Chris Pirillo » wordpress

Create Your Own WordPress Themes

Chris — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 22:30:29 +0000

Create Your Own WordPress Themes is a post from Chris Pirillo

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If you have a blog, you have a theme. Chances are, you downloaded a theme off the web somewhere. It’s okay that you don’t know how to code your own customized theme from scratch! Very few people are capable of doing this. You want your blog to say “YOU”, but you don’t want to pay a designer a ton of money to accomplish this. It’s a good thing Artisteer now makes it simple for you to create and customize your own WordPress theme with just a few clicks of the mouse.

Everything and anything you can think of that you might want to tweak in your layout can be done easily with Artisteer in just a few seconds. You don’t have to try to learn HTML or even CSS. All you have to be able to do is click your mouse buttons, and decide what look is right for you.

Move your gadgets to a different side. Change up your text with different colors and fonts. Heck, change the header or background image while you’re at it. Don’t like what you’re seeing? Psh! Just click a button and start completely over. It really is that easy.

Best of all, Artisteer doesn’t only work on WordPress. Create designs for web pages, Blogger Blogs, or make professional Joomla! and Drupal templates.

Artisteer is probably my favorite new discovery in a long time. I’m having so much fun that I’ve now created probably 30 different themes, just by playing around. The only limitation to this program is your own imagination. So… get creative!

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Wooden Background Truly Dead
WicketPixie WordPress Theme Screencast
WicketPixie: a Social Media Theme for WordPress
What Role Do Blogs Play in Your Life?
To Twitter or to Fritter – That is the Question
Do Bloggers Need a Union?
WicketPixie Open Source WordPress Theme Updates
How to Create a Twitter Background Image
CNN.com!”>Yes, It’s True – I’m Now the Tech Expert on CNN.com!
Do You Need a Better Blog Search Tool?

WicketPixie Open Source WordPress Theme Updates

Chris — Sun, 14 Jun 2009 18:56:06 +0000

WicketPixie Open Source WordPress Theme Updates is a post from Chris Pirillo

If you like the theme I’m currently running on my blog, you can download and install your own copy. Granted, this is only true if you’re reading this post while I’m still using WicketPixie.
If you haven’t seen, we’ve pushed out a rather major update recently – although it’s not without its share of bugs. Since it’s an open source project, and we’re limited on developers and designers, it’s been slow-moving progress (but progress, nonetheless).
What we need right now are testers. All you have to do is download the latest build of WicketPixie. When we say latest, we’re referring to the master branch on GitHub, not the stable ZIP file that is distributed on Ohloh. Then, post bug reports to our bug tracker.
If you do know PHP (WordPress, specifically), then you can help out by looking for and/or fixing bugs reported in the issues list. Just fork the WicketPixie repository on GitHub and get working, then send Eddie Ringle a pull request. You can learn how to do all of this by reading the Git guides.
If you are graphic artist / Web designer, then you can help as well. It is recommended that you have knowledge of how WordPress themes work before you begin. If you have ideas, then please – join us!

I funded the initial development of WicketPixie, and it’s nice to see so many people using it. However, the only way it’s going to improve from this point forward is if others help it along. There are quite a few aspects that could stand improvement, including an overhauled design of the main page, an extended footer area, and various administrative tweaks.

The Future of WicketPixie?

Abstract Options to accommodate child themes
Clean up / Re-organize Options pages
Support for WPMU and BuddyPress
Easier “Social Me” configuration (ala MyBlogLog)
Automated updater
Turn front pages into Lifestream (ala Sweetcron)

WicketPixie Options need a heavy reorg. I know what I’m doing, and still feel a bit lost when looking at the latest version.

The bigger picture deserves equal attention for a v2.0: coming up with at least one child theme. That is to say, we abstract Options and make them work with any theme adapted for WicketPixie. WicketPixie isn’t the theme so much as it becomes a payload for Options – allowing developers and designers to create a different front-end experience for the same set of Options, thusly allowing users to select different WicketPixie designs.

Possible? I believe so.

Do You Need a Better Blog Search Tool?

