Gregg H. Hawkins

Yesterday I changed my WordPress theme to the Ayumi WordPress theme. I think everything is looking good so far. On my end there are no errors in FireFox, IE6, or IE7. If you’re getting any errors please let me know! I’ve been tweaking things here and there and hopefully all of you like it. There are still a few things I need to take care of, but I’m sure I’ll get those completed by the end of today.

Updates to the Website
I’ve completed quite a few things that I’d like to let all of you know about. I changed my about picture to one that was taken this summer so now I don’t look as young! You can check the new me out by visiting my about page! I’ve installed a few plugins, mostly ones that pertain to the comments. I installed the MyAvatars plugin so when you post a comment your avatar for MyBlogLog will appear. I also installed Brian’s threaded comments so you can reply to someone’s comment if you would like.

The last plugin that I installed was the newest version of SRG Clean Archives. I think it’s a lot better than the older version because it has a nice effect when you want to view each month. Go check it out for yourself!

In the sidebar I didn’t make too many changes. I added icons at the top right of the sidebar for FeedBurner, StumbleUpon, Technorati, Del.icio.us, and Digg. However, I do not have the Del.icio.us and Digg icons working as this point. If anyone knows the proper coding I need to add so readers can add me to their Del.icio.us bookmarks and submit my articles to Digg with the post URL, please let me know!

Things Still Remaining to Do
There are still quite a few things remaining that I need to complete so that my blog turns out how I want it to. I mentioned yesterday that all of the apostrophes in posts were changed to different characters and that I would probably have to manually replace those characters back to apostrophes in every post I made before the WordPress update. I finished replacing those characters in all of the August posts, but still have quite a few months to go through.

I still want to get Adsense working correctly, which I believe I’ll get done for sure today. And lastly, I hope to get the sidebar header to rotate with the different images I have! I believe that the rotating images would also add a unique touch to my blog. Other than the fact that I think all of you would enjoy them as well!

That’s it for now. Please let me know if you encounter any problems!

I’ve been quite a busy bee these last few days. Other than the fact that I’m getting things done last minute before I go back to college on Saturday, I’ve been editing a WordPress theme that I want to use for my blog. The WordPress theme is called Ayumi, which is named after a popular and influential Japanese pop singer, and can be found at Jauhari dot net.

I’ve edited the style.css quite a bit from the original colors to fit my personality and wants. This theme provides exactly what I’ve been looking for since I started to blog. It’s a great design which provides an easy read and a unique look. There are still a few things I’d like to fix and I’ll hopefully get to those by the end of the week. For now, this will have to do.

Ayumi WordPress Theme
The Ayumi WordPress theme features:

• Green, Red, and Blue Color Scheme
• 2 Right Sidebars
• Widget Ready
• About Text Under Header Image
• Tested on WordPress 2.1.x and 2.2.x

Future Things to Look For
As I mentioned earlier I have a few things to tweak here and there. I tried to get the header image to work with the AdRotator plugin, but I’m still having problems with it. For now, I’ve included a header image of a baseball field at night, which represents to follow your dreams. Baseball was something that was a part of my life for a long period of time and something that I still have a passion for. When (hopefully) I figure out how to get the images to rotate you’ll see images relating to my goals and dreams for the future. Items that reflect and define my character. Hence the quote, “It’s not who I am underneath, but what I do that defines me.”

I also ran into a problem with the Adsense Deluxe plugin. For some reason, after a long awaited update for WordPress going from 2.0.x to 2.2.2, my Adsense codes decided to create an error. Until I figure that out what the problem is I won’t be integrating any Adsense blocks within the content.

Lastly, after updating to the newest WordPress (2.2.2) I realized something else. Every apostrophe in posts made before I updated WordPress was changed to ’. I’m kind of dreading the fact that I’m probably going to have to edit every single one of my posts and change the ’ characters back to an apostrophe.

Suggestions and Feedback
So, what are your thoughts on the new theme? I know there’s a lot of work to be done on the theme, but I would greatly appreciate feedback and suggestions. Do you like the new theme and the colors I used? Did you find any errors on any pages? What needs improvement?

The last few days have been pretty busy for me blogging wise. I’ve been researching the different affiliate networks and ad programs to find which ones I want to try out on my blog. I’ve also been making minor changes moving things around and tweaking the look of my blog. Hopefully with these changes I have helped improve my blog and not make it seem more cluttered. I’m trying to create a professional and welcoming feeling for my readers.

Adding a Rotating Banner in the Header
The main goal I accomplished the other day was adding the Ad Rotator plugin into the header. The banner area is meant for a 468×60 banner and rotates between Text Link Ads and Aaron Wall’s SEO Book. I’ve also added a Text Link Ads skyscraper banner in the left sidebar. If you want to learn more about installing rotating ads onto your blog, you can read more about the Ad Rotator plugin.

The Text Link Ads banner and Aaron Wall’s SEO Book banner will take up the header’s banner slot until a banner sale is made to an advertiser. I’m also still not sure whether or not I want the skyscraper ad in my left sidebar to rotate between banners, but I’ll figure something out. If you have any suggestions please let me know!

Adding Affiliate Programs
As I mentioned earlier, I added Text Link Ads and Aaron Wall’s SEO Book to my blog. I signed up for their affiliate programs to see if it would increase my monthly revenue for August. I have since added two affiliate links in the right sidebar under the heading “Featured Links.” I’ve also installed the Text Link Ads code to my blog so I can begin to receive text link requests from advertisers in the TLA program. Currently, there are 10 links available on my blog through the Text Link Ads program.

