Yorgo Nestoridis

Semiomantics XO Transparent WordPress Drafts

Yorgo Nestoridis — Wed, 08 Feb 2012 11:19:44 +0000

Transparent WordPress Custom Theme

Playing with the XO Theme Version 3.3.x from Semiomantics and CSS3, I notice how easy it is for most anyone to customize the XO Theme by adding transparencies and other CSS3 elements. Here below you find some drafts. You may visit the test site from : http://globalthebrand.com.

Transparent WordPress Gallery

Scripts and Plug-ins

On the test site we use the Semiomantics Widgets and Theme Handler plug-in as well as a modified Supersized plug-in; the latter needs some more work to make it more responsive. Also we use TubePress which behaves fine also on mobile.

The Theme is Semiomantics XO with 3 custom child-themes; any theme can be associated with any page, post, category, tag or sidebar.

The 1001 Faces of Semiomantics XO

Yorgo Nestoridis — Mon, 30 Jan 2012 11:31:43 +0000

New Semiomantics XO Theme for WordPress

The above Screenshots represent just some of the pages, features and looks the 2012 Edition of the high performance XO Theme for WordPress has up its sleeves. The above site is the fruit of the 2 Days Ycademy Online Seminar for Semiomantics Developers and designers.

XO Theme Features

The 2012 Edition of XO is focused on even more flexibility in as much as editing, cross-browser and cross-platform compatibility are concerned.

The Site displays perfectly on Mobile devices, showing responsiveness also of the plugged in scripts chosen of which some have been adapted to satisfy the high standards of Semiomantics Publishing Scripts for Excellence.

The site elaborated at the Ycademy Online Seminar this past week-end features some smashing features, such as:

Background Slideshow, customizable for each page, post or archive
Built in Directory
Media Library for YouTube and Vimeo
Pro-sliders which can be deployed anywhere on the site
In addition to the responsive design, a separate light Mobile Version is available
Bold and Efficient Navigation
Built in Custom Fonts
Social Network connectivity and publishing
and much more.

XO for Developers

The XO script is well commented and offers designers a clean and straight forward environment for custom developments. XO uses best practices for WordPress development and makes the best use of the possibilities offered by the WP back-bone, assuring smooth integration and optimized conflict handling.

XO for Designers

XO is a great playground for designers. The DIY version allows anyone to adapt layout and colors to taste right from the back-office; there is no need to have any knowledge about coding or designing. The theme behaves like a Chameleon and adapts to specific needs with just a few clicks of the mouse: pre-configured layout elements transform your XO quickly into a Magazine, Newspaper, personal Author Blog, a Media Hub, a Shop, a Marketing Machine, a Social Media Publisher, a Product Promoter or a Fan Site or most anything your imagination dictates.

For the professional designer, XO offers a well commented environment. Custom code can be added right from the dashboard or, as I prefer using a child theme. XO is tuned for HTML5 and CSS3 use, making it a modern and inspiring framework for exceptional design effects.

XO out of the Box

Out of the box, the XO Theme for WordPress provides a stable and reliable, robust and optimized solution for common use. It provides built in features such a slider with multiple transitions and a one click selector for easy use.

Layouts can be easily adapted to needs and purpose of the site. In fact, most custom designers rely on the theme engine to format efficiently layouts.

Custom XO

The site featured in the above gallery uses a few pro plug-ins to add functionality in function of customer requirements. The integration of such add on scripts is a relatively simple process for designers and developers.

Customization of the XO Theme

XO has been developed for high performance, productivity, excellence in publishing and flexibility. For the professional users, the XO Theme constitues a solid base with a huge potential for customization and creative artistic expression.

Semiomantics XO 2012 Release

The release of XO Version 3.3.x is planned for the first week of February. The present Release Candidate has been thoroughly tested. A few minor issues will be taken care off before XO will be available to the public.

Upgrading existing XO installations

If your site is running on Semiomantics XO suing basic customization, the theme can just be overwritten. (Save your custom CSS beforehand.)

If you are using a custom version with custom developments or a child theme, some of your customization will need to be adapted to the enhancements of XO 2012. This concerns namely custom headers and footers as well as custom functions.

Support for developers and designers is available as usual at our Ycademy Online Calls and Seminars or through Semiomantics Pro Support.

How to make WordPress Themes Responsive

Yorgo Nestoridis — Wed, 25 Jan 2012 09:29:35 +0000

Original Article at How to make WordPress Themes Responsive.

