Customizing WordPress Child Theme

In this tutorial we will create Custom Post Types and add variables and functionality to them. Also we will add some styling for more user-friendly display in the dashboard.

Having set up our basic Child Theme structure we will now proceed with the customization. But before that we will do some basic WP configuration and go through the settings. You may be used to building WordPress based sites and therefore you may have some habits in as much as settings and configuration are concerned.

Semiomantics XO Custom Magazine for WordPress

Here is what I do in the dashboard:

1. Trash and permanently delete the Hello World Post.

2. Delete the default Links.

3. Set Permalinks to: /%category%/%postname%/

4. Under Settings General enter Blog Name and Tagline; for the purpose of this exercise I use  as a Title: WordPress TTP and as a Tagline: Tips, Themes and Plugins

5. Add some content to test content display by importing an RSS feed using a plugin such as Feedwordpress. I pulled into a new category called Blog the feed from my author-blog at:

http://yorgonestoridis.com/feed

We have set up a basic child theme for the purpose of modifying and customizing the Parent Theme. Creating structural modifications such as creating Custom Posts and Taxonomies are not strictly speaking theme relevant but should apply to all themes or as the case may be, to multiple themes in a Multi-user installation.

For this reason we will lodge the file which defines the custom posts outside any specific theme folder but inside wp-contents/themes.

We create a file called posttypes.php in wp-contents/themes. This file serves to define our custom post types and the way they integrate into the WP architecture.

In order to include the new Post Types in our Child theme, we include the posttype.php using an include function. This we doby adding a new file to our child theme; this file we call functions.php.

As you know, every WP theme contains a functions.php file; when creating a child theme which needs to expand the functions existing in the parent theme, then we just add a file with the same name, ‘functions.php’ to the child theme and append the functions defined in the parent theme.

Note: functions.php of the child theme does not override existing functions in the parent theme as is the case with styles (‘style.css)!

PHP allows us easily to include files in a script with the ‘include’ function and then by adding the URL to the file you wish to include.

Our ‘functions.php’ file will look as follows:

<?php
include_once (ABSPATH . 'wp-content/themes/posttypes.php');
?>

Please note that we use the ABSPATH function to construct the URL as the normal url path

 url(".../themes/posttypes.php") 

does not work here.

Save functions.php into your Child Theme Folder.

In order to set up our post types we proceed step by step:

1. Set up Custom Post Types
2. Add advanced Variables to Post Types
3. Add advanced custom post type functionality
4. Change the Menu Position (Dashboard) of the Custom Post Types
5. Add custom post type icon

Custom Post Types allow to separate different content from the traditional blog content. Blog content usually is edited as Posts and Pages, whereas Pages (static content) can be organized in a hierarchical way and posts are sorted by categories and tags. In order to display static content (pages) using customized layout, we can create different page templates easily.

Custom Post Types allow to sort content by Posts and Custom Post Types whereas custom post types are similar to posts but using custom taxonomies and as the case may be custom layouts or design adapted to the content. A typical example is a single product page from a shop compared to a single post page on the blog section of the website.

For the purpose of our exercise we will create 3 Custom Post Types

• WordPress Tips
• WordPress Themes
• WordPress Plugins

Setting up post types is relatively easy; while we could use plugins to create custom post types, I think hard-coding is a more solid and professional way of creating them. To create a new Custom Post Type we just need to add a few lines of code to the functions file or in our case to the abstraction file at posttypes.php which will then be included int the functions.php as per above where we have added the include function into functions.php.

We will create now the 3 Custom Post Types whereas the code used for each of them is the same except for the post type names and the function names.

To create the first post type, edit posttypes.php and paste in:

<?php

// Add new post type for WP Tips
add_action('init', 'wordpress_tips_init');
function wordpress_tips_init()
{
$args = array(
'label' => _x('WP Tips'),
'singular_label' => _x('WP Tip'),
'public' => true,
'publicly_queryable' => true,
'show_ui' => true,
'query_var' => true,
'rewrite' => true,
'capability_type' => 'post',
'hierarchical' => false,
'menu_position' => null,
'supports' => array('title','editor','comments')
);
register_post_type('wordpress_tips',$args);
}

Save the file.

At the top we type a comment explaining what the following code is all about (Add new Post Type for WP Tips). Then we call the function in to WordPress with ‘add_action’ and at the bottom we register the post type. As you can see the function consists of a number of arguments which we will look into later ($args).

Check out your Dashboard now and you will see that the new post type is added to the menu just above ‘Appearance’.

To add new post types, you just need to copy and paste the above code and make simple changes to the name and labels of the post type.

The above post types work, however they are not well refined. For this reason we will add some more variables. As the new posts are still called “Post” in the editor for example we will need to relabel to display the real name of the post type. For this we will write a label variable which can take an array of labels and we thus relabel all instances of our Custom Post Type.

The variable we create with the array of labels looks as follows:

$wordpress_tips_labels = array(
'name' => _x('WP Tips', 'post type general name'),
'singular_name' => _x('WP Tip', 'post type singular name'),
'all_items' => __('All WP Tips'),
'add_new' => _x('Add new WP Tip', 'wordpress_tips'),
'add_new_item' => __('Add new WP Tip'),
'edit_item' => __('Edit WP Tip'),
'new_item' => __('New WP Tip'),
'view_item' => __('View WP Tip'),
'search_items' => __('Search in WP Tips'),
'not_found' =>  __('No WP Tips found'),
'not_found_in_trash' => __('No WP Tips found in trash'),
'parent_item_colon' => ''
);

We will insert this piece of code just before our block of arguments and then change the arguments accordingly as follows:

<?php

// Add new post type for WP Tips
add_action('init', 'wordpress_tips_init');
function wordpress_tips_init()
{

$wordpress_tips_labels = array(
'name' => _x('WP Tips', 'post type general name'),
'singular_name' => _x('WP Tip', 'post type singular name'),
'all_items' => __('All WP Tips'),
'add_new' => _x('Add new WP Tip', 'wordpress_tips'),
'add_new_item' => __('Add new WP Tip'),
'edit_item' => __('Edit WP Tip'),
'new_item' => __('New WP Tip'),
'view_item' => __('View WP Tip'),
'search_items' => __('Search in WP Tips'),
'not_found' =>  __('No WP Tips found'),
'not_found_in_trash' => __('No WP Tips found in trash'),
'parent_item_colon' => ''
);
$args = array(

/*      'label' => _x('WP Tips'), */
'labels' => $wordpress_tips_labels,
/*      'singular_label' => _x('WP Tips'),   */
'public' => true,
'publicly_queryable' => true,
'show_ui' => true,
'query_var' => true,
'rewrite' => true,
'capability_type' => 'post',
'hierarchical' => false,
'menu_position' => null,
'supports' => array('title','editor','comments')
);
register_post_type('wordpress_tips',$args);
}

As you can see from the two commented lines, we have changed ‘label’ to ‘labels and defined with the variable from above ‘$wordpress_tips_labels’ and we have deleted the ‘singular label’ as it is replaced wby ‘singular name’ from the label variable.

