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One more week, Bama fans!

One week from tomorrow is Alabama’s first game of the 2010 football season and I can’t wait! Are you excited?

Here’s a few goodies to ‘tide’ us over until next weekend, starting with this funny which has made its way to me via email, Facebook, and Twitter!

And as always, Bama Foundation provides us with a great hype video for the new year:

And let’s not forget these gems courtesy of the U of A Athletic Department!

And to any Bama fan who’s never been, I highly recommend visiting the Paul W. Bryant Museum.

And who can forget, our favorite taunt?

ROLL TIDE ROLL!

If you want to walk the heavenly streets of gold, you gotta know the password, “Roll, Tide, Roll!”

There are many days where I will spend my lunch time surfing the web … sometimes with purpose, but usually aimlessly. Facebook is pretty good at helping with the latter. I jump from a friend’s link to another, then another, and half an hour later I’m on a “wild tangent surf”. StumbleUpon and Twitter are also good for this.

Today’s lunch surf session landed me on a lens (topic) at Squidoo on Bear Bryant. In case you don’t recognize my post’s title, that’s one of Bear’s quotes — one of my personal faves.

You know, it’s amazing that you can study a person, idolize them growing up, and still really NOT know everything about them. I remember hearing all the Alabama football “glory stories” growing up from both my parents and grandparents. I still remember watching Alabama play on TV. I remember watching The Bear Bryant Show on Sunday afternoons with my grandfather.

“Golden Flake and Coca-Cola … great pair, says ‘The Bear’!”

I remember the day he passed away. I remember watching his funeral on TV. Even at that young age, I knew that Alabama football wouldn’t be the same for a very long time. Hell, we got a pretty good coach right now. A lot of people say ole Nick reminds them of Bear. A lot of people (mostly other teams) tell us that we live in the past. But growing up here, how could you not? Over the years I’ve read and re-read some of my favorite Bear stories. There are tons of pages out there on the internet of quotes and tons of books about the man. Sure there, are tons of webpages and books on lots of worthless people, but their legends do not live on like Bear’s has!

So excuse me for being a living-breathing crimson-blooded outrageously-obnoxious Alabama fan, but Coach William Paul “Bear” Bryant was more than “just a coach” to me. He was more than a great motivator. He was more than a great leader. He was more than a friend, a confidant and a mentor to his players. He was a great man … and he was a veteran.

I didn’t know that last one. Did you?

I happily discovered via Wikipedia that Bear Bryant joined the US Navy following the bombing of Pearl Harbor. He served just off North Africa, but never saw any combat action. But the article does say that his ship, the SS Uruguay, was rammed by another ship and ordered to be abandoned. Bear disobeyed that order, which saved the lives of his men. It goes on to say that while in the Navy, he attained the rank of Lieutenant Commander.

The article goes on to describe the rest of his coaching career, but it surprised me that I hadn’t heard about his service before. I can’t say I’m surprised. Like I’ve always said Bear was a great man, and so many of our greatest can be found in our military. So many great men have served this great country before, and so many great men (and women!) are serving now.

While most will never gain Bear’s level of fame, if at all, they all richly deserve it in my eyes.

God bless your soul, Coach. And God bless our troops, vets, and those who love and support them!

Updated WordPress Theme: Black Hat

This update contains several fixes and enhancements.

Details

Black Hat is a dark minimalist theme based on Adrian Diaconescu’s Corporate Sandbox, which is of course based on the Sandbox framework. It is has been built specifically with WordPress 2.7 in mind, but is also backwards compatible for version 2.6. (Sorry, I will no longer be supporting version 2.5 or older.)

Stickers icons courtesy of DryIcons. Favicon by Brian Brasher.

Features

Theme option for changing sidebar location – Pretty self-explanatory, there’s a theme option so that the sidebar can easily be moved from left to right and back again from within the WordPress admin panel. The sidebar can also be removed altogether using this option.

Sitemap template – If desired, you can create a sitemap for your blog by simply using this template.

