I came across this great video today from Derek Sivers – he’s just released his new book, Anything You Want, and is apparently doing a series of short videos covering some of the topics in the book.  I’ve worked in large and small companies and non-profit organizations and these “punish everyone” policies are everywhere – I’m making it my mission to get rid of them, and add some common-sense back in, where-ever possible.

Enjoy!

Click here to view the embedded video.

(h/t to Think Vitamin)

After spending several hours poring over a variety of sites, tutorials, forums, and FAQs, I was able to get the following configuration working on my main site and all subdomains¹:

• WordPress 3.1.2 with multisite (this was originally a WPMU installation) and the following plugins enabled:
  • BuddyPress 1.2.8. This includes one main site plus multiple subdomains.
  • WordPress MU Domain Mapping 0.5.4
• BuddyPress default theme on the main site.
• Thesis 1.8 on subdomains.

This guide will cover how to setup custom domain mapping for subdomains on a WordPress 3.0+ multisite platform using the WordPress MU Domain Mapping plugin. There will be a separate guide for setting up Thesis 1.8 on those subdomains.

Getting started

First, I’m assuming that you have a functional install of WPMU or WordPress 3.0 with multisite enabled, and are somewhat comfortable with:

• making simple modifications to code (PHP, CSS) files, and
• changing DNS settings

If you’re new to WordPress, or especially if you’re new to the multisite functionality in WordPress 3.0+, then this tutorial is probably not for you. We will be making changes to core files² and DNS settings³ — if you make a mistake you can bring down and seriously bork your site. Probably not something irreparable, but more than a minor annoyance.

Also, I would recommend at least a passing familiarity with FTP software⁴ and text editors.⁵⁶

Still here?

Okay, let’s get started…

Installing WordPress MU Domain Mapping

The WordPress MU Domain Mapping plugin permits users of a WordPress MU site or WordPress 3.0 network to map their blog/site to another domain.

This plugin must be installed manually – it will not work correctly if you try to use the Plugins -> Add New functionality from your dashboard.

Here’s how to do it:

1. Download the plugin and unzip it.
2. Upload the plugin to wp-content/plugins.
   
3. Go to Plugins, then Network Activate the plugin.
4. Now you need to edit your wp-config.php file. This file is typically located in the root of your domain (e.g. “public_html/”).
   
5. Uncomment the SUNRISE definition line:
   define ('SUNRISE','on')
6. If you don’t see the SUNRISE definition line on your wp-config.php file, then add it to the line above the last "require_once"command.
7. The COOKIE_DOMAIN definition will conflict with logins on your mapped domains, so go ahead and comment this out as well:
   //define('COOKIE_DOMAIN',")

Setting up DNS for your subdomains

I use separate providers for my domain registration and my WPMU hosting, so the steps below are what I used to get everything up and running.

Your steps may vary depending on your setup and the tools offered by your domain registration and hosting providers, but the general process is the same.

FYI, I like to keep Network Tools handy during this process so I can make quick checks of the DNS settings.

Here we go…

1. Login to your domain registrar and edit the DNS settings for the domain (mysite.com) you want to point to the WordPress subdomain (mysite.mywordpress.com).
2. Change the nameservers for the domain (mysite.com) to the nameservers of your hosting provider. For example, ns##.domainregistrar.com would change to ns##.webhosting.com.⁷
3. Login to your hosting provider and park the new domain (mysite.com).
4. Wait. It can take anywhere from a few minutes (typical) to a few hours (unlikely, but possible) for all of these changes to propogate throughout the system, so go grab a cup of coffee and check everything when you get back.

Now that everything is resolving correctly, we can go back to WordPress…

Configuring the WordPress MU Domain Mapping plugin

1. Go to Network Admin -> Settings -> Domain Mapping to create the domain mapping database table and set the IP address to point your domains to (this is the IP address for your site, provided by your hosting company).



2. You can learn more about the Domain Options on this page from the plugin page, but here’s a quick overview (thanks, Otto!):
   • Remote Login: This will make your login pages for all sites redirect to your main site to do the actual login. The benefit of this is that when you log in to one, you log into all of them. The downside is that the URL changes to another domain in order to log in.
   • Permanent redirect: This makes your subdomain or subdirectory sites redirect to their domains. You should leave this on.
   • User domain mapping page: Turn this on if you want users to be able to put in their own domains for mapping.
   • Redirect administration pages to blog’s original domain (remote login disabled if redirect disabled): This makes all admin pages show up on the original domain instead of on the new domains. You need this enabled for remote login to work.

