Responsive Design Themes are beginning to show up in larger numbers. 

Ahmed Esam – @drtemon
Good Minimal A Responsive WordPress Theme. #wordpress http://t.co/tj017Vr9

As responsive design continues to move into the mainstream, we’re going to be seeing a lot of themes pop up with responsive design characteristics built in. The Good Minimal theme’s menu breaks down at one point in the page width adjustments, but it’s a good example of what’s to come in this area. What are your favorite themes that have responsive design built in?

Dre Armeda on WordPress Security

bkmacdaddy designs – @bkmacdaddy
#WordPress End-User Security by Dre Armeda – http://t.co/iOvaLm0g

Dre Armeda is our favorite WordPress security expert. If you’ve never seen one of his security presentations, here’s a chance to see him in action online. Even if you have seen his presentation before, chances are you’re not doing everything he suggests, so watch it again.

WordPress 3.3 is on its way

beAutomated – @beAutomated
As of today, we are a steamroller paving the way to WordPress 3.3 launch http://t.co/m9qixnCw #web #cms #WordPress

Yes, WordPress 3.3 is on the way. For those of us lucky enough to have been given indepth tours and insight into coming features, the update is eagerly awaited. This is a great post by Jane Wells, and she rightly comments, “For the people working on the release, most of whom run trunk on their own sites for at least a month or two (if not longer) before each launch, it’s easy to forget that features we had done months ago — flyout menus, drag and drop uploading — are still being hoarded by us (and more recently by the lucky recipients of a merge onto wordpress.com) and are not available on the sites of regular users.” This kind of sentiment is what makes the WordPress community and platform so great. We at Zeek are proud to be a part of it.

And some thoughts from Mashable on important 3.3 features:

dean guadagni – @deansguide
Do you use #wordpress for your business? http://t.co/1mrtmIUZ v. 3.3′s 11 most important features

Resist the urge to take shortcuts

Todd Carpenter – @tcar
How ghetto is it to use an HTML table to format a WordPress Page? #idontwanttowriteacutompagetemplate cc @housechick @zengy @ReggieRPR

The answer, and I know that Mr. Carpenter knows this, is yes, and it’s also just a bad practice. “The problem with using HTML tables,” according to Steve Zehngut, “is that page sizes are much larger, the tables often take longer to load and by using tables, you’re not really future proofing your site. In addition divs are simply more SEO friendly.”

And A New Feature in Jetpack 1.2 – Email Subscriptions

beAutomated – @beAutomated
How to use Email Subscriptions in Jetpack 1.2 http://t.co/qqMB8es3 #WordPress #Automattic #Jetpact #Email #Subscriptions

According to Automattic, “All features in Jetpack 1.2 are on by default. So subscriptions, like all other features in Jetpack, requires no magic to activate. Visitors to your blog can choose to subscribe to new posts, or to subscribe to new comments on a post they have already commented on.”

Where will the email subscription links appears on your blog? ”Two places. One is on by default, the other you have to activate manually. By default, you will see two new checkboxes on every blog post, at the bottom of the comments form. To add the Subscriptions Widget to your sidebar, go to your Dashboard. Then click on Widgets. You will see a widget called ‘Blog Subscriptions (Jetpack)’. Click on it, and drag it to the sidebar on the right.”

That was one of the reasons Tumblr founder David Karp gave to TechCrunch this week when asked why he created the Tumblr blogging platform. “All blogs took the same form,” he notes. “I wanted something much more free-form, much less verbose.” And the beauty of micro-blogging platforms like Tumblre and Posterous is how easy they are to use. Tumblr’s bookmarklet is beautiful and the foundation of Posterous is email, but both have moved on to created incredibly simple to use iPhone apps the compliment their original ease of use propositions.

Another beauty of Tumblr, specifically, is the way it handles different post formats. Highlight a selection of copy in an article and click on the Tumblre bookmarklet and it knows you want to make a quote. It presents you with a dialogue that makes sense for that format and then posts using a style that enhances that format.

I’ve been using Tumblr to drive Just Dug Up (see the image to the right) for many years now. I use it because it’s simple. I use it because it makes the tidbits I find during my web wanderings look better than they actually are. I don’t have to think hard, I don’t have to format anything, I just click. Easy. Fast. Painless.

Similarly, I’ve used Posterous for JeffTurner.mobi since Posterous was launched. I use it when I’m on the go or when I want to do a quick review of a mobile app that requires multiple screen shots. Again, Posterous makes is simple. Email the group of screenshots or use their iPhone app and it takes care of creating an image viewer, like the one below, without any intervention on my part.