Links page template – If desired, you can create a links page by simply using this template.

Printer-friendly stylesheet – Something I think a lot of users don’t think about until someone tries to print a post. Personally, I think all blogs should have these!

Admin & Login links – Many WordPress-savvy users don’t need a link to get to the Admin panel, but it’s nice for those of us who can’t remember the exact URL for it!

Favicon & “web clip” icon – Something else I think a lot of users don’t think about. Personally, I hope all my users replace these files with their own. A favicon helps your blog stand out, IMO. Web clip icons are used by iPhone and iPod touch users when adding a bookmark to the Home Screen.

Visual sticky post indicator – With the introduction of sticky posts in WordPress 2.7, I’ve noticed that it’s hard to tell if a post is sticky or not. I like visual aids, and this is one.

Easy to implement Feedburner links – By default, Black Hat features a feed icon linked to the blog’s RSS feed. This can be changed to a Feedburner RSS feed by simply updating the Theme Options page. Additionally, you can also add the Feedburner email subscription link for your feed.

Default and conditional feed options – By default, Black Hat includes the coding for the following feed types: RDF/RSS 1.0, RSS .92, RSS 2.0, Atom 0.3. The RSS feed for all comments for your blog is also included. (note: these are overwritten if using the Feedburner option instead)

Conditional feeds: If viewing a single post, the comment feed for that post is available. If viewing a category, the feed for all posts in that category is available. If viewing a tag, the feed for all posts with that tag is available.

Additional/SEO meta tags – When developing my themes, I take the liberty of adding many commonly used meta tags. Most of the information is automatically filled in via various WordPress commands and can easily be modified by the user.

Twitter integration – In the post footer (when you click on a post, not viewing the index or archive page), there is a “Share on Twitter” link. You can also display your latest Tweet in the sidebar by updating the Theme Options with your Twitter username.

Related Posts feature – This function looks at the tags for a post and finds all posts matching those tags. If no tags are specified for a post, this function will not show up. This function can be disabled via the Theme Options.

Customized default avatar (Gravatar) to match theme design – Black Hat includes an avatar to match the theme style. To use, you would simply login to the WordPress Admin panel and set the custom avatar as default.

More detailed information on these and other features can be found in the theme’s readme file!

Fixes

• Comments displaying improperly (or not at all)

• Related Posts function now matches all tags, not just the first one listed.
  • If a tag has been used only once, it is not included in the search.
  • If only one tag is used, and it has only been used once, Related Posts function will not show.

• Comments and trackbacks now separated.
  • If both trackbacks and comments exists, comments count corrected.

• Favicon corrected for backend (WP Admin).

• Navigation links added to post single view.

Availability

Demo | Download

Updated WordPress Theme: Black Hat

I normally don’t post updates to my themes here on the blog, but I think this one warrants an update post for a variety of reasons. This update has been so extensive, I want to post a little more information on this its features as well as its development. I also want to highlight what the theme has to offer — while this is all is located in the readme file, I don’t think I laid everything out in the original introduction post. And last but not least, I wanted to cite the various resources that I have used in both the development and updating processes.

Details

Black Hat is a dark minimalist theme based on Adrian Diaconescu’s Corporate Sandbox, which is of course based on the Sandbox framework. It is has been built specifically with WordPress 2.7 in mind, but is also backwards compatible for version 2.6. (Sorry, I will no longer be supporting version 2.5 or older.)

Stickers icons courtesy of DryIcons. Favicon by Brian Brasher.

Features

Theme option for changing sidebar location – Pretty self-explanatory, there’s a theme option so that the sidebar can easily be moved from left to right and back again from within the WordPress admin panel.

Sitemap template – If desired, you can create a sitemap for your blog by simply using this template.

Links page template – If desired, you can create a links page by simply using this template.

Printer-friendly stylesheet – Something I think a lot of users don’t think about until someone tries to print a post. Personally, I think all blogs should have these!

