While working on a client site which used both the W3 Total Cache plugin as well as the Facebook Share plugin, I came across a bug where the Facebook Share icon that was to be placed at the top and bottom of each blog post was disappearing, only to be replaced by a “Share” link that linked to nowhere.

After playing around with the Facebook Share settings for quite some time, I started deactivating plugins one by one to see if there was a conflict causing this. I noticed that the culprit was the W3 Total Cache plugin, which was crucial to the stability of this highly trafficked web site and could not be deactivated nor replaced, as it really is the best plugin for WordPress caching.

Solution #1:

I was able to fix the issue by changing a single W3 Total Cache setting. By going in my admin to Performance > Minify, I scrolled down to the JavaScript settings, unchecked the “Enable” checkbox and clicked “Save changes.” I was also able to leave the global Minify setting for the plugin (found by navigation to Performance > General Settings) enabled for CSS minification.

Voila! My Facebook Share icon was now appearing on the site again and functioning properly.

It is my feeling that the Facebook Share plugin is not the only plugin out there being impacted by W3 Total Cache’s minify settings. I would venture to guess that there a good number of other JavaScript-based plugins that could be broken by JS  magnification, so keep this in mind for future plugin bugs and conflicts.

Solution #2:

On my own site, I am running W3 Total Cache with Minify enabled globally (to reduce the memory imprint of both CSS and JS code) while also running a Facebook Like button plugin with no problems.

The W3 Total Cache-compatible Facebook plugin that I’m running is simply titled “Like” and can be found at http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/like.

By default, the WordPress sidebar remains identical on every single page of your web site. However, sometimes we need to be able to have a specific sidebars for different pages. For example, maybe you have a “Products” page that needs testimonials along the sidebar while your “About Us” page sidebar needs to display a listing of awards.

Solutions:

The Advanced Way:
Create a separate page template with it’s own sidebar widget function. Alternately, you could include a conditional statement in your sidebar.php to display different sidebars depending on the page that’s being displayed.

If none of what I’m saying makes any sense to you, then you’ll probably want…

The “Regular Folks” Way:
Simply download the Per Page Sidebars plugin at
http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/per-page-sidebars.

Once it’s installed, you’ll notice that at the bottom of each of your pages is a box titled “Custom Sidebar” (see image below). To set up a unique custom sidebar for the page that you’re creating, simply check the “Activate Custom Sidebar” box, and select which of the sidebar widget areas you’d like to replace. In the screenshot below, we’re replacing the “Primary Widget Area” – which is the sidebar that goes at the upper right-hand side of every page.

Now go into the “Widgets” page of your admin, and you’ll see a new widget area labled “PPS-” followed by the name of the page with the page-specific sidebar.

A couple of things to consider:

• At this time the plugin only allows you to set up custom sidebars for pages, and not for posts or custom post types.
• Removing a custom sidebar widget was a little bit unintuitive. To do so, simply go to the page with the custom sidebar, and uncheck not only the “Activate Custom Sidebar?” checkbox, but also the radio button next to the name of the sidebar that your custom sidebar was replacing.

In experimenting with Wazala in conjunction with a WordPress website, sadly, at the time of this blog posting, the WordPress plugin simply did not work for me, and I had to refer to the inaccurate instructions on Wazala’s web site to get the thing working (long story short, you need to paste a bit of code directly before the </head> tage of your site.)

However, once you get the code into your header, then it’s smooth sailing without another lick of code necessary to get your store up and running.

How it Works

To quote from Wazala’s web site:
Add a “store” button to your blog or website, and your store will simply pop-up over your content — no more sending your customers elsewhere to make a purchase. Wazala functions as a part of your existing site.

Wazala Store Button on the upper-right hand side. Upon mouseover, it slides down just a little bit to display checkout information.

Once you click on the store button, you get a clean and attractive overlay window with containing your entire store. By default, the window is styled in a neutral manner so that out of the box it integrates pretty seamlessly into the look and feel of your site.

Here's what the store overlay looks like.

The store in the screencap above allows for multiple categories, which is not possible with the free plan, but comes with the least expensive of the paid plans. The free plan restricts you to 5 products and limited functionality, while the paid plans run anywhere from $9.95 to $29.95 per month, with significant discounts if you pay for the entire year up front. Click here to see full pricing details.

