• A Plan My Visit Section with the latest exhibitions, an interactive map, and a quiz that will help point you in the right direction
• Up-to-date information on Planetarium shows, upcoming gallery changes, and our temporary exhibits
• Take a sneak peek in our vaults – there’s a new collections database with over 700 treasures on display
• A special section for teachers
• Podcasts, blogs and videos!

A Sharing Widget is a small graphical element placed within the markup of a hypertext file that enables users to share content and information resources with the community, in conjunction with a third-party site or social networking application platform like Facebook or MySpace.

For instance, the ShareThis Widget enables the user to share the content of a page (or a component of a page) with friends on social networking sites like MySpace and Facebook. In doing this, this widget (or gadget, as widgets are sometimes referred to) acts as a bridge between the content of a given site, and the backend application platforms supported by the widget, abstracting out the complexity of the application platform from the user application.

When

Provide as sharing widget in contexts where the user may wish to directly send a pointer, invite someone to view something, or add a copy of or reference to something to a shared or public space they own or have access to.

For direct sending, a user might just as well opt to copy and paste a link into an ordinary email message. This meets the user’s needs and benefits the community but the behavior will not be trackable by the system and thus the system won’t be able to learn from this. It’s important not to hinder the user but be aware that if the sharing widget doesn’t provide any utility beyond traditional email then there’s little reason for users to adopt it. (With users who aren’t technically savvy, however, saving them from having to manipulate urls and other computer-istic text strings may be value enough to warrant use of the widget.)

By far the primary form of sharing is direct sending. Secondary forms of sharing (such as IM, SMS/text message, Facebook, etc. when included but should be secondary within the sharing drop down.

When users are logged-in, you can prepopulate the sharing form with their information and give them contact-list or address-book access with autocomplete in the recipient field of the form.

How

Provide a button or link labeled Share or Send or something similar.

When the user invokes the button, display an overlay form with sending and sharing options, which can behave as individual “tabbed” areas in the form. Optionally include other object utilities, such as “print” in this same context.

Add To Any offers an extensible Share This widget for embedding on sites.

Users have come to expect thee sorts of conveniences for grabbing and sharing content. (Remember, everyone is overwhelmed with information and reminders to revisit or share information. If a user can send or share content on impulse with immediate gratification, it is much more likely they will take the action and learn to expect to be able to do so.

http://codex.wordpress.org/WordPress Lessons

Here are a few important tips from our developers:

Tip #1 - Use Firefox

This is the best browser to use for both viewing sites, online security and editing your Wordpress site. Some browsers have funny quirks and can cause a few headaches (Safari). We recommend Firefox as the best browser to ensure that you can edit your site with the least amount of difficulty. And great news, it’s a free download and easy to install!  GO TO: http://en-us.www.mozilla.com/en-US/

Tip #2 - Avoid Pasting in Pre-Formatted Text

Strip out your formatting before pasting your new text into your Wordpress pages.

Make sure when you paste new type in that you use the “HTML” tab to paste in your copy … not the “visual” tab. Once you have pasted it in you can then go into the visual side of things to format the type. It’s very important that you do not copy styles over from word or other documents as then your site starts to look as if it was not designed at all! If you use the formats that we have set up in your style sheets (drop down headlines etc) your site will look much better.

Tip #3 - Multiple Pages

Do you write articles that seem to go on forever? This feature will help you break up your content. By clicking the “more” button in the visual editor where you want to break your text, you will break up your content into multiple pages.  Simply click the “more” whenever you want to start another new page.

Be sure to click on the next page!
Pages: 1 2 3 4

Tip #4 - Uploading and Styling Images

WordPress makes it easy for you to add images to your WordPress site. You can upload them directly from within WordPress by using the built-in file uploading utility in the post or page screen.

Styling Images in WordPress: Current versions of WordPress now have image alignment built-in. WordPress adds CSS classes to align the image to the right, left, and center of a paragraph, so the text will wrap around the image.

Image Size and Quality: The size and quality of an image for use on a web page is determined by a variety of things.

Physical Size: The physical size of an image is based upon two things: The size of the image on the screen and the file size. Generally, the file size is treated as a different issue.

File Size: This is the size of the file on your hard drive or server.

Resolution: Resolution refers to the number of pixels in an image. Resolution is sometimes identified by the width and height of the image as well as the total number of pixels in the image.

File Type: There are basically X image types popularly found on the Internet: jpeg,gif,png and (for favicons (the icons next to the address)) ico.

The physical size of the image is information we need to know in order to determine how much “space” will the image occupy on a web page. If your WordPress Theme features a fixed width content area of 600 pixels and the image you want to use is 800, the image will push the sidebar and layout of your web page around, messing up your design. Images within that 600 pixel width need to be restricted to that maximum width in order to protect the layout of your page. It’s up to you to determine what size they should be from there, matching the image to your overall layout and styles.