For the other new post types it’s the same game, just copy and paste and change the labels accordingly.

Save posttypes.php and check it out in your dashboard.

You will now see all labels added and your site becomes a lot more user-friendly and less confusing.

We can define the functionalities of our new post types with an array under the variable ‘supports’; basically the ‘supports’ line defines which functionalities should be supported, i.e. which content should be displayed.

In our example, the line above looks like this:

'supports' => array('title','editor','comments')

When you go to your dashboard, and add a new WP Tip you will see the editor shows the ‘title’, ‘content’ and ‘comments’ fields.

While we can go crazy on adding supported functionality, we will here just look at some standard functionalities. To add more functionality we just need to append the array in the supports variable like so:

'supports' => array('title','editor','author','thumbnail','excerpt','comments','custom-fields'),
'has_archive' => 'wordpress_tips'

By adding the above functionalities to the supports variable, we get something pretty close to the standard post editor, since we add the author, excerpts and custom fields as well as the featured picture functionality.

Also we can add a new variable, such as ‘has archive’ and then name the archive, in our example ‘WordPress Tips’.

This archive variable allows us to create an index page just for the WP Tips post  types.

Our Code for the WP Tips Custom Post Type is as follows:

<?php

// Add new post type for WP Tips
add_action('init', 'wordpress_tips_init');
function wordpress_tips_init()
{

$wordpress_tips_labels = array(
'name' => _x('WP Tips', 'post type general name'),
'singular_name' => _x('WP Tip', 'post type singular name'),
'all_items' => __('All WP Tips'),
'add_new' => _x('Add new WP Tip', 'wordpress_tips'),
'add_new_item' => __('Add new WP Tip'),
'edit_item' => __('Edit WP Tip'),
'new_item' => __('New WP Tip'),
'view_item' => __('View WP Tip'),
'search_items' => __('Search in WP Tips'),
'not_found' =>  __('No WP Tips found'),
'not_found_in_trash' => __('No WP Tips found in trash'),
'parent_item_colon' => ''
);
$args = array(

/*      'label' => _x('WP Tips'), */
'labels' => $wordpress_tips_labels,
/*      'singular_label' => _x('WP Tips'),   */
'public' => true,
'publicly_queryable' => true,
'show_ui' => true,
'query_var' => true,
'rewrite' => true,
'capability_type' => 'post',
'hierarchical' => false,
'menu_position' => null,
'supports' => array('title','editor','author','thumbnail','excerpt','comments','custom-fields'),
'has_archive' => 'wordpress_tips'
);
register_post_type('wordpress_tips',$args);
}

Copy and paste with the necessary changes for the other custom post types and save the file.

Check it out from the Dashboard Menu and the Editor.

As per now, our custom posts menu in the dashboard is positioned just above appearance and below comments. As custom posts are similar to posts, we want to move the custom post tabs just below the Posts tab.

As you can see from our code above, the menu position is set to ‘null’. The value ‘null’ makes that the custom post types are added at the bottom of the first section of the dashboard menu.

Depending of where you want to position your custom posts, you will need to change the value ‘null’ to another value according to the below reference scale:

0 — at the very top
5 — below Posts
10 — below Media
15 — below Links
20 — below Pages
25 — below comments
60 — below first separator
65 — below Plugins
70 — below Users
75 — below Tools
80 — below Settings
100 — below second separator

As we aim the spot below “Posts” we will use the value ‘5’, which will result in

...

'menu_position' => 5,

...

If you want to set a particular order, you can also use 3 different numbers, like 4,5 and 6 respectively.

Do the modification inside the arguments of each post type and save.

By repositioning the custom post type menu items , we signal priority and importance.

Check it out from the dashboard and note that our custom posts are right below ‘Posts’ now.

In order to make our custom post types stick out from the menu and to add user-friendly visual identifiers, we replace the default icons with custom icons.

There are two sizes needed, 16px and 32 px for the menu and the page title area respectively.

I have created sample icons and psd files for your convenience: please download from HERE.

Decompress the downloaded rar file and copy the image folder into wp-contents/themes (as we had done with posttypes.php, as we want to make these images available to all themes.

To add these icons we introduce a new function to posttypes.php with a function batch including some css/html code for styling purposes:

// Add new Custom Post Type icons
add_action( 'admin_head', 'wordpress_icons' );
function wordpress_icons() {
?>
<style type="text/css" media="screen">
#menu-posts-wordpress_tips .wp-menu-image {
background: url(<?php bloginfo('url') ?>/wp-content/themes/images/tips-16x16.png) no-repeat 6px !important;
}
.icon32-posts-wordpress_tips {
background: url(<?php bloginfo('url') ?>/wp-content/themes/images/tips-32x32.png) no-repeat !important;
}
#menu-posts-wordpress_themes .wp-menu-image {
background: url(<?php bloginfo('url') ?>/wp-content/themes/images/themes-16x16.png) no-repeat 6px !important;
}
.icon32-posts-wordpress_themes {
background: url(<?php bloginfo('url') ?>/wp-content/themes/images/themes-32x32.png) no-repeat !important;
}
#menu-posts-wordpress_plugins .wp-menu-image {
background: url(<?php bloginfo('url') ?>/wp-content/themes/images/plugins-16x16.png) no-repeat 6px !important;
}
.icon32-posts-wordpress_plugins {
background: url(<?php bloginfo('url') ?>/wp-content/themes/images/plugins-32x32.png) no-repeat !important;
}

</style>
<?php }

Note the incomplete php delimiter at the end which is needed to switch back to php from css/html code.