Why can’t WordPress be that simple?

I’ve wondered out loud about this in the past. Why can’t the existing WordPress ”press this” bookmarklet be turned into something more intelligent, like Tumblr’s bookmarklet? Why can’t it sense that when I’m highlighting text, I probably want to format it like a quote? Why can’t I post multiple photos and have WordPress understand that I want them shown in a slideshow format? And herein lies the promise of WordPress 3.1, at least in part.

When Matt Mullenweg announced the live version of WordPress 3.1, he said, “There’s a bucket of candy for developers as well, including our new Post Formats support which makes it easy for themes to create portable tumblelogs with different styling for different types of posts…”

And there are some really promising Themes ready to carry out that task, including Wumblr, Lightbright, and from WooThemes,  Auld, each of which do a great job of taking advantage of this new post format feature. Auld distinguishes itself already by taking advantage of a slew of “Tumblog” utilities that WooThemes has provided for some time now, including Express App for iPhone, extensive multimedia support, and their advanced QuickPress funtionality that is built into the theme.

The good folks at WooThemes have made their Tumblog Plugin available to everyone. And their documentation on what to do to make your blog tumblog read is extensive. So, you can tune any theme to take advantage of the power of the new WordPress 3.1 features. The Tumblog plugin automatically enables their QuickPress widget. Combine that with their Express App and you’ve just taken a huge leap toward the ease of use that distinguishes platforms like Tumblr and Posterous.

Here’s the problem. Something is missing.

All of that is excellent, but  the main reason why I’ve been excited for the release of WordPress 3.1 is the hope that it wouldn’t require me to run to so many different sources for plugins and widgets to get to this kind of functionality. The problem? Something is still missing. It’s a better bookmarklet.

I don’t do most of my content creation on the go. I pick through my feed reader in the mornings looking for good content to talk about and love the ease of getting that content to Tumblr. The Tumblr bookmarklet is what makes it so simple. And while there are rumors that a new Press This! bookmarklet may be in the works for the next release of WordPress, I’m sad it didn’t make it into this release.

I’d rather be posting slightly longer reactions to content right here on Zeek.com, but I don’t want to have to continually jump back and forth between the wordpress dashboard, my feed reader and the post I’m reading. I want to highlight a quote, add my comments and hit send without having to think about formatting. That’s what Tumblr provides right now.

We’re so close.

The promise of WordPress 3.1 is ease of use. We just need a better bookmarklet.

The universally accepted “send an update to Twitter using the headline via the one allowed account tied to my blog when I hit publish” option just ain’t cutting it for me anymore.

Can we be smarter about this? A headline is not always the best status update message. I may want to hit publish and send a message out to Twitter or Facebook at a later time or to each one at different times. I may want to make sure a second or third update gets sent out later in the day or the following week. I might want those to highlight the post from a different angle.

And I’d like to do all of those things at the same time that I’m writing the post, so I don’t have to think about it or remember to do it later. Let me choose from several different Twitter accounts. Let me publish to those different Twitter accounts at different times, with different messages, suited for their specific audiences. Is this too much to ask?

One more thing… add this same functionality to the Press This bookmarklet. This would make me happy. For now.

If you know of a plug-in that will make this happen right now, let me know.

9:20 am: The crowd is beginning to gather. This wine bar makes an interesting location. We’ll see how it works out for the sessions

9:43 am: @Andykaufman talked me into leading a session with him on mobile… hard to lead and live blog, but I’ll try.

iPhones, EVO’s & Droids, Oh My!

9:50 am: Andy asked how many iPhone users were thinking about switching phones. Vast majority of group is using the iPhone.

9:59 am: “I think the next gen iPhone is the perfect RE tool. The ability to edit video is a key” – @jerrykidd

10:07 am: “As a broker, creating content on the fly creates real opportunities for mistakes.” – @genariede

10:12 am: The crowd at the mobile session is highly participative.

10:13 am: @jerrykidd recommends “print n share” for the iPhone.

10:23 am: Interesting discussion about the relative value of testing vs talking on the phone, accuracy, conveying emotion, etc. I feel like the balance of the crowd is leaning toward higher levels of texting.

10:25 am: There are real dangers in the ubiquity of access to data via mobile technology. Andy asked how many have considered a communications policy to limit access. Interesting question.

10:26 am: How many have a communications policy to limit access?

Automated Social Media Marketing Systems via @pkitano

“My background is in developing media companies. So this is going to be a completely different approach to real estate social media.”

