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How to Add Infinite Scroll to your WordPress Blog

2012-02-11T02:09:54Z

While talking with Matt Mullenweg at WordCamp Atlanta, he told us that they were adding infinite scroll to some VIP Partner websites on WordPress.com because the results were staggering. He suggested that we should try adding that on our List25 project. Well, after doing a little bit of research, we found out that it was quite easy to implement it. It took us less than 1 minute to install Infinite Scroll in WordPress. In this article, we will show you how you too can install Infinite Scroll in WordPress.

What is Infinite Scroll?

Traditionally, the user would have to click on next page or previous page to visit older post content. However, recently there is a new trend started by popular sites (such as facebook and twitter) in which they automatically load the next page content once the user hits the bottom of the post. This technique has proven to show an increase in time spent on page by the user because the new content loads automatically.

If you use facebook, or twitter, then you have seen the live preview of this already. However, if you want to see how this looks on a WordPress site, then check out List25.

How to Add Infinite Scroll in WordPress

First thing you need to do is install and activate the Infinite Scroll plugin.

Upon activation, a new menu option will be added under your settings tab called Infinite Scroll. On almost 90% of the blog sites, this should work without changing a single setting. However, if you have a relatively custom designed blog, then you will need to adjust the “Selectors”. Go the plugin’s setting page and click on the selectors tab.

The plugin will pre-fill the selectors based on the standards. The content selector would be the div that wraps your content on the main page. In our theme, it was #content. This is very standard and most theme author’s use it. We did not have to change this part. Posts Selector by default was #content div.post which is standard on most blog style sites however, we wrap our posts with an extra div called .post-container. This allows us to split our thumbnail and the site content in two separate grids. When we first installed the plugin, the plugin worked however it wasn’t loading our thumbnails. It turned out the reason it wasn’t loading thumbnails was that the post selector was not what we wanted.

For Navigation selector and Next Page selector, you most likely will not have to change it because those are very standard parameters and almost 99% of the themes use it (or so we hope).

In the General options screen, you can customize the loading image, loading text, the end text etc.

This is a very cool plugin that we just installed. If you are looking to add infinite scroll to your site, then this plugin is for you.

It is important to note that this only works on your blog’s homepage. It will not work on category/tag archive pages.

Get Infinite Scroll plugin

How to Add Infinite Scroll to your WordPress Blog is a post from: WPBeginner which is not allowed to be copied on other sites.

WordCamp Atlanta 2012 (Recap)

2012-02-11T02:09:54Z

This past weekend, we were attending WordCamp Atlanta 2012. Matt Mullenweg, founder of WordPress, made a surprise visit. Syed from WPBeginner was presenting at the event as well. WordCamp Atlanta was a great event. We got to meet and hang out with a lot of folks specially the awesome Standard Theme Crew (John Saddington and company).

Syed’s presentation can be found below. The text information is great, but really he gave away a lot of useful information that couldn’t possibly be covered on slides.

We will be heading to WordCamp Miami 2012 in roughly two weeks.

P.S. Check out some other cool presentations that we liked:

WordPress End-User Security

List of All Presentations

WordCamp Atlanta 2012 (Recap) is a post from: WPBeginner which is not allowed to be copied on other sites.

How to Create a Photo Album Gallery in WordPress without a plugin

2012-02-11T02:09:54Z

In the past, we have shown you how to add a gallery in WordPress with a lightbox effect. That article only covers the surface of the WordPress functionality. Recently, we had a client that wanted us to create a photo gallery organized by monthly albums. They wanted the user to be able to click on the album photo to see all posts listed in that month’s album. Each photo should have it’s own individual page with information about the photographer and their URL. Normally people would resort to plugins like NextGen Gallery or another to accomplish something like this. We wanted to avoid using a third party plugin therefore we decided to use the core-functionality that WordPress offers to create something that works. In this article, we will show you how to create a monthly photo album gallery in WordPress without a plugin.

Note: This is a relatively advanced tutorial that brings a lot of WordPress concepts together. You must have a fair knowledge of WordPress and HTML/CSS to follow this.

What we are trying to make:

Before we begin, lets take a look at what the final outcome is suppose to look like:

When the user click on the Albums page, they will see an archive in a grid display where each album starts out with it’s distinguishing cover and all the photos in it. The idea was to have one album per month.

If the user clicks on the album’s cover photo, they will be taken to a page just for that album where you can give the user some background information as well as listing all the photos in that album.

If the user clicks on the photo, then they will be taken to the single photo page where they will see the Title of the Photo. Photographer’s name and their site’s URL.

How we are going to make it?

As you can see from the description above, all of the features required can be done using the built-in WordPress functionality. We can treat each monthly album as a post, so each album can have its own single page with some background info etc. Each image will be treated as an attachment (thus getting it’s own single page). We will use the built-in featured thumbnails for album cover photo. You can use the default posts, if the whole site’s purpose is this photo album gallery, but if you have a blog as well, then this needs to be created in a custom post type.

Lets create a Photo Album Gallery

First thing you should do is create a site-specific plugin (or even a project-specific plugin).

If you are going to use Custom Post Types for your project, then you should generate the codes and paste it in your site-specific plugin. You can also watch our video on how to create Custom Post Types.

Next thing you need to do is register additional image sizes in WordPress for the grid display.

Example would be:

add_image_size( 'album-grid', 225, 150, true );

After the additional image sizes, lets add some additional fields to the Media uploader. This will allow you to add Photographer’s Name and their URL when you upload each image. This is the reason why we wrote an article about it two days ago.

How to add additional fields to the WordPress Media Uploader

Once you have done this, lets go ahead and add some albums (posts). Upload all images that you want to attach to that album. Then attach a distinctive cover photo and set it as a featured image. You can add the background info in the content area of the post.

Now that you have a few albums in the backend, lets put the code to display it.

Let’s say that your custom post type was called albums. So you will create a template file called archive-albums.php. Paste the header codes, the footer codes, sidebar and other design elements that you want. Create a post loop. Inside that post loop, we are going to display all attachments from a post except the thumbnail which will link to the single image page. We will also add the featured post thumbnail (album cover photo) separately and link that to the single post page (album page).

