What Makes a Good Blog Design?

Article by Vandelay Website Design. (7th October 2007)

As you surf through the internet you’re bound to come across certain designs that you love and some that you hate. But good blog design has a few unique elements when compared to the design of a traditional website. Here are ten things to keep in mind when designing your blog.

1. Content Should be the Focus.
A blog is nothing without its content. In order to keep your visitors focused on the content, it should be the focal point of the design. Distracting readers with excessive images and extra items can be counterproductive. For this reason, many of the best blog designs are fairly simple. Simplicity is common for blogs that want to emphasize the content.

2. Ease of Navigation.
Readers will come to your blog through search engines, links from other blogs, RSS feeds, social media sites, etc. Only a small percentage of your readers will enter your blog through the front page. This makes navigation even more important. The sidebar typically will include the majority of the navigation with links to categories, recent posts, and sometimes popular posts. Footers are sometimes also used for additional navigation.

3. Loads Quickly
Many of your visitors will have a very short attention span (this is really no different for blogs than traditional websites). In order to immediately catch their attention and avoid having them click off of your site, your pages should load quickly. This is especially important you plan to use social media to generate traffic. Some blogs are weighed down by excessive widgets that really hurt the page load speed. By keeping your blog clean and free of unnecessary items you can really cut down on the time it takes to load.

4. Content Start High on the Page.
This one is more of a personal opinion than a fact, but I believe that more of your visitors will pay attention to your articles if they start higher on the page. Make it as easy as you can for readers to get started with your posts, and then they’ll be more prone to scroll down for the rest. Again, this is especially important for traffic from social media sites. Those visitors will be less likely to scroll and more likely to click off of your blog.

5. Memorable for Visitors.
Most blog readers visit a number of blogs each day, and many of them will feature the same (free) themes. Make it easy for your visitors to remember your blog and standout from all of the free themes by customizing a theme yourself, or by having a blog theme professionally designed.

6. Not Overrun with Ads.
For most blogs making money with advertisements is a necessity. However, even in these cases it’s important to use advertisements effectively by not allowing them to take over the blog. Your readers will feel like they are not a priority to you if advertisements take center stage.

7. Compatibility with Multiple Browsers.
Your visitors will be using a number of different browsers, and if your blog is not functioning well in all of them you could be losing readers. Fortunately, 90% of your visitors will probably be using the leading 3 or 4 browsers. In order to know that you blog is functioning well you’ll need to test it in multiple browsers.

8. Good Use of Color.
The best designs effectively use color to improve the appearance. This can be done any number of ways, and sometimes it’s even a subtle aspect of design. The color combinations don’t have to jump out at readers, in fact, they actually need to make it easy for visitors to read the blog posts. If you’re looking for a good color combination, be sure to check out the resources listed in Find the Perfect Colors for Your Website.

9. Easy to Read.
This is really more about formatting the content of the blog than it is about a theme design. Keep in mind that most readers will be scanning your posts rather than reading them word-for-word. Use headlines, white space, lists, and bold text to make it easy for readers.

10. Important Items Should Be in Prominent Positions.
Effective design will draw the attention of readers to important items, such as subscription information. The most important links, images, etc. should generally go above the fold so that visitors will see them right away. Getting rid of unnecessary items will also help readers to focus on what’s important.


[get this widget]

The 90/10 Principle

By Steven R. Covey

Discover the 90/10 Principle.

It will change your life (at least the way you react to situations).
What is this principle? 10% of life is made up of what happens to you. 90% of life is decided by how you react.

What does this mean? We really have no control over 10% of what happens to us.
We cannot stop the car from breaking down. The plane will be late arriving, which throws our whole schedule off. A driver may cut us off in traffic.

We have no control over this 10%. The other 90% is different. You determine the other 90%.
How? ……….By your reaction.

You cannot control a red light. but you can control your reaction. Don't let people fool you; YOU can control how you react.

Let's use an example.
You are eating breakfast with your family. Your daughter knocks over a cup of coffee onto your business shirt. You have no control over what just happened.

