It’s now a week since Wordpress 2.5 was released. I’ve managed, without any dramas, to upgrade all twelve blogs at www.duncans.tv and www.postkiwi.com.
Dashboard, rather than the first in the menu, is now a small link at the top of the screen.
Menu on the Left
Write, the first item on the new menu, now has the options of post, page, and link.
Manage, the second item on the new menu, has the options of post, pages, links, categories, tags, link categories, media library, import, export, backup.
The best thing about the latest upgrade is that we can access quickly all posts, published posts, and drafts. We can access posts by months and categories.
Design and Widgets
Presentation has changed to Design. We have the option of changing themes, editing themes, and working with sidebar widgets, as in the latest version of 2.3. However now we can name text widgets, cutting out the need for guesswork when editing. However the drag and drop facility has been replaced by an ‘add’ link. Which means that temporarily removing widgets, or moving them from one sidebar to another, is a real pain. Once the widget is on the sidebar the only options are editing or deleting. For some reason my text boxes including Feedburner RSS information cannot be edited or deleted.
Comments
Comments is now a menu in itself. The number appearing above the comments menu refers to the number waiting in the moderation queue. Comments awaiting moderation are now highlighted, but not separated on to another screen.
Menu on the Right
Settings (was Options), Plugins and Users menus have been placed on the right hand side of the dashboard.
Time has to be calculated manually for daylight saving. But here in Queensland we don’t have to worry about that!
Discussion options include the capacity to allow for Gravatars - pictures associated with commenters.
The permalink structure now caters for tags as well as categories.
Miscellaneous includes predetermining the sizes of uploaded thumbnails and medium pictures.
Plugins Settings
The Plugins, as in the latest version of 2.3, inform the user when a more up to date version is available. You have the option of downloading the plugin for yourself and transferring via FTP, or upgrading with one click of the mouse. Clearly if you have customised plugins, you’ll want to ignore the invitation to automatically upgrade.
Technorati Tags or Internal Tags?
The default for Wordpress is internal tags, with a widget for a tag cloud included. To tell the truth, for all my work on including Technorati tags over two years, I have had very very few visits or clicks out as a result. I’ve now chosen instead to use internal tags to increase the searchability of my sites. So, for example, you can now search for all posts referring to Guinness at Duncan’s TV Ad Land. Mind you could do that with the search engine before. However I can now reduce the number of categories on my blogs.
I’ve spent the last week going back through the archives at Duncan’s TV Ad Land, entering tags and tidying up posts. So far I’ve covered everything from 2003 to 2006. Just 2007 and 2008 to go!
Categories
The Categories menu is no longer on the right side of the post as you edit it. It’s below, under Tags. This may say something about the priorities of the Wordpress community. A useful tool here is the ‘most used’ option which shows the top 10 categories in order of usage.
Related Posts
It seems Wordpress 2.5 assumes that Related Posts plugin is installed. No big drama. Just remember to activate the script in the settings to make sure it’s working.
Save, Preview, Publish
The Preview This Post, View This Post, Save, Publish options are all on the right hand side of the post being edited, along with quick links to ‘manage all coments’, ‘manage all posts’, ‘manage all categories’, ‘manage all tags’, and ‘view drafts’. Status includes Published, Unpublished and Pending Review. When editing an already published post or page, as soon as any changes are saved you have the options of continuing to edit, viewing the post/page, or returning to the view from which you started editing (archive or single page).
The Pending Review option is designed for shared blogs - identifying posts that need a look from others before publishing.
Why Blog? Is blogging a toy or a tool? Bailey strongly recommends that churches only invest their leaders’ time in blogging if it is genuinely going to be useful. He suggests that blogging can be used for sharing news, casting vision, reaching out to the community, connecting staff with one another, volunteers and church members, learning from others, spreading the Word.
The book includes practical chapters on getting started, building a better blog, pitfalls to avoid, using RSS feeds, and podcasting.
I’d recommend this book highly to any church leaders considering launching a blog or improving the effectiveness of their online work. The tip I picked up and intend to use is including a disclaimer “these opinions are those of Duncan Macleod and not his employer”.
