WordPress Plugin: podPress
The podPress plugin is a must-have for podcasting. It adds a flash audio (and video) player to your post when attaching a media file. In addition, it handles the RSS podcast feed options, including iTunes settings.

Go to http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/podpress/

Audio recording
Recording audio will require an additional piece of software. We recommend the audio recording software Audacity (free). The process is pretty streamlined and shouldn’t be too cumbersome. You may even find the additional features with this software to be useful for editing and polishing your audio. Following are the links and steps:

Go to http://audacity.sourceforge.net/download/windows

1. Audacity application:
Under Recommended Download, click Audacity 1.2.6 installer (or whatever the lastes version is)
Install the application (remember to disable your antivirus software if possible – generally a good idea whenever install an application)

2. Mp3 encoder:
Under Optional Downloads, click LAME MP3 encoder
This will download a zip file. You will need to extract the files to a location that you won’t change in the future. If you have access to the Audacity folder in the Programs folder on your C drive, you may put them there. I’m not sure what Vista will give you access to.

3. The first time you export a recorded audio file as an MP3, Audacity will ask you location the LAME MP3 decoder file on your computer. You’ll need to navigate to wherever you saved it in step 2 above. This will only happen the first time, provided the decoder file is never moved.

Posting Podcast
On the “Write Post” page (when you’re actually writing a new post) in your blog admin

1. Scroll down to the Upload section, current just below the Podcasting section
2. Browse for a file on you local computer, enter title and description if you want, and click the Upload botton [*Alternate upload option for large files below]
3. The next view that comes up automatically will have the name of the file - i.e. test1.mp3.
4. Right click on the file name and select Copy Link Location
5. Now go to the Podcasting section and click the Add Media File button
6. Paste (Ctrl+v or right click paste) inside the Location field – the url will look something like http://yourdomain.com/wp-content/uploads/2007/10/test1.mp3
7. That’s it, unless you want to position the flash player in the post. Insert “” where you want inside the Post body to position the player.

*Uploading large audio files
Depending on the server setting and restriction for your hosting account, you may find the WordPress file upload option to error, indicating that the file size exceeds the maximum allowed size. In this case, you will need to FTP your file to the server and manually enter the URI when adding the podcast to your post.

We recommend the FTP client FileZilla. Once downloaded and installed from the following location, you will need to establish a connection with your server. File > Site Manager > click the New Site button > enter the appropriate login and connection setting for your hosting server account.

Go to http://filezilla-project.org/

Welcome to the Applied Web Vitals podcast. Again, we held our Wednesday 6PM web technology discussion last night at Barnes & Nobles in Market Commons, Myrtle Beach, SC. Following is a podcast summarizing the discussion.

 

 Web Technology Discussion: Blog Plugin Recommendations [8:19m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (24)

Podcast Topic: Blog Plugin Recommendations

Akismet: A discussion anti-spam plugin that utilizes a central and ever growing database. You will need to create a user account at wordpress.com to gain an API KEY that is required to activate the plugin.
All in One SEO Pack: Create custom page titles, meta description & meta keywords
- Also enable Permalinks in your blog settings and be sure to include the post name (%postname%). Permalinks in tandem with the All in One SEO Pack will produce keyword rich posts with keywords appearing in the page title, url, meta data, and of course the post body.
podPress: This plugin is a must-have for podcasting. It ads a flash audio (and video) player to your post when attaching a media file. In addition, it handles the RSS podcast feed options, including iTunes settings.
Ultimate Google Analytics: Track your blog site traffic with Google Anayltics. You’ll need to create an Analytics account at http://www.google.com/analytics/

If you’ve just started to use Google Analytics and aren’t sure which reports to look at, this video provides a helpful 1st-time analysis walk-through. You’ll learn how to interpret what you see in these key reports and what actions you should take as a result. - from Google Analytics

A brief overview of how to use the Google Analytics interface. If you are new to Google Analytics or you’d like to pick up a few tips on how to use some of the different features, this video is a good place to start.

Tonight we held our first web technology discussion at Barnes & Nobles in Market Commons, Myrtle Beach, SC. Following is a podcast summarizing the discussion.

 

 Web Technology Discussion: Blog Basics [5:42m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (21)

Podcast Topic: Blog basics

• Hosting your own blog vs. free blog sites (like blogger.com and wordpress.com)
• Moderating comments
• Creating user accounts

Please return for future podcast episodes. We look forward to coving topics such as web design, content management systems, Internet marketing, search engine optimization, blogging and more…

For those in the Myrtle Beach area, Applied Web Vitals will be holding a lecture series on web technologies and the small business play. This lecture/discussion group will be hosted at Barnes & Nobles in Market Commons every Wednesday evenings at 6pm - starting Wednesday May 14th.

