Why Change the Layout?

Some people fear change, I love change (well for the most part). I wanted a new layout that would give more emphasis on my Photography. After all, I seem to do more blog posts on Photography than anything else really.

Some of you know about http://www.tyleringramphotos.com. It was a photoblog that I ran somewhat separately from this site, but I found over time, I would be just repeating a lot of the same photos. I tried to make the photoblog more of a portfolio site, but decided to just let it go and concentrate my photo efforts here.

I also wanted to change it up before our trip down to Costa Rica. My camera is coming with me and I will be sure to post magnificent photos of the area we will be in, and thought increasing the space for photos here would be a good idea.

What Changed?

I pushed the navigation menu up above the entire site. I thought it was a nice way of getting it out of the way.

I expanded the width of the site to 1000 pixels wide. This will help accommodate the size of the photos I wish to display which will be 800 pixel wide. This also eliminates the need for using the Lightbox that the 500 pixel wide photos currently use. According to Flickr’s ToS, the use of the lightbox technically takes away from the experience of using Flickr, so I guess that is a bad thing.

The header image is still pulled from my Flickr stream at random. I increased the length to the full 1000 pixels wide and increased the height to 250 pixels. this gives a much larger header image. Because my photos are typically 800 pixels wide on Flickr, I did use PHP’s GD Library to increase the size of the photo. There is small loss of quality of course, but I still think it looks really cool.

You will notice a “Featured Post’ slideshow. It is Ajax based and loads with both Firefox and IE (why are you using IE still anyway). I haven’t had time to play in the other browsers, but according to the place I got it from, it’s supposedly compatible. Let me know if you experience issues with it. I think it’s cool and have always wanted one.

I got rid of my Sidebar. Yup, I started hating it anyway. I’ve moved the Categories, Recent Posts and Recent Comments to the footer of the site. This keeps the main focus hopefully on my big beautiful photos. Right?

The main content will accommodate my 800 pixel wide photos, with room to spare. After all, since I love Photography so much, I thought it would be best to share the photos in a nice, large way.  Such as this photo:

Isn’t that beautiful? The rising sun off the beaches of Punta Cana, Dominican Republic. If you have to scroll to see that photo, you really need to upgrade your monitor. Though technically you should still be able to see most of it on a 1024×768 resolution, but I don’t know why you’re running your resolution that low to begin with.

Added some cute little Social Media icons near the header. No need to show how many people follow me right?

The main page (index page) will show up to 5 posts with excerpts along with a 500 pixel wide photo. The excerpt code is custom, which includes a custom call to the WordPress database (MySQL) so strips out any HTML it sees. It works better than the default WordPress function the_excerpt(), or at least I think so.  I also have a function that pulls the first image from the post and uses it as a 500 pixel wide thumbnail, same as before but that was 100 pixel wide. I also tweaked it a bit to load quicker (hopefully).

I guess that is about it. There have been some little tweaks to the code here and there. Primarily to the code that handles the recreation of images for the various locations on my site.

What’s Next?

I’m sure I’ll tweak things as I find them. If you notice anything out of place, don’t hesitate to tell me here via Comments, Twitter or even contact me via my Contact me page.

I will be writing a small WordPress plugin to deal with my contact form. Currently I use cFormsII but it is just too much and always gets stuck in my spam filter. I will look at creating a small, simple (or minimalist) contact form.

I might look at creating a WordPress plugin to better handle the “Featured Post” Slide show. For now it is changed manually (via HTML).

What do you think?

I’m alright with criticism. If you like it, what do you like about it? If you don’t like it, what part(s) and what would you do to make it better? Let me know via the comments section!

I have also attended WordCamp Whistler which was great fun. Unfortunately due to the 2010 Winter Olympics, they might hold it in a different spot.

What Is A WordCamp?

WordCamp is an all day(9-5pm), informational event for people who are interested in blogging as well as the blogging environment WordPress. Throughout the day guest speakers will hold 30 minutes sessions ranging in topics related to the blogging world and the WordPress environment.

I’m New To Blogging and/or WordPress, Can I Attend?

