Building Apps for mobile devices becomes crucial for online success as an increasing number of web users shift to mobile devices and as the usage stats of mobile users has already passed web usage by desktop and lap-top users in many countries.

The Ycademy May Seminar will focus on App Building namely on:

Two days are a short time to become familiar with programming language and developer kits. For this reason we will be using what we believe are the two most powerful App building software packs available for Windows to build and test our Apps.

Participants can test also some of the apps directly on their mobile device.

The seminar will take place on May 26 –27, 2012 from 1 p.m. till 9 p.m. London Time on each day.

Seminar tickets are available with the usual discounts; get your discount code from bianca(at)ycademy.com.

More details during our calls and mails from Bianca.

Click to Get your Ticket

Related posts:Ycademy Online Seminar January 2012Ycademy Online Seminar Apri 2012Ycademy Online Seminar December 12–13, 2009Ycademy Online Seminar March 2011Ycademy Online Seminar May 2011

Having set up our basic Child Theme structure we will now proceed with the customization. But before that we will do some basic WP configuration and go through the settings. You may be used to building WordPress based sites and therefore you may have some habits in as much as settings and configuration are concerned.

Semiomantics XO Custom Magazine for WordPress

Here is what I do in the dashboard:

1. Trash and permanently delete the Hello World Post.

2. Delete the default Links.

3. Set Permalinks to: /%category%/%postname%/

4. Under Settings General enter Blog Name and Tagline; for the purpose of this exercise I use  as a Title: WordPress TTP and as a Tagline: Tips, Themes and Plugins

5. Add some content to test content display by importing an RSS feed using a plugin such as Feedwordpress. I pulled into a new category called Blog the feed from my author-blog at:

http://yorgonestoridis.com/feed

We have set up a basic child theme for the purpose of modifying and customizing the Parent Theme. Creating structural modifications such as creating Custom Posts and Taxonomies are not strictly speaking theme relevant but should apply to all themes or as the case may be, to multiple themes in a Multi-user installation.

For this reason we will lodge the file which defines the custom posts outside any specific theme folder but inside wp-contents/themes.

We create a file called posttypes.php in wp-contents/themes. This file serves to define our custom post types and the way they integrate into the WP architecture.

In order to include the new Post Types in our Child theme, we include the posttype.php using an include function. This we doby adding a new file to our child theme; this file we call functions.php.

As you know, every WP theme contains a functions.php file; when creating a child theme which needs to expand the functions existing in the parent theme, then we just add a file with the same name, ‘functions.php’ to the child theme and append the functions defined in the parent theme.

Note: functions.php of the child theme does not override existing functions in the parent theme as is the case with styles (‘style.css)!

PHP allows us easily to include files in a script with the ‘include’ function and then by adding the URL to the file you wish to include.

Our ‘functions.php’ file will look as follows:

Please note that we use the ABSPATH function to construct the URL as the normal url path

does not work here.

Save functions.php into your Child Theme Folder.

In order to set up our post types we proceed step by step:

Custom Post Types allow to separate different content from the traditional blog content. Blog content usually is edited as Posts and Pages, whereas Pages (static content) can be organized in a hierarchical way and posts are sorted by categories and tags. In order to display static content (pages) using customized layout, we can create different page templates easily.

Custom Post Types allow to sort content by Posts and Custom Post Types whereas custom post types are similar to posts but using custom taxonomies and as the case may be custom layouts or design adapted to the content. A typical example is a single product page from a shop compared to a single post page on the blog section of the website.

For the purpose of our exercise we will create 3 Custom Post Types

Setting up post types is relatively easy; while we could use plugins to create custom post types, I think hard-coding is a more solid and professional way of creating them. To create a new Custom Post Type we just need to add a few lines of code to the functions file or in our case to the abstraction file at posttypes.php which will then be included int the functions.php as per above where we have added the include function into functions.php.

We will create now the 3 Custom Post Types whereas the code used for each of them is the same except for the post type names and the function names.

To create the first post type, edit posttypes.php and paste in:

Save the file.

At the top we type a comment explaining what the following code is all about (Add new Post Type for WP Tips). Then we call the function in to WordPress with ‘add_action’ and at the bottom we register the post type. As you can see the function consists of a number of arguments which we will look into later ($args).

Check out your Dashboard now and you will see that the new post type is added to the menu just above ‘Appearance’.

To add new post types, you just need to copy and paste the above code and make simple changes to the name and labels of the post type.

The above post types work, however they are not well refined. For this reason we will add some more variables. As the new posts are still called “Post” in the editor for example we will need to relabel to display the real name of the post type. For this we will write a label variable which can take an array of labels and we thus relabel all instances of our Custom Post Type.

The variable we create with the array of labels looks as follows:

We will insert this piece of code just before our block of arguments and then change the arguments accordingly as follows:

As you can see from the two commented lines, we have changed ‘label’ to ‘labels and defined with the variable from above ‘$wordpress_tips_labels’ and we have deleted the ‘singular label’ as it is replaced wby ‘singular name’ from the label variable.

For the other new post types it’s the same game, just copy and paste and change the labels accordingly.

Save posttypes.php and check it out in your dashboard.