Admin & Login links – Many WordPress-savvy users don’t need a link to get to the Admin panel, but it’s nice for those of us who can’t remember the exact URL for it!

Favicon – Something else I think a lot of users don’t think about. Personally, I hope all my users replace this file with their own. A favicon helps your blog stand out, IMO.

Visual sticky post indicator – With the introduction of sticky posts in WordPress 2.7, I’ve noticed that it’s hard to tell if a post is sticky or not. I like visual aids, and this is one.

Easy to implement Feedburner links – By default, Black Hat features a feed icon linked to the blog’s RSS feed. This can be changed to a Feedburner RSS feed by simply updating a file to include your Feedburner feed URL. There is also pre-written coding for the Feedburner email subscription link. Another simple edit can enable this feature.

Default and conditional feed options – By default, Black Hat includes the coding for the following feed types: RDF/RSS 1.0, RSS .92, RSS 2.0, Atom 0.3. The RSS feed for all comments for your blog is also included. Conditional feeds: If viewing a single post, the comment feed for that post is available. If viewing a category, the feed for all posts in that category is available. If viewing a tag, the feed for all posts with that tag is available.

Additional/SEO meta tags – When developing my themes, I take the liberty of adding many commonly used meta tags. Most of the information is automatically filled in via various WordPress commands and can easily be modified by the user.

Twitter integration – In the post footer (when you click on a post, not viewing the index or archive page), there is a “Share on Twitter” link. There is also some pre-written coding to allow you to display your latest Tweet in the sidebar.

Related Posts feature – This function looks at the first tag for a post and finds all posts matching that tag. If no tags are specified for a post, it simply will not show up at all.

Customized default avatar (Gravatar) to match theme design – Black Hat includes an avatar to match the theme style. To use, you would simply login to the WordPress Admin panel and set the custom avatar as default.

As I said, more detailed information on these can be found in the theme’s readme file.

Sources and Link Love

These are the various resources and individuals who have helped make this theme possible: WP Candy, Cats Who Code, ThemeLab, WP Recipes, WP Hacks, Lorelle on WordPress, the WordPress Codex, WP Seek, WP Tavern, Jacob at A Blinding Sonic Blast, WP Lover, WP Hackers mailing list, Theme Playground, and For the Lose.

My apologies if I’ve left anyone out!

Humpday Hilarities

I thought this morning’s Non Sequitur would make a great funny for today.

Out of context, out of line?

This afternoon, Jim (unintentionally) gave me quite a scare. When last I saw him this morning, he was going to head by the house then on to work. I remember pulling onto the highway and watching him roll onto the lane going in the opposite direction. Fast forward to this afternoon, John called me at work asking me if I knew where Jim was. “What? He’s not there?” My mind raced. John had spoken to him not long after I last saw him and hadn’t seen nor heard from him since.

Long story short: Jim had sat down “for a few moments” at his desk and apparently had fallen asleep — he had been at home the whole time.

I was able to get a hold of him after calling the house a few times and he explained what happened. I fussed a small bit (not wanting to yell at work) and got my things together to leave for the day. A few co-workers had overheard and came by to make sure everything was ok. I was still pumped up on adrenaline and my blood-pressure I’m sure was through the roof. I jokingly replied, “Yeah. I’m going to beat him upside the head when I get home!”

Now, anyone who knows me knows that I say that in jest. In fact, I say that I’ll “beat his head in” all the time. I don’t beat my husband. I don’t beat my child. I laugh and carry-on, but it is entirely in jest. I do as my mother did — joke about it to keep from pulling my hair out and going crazy.

But what if someone had heard what I said, took it out of context, and called the police?

I ran across a Google Reader item shared by Ike Pigott linking to a post by someone who had something along those lines happen to her. Thordora had (in jest) commented on Twitter about bringing harm to her child, who wouldn’t go to sleep.

What NORMAL parent hasn’t uttered a snarky or humorously ludicrous remark out of frustration, annoyance, and dare I said it … love?