There are 25 posts to check out here. Your challenge is to take a look through them all, leaving friendly and helpful comments. Would you like to join this happy team of contributors? Read my earlier post on the ins and outs of the Carnival of Australia. The next edition will be in two weeks time,
Noric Dilanchian presents Australia’s first 11 in performance and valuation - Dilanchian Lawyers posted at Lightbulb, saying, “The vast majority of books on business success are either humdrum, American or fail to recognise that in many respects Australia is different. In this respect one standout, now in its second edition, is The First XI: Winning Organisations in Australia (John Wiley & Sons Australia, Sydney, 2007). However, its chapter titled “Comparing our findings with other studies” provides reasons why it is a good thing that the book’s discoveries are not startling.”
Megan Bayliss presents What we do at Imaginif posted at Imaginif…, saying, “Attending a professional network recently I was faced with how out of touch I have become with a non computer based audience. Several colleagues mused around not knowing what it is I do anymore because I do a lot of that weird computer stuff. Point taken. But conversely, do you know what the talk doctors of Imaginif do off line? This is who we are and what we do in the office of Imaginif:”
Suzie Cheel presents Random Acts Of Kindness posted at The Abundance Highway, saying, “Last Sunday was Clean up Australia Day, so one might expect that there would be less litter around. I have continued on with my randon act of kindness each day we go to the beach. Mondays we usally go with a plastic bag as there is always more cans, paper cups, and often half full water bottles on the beach.”
Family
Carole Fogarty presents The Emotional Cost of Clutter: posted at THE HEALTHY LIVING LOUNGE, saying, “We all have an emotional attachment to our stuff. Sometimes healthy and sometimes very unhealthy. The trick is to take an honest look at everything t”
Two from Craig - as his first submission just missed the last deadline.
Craig Harper presents Just Another Life. posted at Renovate your life with Craig, saying, “Have you ever thought about your funeral? I have. Mine that is, not yours. Sometimes I wonder what it will be like. Who will be there, what they will say. Good stuff or bad? Will it be a sad or happy occasion? Will there be three people or three thousand? Or fifty perhaps? It’s certainly not something that I dwell on (that would be creepy), but from time to time (usually when I’m at a funeral myself) I let my mind wander and consider what that day might be like.”
Duncan Macleod presents One thing leads to another at Borders posted at Duncan’s Print, saying, “Borders Asia Pacific is helping customers make the connections between genres with a print advertising campaign, “One Thing Leads to Another”. Asia is connected with design and sculpture in an impressive hairdo. Travel is connected with D.I.Y. on the back of a motorbike. Automotive is connected with House and Home and Baby Names in the back of a Volkswagen Kombi.”
Duncan Macleod presents Schweppervescence Burst in Slow Motion posted at Duncan’s TV Ad Land, saying, “Schweppes has launched a campaign in Australia bringing new life to the branding concept of Schweppervescence. The ‘Burst’ campaign consists of five videos using slow motion cameras at 10,000 frames per second to capture the final moments in the trajectories of water balloons.”
Travel
poetloverrebelspy presents The Art of Being a Gracious Houseguest posted at Less Than a Shoestring, saying, “Travel on a Shoestring Carnivals highlight budget travel tips and destinations around the U.S. and the world. We would love to feature your posts on Oz hotels, restaurants, museums, churches, hikes, daytrips, parks, whatever! Submit by the third Wednesday of each month.”
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That concludes this edition. Submit your blog article to the next edition of Carnival of Australia using our carnival submission form.
Every two weeks Australian bloggers collaborate to create “Carnival of Australia“, a selection of posts on a variety of topics. This coming week’s carnival will be posted here at Pacific Highlander. I’ve already received a good number of entries but, as they say, the more the merrier.
Carnival of Australia is a place to celebrate the diversity of thought and opinion of Aussie bloggers and bloggers who blog on Australia. All topics are welcome from Aussies living here or overseas and from visitors to our diverse country. NO adult content, or abusive and racist comments. One submission per site please. If you keep two or three sites, you can submit one article from each.
Submission categories are Culture, Food, Politics, History, Outback, Environment, Family, Indigenous issues, Slanguage, Travel, Technology, Business, Music, Helping a mate, Mates, Animals, Literature, Sport, Current Affairs, and Walkabout.
