Saturday, February 7th, 2009
I’m not sure if I am using the correct terminology here. I am not talking about some sortable photo gallery plug-in with tons of features. What I am talking about it the “Gallery” feature that comes with the Wordpress package that allows you to place thumbnails into your post.
I just found this today. I know, I am probably the last person on earth to realize this was even available. I was going through an old post about Luray, VA. My brother took a bunch of photos a while back that I posted here. Basically, I wanted people to see what the area looked like. I noticed that I didn’t put any captions in the photos, so I clicked the “Add an image” button, just to see if those photos were stored somehow. They were and there were a few tabs that I hadn’t noticed before in the pop-up window. One of them said, “Gallery.” Mind you, this tab only appears if there are photos already uploaded.
I clicked the link and saw all the photos. Each photo had a link next to it that showed its properties. I still had the option of adding captions and all that. At the bottom of the list of photos, I noticed some neat little options that let you post all of the uploaded photos for that post as a gallery. How sweet. I chose the number of columns I wanted to see in my post, the order of the photos, how I wanted each photo to show when it was clicked and hit “Insert gallery.”
Take a look below for an example gallery. I found some random pet photos to post. Be sure to click each photo for a larger view.
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Simon sleeping on top of Jambalaya
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Simon lounging around
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Mickels on the grass
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Simon getting all nestled in
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Mr. Quack stopping by to say hello
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Flipperhumanbodyman laying on bed
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Simon licking Michaels ear
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Holly looking through door waiting to come inside
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Michael sleeping on the floor
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Holly and Simon sleeping on the floor
What is the benefit of putting your photos in gallery form? Well, for one, your page will load a heck of a lot faster. Also, you will give your readers more of a choice. They can click what they want and ignore the rest. You know, I am all about reader satisfaction.
(Well, this isn’t the greatest example. I had to adjust the “medium” picture size to fit the screen better. Now, you have to options. You can click the thumbnail, which will bring you to a medium sized photo. Then, you can click that photo for a full sized photo. In this post, the medium sized photos are too small. They will be correct in later posts.)
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Sunday, September 21st, 2008
We have no shortage of ideas when it comes to making money on the internet. If you would ever like to discuss them, please don’t hesitate to leave a comment. We will surely reply…simply because we love this stuff.
Now, I am generally going to talk about business ideas we wouldn’t get into for one reason or another, but rest assured, we have seen these type of ventures make money with very little start up cost. The reason I am only going to talk about ideas we won’t do is because we need to have some sort of competitive edge in the industry. We do a lot of profitable things “behind the scenes” to keep those prying eyes away. I guess you could call this the free stuff.
This idea is basically creating templates for successful web applications. If you are into launching websites, you probably are aware of the issues you can have when it comes time to make your new website look presentable. You know as well as I do, many of the web’s best applications come with a “bare bones” template and it’s up to the template designers to pretty these sites up.
Just to give you an example, I was looking for a premium Wordpress template a few days ago. I came across a few websites that had some good ones, but the designs fell off a cliff when I got to the second page of Google results. Actually, now that I think about it, there are only two design firms I am aware of that I would actually get my credit card out for.
So, knowing that there are about a zillion popular web applications out there and knowing that there is a demand for premium templates, don’t you think if would be a good idea to make some money while the opportunity is staring you in the face?
Ok, so how do you do it when you have absolutely no design experience? That’s easy. The internet is full of awesome design firms based in Russia and India. Get in touch with them, lay out your plans, have them complete the projects, but be sure to get the license to resell the end product. Then, start up your own blog with all your designs and get ready to sell. Open up a store front that sells digital media and do a little SEO. By the time you are done, you’re in business.
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Thursday, July 17th, 2008
For some time, I have been looking for a versatile CMS (content management system) that would allow my mind to wander. So far, I have set up some pretty nice systems. They are meeting my goals, but I wanted to see how things would be outside the realm of business. I mean, a new website would certainly be set up under the business name, but it would be sort of a hobby site in the beginning and we would see what it looks like after a year or two.
There is a blurry line between CMS applications and blog applications now. I understand blogs are becoming actual CMS applications, so who knows what will happen with that. I can see WordPress staying my favorite for a while, but I feel like learning something new.
Here are some of the top open source CMS applications I looked at:
- Joomla
- e107
- Drupal
- Plone
- Mambo
- PHP-Fusion
- PHP-Nuke
- XOOPS
After going over a bunch of these, I decided upon Joomla (along with about a million other people). Just to let you know, there is a really great website that lists many top content management systems, along with blogs, wikis, etc… All listed systems are open source and the website has a link to their homepage as well as a demo of the front page and the admin. This helped tremendously during my research.
