Portraits of Africa 2012 on Google

Time again to monitor and check the performance of our new WP based Semiomantics XO 2012 Script on search engines.

Here’s a screenshot of yesterday’s post “Portraits of Africa 2012″ on Google – have a look! Positions 1, 2, 3 and 6 ahead of 10,800,000 search returns – YEBO GOGO!

Portraits of Africa 2012 on Google

When looking up “Portraits of Africa 2012″ on Google, I also checked how the images in my article were ranked – here’s the detail of the screenshot showing the Image of a “Young African Girl” on position one, followed by the Image of a “Young African Boy” on position 4… and a small ad I created ages ago peeking at us on position 2. All of them ahead of our South African presidents… just too funny! The young generation is on the move!

Portrait of Africa Images

It becomes even more intrigueing when we look up “Portrait of Africa Images” on Google and find these young faces of Africa featuring amongst some really classy photography! And again… the random positioning is just too weird… for those who read this and understand what I mean! Welcome to the future :)

Fact is, that with the increasing importance of images and media on the Internet – and with this for our website development – … and people preferring to look at something for quick grasping of the contents rather than reading long time-consuming – and even worse: thought-provoking -  texts… that the correct tagging and classification of photos and images becomes more important. Here as with any post what counts is to be found on Google – Google Top 10 that is. Noone else looks further…

Congratulations to our young friends who’ve made it to the top ranks and find themselves in interesting and attractive company! There will be more….

New Menu for Kalahari Restaurant and Theatre

The Kalahari Restaurant and Theatre in George has recently launched their new menu. This new menu surely has the public talking and flocking to the Kalahari Restaurant.

Dining out in George

It has been said that dining out in George will never be the same when Kalahari opened the Restaurant with a state of the art theatre. Now it is said once again, with their new menu and unbeatable prices!

New Kalahari Restaurant Menu

Some of the highlights on the new Kalahari Restaurant menu includes the Kalahari Breakfast for only R25, burgers served  with chips or salad from only R25, Half Chicken with Chips or salad for only R26, Steaks from only R37 for 300g, “Skaapnek” served with rice at R49 and 500g Spare Ribs for only R48. A kiddies menu is also available and every kiddies meal includes a free lucky packet!

Family Restaurant in George

Get your friends and family together and visit the Kalahari Restaurant for a dining out experience at affordable prices in a family friendly environment. The new kiddies play area is in the main restaurant area where you can keep an eye on your little ones!

Portraits of Africa

Young African Girl from my series “Portraits of Africa 2012″.

Portraits of Africa 2012

Portraits of Africa 2012 – untouched… straight from my simple NIKON Coolpix P90 … just the magic of a Young African Girl.

Although the black & white version adds a specific note, I preferred to show the soft gold tones of the skin.

Portraits of Africa

Within my photo series “Portraits of Africa” here is the image of a young African boy.

Portraits of Africa

I just love Black & White Photography and how it adds depth to a picture, especially portraits and expressive faces.

“Portraits of Africa” are shot on a simple NIKON Coolpix P90 with a minimum of post-editing, ideally nothing at all.

Hakamela Conferencing

We are pleased to announce that the Conference Services website  “Hakamela Conferencing & Event Management” will soon be under construction on Semiomantics XO 2012.

Hakamela Conferencing

Hakamela Conferencing & Event Management will open its doors in Pretoria, South Africa. This high-demand Service Company  will be run by professional Conference Management Expert Lynn Sakuinje.

Web Design South Africa will be designing a simple, practical and user-friendly website that will target top 10 positions on Google under the relevant keywords and focuses on high visibility on the mobile web.

Medihope is a progressive company engaged in the selling, renting and repairing of medical equipment and furniture. Our qualified technical team has serviced, maintained and refurbished hospital furniture for major hospital groups such as Medi Clinic George and Bayview Hospital Mossel Bay, local clinics and old age homes in the past 11 years.

South Africa Rehabilitation Aids for Elderly and Disabled

Medihope specialize in selling rehabilitation aids for the elderly and disabled. Our range of products includes, bath and shower aids, commodes and toilet aids, hospital furniture, bedsore prevention, back and neck support, walking and mobility aids, incontinence aids, oppo support, wheelchairs, diagnostic equipment and first aid kits.

