Monthly Archives: September 2010

I Like This – September 29, 2010

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    A collection of New Media items I found interesting this week.
  • It's Not About What You Do, But Why You Do It [Video] – September 27, 2010 – Not enough people ask that all important question, “Why?” We see it every day. People doing the same thing over and over even though it is no longer useful or even advised. Adding this video to my “To Watch” queue.
  • Where Good Ideas Come From – September 23, 2010 – An excellent talk on creativity combined with a simultaneous mind map video to reinforce the ideas being discussed. This is a great way of illustrating ideas instead of just watching the presenter present their topic. It really adds value to the process.

I Like This – September 22, 2010

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    A collection of New Media items I found interesting this week.
  • Join.me Is a Free One-Click Screen Sharing and Conferencing Tool [Downloads] – September 17, 2010 – Checking out this new app from LogMeIn.com. I regularly use their LogMeIn Free product to assist people remotely. If this is anything like that, I will like it an duse it. Sometimes there is nothing like showing your screen to someone and letting them watch what you do. One picture is truly worth a 1000 words.
  • Geofence Your Friends With Footprint Feed – September 17, 2010 – This is an interesting add-on to location based tracking. I have turned it on for myself only at this point, just to see how it works and what type of value it can provide. It uses Google Latitude as its base. Unfortunately, on the iPhone, it does not run in the background so it will still require me to check-in to update my feed.

Photos: Cocktails with Bakespace.com, POM and Fiji Water

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I attended this very nice event at Shutters at the Beach in Santa Monica sponsored by Bakespace.com, POM and Fiji Water. They served a POM Cosmo cocktail and some wonderful hors d’oeuvres.

It great to chat with some dedicated foodie and New Media folks. I love combining my interests and this event was certainly a great one for that.

POM Cosmo

1 1/2 oz POM Wonderful 100% Pomegranate Juice
1 3/4 oz Vodka
1/2 oz Cointreau
1/3 oz Fresh Lime Juice
Twist of Lime

Pour ingredients into a shaker filled with ice.
Shake sharply and strain into glass.
Garnish with a twist of lime (optional).

I Like This – September 15, 2010

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    A collection of New Media items I found interesting this week.
  • Music and learning: do they mix? – September 14, 2010 – Another collection of royalty-free music to use in your new media productions, podcasts, online learning and other creations.
  • Dyyno: Stream Anything From Your Desktop to Justin.tv With One Click – September 14, 2010 – Here is another high quality option for streaming your events, either free or premium plans. Justin.tv has been around for a while, but this software and plans are new.
  • Create Your Own Tube Ad – September 10, 2010
  • PVC skater dolly – September 10, 2010 – Doing a lot with a little is important for New Media producers and this sweet little dolly can bring a lot of Flash to your productions. A sample video and complete build instructions are included on the site.
  • PVC skater dolly – September 10, 2010 – Doing a lot with a little is always important to New Media producers and this sweet little dolly can add a lot of flash to your productions. A sample video and complete build instructions are included on the site.

I Like This – September 8, 2010

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Question: WordPress — Is it hype?

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I get a lot of questions every day and here is a one from today…

  • Q: Seth Godin uses TypePad. Is WordPress hyped VS a Reg. Website and using Typepad as your blog platform? I like WP but seems like it has to be watched like a hawk for it not to freeze up or slow down. What will this cost me in WP maintenence fees.

  • A: Hmmm, is WordPress hyped? I don’t think so. It does what I need it to do. There is certainly some personal choice and preference involved. I don’t use TypePad myself, but many people seem to, so it must have something going for it.

    I find WordPress easy to maintain and manage and the number of plugins available for it make it quite extensible, even for someone like me who really isn’t a programmer, although technology-savvy. I do like having my own install of WordPress on my own web host, as opposed to having my blog hosted elsewhere — at least for my own personal blogs. I do use WordPress.com extensively for other, shared project blogs, though. I even have one blog still hosted at Blogger.com, where I started.

    Speed is more a function of your web host and the number of plugins/features you have installed on your WordPress site. As with anything, installing too much cruft can slow it down. I find that the amount of traffic you have is more a concern than the actual software though. WordPress has caching plugins available to help in high-load environments., though, so that can help if you have a really popular web site.

    I don’t find I have to “watch it like a hawk” to keep it running. In fact, I don’t think I have ever had a problem with WordPress other than those I have caused myself through badly configured plugins or themes. You should be able to maintain WordPress by yourself, as typically it only involves clicking a few buttons and waiting for the upgrade. In fact, I always recommend that bloggers know how to control and maintain their own blogs, rather than relying on someone else — especially if that person is charging by the hour for basic maintenance.

    The new automated upgrade utilities built into WordPress make it almost a plug and play environment. Most web hosts have a one/two-click install for WordPress, making it even easier.

    Overall, I like WordPress, both self-hosted and hosted at WordPress.com. It serves me well and I regularly recommend it to others.


Do you have a question? Why not drop me a line? Use the Comments link above, send email to me@douglasewelch.com or call the voice mail line at 818-804-5049

Question: How do I make automatic backups of my WordPress blog database?

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I get a lot of questions every day and here is a one from today…

  • Q: How do I easily backup my WordPress database (the file that holds all your posts, comments, etc). Why should you backup your WordPress Database? If not, am I in danger of losing all my blog posts due to hacking, upgrade issues or other technical mistakes?.

  • A: Yes, failing to backup your WordPress database could lead to the loss of all your blog content if there is an issue. There are a variety of ways to backup your WordPress database. The usual method is to use the database manager page at your web host’s site to manually run a backup to a text file and then download the text file. Doesn’t sound very easy or fun, does it. When I switched over to WordPress a few years ago I was determined to find an easier, and more automatic way, to do backups.

    Enter WordPress Database Backup, a free WordPress plugin available from austinmatzko.com.

    On each of your self-hosted WordPress blogs, download and install this plugin and then activate it via the WordPress Dashboard. Once installed, you can force an immediate backup that can be downloaded to your local computer or, and I prefer this method, an automatic backup which wakes up and then emails the backup file. I keep a separate Gmail account just for this purpose.

    Now, whenever there is a WordPress upgrade, I check to make sure there was a recent automatic backup and then proceed with the upgrade, secure in the knowledge that all my content is safe.


Do you have a question? Why not drop me a line? Use the Comments link above, send email to me@douglasewelch.com or call the voice mail line at 818-804-5049