That’s all for this week on Plugin Picks. See you on Monday!

Related Articles on WordCast:

• Plugin Picks 3: WP Google Buzz
• Plugin Picks 4: WP Function Reference
• Plugin Picks 2: Google Analyticator

• Tips on Site Navigation for Mom – Devlounge – When it is all boiled down, can your mom – or grandmother or even great grandmother – use your site? Devlounge takes a look at how to improve your site's design navigation keeping everyone in mind, from beginner to experienced web user.
• How to display custom post types on your WordPress blog homepage – WP Recipes – Custom Post Types could be the rage for WordPress Theme designers and developers. WP Recipes shows you the code on how to showcase those custom post types on your WordPress front page.
• The Comprehensive List of Thesis Hooks and Thesis Filters – If you are a fan of the Thesis WordPress Theme, this will be invaluable. A collection of hooks and filters for the Thesis Theme. Bookmark this now.
• Display Separate Counts for Comments, Pingbacks and Trackbacks – Digging into WordPress – We used to fuss over how to separate comments, pings, and trackbacks, and now, this post looks at how to showcase the numbers, the counts, for comments, pingbacks and trackbacks.
• Custom Comments HTML Output – Digging into WordPress – Comments are often ignored in WordPress Themes, the last to be styled. This post digs into how to style and customize the output of WordPress blog comments.
• 11 Common Web Design Mistakes (Blunders) – Hongkiat – While exploring the new features of CSS and HTML, we need to remember that no matter how fancy the code gets, some basic design mistakes can make or break your site. Hongkait's 11 common design mistakes for the web are a good start – and reminder.
• Common Mistakes In Themes – scribu – We all make mistakes when it comes to developing our WordPress Themes and web designs. Scribu looks at a couple of common mistakes made in WordPress Themes that tend to plague us, as well as those checking and monitoring submissions to the WordPress Theme Directory.

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• Around the WordPress Community: WPMU Merger, Widgets, Custom Fields, Shortcodes
• Around the WordPress Community: Post Thumbnails, Videos, Permalinks, Multiple Bloggers Blog, and Designing for iPad

Episode 9

Guest: Erno Hannink

• Independent social media consultant, dedicated to “helping independent professionals to use Social Media to get more clients.”
• Organizer of Social Media Event
• Organizer of WordCamp Netherlands
• Author of Let the Customer Come to Tou

Erno recommended Darren Rowse’s Problogger as inspiration for those aspiring to a career in social media.

As a WordCamp organizer, Kym discussed the WordCamp format with Erno, who also shared many of his own experiences and tips for up-and-coming WordCamps.

Related Articles on WordCast:

• WordCast Conversations 5: Roxanne Darling
• WordCast Conversations 4: Andy Peatling on BuddyPress
• WordCast Conversations 8: Anne Helmond on SEO and Social Media

I spotted their Travel Oregon Guide at a friends and decided to get my own copy to learn more about the state I recently moved to. Their site was easy to navigate and it was one click to an easy-to-use page to order free state recreation and travel publications, brochures, and maps. I went down the list, choosing the various items of interest, and was taken to a simple form to fill in my mailing information and email, and within seconds, the following, well-written email arrived in my inbox.

Dear Lorelle,

Thank you for ordering the guides listed below from Travel Oregon! The gang wanted to make your Oregon experience as authentic as possible, so we decided to send your travel guides on a little adventure.

Before landing in your mailbox in a few days, your travel guides will soar alongside a rainbow-colored kite on the Oregon Coast, sit in the third row of A Midsummer Night’s Dream at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival, ride a buckin’ bronco at the Pendleton Round-Up (Let’er buck!), and admire the Birds of Prey at the High Desert Museum. After exerting all their energy at these fabulous Oregon locations, your travel guides will shop at a local farmers’ market and cook a gourmet meal with friends in the Willamette Valley, stroll through the Japanese Gardens in Portland, and windsurf through the Gorge.

Your dear travel guides will be so inspired after exploring Oregon’s seven regions that they will love nothing more than to curl up on the couch with you and discuss future travel plans, while sipping a refreshing cup of iced Oregon chai tea.

Welcome to Oregon!
The team at TravelOregon.com

The email included a list of all the brochures and information I’d just ordered in a simple and easy to read format.

Lessons to Be Learned

There are a lot of lessons to be learned from Travel Oregon, with regards to design, interaction, and social media.

