A website’s “visual appeal” is one of the most important factors when it comes to first impressions. Visitors make nearly instantaneous judgments that influence their decision on whether to stay and the site or bounce out of it right away.

When it comes to creating aesthetically appealing websites, you might be interested in taking a look at Wix. If you haven’t heard of Wix.com yet, let me introduce you: it’s a powerful Flash website builder that enables you to create and publish your own stunning custom Flash websites, mini-sites and other Flash content for free. More and more bloggers have also come to understand the importance of a well designed site. Many are now using Wix to add more dynamic designs into their blogs and also, to create their own custom standalone websites into which they add their RSS feeds. The connection between Wix and Bloggers couldn’t be more natural.

Similar to the Wordpress platform, Wix offers a powerful free web design solution. Read more

CONTEST OVER 

WordPress is celebrating its 5th birthday today. I am really happy to see the continued support by the creators and the community for WordPress. WordPress has come a long way and has become the most popular blogging CMS in the world. Bloggers are getting together all over the world to celebrate this day with fellow WordPress bloggers. One of the open invitation parties is being held in San Francisco, California and if you live there, make sure to attend it :- Details here

To celebrate this event on Blog Oh! Blog, I am holding a contest, where I will be giving out 5 premium themes to 5 lucky winners. The premium themes can be from Blog Oh! Blog or any other website that offers premium themes (any theme with a single-user license). To participate, all you have to do is blog about this contest on your blog and leave a comment in this entry. The 5 winners will be selected randomly from the contestants. After you win, you can make a choice for your prize theme and I will buy it for you if its from another website or give it to you for free, if its from Blog Oh! Blog. Want more?

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The most static thing in this world is the term “change”. Why do I say so? That’s because things around us are changing constantly and thus, change is constant. With this note, let me continue with today’s article.

If you are looking for a second opinion or just some reasons to get your blog redesigned, you must read on. Getting a new design definitely has its own benefits. Some people even go to the extent that they change their blog template very regularly to keep things fresh. That is not really necessary but let me explain the reasons why you should redesign your blog at least once in a blue moon (even if its for experimental purposes).

Adding Extras

There is no such thing as a perfect theme for your blog. A redesign gives you the opportunity to extend the functionality of your blog by allowing those extra features that you always wanted. When making the new layout, you can create space for any additional components that have been missing from your blog so far. For example, Social Bookmarking Buttons, Feed Subscription Form, Subscriber Stats, Footer Content, RSS Buttons, Portfolio Showcase, Chat Window, Tags etc. While redesigning your blog, you will also discover new stuff that your competitor has been using for a long time.

Rearranging your Blog

Over the time, your blog might get cluttered just like your living room if its not cleaned regularly. You can remove the unnecessary elements that you don’t use anymore or shift them below the fold to make space for more relevant components that you want to add to your blog. A makeover also lets you focus on those parts of your blog that are getting neglected and not getting enough exposure.

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All right boys & girls! Here comes the moment to announce the winner of the PlayStation 3 contest. I am sure every one who has participated in this contest is waiting to hear the winner’s name. It was a great contest and I really wished that all of you could win since you guys participated so well, but hey, there can only be a single winner! So, here it is…

A total of 45 bloggers had participated in the contest (I know that is a small number but it definitely gives the winner a better chance ). The winner has been chosen through a lucky draw by putting slips for all the blog names in a box and choosing one among them. Anyway, I am happy to declare Andy from http://blogs.qualitybusinesslinks.com as the winner of this contest.

Congratulations Andy! You just became the proud owner of a PlayStation III + a free PS3 game of your choice!

So, hurry up and forward me your shipping address so that I can arrange for the console to be shipped out to you. Also, let me know which game will you like to have with the console system. You can also contact me through the contact page of Blog Oh! Blog.

For all those people, who did not win this time, do NOT lose heart! Blog Oh! Blog will be coming out with a lot more exciting and wonderful contests. I am really grateful to all you cool people to review Blog Oh! Blog from your blogs. To add a little excitement, the next contest will feature a Macbook worth $2,000. I will highly recommend all of you to subscribe to my feed so that you can know when the contest is up and running.

Congratulations once again to Andy for winning this Bumper Contest!

Do you really want to intoxicate people with the beauty of your blog ? Well, first you have to intoxicate your blog with this new WordPress theme from Blog Oh! Blog - Blue Weed. This is the latest offering from me to all you WordPress users. The theme has a clean and crisp look with light blue colors fit for almost any blog. Blue Weed is Gravatar-ready, WP2.5 Gallery-ready, Widget-ready, and includes tabbed sections for easy access to your content.