Someone following her tweets had local police notified of the “threat”. Officers arrived at her home and demanded to see her children (who obviously had not been harmed). Understandably, Thordora is upset with this person. (As I would be too!)

To me though, this reinforces something that I had come to realize through my experiences on other social networking services (mainly MySpace and Facebook) — careful who you “friend”.

WordCamp Birmingham Notes

Note: I had intended to post this Monday night, but work has been crazy-busy this week and Jim’s having a bit of a site snafu, so spare time has been pretty much nonexistent. LOL!

We had a wonderful time at WordCamp Birmingham this past weekend. A big thanks to Andre Natta and the B’ham team for all of their hard work. I’m most definitely looking forward to next year’s. The date is already set (September 26-27, 2009), so be sure to mark your calendar! Matt Mullenweg is slated to be a keynote speaker, so it should be awesome!!

The Future of WordPress

The first speaker we saw Saturday morning was Dougal Campbell with “The Future of WordPress.” He briefly covered WordPress’ version history and various milestones over the last few years. Thinking back, I think I started off with either version 1.0 or 1.1. I remember the upgrade to 1.2 being pretty hard, but that was nothing like having to re-do my theme for 1.5, LOL!

Ahh, those were the days … :lol:

He then moved on to the upcoming and much anticipated version 2.7. It’s due sometime next month. According to Dougal, there will be:

• more backend UI re-design;
• upgraded API, so you can upgrade themes, browse and install plugins and themes, etc.;
• comment improvements (many of these are covered in great detail on Otto’s blog) such as:
  • threaded comments
  • paged comments
  • auto-close comments
  • replying to comments from the Admin menu (a HUGE plus!!!)
• sticky posts;
• “Quick Edit” inline editing via Ajax for posts;
• HTTP-only cookies, a security feature;
• a new HTTP request API for plugin developers, replacing the current request API (Snoopy, I think?);
• and many others …

He also went over some possible features for future versions of WordPress:

• APP Importer: for Movable Type, Type Pad, Blogger, …
• A new “default” theme, possibly based on Sandbox or something similar to it. This will be replacing the current Kubrick theme.

Some features that he thinks are likely for version 2.8 (taken from the Trac Tickets) include:

• better page managment: select page order, hide pages
• expanded template functions: users, comments, attachments

We can look forward to seeing more CMS features, more social networking features, better widget management. Perhaps even OpenID (that would be sweet).

Documentation was brought up and he stated that there has been a big push (internally) to get the functions (I’m assuming he means the Codex?) better documented, updated, etc.

SEO For WordPress

The next speaker was Donna Fontenot, who had some really good insight on SEO for beginners. You can view her slides here. It is also available on her website in HTML format.

She started with a very simple recommendation as a first step for blogging: think first, write later. This can apply to so many aspects, and I admit it’s one that I don’t practice enough. You should actually USE the phrases you want to rank well for in blog posts. For best results, use them in prominent places:

• Document Title
• Body Headings
• In posts

Another stickler subject: Blog Visibility. In covering the WordPress Settings, she states that you should always make sure to have the privacy option set so that your blog is visible to everyone, including search engines.

Moving on to Permalink structure, the optimal setting is /%category%/%postname%/. For most blogs it’s ok to be different though. Dates, which are useless for SEO, are useful for users and are most generally preferred. It’s best to make sure that %postname% in there somewhere.

She talked a bit about URL canonicalization. Blog owners must make a choice: www or no www. Whichever you choose, you must consistently use it everywhere:

• Linking to your site
• correspondence
• email and IM signatures

Donna then moved on to categories. This is another thing I am doing wrong, LOL! She says it’s best to keep them as top-level important concepts, as opposed to tagging. Me, I tag and categorize all willy-nilly. Guess I’ll have to work on that. :mrgreen:

One of the plugins she highly recommended was All-In-One SEO Pack. I’ve heard about this plugin from several different people and from what I understand, it takes all the guesswork out of SEO for your blog. Donna says that the default settings work well.

