Posts Tagged ‘how to’

A quick video about updating a plugin. There’s not much to say about it, it’s quite easy, but I wanted to cover the spectrum of plugins from installing, to updating. This is the last in the plugins series for a bit.

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The second part of the install video is actually more about Google and getting API codes, but there are some plugins that require the use of an API key so that you hook into third party sites and use their functionality, such as Google Maps (the example in this video) as well as Flickr etc. So, the example of getting the Google Maps API Key can serve as a model should you need to get one for a plugin that you are using, or want to use.

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I’m taking a little break from the videos about  posts etc. and putting out a video about installing plugins. This is the first in a two part series about installing plugins (the second involves acquiring an API Key to enable the plugin to work — something that’s fairly common, and not difficult to do). Later, I’ll post a video about updating plugins.

I demonstrate the install from within the WordPress admin interface because this is a video series for the novice and I’m not sure that novices want to get involved with FTP. It’s not hard to install via FTP, but, by and large, most people’s installs of WordPress will permit them to install via the admin tool. It’s quite simple, as the video will, hopefully, demonstrate. As always, please send me your feedback.

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When I hand off a WordPress site I always have a tutorial on how to use the platform and walk the new owners through some of the basics — sort of like I’m doing with this video series. This video covers how to add a link to a WordPress post (it’s the same for a page) when using the WYSIWYG editor. I cover adding a link to text, and to an image. Additionally, I talk briefly about opening  a link in the same window, and opening a link in a new window, or tab. It is meant for the WordPress novice.

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In this WordPress video tutorial I show users how to paste content from a text document. Some folks feel more comfortable writing content outside of the WordPress editor, and that’s fine. If using a word processing document like Word, I recommend saving the file as a straight text document with no formatting. This will make it easier to format and control styles in your posts. Working in word processing programs, and copying data from them, in their native format, often leads to messy transitions, and weird styles that then take time to sort out and clean up. This video will help save users much time and frustration if they do work in an editor outside of WordPress.

This video is intended for the WordPress novice.

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Please, as always, send me your comments, so that I can make future videos, better.

Often, the first thing people ask about when they take control of their new WordPress site is “how do I add an image?” In this primer video I show to insert and edit images in WordPress posts (it’s the same for pages).

I demonstrate how to upload an image from my desktop, float it left, resize it via the edit image button, and then resize it via the WYSIWYG editor, center it and then move it back to the left. I also briefly explain “title” and “caption.”

This video is intended for the WordPress novice.

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Please, as always, send me your comments, so that I can make future videos, better.

Another video in the how-to-use-WordPress series in which I cover some of the basics of editing, and changing content in a post. I’m focusing on posts right now because they are the most basic content in the WordPress universe, and all of the things I show in these post videos also applies to creating pages — the interface and the tools are almost identical. I’ll cover the differences between posts and pages — which have to do with tags, categories and page order — in a subsequent video.

This video is intended for the WordPress novice.

Thanks for watching, and as always, send me your comments so I can try and improve these videos.

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Here’s the second installment in our WordPress tutorial series. This video covers creating a post with a brief overview of the editing tool bar. Another topic covered in this video is the Publish/Preview/Save a Draft module as well as permalinks (slugs) and how to edit them. This is intended as a primer for the WordPress newcomer.

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Just to reiterate, these videos are being created in conjunction with a project in which the end users will have varying levels of knowledge and comfort with WordPress. As always, I welcome your feedback.

Today marks the launch of a new series of videos (well, our first series, actually) on how to use WordPress.

These videos come out of a WordPress site build that we’re in the process of completing for a K-8 school. The user-base is quite diverse and with differing levels of comfort with technology. Part of my bid for this job included the creation of how-to screen casts. The one below, “Introduction to WordPress Dashboard” is the first in the series. I’ve got some more in the can, so to speak, and am learning as I do each one, and hopefully getting better as a screencaster.

This video is basic, and intended for a user with no knowledge of WordPress. Subsequent videos will show more complicated scenarios. I hope to cover as many use cases inside of the WordPress admin as I can. I’ll be categorizing these as WordPress How-to, and also by what they cover like, WordPress Posts, etc. Thanks for watching, please send me your feedback so I can continue to hone my screencasting skills.

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Personal Critique: I should probably zoom in more on this one than I do, but I am a fan of the steady camera position. In other videos, where it might be/is more important to do so, I’ll move in for close-ups.

Image via CrunchBase

Posterous is my new favorite social media tool. While it will never replace Twitter as my platform of choice for communicating and networking,  it has made it super simple to post content to various social media outposts. To do so, I send an email to a Posterous email address, and, to paraphrase the site, they “take care of the rest.” Typically, I tend not to post the same thing to the same places — my Twitter updates are different from my FaceBook updates and my blog posts are typically unrelated to either of those things. However, when I’m out and about I do like to snap mobile shots and send them to my blog, or to Flickr, or occasionally to TwitPic.

When we took our road trip through the American South in April, I posted frequently to Twitter and Flickr and my fun blog. It was a fairly laborious process as I would have to access three different apps from my hand held to place my content on these various outlets. Needless to say, I didn’t post as much as I could have to multiple sites, opting instead for one, usually Twitter. Had I had Posterous, I could have posted all of my shots, and observations from the road to three, or more places, all at once. When I talk to my clients about social media strategies and tactics I always mention Posterous when I notice them calculating the time it will take to update their various outposts.

To get started, set up a Posterous account at posterous.com. Associate your various social media accounts with this account. Start emailing Posterous and watch your content magically appear across your social media outposts. It is truly that easy. The hardest part about set-up is remembering your log-ins for your various social sites. If you don’t want to take the blanket approach, then you can email one specific community (facebook at posterous dot com, say) and your post will appear only there — because, let’s face it not everything you post needs to go on each site, and in some cases should not, depending on your audience.

Your Posterous site is fully RSS enabled, and you can subscribe to others sites and see who subscribes to yours. There are analytics included so you can see views, visits and favorites, and all posts are comment-able. The layout is clean. Multiple image attachments on an email appear neatly above the image and permit easy navigation through the photo string. The Posterous API is open so there is no telling where the user base will take it.

Posterous is clean and nimble, simple to use and a great tool in any organization’s social media toolkit. It’s a great way to extend a client’s footprint online and increase links to their site as well as their social media sites. Posterous’s use of email, the grand-daddy of Internet communication technologies, makes it an ideal tool for the social media skeptic, and it can help to maximize the time a client, or their staff spends on day-to-day social media efforts.

Please check out my Postersous site, if you have a moment, and open your own while you’re there.*

*I’m not paid by Posterous, just a big, big fan who really does recommend it to my clients.