At this stage, your posttypes.php looks as follows:

<?php

// Add new post type for WP Tips
add_action('init', 'wordpress_tips_init');
function wordpress_tips_init()
{
$wordpress_tips_labels = array(
'name' => _x('WP Tips', 'post type general name'),
'singular_name' => _x('WP Tip', 'post type singular name'),
'all_items' => __('All WP Tips'),
'add_new' => _x('Add new WP Tip', 'wordpress_tips'),
'add_new_item' => __('Add new WP Tip'),
'edit_item' => __('Edit WP Tip'),
'new_item' => __('New WP Tip'),
'view_item' => __('View WP Tip'),
'search_items' => __('Search in WP Tips'),
'not_found' =>  __('No WP Tips found'),
'not_found_in_trash' => __('No WP Tips found in trash'),
'parent_item_colon' => ''
);
$args = array(
/*        'label' => _x('WP Tips'), */
'labels' => $wordpress_tips_labels,
/*        'singular_label' => _x('WP Tips'),   */
'public' => true,
'publicly_queryable' => true,
'show_ui' => true,
'query_var' => true,
'rewrite' => true,
'capability_type' => 'post',
'hierarchical' => false,
'menu_position' => 5,
'supports' => array('title','editor','author','thumbnail','excerpt','comments','custom-fields'),
'has_archive' => 'wordpress_tips'
);
register_post_type('wordpress_tips',$args);
}

// Add new post type for WP Themes
add_action('init', 'wordpress_themes_init');
function wordpress_themes_init()
{

$wordpress_themes_labels = array(
'name' => _x('WP Themes', 'post type general name'),
'singular_name' => _x('WP Theme', 'post type singular name'),
'all_items' => __('All WP Themes'),
'add_new' => _x('Add new WP Theme', 'wordpress_themes'),
'add_new_item' => __('Add new WP Theme'),
'edit_item' => __('Edit WP Theme'),
'new_item' => __('New WP Theme'),
'view_item' => __('View WP Theme'),
'search_items' => __('Search in WP Themes'),
'not_found' =>  __('No WP Theme found'),
'not_found_in_trash' => __('No WP Theme found in trash'),
'parent_item_colon' => ''
);

$args = array(
'labels' => $wordpress_themes_labels,
'public' => true,
'publicly_queryable' => true,
'show_ui' => true,
'query_var' => true,
'rewrite' => true,
'capability_type' => 'post',
'hierarchical' => false,
'menu_position' => 5,
'supports' => array('title','editor','author','thumbnail','excerpt','comments','custom-fields'),
'has_archive' => 'wordpress_themes'
);
register_post_type('wordpress_themes',$args);
}

// Add new post type for WP Plugins
add_action('init', 'wordpress_plugins_init');
function wordpress_plugins_init()
{

$wordpress_plugins_labels = array(
'name' => _x('WP Plugins', 'post type general name'),
'singular_name' => _x('WP Plugin', 'post type singular name'),
'all_items' => __('All WP Plugins'),
'add_new' => _x('Add new WP Plugin', 'wordpress_plugins'),
'add_new_item' => __('Add new WP Plugin'),
'edit_item' => __('Edit WP Plugin'),
'new_item' => __('New WP Plugin'),
'view_item' => __('View WP Plugin'),
'search_items' => __('Search in WP Plugins'),
'not_found' =>  __('No WP Plugin found'),
'not_found_in_trash' => __('No WP Plugin found in trash'),
'parent_item_colon' => ''
);

$args = array(
'labels' => $wordpress_plugins_labels,
'public' => true,
'publicly_queryable' => true,
'show_ui' => true,
'query_var' => true,
'rewrite' => true,
'capability_type' => 'post',
'hierarchical' => false,
'menu_position' => 5,
'supports' => array('title','editor','author','thumbnail','excerpt','comments','custom-fields'),
'has_archive' => 'wordpress_plugins'
);
register_post_type('wordpress_plugins',$args);
}

// Add new Custom Post Type icons
add_action( 'admin_head', 'wordpress_icons' );
function wordpress_icons() {
?>
<style type="text/css" media="screen">
#menu-posts-wordpress_tips .wp-menu-image {
background: url(<?php bloginfo('url') ?>/wp-content/themes/images/tips-16x16.png) no-repeat 6px !important;
}
.icon32-posts-wordpress_tips {
background: url(<?php bloginfo('url') ?>/wp-content/themes/images/tips-32x32.png) no-repeat !important;
}
#menu-posts-wordpress_themes .wp-menu-image {
background: url(<?php bloginfo('url') ?>/wp-content/themes/images/themes-16x16.png) no-repeat 6px !important;
}
.icon32-posts-wordpress_themes {
background: url(<?php bloginfo('url') ?>/wp-content/themes/images/themes-32x32.png) no-repeat !important;
}
#menu-posts-wordpress_plugins .wp-menu-image {
background: url(<?php bloginfo('url') ?>/wp-content/themes/images/plugins-16x16.png) no-repeat 6px !important;
}
.icon32-posts-wordpress_plugins {
background: url(<?php bloginfo('url') ?>/wp-content/themes/images/plugins-32x32.png) no-repeat !important;
}

</style>
<?php }

?>

Check it out from your dashboard and you should see something similar to this:

Custom Post Types with Custom Icons

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Mobile WordPress and Social Media

The fast evolution of the mobile web has created new needs for publishers, whereas the objective remains to integrate mobile web targets into an existing workflow and to optimize productivity with the help of automated conversion scripts and tools.