Adding Products

Adding products is done on Wazala’s web site using a set of super-easy and intuitive forms that allow for a good amount of flexibility in terms of product, payment, and shipping options. I actually found this much easier than that the ubiquitous E-junkie shopping cart where the interface for adding products is much more cluttered and involves jumping through some relatively unintuitive hoops for adding product variations.

(Click to enlarge image) This is where add, edit, and delete individual store products

(Click to enlarge image) This is where you control store-wide options.

Other Integration Options

Some other cool things that you can do to make your store integrate more seamlessly and effectively with the rest of your site:

• Replace the default “Store” button on the top of your screen with your own button or text link to be placed anywhere you want on your web site
• Link directly to individual products
• Add an “Add to cart” button or link anywhere on your site
• Add an “Add to Favorites” or “Wish List” button or link anywhere on your site
• Add a “View Shopping Cart” button or link anywhere on your site
• Replace the black semi-transparent overlay which surrounds the store window with a custom background image
• Add a custom page to your store which is accessed by clicking on a link at the bottom of the store overlay

Compatible Payment Processing Options

• Paypal Premier
• Paypal Business
• Google Checkout
• Paypal Website Payments Pro
• Authorize.net

SEO Considerations

While the overlay makes for very easy integration, keep in mind that your products will not be indexed by the search engines, so if SEO of your individual products is a deal-breaker, then this is may not be the solution for you.

One possible workaround would be to create individual product pages within your web site. On each product page you could include a button that spawns the store’s overlay opening to that exact product’s page.

Conclusion

After playing around with the store quite a bit, I found it to be rock-solid and super-easy to use. Unless your intention is to build a site that is completely centered around e-commerce (a la Walmart.com or BestBuy.com), then I highly recommend Wazala.

For more details, see Wazala’s web site.

Here’s a special quick post this week to solve a problem I’ve been seeing around the web, but with no solution.

I was recently working on a high-traffic site that that uses using the W3 Total Cache plugin in conjunction with an Akamai CDN. This is a great way to optimize site performance and stability, but I did run into the unfortunate side effect of the NextGen Gallery plugin’s slideshow ceasing to work as soon as the CDN was integrated.

Thanks to my favorite WordPress hosting guru Willie Jackson, there is now a solution.

Following Willie’s lead, and as seen in the screencap above, here’s how you fix this issue:

1. In the settings box for the W3 Total Cache plugin, labeled ’Performance,’  go into the CDN screen.
2. At the bottom of the page, there is a box for rejected files.
3. In that box, add the path to the image rotator .swf file (will be “wp-content/uploads/imagerotator.swf” in most cases)

And voila, your slideshow and CDN live together happily ever after!

Talking…AND Listening – The 2 Parts of Conversation

We’ve all experienced this person at one time or another. You know, that guy or gal who drones on and on with zero awareness of the interest level of the person that they’re talking to. Lord knows, I’m sure that I’ve been this person at one time or another, and I would venture to guess that almost all of us have been too.

The “Monologue Disease”

I call this the “Monologue Disease,” and find it extremely widespread but not often talked about. Trouble is, when it comes to the world of business, I have yet to meet someone who is fantastically successful while also manifesting this disease in his or her conversations with their fellow business-folk. Although victims of this disease are almost always well-meaning, the act of droning on and on without self-awareness tends to tire, stress-out, and repel others. In short, this is a truly devastating handicap for one’s efforts in the realm of in-person networking.

Of course, there are occasions where we must carry on a one-sided conversation for extended periods of time. Obviously, when delivering a speech, teaching or explaining something to a willing audience, or telling a story to people who are genuinely interested, we often do have to speak solo for a long while, so I’m not taling about those instances.

5 Tips for Overcoming “The Disease”

1. Employ the 30-Second rule. I believe that we all must develop an internal alarm system that goes off when we’ve been the only ones speaking for 30 seconds or more. Of course, I don’t suggest automatically shutting up after 30 seconds, but simply check in with yourself to make sure that this is one of those cases where speaking without a break is necessary.
2. Pick up on body language cues. Is the person you’re speaking to suffering from a case of shifty eyes or extra fidgeting? If so, you may want to take pause.
3. When it is necessary to speak for extended periods of time, make sure to leave a few pauses in your speech to allow for someone to get that proverbial “word in edgewise” if needed.
4. Slow down. Doing anything very quickly is usually a sure sign that we’re in an unconscious mode of autopilot and not attuned to what’s happening around us.
5. Stay conscious of your topic. There are times when veering off-topic into new and distant tangents is a part of a fun and lively conversation. But it can also be warm invitation for the dreaded Monologue Disease, so stay conscious when skipping about in this way.

