, 2008

By Imar at Blogsolid

Me: “Oh, hey! How’s it going? Haven’t seen you in a while.”

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? Read the rest of this entry »

Posted in Solid Growth | 8 Comments »

Christmas Greetings

December 16th, 2007

By Imar at Blogsolid

Welcome to what is quite possibly the last entry for 2007. Blogsolid launched less than five months ago, and what started as an experiment, has taken on a life of its own - largely thanks to the keen interest from bloggers and designers worldwide.

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 :)

Posted in Info | 7 Comments »

Favicon: A Rough Guide

November 26th, 2007

By Imar at Blogsolid

I know fresh content has been scarce around Blogsolid for the last couple of weeks and there is no excuse other than the “year-end-madness”. I’m sure many of you know what I’m talking about. My new year’s resolution will be to structure a better blogging schedule for 2008, so subscribe to Blogsolid and hang in there!

Without further ado, Favicons… Read the rest of this entry »

Posted in Solid Power | 18 Comments »

Start a WordPress Blog on Your Own Site – Part 4: From Implementation to Application

November 5th, 2007

By Adii

The other parts of this series have covered aspects with regards to picking WordPress as your platform of choice, finding the right web host and installing WordPress. The fourth part will try and take you through the baby steps required to go from “having” a WordPress blog property somewhere on the internet, to actually turning it into a content-producing blog, which is read by other people. Read the rest of this entry »

Posted in Solid Basics | 8 Comments »

Has Money Killed Blog Design?

November 1st, 2007

By Imar at Blogsolid

The cloning process

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: Read the rest of this entry »

Posted in Solid Growth | 24 Comments »

Are Full Feeds Evil?

October 29th, 2007

By Imar at Blogsolid

Good news everyone! Since Blogsolid launched in August, the number of RSS subscribers has steadily been growing. October has seen the subscribership pass the 200 mark. This is a humble achievement, but as we all know, growing your subscriber-base is important for any blog. Subscriber figures are an indication of how many (or few) loyal readers you have.

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? Read the rest of this entry »

Posted in Solid Power | 14 Comments »