Starting in 1996, Alexa Internet has been donating their crawl data to the Internet Archive. Flowing in every day, these data are added to the Wayback Machine after an embargo period.
Starting in 1996, Alexa Internet has been donating their crawl data to the Internet Archive. Flowing in every day, these data are added to the Wayback Machine after an embargo period.
TIMESTAMPS
The Wayback Machine - https://web.archive.org/web/20111121000914/http://lorelle.wordpress.com:80/
I’m often asked which content management system for web publishing I recommend. While I’m clearly biased towards you-know-what, at last there is a WordPress Plugin that can help you show others which one they should consider.
BeAutomated lists WordPress, Joomla!, Drupal, DotNetNuke, CMS Made Simple, Liferay, TYPO3, eZ Publish, Alfresco, Umbraco, MODx, Tiki, SilverStripe, e107, and Knoops and compares their download rate. It’s really fascinating to watch.
If you provide web publishing and WordPress-centric products and services, this could be a great way to promote the popularity of WordPress and help your clients make the decision towards WordPress. At the least, it helps people compare WordPress to other web publishing options.
For people just into numbers, it’s fascinating to see which web publishing platforms are still active and engaged.
What insights do you get from watching that counter?
The numbers are based upon annual published statistics. You can add your own stats to the counter to customize it the WordPress Plugin for your own unique scorecard, real or imagined. They offer a variety of counters to test and get started with including the number of mythological creatures created, Mobile Phone Shipment Stats, PC Shipment Stats, and Animal Kill Counter Stats, with more fun stat examples on the way.
If you have some interesting stat numbers (and their sources) you think would be good ideas for them to add to their WordPress Plugin example page, let me or them know as they are always on the look out for fun ideas and ways to use their popular beCounted WordPress Plugin.
We make jokes about Renaissance men, but I’d like to introduce you to a Renaissance woman in the truest sense of the reference. Maria Langer is a lot of things, in addition to a dear friend. Even before we were on a first name basis, she was a mentor and inspiration to me. In honor of the 8th anniversary of her first blogging attempt, I’d like to introduce you to her.
Maria Langer is a commercial helicopter pilot. She owns a helicopter tour and charter business near Phoenix, Arizona.
She’s a writer. Not just any type of writer. She’s a prolific writer.
In addition to articles in manages ranging from aircraft to computers, she’s the author of more than 75 non-fiction books including one of the first books on WordPress, WordPress 2: Visual QuickStart Guide in 2006.
She’s authored many technical guides such as the Visual QuickStart Guides covering Excel, Mac, Outlook, Mac OS, Quicken, Quickbooks, Word, Filemaker Pro, PageMill, AOL, and much more. Other books include Putting Your Small Business on the Web, Macintosh Slick Tricks, Murphy’s Laws of Macs, Mac Power Toolkit, and Dragon Dictate 2.5: Visual QuickStart Guide (due soon).
Her first book was published in 1991 – exactly TWENTY years ago so congrats on that anniversary, too – so she’s seen the amazing evolution of books from print to digital and stuck with it as one of the earliest published authors in the ebook market.
Maria did some ghostwriting for John Dvorak as well as for numerous other software and computer experts, so you might have been touched by work of another that could have been hers!
She writes, narrates, and creates video training materials for a variety of software and clients.
She’s also a web developer, creating websites and blogs since 1997.
She’s a photographer. Her beautiful work rotates in the header art of her blog, An Eclectic Mind.
She’s a popular speaker, dazzling the audience at Macworld Expo and other web and software conferences.
She’s a teacher of software applications for online universities including as a long time popular teacher with Lynda.
She’s also a good friend and wonderful person, reaching out and mentoring so many, always willing to go that extra mile to help and give unconditional support.
She goes on long trips on her motorcycle, and if you show up at the right time of year, you may find her not home but camping or out in the desert riding a horse.
Maria started blogging on October 9, 2003, and now runs seven different blogs. I couldn’t even begin to estimate the thousands of blog posts she’s added to the wealth of information and knowledge on the web, not counting all her activity on Google+, Twitter, Facebook, and other social sites.
And she isn’t stopping.
This isn’t a eulogy. It’s a celebration. One long past due.
Maria is traveling and working all the time, sharing her expertise and love for computer technology, flying, traveling, animals, and nature as far as she can.
Help me recognize and honor this amazing blogger and educator on her 8th blogging anniversary! Give Maria a shout out and let her know if you’ve been influenced or helped by any of her work over the past 20 years!
You can learn more about the amazing work of this beautiful person at:
It takes a moment to change the lives of an entire village. For USD $12 a month you can change an entire community in Indonesia. Help us at SOBConNW to change the world one village at a time.
One thing I know to be true about bloggers and the WordPress Community, they know how to move mountains, virtual and physical. Help me move this mountain and make a difference in the world around us.