Chris — Wed, 17 Dec 2008 11:56:42 +0000

Do You Need a Better Blog Search Tool? is a post from Chris Pirillo

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You know my name, and you know how to find me. If you look at my blog, you know that I run WordPress as my blogging platform. I host my blog myself, and it works quite well for the most part. There is one plugin in particular that makes life much easier. The Viewzi Search Plugin provides a very visual way of searching the Web. Now, you can bring that experience to your own blog.

Viewzi Site Search (VSS) is a pilot program that takes the Viewzi search experience and embeds it on your website or blog. Your search results become highly visual, elegant and engaging!
With multiple Views to look at search results, visitors click 2-3 times more pages per search on average.

When you visit my website now, you will notice a new search box under the video. The view of results will superimpose instantly, without even having to reload the page. You can customize the way your search results display, in order to show you what is the most relevant to you. It makes it soooo much easier for you to find anything I’ve ever posted.

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How Should a College Newspaper Publish on the Web?

Chris — Fri, 10 Oct 2008 06:41:38 +0000

How Should a College Newspaper Publish on the Web? is a post from Chris Pirillo

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I graduated high school many years ago, and first got online in 1992. The Internet was there, but not the World Wide Web at that point. I wrote a series of articles for the newspaper at my university about the Internet. Chris wrote me with a question about his college newspaper, and getting it online. Specifically, he is confused about them needing something simple to update with an easy interface. The reason is, they won’t always have a tech guy around. Chris feels that buying their own domain name is just too much for them, and they aren’t happy with the free WordPress package, as they don’t like the templates. Additionally, they have almost no budget. So, he turned to me for help.

I will agree that the templates available for WP aren’t very much to your liking. If you like WordPress itself, spend just a little bit of money and buy a more professional one. I’m sure you have some kind of campus IT department. They could host the site for you. You may be able to approach a local business and get hosting from them, maybe in exchange for free advertising. With WordPress, you can find a good template that will allow you to make it look very much like the professional online papers.

Any money you might have to spend would be quickly offset with advertising, local businesses, or even time donated by other students to help. The sooner you can get the paper into a system that will work for them and grow with them, the better.

A blog is just one level. Unfortunately, there aren’t that many social features in WordPress. There’s no profile management, certainly not like Facebook or MySpace. While you’ll still be somewhat limited on themes, you could take a look at having a Ning community. Ning is basically a large network of free communities. I paid for a few extra options, including the ability to use my own domain and to run ads. There are features for Ning including photo albums, profiles, videos and forums. You can turn features on or off, as well. It’s certainly going to offer you a lot more than just a simple blog would.

I don’t know what all is out there, but I would certainly want to point you in the direction of open-source options. This way, you have freedom to make any changes you feel you may need. If anyone in our community has better recommendations, I’m sure that they will write and let me know.

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How to Make an iPhone Web Site and Icon

Chris — Thu, 12 Jun 2008 05:27:41 +0000

How to Make an iPhone Web Site and Icon is a post from Chris Pirillo

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Yes, I have an iPhone. If you look closely, you can see my little Chris icon on there. It’s also on my home screen. When I tap it, it opens my blog. When you open my blog on your iPhone, it’s going to look a lot different than it would on a browser. That’s due to a plugin I am running in WordPress.

WP Touch is a plugin that was designed specifically for your iPhone or iPod Touch. What it does it to automagically reformat my blog (or any WP blog), and optimizes it specifically for the iPhone and iPod Touch. It gives it a whole new layout, even, that is designed to just render better on your Apple mobile device. There’s no better way of giving you a better experience than to use WP Touch on a blog that is running WordPress.

As I drill down into the actual content on the home page, I can cascade out and read brief previews. Or, I can dive deeper and go so far as to leave a comment. It loads fast, and it’s clean. It’s a great way of getting content specifically optimized. It even uses Gravatars! There’s even a little search button at the top. Simply tap that, and you’ll be able to run a search through my blog.

