Digital Fr3nz!3d

Do you know why is it important to make your blog to loads fast? It is because it enhances the user experience. Blog that immediately shows the content of the site makes your visitors to stay on the blog and not losing their patient waiting for something to come up in the blog. In this post, I will discuss several practical things a blogger should do with their blogs to make it much faster to load. This tweaks and tips that I will include on this are applicable to any blogging platform on the web today such as Blogger, Wordpress, Typepad, Calliope and others.

1. Use smaller size graphics. I am not referring to the dimension of the image but the file size of the image to use on every posts. Larger pictures loads slower compared to smaller size images. That is why it is recommended to use image types that uses the higher file compression but not losing its picture quality. JPEG files possesses such quality, that is why I am using it instead of other types but if I need graphics that does not lose its transparency and image quality, I use PNG instead. Wise choice of images will increase the load rate of the blog of almost 70% from unoptimized images.
2. Avoid Javascript rich widgets/gadgets. Some widgets (wordpress.com) or gadgets (blogger.com) that uses Javascripts makes the load of the pages of the site slower compared to non-javascript widgets. If it is not necessary try to avoid it.
3. Don't populate your blogs with too much 3rd-party ads. 3rd-party advertisers are good way of earning online, however if your pages contains too much advertisers, it will slow down the site. It is because the site needs to fetch information from other websites before loading the actual page. Aside from that some readers are annoyed with too much ads on the site making them to leave immediately when they see this swarming ads.

These minor tweaks on your blogs can really make a difference on how long your visitors will stay and it will also increase the frequency the guests of going back that will eventually become a regular readers of your site.

Today, I participated a local chess competition here in Capiz called Ret. General Roberto T. Lastimoso "General Strategy" Chess Tournament and successfully got 4 points out of 5 games making me to get the 4th place. I did not attend our MSCS seminar in Iloilo City and preferred to play instead to this Capiz Chess Association, Inc. organized tournament. CCA is a chess organization in the province of Capiz which is the only organization to be affiliated with the national chess organization, NCFP (National Chess Federation of the Philippines).

I really missed playing and actually did not participate our last chess tournament last February 14 because I have my report on our MSCS in Iloilo that day so I am obliged to attend. Actually feel bad that I wasn't able to participate this test of wit and strong nerves. That's why today, I make sure that I will not miss this game despite the fact that I am not practicing and playing much chess lately because of my several hectic activities and as a blogger, I have several blogs to maintain. For your information, this chess tournament is a in exclusive tourney for Capiznon players who will be representing the province on regional chess tournaments. The competition aimed to find top 10 best players of Capiz and luckily got the 4th place.

I really like this tournament not because I won a place but because it given me a certain feeling of relaxation. I know it causes some sort of stress but as I said to a Capiznon friend, the game of chess seems to massage my brain cells making it to work much better. It's like oiling the different cells to move on its maximum capacity. Allowing me to formulate a lot of ideas. I will discuss in detail about this Capiznon chess event on my chess blog later. I am quite tired right now and my head really aches. Maybe because I have less sleep for several days already and I overuse my brain juices today with the said tournament. Needs to rest guys! :)

- Hectic Capiznon Bloggers 2009

What? Am I asking you to get a match then put your Hectic Capiznon Bloggers 2009 blogs into fire? Nah, what I am trying to say is you try to publicize your blog posts all through out the net via burning its RSS feed to Feedburner. RSS or Really Simple Syndication refers to a standardized format of web feeds (info) from frequently updated works such as this blogs. When publicized, optimized and make it available to subscribers online, it adds to the exposure of your blog, from cellphone who can retrieve and read your blog feeds to their news reader programs on their PC. In this, you have given your readers a convenient way to read.

Now, how will you do this with your Blogger or Wordpress blogs? It is simple, just sign-up for an account in Feedburner (thru feedburner.google.com) then submit your feeds. What is the URL or the address of your feeds? Here's an example: this Hectic Capiznon Bloggers 2009 blog's URL or address is http://digitalfrenzied.blogspot.com. Its feed URL can be found at the bottom of the page right after the Subscribe to with an anchor / link text of Posts (Atom). Atom refers to one format of feeds which is the common format of Blogger blogs. Other blogging platforms uses RSS (Rich Site Summary), RSS 2.0 (Really Simple Syndication 2.0) and RDF (RDF Site Summary). This web feed formats are all in standardized XML file format. For Wordpress blogs, the feed address is usually in this format: http://yourblog.wordpress.com/feed/. Once your feeds are submitted to Feedburner, you can then monitor how many people subscribe or reads your feeds. At the same time, you can setup it to allow users to receive recently posted article through their emails which is proven to provide great traffics for the site.

What are you waiting for? Burn those feeds so that your words will be scattered all through out the different corners of the world, from PCs to cellphones. By the way the official logo of RSS 2.0 feeds is the icon that shown on this post (without the Hectic Capiznon Bloggers 2009 text of course.)

I'm really busy with my projects but I still want to find time to share some ideas to the blogging community in the province of Capiz. I just want to spread the good words of blogging and internet opportunities to every single Capiznon speaking native of Capiz. That's why I am planning to prepare several blogging video tutorials during my free time containing some of the tips I have gathered from the cyberspace and how to apply it with their current blogs on Blogger.com. An example of this video is as shown below:

Here's the Dailymotion version of the said video:


or you could try to view it on Youtube version instead:


As you can see from the tutorial, it doesn't have any voice nor text remarks on it yet since I've just made it a while ago and upload it to Dailymotion/Youtube so that I could provide sample of my video tutorial plans. Aside from that, I am still looking for a video editing tool so that I could embed text instruction and / or voice over to the video. If you have any suggestion about the tutorials here or you want to share something the Hectic Capiznon Bloggers 2009 community, just drop your comments and I will try to consider them.