We decided to style the grid images using the list element. The code looks like this:

<li class="album-grid"><a href="<?php the_permalink(); ?>" title="<?php the_title(); ?>"><?php the_post_thumbnail('album-grid'); ?></a></li>

<?php if ( $post->post_type == 'albums' && $post->post_status == 'publish' ) {
		$attachments = get_posts( array(
			'post_type' => 'attachment',
			'posts_per_page' => -1,
			'post_parent' => $post->ID,
			'exclude'     => get_post_thumbnail_id()
		) );

		if ( $attachments ) {
			foreach ( $attachments as $attachment ) {
				$class = "post-attachment mime-" . sanitize_title( $attachment->post_mime_type );
				$title = wp_get_attachment_link( $attachment->ID, 'album-grid', true );
				echo '<li class="' . $class . ' album-grid">' . $title . '</li>';
			}

		}
	}
?>

Source: How to Get All Attachments except for Featured Image

The main CSS style that you really have to worry about is the class .album-grid

.album-grid{width: 225px; height: 150px; float: left; list-style: none; list-style-type: none; margin: 0 18px 30px 0px;}

This would allow each image to be placed appropriately in the grid, and we will get the style how we want it.

Next thing you need to do is create a single-attachment template. This will be the page where the user will be taken to, so they can view each individual image. They will see the image title, photographer’s name and photographers URL here. You can follow our tutorial on How to Create a Custom Single Attachments Template in WordPress.

Feel free to style the single template however you like.

Now the only thing left in the list is to create an individual albums page. Again assuming that your custom post type is called albums, you will need to create a single-albums.php file. Copy all the header, footer, sidebar, or any other design elements that you want.

In the loop element basically do the same thing that we did with the archive-albums template. Before you add the featured image and the attachments grid though, you need to add the album title and description. Which can be done by simply adding the code like this:

<h1><?php the_title(); ?></h1>
<div class="entry-content"><?php the_content(); ?></div>

//Insert grid code below this line

Ta da, we are done. We just created a monthly photo album gallery in WordPress without using any plugin. Let us know if you have any questions.

How to Create a Photo Album Gallery in WordPress without a plugin is a post from: WPBeginner which is not allowed to be copied on other sites.

How to Create a Custom Single Attachments Template in WordPress

2012-02-08T15:49:36Z

In the process of creating a total gallery display in WordPress powered by Custom Post Types, we have shared the code for how to get all post attachments in WordPress except for Featured Image. We have also showed you how to add additional fields to the WordPress Media uploader. In this article, we will show you how to use the additional fields in the media uploader and display them in a custom single attachments template.

Before we start, it is important that you understand how the template hierarchy works for attachments. You can either specify it like mime_type.php. Mime type examples (image.php, video.php, application.php etc). For specifying it just for a certain image type, you can say image_gif.php. If the mime_type.php is not found, then it looks for attachment.php, then single-attachment.php, then single.php, then index.php.

It depends on how custom of a project you are working for, you may not need to create image_gif.php. You can simply suffice for image.php or even attachment.php.

All you have to do is open a blank file and copy all of your single.php content in there. You can save it as single-attachment.php or any other mime_type that you want. Then replace the loop code with something like this:

<?php
if ( have_posts() ) : while ( have_posts() ) : the_post();
$photographer = get_post_meta($post->ID, 'be_photographer_name', true);
$photographerurl = get_post_meta($post->ID, 'be_photographer_url', true);
?>

<h1><?php the_title(); ?></h1>

<div class="photometa"><span class="photographername"><?php echo $photographer; ?></span> // <a href="<?php echo $photographerurl ?>" target="_blank" class="photographerurl"><?php echo $photographerurl ?></a></div>

                        <div class="entry-attachment">
<?php if ( wp_attachment_is_image( $post->id ) ) : $att_image = wp_get_attachment_image_src( $post->id, "full"); ?>
                        <p class="attachment"><a href="<?php echo wp_get_attachment_url($post->id); ?>" title="<?php the_title(); ?>" rel="attachment"><img src="<?php echo $att_image[0];?>" width="<?php echo $att_image[1];?>" height="<?php echo $att_image[2];?>"  class="attachment-medium" alt="<?php $post->post_excerpt; ?>" /></a>
                        </p>
<?php else : ?>
                        <a href="<?php echo wp_get_attachment_url($post->ID) ?>" title="<?php echo wp_specialchars( get_the_title($post->ID), 1 ) ?>" rel="attachment"><?php echo basename($post->guid) ?></a>
<?php endif; ?>
                        </div>

<?php endwhile; ?>

<?php endif; ?>

The code above simply displays the Image Title. Below it, it will display Author’s name and URL which we added as additional fields in our previous article. Then it looks for the image and displays the full size. You can customize it to show any other size if you have additional image sizes.

Final Outcome:

Now that we have covered all three main aspects of this gallery that we were going to create, in the next article, we will show you how it looks when all things are pieced together. This way, you can use WordPress’s built-in mechanism to create a full-featured gallery with albums. No extra plugins required.

Resource:
Template Hierarchy Codex

How to Create a Custom Single Attachments Template in WordPress is a post from: WPBeginner which is not allowed to be copied on other sites.

How to Add Additional Fields to the WordPress Media Uploader

2012-02-07T23:26:47Z

While working on a project where we created a very cool gallery powered totally by WordPress attachments and a custom post type, we found a need to add additional fields to the WordPress media uploader. These additional fields allowed us to give each photographer credit by adding photographer name, and their URL on each image page. WordPress stores images as posts in the attachment post type, so adding meta data is just like adding custom fields. Because the WordPress attachments does not have a custom fields UI, we have to add a custom fields to the media uploader in order to collect the meta data. In this article, we will show you how to add additional fields to the WordPress Media Uploader.

We will be using the following filters to make the change: attachment_fields_to_edit and attachment_fields_to_save

For a project like this, we highly recommend that you create a site-specific plugin and add the following code. However, you can still add the codes in your theme’s functions.php file to make it work.

