Business cards are very important nowadays and I feel like they will always be important because of one simple reason: they are a must. Whenever going at a meeting, you will want to meet new people, interact with others and so on. Alright, you will talk a lot with them at that meeting but you will also want to talk with them later tomorrow so here’s where business cards are important - they will simply give one to you, which practically is a small card that contains little information about that respective person (name,occupation,phone/e-mail).

In return, you always need to have some business cards at you. Don’t fall in that shameful situation of not having a business card at you when someone asks you for one, you just can’t simple say “alright, do you have a pencil and a piece of paper? Write down my contact info!”.

UPrinting is one great company that delivers this kind of stuff - from business cards, to canvas prints, flyers and more, you can find out more by simply visiting their website.

Done with talking, let’s get back to serious things. Here’s one great giveaway that you will definitely like, sponsored by UPrinting:

Prizes:

- The first winner gets 1000 free standard size business cards.

- The second winner gets one free 18×24 canvas print.

You can choose from any of their stocks for these items.

How to enter:

It’s very simple. Just leave a comment at the end of this post, describing what you would use the free business cards/canvas print for.

Rules:

Winners will be picked randomly. Also, winners in the United States and Canada qualify for free shipping. Shipping fees will apply to winners outside these areas.

This giveaway will end on March 26. I wish you good luck!

I’ve just upgraded all my blogs, installing the new Wordpress 2.7 which seems to be fantastic! This is a review of the new Wordpress script.

First of all, I can say that Wordpress 2.7 has a new interface which, in my opinion, is better in terms of usability and design than the previous interfaces used on the older Wordpress scripts. You wouldn’t notice the changes looking outside-in, but inside-out. The admin panel got a very clean and modern look which reminds me of the operation system called Macintosh. Here’s how the new Wordpress 2.7 admin panel looks like (click on the picture for maximizing it):

What I like about Wordpress 2.7

I personally switched from Wordpress 2.2.1 (I know, I’m oldschool!) so obviously I had a big shock because the things are very different from what I was used with, but I addapted quickly to the new design because many things are now just much better! A new feature I really like is called “Screen Options”. What it basically does is to show or not show different things on the dashboard, things like “Right Now” (which is a short summary of your blog), “Recent Comments”, “Incoming Links”, “Plugins”, “QuickPress”, “Recent Drafts”, “Wordpress Development Blog”, “Other wordpress news”, you know, in general stuff that was before too but you couldn’t do anything about them. You aren’t interested in let’s say “Other wordpress news”? No problem at all, you won’t see that box any much longer! Another cool feature is that you can now drag the boxes and arrange them the way you like. To do this you must click and hold while moving the boxes.

Did you know that wordpress can be a feedreader too? Sure thing! You can now get the latest articles of your favorite blog right into your wordpress dashboard.

What I don’t like at wordpress 2.7

There are only few things I didn’t like. For example, I am a person who should wear glasses, so I would liked it more if the font was a little bit bigger in the “New Post” page. Another aspect that I didn’t really like is still related to my eyes. Although the new design is clean and modern, there seems to be too much gray and my eyes are hurt. I would add some more blue.

Conclusion

All in all, Wordpress 2.7 is great, and I again recommend you to try it. This way you’ll experience something new, something that will make you be proud of wordpress, and you will stay up to date with the latest security updates.

How do I upgrade?

Very simple! All you need to do is to download the new script from here, access your ftp, delete the old “wp-admin” and “wp-includes” folders, and then copy all the new wordpress files (skipping wp-content because there are your themes, pictures, plugins, and you don’t want to lose that), overwriting the old ones. If you encounter any problems, feel free to add a comment here, telling what happened and I will try to help you.

A very essential part of blog optimization is making it be a comfortable place for your old, faithful readers and even the new ones. I’m sure you agree with me that font size is a tricky part, on the internet, there are different opinions about how big or how small a font should be in order not to cause pain to the eyes.

I came across so many blogs and websites that had some really nice articles which could be a great read, but there was a major problem. The font size was too small for my eyes, so I couldn’t read anything. There were 2 possibilities: copy the text in a word processor and make the font bigger in order to read it without problems or just simply hit the x button and close the window. There are 99% chances that you would choose option number two (closing the window), and that’s exactly what I did. In other terms, this means money loss, high bounce rate, big decrease in the subscribers number, and more bad things for the one who tried to write a good article.