11:07 am: “First engage your community.”

11:08 am: “Local advertising doesn’t work because a cpm model doesn’t work.”

11:11 am: What works in local advertising? 1. Immediate discounts. 2. Making it easy to find a place to find a local service. “You need to become the local media for your community.”

11:14 am: “All local news will be user generated at some point.”

This is more about @pkitano’s product than an REBarcamp session, but he’s raising some interesting points.

11:22 am: Groupon – what makes it interesting is the deep discounts they can offer. They sell at deep discount and take 50% of the gross. They are now segmenting their market even smaller to access deeper local involvement. There are now at least 10 Groupon imitators in San Francisco alone.

11:24 am: Local ad power – “I rarely go to any restaurant without a coupon now.”

What Pat is suggesting is that real estate agents use an automated system to become a local media channel and create value for their community by creating local advertising outlets. Focus is on creating on a specific location and providing an aggregation point for user generated local content.

What is the need for a revenue model via advertising if the goal is to sell real estate? “It’s to create quid pro quo opportunities for the community.”

“From my experience, with over 4000 followers, I only average 40 clicks on any link on Twitter.” @jerrykidd

11:46 am: Pat is making a connection between automated local news Twitter streams and the 365 Things Facebook page ideas and the consistency of the content and ease of creation.

Twitter: Fad Or Effective Marketing Tool

If I were to base an opinion on what I’m hearing in this session, I’d say it’s was fad. I find that Twitter conversations that focus solely on broadcast tactics woefully miss the mark.

2:22 pm: Fad Or Business Tool?

2:32 pm: Relative to business, I think Twitter is one of the most misunderstood social sites.

2:49 pm: I do like the way this Twitter session has navigated… Lively conversation. Thanks @christellez

The End

3:05 pm: Tamara And Laura Close It Out

Building An Online Marketing Strategy by @garrons

10:43 am: “Consider using the Internet.”

10:46 am: “Before you blaze out of here with all of these tool ideas, take a step back and look at ‘the moment’ when new appointments are set. If you understand what drove that moment, you’re way ahead of the game.”

Garron is talking about three sites, for three different agents that are archetypes of conversation points. Each one represents each agent’s “moment” points.

1. Showing requests prospecting DB.

2. Sphere referral, direct inquiries, prospecting sign ups.

3. Sphere referral, IRL meetings.

10:57 am: @garrons is talking about blogs that are designed to support real life relationships, not Google. clairewidmark.com is not designed to attract search engines, it’s designed to support what Claire actually does each day to get to the moment.

10:59 am: “Realize when you find something interesting & ask, ‘how can I share that?”

11:00 am: Garron getting animated.

11:02 am: “I want my website to reflect me in a way I’m proud of. I want to be proud to share my site because it reflects who I am.”

11:06 am: “Take a look at your online presence. If it does not reflect YOU and how you connect with clients, you will not be as succesful in your online marketing efforts.”

11:08 am: “Utilize supportive tools. Understand your community & use tools that work.”

I want more on “the moment” concept from @garrons

Creating A Successful Real Estate Hub By @tyr

“Your real estate business comes from your ‘sphere’ and yet most tools are direct to consumer and doesn’t play to your existing skills.”

11:14 am: The agent business cycle.

11:17 am: “Tools fall into 3 areas, lead generation, client management & sphere building.”

11:18 am: Building your sphere: Facebook, Twitter, Blog

11:21 am: Keys to Facebook success: 1. Super easy. 2. Awesome referral marketing tool. 3. Focus on status updates.

11:23 am: 365 Things To Do In Vancouver, WA is a great example of a Facebook fan page that has impact in increasing sphere of influence. Created by @dalechumbley

11:25 am: Facebook tracks the “influence” and interaction on your fan page. The greater the level of interection, the more Facebook promotes the page.

11:27 am: “You need to have a solid hub for your social media activities, a place to lead people to.”

11:28 am: “A blog is just a series of emails to the world.”

11:29 am: Lead generation has to happen from your hub. The first step is having a hub you’re proud to show off.

11:30 am: “Your hub has to have dynamic content. The content must change!”

11:31 am: “Your hub must have home search.”

11:32 am: “You really need to be able to prospect against the database you create.”

11:33 am: CRM –> Conversion

CRM Keys

11:36 am: 1. Get them into the CRM! 2. Observe activity and track behavior. 3. Know when to ask for business, understand the trigger.

11:37 am: “Most important: make your blog the hub of your agent business cycle.”