You will now see all labels added and your site becomes a lot more user-friendly and less confusing.

We can define the functionalities of our new post types with an array under the variable ‘supports’; basically the ‘supports’ line defines which functionalities should be supported, i.e. which content should be displayed.

In our example, the line above looks like this:

When you go to your dashboard, and add a new WP Tip you will see the editor shows the ‘title’, ‘content’ and ‘comments’ fields.

While we can go crazy on adding supported functionality, we will here just look at some standard functionalities. To add more functionality we just need to append the array in the supports variable like so:

By adding the above functionalities to the supports variable, we get something pretty close to the standard post editor, since we add the author, excerpts and custom fields as well as the featured picture functionality.

Also we can add a new variable, such as ‘has archive’ and then name the archive, in our example ‘WordPress Tips’.

This archive variable allows us to create an index page just for the WP Tips post  types.

Our Code for the WP Tips Custom Post Type is as follows:

Copy and paste with the necessary changes for the other custom post types and save the file.

Check it out from the Dashboard Menu and the Editor.

As per now, our custom posts menu in the dashboard is positioned just above appearance and below comments. As custom posts are similar to posts, we want to move the custom post tabs just below the Posts tab.

As you can see from our code above, the menu position is set to ‘null’. The value ‘null’ makes that the custom post types are added at the bottom of the first section of the dashboard menu.

Depending of where you want to position your custom posts, you will need to change the value ‘null’ to another value according to the below reference scale:

0 — at the very top
5 — below Posts
10 — below Media
15 — below Links
20 — below Pages
25 — below comments
60 — below first separator
65 — below Plugins
70 — below Users
75 — below Tools
80 — below Settings
100 — below second separator

As we aim the spot below “Posts” we will use the value ‘5’, which will result in

If you want to set a particular order, you can also use 3 different numbers, like 4,5 and 6 respectively.

Do the modification inside the arguments of each post type and save.

By repositioning the custom post type menu items , we signal priority and importance.

Check it out from the dashboard and note that our custom posts are right below ‘Posts’ now.

In order to make our custom post types stick out from the menu and to add user-friendly visual identifiers, we replace the default icons with custom icons.

There are two sizes needed, 16px and 32 px for the menu and the page title area respectively.

I have created sample icons and psd files for your convenience: please download from HERE.

Decompress the downloaded rar file and copy the image folder into wp-contents/themes (as we had done with posttypes.php, as we want to make these images available to all themes.

To add these icons we introduce a new function to posttypes.php with a function batch including some css/html code for styling purposes:

Note the incomplete php delimiter at the end which is needed to switch back to php from css/html code.

At this stage, your posttypes.php looks as follows:

Check it out from your dashboard and you should see something similar to this:

Custom Post Types with Custom Icons

Related posts: How to build a Custom WordPress Site 2 How to build a custom WordPress Site Custom Widgets for WordPress WordPress 3.4 Beta Facebook Strategy with WordPress

Semiomantics XO for WordPress — Custom Magazine

Like on any live site, our test site on BitNami allows us to add themes either from the Dashboard (upload the theme’s zip file) or by pasting the theme into the themes folder in wp-contents.

Access your BitNami environment using Windows Explorer and surf to the themes folder. You will see the same folders and files structure under htdocs as you are used to when accessing your WordPress folder on a server using an FTP client.

Folders on BitNamy WP Stack

In order to add Themes, we just drop theme folders into the ‘themes’ folder as per above. As you can see, I have amongst others) added my Semiomantics XO (the ‘xo’ folder under themes). XO will serve as the parent theme of the new website. Instead however of customizing XO directly, I will create a child theme which will contain all modifications. The advantage is clear: when an update or upgrade of the theme becomes available, the parent theme can be updated without destroying the child and restarting the customization job from scratch.

A WordPress child theme consists first of all of a Folder to which we add a style-sheet.

This style-sheet contains a commented header which defines the parent theme folder as well as other optional data and it usually imports the parent theme’s style-sheet with a simple line of code (no need to copy paste the whole style-sheet). Also we will add a screenshot which will serve as a thumbnail in the Themes tab of our WP Dashboard.

Style-sheet for Child Theme

As you can see above, I am editing my files using the free PSPad which is handy to edit the various files we need to develop.

1. Add a new folder to the WP Themes folder under wp-contents/themes; name it as you like your theme to be named, in my case: yorgo12

2. Create a new file called style.css using your editor and save it into the new theme folder.

3. Edit the style.css file by adding a commented section defining:

You could add other data as some authors do, such as Author’s URI and more, but that’s not necessary.

NOTE: All the above information sits between comment tags (/*.….….*/)

Next, we import the style-sheet of the parent theme with the following line of code:

I have then added a comment to remind that you should not edit above unless you know what you do.

Your style.css file reads now similar to the following:

Save the file into the new Child Theme folder.

4. Add a Thumbnail

Usually the image represents a screenshot of the new site but it can also be a brand logo or any other image. Important: the image should be called ‘screenshot’ and be in png format to fit into WP. Use image size 300px x 225px for best display.

screenshot.png

Drop the image into the Child Theme folder.

