WordPress Upgrades to Version 2.6

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WordPress rolled out their update to version 2.6 the other day with some great new feature improvements. Here’s a quick rundown of the new features.

WordCount

Ever wonder how many words you have in your blog posts? I do. I’ve been a longtime user of the TD Word Count plugin. But now WordPress will tell you how many words are in your post right on the edit screen.

Revision Tracking

Now WordPress will track various revisions of a post. This feature will be especially handy for multi-author blogs. Not to mention those of us who occasionally delete big chunks of a post by mistake. Now we can restore an earlier save of the post and not loose all that work!

Photo Captions

This is a wonderful little feature. Now WordPress has the built in ability to add captions to your post images automatically like you see under the screen shot to the right. You might have to adjust your style sheet to display them the way you like though.

Press This

They’ve added a shortcut that you can drag to the toolbar of most web browsers so you can blog about things you see on the on the web with just one click. Click the “Press This” shortcut and a new browser window will open up with all sorts of goodies to make posting to your blog faster and easier.

WYSIWYG Image Control

They’ve integrated several of the most common image control features right into the WYSIWYG editor. That means you can have more control over how your images display without having to know all that HTML coding stuff.

Improved Gravatar Support

Now you can select from a variety of default avatars to display for folks without a Gravatar account. I went into my theme and manually changed my setting from the old WordPress default to the Gravatar logo. With version 2.6 you can make that change right from your WordPress dashboard.

And Much More

There’s a ton of other things included in this update from being able to select multiple check boxes via shift-click to a bubble to let you know when you have plugins that are out of date. They also fixed nearly 200 bugs with this release along with numerous security enhancements.

And Early Too!

Not only did they make all these improvements but they got version 2.6 ready for release nearly a month ahead of schedule! Great job for the WordPress development team.

If you’d like to check out what some of those changes look like here’s a short video they prepared to show you. Check it out.

UPDATE: For some reason I can’t seem to get the video embed to play from here. If you want to check out the video head on over to the Upgrade Announcement over on the WordPress development blog.

Supercharge Your RSS with FeedBurner

There are very few blogging services that I universally recommend to all my clients and FeedBurner is one of them.

(If you aren’t sure what RSS means or what feeds even are, feel free to check out a post I wrote a while back on RSS and Feeds to get the basics.)

What is FeedBurner? FeedBurner is quite simply a free service that greatly enhances the RSS feed experience for both publishers and subscribers.

Here are some benefits.

1. It’s Free – I’m a big fan of free, especially when it comes to top-notch services. And since FeedBurner was acquired by Google last year even their “pro” features are free. Very nice.
2. Feed Stats – We bloggers tend to be a bit obsessed with numbers like visitors, page views, inbound links, and comments. The best way I know to track RSS stats is with FeedBurner. You want to know how many feed subscribers you have? How about how many views and clicks your feed is getting? FeedBurner can tell you all that and much more.
3. Easy to Subscribe – There is a dizzying array of feed readers out there. With FeedBurner you can give your readers the flexibility to easily subscribe to your feed in whatever reader they prefer without having to clutter your blog with a ton of subscribe buttons.
4. Email Subscriptions – There is a small percentage of folks out there who will prefer to read your blog content via email. FeedBurner can give them that option so you don’t have to pay for another email publishing option.
5. Customization – With FeedBurner you can customize your feed by integrating a podcast, adding links, advertizing in your feed, connecting your feed to your Flickr account, Geotagging it, and so much more.
6. Bandwidth -  Using FeedBurner means they provide the bandwidth for your feed. Granted it isn’t an issue if your blog is just getting started and only has a few subscribers. However bandwidth is part of what you are buying from your web host so it’s nice to have someone else take care of that for you.

I’ve been using FeedBurner for years and have been very happy with their service. If you are at all interested in a more enhanced RSS experience for both yourself and your readers consider using their service.

15 Ways to Attract Comments Like an A-Lister

Whether we are blogging to support our business or blogging simply to rant about, well, just about anything, we all crave comments on our blogs. Not only do comments show us that somebody, somewhere out there is interested enough about what we wrote to respond, but comments also can help build traffic as well.

If content is king where blogs are concerned then comments are evidence of the power behind the throne.

Mitch Argon of FreeNevadaMove.com asked a good question yesterday over on Business Blogging 101 - Comments post. He said,

I’ve been blogging for about 9 months. I’ve tried different techniques on writing posts to get more comments from readers but am still searching for the ’secret sauce’ to create more community.

Any thoughts on some good resources to accomplish this?

As I said, it’s a good question. And the answer is both less of a secret and harder to achieve than most people are willing to admit. I say “harder” only in respect to actual effort being involved. Don’t be misled into thinking attracting comments is overly complicated. But it does take some concentrated effort.

So here’s a list of things you can do to attract more comments to your blog and build blog traffic at the same time. Read more

But is Twitter Useful?