11:52 am: Dale Chumbley & John Payson close the morning w/ a discussion of their strategies.

Afternoon Breakout Sessions

1:17 pm: mugtug.com <– had not heard of this one. @1000wattjoel is detailing apps that help you move to the cloud. This one is an online photo editor.

1:19 pm: blacktonic.com allows you to tell a story with your slides. Entirely web-based.

1:22 pm: Joel Burslem presents the cloud.

1:24 pm: notableapp.com is mostly designed for websites, but will work for any document or image to notate changes you’d like made to the document. Entirely browser-based.

1:30 pm: @1000wattjoel thinks mailchimp.com is the best email marketing site.

1:33 pm: squarespace.com is being discussed, but it’s “cool” features have been replicated in themes like Headway for WordPress. It has lost it’s luster for me.

1:36 pm: Note to self: take a look at kissinsights.com

Lifestyle Branding: Why It Matters by @bhgre_wendy

Shifting gears. Wendy will be focusing on strategy. Pointing out the differences between traditional and lifestyle branding. This is a shift away from commodity features to values and aspirations and vehicles for self expression.

1:47 pm: Wendy Forsythe

1:48 pm: “Informed consumers & pervasive technology = consumers in control.”

1:49 pm: There are 73 million echo boomers… the next generation of agents and consumers driving change.

1:51 pm: “The traditional business model of real estate is old fashioned & broken.”

1:53 pm: How do we fix the model?

1:55 pm: “RE brands were built on ego & status quo.This won’t work going forward.”

1:57 pm: “Leave the past behind.” The focus needs to move to value, quality, design, innovation and relationship. Relationship is the glue that holds it all together.

2:00 pm: “C-Level Life – Complete Consumer Control” What does today’s consumer want? Simplicity, speed, scrutiny, customization, innovation, freedom, entertainment, collaboration, transparency.

2:01 pm: “Brand interaction is a dialogue -requires integrity, authenticity, performance.”

2:07 pm: “One of the mistakes we make in building our brand is being to generic.”

2:15 pm: @bhgre_wendy is using @tboard & @locoheather’s blogs to illustrate community focus.

2:17 pm: Recommendations: 1. Focus your branding on neighborhoods and communities. 2. Focus your branding on lifestyle.

Traditional branding is out. Lifestyle branding is in.

Why Your Name Matters Most – @barryhurd

“We’re all Big Foot to people searching for us online.” They’ve never seen us, all they can learn about us must be pieced together from what they find online. What will they find?

2:42 pm: “48% of searches on Google are based on names.”

2:45 pm: “If I know people are searching for me, I may as well manage my appearance.”

2:51 pm: Barry Hurd

2:55 pm: Interesting ideas about putting ads for yourself on searches for your name. I’ve never looked at the ads associated with my name results on Google.

2:57 pm: “One reason why tweeting matters: it occupies search results quickly.”

2:58 pm: Video matters for the same reasons, especially on YouTube.

3:03 pm: Showing Webmynd’s Firefox plugin to move Google ads out of the way to get quick snapshots of someone your searching for information on.

3:07 pm: www.SocialMention.com allows the export of search results to an RSS feed and excel spreadsheet.

3:09 pm: Note to self: take a look at addictomatic.com

Barry’s presentation is available at slideshare.net/123socialmedia

Implementation Without Procrastination, Frustration or Complication by @darinpersinger

Darin is discussing the fears that keep us from making a choice and moving forward. Began his discussion with the MIT Door Study on fear of loss.

3:30 pm: Darin Persinger

3:34 pm: Encouraging action –> “You’re already ready.”

3:36 pm: rescuetime.com monitors how much time you spend on web sites and shuts them off to you if you’ve exceeded preset limits.

3:37 pm: Identify and focus: “What is the one thing that I will start doing tomorrow morning.”

3:38 pm: Motivation: “Is this something I really want to do?”

3:39 pm: Focus: eliminate, delegate, don’t complicha

3:45 pm: Implement: hesitation is a productivity killer. “Just do it.”

The Future Of The Real Estate Brokerage

4:19 pm: Great conversation:

Click here to download the plugin immediately.

…

This video will walk you through the process of exporting your ActiveRain XML file and importing it into your WordPress blog. This is for self-hosted wordpress blogs only.

Click here to view the embedded video.

6:46 pm: And the crowd begins to gather for the OC WordPress meetup.

6:56 pm: Just another photo test.

Let’s Get This Party Started

7:01 pm: @zengy is explaining the Live Blog app. This will be tweeted.