File size dictates the time it takes to load your page, the larger the file size, often increased because of a high image resolution quality, the longer it will take to load. People often don’t have the patience to wait through long web page loads, so keeping your file sizes low speeds up your web page access times. Typically, large high quality images should be kept between 100K and 60K. Smaller images should be closer to 30K and lower.

The resolution of the image dictates its clarity. The higher the resolution, though, the larger the file size, so you have to make a compromise between quality and file size.

Luckily, the various file types most commonly used on the Internet have compression features. When you save the file as one of these types, it condenses or compresses the data information in the image file. Internet browsers can decompress this information to display the image on the screen. Some graphic software programs allow you to set the compression rate to control the quality of the image (and file size) at the time you save it. Depending upon your use of the images on your site, you may have to experiment with this to get the right ratio that keeps the resolution quality good while maintaining a small file size.

Websites use four common file types. The end of a filename (called the extension) tells what type it is. One type, ico, is to make a favicon file - but this is usually only done when a website is first set up. The other three types are used for general images:

• jpg (JPEG) is good for photographs. Saving a photo as jpg removes detail from the photo. Good photo editors let you control how much detail is removed (the “compression”). Different photos need different compression; doing this carefully and viewing the result can give you a usable photo with a small file size.
• gif can be poor for photographs. It’s better for line art, like logos, with solid areas of the same color.
• png is for both photographs and line art. It compresses photos without losing detail, but usually makes larger photo files than JPEGs. Some older browsers don’t completely support png, though.

If you aren’t sure which file type is best for a particular image, try saving the image in more than one type and comparing the file sizes. Using the right type can make a big difference! There’s more information in Sitepoint’s GIF-JPG-PNG What’s the Difference article.

Resizing Images: Not all graphic software packages allow you to resize images, though most should. Check your graphics software table of contents or index for resize, size, transform, reduce, or enlarge, all synonyms for the for the same thing. If they don’t have the feature, you may have to find different software.

There are two methods:

1. You can resize an image through the use of tools provided which allow you to manually shift the edges of an image to deform or resize the image. The best way is to grab a corner, not the edge, to resize the image. The corner “handle” will usually resize the image maintaining the overall height-width ratio. Check your manual for specific instructions.
2. The other method involves simply specifying the image’s final size. The advanced graphics programs allow you to set it by exact dimensions or a percentage of reduction or enlargement.

After resizing the image, the image may be smaller, but it may also be slightly out of focus. You can sharpen the focus of the small image by using the sharpen feature in your software.

When you have fine-tuned your small sized image or new thumbnail, export the image as a jpg, gif, or png.

www.chicgamine.com

View full article here.

When thinking of branding, most people conjure images of iconic brands such as Apple, Rolex or McDonald’s. Branding, however, is essential to business ventures of all sizes, backgrounds and philosophies—even the Winnipeg Folk Festival, a bastion for hippies, acoustic guitars and feelin’ grooooooovy.

The annual four-day extravaganza, one of North America’s premier outdoor music events for the last 35 years, recently brought its website into the 21st century thanks to a US$ 100,000 gift of technology from an ex-patriate Winnipegger.

PassAlong Networks, a Nashville-based media distribution developer run by Dave Jaworski—a former deejay at the University of Manitoba radio station in the 1970s and long-time fan of the Folk Fest, as it’s commonly known—provides the Internet infrastructure, e-commerce interface, catalogue of songs and the album art for the site.

The idea is to promote and sell CDs by the many artists who perform each July at the Folk Fest while providing an income stream for the not-for-profit charitable organization. The prices range from 33 cents to US$ 1.29 per song, with the vast majority set at 99 cents each. The Folk Fest receives one dime for every song sold through the site.

PassAlong’s total music catalogue has more than three million songs from artists such as Madonna, Coldplay, The Guess Who and The Tragically Hip.

The Folk Fest prides itself on the eclectic list of performers who grace its main stage, secondary stages and participate in other events, such as songwriters’ circles, each year. Artists from all over the world travel to Birds Hill Provincial Park, just a few miles north of Winnipeg, Manitoba, on the second weekend of July.

While event organizers prefer to focus on the many folk legends, such as Pete Seeger, or performers who come as unknowns, such as the Undertakin’ Daddies, it’s impossible to ignore some of the big-name artists that have performed there. They include Ray Davies, lead singer of British Invasion group The Kinks, the Barenaked Ladies, Ladysmith Black Mambazo, Burton Cummings, former lead singer of The Guess Who, as well as Canadian radio favorites Blue Rodeo, Crash Test Dummies, Spirit of the West and Cowboy Junkies.

