Wow, it has been too long since I added anything here! It's been a busy year with building and growing Photography BlogSites. I was honored to be one of the speakers this last weekend at WordCamp LA where I presented a behind the scenes look at Photography BlogSites. Here are the slides from the talk. There was a lot of information spoken as the slides were shown, so if you have any interest in hearing what got left out here in the slides, let me know.

Over the weekend I put the finishing touches on a new WordPress plugin I'm calling "Photographer Connections". It is basically a framework to connect photography related sites to WordPress sites. At launch, it has Pictage, SmugMug and Shootq built in. You can list your Pictage events, add SmugMug galleries to any page or post, and allow the Contact Form 7 plugin to send information to your ShootQ account. For developers, this was created with an easily extendable format, allowing new sites like Flickr, Picasa or any others to be added very quickly as new modules. Because this was developed for PhotographyBlogSites.com, it has some great MultiSite options as well. Super Admins of any WordPress MultiSite network will get an extra menu item, allowing them to enable or disable any module sitewide. You can find full details and instructions at the official PhotographyBlogSites page or download the latest from WordPress.org.

On November 27th 2010 (a week from this Saturday), I've been asked to take part in a workshop called WPWorkshopLA. The workshop is run by Austin Passy of Frosty Web Designs, and organizer of WordCampLA, the annual WordPress convention that had over 300 WordPress developers attend this year. We are open to suggestions for topics - anything from "What is WordPress?" to "How do I create a custom plugin?" and everything in between. For anyone interested in learning about basic to intermediate level topics involving WordPress, this could be a great opportunity. Instead of paying myself or another developer their standard hourly rate, this will be 4-5 hours of group and even some on-on-one training for the ticket price of $65. Use the discount coupon MARTY for a 10% discount  making the ticket price $58.50. Leave a comment here or email me with any questions or suggestions for topics.

This project started a looong time ago, when I first started working with Ellen Petty of Identity Kitchen. As we worked together on custom blogs and websites for photographers, we started brainstorming ways to make something similar available to everyone. The goal was to create Affordable, Easy-to-use, WordPress Portfolio Websites for Photographers. Our Goals We put together a long list based on what worked best with the common features we were using in our custom sites: social media integration, customization, easy-to-use backend, unlimited galleries, integration of fantastic photography tools like ShootQ, etc, etc. Like all of our custom sites they needed to be an all-in-one website AND blog, all built in WordPress and 100% HTML - no Flash. Flash sites are invisible to iPhones and create difficulties for search engines. Unfortunately, until now, Flash templates have been the only realistic option available at an affordable level. Regardless of what was used for a View / Edit Comments

In the midst of keeping up with client work and a mad scramble to finish the major launch of a website, it was nice to get a break from it all and be a part of my first WordCamp. WordCamp is a conference that focuses on everything WordPress. There are many held around the world and this year’s WordCampLA was the second one held in Los Angeles. I was lucky enough to be contacted by the organizer, Austin Passy of Frosty Web Designs and asked to be part of a panel of WordPress designers. One of the great things about WordPress, the main reason why it is now used in 100% of the websites I build, is the community. WordPress is a free, open-source piece of software with thousands of dedicated programmers and designers around the world who build plugins, design themes and even contribute to the View / Edit Comments

Easier is not quite right either. Some of the things I have been able to do with WordPress MU would not be possible without the plugins and support of the folks at WPMU DEV. What is WordPress MU and What is WPMU DEV? WordPress has become a well known name as one of the best (the best in my opinion) Content Management System available. It allows any site from a simple bog or basic five page site, up to the most complicated site you could imagine to be easily edited by anyone without any knowledge of HTML. WordPress MU means WordPress Multi-User. It is essentially the software that runs WordPress.com and was developed to allow an entire network of sites. User can visit a WordPress MU site and get there own site by just signing up. No installation, no hosting to worry about, etc. It has been a branch of WordPress for the last View / Edit Comments

With every custom blog, especially for photographers, I have usually been required to add some kind of image gallery plugin for WordPress. I have tried several, but found them all lacking in one way or another. Some end up in a Flash player, making them hard to customize and invisible on mobile phones. Some are not user-friendly as far as uplaoding images, editing galleries and then insterting the galleries into pages. While developing the inner workings PhotographyBlogSites.com, I decided to start from scratch and build my own. It has been in somewhat limited release so far as it has been tested on PhotographyBlogSites and put through the ringer on a few recent custom sites that are about to launch. My goal was to build a comprehensive image gallery plugin that would be easy to use, versatile, visible on mobile phones, and highly customizable. I also wanted to add the all important SEO 4 Comments »

A client's WordPress site was recently hacked by some malware, receiving the dreaded red warning screen. You know the one where it warns that a site may harm your computer? This warning comes from your browser but is triggered by Google detecting that malware is on your site. First, this is NOT a WordPress security issue. It is all about malware being inserted by third party ad services. For my fellow WordPress folks, this is not the same issue dealt with at that hosting company that will remain unnamed. The Red Screen of Death When Google crawls a site and detects malware, they issue a warning which results in that red screen. They also add a warning within their search results right under the link to your site that says 'This site may harm your computer'. All pretty scary stuff for a visitor finding your site for the first time. So,assuming at View / Edit Comments

Cross posted from IdentityKitchen... Now, you know how proud we are of our Search Engine Optimized, Wordpress powered, custom portfolio blogsites. What if there were an entry-level, template-driven, DIY, portfolio blogsite available? No more updating your blog at one address and your portfolio at another. No more calling your webmaster to make changes to your site, update your entire site as easily as creating a blog post. You can even customize the site to match your brand. Now, what if it was affordable to everyone and included installation and set-up? Interested? Sign up here for more information. Here's a blurry sneak peek... Some added details of my own: There are a lot of sides to this project, including some exciting resources for anyone, whether they use the new BlogSites or not... There will be an FAQ and tutorial site, complete with screencast videos for everything WordPress. There will be support forums for plugins, and technical issues. SEO Image Galleries. View / Edit Comments

Over the last year or so, I have worked on some great projects with designer Ellen Petty, founder and head designer of Identity Kitchen. I was proud to most recently work on the actual Identity Kitchen site itself, which got a major overhaul for the new year. Identity Kitchen provides branding and identity design as well as custom blog and website design and I get to help turn some of those designs into  working WordPress sites. I recently posted some examples of our collaborations. The new Identity Kitchen site was not just a face-lift or simple redesign but a complete rethinking of everything. By combining the formerly separate portfolio site and blog all into one WordPress installation, the content and structure of the site was improved, the search engine optimization was improved, and the backend became one place to add and edit all the content. We were also able to use View / Edit Comments