Changing blog themes may have unintentional consequences

August 22, 2010 by John Dilbeck · 3 Comments
Filed under: Blogging, WordPress 

A couple of days ago, I decided that I wanted my blog themes to be simpler and cleaner, so I switched from the theme I was using on two of my blogs to the one I’m now using on this one and on John Dilbeck And Friends. Currently, I’m using the Revolution Code Blue theme by Brian Gardner. If you’re interested, there’s a link in the footer to the theme.

I decided that I wanted the content in a large left column and the widgets in the right column. Since I put a lot of stuff in the right column (recent posts, recent comments, top commentator, links to affiliate sites, links to other blogs, several RSS feeds, and a few more things), I decided to have two right columns.

I still haven’t decided if I like how it’s set-up yet, or not. I may be changing things in the next few days.

Installing and activating the theme was easy, but then I had to spend a couple of hours adjusting the widgets to where I wanted them and modifying a few of them.

I think blogs are inherently difficult to navigate, so I wanted to make sure I had easy-to-find links to the pages, recent posts, and recent comments. That took only a few moments to set up.

Then, I left to do other things that really needed doing, like resting and taking naps.

In the interim, I was talking to a friend on Facebook about his new blog and how I thought it was hard to navigate. The only way to find other posts was to go to the home page and scroll down.

I wrote and suggested that he add at least the recent posts and comments, especially if he wanted to foster conversations on what he wrote via comments. I also suggested that he have “breadcrumbs” at the top and bottom of his posts that would point to previous and next posts.

Today, I came back and looked at both blogs where I’d changed the theme and noticed that they no longer had the breadcrumb navigation links. That’s when I realized that they were part of the coding of the previous theme I’d been using and it wasn’t included in this one.

So, I did some digging on another blog that still uses the previous theme and found the code to add the breadcrumbs to this and the other blog.

When I did it, it looked horrible. There was overlapping between the navigation links and the Title of the blog post. So, I had to spend some time modifying the CSS code so everything would look okay.

While I was at it, I decided to put the Adsense ads back at the top and bottom of each post. I’ll give it a month or so and see how it produces. If it’s profitable on these blogs, I’ll leave them. If not, poof, they’ll be deleted.

So, while it took only a few minutes to change the theme, it has taken five or six hours of tweaking and adjusting to get it to what I want, and I’ve only seen them in Safari on Macs, so far.

I had some good reasons for changing the themes, but I really didn’t expect it to take this much work to get them back to where I wanted them.

Just as I was about to call it completed for now, I noticed that the new theme was showing all the pages on this blog in a horizontal navigation bar right below the header, and then obscuring most of them. I didn’t like how that looked and I didn’t like that it showed some of the pages that weren’t the most important right below the header.

So, I took a few minutes and removed the code that automatically generated the list of pages and replaced it with hard links to what I consider to be the most important pages that should be shown in that part of the navigation menu. It was easy to do, but I almost didn’t see it.

I wonder what else I haven’t noticed, yet.

Have you had any interesting experiences when changing the theme of your blog(s)? Are you using free or premium themes? Do you have any advice to offer your fellow bloggers?

Act on your dream!

JD

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That was not my last post to 21st Century Affiliate Marketing

August 20, 2010 by John Dilbeck · 9 Comments
Filed under: Affiliate Marketing, Blogging, Facebook, John Dilbeck, Musings 

Surprise! I’m back. (grin)

Apparently, the reports of my death were greatly exaggerated, and it looks like that applies to this blog, too.

I came close to dying back in March, and things weren’t looking too good in May, either.

I’m happy to tell you that I’m getting better. I have a long way to go before I’m fully recovered, but I’m making substantial progress.

I wrote what I thought would be the last post to this blog in the middle of May, 2010. Since then, there have been some significant events in my life.

On April 1, 2010, my friend and surgeon resected my intestines, removed my gall bladder, and removed an 8-lb colon cancer. He was surprised to find the tumor in one large contained mass, rather than spread throughout my abdomen. That was a very lucky break.

Other, relatively minor surgeries followed.

A PET scan showed that I had suspicious spots in both thyroid glands and in the right lobe of my liver.

A biopsy of each thryoid gland showed that the growths were benign, not cancer. Happy dance!

A biopsy of the tumor in my liver showed it was benign. Happy dance!

However, a radiologist on the oncology team that would be doing the procedure on my liver called me at home from his vacation and said the biopsy report on my liver had to be wrong. He had seen the scans (two of them) and knew from the look and the growth that it was cancer. He didn’t want to rain on my parade, but he said — emphatically — that I should get the biopsy redone, and he would do it himself, if I wanted. I talked it over with my daughter and decided to have the biopsy redone. Dr. Moore did it using a slightly different technique and was right. It was colon cancer that had metastasized to my liver. At least, we knew it was something that had to be dealt with, as soon as possible.

In July, 2010, I went to Mission Hospital in Asheville, NC, and Dr. Moore performed a radio frequency ablation of the tumor in my liver. It is good that I was a good candidate for this, because traditional surgery on the right lobe of the liver is a very serious operation. Basically, what he did was this: insert three needles (that are connected to a radio frequency generator) into my liver so that they surround the tumor. Turn on the generator to cook the tumor (think of this as a microwave oven).

Because of the size of the tumor, he had to use three needles and the results looked good on the ultrasound right after the procedure.

I went for a CT scan and checkup with Dr. Moore earlier this week and got the good news. There is no sign of cancer in my liver, the “cooked” portion completely enveloped the tumor and some surrounding tissue, and there are no signs of bleeding complications. Very good news, indeed.

So, now the surgical interventions are all done and I’m on my second round (of 24 total) of chemotherapy treatments.

Now, instead of expecting to die from this (as it looked back in March), we’re working together to cure it. That’s a huge change in expectations and perspective in only three months.

I’m a long way from being my old self. I’m tired all the time and have trouble thinking straight, but I’m definitely improving.

So, instead of closing this blog, I’ve updated it to the latest version of WordPress, changed the theme, and spruced it up for another few years of talking about affiliate marketing.

I will not be posting as often as I did previously, but this blog is not going to just sit here, either. I will definitely be putting more effort into building evergreen, content-rich, hierarchically-organized websites than I will into blogging, but both have a part to play in my marketing plans.

I want to thank everyone who sent me their encouragement and support in the comments here, on my Facebook profile, and in email and phone calls. It meant a lot, and still does. I think your outpouring of support, encouragement, and prayers is one of the major reasons that I’m looking forward to conquering this cancer, instead of being its victim.

So, that’s enough about me. Let’s get back to talking about affiliate marketing.

(Now, I have to remember how I added that subscribe via email form on this blog. Scratching head…)

Act on your dream!

JD

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