2.  Go to your post or page  and type the words you want linked to the email address (like: email us HERE.)

3.  Highlight the words and click on the “Insert hyperlink” icon.

4.  Insert the email address like this:

mailto:john@aol.com

5.  Click insert and save your post or page.

1.  Save your document to your desktop.

2.  Go into the post or page you want it in

3.  Click on the “add an image” icon next to Upload/Insert.

4.  Upload the pdf document.

5.  Scroll down to where it says “file url” and copy the file url.

6.  Return to your post or page.

7. Type the title of the document.

8.  Highlight the title and click on the “insert hyperlink” icon.

9.  Paste the file url that you copied into the link.

10. Select “open in new tab” and insert.

11.  Save the post or page.

This happens a lot and here is the most likely fix.  Log into your dashboard and go to cForms and go to the “Form Settings” area.  There is a little box at the top that is checked and says “Ajax Enabled.”  Uncheck the box and update.  That’s all.  Try it.  It works…

Here’s the biggest problem that we’re running into…

“I’ve upgraded to the latest version of Word Press and now when I log in I can’t see any of the boxes that I could see before like the custom fields box, the excerpt box or the discussion box.”

The new dashboard has options at the top of the page that enable you to display or not display certain things.  By default many items are not displayed.  The nice thing about this is that it allows you to clean up the look of your dashboard and make more room for the things you care about.  The bad thing is that if you don’t know it’s there then it’s hard to know how to fix it.  The way to fix it is to look in the upper right hand corner for a little tab that says “screen options.”  When you click on this it drops down and opens a panel where you can choose what boxes you want to see.  Just check the ones’ you want and you are all set!

After Clicking you will see this:

Here’s how you use this new feature.

1.  Go to a post or create a new one.  Click on the little “add an image” icon (to the right of the words “upload/insert.”)  When you upload an image now you will see at the very bottom the words “Use as featured image.”  Click those.

2.  That’s it.  Easy!

To write a page simply log into your admin panel and on the left hand side go to “Pages.”  Click on “Add New”  When the pages template opens up you will first one to write in a title. The first step is entering a title. Put something in that is descriptive and not too long. Directly underneath that you see the section where you enter content.

You can enter content in one of two ways, HTML or VISUAL. Select which way you want to use on the right hand side of the content box. You will more than likely always use visual unless you are pasting in You Tube video code or something like that in which case you will want to use the HTML Tab. Since You Tube uses iframes now for their videos you will want to put in all of your content first, format it, then switch to the HTML Tab and paste your video in. Do not return to the VISUAL Tab after pasting in iframe video code or it will disappear.

After you are finished writing your content move to the right hand side of the screen and look for “Page Attributes.”  First you should select the template you wish to use.  For the most part you will either use the “default” template which will give you content and a sidebar, or use the “full width” template which will allow your content to span the full width of the page.

You can also choose in this section whether you want your page to be a stand alone page or a sub page underneath a main page.  For example if on your site you have a page named “About Us” you may choose to have a subpage like “Mission Statement” or “Our Staff” underneath the main page of “About Us.”

Lastly you can choose to include or exclude the page from the navigation menu and choose the page order.  Please note, our newer sites use the Word Press Custom menu feature and so these last two items are obsolete.

Finally, just as we do with posts we need to return to the top of the page and on the right hand side find the “Publish” button and make our page live.

To write posts simply log into your admin panel and on the left side menus click on “posts.”  Next click on “Add New” and your post template comes up.  The first step is entering a title.  Put something in that is descriptive and not too long.  Directly underneath that you see the section where you enter content.

You can enter content in one of two ways, HTML or VISUAL.  Select which way you want to use on the right hand side of the content box.  You will more than likely always use visual unless you are pasting in You Tube video code or something like that in which case you will want to use the HTML Tab.  Since You Tube uses iframes now for their videos you will want to put in all of your content first, format it, then switch to the HTML Tab and paste your video in.  Do not return to the VISUAL Tab after pasting in iframe video code or it will disappear.

The next step is to choose a category.  All posts must go into at least one category.  If you need to create a category simply click on the blue link that says “Add  New Category.”  If you do not choose a category for your post it will automatically be put into your default category.

You can also choose to add custom fields, tags and SEO options to your post if you wish to do so, however there are other tutorials for those available.

When you are done move to the upper right hand side of the page and hit “Publish.”

Here’s a video that is slightly outdated but gives a generally good tutorial on writing pages and posts in Word Press.

