1. Tomodachi Theme

Tomodachi was originally designed as wordpress magazine theme but its highly suitable for a personal blog. Its a 3 column theme with 2 side bars placed at right side. Just above the sidebar there’s 2 rectangles one for placing and ad or a flash/image, other for a short bio of the blogger with a small photograph

Download/Demo This Theme

2. Notepad Chaos Theme

This theme from the “Smashing Magazine ” is an artistic one, which is best suited for a personal blog. This theme is ideal for someone who is looking an artistic style with handwritten menus and texts. A 2 column theme, professional design and is free.

Download/Preview Theme

3. Masaahan Theme

Now this is a built in theme which has many features like Twitter account integration, adsense ready, feedburner ready,Tabbed sidebar,comes with an automatic Thumbnail resizer and many other features. It has got threaded comments section, a gravatar feature and a featured posts gallery.

Download/Preview Theme

4. Deskspace

Are you looking for a cool one? A theme that freshens up you and your readers? Here’s one “Deskspace” – a cool wordpress theme for personal blogs. Its widgets ready,compatble with latest wordpress versions and as a bonus you will get its PSD files for further modifications.

Download/View Demo Of Theme

5. Polaroid Press

Here’s a polaroid theme for those who wants a personal blog theme for your wordpress with a nice Polaroid.  You can add as many as images to this polaroid, randomize the images so that your readers can see a new image of yours everyday.Its cool, eh?

Download Theme

6. Personal Homepage

This free wordpress theme is ideal for bloggers who are keen to display a photo album in their sidebar. A good photo album is integrated in which you can add multiple photos and randomize. In addition you can display a static display message near the header area on your blog,combining dynamic blog posts.  For more its good looking with a white background, a nicely made footer and social media integration.

Download-Preview – Theme

7. Blues Theme

Here comes another smashing theme from “Smashing magazine”.  Its a simple, user friendly design which is cool to eye. Suitable for personal business blogs with a little modification. You can use the theme for either private or commercial purposes and is available for free download.

Download Blues Theme

8. Pretty Theme for Female Bloggers

Please don’t say I avoided you dear girls, here comes a pink one(your favourite colour,rite?). It matches your style,fashion and beauty. A 2 column theme exclusively designed for girls.

Download This Theme

9. Creative Art Theme

Another artistic theme suitable for a personal wordpress blog. Features include widget ready and its PSD files are available with download, so that you can alter the design as you wish.

Download Theme

10. Libria Simple Theme

So here’s the last theme in this post, its a simple one suitable for personal blogs. Its not artistic,stylish but its simple and cool.Its inspired from Mac so you may expect colour combination related to Mac Os.

Download – Preview Theme

How to prevent/block spam comments in wordpress?

Akismet Spam prevention plugin is the answer to this problem. This plugin is developed by the wordpress dev community itself “Auttomattic” and is praiseworthy plugin. Once you upload and install this plugin it will automatically filter spam comments from your comments database. Another speciality is its intelligence. Some comments that by passes Akismets walls,when moderated as spam by admin will be analysed and all other similar comments will be marked automatically as “spam” in future.

Where to Download Akismet plugin?

You can download akismet plugin from wordpress.org. Here is the Download Link

If don’t heres the options:

I think you need higher versions of wordpress for this like Wordpress 2.8 or higher.

Happy blogging!

I commanded “wheres the commando chief?”

Reporting: “WP-Chief, reporting sir”

“I dont wanna this f**k ing “sattan” do any harm to my kids! I want him Dead or Alive!!” I said in loud,stiff voice!

wp-chief (in strong,steady voice) – ” We are launching Operation Satan sir! lead by 302 – Encounter specialist Mr.Bond…i mean Wp-Bond (agent no: wp-007)”

Sir, Operation Satan – begins here with 2 stages

1. OPERATION LUCIFER – aimed at removing the malicious codes & killing Satan!
2. OPERATION HELL – aimed putting an end to Satan attacks!Expelling him from this world!

