Archive for May, 2008

My Wordpress review

Published
by
Chalupa
on May 22, 2008
in Administration and Organization and Blogging Platforms
. 0 Comments

Since Nathan wrote up a review for us in Wordpress 2.5 brings some fresh air, we have since then upgraded this site and have been using 2.5 ourselves. I have to say I’m really enjoying it. I was a little skeptical at first, and even had a bad experience updating a personal blog, but I’m still really enjoying it.

With the interface being totally re-worked, it might take some time getting used to where things are. The good part is that this will be much easier to figure out than Office 2007. More pertinent information is shown with a lot less clutter. I think this has to be much more easier for non-technical people to use.

Updates are one thing that have always been a hassle, but there is now a built-in feature to upgrade your plugins. All you have to know is your FTP information to allow Wordpress to upload the files for you. Another big improvement are the media features. You can now easily insert images, video, and audio to a post. I haven’t used it yet, but I’m imagining this will make podcasting much easier.

On more awesome thing I wanted to point out is the fact that nothing has visibly changed from the reader’s perspective. Usually an upgrade of these proportions would render themes and plugins obsolete. Maybe we just picked a good template to use, but I really appreciated how we didn’t have to re-work our blogs just to be functional with the version upgrade.

If you’re a current Wordpress user I’d highly suggest upgrading if you haven’t already. If you need any help, feel free to ask and we’ll try to point you in the right direction.

Joomla: mojoBlog

Published
by
Tara
on May 13, 2008
in Add-Ons and Plug-Ins and Other Software for Bloggers
. 0 Comments

For you Joomla users out there: have you ever wished for something more than the default blogging tools in Joomla? They sure leave a lot to be desired - they make for some pretty ugly blogs, and you have to install extra bits even to have commenting!

Chalupa runs his lebowskipodcast site on Joomla. It’s not a blog in and of itself - it’s become a fan site for an awesome movie.  It does, however, have a blog. Chalupa posts almost daily, and he’s got a lot of people reading.  Unfortunately, Joomla’s blog tools make it difficult to read, and the commenting add-ons are ugly and cumbersome.

We’re in the process of updating the site - making it easier to get around in, and more aesthetically pleasing overall. One of the biggest changes that we needed to make: clean up the blog and make it more… useable.

mojoBlog logoEnter mojoBlog. The folks at joomlify have created a rockin’ Joomla component. It’s Wordpress for/in Joomla! And just like Wordpress, it’s free! Doesn’t get much better than that, folks, especially since before this component, you had to pay.  For crappier stuff.

The install was smooth as can be, but it took a little doing to get the admin menus to display. A note to any of you who want to install this: install as the main Joomla admin, not under a secondary Super Admin account.  It’ll save you headaches and it’ll keep you from having to mess around in your userID tables and caches…

If you’re running Joomla and looking for an elegant blog tool/solution, mojoBlog is your tool. When we get lebowskipodcast up and running with its new threads, I’ll post a link so you can check it out.

Automatic Updaters

Published
by
Chalupa
on May 12, 2008
in Add-Ons and Plug-Ins and Administration and Organization
. 2 Comments

Personal Saviors or Angels of Death?

I’ll let you be the judge of that.

Automated things are just so easy and great to use, right? Well, sometimes. If they truly are all they’re cracked up to be, they’ve usually gone through some heavy testing, usage, and many revisions. This past week I decided I was finally going to upgrade to the new version of Wordpress on my personal blogs. I also decided to try out this nifty updater plugin they were promoting.

I first tried it out on my personal blog, ran into a lot of permission issues, and gave up. Then I played around with it some more, and gave up again. Fast-forward a few days and I decided to give it a third try, cause that’s the one that’s always supposed to work. This time I decided to try it out on my movie blog. Same problems, yet this iteration I did a little homework and tried changing some permissions around. I eventually got to the very end of the installation, but had pages and pages of errors and my blog didn’t work…at all. Part of the updating process was to create a backup. I tried to open these files and could not because Microsoft Windows had deemed them to be unsafe.

By this time I’m sure you can image my frustration and annoyance at my self-perceived stupidity at 1)trusting an auto-updater to fix my blog, 2)not doing my own backup, and 3)not trying this out on something I don’t care about. I think it’s fair to say I’m above-average when it comes to technical things, but I don’t have that much experience troubleshooting web issues. I’m going to have to recommend most of you bloggers out there avoid this upgrader unless you’re very comfortable with file permissions, and tracking down errors within specific lines of PHP code. Even if you are comfortable doing that kind of stuff, is it really worth the risk of having to spend the time on it?

squarespace

Published
by
Tara
on May 8, 2008
in Blogging Platforms
. 0 Comments

Most of us here at bloggingamigos blog using independent installations of Wordpress. We’ve also got some LiveJournalers, some Wordpress.com folk, some ex-Blogger-ers and a TypePad-ist.

squarespace logoBecause I have a goal of checking out all of the blogging platforms, I spent some time today playing with squarespace. There’s a 15-day trial, then a monthly fee (basic hosting is $7).