Over the past few weeks I’ve listened, read, watched, and pondered a quilt of stories around the World Trade Center attacks of September 11, 2001, as the world celebrates/honors/remembers the event 10 years later.
There are first hand stories of those who were in the buildings, rescuing people or escaping; stories by watchers, waiters, victims, and victimized; works by writers, poets, bloggers, singers, musicians, actors, sculptures, painters, quilters, and just regular folks tell the story from their perspective for better or worse or just to preserve the moment in history.
I’ve found studies that show today’s school children know little or nothing of the events of September 11, 2001, and many textbooks have little or no mention of the plane hijackings and their results. Living in Israel at the time, I kept replaying the Holocaust mantra in my own head, “Never forget, always remember.” Yet, it seems that some groups do want to forget, or at least step lightly around the historical event.
As I coped with my own personal experience which I will share in another post, I will never forget my dearest friend, the actress, director, and playwright, Naomi Yoeli, grabbing me when we realized what was happening. She stared deep into my eyes with the beautiful intensity that defines her spirit, and said the immortal words, “Today the world is changed. Nothing will be the same. This is history. Do you understand me? History.”
As the day approaches, I’m hearing a few groans and gripes about being overwhelmed with 9/11 stories. This is normal. For those without a personal connection, we can only take so much of the stories.
As Naomi said, I think it’s important that we do share our memories, our history of that moment. That we preserve our own unique experiences of those moments when billions around the world watched the first tower burn as a second plane blasted into the second tower, as rumors of a third hijacked plane, then a fourth, became reality, one turning the side of the Pentagon into a burning hole and the other crashing into a field, then the incredible story of the passengers who brought down the plane rather than cause more death and destruction of innocents.
To help you share your own story, here are a few tips. Remember, it’s your story, it’s your personal experience, adventure, and perspective. These tips are not to change or influence what you write about September 11, 2001. They are only to help you share your story so the world will never forget and always remember.
Share What You Know
We want to know your personal experience, so share what you know.
Keeping the experience personal and intimate, you bring us into your experience. We share your thoughts. We feel your feelings. We walk (or run) down the path with you.
One of the most unappreciated widgets among the WordPress Widget collection is the Text Widget.
There are many Widgets that come with WordPress, and many more you can add with Widget WordPress Plugins. The Text Widget is not a WordPress Plugin, it comes with the basic installation of WordPress and WordPress.com. The Text Widget helps you add content that goes beyond these, helping you add simple or complicated things to your sidebar or any widgetized area of your blog.
Many don’t know what to do with it, are afraid or uncertain how to use it, and fearful of HTML, so let’s make this simple and easy and help you explore all the things you can do with the WordPress Text Widget.
What Can I Do with the WordPress Text Widget
There are so many things you can do with the WordPress Text Widget. Here is just a sample.
Anything you can form with HTML can go into your WordPress Text Widget.
The Text Widget is designed to hold text and HTML code. The most basic HTML code is used, so go forward with confidence that you can add almost anything you wish to the WordPress Text Widget as long as you are patient, careful, and follow the simple instructions.
Let’s look at some of the basic things you can do with a Text Widget. From there, it’s up to your imagination.
There is a huge caveat to this topic. Every blog is unique, as are all the voices within it. It is often that uniqueness that brings a multiple author blog to the attention of their community.
In no way is anything I’m about to say to detract from that uniqueness. These are not rules or regulations, merely standards and guidelines based upon decades of experience. If they aren’t inline with your editorial policies, great. If your editorial policies are going offline, maybe these will help. Either way, it’s your blog, your way. Never forget that.
Managing multiple authors is not like offering some guest blogging spots on your blog. I’ve written plenty on the art of guest blogging and it’s very different from managing a consistent team of contributors. Managing guest bloggers is herding cats. Managing a contributors team is managing employees, people who work for you as well as with you. Guest bloggers represent themselves on your blog. Contributors represent your blog on your blog, as well as off.
In the past, Plugin Beta Tester gave the ability to users to update to beta versions of all plugins they have installed, helping Plugin authors find users willing to beta test development versions. Scott and Mitcho are taking this Plugin to a new level.
The goal is to standardize the alpha/beta testing process for WordPress Plugin Directory for Plugin authors.
According to Scott:
There is a definite need for a standardization of the alpha/beta testing cycles for plugin authors and users alike in the WordPress community. My goal is to facilitate the necessary adjustments to the WordPress API and develop features within Plugin Beta Tester that will give users an easy way to opt-in to another release channel much like the WordPress Beta Tester plugin does.
Users will be given the option to select a channel to subscribe to on a per-plugin basis, making it easy to fine-tune their updates for only the plugins they want to test. If something goes wrong or they just want to stop testing, they can rollback to the latest stable version of the plugin and continue on as usual.
Plugin authors will be empowered with a pre-release standard they can easily adhere to/utilize and Users can easily test these versions/report bugs, which strengthens the entire plugin release cycle.
