Media for Ministry -- Ministry Training » WORDPRESS HELP

USTREAM Streaming Video on Your WordPress Blog

Chris Zaugg — Thu, 23 Jun 2011 15:00:38 +0000

Using a USTREAM live video feed on your blog is easy, and it makes finding your streaming feed easy for your target audience! This screencast tutorial will help you embed both video and chat on your WordPress blog. NOTE: If you scroll down this page, you’ll see I have pasted some code that I refer to in this video. You can cut and paste it when you go through the setup.

This is #2 in a series. Click here for #1.

HTML code for your blog:

////Your video embed here////

////Your chat embed here////

WordPress Permalinks Issue on Bluehost

sam — Fri, 03 Jun 2011 07:08:36 +0000

There is a known bug with WordPress blogs hosted on Bluehost that will crash your site and prevent you from logging into your WordPress dashboard. The bug occurs if you change the permalink settings on your site. This tutorial will show you what triggers the bug, and how to fix it.

If you’re not comfortable using an FTP client and plain text editor, which you’ll need to get your site working again, don’t trigger the bug without some help first.

Setting Permalinks – This Triggers the Bug

Expand the Settings menu and select Permalinks

Select either the Day and Name or Month and Name option, and then select the Save Changes button

From this point forward, if you try to load any part of your blog, you will receive a 404 error. You will receive this error until you fix the htaccess file.

Fixing the Bug: How to Fix the .htaccess File

Download the .htaccess file that is generated after saving the permalink options from the previous step. The .htaccess file is located in the folder on your server where your WordPress blog is installed. One way to do this is to use an FTP client/software to login to your Bluehost hosting account, and download the file to your computer. You can download a free FTP client here: Filezilla-project.org

Open the .htaccess file using a text editor such as the Notepad application that comes
with Windows on a PC. For mac users, TextWrangleris a free application that works great.NOTE: Don’t use Microsoft Word to do this.

Add the last line of code, in bold print below, to your .htaccess file as shown:

# BEGIN WordPress

RewriteEngine On
RewriteBase /connection/
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
RewriteRule . /connection/index.php [L]
 

# END WordPress
#Options +FollowSymlinks

NOTE: The .htaccess file does NOT have a file extension (like .txt or .doc for example). Do NOT add one.
Save and upload the new file to your Bluehost hosting account, replacing the old
.htaccess file.

I don’t really understand what’s actually going on with this error, or why it doesn’t seem to effect every blog on Bluehost. But this fix has worked for me in the past. Hope it works for you too.

WordPress Blog Tutorial: Installing a Google Calendar

sam — Fri, 27 May 2011 07:16:39 +0000

Google Calendars are a great tool for any ministry. Multiple people can have access to updating them, and they can be easily installed onto your blog so that everyone who visits your site can be kept up to date on your ministry’s schedule of events. Managing the calendar is extremely easy since you only have to update it in one place. Every time you make a change to the calendar in Google, your blog is automatically updated.

Here’s a quick tutorial to get you started. This tutorial assumes you’ve got a self-hosted WordPress blog and are using version 2.9.

1. Go to www.google.com/calendar

2. Click on the Create an account button, or if you already have a Google Account, enter your email and password to login.

3. Enter all of the required information and agree to the terms and conditions

4. Once completed, you should see your new calendar

5. Click on the arrow by My Calendars, and select Calendar Settings

6. Select Customize the color, size, and other options from the Embed This Calendar section.

7. Use the options menu to customize how your calendar will appear on your blog. Make sure you adjust the width and height of the calendar so that it fits in the space where you’re embedding it. Also, under Calendars to Display, make sure your calendar is checked.

8. Click on the Update HTML button

9. Copy all of the code in the Copy and Paste the HTML… box. This is the embed code you’ll use to add your calendar to your blog.

10. Next, install the embed code you copied in step 9 into your blog, just as you would for any other widget. Here’s a video to show you how to install a widget into a WordPress blog using WordPress version 2.9.