Responsive Themes for WordPress

Responsive Websites become a must in 2012. This tutorial demonstrates how to make your WordPress Theme Responsive.

What is Responsive Web Design?

In very simple terms: Responsive Web Design aims to display content adapted to the visitors screen size. This means namely that the layout width must be fluid, i.e. expressed as a percentage of the width of the screen, typefaces expressed in em and images must be scalable. Practically speaking: a responsive designs can be viewed on a smart-phone or on a large PC screen, the display will always be the same and adapted to the size of the screen or browser window. n stead of using multiple style-sheets for different screen sizes, designers use Media Queries which allow to create multiple layouts using the same content. To achieve scalability, CSS media queries, such as min-width or orientation are used.

Make your WordPress Theme responsive using a Child Theme

A quick and easy way consists in creating a child theme; this allows you to upgrade your theme as the case may be without altering your customizations.

How to create a responsive child theme?

1. Create a new folder in your wp-content/themes folder and name it anything you like; for the purpose of this exercise I call it “responsive” 2. Create a style sheet in your new Child Theme folder (call it styles.css). 3. Suppose your main theme is called “wptheme”; paste the following into style.css /* Theme Name: wptheme Child Theme URI: http://www.yourdomain.com/ Description: Child theme for wptheme Author: Your Name Author URI: http://www.yourdomain.com Template: wptheme Version:1.0 */ The only line you really need to respect is Template:wptheme; this line refers to the parent theme folder. 4. Import the parent themes style-sheet by adding now the following line to your new style.css: @import url(“../wptheme/style.css”); 5. Define the screen sizes you design for. (Smart-phones, tablets, PC) To test the result we just create different h1 color values for the different screen sizes: @media screen and (max-width:320px) { h1 { color: #ff0000; } } @media screen and (min-width:321px) and (max-width:768px) { h1 { color:#00FF00; } } @media screen and (min-width:769px) { h1 { color: #0000FF; } } Having set these basic parameters, you can now apply styles and layout values to taste, such as vertical navigation display on small screens.

How to make Images responsive

To make images responsive we will need to take some WordPress specifics into account and there fore we will intervene with CSS3 and Media Queries and modify styles.css and functions.php of our theme. Add the following to your style-sheet to make images scalable: img{max-width: 100%;} img{ –ms-interpolation-mode: bicubic; } Now the images will be re-sized to fit horizontally, while the vertical scaling is still defined by WordPress. We need to remove WordPress image height and width values to scale our images proportionally. In WP, image classes come with a with and height properties; we delete these properties like so: change in your WP editor: to this: < img class=”imgclass” src=”../images/imagethumb.jpg” alt=”” /> This will work for your post and page images, however not for the images created by WP dynamically, such as post thumbnails. We need to delete with and height properties dynamically with a function. Add to functions.php: function remove_wp_width_height($string){ return preg_replace(‘/\/i’, ”,$string); } Now you need to make a final modification in your template and replace: the_post_thumbnail(); with the following: echo remove_wp_width_height(get_the_post_thumbnail(get_the_ID(),’large’)); That’s all! Hopefully the above will help you to do additional customization wok and as the case may be, to adapt your great themes to the requirements of 2012 Web Design.

No related posts.

Ycademy Online Seminar January 2012

Yorgo Nestoridis — Tue, 24 Jan 2012 10:40:09 +0000

Original Article at Ycademy Online Seminar January 2012.

Semiomantics XO with CSS3 and HTML5

Time has come to learn about new technologies available for web designers and developers. All common browsers are increasingly able to read and interpret CSS 3 and HTML5 and about all computers are equipped to read java and jQuery. Therefore new possibilities become available to XO developers which we will focus on during the January Seminar.

XO Theme for WordPress

XO has evolved over the past 4 years along with WordPress Developments. The theme has become responsive and shows perfectly on smart phones and tablets.

XO Edition 2012

Subsequent to the release of WordPress 3.3.x XO needed some adjustments and updates which we have implemented and tested. New design functions become available for advanced customization. XO remains the most flexible theme for custom development, accessible to most anyone.

