Responsive WordPress Training from MindVisionMedia.net | What People are Saying

What people are saying about MindVisionMedia.net:

Hello to all and I hope this post finds you well!

After a year of being live, MindVisionMedia.net has provided over 8,800 hours of FREE Responsive WordPress Training to a global community of WordPress beginners and intermediate users, First-Time Web Designers and those just looking to modify their WordPress Theme.  

MVM has over 102,000 views on YouTube, over 1,000 subscribers and the numbers keep rising. While honing in on the needs of aspiring web designers and WordPress users, expansion is on the horizon and I hope to continue with my goal of becoming a valued and trusted resource on the Internet for FREE learning materials that empower those who seek to learn and due for self. 

The Internet offers a wealth of opportunity, and in a time when there are no jobs and no guarantees, hats off to people who try to create one for themselves. My efforts give me great satisfaction when I hear back from my loyal subscribers, followers, students and clients.

  

Here's what some of them had to say:

Gustavo Berdugo March 5th, 2014 • WordPress Responsive All in one SEO Pack Plugin I just want to say that your tutorials are the best I have found so far. Many thanks for sharing your knowledge. 5 stars for you.

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jm6532 Feb 27, 2014 • Responsive WordPress Child Themes Tutorial Part #2 Updated Version Scary how good Allan is, I tell you I emailed Allan with an issue I had with my website today and he fixed it. Sounds easy, and he made it seem easy........ but I had been working on it for 3 days and he worked with me on it for hours. The reason he has 16 thousand views is because Allen is patient with people who he has helped. Once I put it in his hands, he had it done in 2 mins.. Amazing, If you have a website to have built, or issues with a wordpress site. Email him. I cannot give a higher praise. Thanx Allan for getting me out of a Jam!!

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Gabby Sabatini Feb 21, 2014 • WordPress Responsive Theme Basics 2014 Allan. Wow, my friend, you are awesome and you're saving my *** bigtime. New to WordPress and I'm using the Responsive Pro Theme. Thanks for all the information!

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Lord Dream Feb 16, 2014 • WordPress Responsive Theme Transparent Pages I just wanted to say thanks again for all your superb Responsive Theme tutorials Allan, this rgba transparency is AWESOME! Thanks also for making the CSS snippets available to your members :-) Safe journeys,

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Ptah Thothmes September 5th, 2013 • Wow Thanks ...Great stuff, I can jump right in now rather than hunting, guessing & the always popular trial-by-error... appreciate your direct manner, clear explanations, and anticipation of optional edits we may wish to make directly in the code... like test size...

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Dr. Joe Hair August 18th, 2013 • Allan, I want to publicly thank you for your help. I was becoming extremely frustrated over an issue with WP, widgets, and plugins. I watched several of your videos and several of another's videos on Responsive themes. After I had attempted everything I had seen on both of your sets of videos to no avail, I tried a "Hail Mary" I sent several emails to both you and this other individual. He referred me to the WP forum, which did not help at all. On the other hand, you personally answered EACH of my emails, and when you saw that I had attempted everything correctly already, you offered to look at my site and fix it for me. THANK YOU for taking the time to help someone you don't even know. There were no sarcastic or snarky comments, just open, honest caring from one individual to another. Words cannot express the debt of gratitude I have for you. It is nice to meet someone who is truly all about helping his fellow man. Thank you, again, Joe Hair

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Join these folks and many others in appreciation for the wealth of information, step-by-step guides, video tutorials and more provided by Allan at MindVisionMedia.net. Help support me and spread the word about my mission.  If you need Dynamic Responsive WordPress site design, child theme creation (even after you've modified the parent theme), child theme modification, graphics, ads, banners, flash animations or any other aspect of web design, contact me for a free quote and analysis of your project. I'm sure I can beat the other guys prices.

Or you can always just buy me lunch too :-D

By
Allan Whitney Owner/Administrator MindVisionMedia.net

Best WordPress Plugin for Revision Removal

WordPress | Optimize Database after Deleting Revisions Plugin

Do you have a ton of revisions but don't know what to do?

