• I have similar tastes as me
• I follow the same type people as me
• People who follow me, might also be following me. (will this cause paranoia)
• I should keep up with what I am doing
• When I traveled a lot I once thought I passed myself in an airport terminal.

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I used my holiday time to convert one of my own static sites. I wanted to use it as a case study in procedure and time. The site I converted was my Scripts and Database site, CyberCoded.com. This is one of my older sites and I have been too busy to convert it so I continued to manually add pages as needed.

I have about 10 hours invested in the whole process to convert this site. The bulk of the time is in the custom coding of a WordPress Theme from scratch to match an older site. There were 12 pages when I started and as some of the pages had different extensions I decided to convert the site using my favorite WordPress permalink structure and then redirect the old pages.

I used my Blank WordPress Theme so that I could start with a clean slate and match the design to the old site.

Here are the steps I took.

1. Installed WordPress in a Sub Folder
   • Set Privacy setting to OFF while I developed the site in a sub folder.
   • Modified the permalink to my favorite which is /%postname%/
2. Installed the Blank theme in the WordPress Themes folder.
   • I used FTP to upload the files into a new theme folder in WordPress.
3. Copied and matched elements from the old Style.css file into the WordPress Style.css
   • The blank theme has an empty CSS file.
   • The Body and Links were the only elements called out in the old CSS file.
   • Added Wrapper, Content, Header and Footer Divs to CSS.
4. Copied the Index.php file to home.php so I could have a custom Home page that would match the old page.
   • Simply copying the file like this makes a new home page with the home.php file.
5. Modified the WordPress code in the Home page to show each category and posts as lists.
   • Stripped out the common WordPress Loop
   • Created new code that loops through the categories and list each post per category.
   • Set the Category to sort in Descending order.
   • Set the Post titles to sort Title in ascending order
6. Created an Analytics.php file in the WordPress Theme to use throughout the site.
   • Retrieved the code from Google to use for analytics.php
7. Created a Header.php file within the WordPress Theme to add common header elements.
   • Modified the Title so that it would be SEO friendly, very similar to most popular SEO plugins.
   • Added a call to analytics.php file
8. Created a footer.php file in WordPress to add a common footer.
   • Used the code from the old static footer file for contact and info.
9. Created Single.php page
   • Added a Tweet This button from Twitter.
10. Created my Categories to match old site.
    • The old site had headers for each item type which I converted to Categories.
11. Copied each page from the old site into Textpad and removed any code that would interfere with WordPress.
12. Pasted each page into WordPress as a Post.
13. Created Tag Page.
    • Tag page list the excerpt for each Post that is tagged.
14. Created custom 404 page.
    • The 404 page shows a tag cloud to visitors.
15. Created Search page.
    • Search page only shows title for a matched post.
16. Widgetized and added a sidebar.
    • Create and set widgets in the functions.php file.
    • Add sidebar.php and corresponding code to use widgets.
    • Added a Facebook Like button.
    • Added RSS Button and link.
17. Copied the index.php from the WordPress sub folder to the root and modified the code to use WordPress from the Sub Folder.
18. Changed the Site Address within WordPress Admin to set the site in the root while leaving WordPress installed in the sub folder.
19. Redirected the old pages to the new WordPress pages using PHP header calls.
20. Installed and setup XML Sitemap Generator for WordPress Plugin

ALL DONE !

I copied the old Index file so we can see a before and after look.

Original Page versus New WordPress Site.

Most of the time was in the Theme setup. Each page took about 5 minutes to convert the content to a WordPress Post.

12 Pages, 10 hours

Think I will send my wife a bill and see if it gets paid, lol…

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Namecheap is giving away 3 MacBook Pro, 1 Apple iPad, or 1 Amazon Kindle.

The contest is very similar to their past contests. This time the contest is made of riddles instead of trivia questions. Each hour they post a Riddle and you respond with the answer. Each hour they give away 5 domain registration credits to their system.

To participate, follow the rules at their Namecheap Contest page and join in the fun.

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Basic authentication was to be turned off and only applications using OAuth should be working as of August 31, 2010.

A Twitter Application using OAuth has to have a name, and this name is what will show in the “from” portion of a Tweet.

When using Basic Authentication the Tweet would show “from API” unless you set the “from” explicitly.

So, is Basic Authentication still working with Twitter?

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These businesses realize that social media is as close to word of mouth advertising as it gets. And pretty much everyone agrees that there is no better marketing than word of mouth.

Even if they have a website, there is absolutely no reason not to take advantage of social media.

The social media playing field is probably as level as it gets for businesses of all sizes to reach and connect with their current and potential customers.

So why are so many small businesses hesitating getting on social media?

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It will be interesting to see how this changes the data flow in and out of Twitter. See Twitter Blog: Switching to OAuth

Until recently I was still seeing a lot of Tweets being posted “from API”. Based on everything I have read these calls will quit working on June 30th.

I know from experience that making a call with the Basic Authentication from the API was a lot easier than connecting via OAuth. There are probably a lot of people that could make the API work but will struggle with the OAuth functionality. However, a lot of other Social Networking applications are now using OAuth and learning that technology will be very beneficial across the Social Graph.

So if you have not made the change yet, you only have 2 weeks left to get it done without interrupting your Twitter data flow.

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They are not necessarily in any particular order.

1. TextPad
2. Firefox with FireBug extension.
3. Chrome Browser
4. Skype
5. Google Talk
6. Google Reader
7. Twitter
8. Facebook
9. WordPress
10. Email (Gmail)

As an extra mention, most of these are used on my desktop and my iPhone. I am still doing 99.9% of my work on an HP Mini 311 Verizon Netbook, which is simply amazing.

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As an extra incentive to try the feature they are asking people to Tweet about it….

“And if you’ve customized your look with a fun personal photo we’d love to see what your new homepage looks like. Tweet a picture of your page with the hashtag #myGooglepage and share it with us!” Source : Official Google Blog

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Google is making another run at Social Networking and using Gmail to do it this time. After their previous attempts this is probably their final shot at getting some traction with social networking, if they miss here, they should just forget about it. At first glance it appears that they acknowledge Twitter and Flickr but they are not going to help anyone lean towards Facebook.

Google Wave did not get it done, Orkut, Zingku, or how about Dodgeball?

As usual they are diving in with API support at Google Code.

I will not pass judgement until I have some real time to invest in Google Buzz, but looking over the API, it looks like they realize the importance of connectivity to other systems and keeping the system as open as possible.

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After reviewing the sites and applications I use most in conjunction with Twitter, I discovered it was more than I thought. I use the Twitter Home page,  HootSuite,  Tweetie,  Bit.ly, Facebook,  Twitter API, and probably a couple more every now and then. I then reviewed how and why I used each one and this process helped me considerably.

Each one of these systems has a place in my work and comfort zones and there is no reason for me to change what works well for me.

I think too many people try to force themselves to use one system, use what works the best for you!

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