As the group gains momentum, the weekly meetings will be organized into themes for more focused and in-depth discussions on topics such as: building and maintaining websites; search engine optimization; Internet marketing and measurement; business blogging; graphic design & do-it-yourself advertising; and more…

Everyone and anyone is invited to attend. Bring your curiosity and any unanswered questions. We look forward to seeing our local MB friends there. And please feel free to pass the word along to anyone that you feel may be interested.

The group will be led by Dominic Taverniti, a recent San Francisco transplant, with extensive experience in web design & development, Internet marketing, small business development and franchising.

Our primary audience is the small business, but anyone with a website should find this look into web management quite helpful. First, and to be redundant, if you don’t have ready and easy access to the content on your website, it’s time to upgrade! It’s that simple. Technology has progressed and the ability to edit web pages without technical skills now exists—at an affordable price.

If you’re paying someone else, an html developer perhaps, to update your content, then a CMS will quickly pay for itself. Or maybe you’re simply at the mercy of someone with technical skills to update content. No matter. Consider the opportunity cost, which for a small business translates to real money, real quick—sometimes before the close of business.

Fundamentals
Content Management Systems (CMS) are the website platforms that allow for end-user administration and automated content organization. A website built on a CMS can be edited by someone without web programming skills.

There are countless content management systems out there, each with there own merit as well as limitations. CMS functionality can be custom built into a website or provided through the integration of a CMS software application. Per software, both server-side and client-side applications exist. Server-side software reside entirely on the server and is accessed via a web browser. Client-side is accessed via workstation-based software.

Our CMS of choice for standard websites is the Adobe Contribute platform. Contribute is a workstation (PC or Mac) software application that incorporates hypertext transfer protocol (HTTP) for Internet browsing and file transfer protocol (FTP) for file uploading.

The two standout features of Contribute are 1) breadth of design freedom and 2) ease of page editing.

1. With the CMS functionality built into the software application and not into server page structure itself, the developer is offered design freedoms that are either unavailable or costly to achieve in other content management systems. Consequently, page code can be kept clean and light for fast loading and cross-browser compatibility. [Note: Adobe Dreamweaver is used by the site developer and Adobe Contribute is used by the “contributor” or client.
2. Contribute initialy operates like a browser to navigate, then functions much like Microsoft Word to edit a web page. This WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get) functionality incorporates easy to identify icons and menu options that virtually everyone understands and have become accustom to. The process from start to finish: browse the website, make the changes, and click Publish.

ADVANTAGES of Contribute are numerous:

• Developed by Adobe Systems, Inc., the software is well-built and continually upgraded, more than justifying the $169 one-time software license fee
• Creating and saving drafts prior to publishing is a feature that many people find indispensable
• Permissions enable administrators to define who can edit and publish content on a website or within a specific web page.

Whether you opt to go with Contribute or another CMS, we recommend making the move. Not until you’ve actually taken control of the content on your website, will you realize that you’ve been sitting in the passenger seat this whole time. Take the wheel with a CMS and see what your website can really do for your business.

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Applied Web Vitals is a web design and development company. Please feel free to contact us to explore your next design, redesign or site enhancement project.

What a great honor! A Webby Award nomination!!!

Applied Web Vitals has received a Webby Award Nominee letter for its participation in the development of the Eyes on Darfur website. Citizen Group, a premier branding and design company in San Francisco, CA, brought us on board to write the site code—HTML, CSS, Java Script—and bring their elegant design to life.

Working with this world-class team of professionals, and on such a profound project, was in itself an incredibly rewarding experience. We’re thankful to have been a part of this effort and hope to see the site make a tremendous impact.

As all projects go though, challenges and deadlines were par for the course. Already on a tight time line, the site launch date was moved forward to coincide with Amnesty International’s accelerated PR efforts. And with lives on the line, what could we do? Well, we took this opportunity to pour ourselves into the work and not only worked faster (around the clock), but improved the quality of work right up until the switch was flipped.

If you haven’t yet visited Eyes on Darfur - please do. Be prepared for an eye-opening experience though, one that hopefully puts you into motion.