I really don’t know what I am going to do with this website yet, but I am sure that once I go through all the plug-ins, I will start forming a plan. For now, I am just going to do the install and document the process here. After that, I will document all the exciting things I come across.
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Sunday, March 30th, 2008
This is just a quick note to all you WordPressers out there letting you know what WordPress 2.5 has been released and is ready for business.
I installed the upgrade this morning. I would say it took about 4 minutes to complete. The WordPress people really have the process down to a few small things. Basically, if you already have a recent version, you just need to upload some new files over the old. I’m sure that each upgrade adds some new ones too.
In WordPress 2.5, the look and functionality of the admin section are quite different from the previous version. It seems more intuitive, but still, it’s going to take some time to get used to. The front-end had no issues.
This is a sample of the new back-end…
I have so say, there are about a ton and a half of new features to play with. Just uploading that last image took some getting used to. There are soooo many things…
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Monday, February 25th, 2008
SEO Shenanigans Pose Clear & Present Danger to Social Media
Steve Rubel: “I have recently witnessed a disturbing trend. Some respected experts are advocating launching social media marketing programs solely for the purpose of influencing search engines, rather than with the intent of fostering collaboration. This represents a clear and present danger to the fabric of the community.
Facebook Offers $85 Million To Acquire Chinese Social Networking Site Zhanz
Facebook is said to have offered $85 million to acquire Zhanzuo.com, a Chinese social networking site with seven million users.
Was Digg the best social site of 2007?
In 2007, the world’s favorite social network, MySpace, quickly gave ground to Facebook and companies like the ill-fated Netscape tried to take on Digg. But which of these sites was the best of 2007?
The Next Social Network: WordPress
Could open-source blogging platform WordPress serve as your next social networking profile? Chris Messina, co-founder of Citizen Agency, thinks so. He’s started a project called DiSo, for distributed social networking, that aims to “build a social network with its skin inside out.†DiSo will first look to WordPress as its foundation.
Inside The Social Networking Craze
If you’re not already a part of the social networking craze, it can be difficult to understand what’s so great about sites like MySpace and Facebook. But nonetheless, millions of people flock to them and lead secondary lives on them.
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Sunday, December 30th, 2007
In my WordPress dashboard, I just noticed that there is a security and bugfix release for WordPress. The new version is 2.3.2. I like to announce these releases in my posts because some of my friends and family uses WordPress and they might not notice the blurb in their dashboard.
Mad peace to all of you.
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Saturday, December 22nd, 2007
I have a domain name and hosting account sitting there just burning to be used. I purchased a script a few days ago that looked like it had lots of promise. After installing it, I learned that it was nothing but full of bugs. Since I didn’t have the time or patience to fix someone else’s mess, I asked for a refund, which I got. Really, if a script gives me issues again and again, I can just imagine the emails I will receive when real people start using it. Sometimes these computer dudes really don’t have a clue.
Anyway, I have been looking into Drupal lately. I have heard so many good things about it. Obviously, I use WordPress already (for this blog). As I research Drupal, I am noticing many similarities between the two applications. I am reading that WordPress is great, but Drupal can do what WordPress does and a whole lot more. I have even heard that you can use Drupal for a social networking script (by the way, I did find THE social networking script, but it costs $20,000 per year for licensing).
So my question is, what exactly are the differences between WordPress and Drupal? Which one is older? I know they both have very dedicated and large communities of developers and followers. Will they both end up being the same thing as they grow through the years? Can I set up Drupal to be automated…like a link directory or an article submission website?
So many questions…
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Friday, November 16th, 2007
Now that I have installed the Simple Tags plugin for Wordpress, I can begin deleting some categories. As you may have noticed, I have a lot. I don’t mind that, but it is becoming tiresome writing a post and having to scroll through all those categories to check off my choices. It’s actually quite redundant, now that I have the tags.
Over the next year or two, I will do this…one at a time.
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Monday, October 29th, 2007
I updated my Wordpress blog the other day to version 2.3 and noticed a clever new feature. Now, when I write a post, there is a small field at the bottom of my editor for tags. Tags are like categories, but you can make a bunch more of them without cluttering things up.
This new “Tags” feature works with a few Wordpress Plugins, including one called “Simple Tags.”
I started using this neat new feature and am very happy with it. When I place a few tags (words) in my post, they are recorded and displayed at the bottom of each post. The blog also automatically takes those tags and find any related posts and displays them as well. Basically, related posts are just other blog entries with the same tags.
Take a look and become mad jealous.
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Saturday, August 25th, 2007
Sometimes people name things and think they are very very cool for doing so. People hear these cool new names and start using them in everyday conversation. I bet you know what I am talking about.