Let’s now activate our new Child Theme from the WP Dashboard under Appearance/Themes.

What you will see is an out of the box XO when looking at the front-end of the site.

Having set the base for our custom development, we will start now to adapt the site to the needs of the hypothetical customer. Continue reading the next post.

Related posts:How to build a custom WordPress SiteSemiomantics XO Transparent WordPress DraftsHow to make WordPress Themes ResponsiveWordPress Themes and DevelopmentWordPress 3.4 Beta

We will therefore use most of our remaining daily Ycademy calls this month to go into advanced customization issues. But first we will start at the beginning by planning and formulating a project which will allow us to test code, functions and design.

Semiomantics XO Custom Theme for WordPress

For the purpose of this exercise, we will build plan and execute a hypothetical customer’s project.

The new website will be about WordPress, namely about WordPress Tips, Themes and Plugins. It’s a site for a WordPress developer and web designer.

The structure of the Website will be based on WordPress and include some static pages such as the About, Contact, Imprint and Privacy pages as well as structured dynamic content.  As the site will focus on 3 main topics, Tips, Themes and Plugins, we will build for each of these topics custom Posts and Taxonomies.

To build the new website in a test environment, we install BitNami and namely the WordPress stack (free download). BitNami creates an independent (Apache) server environment with MySQL server and installed WordPress, ready to use via our browser. If you are used to Firefox and Firebug, you will find it easy to customize your styles and designs.

Now we can access the WordPress Dashboard via the browser and the files using windows explorer.

We are ready to start working on our project. Please look forward to the next related post where we will start adding Semiomantics XO and start building our custom child theme.

Related posts:XO Photo Press WordPress ThemeElegant WordPress by Semiomantics 101How to Customize your WordPress TypographySemiomantics XO Transparent WordPress DraftsWordPress Personal CMS and Blog

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Note: When removing the page title area we recommend using a child theme’s stylesheet and applying the code below to its corresponding stylesheet, per the instructions on applying custom CSS.

In the iPhone theme:

In the iPad theme:

Change every instance of 46px to your desired size

p.nocomments, #respond { display:none !important; }

where #ffffff can be customized to suit.

Related posts:XO Mobile Theme with WPTouch ProCustomizing WP Shop ThemeCustomizing Post EditingBest WP Business ThemeHosting South Africa Fun Theme

New Adobe CS5 Master Collection

It’s smashing, exciting and a milestone, the new Adobe CS5 release! no reason to try to describe all the new goodies wrapped up in the new pack, just go and have a look at the launch presentation at Adobe. Product delivery to the public is expected to start in May.

The single most important reason to buy CS5

If you watch through the various presentation clips, you fill see that for every product being part of the CS5 Master Collection Adobe presents 5 main characteristics. I was wondering, what would be my synthesized single best reason to switch from CS4 to CS5.

With CS5, Adobe introduces eye-bleeding cool features, and loads of them. However one main argument is that the somewhat oldish programs like Photoshop, Flash and After Effects become much more productivity oriented and user-friendly.

Adobe CS5 will definitely make professional tools available to a wider audience and grant a smoother and much more effective workflow. This is where individuals, Home Business Builders, free lancers, designers and developers will find a true possibility to run a media design, development and publishing business as a one-man show. Or, there will be less need for outsourcing, coding, sharing to get a better result faster.

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Yorgo Nestoridis Media Publishing

Adobe CS5 from the point of view of Ycademy

Ycademy, our online Educational Arm has been organizing trainings, workshops and seminars focusing amongst others on Web design and Web site development with Photoshop for some time and we are aware of the difficulties Photoshop represents for the average part-timer or newbie. However with some smart add-on actions, filters and plugins, Photoshop became accessible to average computer users. The new CS5 however makes things much easier in as much as complex manipulations can be executed in just seconds, such as moving, replacing or deleting objects from a photo for example whereas as the case may be, Photoshop will automatically replace the object with the appropriate hypothetical background. Smashing!

Whether you use Lightroom or not, the new Photoshop CS5 is a highly efficient image editing tool, not just for graphic designers, but also for Photographers. The interaction of the various tools provided in the CS5 Master Collection or in any CS5 Pack for that matter, provides a fantastic training environment where I am sure we will have new opportunities to help many people to become familiar with professional tools, cutting edge technology and the joy of exceptional results.

CS5 is in the trend: visual expression has become part of our day-to-day language due to the proliferation of mobile devices and social networks. Amongst all the internet users there will always be a good number who  are reaching out for quality, style and the best possible image or branding. Adobe CS5 is a bundle of tools allowing anyone using it to communicate better and in more creative ways. I am looking forward to explore CS5 with our first training group in June.

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Web Design and Web Site Development

Adobe CS5 from the point of view of Semiomantics

It has never been and it still is not Adobe’s cup of tea: semantics! The proliferation of more visual communication provides increasing challenges for Semiomantics and in fact our way to optimize editing and publishing of visual content and media (images, movies, sound) has still a long way to go and a brilliant future ahead. In short: the more visual content customers publish, the more they will have the need to use Semiomantics tuned scripts to reach Google Top 10or to show up on Bing’s top end. More important even: Semiomantics Approach to Facebook with the new Semiomantics Flash module, which will be released in May, will open completely new perspectives for agents and customers.

