John Ibanez

I never thought I’d join Earth-Hour. But after watching “An inconvenient Truth” (by Al Gore), my perspective on Global Warming turned around. So I thought I’d find a way to be part of the millions who helps save the earth (or humankind) from Global Warming and Earth Hour was my 1st choice and first move.

Exactly 8:30PM (GMT +8:00.00 Philippine Time) I switched off my lights, TV and all the appliances at our Condo. And not only that, I also switched my blog to “Earth Hour Mode”. It is not intended to conserve energy or something because basically, it’s still online. However, its the perfect way to spread the word and remind my countrymen and all the people around the world to participate in Earth Hour. Here’s a snapshot of My Blog in Action:

Although I did not finish the 1 hour ( I was 7 minutes Shy of the 1 hour target because my Analog Clock was set to 7 minutes advanced of the exact time), I’m still proud of myself for taking part of Earth Hour 2009.

When I got home today after enrolling, the front desk clerk at our Condo called my attention before I entered the lift and handed me an envelope. And when I opened it, I was surprised that I received my ReviewMe Debit Card.

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Update: Gurble 2.0 is now available for download.

Simple, SE Optimized and Polished Typography. Gurble is the name.If you’re looking for a semi-minimalist theme with elegance on the side, then you’ve come to the right place.

Gurble is built with some helpful tools like Adobe Photoshop, Notepad+ and Color Code Generator. One thing thats good about Gurble is that it is checked as XHTML 1.0 Transitional. That means that Search engines can read your blog precisely.(refer to the image below)

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When the 2.7 Version of wordpress was released, we we’re astonished and electrified by how the Dashboard/ Admin Panel Layout and functionality has changed. Shabby and worth a holler, as I say.

But after a couple of months, playing with it is no longer a trek. In fact, when I opened my blogger.com account, I actually enjoyed posting with the Blogger Dashboard/ Admin Panel. That would fairly describe how bored I am with the new WordPress Admin Panel.

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No, It’s not kissing your readers after leaving you a comment on your latest blog post. Neither is it a Dark Jedi Master Guide of kissing someone using the force. K.I.S.S. as defined by Wikipedia is “Keep it simple, stupid”. And further googling gave me another definition, “Keep it simple and straightforward”. K.I.S.S States that simplicity should be a key goal and unnecessary complexity avoided.

To us bloggers, writers, designers and almost everyone. Many of us are guilty of putting too much of unnecessary mess on our work. At times, we put too much emphasis on the complexity and we forget about the usability and outcome of our work. And after pulling it all together, you realize that its all cluttered and messy. Lets just put it this way, its like ordering your Venti Hot Caramel Macchiato at your local Starbucks coffee house. Now if the barista wasn’t trained and he wanted to please you (maybe for being a loyal customer). What he does is Put 5 Shots of espresso and 6 pumps of vanilla syrup on your Venti cup. Now would that please you? I guess not. Antoine de Saint Exupéry’s once said “It seems that perfection is reached not when there is nothing left to add, but when there is nothing left to take away”.

For blogging and design, what I notice these days is that people tend to put so much clutter on their site. Even I am guilty of this one, that is one of the reason why I took away most of the badges I have on my sidebar. Instead, I replaced them with google ads which I think would be the best way to give reference links to my visitors while monetizing my blog. If you may notice the 125×125 Ad Blocks on my sidebar, I’m not paid to post those ads and neither am I earning a percentage of every sale that my site leads. I have those as references to my readers. Moving forward, I want to show you some sites which practice K.I.S.S. knowingly and/or indirectly:

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