OPERATION LUCIFER:

Chief: “hello,wp-oo7, can u hear me”

007: “yaa, sir! we are ready!”

chief: “then cmon! f**k those bitches”

007: “yes sir! we wil hav a nice one”

007: “cmon boys, lets kill the plugins 1st. wp-001…you may go to Administration Dashboard of blog & de-activate all the PLUGINS now”

001: “yes sir! done…I have done that! DEACTIVATED all PLUGINS & in addition I went up to FTP & renamed the PLUGINS directory to some “PLUGS” ..sir!”

007: “well done ma boy! now cmon…lets do the gang bang”…” Major WP-Mahadev..you may go & download the “WP-BLOG-HEADER.PHP” …check there for some malicious codes like

“search homes for sale”,”act enforcement gambling internet unlawful”,”bush to sign bill internet gambling”,”investment loan bad credit”,”bad credit doc loan no”,”telephone service”,”surprise az real estate”,”homes for sale in clifton nj”,”personal debt consolidation loan”,”bingo pokerguide online poker casino city”,”adv casino cea online poker”,”greentree mortgage”,”brazil casino clickbank gambling ligion”);$ips=unserialize(base64_decode(”YToxNDc6e2k6MDtzOjE0OiIyMDguOTcuMTU2LjIxMCI7aToxO3M6MTM6I

If you find some one like that – just replace it with a fresh new WP-BLOG-HEADER.PHP

Major Mahadev: “sir..I found those codes!! what a holy shitt sir…those all were filled with deadly weapons!! It contained as much as RDX to destroy our entire BLOGS!! sir...I just defused them & replaced with a fresh “WP-BLOG-HEADER.PHP”

007: ” Okay! well done major. Operation Lucifer-stage 1 over! Now lets move from FTP area to SQL area!! cmon guys!!”

[DB area: we reached here by loging into PHPMYADMIN: If you dunno how to reach here, download WP-CONFIG.PHP from FTP area. You will find DB_User & DB_password. use this username & password to login to your DB_host (mysql.yourblog.com)]

007: “Nairsab, go and examine “wp_options” table & report to me within 3 mins”

Nairsab: “sir, examined all shitts sir… I found this malicious code near “active plugins” area! Code looks like this sir

i:6;s:22:”wp-gallery/loading.old“;i:7;s:111:”../../../../../../../../../../../../../../../../../../../../tmp/tmpVgrbkH/sess_c33b801f3760da38be0124999a49b047″;i:8;s:15:”wpvideo.php.bak“;

Nairsab: “I think .old & .bak are some kinda grenades sir! It can kill! So I just removed those section!”

007: ” good sab! sab, you shud be extreme careful when dealing with SQL tables! even a small carelessness will result in explosion”

Nairsab” yaa! sir...I tripple checked the “active_plugins” area & I only removed grenades!”

007: “so cmon boys! MISSION ACCOMPLISHED! We have recaptured FTP & DB areas!!”

007:” chief, we have done it! OPERATION LUCIFER over! SATAN DEAD!”

chief: “Well done bond! Go ahead with “OPERATION HELL”

007: “yes sir!”

so wat? I  (Prime minister of ma blog!..lol) declared “RED ALERT” & I am deploying my WP Commandos to fight & kill Sattan! So commando operation begins here & I name it “OPERATION SATTAN”

Commandos are ready by now & so lets start…1…2…3..FIRE!!

How to check your blog is hijacked by WP-Sattans…?

1. Clear your browser cache now & Restart it
2. Now go to google & search your site there. Click on the site through Google results & if you find it goes to sth else..i mean a redirect to some sites like sattan.org or some other spam sites, -RED ALERT!! ur blog is under attack!
3. Dont worry! We have WP-Commandos to fight…ehhh?

ALTERNATE WAY!

Go to this site http://www.unmaskparasites.com/

Now type your URL & CHECK

Now if you see something like this

General

Title:
URL:	http://yourblog.com
Redirects:	302 -> http://sattan.org/feed/search.php?q=free antivirus programs
Last checked:	0 minutes ago (results are cached for 3 hours)

DECLARE “RED ALERT” and MAKE YOUR “COMMANDOS” READY

OPERATION SATTAN-STRATEGY will be explained in coming posts!