At Semiomantics the starting point for our development is the most comprehensive conversion plugin, called WPTouch Pro. WPTouch has released its latest version end of March 2012 with some adjustments for iOS 5.1 and many other fixes and developments:

• * Added: Custom advertising options for iPad

• * Added: Simple caching of desktop functions.php

• * Added: Russian language file

• * Added: Automatic archiving of previous settings in wptouch-data directory

• * Added: Compatibility setting for BuddyPress Mobile AJAX support

• * Fixed: Changing user-agent matching that may have interfered with advertising in certain scenarios

• * Changed: Replaced include with locate_template in theme files, should allow child overrides of custom WPtouch Pro template files

• * Changed: Algorithm to reload settings; may have caused settings to be lost in a certain scenario

• * Updated: All translations based on 2.6 strings

• * Fixed: An issue with Register and Lost password links in Classic

• * Fixed: Video issues with jwPlayer and other video sources and plugins

• * Fixed: An issue which could cause the Share button not to show in Classic mobile theme

• * Fixed: Improved appearance for Embedded Google maps

• * Fixed: Issues with Tweet text encoding in sharing options for Classic

• * Fixed: Search form issues with Skeleton theme

• * Fixed: Admin issues for non-English languages

• * Fixed: Issue where style.min.css was never loaded in child themes of Classic

• * Fixed: Broken admin icons when SSL was enabled in the admin

• * Added: Hungarian language

• * Changed: Adjustments for memory management in Classic iPad theme

• * Fixed: An issue with MapPress embeds

• * Fixed: An issue with JetPack videos

• * Fixed: An issue with Smart Youtube plugin videos

• * Fixed: Issue with blank spaces in custom user agent string

The above recent change-logs indicate the extent of considerations necessary for a serious development of an integrated mobile WP based solution. The reason for such complexity lies amongst others in the following:

1. Increasing WordPress complexity and advanced plugin developments.
2. The multitude of mobile operating systems, browsers and devices of different sizes, display resolutions and aspect ratios.
3. The improved algorithms of Mobile Search.
4. The complexity of Semiomantics’ unbeaten optimization for conventional and mobile search.
5. The popularity of mobile and smart devices and the automated Mobile Search privileging mobile site versions.
6. The popularity of Social Networks and their ever changing integration parameters.

At Semiomantics we aim to make complex matters simple for day to day use. As an author or business, you don’t want to spend your time with technical issues or sitting logged into social networks to keep up with the continuous stream of information and exchanges. You want to do your business and be assured that your message gets spread broadly and that visitors requests are piped to proper destination without your intervention.

Semiomantics Developers are trained to build high end customer specific solutions assuring optimized productivity and workflow.

Based on the above, the Seminar will provide all necessary updates and upgrades for existing and new installations of high end websites, namely those built on Semiomantics XO and EVO frameworks.

During numerous Workshops we will knock participants personal sites into shape to comply with the highest standards.

We will go step by step through the set-up and development of the customized version of each participants author site. This includes the following workshops:

1. Build a Mobile Child Theme for your Website.

2. Build OS specific Icons.

3. Build a Start up screen (image).

4. Build Mobile specific WP 3.0 menus.

5. Custom Links and Icons.

6. Integrate Advertizing: Adsense, Admob, Custom Ads.

7. Custom Post formats for the Mobile theme.

8. Test Plugin compatibility and create your mobile plugin menu.

9. Embed media for Mobile content, YouTube, Vimeo or self-hosted standard h.264 encoded media.

10. Specifics for tablet computing, namely for the iPad and other touch tablets.

We will focus on Facebook in particular. Mobile Facebook is quite restrictive; it is therefore important to learn about what is visible on mobile FB and what cannot be accessed, respectively, how we may work around some of these restrictions.

In fact: Mobile Facebook is quite disappointing, be it whether you access it via the App or the browser. Custom content on app driven canvas pages and page favorites don’t display! Even promoting their link on the wall will not trigger any display. There are some workarounds by using different browsers where you can modify browser settings and simulate a desktop browser, but that’s not a solution for the masses.

Facebook is not here to promote YOUR site but just to grab your content for it’s own purpose.

• We will show you how to work around the problem and take advantage of the FB App and Mobile Site to get most out of it. The goal is to achieve that Facebook works for you and not you for Facebook.

• We will also come back to the desktop version of Facebook, showing how to build the most neutral and minimalist Facebook page for full and perfect control of all your content.

The Ycademy Online Seminar will take place on April 28/29, 2012 starting daily as usual at 1 p.m. London Time and closing at 9 p.m. London time.

All materials and scripts are provided and included.

The cost for this seminar is $85; discounts as usual for Ycademy Pros (please mail Bianca at bianca(at)ycademy.com for the coupon code.

Click on the below image to get your ticket.

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Basic CSS3 to Customize your WordPress Theme

With the increasing browser compatibility of CSS3, additional customization of websites is in the reach of most anyone (Even a Monkey can do it, according to Nikos Advertizopoulos …). Tonight we will start with a series of calls to become familiar with the possibilities arising from the use of CSS3 on WordPress to improve typography and font styles.

You may follow the progress of the work at the Ycademy Demo Site which features the Semiomantics XO Theme.

Looking forward to seeing you on YorgoLive tonight.

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10 Steps to Implement your Facebook Strategy with WordPress

Implementing your Facebook Strategy will be at the center of the November Ycademy Seminar. This hands-on Seminar and Workshop will stretch over two days and build with participants an eye-ball-twisting Facebook presence. See the seminar schedule at the bottom of the post.

The Seminar is designed for WordPress Developers and WP users who are looking for high productivity and customized publishing and marketing solutions.

This topic deals with efficient strategies which will efficiently improve your Facebook presence.

Visit the Semiomantics Facebook Page

Surfing through Facebook we notice some common errors well intended people commit when building their Facebook presence. We will discuss these issues and show you how to eliminate them from your personal or business Facebook.

While content is king, there are different ways of making it accessible to visitors. We will discuss the recent changes Facebook has implemented and show you where the focus should be in order to improve your visibility, traffic and business or network expansion on Facebook.

Function of your strategy we will define and optimize privacy settings in order to grant potentially interested visitors access to relevant information. Privacy, Accessibility and List-building as well as Targeted Communication are the essentials of this key session.

For people looking for you, your business, services or products, your Profile and Info page are of the utmost importance, the more that your info is visible from outside Facebook and therefore Google efficient. We will set up with participants an efficient Info Page.

We will discuss the recent changes implemented by Facebook and how they impact on our strategies.  Friends, Fans and Subscription features impact on the way we expand our network and influence on Facebook.

Overview of the Facebook Page feature. Integration techniques, Apps, Content, Canvas and Pages.

The focus is on the technical set-up of a Facebook Page. As  content we will use a graphic, picture of video.

What is it you actually wish to display on your Facebook page? In fact there is no limit and it depends entirely on your strategy.

This is the center piece of the seminar. Creating Facebook Page right from your WordPress site is now possible. We will set up a reveal page and different Facebook pages depending on participants needs. In fact we show you how to create a whole website in Facebook, straight from your WordPress.

While this works with most any WordPress 3.1 enabled Theme, we will demonstrate the integration with Semiomantics XO.

In fact we will work with a professional plugin modified for Semiomantics XO.

