PagePress is a Facebook application that will import your WordPress blog to your Facebook page. It will create a new tab on your Facebook page called Blog (that can be renamed) and you can set it to also automatically post to your Wall.

The set-up was straightforward and I found it fairly easy to set it up and create a tab for my Facebook page.

The Instructions

1. Go to the PagePress website.
2. Click on the big Get Started button
   
3. Click Allow in the Request for Permission box.
4. You are then taken back to the page for PagePress, which is a little confusing. I clicked on the Get Started button again and was then presented with a list of the pages that I administer. You also getting a confirmation email. I didn’t like that I when I confirmed my sign-up that I was also agreeing to their mailing list. This means I will need to unsubscribe as soon as I receive one as I am currently working on reducing the amount of email I receive.
5. Select the page you want to add the app to, if you are the admin on more than one. Then select the category – I’m never quite sure what to select with these but I decided on Company Services.
6. You will be on your PagePress Dashboard. Click on the red install button to add the app to your page. The category has been selected so are ready for Step 3 – Content Sources.
   
7. Click on Add New Source button.
   

    

   Add the URL to your site, select whether you want to display a thumbnail, set the length of the preview and select how many posts you would like to display on the tab.

8. Under Step 4 – Advance Settings – can set to autopost your blog posts to your page Wall and set up your clickbank username, if you would like to be an affiliate of PagePress.
9. There is also a Stats section where you can view very basic stats on views to your blog tab after the first 24 hours.
10. Go to your Facebook page. In the list of tabs you should see one called called Blog at the bottom. You can edit this section, if you would like to move the tab up.
    
11. The page will look like the following. You can view mine on my Facebook page.

    

As you can see from the above screenshot the blog tab contains ads for PagePress. If you use the paid version the ads are removed.

I thought this was easier to set up then Networked Blogs, which I have been using for quite some time. The PagePress site was a little slow and had a couple of minor issues, such as when I wanted to edit the content source info I got an unavailable message for a couple of minutes but otherwise the process was fairly smooth. I haven’t tested auto-post to wall feature because I still prefer to post things manually in order to keep social media social. If you test the auto-posting, please let me know if it worked for you. (or not).

Do you think you would use this application? It is useful? If you set it up, did you have any issues?

photo credit: 22261474@N08

Post from: (Anti) Social Development

Post Your WordPress Blog to Facebook with the PagePress Application

WordPress 3.0 has multiuser capability. What this means is that you can set up a network of sites with a single WordPress installation.

While 3.0 is multiuser capable a couple of files need to be edited and some settings checked in order for the network to actually be available.

You should know how to use ftp and use a text editor to follow these instructions. I also recommend backing up the files that you are going to edit before making any changes to them.

1. Add the following to your wp-config.php file. If you’ve installed WordPress manually, you’ve edited this file before with your database information.
   

   define (‘WP_ALLOW_MULTISITE’, true);

2. Once this file is reuploaded you will have a Network option under the Tools menu in WordPress. Go to Tools > Network.
   
3. Fill out the Network Title and Admin E-mail Address fields. They are probably already populated with your current information. You will also need to decide if you want the blogs to be on subdomains or in subdirectories. In an existing installation they need to be subdomains. On an existing WordPress installation, you may get a warning message about permalinks breaking. I received this warning because I got the screenshots and did the installation on an existing site.
4. Click on the Install button.
5. You will now be on the screen for enabling the network. Follow the instructions and add the text given to the appropriate files.
   
6. In the wp-content directory create a folder called blogs.dir This is used for uploads.
7. Under Step 2 copy the text to your wp-config.php file Make sure to put it in the correct location – before “/* That’s all, stop editing! Happy blogging. */”. Your text will differ from mine but it looked like the following.
   

   define( ‘MULTISITE’, true );
   define( ‘SUBDOMAIN_INSTALL’, true );
   $base = ‘/’;
   define( ‘DOMAIN_CURRENT_SITE’, ‘yourdomain.com’ );
   define( ‘PATH_CURRENT_SITE’, ‘/’ );
   define( ‘SITE_ID_CURRENT_SITE’, 1 );
   define( ‘BLOG_ID_CURRENT_SITE’, 1 );

   Make sure you upload wp-config after editing it.