Another plugin mentioned is: Excerpt Editor. This one gives extra control over excerpts, autogenerates excerpts (but allows overriding), prevents duplicate content between excerpts and full post, replaces the_content() with the_excerpt(), and more…

She spent a bit of time on two other post elements:

• Post titles:
  • use H1 or H2
  • Ok to use other tags, but H1 or H2 are best (use whatever suits your theme)
• Post slugs:
  • these should contain only most important words
  • and you should strip out “stop” words like ‘a’, ‘an’, ‘the’, etc. These dilute the value of other keywords in the slug (permalink)

Other topics covered were:

• Post Image Optimization
• Interlinking
• Encouraging Sharing/Linking
• Participating and Reciprocation

Donna’s presentation not only had a lot of good information, she also made recommendations as to customizations to themes and various plugins that could help improve the “SEO-ness” of your site. I highly recommend checking out her site. You’ll find a LOT of useful information there that she covered at WordCamp, and a lot more!

Merging your work life with your blog life

The next speaker was David Griner. His presentation was pretty comical, poking fun at himself (he’s not even a WordPress user *gasp* hehe) and his profession. While this wasn’t really one of the topics that first piqued my interest, it did have a lot of useful information for anyone whose ever wondered what it could take to make blogging a full-time job.

It’s not something I could do, but I admire anyone who does it!

Topics included:

• Pros of Freelancing
  • schedule your own time
  • stockpile blog posts in advance
  • decent extra pay
  • very minor level of celebrity
  • opportunities for guest editing/posting
  • work in your underwear
• Cons
  • most people suck at time management
  • you’ll starve
  • no benefits or security
  • can mess with your taxes
  • easy to lose steam
  • neighbors get tired of seeing you in your underwear
• Finding the right blog
  • you’re probably already reading it
  • who owns it?
  • how many writers?
  • Whats the output?
• Getting the gig
  • get to know the writers or editors
  • comment often under the same name
  • write response posts on your blog
  • if you like the site, help drive traffic there
• Asking for the job
  • no harm asking about openings
  • always write at least three sample posts that they could run that day
  • make sure your e-mail is colon-rupturing in its awesomeness
  • get across your enthusiasm for the blog
  • talk about how it has evolved
  • say why they need you
  • what is the blog missing?

You can see these and more in his slides here.

Break!

At this point, we broke for lunch. Jim and I didn’t go back for the late afternoon sessions. I was nursing a migraine and football would be on soon. (Hey, I’m a ‘Bama fan first and WP geek second! )

I went back Sunday for a couple of the sessions: Brett Bumeter‘s “Windows Live Writer — Blogging with any Blogging Software Has Never Been Easier” and Mitch Canter‘s “Making WordPress Dance.”

Brett’s presentation covered the Windows Live Writer application. It’s not really my cuppa, but would be a great interface for anyone intimidated by the web UI for most popular blogging software/services.

Mitch’s presentation covered several topics I had previously researched and I was impressed with the amount of helpful information he covered. He also had a great list of plugins that he recommended. I would like to see more of him next year, if he attends. You can find his slides here.

The Media

From watching the WordCamp Bham twitters, I can see that a photo pool is available on Flickr, as well as a handful of the presentation slides gathered on SlideShare. I also see that WordCamp Birmingham also made the local news. You deserve it guys, great work!

Good stuff. Can’t wait until next year.

(Updated to include slides links, thanks Don @ authorize.net!)

LinkedIn is useful

I’ve been on LinkedIn for well over a year but never really got into maintaining my profile until recently. Honestly, I never saw much use for it until I started working for UAB. A couple people in my department are heavy LinkedIn users and encouraged me to use the service to “grow” my connections, by reconnecting with old friends and coworkers and reaching out to new ones. (I even ran across my old auto insurance salesman on there!) It’s been pretty cool so far. LinkedIn has added plenty of new features over the last year or so and recently overhauled their Groups. I’m a member of a handful and hadn’t really gone back to check out the new additions.

