Revolution Theme Site :: A Model for Support and Selling

Every year or so, usually before Fall classes begin, I go in search of a new theme for this site. This year, I found more than a theme. I found a site that is quite the model for providing depth in documentation, tutorial videos and more. It is Revolution WordPress Theme led by developer Brian Gardner.

The best part about the theme, to me, is the ability to highlight posts in a rather easy manner. But, it isn’t really the theme that sold me. It was the site. So, I’m sharing this as a great example for future portfolio and resume sites by my students. Read more

Upgrading to WordPress 2.1 :: It Wasn’t Pretty, but it Works Now

Update: It works now. Well, almost all of it works. Still some quirks with the post code tab in the edit area. But, it is at least letting me save drafts of posts. I did have one little epiphany. Look at how the Wordpress platform has grown in size and number of files since Wordpress 2.0. That’s a pretty big growth in overall size.

Now, anyone that has ever read my blog knows that I’m a big fan of WordPress. But, I’m having fits with it today. Recently, WordPress released their much anticipated version, 2.1. Usually I wait a good couple of weeks before installing the upgrades. Why? Inevitably the new version will have bugs and quirks. I should have waited. Despite following the rules, deactivating plugins and other standard practices … it went goofy. Now, guess what I see when clicking “Save and continue editing…” in the blog’s admin area?

Yep, it won’t even let me post. It won’t save anything I type into the editor. And, the editor won’t even let me look at the code. The nice little popup HTML edit window in past versions is gone. Now, you get tabs. Tabs that don’t work, by the way. So, for awhile I’ll be posting from an external editor. This one is being posted using the Performancing for Firefox plugin. I’m kicking myself. I knew better. Always wait at least a few weeks, if not longer, to let the kinks get worked out by others. I even upgraded some test blogs elsewhere before doing the upgrade here. I tried most everything I know to make sure it went well. Nope. Little success. Advice is cheap. But, if you have a WordPress blog, wait to upgrade. I know they encourage everyone to do it right away. But, “they” are developers and can fix their problems. The rest of us? Yeah, you guessed it. Still, I can blame no one but myself. I’ll just wait for them to release 2.1.1, or some such fix … or, see my issues addressed in the forums.

Thankfully, I have the performancing for firefox add-on (and a few other external editors) so I can keep posting, if I need to. But, I’m bummed that this happened at the beginning of the semester. I really don’t need another problem to deal with right now. That’ll teach me.

One strange thing I’ve noticed is that the new 2.1 version takes my pullquotes and doubles the line spacing. So, until I fix that, you’ll see some strange things in the archived posts. Sorry.

WordPress Widgets Are Cool :: Camp ASCCA Front Page Redesign

The front page of ASCCA’s site is going through a redesign.

We’re trying to create a simpler, cleaner navigation layout that helps you find what you’re looking for on the site.

Check out the new look.

What we want to provide is a simple way for anyone to quickly update the front page with the latest information. The new tools we’re using - widgets - should allow this to work. And, the people adding the information don’t have to know much / any HTML coding to add the information to the page.

The ASCCA site is now a collection of WordPress blog installments. This allows the staff to use the rather simple (to use, at least) software to update the site. And widgets allow them to place new information ‘almost’ anywhere they want it in the blog’s template.

The Oscar Dunn Environmental Center now has their own site, separate from the ASCCA site. This was done to differentiate the Dunn Center from ASCCA as we continue to bring in non-disabled groups to use that facility. Now the Dunn Center staff can put up their own videos and audio. We haven’t yet fully shown all the center has to offer. This new site will help them illustrate the beauty and diverse offerings in ASCCA’s new multi-million dollar facility.

It really is quite amazing. People are always stunned when they first drive into ASCCA. Then, to see this amazing wildlife, nature and conference facility right on the Lake Martin shoreline .. well, it gets their attention. God bless Rotary International. They made the Dunn Center a reality.

Give us your feed back. Check out the new front page and critique away. Thanks.

PRblogs.org Now Offers Personalized Widgets

For some time, users of PRblogs.org have desired the ability to personalize their sidebars. Now, that is possible.