Scott will be using the Plugin Beta Tester with the upcoming release of Pods 2.0 alpha/beta testing cycles, giving other Plugin authors a chance to see the new standardized Plugin in action.
This is exciting for Plugin authors as it helps them make their testing and development easier and more standardized. It’s exciting for users as we can now participate more actively in the development of a WordPress Plugin, helping to improve it for everyone.
If you are a WordPress Plugin author and developer and want to help with the testing and development of the new Plugin Beta Tester, contact them at their Plugin Beta Tester Contact page to get involved.
I’ve been tortured the past few weeks on how to convince you that attending SOBConNW 2011 on September 16-18, 2011, will change your life. As usual, when it comes to my favorite annual conference, I find myself wordless. It’s that profound.
If the SOBConNW Program and descriptions at the SOBCon site doesn’t convince you, maybe these people can.
Immediately Actionable Feedback – And I mean immediate. The Mastermind format asks you to look inward, at YOUR business, right from the beginning. Then you talk about your business to the other people at your table, and the feedback starts, intertwined with the wisdom offered by the speakers at the podium. That process is then repeated 6 times. It’s a very potent mixture. By the end of the day you will have already taken steps in a different, and more productive, direction.
…many conferences attract thinkers and talkers. The people who attend SOBCon are definitely thinkers, and many have no problem talking – but there is a bias toward action. If you want concrete inspiration, this is a place to find it…there is a surprising proportion of people gathering at SOBCon who will very generously give of their time and expertise. We all need mentors. This is a room full.
SOBCon is the perfect conference for anyone who’s looking to build a successful business using online tools. It’s also one of the best places to meet some of the most influential people in the business blogging world. Let me explain.
Most conferences attract thousands of people, but SOBCon is different because they only let 150 people attend. They limit it to 150 people because Liz Strauss and Terry Starbucker, the founders of SOB Con, use what they call the “models and masterminds” format for speaker presentations.
What are the “models and masterminds?” It’s intense, hands-on training that simply can’t work with thousands of people. The group needs to be small because each speaker breaks down their own methodology for building a business(the model) and then they help you apply it to your business (the mastermind). It’s truly an awesome way to learn.
SOBCon is business school for bloggers and this year’s focus is strategy and tactics for integrating online and offline social marketing. Speakers, attendees, and sponsors alike are there to learn, grow, and network together. It’s serious business, with a splash of fun.
To wrap up, this was my third year attending @SOBCon, and if you’re an entrepreneur who wants to use social media for marketing while fully embracing your ability to do good in the world, it’s one of those conferences to put on your “must-attend” list. It’s very inspiring to be a part of an event in which people demonstrate they believe in each other and act on those beliefs.
SOBCon 07 is going to be a lot of fun. And I suspect a mind-blowing learning experience.
I can’t wait to meet so many of the people I’m already interacting with online on a regular basis; people that have quickly grown into friends. And so many of the attendees I don’t know at all, which gives me an even bigger opportunity to connect, network and have fun.
Every time you try something new there’s always some unexpected effect. SOBCon 2010 was something new for me. And the unexpected effect was relationships.
That may seem an odd statement. We go to conferences to network and build relationships. At least, that’s what we tell our bosses and our companies. Think. We often fail–don’t we?
I was happy about how easy it was to build relationships at SOBCon. It’s small, which makes it easier. It’s sessions are like workshops (mastermind groups), which makes it easier. And it’s designed to keep people together, intimately, for 36 hours or so–again, making it easier.
As I prepare for day two of this event, I spent some time reflecting on my first day’s experience. To provide some context “SOBCon” stands for “Successful Outstanding Blogger Conference.” In my opinion, it’s logical to expect this would be an event focusing on education directed at the business of blogging. As it turns out, nothing could be further from the truth.
About midway through yesterday’s sessions I realized this conference was more about business thinking, and not so much about sharpening blogging skills. I am not disappointed. I am just surprised.
You see, I attended the SOBCon conference last year on a simple, gut level belief that I was meant to be in that room, and what SOBCon helped me realize was that there was a whole world of opportunity out there that I had not been allowing myself to dream about. For years I had let the limitations of my kidney failure – and ultimately the transplant process – limit my view of the difference I could make in the world.
My experience at SOBCon, along with the guidance of a truly wise friend, helped me to see that it was time to start expressing myself. And when I say, “myself,” I mean the real me.
The many years I had spent successfully climbing the corporate ladder had left me out of balance. I was clinging to all of the masculine traits that I possess that had enabled me to be successful, and was suppressing most of my feminine side.
What I had failed to consider was the possibility that by being more in balance, by expressing my true feminine side, that I might have been even more successful…that perhaps by limiting my self-expression I was actually holding myself back!
