MU Now Integrated (continued)

Greetings blog fans. Last time we left I unsung unhero he was in the process of investigating a multiple user system that is integrated into Wordpress 3.x despite the advice eluded to by the one who actually put him over the edge in believing he could monetize his blog.

Since that last short exchange with him I've found a couple of articles which have given me some hope. In particular this article offers some advice about developing plugins for the MU version of Wordpress and refers to a time in the future (a time which has come already with version 3.x) where MU would be merged into mainstream Wordpress. I also looked over this blog (and a few others) where I was wrapped in a little more comfort knowing there are people out there managing 'hundreds' of blogs using one MU installation.

I still proceed with caution however because, like I had mentioned in a previous post, I have learned to respect RT's way of doing things. But I also know since he's a bit short of time (and I'm not paying him for his expertise) that there is only so much of the "in depth" that I can get from him. And then there is also the possibility due to a shortness of time that he hasn't had a chance to do an in depth look into this MU stuff.

Wordpress 3.x (MU Now Integrated)

Along the lines of my last post you can follow my exciting adventure of where I'm going with this revenue generating blog idea. I am super novice guy on this if you want to learn, and you think the experts are talking over your head, then you can probably count on me to be right on your level :-)

Ok so I've gone as far as purchasing a domain name for this. I already own igottcha.com but I have plans for drupal on that so I wanted a separate domain to play on with Wordpress. g0tt.info is an untraditional domain (not the .com, .org, or .net that most people are used to) but I wanted to grab something inexpensive to play with.

I also had something else in mind as well. After installing less than a handful of solo Wordpress installations and reading something about 3.x integrating multi-user functionality into it, I wanted to test this. And if everything goes well I'll only have to manage one Wordpress site instead of managing all of the configuration files, security, plugin updates, and other things that one has to keep up with in managing all of the Wordpress installations one has to contend with on multiple sites. A plugin for MU domain mapping is going to be a big help here.

Thanks to RT, I mentioned him in my previous post, I've started down this route of believing I can have a monetized site that will at least pay for itself.  I don't have any pie-in-the-sky aspirations. I've been around the IT world long enough to know that most of these things take time and grow slowly. But hey I'm patient, and willing to plug away at anything that worth doing.

Ok, so RT gets some credit for this (or some blame if you want to look at it that way) and I'll be reading over a lot of the great information on this subject that he's written there over the years. And for the stuff that I can't find by searching his blog I'll ask him a question or two and see if I can get some answers from him without wearing out his patience (I know he's a busy guy). So this MultiUser thing for Wordpress is one of the things that I asked him about; I was surprised that it wasn't mentioned anywhere in his blog. And his response to my question? ... "... frankly, I don't consider the MU stuff to be mature enough to use. There are hundreds of plugins that won't work right with it."

Ok RT. So I was right in the middle of a MU installation based on Wordpress 3.1 and I value your opinion enough to stop what I was doing and devote a couple of hours to dig around about this. I only presume two things 1) RT is quite technically competent. I've been reading his blog for a few months and after managing IT people for a few years I think I know a good one when I see one. 2) I value Wordpress. I don't think they would release something that's as bad as RT seems to be saying. Perhaps RT is exaggerating a bit (I don't know if his personality is void of this or not), or maybe his experience is just based on the previously non-integrated version of Wordpress MU before they threw it into the mainline version. I'll just dig around and find out what there is to know.

Blogging for Profit - I've Changed My Mind

I never thought I would be getting into blogging for profit. I always looked at 'those guys' as a bunch of "sell outs" that were catering to the masses for a few bucks. I've seen so many bad marketing strategies, so many people actually doing 'that'. Here are a few of the "scum sucking" ways that I've seen people trying to make money off of their blogs:

• Posting material that appealed to base human nature just because it drew people to their site.
• Do mass mailings (spamming) just to drive traffic to their site.
• Posting all sorts of hidden words all throughout their site just to get it ranked in the search engines.
• Utilizing bots or other automated techniques just to earn a buck.
• Using trick click-through techniques on their site to fool the unsavvy.
  

