Solv Consulting - Austin TX

“Why WordPress?”

Charles Erwin — Wed, 02 May 2012 18:47:03 +0000

Wordpress

You may ask, “Why WordPress?” Wordpress is one of the most popular open source Blogging and Website Development and Content Management Solutions. Hundreds of volunteers contribute thousands of plugin and themes which allow you to design a site that will fit into almost anything you dream of. It is estimated that over 50 million people have chosen WordPress to run their businesses. Over 60 million people have chosen it to power the place on the web they call “home”.

The core software is built by hundreds of community volunteers. There are thousands of plugins and themes available to transform your site into almost anything you can imagine.

WordPress started as a blogging system and is very much still in use. It has been extended so that a very powerful web site can be created. In fact this web site is created with WordPress. A site like this starts out life as a template or theme.

There are hundreds to choose from. They differ from what you may be used to with cookie cutter, simple templates. Since WordPress’s is a Content Management Solutions, the developer can hand off to the customer a web site that can be maintained and edited as new content is needed.

Introduction to Gmail Training Class

Charles Erwin — Tue, 24 Apr 2012 14:06:33 +0000

I just completed the second training Gmail for Cindie Brooks at Chicago Title. The course is presented to realtors. Grab a copy of the PDF here.

Gmail new look

Charles Erwin — Sun, 25 Mar 2012 11:45:42 +0000

Gmail New Look

Ready or not, the Gmail new look is becoming official March 27th. Up until that time you always had the option of using the old Gmail interface. But no more. Many are complaining about it, but this is the cost of progress I suppose. You will be automatically upgraded on March 27th.

I have been using it for some time now and frankly it does offer more features. New themes are now available. Maybe not a reason to like a product, but it does spice up the experience if you get bored with the background. Here is a tutorial that covers the Gmail new look.

Cleaner, more modern

From improved conversations to more customization and updated themes, Gmail is now cleaner and more modern.

Improved conversation view

Conversations have been redesigned to bring the content of your messages to the forefront, and profile pictures make it easier to see who you’re talking with at a glance.

Customizable in new ways

You can now choose how many messages are on your screen at a time by choosing from three different display densities: Comfortable, Cozy and Compact.

Search and filters made simple

The new search box makes it easy to customize your search and find exactly what you’re looking for. You can also create a filter right from the same place.

Switch to Contacts and Tasks

There is a new way to easily swap between Mail, Contacts, and Tasks.

WordPress Journey & Infographic

Charles Erwin — Thu, 22 Mar 2012 02:55:27 +0000

The WordPress Journey from Bloggingtips.com

Great article and infographic on the WordPress journey. WordPress was first released in 2004, and has made a lot of history in a short amount of time. The article covers the following:

Most popular WordPress themes.
The top 5 themes of all time are:
Some of the most popular features over the years have been:

Take a look at the history of WordPress.

WordPress SEO Plugin

Charles Erwin — Tue, 20 Mar 2012 11:08:05 +0000

WordPress SEO Plugin optimization

A WordPress SEO plugin is an added benefit of using WordPress. The WordPress SEO Plugin gives the ability to work on Search Engine Optimization (SEO) “as you go”. A plugin is developed by one of the hundreds of contributors to the WordPress environment, . This extends the core of WordPress, similar to a software vendor such as Microsoft upgrading Outlook with a new feature.

Daryn Harpaz at Consulting Group, helped me located an SEO plugin. We installed WordPress SEO by Yoast.

After the WordPress SEO Plugin is installed, here’s the way it works. Let’s take this post, for example. Below the post there is now an area that gives you critical SEO information and guides you along to make sure the post (or web page) is created properly. Initially the SEO information appears as follows:

Notice that just by starting the post, that the WordPress SEO Plugin begins building the snippet for me. You may recognize the snippet as the search result in your search engine results such as Google search.

The green wording “www.solvconsulting.com/1945 is the default URL for this post. However, as we will see in a minute I can change that. In fact I want to change it because it’s critical for SEO purposes that the URL reflect the keyword you choose for this post.

The description in the snippet beginning with “20 Mar 2012″ is automatically inserted as a default by taking the first line of text and inserting it here. But, we also want to change that, which we will also do later.

I have chosen “WordPress SEO Plugin” as my keyword phrase.

