But when it comes to playing a Background music, site-wide with auto-resume across page loads, it becomes a little tricky. I was playing with some plugins today and here is what I did to make it work.

Auto-Resume Tracks Across Page Loads

I got the Audio Playlist Manager with Auto Resume plugin that this guy Ameen built out of the original Audio Playlist Manager plugin. What this plugin does is add a nice widget (or embed on any page using shortcodes) an audio player. The audio player can be configured to auto-play on page load and resume playing on page-loads, both these features makes it the plugin of choice for our need.

Here is how we do it. Install the plugin first.

Go ahead and download a soothing free music track from here, they have color coding for different moods, which make them awesome! Of course, you can have any track you like, make sure you compress it to a smaller size (under 500kb) using a software like this one here.

Now in the plugin settings, create a playlist. Then upload the Audio File using the uploader and Add it to the playlist you created. Click on Preview Player. Make sure you tick the following:

• Begin playing automatically
• Resume playing on page changes
• Repeat when playlist ends
• Set an initial volume to something around 30 if your track is too loud. You don’t want to startle your visitors, or do you?

Audio Player Options

Now you will have a shortcode that looks something like this:

[ti_audio name="Play on Load" autoplay="1" autoresume="1" repeat="1" randomize="1" volume="30"]

Next, I added it to the footer.php (which is called on every page) using the do_shortcode function. But that showed the player on the footer for every page, like this:

So I added some css to hide it and lo! We have background music on all pages that plays on and on as long as the user is on the site. Here is the final code that I added to footer.php

<div style="visibility: hidden; margin-top: -32px;"><?php echo do_shortcode('[ti_audio name="Play on Load" autoplay="1" autoresume="1" repeat="1" randomize="1" volume="30"]'); ?></div>

Have fun!

Sourced from: Million Clues! | Follow on Twitter | Fan on Facebook

Leave a Comment: How to Add Site-Wide Background Music to a WordPress Website

This sometimes call for styling not only your front end for your visitors, but also the backend of your WordPress admin. Well, if you are looking for fully fledged admin themes, Go google for WordPress admin themes and you will end up with many plugins that do that. And if you are looking at completely revamping your backend, complete with your own branding and custom stuff, the Easy Blogging Plugin is made for you.

If that’s not what you are looking for, but instead some tweaks here and there, like hiding some stuff using display:none or something of that sort, here is what you need to do.

Add the following snippet into the functions.php of your active theme:

// add admin css
add_action( 'admin_print_styles', 'load_custom_admin_css' );
function load_custom_admin_css()
{
wp_enqueue_style('my_style', WP_CONTENT_URL . '/themes/custom_admin.css');
}
//end admin css

Now create a custom_admin.css in your wp-content/themes/ folder and add all the custom css you want in there.

For instance, to hide the Plugins section from the Admin sidebar, you would add to your custom_admin.css:

#menu-plugins {
display:none !important;
}

Of course, this is a cosmetic change, like all things css. The plugins area would still be accessible via a direct link. If you wish to remove them or show them based on user-role, Admin Menu Editor can do that for you.

Have fun. Out.

Sourced from: Million Clues! | Follow on Twitter | Fan on Facebook

Leave a Comment: How to Add CSS Styles to WordPress Admin

Have you ever seen this sign “If you are below 18 leave now, else Enter here” (yeah, the smile on your face explains it)? You see that sign when you enter first and that’s that. Lets make one such page.

Making a “Enter Site” Page

Depending on your theme, your theme folder will have home.php or index.php or sometimes both in your theme folder. If you have home.php open it up, else go for index.php. Refer the template hierarchy if that interests you. I am assuming my theme has index.php only.

Add the following code snippet at the start of  index.php. Start as in, the very first line, before everything and everything. On line 1:

<?php if( (strpos($_SERVER['HTTP_REFERER'], get_bloginfo('home')) === false) && !$_SERVER['QUERY_STRING']) : ?>
<?php include ('http://yourdomain.com/wp-content/themes/yourtheme/page-splash.php'); ?>
<?php else : ?>

Now you opened close the if else by adding the following to the end of index.php. End as in the last line:

<?php endif; ?>

That makes index.php in between those two codes.

What this does is, if the user is entering from anything but your own site, it will show: http://yourdomain.com/wp-content/themes/yourtheme/page-splash.php

Go ahead and make a copy of page.php in your theme folder and name it page-splash.php . If hope you have figured that you have to replace http://yourdomain.com/wp-content/themes/yourtheme/page-splash.php in the above snippet with the direct link to your page-splash.php .

