Wordpress Car Theme Hard to Find
March 9, 2010 by Gainesville Detailing
After looking all over the internet for a decent wordpress car theme I have concluded that almost none exist. Most people searching for a wordpress car theme will either lose interest or give up before finding a decent one they can work with. Most of the websites are actually hosting the same themes with affiliate links. Almost all of theme are blog style, I have only found one wordpress car theme that is geared towards auto dealers. Wp1stop has the best looking one and they also have a plugin that can be used to display an auto dealer’s inventory within wordpress. Take a look at the theme below.
Wordpress Custom Background Changer
March 7, 2010 by Gainesville Detailing
Having the ability to change the background and header image is something most website owners want. In the new release 3.0 wordpress will have a custom background changer built into its core functionality. This means no more extra programming to add the functionality to the backend. This feature along with other is why wordpress continues to stay on the cutting edge of true CMS development.
Previously having a wordpress custom background changer required extra programming or a plugin. The plugin does not always work as advertised which is why I am glad to see the addition of a custom background changer. Users will the option to tile the background, and change the position. A wordpress custom header can also be changed easily through the backend. Why is this a great thing? When someone wants to change the background on their website all they have to do is use the wordpress custom background changer that is built into the CMS. Wordpress 3.0 will be coming out soon and I hope everyone is as excited as I am.
Having both woomenus and a wordpress custom background changer will make changes in appearance as easy as point and click, or drag and drop. There are many other improvements that are coming to wordpress 3.0. The ability to host multiple blogs which is only available to wordpress Mu will be integrated. If you wish to read about the pro’s and con’s of wordpress 3.0 to include the custom background changer then go HERE.
Please leave your comments below and let me know what you would like to see in 3.0. The ability to drag and drop custom templates would be a great addition. One can only hope.
Matt Mullenweg Starts a Wordpress Non-Profit
March 6, 2010 by Gainesville Detailing
Wordpress Foundation was formed by “Matt Mullenweg to further the mission of the WordPress open source project: to democratize publishing through Open Source, GPL software.” This quote was taken directly from the front page of the foundation’s website.
One more quote from the front of the wordpress non-profit website is
“A 501(c)3 non-profit organization, the WordPress non-profit Foundation will also pursue a charter to educate the public about WordPress and related open source software.”
This is great news for the open source community as a whole. It reminds me of what apple tried to do with the mac in schools. The huge difference is the wordpress non-profit is trying to use its power to empower students. The other striking difference is how this is a non-profit. One of the reasons I love wordpress is the idealogy behind it. The collective minds of many great developers are continually seeking to improve the technology and deliver it to as many people as possible free of charge. The newest project, a wordpress non-profit, is proof they will continue to push the envelop.
This being the first year that the wordpress non-profit is operating it will be nice to see how it begins to make an impact. Matt Mullenweg continues to prove that he is on the cutting edge of web development and how to make it have a bigger impact. Wordpress is going to see a dramatic rise in the amount of sites that are being powered by it. The addition of the wordpress non-profit should ensure its continued dominance as the number one CMS.
Using Wordpress for an Auto Dealership Website
March 2, 2010 by Gainesville Detailing
When wordpress first came out in 2003 it was purely a content publishing platform. As the years have gone the platform has evolved into a fully functional Content Management System. Everyone from a freelance blogger to a fortune 500 company have utilized this feature rich platform to manage their website. Auto dealership websites have a complex set of requirements not normally found in other industries. The ability to easily manage and edit the site content makes using wordpress for an auto dealership website the obvious choice.
Wordpress can be customized to fit any application and an auto dealer is no different. Everyone from the used car lot to the biggest dealership in town can use wordpress to power their website. The reason that wordpress is such a no brainer is how easy it is to maintain and update. Someone with no prior knowledge can learn to use wordpress and begin publishing content within minutes of being shown how. Auto dealerships change their prices, and ad campaigns about as much as our government changes its mind. This plays right into wordpress’ strengths. Using an image slider such as NextGen is a great way to showcase a used or new cars features with pictures. You can easily edit the descriptions for each picture as well. For instance if there was a picture of the interior you could add a description that would list all of the interior features present for the vehicle. If you want to use one picture with some features you could use Wp1Stop’s auto dealership inventory plugin. Most auto dealerships and car salesmen alike would like to sell every car on the road. Using wordpress for an auto dealership website will allow the site to fetch rss feeds of the local car dealers. Not only can dealerships display pictures and features but they can list cars for sale directly on the website with the addition of a third party plugin. Shopp Plugin is the preferred solution for an automotive ecommerce website. Even if the dealership does not plan on selling directly from the website they can still collect users information for use in marketing at a later date. Aweber is a great way to integrate an autoresponder that will store the user’s email and name in a database. Dealerships will then have the ability to keep that person in their sales funnel so along as they do not unsubscribe. The automotive industry may have taken some huge setbacks recently with the bailouts and now Toyota seemingly incapable of doing anything right. By using wordpress for an auto dealership website one can be assured that content is up to date and all of the leads are being followed. Installing plugins to extend the functionality of wordpress is another great reason for auto dealers to turn to a wordpress platform. I am looking to build a list of the best car dealer websites that are built on wordpress so please leave a comment with any that you may have.
New Buddypress Plugin Tutorial Video
February 26, 2010 by Gainesville Detailing
CLICK HERE FOR NEW BUDDYPRESS PLUGIN TUTORIAL VIDEO
So today on the developmental blog I see something about a new Buddypress plugin. If you are not familiar with Buddypress then I encourage you to check it out here. Previously if you were running a single installation of wordpress you would have been unable to run Buddypress without changing the theme you already had without making some adjustments to files and uploading new ones. For users that are not very computer savy the idea of having to do either of these may seem like a monumental task. The directions were on the Buddypress website but it was still more technical than most people would have liked. Now that there has been a new buddypress plugin released all of the steps have been streamlined.
To install the buddypress plugin you must first install Buddypress. After you have completed that step you will want to install the Buddypress Template Pack You may also go to add new plugins and search the depository to auto install the template pack. Just remember that in order for the new buddypress plugin to work you must have buddypress already installed. The plugin will walk you through the necessary steps to get buddypress up and running alongside your current theme.
We have been wanting to add a social networking layer to our existing website but have held off because we are not running wordpress mu. Now that the new buddypress plugin has come out we can finally do this. Hopefully in the coming months we will have a social network that will allow auto detailers to come and exchange ideas and build a community. Wordpress continues to outdo anything that Joomla or Drupal can do. Hopefull this new buddypress plugin will continue the trend toward obscurity that Joomla and Drupal seem destined for. Please feel free to leave comments. If anyone is already running buddypress then let us know so we can check out your site.
