Mister Nifty » Blogging

Website Content Transgressions

Brian Fegter — Mon, 27 Dec 2010 16:31:26 +0000

Here are a couple of my pet-peeves when viewing a website:

Under Construction

I don’t know a soul that enjoys driving through construction on the highway, so why are labeling your website as a construction zone? You see the big picture vision for your website, your viewers only see what you post. If you have an idea for a certain page, but haven’t developed the content yet, no one will ever know your intentions if the page doesn’t exist. It fairs much better for your website if you have the skeleton structure of information rather than an empty shell of your future vision tagged by “Under Construction” and maybe a cheesy animation image. The rule-of-thumb here is if you don’t have anything to deliver content-wise, do not create a page as a placeholder.

There are some things “Under Construction” communicates to your audience:

Disorganization
Lack of Professionalism
Inexperience
Lack of vision
Lack of follow-through
Laziness

I would rather see a website with minimal pages that have relevant content, than see a huge page structure with no content meat. Is your website a ghost-town with undeveloped content areas? If so, get rid of the slack and focus on a few pages that communicate effectively to your audience. Chances are if your audience sees “Under Construction” they won’t be returning anytime soon.

Lack of Legibility

RULE 1: DO NOT TYPE EVERYTHING IN CAPS. THIS MEANS YOU ARE SCREAMING OR JUST IGNORANT OF ETIQUETTE.

Rule 2: Heading Styles are used to denote organizational points. They should not be used to write entire paragraphs. Most viewers are accustomed to reading blocks of text in 12-14pt font sizes. Check out major websites, newspapers, and magazines and follow their template of headings and paragraph styles.

Rule 3: Italics and BOLD are used to emphasize small portions of content, not entire paragraphs.

Rule 4: Place line breaks every three to four sentences. Your English teacher will be proud of you, plus your viewers will be more apt to read your content if it’s broken up in intelligible blocks. Remember reading the Sunday funnies in your local newspaper as a kid. You always scanned for the quick, easy reads rather than the adult-targeted comics with a paragraph per frame. In the information age, viewers want to be able to extrapolate your message quickly. Make it easy for them to follow your train-of-thought with line breaks.

Rule 5: Make sure your content color is contrasted to the background color of the page. Making your viewers squint to read your message is not a good way to keep them on your website. Also, some viewers may have a disability with their vision. You can read about making your website accessible to disabled viewers here.

Rule 5: Stay consistent. If you use a font style and size on one page, use it globally on every page. If you are in charge of your church’s website and are not familiar with CSS (Cascading Style Sheets), it is imperative that you learn immediately. CSS sets the styling standards for you website so you stay consistent across the board.

Conclusion

These are a few things that bother me especially when looking at church websites. By shoring up these few details, the message will be much more pronounced and effective. If you need help or you want to add to this list, leave a comment below.

Website Content Transgressions is a post from: Mister Nifty

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Set Up Your Own Twitter-like Communication Portal

Brian Fegter — Mon, 12 Oct 2009 21:28:42 +0000

If you’ve read my posts, you know I’m a huge WordPress fan. For those who don’t know what WordPress is, check it out at WordPress.org. One of the latest themes that has caught my attention is the P2 theme that turns WordPress into a Twitter-like interface. It’s a great way for your team to communicate and post items of interest in real-time on the web. When a user posts, it automatically updates on the post list of everyone who’s viewing the site. Users can reply up to five levels depending on your configuration. Here’s how I got my own installed and working.

Install WordPress

Install WordPress – I used a subdomain (http://team.mydomain.com) Most hosting companies have a One-Click application installer so you don’t have to mess with setting up a database or ugly FTP interfaces. All you have to do is fill out a simple form where you want WordPress installed, give it a few minutes, and viola, it’s up-and-running.

Install the P2 Theme

Log in to the admin interface (http://team.mydomain.com/wp-admin/) and go to Appearance->Add New Themes
Search for “P2″ in the search box and install the theme.
Activate the theme under Appearance->Themes
If you have problems, download the theme files to your computer and upload them to your WP directory using an FTP client.