Of course you can attend and I’m sure you will come away with not only very useful information, but also some new friends too. I have found that the sessions range from beginner topics, intermediate topics to even advance topics such as how to create WordPress themes or Plugins. No matter your level in blogging or WordPress, you’ll find useful and interesting information.

Of course if you are a veteran to blogging and to WordPress there are also sessions that will interest you.

If you are not using the WordPress environment for your blog, you should attend too! Find out why you should be using the most popular, largest community supported, open sourced blogging environment; WordPress.

Who’s Talking About What?

There are 4 tracks with at 3 guest speakers each track.

Beginner Track

Session 1 -Rebecca Bollwitt – More then just a Blog.

Session 2 – Glenda Hyatt – 3 Tips for Increasing Your Blog’s Accessibility

Session 3 – Raul Pacheco – Accessorize Your Blog: Top Ten Ways to Maximize Reader Experience

Intermediate Track

Session 1 – Lorraine Murphy – Blogging for Creativity

Session 2 -  Kulpreet Singh – Mastering the Admin Interface

Session 3 – Dave Zille – Using Custom Fields for Fun and Profit

Development Track

Session 1 – John Biehler – Setting Up WAMP for Local Development

Session 2 – Jeff Kee – Beyond Template Tags

Session 3 – George Plumley – Modifying Your Own Theme

Twitter Track

Session 1 – Gary Jones – How to Build Your Brand on Twitter

Session 2 – Rainer Schmoll – Integrating WordPress and Twitter

A pretty extensive list of topics being discussed! Looks like it will be a busy day with lots of information.

So How Much Is All Of This?

Each track is $25, or you can pay $75 and attend all 4 tracks (yes, you save $25). Head over to the WordCamp Fraser Valley ticket page to purchase your ticket(s)!

Okay, So I Bought My Ticket(s) Where Do I Go?

This year’s WordCamp Fraser Valley is being held at SFU’s Surrey Campus. I plan on taking the SkyTrain from Vancouver to Surrey which seems to be the easiest way to get there as the SFU Surrey Campus is across the street from the SkyTrain Station. Check out this page for more information on the location.

What Else Might I Need To Know?

The couple of WordCamp’s I have attended it is probably best to bring something to write with (pen/pencil, paper) as you will find useful information you will want to remember for later. Don’t be scared to bring your laptop either, chances are 90% of the people in attendance will have one too.

Looking to network with people in the blogging world? Business cards are great to hand out to people you first meet, if not I’m sure there will be name badges which you can also include your Twitter account. You do use Twitter right? If not, sign up now and start using it!

I am looking forward to this WordCamp Fraser Valley and my journey using Public Transit to get there too. Glad it was somewhere where I didn’t have to drive my car as I’ve gotten used to walking everywhere. Don’t worry my camera will be in hand too so I can capture (hopefully) the majority of the tracks and post them to Flickr and write about the success this WordCamp Fraser Valley will be.

See you all there!

WordPress Automatic Plugin Update

The process is a lot easier than I expected, or than it was previously for me anyway. Before, I would download the new plugin, deactivate the old one, upload the new one, and then reactivate the plugin. Never had an issue doing it that way but it was really time consuming having to download the files separately and then upload them to my site. Not to mention having to extract them locally since I do not have shell access currently set up on my site.

The  new system (I believe since WordPress version 2.5) allows your WordPress blog to do everything for you. All you need to know is your FTP or sFTP (secure FTP) account information. You should know this if you installed your WordPress files and plugins yourself. If you do not know your FTP or sFTP account information then you will need to get in touch with your web host. FTP is File Transfer Protocol, the ability to upload and download files from a remote location, in general terms.

How To

As I have mentioned, it is really easy to upgrade a plugin. Select the plugin you wish to upgrade and click on the upgrade automatically link that is shown. This will take you to the next screen.

Here you will enter you FTP or sFTP account information. You will need to know your FTP address (typically your domain name), your FTP username and password, and then the connection type which is either FTP or sFTP. Again, you can obtain this information from your Web Host if you current do not know it.

