by Chris Foley on January 24, 2012
One of the greatest things about building your site in WordPress (self-hosted) is that there will always be room to grow.
Those of us who have been in the game for a while can easily remember a time when WordPress was very little more than a blogging platform, competing with services like TypePad and Moveble Type. Sure, even then you could hack into the code base and create some pretty wild things, if you knew your .php and CSS, but a website platform, it was not.
Back then, we built some pretty cool-looking blogs, but for customers needing a website with a blog, the done thing was to build the site in .html with a few .php elements, and then hang a WordPress blog installation off of it, and skin them up so that they looked like the same installation. (Oh boy, I don’t miss those days!)
Click to Enlarge
Here’s a really great example of a blog converted over to a site: Rewire Your Brain For Love is a project we helped launch a couple of years ago. Neuropsychologist Dr. Marsha Lucas was fixing to write a book combining the disciplines of neuroscience and neuroplasticity with mindfulness meditation, to teach readers how to literally rewire their brains to improve their relationships and ultimately, their lives. Pretty cool project, we thought, as we sat down to come up with a long-term web strategy.
Like many grass roots projects, we had a moderate budget to work with, and so we decided to put together a blog, built on WordPress so that Dr. Lucas could compose and publish her own posts, and we took on growing her Twitter channel while she labored with her book. [click to continue…]
by Chris Foley on January 21, 2012
How many times have you seen this DM in the past month?:
If you’re a casual Twitter user you may not find this sort of thing to be much of an annoyance. After all, you may not even pay attention to your DM’s. If if you do, you may be bright enough not to click on any links sent to you by strangers. If you’re a professional brand-manager, as I am, this situation is more than just an annoyance.
I receive this message, and many other similar phishing scams up to 30 times per day across the handful of channels I monitor. The barrage of spam DM messages basically renders my entire DM channel useless to me, and it fills my iPhone Notification Center up with garbage, such that I miss important communications from the brands’ customers, vendors, and PR personnel.
I’ve seen a few individuals rail directly at Twitter from time to time about doing more to close down spam accounts, bots, and other malcontents who are pissing in the Twitter stream, and that made a lot of sense until quite recently. Now that doesn’t’ make a lot of sense, and here’s what’s changed:
It used to be that these garbage DM’s and spam-link @ mentions were coming almost exclusively from fake profiles created, often in bulk, by spammers and folks pushing botnet links. Now, these messages are coming from YOU. That’s right. There’s a new strategy in town, and that strategy targets the profiles of legitimate Twitter users, susses out their user/password combination, and then sets up an Auto-DM sequence with one of the many such services, sending out bulk spam DM’s without the profile owner ever knowing that they’ve been compromised.
Would you like to know whose fault it is? Are you sure? Okay, here it comes. [click to continue…]
by Maximilian Lemos on January 11, 2012
Apple goes above and beyond when it comes to helping the visually impaired. With brilliant accessibility tools across all of their product lines, they are looking out for most everyone. In fact one could even say the greatest accessibility tool is Siri. Having a personal assistant to help you perform tasks on your phone without the need of even looking at the screen is an advancement that will certainly help everyone, especially, the visually impaired.
It won’t be to long before you see a super-intelligent rendition of Siri implemented across OS X. However, even amazingly smart artificial intelligence has it’s limits. When it comes down to it, Siri has no way of helping you read the words on your screen. In the mean time, while we wait for Siri to be able to think and see for us, apps like Zoom It make zooming in on your Mac quick and easy.
Get the big picture from your menu bar
There are already so many tools in OS X for helping visually impaired users that we initially scratched our collective head at Zoom It, an application that lets you magnify parts of your screen with a customizable loupe. But although it’s no substitute for OS X’s built-in visual accessibility features, it’s a handy way to access some of them quickly. [click to continue…]
by Maximilian Lemos on November 21, 2011
This MacLife article caught my eye because I recently went through my own hard drive and eliminated all the extra fluff I did not need. I freed nearly 100GB just by following simple guidelines like the ones presented in this article. Sometimes a task that may seem daunting isn’t all that bad when approached with the right tools and attitude. Good luck and happy pruning. [click to continue…]
by Kazdyn Nicholson on November 4, 2011
Whether you just recently joined the Apple family or you need some pointers, Mac|Life has put together a wonderful Mac Resource guide. This guide covers everything from just getting started with your computer, keyboard shortcuts, to installing Windows with Boot Camp.
Enjoy,
~Kaz
So, you finally let Windows out to rot and made the switch to the Mac. Feeling a little anxious about it? Well, first of all, relax. There are plenty of resources out there to help you get situation, not to mention an amazing community of enthusiasts who have no problem helping you find your way. To get you started, here’s a list of 9 essential resources you should add to your arsenal right now. No matter your experience level with computers, these resources can surely help you find your way.
1. Apple Mac 101
Apple’s Mac 101 learning site lets you discover all of the ins-and-outs of your new Macintosh computer. This is a great site if you’re new to OS X or if you want to learn about all of the features of the Mac. If you’re moving from Windows to the Mac, be sure to check out Apple’s switcher guide.
2. Apple Discussion Board
When you’re new to a platform, you often have tons of questions, like where a setting might be located or if if you need to perform routine hard drive maintenace. Apple’s Discussion Board is a great place to get started with these types of questions and receive answers from the Mac community at large.
Read the rest of the article HERE.
Article Credit: Cory Bohon
by Maximilian Lemos on September 20, 2011
One of the most important lessons I have learned from Chris here at FoleyPod is: Always bring the right tool for the job. I don’t think I can fully express how much of a difference it makes to have the right hardware and software to get the job done. Just the other day I was reflecting on this idea in relation to past jobs and personal projects that where broken from the start because I was forcing tools to do things they really weren’t supposed to do.
But this rant has a purpose.
The principle outlined above in my opinion will always be, but the rules are definitely changing. Traditionally, people would scoff at the idea of a tablet replacing their laptop, but again its all about having the right tools.
The iPad is as versatile as it is thin. With the largest app store around and a thriving community of developers, an iPad equipped with the right apps, can do some incredible things. To help further that point, this article from Mac|Life will show you how to achieve a more iPad centric work experience.
How to Ditch Your Laptop for an iPad
If hotcakes were selling like iPads, IHOP would be the hottest investment on the block. But hold the maple syrup — despite the higher price tag on most Macs, Apple’s making more money off iPads these days. Its Q3 2011 iPad earnings were $6.05 billion, up 179 percent since the previous year. Meanwhile, Mac sales raked in $5.1 billion…representing gains of only 16 percent. [click to continue…]