Make your WordPress Private

You probably don’t want the world reading your posts, so let’s make your WordPress private. Go to Plugins->Add New
Search for Private WordPress and install the plugin (Install button is to the right of the search results table)
Make sure Private WordPress is activated under Plugins->Installed

Setup Your Preferences

Go to Settings->General and give your portal a name and description.
Go to Settings->Reading and enter the number of posts you want to appear on each page under: “Blog pages show at most”
Go to Settings->Discussion and enable threaded nested comments (Choose how many levels you desire – this is basically how many levels down people can comment on other’s comments)
- To keep non-users from commenting, check “Users must be registered and logged in to comment”
- Un-check “An administrator must always approve the comment” and “Comment author must have a previously approved comment

Force Posted Links to Open In New Pages

Go to Plugins->Add New and search for “Target Blank In Posts And Comments”
Install and activate this plugin. The functions will work automatically without any additional settings.

Add Your Team Members

Go to Users->Add New Create profiles for your team members. Assign them the role of author so they can only edit their own posts. To assign a moderator, give them a role of administrator, or editor.
Team members can have their own personalized user icon by registering the same email address in their profile at: http://gravatar.com This is a universally recognized avatar that will work on any site they use the registered email address on.

Install Additional Features

Try installing other plugins for added functionality.
Allow users to be notified of additional comments with the plugin “Subscribe To Comments”
There are dozens of YouTube plugins that allow users to embed videos right in their posts.

Set Up Your Own Twitter-like Communication Portal is a post from: Mister Nifty

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Free WordPress SMS plugin from Mister Nifty

Brian Fegter — Sat, 13 Dec 2008 23:44:06 +0000

Due to the expansion of my family and the lack of financial resources to sustain this project, support is discontinued. If you would like to take over this project, please let me know. Thanks!

I’m very excited to announce the latest version of my new plugin for WordPress. EasySMS installs right into the back-end admin panel and a simple sidebar form installs by dragging and dropping the widget on your sidebar. Once people start subscribing, you can categorize them in groups and send SMS messages right from WordPress. Another cool feature is automatic SMS messages broadcast your lastest post (optional). I’m very excited about the possibilities for churches to keep in touch with their congregations and leaders right from their websites! The best part is it is FREE for the taking. So, what are you waiting for? Go over and grab yourself some Mister Nifty goodness for your website. If you don’t have a WordPress site, we feel sorry for you. Go get yourself one for free! http://www.wordpress.org

Download EasySMS here

Features:

*   Owner Verification of cell phones with unsubscribe feature
*   AJAX sidebar widget form with custom title and terms of agreement.
*   Subscriber groups
*   Track how many SMS message have been sent to each subscriber.
*   Auto-notification of new posts to subscribers (optional)
*   Custom text messages from admins only
*   Message preview before sending SMS
*   80 default carriers
*   Delete/Add/Edit and Carriers
*   Edit/Delete Subscribers
*   WP Administration compatible interface.
*   Stats snapshot on dashboard.
*   New subscriber notification. (optional)

Screenshots

Sidebar Form

Send SMS

Carrier Table

Groups Table

Subscriber Groups

Settings

Free WordPress SMS plugin from Mister Nifty is a post from: Mister Nifty

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What? You don’t have a blog?

Brian Fegter — Tue, 01 Jul 2008 16:26:48 +0000

Ok, you’ve been making excuses for too long. I don’t understand the software. I don’t have time to manage a website. I am not a programmer. I don’t know how to set up a blog….blah blah blah. Excuses are over for getting your personal expression out on the web with Posterous. This is one nifty blogging tool. You don’t have to have any experience with web software. You don’t even have to sign up for an account. All you have to do to set up your blog is email post@posterous.com
with your first post and they will set it up for you. Then you can login, edit your profile, your site title and then log off. The way you post is by sending an email. Anyone can do that. You can attach photos to your email, copy and paste photo or video links from the web and they automatically do the rest for you. If you have more than one photo, they even create a nifty little gallery for your post. So, no more excuses, get to posting.

Uses for ministry: Pastor’s blog/updates, leadership journals, youth ministry website, church updates/announcements, and the list goes on and on… Check out the posterous I set up at: http://brianfegter.posterous.com

What? You don’t have a blog? is a post from: Mister Nifty