Check out this Performance Comparison of Major Web Browsers.

Google Chrome killed it!

In summary:

Up yours Internet Explorer. And you know what? Up yours too Firefox!

I’ve been having so many issues with Firefox lately that I had to completely give up on it and use Chrome as my default browser. Many of my Firefox add-ons weren’t compatible with the latest version and the ones that were compatible were slowing it down. I’m careful with my add-ons and I didn’t have too many to begin with so this was unacceptable for me.

I’m really loving Chrome. It’s fast and it looks pretty damn cool. I have mine set up with the chrome finish so my browser looks all slick-like.

I’m not even that disappointed that I can’t use the add-ons I was so dependent on with Firefox. I don’t even miss them.

You can’t right click on an image in Chrome and set it as your desktop wallpaper which is sad, but you can right click on anything you want to and “inspect element”. This is a super handy tool for web developers, designers, internet marketers, etc. If you use Firebug for Firefox, this tool is very similar.

It’s definitely worth trying Chrome out if you haven’t already.

When I read magazines, I pay attention to the layout of the pages, the font used, the images, etc. which inspires me to create new designs. I also get inspired by nature – going for walks always gives me ideas and I can’t wait to get home to draw them.

I also love to look at photography which is always really inspiring. I get all my wallpapers from InterfaceLIFT. They have some amazing photos and the one I downloaded today is particularly crazy cool.

I like to minimize all my windows on my desktop and just sit back and admire my current wallpaper. I usually get a lot of design ideas from them. It’s also like having a piece of ever-changing art on my desk while I’m not working.

I might have to keep this Buddhist Temple wallpaper on my desktop for longer than usual since it goes so well with my Buddha head sitting on my desk.

So take a look around you. Chances are there are many inspiring elements right in front of you, you just have to look at them with open eyes!

Chris from AB Web Design says the best tool he has found for color sampling is Pixie. It’s a tiny little program that tells you what the hex, RGB, HTML, CMYK and HSV values are for a particular color. You simply hold your mouse over the color you want.

I do this a lot of times when I see a color in a photo or on a website that I love. Now, instead of opening up Fireworks (which takes an eternity on my piece of crap machine) to find out what the hex value is, I can open up Pixie instantly and find out. Very handy.

Jack from ZedProMarketing.com uses Treepad. I haven’t used it too much yet but I can see it’s like Notepad (for keeping text files) but with a lot more features. Plus it is a much smaller program than OpenOffice or MS Office so it’s much easier to load and keep running while you’re working on other things.

For bloggers and/or web designers who have computers that are lacking in speed and memory (like mine!), these two programs are great options. Thanks for the recommendations guys!

I found a mousepad and a chart that I’d love to try, although I don’t think the mousepad would work with my optical mouse. It would be really handy to have a chart on my desk when designing websites, so if you also dabble in design, this chart may be something that could come in handy for you.

(I’m not an affiliate for them. Just pointing out a cool resource.)

Creating a header for your blog is one of the best ways to make it unique and stand out from the crowd. When you’re trying to come up with an idea for your new header, you may be drawing a blank. I’ve got a few ideas that will help kickstart those creative gears in your head.

Just Text – I’ve seen a lot of great blog headers that are simply text. Using typography to make your blog stand out is gutsy but can result in a beautiful header. Find a snazzy font – there are tons of free fonts available on the web to download – and use your favorite image editing program to create a cool graphic with your blog title.

Add some text effects to make it anything but generic. You can even make it look like it’s 3D, shiny, or glowing. Try using different colors for certain letters, add a copy of the text flipped upside down to create a mirror effect, or create text using other images. There are lots of ways to get creative with text.

Photography – Some headers are nothing but a photo. A scenic landscape, a city skyline, or a row of cute babies smiling for the camera can make a memorable image for your blog readers.

If you want to get even more creative, design multiple headers and have them rotate each time the page is refreshed. This is a great idea for people with photoblogs who like to showcase their own work. My favorite place to get images for my blog headers is StockXpert.

Minimal – If you have a busy theme or you want to direct the focus on something in particular, you may want to choose a header that doesn’t attract a lot of attention.

A simple blog title may suffice, or a small logo. This works well for blogs that already have a brand that is recognizable.