The XO Seminar

The goal of the seminar is to become familiar with XO and it’s new features as well as to learn how CSS3, HTML5 and jQuery allow to adapt XO to most any customer’s needs. Some of the technical issues we will have a detailed look at are:

Transparencies with CSS3
Background Sliders
Mobile Verions using WPTouch Pro
Content and Frame sliders with Pro Slider and SlideDeck Pro
Social Network connectivity with FacePages
How to make a WP theme responsive (adapting to different screen sizes such as Smart Phones Tablets and bigger)

How to expand XO functionality?

The most obvious expansions are via plug-ins. We will show how to make the best use of plug-ins for the Mobile Web, Social Networking, Social Media Publishing, Social Network Marketing as well as for more attractive display. Time permitting we will look into additional functions, such as shopping cart or marketing specific scripts. We also will start looking into another important chapter: How to convert your XO sites into a Mobile App!

Build an extraordinary Site

In order to make the understanding easier, we will build a new site during the 2 days event. Please join our pre-seminar call on Thursday to prepare the event by setting up a new XO powered site.

Materials

All materials will be provided. You will just need some images/photos, videos and other content you may want to use to populate the XO site.

Schedule

Saturday and Sunday, 28/29 January, 2012 from 1 pm London time till 9 pm London time.

Tickets

Tickets are available on our new shop at HIOD.com. Please click on the below image to order. Discounts as usual for Ycademy Pros: Please mail Bianca at bianca(at)ycademy.com for the coupon code.

Semiomantics XO 2011 for WordPress

Yorgo Nestoridis — Fri, 23 Dec 2011 18:03:35 +0000

Original Article at Semiomantics XO 2011 for WordPress.

A clip with XO 2011 Sites

The clip presents some of the custom sites built on Semiomantics XO 2011. Semiomantics XO 2012 will be released in January to catch up with the latest WordPress developments.

12 Principles of Animation with After Effects

Yorgo Nestoridis — Thu, 15 Dec 2011 08:31:10 +0000

Original Article at 12 Principles of Animation with After Effects.

Animation for Beginners with After Effects

Since Disney’s hand-drawn animation, nothing has changed when it comes to the basic principles of animation. The success of Disney was not just in the design of Mickey and friends but in the way the characters were put into motion. At Saturday’s Ycademy Seminar we will explain the

12 Principles of Animation

and see, how to apply them with After Effects.

1. Slow in — slow out

Acceleration and deceleration is created with Easy Ease in and out functions is AE. The effect creates fluid motion.

2. Anticipation

Anticipation designs the action leading to the actual movement, like the backwards swing before hitting a ball with a golf club. Anticipation prepares the viewer for the action which will occur. Surprise actions can be more effective without anticipation.

3. Squash and Stretch

Squashing and stretching blows life into a volume. The rule is, not to change the volume while designing the effect: a vertical squash goes with a horizontal stretch.

4. Arc

Objects tend to move along an arc, rather than along straight lines. In After Effects we animate along a path.

5. Straight Ahead Action vs. Pose to Pose

Straight Ahead Action refers to drawing frame by frame, while Pose to Pose refers to designing first the key-poses and then filling in the frames in-between, hence the terms of “keyframe” and “tweening”.”

6. Staging

Staging refers to the act of drawing the audiences attention to important actions or events in the movie. It has to do with camera positioning and handling and composition.

7. Exaggeration

Well placed exaggeration can make movements more interesting.

8. Follow Through and Overlapping Action

Follow Through refers to the motion of objects after the action while Overlapping Action means that an action does not have to stop when or before another starts.

9. Secondary Action

Secondary action makes the principal action more interesting. While the principal action may be a man walking, secondary actions could be arm swinging, movements with the head and so on.

10. Timing

Speed of action impacts on perception and emotion created. One of the most difficult principles to master, often expressed with the distance between two keyframes in After Effects.

11. Solid Drawing

This does not really refer to After Effects but to other programs you may use to draw objects, such as Photoshop.

12. Appeal

Objects need to be appealing to draw in the audience. This is not only true for animated characters. The best animation is not eye-catching if what you show is not designed in an appealing or charismatic way. After Effects is not just about motion, it’s about expression, design, appeal and emotion created. An animation designer is therefore a multi-tasker and the best are multi-talents!

12 Principles of Animation with After Effects

Yorgo Nestoridis — Thu, 15 Dec 2011 08:31:10 +0000

Original Article at 12 Principles of Animation with After Effects.

Animation for Beginners with After Effects

12 Principles of Animation

and see, how to apply them with After Effects.

1. Slow in — slow out

Acceleration and deceleration is created with Easy Ease in and out functions is AE. The effect creates fluid motion.