One of the people that Gorgeous and I connected with in Chicago this past weekend was Christine Kane. It probably didn’t hurt that the three of us were all seated in close proximity to a very wild and obnoxious three year old on the same flight into Chicago. That got diverted to Columbus for more fuel after holding too long for bad weather.

But that’s a story for another time.

I also had the pleasure of sitting at the same table as Christine at the conference. As speakers like Chris Brogan, Liz Strauss, and Terry Starbucker were talking about the people in the room who were using Twitter to communicate with one another (and with folks half a world away) during the conference, Christine would ask the rest of us questions on the side.

They ranged from the basic to the technical, for example…

• What’s the point? to interact with others
• Why would you bother? because I like people
• Can everyone see what I tweet @ someone? Oh, yeah
• How does the direct message thing work? “d your_friends_twittername” and they’ll get a private message

Read more

Brand New Design

If you are a feed subscriber you might not know. But we’ve just launched the redesigned SuccessCREEations, Inc. website. There are still some bugs to work out yet and now I’m in the same boat that my clients often find themselves, a new website just begging to be filled with content.

Upgrading WordPress

The first thing I did was to bring the back end up to date with the latest version of WordPress. SuccessCREEations, Inc. had long been in that classic situation where, “the cobbler’s kids got no shoes.” There was so much work to do for clients and their sites that our own site was, ahem, a few versions back.

I gotta say that the completely redesigned WordPress 2.5 dashboard is very nice to work with. It is different, for sure, and takes a bit of getting used to.

But it took far less time to adjust than I expected, especially considering that I’ve been using WordPress for going on three years now. In fact, after spending less than a day with the new version I went back to the old version and was already forgetting where things were in the old menus.

The new dashboard design is that much better.

Screen Shots

The most obvious change is of course the new look. For you feed readers, here’s a screen shot of the new design.
I had developed the new SuccessCREEations, Inc. logo a while back with the idea of using it as a starting point for a new look to the site. I pulled the gold in the compass rose points and the blue/purple from the logo and used those colors as the starting point. Read more

Yahoo Working on a New Kind of Search

Chris Brogan shared that Yahoo is considering a new approach to serving up search results. He describes it as The Sound of Content Ripping Free From Its Page. I’m not sure it will be as dramatic as all that for a couple reasons.

What’s at the heart of Chris’ concern is this short post over at Business Week about what they labeled Yahoo’s Linkless Search. Here’s the part Chris finds concerning

Yahoo’s goal is to build a vast universe of related information, so that we get the info we’re looking for, without having to click on links. Search engines are already moving toward this. More and more, the information pops up on the result pages. But what Raghavan is describing sounds very much like an effort to push relevant Web pages down, or even out of the equation. “We’re not giving you pages, we’re giving you information synthesized from other pages.”

I’ve emphasized the parts that I think probably give Chris pause.

Search Without Links

At first brush the concept sounds a little hair brained to me.

From a publisher perspective it sounds goofy because with this approach to search Yahoo is choosing what parts of my content their user really “needs” to see rather than showing them my site and letting them choose the relevant content in context with the entire page.

From a user stand point I generally prefer to have the option to click through to the raw data. The idea of a synopsis makes sense. But I’d still want to see a link where I can click through to the source material. However I wonder if the average internet user feels the same way.

From Yahoo’s perspective it might make sense. IF they are looking at search as a way to corral people onto their site rather than as a gateway to other sites. If Yahoo’s intent is to build cull-de-sacs where “all roads lead to Yahoo” then this is probably one way to accomplish that goal.

Solving a Non-existent Problem

Here’s the thing. It seems to me that Yahoo is attempting to solve a “problem” that doesn’t exist. Here is an example of the “problem” as Yahoo sees it:

In the current mode, when we’re looking for, say, a restaurant in Hoboken, we query, read a web page, query again for reviews, and then again for directions.

Sounds like a huge burden, right? Yahoo claims that if someone is looking to check out a restaurant then they have to do 3 separate searches to find the information they need to make an informed decision. Why not simplify that to 1 search?

The thing is you already can get all that info from one search. Let me demonstrate.

Take one of my favorite local restaurants, the New South Cafe right here in Savannah. When I enter in “New South Cafe, Savannah, GA” into Google I get links to the following info on the first page:

• Restaurant Website
• Directions
• Several Reviews
• Some Community Involvement Info about the Restaurant

And that’s with one search, not three. Looks like Google’s already accomplishing what Yahoo is “researching” and is still ushering people to the content creators’ web sites. Everybody wins.

And here’s something interesting. Search for the same thing in Yahoo, “New South Cafe, Savannah, GA” and you get similar info. I see the restaurant’s web site, directions, and reviews all on the front page.

Yahoo’s Faulty Info

The top Yahoo results point to pages of info that are still on Yahoo web sites, though. Interestingly one of the top results gives a bogus address for the restaurant. Notice the phone numbers for the two entries are the same.

