Introduction

This video tutorial series will take you through all of the things you need to know in order to get going with WordPress. We will cover aspects ranging from hosting requirements right through to some of the best plugins. This page will be updated as new videos are released.

1. Getting to Know WordPress

What is WordPress?
Cloud hosting and Self-hosting

2. Getting Started with WordPress.com

Setting up an account
Setting up a new blog or web site
Navigating the WordPress.com back end

3. Building a Profile

Editing your profile
Creating profile images with Gravatar.com
Modifying personal settings
Adjusting site settings to improve privacy and findability
Advanced sharing options

4. Posts

Understanding the difference between posts and pages
Creating a new post
Advanced text formatting in a new post
Creating text links
Adding images
Adding images from URLs and external sources
Adding categories, tags, excerpts, and other elements
Publishing a post

5. Pages

Writing a basic page
Organizing page hierarchy
Using page templates

6. Managing Images, Video, and Other Media

Managing media from the Admin panel
Managing Media Library assets from within posts and pages
Inserting external media from YouTube and other services

7. WordPress Settings

Customizing the front page of a site
Managing users
Managing comments
Creating ratings options
Creating polls

8. The Appearance Tab

Selecting a theme
Understanding page widgets
Creating custom sidebar widgets using text widgets
Creating custom menus
Using Typekit to integrate specialized fonts

9. The Twenty Ten Theme

Changing the background
Changing the header image
Creating featured header images in posts and pages
Using asides to create short posts

10. Moving to Self-Hosting

Transitioning from WordPress.com to a self-hosted site
Option 1: Setting up a production environment using BitNami
Option 1: Logging in to and navigating a local WordPress installation with BitNami
Option 2: Setting up a production environment using WAMP on Windows
Option 2: Installing WordPress into a WAMP installation on Windows
Option 3: Setting up a production environment using MAMP on a Mac
Option 3: Installing WordPress into a MAMP installation on a Mac

11. Using Plug-Ins

Installing plug-ins from Admin
Troubleshooting when a plug-in crashes the site
Ten must-have plug-ins for all WordPress sites

12. New Custom Themes

Installing new themes from inside WordPress
Troubleshooting when a custom theme crashes the site

13. Understanding the WordPress File Structure

Working in the wp-content folder
Manually installing themes and plug-ins

14. Basic Theme Hacks

Introducing child themes
Modifying a child theme
Creating custom page templates

15. Launching Your Self-Hosted WordPress Site

Setting up the hosting service
Configuring WordPress before upload
Uploading WordPress to an external web host
Running WordPress on your server for the first time
Importing and exporting existing content from different sources

16. WordPress Site Maintenance and Security

Backing up a WordPress site
Troubleshooting when something goes wrong
Keeping a WordPress installation current

17. Getting Readers

Creating user-friendly permalinks
Setting up a WordPress site for search engine optimization
Setting up and writing good content to get more readers

18. Conclusion

Where to go from here

This video is part of a series.

To start off this course, let me answer a simple question: what is WordPress?

WordPress is an open source application that was originally designed to create blogs but now is used to build almost any website you can think of.

Using WordPress, you can design anything from a simple blog to an advanced website. There are 2 options, either using WordPress.com — which is a cloud hosted service — or you can install WordPress on your own server and host it, which one to choose and why we will cover in later sections.

WordPress was created Matt Mullenweg. On his blog you can read about what he is doing.  Matt’s blog is a standard blog that outputs a lot of content, and you can read it, you can click around if you want to, and it also has pages that you can go to that have more information.

However WordPress doesn’t have to be just a blog; it can be pretty much anything you want. A lot of magazines use WordPress because it’s an easy way of organizing content, and you can also style it and make it look like pretty much whatever you want. The Huffington Post is a good example. It’s a magazine, but it has kind of a blog structure and a lot of advanced features, like social media features such as Facebook like and recommend buttons. It has advertising. It has lots of navigational tools, and it’s pretty easy to read. There are also other sites that have no blog like features at all, such as eCommerces and some business portfolio sites.

As you progress through this course, we will be building a site for the fictional company Joe Blogs Plumbing. This is a self-hosted site, and it has a lot of interesting features.

Not only is it easy to build content, but more importantly, managing that content is very easy through the WordPress dashboard.
The WordPress dashboard is something you will find both on WordPress.com and also on your self-hosted sites.

If you want to just set up a basic web site and you have no idea how to do any type of web design or web development, you can set up a WordPress web site and never have to worry about the code.

WordPress ships with a full Administration panel that appears inside your browser. So all you have to do is activate WordPress, set it up, and then you can manage all your content, write new posts, new pages, manage photos and videos, all from within this Admin panel, through your browser.

That means you don’t have to constantly upload and download files and manage the HTML and CSS code; you simply work in this very easy to understand panel. This is the true strength of WordPress: easy usability for everyone.

Anyone can set up a WordPress site and anyone can make it work to their advantage.

Howdy, at Hyperstream we are proud to tell people that we use WordPress for pretty much every project that we do. Some web developers at this point may say that we are crazy to be using just one system, however we see it as a benefit to know one system inside and out rather than flip flopping between projects, there is an efficiency factor to be had here. I am going to tell you the secret why WordPress is so popular today over all the other CMS systems. WordPress works. It’s that simple.

It is easy to use from both the developer and users perspective. From a developers point of view it gives a good foundation to explore and extend php, javascript and mysql knowledge. There is also a huge community to support it. Numbers matter.

Although WordPress started life as a bloging engine it has become much more, this was mainly due to it’s highly extensible plugin architecture which allowed it to grow so rapidly and allow so many advanced uses of WordPress.

Some of the most innovative development right now is coming from developers making plugins and themes for WordPress.

In conclusion WordPress is here to stay for a very long time and is a great foundation to almost any web project.

One of the major elements of web design that often gets overlooked is form design. I will admit that I have been guilty in the past of neglecting this major part of web design. It is only recently since I have been reading the work of Luke Wroblewski that I remembered how important this is. One of the many reasons we don’t spend enough time designing forms is because “Forms Suck!”. No one likes filling in a form. As a web designer it is our job to make the process as quick as possible for the user.

Here are some of the top form design tips I have picked up:

1. Get rid of fields that are unessential
2. Keep your labels on top of your input boxes
3. Make your submit (action button) button clear and left align with the form
4. Get rid of cancel buttons and allow people to save progress on longer forms
5. Use input masks to indicate what needs to be entered into the field
6. Help text should go under the input field  if required
7. Save people time and use smart defaults

Paying attention to the details of form design can have a very big impact.

Luke Wroblewski

What elements do you think makes for good form design?

Depending on your requirements as a small business owner you may not always need to hire a professional web designer to make your website for you. In fact there are a number of services out there that will allow you to build a web site for little or no cost (other than your time of course).

Here are some of the options if you are very limited on your budget.

1. Use a web building service from your hosting company.
2. Use a bloging service such as wordpress.com
3. Go on a course to teach yourself web design. The for dummies books are pretty good.

Before taking any action with building a web site you should always start with a good plan with clear goals and objectives. Making quality websites takes a long time so be prepared to put in the hours even if you use a free service.

What have your experiences been in building your own website. Was it a positive experience, or would you do differently next time?

Just like our Facebook page to start learning the secrets to Facebook marketing or book a consultation now…

Well sad news hit us all with the passing of Steve Jobs a little over a week ago now, and I like many of you observed something truly amazing. As with most breaking news, I heard about it not from a traditional media source so to speak but eerily as with the passing of Michael Jackson I was first notified about his sad demise on Facebook, a company that in many ways embodies the principles that the man himself held dear and inspired in others.

Whiling away a few free hours I was suddenly inundated with status updates wishing the dearly departed a swift and speedy ride heavenwards and moreover an outpouring of Apple fans making updates and status posts of personal thanks to him. I only acquired my first iPhone recently after much debate as to whether I really needed it or just wanted it and I finally succumbed after realising that maybe it didn’t really matter as to which was the more prevalent motivation and maybe that more than anything else was the genius of the man; he helped to single handedly merge the line between desire and necessity in the technological arena and made functionality for want of a better word, sexy.

He pressed within us all emotional buttons with a device that on paper is the lesser to many other smart phones out there but that in some magical, mysterious way bypasses the ultra rational parts of our minds and taps directly into something far more fundamental within us, the basic human desire to connect.  With others, with our own inner child and in a way as yet unsurpassed with the ubiquitous technologies we now find ourselves unable to even contemplate living without.  It’s more than just a logical assessment, the iPhone truly is a device greater than just the sum of it’s patent laden parts.

A phone is no longer just a phone. A phone is a friend.

We play with it, talk to it (not just through it) and we mourn it’s loss with all the stages of grief at our disposal (though mitigated somewhat with the right insurance policy tucked away in a drawer somewhere.)

You see for my money what Steve Jobs was, was the master at packaging people’s beliefs and desires, aspirations and ambitions into a fully fledged, functional and fabulous friend.

Like a kind of Tamagotchi 2.0. with additional angry bird.

A number of things came together in those first brief moments on Facebook after the news of his demise broke. What started as a simple forwarding of news links from the BBC and the like, then increased exponentially from a small but steady stream of a much more personal nature to a virtual torrent, a visceral outpouring of grief and praise. Steve Jobs touched not only people’s lifestyles but lives. In short he inspired far beyond the reaches of simply the Apple aficionados out there to the secular wider world at large. Even people who had never touched or had any desire to touch an Apple product felt that something truly noteworthy was happening. A brief moment in history when we actually felt history was being made. In years to come I can’t help but wonder if people will huddle together in secluded bars and speak in hushed tones of where they were, what they were doing and with whom when they first  heard that “The Apple guy” died, much like J.F.K or Diana, Jackson etc. It was a moment and you couldn’t help but feel it. Someone once told me…

“I don’t watch the news, it depresses me, I’m sure if it’s important enough I’ll hear about it sooner or later.”

Well in the days after his death, if you were connected to the internet you certainly heard about it, hell even the Godfather and gateway to the modern net paid homage to the meticulous man in a suitably minimalist style.

How many would weep or feel moved to write condolence messages for the death of a washing machine designer? Or an electric toothbrush manufacturer? In their own ways these devices have contributed as much if not more to humanity in practical, pragmatic and potentially life changing ways and yet does a washing machine or toothbrush inspire us? Gratify us so fully? Engage us on such an emotional level? I think not.

That steady torrent of well wishes was expressed in a multitude of ways, places and forms. From simple status updates with his name followed with or prefixed by the minimal but heartfelt expressions of R.I.P, to graphic designers the world over putting together ever more elaborate and eloquent montages, info-graphics and videos.

People within the community of Apple devotees he inspired and on the periphery of it were aware that something momentous was happening and that someone of note not only directly for the contribution that they had personally made had passed but for the legacy that they were leaving behind that people were witnessing the birth of.

It also struck me that Mark Zuckerberg had not only been influenced greatly by Steve Jobs on a personal level but that his ambitions for Facebook were in many ways directly in tune with that emotional vein that Steve Jobs had so masterfully mined within the world. The desire to connect and share seamlessly, effortlessly and ubiquitously utilising devices that we not only engage with on a physical level but more and moreover on an emotional one.

To that end only time and Timeline will tell how successful Zuckerberg and the Facebook team are at achieving that ambition.

Men of vision see not only what is here but what is to come. Men of ambition and aptitude have made those dreams real.

Mark Zuckerberg recently became the man of the moment with his own fledgling Law in the footsteps of Moore many years before him with this assertion…

“I would expect that next year, people will share twice as much information as they share this year, and next year, they will be sharing twice as much as they did the year before.”

It seemed to me poignant that on a social network whose founder seemed so personally inspired by Steve that his was one of the most shared stories I’ve ever seen in my time using Facebook.

I myself made a little tribute to him as while I’ve only had an iPhone for a while I now can’t imagine my life without it and I know many others did besides but it was still kind of nice to see that people joined as a way to express their thanks. Social networks are almost uniquely designed as a way to bring people together in times of joy and in times of grief, in times of rant and rave and sometimes at their best in times of simple thanks to those amongst us whom we feel have added to and improved our lives in some small way.

Within days there was even this little gem going viral bringing together some of my favourite things; country music, comedians and commemoration; not to mention the fall of capitalism.

The genius of Jobs was to see technology not just as something functional but as something fun, something that we should flirt with, court and then fall in love with; totally, utterly, absolutely, madly and passionately in love with.

He was a match maker between man and machine and left behind him a legacy of love.

Here’s to the crazy ones, the misfits, the rebels, the troublemakers, the round pegs in the square holes… the ones who see things differently — they’re not fond of rules… You can quote them, disagree with them, glorify or vilify them, but the only thing you can’t do is ignore them because they change things… they push the human race forward, and while some may see them as the crazy ones, we see genius, because the ones who are crazy enough to think that they can change the world, are the ones who do.  ~ Steve Jobs

 

Selecting the perfect domain name for your website is the most important, and oftentimes hardest, step in establishing a web presence. There are plenty of tools out there that can help you ease the burden of checking available domains and suggesting similar names that are related to your searches.

In this article, you’ll read about 12 neat web tools that will lend you a hand in finding and choosing domain names. You’ll find a variety of search and suggestion tools that have an assortment of features so that, hopefully, you’ll discover a few favorites.

1. Domainr

Nowadays, it’s difficult to find a domain name that end with the popular .com, .net, and .org TLD‘s. Domainr is an innovative web tool that helps you explore other TLD’s that have made popular websites like last.fm and del.icio.us stand out from the crowd. Of course, searches will also include popular top-level domains that are available.

2. Dot-o-mator

Dot-o-mator is a web tool that suggests site names based on prefixes and suffixes that you’ve entered (keywords). Alternatively, you can use a category of prefixes (like “Tech” or “Games”) and suffixes (like “Hardware” or “Web 2.0 words”) to generate suggested site names for you. It’s a helpful tool for, at the very least, obtaining inspiration for a site name.

They also have a fun tool called Web 2.0 Domain Name Generator that generates “Web 2.0″ site names like “Yakidoo” or “Zoompulse”.

3. BustAName

BustAName is a robust and feature-packed domain finder that uses linguistic data to help you search domains. BustAName allows you to save and manage/organize your searches for later use. It has a “List of Words” feature that advise you of similar words to your search – which you can then organize inside folders.

Available domains that are returned can be sorted in a number of ways such as “by quality (readability)” or “by length” for easier viewing. Though the web tool is very intuitive, the creators have a video tutorial on how to utilize BustAName.

4. Domain Tools

Domain Tools is a set of domain name search engines that will help you uncover relevant information about certain domain names. They have a “Whois” search that reveals records about the party who registered the domain, a “Suggestions” search to help you find similar domain names, a “Domain Search” which shows you what TLDs of a domain name are available, and domain names that are “For Sale” or “At Auction”.

5. Domize

Domize is a fast, Ajax-based search engine that you can use to rapidly check the availability of domains. Domize has a widget that you can install on your website to provide a domain search engine to your visitors. Domize also has an iPhone app – because domain name inspiration can hit you at anytime (hopefully you have your iPhone with you when it happens).

6. squurl

squurl is another fast Ajax-based domain search engine. It has a “Suggestions” feature to help you discover similar domains to the ones you’ve typed.

7. DomainsBot

DomainsBot is a domain search engine that has an “Advanced” search feature so that you can conduct a more customized and refined search. For example, you can set the maximum domain character length to eliminate lengthy domain names from the results or exclude domain results that have a hyphen (-).

8. dnScoop

dnScoop tries to estimate the value of a particular domain based on several statistics such as site traffic, links pointing to the domain, and other factors. This will help you gain some insight on the value of a particular domain name in case the name you really want is “for sale” and you want to see if the asking price is fair, or to make an offer to a site owner that owns the domain you really want.

9. StuckDomains

StuckDomains is a database of expired domain names that previous owners have not renewed. This can be an opportunity to find a domain name that doesn’t involve odd names like “fujiyakuku.com”.

10. Nameboy

Nameboy is a popular domain name generator. This straightforward web tool asks for a “Primary Word” and “Secondary Word” that describe the topic of your website, and based on your input, it suggests possible domain names.

For example, typing in “web” as the Primary Word and “superman” as the Secondary Word returned results such as webhero, supeweb and supermanweb. There’s a “Rhyme” option that tries to suggest domain names that rhyme with the search phrases, but the feature didn’t seem to work on the above example.

11. dyyo.com

It’s common practice to keep domain names as short as possible so that it can be quickly typed and also so that they’re easier to remember. dyyo.com specializes in helping you find 4-letter domain names to keep your URLs terse.

12. Ajax Whois

Ajax Whois is a simple Ajax-based domain search that makes domain-name-hunting effortless and rapid. To make your searches even faster, they have a set of useful keyboard shortcuts to satisfy the power user in you.

Source:  http://sixrevisions.com/resources/12-excellent-tools-for-picking-a-domain-name/