2. Anticipation

3. Squash and Stretch

Squashing and stretching blows life into a volume. The rule is, not to change the volume while designing the effect: a vertical squash goes with a horizontal stretch.

4. Arc

Objects tend to move along an arc, rather than along straight lines. In After Effects we animate along a path.

5. Straight Ahead Action vs. Pose to Pose

6. Staging

Staging refers to the act of drawing the audiences attention to important actions or events in the movie. It has to do with camera positioning and handling and composition.

7. Exaggeration

Well placed exaggeration can make movements more interesting.

8. Follow Through and Overlapping Action

Follow Through refers to the motion of objects after the action while Overlapping Action means that an action does not have to stop when or before another starts.

9. Secondary Action

Secondary action makes the principal action more interesting. While the principal action may be a man walking, secondary actions could be arm swinging, movements with the head and so on.

10. Timing

Speed of action impacts on perception and emotion created. One of the most difficult principles to master, often expressed with the distance between two keyframes in After Effects.

11. Solid Drawing

This does not really refer to After Effects but to other programs you may use to draw objects, such as Photoshop.

12. Appeal

Happy New Year After Effects

Yorgo Nestoridis — Tue, 13 Dec 2011 09:23:04 +0000

Original Article at Happy New Year After Effects.

After Effects Happy New Year

Tonight at YorgoLive we will focus on editing Inkman’s Christmas After Effect Template. This is a first simple adaptation; in fact the project can be further transformed namely by changing colors and backgrounds. The goal is to become familiar with simple changes of an existing After Effects project.Of course we will show participants how to embed the movie into a Facebook page for sharing with friends and fans.

Happy New Year by Semiomantics

Christmas Media Design Seminar

Yorgo Nestoridis — Thu, 08 Dec 2011 08:35:40 +0000

Original Article at Christmas Media Design Seminar.

Christmas Media Design at Ycademy

The Ycademy Seminar in December will focus on Christmas Media, namely on working with Adobe After Effects.In stead of producing static Christmas cards participants will be able to add motion, sound and other effects to produce a stunning customized Christmas Clip. The above draft for a UVUYO video is a typical example for what After Effects can do for you.

Schedule

The Christmas Media Design Seminar will take place on December 17, 201, starting at 1 pm London time and closing at 9 pm London time. As we have only one day available for the December Seminar, we will use all Daily Call sessions or an introduction into the secrets of After Effects. All pre-seminar calls will be recorded as well and video tutorials will be made available to seminar participants.

Goals

Acquire enough After Effects related knowledge to be able to work with After Effects templates and to customize, adapt or modify them. All participants will create a customized Christmas Clip.

Materials

Participants need Adobe’s After Effects, preferably CS 5.5 64 bit version, however CS4 running on 32 bit will do. For Customization, you may want to use some of your family photos or, if you create a business clip, some business related pictures , screen-shots or graphics. All other materials, namely professional templates, will be provided.

Tickets

Special Christmas price: $45 Discounts as usual for Ycademy Pros.

Eugenides Foundation Exhibition

Yorgo Nestoridis — Tue, 29 Nov 2011 11:28:25 +0000

Original Article at Eugenides Foundation Exhibition.

Eugenides Foundation Technology Exhibition

Chemical clock Belousov-Zhabotinsky from Eugenides Foundation on Vimeo.

The experiment will show how a complex solution changes color in a circular manner, acting as a chemical clock. “Chemical clock Belousov– Zhabotinsky” is a demonstration performed by staff of the Interactive Science and Technology Exhibition, Eugenides Foundation. The demonstration is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License. Based on a work at www.sciencetweets.eu.

Eugenides Foundation Science and Technology

Yorgo Nestoridis — Mon, 28 Nov 2011 08:14:07 +0000

Original Article at Eugenides Foundation Science and Technology.

Interactive Science and Technology Exhibition

Eugenides Foundation Physics Experiment Collections and Technical Exhibits

The Eugenides Foundation’s Physics Experiment Collections and the Technical Exhibit Halls were created in 1966 and operated at the Foundation facilities on Syngrou Avenue until the mid-1990s. Their goal was to fill the gaps in experimental equipment at the institutions of technical education in post-war Greece and to more adequately carry out the essential educational function in the technical and scientific fields. Two new wings were added to the Foundation in September 2003; one of them houses the New Digital Planetarium and the other, in a section of the building symmetrical to the Planetarium, houses a unique exhibition hall, the “Marianthi Simou” Interactive Science and Technology Exhibition Hall. The first periodic exhibition, titled Science of Sports, was held there in November 2003, staged by the General Secretariat for the Olympic Games in cooperation with the Eugenides Foundation in light of the 2004 Athens Olympic Games.

