JavaScript Workshop

Best Link to Design and Development Web Sites

Frank Stepanski — Thu, 02 Jun 2011 16:10:25 +0000

Keeping track of all your web design and development web sites can be annoying and time consuming. Personally I have a hard time remembering more than a few, and going through my own links no matter what tool I use is is still a hassle.

I found one link, that has links to the best sites for learning and keeping up to date on the web:

The Smashing Network:
http://www.smashingmagazine.com/the-smashing-network/

Drupal Speak

Frank Stepanski — Sun, 01 May 2011 21:55:39 +0000

One of the criticisms of Drupal is that it has a steep learning curve. Some of the terminology used to describe elements of Drupal can be a bit off putting and confusing to newcomers, so lets look at some of the Drupal ‘language’.

Core
Often you will come across the term ‘Core’ or ‘Drupal Core’. These terms are referring to the basic Drupal software set that was originally downloaded. This software includes a number of core modules and themes.

Modules
Modules are the building blocks of your Drupal site. I like to think of Drupal as a giant Lego set. The modules would be the various parts and bricks you put together to build your model, or in our case the web system we want. Modules extend and add extra functionality to Drupal.

There are thousands of modules available . These modules add functionality in areas such as e-commerce, user management, media, content and web 2.0 features, to name but a few. You can view all the modules that are available for download on the Drupal web site: http://drupal.org/project/modules

Nodes
For Nodes read ‘content’. A node can be a blog entry, a page or a piece of content and its associated elements that you define. All nodes have some common properties, such as an author, a title, a type of node (i.e. a page or blog post), a creation date and body content. Also, nodes can take advantage of the inner workings and functions of Drupal and other added modules to trigger other actions or displays.

Content types and CCK
Every node is an instance of a particular content type. You create a content type by using a powerful module called CCK (Content Construction Kit). CCK makes available to site developers a huge number of fields called widgets, for specific bits of data i.e. text, image and files etc. that will make up your content type.

So, for example, if you wanted to display pages on your website that display information about events, you could create a content type called ‘Events’. Within the ‘Events’ content type you would define all the required fields needed to display full information about an event to your site users.

So, when a site author wants to add information about an ‘Event’ they will be presented with an ‘Event’ form displaying fields such as ‘Event Title’, ‘Venue’, ‘Dates and Times’ etc. to fill in. Once completed and published, this content type would be displayed on your site as an node that is of an ‘Event’ type.

Themes
Themes change the look and feel of your Drupal website. Drupal ships with a number of themes but, like modules there are hundreds of themes freely available for download. Some are suited to specific types of sites like e-commerce or news web sites. You can, of course, design your own theme if you wish.

Themes have regions for the displaying of content, for instance you could have region called ‘top left’, or ‘main content area’. Site administrators can then place content (in particular ‘Blocks’- see below) in these regions.

Blocks
Blocks are small ‘boxes ‘of content that you can create and position within predefined areas or regions of your website theme. Some modules will automatically create blocks for site administrators to position.

Site administrators can define a number of conditions for blocks to be made visible. Also, blocks can be made to show only on certain pages.

Views
You won’t get far with Drupal before you need to use the Views module. Like CCK, the Views module is an incredibly powerful and important module within the Drupal landscape.

As indicated above, you use the CCK module to create forms to allow for the inputting of site content. With Views you can pull out elements of this content and create a ‘view’ of it usually in lists or table format. These views can be displayed or exported in a variety of ways including the creation of pages or blocks, RSS feeds etc. other modules can add to the displays options.

If you are familiar with Structured Query Language* you should find Views quite easy to pick up, as in essence, Views is a visual SQL query builder.

If you have no idea what SQL is please don’t worry. Just remember that the Views module allows us to query the database for ‘bits and pieces’ of content that we have added to our site (or database, in reality), against a criteria we set. It then displays this content in a way we specify.

Roles & Permissions
Roles & Permissions are part of the site user configuration options, they allow site administrators to have very detailed fine grain control on what site users can see, do and interact with.

Drupal ships with two default user roles:

1.Anonymous user (a site visitor who is not logged in)
2.Authenticated user (a site visitor who is logged in and known to the system)
Anyone who comes to your site will be assigned one or more roles. Usually, this is done when a user creates an account on your website. Anybody who does not create an account or, chooses not to log in will be assigned the Anonymous user role.

Every module you install will have a set of permissions associated with it which will need to be reviewed.

Taxonomy
A taxonomy is a classification system. The Drupal taxonomy module allows site administrators to classify site content. To create a taxonomy you create a vocabulary and add terms to that vocabulary. You can have unlimited vocabularies, each holding unlimited terms.

What do search engines see on your blog?

Frank Stepanski — Thu, 14 Apr 2011 12:34:51 +0000

Remove the style sheet from your blog’s layout and design and you will see what search engines see when they visit.

What do they see first? What is left when you remove all the pretty? That’s what search engines see.