/**
 * Add Photographer Name and URL fields to media uploader
 *
 * @param $form_fields array, fields to include in attachment form
 * @param $post object, attachment record in database
 * @return $form_fields, modified form fields
 */

function be_attachment_field_credit( $form_fields, $post ) {
	$form_fields['be-photographer-name'] = array(
		'label' => 'Photographer Name',
		'input' => 'text',
		'value' => get_post_meta( $post->ID, 'be_photographer_name', true ),
		'helps' => 'If provided, photo credit will be displayed',
	);

	$form_fields['be-photographer-url'] = array(
		'label' => 'Photographer URL',
		'input' => 'text',
		'value' => get_post_meta( $post->ID, 'be_photographer_url', true ),
		'helps' => 'DO NOT ADD http://',
	);

	return $form_fields;
}

add_filter( 'attachment_fields_to_edit', 'be_attachment_field_credit', 10, 2 );

/**
 * Save values of Photographer Name and URL in media uploader
 *
 * @param $post array, the post data for database
 * @param $attachment array, attachment fields from $_POST form
 * @return $post array, modified post data
 */

function be_attachment_field_credit_save( $post, $attachment ) {
	if( isset( $attachment['be-photographer-name'] ) )
		update_post_meta( $post['ID'], 'be_photographer_name', $attachment['be-photographer-name'] );

	if( isset( $attachment['be-photographer-url'] ) )
		update_post_meta( $post['ID'], 'be_photographer_url', $attachment['be-photographer-url'] );

	return $post;
}

add_filter( 'attachment_fields_to_save', 'be_attachment_field_credit_save', 10, 2 );
?>

The code above will add two text fields to the Media Uploader called Photographer Name and Photographer URL. You can see that in the screenshot below:

Explanation of the code: In the first function, we are simply using an array to specify the field’s label, input type, value, and help text. The second function is checking to see if a value has been set for those fields. IF the value is set, then the post metadata is updated.

If you want to display the fields in your attachments template, then simply paste the following codes inside the loop:

echo get_post_meta($post->ID, 'be_photographer_url', true);

If you want to display the fields for your featured image in your archive template or any other template, then simply use:

echo get_post_meta(get_post_thumbnail_id(), 'be_photographer_url', true);

We hope that you enjoyed this article. For those who don’t know how to create an attachment’s template, don’t worry. In the next article, we will cover how to create an attachment’s template in WordPress.

Hat Tip to Bill Erickson for showing us how to do this.

How to Add Additional Fields to the WordPress Media Uploader is a post from: WPBeginner which is not allowed to be copied on other sites.

How to Get All Post Attachments in WordPress Except for Featured Image

2012-02-06T22:31:38Z

Recently while working on a custom project for a client, we had to get all post attachments from a custom post type and display them at one place. Because we were creating a grid display, we had each post’s featured image serving the purpose of a separator. This is why when getting all post attachments, we needed to exclude the featured image, so it doesn’t show up twice. In this article, we will show you how to get all post attachments in WordPress except for the featured image.

All you have to do is paste the following code inside a loop.

<?php if ( $post->post_type == 'data-design' && $post->post_status == 'publish' ) {
		$attachments = get_posts( array(
			'post_type' => 'attachment',
			'posts_per_page' => -1,
			'post_parent' => $post->ID,
			'exclude'     => get_post_thumbnail_id()
		) );

		if ( $attachments ) {
			foreach ( $attachments as $attachment ) {
				$class = "post-attachment mime-" . sanitize_title( $attachment->post_mime_type );
				$thumbimg = wp_get_attachment_link( $attachment->ID, 'thumbnail-size', true );
				echo '<li class="' . $class . ' data-design-thumbnail">' . $thumbimg . '</li>';
			}

		}
	}
?>

The code above first checks if the post type is data-design and the post status is published. You may not need the first conditional depending on what you are trying to do. Then we simply run the get_posts query. Everything is pretty self explanatory there. The key that we must highlight is the exclude feature. That line is making sure that featured image does not show up. If you take that line away, then the featured image will show up. After specifying all the parameters, we simply specify what to do when each attachment is pulled. We are pulling attachment type for the class variable. Then the $thumbimg variable is simply using wp_get_attachment_link to pull the image at a specific thumbnail size, and it also hyperlinks the image to the single attachment pages. In the final step, we simply echo it.

We ran this code inside a loop with a separate call for featured image which links to the individual post. Final outcome looked something like this:

Each featured image served as an album identifying image which you can see. The grey spots were filled with the attachments for the post. We hope that this would help those who are looking to push WordPress beyond a blogging platform.

How to Get All Post Attachments in WordPress Except for Featured Image is a post from: WPBeginner which is not allowed to be copied on other sites.

How to Add SlideShare to WordPress oEmbed without a Plugin

2012-02-06T22:31:38Z

If you have ever spoken in front of an audience, then you probably know what slideshare is. If you haven’t, then slideshare is a place where people upload their presentation slides, so others can see it. Very often these speakers also embed their slides in their blogs. You can either use the slideshare embed code which works fine, or you can make it much easier for yourself by simply adding it to WordPress oEmbed. This would allow you to simply paste a URL of your slideshare presentation, and it will auto-embed just like the Youtube videos. In this article, we will show you how to add slideshare to WordPress oEmbed without a plugin.

Open your theme’s functions.php file or a site plugin and simply paste this code:

// Add Slideshare oEmbed
function add_oembed_slideshare(){
wp_oembed_add_provider( 'http://www.slideshare.net/*', 'http://api.embed.ly/v1/api/oembed');
}
add_action('init','add_oembed_slideshare');

Thanks to @tammyhart for sharing the snippet with us.

P.S. want to check out all the presentations that we have given? Then visit WPBeginner’s Slideshare

How to Add SlideShare to WordPress oEmbed without a Plugin is a post from: WPBeginner which is not allowed to be copied on other sites.

How to Prevent Youtube oEmbed from Overriding your WordPress Content

2012-02-02T15:12:09Z

Have you ever been to a site where you notice that media elements such as youtube videos override other content? This can happen if you have drop down menus, floating bars, lightbox popup etc. Well as designers, this get really frustrating for us. In the past, you would have to add ?wmode=transparent to each video embed code, but with WordPress 2.9, embedding videos have gotten much easier. All you have to do is paste the URL of a video, and it will auto-embed. However, this makes it harder for us to add the ?wmode=transparent tag to each video. Well, you don’t have to worry. In this article, we will share with you a snippet that prevents Youtube and any other media files that are embedded via oEmbed from overriding your WordPress content.