What happens next will be determined by how you react.

You curse.

You harshly scold your daughter for knocking the cup over. She breaks down in tears. After scolding her, you turn to your spouse and criticize her for placing the cup too close to the edge of the table. A short verbal battle follows. You storm upstairs and change your shirt. Back downstairs, you find your daughter has been too busy crying to finish breakfast and get ready for school. She misses the bus.

Your spouse must leave immediately for work. You rush to the car and drive your daughter to school. Because you are late, you drive 40 miles an hour in a 30 mph speed limit.

After a 15-minute delay and throwing $60 traffic fine away, you arrive at school. Your daughter runs into the building without saying goodbye. After arriving at the office 20 minutes late, you find you forgot your briefcase. Your day has started terrible. As it continues, it seems to get worse and worse. You look forward to coming home.

When you arrive home, you find small wedge in your relationship with your spouse and daughter.

Why? …. Because of how you reacted in the morning.
Why did you have a bad day?
A) Did the coffee cause it?
B) Did your daughter cause it?
C) Did the policeman cause it?
D) Did you cause it?

The answer is "D".
You had no control over what happened with the coffee. How you reacted in those 5 seconds is what caused your bad day.

Here is what could have and should have happened.

Coffee splashes over you. Your daughter is about to cry. You gently say, "Its ok honey, you just need to be more careful next time". Grabbing a towel you rush upstairs. After grabbing a new shirt and your briefcase, you come back down in time to look through the window and see your child getting on the bus. She turns and waves. You arrive 5 minutes early and cheerfully greet the staff. Your boss comments on how good the day you are having.

Notice the difference?

Two different scenarios. Both started the same. Both ended different.
Why?

Because of how you REACTED.

You really do not have any control over 10% of what happens. The other 90% was determined by your reaction.

Here are some ways to apply the 90/10 principle. If someone says something negative about you, don't be a sponge. Let the attack roll off like water on glass. You don't have to let the negative comment affect you!

React properly and it will not ruin your day. A wrong reaction could result in losing a friend, being fired, getting stressed out etc.

How do you react if someone cuts you off in traffic? Do you lose your temper? Pound on the steering wheel? A friend of mine had the steering wheel fall off) Do you curse? Does your blood pressure skyrocket? Do you try and bump them?

WHO CARES if you arrive ten seconds later at work? Why let the cars ruin your drive?
Remember the 90/10 principle, and do not worry about it.

You are told you lost your job.

Why lose sleep and get irritated? It will work out. Use your worrying energy and time into finding another job.

The plane is late; it is going to mangle your schedule for the day. Why take outpour frustration on the flight attendant? She has no control over what is going on.

Use your time to study, get to know the other passenger. Why get stressed out? It will just make things worse.

Now you know the 90-10 principle. Apply it and you will be amazed at the results. You will lose nothing if you try it. The 90-10 principle is incredible. Very few know and apply this principle.
The result?

Millions of people are suffering from undeserved stress, trials, problems and heartache. We all must understand and apply the 90/10 principle.

It CAN change your life!!!
Enjoy….

[get this widget]

War Strategy!!

[get this widget]

SALUTE...!!! Hugo Chavez

On 25th January, our class has done their group tasks on Landmark Speech
Well this post actually for give comments on Hugo Chavez speech delivered by Dexter..

Hmm, let's see... for Hugo's group we would like to say

1. Good job


2. Ok lah


3. Welldone

Personally my comment on Hugo is :

I salute him for his bravery on calling George W. Bush as EL-DIABLO, which means The Devil, Why? because if you notice where the speech being delivered its in UN meeting... wow, i mean WOW.. come on! how many person in this world that directly oppose BUSH in terms of his goverment and leadership skills especially when you are the President for one country also... Hmm if you not belive me better watch this http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VPQO7-LE0Gs&feature=related