Not often do I write a review but this caught my eye. You might recall that I briefly mentioned a couple of plugins in a recent post about WordPress Revisions eating up resources in your database.

Obviously, the revisions feature is a necessity in a CMS like WordPress or any other. I love the feature and have had to use it on more than one occasion.

There are sites that use it quite frequently and deliberately. But having a setting that allows you to decide for yourself, based on your individual needs, i.e. you are a writer or run an article site or magazine site, etc, or you rarely write anything, would be a great addition the arsenal of WP.

Having used several database management plugins, I have discovered my favorite and just have to let people know more about it. Once you set this thing up, one click gets rid of all the extra revisions that fall outside your parameters in an instant. It even gets rid of transients, spammed items and unused tags as well as keeping a log file.

For example, I had over 115 revisions on just one page in my site because I was testing out some new plugins and layouts, ah, thats kinda overkill on the revisions I think guys. 

Anyway, I digress, Back to the story, somewhere in a town in the Netherlands lives and works a man, a web developer, artist and partner in a web development company in Eindhoven called CAGE Web Design, Rolf van Gelder is his name. 

Rolf created a plugin called "Optimize Database after Deleting Revisions" (current version 2.7.7).

I mean the name of this plugin just screams simplicity and it actually does what it says which deserves credit these days. The setup and settings are easy and give you good refinement on what you want to keep in terms of revisions. I only keep (2) revisions no matter what I am editing!

It keeps the clutter down and a load off my database which is always good with a large site like mine. And as you will see below, it saved a ton of space in my database for MVM. Rolf thought of everything, it even lets you choose the tables and rows in the database you want to exclude or include, he did a really good job, KUDOS Rolf from the States!

You saved me a ton of resources on my overloaded database and increased my caching and load time, both front and back while editing. If you haven't heard of this one, you might want to check it out. Its available through your WordPress Plugin Dashboard,  just search for the name.

The "total savings since first run" in the picture below indicates how much total space this plugin saved out of my database allocated to "revisions"! Twelve and a half MB is a lot for a database so just consider how many revisions you have since you upgraded WordPress, it could be as much as me or even more!

Here is a link to the developers site, Optimize Database after Deleting Revisions










By  
Allan Whitney
Owner/Administrator  
MindVisionMedia.net

MindVisionMedia.net Service Announcement

Hello to all from MindVisionMedia.net. I hope this post finds you well!

This is a service announcement for MindVisionMedia.net:

If you are experiencing problems accessing the MindVisionMedia.net website, please be patient! 

I am receiving in excess of 75,000 database queries an hour due to the overwhelming popularity of MVM which tends to shut my site down temporarily with the current server configuration. I am working on the issue and preparing to transfer the site to either a VPS server or a Dedicated server to accommodate the huge influx of queries.

MVM has grown tremendously over the last year as it continues to provide FREE Responsive WordPress and Web Design Video Tutorials and resources for the Internet community, both domestically and abroad. 

These temporary shutdowns don't last too long and the site resets usually within 20 minutes to an hour. While I work diligently to resolve the issue and provide continuous service, visit my MindVisionMedia.net YouTube Channel and Blog to get the latest from MVM.

I will be making an announcement as soon as the issue is resolved so that I can continue to provide the best Tools Tips and Tutorials for Responsive WordPress and Web Design that I have become noted for.

Again I apologize for any inconvenience this has caused and ask that you continue to support MVM and take advantage of the many resources available to Web Designers, Blogger's, WordPress Users and Internet Entrepreneurs.

Thanks again and due look forward to an update regarding this situation very soon!

Sincerely,
Allan Whitney
Owner/Administrator
MindVisionMedia.net

WordPress – Still Getting Comments – Here’s Why!

WordPress has established itself as the most popular CMS available today! Used by fortune 500 companies, celebrities, municipalities, major news organizations and the little guy or gal, it offers robust features, versatility and social media integration. But it has it's vulnerabilities also and one must be diligent to prevent WordPress from becoming a hackers dream.