I came across this fantastic online tool just now & I thought it would be of interest to many. What am speaking about is the CoverItLive – Live Blogging tool. They have revolutionized the entire live blogging concept with this fantastic tool.

Any blogger who wishes to create a Live Blogging session can go to CoverItLive website, register there & you can now create your own Live Blogging media. It will look like a simple chat box! Any of your blog user can participate in this real time blogging event.

You can give your Live Blogging session – a Title – Starting Time etc. CIL website will generate an embed code according to your needs & what you all need to do is just copy & paste this embed code in your blog. Now an Iframe will appear in your blog with details of your Live Blogging session. There’s options like “Inform your readers via E-mail” which will let you inform all your readers via mail about the Live Blogging event. Also “Reminder” options available which will let you notify your readers about the event 1 hr before or 15 mins before. A recent add on to this tool is “SMS Alert” which will send SMS-es to the subscribers mobiles…sounds cool..huh! Another interesting feature is you can add all twitter users to this live blogging session & they all will be notified!

I am not gonna dissect this tools entire features, just thought to note you! If you are one with interest go to CoverItLive-Website & find what all things interest you! I think this tool will be very useful for the ones who host Barcamp & Blogcamp in which Live Blogging is unavoidable!

Features Available:

• Live Reporting
• Creating Live Polls – with real time monitoring
• Share Videos, Images, Links
• Share articles, Blogposts etc
• Instant replays etc
• Communicate with readers – Answer there qns – live commenting
  

TO SEE HOW THIS TOOL LOOKS LIKE JUST Click Here

Feed subscribers are the “Gold coins” of a professional blogger or anyone who blogs with a passion. Any blog with a number of subscribers=1000+ is decent but the ones who can get a 10000+ subscribers is truely amazing!  Subscribers can be easily turned out into daily visitors with our valuable content & writing styles.

How to attract more subscribers?

Initially it will be a bit difficult to get some subscribers. I recommend you not to add the “subscription” untless you have made some 100+ quality posts in your blog.

• Daily update your blog with latest news. Atleast “a single post a day” should be followed. 2 or 3 will be fine.
• Dont do “post bombing”-though content is king & more content will add more traffic, I dont recommend doing more than 5 posts a day. A blog should grow steadily-daily-continuosly. It must not be something built in a fortnight. But its okay in initial stages of blogging when your blog lacks sufficient content
• Make some funny posts & add satire in your posts. This will attract such category of people.
• Critical writing will give you people in that category – so as a net result – your blog should contain all types of posts that satisfies a majority.
• Do 70% of total posts related to your blog niche – Dont do “random” type always.

Capsule Technique

• OFFER something for the subscribers! -thats the best available technique to boost your subscribers.
• Eg 1: Run a contest in your blog saying ” Subscribe & win prizes” – “5 people from first 1000 subscribers will get an IPOD”
• Eg 2: For a “Money making blog” -Offer “Quick money making guide for all Subscribers”
• Eg 3: For a photo blog ” Subscribe & Get 1000 landscape pics Now!”
• Eg 4: For a Tech blog ” Subscribe & Get a Technology Guide for Free”
• Eg 5: For a software type ” Subscribe for FREE & get 100 softwares for download”

These are the many examples & a lot more possible. Make a comment here if you have some new idea.

NOTE: Always specify just above your subscription widget “GET UPDATES FOR FREE via E MAIL” – or – “SUBSCRIBE via E Mail for FREE” or “SUBSCRIBE for FREE to GET UPDATES”

Use your sense in your case!

SEO advantage:

Use FEEDBURNER if possible. Increasing number of subscribers in a steady manner will add to your Search Engine Rankings. Number of subscribers & its steady growth is one of the 1000 SEO parameters that Search Engines consider!