…Of course, it was only in retrospect I realized that this was a gift – and an incredible blessing. Why? It forced me to understand at the depth of my soul how important it was to express myself – my true self, goddess power and all – rather than to continue to conform to a view of what was expected of me as a successful business leader.
How is SobCon different from other business, blogging or social media conferences? Well, at the heart of it is the love shown by the two founders, Liz and Terry. There is never any doubt that love is at the center of everything – for the attendees, sponsors, speakers, non-profit groups, conference location employees, and anyone who crosses our path basically!
The first two days are designed to get us thinking with some of the best speakers actually in the world, like: Chris Brogan, Tim Sanders (who inspired this post on gratitude!), Steve Farber and Cathy Brooks. After each of these and other wonderful speakers, we discuss how the lessons they presented can impact our online businesses. For example, Cathy shared the importance of ’sharing our story’ through our blog and/or online business, and how critical that is. (Watch for another blog post this week on the ’story’ of Girlfriendology and more lessons from SobCon.) So, for two days we mastermind together – share ideas, help each other, encourage one another. (More love for each other!)
What Does Talent Engagement Look, Walk, Talk and Feel Like?
There’s an old axiom that says, “Don’t tell me – show me.” Here are just a few of the knowledge, attitudes and behaviors of talent engagement in action.
Commitment and Accountability: “Believe and Do” isn’t just a catch-phrase, it’s the reason we come together.
What IF every company could operate at the SobCon level?
The answer is that all levels of talent would be engaged in the work, getting exponentially smarter and helping each other move business forward! Liz Strauss summarized it well with her rousing commencement…without saying a word.
“Biz School for Bloggers.” What makes this concept really important is simply this: we’re at a time in our universe where we don’t NEED a lot of the old infrastructure to do something meaningful and making a reasonable living, but we DO need business knowledge, business sense, and a reasonably worked out plan of what needs doing and which steps to take to get there.
I know that I’ve talked up the networking part of going to conferences in the past – and honestly, I believe that meeting intelligent, influential people is going to be the #1 benefit from going to any conference, period. What SOBCon and Unleashed are doing differently, though, is that they are focusing on being a true teaching/consulting experience. And you’d pay a heck of a lot more than the ticket price of either of these two conferences if you were to hire these consultants on your own.
I could fill up several books with what I learned at SOBCon’07 but here’s the Cliff notes version:
I made the Right Choice to Go To SOBCon ’07 — You know that great feeling you get when you have an “ah ha” moment? Ever have about 50 of those in one day? That was what it was like for me to attend SOBCon’07. That’s a very cool thing!! Yes, it was Mother’s Day weekend. Yes, I had a million other things I “should” have been doing. But I am SO GLAD I was there. And I can’t wait for next year.
Relationship Marketing is alive and well. It was the past and is going to be SO much of the future. Just because we’ve got a self publishing tool, it doesn’t replace the actual relationship with a real person. Long really good blog rolls are created one person at a time. Building a relationship with “bloggers” means building a relationship with people. Blogging is just a tool like a business card, website, television advertising, catalog, sell sheets or trade show booths are a tool… but a very cool tool, indeed!
Admittedly, I’m not a fan of conferences. I despise being surrounded by smarmy affiliate marketers and exhibit booth ants that want to give me stickers I’ll never put on anything except an arch enemy’s Mercedes. I hate feeling cheated because I forked out $X and honestly, felt like I should be on the panel instead of listening to it.
When you’re at a certain place in your business, the 101-level common conference fodder doesn’t cut it. Sometimes the 201 “next step” sessions are even a snore. While we all needed these at one point and I frequently teach them along with several of my colleagues, WE are looking for something to add extraordinary value to our respective businesses.
The weekend I spent in Chicago for SOBCon in April of this year was one of the best of my professional life (and it sure as hell beat my first honeymoon by a mile). And now Liz and Terry are bringing SOBCon to Colorado for a 1.25 day event.
I’m not going to try to sell you on the conference. YOU need to decide if you feel the $31 per hour price tag is a reasonable investment for your business. But here’s what you can expect to find when you walk into the room (and I’ll bet it’s different than any other “conference” you’ve attended)
As part of the Network Solutions social media team I was lucky to attend SOBCon in Chicago last weekend. Unlike many events in my industry, SOBCon focused on team ‘mind storming’ with a goal to give and share to help others without an agenda of WIIFM (google it). The experience was truly rewarding and the advice I learned from team members, attendees, and speakers helped me cross a new road block that really only existed in my own mind (and I learned that most of ours all do)…I have many other changes yet to make on this journey, but refocusing some of my energy on me as opposed to what I want to accomplish has opened my mind to avenues I have yet to explore.
Everyone who attends the conference knows that their career (and, in many ways, their life) will change dramatically over the next year because of the influence the people they meet will have on them during the course of the three-day event. You see, it truly is the people in the room that make all the difference.