Permanent Interactive Science and Technology Exhibition

A permanent Interactive Science and Technology Exhibition has been on display in this new exhibition wing since December 2006.

What is a Facebook Business Account?

Yorgo Nestoridis — Fri, 25 Nov 2011 18:00:37 +0000

Original Article at What is a Facebook Business Account?.

Facebook Business Account

What is the difference between a Business and a Personal Account? Which is the ideal solution for you and what are the implications of your choice? First of all, be aware that according to Facebook rules you are not allowed to use multiple Facebook Accounts. However, you may create multiple Advertizing Accounts as a Managed Advertiser having a dedicated Facebook Representative.

What is a Facebook Business Account?

You can set up a Facebook Business Account, if you don’t already have a standard account, Business Accounts are mainly designed for Advertisers and to manage pages.

How to create a Facebook Business Account

To create a business account you start by setting up a Facebook Ad or a Facebook Page.Once you have provided the required information, you will be taken to the log-in page and you will be asked if you have already a Facebook Account. Select “I do not have a Facebook account” and continue by providing email and date of birth.

What can you do or not do with a Business Account

As the owner of a Business Account you can view and edit your pages and ads, add photos or videos and consult stats relating to your pages and ads. You cannot see other users profiles or timelines as Business Accounts have limited access to information of Facebook. You cannot see Facebook content that does not live on your pages. Business accounts cannot be found on search or added as friends. Business accounts cannot send or receive Friends Requests.

Converting Business Accounts

A business account can be converted into a regular account. Once done, the process cannot be reversed.

Note: The Big Disadvantage

The big disadvantage of Business Accounts are their absence from the internal search and friend feature, making it almost compulsory to spend big time and/or money to promote the content.

Eugenides Foundation

Yorgo Nestoridis — Thu, 24 Nov 2011 18:28:46 +0000

Original Article at Eugenides Foundation.

Eugenides Foundation Images

A simple iPhone photo with variations.

Facebook Strategy with WordPress

Yorgo Nestoridis — Mon, 21 Nov 2011 18:51:29 +0000

Original Article at Facebook Strategy with WordPress.

10 Steps to Implement your Facebook Strategy with WordPress

Implementing your Facebook Strategy will be at the center of the November Ycademy Seminar. This hands-on Seminar and Workshop will stretch over two days and build with participants an eye-ball-twisting Facebook presence. See the seminar schedule at the bottom of the post. The Seminar is designed for WordPress Developers and WP users who are looking for high productivity and customized publishing and marketing solutions.

11 Efficient Facebook Strategies

This topic deals with efficient strategies which will efficiently improve your Facebook presence.

7 Ways to jeopardize your Facebook success for sure

Surfing through Facebook we notice some common errors well intended people commit when building their Facebook presence. We will discuss these issues and show you how to eliminate them from your personal or business Facebook.

4 Important Facebook features to focus on

While content is king, there are different ways of making it accessible to visitors. We will discuss the recent changes Facebook has implemented and show you where the focus should be in order to improve your visibility, traffic and business or network expansion on Facebook.

Facebook Privacy and Accessibility settings

Function of your strategy we will define and optimize privacy settings in order to grant potentially interested visitors access to relevant information. Privacy, Accessibility and List-building as well as Targeted Communication are the essentials of this key session.

Workshop: Information and Profile

For people looking for you, your business, services or products, your Profile and Info page are of the utmost importance, the more that your info is visible from outside Facebook and therefore Google efficient. We will set up with participants an efficient Info Page.

Friends, Fans and Subscriptions

We will discuss the recent changes implemented by Facebook and how they impact on our strategies. Friends, Fans and Subscription features impact on the way we expand our network and influence on Facebook.

Facebook Pages

Overview of the Facebook Page feature. Integration techniques, Apps, Content, Canvas and Pages.

Workshop: Build a simple Facebook page

The focus is on the technical set-up of a Facebook Page. As content we will use a graphic, picture of video.

Creative and useful Facebook Page Content

What is it you actually wish to display on your Facebook page? In fact there is no limit and it depends entirely on your strategy.