The Seminar will guide you to master the following and more:

• Create Unlimited Facebook Fan Pages with WordPress

• Increase Likes by 150% with Reveal “Like” Tab Gateways

• Unlimited Customization Options When Designing Your Fan Pages

• Create Unlimited Custom Pages with the WordPress Page Editor

• Create Custom Menus and Navigation with Just a Few Clicks

• Comments, Like, Send and Over 50+ Custom Shortcodes for Enhanced Customization

• Facebook Open Graph Integration for Enhanced Facebook Integration and Google SEO

• Auto Post to Facebook From Your WordPress Blog

• Use Your Facebook Albums and Photos on Your Blog and Fan Pages

• Add Google Maps to Your Facebook Fan Pages

• Create Squeeze and Sales Pages with Just a Few Clicks on Facebook

Add Facebook related widgets to your front and/or content pages. Google+ and Twitter buttons. Pull in Facebook Albums, Events, like Buttons and more. Use Facebook Connect to log in to or to register with your blog.

Create content which is only accessible after visitors clicked the “Like” button. A smashing filter which allows you to manage accessibility right from your XO.

Saturday and Sunday November 26/27, 2011.

We start at 1 pm London Time and end at 9 pm London time both days.

You need a WordPress blog preferably with FTP access.

Scripts and all other materials are provided.

We will install the necessary scripts for you previous to the Seminar; please get your Tickets early. If we are not yet in possession of the FTP access to your site, please send it by email to Bianca Gubalke at bianca(at)ycademy.com.

The Price for Participating, Materials and access to recordings is $85.

Click to get your Ticket

Discount as usual for Ycademy Pros. Please contact Bianca Gubalke at bianca(at)ycademy.com for the code or any other question you may have pertaining to the Seminar.

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Create .ICO Files (Favicons) with Photoshop

The favicon or icon is part of the customization of a website. The favicons show namely in the browser tabs. Nowadays most browsers will also show .gif and .png icons; the .ico format is preferred by Internet Explorer.

A quick and easy way to create a Favicon is by using the online tool put at disposal by favicon.com. A better result can be achieved by editing the favicon in Photoshop; however Photoshop does not support the .ICO format in its native version. A plug-in can remedy.

To start with, download the free Plug-in from Telegraphics.

Paste the plug-in file (ICOFormat.8bi, or ICOFormat64.8bi for the 64 bit version) in your Photoshop: …Program Files/Adobe/Photoshop/Plug-ins/File Formats.

re-start Photoshop.

The .ico file format will only be available in Photoshop if you respect the following:

1. Maximum file size 256 x 256 pixels
2. RGB, Bitmap, gray-scale or Indexed mode
3. Maximum 8 bits per channel

To save an image as .ico, use “save as” and select from the drop-down the ICO format.

Favicons are small icons, very small icons, since they measure only 16 x 16 pixels. Designing an Icon is a challenge since its display should be meaningful. To work more comfortably with your photoshop, start your design with a larger square canvas, a multiple of 16 pixels, for example 64 pixels, 128px or 256 pixels.

For the purpose of this exercise I will use a 128 px x 128 px canvas with the following presets:

You may save these settings as Preset for further use.

Best results are achieved if you keep your design simple and rich in contrast.

1. Open a new file with the above presets:

2. Fill with your background color (or pattern)

3. Add content

Best result with vector graphics, custom shapes, good fonts  and such likes; just create a new layer and add …

4. Resize

Resize to 16px x 16px and resample selecting ‘Bicubic Sharper’:

We get now:

5. Save as .ICO

Now “Save as” (don’t use “Save for Web and Devices”) and select the ICO format. Rename the image to favicon.ico:

6. Embed your new Favicon

Most browsers will find your favicon.ico automatically if you just load it into your website’s root folder (where the index.html is located), others are looking for a direct link to the favicon. To help these last browsers just add the following lines to your header (between the <head> … </head> tags):

<link rel="Shortcut Icon" href="/favicon.ico">

Load your favicon to the root folder of your domain and make sure it’s called ‘favicon.ico’.

That’s it.

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WordPress Shop Theme Customization

The week-end was busy with the Ycademy Seminar and the new doors opened by the Seminar Content lead to a busy schedule for our daily calls in the near future. There are two areas of development:

1. WordPress Shop Theme Customization and

2. WordPress Customization fo r the Mobile Web

This week we will focus on WP Shop Customization on the base of the Semiomantics eShop.

The Semiomantics eShop is based on a clean and user-friendly WordPress Theme which has been adapted to comply with Semiomantics standards and requirements for high visibility and performance. The Theme is ideal for customers with a straight forward business selling namely to a targeted local audience. I say this right at the beginning: the shop does not offer multi-currency features or tax rates by country or state.

Besides this the Shop is flexible and bears quite a number of interesting built in features also for affiliate marketers as well as for people who would like to offer to their customers an affiliate program.

Considering the price, the Semiomantics eShop is the best deal online, second only to the Semiomantics Total E-commerce solution, which is more complex but satisfies the highest commercial aspirations and ambitions.

Most people needing an online shop will be happy with the Semiomantics Shop as it is the ideal platform for small business.

Our next few calls will focus on customization. As all Ycademy Seminar Participants have an own author website based on Semiomantics XO we will implement on the store site the branding and customization criteria used on XO.

First steps include colors and fonts as well as branding icons and logos.

The second phase will take care of product specific requirements: physical products vs. digital products for example and their delivery.

The Third phase will take care of marketing as well as of the affiliate program.

As you see from the above, our next few calls will be workshops where we will help each participant to implement and customize the personal shop. It’s a great way also to look in more depths into some of the Shop features we may have gone through too fast at the Seminar. I am looking forward to working with you on your personal projects.

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More Photoshop Basics

Tonight’s call will focus on more Photoshop Basics. The goal is to become familiar with more easy to use features to produce more interesting graphics for advertising or product presentation.

I am looking forward to an inspiring session :-).

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How to design a simple Logo with Photoshop

After a rich Seminar, let’s relax with a simple Logo design at tonight’s call. The exercise will consist in using custom shapes, fonts and styles from Photoshop according to the below samples:

A colored version:

A neutral version in Helvetica:

Version using free fonts:

To prepare the session, please download the image and Photoshop file; we will use them as a base and then move on to profit from your creativity:-).

