Multi-WordPress Blog Management

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I run several WordPress Blogs.

I would like to:

  • Write content for different blogs from the same admin section.
  • Allow users to on various blogs access to my other blogs with a single sign on.

http://techblog.touchbasic.com/html/single-unified-login-for-multiple-wordpress-2-8-installs-in-subdirectories-using-cookies/

Will this plugin help?

http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/root-cookie/

How about this one?

http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/kish-multi/

http://wordpress.org/support/topic/164758

Update: 2012… WP 3.5. It seems that for what I am doing that a WP Multi-site is the way to go.

Radiant a CMS developed in Ruby

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I was browsing – cause that is what I do. – And I came across this very flexible, yet young CMS. :: http://radiantcms.org/

One of the cool things that I liked off the bat:

  • Update the data on display from an XML feed.

I immediately thought of a site I consulted for : scriptureearth.org that this could be a solution for that. (The site is in production but I am not sure how easy it is to update the data it displays. The connivence of a XML feed is that the site would be able to be updated from an app based in the workflow of the publisher.)

CSS Alert Messages

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I found this great css messages code here (read about it for a fuller explanation):

/* CSS messages */

.alert { background: #fff6bf url('exclamation.png') 15px 50% no-repeat; padding: 5px 20px 5px 45px; border-top: 2px solid #ffd324; border-bottom: 2px solid #ffd324; }
.info { background: #f8fafc url('information.png') 15px 50% no-repeat; padding: 5px 20px 5px 45px; border-top: 2px solid #b5d4fe; border-bottom: 2px solid #b5d4fe; }
.download { background: #cfc url('download.png') 15px 50% no-repeat; padding: 5px 20px 5px 45px; border-top: 2px solid #3C6; border-bottom: 2px solid #3C6; }
.german { background: transparent url('de.png') 15px 50% no-repeat; padding: 5px 20px 5px 45px; }
.english { background: transparent url('gb.png') 15px 50% no-repeat; padding: 5px 20px 5px 45px; }

Or more Explicitly here:

http://www.bioneural.net/wp-content/themes/k2bn/styles/bioneural/bioneural.css

Mastering Missions Marketing

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Last time it was Missions Masters Marriage… but that didn’t work out as planned. It turned out to be Missions Marriage Masters.

When we think of the term Marketing we might think of a logo, a brand name or some gimmick to make me want something I don’t need. In some circles, especially the non-profit arena Marketing may have a negative connotation. In the context I am talking about here I am going define marketing as intentional effective communication. Effective communication can have some very positive outcomes and covers a wide variety of communication issues and strategies.

    Effective communication implies:

  • Something is being communicated
  • More than one party is involved
  • Meaning is being conveyed
  • An image is being conjured in the mind of the receiver
  • The image being conjured in the mind of the receiver is affirmed or agreed to by the transmitter

As a business professional I need to realize that effective communication can happen. But, if I am not intentional about it, it is not going to happen as often as I want it to happen. This may result in adverse consequences for my business. The point though is that even in non-profit work like missions, to have effective communication one also needs to be intentional about their communication. This intentionalism is strategy.

So what is your communication strategy? Lets ask some of the basic W’s.

  • Who are we trying to communicate to?
  • What are we communicating?
  • How are we going to get them to listen, think and respond to us?

Who
In the non-profit world we have several kinds of people we want to communicate with:

  • the people we want to benefit
  • the people who help us benefit these people; donors, volunteers, employees, colleagues
  • the people watching us, wanting to know what we are doing and why we do it.

We need to be aware of each kind of person and talk to them. But, not just talk to them; engage them.

What
So the What which are we going to tell them might change, but what we are about never changes. So even though we might use different stories, reports, figures, pictures, etc. in communication they should all point to the part of us that never changes. This part of a communication strategy requires a bit of introspection. A core of knowledge of who we are and what we are about, and why we are doing it. It is from this knowledge we get our passion to do what we are doing, and challenge others to become part of what we are doing.

