New chat and community portals coming to the web

Posted by Administrator in Software and Web Apps on February 2nd, 2010

We have been consulting with a client about opening a new chat portals and community web site. There are many premium options for establishing an online presence in the chat and social software arenas, and we suggest several. For clients on a tight launch budget, we recommend free and open source software to get started.

Many of our clients are in the early launch and beta test phases of new web projects, and the early steps of new online business models require at least some web presence to get started. We know that everyone wants to have a super slick, tricked out, full featured web site, but when funding is tight, getting things started is more important that getting things full blown and polished.

It doesn’t take a lot to show concepts and get options from colleagues, teammates and investors. We have found by installing basic software and apps, giving people a demo of how things will flow, and showing some rough examples of color schemes is the best way to launch a new project. Many times we have seen clients spend time and money developing the web site’s look at feel with fancy graphics, only to have them completely reworked later in the public announcement phase. This is why we suggest getting the core functionality first, and then develop the look and feel later.

With all that in mind, we have a pre-launch of the new online chat forums up and running. It’s a start, and a great skeleton for future development.

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New online community and local search for TN

Posted by Administrator in Internet Business on January 13th, 2010

We have helped a client develop a new online community and local search portal called Tennessee Seen. It’s just a beta launch as of today, but it is setup to handle lots of great functions for people who live or visit cities in Tennessee.

The initial launch will be focused on indexing dozens of great restaurants, bars, and nightlife in the Nashville metro area. After beta testing we will look to include lots of businesses and events for people to browse, read reviews and comment about each business and event. Options for becoming a fan and leaving feedback will be simple for everyone to add and read. Mobile phone picture uploads and more are also slated to be functional by summer 2010!

This should prove to be a valuable asset to the businesses and events in the Tennessee region, as well as a very useful resource for people who are looking to go out and about in Nashville, Memphis, Knoxville and Chattanooga. A wealth of information is about to be put together for the public and easy to find out whats hot if you live in TN or just planning to visit or move here.

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Keeping a WP site takes some time, but it’s worth it

Posted by Administrator in Cyber Security on November 17th, 2009

There are plenty of how instructions out there about how to keep your wordpress site secure, how to keep it from being hacked. For the average user it’s even easier today as many WP installations have the ability to upgrade with the click of a button from inside the administration dashboard. Sometimes I wait to upgrade when a new version comes out, thinking that a new newer version will be available a week or so later, sometimes that bites you in the butt.

The auto-upgrade doesn’t worth with all web servers or WP installs. I have several WP sites that I administer in which I have to manually upload all the new files and such. Not a big deal for one site, but having to do that for twenty web sites becomes a bit of time consuming work, especially if there are plugin upgrades needed. Some of the web servers I maintain have fantistico installers that are suppose to make upgrading very easy with one click to do it. Unfortunately fantsistico is slow to get the updates out, or the man web host I work with are slow to add the fantistico updates, so at times we wait for weeks to have the latest WP update available with that method. If it’s a major security bug update, then we end up doing all those manually – many more hours spent with repetitious ftp.

This is mainly a rant, and certainly any of WP gurus out there will just say that I should upgrade my servers to root access dedicated or VPS – sure that’d be great, but not in the budget any time soon. Keeping your site secure is important. I suppose my suggestion to people would be to find a hot when the one click upgrade is available, and make backups of your database.

I would love to have one solid stable version of WP that did not need to be updated ever, and new features could be rolled out as optional plugins. There are some new features that may make a manual upgrade worth the time and hassle, but a majority of the new features I can live without, I just want to live with a basic secure blogging platform.

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What makes for a great wordpress theme?

Posted by Administrator in General on March 19th, 2009

A recent post at performancing is asking bloggers what they consider essential ingredients for a good wordpress theme. I’m going to go a step further and not only list some ingredients for a good wordpress theme, but some of the features that I look for when trying to find a great theme for wordpress sites.