The site also does its best to promote folk, roots and indie artists who don’t have access to the kind of publicity machines common to mainstream bands and singers. Clicking on the “featured artist” takes surfers to a page with a brief biography of the artist, including their history, recent recordings and upcoming concerts. One more click and you can listen to a selection of their music or buy it online. There are also links to their Facebook and MySpace websites.

Winnipeg Folk Festival - amped PassAlong has also made two other technological elements available to the Folk Fest’s site. The first is an OnTour widget that can be downloaded to your computer. It scans the music files already on your hard drive and lets you know when those artists will be performing in the area.

The second is called ROSTR, a feature that will enable the Folk Fest to compile set playlists of artists who have performed at the festival since 1974.

Of course, the site contains the expected information about next year’s festival—a daily countdown is prominently featured—and will include bios on the performers once the lineup starts to come together in the spring.

A symbolic sign that the Folk Festival’s site has entered the electric age is its eight volume-dial icons, the kind you’d see on an amplifier, which provide information on concerts and events, its retail store, visual arts and crafts, and volunteering.

But the Folk Fest has become much more than a one-event pony. Under its concerts and events icon, it lists upcoming performances during the other 361 days of the year by bands and artists who have performed at previous Folk Fests. The news icon displays announcements and stories about those same artists.

Furthermore, the site drives traffic to the Folk Fest’s bricks and mortar music store in downtown Winnipeg, where “discerning music lovers” can get their fix of world, folk, celtic, blues, bluegrass, country, alternative and everything in-between. The store also sells tickets to the Folk Fest itself and to The Folk Exchange, the Festival’s intimate concert venue in the heart of the city’s historic Exchange District.

Anyone who has attended the Folk Fest knows it’s as anti-mainstream an event as you can get. Hundreds and hundreds of people camp out for the weekend, resulting in countless campsite minstrels leading impromptu sing-alongs. But it still requires corporate and volunteer support to be a success. The site solicits the 2,200 volunteers that donate their time and showcases the dozens of companies that write checks to the Folk Fest each year.

The number of companies, both big and small, listed as sponsors demonstrates how widespread and popular an event the Folk Fest has become. The list includes multinationals such as Canwest Global Communications, dominant players in the provincial economy such as Manitoba Hydro and mom-and-pop shops such as Tall Grass Prairie Bread Company.

The Winnipeg Folk Fest is indeed a brand of its own—one that embraces both the artistic spirit of musicians and music lovers alongside the business realities of running a major event and promoting bands and their music. And the website, both artful and efficient, fully represents the brand online.

Renée Alexander is a freelance business and lifestyle writer based in Winnipeg, Canada.
Ot

1. Where did you hear about us?
2. Do you have a domain name? If not, do you have ideas on one? If so, what is it?
3. What is your company name? Do you want to use the entire name on the site, logo, and graphics?
4. Do you have special features in mind like ECommerce shopping cart, BLOG, RSS, Forms with emails, EZine, Newsletter signup, autoresponders, advertising landing/call-to-action pages, etc.?

MARKETING

1. Who is your intended audience? Are they regional, industry specific, company size specific, etc.?
2. Do you intend to provide a call to action - make a sale, call in to your office, fill out a form, etc?
3. Describe your ideal client and the specific attributes that we’ll be targeting in the website.
4. What are your website expectations, main emphasis and primary goals - increased sales, increased leads, etc.? Please prioritize.
5. What separates your company from your competition and what do you expect will draw clients to the website?
6. How do you plan to market the website?
7. What company properties do you want to emphasize on the website? Please prioritize.

IDENTITY

1. Do you already have a logo and other graphics to be used? If not, do you want to have one created?
2. Have you identified a tagline? That would be something like “Just do it”, “Reach out and touch someone”, etc.
3. What keywords do you want to be found by in the search engines?

LAYOUT

1. Please provide a list of websites that you like and don’t like. Why do you or do you not like these sites?
2. Please provide a list of competitors websites.
3. Do you have ideas of the colors to be used, and colors you don’t like? Please provide example sites.
4. Do you have an intended website screen size - 1024×768, 800×600, or stretch to the entire width of the screen?
5. If the site isn’t the entire width of the screen do you have a preference for left or center alignment?
6. Do you have a horizontal or left-side vertical preference for the main navigation?
7. Please provide the main pages you need in the website.
8. Have you created the copy text for any of your pages?
9. Do you have existing business cards or other printed material we need to match?
10. Are you leaning towards custom drawn artwork or photographs?