I am looking forward to seeing you tonight at the call.

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Text Effects with Displacement Masks

Tonight’s short call will focus on using displacement masks in Photoshop. The below image will serve as an example for our exercise.

I am looking forward to seeing you there :-).

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Spectacular 3D Text for Print and Web

Tonight’s Photoshop Workshop will focus on Styling text, namely to give text a 3D aspect. The step by step walk-through will serve as an introduction to some spectacular effects and features of Photoshop.

The interest of the exercise is in discovering some smashing effects we can achieve with Photoshop without using the 3D tools.

We wil also see the number of operations needed to perfectly place shine, glow and shadows to give a glossy, high quality impression.

Please be on time as this exercise will take at least 1 hour to accomplish and understand. I hope you will be as smashed as I am by the result and this final session of our PS Basics workshops.

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Free Photoshop Button

At tonight’s workshop we will build yet another Photoshop Button Template. As we progress, our buttons become more sophisticated as you will see.

Today’s button may inspire you to create your own button set and to put it up for sale on your website or shop.

Here is the button we are building:

There are various interesting elements:

- The gradiant gray button background with a border and stroke

- The text style

- The Logo

- The Ribbon

Using Photoshop, these elements can be edited separately from the template by modifying the corresponding layers and masks.

For those who cannot attend the Workshop tonight, the button is available for free download here below:

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Bonus for Ycademy Seminar Participants

This month our daily calls are focusing on Photoshop basics. To prepare the sessions we are using the most popular resources and guides available out there. For Ycademy Seminar participants we have prepared a Library which we will feed before the Ycademy January Seminar time permitting.

Amongst the best resources are the ones from Lynda.com, as well as CS5 for Dummies and the CS5 Bible. We are using these to elaborate tutorials and exercises which we make available for download.

Please look out for a mail from Bianca with the access link and pass to the library.

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Free Button to Download

Our last two Photoshop workshops dealt with buttons. Creating buttons allows us to have a closer look at blending options as well to start working with vector masks.

Here is a sample of last night’s work:

As you can see, the button looks simple, sober and elegant. The secret is in the subtle blending. As we use custom shapes to create buttons we can re-size the buttons easily using the Place function in Photoshop or, as some designers prefer, using Fireworks.

Also, the change of colors is a simple task starting from the PSD file of your button:

To follow tonight’s session, you may want to download the PSD file of the above button, namely if you have not attended yesterday’s workshop. Please use the button below:

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Ycademy January 2011 Online Seminar

Back to work! After a busy 2010 and hopefully a good rest over the year end, let’s start 2011 with WordPress based Website Development using Semiomantics XO.

After multiple exercises such as the Christmas site or the personal blog, we need to go into some more detail in as much as design, presentation and production are concerned. There are 4 areas of concern we will focus on at the January seminar:

While XO offers a good choice of built-in fonts, each customer’s branding is different and we may have to implement existing branding elements, namely defined typefaces. The seminar will deal with the font issue and show

• how we can overwrite the XO default settings
• how we can use Google Fonts
• how we can use any font for for any part of the website
• how to define font families
• where to use which kind of font

A delicate issue, but subsequent to the Apple Exercise, we have received requests to go deeper into the issue of advanced menu design. This concerns all sorts of solutions whereas we will keep the focus on easy navigation. We will start from the almost endless possibilities of the XO menu, move on to sprites and end up with advanced custom hand-crafted menus.

Graphic Design for the Internet is different from Print Design. We will focus on understanding these differences and learn about the requirements of cross-platform readability. The Workshop will be focused on communicative graphic design with Photoshop (or any other tool of your choice). Depending on participants skills, we will do this in 2 parts: basics in January and advanced in February.

Semiomantics will present it’s new affiliate program, enabling anyone to sell XO and to earn money from doing so. The interest is not just in selling some scripts, but in selling our skills and know-how when it comes to customization, custom design and optimization.

With XO we have a great and flexible product which can serve as a base for any website. Together with WordPress, the world’s most popular publishing platform, there are hardly any limits to design, features and performance. We train you to digg out the best from WP and XO for the benefit of your customers.

This chapter will lead us into the main curriculum of Ycademy 2011: Productivity, Marketing and Project Management.

The Online Seminar will take place on January 29 — 30, 2011, from 1 pm London Time to 9 pm London Time on both days.

Please register early as we need to prepare the personal materials for each participant.

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Time for a High Performance WP Christmas Theme

Beginners often are unaware of the impact a theme can have on the performance of a website and therefore they tend to change themes often. Downloading free themes is a great way of changing the look and feel of the site quickly, however there is more to a theme script than looks.

Semiomantics XO 2011 is a theme which allows to quickly adapt to seasonal or mood challenges right from the dashboard. Further customization is always possible with some knowledge of CSS and php or by discussing the project with a Semiomantics Developer.

The easiest way is to follow just the following steps:

1. Choose a color scheme, say in the reds and greens and apply them to your backgrounds, fonts and features from the Semio XO menu in your dashboard.

2. Create a header graphic adapted to Christmas and load it to your Media Library; then enter the new logo link from the Semio XO Menu.

3. Create a Christmas background graphic or find one online and load it from the Background tab under Appearance in our Dashboard.

4. Do some custom styling using FireBug and your custom style sheet from the Semio 2011 menu.

That’s it!

Of course you can do more than the above and think about some specific Christmas features, such as music or a collection of seasonal images presented in an attractive flash component.

In this case you would probably want to change some of the template scripts, such as the header or the page layout, namely of the home page.

How to proceed?

1. Do a sketch or drawing of your layout. This can be simple but it will guide you and keep you on track. Draw the big picture: lay out and desired content fields.

2. If you wish to add flash or other components, search for the appropriate components and check out the embed requirements. Personally, I prefer hard-coding to the use of plug-ins.

3. In stead of changing templates, rather create your own templates and add them to the theme. For example, if you wish to build an exceptional home page for the season, just create a Christmas home page template for the occasion. If you would like to change your header for a limited period of time, just create a new header template and add it to the theme, and so on.

4. Design your theme elements in Photoshop for example; if you build a home page with a content layout of say 1024 x 900 pixels, just create a new PSD with this dimensions and start designing each element, starting with the header (or the background as the case may be). For each element, create a folder and stuff all corresponding layers into it. Within a short time you will end up with your brilliant ideas in digital format and you can extract the elements to build them into your theme.

