Web Publishing

The posts in Web Publishing are usually things I have learned the hard way, or the long way around. I like to do things my own way. I look for better ideas, well, different ideas, later – if I need them. People should always pick and choose what advice they follow. But, I have more than 20 years of experience creating, building, and maintaining my own sites. I’ve learned a few things, in my own contrary, independent way.

There are 866 posts filed in Web Publishing (this is page 7 of 87).

How to Get Started (and Enjoy) Using Twitter

TwitterNote: Originally published on HubPages, July 2012.

What’s keeping you from using Twitter?

Twitter is easy to use. Basically you type in text and hit send. You can do more, but you can get started with the basics and even skip a lot of the extras and not miss them.

I’ve been using Twitter from the beginning. I like to try new things like Twitter and see how they work. I’m an explorer at heart.

I’m assuming you have already joined and created an account at Twitter. If not, go ahead and do so. You can sign up for an account, free, with your email address and have it link to your Facebook login as a back up login.

You’re going to need a user name on Twitter. Pick something you already use on social media accounts like Flickr, Tumblr, Facebook, Pinterest, etc. Pick a descriptive user name but don’t let it get long winded. Keep it all one word, this just makes it easier for you to type. Once you get started with social media you will be typing your user name pretty often in order to pass it around and let people know who you are.

Compose New Tweet

newtweet newtweet2

 

Go Ahead – Start Using your Twitter Account

Login to the Twitter site. Click in the box and type something. You don’t need to add anything fancy. You don’t need to add your user name (Twitter adds it automatically once you send the post). Stick to 140 characters, this includes spaces and punctuation as well as each letter or number you type. Twitter lets you know how close you are getting to the 140 limit.

Don’t worry about the limited characters. Type in one sentence, Most sentences will fit into the 140 character limit easily. Twitter is meant to be quick, lively posts so one sentence is all you usually need. If you do need more to make your point clear think of words you can take out, words you can shorten with characters like &, for instance. Pretty simple so far, right?

Now that you have typed in your sentence, send it out there. All you need to do is click “Tweet”. Your post will be sent out to everyone on your Twitter list.

Click Expand to Retweet, Delete, Reply or Favourite a Tweet

 

So Now You’ve Posted But….

So you posted but noticed a typo/ typing error or spelling mistake. Just go to your tweet, click on “expand” and click on “delete” from the list of options. You just need to confirm that you want to delete that post and then it will be gone.

You can also retweet the post from someone else this way. Or reply to anyone who has sent you a tweet.

If you want to save or savour the tweet from a friend you can mark it as a favourite here. This will save the post on your Twitter account. The tweet is saved in a file on your Twitter account.

I have an extra option on my Twitter account. It shows up in the image I cut and pasted above. It’s called ClassicRT (Classic ReTweet). You can add this option to your web browser if you like. It’s an extra – but not essential.

ClassicRT for Google Chrome

ClassicRT Addon for Firefox

Find Replies to Your Tweets and People who have Mentioned You

connecttwitter connecttwitter1

 

Venture Out a Bit…

Wander off the Home section. Click ‘Connect’ at the top left. Now you can see who has mentioned you. Who has retweeted your posts.

I like to use this side of Twitter to reply to anyone who sent me a note. It is much easier to find replies here. (Especially once your Twitter account gets busy).

Block or Report Twitter Spammers

mentions1 mentions2

 

How to Report Spam Accounts on Twitter

On the Connect section you will eventually get Twitter spam. This is much like comment spam in a blog or on your posts on HubPages. You can (and should) block or report Twitter spam. Blocking the spamming accounts will keep them from posting to you again. So this is enough if you aren’t sure they are spamming. Otherwise, report the account to Twitter staff. Let them deal with it.

Click on the name/ user name on the spam account. This brings up a second window which lets you choose the options to block or report the account. Just click and be done with it.

If this were a friend you could send them a tweet this way as well or go to their Twitter profile. You can also choose to follow or unfollow the user account.

