After nearly (literally) 6 months of testing, working, and coding (and working around other peoples’ work – clients come first!) I am proud to announce that this site is in it’s 5th revisionary state.

Some things worth mentioning (that you may or may not care about, but it’s fun to mention the highlights):

• New front page design
• Contact page removed; Hire Us button takes you to the form below
• Portfolio has been written with custom post types, taxonomies, and a whole lot of WordPress goodness.
• Blog is revamped for custom images; default image will replace non-featured thumbnails

There’s still some work to be done, but for the most part it’s live and operational.  I hope you guys enjoy because now that it’s up I can go back to blogging instead of coding this thing

I’m truly honored to say that this Sunday at 8PM CST I will be co-hosting #BlogChat with @MackCollier.  If you’ve never “attended” a #BlogChat, it’s simply a specified time that like-minded individuals come together to talk about content, blogging essentials, tips and tricks, and (this Sunday) blog design.  I’ll be fielding questions and offering opinions on design tips, going over responsive design and how it affects how we view websites, and just having some fun design discussions in general.

#BlogChat: Sunday Night (1/8) at 8PM CST

See you there!

It’s been a while since I’ve blogged, and with the new year finally here I have a lot of ideas and cool things to talk about.  I was going to wait until my new design rolled out to do a new post, but this is something that’s important enough to warrant it’s own post.

If you are unfamiliar with what’s going on lately, there is a piece of legislation (two, technically, but only one that is of dire importance at the moment) passing through Congress that will affect the way you use the Internet.  It’s poised to allow rampant censorship from corporations who wish to micromanage their content have their say, and it means that social sharing and fair use will be scrutinized to the point of non-existence.

The legislation, called the “Stop Online Piracy Act” (or SOPA), is currently in the House right now, waiting to be debated, legislated, and put into motion.  The bill was introduced by Rep Lamar Smith (R-TX) on October 26.  Without all of the legalese to bore you, if this act passes, it allows the entertainment industry to censor sites that they “feel” are infringing on their copyright.  It would allow the U.S. Government and private corporations to “black list” websites by blocking their DNS settings on US soil.  In short, if you are a website, and someone feels like (not necessarily proves, mind you) that you are infringing, you can be made inaccessible to US citizens, taken off Google, and even have your payment options frozen.

If you own a website, the implications are pretty cut and dry.  But what if you are just a user? What if you are only online because of Facebook, Twitter, or the other social sites?  Those sites cannot exist in a world where SOPA is law.  For example:

Now, if you’re a Redditor or regular Facebook User, you  may see a picture like this floating around.  Granted, most of them may have cats or dudes in weird hats, but sometimes movie stills like this one make their way into Internet culture and give us all a good laugh.  Boromir here doesn’t approve of SOPA because this image could cause an entire website to be taken down.  Want to share that new Justin Bieber music video on Facebook?  Nope – you could legitimately cause Facebook to be taken offline.  Youtube, Twitter, and any website where social content is created is at risk. 

Want to see just how impactful this is?  Before Christmas, Universal Music issued a takedown request to YouTube for a video by Kanye West, Mary J. Blidge, and other famous music stars.  The kicker: Universal had no claim to the copyright – the song was done free-and-clear from other means.  UMG was simply trying to censor a pro-“Free Internet” song (MegaUpload, the subject of the video, is a file-sharing website that has legitimate files hosting on it).

If you’ve heard enough and want to show you demand a free and uncensored Internet, there are lots of ways to get involved.  Write your Representative (it works – see below), talk about SOPA on Twitter and Facebook, and make sure that you vote with your money and/or voting power this year (it’s election year – keep reminding people of that and watch them squirm). 

That said, this Thursday I have personally been invited to a round-table discussion hosted by Rep. Jim Cooper (D-TN, 5th District) in Nashville to discuss SOPA and its implications.  I am very much looking forward to having my voice be heard, especially because I know that I will be among industry representatives and people who support SOPA.  I’ll be spending the next few days doing my homework and preparing, but know that I will be a voice calling for an Internet without restriction.

I am against piracy – there are plenty of low-cost alternatives to pirating material (Louis C.K’s latest video is proof that people will pay for content – over $1M from a video that only costs $5? Yes!) and digital distribution methods have brought the cost down and allowed people more freedom to enjoy music, movies, and software than ever.  But this heavy-handed approach to piracy is too far.  It’s up to us to preserve the freedom of information that the UN has declared a basic human right.

Resources:

• /r/SOPA – where most of the brouhaha is coming from
• the EFF’s response to SOPA
• via Wikipedia

(I’ll add more resources as I find them)

If you’ve updated your plugins in the last 24 hours, go straight back into your website and do it again – there’s a chance you may have downloaded some infected plugins that were hacked into the repository.

According to WordPress.org, the plugins AddThis, W3 Total Cache, and WPTouch were infected with a backdoor that lets people into your site.  The plugins are fixed now, and if you update you can remove the infected code immediately.