It’s an amazingly quick setup - like any good blogging platform nowadays, the registration process is choosing a username/blog address, password, and verifying that you’re human by typing in some letters - and then you start blogging immediately.

BONUS: there’s a tutorial mode that shows you how to do just about anything you’d ever want to do - no digging for help in FAQ files, no trial-by-error.

This platform gives you a lot of slick built-in template options, as well as allowing you to modify existing themes and upload your own (which isn’t a standard feature across platforms) - you can have FULL control, and not know a LICK of CSS.

You get detailed site traffic stats, custom form tools, domain mapping, viewer permission levels, member accounts, automatic backups, etc.

Check it out. If you’re gonna pay for a blogging platform, this is a great option. It’s simple, intuitive, and sophisticated.

Maintain Blogger Permalinks

Published
by
Chalupa
on May 5, 2008
in Add-Ons and Plug-Ins, Administration and Organization and Content and Editing
. 0 Comments

I’m sure some of your are like me and have moved, or attempted to move, from one blogging tool to another.  I started off with good ol Blogger before it was bought out by Google.  I wasn’t too hip on Blogger Beta when they were making the changes so I decided to bite the bullet and figure out Wordpress.  Migrating from Blogger to Wordpress is a mostly smooth transition, however, one thing I immediately noticed was my permalinks weren’t quite the same.  Then I found a plugin to help me fix that.

Justinsomnia.org has created a plugin called wp-maintain-blogger-permalinks.  Pretty self explanatory, right?  Just download, install, and click a button in your settings.  Not much else you have to do.

Categories and Tags

Published
by
Tara
on May 3, 2008
in Administration and Organization and Getting Started
. 2 Comments

Chalupa and I spent some time last night talking about how best to organize this site for users. We have very different category/tag setups on our individual blogs, and with so many authors here, we needed to figure something out quickly.

Note to you folks just getting started - think about organization BEFORE you get going. It’ll save you time and headaches down the road.

You can organize your blog any way you want to. You can use pages instead of categories, categories instead of tags, any of those alone, or all of them together. Usually a combination of categories and tags does the trick.

What’s going to be the most useful organization of content for your readers? My thoughts on the matter:

  • Most users will look for some kind of heirarchy.
  • People browse content most easily when it’s organized in general groups.
  • Folks aren’t going to spend a lot of time looking for something. If they can’t find it right away, they’ll move on to someone else’s site. There are a LOT of people blogging out there - chances are you’re not the only one writing what you’re writing.

There has been a lot of research suggesting that people can retain more information (and, relevant here, can FIND information in less time) when it’s “chunked” - divided - into intuitive groupings. An intuitive grouping for most humans is a hierarchy.

Think, also, about the way categories and tags display on your platform. In Wordpress, for example, unless you seriously tweak things, your categories and subcategories will display in a list. You don’t want a list that makes your page scroll for miles, so it makes sense to limit the number of categories and subcategories you use. Tags, on the other hand, display in a cloud - meaning you can have a LOT of tags and still won’t take up tons of vertical space on the page. So, WP users might use tags for more specific labeling/grouping.

Another note: Don’t categorize or tag so specifically that only one post/article is going to use the category/tag. Make sure that you’re general enough, even in your specific labels, that you can reuse them - remember that you’re grouping (or “chunking”) things.

I decided to use this hierarchy for our category/tag structure: categories to group posts by general topic, and tags to label them by specific topic/content. Example: this post deals with, on a high level, organizing your blog content, and specifically working with tags and categories. So this post goes in Category: Administration and Organization and is tagged with “tags” and “categories”.

So… two things to take away:

  • Organize content so it’s easy and quick for your READERS to get around (even if it’s not the way you think).
  • Think through the organization of your content before you go any further - it’ll save you some serious time.

FeedForAll

Published
by
Chalupa
on May 1, 2008
in Other Software for Bloggers
. 0 Comments

Last week I talked about an RSS generator called Podcast RSS Buddy.  I said it wasn’t exactly working out for me and today I’m going to talk about one that is.  Normally I try to find things that are free, but sometimes you literally get what you pay for.  Podcast RSS Buddy wasn’t free and FeedForAll isn’t free either; in fact, it costs a little more.  The bonus is that FeedForAll gives you a 30 day trial, it’s much more sophisticated, and is a much better program for long term use.

I’ve decided to list some features instead of talking at length about them.  This program is easy to use for both beginner and advance users.  I highly suggest you check it out.

  • Easy to use interface
  • Create and manage unlimited feeds
  • Manage, modify, and re-order feed items
  • Validate your feed
  • Multiple extensions (iTunes, Dublin Core, etc) available
  • Spell check
  • Creation wizard
  • Publishing options
  • Export to HTML, CSV, or text
  • Search and Replace
  • Load and manage/modify pre-existing feeds
  • Automatic date management
  • Automatic feed repair
  • Mac version available