Owner: J David Macor.com URL:http://www.jdavidmacor.com Join Date: Tue, 29 May 2007 16:03:12 -0500 Rating:0 Site Description: J David Macor's personal website featuring his free website templates, design tutorials, and general gibberish. Site statistics:Click here
Review: Making Money Online (Linky Love) 2007-05-29 15:13:35 I have known the Linky Love blog since its inception. She has been a great blogging buddy over these past couple of months and really shown some love on this site (just check out those top commentators). In addition, she will offer up a nice review of your site if you review Linky Love: Making Money
Online. So in the spirit of helping others out, and giving (what is hopefully) constructive criticism, I present the review:
About:
Well, to be honest, I don’t know much about Linky. I only know she is a girl, because MyBlogLog says so… She is also definitely from Malaysia (incidentally, a lot of the blogger I know are from South East Asia as well… what is the deal?…). At any rate, I want to share this quote from her own about page:
Lets make love together Kinky Linky love that is!
If you were to be all analytical about that, you could say that she knows how to bait people, while getting her business done; fantastic qualities to have if you are going to write
6 Hot New Wordpress Themes 2007-05-27 15:46:20 Recently, I released two Wordpress
themes. Now you may be thinking that I am just a shameless self-promoter; well I am. But I am not solely that. There are tons of well known and not so well known designers out there working on some great new themes. So in the spirit of link love, I decided to share the best ones that I found with you all!
Dark Theme
The Copyblogger Theme
Minyx
Grid Focus
Salmon
Freshy
I found a great deal of these designs from this new site (at least new to me) called WPDesigner. It is definitely worth keeping an eye on; besides it is a great looking site. Now if only I could get one of my themes on there…
Help Me To Help Myself! 2007-05-22 14:31:21 I have been running my website since January of last year. It has been almost one year since I started using my domain to blog. And while things have improved (namely, the crap I put out here and the people reading my crap), I am not quite where I thought I would be after this much time and effort. For this reason, I am calling on you, my 12 faithful readers (kinda like the apostles… spooky…). I need some help to boost traffic and readership, and maybe even get dugg!
The Situation
Here is basically where I stand. All of those interesting metrics and website tools tell me that I am doing a good job. I have a pagerank of 6 and a Technorati rank at 10,215. I feel like those are pretty good ranks. I have also used those tools that I have suggested for you, and they generally give me excellent feedback. My Alexa rank is not that great (180,588), but it has been improving:
My Evaluation
As I see it, all of my rankings are inflated, except for the Alexa one. The real problem Read more:Help Myself
To Mac Or Not To Mac… That May Be A Dumb Question 2007-05-19 14:28:31 So I have never personally owned a mac of any kind, whether it be a laptop or a desktop. My family has had them (my brother being a huge fan), and I have had a great deal of experience with them, but I still have never owned one myself. However now I am at a crossroads. I was recently hired as an intern for a new startup (hopefully you will be hearing more about this later), and they all use macs in the office. It may be time to finally get an Apple.
Now, I realize that just because their office uses macs does not mean that I have to use a mac. The computers get along with each other, except for in the commercials. Besides, I think as far as most web design applications go, there shouldn’t be much of a problem (although, I am not sure about FileMaker). But it may be to hard to pass up this semi-legitimate excuse to get one.
Well, let’s assume that I do decide to get one (with unknown funding…). It would then be a matter of which model. I definitely would need a lap Read more:Question
Review: Search Engine Marketing 2007-05-15 09:33:29 Darin Carter is the writer behind Darin.cc, a SearchEngineMarketing
blog. He is giving away a free Nintendo Wii, and in order to get your shot at it, you only have to review his blog. If you too want a shot at it, you can read the contest rules for yourself. Besides, even if you can’t win the fabulous wii, you can at least get the linkback that everyone will receive.
In case you hadn’t noticed or read the previous paragraph, this is a paid review… of sorts. Actually, it is more like an evil review, a la John Chow.
