We use WordPress every day and know its ins and outs. Needless to say, we’re quite smitten with it. Here are the top 5 reasons why:

1. It’s friendly and smart. WordPress is friendly with users in just about every way – even if lots of people are making updates at the same time. You see only what you need to see on the back end (and we can make it clear where each word, picture or link needs to go so there’s no need to play guessing games).

Plus, it’s dynamic: if one change needs to be made in several places on the site, WordPress can do that automatically to save you time.

WordPress is friendly with search engines, too. It’s awesome with SEO right out of the box, and we can make it even better. (Note that by “we,” I mean “Thad” – our resident web genius.)

2. It’s customizable. A WordPress site can get as fancy (or as simple) as you want it to be as long as you’ve got a someone creating it who really knows their stuff. All fields are customized to the individual site so that even the web-shy layman can make changes. And you can make magic happen, too… Like placing a video on your site perfectly with just one little “Vimeo” number. Check this out:

3. It’s expandable. You’re never locked down. Our answer is (believe it or not), “Yes, you can make changes and add that later.” You can always build on ideas and integrate improvements big or small.

4. It’s social. WordPress integrates social media, blogs and discussions incredibly well. It can even pull comments from other websites that link to yours into your site’s feed and a good developer can make it look seamless.

5. It’s safe and sound. At its core, WordPress is secure. It’s an open source site built by the community of people who love to do this tricky web stuff and are really good at it.

(This may sound like a WordPress advertisement, but it’s really just a love letter.)

I’ve always been one of those people who bitches about junk deliveries to my inbox and, ironically, looks forward with equal fervor to coming home to check the “snail mail.”  Recently, both have gotten exceptionally out of control.

No, I haven’t shared my address with new coupon providers or subscribed to new magazines.  (In fact, having recently moved, I have sneakily evaded a number of pesky grocery store mailbox flooders. Hah.)  Rather than stacks of handwritten letters and special “buy one jumbo pizza, get a second [AKA the addition of a few unwanted pounds plus a solid dose of sluggishness] free” offers behind the P.O. Box door, I find a special key – luring me to the neighboring “oversized mail” box which contains plastic pouches of pristine goodies expressly shipped by my oh-so-frugal self sometime 12 to 14 days prior.

The culprit:  sites offering deals.  groupon.com, woot.com, ideeli.com, gilt.com, thefoundary.com, ruelala.com, livingsocial.com, ahalife.com… An ever-growing collective phenomenon to strip me of my willpower. Exclusive online membership to get massive daily discounts on designer brands, tasty restaurants, fabulous vacations or fancy gadgets while supplies last.  Reaching us through Facebook pages, Twitter feeds, news websites and email (when we give them the golden ticket and invite them in) to offer us stuff we never even knew we wanted by speaking with the language of our witty buddies in the next cubicle.
Pure. Genius.

Deliciously beautiful, affordable things I couldn’t possibly find in a mundane Omaha storefront, right? That’s the thing – they don’t even give me enough time to find out.  I have a 600-second window to decide to purchase the item between the time I spot it and the time it disappears from my virtual cart and falls into the hands of Jane Doe clicking “refresh” on her computer somewhere in Honky Tonk, USA.  Oh, the pressure!

The sneakiest part: (more…)

It has been an interesting couple of decades watching language evolve rapidly around substantive, swift changes in our technological lives. The speed of innovations in technology has not always been met with a similarly quick development in language or, at least, in a consistent, agreed upon form of expression that we can all use to describe the same concepts. The announcement by the Associated Press last Friday that their recommended style guide for the phrase “Web site” will now be “website” would seem a small update, but reflects the enormity of change wrought in our lives by technology.

The human condition has always been illuminated in art and science and manifested through a persistent hunger to know more. For millennia, people have explored curiously the worlds around and within us and, along the way, produced momentous works of art, knowledge and scientific discovery. In tandem with those explorations and discoveries, the framework in which to discuss them has also required innovation. By definition, innovative concepts require innovative tags, labels, words and symbols to facilitate a conversation about them.

So, as we move from Web site to website and, most likely, from e-mail, e-commerce, e-anything to eeverything, consider also how our language or symbols of communication, representation, identification and meaning are changing in tune with our understanding of our technological lifestyles. (more…)

I almost exclusively watch T.V. shows online, either on hulu.com or a network’s Web site. I am never at home when shows are typically aired and I like the format of short 30 to 15 second ads rather than 2 minute blocks that interrupt the show you are watching. The commercial that was constantly on was a new advertising spot for Frito Lays’ healthy line of snack food.

This advertising is directed exclusively at women. The segments end with a little flag that says “only in a woman’s world.”

I have to admit when I first saw these commercials I was offended. I think that so often advertisers end up talking at women rather then developing a conversation with them. I also think that advertisers play to the typical stereotypes about men and women. See Stuart’s previous blog post “Men are stupid and women are scheming” here and then watch Webisode 7, where the husband is played as well meaning but stupid and the wife as harried yet indulgent. I don’t see myself in these ads. (more…)

Invention has many mothers. Aside from necessity, which we get from the old saying, there is also thrift, boredom, sloth and efficiency.

I wrote my first CMS (content management system) tool in 2002 using Visual Basic 6.0. I wanted to maintain a blog, but did not want to use one of the popular blog hosting sites that used banner adds. I also wanted control over how I skinned the site, and archived the stories. I wanted to host it on my ISP’s free static hosting, and wanted control over this data should I move it to another hosting solution.

My solution was to build a series of templates that would represent portions of the blog page. This would include the header, footer, navigation, and repeating items such as the stories, and links in the navigation. The repeating items had field variables that would be populated from an Access database. No need for speed. The final HTML would be spit out into static pages, and FTPed up to the site for viewing friends and relatives. (more…)