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Dear Ask the Geek,
I see you are moving your blogs over to wp.com: does it work like an hosting service? I mean, if I move everything there I can stop using [hosting service]? What are the pros & cons of using WordPress.com?
Sincerely,
Platform-challenged
Dear Platform-challenged,
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Dear Ask The Geek,
A small business recently asked me for the use of one of my photos on their website. I’m not a professional photographer, so I’m not sure what to do. Should I ask for compensation? How do I figure out what that is? Or should I just let them use it free of charge?
Thanks,
Sporadic Photographer
Hi Sporadic Photographer, Continue reading
I created this presentation for entrepreneurs who need online tools to make their ideas happen (I gave it earlier this year at the Professional Women’s Association in Milan).
The presentation “Tools for Entrepreneurs: Create. Collaborate. Communicate.“ started out as a way to explain very technical things to non-technical people, but I quickly realized that most people when approaching technology get intimidated by the “What’s DNS? Do I need a dedicated server?” kind of questions and therefore feel they can’t understand technology.
I feel that this technology intimidation is really due to the fact that they don’t really own their idea, and better understanding it will guide any decisions they have to make with their idea moving forward. Continue reading
This past Saturday I presented “Digital Curation: The New Frontier of Knowledge” at KnowCamp, an Italian BarCamp in Modena about knowledge and the web.
If you’re not familiar with the Ignite format, it’s very exciting for both speakers and spectators. 5 minutes, 20 slides, 15 seconds each slide. It’s a timing nightmare and you’re always racing against the clock, but it’s a great exercise to really concentrate on the meat of your presentation and remove the extras. (I gave another Ignite earlier this year on the New Digital Company: Distributed, Online, Transparent)
I’ve been fortunate to do a lot of speaking lately, and I’ll be slowly getting those presentations online, but I wanted to share this one presentation I did for the Stampa all’Estera, the Foreign Press in Milan.
They specifically asked me to speak about using WordPress as a website, instead of a blog, as many journalists are now interested in maintaining personal websites as well as continuing to create all the content they do for external publications.
I really only needed one slide to explain how to do that – it’s very easy! I’ll let you discover how via the slides.
The presentation is geared at those very new to WordPress – so new, in fact, that I included a little bit about WordPress’ history and its community which I think are strong points in choosing to use it (awesome people are making an awesome product).
We spent a lot of time in questions after the presentation, many of which would have been answered by articles I’ve already written on this site, like:
The slides aren’t actually meant to be self-explanatory – I went in-depth into most of the concepts and screenshots in person, and don’t like to put much content in my slides, so if you have questions, be sure to let me know!
In English:
In Italian:
Have a question for Ask The Geek? Send it to me.
Dear Ask the Geek,
A friend set up my WordPress site and the design for it, but now I want to change it and give my site a new look. How do I do that, and where do I start?
Signed
WordPress newbie
Dear WordPress newbie,
You can find WordPress themes all over the Internet which is the great thing about WordPress – anyone can develop for it. I strongly recommend starting with the WordPress.org Theme Directory as the themes there have been reviewed and there’s a higher guarantee that no malicious/spam/ad code has been inserted in the theme (a small risk of using Google and looking for WordPress themes).
I suggest browsing the Popular themes first. These are all free themes and you may find a few designs you want to come back to. If you have a specific feature or layout in mind (like how many columns, main color, or style, etc.), you can use the Theme Tag Filter tool to narrow it down.
If you’d prefer a theme that is more unique or has support from the theme developer associated with it, you may also want to browse the WordPress.org Commercial Themes directory which lists many companies that offer custom themes for a small payment and give you access to various benefits with your purchase.
There are usually some themes already installed on your WordPress site and can be accessed via the Dashboard at Appearance > Themes.
Make note of which theme your site is currently using (it should be the theme featured as “Current Theme” at the top of the Manage Themes tab) so you can go back to your original setup if necessary.
To add other themes from the WordPress.org theme directory, click on “Install themes” and search for a type of theme or a theme name.
You can preview it or install it directly. Click on Install and confirm Installation.
After installation, you can preview it again how it will look with your content, and if you decide to Activate it, click on Activate. It’s now live on your site!
