If you have been on my blog recently, you would have noticed small changes frequently being made to my blog design. In the last few days, i have tried many new stylings for my blog. I’m pretty sure that i will stay with the present look that i have given to my blog.

The cross browser compatibility has been a major challenge for me, in so called redesigning of the blog. On my Samsung SyncMaster 226BW display monitor wherein i have a 1680 x 1050 resolution, SharatJaswal.com seems to do well with all the browsers. I have tested it on Mozilla Firefox, Internet Explorer 7, Google Chrome, Opera and Safari. So far so good. All looks good. However when i see my blog on my Sony Vaio laptop,  it seems that the tab which shows “Most Popular Posts” and “Most Commented Posts” is slightly falling off the theme particularly in Internet Explorer. I am so fed up of it. I have tried so many CSS changes and coding, but i don’t seem to make it any better on lower resolution. I remember when i got this new professional/custom design for my blog way back in September 2007. I even made a preview/review post about the design back then. At that time, i got the design coded by Dr. Gauresh. I just can’t find him online anymore. Else it would have been easy for him to sort out this problem. I am not sure anymore if i could take care of this problem by myself. So yes, if you can provide any assistance, help, support in fixing this issue, i will be more than thankful.

I also noticed a “stack overflow”error which popped up in Internet Explorer every time a single post page was opened. The error cause came out to be the comment page. If i had 10 comments on a post, then that post when viewed in IE, would pop up 10 error pop up windows. Fortunately, searching for the solution wasn’t difficult as it seems that many blogger’s face the same problem. So i took care of that as well.

Social Bookmarking icons was another thing i concentrated on this time. You may have noticed the new icons beneath every post. It looks really cool to me. On the right sidebar, you will also notice another set of social bookmark buttons. That’s basically how you can reach me on popular social networking sites.

I hope you like my new re-design on the blog. Hopefully the colors and structure of the blog has that likability factor in it. Of course if you find any bugs in design or somewhere else, then do let me know. I will be greatly thankful.

Apparently, this is the 100th post on my weblog. My maiden century in blogging. Stating the mini facts from the Admin’s dashboard, i have exactly 100 posts and 400 comments after this post. Thank you to you guys who made my frequent blogging possible. I hope to get better with time.

By the way, i guess you might be wondering about the title i gave to the post. Have you heard something similar before. I think you did. “Hey…What’s up Doc?” is the punchline of the famous cartoon character “Bugs Bunny”. I just wrote the title casually until i noticed that the title sounded familiar.

Christmas is just around the corner. Shopping and decorations have already started. So why should webmasters stay behind. All are decorating their homes and i guess webmasters would like to decorate their websites and weblogs as well. With this thought in mind i started searching the web to find out some good wordpress themes for the festive season. Then i thought why not collect all the popular themes we have for the season. So here are some of the popular wordpress themes for Christmas.

Christmas Days : It is one of the my favorites among the Christmas themes. It’s a two column wordpress theme named “Christmas Days”. It is designed and distributed free by Design Disease. It’s coded for the latest version of wordpress and thus support the “tags” feature. It’s also a widget ready theme. Another good feature of the theme is that there is space in sidebar for your Flickr photos. You will have to use Flickr plugin with this theme, but the feature add lot of grace to your blog. The color combination is great and goes well with the mood of Christmas. This is one theme that you should definitely have on your blog, at least this Christmas. Visit Author’s Page – Download Link.

Hot Screensaver’s Christmas Theme : While writing this post, i searched for more themes on net. And this new theme came up after much searching. And i am glad i found it. This theme really rings the bell this Christmas. I will put it right in the best free wordpress themes available this season for Christmas. Do checkout the theme. Full credits to the designer. Gosh, they went in so much detail, even the “Submit Comment” button is designed for Christmas. I guess this one is perfect for Christmas. It is designed by Hot-Screensaver. A three column theme with two right sidebars. Widget and tags supported. Striking features includes easy change of header image via wp-admin and pretty nice adsense or any other publisher ads integration. Yup, adsense ready theme. I have made up my mind. I’m going to use this theme for Christmas on few of my blogs. You can visit Author’s Page – Download Link.

Christmas Gift WordPress Theme : It’s a great looking wordpress theme for Christmas. The header part is very well designed. The first look at it will tell you that’s it’s Christmas in the air. The rest of the theme is sweet and simple. It’s a three column theme with a left sidebar and a right sidebar. The Christmas Gift theme has been designed by Rahmat Blog. The heading parts for categories, blogrolls etc. has been well designed as well. Theme is compatible with latest version of wordpress. Also it is CSS and XHTML valid. It is widget ready theme. I would say that overall it is a very good theme. For more details and live demo you can visit Author’s Page.

Merry Christmas WordPress Theme : Ahh! Finally a dark colored theme. 1 Column theme, literally.I mean there are no sidebars etc, just a footer bar as one can call it. It’s a dark colored theme. Probably one can say that the theme depicts the Christmas night. What matters more is that there is Santa Claus, there is moon and there are colors in this theme. The theme is well designed. It’s a good looking theme with different concept than the other themes that i have listed. Propbably that’s the reason i chose it in this list. I have no info if the theme is widget ready or if support tags feature of wordpress as the author didn’t mention that on his blog. You can visit Author’s page for download links and demo.

I just came across these quality themes till now. If you know about more themes that are free, for wordpress and are quality themes, then please let me know and i will add them to the list. Until then, enjoy the themes and Christmas shoppings

Ever since, i decided that i am going to be a Pro at blogging, i have had too many chat sessions with my friends and fellow webmasters regarding the same. I wanted to know as to what i should be doing to make a start. Surprisingly, the top two answers were unanimous. All said:

1. “Content is the King”. Well, no doubts about that.
2. Get a custom design for your blog. A professional one!

Well, i don’t think anyone has any doubts about the first point. Content is the King, and no one can deny that. It’s the very basic thing. But the second point is what made me thought. A custom design for my blog. Well, it wasn’t a problem for sure since i own a web designing company/service. A new design would have been a piece of cake. But what i thought was whether the visitors really look at your design? or they are there for the content you have on your blog?

Well, i think we can’t argue on this topic. Let’s take two sites as example. TechCrunch and JohnChow. TechCrunch has some quality content on the site, but they planned to keep the site as simple as it could be. On the other hand, JohnChow and also ShoeMoney has a great content plus a great design. Maybe, just maybe, the design factor does make a difference.

So what do you think? What makes more impact on your visitor.

• The Content? Design really does not matter.
• Or the content plus the design?

The topic is debateful, however there is absolutely no harm in getting a custom theme for my blog. So i have decided to go for it. The new design is on it’s way and will soon be a part of SharatJaswal.com.

There is no sneak peek previews at the moment for the them. I have approved the design and it’s been coded. Probably, in couple of days, it will be here on my site. And just for remembering how my present theme looked like (for future reference), well, i am going to attach the screenshot along with this post right there at top. Time to get back to my theme development mode…

Sitting idle, thinking what to do. I decided to start making some new wordpress themes. It’s called the Green Leaves wordpress theme. It’s a pretty neat and clean theme. Has lot of space. The sidebars and text area are well balanced. Basically, a two column wordpress theme. The theme is not very complex. It’s simple, yet sweet….I guess.

Know what? Please try this theme. At least once. I would definitely like to hear from you. It would be a moral booster. Thanks in advance. Here is the quick preview of the theme:

Preview Link: Click Here.

Download Link: Click Here.

Credits: Designed by Sharat Jaswal & WordPress Theme.

Green Leaves, being my first theme, i would request people who use it, not to remove the credits from footer.