Example:

All you have to do is open your theme’s functions.php file or better yet your site’s plugin file and paste the following code:

function add_video_wmode_transparent($html, $url, $attr) {

if ( strpos( $html, "<embed src=" ) !== false )
   { return str_replace('</param><embed', '</param><param name="wmode" value="opaque"></param><embed wmode="opaque" ', $html); }
elseif ( strpos ( $html, 'feature=oembed' ) !== false )
   { return str_replace( 'feature=oembed', 'feature=oembed&wmode=opaque', $html ); }
else
   { return $html; }
}
add_filter( 'embed_oembed_html', 'add_video_wmode_transparent', 10, 3);

Source

How to Prevent Youtube oEmbed from Overriding your WordPress Content is a post from: WPBeginner which is not allowed to be copied on other sites.

How to Add Google+ “Add to Circles” Badge in your WordPress Site

2012-02-02T15:12:09Z

Recently, one of our users asked us how they can add the Google+ “Add to Circles” Badge in their WordPress site. In the past, we have shown you how to add the Google +1 Button your WordPress Posts. In this article, we will show you how to add the Google+ “Add to Circles” Badge in your WordPress site.

Preview of how a Google+ Badge looks like:

Before we begin, you should note that this is only for Google+ Pages not profiles. Example of Google+ Page. Example of Google+ Profile.

First thing you need to do is put the following code in your <head> section of your site which you can modify by editing the header.php file of your theme.

<link href="https://plus.google.com/{plusPageID}" rel="publisher" /><script type="text/javascript">
(function()
{var po = document.createElement("script");
po.type = "text/javascript"; po.async = true;po.src = "https://apis.google.com/js/plusone.js";
var s = document.getElementsByTagName("script")[0];
s.parentNode.insertBefore(po, s);
})();</script>

Don’t forget to replace the {plusPageID} with your Google+ Page ID. Your Page ID is a 21-digit string at the end of the URL. For example if your page URL is: https://plus.google.com/101634180904808003404/ then the numbers in bold is your Page ID.

Once you have added the header code, then all you have to do is place the following code wherever you want the Google+ Add to Circles widget to show. Most users like to display this in their sidebar, so you can either modify your sidebar.php file, or simply add it in a text widget area.

<g:plus href="https://plus.google.com/{plusPageID}" size="badge"></g:plus>

For the Small badge, simply use this code:

<g:plus href="https://plus.google.com/101634180904808003404" size="smallbadge"></g:plus>

We hope that this article has helped you. If it did, then please consider adding WPBeginner in your Circle.

How to Add Google+ “Add to Circles” Badge in your WordPress Site is a post from: WPBeginner which is not allowed to be copied on other sites.

How to Show Your Latest Pinterest Pins in WordPress Sidebar Widgets

2012-02-01T14:45:16Z

Few days ago, we showed you how to add the Pinterest “Pin It” button in your WordPress blog. We are seeing more and more people joining Pinterest every day. Some of you might even want to show your latest pins in your sidebar. Well, in this article, we will show you an easy way to displaying your latest pinterest pins in your sidebar or any other dynamic widgets area.

First thing you need to do is install and activate the Pinterest RSS Widget plugin. After installation, simply go to Appearance » Widgets. There will be a widget called Pinterest RSS Widget. Drag it in the appropriate widget area, and configure the settings.

You can customize the size of your thumbnails. You can also choose to display the titles below the images or not.

If you want to show the Pinterest Pins on a post or a page, then you can do that using the following shortcode:

[prw username="syedbalkhi" maxfeeds="10" divname="myList" printtext="0" target="newwindow" useenclosures="yes" thumbwidth="100" thumbheight="100" showfollow="medium"]

If you want to show the Pinterest Pins in your theme by hard coding it, you can also do that using this plugin. Simply add the following codes wherever you want to display the latest pins:

<?php get_pins_feed_list($username, $maxfeeds, $divname, $printtext, $target, $useenclosures, $thumbwidth, $thumbheight, $showfollow); ?>

The parameters are:

username is the Pinterest username you wish to display Pins from (mandatory)
maxfeeds is the maximum number of Pins to display (optional, default = 25)
divname is a name suffix for the list class. “myList” will become “pins-feed-myList” (optional)
printtext must be 1 if you want the first few words of the Pin description to be printed below the thumbnail (optional)
target is “samewindow” or “newwindow”, depending on where you want links to open (optional, default = samewindow)
useenclosures is “yes” or “no” (optional, default = yes). Use this if you don’t want to use the tag in the feed and force the script to find an image
link in the feed item description.
thumbwidth is a number that will set the width in pixels of the Pin’s thumbnail (optional, default = 150)
thumbheight is a number that will set the height in pixels of the Pin’s thumbnail (optional, default = 150)
showfollow is “large”, “medium”, “small”, “tiny” or “none” (optional, default = none). Use this if you want to show the “Follow Me On Pinterest” button below the thumbnails. Select the size that best fits the space allowed (“large” is 156×26, “medium” is 78×26, “small” is the square 61×61 logo, and “tiny” is the 16×16 logo.)

When installing this plugin, we ran into the issue of images not showing up. Thankfully, it is a known issue and the author has already covered it into the FAQ’s section of the plugin. If your images are not showing up, then below are the possible solutions:

TimThumb requires the GD library, which is available on any host sever with PHP 4.3+ installed. Make sure your host has this installed (most do).
Once installed and in-use, TimThumb will automatically create a /prw_tmp/ subfolder in your/ wp-content/uploads/ directory with proper write-permissions. If your host server doesn’t allow this by default, be sure to manually create the /prw_tmp/ subfolder in your/ wp-content/uploads/ directory and set the /prw_tmp/ folder permissions to 755. If this still doesn’t work, try setting the /cache/ folder permissions to 777.
Known issue with timthumb.php on Hostgator: If your website is hosted on Hostgator, you may need to contact HostGator to request “mod_security whitelisting”. More info here: http://support.hostgator.com/articles/specialized-help/technical/timthumb-basics

Download Pinterest RSS Widget plugin

P.S. Don’t forget to follow Syed on Pinterest

How to Show Your Latest Pinterest Pins in WordPress Sidebar Widgets is a post from: WPBeginner which is not allowed to be copied on other sites.