Adobe CS5 from the point of view of YORGOO

YORGOO, focusing on free traffic and free leads will wake up soon, simply because we come close to the end of a long development of new content for YORGOO, focusing namely on social networks and Search Engines in the broadest way. YORGOO will remain a starting point for online Marketing efforts and help people to connect quickly with environments where the people are, where the target customers are looking for products and where people interact. The YORGOO approach will remain a no-profit no-ads program and oriented towards all those who want to start an commercial online activity with limited means and high perspectives.

More soon.

astir300

Media Design

Adobe CS5 from the point of view of ChiHosters and Hosting South Africa

More media and more sophisticated media, more creativity and more creation, faster internet lines and computers entail larger file sized and more media oriented hosting needs. At ChiHosters and Hosting South Africa we have planned ahead; entrusting large freely accessible networks with your copyrighted media is not the safest way to protect your interest. Hosting your originals on your own server or host in a reliable way is a necessity for professionals as well as for many security conscious individuals. We are providing the most cost effective solutions in the industry, namely for small enterprises and individuals. Expanding the activity to high end hosting services are under discussion.

Adobe CS5 from the point of view of YORGOO Media

A year ago we have stalled the YORGOO Media development for different reasons, namely because we were not satisfied with the WordPress MU development as well as with the hosting capabilities we had. With the release of WordPress 3 and the possibility to provide advanced media streaming, YORGOO Media is high on our list of priorities since it will provide highly efficient Semiomantics signed publishing solutions to the over 70 000 YORGOO subscribers.

More shortly.

semio300×300

Yorgo Nestoridis Publishing and Editing

Adobe CS5 Ripoff Pricing Policy

As other companies, such as Microsoft, Adobe has a discriminatory pricing policy, privileging the American Markets. Why the heck should Adobe Products cost more in Australia and Europe than in the USA? Funny, that such a high tech company, with a global approach has such a narrow, short sighted pricing policy. It’s comparable to the pharmaceutic industry and there we know what the natural reaction of the markets are. If anyone from Adobe reads this: tell your boss, time has come to change your rip-off attitude, the global market is looking for global pricing.

More about Adobe CS5 pricing shortly.

Author: Yorgo Nestoridis, Media Marketing & Publishing, Founder of YORGOO Publishing, YORGOO Press and Semiomantics. If you enjoyed reading the above, please consider following future tips and strategies by RSS reader, Email delivery, or Kindle subscription.

The cases I came across so far showed a hack just before the closing body tag in form of a short script pointing to an external source. Also, in some cases I found some php file in the uploads folder (in WP the uploads folder should not contain any php files).

Once the script executed, a long string starting something like this:

is placed on php and/or htm/html files. This eval base64 encoded and injected PHP code will hit all php archives.

To start with: change your passwords (FTP and Admin). Make sure your site script WP and Plugins are updated.

Check your footer.php (theme folder) and delete eventually the script added by the hack (or just load your backed up footer.php and replace the file).

Check your uploads folder for php files and delete them. Check your plugins folder for unusual php files and as the case may be delete them.

If you are not familiar with Ruby, PuTTY and Shell access, then there is a relatively simple solution available by running a php script from your root. The script will back-up the hacked files, replace the hack with another string and save the repaired file.

A second script can be used to delete the backed-up hacks once we are sure that all works fine.

These scripts have been developed by Sergi Rodrigues Rius and published on his spanish website. They work on the most common php CMS.

Download from HERE.

Upload the search_and_replace.php into the root folder of your site and run it by opening the page in your browser.

Once you are sure all is working fine, run the second script (this can be done after a few days or weeks).

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Based on the fact that surfers search for and prefer local business to cross border transactions, social networks namely have built in the local tags and stimulate users to hook media and events to geographically tagged locations.

In order to dominate the local market, you need to assess the use of the internet your neighbors make; chances are that they mostly hang out on social media, search Google and use email. This is of course an extremely simplified view but it gives an indication about where we need to build high visibility.

You also want to have an idea about how people access the net and websites; you will notice an increased use of mobile deices, which means that your content needs to be formatted and optimized  for desktops as well as for tablets and mobile phones.

Finally you may notice that surfers prefer visual content to text, which impacts on editing and publishing for multiple platforms.

In order to build high visibility on search returns, you need

To dominate social networks (Facebook, Google+, Twitter, LinkedIn) we need

To dominate the mobile web we need

The answer is similar to managing a business online. There are three main elements I like to focus on:

Just a few ideas:

I hope this post helps your brainstorming when creating your local project. I will publish shortly a detailed project for my demo community, Vouliagmeni.

Related posts:How to Optimize your Impact on Social and Mobile NetworksFacebook Strategy with WordPressGoogle Top 10 Dominate your Keyword 33 Web Design Trends in 2011New Facebook Pages Publishing Concept

Based on the fact that surfers search for and prefer local business to cross border transactions, social networks namely have built in the local tags and stimulate users to hook media and events to geographically tagged locations.

