Why I use Wordpress with Thesis

by Jennifer J. Breazeale on January 27, 2010

make something cartoon from hugh macleodAs I talk with more people about my approach to building with or migrating their sites to a Wordpress+Thesis platform, I’m also trying to come up with a clear and concise definition of why I’ve chosen these tools and why they’re a great options for so many individuals, businesses, and organizations.

Here’s where I am so far…

Wordpress is a great platform because…

Even persons with relatively little technical skill can understand, create, and publish pages and posts. No coding experience required (although a little HTML/CSS/PHP wouldn’t hurt.)

It’s amazingly extensible with multiple plugins for almost any task you can think of.  Of course, it’s also annoying searching through all of those plugins to find one that does what you want it to do (only then to discover that the developer hasn’t worked on it for over a year…)

And, there’s a large, active, and growing population of users and developers who are willing to share their Wordpress knowledge and experience with the rest of us. (Thanks!)

Using Thesis is worth the premium because…

The code is clean, scalable, flexible, and SEO optimized. None of those characteristics are guaranteed if you’re using one of the many free themes out there. Sure, newbies may complain about the cost, and ninjas may want to roll their own for ultimate control, but for the rest of us,  it’s a no-brainer. Just buy Thesis.

It’s easy to customize. Most of the common options are available right there on the Wordpress dashboard. Want to show a certain page on your menu? Check a box. Want to add header or footer scripts? Just paste them into the header or footer box and save. Want to change a color? Pick one from the color box.  You’re not *required* to write code or FTP files.

Oh, and did I mention that all of those customization options are stored all in one place? As Joe Kraynak points out:

I soon discovered the idea behind Thesis. In most WordPress Themes, you have to edit multiple files to control the look and layout of your blog. These files are packed with codes and settings. If you make a bunch of changes, tracking down those changes later can be nearly impossible. With Thesis, the core theme files remain unchanged. You make all changes to two files: custom.css (for style changes) and custom_functions.php…

And again, there’s another large, active, and growing population of users and developers who are willing to share their Thesis + Wordpress knowledge and experience with the rest of us. (Thanks, again!)

What do you think? Are these characteristics relevant to you or your business? Too technical, not technical enough?

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Surviving Overwhelm: Using technology to make your life easier (not harder)

by Jennifer J. Breazeale on January 25, 2010

"The internet will not listen to reason" written in chalk on a concrete pillar.

Photo by: altemark / cc 2.0

Now that I’ve talked about staying productive and sane at work when you’re feeling overwhelmed, I want to spend some time focusing on the technology aspects of this problem. Specifically, how you can use technology to make your life easier (not harder!).

The blessing (and curse) of technology

Technology enables us to consume vaster and vaster quantities of information at an ever-increasing pace. We no longer rely on the local newspaper or the national networks to provide us with our news – now we can cobble together our own 24 hr news stream. We can reach beyond our neighborhood, our family, and our workplace to form communities with like-minded individuals all over the world. But when you’re feeling overwhelmed, the last thing you need is *more*.

You need less technology to make you feel more connected.

(Are you glimpsing a pattern here?)

Start by cleaning house

Do you notice yourself automatically archiving or deleting messages (email, newsletters, RSS feeds) from certain people/organizations? Here’s a novel idea… stop archiving or deleting and start unsubscribing. Trust me. Spend 30 minutes to an hour and really clean out your email(s) and feed reader, you’ll be glad you did.

Now, do the same thing for Facebook. And Twitter. And LinkedIn. And your address book.

(If you’re feeling anxious about this, then back up your information. Trust me, that Facebook fan page for your favorite breakfast cereal will still be there when you come back.)

Pare down your information stream so that everything you receive is something you want. Messages from your (real) friends. Discounts on stuff that you *want* to buy.

Use good tools.

Tools that are (often, but not always) single function, well designed, and easy to use. For me, this includes:

Sure, I can write an article in Microsoft Word, but why would I when I can generate the same content in a distraction free environment (DarkRoom) in a file that’s 1/10th the size and readable by any word processing tool (.txt)? I’ve switched my online bookmarking from Delicious to Pinboard because now I can bookmark a page with one click.

Spend the time learning the tools and creating your custom toolkit, then let the rest go.

Where will you start today? Which technology “room” will get the clean sweep? What tools will fall out of (or go into) your streamlined toolkit?

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Surviving Overwhelm: Staying productive and sane at work

January 22, 2010

We all go through times in our lives where we’re just overwhelmed. We’re stressed and tired. We struggle to make decisions. We want to move forward, but just can’t seem to do so. Here are some lessons I’ve learned (and had reinforced over the past few months) to help get through these tough times…

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Happy New Year!

January 6, 2010

Now that I’ve finished the last of my 2009 holiday relaxing and recharging, I’m ready to get 2010 rolling! Starting this month I’ll be posting some of the “How-To” guides that I’ve created for my clients along with some of the lessons I’ve learned along the way.

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Be human, not Soylent

November 13, 2009

After surviving a morning presentation filled with short-sighted selfishness, aggression, and fear, I eagerly grasped at the kinder, more hopeful society described by Stowe Boyd.*
*Who happens to be the most tweetable speaker I’ve ever heard. I think he actually speaks in 140 character sound bytes.
Instead of taking the trash out of the economy (you know, [...]

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Kessler Kicks Off (and Ticks Off) Defrag

November 12, 2009

Keynoter Andy Kessler kicked off Defrag with a bang. I guess with a title like “Soylent Green“, no one should have been surprised at his controversial talk.  He started with an interesting premise (and visual) that we need to boost productivity by “defragging” the economy – reducing waste, improving efficiencies, having people spend less time [...]

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How to build a dynamic web presence in three simple steps

November 2, 2009

When you hang out around geeks, you forget that email is still cutting edge technology for most people. And for every startup with a slick website, you’ll see many more neighborhood restaurants or community centers with an abysmal site or no site at all. Here are three simple steps for building a dynamic site for your business.

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The power of simple

October 7, 2009

When faced with an unfamiliar task, we’re often presented with either an obsessively detailed checklist or a hopelessly vague idea – both of which inspire a distinct feeling of dread and almost always cause preventable delays.

What are you doing to find the middle ground?

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Bring on the inspiration

September 9, 2009

I think the universe is trying to tell me something.
I recently completed a research project that provided sparked some creative business ideas. (Direction!)
I had dinner with friends on Sunday and in addition to a tummy full of s’mores, came away with plans to meet with a small group to hash out our stuckness and inertia [...]

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You’re doing it wrong: Twitter (the command-and-control edition)

September 2, 2009

Earlier this month, I wrote about a non-profit who wanted to jump onto the Twitter bandwagon without understanding the tool or having a strategy for using it. Well, they’ve now created an account that may be headed for Twitter failure. While it may be too late to get some strategic planning around social media in this case, maybe we can still manage to salvage a little bit of dignity.

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