Do I apply these 5 tips perfectly myself? HELL to the NO – so this is a good reminder for me as much as it might be for anyone else reading this.

I plan on expanding on the “Monologue Disease” as it applies to our online presence in a future post, as this is something I’ve certainly struggled with on my own web site.

QUESTION: Have you noticed the “Monologue Disease” in your own communications, or the communications of others, either personally or in business?

Avoiding learning new technologies means you could very well lose the opportunity to infuse your individual personality into your digital communications. In this new business landscape, standing out from the ever-increasing online crowd means balancing the efficiency of powerful technology with authentic human relationships.

If the thought of updating your blog or adding a PayPal button to your web site leaves you stricken with the fear of God, here are some suggestions to help you claim your digital independence:

1. When in doubt, always Google first. You’ll be surprised how many folks out there have had the same roadblock as you. Google is smart enough that you can usually just type in your exact question in its entirety, but if doing that doesn’t provide you with an answer, try stripping your query down to the words are directly and specifically related to your issue. For example, instead of typing “How do I link my blog to Facebook,” strip your query down to “link blog to Facebook.” And if can get super-specific about the technology you’re using, even better. The best case scenario here would be “link WordPress to Facebook.”
2. Realize that much of what you’re looking at is written in English. If that sounds a bit condescending, let me reassure you that I’ve had to remind myself of this same fact time and again as well! For example, looking at the WordPress control panel that I’m using to compose this blog post, if I read down the various options on the left side of the screen, I see the words “Posts,” “Add New,” “Categories,” and “Post Tags.” While terms such “Post Tags” might take the newbie on a quick Google excursion, generally speaking, the terminology you’ll see on most online products and services is in plain English (as opposed to some intimidating blur of computer jargon).
3. Get clear on precisely where you’re stuck. Maybe you’re not as confused as you might think. Rather than resigning yourself to saying “I JUST DON’T GET IT!,” try and see if you can isolate precisely what it is that you don’t get. For example, maybe you know how to create a blog post, but you’re not sure why it adds that extra space between certain lines of text. Asking “How do I get rid of that extra space between lines of text” is going to get you answers much quicker than just throwing your hands up in dismay and quitting (tempting as that may be at times!).
4. Hire a specialist to give you 1-2 hours of instruction. Since the vast majority of us learn best by doing, taking your first few stabs at trying a new technology with a pro standing by is going to be exponentially faster and more stress-free than going it alone. If necessary, finding a techno-tutor via Craigslist need not be a sketchy affair. Thanks to technologies such as Skype and Adobe ConnectNow, your specialist should be able to conduct the lesson via teleconferencing and screen-sharing rather than meeting you in person. In any case, it’s always good to get some references or at the very least see at a few testimonials before hiring someone.
5. Choose online products and services with a reputation for awesome technical support. If a company hides its tech support contact info somewhere deep inside its web site, then that generally means that they’re probably not going to be very available for you in your time of need. And definitely avoid web hosts that don’t offer phone support, or only offer phone support during business hours.
6. Avoid online products and services that are not widely used. Aside from receiving tech support from the company itself, the next best thing is a strong user community. If the product or online service you’re using has a relatively small user base, then it means that it is unlikely that there will be many online resources such as user forums to supply you the answers you need, rendering your Google-ing efforts quite fruitless.
7. Trick yourself into learning by working on a project that’s close to your heart. Having fun in the process of learning is going to accelerate the process exponentially. Rather than forcing yourself into a crash-course with a stress-filled looming deadline, come up with a project that is low-pressure, but still important. For example, maybe you want to create a really slick online photo album as a surprise for your loved ones. There’s an example of a project that’s fun and meaningful enough to inspire you to persevere through the challenges, but not something that could possibly interfere with your job or your business if not done perfectly.
8. Remember, it’s only the internet. I remember hearing those words from a very talented and dedicated former co-worker. Of course, to many of us this sounds like blasphemy in a hyper-connected world where the internet seems to exist as an Intravenous lifeline. But in most cases, especially if you’re a newbie, chances are you don’t have millions of people depending on your web site for their livelihoods (a la eBay). I’d also venture to guess that national security will probably be just fine if your latest blog post doesn’t show up on your Facebook profile for a few hours.

