Ben Brooks writes about a problem that many blogs and news sites have – too many things that distract the site visitor from reading. I share a similar opinion which is why I have removed all the ads from my site and reduced the design as much as possible. It’s a good read if you are considering a new design for your blog.
blogging
Oct 19, 2012
From Little Things BIG Things Grow – sparks flying at #pbevent 2012
A week ago, I had the pleasure of soaking up the excitement and creative energy of 300 bloggers who descended into Etihad Stadium in Melbourne, Australia for the ProBlogger Training Event aka #pbevent. It was the first ever blogging conference that I’ve ever attended and I must say that I wasn’t disappointed for shelling out the cash and traveling all the way for it.
Personal Highlights
#pbevent was put on by Darren Rowse and his team who help him manage ProBlogger and Digital Photography School. Speakers included top bloggers from all over Australia and they even brought in Chris Guillebeau all the way from Portland, USA as a keynote speaker. I’ve been following Darren’s work for a long time and when I learnt that Chris, another role model of mine, was on the speaker lineup I immediately decided that I would attend.
Side note: I’ve never really talked about Chris Guillebeau but he’s someone I really look up to in the way he approaches business and living the life you want. I will try to expand on this when I get around to reviewing his book.
Continue Reading
Oct 3, 2012
I’m attending the ProBlogger Event 2012! Psst.. there’s still a way to get a ticket, details here
Next week, I’ll be flying to Melbourne, Australia to attend the ProBlogger Training Event (#PBevent). I’m going to have a blast meeting with other bloggers, and learning to build better blogs and how to build revenue streams through blogging and other online income streams. I’m really looking forward to meeting up with Darren Rowse – Mr. ProBlogger himself, and Chris Guillebeau who was a major inspiration when I decided to go into business for myself.
Needless to say I’m really excited about my first major blogging conference. Some of the sessions that I’m most excited to attend are:
- Marketing Your Products by Shane Tilley, the Web Marketing Ninja himself
- Making Money and Changing the World Through Blogging & Beyond eBooks – 2 sessions by Chris Guillebeau
- The Ten Simple Things That Worked by blogging personality Sarah Wilson
- Courses, Continuity Programs and Membership Areas by Jules Clancy
As you can see, this isn’t a dodgy “make money blogging” or “sell your eBook for $999″ type free seminar. All of the speakers are successful bloggers and have used their blogs to launch their unconventional, new economy careers. You can bet I’ll be soaking it all up.. although I will probably feel like I’m back in my uni lecture hall (hope I don’t fall asleep!)
Tickets are sold out but you can still attend – virtually!
I bought my ticket the moment they announced it on 11 May. That got me early bird pricing of USD249.99. Early bird tickets were gone in a flash and full priced USD299.99 were sold out less than a month later. On the Facebook event page, we have people asking every week if there are more tickets available.
Selfish me doesn’t want any more tickets – I don’t want the event to be too crowded after all! However Darren has come up with a fantastic alternative. They are now offering a virtual pass for #PBevent. This gives virtual attendees audio recordings and slides of the sessions, access to a live webinar with Darren Rowse for a post-event Q&A session and access to a private Facebook group for networking with other virtual and live attendees as well. And you don’t have to spend the extra money for travel and accommodations!
The virtual ticket is available for an early-bird price of USD149 until 9 Oct 2012. From 10 Oct, the full virtual ticket price is USD199. Quick! Buy your virtual event pass now. Continue Reading
Aug 11, 2011
[Published] Take 5 Minutes to Make WordPress 10 Times More Secure
ProBlogger.net published my guest post today. Guess that officially makes me a professional blogger
Jan 25, 2011
Sensationalist Headline of the Year – Berita Mingguan: Blogger Earns RM1 Million
Berita Minggu 23 Jan 2011
The weekend pullout of Berita Harian called Berita Minggu ran a huge headline titled “Blogger untung RM1 juta” which loosely translates as “Blogger earns RM1 million”. Fiona has kindly reproduced the article on her blog.
Pish pash! No mention that blogging is hard work (and not just writing too). No earnings breakdown like Darren Rowse – watch out Darren, I’m gunning for you.
To make money online, you can’t just blog. You need a plan. A business plan. Because a blog that makes money isn’t a hobby, it’s an online business. This is what I’m blogging about at The ClickStarter (it’s stalled for the moment while I’m working on my secret launch..)
Well anyway, that’s the state of blogging in Malaysia – it’s all about the money. Quick, easy money that doesn’t exist.
P.S. Bloggers can’t escape taxes too. See the accompanying story in the sidebar, LOL
Jan 1, 2011
Create a WordPress tumblog with Headway and WooTumblog
Here’s a guest post I contributed to the Headway blog:
Recently I launched a redesign of my personal blog (blogjunkie.net) which essentially turned it into a tumblog. I achieved the look and functionality with the Headway theme and the WooTumblog plugin. I received a few questions about the redesign so here is a tutorial on how you can do the same with your Headway blog.
What is a tumblog / tumblelog?
Some people were confused with the concept of a tumblog so I thought I would explain it first.
A tumblog is a publishing tool that is in between Twitter (140 characters) and full-blown blogging (500+ words). It’s great for times when you have more to say than what Twitter will allow, but not so much that it deserves an entire blog post. I simply wanted to post a link / image / video and add a comment to it, without worrying about the post formatting. A tumblog is perfect for that.
Five Nerds and Projectionist are typical examples of tumblogs–short form snippets of content with occasional long posts.
Nov 15, 2010
WooTumblog
WooThemes has released a new plugin that turns your regular ol’ WordPress blog into a tumblog. All that is required is to install the plugin and change a few lines of code in your theme’s templates. I’m using it now on this blog and found it pretty straightforward to integrate.
Jun 4, 2010
Do your friends bug you with blogging questions? Please send them my way
Dear blogger friends,
I’m sure that many of your friends and family has asked you “What’s this blogging thing?” or “Can you help me with my blog?”
And then.. you want to help them but sometimes they have so many questions and you need to go off and do your own thing but you’re paiseh to say no to them because this is your friend / favourite auntie…
If that’s ever happened to you before, I’d like to ask you a favour. Please send your friends and family with blogging questions to me, or more specifically my upcoming workshop called Blogging Your Way To Success. Here, I even made a video to explain what the workshop is about.
Mar 9, 2010
Can you drastically change how WordPress looks in 10 minutes? The Headway theme can!
I’m a user and big fan of the Headway Premium WordPress theme. This blog is made with Headway. I’ve been wanting to do a review of it and so I challenged myself to customise the default Headway style into a business website – all in 10 minutes. Check the video out and let me know what you think.
I followed that up with a full review of Headway and why I think it’s a great solution for small businesses. Check out my Headway theme review on the Buzzmedia blog:
WordPress for small business – even better with the Headway Premium WordPress Theme
Nov 22, 2009
PicApps gives bloggers access to licensed photographs for free
Check out this awesome pic of Manchester United midfielder Michael Carrick. Usually bloggers wouldn’t be able to use such high quality images beause of licensing issues, but new service PicApp changes that. PicApp has worked out licensing with premium image providers like Corbis, Getty Images, etc to give bloggers access to these images for free. Well, it’s not totally free. The image has a link back to PicApp and is supposed to display a little advertisement from the license holders.
There’s even a plugin for WordPress blogs, that includes a PicApp image browser directly within the New Post screen. Here’s a video of how it works:
The service itself works great, although there seems to be a few bugs with the plugin. Regardless, I’m going to be checking PicApp.com whenever I need images for my blog from now on.
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