Have any ideas for integrating Google and widgets into your blog? Let us know.

Related Article:
Creating a Facebook Fanpage Widget

Installing WordPress Plugins

sam — Fri, 29 Apr 2011 07:35:19 +0000

Plugins are a great way to customize the look and functionality of any WordPress blog. They’re an easy way to do things like add Facebook functionality to your blog, block spam from your comments, and embed fill-in forms into your pages, just to name a few. WordPress makes it really easy to search for and add plugins. Here’s a step by step guide to installing plugins.

1. Select Plugins from the left-hand menu of your Admin Dashboard, and then select Add New

2. Use the search box to search for the plugin you’re looking for. In this example, we’re looking for a specific plugin – the “youtuber” plugin.

3. Find the plugin you want from the menu, and click on Install

4. When the popup window comes up, click on the various tabs to get more information about that specific plugin. Before you actually install the plugin, you’ll want to make sure it is compatible with the version of WordPress that you’re using.

5. Click on Install Now to install the plugin. If you’re feeling adventurous, you could also follow the instructions included with the plugin information to install it manually.

6. After the files have been installed select Activate Plugin

WordPress does the rest from here. Once our plugin is installed, follow the instructions that came with the plugin for adjusting any settings, and you should be ready to go.

Free Web Building Tutorials at W3Schools

sam — Fri, 22 Apr 2011 07:25:52 +0000

W3Schools is an amazing website featuring tons of free web building tutorials. If you’re looking for a handy reference for html, css, and all things computer code, W3Schools is a good one. Check it out – w3schools.com

Events Pages-Keeping Information Visible With Categories and Category Pages

sam — Fri, 15 Apr 2011 07:12:50 +0000

You may have noticed that we have additional pages on our blog where the blog posts on our front page reappear, organized by categories. If you’re using the Thesis theme for WordPress, those category pages are really easy to set up, and can be useful for keeping information visible and accessible to your audience.

For example, let’s say that you’re promoting an event on your blog. You add a post to your blog about the event, and now that post is at the top of your page for everyone to see. But as you blog about other things over the course of the week or month, that first post about your event gets pushed further down the page.

Not a problem with category pages and Thesis. With an Events category page, that first post about your event is also automatically re-posted on the Events page. And it will stay at the top of that page until you publish another post that you categorize as an Event.

Here’s a step by step guide to creating an Events category and Events category page using Thesis v1.6. If you’re not already using the Thesis theme, read our post for more information – Thesis Theme for WordPress

Creating a Post Category

1. Go to your WordPress blog’s admin page and login

2. Once logged in click on the arrow by the Posts menu item (left hand side of the page) to expand the menu

3. Click on Categories to create a new category

4. Enter Events for the Category Name. Then add a description and select Add Category

Categorizing a New Post as an Event

1. After selecting Add New from the Posts menu, check the box next to the Events Category

Creating Your Events Category Page

1. Select Thesis Options from the left hand menu

2. Click on and expand Include these category pages in nav menu.

3. Select Events
NOTE: Until you add a post categorized as an Event, the Events button will not show up in your nav menu

4. Select the Save Button

You now have an Events category, and any post you categorize as an event will now also appear in your Events category page.

Everything You Every Wanted to Know About WordPress

sam — Thu, 17 Mar 2011 07:59:48 +0000

If you’re new to WordPress, be sure to check out the WordPress Codex – codex.wordpress.org. Like any manual, it can be a little overwhelming and sort of a dry read at times. But almost everything you’ve ever wanted to know about WordPress can be found there.

Event Tracking With Google Analytics

jjmccleary — Thu, 10 Mar 2011 15:57:09 +0000

Google Analytics work by sampling the activity on your site each time a page is viewed.