Hospital Beds and Hospital Furniture in South Africa

Medihope also specialize in selling new and refurbished furniture from Germany, China and Taiwan and have since sold hospital beds and other hospital furniture to hospitals, old age homes, frail care units, clinics, private practices and individual clients.

We firmly believe that our excellent after-sales service, unique experience and knowledge of hospital furniture, which we are known for, separate us from our competitors.

Acrylic Paint in Mossel Bay for School Projects

ECbeads in Mossel Bay is now also a stockiest of Jabtex’s newly developed artist medium, Tascal Craft Acrylic is a unique, water based, pigment rich paint medium that can be applied to any surface. This can be used to create acrylic, water colour, and gouache or oil effects.

Art Supplies in Mossel Bay

Whether you need paint brushes, paint of canvas, ECbeads offers it all. Here at ECbeads in Voorbaai, Mossel Bay you will get a range of art supplies, mediums such as Craft Paint, Tascal Paint and Fabric Paint as well as extenders.

ECbeads and Art Shop in Mossel Bay offers a range of beads, mosaic necessities, wooden blanks, serviettes, sequins, costume Jewellery as well as fabric paint, acrylic paint, decoupage, Filana Clay and bronzing. Here you will find that we have excellent prices and offer advice on our beads and art supplies in store.

Paint for School Projects in Mossel Bay

You can now get your paint and paintbrushes for school projects from ECbeads in Mossel Bay. Here are various mediums to choose from and Con and Esme’ are standing ready to give advice and tips.

For more information on ECbeads click here

Tascal Craft Acrylic Paint in Mossel Bay

ECbeads in Mossel Bay is now also a stockiest of Jabtex’s newly developed artist medium, Tascal Craft Acrylic is a unique, water based, pigment rich paint medium that can be applied to any surface. This can be used to create acrylic, water colour, and gouache or oil effects.

Art Supplies in Mossel Bay

Whether you need paint brushes, paint of canvas, ECbeads offers it all. Here at ECbeads in Voorbaai, Mossel Bay you will get a range of art supplies, mediums such as Craft Paint, Tascal Paint and Fabric Paint as well as extenders.

ECbeads and Art Shop in Mossel Bay offers a range of beads, mosaic necessities, wooden blanks, serviettes, sequins, costume Jewellery as well as fabric paint, acrylic paint, decoupage, Filana Clay and bronzing. Here you will find that we have excellent prices and offer advice on our beads and art supplies in store.

Paint for School Projects in Mossel Bay

You can now get your paint and paintbrushes for school projects from ECbeads in Mossel Bay. Here are various mediums to choose from and Con and Esme’ are standing ready to give advice and tips.

For more information on ECbeads

New Semiomantics XO Theme for WordPress

The above Screenshots represent just some of the pages, features and looks the 2012 Edition of the high performance XO Theme for WordPress has up its sleeves. The above site is the fruit of the 2 Days Ycademy Online Seminar for Semiomantics Developers and designers.

The 2012 Edition of XO is focused on even more flexibility in as much as editing, cross-browser and cross-platform compatibility are concerned.

The Site displays perfectly on Mobile devices, showing responsiveness also of the plugged in scripts chosen of which some have been adapted to satisfy the high standards of Semiomantics Publishing Scripts for Excellence.

The site elaborated at the Ycademy Online Seminar this past week-end features some smashing features, such as:

• Background Slideshow, customizable for each page, post or archive
• Built in Directory
• Media Library for YouTube and Vimeo
• Pro-sliders which can be deployed anywhere on the site
• In addition to the responsive design, a separate light Mobile Version is available
• Bold and Efficient Navigation
• Built in Custom Fonts
• Social Network connectivity and publishing
• and much more.

The XO script is well commented and offers designers a clean and straight forward environment for custom developments. XO uses best practices for WordPress development and makes the best use of the possibilities offered by the WP back-bone, assuring smooth integration and optimized conflict handling.

