For those who get tired of their wallpapers very fast, Smashing Magazine posts a collection of handpicked wallpapers every month. There are wallpapers for all tastes, from grunge to sleek, from illustrations to 3D rendered graphics. You don’t only choose from a wide range of sizes, you can also choose whether you want the monthly calendar, in this case for August of course, to be on them or not.

Come on, take a peek!

I just read an article on Boing Boing which really left me speechless.

Ads are often a financial support for site owners and especially bloggers and they often allow them to keep online content free. Google ads are famous, and also despised, but they are a necessary evil for some people. When I found the aforementioned article in my cybertravels I started to think that maybe my caffeine level had gotten too high. Maybe you’ll be wondering the same too, once you read it. Here’s probably the best part right from a reply from a staff of “Yahoo! Customer Solutions” to the person involved:

per section 11.l of the Terms and Conditions, you are in violation if your ads receive traffic from sources outside the United States. However, there are scripts and programs which you can initiate to block international users from viewing or encountering your Yahoo! Publisher Network ads. We do not recommend or support these methods, but we do suggest finding a method to block this kind of traffic so you remain in compliance with the Terms and Conditions.

While I do not have access to the terms and conditions of the Yahoo! advertising program, you have a look at the first paragraph of the application form to understand that the article on Boing Boing is factual.

I am not sure how Yahoo! expects to have many users to have sites that are not visited by non-US residents, but please, do read the rest article and have a chuckle.

I love blogging and WordPress just makes it an even better experience; it’s a powerful blog platform and you can build an entire website based on it.

I am sure there are many people like me wanting to get in there and do some dirty work to create their own theme, but they just didn’t quite get to it for a reason or another.

Recently I came across two excellent guides, a free one for beginners just about WordPress and another one that goes more indepth, which tackles blogging in general and also WordPress (as well as Movable Type and other things.)

The first guide is from UrbanGiraffe. You will be walked through the dissection of the Kubrick theme and you will reach an understaning of how a WordPress theme works. You will also find out how to install WordPress on your own computer so you can create your own themes without having to use a remote hosting service; you can also use that to create a working back-up of a WordPress blog you already own.

The second guide was suggested to me by Caterine Morley, the project manager of Creative Latitude, and the creator of Designers Who Blog. It’s a book entitled Blog Design Solutions, of which you can read a review on Godbit Project. This is a comprehensive guide and if you want to get into the nitty-gritty stuff, I advise you to purchase it.

Yes, it has an MP3 file. But it isn’t an MP3 file. And it doesn’t have to have one either. A Podcast is an audio file delivered through an RSS feed, which allows people to subscribe to it. Like Jennifer Kyrnin from About Web Design says:

Let’s break it down. Podcast is derived from the terms “iPod” and “broadcast”. It is attributed to the original creators of podcasting who used iPods to listen to their RSS broadcasts.

You want to know the rest of the explanation? You can find it here.

[tags]iPod, RSS, Podcast, MP3, audio, subscription, broadcast[/tags]

We pay for magazines, we pay for newspapers. However if we see a site that sells its RSS feed we cringe or at least we question it. What is the difference? After all we are talking about news, we are talking about content, such as tutorials and tips, which can be very similar both in print and online.

On this note I’d like to point you to an article I wrote on Designorati, Printed VS Online Communication, Which One Is More Important?

What’s your opinion on this? What’s worse (or best): Having a free site supported by ads, or an ad free site, which you can only read on paid subscription?

[tags]RSS, blog, blogging, print design[/tags]

I have found an interesting blog entry by Steven Edward Streight. He brings up many questions which actually are very common, but that not always have answers. Even when I saw them at first I though: “I don’t know either”, but on the other side, I have never even asked those questions to myself, but others probably have.

Someone has answered to some already, but if you think you have got better answers, go ahead and share your knowledge.

Disclaimer: Of course you might wind up being hunged up on some of the questions too. You might not sleep at night because of it, or spend your days staring at your screen. But don’t balme me, I warned you after all.

Oh, and now that you are on Steven’s blog, take the opportunity to read a few more of his articles, they are about the usability of blogs and so on. A very helpful site for those in need of blog counselling.

Shai Coggins, from About Weblogs, posts a survey with a list of things about blogs for which you can express a preference. Do you like ‘hem? Do you hate ‘hem? As I needed a diversion , so I though I’d take the survey.

Love or Hate?

1. Blogs: Love
2. Podcasts: Love
3. Vlogs: Love
4. Comments: If they are not spam, I love them
5. Trackback: Same as above
6. Technorati: Love
7. Bloglines: Not sure, I prefer Newsgator
8. del.icio.us: Not sure, I use My Web
9. Shoutbox/Tagboards: Don’t like them very much
10. Blinkies: Hate
11. Blog Buttons: If they are not fluorescent red and blinking like mad, they have their use
12. Blog Quizzes: Can be fun
13. Blog Surveys: Can be fun/useful, like this one
14. Memes: Not really sure what they are about
15. Splogs: Hate
16. Skype: Nice
17. Blogger.com: Sort of nice
18. LiveJournal: Tried it, don’t like it
19. WordPress: This blog is powered by WordPress, need I say more?
20. Typepad: Nice, but it’s not free
21. Xanga: Never tried
22. Feedburner: Love
23. Flickr: Love
24. Blog Polls: Nice
25. A-Lists/Bloggerati: How much time have I got to answer?
26. Blog Networks: Love
27. About Me/Profile Page: Cool, necessary in some cases
28. Blog Traffic Exchange: Don’t hate it, don’t love it either
29. Blogroll: Love
30. Tags: Love
31. Tip Jars: It depends on how they are used
32. Ads on Blogs: Necessary evil if you live by blogging. Certain ads can be advertising something good, too
33. Blog Clients: Can be useful, if you don’t use a blog platform like WordPress and Co.
34. Gravatars: Cool to have, not necessary
35. Mood Indicators: Love only on personal blogs. Don’t do this at work…
36. Book/Music Lists: Love on personal or on relevant blogs
37. Mailing Lists/Notifications: Love
38. Stats/Counters: Stats – love. Counters – hate the ones that show you how many people have visited your site, readers can’t care less
39. Blog Gear: Nice idea!
40. Affiliate Links: Love, when done the right way

Technorati lets us know that Ping-O-Matic is off line. If you didn’t know this and you still want to make sure your pings reach Technorati and other blog engines, you need to ping them directly

Technorati also makes a note about WordPress specifically:

If you use WordPress and have not changed your ping settings your update notifications are currently not reaching any services, including Technorati and many online aggregators. To add Technorati’s ping server to your list of update services please follow the instructions on our WordPress ping configuration page.