1. URL is the location online where the graphic will be posted. The upload tab allows you to send an image from your desktop to the web server.
   The html code looks like <img src=”http://www.domain.com/subfolders/image.jpg”>.
2. Alternative Text or Alt text as it’s abbreviated is an important element and should always be employed. It accomplished two very important tasks.
   • Provides visually impaired readers an explanation of the graphic, which was it’s original intent.
   • Enables search engines to more effectively index your site for more effective optimization.

   The html code looks like alt=”Photo caption”

3. Width and Height are optional attributes. I always reduce my images to the appropriate size in a photo editor before uploading as it reduces page load time. But in the case of slight modifications, these attributes are very helpful.
   The html code looks like width=”150px” and height=”150px” where px stands for pixels.
4. Border is often used to remove a border around linked images. In some cases it’s helpful to add a border to an image. To remove a border the element would be 0.
   The html code looks like border=”0″ or border =”1″.
5. HSpace and VSpace elements add horizontal and vertical space, which creates white space around images.
   The html code looks like hspace=”10″ and vspace=”10″.
6. Align is primarily used to position an image to the left or right of the page. This allows text to wrap in a natural fashion around the image.
   The html code looks like align=”left”.

The first two attributes, the URL and Alternative Text should always be set when uploading images to page content. Border, HSpace, VSpace, Align and other attributes can be set with CSS styling. Sounds like another post. Gee, I guess you’ll have to check back soon for styling images with CSS.

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1. Create category based sections. By editing the tabs in your main navigation you can create tabs that index specific categories of your site. This is the method used on thoughtsparks.net for the tabs at the top of the page. The links are wrapped within list-item tags <li></li>. The list-items are placed after the home link and before the page links code.
   
2. Syndicate category based feeds. The category for tutorials would have the feed address: http://www.thoughtsparks.net/category/tutorials/feed. Potentially this enables one to reuse any group of content. This feed then could be syndicated through a service like Feedburner. This feed now can be picked-up as http://feeds.feedburner.com/ThoughtSparksTutorials.
   
3. Make very short user-friendly URLs. In the very beginning configuration of a WordPress install is the time to decide on the best URL permalink method for your site. Rather than a URL structure that is http://www.domainname.com/?p=123/, your domain references can be http://www.domainname.com/the-name-of-the-post/.
   
   To setup a short URL structure:

1. Go to Options Tab in the WordPress Admin interface
2. Click on Permalinks
3. Select Custom, specify below radio button
4. Where it says Custom structure: input /%postname%/
5. Click Update Permalink Structure

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Setting up WordPress websites has become a regular part of my work. Much more than just for blogs, the platform is ideal for rapidly launching sites. In fact, nine out of ten WP sites I launch are non-blogging sites. I thought for my sake and for others who are looking for a checklist for what needs to be done to setup a WordPress website, I’d punch out a basic checklist for the process. This may get quite lengthy, but hopefully it will be a helpful resource to make sure all the bases are covered.

Hosting

• Search for and select domain an open domain.
• Sign-up with host and document access information.
• Setup ftp access and document access information.
• Setup MySQL database and document access information.
• Create sub-folder on host with the same name as domain (This allows easy launching of additional sites on same host) and point domain to sub-folder.

WordPress Install

• Download and unzip latest version of WordPress.
• Save wp-config-sample.php as wp-config and edit database access information in the top of the document. The documented info from your host provider, i.e. database name, host, username and password should be entered.
• Upload WordPress and go to the domain address in the browser.
• Click to install and be sure to copy the temporary Admin password into notepad and log-in to instigate the installation.
• Immediately change the Admin password to something familiar so that you don’t lock yourself out of WordPress.

