Reinaldo's blog » wordpress

New theme new direction

Reinaldo (old posts) — Mon, 08 Aug 2011 13:10:19 +0000

So I’ve updated my theme to change things up. I’ve also decided that I will use this space to track the progress of my goal to become a business analyst. For some of you, it may seem like a modest aspiration but for me it’s one goal I haven’t achieved. I know that when I do become a business analyst, I will have a different goal in front of me.

Back to the new theme.

I’m using a default theme that came with the new version of wordpress, it’s called “twenty eleven”. I think default themes have come a long way since I first glanced at kubrick. The new theme is quite minimalist and I think it’s a great match for the new direction I’m taking. I don’t think a blog or a theme should get in the way of someone who wants to write and share opinions. I think this theme will serve me well over the next two years.

I’m done with experimenting with plugins and widgets. When I use wordpress, I want to only write. I’m glad I’ve got the spring clean done and can now get on with the job of documenting my journey to becoming a professional business analyst.

New social media strategy

Reinaldo (old posts) — Sat, 16 Jul 2011 14:39:14 +0000

Most people who are constant producers of information in social media will now understand that the space is getting crowded with popular services. Where once we had the one blog to update, we now have to dedicate time to facebook, twitter, tumblr and google plus.

This has made me think about my social media strategy. The truth is, I don’t really have one. When this blog started in 2009, the strategy was to produce via this medium and draw interest and attention back to this page. Since then, I’ve joined twitter, created a tumble log, joined linked in and various other services.

I’m now forced to think about how I spend my time on these networks and which ones I chose to contribute to the most. The problem is that they all seem worthwhile and enjoyable. So I will have to prioritise. This is how I think I will do it.

My blog – this blog

This blog will be the space most serious to me. As I pay money to keep this domain every year and have the url printed on my business card, I may as well keep this in good order. I haven’t written here consistently. There are two reasons for this. One is that I’ve been distracted with less meaningful social media services. The other reason is that I’d rather have well thought out posts on this blog, which means that I don’t often have interesting material to share here or it takes some time to write and edit everything in a decent manner. This blog will however become my most important internet presence.

Twitter

Twitter has been getting a lot of criticism lately. Poor quality topics, too many spammers, too many rants etc etc. If you reduce your stream and make good use of lists, this shouldn’t really be a problem. One thing I like about twitter is the instant access to it through mobile phones. Whenever there’s a big story, you’re sure to find opinions and links to articles for any important issue. While I enjoy twitter, I will probably tweet less. If I have something important to say, I’ll now have a good think about it and do the issue justice by writing an article for it. It will end up on twitter anyway through an automatic blog post link.

Tumblr

A great idea at the time. “I’ll just use tumblr for all the youtube videos and quotes that don’t necessarily belong on my serious style blog”. Since the emergence of google buzz and now google plus, I think tumblr has less appeal to me. It takes time away from blog writing and lately, I’m short on informal things to publish. Between twitter and google plus, I think I have this type of publishing covered.

Every now and then I log into Linkedin, make a few changes and then log out. I haven’t given up on linkedin, I think it’s a great presence to have but I’m not exactly there everyday and interacting with it. My time on linkedin is very low at this point and I think I will continue with the same level of engagement.

Google Buzz

I think buzz is approaching the end of it’s life cycle. I did like that both my blog and tumble log got published on my google buzz profile and therefore shared among a more tech savvy crowd. However, I think the cheap and lazy re-publishing model is being less favoured with google plus. This of course encourages users to create unique and meaningful content from within google plus rather than just bombard your material into peoples’ streams. I will stop contributing to google buzz except for the odd photo that I just have to share (instead of sharing photos through twitter) and the automatic blog posts that I have set up.

Google plus

This service will only become meaningful for me if all of my friends (yes, all, I don’t have many) start using it in a genuine manner. If this doesn’t occur then it will follow the fate of my twitter stream, full of interesting people I don’t know who sometimes upload really random things.