However, in some situations where a visitor follows a link to a downloadable file or follows an ‘outbound link’ (that points to a page outside your site), Google Analytics will not automatically record the relevant information; this is because Analytics are designed to sample activity whenever an in-site page is loaded, and neither of these situations cause an in-site page to load).

To cover this loophole, Google Analytics have included a feature called ‘event tracking’ which gathers information about specified user actions (such as mouse clicks or keyboard strokes) at the moment they occur, rather than waiting for a new page to load.

When event tracking is installed on an outbound link, Google Analytics will recognize the click of the mouse button on that link even before the target page loads and will log that event with a time stamp in your Analytics report, telling you when the visitor left your site and which link they followed. Event tracking on a downloadable file works in a similar way.

Adding event tracking to your analytics is a two-step process which Google Analytics have covered very thoroughly here. It requires you to add two different pieces of code to your site: one script which goes in the same location as your original Google Analytics tracking code, and one attribute added to each link you want to track.

The script needs to be added just above the standard Google Analytics tracking code snippet (usually in the section of each page). It looks like this, if you are using the asynchronous version of the Google Analytics code (recommended):

Or this, if you’re using the traditional version of the Google Analytics code:

If you’re using the traditional version, don’t forget to change “UA-XXXXX-X” to reflect your Google Analytics account identifier.

The following attribute code must be customized and added to each outbound link or download link you wish to track:

onClick=”recordOutboundLink(this, ‘Category’, ‘Action’, ‘Label’);return false;”

Replace the ‘Category’, ‘Action’, and ‘Label’ tags to help differentiate the events. These can be unique for each link, but make sure to consider how you’ll want to organize or separate the event data once it begins flowing in. Google’s Event Tracking Guide is very helpful in explaining how to choose these tags.

In the end, the code for your outbound link might look something like this:

click here to leave this page and visit the Media For Ministry site

Once these two pieces of code are in place, the data they generate will be available to view in the Event Tracking section of your Google Analytics dashboard.

You may sort the data based on the Category, Action and Label tags you specified in the attributes for each link.

As with all analytics, keep in mind that it can take several hours for data to become viewable in the dashboard.

Sticky Posts: How To Make a Post Stick To The Top of Your Home Page

sam — Thu, 03 Feb 2011 16:30:54 +0000

Let’s say your group is putting on a HUGE event that you want your entire audience to know about. In fact, the event is so big that you wish your blog post about that event was always at the top of your list of posts on your home page. Not a problem with WordPress and sticky posts. Here’s a quick guide to making a sticky post.

1. Log into the Dashboard menu of your WordPress blog.
2. Expand the Posts menu on the left, and click on Edit
3. Mouse over the post you’d like to turn into a sticky post, and the Quick Edit option should appear below it’s title. Click Quick Edit.

4. In the Quick Edit menu that appears, check the box next to Make This Post Sticky.

5. Click on Update Post, and you’re done.

The post you just edited will now be stuck to the top of your home page. All future posts will appear under this one. You can make more than one post sticky if you like. The sticky posts will be placed in chronological order, with all future posts placed beneath them. One thing to note is that making posts sticky has no effect on your category pages. So if you have an Events category page, all of the posts on that page will still be displayed in chronological order.

WordPress Tip: Insert a Google Map

sam — Fri, 28 Jan 2011 10:25:41 +0000

Embedding Google Maps onto your ministry blog is a really easy way to show people where all of your events and outreaches are happening without them navigating away from your site. Here’s a quick tutorial on how to embed a map onto your WordPress blog.

1. Go to www.maps.google.com

2. Enter the desired address in the search menu and click Search Maps

3. Select Link in the upper right hand corner to open up the Link options

4. Copy all of the code in the Paste HTML to embed in website box. This is the embed code you’ll use in the next step.

5. Install the embed code you copied in step 4 into your blog, just as you would for any other widget. Here’s a video to show you how to install a widget into a WordPress blog using WordPress version 2.9.

Have any other ideas for integrating Google, maps, and widgets into your ministry blog? Let us know.