Things you need to know about search engines when they visit your blog:

Search engines don’t “see” your design, only the words
Search engines hunt for keywords
Keyword usage and placement influences their importance
Layout matters. Push content to the top of the physical page, not the bottom
Frames, iframes and tables can block search engines from finding your content
HTML/XHTML errors can stop a search engine from visitiing
404 page not found errors, dead, or moved links lead nowhere
Flash, DHTML, or JavaScript which replaces text and have no descriptions are ignored

It is critical to ensure all such errors and road blocks are fixed. Search engines are now sophisticated enough to verify if your design and structure meets web standards. A poorly coded blog can lower your page rank score. And a poorly designed, error-filled blog can lead the robot or spider in a wrong direction, confuse it, or stop it in its tracks. If it has difficulty moving through your pages, it will stop.

Well-designed and web standard code allows the crawler to move easily through your site, which tells the search engine the site is designed with care and attention to detail and web standards.

Top Ten Search Engine Optimization Tips

Frank Stepanski — Wed, 09 Mar 2011 12:29:25 +0000

The term Search Engine Optimization (SEO) describes a diverse set of activities that you can perform to increase the amount of targeted traffic that comes to your website from search engines (you may also have heard these activities called Search Engine Marketing or Search Marketing). This includes things you do to your site itself, such as making changes to your text and HTML code.

It also includes communicating directly with the search engines, or pursuing other sources of traffic by making requests for listings or links. Tracking, research, and competitive review are also part of the SEO package.

SEO is not advertising, although it may include an advertising component. It is not public relations, although it includes communication tasks similar to PR. As a continually evolving area of online marketing, SEO may sound complicated, but it is very simple in its fundamental goal: gaining targeted visitors.

There are thousands of professionals all over the world who earn their living by providing SEO services to website owners. The good SEO pros spend large amounts of time and resources learning the skills of effective optimization. This goes to show that you could easily spend years learning SEO since there is so much to learn.

Here are 10 top tips that I found from various resources on the internet that are sure to help you:

Be Unique or Cast into Oblivion
In a web world of “me too” web sites, products and services, nothing is more exciting than something totally unique. The side benefit is that people will search for keywords that belong only to you – think “Macintosh,” or “iPod.” Before Apple invented the products and made the words “Macintosh” and “iPod” into household names, how many people would have searched for those words?? Nobody, except maybe the creative people at Apple. Create a web site that reflects your uniqueness. Create a unique theme and you will boldly stand out from the zillions of other sites on the Internet. Plus, that way you will never have to try and obtain in-bound links – you will become a link magnet automatically!
Killer Keyword Research
Simply put, nothing else in SEO matters if you don’t get the foundation of your SEO right from the get-go. The foundation of all great SEO is made up of excellent Keyword research and selection. Along with this, never aim for highly competitive keywords when optimizing a site. Use the “long tail” approach and go for a wider reach. If you are in a niche market or your keywords are not highly competitive, then go for the targeted keyword selection approach. If not, go broad in your selection of keywords.
Hot Damn Keyword-Rich Anchor Text and Domain Names
Use keyword-rich domain names. And again, uniqueness here will pay off hugely. Search engines and directories look at domain names when ranking pages, though the benefit of keywords in your domain is small. But to your searchers, it’s huge! These bolded keywords in your domain names will help you stand out in the SERPs.Search Engines factor link popularity into their ranking algorithms and look at the anchor text of in-bound links pointing to your site. Text used in an anchor link that points to your web site should always contain your keywords, if possible. Having these keywords in your domain encourages webmasters to use the same keywords in the anchor text when they grant you an in-bound link from their web site to yours. Simply put, if the keywords are in your domain, you will most likely get links pointing to your site with keywords in the important anchor text as well.
Fabulous File Names, Folders and Paths
Just like domains, the keyword-rich theory also applies here. File names and folders should be short, easy to read and descriptive. The end result is that when your web page shows up in the SERPs, a searcher can immediately see relevant keywords in bold, from your domain name all the way down to the actual HTML file name.Keep the depth of the path shallow. This means, don’t bury web pages too deep. Here’s a good rule of thumb: if a user has to click more than three times to get to the relevant content within your web site, it’s buried too deep.
Radical Relevant Content Wins Every Time
Search engine robots search text to index and rank your web pages. So, give them what they want – keyword rich relevant text. Write body text for humans first, search bots second. Also, try to put yourself in your searchers’ shoes. Ask yourself – What might people be typing into Google’s search query field to find my web site? Then play the search “dating game” and give them what they want: relevant content and keywords sprinkled throughout the text. There are tens of thousand of opinions on how much text should be on a page. Use common sense and visually look at your page. Does it look skimpy in regards to how much relevant content you are trying to give searchers? My rule is a minimum of two hundred fifty words and above of highly relevant information. If a searcher has to scroll down more than a few inches “below the fold,” then I have too much text on the page.
Poignant Page Titles Rock
Web page titles weigh heavily in the algorithms of search engines and are not only important to them, but are also part of the first impression searchers usually look at after they perform a search query of your listing. It is crucial that you have your top keywords strategically placed in your page titles in the order that a searcher typed into the query field (or at least in close proximity). Put your most important category keywords at the beginning, in order of search importance. If you are optimizing a page for a company name or brand name, then consider separate web pages for each. A few good rules are: each page should be unique, with three major keywords for each web page, and three less important keywords.
Meaningful Meta Keyword & Description Tags
Many SEO experts say search engine keyword / description Meta tags are no longer or rarely used – I don’t agree. The proof is that a well-written Meta description tag for many of my clients is in fact picked up in the SERPs! Sometimes a snippet of it is used, along with a snippet of keyword-rich body text. Search engines change and tweak their algorithms all the time. They may, or may not, put more importance on meta tags in the future. I’ll keep playing it safe and use them.Writing a good description tag with a call to action that mentions “free shipping” or a “gift with a purchase” is certainly better than no description at all. Surveys of web searchers show that what searchers read most often is the search query description. Gathering a big juicy list of Meta keywords together helps the professional optimizer focus on which keywords are truly relevant to each and every web page – even if you only use a fraction of those keywords on the actual page.
Hell of a Heading (H1 – H6 tags)
I love these for two important reasons. Always remember: searchers scan text before reading text!Reason 1: The search engines appear to rate my client’s web pages really well when ever I use them.Reason 2: The other benefit is for searchers. Big, bold headings point out what’s on the page. Searchers scan the headings way before they commit to reading the body text. When a searcher clicks your listing in the SERPs and lands on one of your pages, they will read on if the headings contain their keywords. If they don’t contain the keywords, they take off in search of a site that has what they are looking for. Headings stand out and are “scan friendly,” so use them whenever you can.
Love Those Links!
The web got its start with links, and nothing about this has changed except that people (especially web site designers) are forgetting about this! Hypertext links are what search engine spiders follow to index and rank web pages. If search spiders can’t simply and easily follow links pointing to your site from other sites, from your site to their sites, or from page to page once inside of your site, then you will not be found – period. And if your site can’t be found, what is the point of having a web site in the first place? Some common problems that pose roadblocks for search spiders are: all-Flash sites, heavy-duty use of JavaScript, deep dynamic pages that are database-driven, and other advanced technologies. Google states it clearly in its Guidelines to webmasters: “Google has trouble indexing” these technologies. There is nothing wrong with using any of these (and other) advanced technologies on your web site, but you simply must take the search engine’s robot into consideration when using them.
Quick SEO Ranking Tricks and Guarantees (Yeah, right)
There aren’t any guarantees. Bottom line, if you’re the impatient type, you are not going to have any patience for SEO at all. SEO takes time. I repeat, TIME as in “months of time.” If you are the impatient type, I recommend that you open a Google AdWords or Yahoo Search Marketing account, which will suit you much better than doing your own SEO. There is a very good reason that unethical SEO is called “black hat ” SEO. Taking the incredible risk of trying to do anything unethical with the search engines or with searchers will get you banned.

