We listen to our customers. While a vast majority of our students all said the seminar was worth every penny, and then some, we kept hearing two things- I like the information and the way you present it- but I want more about how to use WordPress- a more intensive software instruction seminar- so now we have 2 seminars- for the price of less than one of the old one.

BUT I PAID $99 FOR THE SEMINAR THAT IS NOW $49!

Don’t worry- we’ll take care of you, if you took the original seminar– you can come to one of the WordPress advanced seminars for FREE! But only in July and August- with a reservation. After that, it’s $49 just like everyone else pays.

What will the new seminar cover?
WordPress advanced will go into more detail on each of the function in the Dashboard interface, how to set all the controls for discussion and users, how to format your posts and of course- how to write posts and use the categories to get to the top of Google. We’ll also dissect themes- and look at what makes a theme good- and what makes one bad. You’ll learn how to FTP your plug-ins and themes, and we’ll look at some really useful plug-ins, and discuss how to expand functionality of your site- without having to be a coding genius. It’ll be WordPress Advanced, but still catering to HTML dummies.

The Best Thing We Have Ever Posted: Reader Tries To Cancel AOL – Consumerist

The above link is to a story- with a recording of what the call to cancel AOL will be like. And for that, we’re deeply sorry. AOL has some nice features for protecting children from harmful sites- but it also can allow them to be sucked into private chat rooms where all kinds of things can go wrong.

While AOL is a good Internet for dummies- the Internet has gotten a lot easier lately, and a lot cheaper. For about half of what you pay for AOL you can have a high-speed connection from a telco or cable company- if you shop a bit.

The behavior of the “Customer Service Rep” attempting to stall the cancelation is a perfect example of how not to treat your customers. And as an FYI- you can get connections to the exact same network through AOL’s Compuserve or Netscape brands for considerably less money than what you pay for AOL.

NewsForge | Choosing an open source CMS

The above link is an overview of the many Content Management Systems (CMS) that are available to run a website. All are open source software- meaning the source code is open to the public to tinker with and adapt for their particular use. Don’t think that open source just happens- there are huge communities of people sheparding the software to make sure it’s stable, secure and viable.

The key to these packages is that your site exists in a database- with the content extracted and formatted for display on the web as opposed to a hard coded site that is created one page at a time- and the pages don’t change.

We really like WordPress because of it’s simplicity. If you want to later move up to a more robust package- you can easily import your existing WordPress site into Drupal. The difference is, Drupal requires a geek to really make it sing- WordPress just works.

The article doesn’t really get into the main reasons we love the WordPress CMS so here are a few:

• Your site will automatically have RSS (Really Simple Synidication) so your readers can subscribe to your site and be notified any time you change or add material.
• Each time you post- WordPress automatically notifies Google that there is new information on your site and you get indexed.
• WordPress allows you to build 2-way communication via comments and trackbacks with people interested in your subject.
• Posting is as easy as writing a document in Microsoft Word- and that makes keeping your site up to date a snap.
• If you pay attention to your webstats, and use the Categories feature properly, you can end up on the front page of Google quite easily- at least it’s worked for us.

So- take a look at the article and it’s list of Content Management Systems- but, if you are new to having a database driven site- trust us- and start out with WordPress.