Grunge – There are lots of grunge images and textures that you can download for free. Grab a few, splice them together, and create your own unique header with them.

While you’re looking for some grunge textures, find some grunge fonts to go with it. A dark grunge background with a white grungy text over top would look great on a personal blog.

Color – Using bright, vibrant colors for your header is extremely eye-catching. It could be something really abstract (in which case many examples can be found on free stock photography and images sites) or you can use a mixture of images that add a lot of color contrast.

In one blog header I designed, I took one image of an apple, duplicated it twice, and changed the color of the second two images resulting in a row of three colorful apples. It was simple and eye-catching at the same time and the same idea could be implemented for any niche blog using different images.

If you can’t decide on one idea, why not try more than one? Some blogs are known to change their headers regularly. In some cases this could confuse your readers, but if done properly, it could end up being something that makes your blog unique. Your readers will expect the change and look forward to seeing what you come up with next.

There’s always been a debate about how long your blog post title should be, but whatever the best answer is according to everyone else, I’ve always stuck with “shorter is better”.

Why?

It just looks better!

If you have a blog post that is essentially one long-ass sentence, it will look horrible in your blog’s sidebar when you list your recent or popular posts. Some blog themes don’t like longer blog titles and will make them wrap stupidly in the main post as well.

So not only do you have these reasons why you should use a shorter blog post title;

• easier for readers to remember so they can locate it in the future
• easier for people to link to it from their own blog or retweet in on Twitter
• more likely to appease the search engine gods (Google displays up to 70 characters)

but you’re also making the overall look of your blog more aesthetically pleasing.

When you find something you’d like in your own theme, it’s time to get your hands a tad dirty. Here’s how to replace the existing RSS icon in your theme with a new one:

Download the free RSS icon to your computer and unzip it.

Open your FTP program and navigate to your theme folder which is in the “wp-content” folder. (If you have trouble with this part, let me know in the comments.)

In your stylesheet, locate the bit of CSS for RSS. Each stylesheet is a bit different, but if you use the Find feature (hit Ctrl+F) and search for “rss” you should find it no problem. I’m using the Copyblogger theme by Chris Pearson on this particular blog so I’ll be using that code for my examples.

Here was my original code with the boring orange RSS icon:

#rss { width: 20em; height: 70px; margin: 0 0 1.0em 0; background: url('images/rss.gif') 50% 0 no-repeat; text-align: center; }

#rss a { display: block; width: 48px; height: 48px; margin: 0 auto; }

Here is what I changed it to:

#rss { width: 20em; height: 128px; margin: 0 0 1.0em 0; background: url('custom/rss.gif') 50% 0 no-repeat; text-align: center; }

#rss a { display: block; width: 128px; height: 128px; margin: 0 auto; }

You’ll need to know the width and height of your new RSS icon to put in the new values. My new RSS icon was 128×128 so I changed the height of 70px to 128 to make sure there was enough space.

This pushed down my sidebar a bit so if you’re not willing to have changes like this, choose a new RSS icon that is the same size as the existing one, or resize it in an image editing program.

You’ll also need to rename your new RSS icon and replace the old RSS icon with the new one. I did this by dragging it into my images folder via my FTP program and rewriting over the old one.

My particular theme uses a custom stylesheet and custom images folder (any new images or graphics I put in my theme all go into the custom folder) so I had to rename the ‘images/rss.gif’ part to ‘custom/rss.gift’.

Now my new RSS icon is displaying perfectly, but I want to add a little something extra. In Fireworks (you can use GIMP for a free alternative image editing program) I copied the RSS icon and made the copy a different color. I named it “rss_hover.gif” and dragged it into my custom folder. Then I added this bit of css into my custom stylesheet:

#rss a:hover { background: url('custom/rss_hover.gif'); }

Now when you hover over the RSS icon, it changes color.

And there you have it. A fairly simple change that makes a pretty big difference. If there are any CSS masters out there who have an easier way, I’d love to hear it!

Today I thought I’d take the opportunity to show you a few examples of some blog headers that really caught my eye. Hopefully they’ll provide a bit of inspiration for you.

