Blogger Template: ilike

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Update: I've fixed the header misalignment in IE6. The template should be okay now with all browsers.

This template design is inspired by the simplicity of the popular blogs Problogger by Darren Rowse (Alexa rank 3032) and Digital Inspiration by Amit Agarwal (Alexa rank 11377). Some features of these two blogs are incorporated in this ilike template.

The new feature of this template is that there is a special space for a Google Search Box near the blog header. To add the search bar: login to your Adsense account, get the code for the Google search bar, and then paste into the a HTML/Javascript widget that you open up from the Add a Page Element tab (follow the green arrow below). You can customize this space to match the color of the search box by using the Layout panel.

Note: The space is meant for one search bar only. If you put anything else, the header might be misaligned. You may try it yourself if you want to.


Google Search Box: There are many choices of the search box to select from. I'd recommend to use the box as shown in the demo blog (with a selection of any colors you want from the Adsense page). If you want a different search box, make sure that it fits nicely into the template by testing it yourself. If it doesn't work, just stick to the sample box in the demo blog.

Below the header, a space is reserved for one, or more, large horizontal ads (see the blue arrow for this space). Check out the demo for an example of this. As typical of my templates, I've made a menubar above the header where you can add links easily (use this tab shown by the orange arrow to fill in the links).

If you want to use your own header image, the image size has to be 500 x 70 pixels. You can fill in your image by editing the header (see the yellow arrow). The thin header follows the style of Amit's blog.

The side columns are flexible: you can make it into either a 1, 2, or 3 side columns. Simply fill in the columns that you want with widgets in the Layout page. All the side columns can fit any Adsense ads nicely.

If the whole color combinations are boring for you, you can simply change them easily in the Layout panel. No hassle at all!

So, you like? ilike...

Blogger Template: Probloggy

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Ok. Here's something different, or common, depending on how you see it. It's different that this template is an imitation, similar but not identical, to a blog that's already out there. It's common that this blog that I tried to copy is already a prominent blog on how to blog, or how to blog to make money.

The original template is used on Problogger by Darren Rowse (template designer is Ben Bleikamp). It contains tons of infos on how he makes money, programs to help you make money, tricks to know to help you make money, and what size of money can you expect from blogging. And it goes on and on, in a good way, about the love and hate relationship between blogging and money - more the love relationship I suppose.

The reason I try to imitate the blog is not because I want to make an unoriginal design; it's more in a sense that I admire the simplicity of the design, the plain color combinations and straight forward organization, yet effective to get people hooked to it. And this Probloggy template isn't entirely the same. I made it different in some little ways to keep the original stays original. If you like the structure of the template but want to have different color combinations, you can simply use the Settings panel to change all the colors, if you like.

If you want to use an image for the header, the size should be 965 x 140 pixels to make it fit perfectly to the header. Fill in the linkbar to get the list of links at the top of the header.

What do you think of this imitation? Is it unethical, irresponsible, makes the original designer pissed off, or good in a sense that I'm showing some admiration to the original work or that others who like the Problogger blog will get a chance to have something close to it (appearance-wise at least, not money-wise). By the way, I wrote the CSS for Probloggy myself and didn't copy it from the original code - so this act of 'plagiarism' isn't really that bad.