How did I get the little Chris icon, you ask? If someone is viewing your website and they press the little plus (+) icon at the bottom in their Safari browser, they can select “add to home screen”. When they do that, the little graphic that is on my web server (or yours) is automatically pulled in when it’s added to their home screen. Even if you don’t have the iPhone or the iPod Touch, you still want to do this. You don’t know who out there in your audience does have one. You want to give them an amazing experience. Just open up your favorite photo editor. You’ll need to create a .png file. The size can vary up to 60×60 pixels. I uploaded mine to my root directory. It’s very important to name it properly: apple-touch-icon.png. That has to be the name, and it has to be in the root directory. This way, the plugin will be able to pull in this icon.

Think of it: you’re doing something simple and free for your audience. If you’re like me, you want to do everything you possibly can in order to keep people coming back for more.

FirstRSS+ThunderIT AWS HMAC ERROR: "http://xml-us.amznxslt.com/onca/xml?AWSAccessKeyId=05G128QTRXN0J06J6PG2&ContentType=text%2Fxml&Keywords=ipod%2Btouch&Operation=ItemSearch&ResponseGroup=Large&SearchIndex=Blended&Service=AWSECommerceService&Signature=QhMmBe97JX3Q4%2BaZRvj2fmDtQOTUeXqBU3g%2Fdr%2FCPGA%3D&Style=http%3A%2F%2Ftagjag.com%2Fcss%2Famazon.xslt&Timestamp=2009-11-25T17%3A45%3A47Z&Version=2005-07-26" NOT FOUND!

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Download My Free Premium WordPress Theme

Chris — Sun, 08 Jun 2008 01:12:05 +0000

Download My Free Premium WordPress Theme is a post from Chris Pirillo

I rolled out and announced “WicketPixie” a few weeks ago, and was (quite honestly) hoping to have a few more fixes in place before releasing v1.0 to the galaxy. Despite a handful of hiccups, you’re welcome to download and try WicketPixie on your own WordPress blog – provided you have one, or even know what to do with a theme in the first place. All Lockergnome bloggers will have the latest / most optimized version of WicketPixie:

Download Here

I cannot provide support for this particular theme – I don’t have a support team, but am welcoming any kind of community involvement for helping others with its deployment elsewhere. Garry Conn created this nice installation / configuration guide, too. Since this theme is free, I’d suggest making a donation before emailing me with support questions (which I may or may not have the ability to answer).

The following notes assume you’re using WordPress 2.5.1 (or a similar version) and PHP5. Please read this entire post before installing the theme and emailing me questions I’ve already taken the time to answer / address. Please? You might also watch Andrew’s WicketPixie Installation Videocast.

You’ll definitely want to edit the home.php file to add your OWN stuff to it – and if you can’t figure it out, you should be able to safely remove home.php and WordPress should fall back to the default (generic) index.php for your home page. Unfortunately, there’s no other way of modifying the home page template at this point.
You’ll probably want to tweak the CSS files to suit your tastes. I have made quite a few minor modifications to it for my own use on my own blog.
The sidebar widgets are placed as such.
To add your social sources to WicketPixie (which you can see in my sidebar and on my “Social Me” page), make sure the WicketPixie Source Manager plugin is enabled on your plugins management page. Once that is done, you should find the “WicketPixie Sources” option in your blog’s “Manage” area. This is where you can add your social accounts at will.
Your sources will show up in your blog only after you add the “WicketPixie: My Profiles” widget to one of your sidebars (configured in your regular ol’ WordPress Widgets settings page). If you would like your own “Social Me” / lifestream page, you need only create a new WordPress page and use the “Activity Stream” template for it.
You can have your own news aggregator page with WicketPixie, if you add your favorite sites and feeds to “WicketPixie Faves” found under the WordPress Manage menu. Once your feeds have been added, you will need to create a new Page and use the “Faves” template for it. If you wish to remove the default feeds, you will likely have to edit the faves.php template by hand.
If you run into random “not writable” errors, make sure the directory in question is writable – which should go without saying, but if you need assistance with this I would suggest contacting your system administrator rather than trying to fix something yourself.
They’re not necessary, but I strongly recommend installing the following WordPress plugins: WPtouch, FirstRSS, Chunk URLs, and Admin Drop Down Menu.
If you can, please keep the default credit links in place – I’d really appreciate it.
You may receive a “Warning: Invalid argument supplied for foreach() in activity.php on line 41.” Since I didn’t program the app, I have no idea what’s wrong or how to fix it.
If you want more Related Links options, you can move that plugin out of the wicketpixie plugin directory, and into your regular ol’ WordPress plugins directory. If you’re not sure how to do it, please leave well enough alone.
It’s simple to change colors, fonts, and the background image for WicketPixie by looking in the Design section of WordPress – “WicketPixie Options” will be found under there.
There is a “Share” menu in the top bar that’s hidden by default. You can edit the property for #topbar-share in the screen.css file – change “display: none” to “display: inline” to make it show up. Then, edit the appropriate section in header.php – it’s ready for the ShareThis code, too!
If you receive a “Fatal error: Class ‘SourceUpdate’ not found in wp-content/themes/wicketpixie/header.php on line 85″ error, it’s because you forgot to enable the WicketPixie Source Manager plugin in WordPress.
If you receive the “Parse error: syntax error, unexpected T_STRING, expecting T_OLD_FUNCTION or T_FUNCTION or T_VAR or ‘}’ in wp-content/plugins/sourcemanager.php on line 19″ error, it’s because your Web host needs to be using PHP5.
The logo at the top of the theme is your gravatar, and you should already know how to make your own gravatar by now (free).

