Some interesting tools

I’ve found some interesting tools for modifying your WordPress blog.  I haven’t had time to use any of them yet, I was planning on fooling around with them later this week.

WordPress Theme Generator – http://www.yvoschaap.com/wpthemegen/

How to make “related articles” for your blog – http://youneed2see.com/web/138/How_to_make_’related_articles’_for_your_blog

10 Must have WordPress Plug-ins – http://www.singlegrain.com/blog/10-must-have-wordpress-plugins/

49/50 WordPress Blogs are vulnerable – http://www.bloginfosec.com/2007/06/11/unofficially-why-4950-wordpress-blogs-are-vulnerable-app-security-and-dev/

And something we might need down the road:

Moving WordPress to a Different Domain – http://webdev.kevinlloyd.net/php/moving-wordpress-to-a-different-domain.htm

Our Competition

This is the number blog on WordPress.com – http://icanhascheezburger.com/

This is my personal favorite cat for the last month or so.

This blog and this picture are an example of an internet meme.  You can learn about memes here – http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meme

 There are many internet memes, from the cats in cheezburger to an older meme that featured an owl – http://www.orlyowl.com/

O’RLY was used whenever someone said something painfully obvious.  It is pronounced ‘O Really?”   It is meant to be condescending.

Reaction to 05/21/07

I didn’t really gain anything from the last class.

Nothing was added to what we were doing, and at this point realizing there were no more classes I think it was for the best.  This night was essentially our last class, as tonight, 06/11/07 is basically a gathering where we show others what we did.

I didn’t get to work on anything I needed to get done in class as I spent the last half of it helping Mr. Cook.  Which was actually fine with me.  I think I did helped his understanding and that was actually more rewarding then most of what I had done in class in the previous weeks.  I really enjoyed helping someone get more comfortable with the internet.

The class conversation in the first half of the class period was interesting, and as always I enjoy hearing my other classmates’ points of view.  But there really wasn’t any new in the news we were reporting.  I wake up everyday and scan digg.com, nytimes.com, wired.com, etc.  Everything we talked about had been on one of those sites in the last month.

What was interesting and stayed interesting was my classmates.  So many of them have points of view that I don’t have and that I don’t encounter in my daily life and social circle.  It was really good to hear how the world looks from those other places and hold it up to my own.  Very useful in self-evaluating later.

Seventh Class – 05/21/07

Andy Wibbels left a copy of Blog Wild.  Tomas Ramirez won it in a raffle.  We all applauded.

Lynda Peters spoke about a conference on blogging.  It led to an interesting discussion with some of our classmates pointing out that at the beginning of the quarter they didn’t really know blogging existed and how shocking it was that here was an entire conference devoted to blogging.

 We discuss adding a “List of Lists” bucket to our catalog.  Many of us have stumbled across organizations that have compiled their own lists of advocacy groups and have used them with liberty.  It is decided that the more information you can have the better, so we would be doing to service to link to those lists.

We discuss that our next class will also be our last class on June 11th.

We are all to create powerpoint presentations approximately 7 minutes long detailing what we did and what we learned completed our projects for our compentencies.

We are to add 5 more posts to catalog keeping the same beat we have tonight.  Mine is Media Advocacy.  I have already posted 6 from this topic a few weeks back, so I go out and find some others categories.

I spent the rest of the evening helping Mr. Cook get comfortable with posting to the catalog.  There were some tricks he did not know that make life and jumping back and forth between multiple accounts much easier.  I worked with him for about an hour and I think he had a better grasp by the time we were done. 

Reaction to 05/14/07

As I mentioned earlier, Andy Wibbel’s talk kind of gave me my mojo back in relation to the class and the catalog.  I came home and worked on the press release for awhile.  I sent it off to Professor Tresser, turns out I was using an incorrect form.  I think I have the body of it solidified, just some minor changes need to be made.

I also came home and got more posts ready for the catalog.  I tend to post in batches, 6 or 7 at a time and then take a week or so off.

