Blogging Tips

New Design At Blogging Tips

It’s just over a year since Blogging Tips last got a redesign. Whilst I did like the previous theme, I thought it was time to move the site forward with a fresh look. The new theme has the familar Blogging Tips black, red and white color scheme however it is a much tider looking design.

So for those of you reading this via RSS, here is a comparison of the old theme and the new :

Old Design

* If any of you are fans of the old them theme then please drop by and visit Blog Themes Club where you can purchase the theme directly for only $19.

New Design

Made by Guerrilla

Our new theme was designed by …

Written by Kevin Muldoon from Blog Themes Club
Posted on July 3rd, 2009 and filed under Site News
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BBPress 1.0 Final Released

The final 1.0 release of bbPress, the popular forum script and kid brother of  the world famous blogging solution, WordPress, is now available. bbPress 1.0 alpha started around August of last year, and after several release candidates they have finally released bbPress 1.0 Final. The latest release is now available for download on the bbPress site. The current version is geared towards WordPress users offering various usability improvements which should be familiar to adopters who are used to WordPress.  A major overhaul of the admin interface has been done which should make WP users feel right at home.  All of the previous javascript code has been moved to jQuery and themes now include a “functions.php” template, a feature previously unique to WordPress which should be exciting news to many WordPress theme developers looking to make the jump the bbPress …

Written by Ryan Edmunds from Needless Productions
Posted on July 3rd, 2009 and filed under WordPress
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Feedly – Blog Reading in Style!

If you read a number of blogs, perhaps even too many blogs, then Feedly could be the best RSS blog reader for you.  Feedly weaves your favorite content into a fun, magazine-like start page. The only downside is that Feedly is built upon Google Reader and Firefox – you need both to play.  Feedly displays your Google Reader feeds in a magazine-like format, allowing you to browse over multiple categories, preview post pictures and all your read items are synchronized back to Google Reader.

However, if you are already using Google Reader and Firefox then the Feedly Firefox extension will add a new level of ease and enjoyment to your blog reading.  Imagine the difference between a text book and People magazine – that’s the difference between most RSS readers and Feedly.

Written by David Silversmith from InfoMusing
Posted on July 3rd, 2009 and filed under Software & Programs
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Aggregate Your Social Profiles With Swimwire

Swimwire is yet another social aggregator that allows you to import various social networks into your account such as Twitter and YouTube. If you can get over the distracting rotating header (that seems to be on every page) you can then either sign up for free or sign in via Facebook connect.

From there you’ll want to edit your profile, details, image, privacy and add all of your supported sites. There are 46 sites that you can import into your Swimwire account. You will need to enter your full profile URLs. Whenever you click in one of the text boxes a small site description will appear above your mouse pointer.

Swimwire also has “wires” which are …

Written by Charnita Fance from Social Web Tools
Posted on July 3rd, 2009 and filed under Social Media
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How to create a simple Gadget for Blogger with the new API (Part 1)

Last week, I explained Blogger’s new API for Gadgets which enables us to draw upon Blogger feeds in order to create useful and interactive gadgets.

In this post, I’ll explain how to create a very simple Gadget which draws upon Blogger feeds to create a simple “subscription” gadget which you can install in your Blogger blog. Unlike regular “widget installers”, anyone who installs this gadget in their blog will not need to input their blog’s URL in order to retrieve the blog feeds: instead, the blog feed will be generated automatically by the gadget.
The basic structure of a Blogger gadget
To create a gadget for Blogger, we first need to understand the basic structure we will be working with.

Gadgets for Blogger (and Google) are constructed of XML files. Don’t worry if you have no experience with XML …

Written by Amanda Fazani from Blogger Buster
Posted on July 3rd, 2009 and filed under Blogger
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Feed a Fever, Without Starving Your RSS Reader

If you’ve ever come back from a vacation or conference and been reluctant to open up your RSS reader due to the sheer number of unread items that certainly awaited, you are already familiar with “second inbox guilt”. It’s caused by having a second unread count, much like your email inbox, that you have to constantly churn and plow through every day.

The cure for this disease, however, may well be a fever.

Fever is a different kind of RSS reader, rather than burdening you with unread entries and making you rummage through hundreds or thousands of posts to find what you want to read, Fever tries to bring the important articles to the top, making them easy to find and easy to follow. Though it lets you maintain a list of “must follow” feeds, it also works to find and summarize the most important news before you even get there.

Though it is a new and potentially compelling idea for managing RSS feeds, it does have some pretty severe limitations, including a hefty price tag, that will likely keep it from being widely adopted or used. Still, it is worth taking a moment to see if it is right for you.

Written by Jonathan Bailey from Plagiarism Today
Posted on July 2nd, 2009 and filed under Reviews
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Faulty Subordination, Rambling Sentences, and Faulty Parallelism

If you missed the post on faulty coordination, Sentence Structure and Coordination, be sure to check it out.  We discussed that you don’t always need to begin a sentence with the subject, and the problems we can run into with improper coordination.  This post is a continuation of that topic covering faulty subordination, rambling sentences and faulty parallelism.

There are two types of problems we can encounter when using subordination; we can use the wrong subordinator or we can subordinate the wrong idea.  To avoid using the incorrect subordinator, always make sure that the connecting subordinator shows exactly how two ideas are related.

Faulty coordination:  John ran for months even though he would be ready for the marathon.
Correct coordination:  John ran for months so that he would be ready for the marathon.
Common Subordinators and Their Usage:
To show time: after, before, whenever.
To show …

Written by Patti Stafford from Patti Stafford
Posted on July 2nd, 2009 and filed under Writing
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