Tips for Building Blog Content

Frank Stepanski — Mon, 03 Jan 2011 12:50:43 +0000

Writing with keyword-rich content helps your blog be found and readers to fully understand what you are writing about. Write consistent and purposeful content.

The more inline your content is with your blog’s purpose, the more concentrated your use of keywords will be throughout the entire blog, not just on a per-post basis. The more diverse your blog’s content, the more diffused your keyword usage will be across all of your blog.

Make a plan for your content. Make lists of the topics you will write about in keeping with your blog’s purpose. Stick to those subjects as much as possible to build your blog’s reputation as the place to come for answers on those subjects.

Your blog’s content lables your blog
Readers thrive on consistency and continuity
Write timeless content
Blog passionately
Give readers a reason to return
Give readers a reason to blog about your blog
Don’t regurgitate content
Comments speak for your blog
Blog on a schedule
Publish just before your readers are ready
Keep it interesting

How to Install the Drupal AMP Stack from Acquia

Frank Stepanski — Wed, 17 Nov 2010 23:24:51 +0000

In web application development, a local development environment is built for programmers to develop and test their code before it goes ‘live’. This step is done to make sure everything is working properly before any visitor can see it as to avoid any unforeseen issues or errors.

Drupal runs on an AMP (Apache + MySQL + PHP) stack and has sometimes given newbies fits in trying to get all those pieces installed correctly with various installer packages such as MAMP, WAMP, or even XAMPP.

A new AMP stack installer called DAMP by Acquia has proven to be more stable and overall better than the others.

The main advantages of DAMP:

1. DAMP is much smaller (32MB) than MAMP/WAMP (160MB).
2. Hosts multiple sites.
3. Easier to access configuration and log files.
4. Good online documentation.

I wrote up a lesson (.pdf) on how to download, install and setup the Aquia DAMP on your PC.

Lost Drupal Login Box – oops!

Frank Stepanski — Tue, 16 Nov 2010 21:27:42 +0000

Many Drupal sites do not allow visitors to login and administrators normally will disable the user login block.