Widgets have arrived at PRblogs.org. This will add significant functionality and likely please existing and new users.

Fiddling with plugins, I’ve been able to get Widgets to work on PRblogs.org.

Pretty cool. Visit the example blog at widgets.prblogs.org to see how they look.

In the sidebar, you will see - from the top

• a text widget pointing to an image file,
• a text widget holding Constantin’s code to search for all PR blogs,
• the Google search widget,
• an RSS feed widget, and
• a del.icio.us feed widget.

Pretty nice, huh. Currently widgets only work on two themes - default and classic - but we’ll fix that over the coming week.

I’ll be going through and identifying themes that will work with widgets. All don’t, by the way, and it will likely take awhile for “all” to be made widget friendly. But, I’ll come back and identify the ones I find that work both with widgets and WordPress MU, the versions of WordPress we are running at PRblogs.org.

I’ll consider adding other widgets, if you wish to suggest them. I’m thinking that I’ll not put the PHP execute widget in as that is a security issue. But, there are others out there and I’m open to considering them, if you wish.

Update: Themes that work with widgets on PRblogs.org are now these…

• WordPress Classic
• WordPress Default
• whiteasmilk
• and more to come…

infOpinions Redesign by Necessity

IE7 does not like my blog. This blog, specifically. It likes all the other WordPress sites of mine, but not this particular blog. Hmmm? I’m guessing it is a plugin conflict, but do not know. I have so many running, I really don’t want to go through the process of deactivating them one at a time to see if that’s the case.

As you can see, I have changed the layout. I did it for my own site to test one I’m creating for another project.

What do you think? I like the widget goodness of the newest WordPress themes. That is invisible to you, I know, but the AJAXY widgets make defining layout simple - without any HTML or PHP, if you wish. The opensource Wordpress community has made the platform even easier to use and adapt. Their efforts are deeply appreciated.

This theme is Tarski. I like it very much. Great work from Ben Eastaugh and Chris Johnson. The flexibility is quite remarkable.

The theme I really want to implement is Canvas - by Karsten Temme and Yasser Dahab. It worked in WordPress 2.0.4, but the recent upgrade to 2.0.5 makes the Canvas plugin fail, for me. They state, on their site, that they will be rewriting the theme. I’m hopeful.

Have any of you had good fortune with IE 7, or any of these widget-friendly WordPress themes?

Update: Do not, whatever you do, put an ampersand in one of your tags. I had Style & Design in there and it crashed my feed.

Social Media Press Release via Wordpress Installation and Structured Blogging

For some time now, I have wanted to create a process through which students may practice creating versions of this new-fangled social media press release concept.

Now, I have it. Simple, yet functional.

For our fall classes, we have created a new site: The Loveliest Village Newsroom. This is part of a larger site where students will be posting news and feature stories they will write and produce (audio and video) during the semester. The Loveliest Village utilizes blogs, a wiki, Flickr, del.icio.us and is intended to provide experiential learning.

I am looking for some help with this project, if any of you are interested. A skilled coder/developer willing to help adapt the structured blogging plugin will be particularly useful. The version I have modified will work, but it can be more fully developed.

Our newsroom will utilize Wordpress and various plugins, including: Structured Blogging, podPress, WP Notable, WP Print, WP Lightbox JS 2 and Ultimate Tag Warrior. All of those will combine to allow posting releases featuring the major elements of a social media release (PDF) similar to the one suggested by Todd Defren.

Using this Wordpress implementation, the posting will still require the use of code. This file of HTML/CSS code is one example of how we will accomplish the format.

This zip file is the adaptation I made to the showcase-person.xml file within the structured blogging plugin.

Overall, this is a simple modification, but it allows us to practice (a) HTML, (b) CSS, (c) writing skills, and (d) creating social media releases.

I have two primary reasons for doing this. First, I want to have a process by which my students may practice the various principles we are studying - writing and production (HTML, CSS, graphics, layout). Second, I would like for them to have a leg up on understanding the social media release upon graduation. We are still blogging and commenting, by the way.

I’ll write more later. I hope to have some very exciting news to share later this week.

