Bob Harris recently asked this question about working with the sidebar in his Lifestyle theme from StudioPress:

How can I clean up the clutter on the right side of my page (Admin box & Blog Roll Box)?

When you install the basic Lifestyle Theme, you’ll see both a Blogroll and an Admin section show up in your right sidebar (as shown to the right).

Instead of getting rid of the blogroll, you could rename Blogroll and edit the names and URL’s. For example, you could link to your most popular posts, or trade links with your favorite bloggers within your niche.

You’ll find those links (also called ‘bookmarks’) listed under ‘Links’ in the left hand navigation of your WordPress Administration panel.

To get rid of the links altogether, we’ll need to make some changes to the right sidebar theme file, named sidebar_right.php.

You can do that from the theme Editor, found under Appearance > Editor. Make sure the permissions are set on your theme files – otherwise you won’t be able to edit them and you’ll see “You need to make this file writable before you can save your changes. See the Codex for more information” at the bottom of the file.

If you prefer to work with your theme files offline (like I do), open up the file in an HTML  or text editor.

If you don’t have an HTML editor, and don’t want to spend money on one, I recommend NVU, which is available free of charge. Otherwise, I like to recommend CoffeeCup which is very intuitive.

The Lifestyle Theme’s default right sidebar is coded as follows:

<!– begin r_sidebar –>

<div id=”r_sidebar”>

<ul id=”r_sidebarwidgeted”>

<?php if ( !function_exists(‘dynamic_sidebar’) || !dynamic_sidebar(‘Sidebar Bottom Right’) ) : ?>

<li id=”links”>
<div>
<h2>Blogroll</h2>
<ul>
<?php wp_list_bookmarks(‘title_li=&categorize=0′); ?>
</ul>
</div>
</li>

<li id=”meta”>
<div>
<h2>Admin</h2>
<ul>
<?php wp_register(); ?>
<li><?php wp_loginout(); ?></li>
<li><a href=”http://www.wordpress.org/”>WordPress</a></li>
<?php wp_meta(); ?>
<li><a href=”http://validator.w3.org/check?uri=referer”>XHTML</a></li>
</ul>
</div>
</li>

<?php endif; ?>

</ul>

</div>

<!– end r_sidebar –>

To get rid of the Blogroll and Admin sections, simply remove the following portion:

<li id=”links”>
<div>
<h2>Blogroll</h2>
<ul>
<?php wp_list_bookmarks(‘title_li=&categorize=0′); ?>
</ul>
</div>
</li>

<li id=”meta”>
<div>
<h2>Admin</h2>
<ul>
<?php wp_register(); ?>
<li><?php wp_loginout(); ?></li>
<li><a href=”http://www.wordpress.org/”>WordPress</a></li>
<?php wp_meta(); ?>
<li><a href=”http://validator.w3.org/check?uri=referer”>XHTML</a></li>
</ul>
</div>
</li>

Remember too, that you can always add the bookmarks back into the sidebar using a widget.

Amazon just announced that they’ve made the following changes to widget creation:

1. You can search for widgets by size, and;
2. You can Select a predefined IAB (Internet Advertising Bureau) size or create a custom-sized widget for My Favorites and Search widgets.

Too, most of the popular widgets are now available in additional IAB sizes:

My Favorites is now available in 300×250, 336×280, 180×150, 160×600.
The Search widget is available in 300×250, 336×280, 160×600

There’s certainly no shortage of Amazon widgets available. Here’s a quick list:

• Auto Part Finder Widget
• Search
• Carousel Widget
• My Favorites
• Deals Widget
• MP3 Clips Widget
• Slideshow
• Page Recommender Widget
• Your Video Widget
• Movie & TV Show Preview Widget
• Amazon Blogs Widget
• Product Cloud
• Wish List
• aStore Widget
• Search Box
• Recommended Product Links
• Omakase

Shown at the top of this post is an MP3 clips widget — created in about 3 seconds flat. Would take longer if you were to actually pick and choose specific songs, as opposed to a general category.

To learn more, visit Amazon Widgets.

Although I never became a fan of John Reese’s BlogRush widget – having placed it on my site and removed it after only 2 days – I was still sorry to hear that due to “dreadfully low” click-rates across the network, John announced on October 29th that the BlogRush site and widget would be shut down.

Just in case you missed it, here’s the email John sent to BlogRush users.

After careful consideration, we have decided to shutdown the BlogRush service. If you have the widget code on your blog you will need to remove it.

When BlogRush launched in late-2007 it spread like wildfire all over the Web. Thousands of bloggers were talking about it and the service exploded to become one of the fastest growing free services in the history of the Web. During the first year of the service it successfully served 3.4 Billion blog post headlines and the BlogRush widget could be found on blogs all over the world; even up until the moment we closed down the service.

BlogRush didn’t grow without its fair share of problems — from security issues to abusive users trying to ‘game’ the system to much lower click-rates than expected. We also had some problems with trying to fairly control the quality of the network, and in the process made many mistakes in deciding what blogs should stay or go. All of these issues, ultimately, limited the service’s full potential.

Our team worked very hard to try and build a service that would truly help bloggers of all sizes get free traffic to their blogs. This was our primary focus. Not once did we ever try to monetize the service with ads or anything else. BlogRush never made a single penny in revenue. We wanted to be able to help our users FIRST and then worry about monetizing the service later. Unfortunately, the service didn’t work out like we had hoped. (It happens.)

I want to say “Thank You” to all of the great bloggers that at least gave BlogRush a test to see if it would work for them. We sincerely appreciate you giving the service a try.

We have received several offers & inquiries about acquiring BlogRush, but we are choosing not to go that route. While many might think this is crazy, we truly feel it’s the ‘right’ thing to do for our users. Believe it or not, it’s not always about the money. In fact, BlogRush will have lost a small fortune when it’s all said and done, and it was by choice. There were many things we could have done to monetize the service but we wanted to make sure it was going to benefit our users first.

Last but not least I want to say that I hope the failure of this service doesn’t in any way discourage other entrepreneurs from coming up with crazy ideas at 4AM (like I did with this one) and from “going for it” to just try and see if something will work. Without trying there can be no success. And as we all know, ideas are worthless without action. The Web wouldn’t be what it is today without entrepreneurs trying all sorts of crazy ideas.

On behalf of the entire BlogRush team, we wish the best of luck to everyone with their own blogs, ideas, and crazy ventures.

Sincerely,

John Reese

You win some, you lose some… that’s life in the entrepeneurial lane. John makes the point as follows:

“I’ve become a successful entrepreneur (online since 1990) because I am not afraid to fail. I’ve had many ideas that didn’t work, and this one certainly won’t be the last.

I know that my overall success is a direct result from taking action and trying a lot of things. THAT is the real secret to building wealth.”

Or, in other words, if at first you don’t succeed, try, try again.

On that note, I’m very curious to see what John comes up with next!