The first thing I look for when trying to find a theme is the overall color scheme and how the sidebars are laid out. Some of my associates who use wordpress want cartoony fun themes, but a majority of my clients want something that is professional to a degree, so finding a basic, business like color scheme is important most of the time.

Sidebar layouts are my next consideration, and overall navigation are issues. This has changed a bit now that wordpress allows for quick end user modification of sidebar ordering with the widgets, so dynamic sidebar is considered a necessity – and is available on every theme I’ve seen for a while. Even with dynamic sidebars, sometimes a web site only needs one sidebar, so depending on the deployment, I will often skip themes that have 2 sidebars.

Validation and looks that work in firefox and multiple versions of IE are essential. I’ve found a few themes that include CSS hacks to make them look right in different versions of popular browsers, and I really appreciate that! It could be embarrassing to have a good tlooking theme only to have it break when you are showing it off and your client or friend is using an old IE browser or something.

Changeable header graphics – good themes allow the end user to change the colors of the header and upload and crop a custom image. If the theme has a default header and no way for the end user to upload and crop, then I am disappointed. No big deal for me to create graphics and ftp them to change header images, but there are a lot of users out there who want or need to upload through the browser. This also saves some of us administrators from having to ftp when clients change their minds.

What makes a theme great?

Changing color schemes within theme options is a great option. I have found a few themes that allow for total change of the color scheme with a simple click, this is great when you find a layout that you approve of and need a different overall look. Sometimes a them has this option, but you do not see those options when surfing theme thumbnails, and that’s a huge loss for everyone when a good theme is missed because the default color schemes is all you see, when there are other color options built in. The furry family theme being used on Nashville pet watch has some great color scheme options, even the default graphics change to match the various color options. You can’t see that by looking at the default thumbnail that shows at wordpress.org, but it’s one of the things that makes the theme great!

Navigation is important, I lean toward themes that have pages navigation in the top header area, and this is especially true if the theme designer would make it possible to widgetize that somehow, so the end user could go into widgets area and exclude pages from the navigation. Some themes have these options in theme options area – very nice. Of course I can go in and manually hack the code to only show which pages we need, but having the pages navigation at the top is a big bonus. If the pages have css button highlighted for rollover of the pages then that definitely attracts me to it more. Added bonuses for options top “back to the top of page” buttons as the fusion theme we are currently using has. One of my recent favorite themes has three widgets in the footer that are changeable – and that allows for the end user to add further navigation at the bottom of a blog, and that makes for a better surfer experience and encourages reading to stay on site reading more. I love that.

If the sidebars have place holders for advertising graphics that is a big bonus. For some selling ad space is a necessity, some themes have them options that allow you to select the graphics and corresponding url for the ads to click to. Having an option to rel-nofollow those links would be icing on the cake. Having the option to set the ads to be 125 x125 or 125 x 250 would be great, and if there was a standard google adsense ad size setup for the sidebar would be awesome. Ad graphics in the sidebar can add some professional blog to a blog that may appear as just another personal wordpress blog without those graphics.

I like matching graphics for column headers in the sidebar. If a theme has just text, that is plain and boring, sure we can change the style some with css if it has special classes for them and not simply an h-two class for example, but having graphical headers or at least css button styling for sidebar widgets gives a theme extra professionalism. The top notch themes we use also have matching graphics created for other options like rss feed, and feedburner email signups, etc.

Custom pages. When a theme comes with a few unique page layouts, I get all fuzzy inside. It’s such an added touch of professionalism to have a few custom page options that incorporate matching theme graphics for a 3 picture layout for example, one with a nice layout for picture gallery, another for a video perhaps, and maybe one with buttons for email / contact / register, stuff like that.

It is so much easier for a theme designer to crank out a few matching buttons while they have photoshop open, then it is for blog owners to try to re-create the wheel one color picking match up at a time. I have customized one theme for use simply because it came with a big matching “register now” button for the sidebar. It gave the wordpress site the look of a professional web site, looking nothing like a blog, mainly because of the one matching custom graphic that came with it.

