Macronimous Web Design

Last weekend, we have upgraded this Blog system to WordPress 3. It went well without any troubles, as expected. Our team shares few simple steps to do it yourself.

1. Download WordPress 3.0 from the URL wordpress.org/download. And before you install make sure you have access to the FTP client and mysql database

2. Create a subfolder in your domain root folder and upload unzipped wordpress 3.0 files to the subfolder. Create a database for new WordPress version on your web server. Rename the wp-config-sample.php file to wp-config.php. Open wp-config.php in a text editor and fill in your database details and upload to the desired folder. Run the WordPress installation script by accessing yourdomain.com/subfolder/wp-admin/install.php.

3. Now you should have done with the installation. Next step is to copy your theme files and paste it to the wp-content folder were you could see the default theme.

4. From now on you need to be very careful, copy you DB tables scripts from your existing blog database and paste it to a notepad. Here you see the links with the original URL yourdomain.com and you need to replace with demo URL yourdomain.com/subfolder/ since you are installing a demo test version in a subfolder. Now you can copy the DB table’s script and execute in your new database that has been created for demo version.

5. Now you are 50% done with wordpress 3.0. All the remaining is plugins and you need to note that all plugins are not compactable for new wordpress 3.0 so do not place all plugin in the wp-content plugin folder if happens then there would be problem in access wp-admin. Through your FTP client you need to create a folder can be named “backup” and place all your existing plugins in the “backup” folder. Then move on your desired plugin one by one to check compatibility by logging into wp-admin. There would be less or more plugins you would have located that are not compactable.

6.  Now you are done with your wordpress 3.0 in your demo version. You should be able to access your demo blog with all the post and as well you would be able to access blog wp-admin.

7. At this instant, you can move your live blog files to a different folder or can move to your local machine just for a support. Through FTP client go to your subfolder were you have wordpress 3.0 file and upload all the files in your root folder were you had the files of your previous word press version. Now download your wp-config.php and open in a text editor and fill in your live database details.

8. Now you need to access your mysql demo database and copy the table’s scripts to a notepad and change the URL from yourdomain.com/subfolder/ to yourdomain.com/ and execute it to your live database.

That’s it, now you can enjoy using wordpress 3.0 for your live blog.

Our New business site is up for us from today : www.macronimous.com . The previous site was around 8 years old, and grown up to over 600 pages of static content. A complete makeover was a challenge and our team was able to achieve it in 3 Months.The main changes are,
1. Layout and Graphic changes (With same colors as the previous site) – It is three column now.
2. Table-less XHTML/CSS coding
3. W3C compatibility
4. Content Addition with case studies etc
5. Better SEO readiness.
6. Google friendly internal linking
7. Better sitemap, Breadcrumbs and Bottom Links
8. Homepage Flash banner
9. Content correction – Spelling and grammar correction. (Thanks to our client Anthony Passeri of NYC Data Systems)
10. Cross browser compatibility – Covers Chrome, IE 8 etc.I thank team for the great support, extended thoughts and creativeness.  There are few improvements are under process. If you want to send your feedback you can post your comment here, and if you find any issues, please report to designteam@macronimous.in, we appreciate it.I thank our teams (Design, Porgramming, SEO and QA) and some of our clients – without them all, we couldn’t get this new face.We have decided to keep the site fresh by adding more content and changes on design now and then. I believe Google will like our new site and increase page ranking! J

Everyone at Macronimous wishing you a very Happy Christmas and a Prosperous New year 2009!

Its Web2.0 era, and many of us know how a web 2.o site would look like. We are also developing web 2.0 sites, especially Social networking sites, though we still have no clarity on Web2.0 impact in business. But everybody wants to make it. We get at least 2 requests per week for Social networking application development in Web 2.0 mash ups which are already aplenty in the market. Due to the recent popularity it received,  venture capitalists pour money over such applications, and they get one for them with a “BETA” tag under their logo.

I recently found few directories with a list of web2.0 sites. I was wondering what is the need for this huge list? Are they going to be used by people? How many of us are registered with more than 3 or 4 social networking sites? While I appreciate specific group based social networking sites, what is the need for 200 similar social networking sites for one community? Is that not looking potentiality waste of money. After investing few thousands of dollars what will happen if the site is not promoted due to the fear of its competition it already has? What market can the site catch? 20 registered users in 2 years? How many users will come back to the site after 2-3 visitors?

Here is a list of diretories which has 100s of web2.0 based sites, under different categories. Are they worth visiting and registering?

http://web2.econsultant.com/

http://www.go2web20.net/

http://www.digfoot.com/

I do not say there should be no competition. But uniqueness is needed for any web2.0. Many of them are offering free services, and that can not be the only reason for their success. I beleive the following points should be considered by anyone who wants to develop a Web2.0 application.