Once the plugin is configured, it’s time to actually map your domain!

Mapping your domain

The simplest way to map a domain to one of your sites is through the user dashboard.⁸⁹

1. Log into the site (mysite.mywordpress.com) you actually want to map to a new domain (mysite.com), then go to Tools->Domain Mapping.
2. Put in a new domain and set it as the primary.
   
3. Click the Set Primary Domain button.

That’s it! You should now have your domain (mysite.com) redirecting to your WordPress subdomain (mysite.domain.com). Hoorah!

1. A subdomain would look like this: http://subdomain.domain.com. A subdirectory would look like this: http://domain.com/subdirectory. The steps below are for subdomains only. The same functionality should be available for subdirectories, but that is beyond the scope of this tutorial.
2. how your site looks and functions
3. how you are found on the ‘net
4. I use Filezilla.
5. I use Notepad++.
6. Many hosting providers have web-based tools that provide some of this functionality, but for this tutorial Filezilla/Notepad++ are a better choice.
7. You know that these are examples, right? The ##s would be replaced by real numbers and the “domainregistrar.com” and “webhosting.com” would be replaced by the real names. Ok? Just checking.
8. This assumes that you checked the User domain mapping page option above.
9. You can also set domain mapping through the Network Admin panel.

If you haven’t visited the site in awhile, it’s time to come back for another look!

I’ve added a Resources page with:

• A cheatsheet for your DNS settings (especially useful for those who are using a GoDaddy domain with Page.ly hosting and Google Apps for email.)
• A set of shared bookmarks from my pinboard.in account. These are items I thought you might find interesting, but that may or may not rise to the level of a “roundup” item.

The Portfolio page has gotten a quick refresh as well with updated images reflecting the original concept.*

I’ve also updated the Services page with three new offerings – Starter, Fundamentals (previously Basics), and Professional – so you can select the best option for your business (and your wallet!) 

To celebrate the site refresh and the first of Spring, the first five sign-ups in April will get 15% off ! (promocode: aprilrefresh)  This offer is only good through April 30, so act fast.

_{* Site owners can (and often, do) make a variety of changes to the look and feel of their website, so I wanted the Portfolio page to more accurately reflect what an initial design (by me) might look like for a new client.}

A collection of my favorite bits from around the web, in no particular order…

Josh Nimoy on the secrets behind the special effects in Tron Legacy

An uber-geeky, but fascinating look at some of the technologies behind the scenes in the movie. Hint: that stuff you see on the screen isn’t just gobbledy-gook. (via: core77)

Why We Recommended Tumblr for the New USA.gov Blog

I <3 Tumblr and am glad to see that it has really taken off over the past few months (even if it has meant more tumblebeast sightings that performance has taken a hit.)  And now, with a new “government friendly” terms of service, it sounds like it might turn into the provider of choice for those agencies looking to get a quick and easy blog started. (via: David Chartier)

lorempixum

If you’ve ever dealt with having to create or manipulate placeholder images for a website or a print layout, then you should check out this site. Input the dimensions manually or use the Placeholder Generator tool to quickly get your image. (via: Greg Babula)

How to use LinkedIn (corporette.com)

Especially relevant since I seem to be getting a handful of new connection requests each day – some from friends and colleagues, some from random strangers…  How I use LinkedIn has definitely changed over time and will continue to do so as my needs change and the service itself changes.

How to turn all of your Facebook notifications into a daily digest (lifehacker.com)

I don’t spend much time on Facebook, so emails and notifications really pile up when I finally do get a chance to browse around. I’d previously been using Gmail filters to keep these notifications out of my inbox, but then I never actually took the time to go through my Facebook folder.*

This Lifehacker article will walk you through turning off (most) email notifications and using RSS instead. And, with one more step, condensing that RSS feed into one daily digest. Excellent!

_{*Happy Birthday/Happy Anniversary/Congratulations/Condolences/Get Well, etc. to everyone who I’ve missed an important life event from.}

Media outlets to readers: “Put your money where your eyes are” (37signals.com) and
How to keep reading the NY Times for free (gizmodo.com)

The paywall is coming… The paywall is coming… The NY Times switch to a digital paywall happened yesterday and, not surprisingly, generated a lot of discussion (although I think the overall effect will not be as magical or depressing as predicted.)  These two articles provide some interesting ideas on the business model and the potential different paths to profit.