In order to dominate the local market, you need to assess the use of the internet your neighbors make; chances are that they mostly hang out on social media, search Google and use email. This is of course an extremely simplified view but it gives an indication about where we need to build high visibility.

You also want to have an idea about how people access the net and websites; you will notice an increased use of mobile deices, which means that your content needs to be formatted and optimized  for desktops as well as for tablets and mobile phones.

Finally you may notice that surfers prefer visual content to text, which impacts on editing and publishing for multiple platforms.

In order to build high visibility on search returns, you need

To dominate social networks (Facebook, Google+, Twitter, LinkedIn) we need

To dominate the mobile web we need

The answer is similar to managing a business online. There are three main elements I like to focus on:

Just a few ideas:

I hope this post helps your brainstorming when creating your local project. I will publish shortly a detailed project for my demo community, Vouliagmeni.

Related posts: How to Optimize your Impact on Social and Mobile Networks Facebook Strategy with WordPress Google Top 10 Dominate your Keyword 3 3 Web Design Trends in 2011 New Facebook Pages Publishing Concept

Ycademy Pro Pricing

Ycademy has released it’s new pricing policy.

Ycademy Pro Contribution

The basic Ycademy Pro  contribution remains at $30 per month. Ycademy Pros get full credit for this amount when buying a Seminar ticket for example as well as huge reductions on all products from Ycademy, YORGOO and Semiomantics.

ycademy101

Ycademy

Ycademy Author Site

The price for the Ycademy Author site for new subscribers is set at $ 250 until March 31. The Author site is a last generation Semiomantics site as retailed by Semiomantics at $1250. The special hosting pack with up to 128 MB memory allowance has a value of anywhere above $45 per month and is included in the fee and Ycademy Pro Contribution. I will personally configure and optimize the sites according to your needs and deliver them to you as soon as they are indexed under your keywords by Google. This will usually take a few days.

The site will be available for as long as you are a Ycademy Pro Contributor as per above.

Note

As from April 1, 2010, the author site will be set up and provided for an initial fee of $500.

Author: Yorgo Nestoridis, Media Marketing & Publishing, Founder of YORGOO Publishing, YORGOO Press and Semiomantics. If you enjoyed reading the above, please consider following future tips and strategies by RSS reader, Email delivery, or Kindle subscription.

Elegant WordPress by Semiomantics

The series of post initiated by this post is about editing an elegant WordPress powered Website. The idea is to create a symbiosis between the most powerful scripts from Semiomantics and Elegant web design with high class editing functions.

The result will be a blog for users who want to dispose of advanced editing features allowing for high quality presentation, such as top brands or individuals with a taste for beauty, luxury and lifestyle.

For the purpose of the exercise we will call the theme Semiomantics Elegance.

The Semiomantics Engine

Over the years we have developed add-on scripts and modifications to the WorfdPress backbone which have proven to be unbeatable when it comes to high visibility and performance on Google Top 10. While at the beginning Semiomantics signed blogs did not make many concessions to beauty, recent developments have produced smashing websites while preserving the exceptional power of Semiomantics.

global-screen

Global Sports US

The site for Global Sports US above is an example for styled design on a Semiomantics XO framework.

Also we are progressing on making Flash features “readable” by Google. The Semiomantics Flash Project, called Evolution is the best proof:

evolution-screen1

Semiomantics Evolution in Flash

evolution-screen2

Semiomantics Evolution in Flash 2

Semiomantics Evolution Sites can be viewed in Full-screen mode for an astonishing surfing experience.

Elegant WordPress

There are quite a number of brilliant CSS based WordPress Theme Designs out there and it is worth while to use such designs as a base for further development and customization. However, as style sheets cannot be protected, there is always a high possibility of being copied, except when it comes to unique functions for advanced performance and editing.

On the base of the WP Best Consultant design and layout, we have created the new project for Elegant WordPress at Semiomantics.

screenshot1

Elegant WordPress by Semiomantics

The present series of posts will detail the advanced editing and publishing features of Semiomantics Elegance.

Author: Yorgo Nestoridis, Media Marketing & Publishing, Founder of YORGOO Publishing, YORGOO Press and Semiomantics. If you enjoyed reading the above, please consider following future tips and strategies by RSS reader, Email delivery, or Kindle subscription.

Some of our developers have asked for a program covering Social Networks, namely Facebook and the Mobile Web and how to take advantage of them to distribute, promote and gain high visibility with own content.

The Seminar will cover the following areas:

As you may know, Facebook will change  the rules of the game on March 31, when the new FB pages will be released (again!). In fact the new FB page format will be similar to the timeline format and a few important changes will be of utmost importance to businesses and promoters.

If some of the above topics do not have a meaning for you, never mind: we will deal with them and make sure you are ready and up to date before March 31.

To the above Facebook on-board means we will add our own means.

The permanent changes of rules and features on Facebook have lead professionals a long time ago to structure and manage their assets outside of Facebook on a CMS or other appropriate website.

In as much as we are concerned, at the Seminar we will focus on consolidating our own assets on a WP CMS, typically XO or EVO by Semiomantics.

