Justin Germino Ramblings

It is odd when people ask me what I think of their blog and the quality of their content, my first gut reaction is why would they care?  I am just a part time blogger who does this as a hobby, my opinion is irrelevant really.  If you are happy with it, and you are enjoying it then my philosophy would be not to care what other people think. 

In most cases it is just my professional opinion, probably whether I think their content is high quality, or the subject they write about is good, or maybe just whether or not I enjoy their content.  Truth is, blogging is like any writing medium, it is an art form of expression, unlike journalism blogging gives you the freedom to write however you want, say whatever you want, be opinionated, and even write sloppy and in slang if that is your online style and shtick.  Sure there are basic grammar rules and English sentence structures to be used, but in general you can be fairly flexible.

You want to know what I think of you as a blogger, If you are a blogger you are a peer, plain and simple.  You are expressing and sharing your views with others in an attempt to either help them with their problems, voice your own opinions just for the sake of it, or maybe for some form of therapeutic benefit or maybe you are trying to carve out a space online to earn a little extra online.  Either way I wish you luck, as long as you are ethical, honest, and respectful then you are respected in my book and I think you are cool.

Now, there is a lot of room online for all sorts of content and even though some content may not be my cup of tea, there is room for almost any of it provided it isn’t pure violent, offensive, hate speech or other content.  I truly believe in the freedom of expression and freedom of speech, but I don’t believe your freedom of speech but like I read somewhere, freedom to say anything you want doesn’t make you immune to repercussions for libel or hate speech which can carry penalties beyond just reputation and being labeled.  Use your freedom of speech wisely and be respectful, or if you are trying to be the blogging equivalent of a shock jock, then you are welcome to do your thing, it just isn’t my cup of tea.

Truth is I get a lot of requests from people on what I think of their blog, and most of it I assume is about cosmetics of the theme, logo, style, layout some of it about content.  I am always honest and respectful, whether I think a logo is a little too blurry, or there could be less clutter in a sidebar or if I think there could be more substance to the content.  I do always however present my opinion respectfully and even more respect that they would even ask for my opinion, because if you are actually asking my opinion then for some reason you care what I think. 

Good for you for caring, but no matter what always know that as long as you are happy with your blog and what you are writing, that is all that matters.

WordPress is arguably the most popular open source blogging platform. The fact that it is open source means that any developer or designer has the leeway to come up with custom applications, themes, or plugins that can be integrated with the core WordPress system and functionalities. Whether you want to develop your own theme for the custom look and feel of your blog or you want to commercialize your design skills and develop WordPress themes for sale grasping the following tips to create an effective WordPress design theme will enable you to assemble compelling themes towards the success of your bigger design objective.

The first step in the process of creating an effective WordPress theme is to understand what a theme is particularly in the context of WordPress. A theme can be defined as the collective of all elements that render the look and feel of a website or blog. This entails all the components (images, layout and styling) of the graphic interface.

There are many free themes for WordPress but beautiful and aesthetically pleasing premium themes come at a price. This makes the exercise of learning how to build effective WordPress themes a worthy endeavor.

Here are some principles to consider before you build your WordPress theme. You need to be able to answer these questions in order to build an effective WordPress theme;

• What is the primary purpose of your blog?
• What are your preferred look and feel preferences (layout styles and colors, etc)?
• What do you want to achieve with your theme?

Before you get to the flesh and bones of building a WordPress theme you need to consider the primary purpose of your blog. If you want to set up an e-commerce blog for example you need to design a theme that will captivate visitors while presenting your product/service calls to purchase in an effective and non obstructive way. If on the other end you want to set up a blog for content publishing then you will make different styling and layout decisions for your WordPress theme. The most important considerable in developing a WordPress theme is the primary purpose of your blog. The theme determines where various components of the site are positioned and how they are laid out. The key objective of building a theme is to give optimal prominence to the most important components of the website or blog such as sign up forms, “Buy Now” calls to action, text, images, videos etc.

Make sure the theme is Search Engine Optimized

In designing your WordPress theme you need to take into cognizance that success in the web is not just about setting up an impressive website. A powerful WordPress blog with a premium theme will not yield much if there is no traffic coming to it. To ensure that there is profitable organic traffic coming to your blog you need to ensure that your theme is search engine optimized. The theme should have features and provisions for meta tags, headings and properly titled “alt” tags for images. The entire theme must be simple and user friendly enough to ensure content visibility to search engines. Once you have nailed it on template design other SEO strategies will be easy to implement.

