Spring has finally arrived here in Vancouver, so I hope you’re all out there enjoying the sunshine and looking forward to a terrific long weekend! In between those outdoor barbecues and trips to the beach, be sure to take a few moments to explore the blogosphere too, because the rest of the world wants to have a word with you. Here are a few posts to get you started.

Eric Doggett of The Man Page reminds us of a very simple rule to adding some artistic expression to your photos. Whether it is at a child’s birthday party or just a lazy Sunday on the back porch, be sure to use the easy rule of thirds when composing your pictures. They make for much more interesting photos.

Shoemoney has got the skills to pay the bills, so he’s always on the lookout for interesting ways to make money online. You may have heard about pay per click and pay per action, but what is the best way to monetize an online video? Maybe you should consider pay per view. Loren Feldmen charges a dollar for each view. Imagine of those viral videos on YouTube did that.

In keeping with the creative flow, Bloggrrl says that kids should be bored. When they are bombarded with too much entertainment — video games, television, music, and so on — they don’t have an opportunity to let their creative sides express themselves. When they are bored, they’ll feel compelled to actually do something. Anything.

Mack Collier of Search Engine Guide is talking about Twitter like everyone else these days. While most Twitter profiles come with a link to the person’s personal website, Mack recommends that you make a Twitter landing page instead. This lets your fellow tweeps learn a little more about you.

Lisa Bettany of Mostly Lisa spent a solid six years in university and she shares what she learned in school (and what she didn’t). It truly is interesting to see what makes it into the curriculum and into our long-term memories, isn’t it?

Learning to develop a WordPress plugin can be both fun and rewarding. In this Tutorial we will go over how to make a simple Hello World plugin that you can create. This will give you a very basic understanding of how to create a simple WordPress plugin that we can build on in future tutorials.

To begin with create a folder in your wp-content/plugins/ folder called helloworld.

Next create a file in a text editor called helloword.php.

Add the following lines of code to the helloword.php file…

<?php
/*
Plugin Name: Hello World
Plugin URI: http://www.yourdomain.ca
Description: A simple Hello Word Plugin
Version: 1
Author: John Doe
Author URI: http://www.yourdomain.ca
*/

The above code creates the information pulled in to the Plugins page of your WordPress admin. Plugin URI should point to the site where you will provide updates and install details for a plugin. The other information above you can edit to be your own details.

Now add the following code to the bottom of the helloworld.php file…

function hello_world() {

        Print(“Hello World”);

}

?>

The above code will output Hello World when the plugin is called from one of your pages. Upload the helloworld.php file to your helloworld folder and activate the Hello World plugin in your WordPress admin.

Last step is to add the plugin to a page so you can see the plugin. To do that add the following code to the bottom of your index.php file in your theme…

<?php

        if(function_exists(‘hello_world’))

                {

                hello_world();

                }

?>

Be sure to upload the change to your index.php file and refresh your main page. If you placed it at the bottom of your page you should see it now if you scroll to the bottom of your page. You can remove the plugin from your page by deactivating it.

Although this example may not be exciting it is a good start to the understanding of how to create plugin. In our next example we will build of this so you can learn how to make more advanced WordPress plugins.

If you get stuck let me know in the comments.

I received a letter in the mail today that I found to be a little too deceptive for my tastes. Some people may say that it is clever, because it will inevitably fool some of the people who receive it, but it ultimately reflects poorly on the company involved.

The letter came in an official-looking brown envelope, not unlike the ones that you would receive from a government agency. The postage was pre-paid and pre-printed on the brown envelope. Inside this envelope was a long, personalized letter and a return envelope. Reading through the letter, it was an offer to “retain exclusive rights” to one of my expiring domains. I suppose they were able to get my mailing address through WHOIS or some other means.

In any case, the initial reaction to this letter was that it was an official document from an official Canadian government agency, but it was really just from a private company looking to make a few dollars. I’m not going to name them by name — they don’t deserve the free publicity — but the company name also has a certain air of being an official government agency as well. This is deceptive.

The kicker is that their rates for domain registration are considerably higher than the industry standard. For the registration of a single .com domain for one year, the price is $40.00. Even when you look at their two-year and five-year options, the rates were $70 and $160, respectively. Not only is this mail unsolicited — we all get junk mail all the time — but they’re terribly overpriced too.

Would you allow your marketing campaign to enter into the realm of deception in order to get a few extra sales? How far would you take your tactics?

It’s an unfortunate reality that there will always be people on the Internet who are looking to hack their way into websites and do all sorts of nasty things. While you may not be able to completely protect yourself against these malicious attacks, you can certainly take steps to protect your site to the best of your ability.

Instead of going line by line and trying to interpret areas where your blog may be vulnerable, wouldn’t it be nice if there was an automated solution that worked in much the same way as antivirus or anti-spyware software? That’s exactly what WordPress Scanner from BlogSecurity.net is meant to provide. The simple plug-in needs only be uploaded and activated, and then you can let it do its thing.

After it is done scanning for various security vulnerabilities on your WordPress blog, be sure to de-activate the plug-in. For more detailed installation instructions and other information, check out this page. The WordPress Scanner checks the WordPress version, looks for XSS vulnerabilities in the WordPress themes, and enumerates WordPress plug-ins.

The scan provided by this plug-in is just one more thing you can do to keep your blog safe from the bad guys. Be sure to close those back doors and open windows!

Last week we asked what word best describes who you are and 43% said you are designers and/or developers. This weeks question is…

Join Wired Woman for their Leadership Roundtable and discuss leadership strategy with influential Vancouver executives. Enjoy snacks, drinks and a great networking situation. If you are a Woman in the technology industry then these type of events are a must to attend.

When is the event happening?
Thursday, May 15, 2008 6:00 PM - 9:00 PM

Where is it happening?
Vancouver Community College, Room 409 - 250 West Pender Street  - Vancouver

Registration
To register for this event you need to email events.van@wiredwoman.com with the subject Leadership Roundtable.

Event Fee
This event costs $20 for members and $30 for non-members.