Themes get extra greatness in my mind if they have buttons for the blog reader to make the text bigger.

a few caveats – them options are great – but too many cause problems – it’s not good to be confused by theme options – when they are needed, explanation of how they work is essential. Having so many options that it slows down the blog displaying on readers’ screens is a problem. I was blown away by the options available for the Atahualpa theme, impressive programming, but slowing down page loads is a bad idea, especially considering most bloggers are using shared hosts that can slow down enough on their own.

What is with the search graphics that disappear from some themes when you go dynamic with widgets. I use a great theme on tow blog sites that have great matching search graphics until the sidebar is widgetized, then the graphics disappear and it becomes a blank box.

This post was inspired by the contest for premium themes club membership that I found at performancing. After writing this post I took a look around their site and I must say that I am quite impressed at how modern they appear to be. I can’t wait to look into their themes further, and I may have to sign up for their affiliate program to promote the premium theme site.

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New Nashville Web Sites 03-2009

Posted by Administrator in Internet Business on March 7th, 2009

A couple of new – or relaunched web sites from the Tn area, mainly Nashville. We love working with new web site clients, although it is quite challenging to teach people at first what they need to consider, once the new site is up and running it’s great to see concept become a reality.

Nashville pet watch and pet sitting is a new web site for people who need their animals watched when going out of town. It’s a new web site, but it’s coming together quickly and shows how a wordpress powered site can look more like a web site and less like a blog.

Another wordpress powered site for a Tennessee group is the shift the lines talk show podcast being launched on break it down radio dot com.

Both of these sites are harnessing the power of wordpress as a multi-user CMS, and they employ some basic template modifications that make them look like a professional web site rather than an out of the box blog.

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New sites – welcome to the web

Posted by Administrator in Software and Web Apps on December 20th, 2008

There are a few new web sites that we’d like to welcome to the web. We have been impressed with the new web sites being created with the open source blogging software from wordpress. With the various theme options and settings now available such as static front page and such, there are some great web sites being creating that look nothing like the standard default wordpress blog.

New sites like the TBS blog and Danny writes are coming together quickly, from people that just got their web sites started this year. With the themes and customization options available along with a plethora of plugins, people are making great fully functioning web sites with a simple server side script.

We have also been consulting with some web sites using the wordpress backend for multiple blog hosting and are really excited about the social network plugins that are being released for wordpress mu, upcoming social network sites massage groups and others will be pioneering a new generation of easy use, self hosted social networks. We are looking forward to the data portability possibilities and hope that these sites are hugely successful.

We will begin consulting with new clients who want to launch their own hosted social networks as soon as testing and upgrades are completely with our current projects. Look for custom profile and other buddypress themes to be made available from us in the near future as well. Looks like 2009 will be a great new year!

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Wordpress as social network backbone suggestions

Posted by Administrator in Software and Web Apps on March 1st, 2008

From the RSS feeds, we found a post from Matt linking to an article about one person’s suggestions for making wordpress.com more of a social network.

My comment on this post about wordpress fixes to make it more of a social network, from Rashmi.

There have been several wordpress MU sites that incorporate similar features, as dr mike pointed out in an earlier comment. There have even been a couple sets of plugins specifically made to turn a wordpress installation into more myspace like look.

I think there are a few single instance wordpresses running with multiple authors and contributors registered, that share similar pages to the ones you described aren’t there?

I do look forward to more unique blends of wordpress to shine across the internet for a while to come, it is constantly improving and there are many people using it in many different ways. I can’t wait to see what the community creates over the next couple of years, and I am sure you will see many more social networks using wordpress as a core. We are currently testing an MU based social network (or two ;)

I appreciate your points and suggestions for ways to make it function more like a facebook-like social network, I believe your ideas are valid.

The comments there have made me think what it would be like to create a custom page theme template (for the about page) that would add the author information into the top of the about page. This would be a simple easy way to get the author info shown, now to just get everyone to fill it all in.