1. The Mom Crowd

2. Blog Design Blog

3. Geeks Are Sexy

4. Friday Traffic Report

5. Karen Cheng’s Snippets of Life

6. Making It Lovely

7. Mark’s Daily Apple

This is actually the old header. He JUST launched a new design and I’m personally liking the old one better. Anyhoo, next.

8. Men With Pens

9. Mighty Girl

10. The Adventures of SuperWife

11. Define Me Clothing

They don’t have to be award-winning designs but it should tie in well to the rest of your theme.

More WordPress goodness to come, so stay tuned!

Create Your Own Header

I use Macromedia Fireworks to create all my graphics, but if you don’t have that or Photoshop, GIMP does the job well enough considering it’s completely free.

A header can consist of a simple word or sentence – the name of your blog and your tagline perhaps – or it can show a beautiful, eye-catching piece of photography.

There are lots of ideas to incorporate a really groovy header into your blog to make it unique. Google “inspirational blog headers” and start brainstorming some ideas.

Add Your Signature To Your Posts – Get Personal

Adding a graphic of your signature (which can be digitally created) is one way to add your own personal touch to your blog. Having a signature at the end of each post is similar to adding your photo in that it lets your visitors get to know you a bit better because you’re not just hiding behind the anonymity the internet can provide.

Showing a bit of your personality helps your visitors connect better with you. Your signature can be part of your brand. You could even add your signature to your blog header.

Change the Font, Background, and Colors

Making a few small changes like the color of your sidebar titles or the type of font you use can make a big difference in the overall look of your blog. These changes are fairly easy to implement as well. I’ll be getting into that a bit more in the coming days and weeks.

You may want to take a plain white background and change it to a vibrant blue. You could also add a photo as your background to really make your blog pop.

When making these changes, it’s important that they don’t take over your blog. Colors that are too bright, too many colors, too many types of font, etc. can distract your visitors and may even hurt their eyes. Reading neon pink text on a black background is not a good time people.

Find or Create a Groovy RSS Icon

There are tons of free RSS icons out there that you can download and add to your blog. I’m not a big fan of those boring orange squares so I usually like to change things up a bit and whip out some kickass RSS logos that really stand out.

If one of your goals with you blog is to increase your RSS subscribers, having an eye-catching RSS icon is one way to do that. You could also create your own RSS icon and make it completely unique.

Change Sidebar Titles to Images or Graphics

If your blog theme is pretty bare of graphics, one way to spruce it up is to replace your sidebar titles with an image. You can create a subtle image that appears under the existing text, or you can create a separate image for each widget. I prefer the first option since it’s mucho easier.

This requires a bit of messing around with CSS but I’m going to go over that in a future post as well. If you’re not good at creating graphics, there are lots of free stock images to choose from.

So there you have it – 5 ways to make your generic blog theme kick ass. If you have no clue how to do any of this stuff, no worries. I’ll be posting about each one in detail so make sure you’re signed up for my RSS feed.

(Is “uncustomized” even a word?)

I have to say that I’m a firm believer in the fact that NOBODY should have a blog that isn’t at least a teeny tiny bit customized these days.

Sure you can install WordPress, throw up a free theme and start publishing in under an hour. But that’s like farting on your blog and having a bunch of people come to visit and smell catch you redhanded with a stinky blog. Blogging with a bareass blog can be just as embarrassing.

There are so many ways you can add your own unique touch to your new blog that there’s really no excuse. Leaving up the default theme should be a sin. Shame on you if you’re a sinner!

Now, I’ve had the opportunity to play around with the Thesis theme that everyone and their dog has been talking about and was most thoroughly impressed. This is a premium theme, meaning you have to purchase it.

However, it’s a ridonculously great price for the slick features that come with it, and it’s super simple to navigate around the options. Not only that, but Levar freaking Burton uses that theme! Who wouldn’t want a WordPress theme that Geordi La Forge rocks out to?

Using the Thesis theme is one great way to have a blog that allows you to make it unique without spending a boatload of money.

Another option for you is to keep your eye out in the coming days/weeks because I’m going to be posting about a few things you can do on your own to make your blog stand out. These are things that I can do, so there’s no reason why anyone else can’t do it too. There are days when I put the cereal in the fridge and the milk in the cupboard. Seriously. So anyhoo, make sure to sign up for my RSS feed so you don’t miss out on some cool WordPress tutorials.