Once you’ve entered all that information and clicked Proceed, it will perform the following actions:

• Attempt to download the latest version of the plugin from WordPress’ plugin repository
• Unpack (or uncompress) the plugin
• Deactivate the current plugin you have installed
• Remove the plugin you currently have installed
• Move the new plugin into the plugin directory
• and then Activates the plugin

If any of the above actions fail during the process, it will inform you what part failed and stop. Your blog will still work as the plugin will be deactivated, so nothing (hopefully) will break. If the plugin was coded properly then there should be no issues with it being deactivated. You can try and repeat the upgrade automatic process again to see if it passes, but if it fails, you will probably have to install the plugin manually.

The Manual Process

The manual process of upgrading a WordPress plugin is pretty much the way I have explained it above. You will just have to physically do more work to get it done.

You will have to:

• Download the latest plugin version
• Uncompress the file (it is usually in ZIP format)
• Deactivate the plugin you currently have on your website (Admin Dashboard->Plugins->Deactivate)
• Upload/Replace the plugin in your wp-content->plugins
• Reactivate the plugin

Again, it is pretty straight forward and just involves you doing more.

So there you have it, a pretty simple way to keep your WordPress blog’s plugins updated. Updating your the plugins on your WordPress blog helps ensure your site runs smoothly without any issues. Updates might also introduce new features or fix broken bits of older plugins. You can usually see what changes have been done to a particular plugin too when you click on the View version **.** Details links that accompanies the automatic upgrade link for each plugin you have installed. The cool feature about this is, it will load the details of the plugin inline with your current window so you will not need to view another webpage.

If you have any questions about updating your WordPress plugin, don’t hesitate to ask!

While I sit here and look over my various sites including my Photography site, I noticed that the unordered lists were not styled. Raul also mentioned how I should write about styling unordered <ul></ul> or ordered <ol></ol> lists within a WordPress theme, as his was also missing styling. This won’t be a terribly in depth post about how to completely restyle your unordered or ordered lists but it will hopefully help you learn the basics you need to know when playing with them, within your WordPress Theme or Template. This also applies outside of the world of WordPress as well since I will not be targeting a particular class or id name within a stylesheet.

The Lists

Alright I’ve mentioned both unordered and ordered lists, but what is the difference between them? Normally, I use unordered lists <ul></ul> which are primarily used for listing items in no particular order, like a shopping list!

The other is an ordered list <ol></ol>, which I don’t think I ever use. Ordered lists are for listing items in a particular order. Wasn’t that obvious?

Now that we got what they are out of the way, what do they look like in HTML?

Simple and straight-forward list right? Though now you are probably wondering how do you go about editing your stylesheet for your theme to suit your needs? Well, it too is pretty straight-forward.

CSS – Cascading StyleSheet

Your cascading stylesheet is located among the rest of your WordPress Theme files (/wp-content/themes/your-theme/) and is usually called stylesheet.css.

Now stylesheets can vary greatly from theme to theme,  but let’s try to keep this uncomplicated and apply a specific styling to the above list. We would modify the above list by adding a class reference or name to it.

We give the class the name mylist just for easy reference, typically it is best to name it something that will be easily identifiable to you for editing purposes. With your favorite text editor (notepad, notepad++, simpletext, bbedit, etc) open up the stylesheet.css file. Chances are you do not have a class called mylist so let’s get started. Pick an area to insert the class declaration, I normally place it after the #content declaration. The cascading stylesheet is typically read from top to bottom, hence the name cascading.

This will set up the class declaration for the unordered list we’re about to create. We will start filling in the guts of the style as well as editing the internal parts of a list which are the list items <li></li>. Some attributes that I modify when I play with a list, whether or not its an ordered or unordered list, is the padding and margin. You can also change the look of the “bullets” you decide to use as well.

What the above does is changes the look of the “bullets” to discs, I also remove the margins from the list. This will remove the extra spaces around the list itself. I find sometimes that when I insert a list within a paragraph or between paragraphs there is too much of a space between them all. Setting the margin to 0 will help. I then nudge the list over by 10 pixels which is like indenting it. If you are using an ordered list <ol></ol> you can change how the numeric representation looks too, like numerals, roman numerals etc.

