New Theme

So it's been a couple of months since I destroyed my last custom theme and then left this blog to collect dust while posting on my new gaming blog this-mage.tumblr.com

I decided to be a little lazy and instead of designing my own theme again, I went ahead and downloaded a pretty cool looking theme off btemplates. It's easier to download and gut a theme that you like rather than create one from scratch, especially for me considering I can do the coding but lack some design creativity.

When I say gut, I don't mean that I removed every reference to the original author of this theme, I did leave all of their references in the code and in the footer of this blog. I did however remove a lot of crap in the code left by the author. This theme had a hugeee image above the posts that would link to the author as well as a stupid link to advertisements!! There was also a ton, and I mean a huge chunk of, code that was for the slideshow that played above my posts to link to the author.

Despite the set backs I do like the theme. All I have left to do is put a dropdown navbar at the top and come up with a new banner in photoshop.

If you're interested in what theme I used it's here:
http://btemplates.com/2011/blogger-template-rio-movie/

Back to blogger and blogging

So after jumping between... ummm.. 4 different blogging platforms (wordpress,drupal,squarespace,tumbler) after initiall leaving blogger, I told myself that I was never going to blog again. IMO it was a waste of time and I was already busy between gaming, school, anime, and whatever else I'm into. Blogging about those things took me away from actually doing those things. So after about a month of no blogging, what do I do, I start a new blog dedicated to one game and start blogging again on my original blog (this blog). It's terrible, I know. So know there are like 20 posts from one day alone, but all of those posts were taken from my old blogs. Those are only about half the posts, but some do get lost in translation.

I've spending a lot of time with photoshop and web design lately, that I've been getting a lot of ideas for this blog. Coming back I'm surprised to see how well I even designed this with not knowing what I know now. I used a lot of shortcuts and rigged the code just to make it work, so the automated blogger design doesn't really work with my blog. Even switching out a theme will make a lot of the code disappear. So I'll go through and hopefully get a lot of the old code cleaned up and start designing my blog more to my current tastes.

I'm also throwing in more categories (or more tags being used as categories) into my topics list. My old list was pretty lacking in topics, so this will be more to my tastes. This is all probably due to me getting a little older and being more experienced since I last posted to this blog.

UStream

So here's a quick demo of the UStream app here on my blog. I was undecided whether I should post my youtube channel or my ustream channel... but ultimately ustream was a lot cooler. If you take a look at the ustream app, more than likely it says it's offline and will have links to past videos. If it says someone is online and has a play button, then that means I am currently streaming something live from my webcam or iphone. I don't even have to save the video for it to show on ustream, I can just be streaming it live on my phone, and the best part, it's free! :) When you watch the video embedded below, keep an eye on the ustream app in the video.. you will be able to get an idea on how it works with my phone.

Going through changes

Seems like I just posted something like this recently :P But I'm currently wrking on changing the theme of my blog. I have an idea sketched down on paper, so now I just have to take that sketch and apply it to the web. The blog may look disorganized until the end of the week because I'll be wrking on it in splotches. I'll be adding a list of changes to this post as they happen to the blog.

List of changes
backed up old them
new them uploaded
cleanup,
set up sidebar formatting
added ustream!
added some widgets
worked on navbar
more cleanup
wrking on new header
Search Engine Optimization

Woops

As you can see, my blog is a complete mess right now. I went to backup my template before making some minor tweaks, well, I clicked the wrong thing. So most of the tweaks I have done are gone. I am currently in the processing of piecing the blog back together, but I may also take this opportunity to add some other stuff. Wish me luck, and keep your eyes peeled.

Exams

It's been a pretty busy last two weeks with exams and studying. I just had my trig one today which I'm confident I aced ^_^ Now I only have one more next monday, my lab exam, and then I'll finally be done.

I know I've been meaning to post tech articles on Fridays, which I haven't forgotten, and do have lots of things I would like to write about.

I actually bought a netbook just last weekend. I had been at Barnes and Noble studying, when I was like hmmm.. I'm gonna go across the street to Best Buy and buy a netbook. Lol, spontaneous... I know, but I have been wanting one for a while.