One of the hardest part in making your own blog is what topic you will discuss on your blog. Some are making fictional stories, current event stories, travel, and others. When starting blogging, some of the questions raised are:

a. Will I focus on a specific topic to discuss or go with a random theme? The problem with a specific topic is that you will put a limit to what you can write in your blog but makes it easy for you to prepare the article. On the other hand, random post gives you a lot of option but will leave your readers confused on what the blog really is all about.

b. Language to use within the blog. I want to write my entries in my own dialect so that it will be easy for me to express my self since I am not really have a 100% fluency in English language but the problem with using my local language or dialect is it will limit the number of possible readers that I will have. If you wish to reach out for other people aside from your country or group, write it in English. it will reach out more people.

As part of the Hectic Capiznon Bloggers 2009 ring, I have already made up my mind. I will write about my province - Capiz, blogging and helping other bloggers through practical tips. That will be the overall purpose of this blog. How about you, what will you do with your blogs?

On my previous post, I mentioned about customizing the design of your blog to enhance its appearance and suit to your taste. Today, I will discuss about how to improve more your blogger blog's appearance by making use of the Google Gadgets. What are Blogger gadgets? See on the right sidebar of this Hectic Capiznon Bloggers 2009 blog. You can find some objects that are not usually found on the default design of your blog accounts such as the Google Maps, Subscribe to RSS and Blogger logo. These are "Gadgets" that I added today to enhance the functionality and appearance of this site. Now, how would you add this elements to your site too? Read the instruction below:

First, go to your Dashboard then click Layout. You will see like the following on this part of the dashboard:


Here's what you can see on the window, a list of different Gadgets categorized in several classifications according to use. What are the gadgets that I used on this Hectic Capiznon Bloggers 2009 blog?

a. Subscription Links. This allows your readers to subscribe with your RSS (Really Simple Syndication) feeds both Posts and Comments. For your information, RSS Feed is web publishing standard format for frequently updated works such as blog entries, news and others. With this, readers around the world can have an easy way of reading your recently added posts. Thus generating a number of return visitors. Common RSS feed formats distributed online today are RSS 2.0 and ATOM. I will discuss abou feeds later.

b. Roxas City, Capiz in Google Maps. Do you know how I did this? Well, I just go to maps.google.com and search for the place then get the LINK of the map which can be easily seen on the right pane of the map. Then I add a new gadget on the blog, specifically HTML/Javascript gadget then paste the map code. That's it!

You could try other gadgets, you just need some imagination to do it and your creativity counts! Have fun with enhancing your site and happy blogging.

Do you want to customize your Blogger blog design? Do you wonder how I customized this hectic capiznon blogger 2009 blog on my own without using templates from other Blogger theme providers? This post will discuss to you the different steps I made to make this design possible. From removing the navbar of the blog which usually found at the top of the page to setting your own background picture for the site.

Removing or Hiding the NAVBAR

Let us start with removing the navbar. Navbar is the long found at the top of your blogger blog. First select a Minima theme from the Layout tab of the Dashboard -> Pick New Template. Select the Minima theme as shown on the image. Then in the Layout tab again, choose Edit HTML. This will show you the HTML code of the current theme you have. Paste the NavBar CSS code to the portion as shown below (paste only the code on the green background), then click Save Template to save your changes:

...
[CDATA[/*
-----------------------------------------------
Blogger Template Style
Name:     Minima Black
Designer: Douglas Bowman
URL:      www.stopdesign.com
Date:     26 Feb 2004
Updated by: Blogger Team
----------------------------------------------- */

#navbar-iframe {
display: none !important;
}

/* Variable definitions
====================

...

Change the Background
Now, after you make this work, the next thing that we need to do is to change the background of the page. First make sure you have a background image uploaded in image hosting sites like ImageShack, Picasa, etc. I recommend that you use at least a background with a resolution of 800x600. Then modify the portion specified on the following code and change the background parameter of the CSS code for the body, as shown below. Don't forget to save the changes you made to see the effect of your changes on your blog.

body {
background:$bgcolor;
margin:0;
color:$textcolor;
font: x-small "Trebuchet MS", Trebuchet, Verdana, Sans-serif;
font-size/* */:/**/small;
font-size: /**/small;
text-align: center;
background: URL(http://yourimageurlhere/imagehere.jpg);
}

Change Font and Color
Next, is to change the color and font of the site to fit on the new selected background that you have. To do this, on the Lay-out tab, click Fonts and Colors then each element of the site, from title, sidebar to the body text are listed on the left side of the window. Choose the appropriate color that you think that fits or blend or passed to your taste. Then save again.

That's it! You have your very own customized templates / theme for your blog on Blogger. You can play with all the CSS code on the template if you want to fit with your desired appearance of your new blog.

If you like this Hectic Capiznon Bloggers 2009 blogging tips, bookmark it using your favorite social bookmarking site. Thanks!

Now if we will combine, Hectic + Capiznon + Bloggers it will be equals to the key phrase "Hectic Capiznon Bloggers 2009."