The best thing you can do is to install a plugin on your blog that will display a button on every article, a button that allows the reader to make the font smaller or bigger, according to his tastes. Luckily, if you are on wordpress, a smart coder made a very nice plugin called “WP-chgFontSize” which can be downloaded from here. Once the plugin was download, here are the installation steps, according to the author:

2. Decompress and upload the contents of the archive into /wp-content/plugins/.
3. Activate the plugin on your WP Admin > Plugins page by clicking ‘Activate’ at the end of the ‘WP-chgFontSize’ row.
4. Configure the plugin on your WP Admin > Options > Font Size page.
5. To use it, there are two possibilities:
* If your theme supports widgets, and you have installed the [widget plugin](http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/widgets/) or you are using Wordpress 2.2 or higher, add the ‘WP-chgFontSize’ widget on your WP Admin > Presentation > Widgets page.
* Add `<?php chgfontsize_display_options(); ?>` at the place in the theme’s file where you want the font size selection appear.

Regarding step 5, I personally chose the second option and it looks like this (click on the photo to make it bigger):

Again, I really recommend you to use this plugin which will definitely make happy some of your readers. If any problem occurs during installation, feel free to add a comment here telling what the problem seems to be and I’ll be glad to help.

As you all know, a blog is an online journal where you can write your thoughts, opinions about certain topics, in my case: blogging about blogging. Blogging has evolved over time and you can now see huge projects like techcrunch that are actually blogs.

What’s so great about blogging, you may ask. Well, the great thing is that you can get a response from your readers on your articles, that is called feedback. Really, everyone has an opinion and you’ll see how great you feel when someone posts a comment on your article. In blogging, connecting with your readers is essential if you want to “stand out of the crowd” and do something special. Maybe that is why in the last few years the “blogoshpere” has grown so much, it came with something special.

But how can you connect with your readers?

Read the rest of this entry »

I think you all know Daniel Scocco, the problogger behind dailyblogtips.com. I have prepared a question set for him and he was glad to take it, thank you! Let’s hear the thoughts of a successful blogger:

- First of all, please give me some details about you (Age, occupation, hobbies, anything you want).

I am 24, and for the past 2 years I have been working on the Internet, with a wide range of projects. I would call my self a web publisher, but the definition is evolving over the time.

- When and why did you start blogging and when was the first time you heard about this term?

I first heard about the term back in 2005, on the blog of Steve Pavlina. He described how it was possible for people to start a blog and make a living with it. The idea sounded very attracting, and I started one small blog right after reading that.

- How much time do you spend blogging per day?

Some 4 or 5 hours.

- What’s your target? Money, connection with people, or you just want to let your voice be heard?

My plan is to start a web company soon. My blogs and other online projects are a way to arrive there (for the money and connections that they bring). Even if my startup should take off tomorrow, I will probably keep writing on my personal blog to share my thoughts and ideas.

- Which traffic do you consider to be the best? The one provided by search engines or social media networks?

Search engines. It is more stable and can be molded more easily (i.e. led to click on ads).

- What are the best ways to promote a blog?

Put some killer content on it, then let other people know about it (email them, use social sites, etc).

- In your opinion, what makes a blog be good?

Its content.

- How do you monetize your blog?

I have direct advertising deals in place (companies that sponsor the blogs).

- What monetization methods do you recommend?

Direct advertising deals. If you have a huge number of page views, perhaps CPM ads. If you have a huge organic traffic (from search engines) then perhaps AdSense.

- Could you give some advice for the new bloggers?

Focus on creating outstanding content, the rest will follow. People must read it and say “shit, I better bookmark this website and come back in the future!”

This question set addressed to a big problogger has the intention to help the new ones understand better this phenomenon called blogging.

From now on I will help you with your blogs for free. You can ask me whatever you want about blogging, monetizing, search engine optimization or social media optimization, all for nothing (Though I won’t say no to a beer or a coffee).

Why pay hundreds of dollars to ask a so called “expert” if you can ask me for free? I guarantee that I can help you no matter the problem you have.

Ok, so if you have any problems, feel free to ask me. To do that you have to go onto the “Free advice” page and complete the form which can be found there.

I will get back to you within 24 hours and weekly all the questions and answers will be posted here (or most of them).