Comments on: ShanKri-la Gets a Makeover

By: K

Tue, 05 Feb 2008 14:26:56 +0000

Hey Troy.. I have played it with WAMP server sometime last year but didn’t stick with it. I will have to check it out again. I do have a local WP installation running on my Linux desktop for those times I need to test plugins or themes without uploading files.

Kyle.. that sounds like a great idea. One place to have all the themes & plugins to test.

Matthew.. I love the new look of Blogging Addiction. Very clean. I am leaning more towards a 2-column theme for my next theme change as well now that I have the footer to throw the extraneous stuff.

K’s last blog post..IE Developer Toolbar – Firebug for Internet Explorer

By: Matthew

Matthew — Tue, 05 Feb 2008 02:31:35 +0000

Looks good, I dont really like 3 columns much, but it works.

I just redid bloggingaddiction.com too

Matthew’s last blog post..What is Bounce Rate?

By: Kyle Eslick

Kyle Eslick — Mon, 04 Feb 2008 19:40:42 +0000

Yeah, I keep plugins installed and I have 5ish test posts with test comments, etc. I use the same site for all sorts of themes, including each of my sites and also themes I might be working on for future use.

Kyle Eslick’s last blog post..Determine Your Website’s Value with DNScoop

By: Troy

Troy — Mon, 04 Feb 2008 19:35:36 +0000

Being someone who likes to keep my planned design secret but without being able to use WordPress plugins, I would take the route of setting the blog up on my own server. The problems would be the same as with a subd omain, but you wouldn’t have to go to any trouble to make sure it isn’t indexed, and you don’t use webspace. A good way to do this, if there are any other b2evo users out there, is to set up WAMP server (http://www.wampserver.com/en/). It’s full featured and configurable.

By: K

Mon, 04 Feb 2008 18:24:52 +0000

Brown, thank you buddy! It’s great to see my regular readers love the new design.

Kyle.. that’s a great idea! Do you also make sure your test site has the same plugins installed as well to see if something breaks the design? Just wondering if it’s a lot of work trying to keep track of changes you make in your live blog and the test blog.

K’s last blog post..Open Remember the Milk in Your Browser Sidebar

By: Kyle Eslick

Kyle Eslick — Mon, 04 Feb 2008 16:24:37 +0000

Another option you have is to just setup a subdomain or directory to test on. Turn off search engines and turn off pingbacks and you’re all set.

I’ve found that is the easiest and best way for me!

Kyle Eslick’s last blog post..Determine Your Website’s Value with DNScoop

By: Brown Baron

Brown Baron — Mon, 04 Feb 2008 15:52:15 +0000

Fantastic makeover buddy! I love what you’ve done with the theme. Footer looks great too.

Brown Baron’s last blog post..Brown Talk #35: Community Day Sunday

By: K

Mon, 04 Feb 2008 13:41:22 +0000

Rakshit, thanks for the appreciation. Looking forward to seeing your mod.

Nirmal. thanks a lot buddy! Coming from you, that’s a great compliment!

K’s last blog post..Open Remember the Milk in Your Browser Sidebar

By: Nirmal

Nirmal — Mon, 04 Feb 2008 10:33:06 +0000

I liked the footer very much. Nice design.

Nirmal’s last blog post..Bahrain-Dubai-DSF and my New HP Pavilion dv2600

By: Rakshit

Rakshit — Mon, 04 Feb 2008 09:36:57 +0000

Very good theme. Intelligently modified.

I like that efficient use of footer section. Even I am working on the same.

By: K

Mon, 04 Feb 2008 04:23:23 +0000

Thanks Mark! That plugin let me work comfortably at my own pace as well as see the changes I am making live in the blog. I was hoping the mention would help someone out. Appreciate the kind words and really glad you like the new look buddy!