Basically if you haven't got my drift, I was led to think if this was the only way to make a profit on a site through ads then it would be a waste of my time to try to put ads on my site; because I certainly wasn't going to do 'anything' just to generate traffic. Ok I'm leaving out a few exceptions to my self-observed rule that have so much traffic because of 'just the right mix'.

Well thanks to RT, a new acquaintance that I've made on the net a few months ago, my opinion has changed. He's apparently been blogging for just a few years now and it's turned profitable enough for him to pay for some server space and then some. So now I figure if he can write about his day to day life and a few tech interests and earn a fair income through basic hard work then I might just be able to do it too. I just don't want to change what I'm doing just for profit. However if all I have to do is a little more of what I'm already doing then there is a strong change I'm willing to do that. Stay tuned to see what happens.

Uncomprimising - Open Source - Video Editing

"I'm not ashamed to follow Jesus". Well, that's an all fine and good sounding phrase until you are forced to face a group of your peers in a professional environment, a work environment, or a school environment. This is the challenge that every true follower of Christ eventually has to come to terms with. I've had to face this in the job market and I'm not the first; I'm certainly not going to be the last.

Software and music piracy is one of those things that I write about from time to time and today I grapple with another aspect of that once again. I'm not going to deal with the "heart of the matter" too much today. I do that quite often, and all you have to do is peruse a few of my previous entries on my other blog to get a taste of that. Or better yet, hit your knees and read a few scriptures. God is there to tackle these things with each and every one of us one on one. The basics are this; if we understand the sacrifice that was given for us and how each decision impacts eternity, then there is nothing, not even death that will have us dancing any other dance than one that the father of life appreciates. Ok so on to the tackle.

Video editing. I used to be quite a software thief and it wasn't until I was backed into a corner by my own convictions that I was forced to find answers. I've found answers for word processing, spreadsheets, power point presentations, multi-track audio editing, and now I'm on the pursuit of digital video editing. Here is a short list and summary of what I've found. Keep in mind that I haven't dug into any of these myself. I'm a bit ashamed that I have too many projects going on right now to do so. However I'm hoping to find a few minions to give me their feed back and test these things. The minions however will have to be ones that are just a "hell bent" to make these things work as I am. In this sense of "hell bent" I mean someone that would rather give their life and gamble with anything eternal. Anyone that knows me has got to know that I'm serious.

Lightworks ... This is a wonderful review which touts a product that won both Academy and Emmy awards. it runs on Windows and you can download it here. ... and oh, this looks like another good article on it.

I usually spent several days on a project like this. But unfortunately as I mentioned earlier I just don't have the time. And as such the previous mention of Lightworks seems to be the best one that I've found for Windows (after poking around for about three hours).

As far as Linux goes here are several other resources for professional grade results in DVD, mpg, avi, and many other formats.

Ubuntu Studio ... If you are strongly enough motivated (all true followers of Christ are 'very' motivated), you can take a stab at installing Ubuntu in parallel to your Windows installation. If you are willing to take this step I will help you. But since this is 'your' system I expect you to put into two hours of work for every one hour of work that I give you. ... I betcha you can't find a deal out there like that anywhere.

Avidemux has gotten a lot of feedback all over the net. If you decide to do some searching for this or other Open Source projects be sure to look at the date of the feedback. Many of the negative comments are dated 2008 and before. Anyone that has spent any time in technology knows that one month is like a year in the computing world. So many of the video editing programs have "come a long way baby".

And lastly here is another link worth checking out resources on. You check it out, hit me with comments, tell me what you think 'especially' if you've had a chance to test any of these.

And if you don't think you can do professional video editing with OpenSource products than think again. There have been many independent films released after being edited in OpenSource. Oh, and here is the actually trailer for this movie just to show you a living breathing demonstration of what you can do with OpenSource.