Normally those plugins are safe, and (given the  hacks and the frequent downtime by other companies) it’s nice to see a company like WordPress that can think on its heels and get the hacks solved in minutes (and not weeks – I’m looking at you Sony).

There was quite a bit of stuff going on this weekend.  So much that if I wrote an individual post about every single thing it seems like it would take more than one blog post.  I think a “crib notes” version would be a little easier to digest, so without further ado, here’s what’s going on in the life of studionashvegas.

WordCampColumbus

I travelled over the weekend to WordCampColumbus in Ohio.  While I didn’t make it in time for the speaker meetup, I did manage to get there the night before, shoot some pool with “Mr. WP Beginner” himself Syed Balkhi and Brian Layman from WebDevStudios.  The next day was the event itself.  I hooked up with Andrew Nacin (@nacin), one of the core developers of WordPress, as well as Sean Vosler, Nile Flores of blondish.net (with whom Syed and I did an off-the-cuff panel), Jeff Chandler (Finally!), John Parkinson, Kim Parsell, Ryan Imel (founder and editor of WPCandy.com), Bill Rice, and quite a few more (I’m sorry if I didn’t mention you by name – it would have filled this blog post!).  Needless to say the event was a blast, and Angie Meeker did a fantastic job organizing it.  Columbus is one of my favorite cities, and I’m looking forward to next year already! (And I’m sure Nacin and Ryan will want a rematch playing pool

The WP-Drivecast

I had a HUGE response regarding my “on the drive home” podcast about WordPress.  So much, in fact, that I’m moving it to it’s own server.  Episode 1 is on a bare-bones WordPress template located here: http://www.wpti.me.  I figure I’ll record another episode or two and (once I get time) can build up the features.  But for now, the content shall remain surpreme.  I’ll put the subscription link up once I get a chance to edit the details (tonight? I hope!).

Guest Blogging

Look for me to be popping up in your favorite WordPress sites soon.  I’m opening myself up to do some guest blogging (you’re more than welcome to contact me if you want me to write for you!) and my first post will be on New Tricks this Thursday (The series is called “How to Run With the Big Dogs”).

So… as you can see, I try to stay busy.  With projects, my work at Bridgestone of Americas, and everything else going on, I often wonder when I will sleep?  But, onward we go, and I’d rather be busy than not.

It’s worth noting that there are quite a few WordCamps going on in the month of June.  There’s 3 in the US, and for those of you across the pond (waaaay across), there’s one in Thessaloniki (now that’s a camp I’d love to be “invited” to speak at!)

• Jun 4-5 WordCamp Reno-Lake Tahoe Reno, NV
• Jun 4 WordCamp Greece Thessaloniki, Greece
• Jun 11-12 WordCamp Kansas City Overland Park, KS
• Jun 17-19 WordCamp Columbus Columbus, OH

On a personal note I will be at the Columbus WordCamp later in the month doing a session on “WordPress as a CMS”, so I do hope you guys can make it.

Related articles

• Summer WordCamps 2011 (wordpress.org)

I’m flying on my last flight back from New York (and thankful that these flights fared better than my incoming flights to LaGuardia). I finally have a little bit of time to rest, recouporate, and put into words all of the ideas, feelings, and emotions that I’ve experienced over the last week. I’ve met a LOT of great people (and I have business cards from all of you, and plan on emailing you personally very soon) as well as learned quite a bit from both the sessions and the expo floor.

Here are some of my top takeaways from BlogWorld, in no particular order.

WordPress is here, and it’s not going anywhere soon.

I was privilaged to be able to contribute to this year’s BlogWorld as a speaker. Two years ago, I applied to be a speaker on my top subjet matter of choice – WordPress. I was declined, but was allowed to speak on a topic that was “blog platform agnostic” (I spoke on “designing a killer blog” and it was received very well – especially for a room of content creators ). Over the course of two years, WordPress became one of the fastest growing blog platforms, then started to chip away at the Content Management System market as well.

This year, I was honored to be welcomed to BlogWorld to speak on WordPress. And I was even more honored (and blown away!) that it was so well received; the room was packed, people were sittin gon the floor, people were waiting in the wings and doorway with cameras, and we stayed twenty minutes into lunch to make sure everyone had their questions answered. It was an experience I’ll never forget.

Social Media “gurus” have… mellowed out over the years.

With a few unnamed exceptions, every one of the speakers and session-goers were interested in one thing: making new relationships. Not just getting a business card to pitch something to them once we all got home, but really striving to make long lasting and heart-felt relationships. I’ve made so many new contacts (and I’ll be honest – meeting and remembering people is something that I don’t excel at – but I am working on it!) and I plan on sending each and every one of them a personal email over the next week (or two… or three). But it’s not just about making new clients; these are people I hope to really connect with until next we meet (and I really hope that next time is BlogWorld LA

Recommendations > SEO (to some)

I know a LOT of SEO experts (REAL ones, not just your fly-by-night hack jobs) and I can honestly say that they do great work. I can also say, however, that when it comes to recommendations, I personally tend to give weight to something recommended to me. That said, I believe that there is a place for both. How else will people be able to find you once you’ve been recommended? “Oh, I know this really awesome WordPress dude – here’s his name”. Said name is Googled, researched, and then hired (at least, that’s the hope). Don’t throw away SEO to invest in Facebook and Twitter, but be mindful of the delicate balance they hold.
Paper.li, by the way, is quickly becoming a force to be reckoned with when it comes to the “curation” (recommending work from creators based on a theme or preference) of content.