5. Add the components; usually some script inserts are necessary and that’s why we use custom templates which we can disable once the season is over (and we can reactivate it when the season returns:-)).

Stick it all together and you will be a Christmas Star!

Or…

This week we will create step by step a Christmas or Holiday site on the base of Semiomantics XO 2011. If you don’t have an XO 2011 you may use XO version 2.9 or better as well, the result will look the same.

I am looking forward to a nice Beauty Contest!

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Edit Theme CSS with Firebug

Tonight’s call will focus on the use of Firebug to quickly test and edit your Theme style. Please download and install it. Firebug integrates with Firefox and is immediately ready for use.

Firebug is one of the most efficient tools for professional developers and newbies alike.

1. Have you ever edited your website’s style? And, have you ever had a hard time to find within the CSS style-sheet the exact block of code you needed to edit to implement a desired modification? With Firebug, you will see immediately which line of your code you need to edit and best of all, you can test the modification on the fly before actually hacking your CSS code.
2. Having Errors on your page, in your CSS or HTML code? Firebug is an ideal debugger pointing you directly to the problem area and suggesting the necessary modifications.

If you are not yet using Firebug, it’s time to get started tonight :-).

YSlow integrates with Firebug and provides important additional optimization information. Download and install from HERE. We will look into YSlow as well at tonight’s call.

Here is an example, running YSlow on my main blog which is, I admit, quite overloaded:

The score with the Semiomantics improved Thesis Theme is 85 (the standard Thesis theme scores 73). This is about what all Ycademy Author Blogs should score if properly set up according to instructions and featuring about as many items as my site.

Now look what the optional Semiomantics SEO Engine can do:

Hey, we just get a whooping 94! Smashing under any standards and just a side effect of the engine :-).

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3D Design

The advantages and disadvantages of 3D Design for websites will be the topic of tonight’s YORGOO Call at yorgotalk.

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Semiomantics Flash Components for Ycademy May Seminar

The upcoming Ycademy Seminar is focusing on Flash, Flash Components and user experience enhanced by Flash. The Seminar is designed for Website Designers and Developers, who want to take their skills to the next level. Find out more from HERE.

Flash is releasing a plethora of flash components this month. While they are originally designed to be used namely with Semiomantics XO and News Cast scripts, they can be used on any website. Check it out in the Semiomantics Shop later this month.

Ycademy Seminar Participants will be introduced to the use of one of the most exciting components. It’s the unique Semiomantics Accordion which in fact is more than just an accordion; it’s also a sideshow, a menu, a slider … most anything you want to make out of it.

[accordion-fx][/accordion-fx]

Now this is something: you can even test the sideshow by clicking on the button at the bottom right.

[accordion-fx settings=“settings2.xml”][/accordion-fx]

The Semiomantics Accordion is probably the best out there since its development is based on the second best :-).

As you see, you can load it vertically or horizontally,  you can modify the number of images, even the effects and much, much more. You see an autoplay version and you can play with the mouse on the images … just try and find out what this script jewel can do for you.

Join tonight’s Call at YorgoTalk to find out more about the Ycademy May Seminar.

PS: The Semiomantics Accordion is included in the Seminar ticket price:-).

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Create your First Flash Document Tonight

At tonight’s Ycademy Flash Workshop we will finish the intro to Flash and create a first animated Flash Document.

We will continue working with the Live Conference tonight; please login from HERE.

[kml_flashembed publishmethod=“static” fversion=“10.0.0″ useexpressinstall=“true” movie=“http://yorgonestoridis.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/05/sample2.swf” width=“480” height=“360” fid=“Flash Sample” targetclass=“flashmovie” play=“false” loop=“false” menu=“true” quality=“best” scale=“noborder” devicefont=“false” seamlesstabbing=“true” swliveconnect=“true” allowfullscreen=“true” allowscriptaccess=“always” allownetworking=“all”]

[/kml_flashembed]

We will create step by step a similar flash as above tonight.

Download the above sample files from HERE.

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Watermark and Copyright with Photoshop CS4

A small but important task for all creative minds: protect your work! Even considering that in certain countries, such as the USA, your images are automatically copyright protected when you publish them, you may want to make it “crystal” clear to everyone that you claim your rights on your work.

In Photoshop CS 4 it is easy to create a simple Action for the purpose of watermarking and to add a copyright notice to your picture. The watermark is the visible sign, while the copyright notice is attached to the file.

Transparent Watermark 1

Transparent Watermark 2

At tonight’s call we will create an Action in CS4 allowing you to add quickly your watermark and copyright notice to your images.

Join the workshop at 8 pm London time at yorGOtalk.

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Portrait Shooting

Based on Digital Photography Ycademy 9 we are able to plan our pictures depth of field. The only remaining problem is: you may have a camera which does not allow for A settings (manual Aperture priority settings).

Don’t worry, there is a way to at least partially compensate for this shortfall.

The below gallery can best be viewed HERE (opens new window).

Remember, we said that the depth of field is function of aperture and distance. Hence, we can use the distance trick which works with most any digital camera or mobile phone.

First we try to compose our picture in a way that the person is not glued to a background, such as leaning on a wall. Position the person at least 2 meters off the next background. Then frame clsosely from maximum 1.5 meters (without zooming). The result may be better if the background is even further away to fall out of the metered focal range (corresponding to infinity settings) which is at about 10–12 meters.

Now shoot your portrait: the autofocus will grab the face and apply the distance, which in it’s turn will trigger the aperture and shutter speed in function of that distance and light. By setting your camera presets on Portrait, the camera does this as well, whereas a narroc depth of field is forced.

In any case, you will end up with a sharp portrait and a more or less blurred background.

If you have taken your picture according to the above, then your post editing is a sunday walk. Just apply some of the great lightroom presets or photoshop actions. Some of these professional tools will lift the quality of your mediocre picture dramatically and clearly digg a huge canion between you and the competitors in your camera’s class.

Here an example: the below picture has been taken with my 4 years old $50 supermarket camera according to the above rule. Then I just pulled it through some professional filters such as stuff from from Kubota, Davis and onOne. This is a matter of just seconds :-).

Join tonight’s YcademyWorkshop for more tips and tricks.

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Photo Editing vs. Graphic Design

Sometimes it is difficult to draw a clear line between photo editing and graphic design or editing. The present Ycademy Sessions deal with Photo Editing and the primary goal is to improve our photographic skills.