Text Link Ads offers $25 dollars to publishers who get new members approved into their program. The SEO Book affiliate program is a little harder to push since it requires people to actually buy Aaron Wall’s book. They have a minimum pay out of $50 dollars and each book sale rewards $25 dollars to the referral. This means I would have to make a total of 2 sales to receive my first payout of $70 dollars.

Moving Around Badges and the Feedburner
As you probably noticed, I’ve moved the Stumble Upon post submission badge and the Technorati add to faves badge. I didn’t like the location of the two badges in the right sidebar because I thought it made it look unorganized and messy. The other day I inserted them into the single.php and they now appear at the bottom of a post. I’ve also moved my feedburner to the far right sidebar and also have it included in the single.php under the Stumble Upon and Technorati faves badges.

What I Wish to do Next
The next thing on my list is to change the header image on my blog. As much as I like the crystal clear icon and my name, I think it needs an update. To me, I don’t think the current header portrays that “professional” look I’m trying to accomplish.

I hope all of you still enjoy my blog and if you have any problems with anything please let me know! I want to try to create the best experience for anyone who visits my blog.

Now you can advertise on Gregg Hawkins dot com. With the recent change of WordPress themes, I have felt that the new theme offers more opportunity for Gregg Hawkins dot com to gain advertisers. This is the first time I have offered such advertisements on my personal website. Currently, I am offering one banner in the header slot, 8 hardlinks in the sidebar, and a review me opportunity. Here are the specs of the available advertising opportunities:

Banner Specs

• $25 Dollars ($US) per month
• 468 x 60 pixels
• No animation, No flash, and No nudity
• Payment via PayPal

Hardlink Specs

• $5 Dollars ($US) per month
• Payment via PayPal

Review Specs

• $15 Dollars ($US) per review
• 300 words minimum

Obviously, prices will change as my blog progresses during the months and improves in rankings. I believe that the prices offered are reasonable starting prices for advertising on my website. If you would like to find out more specific details for each advertising opportunity you’ll need to drop by the advertising details page.

Since it’s summer time and my day off from work, I thought it would be great to find a better theme for this site. As much as I liked the Drop Shadow theme, I was getting bored with it. If you like nice and simple I’d definitely recommended the Drop Shadow theme.

This new theme is called fourWPTP and was created by WP Themes Plugin. This theme is very user friendly and can be edited to anyone’s liking. It is a 4 column theme, widget ready, includes Stumble Upon and Technorati buttons, and loads SEO content first. I also like the fact that it comes ready for a 468×60 banner slot in the header. In the near future I’ll probably add an affiliate banner or Google Ad banner to fill the space, but in the meantime it will remain unused.

There is still some tweaking to do, which I will work my best to get to within the next few days. I hope you guys like the new theme and any feedback and comments would be greatly appreciated.

As you can probably already tell I change my wordpress theme. I was using the Misty Look theme, but that was only temporary. Many people use that theme and I wanted to change mine so I could stand out to readers compared to other blogs and websites. The new theme is by Themeporter and is called BlueBlog. You can download BlueBlog and try it out for yourself if you’d like. Hope you enjoy the new theme. This one is going to be more permanant and I’ll probably be trying to make some minor adjustments to the layout of it later on.

I’ve finally subscribed to Feedburner and have my feed up. Feel free to subscribe to it! I’ve also added the feed counter on the right side of my sidebar. As you can tell, I have many readers…5 to be exact! I’d like to thank John Chow and Nomar for helping me get the feed counter up.

Feed Counter

Instructions for those of you who want to get a feed counter on your website:

1. Log into your account on Feedburner
2. Click on your feed
3. Click on the Publicize tab
4. Click on the FeedCount on the left hand side

You can customize your feed counter to whatever color you want. I added the code to my sidebar widgets and walla!

These last few days I’ve been a little busy just messing around with my blog and tweaking things here and there. I’ve added a few more plugins and so far they’ve been great.

Wordpress Plugins:

• Sidebar Widgets which enables you to modify your sidebar with anything you want.
• Executable PHP Widget enables you to run PHP codes with the SideBar Widgets plugin.
• Brian’s Threaded Comments creates a threaded effect when someone replies to a comment.
• MyAvatars for MyBlogLog uesrs allows others to see a picture of a person in the comments.

If anyone needs any help installing these and getting them to work properly feel free to contact me anytime.

Lately I’ve been trying to figure out a lot of things. I’ve never managed a website before, let alone used wordpress. I’d like to notify my readers of a few more additions that I’ve added to my blog. I’ve added a contact form and if you have any questions, comments, or suggestions, please feel free to contact me via that form. Another addition added to my wordpress was the Top Commentators section located in the sidebar. This is to reward the readers for their participation in the community. More participation means that your name will have a link to your website. I have set the Top Commentators section to only show the top 5 and to reset itself every month so that newcomers have an equal opportunity to be listed. The last addition to my wordpress would be the widgets plugin. Though, I am currently having some techincal difficulties that will hopefully be resolved soon.

People I’d like to thank:

• John Chow for his top plugins post and help with the widgets plugin.
• AlleNation for helping with the top commentators plugin.
• BitSniff for helping with the contacts plugin.
• oscarsito for supporting and motivating me.

Thank you all for your continued support. I appreciate every bit of it.

I’ve been roaming around the blogsphere the last few days and noticed a few things other wordpress blogs had that mine didn’t. I’ve been meaning to add a contacts tab, but don’t know how to get the proper form to show up such as on John Chow’s website. Also, I’ve noticed a Top Commentators section on other wordpress themes that I’d like to implement as well. I’ve gone to the mange files area in wordpress and I see all of the php files. I just don’t know what code to add. If anyone could help me out it would be much appreciated. Thanks!