POST-CONTRACT

1. Once we start designing the website we’ll need the following (Note that this information will be kept in strict confidence):
2. a. FTP access information - username and password
   b. Hosting company and their tech support phone number

Getting a high ranked in Google is different from being indexed by the Google Spider - GoogleBot. You might have been indexed by Google but your site might be one of hundreds of thousands in connection with your keywords and you might not appear in the first 10 pages (beyond which you can safely assume no one will seriously search).

This is mainly because Google looks at the quality of the web pages linking to each site to obtain the most relevant search results. Thus more than link popularity, link qualityis what matters to Google. In fact this is the single best way to get ranked with all “crawler” based search engines. Build your site links by promoting your site pages to as many relevant portals that accept external links - especially those with top ranking in Google. You can also get into link exchanges with top sites in google that have a good ranking (provided you keep a track of these sites in case they do more harm than good). Google gives a different rank for each of your pages so it is important to optimize your whole web site.

You need to also make sure you have valuable content for Google searchers. What you can do is, concentrate on keywords (or rather key phrases) that is unique to your content. This will also ensure that you get more targeted visitors from Google.

Submit your Site to Google for Free

Submitting your site to Google is very easy and absolutely free. All you need to do is submit your home page URL to Google and your whole site will be indexed. Click to Submit your site to Google (Please note that for a new site Google can take up to 3-6 months to improve your ranking after it initially indexes it, so instead of worrying about why your ranking is low, you can use this time to optimize and promote your website).

Tips on Google Search Engine Optimization for your web site

• Build quality links to your site pages from other well ranked sites on Google.
• Make sure you provide quality content that have something unique to offer and that have keywords or key phrases people might search to find your site in Google.
• Optimize you web site pages by making sure your top keywords appear in your title, meta tags and content.
• If you sell products, give something away free (The word “free” is one of the top most searched words on the internet).
• Keep a track of your listings/ranking in Google and analyze it periodically. Some google tips on this: Indexed Pages: To know which pages on your site are listed in the google and to see how they will appear to google searchers type site:www.yourdomainname.extnin the google search box.
  Link Popularity: To keep a track of sites that link to you (and also see their google page rank), type link:www.yourdomainname.extn in the google search box. 

Scrolling isn’t the make or break of a page. Use it to your advantage, and you’ll have a site that seems almost intuitive. Research continues to shows – users have no trouble scrolling, as long as the page is designed to accommodate it.

If our clients are finding their users aren’t scrolling, we suggest they look for a reason beyond “Users don’t expect to scroll” and see if maybe the design of the page is preventing it. By going for that cut-off look, they might find their users are suddenly happy to scroll. In other words, if it is evident to users there is more content - they will scroll.

We recently launched a site for River Trail (www.rivertrail.ca). We wanted to give the user the experience of skating down the river visiting the various activities along the way - so we developed this site using one long scroll - adding a few helpful links here and there to help navigate people up and down the page. It’s an outside the box way of scrolling used effectively.

Popular sites use wordpress to!

Here is a shortlist of popular sites that use wordpress:

- Alejandro Escovedo - http://www.alejandroescovedo.com
- Andy Roddick (Tennis) - http://www.andyroddick.com/
- Bob Rici - http://community.bobricci.com/
- Bjork’s Volta Tour blog - http://blog.bjork.com/
- Cardinal Sean (Boston) http://www.cardinalseansblog.org/
- Cassie - http://cassie.ns4life.com/
- Cherie Priest - http://cheriepriest.com/
- Colbert Report - http://colbertnation.com/ (looks fake but look at copyright)
- Davezilla - http://davezilla.com/
- Greg Brady Project - http://www.thegregbradyproject.com/
- I Can Has Cheez Burger - http://icanhascheezburger.com/
- John August (Go, Big Fish, The Nines) - http://johnaugust.com/
- Kevin Smith - http://silentbobspeaks.com/
- Kineda - http://www.kineda.com
- Late Night Live - http://www.latenightlivetimor.net/
- MTV Battle of the Videos - http://mtvbattleofthevideos.com/
- MTV Buzz Worthy - http://buzzworthy.mtv.com/
- Olyoo - Olympic Peninsula - http://olyoo.com/
- Paws and Effect - http://paws-and-effect.com/
- Pearl Jam - http://pearljam.com/
- Perez Hilton - http://perezhilton.com/
- Roger Staubach - http://roger.staubach.com/
- Rosie O’Donnell - http://rosie.com/
- San Diego Zoo - http://sandiegozoo.org/wordpress/
- Sony BMG Sweden - http://sonybmg.se/
- Stephen Fry - http://stephenfry.com/blog/
- Thomas Dolby - http://blog.thomasdolby.com/
- VH1 - http://www.bestweekever.tv/