Let’s say…”24/7” for example. I for one, think this is a very stupid little saying, but it seems as though just about everyone has jumped on this bandwagon. At this point, there probably is no stopping it. Once the Pope says it, it’s over.
Lately, I have been hearing little things here and there about “Web 2.0.” I read “Revenue Today” magazine. There are articles with hints of the “Web 2.0″ phrase. I kind of roll my eyes each time I come across it because it seems like people are trying too hard to grab hold of something. This is what got me going.
Have you ever seen any shows on HGTV? Well, if not, let me explain. HGTV is a channel devoted to home improvement. I watch it because I like to see the gardening stuff. Sometimes I have to grin and bear it through the DIY shows. When you were a kid, what did you call the box in your house that you had all of your stuff and your bed in? Your “room,” right? Yes, your room. Not anymore. Now they call it your “space.” Since when did we call everything a space? “Yeeeeeezzzzz, well, hhmmmm, mumzy, pleeeease move the Range Rover into the space.” “You mean the garage?” “Yeeeezzzz, the garage space.” Do you get what I am saying? If not, here it is. I am saying that calling a kitchen a kitchen is good. Calling a room a room is good. Only those people call things “spaces.” Unfortunately, even the homeowners (those whose homes are being worked on by HGTV) are now made to call things spaces. “Yes, we sure would love a teensy weensy little bit larger coffee table in our space.” That just sounds dumb. It almost feels like there is some huge effort in Hollywood to change what we call a room. Can you imagine getting wicked pissed at your kid and yelling, “You little $%#^%, go to your space!!! No dinner for you!!!”
Anyway, sometimes it seems like this is what is happening on the web. Kind of like in the corporate world. If you have ever worked in that world, I am sure you are well aware of the idiotic things people make up names for. Someone has got to stop them.
So, without further ado, let’s get to looking at Wikipedia’s definition of Web 2.0.
The phrase Web 2.0 refers to a perceived second-generation of web-based communities and hosted services — such as social-networking sites, wikis and folksonomies — which aim to facilitate collaboration and sharing between users. It became popular following the first O’Reilly Media Web 2.0 conference in 2004, and has since become widely adopted.
Although the term suggests a new version of the World Wide Web, it does not refer to an update to Web technical specifications, but to changes in the ways software developers and end-users use the web as a platform. According to Tim O’Reilly, “Web 2.0 is the business revolution in the computer industry caused by the move to the internet as platform, and an attempt to understand the rules for success on that new platform.”
Some technology experts, notably Tim Berners-Lee, have questioned whether one can use the term in a meaningful way, since many of the technology components of “Web 2.0″ have existed since the early days of the Web.
Let’s look at the first sentence. “The phrase Web 2.0 refers to a perceived…” Ok, let’s stop right there. This is exactly what I am talking about. A perceived…this means that someone made this up and it is being pushed on the rest of the world. I gather that because this phrase has become so popular.
Let’s look at the first sentence in the second paragraph. “Although the term suggests…” Let’s stop again. The word “suggests” to me, means that I can not use this phrase with any seriousness in the least. I like actual meanings of things.
Let’s look at the third paragraph as a whole. I agree with Tim Berners-Lee. We are floating on the same brain wave if you are catching my drift. Why in the world would anyone try to give the simple and natural evolution of something a name like Web 2.0? Oooohhh, yeah, version two baby.
I remember back a few years ago, a local radio station tried the whole 2.0 thing. This is when the web was just getting all heated up. They were so proud of themselves. The announcer would say something like, “Yeah, the best music of the 40s, 50, 60s, 70, 80s, 90s and today!!! J98.6FM — version 2.0.” That didn’t last long. I think once someone in management realized that no one on the planet had any idea what they were talking about, they put a stop to it.
I was down at the hardware store this morning and the paint guy asked what I was up to. I told him that I was going to head home to really dive in to the intricacies of Web 2.0. I told him that I was going to envelope myself in what I would seriously consider the lightening fast and exponential explosion of how “Web 2.0″ has defined what we call the web. Ok, that didn’t happen, but I am sure it would’ve if I had gone to the hardware store.
Now, don’t get me wrong, I have truly noticed a shift in what has happened on the web. I am just not sure it should be called the second version. As a semi-ex website designer, I have noticed a squeeze in my profession. People still come up to me and ask if I can design websites for them. I am a little puzzled at why they are asking. I tell them to just set up a blog. They look at me all confused and then I remember that these people only spend a fraction of the time I do on the web. I mean, c’mon, just set up a site file, a folder structure, buy a domain name, set up a hosting account, download the latest version of Wordpress, set up a database and go to the install URL. Hit go, and if you want to get fancy, download a nice theme.
Is that too much to ask? Sorry, did I answer the question?
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