Deadline for entries is Monday (March 10) at 11 pm Australian Eastern Standard Time. Submit your post/s here.
Hubspot has recently upgraded its free website grader, www.websitegrader.com, offering analysis of websites in terms of search engine optimization, connection to the blogosphere, social mediasphere, recruitment of regular visitors, and competitive intelligence. I’ve tried the tool out with www.duncans.tv (DT) and www.pacifichighlander.postkiwi.com (PH) with some really useful results.
1. On-Page SEO
A. Metadata should include title, description, and ten or less keywords. I had 11
B. Heading summary - using heading formats helps search engines
C. Image Summary - using alt=”xxxx” HTML - I was caught out by the feedburner image. Fixed now.
D. Interior Page Analysis - using keywords and description - needs work.
E. Readability Level - both sites are at Graduate School level (postgraduate)
Off-Page SEO
A. Domain Info - the grader looks for domain registration age and days to expiration, saying that search engines factor domain stability. I’m encouraged by the report to set up a permanent redirect (301 redirect) between www.duncans.tv and duncans.tv
B. Google PageRank (5 for DT and 0 (should be 4) for PH)
C. Google Indexed Pages (1540 for DT and 715 for PH)
D. Last Google Crawl Date (Feb 18 for PH, Feb 21 for DT)
E. Alexa Traffic Rank (Top 0.52% for DT, Top 5.4% for PH)
F. Inbound Links (46,217 for PH, 54,867 for DT)
G. DMOZ Directory Entry found for both
H. Yahoo Directory found for DT but not PH
I. ZoomInfo entry found for DT but not PH
Blogosphere
A. Blog Analysis - looks for evidence of a blog (I think it’s looking for a page with the word ‘blog’ in it.
B. Technorati Ranking (Top 0.02% for DT and Top 0.24% for PH)
C. Last 3 blog articles are shown with Digg links and other inbound links
Social Mediasphere
A. del.icio.us bookmarks (106 for DT and 0 for PH)
B. Digg.com Submission (12 submissions & 57 diggs for DT)
Converting Qualified Visitors to Leads
A. RSS Fead - found on both sites
B. Conversion Form - found on both sites
Competitive Intelligence
A. Keyword Grader. DT ranks at 52 for tv adverts, 100 for television advertisements and tv ads.
B. Score Summary. Duncans.TV came out in the top 2% (98/100). Pacific Highlander in the top 5% 95/100).
Aussie Bloggers is a forum site designed, obviously, for Australians who blog. Topics covered by the 163 members so far registered include getting started in blogging, hints on Wordpress, Blogger and other platforms, social media, promoting and monetizing your blog. The people are friendly and open to newbies and pros alike.
The nominations are now open for the 2008 Bloggies, an annual blog award run since 2001 by Nikolai Nolan of www.fairview.com, in Detroit, Michigan. Anyone can nominate their favourite weblogs in thirty categories. Nominations close on Friday, January 11, 2008. The finalists will be chosen by three panels of 50 voters between January 13 and 18. On January 22 the finalists will be announced and voting will be open again to members of the public until January 31. The winners will be announced sometime between Sunday, March 9 and Tuesday, March 11, online and at the Southwest Interactive Festival in Austin, Texas, USA.
The Categories for 2008
Best Web Application for Weblogs
Best Australian or New Zealand Weblog
Best Asian Weblog
Best African Weblog
Best European Weblog
Best Latin American Weblog
Best Canadian Weblog
Best American Weblog
Best Photography of a Weblog
Best Art or Craft Weblog
Best Food Weblog
Best Fashion Weblog
Best Weblog About Music
Best Gossip Blog
Best Entertainment Weblog
Best Sports Weblog
Best Weblog About Politics
Best Computers or Technology Weblog
Best Topical Weblog
Best GLBT Weblog
Best Teen Weblog
Most Humorous Weblog
Best Writing of a Weblog
Best Group Weblog
Best Community Weblog
Best-Designed Weblog
Best-Kept Secret Weblog
Best New Weblog
Lifetime Achievement
Weblog of the Year
The Blog Carnival of Australia is a fortnightly collection of blog posts, often focused on a theme, submitted and collated by volunteers, and organised by Megan Bayliss of ImaginIf. Categories are Culture, Food, Politics, History, Outback, Environment, Family, Indigenous issues, Slanguage, Travel, Technology, Business, Music, Helping a mate, Mates, Animals, Literature, Sport, Current Affairs, Walkabout.