The Pros and Cons of Tumblr for Small Business (mashable.com)

I love Tumblr and have maintained my site pretty regularly for several years (I even prefer it to Posterous for short-form stuff), however, it’s not typically a tool I would recommend for small businesses. Tumblr has a definite sense of community and a unique culture, so if your business is a match with those, Tumblr can be great. If it’s not a match, well…

Hipmunk

Booking travel always seems like it’s much harder than it needs to be. And, while finding flight information is getting easier, finding a place to stay can still be a pain. Enter Hipmunk, a simplified search tool for flights and hotels. One of the cool features, visual data overlays for food/tourism/shopping, etc.  (Hat tip to Joe Lazarus for this one.)

Thought I’d pass along a few of the interesting sites I found last week…

Inventables
Bendable wood, aluminum foam, and translucent concrete are just some of the super-cool (and pretty affordable) materials available from Inventables – the “innovator’s hardware store”.

Web design tools and resources I use
A pretty comprehensive list of resources (with links) from Ethan at Elementiks. I typically use my bookmarking service (pinboard.in) to keep track of this type of info, but I really like the look of this page and find it very easy to use.

Google Recipes
Did you know Google’s getting into recipe searches? Take a look at this article if you want to make recipes on your site more Google-friendly. There’s even a hRecipe WordPress plugin that seems to incorporate these microformat standards (although I haven’t tested it.)

The Case of the Missing Design Apprentice (ZURB)
Talk about a timely article… At the last Boulder Open Coffee Club, we talked about this seemingly always-present gap between companies seeking programming talent (UI/UX, front-end, back-end) and people who are looking for work, but may not have the exact skillset required. If companies are no longer willing to take the time and effort to “train someone up” for these roles, perhaps the community should.

Google Courts Yahoo Users with New Delicious Bookmarks Importer Tool
I love delicious.com, but with Yahoo’s decision to shut it down sell it, now may be the time to make the move. I switched to pinboard a couple of years ago, but it looks like you can now roll everything over to Google, too.

And, just for fun…

Artist Mia van Beek can take your child’s drawings and turn them into jewelry or keyrings.

So, you’ve created a great website for your business and sent an email out to friends and family letting them know you’re up and running. You’re all done… Just sit back and let the traffic come to you, right?

Not quite.

Your website is only the starting point for building your reputation, creating a community, or expanding your reach. You need to get your message out to and participate in the communities you want to reach, but if you’re not a digital native, this task can be quite daunting.

But, I have a blog (that I actually post to). Isn’t that enough?

Do you offer RSS and email subscriptions? Are you using Feedburner to optimize/publicize/monitize your feed? Are you keeping track of analytics for your feed? Are you using automated services like Twitterfeed (Twitter) or Involver (Facebook) to push your feed to Twitter or Facebook? For corporate types, have you connected your WordPress blog with your LinkedIn profile?

AAAAAAAA!!!!!

Although the list of services can seem overwhelming, the good news is that most of them require just a little bit of initial setup and then you’re done – you focus on creating content for your blog and let these services spread it the web.

A few tips…

• Start with Feedburner. “Burn” your feed and set it up for email subscriptions.
• Change the default feed on your website to your Feedburner feed.
  • There are several plugins available for WordPress that will handle this for you, or if you’re using WordPress+Thesis, you can set this up from the Dashboard –> Thesis –> Site Options –> Syndication/Feed URL.
• Once your feed is setup and you’re ready to expand, I’d recommend starting with a Twitterfeed hookup to Twitter.
  • If you’re new to Twitter, make sure you spend some time familiarizing yourself with the community and general rules of posting etiquette.
  • Wendy Kier has some good advice about giving your Twitter a facelift (I especially liked #4 – Make your Tweets Rare) and you can learn all you ever wanted to know about Twitter (and then some!) from the awesome folks at Pistachio Consulting.

You can, of course, continue the process with Facebook and LinkedIn and, depending on your business, you even may want to get involved in location-based services like Google Places, Foursquare, or Gowalla, or review sites like Yelp.

Still confused? Contact us for help.