Never send a spam Twitter account a message. NEVER. You may think you are teaching them a lesson, giving them a piece of your mind, or giving them a chance to change their ways. But, all you are actually doing is confirming that you are an active Twitter user. They will put your account on a list which they sell to people looking for active Twitter accounts to send spam to. They will also dig for more information from your Twitter account, like your web address, blog or email address. So, NEVER reply to a spam account on email, your blog, Twitter or anywhere else online. Don’t do them any favours.

View your Profile, Change your Settings or Get Help

profile1 profile2

 

How to Change your Settings and your Profile on Twitter

Click the icon/ image of the person on the top right of the screen. This gives you options which can lead you to Twitter settings and let you edit your Twitter profile.

You can leave the settings as they are until you have an idea of how and why you want to change any of them. The basic settings will be fine for almost every beginner on Twitter. I’ve left mine pretty untouched.

I do like to play with the profile settings. I add my own image as face to the Twitter account. I created a background which has my links and whatever else I care to add. (You do need software for this, some kind of image software like Gimp). You can also write a blurb for your profile and add links.

Fun with #Hashtags

The last thing you need to know are hashtags. You may have heard about them already.

Hashtags are just a quick referral tag. Anything at all can be typed as a hashtag. You just add the # in front of it and keep it all one word.

Add a fun hashtag to your Twitter post to illustrate your point, catch someone’s attention or see if you can turn a clever phrase viral. (Viral being something that catches on in social media and spreads around in a huge way). Seldom will anything grow to viral proportions but it’s kind of fun to try now and then.

Don’t go crazy with a lot of hashtags. Consider how much you would want sent to your account before you go on a hashtag binge.

#ThisisaHashtagExample

A few last things to keep in mind…

This really is enough to get you started on Twitter. There’s a bit more about Twitter etiquette and just being a smart Twitter user (tweeter) in general.

Don’t follow a lot of people you don’t know or care to know. Having a lot of followers does not make you rich and famous. It does make you look like a possible Twitter spammer. Real Twitter users will have a balance of people they follow themselves and those who follow them back. You don’t want to have people following you from some Twitter follower service either. Those are all spammers who want to bloat their numbers so they can spam and look important. They may have you on account but they won’t be reading your posts, following your links or really care about anything you have to say.

Don’t post a lot of links or stale quotations. People want to know they are following a real person. They want to follow people who are using their Twitter account as READERS and WRITERS. They want people who will read their post, follow their links and give them feedback now and then. Isn’t that what you want from people on Twitter too? So make personal posts which don’t include links to be followed and do include some personal chatter. Nothing too dull. Come up with something interesting, something surprising that happened to you, something funny you noticed today… and so on.

Ask questions, send a note to someone using their Twitter name (@thatgrrl is my Twitter user name for instance) try to get a two-way flow of conversation. Don’t be afraid to jump into a conversation if you have something useful to add. Watch Twitter hashtags to find Twitter groups who have scheduled online meetings to talk on Twitter.

If you would like someone to follow you back let them know. Busy Twitter accounts have a hard time keeping up with new followers. Many of them are not sincerely following them but just want to get followed back and will likely remove them from their own list once they get followed back. Lost you there? Don’t worry about it. Just know that people you would like to notice and follow you back on Twitter will respond if you send them a post on Twitter. Let them know you followed them and tell them WHY you chose to follow them. Do they share your interests, do they write on the same site you do, etc.?

Don’t ignore posts on Twitter from other people. Follow an interesting link, leave comments when the links go to blog posts and let people know you followed a link posted to Twitter. Give people feedback on Twitter when they make a witty comment, shared an interesting link, or have a typo in their post. People almost always like a chance to fix a mistake if someone notices and lets them know about it. Not so different from the spinach in your teeth thing. (A friend will always let you know about the spinach stuck in your teeth).

Use your Twitter profile – write something about yourself. Tell people who you are, what you are interested in and what you are doing. Include at least one link they can click on to find you outside of Twitter. If someone thinks about following you, that profile will be a big deciding factor.

Other Places to Find Twitter Help

Create Your Own Unique WordPress Theme

No matter how many WordPress themes I look at and try, I never find exactly what I want. But, I do find more things I would like to have.