When it comes to comments, unless you are running a Blog and are willing to moderate and manage the numerous comments and maintain a good level of security against comment spam, you'll want to disable comments on your pages and posts. This is accomplished easily by going to the Discussion settings  under the Dashboard label of Settings, and de-selecting the first 3 check boxes. Typically this works pretty good, but you may not be done!
If you do this after the fact, there could be pages and posts in your site or Blog that may have already been created that have comments enabled. This setting located in each individual page or post as you create it, overrides the settings under the Discussion menu.  To see this option as create a new page pr post, click on the screen options tab at the top of the page or post editor and check the box for "Discussion". This will show options at the bottom of your posts to either allow Comments or not. You can now make sure that comments are turned off for that particular post.
There is a quick way to do this, especially if you have a lot of pages. Click on "Pages" in your Dashboard, this will bring up a list of all of your pages (the same applies to posts), click the top check box above the list next to the word Title to select all, click the bulk actions box and choose Edit from the drop down, then click apply. 

A new window will open allowing you to select options for the entire page list you selected at once. Disable comment, and Trackbacks and Pingbacks if desired and save your settings. you just disabled comments on all pages you selected with one click.

Go to the next page, select all again and do the same thing until you have disabled all comments on all pages and posts in your list. Now you have absolutely turned off comments and no individual page will override the main settings. 

Looking good so far, but wait there's more! Few people know or notice, that WordPress, by default enables comments on all of your Media files you upload to WordPress. Thats right, after all we've done so far to disable them, there is still a "Back Door" vulnerability in WordPress to receive comments.

Unfortunately, there is no bulk actions option when dealing with media files. Why they didn't put this ability or option in the newest version I'll never know. But you will have to manually edit each media file to turn off comments. A tedious task if you have a lot of images. I recently discovered this back door vulnerability and experienced some comment spam on my site. 

Now I have truly disabled ALL comments on my site for pages, posts and media files and the comments have finally stopped. Of course there are some plugins out there to help but I wanted to make sure they were all turned off myself.

Be aware that when you create a new page (or post) or add new media files, you'll have to double check to make sure there are no options set to allow comments. There are ways to edit the core files and turn them off from the core, but that is an extreme measure if you are not sure you won't want comments at a future date. I didn't have to go that route and I am happy with the results from doing it the way I described above.

WordPress will never be free of hackers, spammers and the like, so again, if you don't want to deal with comments because you are just too busy (like me) or you are not running a blog or discussion site, use the methods described to put a stop to it, once and for all, but with the option of turning them back on if you desire later on.


By
Allan Whitney
Owner/Administrator
MindVisionMedia.net

WordPress Responsive Theme Custom Home-Style Page Template

Do you use the Responsive Theme from CyberChimps? Do you want to display the Home Widgets 1, 2 and 3 and their respective content on another page of your website or Blog? Well if you do I have a custom Responsive Theme Home Page template for you!

Its called the "MVM Home-Style Full" page  template. It displays the default home widgets that are on the front page of the Responsive Theme and whatever is in them. This is very useful for advertising the content in your home widgets on multiple pages, any page or multiple pages.

I constructed this template for a specific purpose and realized that it has many applications for this theme. The page template is still "responsive" so it will adjust as the other files in your responsive site or blog and it is full width with no sidebars. 

Again, it displays whatever you have in the home widgets already. It does not allow you to separately add content to the widget sections on the page the template is used on. To edit the content, go to your widget area and edit the home widgets as usual. Great for advertising the same content you have on the home page throughout your site!

The package comes with the template file customized by yours truly, instructions and screen shots in a convenient zip file for download and extraction. Load the files to your server as instructed and viola, you are ready to use the Home-Style Full page template on any page or post! Just select the template while in the page or post editor on the right under "templates", you'll see the Home-Style Full template in the selection, apply it and save yoour page, done!

It also comes with my 100% guaranty and support so what do you have to loose for the price of a hamburger?