Integrating WordPress with Facebook

This is the center piece of the seminar. Creating Facebook Page right from your WordPress site is now possible. We will set up a reveal page and different Facebook pages depending on participants needs. In fact we show you how to create a whole website in Facebook, straight from your WordPress. While this works with most any WordPress 3.1 enabled Theme, we will demonstrate the integration with Semiomantics XO. In fact we will work with a professional plugin modified for Semiomantics XO.

Workshop: Build your Facebook with WordPress

The Seminar will guide you to master the following and more:

Create Unlimited Facebook Fan Pages with WordPress
Increase Likes by 150% with Reveal “Like” Tab Gateways
Unlimited Customization Options When Designing Your Fan Pages
Create Unlimited Custom Pages with the WordPress Page Editor
Create Custom Menus and Navigation with Just a Few Clicks
Comments, Like, Send and Over 50+ Custom Shortcodes for Enhanced Customization
Facebook Open Graph Integration for Enhanced Facebook Integration and Google SEO
Auto Post to Facebook From Your WordPress Blog
Use Your Facebook Albums and Photos on Your Blog and Fan Pages
Add Google Maps to Your Facebook Fan Pages
Create Squeeze and Sales Pages with Just a Few Clicks on Facebook

Workshop: Add Social Network features to your WordPress

Add Facebook related widgets to your front and/or content pages. Google+ and Twitter buttons. Pull in Facebook Albums, Events, like Buttons and more. Use Facebook Connect to log in to or to register with your blog.

Selective Access to your FB Content

Create content which is only accessible after visitors clicked the “Like” button. A smashing filter which allows you to manage accessibility right from your XO.

Seminar Schedule

Time

Saturday and Sunday November 26/27, 2011. We start at 1 pm London Time and end at 9 pm London time both days.

Materials

You need a WordPress blog preferably with FTP access. Scripts and all other materials are provided. We will install the necessary scripts for you previous to the Seminar; please get your Tickets early. If we are not yet in possession of the FTP access to your site, please send it by email to Bianca Gubalke at bianca(at)ycademy.com.

Tickets and Price

The Price for Participating, Materials and access to recordings is $85. Discount as usual for Ycademy Pros. Please contact Bianca Gubalke at bianca(at)ycademy.com for the code or any other question you may have pertaining to the Seminar.

WordPress 3.3 Update

Yorgo Nestoridis — Sat, 19 Nov 2011 19:34:24 +0000

Original Article at WordPress 3.3 Update.

WordPress 3.3 Update for XO by Semiomantics

Semiomantics XO users: update to WP 3.3 and appreciate the new admin bar featuring also your XO theme menu. Also new: the drag and drop media up-loader as well as the admin menu :-).

DuSunnah Bookshop

Yorgo Nestoridis — Wed, 16 Nov 2011 22:13:29 +0000

Original Article at DuSunnah Bookshop.

DuSunnah Online Bookshop

The DuSunnah Bookshop will shortly go officially online. This new Shop is an extension of the Masjid Daar us Sunnah in London. From a developer’s point of view, the shop is a challenge in as much as it has to fit into an existing online infrastructure. This post will show a possible concept about how to interlink various social networks with different websites and script for the purpose of serving the community in the most efficient and accurate way. Let’s start with an inventory:

Daar Us Sunnah — DuSunnah Websites

1. Dusunnah.com is a Joomla based CMS which up to now was the online presence of the Masjid in its own right. 2. Dusunnahbookshop.com is a new X-Cart based online shop. 3. Dusunnahbookshop.com/blog is a WordPress based blog under construction.

DuSunnah online Social Networks

DuSunnah has built a solid presence on Social Networks such as Twitter, Facebook and YouTube as well as a Newsgroup, reaching out to thousands of friends and subscribers. Time has come to consolidate all these efforts and achievements and to streamline the online activity by integrating all pieces and bits into an efficient communication and publishing concept, targeting and expanding the existing communities.