At the urgings of a coworker last Friday, I logged into my account and checked out the new features — namely the discussions for each of my groups. I’d spent a little time over the past couple of days reading over various discussions for a few of my groups: SharePoint Users, the Libertarian Party, GMail Users, Internet Professionals Society of Alabama (IPSA), and so on.

I’ve discovered that there are a LOT of interesting things posted to these groups. I was reading over the Tweeple (as in “Twitter People”) postings this morning and ran across two Twitter-related gems that I wanted to share with y’all:

• How to add your latest tweet to your email signature
• How to send a DM to a person who is not following you

There are plenty more where those came from …

I’m not really sure why I overlooked this aspect of LinkedIn. Given the new groups I’ve recently discovered, I’m looking forward to finding a lot more insightful tips in the near future on various topics.

Tres geek. Sweet. :mrgreen:

Reminder: WordCamp Birmingham next weekend!

I received my email reminder this morning for WordCamp next weekend. For anyone who’s not familiar with WordCamp, it’s basically an open gathering of WP users, developers, and basically anyone else interested in learning about blogging, networking and having fun. I’ve been looking forward to this for months and personally can’t WAIT until next weekend!

The list of speakers includes WordPress developer emeritus Dougal Campbell, SEO specialist Donna Fontenot and AdWeek’s David Griner, and several others. Registration is $25.00, which includes lunch by Urban Standard, t-shirt, and a chance to meet and network with other bloggers and learn from each other. Everything will be taking place at the Virginia Samford Theatre (Sunday at Caldwell Park if weather permits). As I understand it, registrations will not be accepted at the door, and registration ends this upcoming Monday evening (Sept. 22nd). So if you plan on going, register now!

For more information on WordCamp Birmingham and to register, visit the website at birmingham.wordcamp.org. You can also follow the WCB updates on Twitter.

I like GTD

GTD = Getting Things Done

My life is busy. (read: INSANELY HECTIC!!!!) So I rely on reminders and “nag” services to get things done, meet deadlines, and generally remember anything important. Currently I rely on Microsoft Outlook for work-related things and Google Calendar for personal, family, SA-related, et. al., but I am always looking for newer and better ways to GTD, but with minimal hassle and/or cost.

For instance, I would love to find something that I can use at home, at work, and on my cell that would handle everything — and I do mean everything! I’ve enjoyed looking at various apps over the past few months and am always willing to try out something new. (and would prefer something relatively cheap!)

Seriously, to some people this is as exciting as buying office furniture … me, if I got something really handy that works, I wouldn’t mind throwing a few bucks at it.

Though free is always better!

Doomi

I ran across a neat Air app this morning called Doomi (via LifeHacker). It’s pretty, you can set custom reminders to tasks (which I love). The only thing I could not do is delete an active task. (But you can set it as completed and clear all completed tasks.)

Overall not bad. And hey, it’s FREE! There’s a list of scheduled improvements on the website and I’m definitely looking forward to seeing where the developer takes this app. The only downside is that this app resides on my computer at work … I can’t view it on my cell nor sync to my laptop at home.

Remember the Milk

Several people have recommended Remember the Milk to me. It’s a FREE web-based service that helps you manage tasks and offers various ways to manage them, as well as receive reminders. Two of my favorites are mentioned right on the front page: Twitter and GMail.

Sweet. :mrgreen:

The UI is pretty self-explanatory, and I haven’t played around with many of the more “advanced” features yet. I do know there’s a mobile version of the RtM site, and I am seriously digging that.

There’s also the option of upgrading your account to “pro” — this includes priority support (via email) and RtM apps for iPhone, Crackberry, Windows Mobile. While none of that suits nor interests me, if they are planning to add support for other providers (or a Java version!!!), I may see that as a justification for going pro.

We’ll have to see.

Anything else?

Got any suggestions or tips to share for GTD? Please hurl ‘em my way!

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