1. I Knew I Was in the Right Place: There’s a feeling of wrong when you walk into what you think is the right place and you know it isn’t. It could be, but all your instincts are screaming at you that it is wrong. You back out. Not so with Travel Oregon. I knew in a second I was in the right place.
2. They Know Their Audience: Knowing your audience and clearly identifying their needs is critical to letting people know they are in the right place and that you have the goods and information they need. The pictures of Oregon locales in the image slider at the top, the old Oregon West colors and look, the state map, the topics, all reassure me that I’m not just in the right place but they have the information I want and need.
3. The Blog is a Part, Not Apart: Their Travel Oregon Blog is a separate entity, but not separated from the website. It is incorporated into it with the latest posts. A visit to the blog shows that it matches the website’s Theme and look while still giving the blogging feel. All are seamless interconnected.
4. One Click Access: While it could be displayed more prominently, I found exactly what I wanted at the bottom under Travel Resources and it was one click to the Oregon Travel Guides that I came looking for. To get the brochures, I went through four pages, one to fill in which information I wanted, the next to add my address information, the third to confirm all of the details, not just my contact information but my “order” with an opportunity to change it, and the confirmation page. Took about 2 minutes from the time I arrived on the page to getting the confirmation email. If my Internet connection was faster, the time would have been shorter.
5. No Selling: At no point in the process was I “sold” anything. Did you see a “for more information” or “buy now” in the email? Did you see a closing pitch? No. They know their job is just beginning or is done, but it’s now up to me.
   The forms were easy to fill out, with a highlighted point to a USD $5 travel info package I could order. The address form was simple and easy to manoeuver through, with easy tabbing from form box to form box. The confirmation was simple and easy to read, again with no sales pitch. And the confirming email was delightful in writing styles and prose. Again, no sale.
   They do promote the Travel Oregon Magazine, a subscription, on the site but at no time did anything pop up or attack me through my screen that insisted I take action. They also made it easy to get information on advertising with them. All simple, easy information without a lot of screaming and shouting.
6. Created a Loyal Customer FAST: My experience was fast and brief, but it stayed in my memory long after filling in the form and getting the email. I felt well served and actually inspired to dig deeper into the site and my new state of residence. In other words, they’ve now got a loyal customer.

While the purpose of this site is to provide information to the traveler, and support does come from the state and other agencies, you might not think they have much to “sell” and the lessons here don’t apply to your site. They do have something to sell. They are selling you on why you should choose to visit Oregon, and why you should spend your hard earned money and vacation time in the Pacific Northwest and “Oregon wild west.” When the travel industry makes money, they are doing their job and reap the benefits.

Sites like these make it all look so easy. It’s not. Trust me. It takes a lot of work to make the process so seamless and effortless, with the total focus on the user, giving them what they want and need with little effort.

A lot of fuss is made over a site’s sticky factor, bounce rate, and time spent on site, but for me, two minutes and I was gone, a very happy customer, willing to come back time and again for more. Does this change how you think about your web analytics? Get in, get out with the right stuff, come back for more. That’s today’s analytics.

Why did they get me, an old, cynical web expert, to become a loyal supporter and customer? Because they knew who I was before I walked through the door and what I wanted. They knew I didn’t have a lot of time to dig around through too much information. They knew that I still wanted the pleasure of holding a magazine-style publication in my hand and dragging it around the house to my various favorite reading spots where the computer dare not go.

That’s service. And I’ll be back for more.

No related posts.

See you Wednesday for one more WordPress plugin!

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• Plugin Picks 3: WP Google Buzz
• Plugin Picks 2: Google Analyticator
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Adobe CTO Kevin Lynch claims that the company’s ubiquitous Flash plug-in doesn’t ship with any known crash bugs. One can only assume that he has never used the software. As Adobe representatives exhibit an increasingly dismissive attitude about Flash’s technical deficiencies, the browser vendors have stepped up to address the problems and are finding ways to insulate their users from Flash’s poor security and lack of stability.

Several mainstream browsers isolate Flash and other plug-ins in separate processes in order to prevent an unstable plug-in from crashing the entire browser. Mozilla is preparing to introduce a similar feature in the next version of Firefox. A developer preview that was recently made available to users offers an early look at the new plugin crash protection.

According to the article, an upcoming release of Firefox will include Electrolysis, which will help the browser isolate browser crashes to the effected tab or group of tabs using techniques from Chrome’s interprocess-communication (IPC), leaving the entire browser running so a complete restart isn’t necessary. This should resolve the issue that happens when the user restores the session, initiating the Flash page and crashing the browser again…and again…and again.

