The Winds Of Change Are Comin’

Sometime over the next 30-45 days, this site will be making a move from WordPress.com to WordPress.org. I’ve done enough reading about the technicalities involved in such a switch that I think I can accomplish this on my own. That being said, this might be one of those cases where … “That’s what you get for thinkin’!”  I may need to call in the geeks (smile)

While I have had a whole lot of fun and have learned a great deal in creating and maintaining these pages, the simple fact is that we have outgrown its capabilities. WordPress.org will …..

1. Provide a vast array of new choices in terms of cool themes. I have already chosen one of these to at least get started with.
2. Allow us to integrate some neat widgets that include java scripting. WordPress.com will only allow a small assortment of widgets that they have pre-approved. This is the same case with their selection of approved themes.

Additionally, the focus of this website will return to our members and their respective companies. The sites we developed on a Ning platform were designed for this purpose but they have been abysmal failures. That’s not Ning’s fault. I just can’t seem to get our members to sign up and use the sites period. As I like to say.. “stick a fork in them cause I’m done.” A huge part of this problem is based on the fact that we have been required to use multiple platforms to accomplish our goals including: WordPress, Ning, FaceBook, LinkedIn, and Zoho. The sites themselves are o.k., it’s the jumping back and forth that gets confusing. I was working with another company on developing some software that would combine these functions however, part of our plan including offering this software for resale and we ultimately came to the conclusion that the demand for these capabilities simply was not sufficient.

On the brighter side, I continued to research alternatives in anticipation of the potential need for a “Plan B”. Our new site will be designed to ….

1. Give our brand a new look including a new logo that is close to being finalized.
2. Prominently feature members in each group along with their companies including appropriate contact information.
3. Provide our members with the ability to submit their own contributions in terms of articles for the blog.
4. Allow for a tighter integration with our CRM’s as well as the introduction of a new very easy to use group collaboration tool that I am presently evaluating.
5. Minimize the number of platforms required and make those that we do need more user-friendly.

There may be some technical challenges involved but I believe that they can be overcome. The actual address of this site is http://www.networksboise.wordpress.com. The new site will be just http://www.networksboise.com which, incidentally, is how this site is already referenced in our printed materials. We do own this domain name and have been forwarding that address to this WordPress.com URL. I have confirmed that I will be able to export the contents of this site and import them to the new .org location. The big question revolves around the fact that all of our existing pages and blog posts are linked to our present WordPress.com address. I am not sure how exactly this works but I am led to believe that for less than $10 we can do something called “domain mapping” that will take care of this problem. If it takes care of the problem, great. If not, I’m already over it.

Thanks for visiting! Exciting times ahead!

Craig

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Bookmarklets – Sharing Content Via Your Toolbar

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I was looking at my iGoogle Home Page yesterday and realized that I have a least 10 different ways to share updates and content to the sites I frequent and can do so without every having to leave that page with the exception of when I am visiting a specific website. Even then, my browser toolbars remain stationary. For my purposes, I am pretty much strictly on three social networking sites: Twitter, FaceBook, and LinkedIn. However, at least one of the tools that I am going to discuss on this post will allow me to post to a large variety of other sites if I so desired. Today, we’ll talk about 7 and each is a bookmarklet, or button, on my browser toolbar. For the record, I am still using FireFox 3.1 as 3.5 was causing stability issues with some gadgets and flat out was not compatible with others. A colleague of mine found that he had to delete toolbars altogether to get by similar issues with FireFox 3.5. Having done that, he tells me that it runs flawlessly. Not ready to go that route … yet (smile). Moving from left to right on my FireFox toolbar we have:

Share on LinkedIn: The link to load this bookmarklet can be found at the bottom of your LinkedIn home page. FYI, at the time that I first upgraded to FireFox 3.5, this tool was not compatible and was, therefore, disabled. At any rate, should you see an article that you wish to share on LinkedIn, from the article page itself, click on the bookmarklet and away you go. Please note that sharing articles on LinkedIn is not the same as changing your update. When sharing an article you are actually either posting it to a group page or sending a notice out to your first degree contacts that they may wish to see the article. However, it’s perfect for this task and does allow you to also provide your comments regarding the post.

Hootlet: This button is provided by HootSuite. It is designed to be primarily a Twitter tool. When I say “primarily”, HootSuite will integrate with Ping.fm which gives you the ability to post to multiple sites so you could also use it for that. For Twitter purposes, however, once again from the website page you wish to share, click on the Hootlet button and a Tweet is prepared for you complete with a HootSuite shortened URL (ow.ly format) and the article title. You can also add your comments within the 140 character limit. What is very cool about this tool is that I can choose to send the Tweet now or schedule it to go out later by date and time in 5 minute increments.

Share on Posterous: I’m going to be doing a fairly sizeable post on Posterous maybe later this week but this button is great for posting content directly to your Posterous blog which can then, incidentally, be auto posted (forwarded) to a variety of sites.