But folks following their directions to that location wouldn’t find the restaurant because it isn’t there. You’d have to click through to the restaurant’s main web site anyway to find out which location is the correct one. Or I you could just go over to Google and double check your search I suppose. They seem to have the location right somehow. Of course they aren’t pushing users to another Google page.

If the current Yahoo web sites can’t contain a simple piece of info like the location of a restaurant that’s been the same for at least the 4 years I’ve been in town, how do they expect to amass relevant data on their sites for the millions of searches that internet users conduct every day?

Bottom Line

I don’t think folks should get unduly worried about Yahoo! turning the search engine world on its ear with this new approach to search. It seems more likely to me that Yahoo will be collating masses numbers of pages with dubious content value this way.

If this is really what they are counting on to break the strangle-hold Google has on the search market and fend off a hostile take over from Microsoft then they are probably in worse shape than most folks give them credit for.

Comment Policy Formalized

Well, after giving it some more thought I’ve decided to implement the formal Comment Policy that we talked about last week.

Basically we’re going to use it as is for now. If we see a need to adjust down the road we’ll adapt it as required.

We’ve got a Comment Policy Page in place. And I’ve placed a link to it under the comment box so that anyone who may be unsure can refer to it prior to submitting their comment.

It stinks to have to make “formal rules” but unfortunately too many abusers were attempting to mess things up.

Does your blog have a comment policy spelled out?

Mac Friday - Screenshots

Screenshots.

No, we’re not talking about the big guy on the right here spraying gobs of bullets on the silver screen, as entertaining as that is.

A screenshot is simply a way to capture what you are looking at right now on your computer screen so you can use it later, or share it with someone else.

An Example

Say for example you took a silly little online brain test to see if you were more right brained or more left brained in your thinking.

And then suppose your results were strange enough that you wanted to share them with some folks.

Apparently I’m ever so slightly more right brained than left brained. At least according to that test.

Now my question is this. How did I use more than 100% of my brain that day?

Weird.

And it’s one of those things that is much easier to explain when folks can look at the screen shot.

All I did was capture the screen shot, open the image in Photoshop, and add the circle and text. Then I resized the whole thing uploaded it and now everyone can see that I use more of my brain than I have.

On a Windows computer capturing a screenshot is pretty straight forward. The keyboard has a Print Screen button.

But what about on a Mac?

It can still be done fairly easily with a little know how.

Read more

Updating Our Comment Policy

One year ago this coming Saturday I announced here on SuccessCREEations that we were going to start rewarding quality commenters.

In that post I announced two things. I installed the Show Top Commentors plugin (original version.) I had some challenges with the plugin when I updated the blog and theme. Andy Beard, an SEO/Internet Marketing guy I highly respect, pointed out some significant problems with the plugin. The reality is that wasn’t really a reward so I quietly removed the plugin.

The second thing I did a year ago was remove the “NoFollow” attribute from my comments section. Back in 2005 Google stopped passing link juice on for links tagged with NoFollow to help reduce comment spam. It was a good idea. Trouble is it hasn’t deterred comment spammers at all.

So I used the dofollow plugin (original version) and put up a nice NoMore NoFollow badge from Randa Clay.

No Follow Lists

One side effect of that announcement a year ago (and posting the badge) is that SuccessCREEations made it onto several different lists assembled by internet marketing & SEO types telling their communities about blogs that removed NoFollow.

While it’s nice to be noticed, I started attracting some unscrupulous types that obviously were just commenting to get a little Google juice instead of being interested in participating in conversation here.

Fair enough. I understand human nature well enough to get that.

In the last couple months I’ve started noticing some folks coming here leaving comments with links to Turkish language sites. Even though I don’t speak Turkish (I did have a Turkish coworker until recently) I’m savvy enough to see that the Turkish traffic is coming from some forums that are sharing different known NoFollow sites along with their Google Page Rank.

SuccessCREEations makes these lists because we have a decent Page Rank.

I don’t see it as completely a bad thing. I worked closely with a Turk for several years. And folks who know me know that I have friends from all over the globe.

Even so, it is time to lay out a refined comment policy here. Read more

WordPress Advanced ToolBar

One of the advantages of using WordPress as a publishing platform is that the WordPress folks are constantly adding new and better features. It can be a challenge to keep up sometimes.

This is especially true if we’ve come up with a way to do something that has since been made simpler in more recent versions.

For example I have a friend who has been blogging even longer than I have and never really got into using a widgetized sidebar. That’s certainly not a problem. You can do just fine programming your sidebar by hand. If you are into that sort of thing, that is.

I found I have one of those habits too. One of the first things I usually do when I’m working with a WordPress blog or web site is go in and turn off the visual editor. The WordPress visual editor used to cause formatting challenges for me so I got used to working in raw HTML.

Well the visual editor has come a long way since I first started using WordPress. With version 2.3 they’ve added a whole slew of new toolbar functionality so the visual editor can do things that formerly had to be coded in HTML by hand. Read more

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