Archive for October, 2006

Video: Introduction to WordPress

I’m doing a little experimentation with streaming video on a WordPress site. As part of that experimentation, I created a brief video introduction to WordPress. I think it’s like 15 minutes long. I’d like to know if you have any problems viewing the video, so please share via the comments link. Thanks! Read More

Blog Design 101: WordPress Theme/Template Design (Part 2)

In part 1 of this series, we talked a little bit about database driven publishing platforms, such as WordPress. The key point of that discussion was that your blog data is separate from your blog design (the look and layout of your site). The data - such as blog posts, blog comments, blog categories, etc. - reside in a database on your web server/web host (you establish your database during the WordPress install process).

The template files (theme) tell WordPress and the various web browsers how to organize and present your blog data to your website/blog visitor. You may hear people refer to the blog theme as a “blog skin” because it determines the look and feel - or design - of your blog. At a basic level, that’s true, but a WordPress theme can - and usually does - do more than just determine the design style of your blog. Read More

Blog Design 101: WordPress Theme/Template Design (Part 1)

There are probably over 1000 free WordPress blog themes/templates out there. Yet, I still get people who write and ask me to help them design their own. And that’s cool. After all, it’s a great way to express one’s creativity. This post marks the first in a series to help you do just that: create your own WordPress blog theme. Before we get into WordPress blog/theme design, however, we need to talk a little bit about WordPress itself.

Database-Driven Websites (AKA Push-Button Publishing)

WordPress, like most blogging platforms, is a “database-driven” web publishing platform. In other words, all of your blog’s content is stored in a database in the form of, well, data. The database merely acts as a repository for all the information you add to your WordPress site. That includes blog posts, blog comments, blog categories, the title of your blog and a whole slew of other information. Most people, me included, would say that database driven websites are a key characteristic of Web 2.0 websites. Read More

[Michael] made it all easy. Whatever I wanted, he did. And then he did more.

lynn2.jpgClient: Lynn Rasmussen
Site: www.menareeasy.net
Date: 10/11/06

Men are easy but getting a simple blog up to speed was not until I found Michael. I attended a blogging workshop for writers and publishers and I read up on blogging on blog sites, so I knew what I wanted. I tried 3 different people who claimed that they knew what they were doing, but they didn’t. I was getting ready to spend the week that it would take to do a basic site myself. But then I found Michael. He made it all easy. Whatever I wanted, he did. And then he did more. No fuss. No problems. All done seamlessly in a few days. Thank you, Michael!

SavvySoloCAST #29: Goal-Free Living With Stephen Shapiro

After a 10 month hiatus, SavvySoloCAST is back online. Today’s show is an interview with Stephen Shapiro, author of Goal-Free Living: How to Have the Life You Want NOW! Running time is about 35 minutes with a file size of 14mb.

Intro music: La La La by Mr. Kane.

Download the mp3.