the air

When my site underwent a new design, I also made the jump to WordPress 2.2. Although I upgraded kind of late (just a few days ago), the time to upgrade again is already here. Apparently, 2.2.1 is another major upgrade to 2.2 that every user should follow. 2.2.1 is not only a security release but also fixes numerous bugs that were found.

A sampling of what can be found in the new 2.2.1 update:

• Atom feed validation fixes
• XML-RPC fixes
• Widget backward compatibility fixes
• Widget layout fixes for IE7
• Page and Text Widget improvements

More information on the details of this upgrade can be found by visiting WordPress’ 2.2.1 release notes.

If you have yet to upgrade from a previous version of WordPress, namely 2.1 or earlier, now would be a great time to upgrade. My upgrade was seamless except for the fact that the modification I had made to my ExecPHP widget plugin had to be undone. This modification was posted on John’s blog and the plugin can be re-downloaded from the original site.

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Seems like there’s no shortage of blog contests throughout the blog-o-sphere. John Chow just came back from Taiwan and has tons of stuff to give away. First on his list is a brand new 24″ LCD monitor. Did I mention that this monitor is wide-screen as well? The contest is sponsored by John Chow dot Com and BlueFur. BlueFur is a Canadian based web-host hosting Canada and the world at large. And we all know John Chow dot Com is a blog all about how to make money online.

The contest runs until July 31, 2007. On August 1, 2007, a winner will be chosen so everyone does have some time to enter. You can expect many to enter but only one winner. Get your entries in now!

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A couple months ago, I ran a contest that was giving away a free Amazon.com gift certificate. I ran the contest to increase my blog’s visibility and also grab a few new readers. Did it work? It worked out nicely, but there is always room for improvement. This time around, I found another great contest being run by Danielle on her blog site. She is giving away a brand new 30GB Zune that she won from John Chow, who won it in another contest. Yes, this Zune has been passed around a few times, but it appears to still be in mint condition. From what I gather, one of John Chow’s friends opened the Zune to simply review it but nothing more. In addition, Danielle has said that the Zune is still in its box since the day she received it from John.

The Good Zune

Contrary to what many people think, the Zune is actually a pretty good personal digital audio player. Considering this is Microsoft’s first attempt to take on the venerable Apple iPod, it is a pretty good shot. A couple of my friends have the Zune and they really love it. One of them even migrated from the iPod to the Zune. It definitely has a few “clinks” that Microsoft needs to work on, but it is a great competitor. Besides, why pay $250 for a brand new Zune when you can win one from Danielle? Just to throw a small teaser out there, I wonder if Danielle is going to pay for the shipping charges?

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One of the problems I can tell with changing the theme of your blog is the amount of bugs that need to be found and corrected. For example, I am fairly comfortable with the new layout, but I have been seeing so many errors across my blog that it is just painful to even think about them. The fact that the CSS file that is attached with this theme has been poorly coded does not help either. I think I’ve spent all day just tinkering with the different codes and fixing up sloppy lines. I appreciate the effort by the original designer of this theme, but I do wish that he/she would take the time to ensure that this theme was at least up to par with other successful themes such as MistyLook.

I can really use your help in finding bugs across my blog. I hope I can fix them all and catch them all, but I have my own technical limitations as well. Any help you guys can give me would be greatly appreciated. Don’t forget to leave your feedback about what you think of the new layout.

**UPDATE**

I fixed quite a few formatting errors/bugs that were present. Some of the images may seem a bit whacky, but that is because of the way the new CSS file is working. I haven’t found anything that is unreadable or completely out of spec so if you do find a post that needs or should be fixed, let me know please.

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For those of you visiting my blog today, you’ll notice a whole new look. How do you like it? In many ways, this is a complete transformation from what I had before. Previously, I was using the MistyLook theme, which by the way is an excellent theme. The theme that I am currently using is called LgBlue3c by Theme Porter. However, I have gone through and made extensive and exhaustive changes to the entire theme. Currently, the overall layout/colors are roughly the same, but the CSS file that came with the theme has been redone thoroughly.

This theme is a fixed-width theme that is not very usable in its original state. In fact, what you are seeing is a much wider version with better layout aesthetics and enhancements. This theme is actually quite bare-bones in the files it comes with. It did not even come with an Archives template/php file nor does it have any other templates included. I had to make the Archives template from scratch just to make this theme work.

The Goodies

So can you find out what the goodies are? Take a look at the much improved Archives page. You should also try out the search. I’ve enhanced the search feature so that it will perform much better than the default WordPress search. In the coming days, you can expect more goodies to grace this blog. What do you think of the new archives page? Is it easier to find older posts?

3-Column Layout

Perhaps the biggest change on this blog is the new 3-column layout. If you may recall, the MistyLook theme uses a two column layout which is more than functional. However, I noticed that the more widgets or information present on a sidebar forces the user to scroll down more just to see the entire blog. Many bloggers would argue that the three-column layout creates a crowded site, but I think that if designed and laid out correctly, a three-column layout can be far more aesthetically pleasing. Does it appear that this new layout is crowded? How does this blog appear in your browser? Do you happen to like the three-column layout in general?

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