QUEEN OF KLUDGE

Thesis Theme: Adding an Adsense panel

31. January 2010

OK... now let's see if I can add a three column panel for Google Adsense ads above the content columns in the Thesis Theme. No, you would probably not want to display ads on any of your professional real estate blogs. But there are people who create multiple separate blogs on various other topics with the goal of generating a little Adsense income. No, you will probably not get rich from the Adsense checks, but a few extra dollars a month always comes in handy. Anyway, building on what I learned earlier: Open the custom-functions.php and paste in add_action('thesis_hook_after_header', 'custom_adsense'); function custom_adsense() {?> <table cellpadding="30"><tr> <td><script type="text/javascript"></script><script type="text/javascript"src="http://pagead2.googlesyndication.com/pagead/show_ads.js"></script> </td><td valign="top"><script type="text/javascript"></script><script type="text/javascript"src="http://pagead2.googlesyndication.com/pagead/show_ads.js"></script></td> <td><script type="text/javascript"></script><script type="text/javascript"src="http://pagead2.googlesyndication.com/pagead/show_ads.js"></script> </td> </tr></table> <p><hr></p> <?php} It worked: You'd want to include your own Google Adsense code, but of course, I won't complain if you leave mine in.

Thesis Theme Notes: Custom Banner

31. January 2010

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For anyone not familiar with my style here: Active Rain is one of my favorite places to save miscellaneous notes to myself. But I also figure, if I need to save these notes, maybe someone else will also find them helpful. To use a customer banner in the Thesis Theme for WordPress. Create the banner. Upload it to your host site. FTP to your Thesis Theme files on your host server. wp-content -> themes -> thesis_16 Change the file name "custom-sample" to just "custom" if you haven't done that already. Open the "custom" file. Open (Edit) custom-functions.php (The menu command will depend on which FTP program you are using - the file will open in Notepad or in whatever text editor you have associated with code files) Paste this code into custom-functions.php at the end of the file, below the instructions and the default bookmark code: function mycustom_banner() {?><div id="mycustom-banner"> <a href="http://www.bobtaylorproperties.info" title="Bob Taylor Properties Inc. Home"> <img src="http://www.bobtaylorproperties.info/bobtaylorpropertiesbanner.png" alt="Bob Taylor Properties, Inc." ></a> </div><?php } add_action('thesis_hook_before_header', 'mycustom_banner'); You'll probably want to change the alt titles and URLs to your own. Although if you want to use mine I won't complain. :-) Thesis works with "hooks" and "functions". The "function" is the actual executable code - in this case the insertion of a banner image. The "hook" is the LOCATION on the page you want the "function" placed - in this case before the Thesis default header. Now, close the FTP program, go to the wp-admin panel for the site. Click Thesis Options at the bottom of the left menu column. Under Display Options -> Header uncheck "Show site name in header" and "Show site tagline in header" Save. One last thing: You may want to reduce the spacing before your banner image, to do that, go back to the Thesis files via FTP. In the custom file, open up custom.css and add this line of code to the end of the file .custom #header { padding: 0px; margin: 0px; }

Puns For Educated Minds

26. January 2010

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Wayne Golliday left a comment on my post about OpenHook for Thesis. I had not noticed his name before, so I clicked through to his profile and blog. This post made me LOL LOL LOL!!!!!!Via Wayne Golliday (SEO Redefined):1. The roundest knight at King Arthur's round table was Sir Cumference. He acquired his size from too much pi. 2. I thought I saw an eye doctor on an Alaskan island, but it turned out to be an optical Aleutian . 3. She was only a whiskey maker, but he loved her still. 4. A rubber band pistol was confiscated from algebra class, because it was a weapon of math disruption. 5. No matter how much you push the envelope, it'll still be stationery. 6. A dog gave birth to puppies near the road and was cited for littering. 7. A grenade thrown into a kitchen in France would result in Linoleum Blownapart. 8. Two silk worms had a race. They ended up in a tie. 9. A hole has been found in the nudist camp wall. The police are looking into it. 10. Time flies like an arrow. Fruit flies like a banana. 11. Atheism is a non-prophet organization. 12. Two hats were hanging on a hat rack in the hallway.. One hat said to the other: 'You stay here; I'll go on a head.' 13.. I wondered why the baseball kept getting bigger. Then it hit me. 14. A sign on the lawn at a drug rehab center said: 'Keep off the Grass.' 15. The short fortune-teller who escaped from prison was a small medium at large. 16. The man who survived mustard gas and pepper spray is now a seasoned veteran. 17. A backward poet writes inverse. 18. In a democracy it's your vote that counts. In feudalism it's your count that votes. 19. When cannibals ate a missionary, they got a taste of religion. 20. If you jumped off the bridge in Paris, you'd be in Seine. __________________________________________ Wayne GollidaySEO RedefinedReceive Your FREE Website Analysis! SEORedefinedOnlineMarketingServicesForRealtors FirstCoastDesigns.Com Customized Social Media Point2 Agent Website Customization