Basic WordPress Configuration

• During installation check the "I would like to block search engines, but allow normal visitors" during the configuration process. To change the setting later go to "Settings" under the Privacy link and change the option to "I would like my blog to be visible to everyone, including search engines…".
• Search for and upload a theme to modify. For CSS gurus who want to configure I highly customized site, I recommend using the Sandbox theme. Not a lot of bells and whistles, but it provides a strip-down template to build from scratch.
• Change the Permalink. Under settings in WP 2.5+ go to Permalinks and change the default. My favorite is the simple Custom Structure: /%postname%/.
• Write a Page called "Home" and set it as the default homepage. Under "Settings" click on "Reading" and for "Front page displays" click "A static page" and select "Home" for under the "Front page" drop-down.
• Setup the basic landing pages and sub-pages for the site. When a sub-page is created, under "Page Parent" select the parent page.
• Delete the site Description. In most cases I have no need for the "Tagline" that is used for blogs. I’ll add-in my own meta tags later. Go to "Settings" which brings-up "General Settings" and delete the "Tagline".

Install Plug-ins

• Download the FCKEditor for WordPress plugin. Unzip and upload folder to wp-content/plugins/. Then activate the plugin. This will instigate a much improved wysiwyg editor for pages and posts.
• Download and install the WordPress Database Backup plugin. This nifty plugin can schedule to email you a backup of the database on a weekly basis. You will still need to download your site periodically, but what an amazing function to capture the content from the site.
• Download and instlal cforms II an amazingly powerful forms configurator. This plugin is the most robust configurator I’ve found which both drops form submissions to a user-friendly database on the site as well as sends email submissions to the designated manager of the contacts.
• For sites requiring mobile access WordPress Mobile Edition plugin detects mobile users and serves-up the page in readable mobile format.
• The Search Pages plugin enables the search function to return results from both pages and posts.
• Install Google Analytics for web stats.

Design the Theme

• Create a back-up of the site before beginning to tweak the design.
• For a simple, straightforward site: replace the header image, modify color scheme, font treatment and spacing as needed.
• Tweak the navigation to display pages and ditch the other widgets except the search form.  If hard-coded changes are needed in the navigation, start by inspecting the header.php,  functions.php and possibly sidebar.php files. These will most likely contain the code for the menu.
• Populate the site with enough content including images to get a feel for how well the navigation and flow of the site works.
• Make adjustments to accomodate what is stipulated in the scope document. If you are working with a client, a scope document will save you grief as you will have the stipulated requirements for the site. This will help scope creep to get out of hand.

Before Going Live

• Create an account for content managers.
• Orient the user with the site with basic update training.
• Check for browser compatibility in major and current search engines. There’s much debate on this subject. Generally I ensure at least the current and previous versions of FireFox and IE work well.
• Go back to the Privacy setting and enable search engines to find the site.
• Spell check and surf the site looking for content or graphical errors. Ideally, it’s good to ask other folks to hit the site as well.
• Use the free online ad credits the host gives with a new account to help launch the site and emphasize to the client that ranking in the engines takes time.

There’s the initial run-down. This is by no means an exhaustive list. Depending on requirements the design phase could become quite lengthy. There are also a boat load of other plugins, but those are the most common ones I use for a typical configuration. I may continue to add items down the line as they come to mind. Any good suggestions will be added as well.

Yesterday I clicked on the “email” button next to export and whala, I’m scheduling a nifty pdf delivery of each report view on a monthly basis. Very nice graphical presentation, the same as online and it will drop right to my inbox. For the sake of not pilfering others with a montage of email, I’ll group the pdfs into one email or possibly aggregate them into one document with Acrobat.

Report generating for Adwords can be scheduled as well, but unlike Google Analytics it’s reporting mechanism is much more redumentary. Primarily Adwords offers different versions of spreadsheet reporting with no graphical charts. Seems like Google ought to kick-up the reporting features for Adwords.

A new feature Google has instituted is Benchmarking. It’s a voluntary metric where you allow Google to use your raw stats for comparison with other sites within a similar category. Pretty cool stuff for leveraging the value of your work if your site strikes way above the norm. It doesn’t seem to change much from month to month however, at least that’s what I’ve found in my categories. There are better tools out there for comparison, but interesting all the same. It’s the kind of stat to look at perhaps quarterly.

So there you have it, my “brilliant” find for the week.

Step 1. Select the background

WIth the shift key click areas of the background that you want to knock-out. The more contrast between the background and the subject the better. In some cases, such as this image the contrast is low so we’ll need to use Quick Mask to do the finer selection.

Step 2. Enter Quick Mask Mode

Notice the icon second from the bottom in the toolbar. This is the Quick Mask toggle button. When in Quick Mask the icon has a darker parameter. It is clear at this point that some of the guitar was selected with the background.