Conclusion

In summary my social media strategy is this. I will work hard on this blog. I will continue to use twitter for small comments in between blogging and to take in the vibe of my network. I will wait and see how google plus unfolds. If google plus is successful then I will probably spend less time on twitter and this blog to engage with it. I hope to check back in a few months to see exactly how things pan out.

WordPress themes and plugins – gratitude post

Reinaldo (old posts) — Fri, 01 Jan 2010 12:59:43 +0000

This blog wouldn’t be the same if it weren’t for the plugins, themes and the programmers behind them. I think it’s time that I give credit to the authors of plugins that I use on this blog. All the plugins and themes I use are absolutely free and I recommend every one of them. It makes blogging easier for the publisher and readers. So thank you to the programmers that submit their projects to the wordpress plugin library. It’s the free software/open source software movement that has allowed for ordinary people to publish on the internet without too much money or IT expertise required.

Theme

I use tropicala by Goro Harumi. I think it’s a great theme and I’ve only recently started using it. It’s probably the easiest theme available that allows you to add a banner without too much hassles.

wordpress theme download page: http://wordpress.org/extend/themes/tropicala

Plugins

Social Media Page

This is the plugin that links to my twitter, linkedin, identica, tumblr profiles through the icons on the right sidebar. The plugin author is Phillip Norton and the plugin is “social media page”. A lot of time went into the making of this plugin. It’s very generous of Mr Norton (and any programmer) to offer this plugin for free. Many bloggers currently use it and it looks spectacular no matter what the appearance of your blog is.

WordPress plugin download page: http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/social-media-page/
Plugin homepage: http://www.norton42.org.uk/294-social-media-page-plugin-for-wordpress.html

Identi.ca Tools

This sidebar widget shows my latest identica dents/posts. The author of the plugin is Matt White. If it weren’t for this plugin, I don’t know how I would automatically publish my blog post updates on identica. It also allows me to show my latest dents from my identica profile. A great plugin.

WordPress plugin download page: http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/identica-tools/

Twitter Badge

The twitter tweets under my identica widget is actually programmed by twitter itself. I copied the code by clicking on ‘goodies’ at the bottom of the page and then ‘widgets’. You can customise the colours used by the badge but I think it looks great as it is. Any blogger who uses twitter should know about this option.

Homepage for the widget: http://twitter.com/goodies/widgets

WP Spam Free

This is a behind the scenes plugin that helps my blog control spam. An excellent choice for any wordpress blogger. It saves you a lot of time and I don’t deal with any phony blog comments anymore. This plugin is a must and should come installed with wordpress from the box.

WordPress plugin download page: http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/wp-spamfree/
Plugin homepage: http://www.hybrid6.com/webgeek/plugins/wp-spamfree

Once again, new blog layout

Reinaldo (old posts) — Thu, 17 Dec 2009 05:03:56 +0000

I’ve changed the wordpress theme as I felt it needed a new look and feel. The photo on the front of the page is of Valparaiso, my birthplace.

It’s been 8 months since I’ve started using wordpress and my only regret is not having used it earlier. I never thought a web page could be done so nicely without the use of Adobe Dreamweaver. I originally doubted using blogging software to manage a website but it has been so useful.

With wordpress, the software doesn’t get in the way of the blogging. I just have to focus on my writing and wordpress practically takes care of itself.

If you are thinking about starting a blog for personal use or groupwork, then you should try out a free blog from wordpress.com
If you need something more scalable and the ability to customise, then you should register a domain name and pay for web hosting. You then download the wordpress.org software and install it into your database on your website. From then on all you need is your username and password and an internet connection to be able to publish from anywhere in the world.

It’s as easy as writing an email to a friend.

Weird occurences in Word Press

Reinaldo (old posts) — Sun, 13 Dec 2009 13:29:00 +0000

I’m a happy user of the open source wordpress software for blogging but there are two issues I have with it.

Posts get published with the created date instead of the final published date
A post that was in my drafts got accidentally deleted without being prompted before continuing.

A big annoyance as I had put in a lot of time into this article.

It seems that I will now have to learn to use external blog editors to handle my writing as the web interface is just too risky.

Has anyone else had these problems?