Whether we use Lightroom or Photoshop, we can push our editing away from photography into the fields of graphic creativity, which is not the purpose of what we are doing at this stage.

The beautifu world of Photography starts with your shot and leads to the story your picture will tell after editing. Make sure it is still a photograph for the purpose of the April Ycademy!

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Sure we can use most any pictures to tell a story by using the graphic design editors from Photoshop. But it’s a lot more difficult to come back with an optimized photograph, where subtle editing will not destroy the photo caracter of the image and yet allow us to tell a story.

You may argue, that you don’t need an optimized Photo to tell a story. True. Your output however is no longer a photography but a graphich illustration as the case may be. Whether at the base you have been using a photo or a hand designed image is not really relevant. What is relevant, is to know, which language we use to communicate and to express ourselves and how the viewer will percieve our image.

I like to clearly distinguish between photographic work and digital graphic work.

Tonight’s workshop will deal more in depth with Presets and Filters in Lightroom. Different snapshots taken during the editing proces will help to select the final version of the picture.

In order to study Lightroom in depth, you may want to grab a great piece of literature from here below.

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[download_box]Download eBook 20 MB[/download_box]

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Working with Lightroom Presets

Presets are of great help to adjust images in Lightroom. For easy editing it is necessary to get familiar with terminology and some technical features. Most Lightroom presets find their equivalent in Photoshop.

Tonight at the Workshop we will play with some Lightroom Presets and Photoshop actions.

Praz-sur-Arly

Get your materials from here-below:

[download_box]Presets and Actions Download[/download_box]

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5. Digital Photography Ycademy 4

New Adobe CS5 Master Collection

It’s smashing, exciting and a milestone, the new Adobe CS5 release! no reason to try to describe all the new goodies wrapped up in the new pack, just go and have a look at the launch presentation at Adobe. Product delivery to the public is expected to start in May.

If you watch through the various presentation clips, you fill see that for every product being part of the CS5 Master Collection Adobe presents 5 main characteristics. I was wondering, what would be my synthesized single best reason to switch from CS4 to CS5.

With CS5, Adobe introduces eye-bleeding cool features, and loads of them. However one main argument is that the somewhat oldish programs like Photoshop, Flash and After Effects become much more productivity oriented and user-friendly.

Adobe CS5 will definitely make professional tools available to a wider audience and grant a smoother and much more effective workflow. This is where individuals, Home Business Builders, free lancers, designers and developers will find a true possibility to run a media design, development and publishing business as a one-man show. Or, there will be less need for outsourcing, coding, sharing to get a better result faster.

Yorgo Nestoridis Media Publishing

Ycademy, our online Educational Arm has been organizing trainings, workshops and seminars focusing amongst others on Web design and Web site development with Photoshop for some time and we are aware of the difficulties Photoshop represents for the average part-timer or newbie. However with some smart add-on actions, filters and plugins, Photoshop became accessible to average computer users. The new CS5 however makes things much easier in as much as complex manipulations can be executed in just seconds, such as moving, replacing or deleting objects from a photo for example whereas as the case may be, Photoshop will automatically replace the object with the appropriate hypothetical background. Smashing!

Whether you use Lightroom or not, the new Photoshop CS5 is a highly efficient image editing tool, not just for graphic designers, but also for Photographers. The interaction of the various tools provided in the CS5 Master Collection or in any CS5 Pack for that matter, provides a fantastic training environment where I am sure we will have new opportunities to help many people to become familiar with professional tools, cutting edge technology and the joy of exceptional results.

CS5 is in the trend: visual expression has become part of our day-to-day language due to the proliferation of mobile devices and social networks. Amongst all the internet users there will always be a good number who  are reaching out for quality, style and the best possible image or branding. Adobe CS5 is a bundle of tools allowing anyone using it to communicate better and in more creative ways. I am looking forward to explore CS5 with our first training group in June.

Web Design and Web Site Development

It has never been and it still is not Adobe’s cup of tea: semantics! The proliferation of more visual communication provides increasing challenges for Semiomantics and in fact our way to optimize editing and publishing of visual content and media (images, movies, sound) has still a long way to go and a brilliant future ahead. In short: the more visual content customers publish, the more they will have the need to use Semiomantics tuned scripts to reach Google Top 10or to show up on Bing’s top end. More important even: Semiomantics Approach to Facebook with the new Semiomantics Flash module, which will be released in May, will open completely new perspectives for agents and customers.

YORGOO, focusing on free traffic and free leads will wake up soon, simply because we come close to the end of a long development of new content for YORGOO, focusing namely on social networks and Search Engines in the broadest way. YORGOO will remain a starting point for online Marketing efforts and help people to connect quickly with environments where the people are, where the target customers are looking for products and where people interact. The YORGOO approach will remain a no-profit no-ads program and oriented towards all those who want to start an commercial online activity with limited means and high perspectives.

More soon.

Media Design

More media and more sophisticated media, more creativity and more creation, faster internet lines and computers entail larger file sized and more media oriented hosting needs. At ChiHosters and Hosting South Africa we have planned ahead; entrusting large freely accessible networks with your copyrighted media is not the safest way to protect your interest. Hosting your originals on your own server or host in a reliable way is a necessity for professionals as well as for many security conscious individuals. We are providing the most cost effective solutions in the industry, namely for small enterprises and individuals. Expanding the activity to high end hosting services are under discussion.

A year ago we have stalled the YORGOO Media development for different reasons, namely because we were not satisfied with the WordPress MU development as well as with the hosting capabilities we had. With the release of WordPress 3 and the possibility to provide advanced media streaming, YORGOO Media is high on our list of priorities since it will provide highly efficient Semiomantics signed publishing solutions to the over 70 000 YORGOO subscribers.

More shortly.

Yorgo Nestoridis Publishing and Editing

As other companies, such as Microsoft, Adobe has a discriminatory pricing policy, privileging the American Markets. Why the heck should Adobe Products cost more in Australia and Europe than in the USA? Funny, that such a high tech company, with a global approach has such a narrow, short sighted pricing policy. It’s comparable to the pharmaceutic industry and there we know what the natural reaction of the markets are. If anyone from Adobe reads this: tell your boss, time has come to change your rip-off attitude, the global market is looking for global pricing.

More about Adobe CS5 pricing shortly.

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