I haven’t mentioned it yet, but this entire time I have not been actually enrolled in the class.  Due to a bueracratic snafu I have a hold placed on my Depaul account.  To enroll in any Illinois University a student has to prove that they have been vaccinated from measles, mumps and rubella.  Now obviously anyone born in America in the last 40 years would automatically be vaccinated, but of course between moving a lot and my parents not being the best organizers, my medical records for most of my life do not exist.  I had thought I had tracked them down from my high school last quarter, I sent in a request for them to send the records to Depaul and the high school cashed my check.

And most specifically, my hold came off.

Well, it reappeared at the start of this quarter.  Turns out it wasn’t my records, the state of Illinois gave Depaul amnesty from needing the records last quarter.  So 1 day before the quarter begins I find out I have to lift this hold again.  Takes me 2 weeks to figure out the preceding story I just told you.  Another week to find a medical clinic and get in.  Another week to then find out that even though the clinic told me I was all set, I actually need a second measles shot to finish that vaccination.  Another week to get another appointment, then another week to get the clinic to fax Depaul telling them I have the second appointment.

 Needless to say, not being able to access the class online affected my work.  And also it isn’t like all of that interrupted my free time in between my other 2 classes and full time job.

 It was around now that I finally got it taken care of.

 It made my day.

Sixth Class – 05/14/07

We start with a discussion of current class status and condition.  Most of us have gained a footing on posting organizations to WordPress and can do so comfortably.  A few of us still struggle.  Both the A2D’s and S1D’s have questions for Professor Tresser on what we are doing and how.

Thom Bergstrom, our “bucket” master has questions about how to consolidate neighborhoods, as our initial plan called for a listing of all 77 neighborhoods in Chicago.  See them here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neighborhoods_of_Chicago or Google “Chicago Neighborhoods” for alternative maps.

Mr. Bergstrom feels that 77 neighborhoods is too many to scroll through, and the social group categories mix in with the neighborhoods, adding to the confusion.

Through discussion we decide to change the buckets to Chicago-Northwest, Chicago-Southwest, etc.  Professor Tresser also shows Thom how to ‘trick’ WordPress into alphabetizing the entries by using -_Neighborhood or whatever the name ends up being.  By using dash underscore “-_”, you can trick the computer into listing that before A.

The class discusses the need for a “Start Here”.  We would like it contain:

Welcome
How to use this guide/getting started
FAQ

And perhaps a code of conduct.

Class discussion on if we should have “Stories of how we got started – asking for your story.”  Gary Tsuchiyama reads an article about how a tragedy, parents losing a child, turned into something good when the parents channeled their energy into creating an advocacy group.  We discuss how often we want to help but don’t feel we know how.  Adding a “How I got started” section will allow us and others to tell their stories and hopefully help others get involved.

 Blogging in the news.  Professor Tresser shows http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/13/magazine/13audience-t.html?ex=1181707200&en=ac80840eb63ad533&ei=5070 which is a NYTimes Magazine article about being a rock star in this day and age.  Myspace helped these artists get famous.  It allows them to not have to sign with a major label and control their own work.  But because of the access fans now have through these digital mediums, they expect that access all the time.  These artists now spend more time blogging then they do performing or writing new material.

Professor Tresser gives us social networking for the white collar crowd – www.linkedin.com 10 million members and adding 120,000 each week.

Also we see www.zoominfo.com which gives you more information about yourself then you ever wanted to know.

We have a guest speaker for the last half of the class – Andy Wibbels.  Andy is the author of Blog Wild – found here http://www.amazon.com/gp/pdp/profile/A2RSXKXFL3CBK6/ref=cm_blog_dp_pdp/104-8383894-6692711 and he runs his own blog http://andywibbels.com/

You can look both of those up yourself.  He defines a blog as “an instantly, easily and frequently updated website.”