“Eyes on Darfur” site uses satellite imagery to expose genocide

Amnesty International’s unprecedented Eyes On Darfur project leverages the power of high-resolution satellite imagery to provide unimpeachable evidence of the atrocities being committed in Darfur – enabling action by private citizens, policy makers and international courts. Eyes On Darfur also breaks new ground in protecting human rights by allowing people around the world to literally “watch over” and protect twelve intact, but highly vulnerable, villages using commercially available satellite imagery.

The project was led by the Crisis Prevention and Response Center (CPRC) – Amnesty International USA’s rapid response center for engaging members, policy-makers, and the public in preventing and responding to human rights crises around the world. The website was designed and developed by Citizen, and can be viewed at www.eyesondarfur.org.

The project was funded by the Save Darfur Coalition (SDC) which seeks to raise public awareness about the ongoing genocide in Darfur while mobilizing a unified response to the atrocities that threaten the lives of people throughout the Darfur region. It is an alliance of more than 180 faith-based, advocacy and humanitarian organizations. The coalition’s member organizations represent 130 million people of all ages, races, religions and political affiliations united together to help the people of Darfur. For more information on the coalition, visit www.SaveDarfur.org.
-description from Citizen Group

It is our pleasure to inform you that Eyes on Darfur has been nominated for The 12th Annual Webby Awards in the Activism category. As one of only five nominees in its category, your work and the team behind it are eligible for the Internet industry’s two most sought-after awards: The Webby Award and The Webby People’s Voice Award.

This honor signifies the highest standard of excellence.

Congratulations!

ABOUT THE PEOPLE’S VOICE AWARDS
While the Academy selects The Webby Awards’ winners, the online public selects The People’s Voice Award winners. Webby People’s Voice voting starts April 8th and ends May 1st. Get your Web community to the polls and bring home the Webby People’s Voice Award! Please visit http://pv.webbyawards.com/ to vote.

Again, congratulations!

David-Michel Davies
Executive Director

The Webby Awards | Int’l Academy of Digital Arts & Sciences http://www.webbyawards.com | http://www.iadas.net

Blogs continue to provide an incredible “bang for your buck” when it comes to Internet marketing. And for the most part, your “buck” is really just the value of your time since plenty of free blog hosting options exist.

Fundamentals
For those just getting up to speed, you’re reading a blog now. The term blog was derived from the term “web log.” The blog as an application or platform has evolved quickly over time, but the primary format continues to be a chronological arrangement of editorial articles. The software applications behind blogs serve as a content management system, allowing users to edit, contribute and customize the front-end or user-end of the blog via a simple web-based administration panel.

Blog Options
Internal blog - If you’re interested in hosting your own blog, the major blog software applications out there are free themselves (We recommend WordPress, the platform being used for this blog). If you aren’t a developer or aren’t comfortable with digging into the server side of things, having a professional set your blog up won’t break the bank either. Blogs are generally quite simple to install - it’s the customization of design and functionality that starts to expand a blog installation project. It is worth noting that specific hosting features and capabilities are required and depend on which blog software application you choose.

External blog - Conversely, going with a free hosted blog option, like Google’s Blogger, is a great way to reach a large audience. These greater communities consisting of thousands of other blogs, giving you instant exposure to highly searched and search engine indexed networks.

Internal & External - Concurrently, running both an internal and external blog will provide the best of all worlds. This broad Internet marketing mix will take advantage of the blogging community exposure as well as improving your own website. Keep in mind though, search engines provide little or no value to syndicated content that appears identically in multiple places on the web. Consider rewriting or even posting unique copy in each of your blog channels.

Benefits of a blog
Blogs offer a number of fantastic benefits to the small business.

1. SEO: When operating a blog on your own website, the volume, relevance and frequency of content gives your site a shot of search engine optimization adrenaline. Search engines will increase the frequency at which they crawl your site for updates as you reciprocate with those updates. As your archive of blog articles—with relevant content—accumulate, so increases the relevance of your site for those keywords and terms that your articles are about.
2. Reputation: Demonstrate your expertise by writing about your industry, market or product. At the same time, this self imposed regimen of copy writing will continually advance your knowledge in the field.
3. Site Accessibility: If your site isn’t already built on a content management system, the built-in CMS functionality of blog software gives you quick and easy access to posting content on your site. Most blogs even come with the ability to post content by email - it doesn’t get any easier than that!

Start Blogging
Take one of the above recommendations and run with it—you’ll be glad that you did. You can’t make up for lost time, so get started!

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Applied Web Vitals is a web design and development company. Please feel free to contact us to explore your next design, redesign or site enhancement project.