UPDATED: 02/14/07
You might or might not have noticed the changes in some parts of my blog so I’m gonna talk about it in detail, the parts that I’ve updated, changed and tweaked.
First stop is my About page. This one got it’s much needed and long overdue update. You see, I have a difficult time writing stuff or talking about myself. Since I started my blog, I’ve never had the chance or motivation to write something for this particular page.
A few days back, as I was sitting in front of the computer, I don’t know what got into me but all of a sudden, I decided to edit my About page. As soon as I started typing, it all just flowed so smoothly and what you see now is what I accomplished that day. It’s not that much but it’s way, way better than my previous one. I might just add a few more things one of these days.
Next thing I did was to tweak my sidebar. If you can see, not all sidebar elements show up in every page. Some only appear in the index page and others in posts or pages. Some of you guys might have already done this with your blog but it just hit me the other day when I was looking at my theme. I noticed how it displays the RSS feeds and the “share this post” buttons. I hope you know what I’m talking about. Anyways, I got to work and started looking the sidebar code. I found out that it was using the “If, Else and Else If” statements. After several minutes, I figured out everything and then implemented it on my blog.
One of the newest plugins I installed is the MyAvatars plugin which I used to replace the Gravatar plugin. I decided to replace it because I’ve been wanting to change my avatar but Gravatar has been closed to users for a long time because it was under development. MyAvatars uses the avatar from MyBlogLog. So if you’re part of the MyBlogLog community your avatar would show in the comments you leave on my posts.
Cruise was the first to comment about this next one, my favicon. Previously, I was using the my theme’s favicon. I thought that it would be better to have a unique favicon for my blog and what better way than to use my own picture, right? So I created one online using this site. You can also create one here.
I have been trying to find a way to improve how the links were displayed in my Links page. Before I had all links in one long column. I know that it could be a hassle for visitors to go all the way down just to go through the list. Thank goodness for the IMP Links plugin. If you take a look at my new Links page, you’ll see that the links are nicely and neatly arranged into two columns. You can also edit the IMP Links’ css to make it fit to your theme or preference. To go with the new look, I also created new categories and assigned each link to the different categories.
Last but not least, I installed the Top Commentators plugin and it appears in the sidebar everytime you read a post. It’s quite easy to customize and install. You can choose whether to display the top commentators on a daily, monthly or yearly period. Mine is configured to display the all-time top commentators. You can also choose whether or not to link the commentator’s name to their website. You filter out users and urls that you don’t want to be included in the list. I filtered out myself from the list so it would only show comments from you guys.
There ya go. That’s the most recent updates or changes that I’ve done to my blog. If you have any questions regarding the usage, implementation or need help in installing the mentioned plugins, just send me a message and I’ll do my best to help you.
UPDATE:
I’ve just fixed the comment avatars. I edited and configured the MyAvatar plugin so that it would also fetch the ones from Gravatar.com. Now, comments can display both avatars for both MyBlogLog and Gravatar.
Btw, the plugin looks up Gravatar first so if you’r e registered with both, your Gravatar image will be the one displayed. Next, I’ll try to figure out how to fetch the ones from WordPress.com accounts.
[image source: https://www.flickr.com/photos/clement127/]
@hoop – Hehe..no, my blog is active even if it’s not V-day! :D
Jayp’s, all this activity on your blog, dala ba yan ng Valentine’s? *kidding*
@dimaks – Yeah, that’s the problem with WP.com accounts, your hands are tied and customization is limited.
I do my best. Thanks! :)
@ade – Mine seems to update fine. Probably they’ve fixed the bug in this later version. Why don’t you try installing it again?
@Euri – Thanks! :)
Well, I did those updating and stuff in like a week’s time not in one day. Hehe :D
How i wish top commentators can be used in wp.com free accounts :D poor us :)
your layout is awesome man, so neat! cheers!
Sure, you may use the banner I made. :)
Dang. Those are alot of updates. :) I wish I get more time to update mine as well. :)
I used to have top commentators, but it doesn’t seem to update nicely for me.
@jhay – Thanks! I was supposed to post this last night but I didn’t have much time coz I was so sleepy already. Yeah, I read about it somewhere in one of your recent posts.
2 weeks? That’s quite a long time. I guess I’m not alone then. Hehe :D
A nice rundown of the neat stuff in your blog. I have something similar in my drafts list, just need some free time to actually sit down and work on it to publishing.
Don’t fret about writing the About Me page, you’re not alone in finding it difficult to write. It took me 2 weeks to finish mine. ;)