About:
Darin Carter is an internet entrepreneur who has been involved in internet marketing for over 9 years now. He even used to own the pay per click search engine IQSeek.Com. He created Darin.cc in order help educate us, the search engine marketing idiots (no offense to you or me…). He just wants to share some of his experience and knowledge.
Design
Here is one category where there isn’t all that much to say, but I will give it a shot. Read more:Search Engine
, Search Engine Marketing
Happy Mother’s Day! 2007-05-13 21:54:59 Well, I don’t know about you folks, but my mom isn’t around me this weekend. She is enjoying a great vacation in southern France, so I really have no way to contact her. Anyhow, this will be my way to say Happy
Mothers Day! I would also like to give well wishes to all of the other mothers out there. I know that you ladies work harder than anyone else, so we all owe you a huge thanks.
All that I am or ever hope to be, I owe to my angel Mother.- Abraham Lincoln
Read more:Happy Mother
3 Quick and Easy Ways to Improve Your Blog 2007-05-12 04:30:42 These are 3 simple ways that will really improve your blog. And as the title suggests, they are extremely easy to implement… Well, the last one is a little more complicated, but still easy in some sense. They are subtle improvements, but believe me when I tell you that they can provide incredible benefits, including:
More link love
More links in Google
Higher page rank
If that really is not good enough for you, then by all means, leave a comment and maybe we can talk about it… Either way, here are the tips:
Add DoFollow
When a user leaves a comment, by default Wordpress doesn’t let Google pick up on the link to their homepage. With a very simple plugin, you can remedy this and give your commentators a nice link to help enhance their page rank. Plus it is just polite. So, go download the plugin and activate it.
Use Clean URLs
Here is another strange default setting that Wordpress has; if you look at the address for a blog, you will notice that instead of word Read more:Quick
, Improve
Wordpress Theme: Deliciously Blue 2007-05-10 04:36:20 I have finally done it! For a long time now, I have been meaning to take my “Deliciously Blue” XHTML template and convert it into a Wordpress
theme. Not only was it my favorite template, but it has had well over 20,000 downloads, so some other people must have liked it as well. So at long last, I have made a Deliciously Blue Wordpress theme. I chose to use the theme framework from the Glossy Blue theme which was made by N. Design Studio. It is incredibly extensible and has ton’s of great built in usability.
Features:
Built in Recent Comments
Built in style for Top Commentators (just download and activate; no coding necessary)
Supports Wordpress widgets
A print stylesheet
Instructions:
Unzip the file locally (like into your Documents).
Upload the “deliciously_blue” directory (the whole folder) into the themes directory of your site [/wp-content/themes/]
Activate and smile
Download the Deliciously Blue Theme
now! Believe me when I tell you tha
The Ultimate Guide To Productivity 2007-05-08 13:41:22 Don’t get too excited now! I know the title suggests that I will be writing the ultimate guide right here, all by my lonesome, but alas, that is far from the truth. This is a meme, which was started by the Instigator Blog, and it is essentially a group writing project. I myself was tagged by Paul Enderson (whose tips you should also check out) and am very excited to share a few tips of my own. Actually, the best part about all of this, is that people are wanting to release a compendium of all of the tips as a free e-book. How cool would that be? Anyhow, lets check out some of my tips!
Disclaimer: My tips are going to be heavily geared towards web designers; It’s kinda what I know… kinda… I mean, I could talk about how to be productive at school, but really, I am the biggest procrastinator when it comes to academics. But for some reason, I can get stuff done when it comes to the internet.
Itemize
Before you itemize, just make a list of the things you n Read more:Ultimate
, Guide
, Productivity
Best Design Week Ever: 6 2007-05-06 15:31:42 We have had another week of some great design links. And actually, I have been starting to find more and more people actually discussing the reason and philosophy behind some of todays current design trends. This is a very exciting topic to me and one which I myself have started to dive into. At any rate, there are also several links here that feature some free photoshop download materials as well as the only wordpress theme generator out there:
7 Things you don’t see in Web 2.0 from Web 1.0: This is a great little article that brings up some aggravating memories of the types of things we used to see all over the web. Anybody remember the phrase, “Best Viewed In…”?