XO is a great playground for designers. The DIY version allows anyone to adapt layout and colors to taste right from the back-office; there is no need to have any knowledge about coding or designing. The theme behaves like a Chameleon and adapts to specific needs with just a few clicks of the mouse: pre-configured layout elements transform your XO quickly into a Magazine, Newspaper, personal Author Blog, a Media Hub, a Shop, a Marketing Machine, a Social Media Publisher, a Product Promoter or a Fan Site or most anything your imagination dictates.

For the professional designer, XO offers a well commented environment. Custom code can be added right from the dashboard or, as I prefer using a child theme. XO is tuned for HTML5 and CSS3 use, making it a modern and inspiring framework for exceptional design effects.

Out of the box, the XO Theme for WordPress provides a stable and reliable, robust and optimized solution for common use. It provides built in features such a slider with multiple transitions and a one click selector for easy use.

Layouts can be easily adapted to needs and purpose of the site. In fact, most custom designers rely on the theme engine to format efficiently layouts.

The site featured in the above gallery uses a few pro plug-ins to add functionality in function of customer requirements. The integration of such add on scripts is a relatively simple process for designers and developers.

XO has been developed for high performance, productivity, excellence in publishing and flexibility. For the professional users, the XO Theme constitues a solid base with a huge potential for customization and creative artistic expression.

The release of XO Version 3.3.x is planned for the first week of February. The present Release Candidate has been thoroughly tested. A few minor issues will be taken care off before XO will be available to the public.

If your site is running on Semiomantics XO suing basic customization, the theme can just be overwritten. (Save your custom CSS beforehand.)

If you are using a custom version with custom developments or a child theme, some of your customization will need to be adapted to the enhancements of XO 2012. This concerns namely custom headers and footers as well as custom functions.

Support for developers and designers is available as usual at our Ycademy Online Calls and Seminars or through Semiomantics Pro Support.

Related posts:

1. Semiomantics XO Blog
2. Facebook Strategy with WordPress
3. Ycademy Online Seminar January 2012
4. Semiomantics XO 2010 Edition
5. WordPress Shop Version 3 by Semiomantics

Bianca Gubalke Mobile

Bianca Gubalke Mobile – a first pre-seminar sketch for a mobile version! The little icons stand for Social Network icons like Facebook, Twitter etc, which I would design myself to fit into the overall picture I have in mind.

Bianca Gubalke Mobile

We are living in times of rapid change and the explosion of the mobile market. People use their mobile phones to search the net, to find what they want, to compare it and – to buy it. Sales figures triggered via the mobile net are staggering – and as web designers we have to adapt – which means also to focus on new technologies and learn new languages.

Over the past years, Semiomantics has always evolved along with WordPress Developments. Remarkably, the latest WP update allows for much more creativity. While our Semiomantics based author blogs display perfectly on smartphones through integration of the right plugins and settings, there’s much more scope that we will be looking into at this weekend’s Ycademy Seminar 2012 – which is also a testing ground for the new Semiomantics XO 2012 – to be released soon.

In that sense, I am looking forward to the evolution of Bianca Gubalke Mobile!

Web Design Trends 2012

The upcoming first Ycademy Seminar 2012 will focus on Web Design Trends 2012 in terms of what they mean for our brand-new WordPress based Semiomantics XO 2012.

Web Design Trends 2012

In order to follow and implement Web Design Trends 2012, learning new languages like CSS3 and html5 has become crucial – especially also due to the unfortunate conflicts around Flash which cannot be seen on the exploding mobile market. Accordingly, this weekend’s fully online YCADEMY Seminar will need focused attention and strong nerves! That’s the price to pay to be and remain a qualified Semiomantics expert!

MadMax is ready – are YOU?!

Monkey Valley Resort on Mobile

I just got some screenshots directly from the iPhone in Europe to demonstrate how the new Monkey Valley Resort Website actually looks on the Mobile web – and I’m absolutely thrilled! The quality and resolution are just outstanding and I left the image big so you can appreciate it here even though the picture may take a moment to load. This is soooo sexy!