Daily Positivity Isn’t Dangerous

2012-01-15T11:09:24Z

I have recently returned from an extended-stay training course in Washington, D.C. Although the training course stayed away from more of the technical on-the-job skills, it did focus on quite a few soft skill areas that brought about quite a few thoughts in my mind. However, for today, the discussion won’t be in relation to the soft skills, it will be more focused on how positivity affects your work life. The background to this is that almost on a daily basis I was speaking with three or more people who did not seem to appreciate their job as much as I think they should.

Yes, yes I do understand that everyone has different work situations and that mine may just be better than theirs but I think that sometimes the little things get in the way of the larger picture and we can’t dwell on that. I mean, we can dwell on it but it doesn’t get us anywhere. We all know the saying “When life gives you lemons, make lemonade“. Its somewhat similar to that but, I think that some need more of a push in terms of motivation than others. Well, how can you be more positive, you ask? Easy, lets take a look at a few big things I noted:

1) Peer distractions – Sometimes what may tend to happen is that one may get caught up in how others view them or if they have any issues with their co-workers. Everyone has their issues and I have had them in the past myself but you have to look beyond that. You have to look towards the future and say “Okay, now that I have this situation, how can I still complete my tasks?”. When it comes to tough co-workers, its not necessarily avoidance or the silent treatment. It’s the involve treatment – where you try to involve them more and attempt to listen to their issues to see if there really is something you can correct or assist with.

2) Team Spirit – It may seem that you don’t consider yourself part of the team and usually leave work as you are done. Sometimes, projects require that you associate with other staff and connect with them and help them when they need it. This builds the team spirit. If you help your peers once or twice, they will remember and assist you when you are crunched for time at a later time.

3) Recognition/Feedback – If you are in a manager and up position and you have people that work below you, feedback is crucial for personal development. Furthermore, if you seek the recognition or feedback then you need to raise your concerns with your local human resource team or request your manager or superiors for feedback as you complete a task or a project. The process of giving and receiving feedback is highly satisfying at an emotional level and from the standpoint of professional development.

These are things that most of us deal with on a daily basis or even if it isn’t on a daily basis, it is something that causes issues at our work place. Hopefully we can work to resolve the issues and make our work environment not just suitable but beyond suitable for our needs. Hope you guys have a great weekend!

Enkay Blog Updates

2012-01-04T21:46:57Z

Welcome to the new year! I am back once again but with more than a promise to stay committed to the blog. I have been busy cleaning up all the comments, the back end as well as updating the existing WordPress install.

Speaking of, the WordPress 3.3 update was something that was lingering over my head for the past few months and I finally performed the necessary backups and completed the upgrade. It seems that this upgrade had the least number of issues with it in terms of the plug-ins and themes.

The thought behind the upgrade came about mostly because I thought about giving the blog a major face lift for the new year and the newer themes required WordPress 3.0+ in order to function correctly. I haven’t started coding and modifying the theme base just yet but I have a design in mind to give the blog the update it needs.

So, what does the new theme change? For the most part, it will focus more on the content and bring about some major changes to the layout of the current theme. I think reducing the header space will move the content up and give in for advertising space to be more central to the theme.

This brings about a thought – what do most of you consider as a reasonable period of time before a theme for a blog should be changed? To me it seems that when a change is necessary, it should be made however, several key components that make a blog easily noticeable should remain the same such as the color scheme, logo and any other identifiers associated with a blogger.

Thoughts?

Fuji Xerox Corporation

2012-01-04T21:46:57Z

Recently, I came across some details regarding the Fuji Xerox Corporation most commonly known as Xerox Corporation in the USA. Its a unique type of setup for a company that is known for its multifunction printer and xerox equipment.

The structure that Fuji Xerox follows is that of the Good Company Concept. Under this concept, a good company must be “strong”, “kind” and “interesting.” A “strong” company can deliver excellent products and services that satisfy customers and also reward its shareholders on an ongoing basis. A company must be “kind” by contributing to the local and global communities in terms of environmental conservation, ethics and corporate citizenship. Employees find their life and work interesting at an “interesting” company. Fuji Xerox aims to be a company with a good balance of all three attributes.

Fuji Xerox produces and designs versatile multifunction printers to print, copy, fax and scan quickly and conveniently in color and black and white varieties. Fuji Xerox is part of a world leading enterprise for business and document management services. Through its broad portfolio of document technology, services, software and supplies, Fuji Xerox provides essential back-office support that clears the way for customers to focus on their core business. With awards from the United Nations and the Banksia Environmental Foundation, Fuji Xerox is well recognised for its commitment to sustainability.

Fuji Xerox (Japan) is a subsidiary of Fujifilm Holdings of Japan (75%) and Xerox Corporation of the USA (25%). Its a fairly interesting company with a significantly interesting corporate structure. Its something definitely worth reading and looking into.

My new site will cure your boredom

2011-11-11T08:37:22Z

So I have been really busy with WPBeginner and Uzzz productions. But the time I was not working, I felt like that I was bored. Then David Pegg, one of my close friends who also happen to work with me came up with an idea. He said lets launch List25. Not some piece of shit top 10 list site. But a list of 25 things which would make it much more important and interesting. It would make it unique. It would be amazing. If you can’t write 25 things about a thing, then its probably not worth writing. Everyone sees top 10 this, top 10 that. But top 25, thats HARD. But what if you can find bizarre, lesser-known yet intriguing information and post it on a site?

Not only it will cure boredom, but it will consistently conciliate curiosity.

With that idea a site was born. We snatched List25.com which was available to register. Put up a custom theme on it. Now we are just producing content.

One of the obstacles we ran into was that our twitter name was @list_25 rather than @list25…. but thankfully to my friends at twitter it worked out. Now we have @list25 on twitter. Follow us. Your support is what will keep us going.