You will have to hard-code your page-splash.php. The best way to do this is to look at the source code of a page on your site and imitate them into your page-splash.php. Well, I am thinking, if you just copy paste the code, that should also work.

Here is a little page-splash.php that I made for Twenty Ten default WordPress theme:

<?php
/**
* The Splash Page
*/

</div><!-- #content -->
</div><!-- #container -->
<?php get_footer(); ?>

To test the welcome page, open up a new tab and enter your site into the browser. Lo!

Hope you have fun creating the Welcome Page. Do let me know what you think.

Sourced from: Million Clues! | Follow on Twitter | Fan on Facebook

Leave a Comment: How to Create a Welcome Page (Splash Page) for WordPress

In simple terms, Taxonomies are classifications and Post Types are well, they are Post Types. For e.g. Pages and Posts are two default post types (there are 5 default post types) and Tags and Categories are default Taxonomies. You can read more about Taxonomies here and Post Types here.

For e.g: Movies could be a custom Post Type and Genre could be a Taxonomy and Genres like Drama, Comedy etc could be the terms.

Here is a code snippet to display posts that belong to a specific taxonomy in a specific post type:

<?php
$args = array(
'posts_per_page' => 10, // Number of posts per page
'post_type' => 'classifieds', // Custom Post Type like Movies
'tax_query' => array(
array(
'taxonomy' => 'classifieds_tags', //Custom Taxonomy Name like Genre
'field' => 'slug',
'terms' => array(
'books', //Tags or Categories like Drama or Comedy
'houses'
)
)
)

<?php endwhile; // end of the loop. ?>

This is a crude version of the code. Referring to your archive.php (or index.php in some themes) should help you extend this further to best suit your theme.

Sourced from: Million Clues! | Follow on Twitter | Fan on Facebook

Leave a Comment: Display Posts from a Custom Taxonomy (Tag / Category) of a Custom Post Type

Rooting was not an option. Other options called in for too much work so I dropped the idea of screenshots.

Last week I came to know that on an iPhone, screenshots come as an inbuilt feature (yeah, too late to know that) and pressing the home button + the power button would take a screenshot. That’s neat.

Screenshot on Android Gingerbred (2.3)

Today morning, I tried the same combination on my S2 and to my surprise it worked! Here is what I took (from the Google Sky Map Application:

On Samsung Galaxy S2 (running Android 2.3.3), to take a screenshot: Press the Home Button + the Power button together. Note that my phone is NOT rooted. The screenshot was saved in a separate folder and can be accessed through the gallery.

This came as a huge surprize to me, because no one ever mentioned anywhere about this inbuilt feature. I found this video today that says its possible and he is using a Samsung Galaxy Ace. And he is using the home button + the back button to get this.

Now, I am wondering if this is a feature that is available only on Samsung Phones. Someone check it on your Android and share? The key combination would be different depending on your phone, so please try some other combos.

Screenshot on Android Icecream Sandwich (4.0)

Screenshot comes as a bundled (and I think a stated) feature on the latest version. The key combo is going to be different for each phone I assume. Holding the home button + volume down should work on most phones.

Sourced from: Million Clues! | Follow on Twitter | Fan on Facebook

Leave a Comment: Taking Screenshots without Rooting or App on Android Gingerbred (2.3) and Icecream Sandwich (4.0)

This Holiday Season, Digiarty brings out a huge Giveaway with Products worth over $1,000,000 and the latest iPhone 4S. That’s over 30,000 copies of DVD Ripper and Video Conversion Software up for the grabs. Not to mention the massive discounts and a buy one get one offer on all their products.

What’s in the Bag?

Take a Look at all the free Goodies:

MacX DVD to MKV Ripper

A handy piece of software that can rip DVD to MKV format. It also can convert DVD videos for iPad, iPod and the iPhone.

MacX DVD to MKV Ripper is normally priced at $25.95. It can be freely downloaded right now as part of the Christmas Promotion. The giveaway is to expire on 23rd December, thereafter the next software will be on the stands.

Get MacX DVD to MKV Ripper Now!

MacX Video Converter Pro

MacX Video Converter is for downloading YouTube Videos and converting them and other HD and SD videos for iPhone, iPad and Blackberry and Android. That covers the entire spectrum!

If you want the MacX Video Converter Pro, keep an eye on their Giveaway page on 23rd Dec. Note that this free giveaway will end on the 5th of January, 2012.