You can read more about this theme or watch the screencast for more information or guidance.

Is your Avatar a Gravatar?

Chris — Tue, 20 May 2008 18:08:17 +0000

Is your Avatar a Gravatar? is a post from Chris Pirillo

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I know a few of you use forums. Some of you have blogs and other social accounts. Most of these places allow you to set up an avatar. The hope is that one day, you only have to upload an avatar once and have it populate to all places you are on the Web. There is something that may be used throughout any blog that uses WordPress, and that has this feature enabled. For years, the Gravatars have been a plugin for WordPress. Now, the new version of WordPress has support for these Gravatars.

If you’ve commented in my blog in the past, you’ve used an Email address. This is what will allow you to have a Gravatar that follows you around once you register. Your Gravatar will automatically be posted with your comments on any blog you visit, as long as you comment using your normal email address. You don’t have to sign up with my blog, or anything!

Of course, you will need to sign up for free with Gravatar. A gravatar, or globally recognized avatar, is quite simply an avatar image that follows you from weblog to weblog appearing beside your name when you comment on gravatar enabled sites. Avatars help identify your posts on web forums, so why not on weblogs? Setting up gravatars on your weblog is easy, you don’t even need an account! Plugins are available for leading weblog software, and our tutorials will have you running gravatars in no time. To request a gravatar from our servers, you simply add an image to your comments area with an “src” attribute that points to our gravatar image generator and includes an MD5 hash of the commenter’s email address. Since all gravatars are rated with an MPAA style rating, you can restrict your site to show only gravatars whose content you are comfortable with.

You may have more than one email address or more than one avatar that you want to manage. That’s fine, you can do that! You can upload your image, and it helps you crop it down so it fits into an avatar size! It’s super easy, even if you aren’t good with photo editing software.

The challenge now to you is to go sign up for Gravatar, then leave a comment in my blog so that we can all check out your avatar!

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WicketPixie WordPress Theme Screencast

Chris — Sat, 17 May 2008 10:51:03 +0000

WicketPixie WordPress Theme Screencast is a post from Chris Pirillo

I wrote about it yesterday when I initially rolled out this new WordPress theme, but now I’ve had time to make a very brief screencast that explains a bit more about it. You’ll see that there’s a lot going on behind the scenes. WicketPixie gives you:

Your own Activity Stream / Social Graph page
Your own Collected Favorites page / News Aggregator
An easy ability to change certain style elements
A high-quality Web design for your site
A clean way to present ALL your social profiles
The freedom to donate to future theme development
Gravatar support within WordPress v2.5+
The ability to use any feed source as a Status message
Areas optimized for advertising

Not bad for free, eh? I’m likely to use CC BY-SA 3.0 for the license, with the hope that a small group of enthusiasts can help me maintain and build it further.