No need to fear being a beginner and asking for help –  just take that plunge now, you won’t regret it.

Thanks to my marketing compadre Phyllis Zimbler Miller at Miller Mosaic Power Marketing, I was recently made aware of a setting on my LinkedIn profile that’s pretty darn important, super-quick and easy to fix, but which has nonetheless eluded my consciousness over the last few years that I’ve been using LinkedIn.

Click image to for a larger view.

The Ever Important “Websites” Setting

If you go to any LinkedIn profile, at the upper-left-hand side of the page, directly beneath where it says “Connections,” you’ll see the section labeled ”Websites” where you can list up to three links to any URL you choose.  Most people end up simply entering the URL and leaving LinkedIn and its default settings to the task of labeling that URL. The result is often a listing of websites that reads something along the example we see in the image above. As you can see, “My Company”, “My Blog”, and “My Company” is redundant and vague, and most importantly, a missed opportunity to attract folks to your more important online properties.

Adjusting the “Websites” Setting

1. Once you’re logged into your LinkedIn account, go to Profile > Edit Profile
2. In the “Websites” section (circled in red in the screenshot above), click on the “Edit” link near any one of your links
3. From there, you’ll be taken to a page with the settings for up to 3 links at the top of the page. Each link has a drop-down menu, and from that drop-down menu, choose the last option, “Other.”
4. A new input field should appear. Type in the what you’d like your link to be labeled.
5. Repeat this for up to 2 more links, hit the “Save Changes” button, and you’re done!

Ultra Pro Web Sites

For some time now, I’ve been dreaming and scheming towards my very own web site package that would address the needs of small to medium-sized businesses.

The package that I finally came up with was the result of noticing how so many websites are weighed down by bells-and-whistles that do nothing other than add additional time and expense to the web site development process, distract site visitors from where you want them to go, and end up getting broken or neglected by the (understandably) confused web site owner.

Here’s another way to look at how I approached the creation of this package:

Would you rather drive a tricked-out custom Yugo…or a simple and basic BMW?

Ultra Pro Web Sites are geared towards folks who would opt for the vehicle on the right.

All dressed up with nowhere to go

Phyllis and Yael of Miller Mosaic Power Marketing

Building a snazzy web site with no marketing and social media plan is like putting on a $20,000 Vera Wang evening gown and staying home to watch TV.

For this reason, I’m collaborating with my social media and online marketing compadres at Miller Mosaic Power Marketing to help you come up with an effective and sensible plan to connect you to your target audience using your awesome new online presence.

Entrepreneurs helping Entrepreneurs

So you’re probably wondering how the Kiva logo you’re seeing throughout the page ties into a web site package. Well, I’ll tell you that Kiva.org is one of the most amazing charities I’ve ever come across. Kiva enables anyone to provide a micro-loan to an entrepreneur in a developing nation. For these folks, just a small loan can go a very long way towards helping them provide basic necessities themselves and for their families. Using Kiva.org, I recently loaned a small amount of money to a group of women manufacturing clothes in Uganda, and within a matter of months, my loan was 100% repaid, leaving me free to either collect the money for myself, or loan it out once again. You can learn more about what Kiva does by hopping on over to their web site.

The gift that keeps giving

Because I believe so strongly in what Kiva is doing, I’m going to be including a $50 Kiva gift card with the purchases of an Ultra Pro Web Site. This card can immediately be used to make one of these life-changing loans. Since these over 98% of Kiva’s loans are repaid, then you are almost certain to be able to continue using your $50 gift card to change lives for as long as you want.

More about the Ultra Pro Web Sites

Actually, I don’t need to do the whole sales song and dance here. But I will quickly tell you that each web site comes standard with:

• WordPress content management system so you can easily add, edit, and delete your own content
• Optional blog with spam protection
• Top-notch designs
• Your logo plus up to 5 pages of content added by yours truly
• Access to a library of easy to follow how-to videos for updating your web site
• Connections to your social media profiles
• Industry-standard analytics to measure your web site’s performance
• Search-engine optimization plug-in
• A $50 gift certificate for a micro-loan on Kiva.org

…and some more stuff as well, including some additional design and functionality that you can add on if you choose, as well as optional marketing/social media strategy and content creation via Miller Mosaic Power Marketing.