During the last six months, many Firefox fans were frustrated enough with the constant Firefox crashes with the Flash Plugin that they added the Flash Block Firefox Extension to block and control Flash viewing and access, or turned to Chrome and other browsers. The fix should also improve Silverlight video content issues as well.

If you would like to participate in the testing of the next version of Mozilla Firefox, including testing the Flash/Silverlight feature improvements, download the latest build.

Related Articles on WordCast:

• Blogs With Flash at Risk: Update Adobe Flash Player
• Firefox 3.6: Power Bloggers Rejoice
• Blog Productivity: Know Thy Browser

That’s all for this week on Plugin Picks. See you on Monday!

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• Plugin Picks 6: Lifestream
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• Code a Backwards Compatible, One Page Portfolio with HTML5 and CSS3 – Inspect Element – Designing for CSS3 takes advantage of the new features in HTML5 and Inspect Element looks at how to go forward but also how to go backwards with the two in a page portfolio example.
• Tools and Resources to Improve your Typography on the Web – Inspect Element – Typography (fonts) are one of the most exciting improvements to come to CSS3 and the web. Inspect Element has a great summary of how CSS3 is changing the font-face of the web.
• Quick Tip: Different Layouts for Different Widths – Nettuts+ – When it comes to today's web design, accessibility becomes even more important as you aren't designing for your mother's web any more. It's now time to design for different layouts in width and form. Nettuts looks at how to do this easily with jQuery and other tools to accommodate not just wider and higher resolution monitors but iPad, iPhones, and other mobile and handheld apps.
• 5 Good Reasons Why Designers Should Code – Carsonified – While we're talking about code, maybe it's good to remember why web designers need to know more than just design, but also have a solid footing in the code. Carsonified takes this on and reminds us that some of the prettiest parts of a design is the code.
• Making Your Code as Beautiful as the Design Itself – FreelanceFolder – Amber Weinberg reminds us that code needs to be as beautiful as the web design you produce and gives us the reasons why. Just in case you forgot or needed a gentle reminding that code matters.
• Designing for WordPress: Complete Series & Downloads – CSS-Tricks – CSS Tricks completed a series on how to design a WordPress Theme and for WordPress blogs with video. Check it out.

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Google Wave is the social media equivalent of a document sharing, allowing collaborative communication and multimedia sharing, with a strong focus on documentation.

Google Wave was greeted with a lot of excitement, but after a few people got bored with watching others type, only a few found consistent value. However, linking Google Wave with third-party apps might revive the interest again.

What do you want Google Wave to do? Is what it does enough for you or do you need more? What kinds of things would you like to see people submit to the competition?

The idea of a Google Wave-to-WordPress blog Plugin is intriguing. The ability to update a “published Wave” on your blog for permanance as well as possible public or group consumption would be invaluable to transparency issues for individuals, groups and associations, and possibly businesses.

I’d love to see notifications via email, Twitter, Facebook, and social notification services of updates to Waves I’m involved with, so those would be interesting applications for third-party integration, but what else?

What would you like to see Google Wave become and where would you like to see it grow with the new Google Wave API?

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Episode 8

Guest: Anne Helmond

• New Media PhD candidate with the Digital Methods Initiative at the Mediastudies department at the University of Amsterdam
• Graduated from the University of Amsterdam cum laude with a thesis on ‘Blogging for Engines. Blogs under the Influence of Software-Engine Relations.’
• Researcher on the symbiotic relationship between blog software and search engines
• Anne previously joined us on WordCast Conversations when we celebrated Blog Productivity week, to share her tips on being a more efficient blogger.

To prevent users from commenting with links to their site simply to boost their search engine rankings, WordPress includes a “nofollow” tag by default with all links. To change this on your self-hosted WordPress site, several plugins are available. Below are a few of our recommendations.

DoFollow WordPress Plugins:

• Lucia’s Linky Love Plugin
• DoFollow
• Link Love (removes nofollow tags after a certain number of comments have been made, rewarding regular commenters)

Making great strides in both the social media and education worlds, Anne knows first-hand the stigma that comes along with young women in these fields. She shared her thoughts on this, explaining that, when there are more men than women, that’s the way it is, and it has no effect on what one can achieve. She also gave us a few of her favorite stories as a teacher.

Of course, Kym brings you the dirt: Anne’s favorite “guilty pleasure blogs” include XKCD and Perez Hilton

Related Articles on WordCast:

• WordCast Conversations 3: Blog Productivity
• WordCast Conversations 5: Roxanne Darling
• WordCast Conversations 9: Erno Hannink

Join us Wednesday for the next edition of Plugin Picks!