I really enjoyed Andy’s talk.  For one, it is obvious he speaks to groups for a living.  Very easy, informative, concise.  And he’s got a sense of humor.  His canned spiel was very good, just surface enough that the non-technical people could understand and enough meat that it was interesting to people like me.  I think I partially enjoyed him because it was refreshing to have someone who knows more about the internet then I do talking to me about it.  Having grown up with most of my friends being hackers, programmers or at the very least PC games and pirated music and porn, the internet is very second nature at this point.  And I am not very literate in the grand scheme of things.  I can find the command prompt and that is about it anymore.  But I also don’t think it is miraculous that there are videos on the internets.  Or I don’t worry about the tubes.  I suppose that is a better way to put.

So anyway, Andy was interesting and informative and sent me away enjoying the internet and class again.

Reaction to 05/07/07

I have started the press release as I am beginning to get a feel for what our catalog is and what it is going to be.  Tom had sent me a helpful link about how to write a press release and what forms to use, etc.  I write my first draft not expecting or thinking that it was complete enough for use, but feeling that I had fleshed out a solid enough body that I could complete it with some feedback.

Tom has responded with positive feedback and sends me a body of text from which to both borrow from and also to read for a better understanding of his plans for the catalog.  I am re-writing the press release to reflect this new information.

Tom has altered his view on what we have and what we will accomplish by the end of this quarter.  At least it feels that way from class discussions.  From talking with my classmates I feel comfortable saying that we don’t mind being the guinea pigs for the catalog.  It is frustrating and some times feels unfair, but most everyone I speak with believes in the idea of the class.  Everyone thinks the concept is sound and that the catalog does possess the potential to be a powerful tool for Chicagoans and visitors for quite some time.  What everyone worries about is will we be graded as guinea pigs or on the initial vision?  I feel that is the source of everyone’s real angst.  Because graded against what the class description and class 1 proposed we have not and will accomplish much.  But given that everything had to be re-worked from the start and that all of us contributed and stayed with it, that the foundation is now laid for future classes, we accomplished quite a bit.  This class should be referred to Beta SW 221.  We de-bugged the course for everyone else.

I think my fellow classmates and I are beginning to realize that is going to be our major accomplishment.  That and we will post as many groups as we can, if only so future classes will have less clerical work to do and can focus on more interactive and in-depth uses of the data.

Fifth Class – 05/07/07

Back in class and Tom is realizing that the ambitions for the first phase of the catalog will have to be scaled back.  People are still confused and we are already halfway through the quarter.  I will say that Tom has been more then fair in realizing when things are not going the way they were envisioned and retailoring expectations accordingly.  Also, to be fair to Tom, he didn’t even know he was teaching this class until a week before the quarter began.

 In a fine example of typical bureaucratic loving(the most tender kind), this class was proposed but not approved until a week before the quarter began.  So basically Professor Tresser had a good idea that never got fleshed out because it didn’t need to be.  Then suddenly it needed to be in 7 days.  That doesn’t work so well when you have other classes to prepare for and a brand new concept.  Besides, it isn’t like he chose a topic that anyone knows.  Had he been doing a class on television watching a week is plenty of time.  But given the gigantic disparities in computer literacy, if you are going to tackle a project that involves creating something from scratch with said computer literacy; you had better have very clear and easy to follow instructions.  Instead we took two steps back for every one forward.

This is the first class where we all start to feel like we have some idea of what is going on.

We discuss blogging in the news.  Blogs mentioned are dailykos, perezhilton, digg.com and some others.

We are assigned a small writing assignment due next class, two pages on either topic:

“The internet is good for society”
“The internet is bad for society”
Include at least 2 references to back argument with citation

Those of us with S1D assignments review with Tom.  I am working on the press release at this point.

He clarifies the needs for the research “paper” for the A2D Creative Expression Subcategory – Can create an original work of art using an electronic medium and can discuss the creative process. -

He then explains to the class how to add video to WordPress by these steps.  Those of you familar with computers will see the rudimentariness(word?) of the steps explained here.  They are needed.