How
How are we going to get them to respond to us? We have to know where they are and how to talk to them. What they are paying attention too, reading watching, listening to, replying to. You can’t engage a person you can’t communicate to. This is were marketing comes in. How am I going to engage people? When I have an answer to How, I will have a communication strategy. The last question I have to answer is: does my strategy achieve the results I want it to achieve? or to put it another way is it an effective strategy? If it doesn’t achieve what I want to achieve,

  • it may be the result of not having a good, well thought through strategy,
  • or it might be the result of not having the right strategy for this group of people (or market).

At the end of the day though, if something is not achieving the desired results; I need to know:

  • What the desired results are
  • What results my strategy is producing
  • Why my strategy is not working

and then I need to make some adjustments to the strategy and apply the new revised strategy.

Windsurfing in FL

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So I have been wanting to try windsurfing for some time.
So we are going to try it while we are here in FL.
http://www.nbwindsurfing.com/rentals/index.html

map to windsurfing location

map to windsurfing location

We did look at the competition, http://www.watersportswest.com/

SCUBA was another option:

As it turned out we didn’t do either of these… Sad.

Becky and I outside our hotel in St. Petersburg FL.

Becky and I outside our hotel in St. Petersburg FL.

OpenSource MicroBlogging

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I have been given a book to read about Social Media and one called Twitter Power. I am beginning to think that Twitter is not something I can ignore any more.
I am not yet convinced that I need an account but I think I should be informed about how it works and how the system of communication can be used.

I was wondering today what our office communication might look like if we were to use a twitter like tool to announce office news or meetings and tasks completed. So I took a look at OpenSource options. Because in an office environment we already have the community created but we don’t want the world to follow our office “tweets”. Here is what I found:

Automattic Came up with a solution for their office in 2008 and released it as a theme for wordpress. They call it P2. http://p2theme.com/

The only other thing I could find in the OpenSource community was http://status.net/. I have not looked into either of theses to see how they work or compare with twitter.

Making your WordPress site iPhone friendly

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What are the crucial questions to ask when I think: “I want to make my site mobile friendly.”

How do I do it?

What tools do I use?

Useful links:
http://speckyboy.com/2008/06/29/7-amazing-plugins-to-view-your-wordpress-blog-on-any-mobile-device-iphone-pda/
http://freepressblog.org/2007/09/25/wordpress-mobile-admin-ui-for-iphone/

WordPress Mobile Pack

http://mobiforge.com/running/story/the-dotmobi-wordpress-mobile-pack
http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/wordpress-mobile-pack/

WordPress Mobile Edition
http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/wordpress-mobile-edition/

A mobile/phone/PDA friendly interface for your blog with progressive enhancement for advanced mobile browsers. You can see it in action by visiting this site in a mobile browser.

I have tried this on this thejourneyler.org. The plugin only works with Carrington Mobile theme 1.0.2. However, the Carrington mobile theme is currently at version 1.1, which is not compatible with this plugin (as far as I can tell). CMT 1.0.2 is not compatible with PostTabs, a plugin I use extensively to display multiple layers of content on a single page.

A nice feature of this plugin is that the user of an iPod Touch can “opt out” of the CMT. And once they have opted out they can “opt in” again with a link on the bottom of the post or page.

WordPress Mobile Admin
http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/wordpress-mobile-admin/

It uses Wapple’s advanced web services to produce perfect markup whilst at the same time maintaining the familiar look and feel of WordPress. You can write and edit posts, moderate and reply to comments as well as updating and managing pages.

I have also tried this. It is not compatible with Block-Spam-By-Math. That is not in and of itself a deal breaker. But to use this I would have to find a bot blocking plugin that does work with WordPress Mobile Admin. This plugin is great for managing the commenting process or adding new text content. There is a lack of support for controlling WP settings through the mobile interface.

iPhone Control Panel
http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/iphone-control-panel/
The iPhone Control Panel Plugin allows you to easily configure how iPhones and iPod touches “see” your site. It gives you the ability to add custom css, a home screen bookmark icon, change the viewport, or even redirect iPhones and iPod touches to a different url.