To style the list items you start a new declaration below the parent style.

Say we wanted to change the color of the items within the list to a red and underline them, this is how you would apply the style:

Globally Changing Your Lists

Another option you have is to globally change how your ordered and unordered lists work. Instead of using a class or an id you would just use the tag itself:

This would give the default style to any <ul></ul>(unordered) tags throughout your whole WordPress Theme.

Afterthoughts

• Cheese
• Bacon
• Milk
• Bread
• Eggs

The above example is how my blog (custom WordPress Theme) handles unordered lists. The CSS behind the list is relatively simple too:

Take the outer class (or parent) post, which is typical of most WordPress Themes. I’ve told the stylesheet.css to use a disc type with adding padding to the bottom of the unordered list. I then tell the list items to nudge over by 25 pixels and pad them a little bit as well. This allows for an easier to read list of whatever I decide, or at least I think so.

More advanced styling would be to remove the default bullet style and replacing it with a positioned background graphic. Perhaps you have a logo you would like to use as the “bullet” instead. You can see this in action over at my photography site. Any unordered list use a background image (of a single arrow) as the “bullet”.

Typically WordPress Theme navigation (like home, about, contact etc) are also unordered lists, though they have a bit more styling applied to them. The style applied is usually the removable of the “bullets” (list-style-type:none;) and aligning the items horizontally not vertically (display: inline .

Hopefully this has shed some light on ordered and unordered lists within your WordPress Theme or in general web design usage. I’ll answer any questions you might have, and if any of the above is incorrect, please feel free to correct me so I can make changes.

WestCoastAlpine

Over at WestCoast Alpine I did do a couple posts on the LG FIS WorldCup 2009 events which included the Snowboarder Cross and the Half-Pipe event. The PGS (Parallel Giant Slalom) was canceled due to poor snow conditions. Many athletes were disappointed about that but you can’t ski on the type of snow they had over for the last event. It was pretty cool to see Shaun White and his insane half-pipe skills.

Robyn and I have really been enjoying writing for WestCoast Alpine. We just have to find more time to do it and work on more regular posts to keep the content moving along.

We are both looking forward to the upcoming Telus World Ski and Snowboard Festival up in April at Whistler/Blackcomb.

Tyler Ingram Photos

Crazy Crow Bokah

My photo blog has a few new posts including some more recent photos taken with my new Canon EF 70-200mm f2.8L IS USM lens. The lens is amazing! Though it also costs an arm and a leg.

I thought about doing a photo post a day, I do have enough photos to do it but sometimes the photos are just not interesting enough (to me) to post at times. I thought about taking at least 1 photo each day and posting it but sometimes I don’t get the opportunity to get the camera out and shoot something. So for now I’ll just continue posting whenever I think a photo I have taken has some interesting element to it. Who knows, perhaps I’ll start talking more about camera gear or the industry.

The Blog

Now in previous months I used to report on the stats from the month prior. I have decided to stop doing this as I don’t really see any benefit in reporting my blog’s statistics. I can tell you that traffic is still increasing 10-12% each month, which I like to see. Though it just seems like I repeat myself over and over again when I do blog recaps.

I have also had some suggestions on some blog topics or series I can start writing here on Tyler Ingram dot com. Raul suggested I write some CSS editing posts which can help WordPress users modify/tweak their self-hosted themes with a bit more ease. I would probably get into explaining the basics of the CSS stylesheet that a typical WordPress blog might use.

Coming up with ideas that people haven’t done yet though seems to be the catch. There are a lot of blogs (sites) that will explain how to modify the various aspects of WordPress. Perhaps I can figure out a twist to make it more interesting to people out there though.