1. Does the market or the society need this application?

2. Does the site going to make impact in the market or the society?

3. Can I make money out of this site and this is not just my hobby?

4. Am I offering unique features that will attract used in my web2.0 site?

5. Am I NOT wasting my (or my VC’s) money by making Just another web2.o site?

6. Do I have enough funds to market the site heavily and to overtake my competition?

7. This is not just a trial I want to make since I have few thousand excess money in my Bank A/C, Right?

If you say even single “NO!, you should really think about your stratagy.

Accessing this blog from your Mobile browser is now enabled. Thanks to Alex King of alexking.org. Its a simple WordPress plugin, Its called WordPress Mobile edition. Just follow the instructions, activate the plugin, The blog is up for the mobile now, just call blog.macronimous.com from your Mobile browser..and Yes.. you got it!

Alex has written it the Mobile site as a separate theme, with XHTML/CSS with less or no graphics (Logo is not coming up, you need to tweak the code a bit if you need). Otherwise the job is done. We are planning to write some Themes based on Alex, with bit more graphics – optimized for the mobile!

So you want to blog. But why?

“We cannot live for ourselves alone. Our lives are connected by a thousand invisible threads, and along these sympathetic fibers, our actions run as causes and return to us as results.” – Says Herman Melville.
When you want to link your thoughts with others, when you like others to learn from you or others to make you learn – the good way is blogging. You have a though on personal, business, or social – and you need know what’s others view on it. Blogging helps you to do this – you share your thoughts, and make others to share their thoughts on their thoughts.

Read below, if you need a blog for you:
You need to choose the right blogging tool first, as all are not same, and all doesn’t provide the same. Most of them are Opensource scripts or free services, so you pay a little or nothing.

1. Hosted services:

If you want to start blogging right away, hosted services are the best bet. If you do not have your own hosting space, if you do not know how to install your own blog application, hosted services like blogger, Livejournal or Tyepad would be the right choice. You can straightaway register with them and start with them. Typepad charges a little as monthly fee but the others are free services.

2. Installable scripts:

You need more control with your blog, and want to host under your domain name (eg.blog.yoursitename.com) check with your hosting provider first. Many hosting solutions comes with some default preinstalled blog scripts – with their support manual you should be able to configure it easily.

If you do not like the installed scripts you should evaluate scripts like wordpress (PHP based), Movable type (Perl based), and install them in your server.

I personally recommend wordpress, Reasons:

1. Its free, ever.

2. PHP 4.x based, and most of the hosting supports this.

3. Easy to setup with simple mySQL setup. Again most of the hosting should support mySQL.

4. You do not need to be a big programmer to install, configure or change the designs which you like.

5. Hundreds of free themes are available – You have to just upload and enable/disable them.

6. Easy to configure plug-ins – which are additional features you would like

7. Easy to backup – just back up your database and keep a copy of your data

8. Good SPAM blocking (I like the plug-in akismat)

8. …and many.

We will post regular blogs on blogs, Visit here after some days to learn how a blog can help you to promote your site business.

If you still prefer someone to get your blog ready for you, Just write us. We charge a minimal fee to make your own blog ready under your domain, contact us for more details. In 3 days you will get your blog ready to shout.

Recently we started our Business blog section with WordPress, Simply we are enjoying it. I would like to share what we like in WordPress.

Overall WordPress is very easy to install, create the mySQL database and mention the mySQL login credentials in the configuration file, upload them all, Run the setup and you are done! – Hardly 15 minutes, If you are new to any application installation – maximum one hour! Your Blog or CMS driven Site is ready to post content.

Easy to configure Plug-ins from a huge list of Plug-ins Directory – You not need to be a programmer to configure the right plug-ins you want.

Flaws are fixed quickly – Watch for the right version and upgrade it to Quickly. We always research on WordPress security and make any fixes quickly. The fixes are identified quickly by WordPress team and fixed quickly. So I do not think it is something to be worried much – But just keeping you updated will help you some long term smooth running.

Most importantly, our designers said designing a Theme is much simpler than Drupal – We are using Drupal much, and I know how difficult it would be in Drupal. With great experience in XHTML and CSS it’s not difficult to create Themes. Sooner, our guys will come up with nice FREE designs soon for the WordPress to download.

Easy to admin your blog or site. For a simple sites which need a good CMS, you do not need to load your customers with tons of features offered by Drupal or Joomla. If the site doesn’t have continuous, fast growing nature, you can make the site manager’s life easier with WordPress.

For permalinks and comments you can create RSS. Nice feature.

Staticize plugin – to cache the content of the dynamic pages which makes the site fast appearing and I assume it will eat less server bandwidth. I know some of the features are available in other CMS applications too, But I like WordPress allowing you to configure them easily.

Post via email – It is bit tricky to setup and post your blog by the post Post via E-mail feature. Though I am not planning to use it, you may definitely want to give a try! If you want to use WordPress as your corporate private communication tool for information sharing, this would be power feature.

Trackbacks with pingbacks – Just mention the permalink of any post in your blog. This will do the trackback job.
What I didn’t see is versioning and a content approval system. If anyone knows you can reply here in comments.
We are writing a plug-in to post your comments via mobile; I hope sooner it would be available as our Contribution.