Above, you see the Frontpage of the Monkey Valley Resort Website, which features a large elegant slider displaying the various chapters and attractions of the hotel resort 30 kms out of Cape Town, South Africa. What is remarkable here is how beautifully the slider displays – all based on new technology as, sadly, Flash does not display on mobile phones and this forced us to adapt in our Semiomantics Website Development, learning new languages like CSS3 and HTML5.

Monkey Valley Resort on Mobile

Much if not most of today’s business on the Internet is piped in one way or another through the mobile web… a reason why Monkey Valley Resort had to be visible on mobile.

Here is a horizontal version (probably 1 : 1) … and of course you can zoom up text or whatever you are interested in… and get to where you want to go in a fast and user-friendly way, eg. Click and BOOK!

The Importance of Functionality

The Importance of Functionality in terms of Website Design has a lot to do with the ease and user-friendly interaction between the website and the website visitor: the website has to communicate to the visitor what it is all about in an attractive way, guiding through what it has to offer and fulfilling almost intuitively what the visitor is looking for and making it easy to follow through with the desired action – say to book a room in a hotel…, to buy, pay and even download say an ebook… or to simply offer various sights of a specific area or place that shows the visitor what he can expect, eg. in a holiday resort or when researching a new home in real estate.

Today, being visible on the mobile web is crucial to the success of any website or Internet business – and therefore one of the most important functionalities of a website or blog.

Nowhere more than on the Internet do we see such rapid and continuous change and do we have to adapt, learn new languages and keep developing our knowledge and skills on an ongoing basis as in the virtual arena. A website or blog is not built to last forever and it needs a regular allocation of funds (budget) – it’s a project in constant development, adapting to the changes, changing with the trends and always trying to offer readers and visitors something new, something modern and going the extra mile to capture the traffic that leads to business and success.

The Southern Cape Old Car Club is proud to host the 16th George Old Car Show on 11 & 12 February 2012 at the PW Botha College, York Street, George.  For the second consecutive year, the Midas Group has come on board as the name giving sponsor and the show will once again be known as the Midas George Old Car Show.

Theme for 2012 Midas George Old Car Show

The theme for the 2012 Midas George Old Car Show is Convertibles and once again the public. All exhibitors are invited to take part in the “fancy dress” competition hosted on Saturday 11 February.

Pre-registration for Old Car Show Exhibitors

Old Car Show exhibitors should take note that pre-registration of vehicles is required before or on 31 January 2012 as no late entries to this event will be accepted at the gates.  Vehicles younger than 1975 should also pre-register as they will need special approval to be exhibited at the show.

Classic Car Auction at the Midas George Old Car Show

In February 2011, Protea Hotel, in collaboration with Aucor, arranged the first every Classic Car Auction at the Midas George Old Car Show. Between 10 – 15 vehicles was auctioned in 30 minutes. This year, even more excitement can be expected as the auction will now be an hour long and double the amount of cars will be on auction. This will take place on Saturday 11 February from 13h00.

Midas George Old Cars Show – Event for the Whole Family

With more than 900 cars expected at the Midas George Old Cars Show, the Castle beer garden, model cars and a variety of food stalls, the show promises to be an event for the whole family to enjoy.

Entry fees at Midas George Old Car Show  are as follows

• Saturday Adults: R35, Scholars: R15
• Sunday: Adults: R15, Scholars: R5

For more information on the show, visit http://www.scocc.co.za or contact Chris van Staden on 082 491 5254 or Marlene Quinot on 084 415 7987

Semiomantics XO 2012 for WordPress

The brand-new Semiomantics XO 2012 for WordPress – soon to be released – will be the central topic of the first Ycademy Seminar 2012, to be held this coming weekend.

As “Publishing for Excellence” at “Web Design with Passion” demands consistent learning, experimenting, an adaptation to trends and almost daily reassurance of the script’s leading SEO performance, the global Semiomantics Team is currently testing the new script and exploring different ways of presenting themselves or their products and services online.

Semiomantics XO 2012 for WordPress

I am very pleased with the more adventurous ways we can explore with the new Semiomantics XO 2012 for WordPress… and I know we haven’t even started! I am looking forward to creating the Wedding Website on this extraordinary WordPress based script.