Right now, we’re working our way through a few last-minute layout bugs (cross-browser compatibility). I’m considering holding off a public release until it’s been modified for WPMU and implemented for bloggers on Lockergnome – which I don’t know how to do, since I’m not a WPMU guru. If you know any experienced developer who can help with that part of the process, I’m all ears. Until then, this screencast should whet your appetite:

I really want to ask you this, before I make the files available for download: would you rather download the plain version of WicketPixie or the version I’ve tweaked for my own site (understanding that with the latter, you’d have to make more changes to the core templates).

WicketPixie: a Social Media Theme for WordPress

Chris — Fri, 16 May 2008 12:29:35 +0000

WicketPixie: a Social Media Theme for WordPress is a post from Chris Pirillo

Today, I’m officially unveiling my new theme for WordPress – and in a matter of days or weeks, after a few more tweaks, it will be available for you to download and install for your own WordPress blog (recommended v2.5 or later).

Welcome to WicketPixie – a Social Media theme for WordPress.

When I say this is a “Social Media” theme, it’s not merely because there’s a Twitter widget sitting somewhere in the sidebar. No, it’s a bit more involved than that. You’ll have your own “Activity Stream” page, your own “PopURLs” page, and the social profiles that you import can be used as separate widgets throughout the sidebar. It’s all about helping people discover more about you.

You can call these types of pages just about anything you want to call ‘em – I’m going with “Social Me” for my aggregate social graph, and “Faves” for all my favorite Web sites. Of course, you can see all my Web profiles listed in the sidebar – and yes, those favicons were automatically pulled in!

You don’t like the colors or background image of the theme? WicketPixie comes with its own design configuration tool, allowing you to easily change elements and colors throughout the theme. And yes, the theme was designed by the very talented Matt Brett, with app design by the Other Chris.

I’m considering offering two separate downloads: a very generic version of the theme, and the theme as it currently exists on my site (which would require you to replace my own account information throughout the theme with your own). I wanted to tweak certain elements and incorporate my “essential” plugins – not to mention optimize for advertising and SEO. Either way, you’d be on your own for support.

The theme is the app, to me – and I hope WicketPixie will be your next WordPress theme for that reason. Your own blog can also serve as your social nexus, where people can easily find out who you are and what you’re doing anywhere else on the Web. Consider this a v1.0 release:

I ran out of budget, and time, to add more functionality and configurability to the theme – but it’s my hope that we can reach our donation goals quickly to begin work on extending what WicketPixie can help you accomplish (and manage) out of the box. We really wanted to tie in more external social conversations / data, but it wasn’t possible to integrate cleanly without further financial considerations. Still, most of your existing WordPress plugins should work fine with WicketPixie – including Disqus and FriendFeed.

I’d consider this a free premium theme because of its extended capabilities, and if you’d like to help push it to the next level – I’m all ears. I do request that if you change the theme in any way, all credit is pushed forward (and you let me know, please). If you’re interested in helping build ‘er out, we’re off to a running start.

Do you want it?

Drupal vs. WordPress

Chris — Tue, 22 May 2007 01:01:30 +0000

Drupal vs. WordPress is a post from Chris Pirillo

Click Image to Play Video

http://live.pirillo.com/ – Everyone has a blog, but Perseco asks which platform is better: Drupal or WordPress?

Some people think WordPress is good enough, while other people swear by Drupal. If you want one blog with one user, WordPress is good enough, but if you want to run multiple blogs with multiple users, Drupal is the way to go.

Drupal offers a variety of options, but has a steep learning curve:

Drupal is a free software package that allows an individual or a community of users to easily publish, manage and organize a wide variety of content on a website. Tens of thousands of people and organizations have used Drupal to power scores of different web sites, including:
Community web portals
Discussion sites
Corporate web sites
Intranet applications
Personal web sites or blogs
Aficionado sites
E-commerce applications
Resource directories
Social Networking sites

Wordpress also offers a large list of features:

WordPress is a state-of-the-art semantic personal publishing platform with a focus on aesthetics, web standards, and usability. What a mouthful. WordPress is both free and priceless at the same time.
More simply, WordPress is what you use when you want to work with your blogging software, not fight it.