When I ran my sites on Blogger I began using simple HTML and basic CSS. I learned how the Blogger code worked with the additional CSS and HTML I added. That was the beginning of my learning how to create my own blog themes (also known as templates and layouts).

A WordPress theme seemed a lot more complicated, at that time. Blogger isn’t as simple as it once was then. But, I still like Blogger for anyone getting started with blogging.

Design, Create, Make your own WordPress Theme

 

Why Should you Create your own WordPress Theme?

One reason for creating your own WordPress theme is to have something uniquely your own. There are a lot of blogs online now, many of them have the same look. They call them cookie cutters because they all seem to have been created with the same look, only small things like a different colour background to give them any unique look.

If someone is intimidated about breaking into the coding and making their own theme they can still take the baby steps and begin by changing their background to something of their own creation. Use a photograph you have taken. Get started with Gimp and other graphic software and create a design and images which you can use as the background, title bars, sidebar headers, etc. You can create hand drawn images and then scan them into an image file which you use on your blog too. There are simple, fairly easy options which will get your blog out of the cookie cutter style.

But, the best is still to create your own theme. Begin by tweaking whatever theme you are using now. Tweak to change the font, the colours for the text. Tweak to change how images are displayed in your blog. Look into other tweaks you can do. There are endless tweaks. As you tweak learn how the code works. What changes you make and how they end up working on the display of your blog.

Once you have been tweaking and feel fairly happy about what you know, get into the real mess and muck of creation – from scratch.

A bit daunted still? No fear. You can use frameworks to give you a base of operations. A framework is the basic code used for a simple WordPress theme.

Don’t sit on the fence forever with your framework. Dabble and play around and make your own theme. It doesn’t have to be rocket science or perfect. A theme evolves over time as WordPress versions change, as blogging itself changes and as your own needs change.

Next stop… once you have a theme consider selling it or offering it on WordPress.org for others to download free. A WordPress theme (if you hit on a unique design and keep it working) can be a great draw for traffic to your site.

I’m still at the dabbling stage with my own WP theme designing. I enjoy window shopping and looking at other themes. For now I’m running the Thesis Framework Theme on my main blog. Most of my other blogs are running on the Clear Line  theme.

Update: Thesis had a lot of changes when Thesis 2.0 came out. I don’t find it usable right now. It lost the user friendliness which was the main thing I liked about it. Since then I have bought Genesis, but, you may as well design your own theme from scratch if you have Genesis. Even the child themes you buy to run with Genesis are very much the same. If you want to make your own themes Genesis is ok, a base. But, if you want something to work out of the box you will find Genesis won’t work for you, unless you want it exactly as it comes.

I’ve looked at other themes and frameworks. I’m really reluctant to purchase any more of them. I have Catalyst with it’s Dynamik child theme and I find it complicated, a lot to read and then I still can’t make the small changes I want. I also have Headway but it has become a case of having to purchase more in order to get anything out of it. (Really disappointed with Headway which I have had since version 1.6 before they made it such a money grab).

WordPress Theme Generators

The Women of WordPress and Women Blogging

women blogOnce upon a time women formed groups to find each other online. Now, there are a lot of us wandering around, developing websites and blogs but the main groups for women online are about Mommy bloggers.

Not every woman is a Mother and not every woman wants to focus on her family when she’s thinking about writing, creating, maintaining and promoting her website. But, we all want to learn how to do it better. Many of us like to learn from other women. I do.

I can learn from anyone but there is a nice feeling to find out the person who wrote the tutorial I’ve been reading or the book I picked out at the store, is a woman. Someone who is likely to see things the way I do myself, someone who has a similar perspective to myself.

WordPress Book Writers, Tutorial Makers, Web Developers and Site Designers

Women of Blogger (and Beyond)

Groups for Women Bloggers

Which Online Personality Quiz are you Most Like?

Why do people like those online personality quizzes? What is the fascination?

Maybe it’s just curiousity. Seeing the road not taken or finding out what your answers to random questions say about you. Or at least what some stranger (who is possibly pretty odd themself) says about you.

