Helping You Rock Out Your Site Like A Rockstar!

Recently I ventured across Twitter Backgrounds Gallery, a website that showcases Twitter users’ backgrounds. The site also allows users to rate each others’ backgrounds on a star rating system. This system does not allow users to sign up to submit, but rather suggest your background to their Twitter account (@TwitterBGallery ).

This is a fun tool for you if you are on Twitter and have spare time to check out other profiles. Some of the backgrounds are a bit inspirational too! They even share some articles to help you make your Twitter background be effective if you want people to follow you. This includes concepts you should consider while designing, which are great for both graphic designers and novices.

Twitter Backgrounds Gallery also has a contest area where there are occasional contests featured.

Yes, it is old news, but it is great news that bbPress 1.0 is released. Another project from the creators of WordPress, bbPress is a forum script. It even allows you to integrate the forum smoothly with your website because the php call functions are quite similar.

bbPress boast to be lean code-wise, secure, and quite flexible. There are already many plugins created to expand your own personal installation. I have set up quite a few bbPress forums for clients and they have loved it. The most attractive is the security. If anyone has ever had a phpBB forum, you know it WILL eventually be hacked no matter how many times it has been updated. The core has never been reworked properly and of course, it is very bulky.

I am contemplating adding a forum onto Blondish.net for support questions, but I will be also putting a price on support as I am fielding quite a few. Most of them ask me to correct their installation and this takes a chunk out of my time. Most of these I do without being paid, so I have to put a stop on it. I will definitely be using bbPress for that forum.

I have been following bbPress updates for quite some time, and I am extremely happy to see another WordPress product out for people to use. I am hoping for our cPanel Fantastico users, that bbPress will become available as an automatic install. I asked during WordCamp Chicago 2009 about this and apparently it is in the works, though there is not a definitely release date.

TechCrunch posted Why Teens Aren’t Using Twitter: It Doesn’t Feel Safe. While I can understand why some are not, this is not the case. Anyone on Twitter witness the junk @dfizzy and his friends spread throughout Twitter, between June 5th through June 11th,2009.

Teens ARE using twitter, but in a way that Twitter was not intended. Instead of using it to talk with friends, it is to cause pointless shenanigans that were quite defamatory, like the #MileyisPregnant and quite a few other trending topics. In fact, it was a real lesson to these kids on the laws protecting people from defamation. I could care less about comScores. Remember, these surveys and usage scores are just a percentage. I had a recent encounter with an 11 year old girl on Facebook… yes… Facebook. I thought they had some laws about how old a user can be in their terms.

Teens may not use Twitter more out of cost if they use the text features. I have known people to remove their text option because their service providered said they were abusing their ‘unlimited’ text package. That was one thing I was shocked to hear.

Teens are using Twitter. You just have to open your eyes and see where they are that. Of course, Twitter is still in a place of going mainstream at this point, but it is noticeable to those who are huge Twitter addicts. As for the 15 year old kid who ‘interns at Morgan Stanley’ wrote why other kids do not talk about Twitter as a hot topic, is probably because he is not an average student. I think once school starts up again, I might visit the local high school in town and ask around to get a survey.

Do you see teens using Twitter regularly? How do you feel about teens that do use Twitter?

As much as I like Weblog Tools Collection, sometimes their articles are sorely lacking, which means they are not really looking at all of the possibilities. Case in point was their article, Tips For Troubleshooting Problems With WordPress. There are a lot of WordPress users. In fact, even though people should use the WordPress Support forums there are many different social networks that have people answering questions for WordPress.

No offense, but people can get free advice online, rather than call the WordPress Help Center. You can only get free advice via phone if your call is under 3 minutes!

Here are some places you can post your WordPress questions:

• WordPress group on Linkedin
• Trend topics on Twitter: WordPress, #wp, or even #wordpress

You can also go to several sites dedicated to helping WordPress users harness the features of their blog.

• WPRecipes
• WordPress Hacks
• WPEngineer
• WP Cult

Although it is great to call and get professional advice at a price if you are in dire need of getting your issue fixed right away, those who do not have the money, but are able to search out and fix their own issues should try all of the already wonderful information online first.

Have you tried the WordPress Help Center? What do you think about it? Are there other WordPress resource sites that you recommend?

I am disappointed… not the usual ‘kind of’, but full out disappointed. I recently saw a tweet go throw my stream from a user who was on TweeterAttack. Out of respect, I am not saying who did it. However, it was okay to friendly ‘buy’ your followers, but to attack them. Come on! After experiencing Mafia Wars and Sorority Life in both MySpace and Facebook, I know people are going to get personal if you tweet that you attacked them.

