The Living Wisdom site redesign has gone live.

We've been working with David and Rosemary Riddell - and around their hectic schedule - on a redesign of their original site launched back in 1997!

The new site is powered by WordPress which puts site owners in the driving seat with the ability, after a little training, to add and update content from the comfort of their own computer.

The basic site went live today, with an online shop and some other features to come in the near future.

The Living Wisdom School of Counselling is based in sunny Nelson, and holds regular seminars and workshops in Nelson and around the country.

An excellent blog post on company/organisation culture from Fast Company

Culture is a balanced blend of human psychology, attitudes, actions, and beliefs that combined create either pleasure or pain, serious momentum or miserable stagnation. A strong culture flourishes with a clear set of values and norms that actively guide the way a company operates. Employees are actively and passionately engaged in the business, operating from a sense of confidence and empowerment rather than navigating their days through miserably extensive procedures and mind-numbing bureaucracy. Performance-oriented cultures possess statistically better financial growth, with high employee involvement, strong internal communication, and an acceptance of a healthy level of risk-taking in order to achieve new levels of innovation.

Read in full: Culture Eats Strategy For Lunch | Fast Company.

That's got to be a good thing for everyone aside from those with ridiculous levels of ad content on their sites. Google estimates only about 1% will be affected.

As we’ve mentioned previously, we’ve heard complaints from users that if they click on a result and it’s difficult to find the actual content, they aren’t happy with the experience. Rather than scrolling down the page past a slew of ads, users want to see content right away. So sites that don’t have much content “above-the-fold” can be affected by this change. If you click on a website and the part of the website you see first either doesn’t have a lot of visible content above-the-fold or dedicates a large fraction of the site’s initial screen real estate to ads, that’s not a very good user experience. Such sites may not rank as highly going forward.

We understand that placing ads above-the-fold is quite common for many websites; these ads often perform well and help publishers monetize online content. This algorithmic change does not affect sites who place ads above-the-fold to a normal degree, but affects sites that go much further to load the top of the page with ads to an excessive degree or that make it hard to find the actual original content on the page. This new algorithmic improvement tends to impact sites where there is only a small amount of visible content above-the-fold or relevant content is persistently pushed down by large blocks of ads.

Read more on Search Engine Land

When it comes to backing up your data, its pays to be a pessimist.

As if we needed one, recent events close to home were a harsh reminder that you never know what lies around the corner.

When dealing with any data stored on computers and digital devices, the Scout motto, 'be prepared' is good advice.

Having an up-to-date, off-site copy of all your digital data is a guarantee that whatever happens, you'll have a far easier job putting the pieces back together.

Do you have a backup of your WordPress site?

It's essential to have a full copy of your WordPress website that can be used to restore your site in the event disaster strikes.

That means performing regular backups of your site, keeping them somewhere secure. Ideally, you'll have at least the last three backups stored in different places and different mediums e.g. on a mail server, a hard drive, a flash drive.

How often you back up will depend on how frequently your site is updated.

There are two parts to backing up your site - your database and your files.

Your Database

Your database contains a range of information about your site including the contents of your posts, pages and comments, your tags and your categories.

It's relatively straightforward to schedule automatic backups of your database that can be stored or sent to an email account using a plug-in such as WP-DB-Backup.

If you use a plug-in you'll need to keep an eye on it and verify the databases it sends you.

Other methods of backing up your database can be found on the WordPress codex.

Your Files

Backing up your WordPress files requires access to your WordPress directory.

Some hosting control panels allow you to backup your site. Another option is using an FTP client.

You won't need to back up the WordPress core files unless you've modified them which is always a bad idea.

You will need to backup all the other files which affect the look and functionality of your site.

These will vary depending on how your site is set up, but it will often include the following:

.htaccess This file is modified by WordPress depending on various settings and is sometimes used by plug-ins or edited manually by the developer. It usually resides in the root directory. As it is sometimes hidden, you may need to tweak program settings to see it.

wp-config.php This file contains important data. It makes things a lot easier if you have a copy. It generally lives in the root directory.

The wp-content directory contains other files and folders such as your uploads folder which may include images, audio and video files. You can back the whole wp-content directory up or you can specifically select what you need.

It is a good idea to backup all your images. Although you will likely have the original copies, adding them one by one to your site can be avoided by backing up the images directory, usually wp-content/uploads/. WordPress assigns each uploaded image a unique ID which is stored in the database and with the posts or pages the images are on.

When the database and the image directory are restored, your images should be back on the original posts and pages.

The /wp-content/themes/ folder will contain child theme files, if you are using one, which should also be backed up.

Backing up your plug-ins directory is optional but can save time rebuilding a site.

Plug-in settings and data are usually stored in the database. Some plug-ins generate considerable amounts of data which you may choose to exclude from your database backups.

There are a range of ways your site can be set up so there may be other files that need to be backed up we haven't covered here. You can read more on the WordPress Codex.

Be Prepared!

There are any number of things that may cause you to lose all or part of your site. Server failure for whatever reason, your site may get hacked, you or someone else may accidentally delete some posts or pages, you may install a dodgy plug-in which causes data loss.

Whatever the cause, you'll want a quick recovery and for that you'll need a complete backup.

Don't delay, get it sorted now!

LifeformLabs specialises in deploying, optimising and maintaining WordPress installations

- we can also take care of your backups.

If you'd like to discuss the various options drop us a line »

Search, plus Your World »

...and here's a rather funky video that gives a clever insight into the new look...

Read the full story: Twitter lashes out at Google search changes | Stuff.co.nz

The article is good for a bit of a laugh, the comments that follow are almost as entertaining.

Facebook. It's not really who you are, it's how you want to be perceived online by your friends and family - and those hundreds of other random people who you friended for reasons you cannot recall.

Read the article on Stuff: What your Facebook profile photo reveals | Stuff.co.nz.

WHAT DAY IS IT? Rebecca Black's 'song' was the most watched clip of 2011.

As 2011 draws to a close it can be interesting to ponder on the year that was - online.

Of the top 10 clips viewed by New Zealanders this year, eight were homegrown, including the now-infamous Nek Minute and Ghost Chips videos.

The clip Nek Minute, uploaded by skateboarder Levi Hawken mucking around with a scooter, featured at number two on the list with 1.7 million views.

It was beaten only by the so-called "worst song ever written", 13-year-old Rebecca Black's Friday, which caused a global sensation when it was released earlier this year.

Friday, the most-watched YouTube video the world over, now has more than 167 million hits.

For a full run down of what we watched most on YouTube:

Top 10 Most-watched YouTube clips of 2011 | Stuff.co.nz.

Search engines boil down to one basic concept: helping users find what they’re looking for. Large amounts of social shares indicate that a mass amount of people not only found what they were looking for on your site, but also liked your site enough to share it with others.

Viral content is like the mass endorsement of the public; a giant thumbs-up formed from thousands of hands.

Read the full article »