Formats available: MPEG4 Video (.mp4), MP3 Audio (.mp3), Microsoft Video (.avi), Flash Video (.flv)

Toni Schneider of Automattic on WordPress

Tue, 05 Sep 2006 19:34:43 +0000

Toni Schneider of Automattic on WordPress is a post from Chris Pirillo

Chances are you read something published with WordPress almost daily. In fact you’re reading something published using WordPress right now. Behind the friendly free blogging software and WordPress.com platform, there’s a company evolving to power the future of online publishing. At SES San Jose, Chris spoke with Toni Schneider, CEO of Automattic, the business side of WordPress, about the roots of WordPress and where it’s headed in the future, as well as a few tidbits about where Lockergnome may be headed using WordPress as a foundation.

WordPress Plugin Ideas

Chris — Sun, 13 Aug 2006 09:53:09 +0000

WordPress Plugin Ideas is a post from Chris Pirillo

I need to have some WordPress plugins developed, and I’m sure the rest of the world would love ‘em, too…

Take a look at any given Vox blog – when you hover over any given tag, you can view the results for that tag in specific local indices. I’d like for someone to make a WP plugin that passes the tag to selected local AND external tag engines (Technorati, TagJag, Flickr, etc.).
I’d also like to see a similar WP plugin for Bookmarking the post in the multitude of social engines (on hover, add to del.icio.us, Digg, Reddit, etc.). I don’t wanna clutter my posts with hundreds of icons, and I believe this is plugin is also within the realm of possibility.
I need someone to create an expanded version of the Kramer WordPress plugin, so that it might take in link data from other blog search indices – Yahoo!, Ask, Feedster, Windows Live, Google Blogs, etc. Kramer really beefs up the discussion for any given post, but I really wanna kick that into overdrive.
What about a plugin that takes incoming search terms and auto-tags the post based on those terms (with or without moderation)? So, if a user searches for KeywordXYZ on Google and ultimately visits one of the blog entries, that blog entry will have the KeywordXYZ added to its tag list (via UTW or something).
I also need a WP tool that recursively goes through my posts which have not already been tagged, then tag the posts with keywords it finds most appropriate (either through the Yahoo! API or internal logic) – almost like how the Related Posts plugin works against the posts database automatically?

And while we’re on the subject of WP, Automattic really needs to rename MUWP to something more human, like “WordPress: Community Edition.” Doesn’t that position it better?

Ultimate Tag Warror META Keywords

Chris — Sun, 21 May 2006 23:05:58 +0000

Ultimate Tag Warror META Keywords is a post from Chris Pirillo

It's amazing what happens when you email the developer of a WordPress plugin - they respond. At least, most of 'em do (I'm still waiting to hear back from a couple of 'em right now, including Red Alt on being able to search posts from his admin search plugin). After blasting a note to Chris Davis about his community-based tagger, I sent a note off to Christine Davis (no relation) about some shortcomings in the current Ultimate Tag Warrior. I wanted UTW to copy tags into the META keywords tag. She responded with code which needed to be tweaked a bit by Shayne:

if (is_tag()) { ?>
"keywords" content="'%tagdisplay%', 'default'=> ', %tagdisplay%')); ?>" />
} else if (is_single()) { ?>
"keywords" content="'%tagdisplay%', 'default'=> ', %tagdisplay%')); ?>" />
} ?>

That's for all you SEO types out there who are also using the wildly-popular Ultimate Tag Warrior plugin (and I'm not just saying that because it supports Gada.be). This is fun!