Linking Joomla and WordPress

While Joomla has for a long time been recognized as the most powerful Content Management System, we at Semiomantics have always felt that its performance is way inferior compared to WordPress when it comes to search engines. For this reason we have always privileged WordPress, ready to make concessions on the CMS side; WordPress has made and is making progress on the CMS front and with WP 4 we are expecting namely better media management as well as a more user-friendly admin area. Joomla may be easier to use for non professional users, however it lacks the real power to gain high visibility we can achieve with WordPress. I guess Joomla users are good customers of all sorts of ads networks, while Semiomantics is specialized to build WP based sites which show on the left side of Google top 10 search returns, saving thus thousands of advertising bucks. While there are some developments available to integrate WordPress into Joomla as a Joomla component, for example by Corephp.com, we prefer the flexibility and power of a self-hosted WordPress site separate from Joomla as Semiomantics Optimization for high performance conflicts with Joomla and would thus reduce the power of WordPress. Having said the above, the WP extension by Corephp remains a brilliant and cheap solution to improve Joomla. In as much as our publishing concept is concerned, we keep both sites separate, on separate servers and we create the link using RSS Feeds and technology, whereas we will stream the Joomla content into WordPress and use WordPress as the striking arm for SE targets.

Linking X-Cart and WordPress

When combining WordPress with e-commerce we always have preferred to separate the active WordPress site from the shopping site, even when using WP e-commerce plugins. The reason is simple: the purpose of both sites is not the same: a shop must provide a smooth shopping experience, while WP must first of all perform and gain high visibility on Search Engines. The architecture of shops is not designed to reach high impact on search engines, they are a sort of a content management system for products integrating check-out and payment gateways. These features require configuration which conflicts with what we consider optimized semantic configuration as used on Semiomantics powered WordPress scripts. We deal therefore with X-cart as we do with Joomla, we create a product stream targeting WordPress.

WordPress the central Marketing Tool

As you can deduct from the above, WordPress is the central element in our Publishing and Marketing strategy. The main reasons for this are:

the powerful optimization by Semiomantics
the aggregating possibilities of all content produced on all sites and networks
the publishing power to reach Google top 10 rankings
the publishing power to reach out for social networks
the easy sharing of any kind of media, namely also YouTube
the possibility to keep a maximum of traffic in stead of giving it away to third parties

The use of Semiomantics powered WordPress replaces to a large extent marketing budgets for Google Ads for example as we can bring our content and products right to the top of Google. The WordPress based site will be linked directly with all own sites as well as with the newsgroup and all social networks. This simplifies the work and publishing flow and assures optimized publishing. The described concept has proven to be highly efficient for our own purpose as well as for our customers. Our publishing and marketing networks are custom built and fine tuned for the purpose of each respective customer’s needs and purpose, whereas we aim to provide time and money saving solutions achieving thus optimized productivity.

Greek Cat Relaxing

Yorgo Nestoridis — Thu, 03 Nov 2011 18:47:24 +0000

Original Article at Greek Cat Relaxing.

Waiting for Better Days

Status Update

Yorgo Nestoridis — Mon, 31 Oct 2011 20:03:24 +0000

Original Article at Status Update.

Just updated my Post Harvard or Klout: http://yorgonestoridis.com/?p=22316 Related posts:Protected: Global Sports Update WordPress 2.9 update on Semiomantics WordPress 3.0.2 update Klout or Harvard Hosting Update 4

Klout or Harvard

Yorgo Nestoridis — Fri, 28 Oct 2011 17:58:51 +0000

Original Article at Klout or Harvard.

Harvard or Klout?

Recently I came across a video from the Wall Street Journal showing the merits of Klout and discussing some of the perspectives. This leads me to drive the vision further and to ask simple: how will our kids feed their families tomorrow? If the Harvard boys continue to build programs but the asset value shifts away from the program to the individuals populating it, then we may have to rethink economic models and education.

The Klout Report

Below the video which shows what Klout, Social Networking and Social Network Marketing can lead to.

Social Networks Status Quo

Up to now, smart kids built programs and got people to join. These people were building the actual asset value of the program — for free. Many such programs have been sold for billions or went public rewarding the program owners with loads of cash. Those who actually have built the content, traffic and prestige of the program were not really involved in the benefits of such transactions (think of MySpace, Skype, and others, where subscribers were “sold” multiple times).

Social Profiles, Indexing and Klout

While in the past, programs, like newspapers were analyzed for their target public (market) in order to determine the advertizing value, social profiles are linked to individuals, brands or eventually groups of people. High social indexes in clearly defined market (tags, keywords) will shift the financial power away from programs to where it actually should be: the social profiles, representing high impact, conversion and sales. My advice to Facebook would be: go public before the market’s attention shifts.