7:04 pm: The crowd is much larger tonight.

WordPress 3 Beta 2

7:09 pm: WP3 Release candidate 1 should be “any day now” according to @jefferyzinn

7:12 pm: The big update in WP3 beta 2 was an update to the menus customization. Allows custom creation of different menu types and positions inside the appearance panel. Top. Sidebar. Wherever you like.

7:13 pm: The menu types and nesting features in WP 3 are hot.

Installing WordPress

7:26 pm: Start by creating a new, empty mySQL database, then install a clean version of WordPress in the new directory. Then in wp-config.php change your mySQL host location, name and password.

7:29 pm: Once installed simply visit the site, give it a name and… It’s hard to live blog and answer phones and let people in doors at the same time.

7:34 pm: When you set up a WP blog, are there plugins you use by default? “Yes, one of them is Vipers Video Quicktags.”

7:36 pm: Photo-

7:39 pm: @mac_boy recomends seeing if a plugin author is respondingb2 comments on download site.

7:41 pm: Feed WordPress, WP Print and WP EMail are other plugins @zengy will install by default.

7:43 pm: Crowd advice: if you can’t preview a WP template, don’t activate. Bad things happen.

8:01 pm: Feed WordPress is a plugin that allows you to syndicate any rss feed into your blog. To use Feed WordPress you have to update to their recommended version of rss.php. The instructions are contained in the plugin warning.

8:24 pm: Looks like something I did in last update freaked out the Live Blog app.

8:25 pm: It may have been the ampersand. We’ll check that out.

8:33 pm: Just seeing how this handles a panoramic shot.

8:43 pm: Anton recommends css-tricks.com for great WP training videos

8:57 pm: Speed up WordPress w/ caching plugins – WP Super Cache, Squid and W3 Total Cache.

8:58 pm: WordPress is very data intensive. Caching dramatically reduces the database calls.

9:07 pm: Great crowd at OC WordPress tonight. Thanks!

Testing from the iPad version of the app now. (no timestamp)

My session was appropriately scheduled as the last session of the day. The title was “How to Speak Geek – Communicating with a Developer.” The sessions leading up to mine were about WordPress techniques, creating meaningful content, and some primers on how to dive into code. My goal for the session was to give the audience a bit of a reality check on how to go about working with a developer to get a custom WordPress site (or any digital project) built. It was also well received, so I’m turning the content into a series of posts, broken into these parts:

Interviewing Your Potential Developer
Planning & Project Managment
Version Control
Bug Reporting

Much of what I am about to write refers to boutique developers. These are typically smaller shops or freelancers where you will be dealing with the same people that are working directly on your project. Larger firms will typically have a project manager that acts as your point of contact. The project manager is responsible for overseeing the schedule to make sure deliverables are met on time and on budget. However, even some larger firms are guilty of the problems I am about to describe.

I asked the audience to share some of the problems they may have encountered working with a developer in the past. The answers were thrown at me fast and furious. Here are some of the common threads that I jotted down:

• “My developer delivered something that was not exactly what I had in mind. I then had to pay them to change it to match my expectations.”
• “My developer missed the deadline.”
• “My developer has gone AWOL. They refuse to return my phone calls and emails.”
• “My developer does not communicate effectively.”
• “The costs are spiraling out of control with no end in site.”
• “My developer takes suggestions personally.”
• “I found out my developer was outsourcing my project to another resource. They felt dishonest.”
• “My developer does not understand my industry.”
• “My developer does not have the core competencies to complete every aspect of my project.”

While the audience had a good laugh at some of these responses, none of them surprised me. I have heard them all before. The good news is that many of these problems can be avoided up front with proper planning and a bit of leg work on your part (as the client).

Interviewing Your Potential Developer

Developers are a rare breed. At the risk of stereotyping, I have found that hardcore technical people are lousy business people. The best firms that I have worked with in the past have on board technical people as well as business people. Knowing this ahead of time should help you to communicate better with a developer. Be prepared to listen with a different ear. The developer may not offer up details about your future working relationship so ask a lot of questions. Here are some important questions that you should ask when interviewing a developer:

• What is your hourly rate?
• Will my project be billed as hourly or as a flat rate?
• Once my project launches, is there a maintenance fee?
• Where does my project rank with the other projects on your production schedule?
• Do you have the bandwidth to give my project the attention it deserves?
• What is your procedure when something goes wrong?
• What is your process for bug reporting and bug fixes?
• Are you using a project management system, like BaseCamp or GoPlan?
• Who will be my day-to-day point of contact within your firm?
• What kind of turn around time should I expect?
• What version control system are you using?

