Blog Potions

I have blogged about my several changes in my web hosts. The first one is definitely unacceptable because a number of Wordpress thingamajigs are not working well with my first host and I’m loosing several important functions that came with this great blogging software. When I changed my hosting account, thought things would be better. Actually things really became better after my first move. However, when something went wrong with the server cluster that my account was located, everything else fails leading to most of my blogs inaccessible and worse, one of my blogs was deleted. How about that?

This blog is currently running on my third host and so far, everything seem to be running quite smoothly. Though I still have to observe well before I move all of my other blogs here.

Point is, when talking about hosting providers, no one can really be sure about the stability. Popular hosts costs a little high though they could really offer good services but due to the massive amount of users they are serving, the servers seem to overcrowd and sometimes could lead to major troubles in the long run. Better try cheap web hosting services so when something fails, moving to another host could not be too big burden to handle.

For the next 30days, SitePoint is giving away FREE PDF format downloads of their Photoshop Anthology. Here’s a quick view of the email notice we’ve got:

“Our entire Photoshop Book is FREE to download for 30 days!

“You’ve downloaded PDF sample chapters of our books in the past, so I thought you’d be thrilled to discover that for the next 30 days you can download the full 278 page PDF version of “The Photoshop Anthology” (usually $29.95) for FREE!

“Here’s your link to snap up a free copy: http://www.sitepoint.com/launch/f948f3

“There’s no catch. This is no “special offer.” It’s purely a FREE giveaway of this incredible book.

“Grab your copy today before our servers go into meltdown!”

If you want to have your own domain and break free from domain extensions from free blogging providers such as Blogger and Wordpress, you have to have your own web or domain hosting solutions. I have covered enough topics on these, see my archives for detailed informations.

I have switched to many web hosting providers in a span of less than a year now and during those switches, I have noticed that only a few web hosts are accepting PayPal payments. So far I’ve only seen Dreamhost, Hostmonster and Bluehost accepting subscriptions payments through PayPal. Others are either requiring a VISA, MASTERCARD and AMERICAN Express among others. In short, it’s still necessary that one owns at least one credit to have their transactions and orders completed. A credit card has been now necessity if you want to have your online presence.

Having a credit is not easy if you’re employed or at least have a good credit history. And if my memory serves me right, having no credit history is pretty much the same with having bad credit history when applying for credit cards or any other type of financial applications (e.g. loans, mortgage, insurance, etc.). Some online credit card companies are offering those so-called unsecured credit in financial offers such as Small Business Loans.

Anyway, when you want to have your online presence, you should at least have one credit card ready, avoid overspending and pay on time to avoid bad credit history.

When I first tried Wordpress 2.5, I thought I messed up because I couldn’t make the Photo Gallery look like as how I’m seeing it from other bloggers. However, through constant frequenting at several forums, I finally found out that it was the image.php file that I have to tweak to make the inside gallery pages appear as it should. Now that I know what to do, my Wordpress Theme don’t have an image.hp file to start tweaking with.

How to make your theme Wordpress 2.5 ready?

1. Create a copy of your single pages and re-name it image.php.

2. Open the image.php file and look for something similar to

<?php the_content(’Read the rest of this entry…’); ?>
*This is supposed to be the code for the post content

<?php wp_link_pages(array(’before’ => ‘<p><strong>Pages:</strong> ‘, ‘after’ => ‘</p>’, ‘next_or_number’ => ‘number’)); ?>
*While this is supposed to be the Pages Navigation Links

3. Now you will replace both lines of codes with

<?php echo wp_get_attachment_image( $post->ID, ‘large’ ); ?>

<div class=”caption”><?php if ( !empty($post->post_excerpt) ) the_excerpt(); // this is the “caption” ?></div>

<?php previous_image_link() ?><?php next_image_link() ?>
*This is the code for the thumbnail navigation

4. Style them if deemed necessary.

5. Upload your image.php file in your theme folder and experience the magic of Wordpress 2.5 Gallery.

We’ve found another blog publishing Web Development tutorials like the Blog Potions. Stylish Design is developed and being run by Robert and Andrei who have both been in the art and advertising industry for eight years. Together (and along with a team of well experienced writers) they share insight on the world of art, culture and design.

Stylish Design’s primarily features web design and web development tutorials with extreme focus on techniques for search engine optimization, web directories, softwares and tools, CSS styles, website templates among others. The blog has been successfully running since February 2008.

Visit their web designing blog at www.stylishdesign.com, where web design and style have met.