WordPress PDA & iPhone
http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/wp-pda/

This plugin helps the users to view your blog in a pda and iPhone browser. iPhone is still in beta testing state. Soon more updates will follow.

http://www.bravenewcode.com/wptouch/

iWPhone WordPress Plugin and Theme
http://iwphone.contentrobot.com/

Wapple Architect Mobile Plugin for WordPress

http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/wapple-architect/

Wapple Architect Mobile Plugin for WordPress is a plugin that allows you to mobilize your blog in minutes.
Every single mobile device is detected and all aspects of your blog are tailored to the visiting handset. Sites aren’t dumbed down to the lowest common denominator but instead use the features and functionality that advanced phones offer.
Devices are detected by using Wapple’s advanced web services instead of relying on inferior 3rd party tools. If you view your blog with a brand new, never before seen handset, it’ll still work perfectly!
Any theme you’ve installed and have styled for web will be carried across to mobile giving you a consistent look and feel for each and every one of your visitors.

iPhone / Mobile Admin
http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/mobileadmin/screenshots/

Mobile Admin adapts the WordPress admin UI to be more friendly to mobile devices, specifically phones.
The iPhone / iPod Touch browser was the first target, but most other mobile browsers are supported at a basic level, and plugins can be used to customize for specific browsers where desired.
A plugin for the iPhone/iPod Touch devices is included, as well as a more basic plugin for Windows Mobile browsers. (Consider the latter a “beta”, but it’s mostly intended to be another sample for how to write a plugin.)

Open source HR tools / Office forms

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In the company I work for, it is common practice for them to send me .doc files to use as forms for administrative functions. They are often created as templates and then when when the purpose of the form is triggered then a .doc is sent as an attachment in an email. In today’s modern age this process seems relatively inefficient in terms of man hours involved for several reasons:

  1. Some admin person has to create the form.
  2. I have to fill it out and send it back.
  3. In order for the information to be used more than once the information has to be taken out of the form and inserted into a database of some kind.

It also seems irresponsible use of bandwidth and harddrive space when one considers:

  • The email sent the first time takes up bandwidth, and harddrive space in the sent box and received box.
  • The form is likely to be saved in a folder related to the project it is needed for, and then possibly saved again after it is completed.
  • The Completed form is likely to be sent back to the first person sending the request form and then possibly several other people.

It seems a lot more efficient to create a web based application on a company LAN/WAN and then have the employee fill out the application there and give the (all) admin personnel needing the info access to the completed info and have the data displayed as a form. – simple. Except in our industry there are two obvious difficulties which need to be overcome:

  • How does the admin person create the web based form?
  • How does the company supply off-line access to employees for filling out the form?

As for the second point I am not sure that I have an answer. But concerning the first point, .doc files are probably used because that is what is easy to use and .doc / word processing is a tool which is familiar to the admin person.
The question I am asking is, is there an open source LAMP app which lets one create forms for office processes which lets users (admin personnel) quickly and easily create and deploy forms? It would also be nice for the fields to pull from the same database when practical. i.e. The office needs to create two forms. Both require the employee filling out the form to put their name in the form and the names of the people to whom they are sending the form. Because the employee logged into the LAN/WAN then the form should auto propagate with the name of the logged in user. However, if it didn’t then it should be prompted when the employee starts filling out the form “Autocomplete style” and the suggestions for names should come from the corporation central database of employee names. The end goal is that the admin person should be able to click button and activate a widget in the form and the widget should behave the someway, relating data or relating to data sources across different forms created for the office.

Some OpenSource Projects I found through a Google Search but have not tried:
http://www.orangehrm.com/download.php
http://www.openhris.com/
http://www.kineoopensource.com/index.php/role/hr/
http://www.joobsbox.com/
http://www.jobdigtracker.com/
http://www.webresourcesdepot.com/open-source-job-board-application-joobsbox/

http://www.toplev.com/OfficeForms.html

Zoho Office
http://labnol.blogspot.com/2007/07/create-web-forms-with-zoho-creator.html