These questions are best handled in a face-to-face meeting if possible. If a face-to-face is not possible, conduct the interview on a conference call. Avoid handling the interview over email. When you are asking these questions, it is important not just to hear the developer’s answers. Listen to their tone of voice. Study their body language. Are they uncomfortable giving their answers or do they sound confident? Do they speak in “double talk” or do they seem like a straight shooter? This should give you an indication as to how they will handle themselves in a working relationship.

Make no mistake – if you hire a developer, you are entering into a relationship with this person. Take the time to find someone you can trust. If you need to interview a dozen developers until you find the right fit, do it! Finding the right person will save you a lot of headache and money in the long run.

Reality check moment. I am sorry to have to break the news to you, but no one will ever be as passionate about your project as you are. Most developers get off on creating cool technology. It’s a bonus if that can be married with cool content.

Feel free to post any additional questions you might have about interviewing a potential developer in the comments below. Part two in this four part series will cover planning and project management.

His first presentation was entitled, “How To Speak Geek – Hiring And Managing A Developer.” In that presentation he broke down the common communication problem areas the average business person faces when dealing with a developer, and how to fix them. His second presentation was aimed directly at the developers in the audience. “Real-Time Plugin Development” gave Steve the opportunity to get into the nuts and bolts of building a WordPress Plugin. He wrote the plugin, which focused on a more intelligent use of a post’s gallery of images, while at the Wordcamp, then demonstrated the building for the audience.

Below you’ll find the entire real-time plugin presentation. (56 minutes)

7:08 pm: Let’s try this again.

7:48 pm: I put a few streams of Brandon Dove talking about BuddyPress at www.qik.com/respres

7:50 pm: A good BuddyPress site to look at as an example is www.rideoregonride.com

7:55 pm: Niraj is demoing ScreenSteps, which can be found at www.bluemangolearning.com/screensteps

7:59 pm: ScreenSteps uses XML-RPC to post ScreenSteps documents directly to a blog post on your WordPress blog.

8:05 pm: ScreenSteps uses a manual/lesson/step metaphor. Ablog post will be a single lesson.

8:16 pm: ScreenSteps also allows you to update the blog post from the ScreenSteps desktop application. So changes can be made to all docs and the post with one edit session from the desktop app.

8:28 pm: This ends the live blog app/plugin demo.

8:42 pm: Sorry, one more thing: magicfields.org is rockin’! Some concern was expressed about WP 3.0 compatibility.

11:20 am: Testing a new feature. Again, pay no attention to me.

11:34 am: And again.

11:43 am: Testing a few new features to our live blog app… in the wild.

6:57 am: “Now we’re getting somewhere.”

Testing A Header

11:40 am: Oh, that was nice.

11:45 am: Will be testing new WP livebloghgng features at #rebcphx including new hinternal headlines.

This Is How Internal Headlines Look

11:46 am: Uses H2 tags… Will be configurable in release.

6:43 pm: Testing from iPhone OS 4.0 Beta

Doing Some Testing – 4/26/2010

2:07 pm: We’re refining the UI, so I’m just testing.

2:17 pm: Non-tweet test.

Looks like all is well.

10:22 am: Photo test.

4:46 pm: Testing new features.

2:14 pm: OC Wordcamp tomorrow. #wcoc (just testing Live Blog update)

2:19 pm: OC Wordcamp tomorrow! #wcoc (just testing Live Blog functions)

6:15 am: I’ll be using a Live Blog app all day today to post updates from #harsmp.

7:12 am: Todd Carpenter – @tcar is up first… talking about “Brand You”

7:18 am: Todd is doing an excellent job of using transparency in the way it should be used. Illustrations of the various “names” people have called him on the Internet, both good and bad.

7:21 am: “How are people branding you?” – @tcar #harsmp analyzing social media will tell you.

7:21 am: Google alerts and vanity searches are reactive, not proactive.

7:22 am: “Dont tell me your a big deal. Be a big deal.” – @tcar #harsmp

7:25 am: Todd is really highlighting the fact that actions speak louder than words. His illustrations, although just words, are very visual. Like the way he’s managing his presentation. It’s true to HIS brand.

7:29 am: Yelp.com – @tcar is extolling the potential virtue of Yelp for REALTORS. I agree. #harsmp

7:32 am: He said “Yelp Strategery” for the Texas crowd.