Update: After doing all of this, I went over to listen to the latest (Sept. 4) edition of Social Media Club’s Social Media Cast 0.2 with Shel Holtz (FIR), Chris Heuer and Brian Solis. In that podcast, the group discusses how some corporations are considering doing their releases through a blog due to the high costs associated with doing it at one of the major press release distribution services. So, this is quite interesting. I believe that a modified Wordpress or MT site can accomplish this process. Of course, the blogs won’t have the reach that one gains from services like PRNewsire or Business Wire, but it does reach the search engines.

Given the Social Media Club’s work on developing standards for such releases, we will be watching their work with interest.

Yahoo! Yodel Anecdotal and Paul Stamatiou :: Score! Big Time

Yahoo! and intern Paul Stamatiou unveil Yahoo!’s new official corporate blog - Yodel Anecdotal.

Paul descibes the new blog as:

It’s what Yahoo! is all about - the culture, the traditions and some dabbling of current hot topics in the general tech realm. You don’t have to be a Computational Media major at a top 10 public university to understand what’s going on. User interaction is encouraged on Yodel Anecdotal.

Please note that we’re talking about Yahoo! - a corporate giant - giving this kind of responsibility (and opportunity) to an intern. I think that’s amazing, admirable and to be saluted. Now, Paul doesn’t seem like your average intern, so that may play into this a bit. But, the willingness of a company like Yahoo! to offer this to an intern just blows my mind. Yahoo! has won me over in yet another area.

Sounds like a good idea for a corporate blog, too. Looking forward to reading this one.

Paul’s work (and his group) is quite impressive. Congrats!

A little side story is the choice of the blogging platform used for Yahoo’s corporate blog. MovableType’s ProNet discussion group - mostly developers - are a little bummed that Wordpress was chosen. But, the unique aspect is that Yahoo! let the intern go with a platform he felt comfortable with - instead of one that was suggested (but not demanded) by IT. I think that’s commendable. Also, Yahoo! offers hosting for both platforms. So, either platform would be fine for the blog.

Is it a coup for Wordpress? Sure. Wordpress is now the platform of the Official Yahoo! corporate blog. That’s pretty cool. But, both platforms have gained from acceptance and adoption by Yahoo! over recent years. See Yahoo! Web Hosting and WordPress.

I do think that Wordpress is continuing to erode Movable Type’s market share and if I were Six Apart, I’d be worried. Even the latest version of Movable Type 3.3 is encountering problems. The rebuild function of Movable Type makes it a “clunkier” platform than Wordpress, in some/many instances. We’ll see how Movable Type’s viability plays out in the future.

Links:

The blog and discussion:
Introducing Yodel Anecdotal - PaulStamatiou.com
Yodel Anecdotal
About Yodel Anecdotal
Yet another self-serving corporate blog!

Discussion about the blogging platform chosen (Wordpress):
Photo Matt » Yodel Anecdotal
http://www.sixapart.com/mailman/private/pronet/ - Discussion at ProNet (registration required)

Two Reviews:
IMlog: Corporate blog: Yahoo! vs Google 1 - 0
Yahoo Yodels With New Blog

Seeking Suggestions :: Social Media for Promotion of Nonprofits

Social media will be incorporated into a summer project I’m working on for Easter Seals Camp ASCCA. I know you’ve seen me write about Camp ASCCA often, but this summer - get ready - you’ll see it a lot here and at the Camp ASCCA Web site.

I honestly believe that this will be the largest nonprofit use of social media (blogs, podcasts, video, forums and more) that has ever been attempted (aside from political sites and some national / international NPO sites). But, I can’t say that for certain until I do some more research. You can help, if you like. Do you know of any site for a nonprofit organization that has posted this much, this often and using online communication?

Below you will see an outline of what our plans are and how we seek to accomplish these tasks. I have abbreviated the plan as it is actually written out and is 12 pages - single-spaced - in a Word document. I’m still working on it, too.

Here, in a nutshell, is what we’re going to try. I’d love to receive your feedback, suggestions and criticisms.