Education and Family Business

As parents, we only want the best for our children and if in the past it has been generally admitted that a traditional university education is the most promising base for an economically successful life, one may start doubting that this will still be true in the near future. If tomorrow merchants sponsor social profiles and their owners, then it may be tempting to drag your kid as early as possible in front of a computer and let him collect Likes. The issue is: instead of focusing on traditional schooling, one could let the child build its social index, which, if well managed may rake in millions comparable to show or sports stars. You could also imagine a whole family working on one and the same social profile, to expand influence. The Social Profile becomes an immaterial material asset in as much as an advertising value is attached to it.

Changing Shopping Habits and Legal Frameworks

Tomorrow, there is no more need for traditional supermarkets, expensive shops in downtown areas and well dressed staff. Shopping will be recommendation based and take place online. Costly networks of distributors will be to expensive, companies will sell directly and select a few high social profiles to recommend their goods and services. People will look for a benefit and find the appropriate recommendations on Google and in Social Networks. Influential profiles will make money like never before. Such profiles don’t need to be wrapped up in companies limited by shares. The can exist without any particular legal framework, however you could imagine that such profiles may want to build goodwill and associate themselves with NGOs or even become a Foundation whereas then the family members would be the people running the foundation.

And what if the Consumption Driven Society evolves

This would probably be the best that can happen, however then the Social network Bubble and the material interest therein would pass. Now that would be a real revolution for the 21st century!

Week-end at a Greek Hospital

Yorgo Nestoridis — Tue, 25 Oct 2011 06:30:05 +0000

Original Article at Week-end at a Greek Hospital.

The Children’s Hospital in Athens

Living in the greater Athens area bears some refreshing surprises. This past week-end I became acquainted with Greek Hospital Standards as we had to leave YorgoMan (12) at the Athens Children’s Hospital to fix his wrecked up neck. But let’s start from scratch. Vouliagmeni is about 25 kilometers south of Athens, but part of the greater Athens Metropolitan Area. There are plenty of hospitals in our area and communities nearby, but when a child needs hospital treatments, there is only one unique place for the 5 Million people of Athens and beyond: the Children’s Hospital north of the center of Athens. Even if you bring your kid to another institution for emergency treatments, they refuse treatment and you are sent to that one only central hospital which in the best of the cases is 45 minutes away. With normal traffic it takes you an hour and when there is the typical Athens Traffic mess, you better take some snacks along. It must be said: the hospital has a great reputation and top-notch medical staff. In general, it can be said that the staff is not only competent but also devoted to their tasks, however the whole institution is victim of lacking finances and compared to any central European Children’s hospital, simply an amazing place …! Mind you, hospitals in Greece will always amaze you anyway.

Architecture and Impressions

The Architecture is a nice example of post war functional design. It must have been an award-winning building at its time. I likes mainly the stair case as well as the perspectives offered by the corridors and halls — from a photographic point of view of course :-). And then, while the colors are children-friendly, the impressions you can collect at night are quite interesting. I shot some quick pics, just for the impressions and under #iphoneography : A noisy night vision … Closer to reality …

Staff and Strikes

Entering the hospital, you get immediately a taste of today’s Greece. Strike at the reception! Talking about strike and lacking infrastructure: YorgoMan shared his room with 4 other kids, one of which from Agrinio, a city on the other side of Greece (west). That kid was supposed to leave hospital last Thursday, however no Ambulance could be found to take him back home under appropriate conditions. He was still there when we left today. The high reputation of the Hospital, one of the best for children in South East Europe if not the best, attracts people from all over Greece, including the islands. Some of the kids we met came from Zakinthos, Megara (on the way to Corinth) and then of course from Athens.

Parents take care of the kids

Thinking that the staff would look after the kids needs during the night, we left our boy the first night by himself; a big error as we should learn. In fact, it is expected that parents assure a 24/24 presence to take care of their child. Also if you want a pillow or a cover for your kid, you bring it from home.

The System Works

In spite of the above, the Greek system works! It may be a matter of culture, tradition or just a way of doing things,but public health in Greece and namely of Greek Children is not worse than elsewhere in Europe, all to the contrary. In Greece the family still is the basic building block of society even if in recent years with increasing prosperity more individualism is pointing at the horizon. The present crises and austerity measures may well lead us back to stronger cohesion at family level rather than to a social collapse as some predict. I Greeks I trust, forget about the Government!

Yorgo Nestoridis

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