If you don’t talk about your business, someone else will do it — probably not the way you prefer. I guess there is no doubt in the business world about the necessity to take social networks seriously. Not for what they are, but for what users can do to your reputation. Internet promo often is based almost exclusively on testimonials and testimonials can take most any form and shape.

Word of mouth or viva voce has been a proven marketing strategy for ages.There are two principals to it:

Ad 1: The most important term is “TRUSTED”; it’s not a matter of numbers but of authority and trust.

Ad 2: 800 Million people are trusting Facebook … 800 Million people cannot be wrong! How does that sound to you? Yeah, we have heard such like about most any product. The fact that the masses use a product will attract new masses by building on the humans’ herd instinct’. And it works! Like Hype works and Spam works. If it didn’t work, fewer people would spam or hype up the junk they are trying to get rid of.

So, how can we profit ethically from the herd instinct and from word of mouth marketing in connection with Facebook?

Join the Seminar to find out :-).

Focusing on one single platform or publishing environment is not enough. To reach out for a maximum of customers, readers or just interested visitors it is of paramount importance to build a strong presence on Search Engines and Social Networks. Equally important is to take into account the increasing importance of the mobile web.

Therefore we need to publish and interlink our content in an efficient way to display on mobile and static devices and at the same time we must optimize it for all sorts of Search Engines as well as Social Networks.

The Seminar will show you how to build an effective publishing network across platforms while preserving productivity.

As usual, just click on the image to get your ticket. Discounts as usual for Ycademy Pros; for the discount code please contact Bianca: bianca(at)ycademy.com

Ycademy Online Seminar March 2012

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Semiomantics EVO Developer Theme

2 years ago, about at the same time of the year, we have built Evo, an Action script driven Flash photo and portfolio website.

This time we will make use of HTML5, CSS3 and Java Script to customize Semiomantics EVO, a Semiomantics development for Developers.

Flash is not anymore a smart option for development for as long as Apple mobile devices are as popular as they are and for as long as mobile Apple devices will not display Flash. Therefore we have been looking for an alternative to produce smashing and eye-catching sites based on HTML5.

Of course the good old Evo Flash driven sites still look great. As a lot of work has been put into them we will try to use namely all the edited images and footage in the new EVO version.

Semiomantics Evo Flash Version 2009

Semiomantics Evo Flash Version 2009

The biggest changes are:

• EVO is now powered by WordPress
• EVO does not use any Flash but is a responsive HTML5, CSS3 and Java script theme.

The new EVO assembles the ultimate in WordPress design and features for modern media display. Ideal for photographers, EVO features not less than 6 different Gallery Types. Galleries can be displayed most anywhere and the number is unlimited.

EVO can also display EXIF and location data.

The high resolution background slider will assure clean display also beyond resolutions of 2500 px equivalent.

Custom sidebars for pages and categories.

Finally: the script is eCommerce ready!

Semiomantics EVO 2012 Developer Edition

Semiomantics EVO 2012 Developer Edition Light

Become familiar with a new generation WordPress Theme and develop on the given bases a personal template for further customization.

Learn how to replace the existing Evo sites with the WordPress based responsive EVO.

(More to come.)

Licensed Software is provided.

To build the new site, add a sub-domain to your main site (author blog) and call it for example media, photo or portfolio or similar. (We will discuss this at the pre-seminar call on Tuesday February 21, 2012.

Ticket price $85, the usual discounts for Ycademy Pros apply. Please ask Bianca for the discount code: bianca(at)ycademy.com.

Click to Get your Ticket

Related posts:

1. Ycademy Online Publishing Seminar
2. Ycademy Online Publishing Seminar
3. Ycademy Online Seminar January 2012
4. Ycademy Online Seminar March 2011
5. Ycademy Online Seminar May 2011

This time we will make use of HTML5, CSS3 and Java Script to customize Semiomantics EVO, a Semiomantics development for Developers.

Flash is not anymore a smart option for development for as long as Apple mobile devices are as popular as they are and for as long as mobile Apple devices will not display Flash. Therefore we have been looking for an alternative to produce smashing and eye-catching sites based on HTML5.

Of course the good old Evo Flash driven sites still look great. As a lot of work has been put into them we will try to use namely all the edited images and footage in the new EVO version.

Semiomantics Evo Flash Version 2009

Semiomantics Evo Flash Version 2009

The biggest changes are:

The new EVO assembles the ultimate in WordPress design and features for modern media display. Ideal for photographers, EVO features not less than 6 different Gallery Types. Galleries can be displayed most anywhere and the number is unlimited.

EVO can also display EXIF and location data.

The high resolution background slider will assure clean display also beyond resolutions of 2500 px equivalent.

Custom sidebars for pages and categories.

Finally: the script is eCommerce ready!

Semiomantics EVO 2012 Developer Edition

Semiomantics EVO 2012 Developer Edition Light

Become familiar with a new generation WordPress Theme and develop on the given bases a personal template for further customization.

Learn how to replace the existing Evo sites with the WordPress based responsive EVO.

(More to come.)

Licensed Software is provided.

To build the new site, add a sub-domain to your main site (author blog) and call it for example media, photo or portfolio or similar. (We will discuss this at the pre-seminar call on Tuesday February 21, 2012.