To get your copy, visit my Products page at MindVisionMedia.net/products

If you have questions, feel free to contact me and I will be happy to assist you.

By

Allan Whitney

Owner/Administrator

MindVisionMedia.net

Is Your Website Dead or Dormant?

Hello, I hope this post finds you well.  

Have you started a website project only to loose interest or give up and let it go? These days, many jump on the website bandwagon and eventually drop off. The reasons are many, but frustration ranks among the top. It all looks so simple on the commercial, just sign up and click a button and you have an instant website, right, wrong! 

A website, even with all of the simple features included in most if not all web builder programs, is still a lot of work. There are so many things to be concerned with and you must have a varied skill-set which includes web design, writing and editing, photoshop and graphics, HTML, CSS among others in order to construct a truly professional site.

On the other hand, it can cost up to $2500 to have a professional website built for your business or small venture and many don't have that in their budget, especially these days. The average cost of a website professionally done, ranges from about $1,500 to $1,8000. These prices are steep and keep a lot of folks from even investigating having a web presence. Also, the time involved in learning all the stuff yourself can be just as dawnting as the prices out there sometimes. Who has the time to maticulously build each aspect of a website and connect it all together so everything works. Functionality and navigation are very important to the process

If you are talking about a simple, 2-3 page personal vacation site with just some images of your trip, thats one thing, but if yoou are trying to build a professional, business website that is functional and professional, then you must have the skills mentioned above or you'll have to outsource the job to someone who knows what they are doing and that can get expensive!

Thats where I come in, Allan at MindVisionMedia.net, I offer website solutions to fit almost every budget. I specialize in Dynamic WordPress websites but can also build static Dreamweaver sites from scratch as well. My 10+ years of experience in all aspects of web design, give me the ability to streamline the process, making it simple and easy on the wallet for many who aspire to have a website. Whether you have a small business or want a personal site, I have solutions for you to consider. 

Don't let high prices keep you from establishing your spot on the web, let me see if I have a solution for your budget that will make it happen for you. 70% of my website clients spend under $1000 for a professional, functional website for their business. I have many solutions in the $500 range also that fit a lot of budgets these days. You get the same professional services offered by the high-price guys, for less! So what are you waiting for, lets do this!

Stop hassling with trying to do it yourself, let me do the work and get you on your way to driving traffic to your site instead of banging your head on the desk for weeks. Contact me via my site at MindVisionMedia.net to discuss your project, let me know your budget and I'll do my best to work with you, thats my promise! Contact me here! 

Web Services Offered:
WordPress Websites
Static Sites
Website Updates or Editing
Banner Design
Ad Design
WordPress Installations
Plugin Installations
Theme Customization
Social Media Integration
Basic SEO Implementation
Custom Flash MP3 Players
Graphics and Logos
Flash Animations
Animated GIF's

Skills:
Web Design
WordPress Web Design
HTML
CSS
Photoshop
Flash Animation
Graphics - Banners - Logos
Video (Shooting and Editing)
Photography (Shooting and Editing)
Social Media Integration
Basic SEO Implementation
Google Adsense and Analytics
Writing


By
Allan Whitney
Owner/Administrator
MindVisionMedia.net

The MindVisionMedia.net General Store is now Open!

The MindVisionMedia.net General Store is now Open!

Hey folks, I hope all is well with you and yours. This is just a quick post to let everyone know that I finally had a chance to open up the Zazzle store I have been discussing for the past year. I have been so busy with training, tutorials and support for the Responsive Theme and others that I couldn't get to it before.

The products range from T-shirts, Hats, Mugs and Novelties. These products show support for MindVisionMedia.net and all of the FREE information, training and support offered at MVM.

As you may or may not know, maintaining a website cost money, maintaining an information site such as mine costs more money and a wealth of time and effort. 

The small revenue generated from the store will help keep MVM up and running, offsetting the costs and allowing me to continue providing free WordPress and web design video tutorials and support information to thousands throughout the international web community as I have for the past year.

When you get a chance, check out the store and show your support by picking up a small gift for yourself.