Note, that below the Focus Keyword is key information that needs to be present in this post to satisfy the proper SEO rules. Everything is “no” and is indicated in red. I have some more work to do.

Filling in the blanks

First, I will enter the Article Heading of the post, in this case ” Worpress SEO Plugin”. Then, I want to make sure that the URL for the post matches the keyword phrase which is WordPress SEO Plugin (this should be done for every post and page if you are also using WordPress for your website). The following image shows the results before I change the URL. Note that the WordPress SEO Plugin attaches “1945″ to the URL, which you do not want because it is meaningless for search.

Clicking Edit will allow you to change the URL to match the keyword phrase, as follows:

I now enter my Meta description which is inserted into the snippet and replaces the default text that you saw earlier. Let’s now look to see how I am doing to get rid of all those red “No’s”. See the following image.

So now, my SEO effort are looking pretty good, since I have all green and the “WordPress SEO Plugin” in the text 3 times, which Google likes to see. On the next screen, though, I am going to see if I have the keyword in the post the correct number of times.

We now select the Page Analysis menu option and look at an overview of how we did….as follows:

Please note that I still have some work to do.

I have not used the keyword/keyphrase in any heading in the copy. This means that I need to go to the top of the post and include a heading phrase and mark it as Heading 1 or other heading.
I have not used my keyword phrase WordPress SEO Plugin (but I just used it again here, so that is good) enough in the text. It was only found 4 times and Google likes to see a higher density…somewhere around 3-5%.

So I will go back and do that work now. Here are the results which look pretty good. There are more elements of this than discussed, but drop me a note at charles@solvconsulting.com if you have questions.

Facebook’s Landing Page on Timeline is going away, what now?

Charles Erwin — Sun, 18 Mar 2012 13:15:47 +0000

Constant Contact just published this very helpful blog post on the effects of the Facebook landing page going away. Reading this will help you understand alternatives to the “Like Gate”.

As of March 30, the ability to set a default landing page or “welcome tab” is going away. This means that new visitors to your Page will no longer be directed to a special page that you set up to welcome them. Instead, they will go directly to the Timeline wall.

7 Facebook changes that will affect your business

Charles Erwin — Thu, 08 Mar 2012 15:12:45 +0000

Social Media Examiner, www.socialmediaexaminer.com, has a great post about the Facebook changes that will affect your business. The overall message is that Facebook is looking at pages as a “mission control point”. Read about that and more here.

Making a Word Cloud, and why you need one!

Charles Erwin — Tue, 28 Feb 2012 13:39:21 +0000

A Word Cloud (also known as a Tag Cloud) is a visual representation of text data. You often see them on Blogs. They depict keyword data and are shown in different sized fonts and colors.

A Word Cloud Example

How to make the word cloud

There are several websites where you can create Word Clouds. A favorite of mine ishttp://www.wordle.net/. Go to the site where you will see a “Create” selection. Select Create and you will see a box where you insert text. Above the box is “Paste in a bunch of text”.

To get some text, open a Word document or other text document that contains text that you want to create a word cloud for. Typically if you open a Word Document you can use CTRL A (Command A on a MAC) to select all the text. Then copy the text by selecting CTRL C.

Go back to the Wordle text box, click in the box and select CTRL V to paste in the text. Then select GO at the bottom of the text box. Wordle will generate a Word Cloud using the text you pasted in. Wordle allows you to change the Cloud using the RANDOMIZE button. Click on it and have some fun looking at the different Word Clouds Wordle will create for you.

Once created you can send it to your printer. I typically use a clipping tool such as Snagit or the Windows 7 Snipping tool capture the graphic and save it as a .JPG file for later use on a web site, or even on LinkedIn.

Practical Use Example, for Job Seekers

Its important, when applying to a job posting, to make sure your resume and/or cover letter match up to the job requirements. Using Wordle, you can copy and paste the job posting text into Wordle and create a Word Cloud. Then do the same thing with your resume text. With this, you can make sure your resume includes keywords that match prominently with the job requirements.

Example

Below I am including first a Wordle from a job posting. Then my resume to see how well it matches. First the job description.

Job Requirements

Now My resume Word Cloud

My Resume

Summary

These are fun to do and can other uses. If you want to include a Word Cloud on your LinkedIn Profile, LinkedIn supports adding a Slideshare www.slideshare.com presentation to the profile. Go to Slideshare, create a presentation and insert your Word Cloud that you saved as a JPG file. Save the presentation and then edit your profile to attached the one slide presentation from Slideshare. Have fun.