From BlogWare to WordPress – Part Deux

Chris — Sat, 20 May 2006 06:51:06 +0000

From BlogWare to WordPress – Part Deux is a post from Chris Pirillo

Getting the code out of BlogWare and into WordPress was one thing. Getting everything else to work well has been something of a task. All my old URLs didn't have any helpful keywords in them, so the 404 redirect script I found wasn't working as effectively as it might have. Shayne pointed out that both the old URLs and new URLs have date information in them, so it would just take a little scripting before things would work easier for all those search engine visitors. I've got a new Google Sitemap submitted, FWIW.

I remembered the WP-Hackers, which we used to develop a Gada.be plugin - both standalone, and for the amazingly awesome Ultimate Tag Warrior. I posted my request, and received several satisfactory answers. Mark Jaquith responded with a single line of code that needed to be placed at the top of the .htaccess file. Easy. Done. Awesome.

World’s Best WordPress Plugin

Chris — Sat, 20 May 2006 06:25:29 +0000

World’s Best WordPress Plugin is a post from Chris Pirillo

I've been pimping my WordPress - hardcore. From spilling a little SpotMilk over my admin interface, to getting an admin toolbar for when I'm looking at my own blog. I've been looking high and low for fun and functional extensions for WP, but I think I've found the mother of all plugins tonight. It's called Edit N Place - and if you have WordPress installed, you must install this plugin immediately. Its name is exactly what it does - enables you to edit your post's title, categories, and/or body inline! No need to load up the admin page to tweak a word or two anymore! Yes, it's accessible with a little sprinkle of AJAXy goodness. I sent Matt an instant message the moment I had it running. He didn't even know about it, so it's a fair bet most of you WordPressers don't, either. It's so simple to configure to your liking, even a caveman could do it.

How to Handle Remote Tech Support

chris@lockergnome.com (Chris Pirillo) — Mon, 13 Jul 2009 06:30:00 GMT

Using GoToAssist is the easiest way to view and control another person's computer online. Use it to provide instant technical support to family, friends and customers. Start a session with just one click, and instantly connect with the other party.

Network Tools for Windows

chris@lockergnome.com (Chris Pirillo) — Mon, 25 Feb 2008 06:30:00 GMT

You need these network tools, no matter which operating systems and networks you have to support. SolarWinds ipMonitor: Affordable Network Monitoring for SMBs. Get turnkey network, server and application availability monitoring with SolarWinds ipMonitor v9.0. This easy-to-use, reliable solution for SMBs delivers out-of-the-box availability monitoring so you always know exactly what's up with Active Directory, DNS, Exchange, FTP, Web, IMAP, MS SQL Server, and SMTP. Download your free trial today. Or, try their totally free tools! And, through 2/29, save 20% when you purchase ipMonitor 9.0.

Get Your Own Web Site

chris@lockergnome.com (Chris Pirillo) — Mon, 25 Feb 2008 06:30:00 GMT

Starting at just $3.99/month, web hosting from GoDaddy includes 99.9% uptime, 24/7 support and free access to GoDaddy Hosting Connection, THE place to install over 30 FREE applications sure to help you get the most from your hosting plan and Web site. Enter code CP2 at checkout, and save an additional 10% on any order.

Plus, as a friend of Chris Pirillo, enter code CHRIS7, that's C-H-R-I-S and the number 7, when you check out, and save an additional 10% on any order. Get your piece of the internet at GoDaddy.com.

VMware and Parallels for Virtual Machines

chris@lockergnome.com (Chris Pirillo) — Mon, 25 Feb 2008 06:30:00 GMT

It doesn't matter if you're running on Windows or Mac OS X - every power user needs either Parallels or VMware (or both). There's never been an easier way to test software without destroying your primary operating system's stability. Think of how many times you wish you could press a 'reverse' button on your computer. Plus, there's no easier way to try new Linux distributions - see what all the fuss is about. Run Windows in OS X, run Linux in Windows, but the best way to do either is with VMware and/or Parallels.

Coupons for Online Shopping

chris@lockergnome.com (Chris Pirillo) — Sat, 12 Jul 2008 07:56:13 GMT

This feed is fueled by Lockergnome Online Shopping and Coupon Codes

Before you shop next time, see if we have a coupon first.