Travelwires.com gets an improved look

It’s been a while since this blog was last updated (this is the third redesign, since launching travelwires.com in 2006). The most obvious change comes with the new logo, I’ve done away with the South African map and replaced it with a background airline symbol. This is meant to expand the news coverage and not be only limited to South African news. The airline image represents travel, as it’s the most common form of travelling across the world.

I’ve introduced featured posts at the upper fold of the homepage, to allow for more airtime to the latest news. I’ve added more colour to the homepage with an image displaying on each post published. Read more

AlreadyInspired.com ready to roll after yet another makeover

After launching AlreadyInspired.com, I realized that the theme I chose wasn’t doing it for me with email feedburner not working. I then searched for a replacement and was able to get an Original News Theme by WooThemes, which had to be tweaked a bit, to get my preferred layout.

I replaced the featured post column with Featured Content Gallery plug-in, where I now feature all the interviewees rotating at intervals. Have also removed the video clips below featured posts, intend relocating it to the side bar, where I’ll feature video clips by entrepreneurs. Read more

Soccerwires.com dumps UniqueBlogDesigns.com for WooThemes.com

I’ve not entirely been feeling the current theme I’m using for my soccer blog which hasn’t been living to its promise. A few things that it failed to deliver includes:

1) Published content doesn’t reflect the date when it was posted.
2) The email feedburner link, doesn’t work.
3) Very limited side bar widgets.
4) Cannot preview draft posts.
Read more

4TheDesign.com to get a new lease of life

I’ve not given this website much attention since I launched it, which was meant to be my web design and web publishing studio. The whole idea behind it was to provide web development services, which I would then outsource them through various freelancers.

I would then charge a commission to my clients for work rendered. However since I’ve never had the time and focus on it, I’ve left it to idle all along. Read more

Hello hostgator and goodbye www.hetzner.co.za

I’ve been hosting my websites with hetzner since 2003, when I first launched a website. Over the years, I’ve also grown the number of websites that I own, which meant my hosting account also increased.

Unfortunately with the local website hosting companies they only offer 5GB per month of bandwidth and anything beyond that you pay every cent. My freight exchange portal www.bid2load.com recorded 13,636MB in March which translated to R2, 590 from my pocket. Read more

My email feedburner link & plug-in nightmare

Have been pulling my hair since day one of using www.uniqueblogdesigns.com themes, of which their Cool theme (Nomuzi.com is using that theme) and Personal Blog Theme (my other blog AlreadyInspired.com is using). On both blogs, I’ve correctly followed the steps on inserting the feedburner ID to activate my email feedburner links without any success.

I’ve tested this to confirm and all I get from the email verify step on feedburner is “The feed does not have subscriptions by email enabled”. Have sent Nate Whitehill (one of the co-founders of www.uniqueblogdesigns.com) an email explaining the problem to him and he requested that I send back the feedburner links and my ftp info for both blogs for him to fix the problem…all that has been done and am yet to receive any feedback/joy from him. Read more

Travelwires.com broadens its news coverage to the rest of the world

Since I launched www.travelwires.com its core focus has been the publication of South African travel and tourism business news. From time to time I’ve published international industry news, though only on rare occasions.

This has been purposely done, since the blog’s logo carried the South African map which meant special focus was only the local industry news. However with the new look logo design the South African map will be replaced by an airline, making free for the blog to include all industry news from around the globe. Read more

Bid2load.com user activity declines and what next

Since the re-launch of the website, user activity on the website has declined as a result of the stricter measures introduced on 9th March 2009. Before the posting of empty trucks and available loads was open to all without any verification done.

However that created a fertile ground for fly-by-night operators who abused the service, as they would post fake trade leads and the non-payment of transporters became a daily occurrence. Now all users of the website are verified and posting of trade leads is charged at R100 per month without a limit per user. Read more

Soccerwires.com secures anchor blogger

I’ve been in search for an anchor blogger to be responsible for generating original content for soccerwires.com and have finally secured the services of talented Lennox Nhando. He has vast experience as a copywriter with various blue chip companies under his belt and now a freelancer.

Soccerwires.com will be about the business affairs of soccer clubs within the PSL, all matters not normally reported about in daily media. From each team’s office setup to the training ground, player’s welfare and all other related matters. Read more

Travelwires.com undergoes a revamp

It’s been a while since the blog has received a new look layout and revised logo. Though still keeping the same colours. The revamp is mainly divided into three aspects:

Featured Posts
There are four weekly columns that make the blog, contributed by different bloggers. Currently such posts are posted on the top page for an entire day, after which new content replaces them, thus dropping down the page as new copy is published. Read more