April’s postings from http://dbjb.buynowshop.com:

• More WordPress Theme Help
• Earlier Is Better
• Twitter Weekly Updates for 2009-04-05
• Good Friday Morning
• Twitter Weekly Updates for 2009-04-12
• Twitter Weekly Updates for 2009-04-19
• Twitter Weekly Updates for 2009-04-26

From the posts at http://dbjb.buynowshop.com, our new home:

• Twitter Weekly Updates for 2009-03-01
• Twitter Weekly Updates for 2009-03-09
• Old Hotmail New Trouble
• New WordPress iPhone App version 1.2

Below are the posts from http://dbjb.buynowshop.com, have a read:

• Twitter Weekly Updates for 2009-02-23
• WordPress Theme Changes

We have moved home so to speak.  The main Design by JellyBeen blog will be moving to a sub-domain on one of our older domains, BuyNowShop.com

We will be writing digest posts for those readers who have bookmarks or favorites pointing to this URL address, but the primary writings will be continued at http://dbjb.buynowshop.com/ we look forward to you continued patronage at our “new” home.  Our digest posts will likely be at a two or four week interval.

We chose to move to be able to better utilize the various Plugins and Widgets that are not readily available at WordPress.com installations.

Did you start your blog here and move to a self-hosted blog? Leave a comment with your Before and After URLs.

Just a little something I have not noticed being used before: the Advanced section and its features of the Links Manager (this codex link needs updating but covers most all of the current features well enough for reference purposes).

If you are adding a new link or simply updating, or editing an existing link you can also add in an image to be used rather than the standard text link drawn from the Name field.  Fill in all the appropriate fields then open up, or scroll down, or in the case of WordPress 2.7+ find where you have placed the Advanced section on the Edit Link page in your Dashboard.

In the Image Address field add the URL of the image you would like to use for your link, you can also add an appropriate RSS feed as well in the field below as well. Keep in mind you will have to make sure the width of your image does not exceed the width of the sidebar your blogroll is in.  A lot of sidebars are fine with a 150 pixel width image, but you can verify the maximum width by reviewing the theme CSS (or simply use trial and error).

 Add / Update Link as required. Have a look at your blog. To me, in a word … cool.

Throw in a comment of your lesser used or known standard feature you use.

Just recently Donncha O Caoimh posted on his blog that WordPress Mu (2.7) was available. We have not had a great deal of time lately to stay on the bleeding edge of its development so this announcement was all we were waiting for to push two MU installations updates.

A quick review and some brief observations:

The combined time to update both WordPress Mu installations was slightly less than 20 minutes. An additional five minutes were needed to “fix” the “home” theme on the first installation. It was not a theme issue in as much as an installer issue. We are embarrassed to say we missed not over writing the theme folders during the update. We have a complete backup of all our active MU themes so the correction was made with a quick upload.

The general layout is very similar to a single user version of WordPress 2.7, with the exception of the newly included Admin bar by Viper007Bond at the top of the Dashboard screen. An unexpectedly nice touch that should be easily put to good use.

A job well done to all the developers and testers to get this to the public, we are looking forward to working more with this version of WordPress MU in the near future.

A curious question: how will you be using the new WordPress MU version 2.7?

We have been reviewing various e-Commerce plugins recently and found issues with installing WP e-Commerce version 3.6.9 by Instinct Entertainment.

The problem, in its simplest form, is the zip file packaging. The WordPress automated Plugin installation program perpetuates this problem by not installing the Plugin correctly.

If you have already tried to install the WP e-Commerce Plugin prior to this you will need to remove it from you WordPress installation, just to make sure everything is tidy.

The solution to this problem is very easy to do.  Its the old school approach:  download the Plugin; unzip/extract to a location you will be able to access on your computer; upload the correct (see images below) folder to your Plugin (../wp-content/plugins/) directory. There, you are done. Go activate the Plugin and give it a try … we may add additional review details later.

Not this folder (wp-e-commerce)

Upload this folder (wp-shopping-cart)

If you do not have an FTP program to do this with, a very easy to use free program can be found under our Tools links.

Feel free to leave a comment with your solution to this problem; or, if you need additional help with your WordPress installation.

NB: This solution worked for our purposes. We cannot guarantee it will work under every circumstance.  Please contact the author of the WP e-Commerce Plugin for more in depth support if required for this specific Plugin.

We have been toying with some new ideas lately and we will be looking to put some test installations into action very soon.

This will be a project built using WordPress so I am really looking forward to working on this. The general concepts will be fairly straight forward.  The implementation procedures and processes are just going through their initial setups, test, and time trials.  So far everything is going smoothly. The ground-effects of the project are designed around automation … and that is all we are sharing at this time.

Now, have I said anything here? No, not really, but hopefully this will keep enticing you to follow along.

WordPress Weekly is a live TalkShoe broadcast typically done Friday evenings with a complete podcast released shortly afterwards. Jeff Chandler, one of the primary hosts, offers an interesting and current relevant topic, or topics, each week. I have not personally participated in a live broadcast, yet, but I make a point of downloading and listening to each podcast since I came across them about six weeks ago. I will continue to follow this podcast and I recommend it to anyone interested in WordPress and WordPress related items and ideas.

Maximum Security by Mark E was the main topic discussed by the plugin’s author for the podcast of January 2, 2009. This plugin is being touted as a very comprehensive security related application that will help protect a WordPress installation with a relatively easy to use interface. The plugin is expected to be released in early beta form soon as per the discussions by Mark and Jeff. I look forward to downloading and installing Maximum Security when it becomes available ( even in beta form) if for no other reason than the apparent passion for security and the “Everyman” personality that Mark E exudes.

Listen to the podcast (MP3 download), if you have not already: hear for yourself from two individuals that appreciate WordPress; and, pick up a few tips about securing your WordPress installations.

Will you be installing Maximum Security? Do you listen to WordPress Weekly? Leave us a comment and let us know.

It’s nearly 10 years old, but I came  across a few pages that are still out there in the cloud.

These are still hosted on our first ISP.  The company, obviously, is still in business but I really must wonder how much bloat they have on their servers to still have 10 year old customer web pages still available. All I did was Google “The JellyBeen Factory” (the quotes matter in this case), the original precursor to our current incarnation of Design by JellyBeen.

Here is a direct link: http://webhome.idirect.com/~ecaissie/JBF/jbfright.htm … and a cropping of the page as it was displayed in Apple’s Safari browser. There is a password pop-up that is completely unfamiliar, just click on the cancel button.  Most of the links on the page even work still.

Enjoy the archaic, I’m simply impressed the page still functions well in a current browser.

Of course we have made a few improvements in our graphics since then as evidenced by our avatar: