• Will it make life harder or easier
• How much harder or easier
• Can I do it myself without paying vast sums of money?

The answer is…maybe. But if it is difficult this rather cool wordpress plugin will help. Called the FaceBook Tab Manager it allows you to configure a tab for Facebook in WordPress and then copy and paste it into Facebook.  This should allow WordPress lovers a much more familiar and convenient way of managing a Facebook page (we hope!)

Heres how it looks :

And heres the official description:

The Facebook Tab Manager allows you to create landing pages and other types of content to be displayed within Facebook, particularly within the tabs that appear on Facebook business pages and pages for other types of organizations. This provides a way of putting more interesting layouts and functionality into your Facebook pages, without the need to get too deep into fancy programming.

The Facebook Tab Manager was specifically designed to take advantage of a recent Facebook page redesign that added support for iframe tabs on Facebook pages. Optionally, you can now also specify content to be displayed on an associated canvas page.

Tab content can include any WordPress content, including output from Shortcodes and other plugin functions.

Nice one!

It just takes someone a little creative to think up a smart idea and spend some time presenting it well. Spencerfinnell (@spenncerfinnell on twitter) has done just that with this free WordPress theme that can be used as a quality control or ticket system. Hes purposely kept it light to allow for user customisation and with a nice design and layout it means it can be integrated or branded as required.  It may have some bugs that still need ironed out but Spenncer realises that and is continuing to support it so expect those to be dealt with in due course (if there are any!)

Well done Spencer, great job and nice work.

WordPress GPL

WordPress, developed by Matt Mullenweg has a General Public License (GPL) which means that it is distributed freely to all and as such it has allowed development from 1000′s of people who are part of the user base and community. With 11.4 million users out there hosted on WordPress and an estimated 12 million more on self hosted solutions it has established itself as one of the top platforms to use for a blog or website.

Thesis Theme

The Thesis Theme by Chris Pearson has been developed and sold as a separate entity (164 dollars for an unlimited license) but it is based on the WordPress platform. It has an estimated 27,000 users and is NOT under GPL (apparently it is as of recently but I’m still seeking confirmation on this.)

Chris as a business person is arguing that he isnt beheld to WordPress, the license and is resisting the GPL. Have a listen to the debate, arranged by Andrew Warner in the vid and see how you feel on the two sides to the story.

Personally I think Matt came across as more convincing and with a stronger basis for the “correct” thing to do in this particular situation. What do you think?

I did some searching for a plugin and did see one called One Click Plug-in Updater and decided against it as it required permissions to be changed (my perception was that it would be to difficult for non tekkies to sort out) so I asked around on Twitter and Rob McGuire came back to me and recommend I try that plugin out, so I did.  And it worked a treat!

Grab the One Click Plug-in Updater and try it yourself (hopefully you wont have to mess around with permissions on the server to make it work!).

But wait! Theres more!

This might be surprising to regular users of WordPress as it certinaly surprised me.  Seems it slipped though the cracks at one point in all the new upgrade notes.

Have you noticed that when you upgrade WordPress Core to a new version that there was an option to select all plugins and upgrade them simultaneously but you never knew why that option wasn’t available on the plugins page?  Well check this out.

Glenn Murray from Divine Write saw me asking on twitter about this one click upgrade and he referred my question to Paul Cunningham from Blogging Teacher who suggested I do this.

When you see a plugin or a series of plugins need to be upgraded try this

• On the left sidebar go to Tools
• Select Upgrade
• Select all plugins
• Click upgrade

Well dont I feel like a right idiot now?  It was there all along and I just never noticed it. Maybe you didnt notice it either but, hey! Now you know. A big thanks to all mentioned who helped me figure this small, but really rather precious nugget out.

Turns out that their is an easier way to make posts or pages (or even Tags and Category pages) display a custom sidebar, or at least a custom set of widgets in the preconfigured sidebar set via a WordPress plugin called Shiba.

The usual method of installation is used with the plugin added to the WordPress plugins folder and activated via the admin panel and once this is done the admin of the widgets is quite simple.  Indeed, reading through the Shiba Sidebar Plugin site the plans for future development are quite interesting with widget exports and better widget management options that will no doubt come in very handy in the future.

Word of warning at the time of writing, the developer says that the current version is fine for WP 2.9.2 but if your playing on WP3.0 hes aware of bugs and issues and is working on a fix. Thanks ShibaShake and keep up the good work.

You can custom grab the WordPress custom sidebar plugin here.

Once it is installed it works automatically in the background and basically its aim is to remove unnecessary data from images and reduce them to the smallest file size possible while still retaining the quality. Recommend by Yahoo itself in the Yahoo exceptional performance series this plugin is a must have.

It works by stripping out small, if not minute, pieces of code in the images that have no real need to be there or which are unused and also may suggest converting the images to gifs, if required, although caution should be taken here incase quality is unintentionally affected.

Author: Dialect

Download the Smushit Plugin for WordPress.

I immediately tell people to STOP and think before I mention the words “project brief” or “design brief” as this can be scary as it involves writing and some dedicated time.  Stopping and thinking for a few minutes can save everyone a lot of wasted time and heartache. Once you have thought about things, then think about reality and consider what the project will, in all honesty, cost in terms of services, products, skills, time, and effort.

This does not mean that you can put a website on line for 200 dollars and expect it to be a thriving multi-million dollar business in 2 weeks.  Get real.

Now lets say it together.

Get REAL!

I don’t blame  people thinking this with all the insane stories floating around about startups from their garages turning into billion dollar companies but it only happens once in a life time, to one person, and in your lifetime, its already happened to Google, so get over it.

Right, now thats out of the way lets look at how we can address the issue of a project brief, from the top and what we should consider.

Photo Credit: Poportis

How To Write An Effective Design Brief

A design brief is a written explanation – outlining the aims, objectives and stages of a design project.

A thorough and articulate design brief is a critical part of the design process. It helps develop trust and understanding between the client and designer – and serves as an essential point of reference in order that all parties may understand these objectives and a more accurate and realistic time frame, deployment schedule and quote can be generated.

Above all, the design brief ensures that important design issues are considered and questioned before the designer starts work.

Below is a guide as to what any design brief should possibly incorporate..

Describe your Company

Start your project brief with a short, honest synopsis of your organisation or company.

Don’t take this information for granted, and don’t assume that other people will necessarily know anything about your industry sector.

Tell yourself:

• What your organisation does.
• How long you have been established and how many staff you employ.
• What your desired niche/target market is.
• How you fit in to your industry sector.

Describe your Aims

Good ideas can have a huge influence on the success of a company’s marketing strategy – but in order for success to be ensured, clear goals must be set so set these goals in stone by writing them out.

For example, do you want to:

• Generate sales?
• Encourage enquiries?
• Gain newsletter subscribers?
• Obtain information from your audience?
• Encourage them to tell a friend?

If your aims and objectives are not this clear, then your design brief has already achieved another purpose… One of most rewarding parts of actually sitting down and writing a project brief is that it helps to clarify your thoughts and can indirectly help to find flaws in what you initially thought was a solid idea.

Who will buy your Product or Service

Detail your primary, secondary and tertiary audiences. Explain if you are looking to consolidate your existing client-base or appeal to new markets.

Detail any demographic figures about your audience that may be useful to the designer. These may include:

• Age
• Sex
• Income
• Occupation
• Location

Mind your Language and stick to the points

Currently we only accept project briefs in English so check how it should or could be accepted (that goes for the bank as well when you aim for your loan or your VC funding).

Due to the variety of different languages both our employees, our associates, our affiliates and indeed our clients speak, it is not constructive to focus on producing briefs in another or in a variety of languages so English is used as the “universal” language of the internet.

In regards to the way the brief is detailed, whilst you should write in clear, concise way – there is no reason why you cannot use emotive language to emphasise exactly what you are trying to achieve.

Stick to the facts, and do not attempt to make the brief contain flowery language or adopt terms that you are not 100% familiar with, try to stay away from jargon or industry specific terms in the initial stages unless otherwise unavoidable.

Examine the Competition or give Examples

Providing examples of what you consider to be effective or relevant design can be a great help in writing a design brief.

Make sure to include samples of your company’s current marketing materials – even if their only purpose is to explain what you don’t want from your new marketing materials!

If there is a design style that you particularly like or dislike – then explain why in the brief. If you’re not entirely sure why you like a certain design style, then good starting points include:

• Colour
• Imagery
• Quantity and quality of text
• Typography
• The atmosphere that particular designs create

Don’t feel that you have stick to the medium that you are designing for when giving a list of inspiration and influences. If a television advert or music video creates the atmosphere that you want your project to create, then that is a perfectly reasonable statement to make in a design brief.

The more clues you give about your design tastes, the more likely the project will be able to deliver close to your aims. Expecting others to second-guess what you require rarely if ever produces the best results.

Budget, Budget, Budget – Establish one or forget it

Even if you can only provide a ball-park figure, a budget expectation will give the project a more realistic feel and a good idea of the type of solution that will  be provided.

It has been our experience that clients will refrain from stating a budget as a certain amount of trepidation is inherent as these projects are not easily quantifiable, hence prices can range from the incredibly low to the the extraordinarily high.

A ball-park figure allows us all to set the parameters within which we which to work and indeed allows us to recommend specific solutions and you can then expect feasible results with the price range.

Not establishing a budget can have dire consequences and we ask potential clients to seriously consider budgets at the very initial stages of any project. That means you!

Remember that when providing solutions to any given issue there can be multiple options associated with it. these themselves will vary in price and if you want the best solutions in the most efficient time then you have to establish guidelines on the budget allocated to that particular issue otherwise you end up with 100 options and are no closer to making a decision.

Budgets help allocate funds to specifics but they are also the starting point for the whole project and allow the funds to be spread to the areas seen as requiring more focus. Depending on the project described in your brief this will never ever be the same on two occasions.

And that about wraps it up.

This may not seem like alot of work in the list above but believe me, once you start asking more questions and thinking about ways and means of developing, more and more questions will present themselves.  Take it seriously and focus on it with the project brief and everyone will benefit and indeed succeed.  Otherwise, its all just wishes and dreams, and they don’t put food on the table.

Author: Jaimie Sirovich

Download the WordPress SEO Pager plugin

This isn’t good for two reasons.

Firstly, it won’t help search engines find the pages on your site because they are set in series by this method, therefore to get to the earliest posts the search engine spiders will have to follow and scan, follow and scan follow and scan in this method.  Cumbersome and not very friendly. Secondly, visitors will work in the same way.  They have no desire o cycle though 12 pages one at a time to reach a desired post.

What WP Page Numbers does is add a line of numbers (surprise surprise!) in one of 5 styles you can choose from, to the bottom of the page allowing spiders to reach all the following pages from one place, effectively opening up the site in a friendly manner and allowing them to search and scan in parallel rather than in series.

This is the same for visitors.

They can simply click the page numbers and skip to that page immediately rather than being forced to cycle through all the irrelevant content they have no interest in.

Not all themes will need this plugin, but if you realise that you do, it will require a little editing in the theme code in order to work so you may need som help to sort this out. Definately worht it on a search engine level and a usability level.

Author: Jens Törnell

Download the WordPress Page Numbers Plugin.

The beauty of this plugin though is that it can see where your visitor has come from and presents them with a greeting related to the site they originated from. For example, if a visitor has come from Twitter, the icon displayed in the box will be the twitter icon and the message will read:

“Hello fellow Twitter user! Don’t forget to Twit this post if you like it, or follow me on Twitter if you find me interesting.”

The great thing about this is it adds a little magic to the greeting by recognising where the visitor came from but also, because the messages are fully customisable you can change the greeting to suit your site and make the whole thing a lot more personal, allowing the visitor to feel just that little bit more special.

Greet Box Placement in Posts

One bit of advice I would give here is regarding the placement of the Greet Box.  Many people will be inclined to place the greeting at the top of the post due to the format of the message it contains but I would suggest that you use the options to have the box appear at the end of the post allowing the visitor to read your information and make a decision rather than asking them before they have even begun reading.

I think it is a little obnoxious to ask people to subscribe to your RSS based on the quality of the article before they have had that chance to decide from themselves, but thats only my opinion.

Simple to install and configure, this plugin is a no brainer!

Author: Thaya Kareeson

Download WordPress Greet Box plugin.