Adding Photos, Slide Shows, and Videos To WordPress

kudlian.net

This post is going to be more of a “what” and “where” than a “how” and “why”. All of this started out when I found a blog called “Business Blogging 101″ that talked about how to “Add a Photo Slideshow to WordPress with Slide.Com“. This is an excellent blog to follow if you work with WordPress. I’m not even going to try to duplicate Mark McLaren’s efforts in education in this regard. Incidentally, this is the same blog that introduced me to the power of the WordPress “text widget”.

Of course, I read Mark’s article and naturally, rather than follow the path of least resistance, I want to do what he is demonstrating but I want to do it differently. Why me? (smile). When you are dealing with any type of media with WordPress, you can potentially place these files in one or more of three areas: a “static” page, a “post”, or on a “sidebar”. The first two are easy. The last one is a bit tricky and, I wanted to place a “slideshow” on a sidebar. Bad choice (smile). Still, it can be done.

In my quest, I became acquainted with a number of free programs that will all work with WordPress in at least some fashion:

This isn’t a program, it’s a plain old photo (smile). This you can put anywhere in WordPress. When working with a post or a page, just use the “upload/insert” command and slap that baby wherever you want it. It can also be added to a “text widget”. You will, however, need to convert your photo to HTML. Not as bad as it sounds. What you do is start to create a draft post and insert your photo into that post. At the top right of the command bar for the post you have a choice to see your post in either “Visual” or “HTML”. Click the latter and your photo is converted to code. Copy the code and then paste that into you text widget and, voila, you have a photo on your sidebar.

Not a whole lot of explanation needed here. YouTube is the place for videos. YouTube can be placed either within a “static page” or within a “post”. In fact, it can be embedded which means that, as opposed to a link that will take you to the video, the video shows up right on your page.

WordPress.Com Text Widget – I Think I’m In Love

whiperinghillsmusic.com

So, what do you think of the new look for this site? There were a lot of things I liked about the old theme (functionally) but I found it to be kind of drab and heavy. I think a lot had to do with the color scheme and hues. I wanted something bright and cheery like……me (smile). I needed to change a few things around to make it layout correctly but I think I like it. Still some work to go on the home page. This theme also allowed me to create a custom header. My logo colors are blue and black and this site format is primarily blue so……… grabbed my Twitter background that was created for me by Scott Prock over at etweeple.com and….voila. She’s a beauty! (smile). So, what do the leaves have to do with anything? Boise is known as the “City of Trees”. And, I happen to be Canadian so those are maple leaves (smile).

At any rate, over the past several months that I have been doing this blog, I go and visit other sites and have been insanely jealous at their ability to incorporate photos, banners, badges, etc. into their sidebars. Why oh why not me? Then, to make matters worse, I see that some of these sites are WordPress.com pages and I know that WordPress.com does not support widgets other than those included in the software itself. I surmised that these were either WordPress.org pages (self hosted) using a .com theme or that maybe somebody had purchased the theme CSS and modified it to incorporate these features. I am also under the impression that doing so is best left to folks with much more technical prowess than I possess. Bummer. Yesterday I even Tweeted about how I wanted more flexibility and received replies directing me to hosting sites that supported “cpanels”. Don’t ask me, I have no idea what those are (smile).

Productivity – TweetLater & Zemanta

product-or-service.info

Been a tough day today. Upgraded my anti-virus software and they are not getting a “shout out” from me (smile). Apparently I have the only computer in the entire universe where this package will block access to the Internet even if their firewall is not on. Five techs later, and doing remote diagnostics, they’re still scratching their ………… heads (smile).

Since this is my bully pulpit, I’m also going to have a quick rant. I am constantly amazed by people who do not have the courtesy to respond to phone messages and emails even if it is to say “No”. “No”, by the way, is fine. And, I have a memory like an elephant. I noticed a couple of tweets lately where some folks were generally asking for help with connections and other pertinent areas. And, I have the solution they seek. They are also among those who have ignored me so………….. they are dead to me (smile).  What goes around comes around.  Whatever happened to manners? Maybe it’s just me.

TweetLater:

So, I flat out suck at sending out tweets. When I think of one I am always in the middle of something and, therefore, no tweet. Still, I have recognized that tweets drive visits to this site and assist me with my “branding efforts”. Enter TweetLater. I’ve heard people talk about it and it is sweet! I can spend an hour on the weekend and program in a passel of tweets for the week. Then, I can just tweet as I can to add to the mix. You can schedule your tweets to go out on specific days and times and this schedule is always right at your fingertips. And, if you add a tweet, it always displays them chronologically. Easy to set up, easy to use, and free. One thing I was not sure of was that it defaults to an “RSS Feed”. Just add in your twitter account and it works great. I’m still not sure what the “RSS” does and, guess what, I don’t care (smile).