Extending the competition deadlines

Yesterday, in an effort to keep you all in the loop, I posted a quick message about the court case and my involvement as a witness. As a result of the time and energy that this matter is taking I have decided to extend the deadlines for all competitions and giveaways that are taking place this month. You now have until next Friday, June 6, to get your links and entries in. This applies to all current competitions and giveaways, from the pitch, to... Read More

Witness

Today I have the pleasure of being called as a witness in an ongoing court case. To cut a long story short, a friend of mine is suing his previous employer for breach of contract. I witnessed a conversation between my friend and his previous employer where the contract was clearly breached. Much as I would love to go into detail and spill the beans in support of my friend it would be very unprofessional of me to do so, at least until the matter is... Read More

Calling all typography junkies

I need some help with a very personal project. I’m looking for a beautiful uppercase letter E. More specifically, a very elaborate black letter script. Something that would make a great basis for a work of art, or that is a work of art in its own right. Those close to me will have probably already figured out what I want with this character. I promise I will reveal all with a photograph of the finished product once the time comes. If you have... Read More

A sure fire way to bring fresh readers to your blog

May was always going to be a make or break kind of month. Ok, maybe that’s a little dramatic, but a lot of lessons about what does, and more importantly what doesn’t, work were learned in April. The plan for May was, and still is, a three pronged traffic attack. Content Giveaways Redesign I expected the giveaways to bring in the most traffic, followed by the content and then the redesign. The reverse is true. We are now almost at the... Read More

15 CSS showcase sites that will push your blog into the spotlight

It’s a well known fact that submitting your blog to a CSS showcase site can, if you get listed, send your traffic sky high and, in some cases, keep it sky high. This is because the majority of the A-List bloggers and so called trend setters cruise these sites for interesting blogs to link to. A quality design often goes hand in hand with a quality blog and that makes the CSS showcase sites rich pickings for the big traffic brokers. Trouble... Read More

Good home required for cute and clickable RSS icon

The recent redesign has brought about a few changes. One casualty of the Dreamweaver knife is Mr. RSS, the cute little cartoon RSS icon who has been part of the Upstart Blogger furniture for a very long time. He needs a new home. Many of you have commented that he doesn’t really fit in around here anymore, and, a little reluctantly, I have to agree. So, it’s time to set him free. Control click him, or right click if you are running Windows,... Read More

Shift refresh

Upstart Blogger has a fresh coat of paint. Hold down shift and click refresh to load the latest style sheet. Reading this in a RSS reader? Here’s a quick rundown of the changes. The yellow links that caused so much annoyance are gone, replaced by a more pro-usability muted shade of blue. Helvetica is replaced by the slightly more contemporary Helvetica Neue along with a few minor changes to text size A header image, a first for Upstart Blogger,... Read More

You are never too young to start blogging

I’ve recently been musing over the viability of children blogging. The child would develop writing skills and, as long as they were allowed free reign over topic choice and content, they would enjoy the experience. And, let’s not forget the potential income that the child could generate. This could be used to fund future education and act as a non traditional college fund. With children spending more and more time writing, for example,... Read More

Dreamhost stoops to a new low

A couple of days ago I started to receive some odd comments. All of them were written in the same style, by apparently different people none of whom left a web address. They all had one thing in common. Every one was praising Dreamhost, saying what a wonderful host they were and how they, unlike me, had received nothing but fantastic service, 100% uptime and wonderful customer support. Yesterday six of these bizarre comments were left, similar... Read More

Three blog designs that have stood the test of time

When considering a blog design or redesign it is often useful to look at the classics. Those blog designs that have stood the test of time and have resisted the temptation to constantly redesign. Each of the following blogs have huge audiences, are instantly recognizable and their authors are revered in their respective industries and generally online. Zeldman. Described as the Godfather of the web and online at zeldman.com for as long as I can... Read More