Whatever the draw, online quizzes are leaping and growing in popularity. Quizilla was one of the biggest quiz sites. It’s just a mess now. But, I can remember when it was starting out and then later how fun it was before it was bought out and neglected. Blogthings seems to be the one that has kept going the longest. It’s not the site it once was either.

Many quizzes are geared to online dating. "What’s your flirting style?" "What movie sex goddess are you most like?" "What kind of cocktail would you be?" "What type of Beauty are you?"

Almost another half are geared to discovering your personality. "What’s your Inner Eye Color?" "Could you be depressed?" "Are you a geek or a freak?" "Are you a Woman or still a Girl?" "Which century are you most suited to?" "Do you really like your job?"

The rest I bunch into a random category of oddness. Like a junk drawer full of movie star posters, old birthday candles and other weird things only a very select group of people could ever really understand and appreciate. Have you ever seen a quiz like: "Which of my Friends are you Most Like?" Now you get the idea. What meaning does something like that really have for you? But, do you take that quiz anyway? Are you so hooked on online quizzes that you can’t pass up any of them?

Maybe you should branch out and try writing a quiz of your own. Plan a topic that suits you. Think of questions that are interesting yet will help to narrow down a focus to the category answers you plan. I think creating a quiz is quite a bit of work, planning and thought. Make the first one something flip that doesn’t matter. Keep it simple and make sure anyone taking the quiz understands this isn’t meant to change their life. Mainly, have fun with it yourself.

Try something along the lines of "Which lip gloss are you most like?" Pick flavours and make the questions pretty leading. What would you prefer to eat? lemons, chocolate, bubble gum… etc. At the end of the quiz your flavours would be lemon, chocolate, bubble gum and so on. Give a personality profile for each flavour. Lemon lovers are tart and active. Chocolate lovers are sweet and sensual. You get the idea… give it a try, just for fun.

Online Personality Quiz Sites for Fun

  • Queendom
    Free without registration but if you want to save results you need a login.
  • Quiz Stop
    Free but quite a lot of ads.
  • All the Tests
    Free and fun. Geared to young people.
  • OkCupid: Tests
    Free dating site, lots of quizzes but you need to register to use the site.
  • Personality Lab
    More interesting than just fun.
  • Quibblo
    Quizzes for fun, created by site users. Does not require a login unless you want to save your results.
  • Similiar Minds: Personality Tests
    Interesting, but not meant to be just for fun.
  • Your Personality
    A few of them, more on the serious side.
  • ColorQuiz.com
    One quiz about personality by colour.
  • Blog Things
    Free to use, no login required.
  • Quiz Rocket
    You can take the quiz but at the end you get nothing without registering for the site and giving personal information.

 

MicroBlogging: Short Notes to the World

Microblogging is a liberating experience. You narrow down your focus to the essentials and leave out all the extra explanations.

When you post for a microblog you jot down, announce and make note. You don’t have to add a lot of context. You can skip an illustration – unless your post is the illustration, in that case you can skip the worlds.

Microblogging should be short, quick, but frequent posts.

My favourite places to microblog are Twitter, Tumblr and the sidebar of my own blog where I keep a Sideblog using a WordPress plugin.

Why I Like MicroBlogging

  • It’s a great way to jot down a thought without going into detail or overthinkng it.
  • I dash down a half baked idea and leave it to finish later.
  • I can leave a note for readers of my site.
  • I can post a great quotation and just let it stand on it’s own.
  • I post backlinks to a sites I find but haven’t really reviewed yet.
  • I announce a change to my site, or other sites I write.
  • I stick in a new word that sounded worth looking up.
  • I make note of an inspirational book I found.
  • I can leave a quick tip and turn it into a full post later.

 MicroWriting for MicroBlogging

Writing a short post can take some getting used to. Don’t give up on it or quit. Just get creative, resourceful and take a risk on saying and explaining less leaving your readers to make their own assumptions. If you want clear and concise communication you need few words, no flowery prose.

For example, Twitter limits everyone to 140 characters, including punctuation, spaces and hashtags.

