I just finished another of my ‘senior’ courses (Instructional Design) about two weeks ago now and, through the class, I finally got a jump on the multimedia tutorial series I’ve wanted to work on since before I got Authentic Vision’s WebWorks up and running. I highly doubt the next ones will be Flash-based, but I do plan to update the WordPress tutorials I’ve done so far and add more as I can.

Meanwhile, here’s an introduction to the WordPress blogging platform, the ‘New Post’ page, a dash of HTML, and a good start to search engine optimization: Click here to view or right click and ‘Save As’ to download for later use.

So I’m in the process of reskinning one of our sister sites, Planet Zoron. This involves lots of nastiness – nitty gritty local server setups that don’t want to work the first 4 times (and ways!) tried. And, once that’s done, trying to work out the graphic in a way that a tutorial says will work.

Me, of course…it takes me time…I suffer from ADD, OCD, occasional dyslexia, and flat out airheadedness! A day of working off and on over about 8 hours (all told) I was about ready to pull out my hair and give in. But when I finally put together that last tiny piece of the puzzle…It’s just too hard to not brag about it and share how I did it!

Now, for those of you I’m working for (the select few I do, anyway) – if you want it, let me know when next your site is called for a redesign! LOL For the rest of you who might be coding or want to – those of you know you’re at least this brave and handy with image editing – here’s an awesome tutorial for doing rollover menus with CSS instead of Javascript!

CSS Image Rollover Tutorial on WebVamp.

I have a slightly dated article back here that has some information relevant to processing your pictures before putting them on your website. Seven months later, I’ve decided to go ahead and actually write the Part 2 to all that – working with images in WordPress!

Let it be known, however, that I only endorse their editing tools for smaller jobs and easily updating your previously uploaded images should your sizing requirements change. It’s easier and far more efficient to edit lots of pictures offline then upload!

On to the Finale!

I wasn’t feeling any sort of inclination to mess with school last night so I decided I’d just go ahead start working on passing one more gem of knowledge on to the world at large: HTML Snippets I Think Every Blogger (and ‘Multimedia Designer‘) Should Know But Don’t.

Sure, push button editing of any sort seems ‘cool,’ and is supposed to make stuff easy but if you’re serious about writing out here on the Wild Wild Web (or coding it up) and being effective, you have to know some basics. Obviously, the book I mentioned before (and now over there —>) is one way to go about it but all you writers don’t need to get that in depth, especially if you’re working with WordPress and/or have me runnin thangs. For any up and coming code Geeks – please do yourself a favor and learn this stuff before you dive head-first into adoration and worship of Adobe’s ‘tools!’

But enough preaching!

For members of the Tribe and others who might be interested, here’s one of a series of tutorials I’m working on to help WordPress initiates get on their way to content publishing.

It’s long so I’m hiding it back here!

So yeah, things have been pretty quiet around here. (Lots of other stuff going on as most of ya’ll know.)

Anyway, I’ve made a goal for myself: to pick a bookmark a day (I have LOTS) and do something with it. Thanks to a project at school, I ended up stumbling across The Top 10 Search Engine Optimization Tips and wanted to share it here.

Read the article.

I figure, since I’m in such a productive mood (and CDBaby’s email list kicks ass) I’d share an article with some tips on making SEO-friendly links.

Turning ‘click here‘ into something like ‘learn how to make SEO-friendly links from CDBaby‘ can score some major points – both with visitors AND with Google! Learn how NOW!

(All tongue in cheek of course but very good advice for those who, like me, rely on such things!;)

I’ve written several ‘tutorials’ in my years as a WordPress geek but, until recently, it never occurred to me that it would be beneficial to everybody else (and easier on me) to just throw them out here instead of writing up a customized email for the client over and over again!

I’ve had the pleasure of coding up a design for forget.me.knot.weddings (beautiful site – AV endorsed!) and, as a result, want to share some tips and tricks for editing images. (A part two – using them in WordPress – will be coming soon!)

This is actually the second tutorial I’ve done up in recent months (no clue what happened to all my originals) but I promise the first will be posted as soon as I get it edited!

-donning my specs- Down to business!