ASCCA is a nonprofit organization and resources are limited. They have devoted two internships (paid) to the process. The students will receive free housing, meals and $1,000 per month (the same salary camp program staff receive). That, I believe, is a remarkable commitment.

Beyond that, ASCCA has invested in two multimedia computers, digital audio recorders, video recorders (straight to MPEG) and software. I am donating the use of a digital video camera, digital photo camera and a digital audio recorder, too. This should enable the interns to easily capture, and quickly edit, the content they capture. More on that below.

• Two interns will run the operation. Their work hours are quite different from other jobs. They will follow, essentially, the same day that all of the campers and staff do - 7:00 AM until 10:00 PM each day. The camps traditionally run from Sunday at Noon until Friday at Noon.
• In an attempt to be realistic, I am seting an initial “minimum” number of blog postings at four per day. Actually, I believe it could be 8 or more per day.
• Posts will be a combination of audio, video, photos and text.
1. VIDEO: Our initial goal is to do short video pieces and they will be loaded up to our Google Video site and YouTube. These will highlight the program areas from lakefront and the pool to horseback riding and high adventure. We have over a dozen activity areas, so content will be widely avaialable.
2. AUDIO: These will be short interviews with campers, parents, counselors and visitors. The length will not, I pray, go beyond 10 minutes each. These will be hosted on our servers and delivered through the Wordpress Podpress plugin and iTunes.
3. PHOTOS: Digital cameras will be used to capture dozens of photos each day. They will highlight four main areas: programs, camper/counselor relationships, barrier-free architecture incorporated into activities and cabin life. These will be hosted on our servers and in our Flickr Pro account.
4. WRITING: These will be observations by the interns about Camp ASCCA and the experiences of the campers and staff. Visitors (fund raising) will also be highlighted. We want honest observations. ASCCA has always been about the reality of abilities - not focusing on the disabilities. We want to offer answers/solutions which allow people with disabilities to participate. We don’t want any “poor pitiful crippled children” stories. Those always irk me.

I realize that is a lot of uploading. Now the sad news. One of the limitations we have at a camp is our location. We have satellite web access. That means that uploading is essentially dial-up. Camp is 10 miles from the nearest highway. A squirrel on the phone line can cause havoc. We may actually drive into town for the uploading of the video, audio and photo files. The only alternative is to keep the phone lines running all night.

With few exceptions, opensource software will be used for all of these projects. We have a wiki (PmWiki), CRM (SugarCRM), calendars (30boxes and Google Calendar), forums and/or alumni database (phpBB), eLearning (Moodle), photo albums (Flickr and Gallery 2), video (Google Video and YouTube) along with Wordpress blogs and plugins.

The students have already used much of the software and they have seen the rest of it in action.

New releases will be delivered via a blog newsroom setup to the state and southeastern publications serving our campers hometowns. Most of these are mid-sized to small publications and usually appreciate the content. High resolution photos will accompany the stories created by the interns. Where possible, audio actualities will be included and sent to their local radio stations. Small town radio still does radio news, you know.

I am not sure what, if any, value online press release delivery services could offer us, but we may try them. We’ll likely only use the free services, unless someone wants to spot us for free access to a paid service. That would be a blessing.

Contacts will be made to these local news organizations and offer them email notification of stories or RSS feeds. They’ll likely prefer the emails, as most of the releases will be specifically targeted by locality.

Side projects include populating the Moodle eLearning site to help expand ASCCA’s appeal to school teachers in the areas of environmental education.

Among our many goals are: considerable search engine placement and optimization, increased visibility in online social media communities, a rebirth of ASCCA’s regional media releases, active involvement with our primary audiences (people with disabilities, parents, caregivers, teachers, therapists/medical, other nonprofits and our alumni - campers, staff and volunteers).

Yes, we will be pitching - news outlets and bloggers. We will be commenting in other blogs and developing relationships with sites/blogs addressing disability issues.

We are also interested in online fundraising, but that will come down the road. We want to develop a strong respectable presence online, first.

OK, that is a brief (believe it or not) synopsis of what we’ll be doing this summer. What do you think? I’m reserving some comments I have until I hear from you.