On a Side Note

Our Dominican Republic Vacation in Punta Cana 2008

Robyn and I have been looking at taking a vacation. We both think it’s time for an escape. We were thinking of a 10 day trip to Costa Rica on the Caribbean coast (no, not all inclusive). Black sandy beaches, crystal clear waters, tropical rain forest with Sloths and Howler Monkies. Though it looks like we decided to do a road trip in June through the Rockies and then leave a Tropical vacation for my 30th Birthday in December. I decided that I don’t want to be in North America for my 30th Birthday. Since my birthday is at the end of the year we would probably do New Year’s at the location we decided as well.

For those who are relatively new to WordPress and the administration section of a self-hosted WordPress blog, there is one great security tip that majority of people will tell you right away: Ditch that Admin account ASAP!

Though for those who are not setting up a new blog and are using the default ‘admin’ username still (shame on you) should also look at changing this too. I thought at first it might be hard to do and also have the potential to screw things up but fear not, it is really simple to do. The following steps can be used for both new and veteran users of a Self-Hosted WordPress blog who are still using that default admin username account.

Step 1: Create A New User Account

That’s right, go into your Dashboard-> Users -> Add New. Fill out all the information as listed on the form. Make sure you select the Administrator as the Role of this new account though!

Step 2: Logout and Login with New Account

Log out of of the default admin account and login with your newly created account. Then go Dashboard->Users->Authors & Users.

Step 3: Delete admin Account

Select the default admin account and choose Delete in the Bulk Actions. Ensure you only have the admin account selected, then click Apply.

You will be prompted by the screen above. Select the appropriate username to Attribute all posts and links to. This will ensure that your previous posts are not deleted and that your new account is now the Author of all your previous posts.

There you have it, 3 easy steps to secure your WordPress blog a bit more.

Why Do This?

Think of all the WordPress blogs out there. If you leave the default settings, you now give a potential hacker 1 username to use in their attack to gain access to your backend. Remove that account and you make it infinitely harder for someone to try and password crack the account you use to administator your WordPress Blog. Yes, this isn’t a fool proof method but it does make it a bit harder to try and hack your administrative account.

So please ditch that default admin account!

Every so often I like to look at various aspects of my blog and tinker with them. It’s nice to change things up a little bit but after doing a new blog theme for my site, Robyn pointed out the new layout lacked some items it previously had that she liked. The Categories on the sidebar and the Navigation links on the single page.

I remember reading (not that I remember where) that as a web designer what you should do is get your friends and family to play with a layout you create, watch over their shoulders to see what they do. See where they go to click or what they do when navigating around a page. This I find helps when making your page easier to navigate for general users.

With Categories, Robyn liked to see if there was any other posts related to a particular Category I have on my blog, she could do that easily with my previous layout but not with the current one. So I added it back to the sidebar to help her and others who might find it useful. I also went through some of the Categories and removed some of the ones that were either redundant or didn’t make sense.

I also added the previous post link and next post link (if applicable) at the top of each single page which is dynamically generated anyway by WordPress. I made the font smaller and removed the weight so it does not interfere with the post’s title as much as it used to.

Contact Forms Fixed

Flickr Photo By Pink Sherbet Photography

I had an issue with my contact forms, though I am unsure how long I have actually have had the issue. If you were trying to get a hold of me via my contact forms and did not hear back please try again.

The email address I use for all my online dealings is hosted by Google’s Domain Apps and I was not receiving email from DynamicShark.com via the contact form I have created there either. The odd part was that the contact form worked fine if I sent the message to another email address but not to a Gmail account. I could also send the contact form data to the proper location when it was on my development server here at home, just not when it was on my live servers.

It turns out that my webhost (Bluefur) had a default set up so that if the scripts were running locally off of it, it was being smart and taking the  message and rerouting it to it’s own mail servers (that’s where my domain/websites are hosted of course). Though because the email portion of my account is not set to handle my domain mail at Bluefur,  it was just dumping my messages into /dev/null, sort of like a blackhole.

Tech Support for Bluefur was great at troubleshooting the issue with me and helped fix the issue relatively quickly.

My contact forms are working properly now so feel free to use them if you need to get a hold of me.

