2011 in review

The WordPress.com stats helper monkeys prepared a 2011 annual report for this blog.

Here’s an excerpt:

A San Francisco cable car holds 60 people. This blog was viewed about 2,200 times in 2011. If it were a cable car, it would take about 37 trips to carry that many people.

Click here to see the complete report.

Filed under: Wordpress

360 Panoramic Lens for iPhone – New Kickstarter Project

I came across this new Kickstarter project for a 360 Panoramic Lens that allows you to take 360 interactive video on your iPhone 4. A $50 pledge gets you on of the products if the project gets fully funded.

I could see making use of something like this for my Places LA videos where I try to make viewers feel as if they are actually at the location.

What could you do with a lens like this? Let me know in the comments.

 

Watch Demo Video

(Via CrunchGear.com)

Filed under: Elsewhere, Hardware, iPhone, New Media, Software, Technology, Wordpress

Question: WordPress — Is it hype?

This post originally appeared in Careers in New Media…

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NMI Founder, Douglas E. Welch, gets a lot of questions every day and here is a one from today…

• Q: Seth Godin uses TypePad. Is WordPress hyped VS a Reg. Website and using Typepad as your blog platform? I like WP but seems like it has to be watched like a hawk for it not to freeze up or slow down. What will this cost me in WP maintenence fees.
• A: Hmmm, is WordPress hyped? I don’t think so. It does what I need it to do. There is certainly some personal choice and preference involved. I don’t use TypePad myself, but many people seem to, so it must have something going for it.

  I find WordPress easy to maintain and manage and the number of plugins available for it make it quite extensible, even for someone like me who really isn’t a programmer, although technology-savvy. I do like having my own install of WordPress on my own web host, as opposed to having my blog hosted elsewhere — at least for my own personal blogs. I do use WordPress.com extensively for other, shared project blogs, though. I even have one blog still hosted at Blogger.com, where I started.

  Speed is more a function of your web host and the number of plugins/features you have installed on your WordPress site. As with anything, installing too much cruft can slow it down. I find that the amount of traffic you have is more a concern than the actual software though. WordPress has caching plugins available to help in high-load environments., though, so that can help if you have a really popular web site.

  I don’t find I have to “watch it like a hawk” to keep it running. In fact, I don’t think I have ever had a problem with WordPress other than those I have caused myself through badly configured plugins or themes. You should be able to maintain WordPress by yourself, as typically it only involves clicking a few buttons and waiting for the upgrade. In fact, I always recommend that bloggers know how to control and maintain their own blogs, rather than relying on someone else — especially if that person is charging by the hour for basic maintenance.

  The new automated upgrade utilities built into WordPress make it almost a plug and play environment. Most web hosts have a one/two-click install for WordPress, making it even easier.

  Overall, I like WordPress, both self-hosted and hosted at WordPress.com. It serves me well and I regularly recommend it to others.
  

Do you have a question? Why not drop me a line? Use the Comments link above, send email to me@douglasewelch.com or call the voice mail line at 818-804-5049

Filed under: Elsewhere, Member, New Media, Opinion, Question and Answer, Software, Wordpress

Question: How do I make automatic backups of my WordPress blog database?

This post originally appeared in Careers in New Media…

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NMI Founder, Douglas E. Welch gets lots of New Media questions every day and here is a one from today…

• Q: How do I easily backup my WordPress database (the file that holds all your posts, comments, etc). Why should you backup your WordPress Database? If not, am I in danger of losing all my blog posts due to hacking, upgrade issues or other technical mistakes?.
• A: Yes, failing to backup your WordPress database could lead to the loss of all your blog content if there is an issue. There are a variety of ways to backup your WordPress database. The usual method is to use the database manager page at your web host’s site to manually run a backup to a text file and then download the text file. Doesn’t sound very easy or fun, does it. When I switched over to WordPress a few years ago I was determined to find an easier, and more automatic way, to do backups.

  Enter WordPress Database Backup, a free WordPress plugin available from austinmatzko.com.

  On each of your self-hosted WordPress blogs, download and install this plugin and then activate it via the WordPress Dashboard. Once installed, you can force an immediate backup that can be downloaded to your local computer or, and I prefer this method, an automatic backup which wakes up and then emails the backup file. I keep a separate Gmail account just for this purpose.

  Now, whenever there is a WordPress upgrade, I check to make sure there was a recent automatic backup and then proceed with the upgrade, secure in the knowledge that all my content is safe.
  

Do you have a question? Why not drop Douglas a line? Use the Comments link above, send email to me@douglasewelch.com or call the voice mail line at 818-804-5049.

Filed under: Elsewhere, Member, New Media, Question and Answer, Real World Example, Wordpress

Audio: WordPress.com adds posting by Audio

WordPress.com has added audio posting to your blogs. Here is a sample.

For more information, read the WordPress.com blog post announcing this feature.

Filed under: Audio, Software, Technology, Wordpress

Upgrade WordPress to 2.9.2

Keeping your self-hosted WordPress blogs up to very important to prevent technical issues and to close security holes that have been discovered. WordPress.com users don’t need to concern themselves with these upgrades as WordPress.com handles that internally for all its users.

I just completed the upgrade on 4 of my WordPress sites with no problems. I use the automatic upgrade feature built into WordPress which basically consists of pushing a button.

Log into you WordPress sites today and keep them upgraded for trouble free operation.

Filed under: New Media Tips, News, Software, Technology, Wordpress