Click on the MVM General Store Sidebar link to the right or click below to visit the MVM General Store!

<a href="http://www.zazzle.com/mvmgeneralstore*">MVM General Store</a>


By
Allan Whitney
Owner/Administrator
MindVisionMedia.net

WordPress 3.8.1 Revisions feature causes Database issues!

WordPress 3.8.1 Revisions feature causes Database issues!

Hello from Allan at MindVisionMedia.net, I hope this post finds you well.

I love the new WordPress versions, they are full of nice changes and features but I recently started having serious issues with my WordPress website. Load time for everything was beyond forever and most of the time whatever I was trying to accomplish timed out. Logging in was a nightmare, trying to edit a page or post was a nightmare, and dealing with my hosting company over the issues was a nightmare.

In the end here's what I learned:
The new versions (3.8.1) of WordPress have built-in a revisions feature that is great in theory, but in reality, we don't need a copy being saved every minute and we definitely don't need our hosting company trying to charge us for more database space because we have reached our quota which is what I had to deal with in my case. I was exceeding my database quota several times a day and as a result, I could not log in or get any work done, extremely frustrating to say the least.

After going around and around with my hosting company who apparently didn't have a clue when it came to my database, I started doing my own research and discovered that the "revisions" feature is causing problems everywhere. Especially for larger sites or sites with lots of posts or pages such as mine. I then researched some database plugins and settled on 2, "Optimize Database after Deleting Revisions" and also "Revision Removal", both plugins helped me accomplish my goal of deleting all revisions, setting the max revisions to (2) and optimizing the database after reducing its size to less than half its previous size! If you use WordPress, then you are familiar with these words: "Thank God for plugins"

While researching I found numerous people suffering the same issues with their database and there are tons of Google topics on the subject of reducing the database size because of the "revisions" feature in the latest version of WordPress. I am hopeful that WordPress developers will reduce the capability of the revisions feature and limit the revisions to 3-5 max. It appears that no thought was given to the impact of saving so many revisions on the database and I would expect them to correct this very soon.

We all like having a backup copy of our work and the security of knowing that if something happened like a power failure, we would have a revision to fall back on, but in one case I had 115 revisions to just one page alone! Multiply that times 30-40 pages on a site or blog and you end up with hundreds of revisions eating up your database. With so many great features added to the new version, I can't figure out why they overlooked this flaw. After a week of headaches and frustration, hours on the phone and support chat with my hosting company and hours of my own trying to research and solve my slow-loading and hanging problem, I am finally back to normal thanks to those 2 plugins.

So for anybody else experiencing slow page load, slow log in, slow page or post editing, check your revisions, if the numbers are high, it could be that the number of revisions you have is slowing down your database and site and could cause you to be dead in the water as far as getting any work done. So far I love everything about the new WordPress except for the "revisions" feature, it is too much (over-kill) so please WordPress Developers, add options or limit the number of revisions that are saved as well as the time between revisions being saved, and add some built-in controls to delete revisions or set how many revisions you want to keep.

We all need to give our feedback to WordPress so they can resolve this issue ASAP so please chime in on this subject and let them know. Thanks!

By
Allan Whitney
Owner/Administrator
MindVisionMedia.net

Responsive Theme Area Zone Map Guidebook 2014 Update

The Responsive Theme Area Zone Map Guidebook from Allan has been updated for 2014. There weren't many changes except for the references to the old home.php file which is now called the front-page.php file. 

If you don't have your copy, request it now at MindVisionmedia.net below or click the image to the left. Its the perfect start for the first time user or anyone new to the WordPress Responsive Theme.

"If only I had this when I started out ", so I know you will find it useful.


This guide still points out all the different areas on each page template and in the widget area so that you can navigate in comfort while you edit and build your site or Blog. "I wish every theme came with one of these", David K., California

Request your copy Now! Click here...

There aren't many resources out there for the Responsive Theme, but you can count on MindVisionMedia.net to pick up the slack. Get your copy now and tell a friend.