7:33 am: “Think about how you can help other local businesses.” – @tcar #harsmp

7:34 am: “I’m kind of a big deal.” – @tcar #harsmp (excellent presentation)

7:51 am: Up next: Paul Chaney @pchaney “The Digital Handshake” focused on Facebook and Twitter.

8:01 am: What should you do about it? Paul says, “Start a conversation.”

8:03 am: “In social media, the mindset is more important than the toolset.” – @pchaney #harsmp (truth)

8:07 am: “Information has to be findable and shareable.” – @pchaney #harsmp

8:09 am: Paul is preaching today. He’s really “on” this morning. Enjoying it.

8:16 am: There’s a business profit benefit to creating a viral conversation. But you have to be willing to work the way the web works today. Staying entrenched in old marketing styles, to the exclusion of conversation media, is a mistake.

8:17 am: “Listen. Engage. Measure.” – @pchaney #harsmp

8:21 am: “Twitter is kind of the new email”

8:24 am: “BLOG = Better Listings On Google.”

8:28 am: “If this is JUST about ROI for you. You’re missing the point.” – @pchaney #harsmp

8:30 am: Paul’s tears at the end of his presentation over the human element of social media were real. Quite a touching moment. “it really is a matter of the heart.”

8:31 am: Paul’s presentation is at slideshare.net/pchaney

8:41 am: Up next: Ines Hegedus-Garcia from miamism.com talking about “Blogging On Steroids.”

9:03 am: “You need a plan.” – @Ines #harsmp re: blogging

9:07 am: Your blog should be a direct reflection of who you are and how you speak. If you’re casual, be casual. If you’re formal, be formal.

9:11 am: Pay attention to your demographics. Who have you sold to in the past? Are they similar? Can you identify a “type” that you can blog directly to?

9:14 am: “I try things on my blog for at least six months. If they aren’t converting, I stop.” – @Ines #harsmp

9:17 am: “The top right corner of your blog is you’re most valuable space. Make good use of it. Don’t waste it.”

9:30 am: “Marketing reports are universally the most clicked on posts.”

9:33 am: Wow. @Ines just mentioned twext.me #harsmp

9:38 am: I’m up next, so I won’t be live blogging it.

10:48 am: Max Pigman @maxpigman is up next talking about mobile technology.

10:56 am: “Mobile data will eclipse voice by 2011″ – @maxpigman #harsmp

11:00 am: “even if you don’t want or own an iPhone you need to know what your site looks like when viewed from an iPhone or iPod Touch. It represents 65% of mobile traffic”

11:06 am: The document camera @maxpigman uses to show his iPhone sceens rocks hard! #harsmp

11:15 am: Max does a great job of demoing the apps he recommends for the iPhone. Demoing Red Laser now.

11:18 am: Crowd is laughing at Max’s demo of an app that let’s you text and walk and see where you’re going.

11:21 am: .@maxhigman is demoing the Top Producer iPhone app. #harsmp

11:26 am: “they just developed a 2 TB SD card” – that’s a lot of photos

11:31 am: Glad he’s demoing how to use Windows on a Mac. The compatability myth needs to be busted.

11:32 am: Ines and I are talking about Flickr next.

12:27 pm: Ginger Wilcox @gingerw from smminstitute.com is up next to talk about video.

12:39 pm: “Don’t be afraid to make mistakes in your first videos. Everyone does” – @gingerw #harsmp

12:44 pm: Ginger is showing off her MANY video camera she uses. She may have a camera buying addiction.

12:49 pm: Make sure viewers can rate your “YouTube videos or they won’t be found and add text to them so Google can index them.”

12:51 pm: “Publish regularly, publish to more than one location, be human, listen” – good advice.

12:56 pm: I kinda liked the “tv show” feel of the video Ginger show of her property listing. Perhaps she’ll come link to it in the comments.

1:00 pm: “Take videos of local business owners talking about why their business is unique and what they love about their community.”

Create a GoDaddy Account

• If you do not already have a GoDaddy account, create one at godaddy.com.

Purchase a New Domain Name (if you don’t have an existing one)

• Log into GoDaddy and search for an available domain name.
• Purchase the domain.

Purchase Web Hosting

• Click the “Hosting” tab on the left side navigation under “My Products”.
• On the Hosting screen, click “Click here to purchase a Hosting Account “ under the “Purchasing Additional Hosting Accounts” title.
• Choose a hosting plan. Any plan will do. I chose the 3 mos Economy Plan for $4.99/mo.
• This may take a few minutes to take effect.