That is not cool. At least in those applications on the other social networks, you know that it is just a game (except for the few that get a bit psycho and do anything, including threatening your life…believe me, I have seen it.) However, with Twitter, all of these outside applications are not affiliated with Twitter. Twitter was originally dedicated for people to constructively connect with each other.

Applications to send roses or beers or some friendly item have been great to see, but to see one that attacks other tweeps – that is not being friendly. On top of that, the site is a follow train. In case you all were not aware, the twitter follow trains MIGHT work for a week, but you pretty much signed yourself up to an auto-spammer.

What do you think about such sites? Are there others that you are disturbed to see that are focused on attracting Twitter users?

I am a beta tester at DeviantArt. I thought since I have been there almost 5 years (username – pixvex), that it was time I jumped in and tried to give back. Although some of the policies that DeviantArt I do not agree with, I do like that people can share their artwork. Recently, DeviantArt posted a message in my inbox about Portfolios. Of course, right now they are in the beta stage, but I tried it out.

The portfolios allow you to load images outside your DeviantArt account or add from your account. You can also insert your resume and any information for potential clients to know like live links to previous work. One thing I found and I actually posted about it, was that you can only load certain sizes. This means you will have to enlarge your logos, if you are a person that creates logos.

Other things you get to do is register your own domain and point your domain to the servers that DeviantArt lists. Otherwise, you can use a custom subdomain URL. Mine is http://blondishnet.daportfolio.com/. As you can see it is very plain as you can only choose black or white. Also, the images in the screenshots area do not appear, and of course, I could not load my logos.

Needs a lot of work, and I think that since people pay already, they should get to customize their portfolio further with css. I really am not impressed. I am just going to continue on my plan to revamp my own portfolio. However, it did not hurt to at least check it out. At least I can give some credit for DeviantArt for trying, but I think something better can be done. I believe DeviantArt forgot what a portfolio was in the first place. A portfolio is a way to allow a person to put their work up for display with their best effort. These will not suffice as they are as plain as paper (sorry for the cliché.)

Would you like to be a beta for this project? If you would like to be a beta, you have to have a premium membership with DeviantArt. If you are already a beta there, have you tried portfolios out?

Computer security is important for everyone! As general of a statement, it is the truth. So many people still complain about their computers being hacked or they had obtained some anti-virus. Problem is, the scary part when I asked them if they had at least an anti-virus program, they said “Oh, I just go around and use trial versions.”

I always wanted to say “Wrong answer!”

Scarier than that, there are some that say they do not have anything!

Antivirus Software is important and trial versions will not cut it. Some trial versions or online scanners do not even remove all or sometimes any of your computer’s viruses. It makes the difference between having a computer or not having the computer, or saving yourself some money. It also saves time from taking it to a computer fix-it store or having to send your computer into the manufacturer.

I would recommend trying VIPRE Antivirus + Antispyware as it has a free trial offer time of 15 days, and if you like it, it is $29.95 to purchase a 1 year subscription. The anti-virus is built by Sunbelt Software and Download.com gave it 5 stars. So, it is worth the shot in trying to keep your PC clean.

What do you use for your anti-virus software?

I know it is a couple months old, but being me, some things need some cool off time, like why in the world is Yahoo! closing Geocities? Believe me, I did need the time. I had to go out of my way to go and download old files before I forgot. Being me, October 2009 would have rolled around and I would have lost some of my old writing.

I remember the days when I ran some Yahoo! Clubs (which has been Yahoo! Groups for close to a decade) and had some Geocities hosted website. The banner ads were obtrusive, but at that time, I was still learning web design and only cared that at least I had some space. I tried Freewebs (which is now just Webs.com) and even Homestead and Tripod.

A long time ago, when I joined Geocities, I had to join a certain ‘street’ and then park on a lot number. Later, Yahoo! allowed users to have their username in the URL. So many sites and yet Yahoo! is closing it. Unfortunately, the ‘award’ winner webhosting they offer is junk. I have seen more complaints than anything with their hosting. Is it because of Geocities? It is because of the economy and something had to be cut. Yahoo! does not give much of a reason in their Geocities help section on “Why is Geocities closing?”

On the other hand, they seem like authorities evacuating a toxic spill zone by redirecting them to other services. Not only that, Yahoo! 360 and Geocities! Plus (offered to their AT&T clients) are also closing. I just want to say – this is Yahell! (That is an old phrase.)

Is Geocities too much to handle or worthless to be bought by another company?