Ticket price $85, the usual discounts for Ycademy Pros apply. Please ask Bianca for the discount code: bianca(at)ycademy.com.

Click to Get your Ticket

Related posts: Ycademy Online Publishing Seminar Ycademy Online Publishing Seminar Ycademy Online Seminar January 2012 Ycademy Online Seminar March 2011 Ycademy Online Seminar May 2011

Thumbnails on WordPress

There are two kinds of thumbnails produced on your XO site: the native WordPress thumbnails and the thumbnails generated by XO for the purpose of display throughout the theme where the WordPress thumbnails don’t fit.

WordPress Thumbnails

Thumbnail sizes are set in your dashboard under Settings > Media.  When we change the thumbs’ sizes, the change will apply only to new content. These thumbnails are used by default in the XO Basic Home Page Layout.

In order to modify thumbnails created previously to a change in WordPress settings, we use the “Regenerate Thumbnails” plugin; install from your dashboard and then just run it: this will create thumbnails corresponding to the new WP Media settings for all images in the library and galleries.

The Regenerate Thumbnails plugin will have no impact on syndicated posts unless you also pull in the images to your library when syndicating.

XO Theme Thumbnails

When we upload an image from our dashboard in XO, XO creates 12 thumbnails adapted to the needs of the site and stores them in the default uploads folder for faster loading. If we change the layout settings in XO advanced home page settings, or if we change thumbnail sizes under the layout settings, the previously created thumbnails may not fit anymore.

Using the Regenerate Thumbnails plugin will create a new set of thumbnails corresponding to the new settings. Syndicated content will not be altered by the plugin, unless you pull in the images while syndicating and store them in your library.

Styling Image Display in XO

Basically we are looking at two elements: the image and the caption.

Also XO allows for different styling of images

Yorgo Logo

inserted into a post and galleries or images and thumbs used in Custom Formats, such as Images and  Gallery Posts.

The example shows XO default style which sets borders with rounded corners, a background and some padding.

These settings can easily be modified with custom CSS, for example by adding and customizing a CSS3 property, such as some shadow:

.storycontent img{border:1px solid #666666;padding:5px;box-shadow: 0 0 5px rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.9) inset;padding:10px;}
.storycontent img:hover {opacity:0.7;}

This example uses inset box-shadow and a hover effect decreasing opacity by 30%.

For box-shadow to work in IE, we use the PIE support:

box-shadow: 0 1px 1px rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.2);
-pie-box-shadow: 0 1px 1px #ccc;
behavior: url("http://typography.ycademy.net/wp-content/themes/typography/PIE.php");

The example pulls in the PIE script; as done in previous examples (on the menu) make sure that you load the PIE.php and PIE.htc files into your child theme and link to the absolute or relative URI with the behavior property.

Captions

Captions can be customized by modifying the following selectors, for example:

.wp-caption,.wp-caption p.wp-caption-text, .gallery-caption {text-align:center;background:none !important;font-size:14px;}

You could of course chose a font-family, display the text with a reduced, fixed width or pull the caption into the image using a semi-transparent background and a negative top-margin. The limit is … your imagination.

Gallery Thumbnails

To style Gallery Thumbnails just customize, for example:

.gallery-thumb img,
#maincontent .pformat img {
margin: 0;
padding: 10px;
border: 1px solid #333;
background: #eee;
-moz-border-radius: 5px;
-khtml-border-radius: 5px;
-webkit-border-radius: 5px;
border-radius: 5px;
width: auto\9; /* IE 8 Hack */
}

Related posts:

1. Meta Tag Styling on WordPress
2. XO Theme Typography
3. The Image Caption Style

Thumbnails on WordPress

There are two kinds of thumbnails produced on your XO site: the native WordPress thumbnails and the thumbnails generated by XO for the purpose of display throughout the theme where the WordPress thumbnails don’t fit.

WordPress Thumbnails

Thumbnail sizes are set in your dashboard under Settings > Media.  When we change the thumbs’ sizes, the change will apply only to new content. These thumbnails are used by default in the XO Basic Home Page Layout.

In order to modify thumbnails created previously to a change in WordPress settings, we use the “Regenerate Thumbnails” plugin; install from your dashboard and then just run it: this will create thumbnails corresponding to the new WP Media settings for all images in the library and galleries.

The Regenerate Thumbnails plugin will have no impact on syndicated posts unless you also pull in the images to your library when syndicating.

XO Theme Thumbnails

When we upload an image from our dashboard in XO, XO creates 12 thumbnails adapted to the needs of the site and stores them in the default uploads folder for faster loading. If we change the layout settings in XO advanced home page settings, or if we change thumbnail sizes under the layout settings, the previously created thumbnails may not fit anymore.

Using the Regenerate Thumbnails plugin will create a new set of thumbnails corresponding to the new settings. Syndicated content will not be altered by the plugin, unless you pull in the images while syndicating and store them in your library.

Styling Image Display in XO

Basically we are looking at two elements: the image and the caption.

Also XO allows for different styling of images

Yorgo Logo

inserted into a post and galleries or images and thumbs used in Custom Formats, such as Images and  Gallery Posts.