8. Under Step 3 is a blog of text that needs to be added to your .htaccess file. Mine looked like the following.

   # BEGIN WordPress
   RewriteEngine On
   RewriteBase /
   RewriteRule ^index\.php$ – [L]

   # uploaded files
   RewriteRule ^files/(.+) wp-includes/ms-files.php?file=$1 [L]

   RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} -f [OR]
   RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} -d
   RewriteRule ^ – [L]
   RewriteRule . index.php [L]

   # END WordPress

   Be sure to upload the .htaccess file after editing it.

9. Once this is done, you will need to logout and back in to WordPress.
10. If it was done correctly, you will now have a menu in the WordPress admin called Superadmin. This is the area where the network of blogs are managed.

Troubleshooting

The first time I set this up I got an error message that said

Warning: An existing WordPress network was detected.

I realized that although I had edited the wp-config file I had failed to upload it ;-) I believe this is because that file had two rounds of edits. As long as the instructions are followed and the files are uploaded everything should work without any problems.

Can you think of instances where a blog network would be useful?

photo credit: freefotouk

Post from: (Anti) Social Development

How to Setup Multiuser in WordPress 3.0

On Monday I discussed the Update URL’s plugin that will update the image and internal links on your WordPress site when you move it to a new domain or directory location.

You also want to make sure that your visitors don’t get lost and get 404 errors when they access your site or follow bookmarks to it. In other words you don’t want to lose or confuse visitors who are still coming to your site via the old URL.

URL redirection can be done via the .htaccess file but for non-techie types and those of us who are easily confused (me) the Redirection Plugin is a great alternative.

1. Install and activate the plugin
2. Go to Tools > Redirection
3. You will see a screen that looks like this
   
4. In the source URL field, put the original URL of the website. For example, if you are moving your site to the root directory from the blog subdirectory, you would put yourdomain.com/blog
5. In the target URL field, put the new URL – yourdomain.com
6. Click on the Add Redirection button
7. As long as you are using the same permalink structure under Settings > Permalinks, this one Redirection will take care of all your blog posts and pages.
8. Sometimes when moving a site the content is reorganized. For example, if you had a page for Writing Services, Resume Services, etc and on the new site you made a page called Services and made Writing and Resume child pages of services that the URL would change. You can deal with this through the redirection plugin as well. For example, yourdomain.com/writing-services is now yourdomain.com/services/writing. You can put the first URL in the source field and the second in the target field.
9. You can test that it is working properly but putting the source URL into your browser. You should be automagically redirected to the new URL

It’s a great plugin and I’ve found it really useful for sites that are being moved to new domains and directories. Do you think you would use this?

photo credit: purplemattfish

Post from: (Anti) Social Development

How to Use the WordPress Redirection Plugin When Moving Site to a New Domain or Directory

• How To Make a WordPress Events List – How to make a list of events without a plugin using a category called Events and WordPress queries.
• Zombify – Turn yourself into a zombie on the Zombieland website.
• 10 Places with Morbid Names – What the title of the article says. I’ve been to Tombstone a number of times but despite it’s name it’s not a morbid place – it’s a tourist trap.
• 8 Reasons Why Negative Comments are Good for Your Blog – We don’t like to be criticized but here are some reasons that negative responses to your articles can be a positive thing.
• London’s Unpackaged Grocery Shop: No Packaging Whatsoever – A store that sells goods without packaging. I would love to have one of these in my neighborhood. Most of our waste comes from packaging.
• 21 Things We’re Learning to Live Without – What do we want? What do we need?
• Martian’s Radio
  
• A very small garage
  

Post from: (Anti) Social Development

(Anti) Social Lists 2/7/10

This week I have freelancing, WordPress, Monkey Island and more videos.