Outlook Outbox – Message that won’t send

Charles Erwin — Mon, 06 Feb 2012 13:36:02 +0000

This one has been a thorn in my side for a long time. I seldom use Outlook any more but my clients do and one posed this problem to me today. I searched using Google and finally the solution was there.

If this happens to you….

In Outlook click on File and then select “Work Offline”.
Exit Outlook.
Restart
If Outlook will not restart, it usually means that the Outlook process will not end (for some reason).
To fix this…..
If you use Windows 7 hold down the CTRL, ALT, and Delete keys (all at the same time) and click on Task Manager. Click on the “Processes” tab, find the Outlook process, highlight it, and choose “End Process” in the lower right corner of the screen. Or you can right click to do the same thing.
Windows XP hold down the CTRL, ALT, and Delete keys (all at the same time) and you will see the task manager. Click on the “Processes” tab, find the Outlook process, highlight it, and choose “End Process” in the lower right corner of the screen. Or you can right click to do the same thing. If you have a hard time finding Outlook, you can click on the “Image Name” column heading to sort the processes in alpha order.
Outlook should start now.
Open the Outbox and delete the message that will not send.
Be sure to go back to File and click “Work Offline” to turn it off.

Must Have Windows Apps

Charles Erwin — Thu, 26 Jan 2012 13:37:03 +0000

Of all the thousands of Apps available today, there are several that are a must for me. I will be blogging additional ones on a regular basis.

Dropbox is first on the list. Any file you save to Dropbox instantly saves to your computers, phone, and the Dropbox website. And, Dropbox is a free application with 2 GB of storage on Dropbox. You can purchase additional space or get credit for more storage by recommending it to friends. When you go to the site you can immediately download and install the App for the PC, MAC, and Linux. A Dropbox folder is created and any files saved in it are synched with Dropbox. The other BIG advantage is the ability to synch your PC’s Dropbox directory to other PC’s. I ran into this need several years ago while doing some consulting for a small jewelry retailer. There were 4 computers in use but the owner was not interested in networking them. So, I installed Dropbox on all of the computers. Once a document was saved on one computer, it was immediately added to the Dropbox site and then to each PC where Dropbox was installed. The benefits are several. There is no need to email documents. The documents are backed up on other computers. And, the documents are saved on the Dropbox.com website. Dropbox is also available for the iPhone and Android OS.

Keepass is a free password manager. It allows adding your account names and passwords under categories such as Internet and Banking. When you add an account such as Gmail, Keepass auto generates a long password, which you can delete and add your own. In addition, when Keepass is open on your computer, entering your account name and password can be automated. Once in the login screen, position the cursor in the account name field (make sure both fields are blank) and hold down on the Ctrl, Alt, A keys. Keepass will insert the account name and password and log you on. Be sure to include the URL for the login page when you enter the information in Keepass. I found a few sites where this does not work. Once nice feature of Keepass is its portability. There is no complicated Windows installation needed. I run it from the Start/Run prompt by typing in Keepass. You can also install it on a jump drive along with the Keepass data file for portability. In addition, when setting up Keepass, I selected its data file location as a subdirectory in my Dropbox folder. So, on any other computer where my Dropbox is installed, I can access my Passwords. To locate the Keepass site, type “keepass.info” into your browser.

PrimoPDF is a free PDF document creator. It installs as a printer driver. To create a PDF, simply select print for a document or webpage, and select PrimoPDF instead of your printer. Once selected you can save the PDF to a directory of your choice. Note that you must also have the Adobe PDF reader installed on your computer.

Evernote is the very popular free Windows note taking service that enables users to capture any type of information and then access it on a variety of devices. It’s a great note taking service for meetings or diaries. Once the data is saved on the PC, it can be synched to the Evernote web site. This enables the user to get to the notes from any computer with a browser. A great feature is the ability to install a plug-in to Chrome that allows “Clipping” a web page to Evernote. It enables clipping just the URL information or the complete page.

Clearly by Evernote makes web pages, blogs, and articles easy to read without all the webpage clutter. The viewed page can then be “clipped” to Evernote. It is a Chrome app available on the Chrome web store and is installed as a Chrome extension. To use, just bring up a web page and click the Desk Lamp icon in the top right of the Chrome Browser.