The one downside of being a web designer is that you are bound to get tired of your own designs and keep changing them way too many times.

As far as this website goes, it is the first change.

Quite different from the first design as well. The colors are muted and it has an overall calming and soothing effect (very important for a blog that will be visited again and again - I hope). If I were to choose an element to represents this design - that’ll be Earth

Now that gives me an idea. May be I will create 3 more designs and get over with the rest of the elements, too

Well one thing’s for sure. I can work straight for 12 - 14 hours and come up with a complete new blog design. No, it won’t work as fast for you as I need to discuss your blog, get the design approved and consult you every step of the way. Consulting myself doesn’t take very long so that takes care of it.

The most important change for this blog is a wider design. Since it is a personal blog, and just an outlet for me as a designer and a writer, I said what the heck.

So what do you think of this design?

Better late than never!

I admit the blog has been up for over 6 months but I just got a bit lazy (ummm read busy).

Finally added my portfolio –> go check it out

I finally took the plunge and upgraded this blog to WP 2.5.1

Since my previous version wasn’t very old, either, this was a pretty smooth transition. All the plugins were still working although some had newer version. This brings me to one of the best features of this version - you can update plugins automatically from inside the control panel by just clicking one link. Oh and you also need to add your ftp info so it can unzip and add the new files. Is that cool or what!?

However, if you upgrade from an older version and I mean a much older version then there might be some changes to be made. For example some plugins might be outdated especially tag related plugins as WP 2.5.1 has its own inbuilt tags option now and a pretty good one at that. For those of you who were using the wp links tag, will need to shift to wp bookmarks.

But mainly it is just little tweaks and so worth the effort. WP 2.5.1 offers a great new interface and some unique and intuitive new features. I’ll say it is a major improvement and one you will notice in an instant.

How would you like to be able to download hundreds of free ebooks, software and other useful tools? To top that off, how would you like to build your list to glorious new heights all at the same time?

If you have never participated in a giveaway, let me tell you this is one of the best ways to increase your subscriber base. And some of the products you get to download are fabulous - some even come with PLR and MRR rights so you can do whatever you want with them.

The only catch here is that in order to build your list you have to offer some kind of a gift to entice them to join. Once they have subscribed to your list, they will receive your free gift. True some people may just join for the gift and unsub asap. But by experience I would say most of them stay. After that it is up to the quality of your content to keep them on the list.

So here are 3 of the JV Giveaways I am currently participating in. Go add your gifts here asap and start building your list. Some of these sites are going to be getting massive traffic soon so you don’t want to miss out on that.

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Since I design custom blogs for my clients, I have to keep a lookout for plugins that can achieve any effect under the sun. Following is a list of some of the most used plugins:

1. Akismet: This plug-in helps you in stopping comment spam. It also keeps note of comments you mark as spam for future blocking. This is a part of your Wordpress download. You need to install and set it up, though.
2. Search Everything: This plug-in adds search functionality to include pages, tags, attachments, drafts, comments, excerpts and custom fields. It also lets you exclude categories and posts from search.
3. WP-Contact-Form: Give your visitors the option of contacting you via a simple form. The modified version of this plugin comes with a very useful Spam Protection option. See an example

4. Add This: Social Bookmarks allow your visitors to easily submit your posts to social bookmarking sites. Many plugins are available for this purpose including Social Bookmarks, Gregarious and Sociable. I just recently found Add This and although it adds a link to their site, it is less intrusive and less cluttered than the others. You can see the result at the end of this post.

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…for hopefully a very long time

After having designed multiple blogs for my clients (I’m a website designer - read my bio), I decided to finally start blogging myself. This blog is going to include everything related to selling on the net - this includes, web design, blogging, email marketing, internet marketing … well you get the drift. This is going to become the hub for a lot of resources, tips and techniqus. So check back often. You never know what you may find.