So when the administrator needs to login, they just go here:

http://www.yoursite.com/?q=user OR http://www.yoursite.com/user

The same goes if you need to logout of your site without a logout link:

http://www.yoursite.com/logout

Learning Drupal Online Courses

Frank Stepanski — Mon, 15 Nov 2010 00:57:06 +0000

These courses are offered through this website and can be considered “self-study” which includes email support from the instructor.

Note:This class uses the exact same materials as the class I teach at eClasses.org. All lessons reference version 7 of Drupal

Introduction to Drupal: ($25) Six lessons guiding you step-by-step through all of the basic aspects of Drupal development. The materials that are used are the same as the class taught at eClasses.org.

Manual installation of Drupal software on a remote web server.
Understanding the main aspects of the site administration interface.
What are nodes?
Extending functionality with modules.
Using the most popular interactive modules: forums, blogs, and webforms.
Creating your own custom content types with CCK.
Filtering and displaying your content with Views.
How themes work and getting started creating your own theme (example files).
How to sub-theme from the popular Zen framework.
Creation of a complete Drupal website with step-by-step instructions.

View the complete first lesson (.pdf) to give you an idea of how topics are covered.

What’s New in Drupal 7

Frank Stepanski — Wed, 10 Nov 2010 14:04:15 +0000

Let’s highlight some of the main differences in this new version of Drupal.

Stories are now Articles – In an attempt to name Drupal’s core content types in ways that more closely indicate their usage, the Story content type is now Article. Articles are pieces of content that typically post blog-style to a prominent place on your site, but may be replaced, or scrolled down the page, on a regular basis as new articles are posted.

An Administrator Role is already created at installation – Several of the changes that have been made reflect things that most users do immediately after installing Drupal. One of these is the inclusion of an Administrator role as part of the default installation profile.

Search and Paths are enabled by default – Other things that users typically enable immediately are the Search module that allows users to search for content on the site and the Paths module which allows the creation of path aliases to content so that you can publish the link www.yoursite.com/directions instead of www.yoursite.com/node/123.

Basic Taxonomy Created – In previous versions, before you could have users tag their content, you had to create taxonomy vocabularies from scratch. Version 7 includes a basic tag-style vocabulary that can be assigned to content types. A tag-style vocabulary accepts comma-separated tag lists crated on the fly by authors who are entering new content.

This can make for kind of sloppy vocabularies as users misspell, abbreviate, or misuse terms but the tag field is ajax enabled and makes tag suggestions as the user types, which can help avoid some of these issues.

Several Modules are gone altogether, including Throttle, Ping and Access Rules – There are some things that just need to be a part of the core program. For instance, Drupal really should throttle properly based on traffic and not on you telling it to.

Entirely New Database Layer – Most users may never encounter the details of this change, but performance should improve and developers who do need to interact with the database layer should find it much easier to do so. A significant improvement that should come from this change is the ability for Drupal to work through its interface with a wider variety of database servers.

SQLite Support – SQLite is a code library that provides a self-contained, server-less database platform. It is a zero-configuration platform that provides a full set of database features.

Fields in Core – The new Fields in Core API promises to allow users to create their own custom content types that interact with the database, like the Content Construction Kite used to as an add-on module. It is still very much under construction though.

Installation Choices – The installation routine now allows you to select from a default option that installs and activates the most common Drupal features and a basic option that installs only the core. You can then add things as you need them.

Fewer Default Themes – Some of the default themes that shipped with previous versions were thought to not exhibit the best practices that Drupal tries to encourage, so only Garland and Minelli remain, as well as a new Stark theme that demonstrates the Drupal markup at its most basic so that you can learn to build themes off of it.

Menu Changes – The Navigation menus is now the Management Menu. In addition there is an Administration Menu that displays across the top of the screen with the most common admin links. Beneath that is a minimizable Content menu with links to add and find content. A new User Menu displays where the Secondary Menu used to in the default theme and offers account and logout links.

Clean URLs are on by default – The option has been taken out of the installer and clean URLs are on by default. You should always use Clean URLs and only disable them in admin if your server has a specific problem handling them.

Permissions Changes – When you enable a permission for the authenticated user, all other roles on the client side also get that permission and it is marked on the permissions page so that you realize the effects of the changes you are making. This reflects that fact that the authenticated user is a basic level of registered users permissions and whatever you allow them to do, you are also allowing to all other user types that require a sign in.

Image Handling – Image handling is now available in the core program, which allows you to set up image types, like thumbnails, and also perform image effects that cropping and rotating.

WordPress as a Content Management System

Frank Stepanski — Fri, 17 Sep 2010 12:49:37 +0000

Though WordPress is by far the leader when it comes to blogging software, it has made significant strides in the last two years towards becoming a quality Content Management System as well. This means that those who love WordPress can now easily bridge the gap between blogging and a website designed for news by setting up their blog as a CMS.

