There are often cases where a standard wordpress template will not fulfill all of the required functions of a business. For example, a real estate agent representing properties has the unique need of real estate property listings that can be sorted by location, price and type. To create this content structure, we would use posts instead of pages so that we can use categories and tags.

Categories are used to group the listings by “location”, “price” and “type”. Within these parent categories we have child categories (sub categories) for more precision. For example;

• Location
  • Kingsway
  • Sunnylea
  • High Park
• Price
  • 100k – 200k
  • 200k – 400k
  • 400k – 800k
• Type
  • Condo
  • House
  • Commercial

Once we have our content structure in place, we need to get a search funtion that is category based that allows multiple selections, enter the WordPress theme by Theme Shift; deCondo. It is designed specifically for a real estate agency complete with agent profiles, property search and photo thumbnails.

The one thing it does not have is a mortgage calculator and land transfer tax calculator. These are handy real estate tools that would serve as great real estate resources for the public viewing your website. Fortunately, we managed to write our own real estate calculators right into the deCondo Real Estate WordPress Theme for Julian Pilarski, an acclaimed Toronto Realtor.

Visit http://www.julianpilarski.com for more details and to preview how you can rebrand the deCondo WP Theme.

Do you have a smart phone? I just bought myself an iPhone and I am blogging while in a taxi using the WordPress iPhone app. There also a wordpress app available for the black berry and on both counts the app is free… I love wordpress!

The interface is very simple, it does not have all the same features as the advanced mce editor found in the admin area when you use your browser. You can’t create tables or embed media as easily, but if all you need is to post some text, links and perhaps photos, the wordpress app is a steal.

I have frequently been at a loss not having a smart phone to blog on the fly when inspiration strikes or when I bored to tears waiting for the next train. I used to drag my MacBook around with me so that I could check email or write proposals, but now I essentially those functions available to me my pocket.

What’s more, is that this phone has a media player I can use to showcase all my music and video projects as well as the websites I have built. Now I will never be empty handed when I bump into my next prospect.

On the downside, in looking at some of the websites I have built through a mobile browser I have discovered a few design flaws that I was unaware of until now. For instance, because of the limited screen view, websites are generally remade with a conditional template that only loads when a mobile browser is detected. Flash objects are all missing from mobile browsers as well… so those pretty flash slideshows, videos and even navigation bars are all lost.

The essential goal of a mobile theme is to enlarge all links and remove all flash elements for an alternative, i.e. youtube video versus flash video or javascript navigation versus flash navigation. That being said, if the mobile internet market is your target, you might want to speak with me about creating a mobile template designed specifically for the iPhone and BlackBerry. Use the quote form to request an estimate for your website.

I’d like to introduce you to a very good friend of mine named Kevin Gregor; founder of the Gentle Giant Moving Company in Toronto. While I was attending school, I worked for Kevin as his right-hand man as part of his moving business; The Gentle Giant – targeting small jobs such as office moves. Throughout my time with Kevin I learned a lot about the labour industry… what it could be versus what it should be. You see, like most people, when I see a box or a couch that needs to be moved, I simply pick it up… then tire myself out or even hurt my back.

When i first started working for Kevin, I amused him. Here he was, a middle-aged man outdoing me; a young and healthy male student who trained in the martial arts. Slowly but surely I began to grasp what was happening. I was moving the hard way which it could be, whereas Kevin was moving the easy way which it should be. With all his experience, he could move more boxes than me in less time and with less sweat. He could even move a couch from a living room onto his truck BY HIMSELF!

How? Tools!

To start… use your head he says! Why carry when you can roll? Why lift when you can hoist? Why force something through when you can articulate the angles? Here I wanted to plow through some heavy lifting, burning myself out before the job is finished dying to go home. This experience taught me one of the most valuable lessons of my life, i.e. pace yourself… there’s a hard way and an easy way always. That being said, I would like to bring your attention to Kevin’s company The Gentle Giant

Of all the professional movers in Toronto that I have ever worked with, the ones who have been trained by Kevin have always been a pleasure to work with where as the ones who have not been trained with Kevin have always been counter-productive. For his humour, his wisdom and all his cool tools, there is no better mover in Toronto than The Gentle Giant

Our server was hit by a wordpress worm spamming our posts and pages with external links. You would think that the spam filter Akismet would catch all of this spam but sadly this worm isn’t spamming the comments form, it’s actually logging into your wordpress website and adding “invisible” links in your content.

This can get your website blacklisted by Google and other search engines. When search engines find excessive links to the same url within your content, it’s seen as a “fishing website” which is essentially a fake website in their eyes… one used to redirect traffic.

The WordPress community has released security updates in version 2.8.5 but advises to install the WordPress Exploit Scanner to determine whether or not your wordpress website is at risk of a similar worm. The plugin will only report your security exploits. It will not fix your security exploits.

Examples of an exploit would be having your website configured with some of the default settings such as the user name “admin” or table prefix “wp_“. These are often used by hacking programs that count on users not customizing such settings.

It’s the same story with your wifi home networking that has the user name and password of “admin” & “admin” fresh out of the box. This is often “exploited” by people living in your area who leech off of your connection because you never customized your user name and password.

If you have never had a security scan of your wordpress website then you are likely to have several security exploits that need be fixed. To have us perform a security check on your website and fix all wordpress exploits, please place an order in our online store.

Hip Hop music and culture blog, Dodgerhightop.com, has been revamped from Blogger.com and is now running as a self-hosted WordPress website.

We added in a great new plug-in called “Audio Player” which uses the infamous “1-pixel slim skin” flash mp3 player that slides out located at the end of each post.

You’ll also find a live Twitter feed to help keep you current. This is one of the highest traffic blogs we’ve setup, averaging 50,000 page hits per week. Please visit http://www.dodgerhightop.com