By
Allan Whitney
Owner/Administrator
MindVisionMedia.net

4 all NEW Responsive Theme Video Tutorials for 2014

4 Incredible Responsive Theme Tutorials for 2014

Hello from Allan at MindVisionmedia.net, I hope all is well with you and yours. I just wanted to announce that I just released 4 powerful all NEW WordPress Responsive Theme Video tutorials on YouTube.

MindVisionmedia.net is already known for its free resources and Responsive Theme Tutorials but these are new for 2014 and the topics include Creating a Full Width Header and Footer, Transparent Pages, Widgets and White Space and Responsive Theme Basics. With support for the free version of the theme coming to an end, Allan's tutorials are sure to become even more popular in the very near future.

Demand for Allan's assistance is reaching critical mass as he receives requests from all over the world for guidance on this incredible WordPress theme. Hopefully in 2014, Allan will be able to transition a portion of his free services to secure funding, resources or steady income for the MindVisionMedia.net project. Until then it continues to be a labor of love, learning, gratitude from helping the web community and a testament to his skills and abilities. 

Check out a couple of the latest tutorials below:

"Responsive Theme Full Width Header and Footer"

"Responsive Theme Transparent pages"

Enjoy these tutorials and more, visit my YouTube Channel here!


By
Allan Whitney
Owner/Administrator
MindVisionMedia.net

2014 Brute Force Attack against WordPress

2014 Brute Force Attack against WordPress

Hello all, I hope this post finds you well.

This is a Warning Post to ALL WordPress users!

Wordfence, maker of the WordPress security plugin, recently announced that yet another broad spectrum Brute Force Attack against WordPress users happened but at a scale not seen before. The massive attack happened on February 10th, 2014 at approximately 11:00am.

The company is recommending to all of its plugin users to make sure their products are updated to the latest versions. This is however not just an issue for Wordfence users, but serves as a notice to those who don't use a Wordfence product or any product for that matter to secure their WordPress website or Blog. Be aware that such attacks occur and be sure to have unique user names and passwords in place to help protect your site as well as some type of security measures activated either with your host or on your site via plugins, etc.

A Brute Force attack uses computers to make hundreds, even thousands of login attempts to your WordPress website, sometimes these guessing games are successful in figuring out a persons log in information. Most users of WordPress don't realize that every installation of WordPress gets the same user name, "admin". It is highly recommended to change that as well as the password, if the default user name of "admin" is left in place, thats half the battle won for the hackers if they already know that every installation comes with the user name "admin".

In addition, try not to use your browser to remember your passwords and personal information. This information could be compromised and used to access your personal information. Also remember to empty your temporary Internet files and cache when exiting your Internet session. Most browsers have settings that allow you to empty the trash and temp files on exit, this is highly recommended. Also, only trust third party cookies from companies or websites you use and trust, these cookies are usually not rated and could present a risk.

In the end, theres not much we can do if a hacker wants to get in. All we can do is our best to stay informed and united against the trouble it causes for the average user who has no political agenda or impact on a particular community or cause. Its the everyday user who has to suffer from the inconvenience and often hefty expense of being hacked or compromised. This post is just a meager attempt to spread the word about the latest Brute force attack and to remind WordPress users to stay on guard!

By
Allan Whitney
Owner/Administrator
MindVisionMedia.net

Responsive Theme Free Support is Changing

"CyberChimps Support Features are Changing"

Hello all, I hope this post finds you well. 
As of February 1st, 2014, CyberChimps, the current owner of the Responsive Theme formally owned by ThemeID announced that it will change its support features for the Responsive Theme Free Theme. They will no longer offer support for customizations and modifications to the original theme.

A user of the free version will now have to join a monthly support service or upgrade to the Responsive Pro theme which comes with support. This comes as a blow to the many users of the free version who continue to search for support and tutorials. 


But fear not, independent websites like MindVisionMedia.net along with its sister YouTube channel MindVisionmedia Tips, have most of what you need when it comes to customizing the Responsive Theme.