Win an iPhone on the Chirstmas Slot Machine

Apart from the free giveaway, they also have a Slot Machine game on the giveaway page, if you get lucky, you could with the latest iPhone 4S!

The rules are simple, hit the button and the slot machine starts to roll. If you get a santa on all three of the decks, you get the iPhone! You could also win other cool software and discount coupons, depending on your combination. Keep trying till you hit the iPhone!

More Christmas Gifts for a Facebook Users

If you are on Facebook, and you probably are, Go over and  like their FB Page to get MacX HD Video Converter Pro for Windows for free! It’s normally priced at $49.95, so that’s something for Christmas!

MacX HD Video Converter Pro can download YouTube Videos and convert between all formats of HD and SD videos. Go like Digiarty on Facebook!

Have a Happy Christmas!

Sourced from: Million Clues! | Follow on Twitter | Fan on Facebook

Leave a Comment: Win an iPhone and The Best Video Conversion Software from Digiarty this Christmas

A guest post by Joe Gullo. If you wish to write one, check out the guest-posting guidelines and details.

If you’re looking for some fresh content on your blog, you can look to your community for local issues pertaining to your niche. By looking to your community, you can tell someone’s story, build your representation, and it’s an easy promotion to get more readers on your blog.

Here are 4 tips on how you can blog news in your local community:

Find the story.

Before you begin, you will need to have a story idea or general idea of what you want to cover. If you’re having problems finding a story idea look to your local newspaper or to the community. What issues are influencing your niche right now? What information can you provide that will help people do their jobs easier?

It’s important not be wedded to any story idea because it may change. As a journalist, I’ve gone in with one story, but came out with a completely different one. People always surprise me with their responses. They may not answer your questions the way that you expect them to and changes your whole angle or meaning of your story.

Things to keep in mind:

• What story are you trying to tell? In news, you want to find people that best tell that story.
• What is the angle of the story? What point of view do you want to tell it from? If you’re covering how the economy is forcing a business that has been around for 25 years to close who do you want to tell the story through? Do you want the customers reaction to the store closing and what the store has meant to them? Or do you want to tell it through the store owners point of view? How will this change their lives? Both are powerful story options.
• Summarize your story in one sentence. The more concise and simple your sentence the better. You don’t want to your idea to be too complex that your audience doesn’t have a clear idea of what your reporting on.

Identify yourself.

It is important to identify that you are a journalist (even if you’re a blogger) looking to ask questions for a story. Even if you have no prior experience in journalism and are only planning posting information on your blog.

Be sure to share what your story is about and what your focus is. The more transparent and open you are about the story, the more success you will have. Give people a reason to trust you, not distrust you.

Some people, especially if you are using a camera, will not speak to you. Whatever the reason, you should accept it and move on. Do not force them to answer your questions if they do not want to. There will be other people that will be more than happy to answer some of your questions.

Ask questions.

Your goal once you find your interviewee is to offer depth and perspective that you may not be able to provide yourself. Let your interviewee tell the story.

It’s good to have an idea of the questions you want to ask, but do not make it sound unnatural. Sometimes your best quotes are merely from just listening and having a conversation. It may also be helpful if you are nervous to view it as having a conversation with someone rather than I’m doing an interview with someone.

It’s also a good idea to ask open ended questions during your interview. You will get more in depth answers than just asking yes or no questions. If you’re not getting the responses you would like rephrase your question differently. Don’t be afraid to keep asking the same question in a different ways until you get the answer you’re looking for.

Have a plan (well kind of).

When you are writing a blog post, you want to have a general idea of what you are going to write about. The same goes when you’re interviewing someone for a news type story. Depending on how you’re producing the story (video, photos, or text) will depend on what kind of planning you need to do.

Your plan should have a general overview of what you’re trying to accomplish. Again, you want to allow some flexibility but you also want to have a story focus that you’re going to achieve.

Unless you are under tight deadline, it may take you a couple of days of interviewing people for the story you are trying to tell.

The Author, Joe Gullo is Freelance Journalist, Photographer, Videographer, and Video Editor. Visit his blog/website at www.joegullo.net.

Sourced from: Million Clues! | Follow on Twitter | Fan on Facebook

Leave a Comment: 4 Tips to Blog News In Your Community

A guest post by Gary Barzel. If you wish to write one, check out the guest-posting guidelines and details.