What is a CMS? I would define a CMS using WordPress to create a website that does not display your posts in reverse chronological order. In other words, a CMS is using WordPress for something other than blogging.

Some examples of WordPress as a CMS:

News or Magazine-Style WordPress Site/Theme
Building a Portfolio Site
eCommerce Site
Picture Gallery
Photoblog
Video Blog
Directory

Even in looking at the early days of WordPress, you could see the potential there for using it as a Content Management System. In the years since, that potential continued to grow until it eventually became a reality, and now a significant portion of WordPress users are using it as a CMS. By far the most common WordPress CMS method is using a news or magazine style WordPress theme to create a more dynamic and informational homepage.

Usually all other pages hold to a traditional blog setup with a header, sidebar, and footer, while the homepage will display the most recent post in several different categories. The true advantage of this method is that you can easily integrate other forms of media, most commonly by adding podcasts or doing video blogging.

How do I build my CMS?

If you are uncomfortable with coding, there are a number of WordPress themes you can get that are setup as content management systems. You can find lots of free themes on the net, or go to a premium WordPress sites (these themes require you to purchase them in order to use).

There are also a number of WordPress plugins you can use to help give you the CMS functionality that you are looking for. Here are a few that I have either used or has been recommended for CMS blogs:

CForms II – More than a contact form. You can pretty much build any type of form you’d like with this form.
WP eCommerce – Gives you an easy to manage storefront and shopping cart! Integrates with PayPal and allows you to sell digital downloads.
Subscribe 2 – Most Content Management Systems include a newsletter. This plugin allows you to easily integrate a newsletter into your website and manage it from the WordPress dashboard.
Page Links To – The menu at the top of the website plays a HUGE role in a CMS. This plugin lets you control your WordPress menu without messing with the WordPress code. Want to link externally? What about linking to a portion of a post instead of the entire post?
Search Everything – By default WordPress only searches blog posts. With a CMS, you’ll
probably have a number of static pages that you use, making this plugin essential.
Role Manager - Many CMS’s include multiple authors. This plugin allows you to go above and
beyond the normal 5 roles that WordPress comes with by default, so authors have the
permissions you want them to have

Should I use a Content Management System?

This is probably a question most of us have asked ourselves at one point or another. When should you use a CMS? Unfortunately, that is not something I can answer as there are too many variables. Here are some questions that you may want to ask yourself if you are considering a CMS for your website/blog:

Do I have several categories I want to prominently feature?
Do I plan to have multiple authors?
Do I use a lot of pictures with my posts?
Do I plan to have more than just blogging? (Video blogging, podcasting, photos, etc.)

Obviously if the answer is yes to each of the above questions, your website is probably a good candidate for a CMS. You’ll also want to keep in mind that many CMS-Style blogs create a different type of expectation than standard blogs. Often people expect more news and less opinion from these types of websites.

Monetizing Directly with Advertising

Frank Stepanski — Thu, 02 Sep 2010 12:38:21 +0000

Advertising is by far the most popular monetization method that bloggers use. After deciding whether to show ads, the next decision is which type. The most popular advertising system with bloggers is Google’s AdSense, but there are several other advertising system options (affiliate networks), including:

Amazon Associates: https://affiliate-program.amazon.com/
Commission Junction: https://www.cj.com/
Text Link Ads: http://www.text-link-ads.com/
Link Share: http://www.linkshare.com/
AdGenta: http://www.qumana.com/adgenta.htm
Blogads: http://www.blogads.com/
CrispAds: http://www.crispads.com/
IntelliTXT: http://www.vibrantmedia.com/
DoubleClick: http://www.doubleclick.com/
Kanoodle: http://www.kanoodle.com/

Importing a Live Blog’s Content Locally

Frank Stepanski — Wed, 01 Sep 2010 12:42:09 +0000

If you have installed a local blog on your computer for testing purposes you probably will need some actual ‘real’ content to test out all your theme or other changes. Creating ‘dummy’ content is one option, but it can take awhile to create and is not the same as the actual content that a ‘live’ blog contains.

So if you already have a blog online, you can follow these steps after you have your local environment (Apache, PHP, and MySQL) up and running.

Step 1: Create a backup from your current live blog.

Log into phpMyAdmin (from a web host account), and select the “Export” tab.
Select the database your WordPress blog uses.
Make sure the “SQL” radio button is selected.
Click the “GO” button.
A new screen will display with a textarea box containing many SQL statements. These will re-create your entire database, tables with content when executed.
Copy this script to your favorite text editor

Step 2: Modifying your backup script.

Since we are restoring to a database from a different blog, we have to ‘tweak’ it a bit (database name and url parameters).
Change name of the database to the database of your development blog. This should be the first command in the script starting with CREATE DATABASE.
There are two lines that you need to specify the url of your development (http://localhost/). Do a text search on the ‘wp_options’ table. You will need to change the parameters of two INSERT INTO statements (‘siteurl’ and ‘home’).

Step 3: Copy your blog folder structure.