Google Goes Shopping, Buys Motorola

2011-08-18T09:47:22Z

Google recently purchased Motorola’s Mobility segment for a cool $12.5 billion. The deal is being called Google’s insurance policy against legal attacks from rivals such as Apple, Inc. TechCrunch points out that this deal adds 17,000 patents and 7,000 pending patents to Googles’ portfolio. The interesting news will now be to see how far Google will take Motorola Mobility considering the $12.5 billion dollar deal is 1/3 of Google’s cash in hand – not meaning to suggest in any way that the deal was all cash.

Motorola Mobility is responsible for the cell phone and TV Set-top ox business and Google is not backing down by offering a 63% premium to gain access to Motorola’s patent library. Google is essentially guarding itself against the Android system going through an intellectual property battle. It could be that perhaps Google wants to be more like Apple – owning the ecosystem around its Android platform but if not, the patent warfare might get heated up. Google also claims that the deal won’t harm Googles’ relationship with other handset manufacturers but that doesn’t seem likely at all.

The good news is for Blackberry (Research in Motion) and Nokia that they have now become targets for takeover as well, shooting their share values up. Google has now acquired Motorola to not only create the hardware that users like but to couple it with Google’s popular Android software. In the long run it would have been difficult for Google to compete with someone like Apple that is able to marry the hardware and software as easily as Apple does with the iPhone and Googles’ new acquisition will make way for them to stand head to head with Apple.

On the other hand, we may also see GoogleTV being pushed to Motorola’s set-top boxes and that could be a nightmare for some cable and satellite companies. Either way, I think the deal is only fair in terms of Google now being able to compete with Motorola – what this will mean for the consumer (aside from a better phone) is to be determined as time passes on.

Summer Travel Options

2011-08-18T09:47:22Z

Sitting in the drivers seat of your favorite car going down the open highway or the relaxing “pilots” chair of your RV or the balcony of the suite in the cruise ship or lastly, the seat at the gate at your local airport. No matter what your preference is, it seems like there is someone who enjoys each of these very different traveling options.

I prefer getting on a plane and resting while on my way to a vacation spot but there are people who like to experiment with the not so standard traveling options such as RVs or even driving to a camp site with their favorite coleman tents ready to weather what the night will bring.

To me the idea of outdoor travel or vacationing just doesn’t seem luxurious enough and I understand that its not meant to be luxurious but I just can’t seem to come to terms with vacationing at a camp site. I wonder how many people still prefer camping as their choice of vacation travel and if so, aside from some of the popular destinations and some of the normal camp site activities – wood fire, hiking, biking, etc, what would be something more adventurous that people do nowadays.

Recently I read that due to the harsh economic times, some families are turning to camping and I questioned how many people actually do go camping. I also read that Coleman was the most preferred brand for camping equipment and it would be tough to argue with that – with everything from inflatable rafts, tents, flashlights, Coleman seems to accommodate most camping needs.

The question that comes to mind is – what is your preferred method of travel? and if you are a camper, what kind of activities do you indulge in?

Heard of Effexor?

2011-08-18T09:47:22Z

Recently I received a review offer for Effexor medicine/pills and I honestly didn’t know what to expect or what the medication was useful for. To be honest, generally when I feel a bit under the weather, I treat myself to a tylenol and that generally makes things a lot better.

Interestingly enough, this past week I wasn’t feeling too great and just a little R&R was able to help me feel just right. Now, onto Effexor. The reason I accepted the review was because I want to know what exactly the pill is used for. Modern medicine can cure a lot of things and if there is something out there, I am genuinely interested in learning some more about it. Essentially Effexor is used to treat depression or anxiety disorders – social anxiety, panic disorder, etc. These are referred to as “Venlafaxine” and are in a class of medications called selective serotonin and norepinephrine reputake inhibitors (SNRIs) – some long long words! These are just natural substances in the brain that help maintain the mental balance. Seems quite simple but I’m not sure if they work even though I read a bit about them and do know they work.

Seems like there are some warnings about such medications for those under 24 and obviously consulting with your doctor is necessary but I had to take on this review only to learn a bit more about something that I had apparently not heard about but something that is quite widely used.

Are you a big believer in medication or pills or are you like me where you figure a couple days of R&R will help you feel better?

Using Re-Manufactured Ink Cartridges?

2011-08-14T21:46:33Z

Recently I jumped into the big printer scene and purchased an HP Officejet 6500A. Its one of the larger printers that HP makes and its an all in one (as most printers are these days) – Fax, Copy, Print and Scan. Interestingly, for me at least, the printer comes with 4 separate cartridges – 1 for black and 3 color – cyan, magenta and yellow.

My old printer was also an HP and mostly the HP brand has been good to me and thats why I stick with them. The problem now becomes that I paid $200 for the printer and the set of ink costs $50 but then I started thinking about re-manufactured ink cartridges. I know that I had tried it once and it wasn’t so successful and the biggest reason for that is because I had to refill it myself. Painful and disappointing and I was half way covered in ink.

I know a lot of people purchase these re-manufactured toner cartridges and there are a few popular websites such as RetailBlue (an Australian website) and a few others and noticed that the difference is substantial – 40% less than the retail value of the cartridges. Theres really no hassle since you buy directly from them and they ship it to your door.

Further, I realized by reading on Retail Blue that these cartridges are better for the environment – it makes sense because many components of a cartridge can be used over and over again because they either have a long service life and some of them last forever and by just throwing them away, you could recycle them. Think about how much ink is used daily in your office and so forth and suddenly recycling the cartridges sounds like a better idea. The process itself to recycle the cartridge looks at the cartridge housing as well as the nozzle, the electronic circuits, the replace drum and is then filled with the exact ink or toner formulation. Essentially these cartridges exceed OEM standards so why not? Save yourself some money, save the environment and go green!

Now my question is, how many of you recycle your ink cartridges and if you do, do you purchase ink from a remanufactured ink and toner cartridges store? Whats your favorite store?

Home Improvement – DIY or YellowBook

2011-08-18T09:47:22Z

Any Home Depot or Lowe’s fans in the audience? I would like to say Im a big DIY fan and although fixing and building parts of a computer are more my thing, sometimes I want to try my hands at putting together things that may not be working as expected around the house – thats where I usually head out to the local DIY store.