Recently I was asked to look at modifying a ‘Premium’ WordPress theme and while browsing through the code of the theme I noticed a couple things that people should be wary of when purchasing themes, or at least in my opinion. In today’s day and age in the World Wide Web there are various good practices a designer and/or developer should look at when creating websites or themes for web applications and the first one I would like to point out is the use of <table> tags for layouts. The second issue I have noticed, heard of and read about is how Themers will insert their own Affiliate IDs into preloaded Ads such as Google’s AdSense.

Issue Number 1: <TABLE> Tags Should Not Be Used For Layouts

The above code I had to clean up to understand what was going on

That’s right, the HTML <table> element should strictly be used for tabular data and not for website/theme layouts. In the past Tables were easier to use when ensuring your page looked the way you wanted it to. If you get into complicated layouts, Tables can start being a really large pain to work with in regards to rendering the cells to proper dimensions as well as compatibility across platforms. Mobile devices (with their smaller screens) will probably not render layouts in Tables properly and will be really buggered up or really squished.

Updating a Table layout can also be quite a task, especially if it has multiple rows that span across and down the page. Need to add a cell into the middle of a table? Is the table based on precise measurements (such as pixels) or is it based on percentages? I’ve had to deal with tables that use 1px wide cells to help nudge things around the screen. Also if the person who created the layout with Tables doesn’t follow good practices (such as indenting) then it can be really hard to modify and you might spend hours trying to figure out where everything is.

Then What Are <TABLE> Tags Used For?

This is tabular data and what <table> tags should be used for

Like I mentioned above Tables are used for tabular data. Do you have a long list of items with prices perhaps? A Table would work best, especially if you have lots of information to present. If the information is to be in the form of a spreadsheet then a Table would be used.

How Do I Check If  A Layout Uses Tables?

To check if a layout uses Tables extensively you can usually right click on a theme’s demo and select ‘View Source’. If there are a lot of <table></table>, <tr></tr>,<td></td> tags that will give you indication of a theme based on Tables.

Should I Not Get A Theme If It Uses Tables?

If you plan on updating or modifying your theme with little effort then I recommend not using it. It also is an old coding practice which is frowned upon by other web designer and developers.

Table layouts do not load as quickly as say a layout done with DIV tags. Though there still might be some debate about how much bandwidth a DIV based layout will save you over a Table based layout but DIV based layouts are the current standard for web design/development. They are also easier to work with when you need to modify things. They help keep code clean too if done properly!

Issue Number 2: Check PreLoaded Affiliate or Ad Links

Another thing I have noticed with Custom WordPress Themes is the use of the Themer inserting their own Affiliate ID into the preloaded ads. I guess if the person who purchases the theme does not care about monetizing their own website then why not right? Well if you are into monetizing your own website then I would recommend checking the preloaded Ads or Affiliate links if there are any and fixing them.

Why Does This Matter?

Well if your Custom Theme has preloaded Google AdSense ads that you did not configure, then when someone clicks on an ad the person who created the theme (for which you might have paid money for) will get the credit for that click and ultimately make some more money off your site. I guess people could argue the pros/cons of this practice, but to me this seems a bit too sneaky.

I remember Rod posted about forced ads that were preloaded on a WordPress theme he downloaded. When Rod went to remove the ads from the theme, the theme no longer worked. He reinserted the code and the theme continued to work. Another sneaky practice!  I am alright with giving attribution to the person who created the theme, but to try and make additional money off of it via sneaky tactics such as this just doesn’t sit right with me. Rod ended up removing that particular theme right away once he found that out.

If you are looking at using Free WordPress Themes, or Paid (Premium) WordPress Themes I would take a moment or two to perhaps look over the code. If you do not understand the code or where to look have someone else look into it for you. Make sure people are not trying to make money off of you without you knowing it. I am sure not everyone does this but just keep and eye out for it.

As some of you have seen via Twitter I have been starting to post links to a blog called WestCoastAlpine.com. What some of you might not know is what this blog is about, hopefully I can help explain it in case you were curious. If you are into winter activities in British Columbia or just in general I recommend following our updates (you can subscribe to the RSS feed) as we hope to provide more information about the local ski conditions as well as some other interesting information as often as we can.