Copy the entire folder struture (and all files) of your live blog to your root directory of your local Apache environment. You can create a subfolder in your root if you wish. I discuss where this location is in the lesson.
Once copied, open up the wp-config.php file and make the neccessary changes. This would involve changing the database name (DB_NAME), database user (DB_USER), and database password (DB_PASSWORD) and MySQL host (DB_HOST). I discuss this in the lesson as well.

Step 4: Execute your modified restore script.

Open up phpMyAdmin in your local environment
Select the “SQL” tab.
Paste the restore script in the textarea box.
Click the “Go” button.
Verify that the database and tables have been created.

Step 5: Open up your local blog

Go to your local blog that you just copied all the files to. This will be http://localhost/. You will specify the subfolder if you created that as well.
Log into you blog

Now you have an exact local copy of your live blog that you can develop and test.

Note: Since we didn’t change any other parameters in the restore script, some of your plugins may not work. Also, if you use custom permalinks, you may need to modify your .htaccess file. Change your permalinks to the default setting (Settings->Permalinks), if you cannot see certain pages in your local blog.

20 Types of Blog Posts

Frank Stepanski — Fri, 09 Jul 2010 12:54:34 +0000

One of the traps that some bloggers fall into is that their blogs often become quite one-dimensional in terms of the type of posts they write.

Mixing up the types of post that you write can add interest and character to your blog, which will help to keep readers over the long haul. There are many types of posts that you might like to use—here are 20 to start experimenting with:

Instructional— I find that posts that contain tips or that are tutorials generally are the ones that are among my most popular. One of the main things that people search the Web for is to find help in overcoming a problem. Position yourself to answer these problems, and you can build a nice source of traffic over the long term.
Informational—This is one of the more common blog post types, where a blogger simply gives information on a topic. It could be a definition post or a longer explanation of some aspect of the niche that you’re writing on. This is the crux of successful sites like Wikipedia.
Reviews—Another highly searched-for term on the Web is “review.” Every time I’m considering buying a new product I head to Google and search for a review on it first—I know that I’m not alone. Reviews come in all shapes and sizes and on virtually every product or service you can think of.
Lists—One of the easiest ways to write a post is to make a list. Posts with content like, “The Top Ten ways to…,” “7 Reasons why…,” “5 Favorite…,” or “53 mistakes that bloggers make when…” are not only easy to write, but are usually very popular with readers and can be successful at getting links from other bloggers.
Interviews—Sometimes when you’ve run out of insightful things to say it might be a good idea to let someone else do the talking in an interview. This is a great way to not only give your readers a relevant expert’s opinion, but to perhaps even learn something about the topic you’re writing yourself.
Case studies—Another popular type of post is the case study, where you walk readers through an example of something that you’re writing about. These are useful posts for readers because they are real-life situations and often have practical tips associated with them.
Profiles—Profile posts are similar to case studies but focus in on a particular person. Pick an interesting personality in your niche and do a little research on them to present to your readers. Point out how they’ve reached the position they are in and write about the characteristics that they have that others in your niche might like to develop to be successful.
Link posts—The link post is a favorite form of blogging for many bloggers and is simply a matter of finding a quality post on another site or blog and linking up to it. You would usually also include an explanation of why you’re linking up, a comment of your own take on the topic, and/or a quote from the post. Adding your own comments makes these posts more original and useful to your readers.
“Problem” posts—Another term that is often searched for in Google in conjunction with product names is the word “problem” or “problems”— that is, where people are searching for help on a problem that they might have with something that they own or are trying to do. Problem posts are similar to review posts but focus more upon the negatives of a product or service.
Comparison posts—Life is full of decisions between two or more options. Write a post contrasting two products, services, or approaches that outlines the positives and negatives of each choice. In a sense these are review posts but are a little wider in focus.
Rants—Get passionate, stir yourself up, say what’s on your mind, and tell it like it is. Rants are great for starting discussion and causing a little controversy—they can also be quite fun if you do them in the right spirit. Just be aware when you write passionately about a controversial topic that others are likely to comment in a similar way. Rant posts lead to “flaming” in comment threads and to people saying things in the heat of the moment that they later regret, and which can impact their reputation. Proceed with caution.
Inspirational—On the flip side of the angry rant (and not all rants have to be angry) are inspirational and motivational posts. Tell a story of success or paint a picture of “what could be.” People like to hear good-news stories in their niche because it motivates them to persist with what they are doing. Find examples of success in your own experience or that of others and spread the word.
Research—Research posts can take a lot of time, but they can also be well worth it if you come up with interesting conclusions. Present your findings with a nice chart and with useful statistics, and you’ll often find other bloggers in your niche will link up to you.
Collation posts—These are a strange combination of research and link posts. In them you pick a topic that you think your readers will find helpful and then research what others have said about it. Once you’ve found their opinion, you bring together everyone’s ideas (often with short quotes) and tie them together with a few of your own comments to draw out the common themes that you see.
Prediction and review posts—We see a lot of these at the end and start of the year when people do their “year in review” posts and look at the year ahead and predict what developments might happen in their niche in the coming months. Prediction posts will often cause interesting debate.
Critique posts—Numerous bloggers have made a name for themselves by writing strong critiques of other people, products, or companies. Though sometimes these border on being “attack posts” and have rant-like qualities, a good constructive critique can be an effective way of making an impression upon others. People like to hear opinions, and though they might not always agree with them, if they are insightful, constructive, and respectfully written posts, they can lead to you growing your reputation in a niche.
Debate—Debates do well on blogs and can be done in an organized fashion between two people, between a blogger and “all comers,” or even between a blogger and… themselves (try it—argue both for and against a topic in one post—you can end up with a pretty balanced post). Probably the easiest way to do this is simply to ask your readers a question with two or more alternatives and see what they’ve got to say. Be willing to share your own opinion to get things going.
Hypothetical posts—”What if” or hypothetical posts can be quite fun. Pick something that could happen down the track in your industry and begin to unpack what the implications of it would be. “What if Google and Yahoo! merged?” “What if Canon released an update to xyz camera?” These posts can actually position you well in search engines if the hypothetical situation actually happens.
Satirical posts—Well-written satire, parody, or humor can be incredibly powerful and is brilliant for generating links for your blog. Keep in mind that sometimes these types of posts will be misinterpreted and cause people to react strongly.
Memes and projects—A meme is an idea that spreads, an “idea virus” as Seth Godin would describe it. In blogging this can be seen as an article or topic that gets copied from one blog to another, usually with a link back to the originator. Write a post that somehow involves your readers and gets them to replicate it in someway. Start a poll, an award, a competition, or ask your readers to submit a post/link or run a survey or quiz.