GodBlogCon is a Christian conference in the United States aiming to bring together GodBloggers, creating community and helping bloggers become better contributors in the new media. This year the conference is being held in Las Vegas, November 8 and 9, connected with BlogWorld and New Media Expo. The conferences are being supplemented by an executive and entrepreneur conference on November 7, 8 and 9.
Speakers at Godblogcon Al Mohler - Pioneering the New Media for Christ
John Mark Reynolds (Scriptorium Daily) - Focus and Motivation Mark D. Roberts - Taking Your Ministry to the New Media Rhett Smith - New Media Ministry to the Myspace - Facebook Generation
Joe Carter (Family Research Council) - Identifying Impact in Culture for Christians in New Media
Bonnie Lindbolm (Intellectuelle) - Communicating Biblical Womanhood
Paul Spears (Scriptorium Daily) - Trafficking in Substance
Dustin Steeve (Scriptorium Daily) - Basics of Blogging La Shawn Barber - Writing Well in the New Media
Kevin Wang (Zeit Studios) - Design Desiderata for the Godblogger
Jeff VanderGiessen (Mars Hill Church) - Developing a Pod and Vidcast Ministry
I’ve been informed by Des Walsh, a fellow Aussie blogger, that he’s speaking at the entrepreneur’s conference. Anybody else planning to be at any of the conferences in Las Vegas? Or been to the earlier Godblogcon events? What did you think?
If you’re like me you would have only recently heard about Twitter. Twitter is a global community of friends and strangers answering one simple question: What are you doing? Answer on your phone, instant messaging service or on the internet.
Twitter first came into my inbox in early August via a press release about filming of the Sony Bravia Play-Doh TV ad in New York. By the time I worked out what it was the shoot was finished along with twittering about it. I finally decided to join up to take part in a Twitter experiment associated with the Australian Blogging Conference on Friday last week.
So here’s how it works. You sign up at www.twitter.com. You have the option of using instant messaging services (like GTalk) and your mobile phone to receive and send messages. Then you add people to your ‘follow’ list using email addresses.
Little did I know that Twitter had been online since July 2006, the creation of co-founder Evan Williams of Obvious. Evan of course is known for his development of Blogger along with Meg Hourihan.
Politics and Press
Twitter is likely to become a standard tool for politicians and journalists. Senator John Edwards has used Twitter to update people on his presidential campaign trail. Someone thought it would be a good idea for Kevin Rudd and John Howard.
1. Get quick human answers
2. Share briefings on conferences and news
3. Friendsourcing - accessing a network of friends and acquaintances
4. Micro Attention Sharing - small mini blog entries
5. Direct people to good causes
6. Stay in touch with what friends are doing without being intrusive
1. Use Twitter as a To-Do list
2. Personal or professional messaging service
3. Provide a newsletter
Postkiwi Twitter
I’ve managed to connect Twitter up with my Facebook profile and as a special feature in the Pacific Highlander sidebar. The Facebook application doesn’t appear to be updating instantly but I’m sure that problem will be ironed out. If you’re interested in following my evolving stream of consciousness visit my Postkiwi Twitter profile. I imagine it could be useful to have a number of Twitter profiles to be used with different networks or for different purposes. But I’m not in a hurry to head down that track quite yet.
Duncan Macleod posts on life, faith and culture in Australia, drawing from his involvement in the creative industry, the Uniting Church, the blogosphere, generational research, the emerging church and life on the Gold Coast.
Why Blog? Is blogging a toy or a tool? Bailey strongly recommends that churches only invest their leaders’ time in blogging if it is genuinely going to be useful. He suggests that blogging can be used for sharing news, casting vision, reaching out to the community, connecting staff with one another, volunteers and church members, learning from others, spreading the Word.