Why invest in a WP theme

As mentioned earlier success online requires a collective of well thought out efforts. Competition in the cyber landscape is very stiff and users have a very short attention span. This means that every means with which website visitors can be reached must be optimized for effective engagement. This is why you should invest in a WordPress theme. If the theme of your blog is dull and lackluster your web pages will experience a high bounce rate. A high bounce rate means that many visitors come to your website and leave the moment they arrive because there is nothing to get and retain their attention. While developing your own WordPress theme make sure you develop a captivating ad non cluttered design that can retain your visitors with the prospect of converting their activity into sales or responses to whatever calls to action you have placed on your pages.

Installing your WordPress Theme

Once your WordPress theme has been completed you have two options of uploading your theme to your WordPress blog. The first option is to us your WP admin portal to install the new theme following the install theme feature under the admin control panel. The second method involves uploading the template files manually through file transfer protocol (FTP). Having done this you still need to login to your WP admin and set your preferred theme as the default theme under the appearances settings. Follow these and other tips to ensure you get your WordPress theme building right from the word go.

Author Bio:

Kimo Rawlins is an expert in the web hosting niche for over 8 years, his goal is to share as much information and educate all his readers. if you are new to the hosting industry i highly recommend that you read his blog at http://www.web-hosting-reviews.info

Sure you could buy a great Samsung LED SmartTV from an online retailer like The Good Guys but there are accessories people may consider when purchasing a thin flat panel Smart TV.  Some of those center around media players, like needing a BD or Blu-Ray Player to go along with the Smart TV and the HDMI cables to make sure your equipment puts out the best signal possible as there is no point in having a 1080p capable TV and using connections that don’t support 1080p.

Also I have found that Smart TV alone has decent but not great sound quality, so if you have a big living room you may want to also get a full speaker system at least 5.1 or 7.1 and preferably with a receiver that can do HDMI video/audio as well.  If you have a very small room them you can consider a soundbar or soundbox as a perfectly valid option for boosting sound performance yet keeping your equipment footprint being minimal.  I personally love the Vox Z-555 soundbox which fits under a 55" LED Smart TV very well.

Finally there is the Smart part of the Smart TV, and I have found that every Smart TV I have tried has a relatively slow Netflix/Amazon/Internet browsing experience and none compare to the fluidity and simplicity of the Roku, especially the new Roku 3.  So even though I did get a 55" Samsung LED TV just about 5 months ago as an Xmas gift I spent the last few months adding some additional equipment to help get the most out of it which included a Blu-Ray Player, Roku, Vox Z-555 soundbar and an 5 port HDMI switch as I didn’t have enough HDMI inputs to accommodate my Xbox 360, Roku, Dish Receiver, Wii-U, Blu-Ray Player all at the same time, hence I needed an HDMI switch.  The only bad thing is HDCP isn’t supported by most HDMI switches so your cable or dish receiver needs to use an HDMI port on the TV not the HDMI switch.

So when I thought all I needed was the big flat screen TV, boy did I underestimate how many additional peripherals I needed to really optimize it and make better use of it!

Yep, readers who know me know that I am a big time coffee drinker and I am no stranger to drinking 6-8 cups of coffee per day that ranges from nearly every blend you can find in K-cups.  I also like drinking breakfast and strong blends with the occasional dairy free creamer and my favorite by far is International Delight French Vanilla non-dairy creamers. So obviously, I took part in the Hey America, What’s your ID campaign which is a fun little game you can enter to win prizes as well as get a pin to represent your flavor ID from International Delights.

Have you tried International Delight creamers?

I drink French Vanilla coffee, where the grinds are themselves artificially flavored but it really doesn’t taste as good when you want a hot cup of French Vanilla coffee.  I like a light breakfast blend with 1 cup of International Delight French Vanilla and it really helps smooth over the bitterness of coffee some mornings, it makes it feel like a treat and it pairs so well if you are having oatmeal or even a coffee cake that you dip in the coffee for a breakfast snack. Perhaps it’s the sweetness, but I used to enjoy Hazelnut though never as much as French Vanilla.  I really like that many of the International Delight creamers are dairy free as I am lactose intolerant so this is a big bonus to me as well, I get my creamer flavor without the side effects of using dairy. I hadn’t tried the salted caramel mocha flavor yet, though and watch the video above as I open and try the Salted Caramel Mocha International Delights flavor for the first time and share my thoughts on the flavor!

What’s Your ID

So I am helping raise awareness for the What’s Your ID Campaign and this means you can enter to win prizes! These prizes include a $500 gift card, International Delights creamers for a year and more! Follow International Delight on Twitter @InDelight or Facebook and share your Flavor ID after joining the What’s Your ID campaign.