It is an Asus 1005HAB netbook, running Ubuntu 9.1 which is a distro of linux. I took the windows xp that was on there, off, because I really want to be able to do more with linux. Currently it has the 1 gig of RAM it came with, but i plan on upgrading that to 2 gigs very soon.

Well this is my story for the time being, and I'll have more up ASAP.

Update as of 10-28-09

Time for another post detailing changes I've made. One thing that has been bothering me recently, is the formatting of my blog posts. All of my paragraphs look like plain blocks of text and would blend together. To make life on the eyes a little easier, I have formatted everything with a paragraph tag to be indented. You can see this change in some of my more recent posts.

Another thing that was a failure, anime pics of the week. There is no way that I'm going to keep browsing the web for my fav. anime pic of the week. It gets old after a while, haha

So instead of the anime pic of the week, I will be doing weekly tech posts. Being a computer nerd, I'm constantly being asked by people how to fix little common annoyances they have with their computers. Posting every week on tech will be a little challenging, but that is why I'm setting Friday as a permanent day to do this and am sticking to it.

My idea for this weeks tech post, I'm thinking, is going to be how to remove that stupid side bar they have in windows vista and windows xp black. I'm aware that most of you aren't on vista, but it's a start.

Blog Updates and Changes

So I had about 3 different posts in mind to put up here this last weekend, but for the life of me I can't remember what they were. I think one of them had to do with the whole Kanye and Taylor thing at the VMA last night..which btw I agree with about 90% of the worlds population in saying that Kanye west is an asshole.

Going back on track, this post is to detail all of the changes that I have made to the blog recently. One change that you may or may not have seen for the last week or so, was the admin panel. I have moved this now to an off page in google sites, and have put the link to the page in my blog topics. This is not only more secure for me and my users, but also more cleaned up. I don't like to clutter my sidebar up to much, so I threw it up on my beloved navbar. If your thinking, well you throw everything up on the navbar, doesn't that clog things up as well? Well my answer is yes I do! I love my navbar. And no, it doesn't clog things as much as it would have if sitting on the sidebar.

Another change to keep your eyes open for, is a photo gallery! I have recently read of a way to utilize google sites to upload a photo gallery created in adobe flash, to be viewed on your blog. As some may know, blogger has many ups and downs when compared to real website hosting. It may be cheaper and simpilar, but it's really restrictive on things you can do with blogger alone. So here's to hoping I get my blogger gallery uploaded and viewable soon!

While I'm thinking about it, you may have noticed the below test post that was sent from flickr. I hope that this doesn't clog my blog up to much with hella photo updates, but I thought that it may be a nice addition if it works right.

If you follow the below link, you can see the gallery which inspired me to want to create my own.

pinktoque.com

Link Exchanges

I would like you, the reader, to give me your opinion on something.

I recently read an article .. sorry no link to it.. that talked about the best way to make your blog layout. The article stated that when you link to someone else's blog, that you shouldn't make that blog open in a new page, but in the existing page. This goes against anything I've read about setting links up on blogs. I've read that you should have those links open in a new page, so that the reader doesn't get lost or moved away from your own blog, and they still get to see the blog you have linked to. The argument that the article i read made, is that yes it will take the user away from your site, but that it's also morally wrong to force the reader, somewhat, to stay on your page.

My question to you, is what do you think? Should I make all links to other people's blogs open on the existing page, or on a separate page? To those of you that I already link or post your blog badge, how do you feel about my method of posting them?

Personally, I prefer when browsing someone else's page to have all links open in a separate window. This is because I hate having to use the back button.

To those of u that don't know, link exchanges are an excellent way to raise your google page rank. By hosting a link to someones page, and they urs, you are helping each other become more easily findable in google searches. It can help bring readers to your site as well, but it's more important in raising your page rank.

If you would like to find all of the blogs that I've exchange links with, and also other blog badges, you can find those under blog topics --> blogs & blog badges.

New Header!