So if all of this sounds interesting to you, then just head on over to the official page for the Ultra Pro Web Sites to learn more.

Since I’m always looking to network with interactive agencies (who are usually a strong match for my particular services), before I meet someone at a particular agency either in person or over the phone, I take a quick glance at that person’s LinkedIn profile and see how I’m connected to that person.

In case you’re not familiar with the part of the LinkedIn profile that I’m referring to, see the screenshot below to see precisely where it is.

Click image for a larger view

Embarking on this 10-second research project before your meeting so that you can bring up your shared connections can build a great bridge.

If nothing else, it’s interesting trivia just to see how you’re connected. Of course, the person I’m meeting may have no idea who the folks who connected to us are, since LinkedIn has a way of hooking us up with pretty random folks at times, but it’s definitely a good start.

So who knows, maybe this is pretty obvious “well…DUH” type of information, but it just now occurred to me, so I figured I’d share.

Inspired by the supa-talented Portland-based designer Deb Pang Davis‘s recent blog post What I Learned this Week #19 2010, I’ve decided to follow suit with my own list of things I learned, last week, but just about WordPress (otherwise we’d be here all month, as I obviously know very little and each week is a completely new adventure in all areas of my life).

1) The Easiest Way to Add a Thumbnail Photo Gallery to your Posts and Pages

While I’ve always been a big fan of the unbelievable WordPress image gallery plugin NextGen, if I want a simpler (but more limited) solution, the Shadowbox JS plugin is an awesome alternative.

For those of you who don’t know, WordPress gives you the option of creating a thumbnail gallery of images right on your blog post or page. However, the default behavior of this gallery is that upon clicking on each thumbnail, a full-size version of the image appears in your browser’s main window, taking the user away from your post or page. Pretty lame in my opinion.

Shadowbox JS makes it so that upon clicking a thumbnail, a dark but transparent overlay with the full-size version of your image appears. Inside this overlay area are navigation buttons so you can flip through your full-size images very easily. This way users quickly see the full-size version of your image without being taken off of the current page.

Get the plugin here: http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/shadowbox-js/

2) WordPress 3.0′s Custom Post Types Rule.

I’m going to keep this as un-technical as possible, but make a long story short, Custom Post Types allow you to have content on your site that’s not just limited to standard WordPress pages or blog posts. Basically, this makes WordPress a much more powerful and flexible content management system that will also be ultimately much easier for non-technical folks to update.

For example, you could have special movie review pages, photo feature pages, podcast episode pages, etc. Each of these special content types can be on specially-formatted pages separate from your blog posts or pages. And that’s just scraping the tip of the iceberg…

However, setting up custom post types on your WordPress site is likely to take some mucking around with PHP code, so definitely be aware of that.

Here’s the best article on the topic that I’ve seen yet: http://justintadlock.com/archives/2010/04/29/custom-post-types-in-wordpress

3) The Magic Fields Plugin also Rules.

For a long time, this plugin has basically done what the newly-introduced Custom Post Types functionality is doing but using a different technological approach. However what this plugin brings to the table is setting up a much nicer user interface for a non-technical user to update their custom pages and posts.

For example, I am currently working on a project where the client needs to create highly-configurable mini-sites which are not blog posts or pages. In fact, each and every mini-site needs to have its own unique header graphics, page backgrounds, and sidebar content.

Magic Fields allows me to set their site up in a way that the admin section for each mini-site comes complete with an additional form at the bottom of the page that’s super-easy to use, thereby allowing my client to establish a totally custom look and feel for each individual mini-site.

At this time, the developers of Magic Fields are updating the plugin to integrate with WordPress 3.0′s Custom Post Types.

Check out the plugin for yourself here: http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/magic-fields/

4) I’m Learning Way More Than I Thought

As I write this post, I’m having a difficult time keeping it brief, and also having to leave out a good amount of information. Working full-time as a self-employed WordPress and UI developer forces me to squeeze an insane amount of new information into my brain on a daily basis…and for that I’m very grateful.