WordPress Thesis Theme: OpenHook Plug-In

26. January 2010

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Are you using the Thesis theme on any of your WordPress(.org) blogs? And you'd like to use "hooks" for custom styling, but you just haven't had time to get up-to-speed- on hooking? :-) The OpenHook Plug In is for you. You can download OpenHook here: http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/thesis-openhook/ After you upload and install OpenHook, it will add a function to your WordPress Dashboard, like this: The OpenHook control panel looks like this: The hook in the screen is moving the navigation menu from its' default location above the Title-Header to a position below the Title-Header. The steps are: At the "Before Header" section, check "remove Thesis nav menu" and click save. Copy the little snip of code that is highlighted in the sentence below the checkbox. In the "After Header" section, paste in that little snippet of code you just copied. (In my screenshot, you can see I was playing around with some other things, too. You can ignore those.) Check "Execute PHP on this hook" and click save. Check your blog, and the default manu menu will have moved to its' new location below the Title-Header.

New Scam making the rounds

19. January 2010

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Have you seen this scam yet? You receive an email sent from one of your friend's own email addresses with your friend's own email signature at the end, asking for money because of an emergency. Here are two variations I have seen so far: 1. How are you doing? I am sorry I didn't inform you about my traveling for a Program called Science, Health and Environmental Reporting. It is currently held in Nigeria, Sweden and Kenya. I am presently in Nigeria. It has been a very sad and bad moment for me because i got robbed on my way to the hotel where i lodged. My ID, cash and other valuables i have with me got stolen, I contacted the embassy here to help me out but it will take some time to get back to me. I urgently need your financial assistance of $2,600 to sort-out my hotel bills and get myself back home. I will really appreciate your help and i promise to pay you back immediately upon my return. Hope to hear from you soon. Regards, 2. How are you doing? I am writing you this message with sorrow because of what I am going through right now. Am in a great sorrow written you this note, I could barely type or think straight right now, I hope you come to my aid....something very terrible is happening to me where I am, I seriously need help from you urgently, I had a trip here in West Africa {Nigeria} for a conference. Unfortunately for me I got robbed on my way to the hotel where I lodged along with my Cell phone, bag where my passport was and since then I have been without any money, I am even owing the hotel here. So I have limited access to emails for now, I urgently need your financial assistance. The total sum of money that I would need would be $2,475 to sort-out the bills so I can make arrangements and return back, I'm in a panic now, the police only asked me to write a statement about the incident and directed me to the embassy, I have spoken to the embassy here but they are not responding to the matter effectively, I will return the money back to you as soon as I get home, I am so confused right now. I wasn't hurt because I complied immediately. I'll wait to hear from you so I can send the Western Union information to use in sending the money. Hope to hear from you soon. Sincerely, Number 2. is obviously written in spam-ese; but Number 1 could almost pass for a native english speaker. If the bad guys ever learn proper syntax, spelling and grammar, we will be in big trouble. But I digress. Evidently the spammers hack someone's into email address book, and send out an email blast looking as if it came straight from that person. If a friend replies to that email, I would imagine the hacker has the reply rerouted to the hacker's op center, where a response goes back out telling where to wire the money. The person whose email was hacked never knows anything happened until one of her friends says something like "Gee, I didn't know you had traveled to Nigeria, but I hope the money I wired you helped."

Artists in Discussion at Avenue 50 Studio, Sunday January 24

15. January 2010

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Birth of My Grandmother - Mita Cuaron Sunday, January 24, 2010 from 1:00-3:30 pm Please join us for a "round table" discussion with the artists of our Testimonies Two exhibition as we explore and dialogue on questions of spirituality in art and thoughts on working towards a theme-based show. You are invited to bring your questions, or just enjoy the exchange of ideas. Yrneh Brown, Martin Charlot, Mita Cuaron, Ruth De Nicola, Pat Gomez, Yolanda Gonzalez, Mark Steven Greenfield, Lucy Hagopian, Cidne Hart, Wayne Healy, Heriberto Luna, Rafael Matias, Susanna Meiers/Peter Liashkov, Andrés E. Montoya, Toti O'Brien, Suzanne Siegel, Richard Turner Light refreshments will be served Avenue 50 Studio, Inc.a 501(c)(3) non-profit art gallery131 North Avenue 50Highland Park, CA 90042323-258-1435

2 Dogs Need New Homes-Their Human Dad Died.

13. January 2010

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Via Jackie Kyles ABR, CNE, RLI (Keller Williams Realty):Please re-post. Mike Little passed away 1/2/10. He had 2 dogs that desperately need good homes. Max: 2 yr old male lab mix - neutered - very docile (Max spent his lifein the pound until Mike adopted him last summer) Patty: 2 yr old female wire haired jack russell terrier - spayed - verysweet/loving. Please pass the word. Any help would be very appreciated.Thank You!~Anetra Farmer423-847-3827423-309-9284Luv That Home...it's more than just selling a house.It's A Good Life!Jackie KylesCheryl WinnLuvThatHome Team803-230-2672 (Jackie)803-517-1472 (Cheryl)luvthathome@yahoo.comwww.luvthathome.com