• I also like him because he oppose the attack on my fellow Muslim country (Iraq).. Hugo called address BUSH as Mr. Danger who act cowardly and think like a donkey... Well, well... SALUTE! why? because he oppose US attack on Iraq when the other Muslim country not even make a sound or worry about it... Here you better watch it: www.youtube.com/watch?v=TI0_VzFxTzs

• However, still no one is perfect... Unfortunatelly, sometimes Hugo are too direct and too many repetition while the point is clear enough for the audience, so its sound for me like not professionally handle his position as President of Venezuela. It is good to oppose evil, it is good to oppose criminals, but it is even better when you can do it with ethical and professionality. Why? because personally i will say YES Bush is wrong, but guess what if the President of US its some one else, well i guess the situation will not much be different, because even Bush is control with other person/ group of authority that play their role behind the screen, so as a result we can only blame Bush, yes He is ignorance but to be fair we have to blame the institution behind that also.. well if we talking about conspiracy theory its gonna be looooooooooonnnnnng stroy, so that's all from me...

To know more about Hugo Chaves you can read this article

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hugo_Ch%C3%A1vez

and also

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticism_of_Hugo_Ch%C3%A1vez

Thank you for reading!!

[get this widget]

4th-LeBonOn-NAsRA-To RefLect and To Act...

Until now, we've been through the 4th presentation done by Nasra.. she was talked about Lebanon, well personally i always think that Lebanon is under Turkish government, hehehe... its proven that i'm only have a lil' bit knowledge about what happen in the world, but Thanks to Nasrah, she able to fix my ignorance and give me new information.
Hmm.. about her presentation, i hope next time she will be more aware of the uses of the technology, since the computer in the class using power point version '97 but her data made by version 2007... so things like this we should noticed before and make a lil' bit of PLAN B or PLAN C or whatever Plan...

Anyway, I'm always asked to my self, since we learn about the issues and conflicts that happen to the Muslim country, Why most of the Muslim country are poor or we can say "Developing Country"? What makes so diffrent between the Developing Country (Low Income) and Developed Country (High Income)?

Some says:
Depends to the Age of that country!
but, look at Egypt and India which still in the category of Developing Country although they civilization started since more than 2000 year ago. In the mean time, Singapore, Canada, Australia, New Zealand- which consider as Young Country (not more than 150 year) has become one of the Advanced (Developed) Country in the world.

Depends on the Natural Resources!
The existence of the natural resource cannot determine whether a country will be poor or rich.
Japan for instance, they had very limited teritory or land area, 80% of the land are covered by mountains which not enough for the agriculture activities. However, Japan manage to become one of the largest economies in the world. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economy_of_Japan)

Moreover, if we talk about Swiss, a country which don't have enough chocolate plantations because only 11% of the land that can be used for agriculture but labeled by others as the best chocolates producer.Swiss is able to produce milk with the finest quality (Nestle- one of the largest food companies in the world) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nestle

Conclusion:
So what makes a significant diffrences between Developed and Developing Country.
Hmm... Every executive and businessman from Developed Country has discussed these matters with their fellow business partners from Developing Country. They had agreed that there was no significant diffrences in terms of Intelligence, Skin Color or Race.
If tou talk about race, the imigrant that usually claimed to be unproductive in their original country are turn into very productive and considered as one of the important human resources in the Developing Country like Europe.

So what is the problem?
the diffrences are in term of the ATTITUDE of its own people which has formed through the year by Culture and Education. according to the analysis, the majority of people in Developed Country are obey the Basic Principals of Live, such as:

1. Ethics
2. Honesty and Integrity
3. Responsibility
4. Respect and Obey the Law and Regulations
5. Respect other people's rights
6. Love their Job
7. Like to invest and saved money
8. Hardworking
9. Punctual

In the poor country only a few minority of a group of people who willing to follow and perform the Basic Pricipal of Live... Think about it, because the Majority of the Poor Country are Muslim Country, while Islam has the most complete guides book of Moral and Ethics (Akhlaq/ ATTITUDE) known as Al-Quran...

So, definetly its really easy if we looking for someone to be blame, Just look at the mirror and Think...

[get this widget]