You may get creative with spelling, or run two words together or eliminate some words all together.

Some people will post their thoughts over two or more posts in a row. (I see this now and then withTwitter posts). But multiple posts is not a great option, it’s better to stick with the microblogging concept and keep it short and to the point.

If you can’t find a shorter way to say what you mean, microblogging can be a challenge to your communication skills.

Think of your posts as announcements. That helps to keep them shorter.

More About MicroBlogging

  • Six Reasons I Like Having a Microblog in my Sidebar | Word Grrls
  • The Advantages of Being a Twitter Blogger | Word Grrls
  • Tumblr – 5 Reasons Why You Should Make One
  • 10 Micro-Blogging Tools Compared
  • Micro Blogging | Squidoo

Your Business Does Not Need a Blog

Most businesses need to reconsider keeping a blog for something which would work better for consumers and take less time and energy for the business to maintain.

Why Develop a Blog When a Static Page Will Do?

I was reading a post which encourages businesses to have a blog, as if that is all they need to do. The answer to life, the universe and everything for a business is to have a weblog. It’s not. It’s actually very wrong.

First, let’s sort out what a weblog actually is.

A blog (AKA web log) is an online record of your thoughts, activities and information you choose to share online. A blog is actively updated, which means the posts are dated so they can be read in sequence. A blog is a form of communication which requires frequent maintenance to keep it active. This is not the kind of online communication a business needs.

Secondly, people are not taking time to read everything you blog.

Any business starting online, whether they sell entirely online or just want to set up an online presence, needs basic information available for the consumer. Basic information is not likely to change. Your contact information, what you sell and how you sell it are not going to change daily or weekly or even monthly. Yes, you may have new objects to add to your catalogue but that is a catalogue, not a blog.

A blog is more likely to be information overkill and just make things confused and cluttered looking. What use is a blog if the consumer has to hunt down the address (or some other key information) for your business? A simple site presents the information upfront and keeps it easily visible.

Lastly, running a blog is going to take up too much of your time and energy.

A business online should focus on giving that basic information on a static website. Starting a blog is just putting in more time and energy than you need – especially in the beginning when you really just want people to find you online so you can tell the consumer who you are and what you have to offer. This is not the time to start a blog with articles about what you sell. Just give them the basic information they need. Not all the fancy stuff, the extras and the media hype. Keep it simple.

Don’t put your time and resources into developing a blog just because everyone seems to be doing it these days. Focus on your real goal, not impressing other people with how big your site is or how much traffic your blog gets. Your real goal for a business is sales, not marketing.

Consumers are not asking for more marketing. Less is more, in the eye of the consumer. Consumers want information so they can decide to buy your product or service. The more marketing clutter to add to your message, the less likely a consumer is to find it. So keep it simple. Create a simple site with simple navigation – keep the most important information to the consumer right out front and centre. If you have extras, like a catalogue, give them a link to take them directly there.

A Business Site Should be for the Consumer, not the Business

If you want to add extras to your site think about it in a practical way. What would your consumer really find useful?

  • A catalogue of your goods or services.
  • A contact form with the physical address, email address and phone numbers for your business.
  • A list of prices for your services and packages available.
  • Any events you may be taking part in locally.
  • Specials or promotions or contests currently running.
  • A coupon they can print out. (Or refer to if they don’t have a printer).
  • Your mission statement.
  • Your guarantee or warranty.
  • Your returns policy.
  • A how to guide for using your product.
  • A list of relevant groups or associations locally.
  • Any health warnings or risks.

This is just a generic sort of list. Each business will have their own needs and limits in the information available or necessary for the public and consumers.

Most of the necessary information can be located on one main (index) page of your site. Extras like a catalogue of goods or services can be on another section of the site with a link easily found on the index page.

Make the contact information a priority. Think about your own experience using a site for a business you wanted to know more about. What was the most frustrating thing? For me it is almost always trying to find a way to contact the business. How stupid is that? What was the point of them putting up a site if I can’t ask a question or get some feedback?

Simple Websites Help Your Business

If you Still Must have a Blog Make Sure it Adds Value to your Business

If you still must have a blog, spend time planning your goals and strategy for using it.