1) Video Capture – find digital recorder and create video
2)Save Locally – To your hard drive
3)Open Youtube.com (need account to post video)
4)Upload Video
5)Get URL – Paste/Save
6)Open WordPress and edit target page entry
7)Put cursor where you want video to be and paste/save youtube URL

We have more discussion on fair use and the internet effects on copyright.  I would recommend anyone interested check out: http://creativecommons.org/

That is an alternative copyright legal structure that is attempting to gain ground.  It is an alternative to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_Rights_Management and Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA).

At the end of class Tom realizes that we have only 2 more classes before the final class which is today – 06-11-07.  We have no class 05-28-07 and 06-04-07 due to a holiday and Tom needing to be back in Canada for a client.  He therefore scraps the small writing assignment.

Reaction to 04/30/07

I had been starting to regret that I had chosen to be the marketing director for the project.  I knew going into volunteering that I had no publicity experience.  I had been Lt. Governor of my high school, which at the time was the largest in Michigan.  My student government was lucky enough to be empowered by the school system, and more importantly, we enriched.  We had an operating budget of 20k, which allowed us to create events and fund them.  I had done my share of promoting then.

I was also an editor for my high school newspaper, which again was empowered and enriched, we published 16 pages every 2 weeks.  I have advertising and promoting experience from that as well.

 Both of those experiences were over 10 years ago.

 But I thought, how hard can it be?  You figure out what you’ve got, figure out who might be interested in it, and then you harass them until they pay attention.  Little did I know that I was biting off more then I wanted to chew… well, I will let the email speak for itself:

To get going on the S1D assignment – start looking up free pr services, email lists of Chicago activism, tech columnists for all local papers (get their email addresses) and phone #s – - -

(1) put all this into a Google spreadsheet that you share with me. The idea is want to get out a short press release that the project has started and we want people to send us suggestions for groups to include and to use the directory. Organize contacts in the spreadsheet: Chicago Dailies, Magazines, College Press – you can get all this online at
http://www.newstips.org/interior.php?section=Resources.

(2) Have you ever written a press release? For a review/tips, go to http://www.newstips.org/interior.php?section=PR+Tips&main_id=141. Use the attached Word doc as template for stationary. Create a new Google doc to record only your S1D outbound messages/press releases, etc (no images). You will be sending out a Word press release as an attachment, you will send out shorter email announcements. You can annotate your content diary-like with brief notes to say something like “Created this press release and sent into A, B, C, D. on May 2,” then  “May 6 – followed up and called A,B,C, and D to see if they got press release. They all had. A,B, C not interested, D wanted to know  etc….+ Got it?

(3) You will pitch stories to tech/ed/culture editors about this class – get a Friday Tribune, Sun-Times, Reader, New City, Windy City Times, Defender, Pioneer Press, Skyline
and any local papers – Inside Lincoln Park, etc. Get contact info for the student papers – DePaulia, Loyola Phoenix, UIC Flame, UC Maroon, etc. Put all contact into into the Google spreadsheet.

Any questions?

First of all – Again, I have no real experience with publicity and I need to get the editor from the Chicago Tribune on the phone?  Also, that link up there at the bottom of the ’1) paragraph’?  Yeah, that has 400 links to media organizations.  I’ll just whip all those up into a spreadsheet with all their contact info… right after I click on all 400 links to get that contact info since all that is listed is the link, area served and medium.

Oh, and one more thing.  Remember me casually tossing off about how hard can publicity be because all you need to know is what you have and who might be interested?  Well, I have NO idea what it is that I have.  And neither does anyone else in the class or the professor.  Which is fine with me as long as my grade doesn’t depend on it.  Shit.

Fourth Class – 04/30/07

There was no class on this day.  Professor Tresser had to fly to Canada for a client.  I honestly did little this week for our class.  I was waiting to see what the next class would bring in terms of discussion and direction.