Before I started this blog, I’ve been blogging about my personal life in social communities like Friendster, Myspace and Multiply. Yes I did go through that stage.

I would blog for a while, sometimes for a week or two, then some months would pass before I follow it up with another post. I lost interest quite fast because in my mind, writing my thoughts is not as important as the things I need to do everyday. After a year, I realized that writing, no matter how ordinary it is I’m writing of seems to be, is important. It helps exercise my brain and I get to practice my English as well as my writing skills. Most of all it helps me keep notes of things I learn and think of each day which is good since I usually forget stuff I already learned when I stop doing it.

So to remind myself, and maybe help some new bloggers in the process, I decided to take note of the things I learn about blogging. The terms, the processes and even the technical stuff so I would be able to remember how to do it. It would be sort of a tutorial which I’ll call, “ShatteredPixie’s Blogging Basics” I know it doesn’t sound so original but hey its my personal experience so I think it counts.

Below is the rough outline I have at the moment of the topics I would be writing of:

1.) Free blogs vs. Self-hosted blogs

2.) Self-hosted blog How To’s

3.) Common Questions (like where do I find this required tag etc.)

I hope other bloggers starting out or other people planning on starting their blog find it useful and a good basic reference for the simple technical stuffs they might encounter in setting up their blogs . I’ll be starting on the articles and post each one as soon as they’re done.

Popularity: 5% [?]

Earlier, I mentioned going pink in support of the Breast Cancer Awareness month, and now we are PINK. I tried to tweak the themes CSS by myself, but being a novice in CSS, I had a hard time finding which is which. So I contacted Jauhari of Jauhari.net to ask for help last night, and when I checked my email I saw that he has replied. He sent me as an attachment a copy of the pink version of the Saur theme’s CSS. I just did some color changes on the theme’s blockquote file to make it pink.

So in case you are looking for minimalist and aesthetic wordpress themes, I suggest checking the following themes made by Jauhari:

1. Saur - which is what this site uses. I like it a lot, especially since I love the big white space and I also love having the rotating images since I love taking pictures. I really like 3 column themes so this theme really works well with me.

2. Septembre - is another theme that is close to Saur in looks, it doesn’t have the image rotator so you have a wider banner for your site. Its also 3 columns so perfect for sites with lots of sidebar content or even for ads.

3. Ayumi - is also one of the themes I like because it just looks great. Its clean and easy to the eyes plus you can use a custom image which can be useful in showing an image you like or something related to your site.

P.S. Thanks for the help Jauhari!

Popularity: 4% [?]

1. Pink Adaptations by Charity

This is a very simple, 2column fixed-width theme and extremely light-weight CSS.

2. Pretty in Pink by Wordpress Diva

Pretty In Pink is a fluid two column WordPress theme, which means it will expand or contract to fill the available browser space, and it supports WordPress widget. The default sidebar will be used if the plugin isn’t installed or activated.

3. Vertigo - Electrified by Brian Gardner

Vertigo Electrified is a modern, 2 or 3-column Widget-ready theme created for WordPress.

P.S. You can also check out Small Potato’s list for other pink themes for October.

Popularity: 56% [?]

Its finally October and once again its Breast Awareness month. Its a special month for me because my grandmother had breast cancer before and one of her breasts had to be operated and taken away so that it will not spread. So with this, I’ll be posting some Breast Cancer Awareness links from time to time this month which I found interesting. Who knows you might learn something from them too. Also, I will be going “pink” for this month, so I will be changing the theme I have into a “pink” one soon to support the Pink for October campaign.

As I was traveling the virtual world, I found some blogs and articles worth reading with regards to Breast Cancer Awareness:

1. Pink for October

A website that encourages blogs and other sites to “Go Pink” for October in support of the Breast Cancer Awareness month.

2. Lemon Margaritas

A blog of a cancer survivor. She is presenting some good points about the breast cancer awareness and the still increasing number of women affected by it each year.

3. Article: Fallacies on breast cancer persist

An article about women’s misinformation of breast cancer amidst the breast cancer awareness campaigns made already.

4. Boobie-Thon

Its a fund raising campaign wherein most of the funds received is donated to Komen.

5. Komen

A site dedicated to research and finding cure for breast cancer. They also have many affiliates in each of the states in the US that helps cancer patients, survivors and their families to find strength, courage and hope.

Popularity: 3% [?]

1. Wordpress Grid Focus by Derek Punsalan

WordPress Grid Focus is a three column WordPress theme created and distributed free of any dependance of WordPress plugins. Convenient navigation bars can be found at the top and bottom of pages in order to provide your visitors with ample opportunity to continue exploring.

2. Rainbow Feather by C. Julian jez Klewe

Rainbow Feather is a fluid one-column wordpress theme. As the name suggests the colours in this theme are rainbow-ish. From Blue, baby blue, to yellow, orange, white, blue gradient and pink, barbie pink to evil pink. Cool features include: Fancy web2.0 like headings (wet graphics), custom badges “read on” and “continue reading”, matching color scheme/palette.

3. The Morning After by Arun Kale

The Morning After is a magazine-style theme for WordPress. The theme was created based on a brief survey on the WordPress forums about what people would want to see in a unique magazine-style theme.

Features:

• A three-column home page
• “Featured” post highlighting
• Associating images/thumbnails with recent posts
• Customisable logo/header image
• Easy CSS classes for adding captions and wrapping text around images in posts
• Asides
• Option for readers to email posts to friends
• Option to switch to a print-friendly view to print posts

Popularity: 8% [?]