Kenton Bell - Kentonville.com http://kentonville.com Kenton Bell's Homepage Fri, 30 Jul 2010 04:40:50 +0000 en hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=1889 Ping.fm Review: Social Network Updater http://kentonville.com/ping-fm-review-social-network-updater/ http://kentonville.com/ping-fm-review-social-network-updater/#comments Fri, 30 Jul 2010 04:40:50 +0000 Kenton Bell http://kentonville.com/?p=494 When I dived head-first into social networking recently I searched for a method to update all of my social networks at once. After some stumbling blocks like linking Feedburner to Google Buzz to Twitter to Facebook. Which mind you I was impressed by being able to do this but each service has its own quirks. The solution was Ping.fm. The clever company byline is “Post From Anywhere » To Anywhere,” it turns out this might just be true.

The basic idea of Ping.fm is you post to your Ping.fm account and it aggregates to all of your various social networks. I tried a lot of other methods and this one works well for me.

I personally use it for:

Various Methods Available For Updating

Mobile Phone / SMS / MMS

You can post via iPhone, iPod Touch, WAP and SMS text messaging in the US, Canada and Europe.

I have set it up so that I can update my status from by text message. So now no matter what the minutiae of my random thoughts can be instantly broadcast to the world.

Instant Message / E-mail

Yahoo! Messenger, Google Talk, AIM, Windows Live Messenger and standard e-mail.

3rd Party Apps / Developer API

Their are over 100 third party Apps for Ping.fm including iGoogle, twhirl, Facebook, Twitter Feed, and SpinVox

Other Ways To Update

  • RSS: You can automate the broadcasting of your brilliant post to all your networks by setting it to automatically read your RSS feed.
  • Google Reader: Any posting that you mark “Shared” in your Google Reader account will be shared.

At this time the following services can be updated all at one time.

Further Reading:

]]> http://kentonville.com/ping-fm-review-social-network-updater/feed/ 0 WordPress Plugins Used On Kentonville http://kentonville.com/wordpress-plugins-used-on-kentonville/ http://kentonville.com/wordpress-plugins-used-on-kentonville/#comments Fri, 18 Jun 2010 01:48:06 +0000 Kenton Bell http://kentonville.com/?p=427 To celebrate the release of WordPress 3.0, I decided to write about all the plugins that Kentonville.com uses. I have been making goofy websites for a decade or more. For those of you in the know, the first program I used was Macromedia Dreamweaver 3.0. Oh, I can still remember it well. I originally started making websites to brag about my amazing collection of fake Dr Peppers. Recently when I revamped this site, I recreated “Dr Kenton’s Generic Dr. Peppers Page” with all of the original pictures and text. I honestly thought about putting up the site just like it was long ago. By that, I mean with frames, an all white background, a hundred thumbnails with mouse-overs, and enough crappy coding to make the W3C cry. A word on frames, if you do not know what they are, basically, you create various rectangles, you click a link in one rectangle, and it changes something another rectangle. Trust me you have seen these and found them annoying. However, a decade back that was high quality web design.

Over the years, I have made many different sites on a myriad of topics. The site your on now is about boring ol’ me. A few years ago, I started toying with WordPress. I did not need a blog; I needed a static content website program. In Internet speak that is a CMS or Content Management System. I think I should come clean on my abilities. On a scale from 1 to 10 my level of web design mastery is at best a 4.5. No reason to pretend to be otherwise. I can get a site to do just about anything I want it to do by hacking away and Googling into the wee hours of the morning. You may be wondering if I am not that great at this, why are you the reader wasting time reading what I have to say. Excellent question, WordPress makes anyone look like a web guru. That is why I am writing about this, I thought I would spread the world about the program and some of the plugins that I use. I feel better now that you know that I am fraud. With a little work you to can be a fraud too.

Prattling aside, why WordPress? I like it; it is straightforward and has a vast community behind it. Countless themes, tutorials, plug-ins, and resources are available for WordPress. Your are not going to find anything here, besides my long-winded purple prose that you cannot find elsewhere. Here is what I know about WordPress:

A monkey can use it, by a monkey I mean me. WordPress is simple and intuitive. I will admit that my initial hesitation in using WordPress was the need for Databases. This was foreign to me and frankly, I was a little scared. The reason I know, what I know, is because I would fiddle with things until they worked. Static HTML is great for this, you mess something up, you just upload your back up, and no one is the wiser. Databasing is different and requires a scalpel not a sledgehammer. I got over it.

