So as you may or may not have noticed, our sister company EPKhosting.com has just had a  face lift not only on the front-end but the back-end as well. On the front-end of things, we have opted into using the Modularity Theme by Graph Paper Press.

It is a commercial theme complete with theme styling. how to video tutorials, and forum support. For as little as $50 USD you can download their entire family of themes and keep them for life.

The bulk of this themes premium features is the customized blog page. You can easily add a welcome note, video, photo slideshow, post thumbnail slider, and much more. Check the themes page for screenshots of the theme options.

Here is how EPKhosting.com put it to use on its blog page; http://epkhosting.com/blog

On the back-end of things, EPKhosting.com is now powered by WordPress MU; a multi-user wordpress platform viewed as a blog ring. It is the platform used by the free blog service at www.wordpress.com

Now members of EPKhosting.com don’t need to worry about doing arduous maintenance on their WordPress websites like upgrading plugins or staying on top of the latest security standards.

Instead, members of EPKhosting.com piggy back on the EPKhosting.com benefiting from all the commercial themes and plugins that are bundled with web hosting.

More importantly, some of the plugins and themes that are part of EPKhosting.com’s WordPress MU service require a commercial license which could cost the customer hundreds and hours upon hours to install. EPKhosting.com steps in to buy that license for you and install it too, i.e. commercial themes and plugins.

If you’re a musician in need of an official website that you want to manage and brand yourself, I suggest you take a look at what’s available at http://epkhosting.com

You’ll be amazed at how powerful, graceful and easy it is to use. There are plenty of artists using WordPress today, including Jay-Z, Beastie Boys, Matthew Good, and many more. Go to EPKhosting.com to learn more and watch some terrific live concert videos.

To date, I have found that artists are the most inspirational people, however, I have just realized that fighters too are artists in some way shape or form. Recently, I have had the honor of meeting George Chevalo, the former heavy-weight champion of boxing in Canada and the only fighter that ever put Muhamad Ali in the hospital.

Now they say that what makes an artist is not his talent, skill, looks or personality, but his/her story. I think it essentially comes down to how they will remember you. For example, let’s take 2 of the greatest artists of the 21st century; Elvis Presley and Bruce Lee.

Elvis Presley was remembered as a “niger lover”, he was one of, if not the first caucasian singer/songwriter to follow the negro music known as “the blues”. His story lives on as the man who opened the “white audience” to “black performers”.

Similarly, Bruce Lee was the one of, it not the first asian martial artist to teach the “gwylo” (non-asians). Bruce Lee was challenged in the ring by the community’s elders to put an end to teaching non-asians. Bruce Lee won the match, but shortly after was ambushed and had his back broken.

This didn’t deter him from teaching non-asians at all… as a matter of Fact, he went further by bringing the martial arts to Hollywood where he finally became a movie star. To date, Bruce Lee is remembered as one of the founding Father’s of “mixed martial arts” having been the first to create his own art; Jeet Kune Do (available to all creeds/races).

Now back to George Chevalo… most Canadians especially baby boomers know him well as the Canadian hero of boxing and the father who lost three children to heroin.

After the loss of three children to drugs, many of us would simply die of a broken heart. George took his pain and used its energy as a means to raise awareness, by sharing his story, in an attempt to fight against drugs.

Today, when I ask someone if they’ve heard of George Chevalo, they will usually say “Yes, isn’t he the guy who put Muhamah Ali in the hospital” or “Yes, didn’t his son die of a heroin overdose”. These are both events, both “milestones” in his life… they don’t remember George based on his talent, looks or character but by his story.

There is a very compelling video I’ve placed on his home page using the “WordTube” media player plugin for WordPress. We used this plugin so that he could host the video exclusively on his own website as well as assign any image as the thumbnail preview… even brand it with his own watermark.

The video is a public service announcement that gets me every time. Take a look at his website to preview the video and the WordTube media player.

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