Open the front page of your site in another browser tab/window and see how it looks – click around to different posts and pages to see if you like it.
If you need to go back to that original theme you made a note of when we started, go back to Appearance > Themes and search for the name of your original theme in Manage Themes, and click Activate it to return to the original.
Note that you can add dozens and dozens of themes to your local theme directory so don’t feel like you have to choose or install just one at a time to your local directory. For a commercial theme, you will have to upload the theme after purchase before being able to activate it.
The only other thing you would need to check is if your sidebar content (recent posts, comments, etc. ) is using widgets (check for their existence at Appearance > Widgets) – widgets are easy and great for you to be able to upkeep, and they are independent of the theme which makes switching themes painless.
If you aren’t using widgets for your sidebar content, now is a good time to set them up before switching the theme. Once we get them into widgets, you’ll be able to switch themes easier, and then it’s just making sure we include your stats.
Note: this is an answer for a self-hosted, paid hosting user using the WordPress.org software – if you have your site at WordPress.com, you can use the theme.wordpress.com directory
Enjoy playing with your site’s theme!
Sara Rosso, aka WIHT’s in-house geek
I have been working for Automattic, who offer a free, hosted version of WordPress at WordPress.com, for several months now. I’ve been a WordPress.org (self-hosted) user for years (I have 9 WordPress sites now), and I wasn’t as familiar with the free, hosted service and all the features that it offers (including the excellent support by my colleagues, ahem).
Often when I recommend to friends that they get started on WordPress, I suggest they sign up for a site at WordPress.com so they can see how they like the interface and the features of the WordPress software.
One of the first things I hear is this myth: on WordPress.com, I can’t have a custom theme, so I can’t have a beautiful website.
Besides the fact that there are 100+ themes to choose from (and I’ll do a post on my favorite themes in the future), many with customizable backgrounds and headers, you can have a beautiful website on WordPress.com. I wanted to showcase some of the websites I’ve seen on WordPress.com that have made their sites beautiful using one of the default themes as a base and customizing the site with just the Custom CSS upgrade (currently $15/year) – so that’s free, unlimited hosting (!) plus a beautiful site for $15/year. Pretty cool.
I don’t want to convince you that WordPress.com is the best home for your new site (I have several .org sites that I love) but I definitely want to disspell the rumor that you can’t have a beautiful site on WordPress.com.
Read my article on Infinite Styles with Custom CSS on the WordPress.com News blog.
After the fiasco that was Cooks Source copyright infringement, it’s clearer to me while many people are making leaps ahead with online collaboration and sharing, at the same time there is a percentage of people who still don’t get words like “copyright,” “Creative Commons,” “all rights reserved,” “copyleft,” and “public domain.”
Writers*, the Internet and its images are not your ClipArt gallery.
Especially in the case of Cooks Source, an assumption was made by the writer that the material they found online was somehow “available” and could be taken, re-used, re-written and published, and including the original author’s name was enough to justify its usage.
Some people make a living publishing content and photos online. Some just enjoy it as a hobby. Some do it as a second job, hoping for something more. All of these people have the right to full control over their intellectual property’s copyright, no matter what you perceive their aim to be.
In this article, though, I want to focus on photography. While more and more people realize using words someone else has written is plagiarism, it’s not as clear to them how they can use / re-publish others’ photos in their content.
A Photo Illustrates Your Story, or A Photo is The Story?
I think the first distinction to be made is between a picture illustrating or visually decorating content, and a picture as the story. In the first case, the picture helps you, the writer, to illustrate your story to the reader through visual clues. People like pictures, it breaks up text, and it gives them different focal points. In the second case, the picture is the reason for the story. It’s news, a point, a counterpoint, or the basis for a discussion.
Example: this picture of gelato.
In the first case (a picture illustrates a story): the writer could decide to use the picture in a story talking about gelato, about summer in Italy, about ice cream even. They use the photo like clip art – to punctuate a textual story with visual elements.
