Breaking it up - making your posts easier to read

Two days ago I wrote a post about earning money by video blogging. I enjoyed writing it, but when I was finished I looked at it and realized that if I was a reader browsing my blog, I wouldn't even read it. Why? Because it was just a long page of uninterrupted text, and it didn't encourage me to read it at all. I had of course divided it into paragraphs, but the spaces between them seemed hardly bigger than the usual spaces between lines.

So I thought, "What could I do to make this look better?" First I inserted subheadings to divide the text up a bit more so that it didn't seem so long to read. It already looked better, but there was still a lot of text to read, and there was nothing that would immediately grab the readers' attention and induce them to read the post. So I found an image relevant to the article and inserted it into my post. I was even lucky enough to find an image in a color that matched my layout! :P

With just these 2 modifications, the article already looked so much better! On the left is a screenshot of how the article looked before I divided it up, and on the right is a screenshot of how it looked afterwards. It would have looked even better if I had added another image further down.

Always make sure your posts look good enough that you would read them if they were on someone else's blog ;)

Win premium WordPress themes at WPThemeDesigner

WPThemeDesigner is giving away 30 premium WordPress themes in a contest ending on June 30. Among the themes they're giving away is "Blubs", my new theme that I won from another competition a few weeks ago! I'm hoping to win a theme for one of my soon-to-be opened blogs :doeeyes: See under the cut for a complete list of included themes.

Earn money by video blogging + win a Creative Vado camera

The contest
Click Consultants and The University Kid are giving away a Creative Vado video camera, perfect for video blogging! What I love about this camera is that it has a rechargeable battery, which is also removable so you can swap it for a fully charged one when it runs out. This is exactly what I was looking for after my disastrous experience with my old HP photo camera that would switch off after 10 seconds on fresh AA batteries. Seriously, it was that bad! :mad:

Why videos?
Personally I prefer reading written posts because of the terrible internet connection we have in our area, and since I read quite fast it's usually quicker for me to read a post than to wait for a video to load. On the other hand, the majority of internet users have a fast connection and so this is not a problem for them - viewing videos is much quicker and more entertaining than reading plain boring old text. Also, have you ever written about something you saw or experienced and found that words just cannot describe it adequately? Using videos solves this problem - your audience sees exactly what you see. Another advantage is that it's much quicker to record a video than to type your whole post out, especially if you're like me and still haven't learnt to type properly! Right now I'm typing with four fingers plus my thumbs for the spacebar :blush:

Where to buy and sell vector illustrations

You probably know that there are sites in which you can buy and sell stock photos, but did you know there are also sites in which you can buy and sell vector illustrations? There aren't as many as the stock photo sites, but there are still a lot of great illustrations available.

Site announcement: changing layout

Over the next day or two I'll be changing my layout and moving things around, so please excuse any glitches, color clashes, or other random funny business that might ensue - I will get everything fixed as soon as possible ;)

Must-have filters and plugins for graphic applications

Here is a list of great filters and Color Picker plugins that work in multiple applications, including Pixelmator and VectorDesigner. The essential ones are free, so you can power up your favorite graphic apps without having to spend a cent!

Converting Photoshop .abr brushes to .png using Gimp

Although it's not mentioned anywhere in the documentation, Gimp is able to use Photoshop .abr brushes. This means that we can save the brushes as .png images, which can then be used as brushes in Pixelmator.

PhotoshopStar giveaway

PhotoshopStar is celebrating their 2nd birthday by giving away some great prizes - to enter just leave a comment here!