Here’s another video that does a good job at walking you through the dashboard…

There are several ways to upload a plugin including ftp, cpanel and automatically through your dashboard.  I’m going to give you simple direction for the automatic way to do it.  If you need more in depth directions there are many tutorials out on the web for using ftp and/or cpanel.

The first step is to log into your Word Press back end.  Once you have done that click on the menu that says “Plugins” and it will drop down revealing the sub menu.  Look for the menu that says “Add New.”  Clicking on this will bring up the interface for adding a new plugin.

You have two choices at this point:

1.  Search for a plugin using Google or another search engine and download it to your computer.  Then go to the interface and upload the plugin.

2.  Search for the plugin using the WP interface and install it right there automatically.

Both of these work well and are very self explanatory once you have found the interface where you upload them.

Once you have uploaded the plugin you will look for the link that says “activate” and click on this.  That will activate the plugin and give you access to it.

Keep this in mind…in order for a plugin to work you need to follow three simple steps:

1.  Find the plugin.

2.  Upload the plugin.

3.  Activate the Plugin.

There is a well written and much more detailed tutorial here.

1.  Go to “Plugins” then go to “Add New.”

2.  Search the available plugins for “Per Page Sidebars.”

3.  Install and activate the plugin.

4.  Go to the page you want a unique page sidebar for and scroll to the bottom.  Look for the section that says “Custom Sidebar.”  Check the box to activate it and choose which sidebar you want to replace.  Update the page.

5.  Go to “Appearances” and then “Widgets” and look for your new sidebar and put whatever you want into it.

First of all you need to realize the difference between a Facebook profile and a Facebook Page.  Facebook profiles are for people, not businesses or organizations and if you are caught using it for anything but personal use you can have it deleted and lose all the work you put into it.  (With Facebooks millions of users it’s unlikely you’ll be the one caught but it does happen and it would suck if it happened to you so follow the rules.)  Pages on the other hand are linked to your personal profile but are specifically for use with businesses or organizations.  Here’s how to create one.

1.  Log into your Facebook account.

2.  Go here.

3.  Choose whether you want to create a community page or a official page.

4.  From there simply follow through the prompts and create your page.

Facebook Page Names

You should get a name for your Facebook page such as facebook.com/yourbusinessname as this will make it easier for your customers to find it and it will help you in search engine rankings.  To do this you need to have at least 25 followers.  The simply log  into Facebook and go here.

How to Promote Your Page

1.  You can and should promote your page through your personal account by writing a status update like, “Please check out my new fan page.”  When you write this use the @ symbol and start typing the name of your fan page.  The name will pop up and then can be inserted into your status update and will automatically link people to your new page.

2.  Post often on your new page as anything you post will be automatically put onto the feeds of your followers.

3.  Do something to get your fans to post.  The more activity you have the more fans you will draw.  Ask a questions, take a poll, invite them to leave links, pictures, stories, etc.

4.  Use the “Suggest to Friends” link on the left sidebar and encourage your fans to do this as well.

Luckily this is an easy fix.  On the web the “enter key” gives us a paragraph break which is two spaces.  if you simply want one space you are looking for what is called a “line break.”  To accomplish this simply hold down the “shift key” when you press the “enter key.”

Here’s an example of a paragraph break:
line one

line two

Here’s an example of line break:
line one
line two

1. Log into your WordPress account and go to your dashboard.
2. Click on “Posts” from the menu on the left hand side.
3. Select the post you want and edit it.
4. On the right hand side you should see a box called “Publish.”
4. Look for the published date and click on “edit” at the end of the date.
5. Change the date to reflect the date you want the post to have.
6. Click “ok” and then save the post by clicking on the “update” button.

Read more: How to Change the Date of a Blog Post in WordPress | eHow.com http://www.ehow.com/how_2021571_blog-date-wordpress.html#ixzz187czOCKu

1.  Go to “Appearance” and then to “Menus.”
2.  Fill out the name of a menu where it says “Menu Name” (like “Quick Links” for example)
3.  Select “Create Menu.”
4.  Now, from the left hand side select the pages and categories that you want on this menu and click on “add to menu.”  Likewise configure external links the same way.

You can add these menus to widgets on any theme like this:
5. Go to “Appearance” and then “Widgets” and drag the available widget called “Custom Menus” over to the sidebar where you want it.  Drop it in and the box will open and ask you which menu you want.
6.  Select the menu you want and click on “Save”

On our newer sites you can add the menu directly to your navigation by by selecting it in the upper right hand corner under “Main Navigation.”

Here’s a good video tutorial which will give you some directions on cutom menus…

If you want to investigate further and really delve into this check out the Word press Codex here.

If you want something more robust that’s still simple and efficient then check out Back up Buddy from iThemes here.