Make sure the time, energy and resources you will put into the blog will pay off.

Make sure you have the stamina, writing skill and the content to keep a blog active.

In short, make sure the blog is worth the expense of maintaining it. Chances are there are other things you could be doing which would bring you a better return on your resources.

 

WordPress Resources for New Bloggers

wordpressWe tend to learn how to use WordPress through our own trials and errors. It’s an adventure.

Now and then you need help with something in particular. Or, you want to improve on what you already know. Or, you want to take your WordPress site in another direction and make big changes. There are books in print, there are friends too. I usually find all the help I need online, on blogs and sites about WordPress and user forums.

 

Start by Spelling WordPress the Right Way

WordPress Themes I Like

Free WordPress Themes:

Themes from Automattic: Coraline, Duster, and Pilcrow.

WordPress.org: Twenty Eleven

Right now most of my blogs are running on the Clear Line WordPress theme. It’s a free theme with some flexibility for tweaking. Fairly easy to use and free to use.

Premium WordPress Themes:

Bavotasan (Free and premium)

Catalyst

Headway

Thesis 

Genesis

How to Install a WordPress Theme

  • How to install a new WordPress theme
  • Free WordPress Themes

The WordPress Plugins I Like to Use

Clean Contact – A contact form for WordPress. You don’t have to give away your email address but you can have the form direct any messages to your email account.

Contextual Related Posts – This will show posts related (by content) to the current post your blog reader has read. This is a long time favourite plugin for me.

Scheduled Posts – Any post you schedule for the future will be displayed in the admin of your blog, separate from the drafts or posts already on the blog.

Link Library – Sort your links. It’s like having your own web directory made from your blogroll.

Time Machine – Show your old blog posts again. Works really nice for my old blog, takes me down memory lane every day.

Where did they go from here? – An also viewed plugin. Shows your readers other posts people read after the current post.

WPTouch – Make your blog available to mobile readers. I use the free version.

WordPress Development Geared to Beginners

WordPress Resources (Once you Know Your Way Around)

 

How to Use Dmoz aka the Open Directory Project

Dmoz writer resourcesI was an editor at Dmoz (The Open Directory Project) for 10 years. I worked my way up to the title of ‘editall’ which meant I had the run of the directory. I would review and add new sites submitted. I could edit current listings or delete those which were no longer functioning or had become spam like splogs and link farms. I enjoyed the work. I still like finding great links from all the content online. I like adding links to any post I write here on HubPages and part of the enjoyment is just tracking down the links themselves.

From what I have seen The Open Directory Project is not being updated very reliably now. It looks like very few people are still maintaining the directory and the listings. When I look at categories I used to maintain myself I find link rot and listings which need to be fixed for spelling, punctuation, grammar. There are even links which lead to parked domains, and other useless sites.

The Open Directory Project (ODP) may be unpredictable and a little neglected, but it’s still a free to be listed there and the directory database is still picked up by many other sites.

If you want to submit a link to Dmoz

Find the best fitting Dmoz category for one of your posts which represents your niche at HubPages. If you look at what you’ve been writing you will see you do have a niche/ theme of some kind. Your personality will show through the range of your topics, go with that. Narrow it down to one post and then find the corresponding category in the Dmoz directory.

Don’t submit more than one post anywhere else in the directory. Wait, even as long as a month, before you try another submission. Try a different category, something even more specific to your content/ topic. Never submit to a top level category. Those kind of sloppy submissions are almost 100% sure to be deleted without even being looked at by any editor.

Do not get yourself (or HubPages) labelled with a bad reputation for too many submissions or submissions to the wrong categories. Dmoz will block networks/ domains like HubPages from any submissions if the editors begin leaving negative comments on the submissions from that domain.

When I was part of the workings of Dmoz editors could be very diligent, keeping categories clean, tidy and updated. Even then some categories had no editor and no one checked them regularly for submissions or bad links. I think there are less editors working there now so it is even more important to have patience with any links you submit there. Sending a second submission too soon just makes you look like a mass submitter. Also, extra submissions will just be deleted while the original sits in the category until an editor takes time to look at them all individually. Editors are more likely to work on a category that does not have a lot of submissions they have to mass delete. It’s just common sense when you remember the editors at Dmoz are volunteers, not paid for their time.