Web 2.0 Badges - Free Download: I have downloaded these fine badges myself and actually used one in my post about girly gadget blogs. These Deziner Folio releases are definitely worth your time.
Ultimate Web 2.0 Layer Styles - Free Download: Score another one for Deziner Folio. These a
Win $335 Worth of Podcasting Equipment! 2007-06-01 18:13:33 Another day, another contest. That’s right folks! But instead of winning some variety of an iPod, you can win some equipment that may make you a world famous… podcaster. Yes, everything does seem to revolve around the iPod (mine has a screen that just flickers at me; stupid thing). Nevertheless, this is a fantastic opportunity from “Create Business Growth” to win a nice little bundle of things, including a microphone, headset and much more!
How to Enter the Contest
This part can be extremely easy. If you want to be entered into the podcasting equipment contest, you just need to subscribe to to the “Create Business Growth” RSS feed, then fire an e-mail to Christine. This will give you one entry. You can read the details here. Now if you are looking to receive 10 entries, keep reading on!
Receive 10 Entries
That’s right, my friends. You can can get 10 possibilities to win all of this fantastic podcasting gear. How? Write a blog post, of course Read more:Worth
, Podcasting
, Equipment
The Top 5 Online Ways To Stay In Touch 2007-05-31 04:22:47 All of us have experienced losing touch with people that we love. Is it a product of our society? Our culture? Who knows?! But we all know that guilty feeling of not having talked to someone since high school or returning a long overdue call. Sometimes we convince ourselves that it has been too long; it would actually be worse to talk to someone now, rather than to just keep putting it off. Well never fear, my disillusioned readers! Here are the 5 best ways to stay in touch with people, and they are all online!
Geni:
What better place to start then with your family? Genie is a free service that lets you build your family tree and then invite your family members to join and add all kinds of contact and general info.
Facebook:
If you don’t already know, Facebook is a great way to stay in touch with your classmates, both from college and high school. And now, anyone can join! Plus they are sporting some hot new gadgets as of a few days ago.
Virb°:
For all of you who did
How To Reduce Your Comment Spam 2007-06-04 04:31:52 A man can only take so many comments demanding that he enlarge his penis; who are these people and where are they getting this information from?! False information, that is… At any rate, nothing spoils my day more than comment spam. As a blogger, the most exciting part of the whole thing is seeing that little email saying, “You have a new comment!” And then, you know how debilitating and deflating and disappointing it is when you find out that it was spam; more often than not, one that makes a reference to your penis… Well my friends, the buck stops here!
The Solution to Spam
There is reason to have hope; as long as you use Wordpress (not that other blogging systems don’t have spam fighting add-ons; I just am not going to talk about them). There are a myriad of plugins that sport all kinds of spam fighting credentials. But after reading Derek’s entry on the matter, and doing some testing myself, I have found a combination of tools that work fairl Read more:Comment
, Comment Spam
Surefire Ways to Boost Your Alexa Traffic Rank 2007-06-06 15:32:23 I have had my own fare share of problems trying to increase my traffic. And my Alexa
rank was one area that was an especially glaring problem. When I first found out that Alexa even existed, my rank was in the 300,000’s. Now my rank is near 170,000. It is still nothing to brag about, but it definitely is a marked improvement. I have scoured the web looking for tips on how to further increase my rank and I thought I might share some of these tips with you. I will also show you my results in a later post.
What the Hell is an Alexa?
Ah yes. Even after I found out that Alexa existed, I still wasn’t entirely sure what they did. I knew that they were somehow affiliated with Amazon, but beyond that, I didn’t know much. Perhaps they can best describe themselves:
Founded in April 1996, Alexa Internet grew out of a vision of Web navigation that is intelligent and constantly improving with the participation of its users. Along the way Alexa has developed an installed based of Read more:Surefire
, Boost
Getting Your Readers to Stick 2007-06-10 20:55:50 A common problem for bloggers is that you do all kinds of work to get readers to just look at your post, only to have them leave right after that. In fact, you could call it the “Stumble” effect. Just like the Stumbleupon plugin, a reader glances over your post, passes on judgment and then clicks the stumble button; poof! They are gone before you know it. This is not how things have to go. There are tactics that you can employ that are not only effective, but easy to implement as well.