So what do ya'll think of my new header! Yes I took this picture. It was taken at the Monterey Bay Aquarium with a Nikon D60. I have planned for the longest time to use the original as a wallpaper... it's to bad this one got a little blurry when I re sized it.

Ik the old one was super cool, haha, but I felt it may be taken wrongly by some people. Although who knows, maybe we'll see it come back somehow in some future plans of mine ;)


Oh and if this new banner is utter crap, lemme know it. That way I can take it down.

Mobile Blog

So I am currently working on making a mobile version of this blog. Before all of you start shaking your heads and grumbling on what a waste of time it is, I just want to say that I am doing this to gain some experience in mobile sites and I feel it best to start with this blog. I currently use Zandongo to make and edit the mobile version of this site. You can go to it at smithc.zinadoo.mobi

I'm currently frustrated trying to find a way to redirect mobile users visiting this blog, to view the mobile version instead. This would be so much easier if I were doing it on a server XD But hey, it's a learning curve ;)

Wish me luck!


edited: I spelled zinadoo wrong, so some of you would have had trouble if checking my links. They should all wrk now :)

Blogger Award

Today, a friend of mine Jenie considered me for a blogging award. I just wanted to say thanks so much for thinking of my blog! :) Now I'm guessing this should be passed on to other people whom I feel do a great job blogging.. so will the real [insert name] please click over and collect your award :)

all of the below are great friends, and bloggers
Chev
Jessica
Xinyi

Page Badge

This is another minor update. I was debating on whether or not I should wait til I make other changes, before posting another update. If you look along the right side of my page, you will the the code for my page badge. Basically it's just an image linking back to my blog. You can put that anywhere on your site, and as a trade off, I'll post yours on my blog as well.

Now the reason we do this, is that it helps build up your page rank with google. Now you'll have a little better of a chance of being found by the search engine. Plus, that badges are nifty to have.

You can find other peoples badges on my site; by going to Blog Topics, and scrolling to blogger badges. If you would like me to host yours, just msg me, and I'll be glad to.

Follow Me!

I have finally added the follow widget, which you can find below the comment box. It may be a little hard to see until someone follows me, but it's there. I had a couple people ask about link exchanges, so I think it's only fair to have that box there for other people to find their blogs. I have to contribute to blog hopping somehow ;)
If you don't want people linking to your blog, you don't have to click the follow me button.

BTW, the green ranger rocks!

To move?

So I was doing some research today, and I really wonder if I should move this blog to a webhost. See I want to make a profile for career opportunities, and webhosting can help with that. I could have my profile at www.smithc.net , while my blog is at www.smithc.net/blog.

I'm sure you can see where my logic is at here. Much simpler, and a little more professional. I would end up spending $10 more a year; I'm currently paying $10 now for google's services. I really wish google would offer webhosting. It would make life so much simpler. If I did choose to switch to webhosting, it wouldn't be to hard to import this blog, onto that server. So I have no worries over losing anything old. It almost seems like a little bit of a headache though, especially since I've been trying to draw traffic to my blog

I think it really comes down to when I have my portfolio made and ready to be posted. Because at that time I will be weighing my options on how to host it, and at the same time integrate it in with my existing domain name. It may be a while until then, because I am going to build my whole portfolio site in flash. Yeah, gotta show off some of my computer skills ;)

New navbar!!

Ik I haven't been blogging alllllll weekend. I actually logged on once to reply to a couple of people, and that was it. I will post on the b-day party I went to, as soon as I get the pictures. I think I'll have to steal them off of my moms facebook :P

Now for the update! I finally got a new navbar on this site that works with Internet Explorer! This has been one of my biggest gripes since coming back to this blog. After seeing the code, what I needed wasn't to bad, and I could have used my old navbar style. But this new navbar is centuries better. I wish I would have left my window open. That way I could provide a link to the tutorial, for other people who wish to add one to their site as well. Because I didn't provide the link, and because the code was verryyy good; if you email me, I'll mail you back that code that I used. I'll black out my links of course, but at least this way you can get one too. I will not post a tutorial up because it is not mine originally. Maybe one day I can come up with my own ideas to provide on the matter. Well good night all, best of wishes to the end of your weekend.

moving to a new address

So anyone who reads this may notice something different within the next 3 days. My blog is now registered to it's own domain at www.smithc.net

I have made this move because I need some of the services offered with this upgrade, as well as continue my learning experience. The good news is that when this change is put into effect, I can make this site work for those using IE.