Fortunately for our friends overseas, a store called Wickes is able to provide them with home improvement tools but whats interesting is that they actually design their own home improvement products which are designed to meet the requirements of DIYers, tradesmen and individuals involved in general repair and maintenance. The Wickes brand actually owns 200 stores, by comparison Home Depot has almost 2,250 stores in the US and Lowes has almost 1,750 stores. Not too shabby overall though. They opened their first store about 40 years ago and they have over 8,500 products.

The reason I’m talking about Wickes is because recently the idea of expanding the house came into my mind and that meant needing floor boards and wallboards/plasterboards (sheetrock) and when I did a search, I came up with Wickes. What really got me curious was the idea that DIY, specially in these economic times, has to be doing well and I believe that Home Depot did really well in terms of its overall Q2 profits and it seems like the trend will continue even if the economy does pick up.

My question then is this, when it comes to repairs or maintenance whether its to your home or your trusty computer, do you prefer the hands on approach (DIY) or hands off approach (let me call someone!) ?

How One Extra Step in Customer Service Can Keep you from looking like a total Dumbass

2011-08-10T07:03:51Z

Today, I learned an important lesson from Staples customer service manager who could have saved the embarrassment by taking one extra step. So I needed to buy a PC to run the accounting software and utilize all modules. Knowing myself, I went for the CHEAPEST yet functional desktop deal I could find. I launched Slickdeals and luckily saw Staples running a Quad-Core AMD desktop deal for $399 (with a 20″ LED monitor). I jumped right on it… I was already at another store, so I decided to stop by the local Staples store.

First, they were all busy with customers (there were like 3)… I patiently waited until the store manager offered to assist me. I told him that I was looking for this laptop that they have for $499 on a SPECIAL, and I have a Staples coupon that will get me additional $100 OFF. Without even looking at the coupon, the manager told me that he has had multiple folks trying to use this coupon, and it is a fraudulent deal. Hmm OK. I said wait a minute, this coupon is not from a 3rd party vendor. It is actually from your own URL because I have it opened on my Android.

This is a fairly old store manager, and he didn’t understand me. He thought I was talking about the logo. He said that a lot of spammers put Staples logo on fake coupons. Then I told him again that I actually got the coupon from the Staples site. Apparently URL was too smart of the terminology. Well instead of dealing with me himself, he pushed me off to the assistant manager, so he can go chatter with the copier guy. The assistant manager wasn’t helpful either. He said, no the coupon is not valid. I don’t know what he entered on the screen, but he showed me the error saying “Coupon is Invalid”.

I hate wasting time, so I am already frustrated. So I just asked them why would their own site put out Invalid coupons that is suppose to start today. The guy said that is a good question… The manager jumps in the conversation again saying the coupon is fraudulent. So I asked him does Staples.com put out fraudulent coupons on their site… The response was “sometimes”… I think he didn’t understand what I was saying… I asked them to call corporate and asked, but they refused saying that they have a system that is here just for that, and the system is denying the code.

Anyways, I got the Corporate Customer Relations number, Store number, and the manager name. I came home and called the folks. Didn’t take this guy more than 2 minutes to locate the coupon and tell me that it is valid. I told him my issue, so he called the store manager. I was asked to pick up the order. I went in the store and asked for the manager. I suppose because of the embarrassment, he sent one of his employees to assist me rather than coming out himself.

If only he would’ve called the corporate in front of me, then he wouldn’t have to deal with that embarrassment. Also, I would’ve left as a happy customer.

Moral of the story, always make sure that you are doing everything from your end when providing customer service. If it requires you to spend 5 extra minute, then spend the extra time. But make sure your customer is happy, and you are happy with the fact that you did everything to help.

Do You Buy Mobile Accessories?

2011-07-01T15:28:23Z

The other day I came across a pretty hot deal for my Motorola Xoom – a bluetooth mobile keyboard and a HD Speaker dock that generally retail together for about $200 + shipping were selling for about $55 with free shipping. A pretty tempting deal considering that each item was being sold on eBay individually for more than the $55 that I would be paying for it but then I started to think, what would I use them for?

When it comes to my cell phone accessories too, I’m not one who goes out and buys every single accessory and I think its better for me anyway because generally when I have in the past, I never end up using it but I know that lots of folks love their mobile accessories and thats why I decided to accept this review. MyTrendyPhone.com sells accessories for pretty much all mobile devices, whether its phones, iPods, cameras and video cameras for reasonable prices. They have a price guarantee and a satisfaction guarantee so if you find a lower price elsewhere, they’ll match it and if you’re just not happy with the product, they’ll gladly accept the return. Its one of those win-win situations for consumers like me, who really can’t make up their mind but generally if I have a product in my hand, I can make up my mind pretty quickly.

After searching their website for Xoom accessories, I realized that they not only sorted in the standard Motorola gear but they also pulled in other OEM replacements and other compatible products which was good and although I’m not in the UK, the pricing did seem fine to me from that point. Some of the adapters and such were only a few dollars which is a good price point. The question that I have for you is – what kind of accessories do you usually purchase with your mobile device – Whether its a cell phone, tablet, laptop, etc?

Sentsy Wickless Candles – Success Story

2011-07-01T15:28:23Z

The review that I have today is quite a neat one, its actually a success story about how two stay-at-home moms took their awesome idea mainsteam and ended up creating a very unique product. Scentsy are safe, wickless alternatives to regular scented candles and its one of the most successful direct selling companies. Basically these candles use the warmth of a light bulb to melt scented wax rather than the traditional wick and flame.

Scentsy Products are not only safe but they stem from a really creative concept of making candles safe. We hear so many stories about people leaving their candles burning in their home and it results in a tragedy and so something like this is not only a good product but its more of a safe alternative to the regular scented candles that you and I would use in our homes.

Scentsy generated more than $700 million in revenue in just 7 years and today it has almost 100,000 independent Scentsy consultants that share the exprience throughout the US, Puerto Rico, Guam and Canada. Its really interesting how the direct selling concept works because its more of a door to door type thing or where one Scentsy consultant puts together a small event for potential customers. Its a great idea, a great concept and a really great story considering that the company’s first home office was a 40-foot ocean shipping container on a small sheep farm. Things come a long way and this story shows exactly how dreams come true.