What Is WestCoast Alpine dot Com?

WestCoast Alpine is a project of Robyn’s and mine related to the ski and snowboard activities of British Columbia. Currently we have been reporting on our adventures at the ski resorts such as Cypress Mountain, Grouse Mountain as well as the infamous Whistler/Blackcomb.

We will also be writing about the various events on the ski resorts around British Columbia such as the Telus World Ski and Snowboard Festival at Whistler/Blackcomb or the Kokanee Winterfest at Mount Washington. We may not get out to them all but we will try and keep up to date on what’s happening with them.

Don’t forget when we do our ski/ride road trips that we have plans for throughout the winter season, we will be writing about our accommodations, conditions of the runs as well as anything else that we come across in our travels.

We will also be keeping tabs on the equipment manufacturers.  Reporting on new released gear from such companies as Solomon, Burton, Head, North Face, Heli Hanson and others. After all, the more I get into snowboarding the more the gear and equipment fascinates me and I might even become a gear whore! With that of course I am sure we will be writing reviews of various gear we purchase as well throughout the year.

This project of ours also introduces Robyn into the world of blogging. She so far really enjoys it as she does like to write. It was also a fun way of combining one of our common interests and introducing her into another aspect of my life, yes the online life.

Behind the Scenes

WestCoast Alpine is a WordPress blog theme of my own creation. I will also be tweaking it over time as we build it up with more content. I have always been a fan of using 2-column layouts which are centered. I find it easier to work with a variety of resolutions starting at the 1024×768 and up. If you are running less than that, well you should upgrade your monitor, video card and/or bump up your resolution to at least that.

The left column (main content) allows for up to 500px wide images/photos. This also allows for plenty of space for copy without having it looked squished or stretched too far. The right column (sidebar) is roughly 250px wide and will allow for up to two 125px wide button ads (if we see fit to use them) side by side but allows for some decent sized copy such as links or little blurbs too.

The layout itself was created in Adobe Illustrator and then sliced apart and glued back together using good ol’ CSS. I do try my best to keep everything XHTML and CSS valid as that is just good practice. I find that sometimes I do have to edit the output of other people’s WordPress plugins to ensure it is XHTML and CSS valid but that’s another story.

So come by, read a few posts and say hi to both Robyn and I over at WestCoastAlpine.com!

The past few days I’ve been slowly reading the book Blog Blazers: 40 Top Bloggers Share Their Secrets (author: Stephane Grenier) which I won over at Derek Semmler’s blog and there is one point I would have to agree with in regards to being a serious blogger: Don’t rely on blog hosting services such as WordPress.com, Blogger, TypePad. Don’t get me wrong, there are some really good Blogger or WordPress.com sites out there and their authors are taken seriously but they are far and few. I have always found that to take it to the next level and be taken more seriously you need to look at being self-hosted.

So what does it take to become a more serious blogger and have people regard you as a blogger? Hopefully I can shed some light on the subject. I do consider myself a blogger though it definitely isn’t my full-time job. Perhaps one day I can blog full-time, wouldn’t that be cool?

Own Your Own Domain Name.

This is probably the most important requirement if you want people to take you more serious in regards to being a blogger. Domains are relatively cheap and can be bought within 5 minutes, the hard part is coming up with a name that is not already registered. For starters try registering your www.<FULL NAME>.com. Chances are it probably is not taken, though then again if your full name is fairly common it might be. Domain names are usually around the price of a cup of coffee at your favorite local coffee shop. I’ve paid as little as $5 for a domain, you just have to look for deals. Typically I find that a domain will cost you about $8 per year.  Yes you do save more if you register it for a longer period but your initial upfront cost will be a bit higher.

If you are going to niche blog (blog about a particular topic you are experienced in) then you might want to think about various keywords pertaining to that niche topic and use that as a domain name. Though in this day and age I am sure it will be hard to find good keywords to use in domains.

Just remember don’t make your domain name too long so people have a hard time typing it out or have the chance of spelling it wrong.

Find Yourself A Good Web Host.

