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

You are using a neat WordPress theme with an image header but want to have multiple images that you can randomize on your blog? Here is how to go about it…

STEP 1 - Editing Images

Make all your header images that you want to randomize of the same size (dimensions) and format. For example, if you have GIF images then all should be of the same extension. I hope you get the point.

STEP 2 - Naming Images

All the names of your header images should follow a similar pattern. Here is an example we will use :-

blogtop-1.gif
blogtop-2.gif
blogtop-3.gif
blogtop-4.gif

We do this because when writing the code, we will try to randomize the number part (logically, randomization is done by numbers in any programming language) and keep the text part similar for all.

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I am thankful to Google because it has made the Internet a better place for all of us by releasing a number of very useful utilities in the past few years. Almost all of us use Google.com for their every day search on the Internet, and also other Google services like Gmail, Gtalk, Orkut etc. But there are some Google products that you might have forgotten about or might not be aware of. Here is a list of those not-so-popular tools that can definitely make your life easier :-

- Google Hot Trends (May 2007)

I highly recommend this tool if you are a webmaster and looking for hot topics and keywords that people are searching for in their daily lives. This can even help you as a blogger to choose the most current topic in your niche to write on. The tool lists all the hot trends by date and its very easy to switch between dates as per the calendar. This Google product is still in the Labs (experimental phase), but I have been using it for a long time now.

- Google SketchUp (January 2007)

Google SketchUp is a 3D (3-dimensional) modeling program designed for professionals to use in their every day projects. SketchUp may also be used to design buildings to be displayed on Google Earth (another application from Google that allows you to view satellite maps of the earth). SketchUp has been developed to be more intuitive, flexible, and easier to use than other 3D modeling programs like 3D Studio Max, MAYA etc. which are often difficult to learn for an average user. Several features allow designers to play with their designs, unlike other 3D CAD programs.

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I just found this really nice flash game which tests your concentration skills. You have to move your mouse cursor slowly without touching the edges and get to the finishing point. The game has various levels and if you make through all of them, consider yourself a real player So, how steady is your hand?

I am proud to release another free WordPress theme called “AdsPress“. The theme is ready to use with Google Adsense and the advertisement blocks are perfectly placed (tested & tried) for giving you the maximum revenue out of your websites.

This is a widgetized, gravatar ready, 2-column theme with inbuilt WordPress 2.5 gallery optimization. I am sure that people looking to benefit from Google’s Adsense publisher program will find this WordPress theme useful for the purpose. I have also included the logo.psd file for modifying the logo image in the theme folder.

The adsense codes are included as images for the theme demo, but you can modify the adsense files and include your own adsense code to show your advertisements.

AdsPress is compatible with WordPress 2.5 and has been tested with Firefox and Internet Explorer.

Test Run | Download

Please give your comments to make this effort worthwhile for me

Every blogger has got two basic choices when building his own blog— Either he can sign up for a hosted solution, or he can install a serve-it-yourself solution and take care of it on your own. Signing up for a hosted solution is generally easier (especially if you don’t already have your own website and you’re not terribly interested in jumping through a hoop or two to get one), while installing a serve-it-yourself solution can be more powerful.

Popular hosted blogging CMS (Content Management Systems) include Blogger.com, Typepad.com, Vox.com, Squarespace.com, and others. With these services, you simply access the site, go through a registration process and, in some cases, enter your payment information to cover the monthly fee. (Some are free, some require payment.) These are hosted services - somebody else worries about the Internet server, setting up the Web addresses and all that sort of stuff. You’re given a URL for your site (mostly a sub-domain), some online tools for editing your blog (and, perhaps, for editing the template and making some minor changes to the functionality), and you’re ready to go. With a serve-it-yourself CMS (like WordPress) you’ll need to do a little legwork. First, you’ll need some sort of web hosting account from an Internet Service Provider. You might already have something along those lines from the Internet Service Provider that you use for Internet access, or you may need to shop for a web hosting account that will support the specifications of your blogging software.

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CONTEST OVER

Its contest time guys! Woo Hoo!

I have not yet moved from a PlayStation 2 to a PlayStation 3 myself, but I am offering a golden chance to all my blog readers to win a brand new Sony PlayStation 3 plus a free PS3 video game of your choice. For a long time, I had been thinking of running this contest on Blog Oh! Blog but didn’t get a chance to make the post. I would also like to mention that this contest is not being sponsored by anyone..This is directly from me to all of you So here it is, finally!

The Playstation 3 console worth $399.99 ships with the following features as per Amazon.com :-

* Internal 40GB HDD for storing your games, music, and photos
* Built-in Blu-ray player
* Cell Broadband Engine advanced microprocessor
* SIXAXIS wireless controller (very cool!)
* Screen sizes supported : 480i, 480p, 720p, 1080i, 1080p
* Memory : 256MB XDR Main RAM, 256MB GDDR3 VRAM

Apart from the PS3 console, I will also give the winner an opportunity to choose any PS3 video game (already launched or order a pre-release) which should easily be worth $60 (most new titles that ship out are priced at $59.99). So, you will have something to play on your new console as soon as you win it!

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If you are new to WordPress and looking for reasons to use WordPress as a CMS (content management system) in your new website, let me give you some.

Open Source Software

WordPress is an Open Source software which allows it to be used free of cost. You can use it on any kind of personal or commercial website without have to pay a single dime for it. It is built on PHP/MySQL (which is again Open Source) and licensed under GPL.

User Friendly

You don’t really have to be experienced to use WordPress on your website. Nowadays most of the hosting companies provide the ability to install WordPress on your site at a single click of the mouse. The administration section is easy to navigate and its even easy to add articles/content to your website.

Themes Support

You will never run short of templates when using WordPress. If you don’t like the themes that come with the default installation of WordPress, you can hunt on the Internet and you will find thousands of free themes that you can download and use for your website. There are themes which can even make your website look like a regular site instead of a blog.

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If you are a WordPress enthusiast and have been following the latest news, you will know that Small Potato (Wpdesigner.com) recently sold his blog for $65,000 to some Polish guy called Pawel Ciszewski. It is really amazing that the blog was sold for that much money even when it was not earning any substantial revenue. But anyway, I feel that SP (Small Potato) has made a wrong choice by selecting someone who is not related to the WordPress field and the blog is in jeopardy now. I guess SP was in a hurry to pack his bags for his tours.

There has been no news posted since March 28, 2008 on the blog which is making the blog readers impatient and many have already unsubscribed from the blog. Pawel who is the new owner, promised the blog readers that he is hunting for theme designers and other staff who will run the blog. But its very ironical that there has been no update after that point. According to some readers’ research, Pawel Ciszewski runs some online casino sites. So, this really shows how much he will care about the reputed blog which was taken to a high level by SP. But SP, shame on you… your baby is dying out there and no one really cares.

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Are you ready to make a statement with your blog ? Well, the new free WordPress theme from Blog Oh! Blog lets you do just that and more

I am happy to release a new WordPress theme for all you hardcore bloggers called the “Statement”. The theme features a nice and clean look with two sidebars on the right and a tabbed section (available in many premium themes nowadays) for recent posts, comments and archives. I am sure that this theme will appeal to people running professional services on their blog and catering to well-educated audience, like authors, education services, book blogs, science blogs, publishers etc. I am also providing the PSD for the logo (in the theme zip) which you can use to change the logo image for the theme. The theme is WordPress 2.5 compatible and is also widget-ready.

Test Run | Download

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