The theme has been tested both in Internet Explorer and Firefox with no visible problems.

Test Run | Download

Please leave a comment if you decide to use it or not

Aren’t you tired of logging into your FTP control panel or using your FTP client to upload your plugin files whenever you want to install a new plugin?

Well, I definitely was getting very tired, so I went ahead and found this really cool solution. Of course, this is another plugin that you have to install using your FTP, but this will be the very last time that you use the FTP. The plugin is called “Plugin Central” and it actually works by allowing you to install other plugins directly through your WordPress dashboard.

After you activate the Plugin Central, you will find an additional panel in your WordPress dashboard that will list some of your already installed plugins, and also giving you an option to update them to the latest versions. Plugin Central lets you update your existing plugins one by one or all at a time.

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I know that many of you readers come here, read what you want to, take what you want to, do what you want to without me knowing that you ever came here! So, if you have been a silent reader of my blog and want to know the benefits of leaving comments on a blog’s posts, let me give you some tips on why you should be doing it.

1. Do you know me?

If you regularly leave comments on a particular blog, it will make the blog owner recognize you and also your website. When you do this on multiple blogs, you will be socially recognized in the blogging community. Also, most of the blogs nowadays use Gravatars which can help in branding and getting some popularity for your own blog. I think that leaving comments on popular blogs is the best way to be known around the Internet.

2. Building Community

A community is built around people and their views. Leaving comments is a way of showing that you care and want to share your opinion with others including the owner of the blog. The comments can be a suggestion, feedback, appreciation or even criticism. They are good as long as they are not spammy or abusive. So, even if you are just stopping by, try to make that little effort of writing a comment, even if its just a line.

3. Getting What you Want

You should leave a comment because that’s the only way the blog owner can judge what the reader/customers want without getting a written e-mail or any other form of communication.

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If you have a Google Analytics account, you must have seen that Google uses slightly rounded edges in the menu buttons on the left. See the picture below :-

Today, I will teach you how to give these nifty little rounded edges to your menu. Given below is the CSS code. This goes into the head section of your HTML file. :-

CSS

<style>
ul {
width:180px;
list-style-type:none;
margin:0 auto;
padding:0;
}

li a:hover span {
border-color:#aaa;
background-color:#ddd;
}
</style>

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I have been a PC gamer for the past fifteen years. I play a lot of games on my PC in my free time, not only to unwind, but also to satiate the hardcore gamer inside me. Off lately, I have been following many gaming forums and websites which are talking about the downfall of the PC gaming scene because of the increasing piracy of the games. This fact is really disturbing for me as I have been an avid gamer and do not want to lose one of my most passionate hobbies.

The downfall is evident from the fact that most of the popular game titles are being released for the consoles even before they make their appearance on the PC, or even a declaration is made that they will be available for the PC. Popular games like GTA (Grand Theft Auto) which were exclusive for the PC in the past years, are now being launched for the consoles first (take the example of the latest GTA IV which has been already released for PS3 and XBOX360) rather than the PC. The foremost reason would be the falling sales figures of the PC titles and the rapid increase in the piracy of games. And because of this reason, major game publishers are switching to the consoles arena where the piracy element is much less. Although some companies are adopting new methods for game distribution like Valve which sells their titles through their online distributor (Steam) which allows you to download all the game content after you have purchased it online. Some game publishers also use strict copy-protection techniques, but then again, these methods install extra software into your computers and totally kill the experience for the gamers.

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The most successful free WordPress theme on Blog Oh! Blog till date has been Bob V2.0 and this is visible by the number of comments and trackbacks that people have left for that theme.

Following on those lines, I am releasing the 3rd version of the Bob theme called BobV3, but this one does not come for free like the previous versions. This will be a Premium WordPress theme priced at $89.99. I know that a lot of people like BobV2.0 and will not really mind spending some money to upgrade their themes and take their blogs to the next level.

Test Run BobV3 | Buy BobV3

Design & Layout

BobV3 has a very unique layout which cannot be found anywhere on the Internet. The front page of the blog (which usually is set to display ten entries at a time) has been divided into different sections which will let you display all your posts without having the user to scroll down the page. This has been accomplished by using excerpts and the accordion feature of the Mootools JavaScript library. So if you have your blog’s front page set to show ten blog entries, you will see the first entry in full, next two entries in excerpts and the last seven entries in the form of an accordion. This accordion has also been integrated with the first entry so you have only one full post open at a time. This will allow your readers to browse your lengthy entries without any hassles by expanding and collapsing the entry titles.

The archives and the search page have also been styled for maximum ease to find information on your blog.

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