Get Readers to Stick
Include a list of your most popular posts somewhere on the post. The best way I know how to accomplish this (and the method I use) is using a plugin called popularity contest. The plugin starts keeping track of which posts are read the most, and which has the most comments, etc. It then uses a formula to figure out a list of the most popular ones. And with a simple snippet of code, you can proudly display this list to your users.
Similarly, you can give your re
Want to win a $50 Best Buy gift certificate? 2007-06-08 17:32:29 I want to give you, my faithful readers, an opportunity to win a prize. The company I am currently working for is looking for some market research and we need people to fill out a short 20 question survey. The questions are related to your web surfing habits and many of them are related to video content. As an incentive, we are going to randomly give away several $50 Best Buy
gift certificates. At the very end, we ask for an email address, and only for prize notification and possible beta testing in the near future. Here is what the company has to say about it:
Our company represents a new wave of online video sharing. We can’t tell you too much, but you should be pumped. To help us get this new service off the ground, we need you to answer a few questions about your online habits. By filling out this survey you get a shot at winning a $50 Best Buy gift certificate. We’re giving out a lot of them. You also get a chance to be one of the beta testers this summer. It’s
What kind of American accent do you have? 2007-06-13 15:38:09 You know, I was born and raised in Miami, Florida, with an immigrant father from Italy. I just wasn’t expecting these results… I mean, my mom is from Ohio, but still… I have no interesting accent
in me…
What American
accent do you have? (Best version so far)
Midland
(”Midland” is not necessarily the same thing as “Midwest”) The default, lowest-common-denominator American accent
that newscasters try to imitate. Since it’s a neutral accent, just because you have a Midland accent doesn’t mean you’re from the Midland.
Click Here to Take This QuizBrought to you by YouThink.com quizzes and personality tests.
Want to make a new friend? 2007-06-17 12:11:33 I was recently inspired by David Airey to write a post inviting all of you, my faithful readers, to add me as your friend
to the various networks that I frequent. I don’t know why this idea never occurred to me before. Sure, every once in a while I put up some badge or something, but I have never written a nice little list, with links to all of my profiles. Here is what David A. has to say on the matter:
Social networking helps connect you with many like-minded people throughout the world. Some of us spend hours on end trawling through social networking sites, forgetting one very simple step to build your social networks.
And he is right. We don’t spend enough time doing it. We probably add our college buddies, then a few random people from high school… but this all happens on the first day you sign up. I remember how pumped I was every time I got a friend notification from Facebook, but now I hardly ever get them. Now maybe this is because I suck for one reason or
New Wordpress Plugin: All in One SEO Pack 2007-06-20 15:13:53 Now, I know that John Chow just posted about this on his blog, but I actually found this last week! I knew I should have posted about it then… Either way, this is my latest favorite plugin! It accomplishes numerous SEO
functions that I was using several plugins for! You get tagging, meta-tagging, optimized titles, and more! Thanks to this plugin, I can delete several outdated ones and replace it with this gem. If you want to get serious about optimizing your site for search engines, this plugin is the way to go!
The idea behind the plugin is very simple. It puts up a new options page, where you can enter your site’s title, description and meta keywords. Then, it will let you use custom keywords and descriptions for any individual post. It will also reverse your pages title, turning “Your Site Name - Your Article” into “Your Article - Your Site Name.” This makes it easier for search engines to interpret the content of your article.
All in all, thi Read more:Wordpress
, Plugin
How to Stay Organized Web 2.0 Style 2007-06-26 16:24:12 It’s time to organize your life! Admit it. Your desk is cluttered and you can’t find time to exercise and you don’t even know where to sign a check; OK, maybe that is not all true for you, but each and every one of us need to take some time to organize our lives. Without doing that, we find ourselves stressed and overwhelmed. I have scoured the web looking for the latest in 2.0 goodness that will help you make sense of your life and without further ado, here is my list. Oh, and I put a 2 stars next to the ones that I personally use.