Building up a successful blog from scratch takes a significant amount of patience and hard work. While many new bloggers may understand that providing useful, quality content is important, the truth is that producing content is only just the beginning. If you want to maintain a successful blog, then you will need to juggle a relatively long list of time consuming tasks, such as networking with other professionals and niche bloggers, engaging readers by responding to post comments as well as reading and commenting on other blogs, promoting your work, exchanging links, and keeping your social network accounts active.

The point is that even with all the time-saving apps and tools out there for busy bloggers, blogging is still a commitment that can easily suck away your time and energy, and that is the same time and energy you could be using to run the other aspects of your business.

Moreover, what do you do when your blog is not meant to be a priority but only a periphery support for your business, such as by providing fresh, relevant content on your site to improve its performance with search engines or by funneling traffic to your website where a possible sales conversion can happen? How can you still maintain a successful, relevant blog without being run by it? Here are four points to keep in mind:

1. Make sure that you have clear goals for the blog.

Before you write even one word or start to design the look and feel of your blog, you need to be very clear about what you want to get out of it. For example, will you be trying to generate income from any outside ads placed on the site, are you using the blog to draw your readers’ attention to your product or services, or are you using it to build up your professional writing portfolio? Moreover, you need to decide what subjects you plan on covering, who your targeted readership may be, and how much competition you may have from other bloggers.

Being able to adequately answer these questions is an important first step that will help to keep you focused and ensure that any blog-related activities are bringing you closer to your original goals.

2. Identify what tasks need to be done, and schedule them around your other commitments.

Once you have an idea about where you are taking the blog, you then need to make a list of all the steps that need to be accomplished to get things up and running, such as designing the layout and getting some initial content up.

You should also begin to determine what will be your daily and weekly commitment to the site after those initial steps have been taken care of and you are already starting to draw a readership. This includes the number of posts you intend to put up per week as well as your available time to write them, your social networking and promoting content, as well as the time spent on building relationships and links.

3. Sometimes it just pays to hire a ghost writer.

Even if you dislike handing over the reigns to another person, there are many instances where hiring someone else to create the content on your blog is appropriate Some typical reasons to consider include: if you are not naturally a good writer, you can write but you don’t like to, or you do not have enough time available to put up sufficient content.

Sometimes, you can use the content from guest posters to fill in any gaps, but it may be a while before people will express interest in writing for your blog especially if it is new.

4. Set benchmarks and re-evaluate how you are doing along the way.

As I mentioned above, maintaining a successful blog can be a drain on your available time and energy since it typically involves more than just putting up content. If these resources are limited, then it becomes all the more important that you get the greatest return on investment and weed out any unproductive activities.

One way to do this is to set realistic benchmarks and goals and set aside times to consistently evaluate how you are measuring up against them. You can use an analytics service, such as Google Analytics and Google Webmaster Tools which are both powerful, accurate, and free, to get much of this information. Some good benchmarks to consider include: the amount of traffic coming to the site, how long visitors remain on specific pages and on the site as whole, how your site ranks for specific keywords, and what is the rate of total traffic to sales conversion?

In short, by considering the above, you can prevent your part-time business blog from becoming a full-time headache.

The Author, Gary Barzel is the manager of business development for Fastupfront. Fastupfront offers business loan alternatives and working capital solutions for established businesses.

Sourced from: Million Clues! | Follow on Twitter | Fan on Facebook

Leave a Comment: How to Prevent Your Business Blog from Taking on a Life of Its Own

A guest post by Jeff. If you wish to write one, check out the guest-posting guidelines and details.

Making the most out of your Google+ experience comes down to understanding the tools that are before you. As always, Google’s proactive approach to connecting users to worthwhile information is at the core of this effort. The following list are some tips and tactics that you can use to streamline your experience, make the most of your time, and find what you are looking for.

About Your Profile

Your profile is much more important on Google+ than it was on prior social networking sites. Information from it is displayed in search engine result pages. That includes the following:

• The Google+ Profile Name will appear as the result Title text.
• The Google+ Profile Introduction field will be used for the Description.

Locating Your Friends

One feature to take a look at is the ability to import friends from Yahoo! Mail and Hotmail. This is done in the Circles view by selecting either the Yahoo! or Hotmail indicators. Further search options include general email, name, and associated suggestions. Of course, there is a blocking option to rid yourself of the unwanted.

Circles

Circles are a great feature in that you can dictate who is able to see what and what actually makes it to your feed. Setting up Circles is as easy as point and click, drag and drop. An excellent organization method for your Circles is to lump them by Friends, Professional, and Associates. Friends and Professionals will keep your personal information in the stream it should be in. It is a good idea to have an Associates Circle to put extraneous interests and people you do not know well in. That way you can maintain your contact without revealing too much to them.