All traffic going to www.seokid.blogspot.com, will be forwarded to smithc.net. So anybody wishing to use the old address, may. Now let's just hope I take advantage of the extra tools available to my fingertips ;)

new banner and layout!

Hmmm, it is one o'clock in the morning. That means that I have technically missed one full day of posting. This is my first day missed since coming back to this blog, that's pretty good actually! Well let me explain the image first for those who don't know it. This is a picture of Lain, from the anime series Lain. It's kinda hard to tell, but she's tangled up in computer cords. This is right around the time where the world in the anime fell all to hell, and Lain was pretty much losing her mind. This anime was weird from the start, but it got weirder with every episode watched.

As for my blog, I have done a few changes that I'm happy with and some that I would like to do better. I have a new banner, obviously. I saw this pic and thought it would fit perfectly with my blog. I was wayyy tired of the mario one, plus the mario one was only supposed to be a temporary place holder. This new one has an older, yet more artistic feel to it. I also cleaned up the code a little bit. I want the page to load smoothly, so I decreased the amount of posts per page to 6, rather than 7 days worth which it was on. Depending on how much I post, that's close to the same amount, but some days I post more than once.

One major thing I need to work on, is to get my blog set up right to work on Internet Explorer. I hate that browser and don't feel particularly motivated to make my blog suitable for it, but around 99% of computer users rely on Internet Explorer. Thankfully that number is a lot lower now, thankfully, but IE still has a hold on the market. I'd hate to try to show someone my blog, and then have it load all funky thanks to IE being a dud.

blog links!!

I've finally succeeded in adding blog links to this blog. I have always wanted blog links, and have spent days researching how to do them. Surprisingly they were easy to do, and right under my nose! I've wanted to implement blog links, because I've noticed that my blog is getting a little full. I have around 24 posts on this site, which amounts to 2.5 pages. I want to reduce the amount of posts to around 6 per page. This way pages load faster. This is going to create more pages to sift through, especially as time goes on and I add more posts. For someone who knows that why want, instead of sifting through hella pages, all they will have to do is use the blog links to find the topic that they want to read. There are 4 topics in my blog links: my life and thoughts, net news, tech help, and blog updates.

I combines all random things and my thoughts in with my life, because they are very closely related. Net news, is random news that I find on the web, as well as actual news, news. Tech help will be any posts that I make describing how to do stuff. For example I may make a post on how to create your very own blog links. ;) Lastly, updates will contain all of the posts like this one, where I describe new things I have added.

update update!!

So I have been doing a lot of work on this blog lately. I didn't even play wow last night thanks to me staying up til 12 whilst studying how to program in CSS. See what happens when I delete my geocities account (wow ik old) and now I can't program in any new web languages. Man I was getting pretty good with geocities when I was in Middle School and the only way to do things was through html. But I like this css..it's very simple to do things in, i just have to get the hang of it.

well this post was to talk about current changes to the site. primarily don't worry about the link bar up top. that is currently in development. I've have spent a couple of days on and off trying to figure out how to get it to work. The only link there that works is my photos link, which will transfer you to my flickr account. My flickr account is new... so it wont have to much up on it just yet. I am also adding, after I post this, a my share box. This will have links to everything I have a profile in. This will allow me to do with this blog what I originally intended, and that is to make this my center hub of everything else I got. I also have a tracker on this site, so that i may see how many one or two of you people who visit this site, and just why the hell you even visit it. Although i still gotta toy with that tracker a little bit :/ And lastly! drum roll!!! I got some music and borders on the blog now too! The borders helped me clean the blog up a little bit. and I just love my ipod over on the side!

------UPDATE! ------

All of the links work except for the "blog links" link.  I also added a sweet ass anime clock. and some minor layout changes :)