Organize Your Tasks
If you haven’t started using task lists, you need to start now. These online organizers are accessible from anywhere and allow you to categorize and prioritize your tasks. You should use at least one!
Toodledo
Hi Task
Remember the Milk**
Nutshell
Gubb
Vitalist
Monkey on Your Back
Organize Your Schedule
Now that you know what you need to be doing, you need to start making time for all of your newly found tasks. Read more:Style
10 Beautiful Blogger Templates 2007-06-28 10:42:10 I realize that not everyone uses Wordpress for their blogging needs. In fact, a great number of you use Google’s very own Blogger
service. I myself have had 2 blogs over there (Godzilla is in Japan and Grande Swiss Finale). I think that it is a really great platform and besides, it is free and extremely easy to use. There isn’t much more that you need. Anyhow, I thought that I might create a list of some of the nicer themes for Blogger out there; you really should try to avoid the boring, overused built in templates.
City View
Mp3 Player
K2
Emire
Minimalist
Plain Paper White
Andreas 02
Andreas 07
Andreas 08
Lonely Girl
Read more:Beautiful
, Templates
Happy Birthday… to Me! 2007-07-03 10:49:48 Well, today I turned 23! It’s pretty exciting stuff! I mean, I have a lot going on right now, between my internship and moving, but I am going to have a good time tonight. We are heading out to dinner at Sibling Rivalry, where they have these dueling chefs. There is like a theme every season, and the two chefs each prepare their own interpretations of principal ingredients. I have heard great things about it and am really excited to go. I also have already gotten to eat some delicious cupcakes that Chelsea made for me; they have cookie dough in the middle and are topped with chocolate frosting. They are awesome! Anyhow, tomorrow I will post pictures and thanks you’s to everyone!
Thank you to everyone who wished me a happy birthday yesterday! As a kind of thank you gift, I will just give a link to everyone who commented on this post yesterday and then list other people who sent me great wishes.
Beloved Commentators
Walter & Ash
Paul Enderson
Jaypee
Ellie
Chisa
zzap
Ap Read more:Happy
, Birthday
, Happy Birthday
Best Design Week Ever: 6 2007-07-02 13:09:40 It has been a hell of a long time since the last “Best Design Week”, but the design world does not stop just because I do. In fact, there have been tons of great things going on in the world of design. And in case you have never seen this feature of mine, here is what it is all about: this is a list of links to the best design related posts or developments over the past week or so. I browse a lot… I mean a lot and I think that in this way, I can share some of the best stuff I have seen in a nice, concise, and hopefully useful way! Enjoy!
9 Essential Firefox Extensions for all Web Developers
WP Theme Review: Victoria
A Guide To How Not To Do Web 2.0 Design (And Tech Reporting)
Spoonfed Photoshop Tutorials
10 Monochrome Websites
Colour Lovers
Wordpress Plugins and Tutorials: Your Pick
19 Blog Designs that are a Sight for Sore Eyes
50 Common Web Design Mistakes
Fresheezy
Get Your Pownce Invites Here! 2007-07-07 18:24:34 Well, this is going to be pretty simple. My friend, Teresa Watts, recently invited me to Pownce. I now have 5 invites to give out. Seeing that no one at my school really likes me, I thought I might offer them up here! Here is is the deal; you send me $100 through Paypal, and then I will give you an invite! Ok, fine, just leave a comment, and I will give you an invite… Cheapos! Just kidding. Anyhow, the first 5 respondents get the prize!
Sorry, but I don’t have any more invites left! Thanks to everyone who left a comment!
What is Pownce?
To be honest, I don’t really know. I have an account, and I still don’t know what to do… Let’s see what Download Squad has to say about it:
So what exactly is Pownce? Well, it’s hard to define in a quick and concise way - but the raison d’etre is simply this: “Pownce is brought to you by a bunch of geeks who were frustrated trying to send stuff from one cube to another”. It offers a Twitter
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