Well to be fair, the blog bit of it hasn’t, WordPress is a dream to use and coming from a web design background I found it very easy to install. The content hasn’t been to hard to write either, I’m secretly enjoying the writing bit now, and my head is fizzing with all sorts of ideas for posts.

No the challenge was the theme, not the graphics because I changed all that easily. Every day my old theme seemed to break on me, everyday I would view a page and a column had burst out spilling its content over my browser window. everyday I was having to tinker and repair something. I had searched long and hard for a theme, both free and paid for and eventually came across something that I could mold into my own site. I installed it and set about changing the graphics to my logos and altering the CSS colours. Perhaps it was my tinkering that did it, but it never really settled down enough to allow me to just get on and blog.

A couple of weeks in and I was sick of this naughty child theme and I set about looking for a new theme, but this time a theme to purchase. I figured that if I wanted to be professional about blogging I ought to get a theme from other blog professionals.

WooThemes

I found what I was looking for in the shape of WooThemes and more specifically the FreshNews theme. It was perfect because it has this great black band across the top and a landscape logo format just right for my Blogging Rocket logo. Apart from changing the logo, some link colours and of course creating my own graphics for my posts etc, I haven’t changed the theme at all. I’ve installed plugins and widgets that have extended the functions of my blog, but the theme… well the theme just works, I haven’t had to adjust or tinker with anything.

It seems that all the WooThemes come with a settings page in the WP admin and here you can make all sorts of adjustments. My theme came with eight other preset CSS styles, so I could choose the base colour schemes (and still can at a flick of an option). There are fields for me to add google tracking codes, feedburner RSS codes and options to use gravatars. I can decide how many posts are on the first page, what format and from what category. I can choose to feature categories, add sidebar content and even manage the advert spot from here too. I’m really pleased with my choice of theme and if I need to set up another blog – I will be buying another WooTheme.

A very interesting thing from a designers point of view is their theme club. For not very much money you can buy into all their themes in one go and you get support forum access and the original photoshop files. It’s a must for web developers, use a WooTheme – your clients will love you for it!

There are many ways to blog and many formats or engines to use, Blogging Rocket was set up to focus on just one of these engines, the best in our point of view: WordPress.

Blogging Rocket is aiming to become the number one place a blogger will turn to when they want advice or ‘How To’ information when they are blogging with WordPress. This whole site is built with WordPress and it is going to fill up with all manner of WP related things. There will be news and reviews, recommendations on the latest plugins, latest build updates, theme design and much much more.

Also of course, not wanting to jump the gun, there is going to be a full section of advice and recommendations on how to set up your blog. I will give you step by step guides on choosing your killer domain name, picking the best hosting provider, creating your databases and installing or upgrading your WP blog.

But who is Blogging Rocket?

Blogging Rocket is the brain child of Ian Blackford a web developer from Telford Shropshire in the UK. I’ve been designing websites now for almost ten years but only recently have I started using WordPress and its awesome power. I own my own web development and hosting company called Design Conscious .com but you will find out lots more about me in future posts.

While trying not to scare you – here I am in a recent publicity mug shot, just so you can put a face to the posts.