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 »

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 »

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 »

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 »

Start a Wordpress Blog on Your Own Site – Part 3: Installing Wordpress

October 22nd, 2007

By redwall_hp

Welcome to Part 3 in the Wordpress DIY series. If you plan on installing your first Wordpress blog soon, you have come to the right place! To help you navigate this tricky exercise, Blogsolid called on the expertise of the enigmatic redwall_hp from Webmaster-Source.com.

“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. Read the rest of this entry »

Posted in Solid Power | 13 Comments »

Wordpress 2.3 Launches

September 24th, 2007

By Imar at Blogsolid

The hype surrounding Wordpress version 2.3 launching today (September 24th 2007) did not quite reach Snakes on a Plane level, but Wordpress fanboys and fangirls the world over are quite excited. The wildly popular Wordpress is described as a “personal publishing platform”. This is a fancy way of saying cool blogging software.

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: Read the rest of this entry »

Posted in Solid Power | 5 Comments »

Wordpress: Solving The YouTube Problem

September 7th, 2007

By Imar at Blogsolid

I was quite surprised when I recently tried to embed a YouTube video in a post on my Wordpress blog and it did not work properly. Upon researching the matter I found that it is a known issue. Wordpress does not like strange things embedded in posts and unfortunately, YouTube is one of those things!

A number of video-related plugins are listed on the Wordpress Plugin database. Many of these plugins have multiple features, but I was just looking for the simplest solution to embed a YouTube video in my post… Read the rest of this entry »

Posted in Solid Power | 19 Comments »

Simple CSS Blockquotes and Pullquotes

August 22nd, 2007

By Imar at Blogsolid

A user-friendly blog layout encourages mere visitors to become readers, so maybe you want to spice things up a little… How about some sweet blockquotes and saucy pullquotes?

There is usually more than one way to skin a cat when it comes to CSS, but here’s my suggestion: Read the rest of this entry »

Posted in Solid Power | 40 Comments »

IE6, IE7 and Apple Safari - Together

August 21st, 2007

By Imar at Blogsolid

Being able to test your blog designs in several browsers without having to switch computers definitely makes life easier… Read the rest of this entry »

Posted in Solid Power | 12 Comments »

1 Day. 623 Visitors. Crash! Here’s How…

August 10th, 2007

By Imar at Blogsolid

“King for a day.” Not only the title of a cool Green Day song, but also what I was thinking to myself yesterday while watching the Blogsolid visitor statistics skyrocket. I couldn’t believe it when the final tally for the day came to 657 visits (623 unique visitors) from 62 countries around the world – and this within the first week of launching! Amazed at my new found glory, I smiled unaware of the impending doom awaiting my beloved blog. But wait, I’m getting ahead of myself, so here’s a rundown of the events leading to this bittersweet achievement: Read the rest of this entry »

Posted in Solid Power | 10 Comments »