A Smart Company Grabs the Brass Constantin

Constantin Basturea. He is the brass ring of online PR conversations and body of knowledge. I have long admired, respected and appreciated his herculean online efforts.

The New/PRWiki is just one of his progeny. Constantin was one of the founding members of Global PR Blog Week, created and administers the Bloglines PR Blog List and the PubSub PR Community List. Those are just a few of his accomplishments. Impressive. Very impressive!

A smart company steps up and grabs the brass ring - Constantin. Congratulations to Converseon, too.

Converseon is a new breed of communications agency that capitalizes on the changing ways consumers and businesses gather, synthesize, share and act on information.

A smart new breed, in fact. They are lucky to have him.

Constantin shares the news on his blog and via email this morning.

I could not be happier, Constantin. You are very deserving of this new opportunity. Best wishes for your continued success!

K2 Theme, It Is

O ver the past few months, I’ve really enjoyed the In Business theme, but it just had too many quirks.

So, say hello to K2. I’ll play with this one for awhile. Looks a bit raw now, but we’ll see what else I can do to it.

I know it has some problems in IE, but I’ll work on it. Better yet, use Firefox. But, I’ll see if I can fix the quirky problem in the sidebar for anyone using IE to view this.

Upgrade to WordPress 2.0

Took the plunge. As part of the redesign effort for this blog, I was hoping to upgrade to WordPress 2.0. Thankfully the developer team met their deadlines and did release the new version. Aren’t they great? You bet! Congratulations to all WordPress Developers.

The majority of differences between 2.0 and previous 1.5.x versions are in the user interface (admin area) and casual users won’t see them. There is the new “Roles and Capabilities” determination for blog subscribers/authors. A good run-down of all the changes, with an explanation, comes from Asymptomatic. Also, with the upgrade of the platform, WordPress has redesigned their main site and provided an improved, and organized, documentation section. That is especially good to see.

Upgrading to WordPress 2.0 on this heavily modified blog took only 45 minutes to get it back up and working. Not bad when you consider that counts backing up the database, deactivating over 20 plugins, deletion of all files, FTP of all new files, unrelated phone call interruptions, and the final re-activation of select plugins to get the blog running. There was a bit more to it, but that covers the major tasks.

Comments and posting are working. The new theme, Exquisite, is functioning. I will enable it later as the sidebar still needs some work.

As for WordPress 2.0, I admit that there are some quirks I’m discovering and I’ll probably spend a few hours fixing and tweaking things. However, that is because this blog had been modified a great deal with numerous plugins/hacks over the past several months. If this were a new installation, I am certain that the famous WordPress 5-minute (or less) install is still a safe and honest promise from the developers.

This version looks just like WordPress Multiuser in the administration area. It is very clean, easy to use and navigate, and quite powerful. All of that from free software. Can’t beat it.

So, for what it is worth, I now declare WordPress the King/Queen of the personal/business blogging platforms - opensource or commercial. Alright, to be fair - I’ll have to caveat that with my trusty-dusty “of the platforms I have tried” qualifier. As a yardstick on what I have tried, I have downloaded and installed (or tried to install) almost all of the blogs, portals, wikis (and several other CMS platforms) at Opensourcecms.com. I’ve even installed Movable Type and have/had Typepad, Blogger, LiveJournal accounts. For me, WordPress is the clear winner. It is not even close.

In fact, the new version of WordPress - out of the box - allows for the easy importing of posts from a Movable Type blog. “The importer is smart enough not to import duplicates, so you can run this multiple times without worry if—for whatever reason—it doesn’t finish. If you get an out of memory error try splitting up the import file into pieces.”

But, the new platform doesn’t stop there. You may also import from these accounts and processes, too. “Blogger - Import posts and comments from a Blogger account; Textpattern - Import posts from a Textpattern Blog; and, RSS - Import posts from an RSS feed”

What’s the point here? The level of user knowledge required to launch a WordPress blog is much lower than a Movable Type blog, for instance. Yet, you get the same power of Movable Type. I think you actually get more, but that is still being debated. Either way, more people can use the WordPress platform - easier and faster, out of the box - than any other platform you might choose to host yourself, or acquire hosting to launch.
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