Set Up Your Hosting Account

• Click again on the “Hosting” tab on the left side navigation under “My Products”.
• On the Hosting screen, “New Account” will be listed. Click “Setup Account”.
• There are 5 steps to setting up a hosting account:
  • Step 1 – License. Agree to the License.
  • Step 2 – Login. Create a login and password.
  • Step 3 – Account Details. Choose the domain you just purchased (or any domain listed). The domain you choose will be tied to this hosting account.
  • Step 4 – Options. Choose PHP 5.x and enable Google Webmaster Tools.
  • Step 5 – Confirmation.  Click “Finish”.
• This process may take up to a couple of hours to complete. You can check the status by visiting: https://hostingmanager.secureserver.net/. Once the status reads “Setup,” you are good to go.

Set Up a Database

• Visit https://hostingmanager.secureserver.net/ and click on your domain name to open the hosting settings.
• Click “Databases” and then click “MySQL”.
• Click “Create Database”.
• Fill in the description field. This can be anything you want as it is only for your purposes.
• Fill in a mySQL Database/User Name. Jot this down as you will need it for the WordPress set up.
• Fill in a mySQL Password and confirm it. Jot this down as you will need it for the WordPress set up.
• Click “OK”.
• This process may take a few minutes to complete. You can check the status by visiting: https://hostingmanager.secureserver.net/SQLDBList.aspx. Once the status reads “Setup,” you are good to go.
• Once it has been set up, click the pencil button under “Action”. Jot down the host name as you will need it for the WordPress set up.

Download WordPress Core Files

• Visit http://wordpress.org/download/
• Download the latest version of WordPress.
• Unzip the files on your local computer and note where you saved the files.

Configure WordPress

• In the local copy of WordPress that you just unzipped, open the file called “wp-config-sample.php” in a text editor.
• On line 19, replace ‘putyourdbnamehere’ with the mySQL Database/User Name you created above.
• On line 22, replace ‘usernamehere’ with the mySQL Database/User Name you created above.
• On line 25, replace ‘yourpasswordhere’ with the mySQL Password you created above.
• On line 28, replace ‘localhost’ with the mySQL host name you jotted down from the steps above.
• Save this file.

Upload WordPress to GoDaddy

• Visit https://hostingmanager.secureserver.net/ and click on your domain name to open the hosting settings.
• Click “Content” and then “FTP Client”.
• Click “Allow” in the security popup.
• On the Remote System (right side), delete “favicon.ico” and “welcome.html”.
• On the Local System (left side), locate your local copy of the WordPress files that you just unzipped.
• Upload all files to the Remote System.
• Locate “wp-config-sample.php” and rename it to “wp-config.php”.

Set Up WordPress

• In a browser, visit your domain. (If you just set up the domain, it may take up to 24 hours to propagate and it may not work yet.)
• You should see the WordPress set up screen.
• Fill in a title for your blog.
• Fill in your email address.
• Click “Install WordPress”.
• Jot down your user name and the temporary password.
• Click “Log In”.
• Log into WordPress.
• All Set!!!

See, wasn’t that simple.

I maintain a few blogs that have multiple authors of varying technical “know-how.” One of these blogs is Pajamas Media which is built on WPMU. Pajamas has multiple bloggers (called Xpress Bloggers) that contribute content from around the globe. These people are brilliant writers who have many published books amongst them. However, some of them get nervous when we introduce new technology into the mix. Once we train them on a particular system, they tend to be fine until we make a change.

We recently upgraded to WPMU 2.7. All in all, the transition went very smooth – much smoother than any in the past. The new interface was well received and very little training was required. The authors liked the Quickpress feature as well as the Quick Edit feature for managing posts.

However, upon first login they were confused as to how to edit a post or to approve a comment. In the new system, actions like “Edit” and “Approve” are not displayed when you first view these management screens. Once the user moves their cursor into a the box of the post they want to edit, the actions appear. While this was perfectly natural for a coder like me, it was not obvious to them. After explaining how to use this feature, they understood immediately.

If I had not been available to explain this to them, I wonder if they would have found it on their own. I imagine that the decision to hide these features on first glance was driven by the desire to make the interface as clean as possible. And while I understand this reasoning, hiding this UI created an extra training step for me and it will for others.

I created a small plugin that displays the actions by default. You can download it for your own blog here. If you find this useful, let me know. I might take the time to build this out a bit more.

The row actions in the WordPress dashboard are hidden by default. They appear when you mouse over an area that you want to edit. Some users are confused by this as they tend not to “hunt” for functionality.

We wrote this plugin to display the Row actions all the time. Enjoy!

Download the Plugin