This is not an exhaustive list but rather just some of the types of posts that you might like to throw into your blog’s mix. Not every one will be suitable for all blogs or bloggers, but using more than one format can definitely add a little spice and color to a blog.

What is a WordCamp?

Frank Stepanski — Sat, 27 Feb 2010 12:31:09 +0000

WordCamp is a conference type of event that focuses squarely on everything WordPress. Everyone from casual end users all the way up to core developers show up to these events. These events are usually highlighted by speeches or keynotes by various people.

WordCamp is a spin off from the popular BarCamp which was a spin off of FooCamp. Each one of these events are smaller in nature when compared to your particular conference, but they are usually focused on a particular subject.

So what can you expect when you attend a WordCamp event? Based on the numerous amounts of videos and photos taken from attendees, you can expect a whole lot of fun in an atmosphere that promotes social interaction.

The first WordCamp conference was held in July of 2006 in San Francisco. Matt Mullenweg pulled this event together in only three weeks time and ended up with about 300 people in the Swedish American Hall. The first international WordCamp event was held in Beijing China on September 1st, 2007.

Check out the BlogHerald to see if there will be WordCamp in your area, or start your own.

Tips on Blog Administration and Management

Frank Stepanski — Tue, 09 Feb 2010 12:54:40 +0000

Administrating your blog goes beyond just writing posts and tracking your page ranking. It includes the regularly scheduled maintenance a blog need over time.

Managing your blog is a challenge at first as it is all new and there is so much to learn. As your blog becomes more sophisticated, possibly expanding into advertising, you will spend more time, do more research, and work harder at trying new things to make your blog better, and your readers happier.

Here are some quick tips to help your manage your blog better and more efficiently.

Create a blog maintenance calendar
Keep a collection of ready-to-publish posts handy
Don’t expect to reply to every comment
Create a home page for your product or service
Backup your blog
Upgrade your blogging program
Update plugins, widgets, gadgets and add-ons
Update blog content
Check for dead links and 404s
Validate and optimize your blog’s code

What is a ping?

Frank Stepanski — Wed, 03 Feb 2010 12:36:22 +0000

Ping, in the simplest terms, is an Internet tool that knocks on the doors of search engines and directories to invite them to crawl your website or blog.

When you publish a post on your blog, modern blogging programs send a signal to a pinging service such as Pingomatic which relays a digital invitation to seach engines, tagging services, and other web crawling services to visit your blog.

If you wish to manually ping, do it more than once within a reasonable length of time can result in penalization. Pinging is like submission to a search engine and carries penalization for abuse.

Manual pinging is a great way to reach search engines and directories outside of the most popular indexing services.

ActionScript 3.0 Basics for Designers Class

Frank Stepanski — Tue, 29 Dec 2009 02:54:22 +0000

Update June 2011
This class can be used with any current version of Flash: (CS5, CS4 or CS3)

This class is for existing Flash designers who want to incorporate user interactivity in their Flash web site or Flash developers who have not made the switch from earlier versions of ActionScript.

Currently ActionScript 3.0 is the internal programming language of Flash, Flex and Adobe AIR. This object oriented language is more adherent to the ECMA-262 standard which many other languages (i.e. JavaScript) follow.

Students will learn the basics of the core language of ActionScript 3.0, how it is used within the timeline, interact with objects (movieclips) on the stage and library, develop simple animations with just ActionScript and understand the importance and how to create preloaders for your movies.