Please note, Youtube and Vimeo code comes in pre-arranged sizes which may not fit your theme well.  Almost all of our themes have 300px wide sidebars and 588px wide content area.  Therefore you may want to change the height and the width of the video code to suit those area better.

The DCG is normally found on the home page of my designs and is the part of the site that scrolls photos in and out.  It’s a very powerful plugin and well supported and once you get used to using it you’ll fall in love with the ease and functionality.   Here is a brief tutorial on how to configure it:

Step One:
The DCG plugin needs two things to make it work.  The first is associating an image with a certain post or page.  To do this simply go to the post or page you desire and upload an image.  Get the “file url” of the image, copy it and return to your post or page.

Scroll down and you will see on the right hand side “Dynamic Content Gallery Metabox.”  Paste the file url into the part that says “image url.”  Save your post or page.

Step Two:
The next thing you need to do is call that post or page to the DCG Plugin.  There are multiple ways to do this.  You can choose by category, by page or both both.  I recommend the id method.  Simply go to the DCG settings page (Settings>DCG) and enter the desired ID numbers under “Gallery Management.”

Setting the Size of Your Picture

Go to “Settings” and then Dynamic Content Gallery.  Look for the tab that says “CSS.”  You should see the height and width of the gallery directly at the top in pixels.  Make your image this size and it will fit best.  You may also set the size of the sliding black bar that scrolls over the picture and has text on it.

Advanced Options

You may go to the “Javascript Options” tab and turn on/off the sliding text pane and the Carousel as well as configure transitions and times for the slides.

We have found that it is best to update to the newest version of Word Press, but not right away.  Wait until the current version is stable and all the kinks are worked out.  However, updating promptly will not only increase your sites performance but will help with security also.  Here’s how we do it…

First step, if you have not done so already you want to install the Word Press Auto Update Plugin.  Go to plugins>Install new and follow the directions to install the plugin.  Once you have done so click on “activate.”  You should now see a “nag” at the top of your dashboard screen that says:  “Click Here to Automatically Upgrade WordPress to latest Version.”

To update your  Word Press software simply click on that link and follow the directions.  You should download the back-up to your database before completely this process and this plugin will prompt you when it is time to do so.

To upgrade plugins simply got to “Plugins” and look for the link at the top that says “upgrade available.”  Click on this and it will show you the plugins that need to be upgraded.  Look now at the plugin itself and on each plugin click on “upgrade automatically.”

The first thing you want to do is go to Google and create an account.  This is free and simple and will let you access the calendar program.

Secondly,you must request a Google GDATA API key.  You can do that here.

Next, go to your website admin section and then to “Settings” and then to “WPNG Calendar.”   Plug your new API Key into the top box that says “Google API Data Key.”

Step Four leads you to your newly created calendar.  Log in and on the left hand side click on “settings.”  Click on your calendar name and then scroll down to the Calendar section where you see an icon that says, “XML.”  When you select that your feed will pop up.  Copy the feed and return to your website settings area and then paste that feed into the section that says, “Google Calendar Feed.”  The last portion of this feed should say, “basic” and you should change this to “full.”

The site just won second place 2nd place for Best Website (all Catholic publication websites in North America) at the National Catholic Press Association convention.

To resize images using PhotoPlus follow the steps below:

1.  Open up an image by going to “File” and then “Open,” find it on your computer and open it.

2.  Look at the picture size in pixels and decide what size you want the picture.

3.  You have two ways to resize photos, image size and canvas size.  Both of these are found underneath the “Image” menu.  Image size will change the overall size of the photo and canvas size will change the proportion of the photo.  For example,  let’s pretend for the sake of this example that we open up a picture that is 700px by 700px, and we want to resize the photo to 588px by 250px.  We will want to resize the image first to 588px by 588px and then we will want to shrink the canvas height from 588px to 250px thereby turning a square picture into a rectangle.

4.  To change image size simply click on “Image” and then “Image size.”  Change the width of the photo from 700px to 588 px and the height will automatically change to 588px as well.  Hit “OK.”

5.  Whenever we shrink a picture we want to put an “unsharp mask” on the picture to crisp it up.  We do this by going to “Effects” then “Sharpen” and finally “Unsharp mask.”  Adjust the sliders to where you want them and select “OK.”

6.  Now we need to change the canvas size.  First we’re going to go over to the bottom right of our screen and look at our layers.  We should see one layer that says “Background.”  We want to right click on this layer and select “Promote to Layer.”  Now we can move this layer around which we will discuss later.