Here is a listing of plug-ins I use and why I use them, most plug-ins I use are on the back-end. I try to hard code anything when I can.

Accessibility Plugins:

WordPress has pretty good accessibility out about of the box. However, it can be improved and often the more plugins your use the worse you make a site from an accessibility position. Below are the plugins that add to WordPress instead of detract.

External Links

  • You notice all of those little blue arrows next to the links; I use to have to code those by hand one at a time. This program does it automatically. This practice is good for accessibility and just good design; people should know where you are sending them. That is why I do not put links in text but after in a bullet list and I always append the URL in the description. This might be nit-picky but it is what I would like to see more on the Internet.
  • External Links Plugin For WordPress: Semiologic.com
    • The External Links plugin for WordPress automatically marks outgoing links as such.
  • WordPress › External Links « WordPress Plugins: WordPress.org

Font Controller

My Read More

Remove Title Attributes

  • Title attributes are wonderful, I use to spend hours make sure I had one on every link. Well, turns out it is an accessibility no-no. All of the extra titles often just add redundant information to screen readers, the primary way users that are sight challenged use the Internet. WordPress by default add title attributes to just about everything; this plugin will remove most of them.

SEO: Search Engine Optimization Plugins:

SEO is the giant buzzword all over the internet and fortunes are made assuring people with false promises. I cannot teach you how to do it. I would not even try. Below are the plugins that will help you on your way. SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization. This is one of the most abused terms on the Internet; a thousand hucksters have a million solutions to your problems. Trust me is mostly empty promises. If I have learned anything, it is if you have something worth finding and cataloging the search engines will find you. Most people spend too much time making a site SEO friendly instead of putting something on it worth finding. I understand you are reading this on some goofy guy’s personal site that really is about nothing, but it does not mean I am wrong. The best way to ensure SEO is do it right from the beginning and this plugin will do most of it for you. You will find many different camps in the WordPress universe about which plugin to use and why. I will let the wiser and more invested fight for your souls on that one.

All in One SEO Pack

Broken Link Checker

cbnet Ping Optimizer

  • WordPress has a wonderful feature that allows you to ping various search engines when you add a Post, however if you modify a post it will do it again. If you are like me, I always forget something or see some atrocious grammar that I have to change after the fact. I wind up changing pages multiple times, thing is this will get your site black listed as a spammer. Bad monkey. This plugin will only let WordPress ping search engines once and protect you from being added to the bad list. As I said before if, you have original content and something worth reading the spiders and bots will find you. Quit trying to game the system and this plugin will help stop the manifest intent of the embedded ping service.
  • Ping Optimizer » cb.blog: ChipBennett.net
  • WordPress › cbnet Ping Optimizer « WordPress Plugins: WordPress.org
    • Saves your wordpress blog from getting tagged as ping spammer.

Google XML Sitemaps

Robots Meta

WordPress Security Plugins:

The Internet is full of bad people. Some of these people will try to break into your site and insert malicious code because they can. The plugins below might just help you avoid that.

Login LockDown

  • Your login page is under constant attack by the nefarious efforts of the haters. This will help make it harder to get into your site.
  • WordPress › Login LockDown « WordPress Plugins: WordPress.org
    • Adds some extra security to WordPress by restricting the rate at which failed logins can be re-attempted from a given IP range.

Secure WordPress

Miscellania:

These did not fit anywhere else.

PS Auto Sitemap

Redirection

Revision Control

  • WordPress is great; it does have annoyingly wonderful function. It will auto save what ever you are working on in case you are like me and often do stupid things to endanger a lot of hard work. After a while, all of these auto-saves build up and can bloat your screen and database. This is where Revision Control comes to the rescue. I have my installation set to keep the last three updates and the delete anything older. A fantastic plugin that does one thing extremely well.
  • Revision Control: | Dd32.Id.au
  • WordPress › Revision Control « WordPress Plugins: WordPress.org
    • Allows finer control over the number of Revisions stored on a global & per-type/page basis.