Last year when I was debating whether to attend the conference I asked Liz Strauss, the Co-Founder of SOBCon, “Who attends?” Her response: “The people who are meant to be in the room.”
My heart told me I was meant to me one of those people. Once there, the universe sat me next to all the right people over the course of the three days – people who would have a profound impact on the path I took over this past year.
SOBCon Colorado was a social media conference with a mastermind format that featured 14 hours of learning and networking opportunities. It featured fantastic speakers that helped us focus on strategy and tactics for integrating online and offline social marketing.
Unlike many other conferences I’ve gone to, I came away with a to do list of goals, homework and strategies for the next year. Even better, since I’m attending SOBcon 2011 in Chicago, I’m able to reevaluate my goals in seven months.
Earlier this year, I attended the amazing mastermind conference known as SOBCon and one of the topics we discussed was how fear affected our businesses.
The panel discussed how two types of fears can hold us back. Some of us fear failure – this is no surprise, our entire school system is built upon getting ostracized for trying something and it not working out perfectly. People who fear failure just don’t try at all.
Then, there are a whole other group of people who fear success. They are not sure if they are ready to step up to the plate when success stares them in the face, so they sabotage their efforts.
When our group came to discuss this topic vis-à-vis our own businesses, I had a different answer altogether. I wasn’t afraid of success OR failure. I was afraid of mediocrity.
Answer this question and you could make yourself so much happier and successful, ignore it and you could be making yourself and those around you miserable.
This is something I have been pondering since my recent trip to SOBCon. Something strange happens when Terry Starbucker and I get together. It seems we have an unwritten rule that all our conversations must in some way fix the world.
Once you know what your nature is then you can choose how you express it. The most important thing is to delve into the deepest folds of your brain and work out how you were programmed, what kind of mission were your circuits built to do?
Liz told me what to expect but of course the reality can never be done justice with words, it has to be experienced.
As far as learnings, my head is still buzzing. Every single person I met gave me a new, fresh and invigorating perspective. There are people using this social media stuff for everything from adversity, to parenting to health. We had an expert on making sales coming from the other direction and wanting to make community, and we had the guys with community asking how they can make sales without losing the trust of their audience. A lot to process. I am sure there are lots of reports popping up all over and I will try to link to some in a future post.
You can attend lots of other conferences and find, in isolated corners and pockets, these kind of people. But at SOBCon, it’s distilled – 100-proof quality. That’s why it’s my favorite gathering of the year.
After SOBcon, a three day social media/business/blogging mastermind convention in Chicago. I feel like the David After Dentist kid, it’s hard to step back into reality after three days of being surrounded by some of the most caring, innovative and successful people in the business. Here’s how SOBcon changed my life and the five things that you can do to change your life.
1. Surround Yourself With Positive People
2. Learn from others
3. Help Change Someone Else’s Life
4. Rock it.
5. Take More Risks
I’m not exaggerating when I say the quality of people in the room at SOBCon made it the best conference I’ve attended in a long while. Being surrounded by that much brain power and integrity and emotional fortitude and humor and good will is powerful in a way that’s hard to articulate. I was humbled, truly, to be among that group.
This past weekend, I attended the SOBCon, Virtual Meets Concrete, social media conference. It was my first social media gathering. I was intimidated, because what I’ve done with my blog, twitter, etc. over the last four years has been amateur-intuitive, at best, and not driven by any informed strategy.
But I knew I wanted to take social media to the next level, and SOBCon seemed to fit the bill. I had no preconceived notions of what to expect other than show up, see what happens and learn. What happened? I fell in love. Literally.
Love hits when you least expect it…
As was the case when I met my husband 25 years ago, love usually hits when you least expect it. You stumble along knowing something’s missing but you don’t know what. You date. You meet new people, but nothing seems quite right. And then a friend says, “Hey, I know someone.” You think, “What the heck, why not.” Next thing you know, love. The pieces fit together. That’s what happened to me at SOBCon.
I know I’m verging on the corny and dramatic. But as was the case the last time I unexpectedly fell in love more than two decades ago, it’s very hard to accurately describe the experience in words because it’s overwhelming. In fact, I’m glad my computer stopped working the first day of the conference or there would have been an endless stream of tweets in my Twitter stream that were variations of, “awesome,” and “amazing.”
This meeting of 150 unique individuals from social media, business, non-profit, entertainment, and mainstream media ended up providing solutions to a number of business challenges with which I’d been grappling for awhile. And it was unexpected and happened by chance—the topic, the speaker, the panels, the table mates, and the conversations all happened to lead to the answers that I, in some cases, didn’t even know I needed.
This year, hosts and producers Liz Strauss and Terry Starbucker take the event to a whole new level bringing together some of the brightest minds in the business web world to help you learn not just how exciting the web business world is, but how you can embrace it fully.