Catching up on your Circles is easy to do since they feature their own feeds. Swap over to that feed by clicking the circle under “Stream” on the left side of the page. Navigating the page of a longer stream is as simple as pushing ‘J’ for page down, ‘K’ for page up.

Security

Security set up for Google+ features a lot of depth and specificity. By selecting ‘view profile’ and following to ‘Edit Profile’, you will land in a location that allows you to set security settings for the sections of your profile. Visibility is customizable to various settings and circles.

Photo security is handled a bit differently. You can easily specify where to share a new photo and approval settings when it is uploaded. Geo settings can also be enabled to show where the picture was taken place. Geo tagging, while robust, is disabled by default.

Other Useful Tips And Points

A great addition to the Google+ platform is the ability to comment directly on notifications as they are posted. Instead of needing to visit the link, you can simply reply in a comment box in the notifications window.

The option to “Mute Post” allows you to squelch it from spamming your Stream and notifications.

If you want to streamline your social networking experience, functions such as Hangouts allow you to stream video to 9 other friends either through your mobile phone or webcam.

It remains to be seen what other fun features Google will manage to work into their social media experience. There are already plenty of 3rd party extensions for Google Chrome that allow the user to share things from Google+ to Facebook or Twitter. Though Google+ is a bit late to the game in comparison to other longer standing platforms; the simplistic, fluid functionality is ripe for additional renovations and improvements.

The Author, Jeff is an internet marketing consultant and a part time blogger. Currently, he is writing for a real estate company in queens that offers Queens homes.

Sourced from: Million Clues! | Follow on Twitter | Fan on Facebook

Leave a Comment: Tips For Making The Most Of Your Google+ Experience

First lets see why people do Guest Blogging. There are many reasons for people to Guest Post. Most popular ones are:

• As part of their link building campaign. To get a high quality, keyword targeted backlink.
• To reach out to new audiences, build the brand and authority of the blog or website.

The amount of people guest blogging to gain new readers and traffic are very low as compared to the people who write guest blogs for link building.

Here is my process of choosing Guest Posts.

Dealing with Guest Post Request Emails

Here is an example of an email that I would usually get asking for permission to write a Guest Post in here.

Hello Team,

Greeting of the Day!

This is someone  from somewhere. I have come to your website and check your website update and really impress of your website unique content and Decided to Post blog on your website. Here I am attaching one .docx attachment of Blog.

Kindly Review the Same and Update on your website.
Hope you will respond me ASAP.
Thanks & Regards,

Here is one another:

Hi,

This is someone. I’m a regular reader of your blog and enjoy the content you are providing on your website.
I want to contribute some guest posts fully matching your website content, please share your thoughts on it.

Thanks & Regards,

Dear someone, If you are a regular ready how come you never seen this page where I have all the guidelines? From the look and feel of the email you can instantly say they are fake emails. My strategy here is not to reply to any of these emails. If this person is a genuine person, and want to really write one, he will get back to you again.

Check the email address of the sender. If it says some marketing-agency or social-media-agency or seo-company then what you are going to receive is a useless article. Better don’t reply to that email.

In case you choose to reply be very specific on the following:

• Tell them that you are looking for only quality posts with value and not a marketing post. For many emails thats the end of it, they wont respond again. Others send in good posts.
• Send them your specifications or a link to the page where you have them.

Once I Receive the Post

Now that they have sent me the Guest Post here are the things I do:

• Google Search: I copy paste a portion (maybe a whole paragraph) of the article onto Google to check for duplicates. If the article has been previously published there will be a copy on Google.
• Again, I copy paste the title onto Google and check for copies. Content writers are smart at rewriting articles, but if there is a exact title match, then we know the sources.
• Check for Bio. If the author has not sent me a Bio with the post, usually I reject the post (unless the content is that good).

The Most Important Check

The one thing that overrides everything else is this: Quality check. Read the article and see if your readers would benefit anything out of it. Does it have any valid points. If not, scrap it.

When the article is not something you want to publish, you can reply to the sender (and do reply since they would want to know the status) saying “This is not for me, send me if you have anything else. Thanks”

Guest Blogging is a great way to build awesome backlinks and increase your circulation. But make sure you do that by providing something to the reader.

Sourced from: Million Clues! | Follow on Twitter | Fan on Facebook

Leave a Comment: How to Publish Good Guest Posts