You can write the best blog possible and still get very little attention.  One way to gain attention is to write the blog then send an email to your list telling them that you just wrote the blog. Bad!! Or you could install an RSS Feed by going to http://feedburner.google.com.

As I mentioned in my blog about RSS Feeds, you will have to have a Google account in order to set up the RSS feed with Feedburner. Not a big restriction and you get so much benefit from Google.

1. Go to the text box labeled “Burn a feed right this instant.” and follow the directions. Click the Next button.
2. On the next page, Identify Feed Source, select the radio button for RSS Feed and click the Next button.
3. On the next page, Welcome!, type in a word or phrase identifying the Feed then click the Next button.
4. On the next page, Congrats!, click the Next button.
5. On the next page, Get More Gusto, choose the options you wish, then click Next button.
6. On the Next page, click on the Publicize tab, choose Chicklet Chooser, and select a radio button for a new standard feed icon. I chose the smaller version of the icon with the orange background. Scroll down the page to the area labeled “Copy the HTML”, copy the code, go to your WordPress dashboard, choose Appearance, then Widgets. Choose Text from the Available Widgets selections, move the text box into an area beneath Sidebar 1, give it a title, and paste the RSS code into the large area, and hit the Save button.

Voila, you are now ready to provide RSS feeds to your readership.

Caveat Blogger!   The example above is just one set of instructions that you can perform to set up an RSS Feed. Note that I have an RSS Subscription link on my personal blog that was created as explained above while the subscription link on this page is a bit differrent. Feel adventurous and find another way. Comment about it here. Please.  It’s lonely out here when no one speaks to me.

Ever wonder who visits your website? And when? And from where? Windows/Linux/Macintosh users? Browsers used?

It’s easy to find out. The only slightly restrictive requirement is that you have or get a gmail account. Since Google provides so many nice features, it’s not really that restrictive. Think of the Google account as your club house key with you being a member of this exclusive club whose only requirement is that you use their key to gain access. And just in case you are not using it, gmail is a very nice email package that is web accessible thus available on any of your devices anywhere you have Internet access and a browser connection.

Install and Use Google Analytics

Log into http://www.google.com with your google account info. Add a website profile – which really means that you need to enter the URL of the site you want to track. I’m doing it for this site, exploringnewmedia.com

Google then comes back with some Javascript code that I install in the footer.php file of my currently chosen theme. Why place it in the footer.php file?  Because in WordPress, the footer information is placed on every post and page so it’s always there. When someone visits any post or page, Google takes note and enters it into a database.

Don’t expect any meaningful information for a few days because it will take a bit of time before you begin to get visits. After that, log in to your account on google.com/analytics and choose View Report for your URL to get some (and more) of the information alluded to in the first paragraph above.

If you try this and can’t get it right, please ask me and I’ll walk you through the process.  Leave a comment or contact lindsey@exploringnewmedia.com

I created my personal website using WordPress. I am styling it using the Genesis Framework, which is really a super, but complex application for creating and modifying your theme, or the overall look and functionality of the website.

As it came from Studiopress, it was pretty bland – black text on a white background, and no bells and whistles.  I intend to gradually change its looks and discuss what I did.

Today, I’ve decided that I want to make the background black. Perhaps, someday I’ll put a graphic behind the content but for today, I’m just going to change the colors of the background.

NOTE: Today’s changes will all be done in the style.css file located in the public_html/personal/wp-content/themes/child folder of my newmediauses.com account. This will be done using a Macintosh FTP program called Transmit to access my website and a Macintosh text editor called TextMate to effect the required changes.

The framework (of Genesis Frameworks) looks like this. This diagram is the visual markup guide.  By studying it and applying Genesis functions to it, you can build some pretty awesome themes (I’m told).  I’m still struggling to do so.

So, to change the background (or body) to black, I opened the style.css file and searched for body and found it down at like 154, defined as:

body {
background-color: #fff;
}

I changed the background color from white (#fff) to black (#000) and ended up with a pretty stark sight. I had expected that the content of the website would reside on a white background with a black body background. Well, it can but not just from that one change.

Note that in the visual markup guide, there is an overall container named #wrap and it contains 5 other subcontainers named #header, #nav, #subnav, #inner, and #footer, respectively. And each of them contain other definitions but we will not be bothered by them in this post.

I will create a white background-color the colors for 2 of the remaining containers. They currently inherit the background color of the body. CSS stuff, you know. (I’m going to leave the #nav and #footer ids alone.)

Added background-color: #fff;  to the #header id at the inserted line 172. and for #inner at inserted line 604

As I made these changes, the background showed through between the #nav and #inner ids.  This is because of the margin definitions of these two ids. So, I changed     margin: 20px auto 0; in the #inner id  (line 605) to    margin: 0 auto;

and
changed      margin: 0 auto 10px; in the #nav id  (line 396) to     margin: 0 auto 10px;

But you fix one thing and another thing pops up – like whack-a-mole.  When the body and all the ids had a white background, it was not so obvious that the text butted right up to the left of its container. So, what do we do?

For the time being, I will just add   padding: 0 0 0 20px; to each of these containers: #inner, #nav and also for #title-area.

No, I haven’t been asleep for 20 years. Just been meandering through life. Sip a little from this glass. Eat a little from that plate. Check out this video. Read that book. Study this discipline. Bog down in that concept.

But I’m coming back.  New client. New requirements. New advice from my talented friends. They say Genesis is the WordPress framework to consume. Get up close and personal with. Know it like the back of my hand. Treat it like an expensive tool. Learn it. Use it. Devour it. Regurgitate it.

Well, perhaps I’ve waxed too poetic here. After all, I have been involved in a Creative Writing Course for the past several weeks. Words just seem to flow whenever I describe anything.