The class is only $25 and students can use either Adobe Flash CS5, CS4 or even CS3.

Topics covered:

Week 1: Trace statement, comments, variables, loops, functions and object basics.
Week 2: Manipulating movie clip properties
Week 3: Events: overview, targeting, propagating, timeline control methods
Week 4: More events: frame and keyboard events; timer events
Week 5: Loading external assets (images and movies); Display list explained
Week 6: Working with preloaders and sound

To give you an idea of how each lesson looks, here is the first lesson (.pdf).

Materials for Class

All the course materials for the class are sent via email as attachments within 48 hours of payment. Feel free to contact me if you have any questions.

Understanding T-SQL using SQL Server Class

Frank Stepanski — Mon, 05 Oct 2009 20:31:01 +0000

This class is for web administrators, web developers, analysts, or anybody else wanting to learn how to write simple to complex queries to retrieve and manipulate data from a SQL Server or other similiar database.

SQL stands for Structured Query Language. SQL is a standard language that was designed to query and manage data in relational database management systems (RDBMS). An RDBMS is a database management system that is used today in every type of desktop or web-based application. Microsoft provides T-SQL (Transact SQL) as a dialect of, or extension to, SQL in Microsoft SQL Server, its RDBMS

Microsoft SQL Server is one of the most popular RDBMS used today and a solid understanding of T-SQL is critical if you want to have a successful career in Microsoft application development (desktop or web).

The class is only $25 and there are no other materials or software needed to purchase.

Topics covered:

Week 1: Setting up SQL Server 2008 Express & Management Studio
Week 2: SELECT statements; Predicates and Operators, Case Expressions
Week 3: Joins: Cross, Outer and Inner
Week 4: Subqueries
Week 5: Data Modification: Inserting, Updating, Deleting and Merging
Week 6: Programmable Objects: Variables, Routines and Functions

To give you an idea of how each lesson looks, here is the first lesson (.pdf).

Materials for Class

All the course materials for the class are sent via email as attachments within 48 hours of payment. Feel free to contact me if you have any questions.

jQuery: Enhancing Web Development Class

Frank Stepanski — Wed, 16 Sep 2009 15:27:01 +0000

Update April 2011
This class has been re-vamped, and includes the exact same materials from the class I teach at eClasses.org.

This class is geared for web designers to help and learn how to use jQuery to enhance existing web pages as well as web developers to teach them how to use a very popular and powerful JavaScript library.

If you’ve spent any time at all trying to add dynamic functionality to your pages, you’ve found that you’re constantly following a pattern of selecting an element or group of elements and operating upon those elements in some fashion. You could be hiding or revealing the elements, adding a CSS class to them, animating them, or modifying their attributes.

Using raw JavaScript can result in dozens of lines of code for each of these tasks. The creators of jQuery specifically created the library to make common tasks trivial.

The class will be teaching not only how to use the many functions and properties of API, but practical examples you can use right away.

The class is only $25 and there are no other materials or software needed to purchase.

Topics covered:

Week 1: Getting Started with jQuery
Week 2: Selecting, Decorating and Enhancing
Week 3: Manipulating Content
Week 4: Animation Effects
Week 5: jQuery UI & Forms

To give you an idea of how each lesson looks, here is the first lesson (.pdf).

Materials for Class

All the course materials for the class are sent via email as attachments within 48 hours of payment. Feel free to contact me if you have any questions.

Beginning ASP.NET AJAX Web Development Class

Frank Stepanski — Sun, 16 Aug 2009 13:24:38 +0000

This class has been closed, and it’s course materials have been moved to the new Database ASP.NET Web Development class

I created an AJAX ASP.NET class called AJAX Web Development with ASP.NET at LVSOnline.com. This fourth ASP.NET class in the series focuses on teaching students how the Ajax can be integrated within the ASP.NET framework.

Ajax (Asynchronous JavaScript and XML) isn’t a technology but rather a grouping of technologies. Ajax uses a communication technology (typically SOAP and XML) to send and receive an asynchronous request/response to the server, and then leverages presentation technologies (JavaScript, DOM, HTML, and CSS) to process the response.

~~Ajax lets you execute a server-side method through a JavaScript call, without requiring a browser refresh.~~

~~The class is only $30 and there are no other materials or software needed to purchase.~~

~~Topics covered:~~

Week 1: Ajax overview; partial rendering; Ajax Extension controls; Script Manager
Week 2: Update Panel; Handing client errors; Update Progress
Week 3: AJAX Control Toolkit
Week 4: JavaScript libraries: jQuery
Week 5: Timer, Web Services and JSON Overview
Week 6: AJAX ASP.NET Controls: Telerik

~~To give you an idea of how each lesson looks, here is the first lesson (.pdf).~~

~~When Does Class Start?~~

The class runs five times a year for six weeks in January, March, May, August and October. To learn more view the course description page and contact me to find out the exact date on when you can register.