The time for another newsletter, Friday, has come round again; and as a result of the lack of created content over the past week there’s not a lot content-wise to report on. – So I’m not even going to bother listing and linking the two articles I’ve put out this last week. If you want to see them then look them up on the Blog Contents page.

My primary focus this last week has been on de-cluttering the appearance of the blog: The first thing to go was a number of unimportant items on the Welcome page, including the comments, (Comments on a Welcome page eh? I know I was doing things a bit radically; but this was over the top.) followed by the background design of all pages and posts: Whilst the fancy artwork featuring a distorted block-diagram was rather eye-catching, it was that in its very nature that distracted the readers’ attention from the main content. – And when their eye did eventually attempt to wander back to the main text again, their vision encountered another distracting plethora of unimportant widgets and objects.

The solution was, therefore, to some extent obvious: That being lose the junk; which turned out to be a bigger operation than at first anticipated. The background was fairly easy: I simply edited the background .png image in my theme’s images folder using Paint.net. – No problem there. Much of the text on the pages themselves was encapsulated in a double-border within a table. The function of the table is to prevent overflow of text into areas of the screen where it’s not wanted, as well as to divide up the page and precisely position images and text-blocks. – So the table(s) stayed, but the borders had to go. This was to be accomplished by changing a figure 1 to a 0 in a number of locations: In itself an extremely simple operation. – It was a matter of tracking down all the 1s that needed to be changed to 0s that was the hardest part. Perhaps I still haven’t done this with all of them, and missed a few; but for the main part everything appears to be in order.

The result so far seems to be good: Philip Langford, commenting from Facebook, said “It’s looking a lot cleaner and easier to read.” – So the changes appear to be having a positive influence.

Onto another note; David Risley’s Blog Masters course, which I’ve been promoting recently as those on my mailing list will no doubt be aware, has now closed its doors for at least the rest of this year (2009). The take-up rate for this first run was pretty reasonable to say the least, and I can proudly claim that I, as a member, am one of hundreds of bloggers committed to taking their blog to the next level and beyond; with the goal of creating a full time income-stream from it and becoming a problogger.

You may be asking: “What does this mean for me as a reader and devoted follower? Are you going to attempt to fleece me with multiple internet-marketing campaigns advertising amateur-ish products that have no real value just for the sake of making a fast buck?”

Let me reassure you that I’ll not be fleecing anyone: Anything advertised on this blog in the future will have been personally vetted by myself for quality, reliability, and for providing positive solid benefit to my readers and/or customers. Another thing is that there’s no obligation on you, as a reader or devoted follower, to purchase anything that you don’t feel entirely happy with, having clicked on the ad and read the sales letter.

You may also be thinking “I suppose that, in the light of the above, you’ll stop creating valuable free quality content and put a price on everything.”

Quite the opposite in fact: I’ll probably be providing even more valuable free quality content which will cost absolutely nothing to my readers. In addition to that I also invite you readers to send in your own articles. I’ll even reward anyone whose article I publish with the sum of $5USD or thereabouts. All I ask is that you send the content in a file with a .htm or .html extension. You can attach this to an email which you can send using the “Contact Shazza by email – Click here” link in the footer of every page and post on this blog. Include the article, and separately to that a brief 10-lines-or-less “about the author” piece, plus your PayPal email so that I can send you the $5 if I publish your work.

Back to the subject at hand: Yes I do want to make money, obviously; who doesn’t? – So of course I want you to buy my products advertised herein: But only if you’re happy doing so. Yes there will be more adverts appearing on this blog. Yes there will be a lot more offers and promotions… But no there won’t be any loss of quality or value to you as a casual reader.

At some point in the future I intend to open up a members only section of this blog; a section which will contain even more value and be of greater benefit to my readers. This will not be free however: I can’t just place everything from pearls to diamonds, precious rubys and emeralds, at your feet and say “Take it; it’s yours.” I’m already sharing a lot of valuable information for free and will continue to do so.

– But there is a limit on how far I can go before I say “Hey wait a minute: This is extremely valuable and worth one heck of a lot. I can’t just throw this out onto the net for anyone to use as they see fit at any time they choose to do so.”

OK, enough on that for the time being.

I have an offer currently running which gives you the chance to purchase not only a listing of free software that can replace many of the paid-for products which companies such as Adobe and Microsoft would charge an arm and a leg for, but also I’m adding my “Improve Your Existing Box” eBook, previously on sale for $7.99USD, as an extra for a total price of just $7.00USD. If you want to know more then do click this link that’ll take you straight to the sales letter page.

Rabbit rabbit rabbit. – I think I’ve covered as much as time allows me to do right now. It just remains for me to wish you a happy and prosperous weekend. Enjoy.

Kind Regards

Sharron. x