WordPress Theme Blunder, New Look and Great Service (Audiocast)

Recorded just for you…

In this post and audiocast (pre-podcast?) I highlight a WordPress Theme blunder on my part, how great customer service turned my frown upside down and the new look for Hot Blog Tips. In preparation for our upcoming podcast, I’m recording audio to accompany our blog posts and I truly believe it’s adding additional value to our content.

My WordPress Blunder

It’s late Friday night and you know you should go to bed but you’re so wrapped up in a mission you simply can not tear yourself away. I know you’ve been there. right? Last Friday, that’s exactly what I did – an allnighter. Saturday morning, as the sun was coming up and this blogger was wondering if he should just skip sleep altogether, discovered a little glitch in the header logo. It wouldn’t click; it wasn’t linked to our home page. That just wouldn’t do, it needs hyperlinked to the home page. So much for sleep.

Skip forward about TWELVE hours and you’ll see a braindead, completely beaten up blogger foaming at the mouth. I couldn’t get this thing fixed. I wasn’t sure if it was my mistake or a glitch in the theme. After seeking the help of blogger/designer friends via Facebook, I finally did what I should have started with – I emailed the theme designer.

Even though it was pretty late on a Saturday, Joey Kissimmee of Appendipity Themes replied within minutes. Joey took the time to look into my problem and determined it had to be something I changed while “customizing” the theme. He recommended I remove changes and see if that fixed the unlinked logo. As I was in the process of removing CSS changes, I noticed one too many “}” brackets. Could that one little character break my header link? Could and did!

Good News – Luckily, I didn’t change any of the original theme files. Every change I made was using the Simple Hooks plugin for Genesis. This made it super easy to start backtracking and look for mistakes. The lesson here is to ALWAYS use Simple Hooks when changing child themes for Genesis and never alter Genesis or child theme files.

I Love Appendipity Themes

I’ll let the audiocast go into the details why I really love Appendipity Themes but it’s really great timing for me since podcasting is in our near future. Appendipity Themes are feature rich and I felt the Playcast Child Theme by Appendipity was exactly what the virtual doctor ordered. I made a lot of esthetic changes but I would dream of changing the powerhouse driving the theme – no change required.

Appendipity does have an affiliate system via Clickbank but I’m not even going to use that in this post. Check out Appendipity Themes if you’re using Genesis^$, which I also highly recommend and that is an affiliate link.

Our New Hot and Sexy Look

I’d love to know what your thought are on our new design. I changed the colors and took advantage of a few theme features but more changes are coming. For now, the only posts that will be featured on the front page are podcast posts. That’s alright because I plan to include pre-podcast audio (non-official podcast) for most of our posts from here forward. I believe this increases the value our content provides for you as well as gives me some much needed practice in front of the mic.

The Takeaways

1. The takeaway here is first, never alter original files if possible. That’s one reason why I love Genesis^$, I don’t have to mess with anything destructive.
2. Second, always backup so you don’t crackup. (sorry, just the mood I’m in lol). I described a foaming at the mouth blogger but, honestly, I wasn’t very stressed at all. This isn’t my first blunder, nor my last, and I was backed up three ways to Sunday.
   

   The greatest mistake you can make in life is continually fearing that you’ll make one. ~ Elbert Hubbard

3. Finally, the third takeaway is don’t worry, you have friends. I’ve said for years I love our community of bloggers and without them, blogging would be pretty dark and scary when the lights went out. Build those relationships, seriously.
   

   Hi @joeykissimmee thanks for helping my friend Brian @HotBlogTips < so glad you are loving Appendipity too!! Have a great Sunday guys.

   — Ileane Smith (@Ileane) April 13, 2014

 

Over To You Willy

The new look, do you love it or think it stinks? Do you think the audio adds to the value? And most importantly, I’d love to hear about your big blogging blunder! Don’t make me the only one blowing up our blog, share your story. Thanks for reading & listening and don’t forget to hit the share bar buttons below, also courtesy of Appendipity Themes.

Links To Everything Mentioned

Joey Kissimmee of Income Press

Ileane Smith of Basic Blog Tips

Appendipity Themes

Income Press YouTube Channel

All About WordPress Facebook Group

Simple Hooks plugin for Genesis

Genesis Framework by StudioPress^$