The example shows XO default style which sets borders with rounded corners, a background and some padding.

These settings can easily be modified with custom CSS, for example by adding and customizing a CSS3 property, such as some shadow:

.storycontent img{border:1px solid #666666;padding:5px;box-shadow: 0 0 5px rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.9) inset;padding:10px;}
.storycontent img:hover {opacity:0.7;}

This example uses inset box-shadow and a hover effect decreasing opacity by 30%.

For box-shadow to work in IE, we use the PIE support:

box-shadow: 0 1px 1px rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.2);
-pie-box-shadow: 0 1px 1px #ccc;
behavior: url("http://typography.ycademy.net/wp-content/themes/typography/PIE.php");

The example pulls in the PIE script; as done in previous examples (on the menu) make sure that you load the PIE.php and PIE.htc files into your child theme and link to the absolute or relative URI with the behavior property.

Captions

Captions can be customized by modifying the following selectors, for example:

.wp-caption,.wp-caption p.wp-caption-text, .gallery-caption {text-align:center;background:none !important;font-size:14px;}

You could of course chose a font-family, display the text with a reduced, fixed width or pull the caption into the image using a semi-transparent background and a negative top-margin. The limit is … your imagination.

Gallery Thumbnails

To style Gallery Thumbnails just customize, for example:

.gallery-thumb img,
#maincontent .pformat img {
margin: 0;
padding: 10px;
border: 1px solid #333;
background: #eee;
-moz-border-radius: 5px;
-khtml-border-radius: 5px;
-webkit-border-radius: 5px;
border-radius: 5px;
width: auto\9; /* IE 8 Hack */
}

Related posts:

1. Meta Tag Styling on WordPress
2. XO Theme Typography
3. The Image Caption Style

Thumbnails on WordPress

There are two kinds of thumbnails produced on your XO site: the native WordPress thumbnails and the thumbnails generated by XO for the purpose of display throughout the theme where the WordPress thumbnails don’t fit.

WordPress Thumbnails

Thumbnail sizes are set in your dashboard under Settings > Media.  When we change the thumbs’ sizes, the change will apply only to new content. These thumbnails are used by default in the XO Basic Home Page Layout.

In order to modify thumbnails created previously to a change in WordPress settings, we use the “Regenerate Thumbnails” plugin; install from your dashboard and then just run it: this will create thumbnails corresponding to the new WP Media settings for all images in the library and galleries.

The Regenerate Thumbnails plugin will have no impact on syndicated posts unless you also pull in the images to your library when syndicating.

XO Theme Thumbnails

When we upload an image from our dashboard in XO, XO creates 12 thumbnails adapted to the needs of the site and stores them in the default uploads folder for faster loading. If we change the layout settings in XO advanced home page settings, or if we change thumbnail sizes under the layout settings, the previously created thumbnails may not fit anymore.

Using the Regenerate Thumbnails plugin will create a new set of thumbnails corresponding to the new settings. Syndicated content will not be altered by the plugin, unless you pull in the images while syndicating and store them in your library.

Styling Image Display in XO

Basically we are looking at two elements: the image and the caption.

Also XO allows for different styling of images

Yorgo Logo

inserted into a post and galleries or images and thumbs used in Custom Formats, such as Images and  Gallery Posts.

The example shows XO default style which sets borders with rounded corners, a background and some padding.

These settings can easily be modified with custom CSS, for example by adding and customizing a CSS3 property, such as some shadow:

.storycontent img{border:1px solid #666666;padding:5px;box-shadow: 0 0 5px rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.9) inset;padding:10px;}
.storycontent img:hover {opacity:0.7;}

This example uses inset box-shadow and a hover effect decreasing opacity by 30%.

For box-shadow to work in IE, we use the PIE support:

box-shadow: 0 1px 1px rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.2);
-pie-box-shadow: 0 1px 1px #ccc;
behavior: url("http://typography.ycademy.net/wp-content/themes/typography/PIE.php");

The example pulls in the PIE script; as done in previous examples (on the menu) make sure that you load the PIE.php and PIE.htc files into your child theme and link to the absolute or relative URI with the behavior property.

Captions

Captions can be customized by modifying the following selectors, for example:

.wp-caption,.wp-caption p.wp-caption-text, .gallery-caption {text-align:center;background:none !important;font-size:14px;}

You could of course chose a font-family, display the text with a reduced, fixed width or pull the caption into the image using a semi-transparent background and a negative top-margin. The limit is … your imagination.

Gallery Thumbnails

To style Gallery Thumbnails just customize, for example:

.gallery-thumb img,
#maincontent .pformat img {
margin: 0;
padding: 10px;
border: 1px solid #333;
background: #eee;
-moz-border-radius: 5px;
-khtml-border-radius: 5px;
-webkit-border-radius: 5px;
border-radius: 5px;
width: auto\9; /* IE 8 Hack */
}

Related posts:

1. Meta Tag Styling on WordPress
2. XO Theme Typography
3. The Image Caption Style

Enjoy Your Valentine and Make it a Great Day!

Enjoy Your Valentine and Make it a Great Day!