Before I start sounding like a used car salesman, let me describe your experience. Those who attend a SOBCon event often come away with stars in their eyes, all glowing and enlightened, and unable to really describe what happened without using words like earth-shattering, mind blowing, unbelievable, and changed my whole approach and way of thinking. So let’s get down to what really happens.
You all know that old game, asking each other who you would bring to your dinner table if you could bring anyone in the world, dead or alive, who would it be? Liz and Terry have answered that question for you, bringing together 150 people into one room, participants, speakers, and sponsors, all together, sitting at the same tables, your own personal dinner table conversation with five or six of the most brilliant minds.
Stunned and staring at my screen. Fingers resting on my keyboard. I walk around to find out what I’m thinking …
Last Friday morning at SOBCon2010, we looked at our hands and considered all the ways we use them to communicate — all the information and feelings that we pass through them.
Thank you to every person who helped us build more than we imagined. It will take a while to unpack the complete value of your contribution.
Without your fearless participation, we might be remembering a meeting.
Instead we built meaning. We saw, heard, and understood each other.
And
Damn it’s fun to take your brain out to play in a roomful of smart people!!
No wonder I keep staring at my screen.
You have changed my life.
Can’t wait to do it again!
For a discount coupon for the event, you must register by August 8 at midnight and use lorellenw as the discount code. There are wonderful hotel arrangements, but if the cost of lodging is holding you back, I’ve plenty of room for you to stay with me. Don’t let anything stop you from attending. It’s that kind of powerful event.
This is the moment. Make your decision to change your life and online business now.
At noon PST/3PM EST Wednesday, July 27, 2011 (tomorrow), I will be presenting UX: Developing Content to Enhance the User Experience in a livestream audiocast for the Word11 Pre-Event: Prefix. It’s free and open to all, especially those interested in web publishing, blogging, and social media.
I will be discussing blog writing and content generation to enhance the user experience. What it takes to create content which meets your goals and encourages visitor conversions to loyal fans. We’ll taste appetizers filled with web analytics, demographics, customer touch points, and show you the basics of how to serve up tasty content that makes them keep coming back for more. Of course, the main focus will be on doing this all with WordPress, the powerhouse of web publishing.
UPDATE: They’ve added me for an afternoon session at 5PM PST/8PM EST to talk about WordPress. It’s an open session to answer a variety of WordPress questions, from tags and categories, speed blogging tips and techniques, WordPress Plugins, import/export, whatever you want to cover, we’ll be talking about WordPress.
Other speakers scheduled so far include Fernando Fonseca on “Using social media for social change,” Erin Marchak on Drupal, and Elana Roth on SquareSpace.
WORD11 August 27, 2011, in Toronto is being called the world’s first 24-HOUR blogging festival where participants will come together to learn everything there is about blogging and web publishing, including about WordPress and other publishing platforms, content building, building fan bases, social media, customer engagement, and design and development. It’s part conference part unconference, and a lot of blogging. According to the organizers, it’s focused on “the word” as in the power of words to influence and educate the world.
Come join the pre-festival fun tomorrow and join the rest of the crew in Toronto in August to celebrate how blogging has changed the world and where it is going in the future.
Last night I gave a presentation for an amazing group of web designers and developers in Portland, Oregon. I spoke about web accessibility, a long time passion of mine. My co-presenter was Winslow Parker from the Oregon Commission for the Blind who has been teaching screen reading and computer techniques to the blind. He’s also a long time expert and consultant for JAWS Screen Reading Software. He also happens to be blind, so his passion for his work is tightly mixed with his passion for life and accessibility.
I’m going to be writing up more next week about what I learned in updating my presentation as there are some critical things ALL WEB DESIGNERS and WORDPRESS THEME DEVELOPERS must know about recent changes in the laws from the Americans with Disabilities Act and US Government. I do not capitalize those words lightly.
The following are my notes from the presentation with links to online resources to help web designers develop accessible websites, and a few things you need to know now in order to comply with recent rulings on web design for accessibility.
The power of the Web is in its universality. Access by everyone regardless of disability is an essential aspect. Tim Berners-Lee, W3C Director and inventor of the World Wide Web
From the Sydney International Olympics accessibility lawsuit:
SOCOG said: “Our site is too big to make accessible. It will cost too much to retrofit.”
Court said: “If you did it right in the first place, it would cost you less, open the site to everyone, and be search engine friendly.”
As of an ADA ruling in 2010:
By March 15, 2012, all businesses serving the public, store front or web, must meet ADA accessibility guidelines.
Failure to comply could result in fines up to or exceeding $100,000.
A brief and incomplete list of companies that have been sued in the past 8 years for not meeting accessibility standards on the web:
Netflix
Amazon.com
Southwest Airlines
Ramada
WebTV
Target
International Olympics Committee (Sydney, Australia)
Disney
MARTA (Metropolitan Atlanta Transportation)
Attorney General, State of Connecticut (inaccessible online tax forms)
AOL
Facebook
Berkeley University
Priceline.com
John Marshall Law School
The acronym “P.O.U.R.” means Perceivable, Operable, Understanding, and Robust, the key elements in developing an accessible website as explained by the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines ( WCAG ) 2.0.