In the second case, an article could be written with reference to the author’s original blog post where the picture appeared. Additional details like the original author’s name & link, point of view, perhaps even a small excerpt is incorporated into the story (not only a credit at the end) as the writer uses the author and her photo as a point of reference and source, and as a key component to the story the writer is currently telling that is related to the original author’s content.
Neither of these editorial approaches is more correct than the other. Most of the photos on When I Have Time are used in the first case, as they help illustrate my story, but they are not the story. Often copyright owners find more gratification from the second case – if my photo is your story, most likely I am getting publicity, interest, and hopefully credibility and traffic from its inclusion.
In both cases, the writer needs permission from the copyright holder to use their photo.
Case #1 actually happened to me and this particular photo, and it was included in a post as an visual without my permission. I feel no need to name the site as we rectified the situation cordially and they were very professional. But it became even clearer to me that the assumptions some writers are working on need to be set straight.
Respect Image Copyright
If there’s a watermark on the photo, you can bet the photographer cares about how that photo is republished and used. Even if there’s no watermark, there is copyright on the photo! {Read up on a Guide to Copyright and Creative Commons if intellectual property rights are fuzzy to you} If a photo is available for Creative Commons usage, the author will declare it somewhere in an easy-to-find place like their site sidebar, on their About page, or directly under the photo.
If you can’t find Creative Commons license information at first glance, don’t assume that photo is available for the taking. Assume the exact opposite. It’s not available, for any usage, and you should write the copyright holder for permission. When in doubt? Send the photographer an email!
Proper Usage and Crediting a Photo
If you find a photo available for usage that is Creative Commons, its license dictates how the photo can be used, modified and attributed. If you’re not sure your usage is ok, ask the photographer! Ask!
Some tips for proper usage and crediting a photo:
Build a Relationship with your ClipArt generator, the Photographer
If you’re a site owner, or a community site writer, why not think of other ways to approach photographers so that they will be more interested in your request to republish their all-rights-reserved photos?
Are you a writer looking for images? Start with Flickr’s search for Creative Commons images licensed for commercial use.
Do you have any tips for writers on correctly finding and using images on the Internet?
If you’re a photographer, what would you prefer writers offered you, other than money, for using your photos?
*I use the term “writers” in this case to mean both journalists and bloggers – I have seen cases where both have overlooked copyright.
Photo credit: me, Sara Rosso
Here’s the slides from my presentation at WordCamp NYC.
I cover WordPress featured images in the presentation mainly from a user standpoint and not from a developer’s standpoint, though I include some tips and suggestions for users curious about experimenting with code at the end.
Covered in the presentation are:
I’d love to hear your feedback! The video of the presentation will be made available online at a later date, and I’ll link to that when it is available.
Note: This presentation is being released with a Creative Commons license – Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 2.5 Generic.
You have a great idea for a website or your business. Perhaps you’ve even already registered your own domain name (if you haven’t, you should read When I Have Time article How to Buy a Domain Name and what to do with it first).
Now that you’re ready to start creating that website you’ve been dreaming about, you’ll need to get web hosting: a place where you can store and modify your website’s content and make it accessible online.
The choice of a web hosting provider is a very personal one. I say this because, for every person who has had a good experience with a provider, you will find one or five or ten who have utter loathing for that exact provider.
I would evaluate a potential web hosting provider based on the following considerations:
Here’s some more detail about what to consider for each one:
The ease-of-use of incorporating the blogging platform with your provider is what makes the difference when going to purchase web hosting. Even if you don’t intend to open a blog, many blog/CMS software can be used for static websites as well (like WordPress, which I love). Each blog or CMS software has operating system and/or software components required to run, so check with your intended provider before buying hosting and/or the software.
Some providers will give you a “push-button” or “1-click” installation which will automate the installation of blogging platforms. Other providers will provide a hosting solution that gives you access to the more technical side of your hosting environment like executing scripts, setting up databases and modifying your file system permissions. Check to see if the hosting provider lists which blogging software can run on their servers. If you cannot find this information, I strongly suggest writing an email to their tech support with a list of your blog software’s technical requirements to get confirmation before purchasing a hosting agreement (or blogging software). Here’s WordPress’ list of requirements.