Planning the move to a Virtual Dedicated Server

13. January 2010

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Here's my current plan for moving to to a Virtual Dedicated Server. Initially sign up for a short term plan. Yes, short term is a little more per month, but I want to be sure I can manage this before making a long term commitment. Leave all my current hosting account sites where they are. Upload and import duplicate copies of two or three existing sites to the VDS. Upload and import a few more; including Mu instalations. Keep uploading duplicate copies of all my sites until I've done all of them. (Use FeedWordPress and/or Autoblogged plugin to keep content in the new VDS test location current) Let everything exist in duplicate while I learn my way around. As each exisiting hosting account comes up for renewal, let it expire (provided its twin is already living on the VDS of course.) Here's the configuration I am planning: Operating System:Linux Bandwidth:1500GB Hard Drive(s):30GB Control Panel:cPanel Unlimited Backup:Daily Backups, Stored for 7 day Ram:512MB ((I'm placing this link here for future reference: GoDaddy's cPanel Setup Guide )) I plan on posting my notes here on Active Rain as I muddle along. Suggestions or comments about your own experience in setting up a VDS are very welcome!

Virtual Dedicated Server: Preparing to start a new journey

12. January 2010

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I have about 20 shared hosting accounts (5 of which are WPMu installations). I am beginning to think it is time to pull them all into a Virtual Dedicated Server. Anyone reading this using a VDS? Any comments? Advice? Setup or administration headaches? Please tell me!!

How NOT to handle internet lead conversion and other musings

10. January 2010

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I am a real estate broker. I know a little bit about buying, selling, and leasing real property. When it comes to every other product or service in life, that is NOT real property, I am a simple consumer, and many times I am somebody's lead. In fact, I have some pretty finely tuned radar that alerts me when I am being treated as a lead. Here's a true life story: Somehow, I ended up on a contact list for XYZ Communication Company. The rep calls me once or twice a week; she faxes rate comparison sheets, and then calls me again to ask if I have any questions. I know she is just trying to do her job. And it is quite possible that changing phone carriers would save me money. But there is just simply not room on my plate to deal with it right now. If and when I am ready to look into it, I most likely will NOT contact XYZ Communication Company, because they have just plain pestered and annoyed me way too much. This is not the way to handle internet lead conversion, or any kind of lead conversion. If I am not ready to purchase your particular product or service, no amount of badgering by phone, fax, email or snail mail is going to cause me to purchase. If I am ready to purchase your product or service, I will make a decision to work with you based on my perception of how knowledgeable you are about your product or service. If you give me the impression that you know what you are doing, and if on top of that, you are personable and likable, you will most likely have closed the deal with me. And you are gonna need to give me that impression of competency in the first few minutes of our very first conversation. Is it possible that the people who are my potential clients have the same kind of feelings? The First Impression is the foundation of any lead conversion system. I believe that the First Impression trumps almost anything you can do in subsequent follow-up. In that very first conversation, you must convey the impression that you know your stuff. Your market, your neighborhood, the angles of financing, how the how process of purchasing works. If you succeed with the First Impression, you can get away with ignoring the potential client for the next two months, and they will still remember you. And in that same conversation, you need to explore the who, what, where, why, when and how of the potential client to begin to get an idea if the possibility of a strong working relationship exists. In original 2009 edition of Gary Keller's book titled "Shift, How Top Real Estate Agents Tackle Tough Times" there is a chapter titled "Get to the Table - Lead Conversion". Keller suggests some scripts for mining the client's who, what, where, why, when and how when having that initial conversation. Although, truth to be told, I cannot see myself saying to a potential client "Thanks for sharing that" with a straight face. For other methods of converting internet leads, be sure to check out giftofshift.com/activerain where you can purchase a limited edition hardcover of Gary Keller's book SHIFT, which comes with a free version of the eBook Soci@l: Attract Friends, Followers and Connections to Your Business, written by Ben Kinney and Jay Papasan (in which Ben shares his 'ten days of pain' lead conversion method) as well as free audio versions of Millionaire Real Estate Agent and Millionaire Real Estate Investor all for $19.99. Disclaimer: This is an entry in Bob Stewart's most recent contest for which I may or may not receive Active Rain Bonus Points. :-)

Archive | January, 2010

Thesis Theme: Adding an Adsense panel

Thesis Theme Notes: Custom Banner

Puns For Educated Minds

WordPress Thesis Theme: OpenHook Plug-In

New Scam making the rounds

Artists in Discussion at Avenue 50 Studio, Sunday January 24

2 Dogs Need New Homes-Their Human Dad Died.

Planning the move to a Virtual Dedicated Server

Virtual Dedicated Server: Preparing to start a new journey

How NOT to handle internet lead conversion and other musings

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