7.  Go now to “Image” and then “Canvas Size” and change the height from 700px to 250px and select “OK.”

8.  We have now changed our square picture to a rectangle.  However, it may not look quite right because of the way it was cropped.  Here’s where our layers come in….

9.  On the left hand side look for the move tool and using your arrow keys move the picture up or down until it looks right.

10.  Finally, go to “File” and then “Export Optimizer.”  Move the “Quality” slider up and down and view the picture on the left.  You want to use the lowest possible quality while still having the picture look good as this will make your file smaller in size.  Finally click “Export” and save your picture.

Email marketing has nothing to do with your website and is completely separate from the website we have designed for you.  That being said, you can easily integrate in a sign-up form so people can register for your email newsletters directly on your website.

The first step is to get an account going with a company that manages your contacts and creates and sends out email newsletters.  There are a ton of these out there, we recommend using Mail Chimp or Constant Contact.

After setting up your account you can get widget code directly from your new company to add to your website.  Simply take your widget code, come back to your site and go to “Appearances” and then “Widgets” and add your code via a text widget.

All of your “posts” give you the option of  adding “tags.”  This option is located in the right hand side of the editing screen directly underneath the “Publish” section.  To use tags you simply fill in the word you want to use in the “add new tag” box and click the “add” button.  You can add as many tags as you like and just separate them with a comma.  You can also choose form a list of your most used tags.

So, why use tags?  The best reason to use tags is to further separate your posts into easy to find subjects.  You are already using categories, but as your site grows you may have so many posts that it’s hard for your reader to find them all.  If for example they read a post that you wrote about “shopping for a new car” and you have tagged it with “Honda, Mercedes, Chevy” someone who likes your post and wants to find out what else you have written about “Hondas” can simply click that tag and all of the posts on your site tagged “Honda” will pop up.

A second reason to use tags is because they are indexed by Google and other search engines and will somewhat help your Search Engine Optimization.

Do you need tags?  No, you do not.  If you have a small business website with only a “latest news” category and 3 or 4 updates  a month then tags will not benefit you in any way.  However, if you are an online magazine or blog you may find tags useful.

-Create your image: It is best to create this to the dimensions that you want the picture.  A sidebar is typically 300px wide so you do not want it to be bigger than that.
-Go to any post or page and open it up.   At the top of the content area you will see “upload/insert” and a little gray box next to it. Click on this box and upload your picture.
-Scroll down to where it says: “link url” then click “file url”and copy that url.
-Close the post and go to “appearances” and then “widgets.”
-Drag the text widget from the left side to the sidebar area that you want it in on the right side.
-Enter the following code, pasting in the “file url” you previously copied where it says “add your image file url here.”

The Code
-To insert a picture only with no hyperlink add the following code:
<img src=”add your image file url here.”/>

-To insert a picture that goes to another link when it is clicked on (hyperlink) add the following code:
<a href=”add the link here that you want people to go to when they click on the picture”><img src=”add your image file url here.”/></a>

That’s it!

You can check Vickie’s new site out here!

Dan wanted to feature his magazine online and needed a website that could array huge amounts of content, keep it easy to find and make it look great.  We designed the site to match the brand of the magazine as well and he and his staff have done a great job populating it with content.

Here’s a look at the Homepage and the Video Page…

No, really, David did actually send us a case of wine when we finished and it was hmm….let’s try and sound intelligent here….

“It was a pleasing bouquet of flowery delights, the aroma and flavors fully integrated with notes of black plums and dark oak.  Highly recommended.”

Check out the site here.  Oh, and if you don’t like it..probably best to keep your mouth shut…just saying.

Check them out here.

The Dunagans have impacted millions with the message of Christ and changed countless lives including their own.  At last count they’ve ministered to over 1.5 million people and planted over 400 self-sustaining churches.  We were honored to do this site!

They were looking for a great Word Press backend but used more as a CMS instead of a blog and they wanted some cool, earthy, camp style graphics.  We loved the final site and so did they.

We ended combining several themes, customizing the heck out of them and then making it all match his branding.

He’s still taking great pictures and had now brought on a whole team of photographers to keep up with the work.  Way to go Kevin!

Well, once upon a time, Far from Moscow….Professor Dave from UCLA’s Department of Slavic Languages and Literatures came up with a great idea for his students:  Create a website that they would manage that would focus on emerging Russian Music.  This would help them learn about Russian culture and also satiate their desires of music and tecnology.  Man, I wish I had creative teachers like that in school…

If you’re ever in the Boston area and you like rockin’ Catholic Youth programs be sure to stop by…

UPDATE:  THIS SITE IS NO LONGER ACTIVE.