Sliders are the Trend 2012

With sliders being an important part of the Trend 2012 as Website Design and “the Look” are concerned, I am currently experimenting with a fading slider – although extremely frustrating with often failing Internet connections and extremely slow lines down here… it feels like the sun flare is targeting us specifically and knocking us out completely!

Besides using sliders in the header or sidebar widgets or even blog posts and pages, we can now use them even in the background – which opens a lot more creative options and perspective.

At the Ycademy Seminar, we will work on becoming familiar with the new features of the XO 2012 and improve our knowledge of CSS3, HTML5 and jQuery so we are in a position to ‘play’ with the script, explore new avenues and, last but not least, adapt XO to our customers’ needs.

To be continued. . .

Semiomantics XO with CSS3 and HTML5

Time has come to learn about new technologies available for web designers and developers. All common browsers are increasingly able to read and interpret CSS 3 and HTML5 and about all computers are equipped to read java and jQuery. Therefore new possibilities become available to XO developers which we will focus on during the January Seminar.

XO has evolved over the past 4 years along with WordPress Developments. The theme has become responsive and shows perfectly on smart phones and tablets.

Subsequent to the release of WordPress 3.3.x XO needed some adjustments and updates which we have implemented and tested. New design functions become available for advanced customization. XO remains the most flexible theme for custom development, accessible to most anyone.

The goal of the seminar is to become familiar with XO and it’s new features as well as to learn how CSS3, HTML5 and jQuery allow to adapt XO to most any customer’s needs.

Some of the technical issues we will have a detailed look at are:

• Transparencies with CSS3
• Background Sliders
• Mobile Verions using WPTouch Pro
• Content and Frame sliders with Pro Slider and SlideDeck Pro
• Social Network connectivity with FacePages
• How to make a WP theme responsive (adapting to different screen sizes such as Smart Phones Tablets and bigger)

The most obvious expansions are via plug-ins. We will show how to make the best use of plug-ins for the Mobile Web, Social Networking, Social Media Publishing, Social Network Marketing as well as for more attractive display. Time permitting we will look into additional functions, such as shopping cart or marketing specific scripts.

We also will start looking into another important chapter:

How to convert your XO sites into a Mobile App!

In order to make the understanding easier, we will build a new site during the 2 days event. Please join our pre-seminar call on Thursday to prepare the event by setting up a new XO powered site.

All materials will be provided. You will just need some images/photos, videos and other content you may want to use to populate the XO site.

Saturday and Sunday, 28/29 January, 2012 from 1 pm London time till 9 pm London time.

Tickets are available on our new shop at HIOD.com. Please click on the below image to order.

Discounts as usual for Ycademy Pros: Please mail Bianca at bianca(at)ycademy.com for the coupon code.

Related posts:

1. Ycademy Online Seminar January 2010
2. Ycademy Online Seminar May 2011
3. Ycademy Online Seminar
4. Ycademy Online Seminar April 2011
5. Ycademy Online Publishing Seminar

Wedding Flowers and Bouquets in the Garden Route

Marianthus Cut Flowers in Mossel Bay offers all brides to be and wedding planners, wedding flowers and bouquets that will suite your style as well as budget.

Garden Route Wedding Flowers

Ronel, the owner of Marianthus Cut Flowers in the Garden Route, will built your wedding flowers around what the bride wants. Any wedding revolves around the bride and is a reflection of the brides taste, style and personality.

Fresh Flowers for Weddings in Mossel Bay, Garden Route

Marianthus Cut Flowers will not only provide you with beautiful, healthy and fresh flowers for your wedding, they will deliver them as well. Whether you want to do your own wedding bouquets and flowers arrangements or want Marianthus Cut Flowers to handle it all for you, they are here to assist you in colouring in your wedding!

No wedding is too big or small!

For more information on getting the perfect flowers for your wedding contact Ronel from Marianthus Cut Flowers today still.

Marianthus Cut Flowers in Mossel Bay offers all brides to be and wedding planners, wedding flowers and bouquets that will suite your style as well as budget.

