By default most themes, like Twenty-Eleven, are built to offer the site visitor an opportunity to comment on your pages or posts.  If you wish to turn this feature off you CAN do it without having to conduct any special custom coding.

1. Log into admin and ‘Edit’ the page or post in question
2. Go into ‘Screen Options’ and make sure the ‘Discussion’ is checked off
3. Scroll down the page to the Discussion section and uncheck “Allow Comments”
   1. Note: you can also conduct this change via the Quick Edit feature in the All Pages/Posts list

OnCouRSS Media Solutions Principal, Shelley Montreuil, conducted an interview with Brian Dodo of BM Dodo Design in Kingston on the ins and outs of good logo design and branding.  Audio file below:

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

One of the reasons WordPress is a great tool for building websites is the fact that there are so many terrific plugins available for it.  One of those plugins is called WordPress Multilingual (WPML) and what it does is expand the toolset to allow the site admin to serve up their content in multiple languages all within the same navigation framework.  Awesome!

Once you have all of your content translated and you are tweaking the look and feel of your site across languages one thing you will need to deal with is your custom menus.  WPML has thought of this and makes it fairly simple for you to build in a second menu structure using the same tools you did to create the main menu.

Here’s how (screenshots below text):

1. Go to Appearance/Menus
2. Select which menu you wish to translate
3. Click the Translations link which is above the Save Menu button
4. Give the new menu a name and click the Create Menu button
5. Add your menu items as you would normally. Example:
   1. if you are adding pages then scroll down until you see the Pages list
   2. select the ones you wish to add to this menu by checking them off
   3. click Add to Menu
   4. click and drag to reorder
   5. click the Save Menu button

Remember when your high school writing teacher was trying to drive home the importance of the five W’s  (Where, What, When, Who and Why)?

Well, when it comes to writing for the internet, your post or news title needs to follow its own set of guidelines.  Copyblogger teaches us to strive to meet the following criteria as much as possible when writing a title for our news:

• tell the reader why the post is USEFUL
• give DETAIL re: what they are going to learn when they take the time to read your content
• explain why is UNIQUE  to you and your post
• tell them why they absolutely need to drop everything and read this post NOW!

• schedule your facebook posts to appear in the future up to 6 months in advance http://t.co/gAVK1rk8 #

Sending out regular e-newsletters is a high priority for most businesses and OnCouRSS clients are no exception.  There are lots of tools out there ranging in price and ability from very basic to quite in depth.  Some are built to work with WordPress, some within WordPress and others as standalone items.

A number of our clients have been working with us to test the best of the current newsletter plugins available on the WordPress market.  In our testing we found that none of them really accomplished what our clients need or want and some are just downright buggy.

So we took the best of the best, a plugin built by the WordPress MU Dev team, and we customized it to do everything our clients have been asking for … and more!

Currently with our new tool OnCouRSS clients can:

• publish styled, standalone e-newsletters that deliver in text-only and html format
• allow a double opt-in functionality
• allow subscribers to manage their own subscription
• auto-publish a newsletter whenever a post of a certain category is created
• create and deliver an auto-responder series
• gather and segment email addresses for your database
• track email opens
• filter bad email addresses and give the admin the option to modify or delete the record

Coming soon…

• link tracking
• enhanced analytics
• user-defined custom templates
• what would you like to see ? …

Until now, clients who have been helping us to test products have not been paying for the service – it’s just our way of saying thank you

Anyone wishing to implement this terrific new tool on their site can give us a shout via the contact page and we would be more than happy to get you set up with this shiny new tool.

Cost per month for this premium plugin is an additional $10 and will be added to your hosting invoice.

Below are some screenshots of the newsletter tool:

I spent an hour or so with Brock Zeman yesterday in his Hopetown-area studio setting him up to be able to live stream studio sessions with exceptional audio and video.  It took a bit of tweaking but we are both excited to see how the first maiden voyage will work out.

You can find Brock’s UStream channel here: http://www.ustream.tv/user/brock_z

Sign up to receive notice of upcoming live in-studio streaming!

• Cheap hosting is not necessarily always the best option, especially when it comes to WordPress sites. http://t.co/YGq78SMp #

Specializing in good, healthy fun and long-lasting relationships, Camp Otterdale is the kind of place a person will reminisce about for many years after attending summer camp sessions.  Past campers enroll their own kids in programs year after year and continue the legacy of this Eastern Ontario gem.