What’s Your ID? International Delight is looking for their most passionate flavor fans. Put your ID on the map to enter to win a Magical Trip, play games and discover more unexpected delight. Share your ID flavor at http://whatsyourid.com. 

This is a sponsored conversation written by me on behalf of International Delight. The opinions and text are all mine.

In an effort to help give items away to readers I myself was caught in a few situations where the winners were either not contacted by the advertiser in a timely fashion, or the advertiser simply took too long or had poor response times. This will change my future method of doing sweepstakes, most of the giveaways I front the prize, buy it and ship it to the winner. But the ones where the advertiser sends prize directly to winner, I am going to have to come up with ways to get coupons ahead of time or more concrete ways of ensuring the winner gets contacted and their prize in a timely fashion.

This was one thing I liked about Sponsored Giveaways which is the platform that is running the Lenovo Z585 laptop giveaway on DragonBlogger right now, this system the award is uploaded ahead of time into the system and automatically given to the winner, there is no waiting for an advertiser to respond. This does mean however that the system only works to deliver cash or coupons to the winners, as they can’t do physical prizes. So the winner of the Lenovo Z585 Laptop actually gets a $570 Amazon Gift Certificate which is the cost of the laptop. Technically they could do whatever they want and buy whatever they want with the gift certificate, which would defeat the purpose of a laptop giveaway if they bought other items with it.

Meanwhile, I am glad that one of my advertisers did finally respond to the winners, I think that requiring advertisers to cc me in the notification to the winners is a requirement going forward so I an prove the advertiser contacted them in a timely fashion.

My latest giveaway from Web Hosting Buzz which went live yesterday on DragonBlogger the advertiser gave us coupon codes that the winners can use and get the package/prize right away so that will be a good thing for the winners.

As my youngest son has been without a laptop since the hard drive failure for the past week, I have been gracious enough to let him use my computer this past weekend which means I was basically computer and gaming free as he consumed hours of Minecraft on my rig.

Hopefully his new laptop will arrive midweek so I can have my computer back on weekends, but I did wind up getting some of my to-do list of items done early and was more productive at house chores without my computer being accessible.

Meanwhile, downloaded some new games for the iPad which my iPad 2 is starting to show it’s age in lagging out when playing some of the newer HD games. It is only a matter of time before I may need to upgrade to a newer tablet like the Google Nexus 10, not the one that came out last year the new one that will be announced this week.

Mother’s Day was fun, we went to a Boston Terrier meeting and let the dogs run wild while we ate at a pet friendly restaurant called Joe’s Farm Grill that has outdoor seating and enough of it so you can bring pets and put them on leashes while you it. I wish there were more pet friendly restaurants here in AZ actually.

I thought of yet another really great use for free logos or vector images from Vector.me which is a free vector graphics search engine.  As I was working on my WP Touch Pro mobile theme configuration for DragonBlogger earlier in the week I realized you can set custom icons for each of the categories, well I couldn’t find everything I wanted in the various icon packs that come with WP Touch Pro so I decided to use Vector.me to see if I could find some cool logos or vectors which I could turn into tiny icons in WP Touch Pro.

I wanted to find a vector for my Entertainment category which features movies, and there was a fantastic set of film reels, slides, and theater related vector images that I could easily open in Inkscape, resize to make the icon size I needed then export as a jpg to include in my custom icon set.

I repeated the process for my gaming category and searched for “controller” on the Vector Me search engine and found a ton of free vector images related to gaming controllers.

The awesome thing about vector.me is that you can filter your search results by color, file type and many of the vector packs come with png or jpg files, if they don’t, don’t sweat it as Adobe PDF or Inkscape which is free can open just about any of the vector files and let you start working with them, change colors, export and do more.

Trust me, if you are looking for free vector images, then give Vector.me a look it has over 200,000+ free vector images for you to choose from and you can use them for anything from header banners, sidebar creatives to simple icons and logos.  That is the great thing about vector images is that they scan scale with no loss of image quality, unlike a jpg, png or gif file where as you scale up they lose image quality because they are based on a specific number of pixels where vectors are an algorithm that scales without any quality degradation.

Vectors are especially useful if you are wanting to do T-Shirt prints or other offline media because of their scalability.  Need vector images, remember Vector.me is the place to look first and if you can’t find a free vector that matches they have the links to premium vectors right from the site.

Sure there are browser extensions and add-ons that let you take screen captures or snippets of articles/posts so that you can publish them on your blog but one of the easiest and most simple to use if you blog with Live Writer is the default IE functionality where you can select a portion of a website and just click "Blog this in Live Writer".