The tutorials offered cover just about everything to get a person up to speed very quickly when using the Responsive Theme. Topics include but are not limited to, Editing the Home Page Widgets, Moving the Menu to the Right and Changing Colors, Adding a Home Page Full Slider, Working with Widgets and Plugins, Creating a Full Page Header and Footer, the list goes on, theres even a tutorial on Responsive Theme Basics of the theme.

Many visitors to the site and channel have expressed their pleasure in finding such a valuable resource. The tutorials are geared towards the beginner, so they are detailed and paced so they are easy to understand. People from all over the world have given testimony to the benefit of using MindVisionmedia.net and its resources over the past year and the numbers continue to grow.

If you are looking for a nice free theme with powerful features and plenty of elbow room, use the Responsive Theme, download and install the latest version from your WordPress dashboard, version 1.9.4.9, watch Allan's tutorials and start enjoying this incredibly versatile theme


To read the full support announcement from CyberChimps, click here, "Responsive Free Support is Changing"

By
Allan Whitney
Owner/Administrator
MindVisionMedia.net

WordPress Basics - Advice for beginners

New to WordPress? Here's a bit of friendly advice: Take your Time and be Patient!

If you come from static HTML design, be prepared for a few surprises. Be prepared to learn best practices for backing up files and working with PHP and CSS. To accomplish what was easily accessible in Dreamweaver or another WYSIWYG web program, you'll have to install and use plugins to accomplish the same thing in WordPress.

If you are totally new to WordPress, just be patient. Haste definitely makes waste when it comes to WP. It can be very exciting designing your first website and seeing your idea come to life on the screen. The tendency is to rush and make changes right away without having the right perspective or a basic understanding of what WordPress is and what building a website consist of. Take a step back and digest each change, think about what the user will need and want, not so much what you want. After all, your visitors will visit your site more than you.

Responsive WordPress Updating an Old Theme and Applying a Child Theme

Are you new to the Responsive Theme from ThemeID and CyberChimps? Have you already edited or modified your Responsive Parent Theme files without creating a child theme? 

In this post, I'll share with you how I updated my already modified Responsive Theme.

When I first got into WordPress, I like many of you was drawn to the Responsive Theme. At the time it was version 1.8.7. I had never heard of child themes before I started editing and modifying the site and theme. By the time I did hear about child themes and understood what their purpose was, it was very late in the game for my site. I made all kinds of modifications to the CSS and home page files including the widgets and there were two updates available for the theme by the time I woke up.

Responsive WordPress Twenty Eleven Theme Tutorial

Hello all, I hope this post finds you well.

I just finished a Responsive WordPress video tutorial series part#1 and part #2 on editing the Twenty Eleven Theme.

This still popular theme is great for Bloggers and site builders who are just starting out and those intermediate and advanced users who want to build a custom theme from a starter theme.

I demonstrate some cool tips for this simple but reliable theme. Mostly used for blog’s, this older theme is also useful as a website with features that are great for the beginner and those new to WordPress or who just want a simple blog.

I also show how to add tons of added options and settings to this theme using simple plugins so you can make it look like your own.  Have full control over the colors and essence of your Twenty Eleven site in just a few clicks.

Add video and media content to your widgets with ease and express content more dynamically. Make the simple changes to your site or blog without editing the code!

As an added bonus, I show how to create a child theme for Twenty Eleven, activate and use it as well as what specific plugins to use to enhance your blog or site. 

I have other great tutorials on WordPress and my videos are geared towards the newbie or beginner so you get detailed information that is not rushed like a lot of videos out there. 

Do visit my channel and site for more great Tips Tools and Tutorials form Allan at MindVisionMedia.net, you won’t be sorry!

Watch my Responsive WordPress Twenty Eleven Theme Tutorial Part #1 now:

 

By
Allan Whitney
Owner/Administrator
MindVisionMedia.net

Wordpress Widgets

It is no secret that WordPress is almost unlimited in power and functionality. WordPress Widgets help make adding content a snap while offering choices in layout and placement. 