Flickr Photo by Russ Garrett

Since you are going to be buying your own domain name you will need to find yourself a good web host. There are hundreds of thousands of webhosts out there. If you want a recommendation and are on a tight budget I would recommend looking at Bluefur.com. They have a web hosting package (Mini Unix) where you can pay less than $6/month for your very own spot of the Internet. Just be sure to use the Promotional Code: dynamicshark to receive 15% off their services. That’s what I did!

Which Blogging Platform or Engine To Use.

There are a few blogging platforms currently on the market and they can be free, though I (and others like me) will highly recommend you choose WordPress. WordPress.org is the self-hosted version of WordPress.com. Self-hosted means you need your own webhost to host the WordPress platform files. It is not as scary as you might think.

Not only can you set up WordPress in about 5 minutes (once you have your own webhost and domain name) but with the largest user community for a blogging platform there are many available plugins or add-ons which can add even more functionality to the already fairly full-featured blogging platform.

WordPress also allows you to choose from hundreds of free themes, or if you want to go with the more professional or unique look there are may WordPress theme designers out there as well. There are also semi-unique themes in which you can purchase for a small amount of money too. Semi-unique means that other people might have it but since you are paying a bit of money for it it will be less common. With 71 Million blogs out there or so, paying for a theme is not a bad way of going if you want to be a bit more unique and stand out from the crowd.

If you are worried about loosing your content, you can move all your old posts into your new WordPress self-hosted site with not too much trouble. You will at least have your posts and comments intact. Though you will start with a 0 PR (pagerank) in the eyes of the Search Engines. Normally you can do a 301 Redirect (this tells the Search Engines you’ve moved) but normally you do not get that option with shared hosted blog services.

In fact I can help you make the move from shared blog hosting with services such as WordPress.com, Blogger to your own self-hosted blog. If you are interesting be sure to get in touch with me via my Contact form, or even via Twitter.

Why Self-Hosted?

Alright so you’re asking yourself what is so great about being self-hosted? You don’t have to pay for monthly web hosting fees, or yearly domain renewals when you are on a shared blog service right?  Things just work too (most of the time).

Well being self-hosted allows to to take blogging to the next level. You can add a much more unique look and feel  to your blog. I also mentioned you can use plugins or add-ons right? Plugins (or sometimes called add-ons) allow you to add more functionality to the already full-featured blogging platform of WordPress. If it natively does not do it, I am sure there is a plugin out there to do it for you, if not I know people (like myself) who are able to code up the plugin to your needs.

If setup is correctly done, seldom do things break down. If they do they can be linked back usually to a badly coded plugin, or issues with your webhost. I have yet to experience any issues with my blogs (yes I do run more than 1) and all of them are running WordPress with various themes and plugins.

Are you looking to perhaps monetize your website? You know make some extra income? Most shared blog hosts will not allow you to monetize your site. You also have more customization in regards to advertisements and placement with a self-hosted blog.

What do I like (or love) about having a self-hosted blog? It’s mine! I’m not part of a company’s subdomain and I don’t have to follow their hosting rules. I follow my own rules, my own path and I do what I what, when I want to my blog. Since I am paying someone to host my site, if something goes wrong I have a better chance of it being fixed/corrected if they want my money, shared-hosted sites don’t care because they are not making money off of you. Right?

Being self-hosted is also part of the ‘branding’ process for yourself and your blog. I find it easier to tell someone I run www.tyleringram.com as opposed to a site like onyxdragun.wordpress.com. It is a similar rant of mine about people who conduct business via email with services such as Hotmail, or Yahoo. It just doesn’t look professional, especially if you are trying to be taken seriously and you do not own your own domain.

Domain names are cheap!

Now You’re Heading In The Right Direction.

So now that I have hope to have left you with some more information about being self-hosted and being seen as a more serious blogger, what could be next? Well the next part is to think about are some of the other aspects of your newly self-hosted site such as Themes, RSS Feeds and the more popular topic these days of Social Networking with such services as Twitter.

So stay tuned for the Part 2 of A Few Pointers For Being Taken More Seriously As A Blogger