The coupons experiment – New addition to the WPBeginner Network

2011-04-06T00:25:07Z

So today, at WPBeginner, we added a new site to our growing network called WPBeginner WordPress Coupons. So here is a little story behind this new experiment. So I am sitting here pissed off at myself for missing a really good deal (Not WordPress), but I missed the deal because I didn’t check slickdeals that day. I occasionally check it, but there are just some days I don’t have time for it. Well, nonetheless, I was freaking pissed off at myself and others for not creating a resource that does that.

So that is when I got the idea for WordPress/Blogging Coupons. We have a good enough audience of WordPress users / bloggers. We also have good connections with a lot of developers, theme designers, web hosts, other bloggers (authors), and other companies. So why don’t we combine the two and bring a quality resource for users that is also mutually beneficial for the businesses. Furthermore, the power of the community always surpasses the efforts of one person, so this way if anyone else finds a deal going around, then they can submit the coupon.

Our editorial staff will review it, and publish it on the site. If it is a kick-ass deal, then it would be emailed out to those who don’t visit the site as often. As I came up with the idea, I am like, “Now that’s what I am talking about”.

So I started jotting down notes, competition, ideas, and everything else that I wanted the site to have. Now because we are using Genesis as the framework, we didn’t need to work that much. We already have the child theme for WPBeginner Gallery. So, we just based the coupons theme off on the gallery child theme and made few modifications. Ofcourse, Gravity Forms made life even easier in terms of creating coupon submission forms.

What took so long is my nit-picking… I wanted to try like 10 different ways before I can agree on one. Well, so there we have it.

A one stop shop for WordPress and Blogging Coupons. Use it, but don’t abuse it

If you have feedbacks for me, then please let me know. As I am always up for improving the way I do things. Because this is very experimental, I will post another update on how this site is going as it is fully integrated within the WPBeginner main site.

I launched a new site WPBeginner WordPress Gallery

2011-02-04T03:48:34Z

So I am sure you have been following me through my other blog WPBeginner. Well this past weekend, we launched a new section to WPBeginner called the WordPress Gallery. Slowly through out the month of February, we will be relaunching more sections and revamping the entire site. I am very excited about this new launch because it is surely going very well.

I want to offer you an opportunity to get listed in our gallery. What do you need? A custom design or highly modified premium / free theme, and the site has to be powered by WordPress (DO’H)

What do you get in return? A do-follow link from our gallery for FREE.

What the heck are you waiting for? Go Submit your site to our WordPress Gallery

Welcome to Facebook Domination (My Projections)

2010-11-13T01:26:28Z

Facebook is literally taking over the web, and I have been wanting to do a write up about it. It is insane that Facebook has over 500 million registered users, and it is growing faster than ever. It is crazy that in the past 3 years, it has literally doubled it’s revenue each year going from 350 million dollars to 700 million dollars and now to somewhere around 1.6 billion dollars per year. When will this stop? Will it stop? Should we be worried? The whole idea of this post is to spice things up by sharing what I think will happen. Now I am not an oracle, so my predictions are just as good as yours.

With the Facebook like buttons, facebook has been dominating the web. At least for WPBeginner, it has become the second highest source of traffic surpassing Twitter. From my knowledge, it has surpassed twitter for a lot of my top blogger friends as well. Most blogs either have both the facebook like box and the like button, or one of the other. And when facebook went down few times this past two months, it created chaos on the web. Does that mean facebook is becoming dangerous? Are we feeding a giant that is unsustainable? Well I think so.

Not saying that I will stop using facebook because it will be a stupid business decision on my part, but I think facebook is onto ruling the web. It has already surpassed Google in terms of time spent on the site. I think with the new rumors of an email service, Facebook has a great chance of challenging GMAIL (that is only if they have a better search and organization feature).

Facebook gift cards are now on sale in Target, Best Buy, and Walmart. It still surprises me that there are morons who are buying fake products such as Birthday cakes on Facebook. I guess the line between meta physics of reality is just becoming very very thin. I think this aspect of Facebook business will grow not only on virtual products, but on tangible / digital goods as well. I can see facebook competing with eBay because their marketplace is so much better. I have sold tons of stuff for very decent prices on Facebook and I am very happy with it.

With the amount of sites now incorporating Facebook Connect, I think it is not too far away that facebook creates it’s own payment cart. I will use it if facebook doesn’t fluctuate it’s codes as much as they do now. It is equally beneficial for webmasters to use facebook because it is the largest membership site on the web, so almost everyone has an account there. If and only if facebook charges less fees than paypal, I can see paypal going byebye in the next 2-3 years. Because when is the last time you saw connect with Paypal option? I think Facebook connect is a very powerful feature, and it can put facebook as the head of the web.

Basically what I am saying here is that those facebook gift cards can be used to purchase tangible products if/when facebook adapts it’s own payment cart.

Facebook is working on making it’s photo galleries better, so good bye Flickr. I know quite a few people are pissed off with flickr because they ban accounts without any explanation. I think facebook can take over flickr and completely destroy it. If there was a way to embed Facebook photos in WordPress, I would get rid of my flickr right away.

Ladies and Gentleman, I see facebook dominating the web in the next two years. Should we be excited? Afraid? Will this be the Big Brother that we want to avoid?

Planetaki Planet balkhis

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Daily Positivity Isn’t Dangerous

Enkay Blog Updates

Fuji Xerox Corporation

My new site will cure your boredom

Google Goes Shopping, Buys Motorola

Summer Travel Options

Heard of Effexor?

Using Re-Manufactured Ink Cartridges?

Home Improvement – DIY or YellowBook

How One Extra Step in Customer Service Can Keep you from looking like a total Dumbass

Do You Buy Mobile Accessories?

Sentsy Wickless Candles – Success Story

The coupons experiment – New addition to the WPBeginner Network

I launched a new site *WPBeginner WordPress Gallery*

Welcome to Facebook Domination (My Projections)

I launched a new site WPBeginner WordPress Gallery