All WordPress themes come with widgets, some more than others but there are some really good plugins that can be installed to enhance or "widgetize" your site or blog too. My favorites are "Widgetized Pages Light", Sidebars and Widget Manager" and "Custom Widgets".

These plugins give me unlimited widgets and choices for laying out my content that I wouldn't want to do without. They have become standard and essential tools for all of my WordPress sites.

Adobe Cloud Services Good or Bad?

There is a lot of debate over Adobe's new "Cloud" services and whether it is fair to existing owners, hobbyist and occasional users. I have personally supported Adobe for about 20 years. 

I have defended them in the lengthy war between MAC and PC-based software, I have spent way too much money for their software over the years and dealt with their often inadequate support.

Now with their sudden switch to "cloud-based" software subscription only (meaning you can't buy Photoshop or Premiere anymore), I have mixed feelings but see myself leaving their ranks and moving on. I will keep my older paid-for versions and use them until they stop working. 

I may not have all the new bells and whistles but I still get the job done and that is all that matters in the end. Ninety percent of the people I have talked to about this are upset and committed to not supporting a forced rental of everything they offer instead of allowing the consumer to choose what they want and make a one-time purchase.

Child Themes - You gotta love em!

WordPress Child Themes, the nemesis or nightmare of every WordPress beginner and some intermediate and advance users as well.

I know I was intimidated by them when I began working with WordPress. It seemed like a bunch of hard coding or something and I put off exploring and learning about them.

What is a Child Theme? How do I create one? What can I do with it? Do I have to create one? I answer all of these questions in my latest Responsive WordPress Video Tutorial: " Responsive WordPress Child Themes COMPLETE! Updated Version part 1 and 2 on YouTube now.

This tutorial series on Child Themes covers setting up a child theme and using it within your WordPress Dashboard. See what a child theme does and how it effects your website as well as the benefits and advantages to using one. The Responsive Theme from ThemeID which is child-theme-friendly is used for this demonstration.

The purpose of a child theme is simple, for editing purposes, it allows you to modify the theme files without actually changing the "parent" files of the theme. The Child Theme talks to the browser and tells it to look at it before the parent theme files thus overriding any files in the parent theme folder (directory).

Should you use Google AdWords or AdSense?

I get a lot of questions about whether to use Google Adsense or Google AdWords on a Website or Blog so I decided to put out a short post on the topic. It is sort of a personal need or preference for me and my focus is on budget.

The first thing to know is that Google AdWords is a paid promotion service. You pay for clicks on your ads that are placed in high ranking with Google. AdSense is an affiliate program whereby the site owner is paid to market goods and services through ads on their site.

Both programs are free to sign up to but AdWords will bill you accordingly when your ad clicks reach a certain amount. If you have a product site that does a lot of retail or services, AdWords is probably good for you in terms of revenue vs advertising costs. 

The New WordPress v3.6

 

Version 3.6

Hello, I hope this post finds you well.
As a WordPress fan I am salivating over the release of the new WordPress v3.6! It is going to be the best version yet and they have made adjustments that are both user-friendly and feature-rich. It's not that they made a ton of changes but the few they have made are sure to be a hit. I am so exited!

The new interface is noticeable right away. Better contrast, fonts and arrangement make it easier to read and navigate. A new "ribbon" available at the top of the Post editor makes it easy to select a "post-type" which is becoming a standard feature in new versions of WordPress. There is a new emphasis on expanding the ability to publish posts within a particular and suitable format. With a specific "post-type" WordPress will automatically format the new post for the type of post you are creating.

For example, if you want to embed a video, the new "ribbon" has a selection for that. When selected, WordPress opens an embed box right above your post for you to embed the video code. This is validation that WordPress and the web in general is moving ahead towards a more HTML5 way of delivering content (especially media). Obligatory and proprietary plugins and add-ons like Flash are done with the new open-source delivery system in place now. Funny I should mention that because I just updated my Flash plugin twice (4-times in a month or so) and it has been crashing repeatedly!!