Check your submission to the Dmoz directory

  • Proofread your submission. Spelling, grammar and punctuation do count.
  • Double check the link (the http:// link, not the title) of your post.
  • Don’t use excessive keywords.

Create a Favicon to Brand your Site or Just do it for Fun

How to create a favicon.ico for your site or blog.

FavIcon is a favourite icon.

Basically, you create a small graphic (16 X 16 pixels, tiny in fact) which will show up in the address bar when someone looks at your site. It will also show up in their bookmarks, if they bookmark your site. Using a favicon will help brand your site and give it a polished look. Plus it gives those us of who are addicted to tweaking and twiddling with their sites, something else to do.

It’s not hard to create a favicon. Once you save your tiny graphic as favicon.ico you upload the file to your site, it should be in the root directory so it’s easy for web browsers to locate. Then you add the code between the head and /head tags in your HTML code. Note: If you run the Thesis WordPress theme. One of the features is a favion option which uploads your favicon for you. Your theme or template may have the same option, check first and save yourself the extra work.

How creative can you get with such a minuscule image? See what you can do. The smaller you make your file the blurrier it gets. See the example image which is one I use for my personal site. When it is condensed and compacted down to a favicon size you really can’t tell what it was meant to be. So, that wasn’t a great image to create a favicon with.

Have fun, let me know if you load a favicon. I’d like to see what other tweakers and twiddlers come up with.

Wikipedia has a page about Favicons.

Choosing an image to convert to a Favicon

As you can see from my example, a favicon is very tiny.

Choose the image you want to convert into a favicon wisely. It should have very basic lines, a very simple uncomplicated design.

Stick to one or two colours (white works well). Adding too much colour will create a blur when the image is compacted down to size.

The image you choose needs to fill the image space, cut away any extra background before you convert it to a favicon.

Create your Favicon Image on the Web

Movable Type: Faded and Beat Up a Bit but not Forgotten

movabletypeMovable Type can run several different blogs from a single domain. It gives you the basic features, just like WordPress. But, Movable Type doesn’t have as much community support for extra plugins, themes and widgets.

There are trade-offs when you want to run alternative software, the underdog. But, Movable Type works, even if it’s not the hugely popular and well known content management software it once was.

I’m making slow progress on re-learning Movable Type for my own site. But, I want a slow start while I decide on my direction and overall plan. One thing I do know – I don’t want to stick to the mainstream and use WordPress or Blogger. So, there’s going to be a learning curve, some adventure, some frustration and I’ll see how it all turns out in the end.

An Alternative to WordPress

movable typeToday the books I ordered for Movable Type arrived. Both are for out dated versions because almost no one is writing books about Movable Type now. But, it used to be the most popular blog software – it was beating out WordPress when WordPress was still new. Then, Movable Type decided to change their marketing plan.

They offered to let people pay for it. It was a bad decision at that time. People were used to the Internet being free. Yes, you paid for your ISP but once you got online it was all free. Sure there were some shareware and software you had to pay for, but there were always free alternatives. There wasn’t anything you really had to pay for.

So, when Movable Type changed their policy, they lost the final battle and WordPress had an easy victory – they didn’t have to lift a finger. In just a few months Movable Type had lost almost all the ground it had gained. A shame, it was still the same software, still a great way to run your blog wtih a lot of features and room to be creative.

I’m glad Movable Type hasn’t disappeared in the years since then. It’s changed owners, Ben and Mena Trott have moved on. But, it’s still a good package and another option for anyone who wants something less mainstream than WordPress but still reliable (and free). Movable Type brought back the free software plan years ago. Give it a look.

Movable Type Links and Resources

Open Melody: The Open Source Version of Movable Type (The Project that Died Out)

melody CMS

Other Alternatives to WordPress

b2evolution is a free open source project.

Text Pattern is also a free and open source CMS.