Step 3. Paint the object

To get a very precise selection, zoom-in to get a close-up of the area to be selected. Choose the paint brush to color every area not selected. In this case we want to knock-out the background so the guitar will be painted.

Zoom-out and review for any rough spots. I find using a larger brush tends to create a smoother line as I drag it along the edge of the object.

Step 4. Switch Back to Regular Mode and Inverse Selection

One can either delete the background or choose to inverse selection to the object.

Step 5. Copy and Paste into New Window

I often prefer to paste the object into a new window so as to leave the original image in tact.

Step 6. Delete Background Layer and Save as .PNG

Finished Image

If you prefer resize, rotate image or apply other affects, upload and enjoy. Let me know if you have any questions and if this tutorial was helpful.

I thought this was one of the most humorous and compelling ads I’ve seen in quite a while. I ran across it on CNN.com. Mr. Mac asks Mr. Windows what’s up with the sign to which Mr. Windows answers he is trying to fix the bad press Vista has been receiving. He then begins to punch the red button that lights up “GIVE UP” and then “ON VISTA”. He keeps pounding the button with a malfunctioning “GIVE UP ON VISTA.”

While I’ve not made the switch to Vista or Mac but just stuck with XP even when adding a machine to my home network I did contemplate the transition. Microsoft has failed to do a compelling job in the marketplace to wholesale convince users that it’s worth it or time to make the switch. Mac remains cool in the eyes of users and Microsoft a necessary evil.

Perhaps my next move will to install Linux on my home machines. I still think Macs are overpriced. More and more I find open source development platforms to be effective and inexpensive solutions for clients. I’m curious if anyone faced with the option of upgrading to Vista has actually gone Mac or Linux.

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Spammers use tried and true systems to infiltrate email and database systems. Put simply, spammers don’t like change.

As a professional web developer and author of two blogs my email accounts intake over 500 email per day which is 1.8 million a year. When I add-up spam, newsletters, business and personal correspondence, blog comments, log file reports, contact submissions and other miscellaneous email, effective management is essential for productivity much less shear sanity.

Managing email in general boils down to a few over-arching concepts; filter, segment, change and simplicity.

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ScribeFire is a very well designed FireFox plug-in that enables a blogger to write posts right in their browser.

The features that I enjoy most about ScribeFire include:

1. Launch the editor right in the browser with an icon that rests at the bottom of the browser window.
2. Continue viewing a webpage while you write in the bottom-half of the screen.
3. Save your posts as notes and return to them later. This is especially handy if you are working on several at one time.
4. Upload your images from within the ScribeFire FTP function and insert into your post.
5. Post to multiple blogs from the same application.
6. Utilize the full WYSIWYG Editor for quick formatting.
7. Manage your tags from within ScribeFire.
8. Publish straight to the blog when finished editing.
9. Built-in spell check with just a right-click.

One of the frustrations I had with blogging directly into WordPresses blogging application was losing my information if I left that window or the connection to the server crashed for some reason. I find that I lose much less information when using ScribeFire. The content is written locally on my machine and even though it does not have an auto-save feature, the “Save as a Note” button is right below where I’m typing so I tend to save often and rarely lose text.

ScribeFire Supports the following blog applications and services:

• WordPress
• Movable Type
• Drupal
• Textpattern
• Roller
• MetaWeblog API
• Blogger
• WordPress.com
• TypePad.com
• Live Journal
• Windows Live Spaces
• Performancing
• Jeeran

If your blog is not on this list, you may want to try to manually setup through the Custom Blog settings. I have not yet been able to get Twitter, Jaiku or Pownce to work through ScribeFire.

One feature I don’t recommend: bookmarking in Del.icio.us and technorati.com. I found toggling between the functions to be a bit clunky. There are other more efficient and effective methods for interfacing with those sites than using ScribeFire. Like many programs, they added-in more features than needed. The magic of most well-developed plug-ins is their simplicity. That said, if you ignore that functionality, I think you will find this to be a very streamlined, rock solid method for updating your blog.

This is the best web editing tool I have found to date. Have you had any experience with other web editors? What features do you find most helpful?

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