Archive for the ‘Reviews’ Category


A friend has started an online store called Flaming Stock where you can buy gadgets and gifts at special prices due to the unique way in which he has set up the store.
He buys a bulk amount of a single item and only sells that product at a discount until stock runs out, doing it like this means he can offer something like the current item, a Wireless bathroom speaker system for a tidy 21.99 which includes postage (UK only)

I think it’s a pretty novel concept and said I’d give his site a mention here, take a look and you might find something cool at a bargain price!

Popularity: 4% [?]

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I bought a book recently after seeing it mentioned in the WP dashboard news items, it’s called Wordpress Theme Design by Tessa Blakeley Silver and although a lot of the information regarding the functions of wordpress can be found at the codex, the book gives you so much more like the process gone through to design a theme from scratch.

I do quite a lot of sites in wordpress now and find it much easier to provide a client with a website that can be updated so easily, a few plugins here and there and you can provide a website that does all and more that’s needed.

Usually I get a standard theme and cut it up a bit and change the css to give me my site, or create in photoshop and send off for wordpressing but lately due to some more custom design requests I’ve received and the always dependable mistakes that freelancers can make I have wanted to do the whole thing myself from scratch..

I’ve downloaded a tutorial before about WP theme design from small potato before it was taken over and that was pretty darn useful but was made a little while ago so it wasn’t 2.5 specific.

That’s why I like what Tessa has put her book, it takes you step by step through the process of creating a non-blog wordpress blog, from sketch to WP core code. It’s made a big difference to my initial prototyping of concept sites and has really opened my eyes to what you can do with a bit of manipulation of the wordpress template tags. I’m even working on a magazine style front page for here so I can have a featured post for contests that stays up while it’s open for entries as well as excerpts to the regular posts..

You can buy the book printed or get it as pdf for a bit cheaper (I printed mine out from pdf on someone elses printer lol!) at packet publishing

Popularity: 4% [?]

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Here I am looking at the new post screen on wordpress! yey. oh how I missed your light blue tones :-)

It’s funny, I’ve been busier and had more work to do over the past weeks and months than ever before but I don’t feel as half as stressed as I used to. It must be the nice weather or I might be (shock!) getting used to the workload!

I took on a charity website job last week and completed the final touches this morning, it’s for the Newtown Santa Run in 2008 which is a record breaking gathering of people dressed as Santa who run a few miles to raise money for good causes. It’s held every year in Newtown, Powys and there’s oodles of prizes to be won and lots of money to raise for charity. Visit the Newtown Santa Run website and see what they get up to..

I promised to do a few links here and there to get it noticed so you might notice it popping up here or there until google indexes it properly…

Popularity: 4% [?]

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http://www.jamieharrop.com is a very informative blog with some excellent resources, tips and articles on how to improve your blog/business/life. Check out his article on how to get more blog comments

http://wendyknits.net/ is one for the knitters among you (and my missus!). This is a site that attracts an awful lot of comments so it’s really nice to see it using commentluv :-)

http://www.empiredotcom.com is an excellent resource site for those wanting to make a bit of money from blogging. Great advice too, check out his post about the advantages of using CommentLuv

http://keithjameslock.com/ is a great affiliate marketing tips blog with good original articles. He wrote a great piece on how to take advantage of CommentLuv for targeted traffic. Another article to take note of is this video tutorial for your first time using Google analytics.

CommentLuv has been updated to 1.92 now, be sure to get the latest version and install it today!

Popularity: 4% [?]

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This weeks round of CommentLuvvers….

http://slyvisions.com/ is a nice looking blog with some interesting unique articles on how to make a bit of money with your blog and the interwebs. I love his slyguy simpson like motif, check it out!

http://www.caroline-middlebrook.com/blog/ is one of those blogs that makes me feel slightly inadequate due to the fact that Caroline has an absolute tonne of quality content on her site and is an experienced, talented and prolific writer. Just a few minutes browsing her site will increase your bIQ (blog intelligence quotient) and after you get over the feeling of “how could I possibly get to this level”, you’ll go deeper and deeper into her articles and come out feeling inspired to put just a little bit more effort into your writing. Check out one of her most popular posts about using CSS galleries for backlinks and trackbacks

http://bloggrrl.com/This is a site I have browsed by quite a few times and I’m really pleased to see it is now using CommentLuv to great effect. You can read some great stumbleworthy posts such as 8 Signs that you masturbate too much and 8 ways you can spot a real jerk which is a follow up to 8 ways to spot a psycho woman. Check her out!

http://hotfessional.com/ Is a great no-holds-barred, and funny-as-fok site from a “female executive in a mans world”. You can read real laugh out loud posts such as working from home day 1 - “Spending 2 hours trying to hook up a printer to your laptop that has no ink in it sucks. donkey. balls.”. There’s even poetry and a good haiku here and there. A blog that has been bookmarked on my work computer for brightening up the otherwise cloudy days.. definitely my current favourite blog. I must have spent hours on there today, one of the very very few blogs that I have clicked through to the next page after reading the whole first page.

Popularity: 4% [?]

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