• The Best Books for Freelancers – If you are interested in freelancing, here’s a list of the best printed resources.
• Beautiful Post Thumbnails – A list of tutorials for creating the best images for your blog articles.
• Billing Boss: A Free Online Invoicing Tool to Send Invoices Quickly and Easily – Smashing Apps reviews a free online invoicing tool.
• Does Your Business Have the Flu – Symptoms, causes and remedies for a sick freelancing business.
• A video I took of the 2nd episode of the Tales of Money Island. I can play this over and over and laugh every time.
  
• Why pole dancing isn’t for everyone
  
• And the pole dancing video reminded me of Tobias Funke as Mrs. Featherbottom on Arrested Development
  

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(Anti) Social-Lists 10/11/09

I’ve got quite an assortment of links this week – I didn’t have many when I started but found a bunch at the last minute.

Enjoy

• 6 Ways to Kill Your Community – A snarky article that discusses how to increase your comments and completely destroy your community.
• Not Every Facebook Fan Page Needs an Application – A great article on creating a custom facebook fan page with the FBML application.
• How to Personalize Your Google Calendar Background – I don’t spend too much time staring at my calendar but it’s good to know that you can change the background, if you want to.
• Phineas Gage – I came across the strange story of Phineas Gage (awesome name) and thought I would share it. I don’t want to give anything away but the whole thing is pretty unbelievable.
• 40 Awesome Tutorials and Techniques for WordPress Theme Developers – A lot of great resources for developing WordPress themes.
• 27 Ways to Breathe Life into Your Blog’s About Page – This page has a lot of great tips for your about page. I know mine needs to be updated.
• Things are amazing and everyone’s unhappy.
  
• Bert and Ernie Rap
  

Post from: (Anti) Social Development

(Anti) Social-Lists 8/16/09

Recently I read about the WordPress Plugin, Insights, which is designed to make it easy to insert images, video, wikipedia, blog and book information to your blog posts.

I tend to be wary of plugins like this because while they can make posting easier, they tend to slow down the WordPress workspace. And, of course, we tend to be on a quest to use as few plugins as possible.

But this one intrigued me so I decided to install it and test it out. And, surprisingly, I’ve been pleased with the results.

Install and activate the plugin the way you always do. The go to Pages > Edit or Pages > Add New and scroll down to just below the write post area. You will see an new area called Insights that looks like the following.

You can search for articles on your own blog, images, videos, wikipedia articles, google, news, blogs, and books. You can also add a google maps module. You need a google maps api key and the instructions are provided in the plugin’s readme file.

1. My Blog – this searches your own blog for articles related to the one that you are writing or based on your keyword search. In this example I searched on the word plugins and the first 5 articles were returned. There are two icons next to the title of the post; one is to edit it and the second is to insert the link into the article you are writing.
   
2. Images – searches creative commons images that can easily be inserted into your post. To add an image, select the size and click on the image. This, however, does not add the image credit, which would still need to be entered manually.
   
3. Videos – searches youtube for videos that match your keywords. Clicking one the video will bring it up full size so you can play it. Then click on the Add Video button on the right to add the embed code to your blog post.
   
4. Wikipedia – Searches Wikipedia for articles related to your keyword search. A list of articles appears with a link icon next to each title. Clicking on the the icon will insert the link to the article in you post.
   
5. Google – Simply searches google for related web pages. The link to the article can be inserted by clicking on the icon.
   
6. News – a search on relevant news items. Again, clicking on the link icon will insert the link to the article in your post.
   
7. Blogs – performs a google blog search on your keywords. The link icon will insert a link to the article in your post.

   

8. Books – And, finally, books searches for books related to your keywords. You can easily insert a link to the book into your post.
   

I had a couple of issues with the plugin but this is personal rather than related to it’s functionality. When I search flickr or youtube I have my options set to filter out adult content. This is primarily because my daughter uses my computer and I also don’t need that type of material. The plugin doesn’t have that type of filter so sometimes I get strange results for my searches. Otherwise, for someone who wants to reduce plugins, I really like this one. It doesn’t seem to slow down the admin area, it searches quickly, and it seems to produce accurate results.

What do you think? Is this useful to you? Is this something that you would use?