Accessibility Associations and US Government Resources
The following list features agencies involved in creating legislature and offering support services for accessibility, in buildings, businesses, communities, and the web. While they may not represent the policies and laws in your community, in fact they might be weaker, the United States has followed closely the aggressive policies of other countries and now others are following their example. For some of the strongest laws on accessibility rights for everyone, including the disabled, check the laws in Canada and Britain.
While some of the following groups were created as part of the US Government’s Equal Opportunity and Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), these and others are often volunteer run and supported and they need your help. From helping to create and support policy to simple fact, grammar, and rest checking across the website. One of the tasks most in need of help is cross checking all of their resource link lists. Many are years out of date with links to dead pages and closed projects, and many new projects aren’t listed. Please consider volunteering some of your time to help these groups improve their online resources, and please spread the word about the services they offer to your readers.
Tools and Resources for Validation, Testing, and Developing Accessible Websites
There are many tools on the web, free and commercial, for testing and validating websites for accessibility standards. Some of these are woefully out of date, developed by grant programs or volunteers. With the impending deadline, new and/or updates to these need to be in place to help the web designer test their site designs and code. WHDb created the 100 Killer Web Accessibility Resources: Blogs, Forums and Tutorials List which offers an extensive list of tools and resources as of 2008. There are also many add-ons for web browsers with validation and testing capabilities that I have not listed here.
The following are the ones I talked about in my presentation and are fairly up-to-date but not necessarily HTML5 or CSS3 ready. I’ve noted the ones that are below.
With the impending deadline, web designers are starting to sit up and take note, but leaders in the web design and accessibility fields have been talking about this for a while. So learn from their thoughts, experiences, and expertise to help you transition to meet the new rules next year.
If you are one of the thousands suffering constant crashes from the June update of Mozilla Firefox 5, realize you are not alone. Literally thousands have reported on Firefox 5 crashing across all platforms, including Windows and Mac.
Here are some examples, starting with the search results of Firefox crashes:
PC/Windows users aren’t the only ones suffering. So many Mac users have had issues with Firefox 5, Mozilla has announced an update “soon” for OS X 10.7 Lion which will be Firefox 5.0.1. Hopefully, the issues facing Firefox for all operating systems will be resolved in the same update.
Here’s the basics of what you need to know.
First, there is no one stop answer to Firefox 5 crashes. Switching to Google Chrome isn’t a solution either, though it is an option. Chrome has its own issues and limitations. For power users, bloggers, and surfers, there currently is no replacement that matches what the power, capability, and flexibility Firefox has to offer.
Second, you cannot just roll back or reinstall Firefox 4. Firefox 3.6 is the next oldest stable version. I explain why below. Read More »
According to the announcement, this is the 15th major release of WordPress. Wow, that just doesn’t seem possible, and yet it also feels like too few. How far WordPress has come since 2003, available in dozens of languages, influential in world events, politics, and disasters, and used by so many millions, it’s near impossible to count. I remember Matt Mullenweg joking about his goal being world domination and the rest of us laughing with him. Wow, Matt, you got your wish and thanks for an amazing ride.
This release also brought about a Washington Post/TechCrunch news article discussing how WordPress 3.1, released in February 2011, has been downloaded over 15 million times compared to Joomla at 23 million in total. Within about 24 hours of the July 4 announcement, a holiday in the United States, almost 350,000 copies of WordPress 3.2 had been downloaded. It’s my understanding that the WordPress Download Counter counts downloads not automatic updates or upgrades. Who knows what the real number is for WordPress.
So what makes WordPress 3.2 worthy of you jumping immediately to install?
Security
WordPress 3.1.4 was released last week and contained a mandatory security update. The fix is included in WordPress 3.2. They’ve also updated a lot of their security hardening features to make your blogging experience much safer.
A threat is spreading around the world similar to the one that plagued many websites and blogs, including WordPress, a malware-style bot that can do damage and hide itself from detection, making it painful to remove. According to an announcement on ComputerWorld, the new massive botnet “TDL-4″ hs infected more than 4 million computers world-wide so far. They are calling it “indestructive” due to its strong distribution network and ability to update and reinfect itself. Singularity Hub reports that TDL-4 is defeating most anti-virus systems, opening the door for spamming or phishing opportunities like a backdoor to your computer. Securelist details on the virus say it is passed through file sharing networks, file downloads, and affiliate programs. These files and affiliate programs are featured on many websites, including WordPress-run sites.
WordPress security updates don’t protect against this plague as they are not WordPress core issues, but this is just an example of how determined the time wasting evil doers are, and how important it is to stay ahead of them by responding to all mandatory security updates with WordPress.