As mentioned above, if you are not particularly tech-savvy, it’s important that you understand how much the provider can integrate blog or other 3rd-party software into your web hosting. Even if you’re not interested in hosting a blog, you may need a forum, a photo gallery, a wiki or e-commerce software for your site, and many hosting providers can offer these software integrations or at least support their installation.
Many providers will specify how much control you have over your hosting environment and how much you can put your hands on it (if you can run PHP scripts, install a database, modify the .htaccess file, etc.) but the final compatibility, installation and upkeep of the 3rd-party software will be your responsibility. Some providers will even provide a list of which popular 3rd party software is compatible or is available for push-button installation.
When I first started hosting with a certain hosting provider, they made it very difficult to contact them directly with problems, and I often had to do a down-the-rabbit-hole chase to find the support email address on their web site. Now, they provide an 800 number to talk with a real person.
Other hosting providers will not give you a direct contact, but they may give you a guaranteed response time or an option to escalate and therefore you know how long it might take to get resolution to your problem.
Before it’s really a necessity, you should identify the support methods in case of an emergency: contact email address / website / telephone, and other information needed to contact them like your username or account information. Other important limits to keep in mind are if the provider limits your technical support to a certain number of questions or if they provide a guaranteed response time or service level agreement on resolution of problems.
If you require a certain level of support, investigate first, and also be prepared to pay extra to ensure you can get it.
If you’ve read the Long Tail by Chris Anderson (great book!) you know that disk space is quickly becoming a commodity and most providers will now offer huge amounts of disk space for a low cost. You probably won’t come near to using all of it.
Data transfer is related to the transfer and viewing of the information on your website. When a visitor opens a page on your website, your hosting provider must deliver the text and images on that page to their computer. Multiply that for each visitor, and data transfer may become important to your site if you’re having people download a lot of content (like high resolution images, music files or large PDFs) or if you have enormous amounts of traffic.
Most providers will provide you with such a large amount of data transfer that you can monitor in case you experience a jump in traffic, or upgrade if necessary. Investigate how much is provided with each plan, and in case your website gets linked from Digg or CNN, how you can temporarily meet that demand or upgrade
Most videos embedded in blogs can be hosted externally to the blog (on YouTube or Vimeo, for example), but if you are planning on having a lot of video content and would like complete control over the delivery and look & feel of that content, check with your hosting provider if video streaming from their servers is included in the hosting plan you’re considering. This may also figure into calculating the data transfer they provide – the more videos you are streaming, the more data transfer you’ll need.
Backup is one of the most important things to your online presence. How often does your host back up your data? Daily, hourly? How far back can you get get copies of your data and files, and with which methods can you access your files? Do you need to submit a request to the provider’s Support, or can you be autonomous and access it directly from your administration panel?
If you’re generating a lot of content and/or you have a very active community generating content and comments, you will need to be more sensitive about how often that content is backed up.
Note that with many blog/CMS software, the backup of the database may not be done by the hosting provider but must be done directly by the user and the hosting provider may provide backups of the content that is not in the database (i.e., image and downloadable files).
By default, most basic web hosting plans will be considered shared hosting, which means that other websites and domains will be hosted on the same server as your site. You’ll be sharing resources like the server’s disk space, processor, and RAM. For most site or blog needs, shared hosting will be sufficient, but if your site is very popular, you may need a step up from shared hosting like a virtual server or a dedicated server.
Of course, you probably won’t know you need a more robust solution when you first start your website, but it’s a good idea to see if the host has other options available and what you’d need to do to upgrade when the time comes.
Pay close attention to the refund policy of the providers. Some offer money-back guarantees if you are interested in doing a trial of their services for a few days or weeks so you can get a feel for the service and the administration panel.
Choosing Web Hosting Providers
I don’t want to make this article about endorsement, though I use both Dreamhost and Yahoo for my hosting needs, as I mentioned above – for every person who has a good experience, there will be 10 more with a negative one. I suggest you Google “web hosting providers,”, read some ratings’ sites, ask your friends with successful sites who they use, and evaluate your own site’s needs before buying hosting.
From Lifehacker’s readers: Most Popular Reliable and Affordable Web Hosts
Image by Donovan Henneberg-Verity