Read about Advantage of Using Polls in your blog here

Heres a beautiful Wordpress plugin that may interest you! It enables you to create Polls in your wordpress blogs easily!

DOWNLOAD WP-POLLS PLUGIN

INSTALLATION:

1. Open wp-content/plugins Folder

2. Upload the Files to a FOLDER: WP-POLLS

3. Activate WP-Polls Plugin in your wordpress Dashboard Interface

USAGE:

1. Open wp-content/themes/<YOUR THEME NAME>/sidebar.php
2. Add:
   

   <?php if (function_exists(’vote_poll’) && !in_pollarchive()): ?>
   <li>
   <h2>Polls</h2>
   <ul>
   <li><?php get_poll();?></li>
   </ul>
   <?php display_polls_archive_link(); ?>
   </li>
   <?php endif; ?>

   To show specific poll, use <?php get_poll(2);?> where 2 is your poll id.

   To embed a specific poll in your post, use [poll id="2"] where 2 is your poll id.

   To embed a specific poll’s result in your post, use [poll id="2" type="result"] where 2 is your poll id.

CREATE & MANAGE POLLS:

You can see a POLL interface on your Wordpress Dashboard! Just get to that POLL interface – & Play with it.

Note: You can change the initial logs under Manage Polls-To Kick start your POLL!

Have Fun!!

How creating POLLS in blog can help you bring traffic, help you gain returing visitors, help you gain links?

So thats this posts discussion! Creating polls can add to all the 3 said above! It can bring you loads of traffic, backlinks & returning visitors if used in the most effective way! How? read on!

Any SEO advantage?

YES! Ofcourse, according to the latest algorithm of Google it indexes or gives more weightage to user interactive sites/blogs. POLLS are a wonderful option to improve your websites user interactivity. This will surely add your websites value in Google & you can expect an increase in traffic via searches.

Gain returning visitor!

The K.E.Y of a successful blogger is his visitors & of this main one is the so called “returning visitors“. Adding user interactivity to your blog/website adds a lot in gaining returning visitors. When a visitor comes to your website & sees some interactive items like “commenting” , “Polls” , “Rating option” etc he usually develops a kind of “love” to your blog. Now if your contents are fresh & valuable then you can bag this visitor as “returning” sure bet!

Create Controversies!

A dead blog with no activity or energy is like a dead frog on bed! You have to create controversial content & activities. In fact this will also create “link bait” for your blog.

Eg: If you are running a celebrity blog, just run a POLL like this!

Whos the best actor in the world?

1. Tom Hanks
2. Clint Eastwood
3. Leaonardo de Caprio

Now the rest you can guess! To attract more people to this POLL, just get to Fan Communities of these celebrities & inform them about such a poll happening in such a blog & beg “please vote for our Tom Hanks & make him win”

Experiance: I run several entertainment blogs & I tried this experiment in 3 of them. I exploited the hardcore fanship & emotions of FANS by creating controversial polls in my blogs. Then I went to many Forums, Communities etc to inform the FANS about this poll. The result was amazing & I got a load of returning visitors.

Linkworthy Poll:

Create polls about latest current affairs for eg: About the US president election, like “Who will win Obama or Mckain?” It will add to your backlinks too. Many of your already existing visitors who sees “the poll” in your blog will write about the incident happening in their blogs which adds to your backlinks & hence traffic.

Utilise the Fanatism in people:

You have to find K.E.Y areas where you can exploit emotions of people & develop a controversy in your blog. “Fanatism” is the best emotion that can be exploited easily. Eg: “Create a poll saying Windows Vista is the most powerful OS in the world?” or “Windows Vista beats Linux”  or “Sachin Tendulkar is best player than Don Bradman?” Hows it? Create polls on extremely opposite views! Its a fact that “fanatism” will tempt people to respond! Fanatism is such an emotion that a “fanatic” might call & inform many like minded people & inform about this poll so as to WIN his viewpoint, he will not mind the loose of time & money for this case.

These all are the advantage & solutions to the question How creating POLLS in blog can help you bring traffic, help you gain returing visitors, help you gain links?