You can find this by selecting what you want to copy, clicking Tools and then Blog this in Windows Live Writer

Now what you wanted to copy will show up with all links intact and even better credit to the source article is given at the end of the copied text so proper attribution is given.  This is a great way to build an article around information from a source article where you can share your own opinions, views and yet include some of the material from the source article to give your readers reference.  This is great for grabbing phrases, quotes or small portions that you want to call out and address.

If you use Live Writer this could be a good reason to at least use Internet as your browser some of the time, because Blog This in Live Writer is one of the best built in tools for Internet Explorer when you have Windows Live Essentials installed with Writer.

Was testing out the new Neverwinter MMO just to see how it compared to Guild Wars and initial tests are that it is very different indeed, but better depends upon your play style.  One thing is for sure, there is more lag on the system and the graphics of the characters aren’t as nice as Guild Wars though the more interactive terrain where you can slash and see bushes and trees move in response (minor interaction) are a nice touch.

The game is much more click attack based almost like a cross between Diablo style of play with some hotkey interaction.  Combat is much more target focused, you don’t select an opponent and always stay targeted you have to keep your reticule on the target at all times.  The ability to dodge area of effects by sprinting is a nice touch and adds some feel of control in combat instead of just letting skills recharge and hash back and forth damage without any ability to block or dodge.

The inventory system and item management feels a little outdated and more like World of Warcraft with equipping items from inventory instead of weapons/armor/gear showing up on the gear screen separately from the day to day inventory which I like.  Played through to the tutorial and into the first town, when you add players to a party you do have the easy ability to map to their server so you can join together, but the lag gets dramatically worse with only about 30-40 players on the same system.  It overcame my son’s Lenovo Z575 laptop to where the game locked up and crashed due to lag, whereas Guild Wars does a better job with handling number of players visible to help reduce lag when playing on very busy servers.

It still is a system like any other MMO, and so far haven’t really seen anything special that I would say this is a must have.  One interesting thing so far is that there is no archer character, even an elf only has wizard, guardian warrior, great weapon warrior, rogue or cleric.  I haven’t seen that the warriors can use bows, and I think it is an oversight to not have an archer class right off the bat for a game where you can be an elf.

Blu-ray discs, which read information via a high-definition blue laser, are currently a popular format for movies and TV shows. Although the Blu-ray fad has allowed many film collectors to expand their personal libraries, new technologies are making the process of watching high-definition videos even easier and more convenient. The following formats are providing solid competition for Blu-ray discs.

Video On Demand – Online Streaming

People who enjoy watching movies and television programs through their computers can benefit from the widespread availability of streamed online content. Internet TV, the broad term for this concept, allows you to download your favorite films and TV shows to your computer’s hard drive or stream these videos via your computer’s media player. This high-definition format is highly accessible to people worldwide and encompasses a vast catalog of video content, enabling you to watch the programs of your choosing without having to purchase Blu-ray discs.

Video On Demand – Television Set-Top Box

Similar to the online version of Video On Demand, the streaming of films and TV shows through a television set-top box is another current media trend. The set-top box attaches to your television set and uses an external signal to stream high-definition content into your home via a cable TV or satellite TV provider. Many of these providers offer both free and pay-per-view programs that you can watch at your convenience with the use of your remote control.

Digital Media Receivers

Digital media receivers are devices that are capable of transferring files from networked media servers to your television, which in turn provides you with access to a large number of films and TV shows within every genre.

4K Media

4K Players are just starting to surface, but this medium is likely to be all digital and not use physical media at all due to the vast file size of the media.

What to do with your old Blu Ray Discs

If you have embraced the latest trends in regard to watching high quality videos, you may want to sell your old Blu-ray films and TV shows so that you have more room in your home. Though several avenues for selling Blu-ray discs are available, including online classifieds, video stores and antique stores, you can benefit both yourself and the environment by exchanging your old discs for money through online recycling centers. These businesses arrange for you to ship your Blu-ray movies and TV shows for free in exchange for a pre-determined cash value. Then, the discs are taken apart so that their components can be re-used in an environmentally friendly manner.

Because film technology is always improving and developing, a number of fads are bound to follow the Blu-ray disc phenomenon. The good news is that even if you have invested a good deal of money into Blu-rays, you have the option of selling them if you choose to explore other formats for watching movies and TV shows.

About the Author

Heather Cuthbertson is a writer and film buff who loves watching movies and television shows in the most high-definition formats possible. She regularly contributes pieces to technology oriented websites that discuss the latest trends in film formatting and distribution. Heather is also knowledgeable in providing tips and advice for those who want to sell their old Blu ray films and TV shows that are outdated.