Related Articles on WordCast:

• Plugin Picks 2: Google Analyticator
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Hanging out in the #WordPress irc channel or on the wp-hackers mailing list, a question that comes up from time to time is “How do I get a bug patched”. I recently had a patch committed, so I thought I would detail the process from start to finish to help others get an idea of the process…

The process for me started by seeing a post by Jane Wells talking about a few UX enhancements she wanted to see handled during the recent patch sprint. One that I noticed hadn’t received any attention was showing the status of an admin attempts an e-mail change under the new multisite configuration. I took a quick look at the relevant code and figured this was something I could patch.

The step-by-step documented process shows a three to four step process from idea and submission to final approval, however it also proves how easy it is to get involved and help WordPress improve.

According to Aaron, it took four people along the way to make this happen, dispelling the confusion and complexity many presume about the WordPress development process.

The development team is working hard to improve the process and make it easier for people to not just report bugs but to see their fix through to the end, so why not jump in and help WordPress grow.

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February 1 – 5, 2010

WordPress Hack Cloakes Itself to All But Search Engines

Automattic Hires Theme Developer Ian Stewart, Forms “Theme Team”

Donate to Your Favorite WordPress Project: Support a WordPress Developer Day

Learn to Write WordPress Plugins in 20 Minutes (video)

Around the WordPress Community: Dynamic Copyrights, Moving WordPress, Microformats, and Twitter to Blog

WordCast Conversations 7: WordPress and Blogging for Musicians and Bands

Our newest show, Plugin Picks premiered this week with Plugin Picks 1: Audio Player and Plugin Picks 2: Google Analyticator

Got comments, questions, ideas or suggestions? We live off your feedback. Call us up at 1-888-525-BLOG or send an email over to mail@wordcastnet.com. You can also chime in on our Twitter, @WordCast, or in the WordCast Forums.

Have a great weekend, and we’ll see you on Monday!

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• WordCast Recap: 2/15/10
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Also unique to this attack is the fact that it seems to only be targeting blogs hosted on MediaTemple servers. The popular hosting company published a page on the issue on Tuesday, and have since updated it stating that all malicious content has been removed.

However, some bloggers have still found some rogue files, and it can’t hurt to check your self-hosted WordPress blog, just to make sure you’re clean.

According to ThemeLab’s blog post, MediaTemple’s page and a forum post from our friends at WPTavern, here’s what we know at this point:

1. Affected servers will often have PHP files with random names (examples given in the MediaTemple post include xkehy.php and xfami.php) in the document root (the HTML directory). These files can be removed with no detriment to your blog. Some say that some files designed to look like WordPress core files could be hiding in various folders as well.
2. Altered pages are only visible to spiders used by search engines such as Google, Bing and Yahoo.
3. If people visit the links themselves from other (non search engine) IP addresses, they are redirected to a CNN RSS Feed.
4. If you click through to any URLs from a search engine, you are sent to a malware site.

If you have any further information about this WordPress hack, please post a comment below or join the discussion in the WordCast Forums.

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• WordCast Conversations 8: Anne Helmond on SEO and Social Media
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Ian informed readers that his once premium-only themes are now available for free (possibly due to employment agreements with the company):

• Travailler
• Acamas
• Thematic Power Blog
• Thematic Feature Site

He then dropped the information that will be most intriguing to members of the WordPress and blogging community: his blog, ThemeShaper, is also joining Automattic, as a front-end to what he calls a “theme team” being formed at the company.

ThemeShaper will become a public-facing blog for the Theme Team now assembling at Automattic. A place where we can help provide the best possible experience for everyone involved in WordPress theming; from the noobiest of beginners to the most powerful of WordPress wizards.

Because the founder of the WordPress project, Matt Mullenweg, is also the founder of Automattic, the company has always had a fair amount of influence on the WordPress community. However, up until this point, its’ role in the development and extensibility area of WordPress has always been extremely limited. How much will the new ThemeShaper shape the world of WordPress themes?

Ian’s description of the new blog and team in his post is fairly ambiguous. The Theme Team could be a support team, a community dedicated to helping theme developers innovate. Perhaps they will work on innovations in WordPress themes, developing components and coding features for other theme developers to use, or perhaps they’ll even be working on themes of their own.

What are your hopes for Automattic’s new foray into themes? Is it worthwhile, a waste of time, or could you care less? Post a comment below or join the discussion in the WordCast Forums.

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• Donate to Your Favorite WordPress Project: Support a WordPress Developer Day
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