VB SIG

We explored a lot of territory on Aug 14th, however, I was a bit disappointed with the sparse attendance.  Serious webmasters need a maintainable and successful web site, whether it’s a blog, a conventional site or a combination. The material covered, while not always appearing relevant, is in one way or another.  I hope that those who attended were able to find at least a bit of take-home information that will better their sites. As promised, here are the PowerPoint slides from the session.

Tom Kiehl

For those who attended, I hope you all were able to follow along. We covered chapters 4 and 5, so at the next meeting we’ll cover chapter 6 and possibly chapter 7.

The Powerpoint  has chapter 4 in it, so that’s where we’ll pick up.

Click  to download or view the Slides (Right-Click the link and save-as to save to your own computer).

Tuesday, July 10th, we’ll investigate how to take your basic Wordpress installation, add widgets/plugins, tweak it, massage it and make it reflect the individual look and feel to make it your own.

We’l also cover viewing stats for your blog (or any web site) and what they mean, and what they don’t.

If you have any personal tips and success stories on what works well for you, please share them with the group!

If you have any outstanding issues in either installing, hosting, or modifying it, make sure your voice is heard so we can help.

 See you there!

For those who attended, I hope you all were able to follow along. We only got through chapters 1 through 3, so at the next meeting we’ll cover chapter 4 and possibly chapter 5.

The Powerpoint  has chapter 4 in it, so that’s where we’ll pick up.

Click  to download or view the Slides (Right-Click the link and save-as to save to your own computer).

July 3rd, we’ll be digging into C# for real. If we can, we’ll attempt to cover the first four chapters (note this is not set in stone!). 

If you have a laptop, bring it along, you may work along during the meeting.

Be sure to speak up if you are not grasping something as we progress… I tend to ramble on, full steam ahead and I might not see a raised hand. And don’t feel shy thinking that you may be the only one not “getting it”, the person beside, infront or behind you might not. And finally, don’t hesitiate to correct me if I misstate or am wrong about something … it would be my first (fiscal year July 2007-2008).

When it comes to hosting your Wordpress blog, you generally have just two options: Windows with IIS running PHP and MySQL, or Linux with Apache, PHP and MySQL.

For the most part, neither has an advantage over the other, except for one biggie available on Linux/Apache, and that is mod_rewrite.

Mod_rewrite allows for friendly URLs for your permalinks.

What is a permalink? It is a permanent link, or shortcut that is used to bookmark blog entries.

The default permalink looks something like this:

http://blog.vbsig.com/?p=10

As you might have noticed, it’s not very intuitive or descriptive.

A “pretty” permalink might look something like this:

http://blog.vbsig.com/index.php/2007/06/13/sample-post/

The sample-post at the end would be the title of blog entry.

Not that you personally would spend much time looking at the permalink itself, but guess who does?

——— SEARCH ENGINES! ———

Search engines will include page names in their keyword indexing. The result… a better chance that your site will be higher in the search results.

So to maximize your blog’s station in the search engines, I’d recommend using a Linux server such as 1and1

See the tutorial “Wordpress Step by Step“

After a successful demonstration of installing Wordpress, I’d like to mention my favorite Wordpress plugins.

All in One SEO Pack does so much for helping search engines index your site. It provides for custom page titles, meta keywords and descriptions on the landing page, static pages and posts.

WP-phpMyAdmin gives you full access to your MySQL database. You can do whatever maintenance you need to do through the easy to use web interface, right from your Wordpress control panel!

Google Sitemaps Generator creates industry standard sitemaps in xml and optionally the gzip format. The Sitemaps standard has been adopted by most major search engines, and many of the search engines accept what’s called Pinging with your sitemap which tells the search engine that your site has been updated.

wp-Table Displays nice tables (use the css option) that you can type in online, or upload as csv files.

 To use the plugins, be sure you’re using a Wordpress Theme that supports plugins/widgets.

Happy blogging!

Installing Wordpress on Web Hosting - June 12th 7PM - ish

Tuesday, June 12th, 2007, after Doc releases his deathgrip on the podium, I’ll be doing a live session on installing Wordpress blogging software during the TBCS Internet Development SIG,

Wordpress is a customizable blogging application that is run on a web server (this blog is currently using Wordpress).

It supports installable Themes that allow you to choose from many color settings and page layouts. Many themes support widgets which extend the functionality of the application as well as personalizing the content on the sidebars.

Many users load it on a LAMP (Linux, Apache, MySQL, PHP) server, however it works just as well on a WIMP? (Windows, IIS, MySQL, PHP) server.

This blog and the live install and setup will be demonstrated on a Windows hosting server.

We’ll cover where to get the FREE Wordpress software, setting up the hosting account, creating the database, installing the software, configuring and customizing, installing themes, plugins/widgets and more!

I hope I didn’t bore or scare anyone off on Tuesday.

For those who are getting the book, try to read chapters 1 through 4. If you get stuck, or it’s not making sense, we’ll try to bring it all to light for the July meeting. If we don’t get through chapter 4 at the next meet, that’s OK, we’ll go as far as we can.

Also, if you bring your laptop, you can work along, trying some of the samples we’ll review.

 Again, don’t be intimidated. The object is to learn. There will be no final exam!

Things you’ll need for the Visual C# classes:

1) Visual C# (Express, or full product or Visual Studio 2005)
Visual C# Express is a free download from Microsoft >HERE<

2) The Book Microsoft Visual C# 2005 Step by Step.
Choose your best price or favorite merchant >HERE<

3) Optionally for future developement, Microsoft SQL Server 2005 Express .
You can download from Microsoft >HERE<

While the Book and SQL Express are both optional, they are both recommended to get the most out of the sessions and for self study.

Remember to check back to this blog from time to time for any updates and other communications. If something needs to be clarified, or is of help to the group in general, you may find it here!.