Moreover creating polls adds to your websites beauty! Be beautiful!!

Its a common mistake or a type of avoidal that most SEO people will do, they dont Optimize their site for images. I dunno why this happen always and why many are still not so aware of this great oppurtunity to pump a load of traffic to your website. Optimisaing Images in your site will bring you a load of traffic via search engines. A recent conference conducted by Search Engine Strartegies concurred that “image search is the fastest growing vertical in the search arena today. Statistics from Hitwise show it to achieve 90% growth year after year, with over 360,000,000 searches per month across the top search engines: Google, Yahoo!, Ask, MSN, and AOL. All in the “Big 5″ have a search vertical dedicated specifically to image results, with 3 of them (Google, Yahoo!, MSN) integrating images into some contextual search results.”

How to optimise your images?

Thats the question! How to optimise your images, so that your site/blog gets a good visibility in Search Engines? Answer is simple, only requirement is be aware of certain facts & criterias that Search Engines consider while indexing images.

1. Use JPG format for all your photos & GIF format for all other graphical representations. Search Engines index JPG images a lot more compared to other formats.
2. Use ORIGINAL pictures – always! Upload it to your server, integrate your Logos, Trademarks etc.
3. Naming the Image is a great technique. Name the image in most Search Friendly manner. Eg: If you are writing a post about filmstar Aishwarya Rai or Angelina Jolie, upload an image of same people, then NAME that image like “Angelina Jolie photo” or “Angelina Jolie pic” or just “Angelina Jolie”. Similarly if you are writing a technology article realted to Windows vista, just upload a vista image – after renaming it as “Windows Vista tips” or “Windows vista tweaks” . Use your sense & find out more!
4. TAGS – can do a good help in optimising images. Write the most appropriate TAGS for your images. Eg: If its a post related to Windows vista, use TAGS like “Windows”, “Vista” “Windows Vista” etc.
5. DESCRIPTION:- Write a small (20 to 30 words) description about your topic. It must be relevent or matching with the article you are writing.
6. Including 4 or 5 images of same nature ( i mean related to a single topic) in your article will do good. Search Engines will think you are giving a small gallery of topic. Name all those images related. (Dont use same names for all images)
7. Give an apt TITLE for your image. Title can be same as Image Name itself. No problem but if you can find some other options better!
8. Use THUMBNAIL of the image in your main article & LINK to Larger Image from thumbnail.
9. Always use a good resolution image like 800*600 or more good than that.
10. If you can Optimise the image page – it will also do a lot good. Add some “one liners” small descriptions etc on the image page. More over it will be damn great if you can enable “COMMENTING” option in the image page. All the comments will add to content volume in the image page leading to more optimisation.

Additional Techniques:

1. Add a RATING option for your image. This will increase the interactivity & Search Engines always love User Interactive pages.

2. HOT LINKING your image page is another option. Eg: If you are running a celebrity site, COPY the image page of some filmstar say “Helen Hunt”. Now goto many related forums,blogs etc & LINK to this page from those forums by starting threads, replying to posts, making comments etc. If you are a Technology webmaster or something else, Go & find out Forums,Social medias, Blogs etc related to your TOPIC & LINK back.

3. Increase LINK to this image from your own site. Eg: You are writing an article on Windows Vista – at the end of article LINK to one of your images or to entire gallery with an anchor text like: “VIEW PICTURES OF WINDOWS VISTA” Sure! It will do good.

4. Hot Link from popular image sharing sites like Flickr,imageshack etc.

Its 100% guaranteed that with a good effort in optimising all the images in your site, you can drive an additional 30% traffic from searches alone. Sites related to Entertainment,Celebrities,Photos,Pictures,Wallpapers,Travel Blogs,Tourism etc can get 70% increase in traffic with effective Image optimisation.

A Tip to Bloggers:

Now on ADD a single image atleast in each of your posts (relevant-apt to content) – optimise it according to my above tips and SEE the DIFFERENCE!

COMMENT BELOW IF YOU HAVE MORE TIPS!!