Camp Otterdale needed a website that would be both fun and engaging for youth and strong and reassuring for their parents. (more…)

• Facebook is launching paid apps – what are your thoughts? Good, bad or indifferent? #
• 55,000 twitter accounts hacked and with no password: http://t.co/HMlRE6Jx #
• Great day in Pembroke yesterday with the Carefor admin team. Happy to meet Jennifer from forwardthinking marketing group. #
• Get on the waiting list for @wppinner to manage your Pinterest account with WordPress http://t.co/hE313Pkp #

1. Create a series of posts and assign them all the same category
2. Go to Appearance/Menus and select the menu tab where you wish to place the archive page
3. Scroll down to the ‘Categories” sub-section, select the appropriate category for your archive
4. Click the “Add to Menu” button
5. Go to the bottom of your menu items and drag the category page placeholder to where you want it to appear in the menu
6. Save your menu
7. Go to Settings / Reading and adjust the blog page settings to suit your needs ie: how many posts, display full posts or partial content
8. Note: you can use the “more” tag within your posts to control where the summary text stops

• just had a great meeting with Carol from Hillside Gardens in Perth, Ontario – stay tuned for awesomeness! #

• OnCouRSS helps Perth and District Chamber of Commerce launch their new member profile initiative http://t.co/3hapjepY #
• Exciting stuff! http://t.co/YNQQmCnS #

• What a terrific blogging success story! http://t.co/lWSNx5JX #

• Wow, pretty interesting and Very scary! http://t.co/yGsYUsig #

• Youtube has a new look and this means changes to the way we need to interact with it and use it to promote our products. #

• 12 Google+ Marketing Tips From the Pros » Social Media Examiner http://t.co/IesFZTcs via @smexaminer #
• Create a social listening strategy to help boost your business in 2012 http://t.co/ohHsQw6e #

• Use the YouTube call to actioin overlay to send your YouTube viewers to your webpage! #

• new tools on Linkedin for promoting events http://t.co/gxM6sHgV #

1. Navigate to the page or post edit screen for the gallery in question
2. Click on the gallery placeholder image
3. Select the “edit gallery” icon in the upper left hand corner (beside the delete gallery icon) (more…)

Letting people know where you are is a key element of conducting business online.

The best way to do that is with an interactive Google map.  By default WordPress does not like it when you try and embed iframe code but with a few tweaks it WILL accept the info and produce the desired display as long as you follow a few key steps: (more…)

1.  Create a new WordPress Page

• Go to “Add New”
• Enter your page title
• Click “Publish” (more…)

• Go to “Appearance / Menus”
• Scroll down to categories and select the category you wish to create an archive page for.   Click “Add to menu” (more…)

Maybe it’s just me, maybe I am simply clueless, but I have been looking forever for a way to post comments to facebook pages as myself and not as the page. (more…)

• Go to DisplayBuddy / Billboard
• Select the group you wish to add the image / advertisement to – note the size/dimensions of the group – try to make sure your image is as close to this size as possible in order to keep your site running smoothly.  Click the “modify entries” link for the group you wish to add to. (more…)

Go to Newsletters – Import/Export Subscribers in the admin menu (bottom left) (more…)

OTTAWA, Dec 01 The federal government has been given 15 months to comply with the Charter of Rights by making its websites accessible to visually impaired Canadians who want to tap into the federal job bank, fill in forms and apply for federal programs online.

A Federal Court judge issued the order Monday in a ruling that concluded the government breached Donna Jodhan’s equality rights by its “system-wide failure” to provide the same services to the visually impaired as it does to those who can see. (more…)

Put your cursor in the content area of your document where you wish to place the download link.

Go to your page or post in the admin back end and click the “Upload Media” button. (more…)

The site looks great (and we are already getting compliments and an inquiry from someone locally about your rates.

CHEERS and thanks for being there when things go squirrely.

Cathie Green
Kapristo Mountain Woodcraft
www.kmw.ca

Recently OncouRSS was asked by the town of Missoula, Montana to cover the US National Team trials for freestyle kayaking.  Their goal was to bring the world to their town and to this event… in hopes of attracting more paddlers, visitors and competitors in the years to come.  We did so with a laptop, a wifi access and 3 web cams.  The end result was 174,000 viewers over 4 days of competition.  The coverage allowed our client to engage moms, dads, brothers, sisters, friends, uncles … you name it… to their region and event.  Facilitating the show was Ustream.com … this quiet company has made HUGE inroads into offering free online streaming services and has subsequently created an amazing resource for those hoping to share ‘experience’.

Ustream.com is FREE.  Sign up and you get an account.  Plug in your webcam and click a big-ole Broadcast button and you’re live.  The number of viewers you can have is … wait for it… unlimited!  You can pay for the Broadcaster Pro software which allows you to switch between cameras etc., but that’s a luxury.  We chose to do so as it also added a way for us to do some character generation… post up scores, competitor names etc.  But for a festival or wedding, one camera is good enough and the sky’s the limit.  We were also able to record each heat on their server, on their dime!

The applications are impressive.  If you’re a festival manager, use this tool to show folks what they missed.  If your a musician, put on a regularly scheduled show.

Check out our broadcast  which is now recorded at www.worldkayakblogs.com/throwdown/wktv.