Software developers periodically refactor their code to make it cleaner, more usable, more effective, more scaleable, etc.  Some designers do this as well. And, maybe it’s time to apply this concept to your business as well.

Refactoring can be described as:

…a disciplined technique for restructuring an existing body of code, altering its internal structure without changing its external behavior. Its heart is a series of small behavior preserving transformations. Each transformation (called a ‘refactoring’) does little, but a sequence of transformations can produce a significant restructuring. Since each refactoring is small, it’s less likely to go wrong. The system is also kept fully working after each small refactoring, reducing the chances that a system can get seriously broken during the restructuring.
(emphasis mine)

You could apply this definition to the “existing body of code” that is your business, or narrow it down to a much smaller and more specific element of your business, such as order processing.  Let’s try it with this example:

You’ve been making schmoppets* for a while now and have decided that you’re going to start selling them. You talk to friends and family, do all of the standard marketing stuff (including setting up a website) and now you’re getting a few orders. People call, email, write, comment on your blog, see you at craft fairs, and they’re all asking for more schmoppets!

Although you’ve gotten along with paper and pen, or maybe a spreadsheet or two to keep track of these customers and their orders, you’re starting to get overwhelmed.

Change the internal structure without changing the external behavior.

In this case, the internal structure is how you receive orders from your customers; the external behavior would be your confirmation and processing of the order.

How can you make changes to the way you receive information without affecting the customer’s ordering experience?

Make small changes…

If the post-it notes, notepads, and spreadsheets are overwhelming, it’s tempting to take a big leap –

No more post-its for me, I’m going to move everything over to a new CRM!

(Gee, I don’t know what could possibly go wrong there….)

Instead of implementing a new CRM, perhaps a better (smaller) option would be to narrow down the methods your customers use to contact you.

Do they really need your work phone, cell phone, Google Voice number, Skype name, email address, a separate “orders@schmoppet.com” address, Twitter handle, and an online contact form?

If you narrowed that list down to one phone number, one email address, and one contact form, wouldn’t you still be available to your customers and able to collect the information you need?

… a series of them.

First, go from three phone numbers to one — notice any changes? Are you still receiving the calls you need?

Then, reduce the multiple email addresses to one — notice any changes? Are you still receiving the emails you need? Isn’t it simpler to read and respond from one email box?

Each step you takes brings you closer to a simpler and more effective solution, all while you’ve been able to…

Keep it working.

No downtime, seriously.

The orders keep coming in and going out, all while you’re making these gentle tweaks to the process – making it a little better each day, all while avoiding the chaos and drama that “LET’S MAKE A BIG CHANGE NOW!” involves.

Your customers are happy and you’re happy.

Time to move on to the next refactoring project…

_{Thanks to @havi for the schmoppet moniker, @barefootphoenix for finding the schmoppet, and to schmoppet himself for general inspiration.}

I don’t know why they picked 65 sites to highlight (probably because everyone is tired of “Top Ten” lists), but it’s a great resource to see what good design looks like.

Some of my faves:

Like: Bold typography, clear message, plus a sense of humor.

Like: Use of bright colors and “handwritten” typography; all emphasizing and supporting the fun and casual image of Twitter

Like: What can I say, I ‘m a sucker for orange.

Like: I go back and forth between liking dark sites or light sites; just when I’ve seen about all I can take of light gray, ecru, and ivory, along comes *black* to shake things up.  I also like how much the personality of the company shines through in the typography, copy, and bubble graphics.

Like: When you have a testimonial like this designer has, how can you not feature it front-and- center!

As a small business owner, you may not be able to  invest the time and resources that some of these design examples would have required. By becoming familiar with good design, however, you should be able to avoid the worst mistakes of bad design and create a site you can be proud of.

While I was catching up on emails and RSS feeds yesterday, I ran across this video for Tumbleweed Tiny Houses.

I’m not sure how I originally found these guys, but somehow over time I’ve become quite a fan (of their company and their houses). Their philosophy of building houses that provide “just what is needed and nothing more” and doing so in a way that is graceful, elegant, and inspiring, really resonates with me and what I’m trying to accomplish.

I’m not interested in building web “McMansions”, filling all that space with widgets and gadgets and flashbangery toys, and dealing with all of the related maintenance headaches they can entail. I’d rather build web “tiny houses” that are graceful, functional, and elegant, and most importantly, provide just what is needed for your business.

Video below… Enjoy!