Down to the facts. I bought the Genesis Pro Plan, which gives me a group of really nice themes. My client likes one of the child themes.  I have created a developmental site that is mostly for my education. I installed the Genesis Framework and the child theme at that site. I began reading.  Lot of time on Designs by Nick the Geek, Studio Press Genesis Tutorials,  and Bill Erickson‘s sites. Glassy eyes. Obviously, I will need to reread and perhaps rereread this information.

One thing I learned yesterday from Nick.  Hooks are just directions about where to place code.  Wow! An eyeopener.  Truly. No sarcasm here.

So far today, I have earned How to Set the Header to Display Text or Logo Image

Coming Events: Perhaps you’ve noticed, as of Oct 13, 2011, this site’s theme is Thesis.  I expect that it will change to one of the Genesis child themes in the near future.

Call to action.  Does this post interest you in any way? Give me a comment. Want to hear more about my adventures in Genesis land? Give me a comment. Want to buy me lunch? Call me on my iPhone. Quickly. Today.

I started an online class in Creative Writing today with the Gotham Writers Workshop. I’ve been writing since the first grade. That was in 1947. Although I think I’m a fair writer, I’d like to do better.
This will be the second time I’ve concentrated on writing as an end result. My anticipation is great.

Starting to prepare for my Rise Austin 2011 presentation at 4PM on the 8th of March 2011.  I will be discussing and demonstrating the hardware, software, and procedures to creating a video cast/podcast for placement on your web site and at YouTube.

That was the title of our January Meetup and was presented by Chad Peevy of Peevy Media. Ten guests participated in Chad’s presentation and informal discussion regarding aspects of social networking.
Thanks to Chad for his informative and entertaining presentation. And thanks to Jan Triplett of the Business Success Center for her hospitality.

The core of MIMP (My Internet Marketing Project) is the game of World of Warcraft (WoW). Paid for and played by a reported 12 million people, it is an immersive, addictive, totally satisfying game of accomplishing micro tasks and receiving some immediate rewards. It also lends itself to accomplishing long term projects with commensurate worthy rewards.

In short, the player creates a character by choosing a faction (horde or alliance), a race (horde: orc, troll, tauren, bloodelf, undead, goblin or alliance: gnome, dwarf, human, night elf, draenei, worgen), and a class (priest, warrior, paladin, druid, shaman, warlock, mage, hunter). This character begins its existence in its race’s starting zone with minimal possessions, no skills, no money, a simple weapon, and sparse equipment. One goal is to ‘level’ or promote the character from level 1 to level 85 (as of the last expansion, Cataclysm).

The game is complex. It requires a lot of thought to play beyond a basic hack and slash process. Raids need to be planned. Professions need to be leveled. Quests need to be done. Dungeons need to be mapped and studied. Each character can be configured into one of 3 major talent areas. Money needs to be made.

Many user guides have been created dealing with various WoW aspects – character leveling, money making, profession choosing and leveling, class choice and configuration. Character leveling and money making have been of particular interest to me.

The two guides that I have used the most and will refer to in future posts are:
Dugi’s Guides
Jonathan Kenins’ Massive WoW Gold Blueprint

Other guides that I’m using and will occasionally refer to are:
Zygor’s Guides
Hexigame’s Booster
Hayden Hawke’s Guides

Which are best?  Depends on your style. They are all good to excellent at what they do.

What addons do you use? Describe your main character (toon) and where it exists in the WoW universe. What do I need to add to this post? Tell me. I know you’re out there. I can hear you breathing. Speak up. Please.

Today, I begin to blog about creating an Internet marketing project

For a couple of years, I’ve wanted to use my web, blog, and video skills as well as social media to get into Internet marketing. I created a website called ExploringNewMedia.com and a business called Exploring New Media, LLC. I have presented a number of meetups where I expounded on a variety of topics including
wordpress, twitter, facebook, buddypress, Skype, mailing lists, screencasting, podcasting, mind mapping and more.

The word ‘exploring’ is the critical element in my process. I am not an expert in all these areas but I’ve found that if I commit to doing an hour plus presentation on a topic, I tend to learn more about the topic that I would normally do in anticipation of meetup attendees’ far ranging questions.

Problem is, I don’t have a product.  To try to determine what product I could create, I took ideas from courses like Eben Pagan’s extended and extensive course, Jeff Walker’s Product Launch Formula, Andy Jenkins Video Boss, David Risling, Yaro Starak, Gideon Shalwick’s Video Blogging. And was overwhelmed by the many things that I COULD do.

Problem is when I get more than a couple of options, I become a decision basket case

So, after spending MANY hours watching these highly successful internet marketing gurus tell HOW they do it, I decided that I had to do things my way.  That’s what it always boils down to. I live in my head 24 hours a day. I can’t call on these guys for advice whenever I want it, so I need to decide what it is I want to do.

I want to promote something that I’m passionate about. I need not to worry about what my real world contemporaries think but what my niche people think and like. Since I don’t have a product, I looked for products already in existence that promote my niche interest. I have found two that are really good and one that I’m still evaluating.

Stay tuned for more information on my progress.  And comment on this blog. What do you think? What do you want? Let me know you’re out there and reading this blog.

In preparation for my monthly (not quite) podcasting meetup, I created the single textual file shown as this blog post.

To create a podcast (audio with shownotes) , I used Audacity, recorded a partially extemporaneous version and housed it on Podbean.

To create a video cast, I used Screeflow, a series of images created as a Powerpoint/Keynote like slideshow, and the audio created in the step above. After a bit of editing and tweaking, I saved the resulting file as a .MOV file and pushed it to youTube.