As I continue on with my series on managing multiple bloggers in WordPress, it’s time to explore how to feature your authors in author lists in sidebars and Pages. They’ve done such brilliant work for you, you want to show them off, right?
An author list is either a single Page that lists all the contributors to your WordPress site, or a list featured in the header, sidebar, or footer to showcase the names of your authors. While some WordPress Plugins will do only one thing, many of the ones featured here will do both.
There are a variety of WordPress Plugins which feature author images and/or names with links to their author pages. The key in choosing which ones to use depends upon the number of authors, the site’s design, and what you want the end result to look.
If you are working with 3-10 authors, it’s easy to create a simple list to showcase them with or without images. If you are managing dozens or hundreds of contributors, the list might be longer than you have room for within your WordPress Theme design.
Author lists are invaluable to the blog and the authors, helping them get credit and visibility, but if it clutters up the site, it does no service to anyone. Look at the options in the author lists WordPress Plugin to see how they display the lists by default. Are they in a box or just a list? How easily can you control the look and feel to customize it? What display options do you have? Is it only images, images and names, or just names?
Considering the number of authors and the design of the site, what do you really want in an authors list? Do you want images only? Images with names? Names only? Do you want a list of the authors and their most recent 3-5 posts? What do you really want it to look like and choose accordingly.
I’ve also gone a little further with these author list suggestions to include some other interesting twists on showcasing your authors such as highlighting their Twitter stream or social lifestream. Read More »
It was fascinating to get a call to work on the article for a traditional newspaper with the popular columnist, Kristi O’Harran, and be back in “print.”
I’m honored to be featured in the Everett Herald, a newspaper that ruled my news life from childhood until adulthood, the number one source of information and news, national and local, beyond radio and television. Yet, it is also fascinating.
The columnist was cruising the web looking for historical information and genealogy from around Snohomish County and stumbled upon my family history blog and the stories from family members important to the building of Everett, Snohomish, Monroe, and the county. We exchanged a few emails talking about how to cover the story, and ended up with a mix of introduction to my family’s history in Snohomish County and the struggles of family history blogging. The print version had some minor mistakes which were corrected in the web version. It reminded me of the finality of print and the ease of updating of blogs and web content, something to which I’ve become very accustomed.
UPDATE: O’Harran just sent me an email with several names and contact information for people who recognized some of the people in the photographs from the article or know my family or has information to help me with my family history research. I’ll be calling them in the next day or so. I can’t wait. What a gift!!
While the following is a bit off-topic, my head is spinning with all the layers and networks I’ve uncovered within this recent experience. A friend of mine called this a combination assembly line meets Wikipedia of crime social networks.
It begins with my car being broken into and my purse stolen a few months ago, explores the social web of a crime network, and ends with some helpful tips and techniques for protecting yourself online and off.
The Personal Experience
On my way with one of my cats to the vet in Beaverton, Oregon, I stopped for a fast errand. The sun had unexpectedly come out of the foggy, rainy morning, so I cracked my car windows open a fraction to let in some air flow, worried about leaving the cat inside the vehicle. Less than ten minutes later I returned to find my car door unlocked, and purse, cell phone, and other valuables missing. The cat was hiding, terrified, under the driver’s seat, no harm done. My wallet was with me, which was a huge relief.
I put the cat back in his carrier and dashed with the cat into the store to call the police, then my husband so he could begin to take action on the stolen items. The police officer arrived and within a few minutes he had six perfect fingerprints from my window to help identify the criminal.
I questioned him about the window being only barely enough for a finger to get through. He explained that the longer modern car windows bow outwards if the villain can get any leverage with even a finger or two. Within seconds, a strong person could have slid his fingers in, pulled outwards on the window and slid an arm down to unlock the door. Who knew?
I gave him as much information as I knew about the stolen items and headed to my husband’s office to continue reporting the stolen items and to call the vet to let them know I’d be a little late. Calls completed, I raced to the vet’s office.
My cat, Holiday, had been “fur-mowing,” excessive licking to certain areas of the animal’s body which results in hair loss. Holiday had been chewing away at his belly for a few months and had literally mowed his belly hair from chest to stern. There are a lot of reasons for this, physical and psychological (it turned out to be psychological and is resolved).
While the vet was examining my huge tabby cat, the receptionist came in to tell me that a “very nice” police officer was on the phone for me. Surprised that he’d managed to track me down at the vet (husband gave him the number), I was more startled at the receptionist’s smothered giggles as she followed me to the front desk. Read More »
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I’m often asked which content management system for web publishing I recommend. While I’m clearly biased towards you-know-what, at last there is a WordPress Plugin that can help you show others which one they should consider. 
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As I coped with 
, a life changing book for an web design and app developer. 
While the following is a bit off-topic, my head is spinning with all the layers and networks I’ve uncovered within this recent experience. A friend of mine called this a combination assembly line meets Wikipedia of crime social networks. 