By: Mark

Mark — Sun, 03 Feb 2008 20:02:13 +0000

Nicely done, K!! You’re absolutely right about what better way to learn than to dive right in and learn it in action. Plus, I had no idea about that plugin. That’s really cool and one that I’ll have to check out myself. Up until now I’ve been using the Maintenance Mode plugin, but that blocks access to everyone but the author while things are being worked on. Good one!

Mark’s last blog post..Drummin’ Up Some Link Love #28

By: K

Sun, 03 Feb 2008 17:10:34 +0000

Fahad, thanks for the nice comments. I did miss that and I am going to remove it right now!

By: K

Sun, 03 Feb 2008 17:09:42 +0000

Troy, duh I should add a login link to the home page! I just found your gem of a comment again in Akismet. First of, thanks for taking the time to give great feedback. I will check out the TTZ media tag cloud idea.. I played with different fonts for the tag cloud and left it at this one.

You are right that trying to optimize for ads doesn;t always have the desired effect. My main aim behind the re-design was to stand out with a unique look. I am learning as I go with the monetizing aspect and I am interested to see what kind of positive effect this has and will let you know what I find maybe in a month’s time.

I came across and article about how to achieve this while back and I will post about it maybe this week. You could probably dig that up with a Google Search or you can see it up here this week.

By: Fahad

Fahad — Sat, 02 Feb 2008 19:09:34 +0000

The theme really looks nice. Good work with it. Although you have two top commentators list now. One in the sidebar and one in the footer. I think you might have already known this.

Fahad’s last blog post..CulArt, Stylish Concept Phone with Nature’s Help

By: Troy

Troy — Sat, 02 Feb 2008 01:13:21 +0000

That’s an interesting solution. Looking at my feedburner stats for this month, they’re fluctuating all over the place. I’ll have to consider implementing something like that!

By: K

Sat, 02 Feb 2008 00:27:22 +0000

Madhur.. thanks a lot! I would love to see what you come up with.

Kyle.. thanks for the feedback. Exactly my thoughts behind the design to get the widgets and other extraneous info to the footer and keep the relevant ones in the sidebar.

With Feedburner numbers being so fuzzy, I do a redirect so I can track number of people actually click and subscribe per day with Google Analytics. It gives me an idea about which posts are converting visitors to subscribers. It’s not perfect but it’s better than nothing. again appreciate your comments and would love to hear if you have any recommendations for further improvement.

By: Kyle Eslick

Kyle Eslick — Fri, 01 Feb 2008 23:08:30 +0000

Wow, looks great K! I can see you put a lot of work into this overhaul.

I’ve always found the best way to speed up a blog is to remove widgets. Because I know you enjoy widgets so much and probably want to keep them, I think the footer was a great idea for this site. People can find what they want if they are looking for it, but it is out of the way for others, and if it effects loading time no one will notice.

Out of curiosity, why is your feed setup as a redirect?

Kyle Eslick’s last blog post..Why Dot Com Domains Are The Gold Standard

By: Madhur Kapoor

Madhur Kapoor — Fri, 01 Feb 2008 20:16:43 +0000

Its awesome buddy , nice work. This has inspired me to work on my own theme too.

Madhur Kapoor’s last blog post..January 08 stats

By: Troy

Troy — Fri, 01 Feb 2008 18:49:37 +0000

I can see you’ve really done a lot of work on this, and the footer area is an excellent idea. Many bloggers are moving to use this space more effectively, and it isn ice to see that Shankri-la won’t be left behind. Also, my name appears in about 4 separate content areas, so clearly you’ve done a great thing

If I could though (and I probably shouldn’t since I’m not a designer), I’d like to make a couple suggestions. First, tweak the orange color in that header and tag cloud little bit, maybe to make it look more like the one in the TTZ media ads. Also, you might want to change the tag cloud font from Comic Sans, but that’s just one of my little pet-peeves. I’m still not sure where to log in from the front page, which might make it less likely for my long-winded comments to hit the spam filter.

Overall, a great redesign which gives you a lot more space. I’d be interested to hear how this has been affecting your advertising, since my own attempts to optimize have had less than ideal results.