This is a summary of my social network activity for August 5th, which included 15 events:
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Lifestream Digest for August 5th
Aug052009
Time for Redesign
Aug052009
I’ve been threatening to do it for years, but I think it’s really time — time to redesign this site, for real. If what I have now (or will accomplish in the end) can be called ‘design’. Maybe it would be better to say ‘re-theme‘, so as to avoid ridicule from actual designers. And speaking of which, I’ll happily accept any design advice along the way!
So. Time to start over. I’m really going to do it this time. No more of this “one day…” stuff. In the next few days (by the beginning of next week), I will start with a fresh, unaltered theme, then I will customize it over time. As I go along, I’ll try to document the changes I make as much as possible (at least, as much as time and my poor memory will allow).
Lifestream Digest for August 3rd
Aug032009
This is a summary of my social network activity for August 3rd, which included 10 events:
Lifestream Digest for August 2nd
Aug022009
This is a summary of my social network activity for August 2nd, which included 5 events:
Lifestream Digest for August 1st
Aug012009
This is a summary of my social network activity for August 1st, which included 22 events:
Lifestream Digest for July 31st
Jul312009
This is a summary of my social network activity for July 31st, which included 25 events:
Lifestream Digest for July 30th
Jul302009
This is a summary of my social network activity for July 30th, which included 9 events:
WordPress Packages?
Jul302009
On my way to work recently, I was listing to a Drupal podcast (because I had already listened to all of my WordPress-related podcasts). The participants spent some time talking about something they called “Drupal Distributions”. This is a Drupal feature that lets a developer pre-package the Drupal CMS with a set of modules and settings to create a custom install tailored to a specific task.
Each distribution takes some set of Drupal themes and modules and packages them together with the Drupal core, along with custom installation steps, documentation, and so on. For example, one could create a distribution called “Drupal for Education”; it could have pre-configured roles and permissions for both teachers and students, and ship with additional modules that allow one to offer online courses and testing.
They went on to talk about various aspects of this feature, what was good, what still needed improvement, etc. I’m not terribly familiar with the inner-workings of Drupal, but it sounded like this feature is used to good effect, and that they had some really good ideas for how to make it better.
If you are a developer who sets up web sites for clients, then you can probably see how this would be useful. You probably have a favorite set of plugins that you typically install on your client sites. And you probably have to do it from scratch each time, installing and activitating the plugins, then visiting the settings pages and tweaking the default settings to your needs each time. There’s got to be a better way, right?
Analytics360 Plugin for WordPress
Jul142009
Last week, I linked to a video showing a preview of the analytics plugin for WordPress that MailChimp commissioned from Crowd Favorite. A lot of people were interested in it, so they’ll be happy to learn that I just got the word that the Analytics360 Plugin for WordPress is now available to all.
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- Analytics360 Stats Dashboard
I’ve installed it here, and since I’ve already been gathering Google Analytics stats on this site, it immediately showed me my current activity. Which brings up something that might need to be pointed out: this plugin is not for embedding the Google Analytics tracking code into your site, it’s for giving you access to your stats from the WordPress Dashboard. You’ll have to add tracking code separately (there are several plugins available for this).
And, of course, if you happen to be a MailChimp customer, in addition to information about your blog posts, you’ll also get info about how your email campaigns affect your site traffic. Bonus! If you haven’t already, I highly recommend watching the video in my previous post.
I’m looking forward to seeing what people think about this plugin, and how they compare it to other offerings.
WordPress + MailChimp + Analytics = Awesomeness
Jul082009
This video shows a new WordPress plugin, coming soon available now, which will integrate Google Analytics stats for your blog and your MailChimp email campaigns, right inside WordPress. Even if you don’t use MailChimp for sending out email newsletters, you’ll still be able to use the plugin for your Google Analytics stats (though I think you’ll have to register for a free MailChimp API key correction: I’ve just been informed that the plugin will not require a MailChimp account, except, obviously, if you want to tie in your MailChimp email campaign analytics).
Disclaimer: I had nothing to do with writing the plugin, but MailChimp is my employer.