Garden Route Wedding Flowers

Ronel, the owner of Marianthus Cut Flowers in the Garden Route, will built your wedding flowers around what the bride wants. Any wedding revolves around the bride and is a reflection of the brides taste, style and personality.

Fresh Flowers for Weddings in Mossel Bay, Garden Route

Marianthus Cut Flowers will not only provide you with beautiful, healthy and fresh flowers for your wedding, they will deliver them as well. Whether you want to do your own wedding bouquets and flowers arrangements or want Marianthus Cut Flowers to handle it all for you, they are here to assist you in colouring in your wedding!

No wedding is too big or small!

For more information on getting the perfect flowers for your wedding contact Ronel from Marianthus Cut Flowers today still.

Touched by Gorillas

I was always touched by gorillas and I just love Nature and its wildlife, however, this short video about a close encounter with a family of gorillas in Uganda was sent to me by a friend and mutual wildlife lover… I invite you to see this and admire what a wonderful world we are living in! I just love Africa, where you feel the heart beating deep down from the earth and each single day is filled with surprise, magnificence and thrill.

Touched by Gorillas

Here’s the video that I simply call “Touched by Gorillas” – no need to explain or say anything… and especially those of you who know game reserves and camps can appreciate this wonderful experience to the fullest.

Imagine you sat there with your camera… I had quite a similar experience in the mountains with a wild troop of baboons… but gorillas are something else!

The above picture leads to the original website – thank you for allowing us to share this with the world!

Marianthus Cut Flowers is located in Dias Beach, Mossel Bay and is known for their range of flowers available for any occasion. Marianthus is a supplier of flowers for Weddings, Functions, Funerals, Birthday Parties and any other event or occasion.

If it says “flowers”, Marianthus Cut Flowers can do it.

Flowers for Wedding and Functions in the Garden Route, South Africa

Marianthus Cut Flowers supply flowers and bouquets for weddings, functions, businesses such as attorneys, estate agents and many others; to churches, special occasions like Valentines Day, Easter, Mothers Day as well as Biltong- and Fruit Baskets.

Wedding Flowers and Bouquets? We are well known for doing flowers for weddings in the Garden Route. We can supply the bouquets as well as just the flowers if you wish to do it yourself.

Garden Route Flower Deliveries

Marianthus Cut Flowers also do deliveries of flowers and biltong or fruit baskets in the area between Vlees Bay and George in the Garden Route. On request we can deliver to other towns as well.

For your every need in flowers, contact Ronel from Marianthus Cut Flowers today!

TOP SEO Performance on Semiomantics

Here’s today’s example of TOP SEO Performance on Semiomantics XO 2011 (soon to be updated to XO 2012):

Earlier today, I wrote a small article for Monkey Valley Resort on “Best Tapas in Cape Town” as that’s what Darren Byrne from Thorfynn’s Restaurant at Monkey Valley Resort wanted a photo of on a hot Saturday afternoon yesterday.

While his interest is that a maximum of people see the News and visit his restaurant, my goal as a web designer is to ensure the message I put out on the Monkey Valley Resort Website reaches Google Top 10 – meaning a maximum of traffic and visitors to the website. Here’s the resultrank 7 out of 709,000 search returns and climbing! Ammmazing – Ole!

TOP SEO Performance on Semiomantics

A day earlier, I prepared the brand-new menu en al for “Best Valentine’s Dinner Cape Town” on 14th February 2012 at Thorfynn’s Restaurant HERE and – lo and behold – captured position 5 within a few minutes… and -as I just tested – am holding it to this moment without further intervention or support – see the screenshot here (click on it to enlarge it):

Best Web Design South Africa on Semiomantics

And to end this post, the day before I followed a request by Monkey Valley Resort founder Judy Sole to promote ‘a bit more beach’ – and did a simple article “Visit Noordhoek Beach”. This post just shot up to spots 1 and 2 on Google Top 10 :

…and as I saw just now, after 2 days, it has captured even spot 3!

No doubt: Monkey Valley Resort has chosen simply the Best Web Design South Africa on Semiomantics – high SEO optimization, a captivating design and high functionality! Unbeatable and proven on a daily basis!

And as the Internet becomes increasingly sophisticated… quality counts!