The mobile web is the new web

I’m not going to coin the phrase “Web 3.0″ here (God knows that we all hated Web 2.0 – why do you think we call it the “Social Web” now?) but I do see a new wave about to hit the horizon. Mobile (QR Codes and mobile based websites to start) will become more and more important as people ditch their laptops and desktops for on-the-go content consumption with readers, tablets, and smartphones. You can either create a separate mobile site, use a mobile stylesheet to adapt your current site, or just make sure your normal website is compatable with both types (the latter of which being the hardest, but also the most consistant).

People Make Mistakes

Time to address the white elephant in the room. I didn’t attend the Keynote, but I would imagine that Chris Pirillo and Chris Brogan were doing the best that they could given the sitaution. However, if you weren’t happy with it, then by all means tell Rick Calvert or Deb Ng – they are your one-stop hotline to anything with this conference, and I know on good authority that this is the kind of stuff they *need* to hear about. Whatever the reason for it, let them know and hold them to making it better. After all, we do the same thing with our brands and other people we follow; why should we treat the conference different?

Bonus: Syed Balkhi and John Chow are a dangerous duo.

Just had to throw that one out there. Although, if Syed gets together with ANYONE it can be a bit dangerous

At the end of the day, I had one of the most unbelievable conference experiences I’ve ever had. If you weren’t at BlogWorld, then I encourage you to go. The investment of meeting the speakers, and other attendees, can open doors for you that you never imagined. By attending you put your ear to the ground and can hear the pulse of what’s next. Then you can take it back to your readers, or business, and act accordingly. With the advent of blogs, the power of the press has been shifted from the old guard to the “content rebellion”. We have the power to control what media we see, and how it shapes our world. BlogWorld is, and always has been, on the cutting edge of this, and if you aren’t in LA in November, then I know you’ll be missing out.

See you there!

Now, before you guys get all panic-y and think the worst, I’m not giving up freelancing.  Not by a longshot.  Now that that’s out of the way…

I’ve rewritten this first sentence a few times now, because I keep trying to come up with some witty way of breaking the good news, so I’m just going to say it. On Monday, I’ll be starting my stint on a two-month contract job with Bridgestone of America.  I’ll be stepping on as a contractor to help them with a special website they want to create, going from concept to execution.  The contract length is two months, but I won’t be stepping down from any of my other obligations.  I’ll still be speaking, I’ll still be at BlogWorld in New York, and I’ll still be doing my normal freelance stuff.  The only difference is that I’m going to be a heck of a lot busier than normal for the next two months.

However, it’s a great opportunity for me, and it’s one that I’m looking forward to.  This also means I’ll be downtown more often, and I  may start making it back to some of the events that I’ve kept away from because of the lack of time to get there and distance.

So, yeah, I’ll still be doing my thing, but now I’ll also be doing my thing with a really great company as well!

If you have been following the Twitterverse today, no doubt you’ve seen the outrage by people who have seen the video of GoDaddy CEO Bob Parsons shooting an elephant on camera (link here: http://mashable.com/2011/03/31/godaddy-ceo-elephant/).

I’m not surprised, honestly, but I think GoDaddy has a lot of other problems besides their CEO euthanizing elephants – they overpopulated their servers, people continually have a problem with navigating their site, and their service is lackluster at best.

So, if you are currently on GoDaddy with your hosting, listen up. Normally I charge $150 to migrate a site from one host to another, but if you leave me a note on my contact form and mention this post, I will do it for $100. Also, I’ll donate $25 to the Save the Elephants fund. Keep in mind you need to bring me the hosting – it’s up to you to make a choice as to where you want to move to.

Need hosting? No problem! Use the link below and sign up with my favorite host, HostGator!

http://secure.hostgator.com/~affiliat/cgi-bin/affiliates/clickthru.cgi?id=studionashvegas

I love search forms.  But sometimes, designs call for forms to be placed in a tight space to save room for other elements or where buttons may look out of place.  If that’s the case, then you can add a special box that will allow users to search with the enter key (or the Done key on the iPhone).

Here’s the code:

<?php $search_text = "Hit Enter or Done to Search"; ?>
<form method="get" id="searchform"   action="<?php bloginfo('home'); ?>/">
<input type="text" value="<?php echo $search_text; ?>"   name="s" id="s"
onblur="if (this.value == '')   {this.value = '<?php echo $search_text; ?>';}"
onfocus="if (this.value == '<?php echo $search_text; ?>'){this.value = '';}" />
<input type="hidden" id="searchsubmit" />
</form>

This drops in a stylable input field that has no button – all the user has to do is enter the text and hit enter or the done button – simple as that.

You can also style by applying CSS styling to “#s”