As open Id and data portability continue to grow as well, I hope that it becomes easier for internet authors to fill in their info quickly, accurately, and with choice of which information to propagate and share.

Social networks and the software that runs them will continue to grow and evolve, and people like you sharing your comments about ways to improve will constantly make it better.

As Louis James points out in another of the comments there, flickr is already very social, I in fact recommended it in an email to an old friend just the other day, and sent her my flickr address. Flickr is an easy sell to people with it’s free photo sharing and the ability to mark some pictures just for friends and some pictures just for family. Of course you can also have some set for public, and you do have somewhat of a profile with flickr. Hadn’t quite looked at the profile that way, but it does have a lot of info there. neat observation Louis.

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Finding a mentor via online social communities

Posted by Administrator in Internet Users on February 25th, 2008

Finding a mentor via online social communities
from yahoo news / Reuters

By Kate Holton Thu Feb 21, 3:44 PM ET

LONDON (Reuters) – “Lavenderblu” was a young girl when she got her first taste of domestic violence. After suffering at the hands of her father and witnessing repeated attacks on her mother, she ended up in a violent relationship of her own before finally managing to leave and find refuge with a women’s support group.

Now, at age 40, she is one of many mentors on the new social network Horsesmouth (www.horsesmouth.co.uk) which has been set up to connect mentors with those who are looking for advice.

Launched only about a month ago, the site already has over 20,000 users and offers up mentors to discuss a wide variety of topics, form how to set up a business to how it feels to wear the Muslim hijab for the first time.

In launching the service, the site’s creator, MT Rainey, set out to bring a sense of public purpose to the whole Web 2.0 phenomenon, which allows users to contribute their own content to the Internet.

“No one was creating a social network for a public benefit or for the public good,” she told Reuters in an interview. “I wanted to create somewhere that was safe and somewhere that was fit for purpose, for meaningful interchanges online.

“If you’ve accomplished something, if you’ve been through something and if you’ve got over something, then you have wisdom,” added Rainey, who previously worked in advertising.

She said that people going through a difficult process need to talk, often to someone familiar with the situation, who has been in their shoes before.

“I found that people wanted to give something back,” Rainey said. “You don’t have to be middle-aged or retired to feel that way.”

The Horsesmouth is one of many mentoring sites to spring up recently and the phenomenon could become more important as once-powerful traditional bodies such as the church or unions start to lose their sway in certain countries.

“Physical geographic communities are breaking down and people through the Web are creating communities of interest,” Rainey said.

A HELPING HAND

In the creative industries such as music, advertising, media and the arts, many are turning to the new social network set up by The Hospital Club group.

The private club opened in 2003 in a former London hospital and was based on the vision of musician Dave Stewart, who wanted a “creative melting pot” in the centre of the British capital where members could give something back to the industry.

Five years on, it has also launched a social network at thehospitalclub.com, where users from those industries can post ideas, blogs and their work to communicate with others on the site.

“The key was to create a low pressure environment where people could interact with one another based on their own expertise … and where it is acceptable to approach people to ask for assistance,” said David Marrinan-Hayes, the club’s online manager.

He said the site would allow those entering the industry to post profiles and examples of their work online, meaning the potential mentor would be able to make a qualified decision on whether to provide advice or not.

“Also, we often find that people … need different pieces of advice from a number of different people,” he said.

“For a musician, they could need production advice or legal advice or marketing advice, and that very often doesn’t come from the same person. So three or four people could work together and we’re trying to create a space to manage that whole process.”

There is no charge for using Horsesmouth and TheHospitalClub, but some other mentoring sites like Imantri (www.imantri.com) offer a choice as to whether you pay for the mentor or not.

Other sites offering mentors or advice include American-based score.org, micromentor.org and the business network linkedin.com.

Like Horsesmouth, Marrinan-Hayes said people were happy to help and impart their knowledge. And it can be rewarding for both sides.

“It just makes them feel good,” he said. “They feel like they have something to contribute.”

(Reporting by Kate Holton; editing by Gunna Dickson)

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