Further Reading:

]]> http://kentonville.com/wordpress-plugins-used-on-kentonville/feed/ 0 I am testing out my new Ping.fm account http://kentonville.com/i-am-testing-out-my-new-ping-fm-account/ http://kentonville.com/i-am-testing-out-my-new-ping-fm-account/#comments Sun, 30 May 2010 17:59:31 +0000 Kenton Bell http://kentonville.com/?p=168 Oh how the Internet has changed. I realize that I am dating myself here but sometimes I miss the sound of the old 56k modem starting up. Now that I have been hurled into the future and newfangled Social Networking, it has been fun fiddling with the various services. The latest is Ping.fm and it looks promising.

]]> http://kentonville.com/i-am-testing-out-my-new-ping-fm-account/feed/ 0 Dr Kenton’s Generic Dr Peppers Page http://kentonville.com/dr-kentons-generic-dr-peppers-page/ http://kentonville.com/dr-kentons-generic-dr-peppers-page/#comments Sat, 29 May 2010 22:58:26 +0000 Kenton Bell http://kentonville.com/?p=160 When I decided to revamp Kentonville.com, I came across a memory from long ago. I collected generic versions of Dr Pepper. It all started on Albemarle Rd. in Charlotte at a Food Lion and the curious question “I wonder how many of these exist?” It turns out quite a few. After one of my best friends brought my back a few from a trip out West I was off and running.

Over the next few years I drove all over the United States to find the rare gem that was not in my collection. Collecting Dr Drinks led me to designing web pages and I made many new friends in my travels. Eventually I would find over a hundred drinks.

I do not have them any more, that is a sad story but I do not regret it. When I came across the old files, I decided to put it back up on the Internet as an archive of sorts. It was fun, sad, much needed trip down memory lane.

I did not change any of the pages, the same thing that was written on them originally remains and that is cathartic. The ideas and sense of humor of a time gone by, do not always translate well with time. A few of the people and inside jokes I have forgotten but most memories are as alive now as they ever were.

It may seem strange to wax poetic about a bunch of cans that I do not have anymore. What I miss is the adventure and the stories that I lived.

  • Getting a giant box of drinks delivered from a fellow collector, feeling like a child on Christmas morning.
  • Strange grocery stores across the country, if you want to understand a people go observe where they shop.
  • Driving to Alabama to get a drink that was recently discontinued and sleeping in a dive motel after hearing a tall tale from a truck driver at two in the morning.
  • Driving to Kenton, OH and running out of gas because I was getting a seat belt ticket and the cop would not let me turn off my truck. All while I stared at the Welcome sign to the city and the drink I was after was not there. I slept in the snow behind a church, cuddling a giant yarn ball that night.
  • Going to New Mexico to see friends with a genius in tow, stopping along to the way enjoy the ride.
  • The generous people that found the site and sent me drinks, sharing in an odd hobby.
  • Finding out that I was far from the first or the only collector was eye-opening. Many other people collected Dr Drinks; I traded and talked to most.

Countless other stories remain, all because of a few silly cans. It was never about the having: it was about the finding. That is the lesson I will take from unearthing the past. That and I need to start living better stories; the memories are really the only things that matter.

Dr Kenton’s Generic Dr Peppers Page has not been updated since 2001 nor will it ever be. The site will go on, maybe inspiring someone else to go on a road trip or take a chance. I would like to say thank you to those silly cans and I hope putting the page back online is a fitting tribute to a young fool looking for purpose and adventure.

Dr Kenton’s Generic Dr Peppers Page

]]> http://kentonville.com/dr-kentons-generic-dr-peppers-page/feed/ 0 I have joined Facebook http://kentonville.com/i-have-joined-facebook/ http://kentonville.com/i-have-joined-facebook/#comments Mon, 24 May 2010 21:09:27 +0000 Kenton Bell http://kentonville.com/?p=44 Believe it or not I have joined Facebook. I am having trouble wrapping my head around it myself. However, stop by and poke me or put something on my wall, I have not learned the lingo yet.

http://www.facebook.com/kentonville

]]> http://kentonville.com/i-have-joined-facebook/feed/ 0 Welcome to Kentonville http://kentonville.com/welcome-to-kentonville/ http://kentonville.com/welcome-to-kentonville/#comments Mon, 24 May 2010 20:31:19 +0000 Kenton Bell http://kentonville.com/?p=42 I have had this site for many years and have used it for various reasons. Now, it will serve has my little corner of the internet. To what end, I have no idea.

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