Post from: (Anti) Social Development

WordPress Plugin: Insights – For Images, Video and More

• Widget List – A comprehensive list of widgets from the WordPress codex. You know, I don’t think I like the word widget.
• My WordPress Cheat Sheet – Well, not MY WordPress sheet but A WordPress Cheat Sheet. This includes the files to include when creating a template, loop information, conditionals and common tags.
• The Definitive Craigslist Guide for the Recession – This article provides useful tips for using Craiglist anytime, not just during a recession. I don’t really use Craiglist to buy and sell stuff but have used it for jobs and apartments. It can also contain some great comedy.
• 49 Amazing Social Media, Web 2.0 And Internet Stats – If you love stats, this list will tell you things like there are 900,000 new blog posts per day and YouTube’s bandwidth costs 1,000,000 each day! Found via All Things Cahill

• 101 Ways to Monetize Your Blog Without Irritating Your Readers – Very useful, unless, of course, you WANT to annoy your readers.
• 
  

  The Toilet House

• The Matrix Cat Fight

Post from: (Anti) Social Development

(Anti) Social-Lists 2/1/09

• Enhance your blog posts with free high quality images – A guide to the best free high quality stock images.

• Grief Counseling for Bloggers – David Bradley wrote this article when I was complaining about losing my page rank. It’s a humorous look at how bloggers react when events, such as lost passwords, dropped page ranks, and a decrease in RSS subscriptions, occur.
• Car Free Mondays: A Series Featuring Car Free Women in LA – Siel, at Green LA Girl, has been writing a series about women who live in LA and don’t own cars. I don’t own a car, but I live in a big city with good public transportation, and it’s fascinating for me to read how women are living car-free in a city where supposedly everyone drives.
• Top Ten List of People to Unfollow on Twitter – Many lists of top 10 users on Twitter have been written – 10 Ten in Social Media, Top Ten Environmentalists, etc. In this article, Shannon Whitley lists the top ten types of people to unfollow on Twitter. It’s funny and true.
• Contact Commenters WordPress Plugin – Our friend Ajith has released a new plugin called Contact Commenters. This plugin provides an easy way to email your commenters based on a variety of different criteria such as All Commentors on a Particular Post, All Commentors in last X number of days, etc. I helped Ajith test the plugin and it works great!
• 40 Ways to Deliver Killer Blog Content – Chris Brogan wrote a great list of tips and suggestions for writing better articles for your blog.

Post from: (Anti) Social Development

(Anti) Social-Lists 12/7/08

Earlier this week The Blog Herald published an article about strange blogging habits. The article discusses writing out html rather than using the visual text editor, typing out full url’s rather than using shortcuts, and writing posts in a text editor rather than in the WordPress Write Post area. There is also a lengthy intro about a journalist who continued to use a typewriter even after the advent of word processing and laptops and had someone in his office transcribe his work.

None of these habits seemed that strange to me. It seems that they are instead learned behaviors. For example, I use the html editor and type in almost all of the code because that is how I learned how to do it 13 years ago. Perhaps using a visual editor with all of the buttons would be faster but this is how I prefer to work. (I also have an issue with the code produced with visual editors).

And I also write most of my posts in Notepad++. I do this because I think the workspace in WordPress is too small, although this should improve in 2.7, and because I don’t always work on the same computer. I attach the text file to a saved draft in gmail, work on it wherever I am and then paste it into WordPress when I am ready to publish.

Maybe these habits are strange to others but they aren’t too me.

I’ve been trying to think of other habits that I have that might seem bizarre to others. Here are a couple that I came up with.

1. I have to select an image before I start writing. I frequently get distracted while looking at the images and waste too much time.
2. I can’t write with music on or when my daughter is around (home or awake).
3. I like to have a cup of coffee on the desk next to me, no matter what time of day it is, but rarely drink any of it while I am writing.
4. As mentioned, I have to type out almost all of the html tags.

How about you? Do you think any of these habits are strange or just learned behaviors? Do you think it is worth changing to a more efficient system if we are comfortable with the way we write? Do YOU have any blogging habits that others might think are strange?

photo credit: jody_art

Post from: (Anti) Social Development

Blogging: Do You Have Strange Habits