Daniel Felice

BuddyPress Beta Released

// December 16th, 2008 // No Comments » // Projects, Wordpress

I mentioned a few months ago a WordPress MUplugin called BuddyPress. BuddyPress is a WordPress MU plugin that turns a standard WordPress MU installation in a social community.

I have been using very early versions of the plugin at Explore With Me for the past two months or so, and today it was nice to see that the first official beta version was released.

I was almost updating BuddyPress everyday as bugs were fixed and new features added, so I can now finally work on enhancing the members theme so it fits in with the rest of the site layout and it will also be nice for the users in the way that there are no more broken links and pages that don’t work properly!

Here are a few BuddyPress features:

• Private Messaging
• Add Friends
• Create Groups
• Activity Stream
• Post to users “wire”
• Incorporate a users blog, comments and posts into profile
• Group Forums
• and more!

Now that the first beta is released there is a feature freeze on the development of BuddyPress so that any bugs can be fixed. The first official version should be released shortly.

I’d like to thank Andy Peatling who developed BuddyPress! A huge amount of work went into it and it was just what we were looking to incorporate into Explore With Me!

Now that we have a stable version of BuddyPress my focus will shift to the rest of the site and get it officially up and running in January. It has been 3 months or so of work, so we need to start seeing it grow, and grow, and grow…until when one day someone offers us a nice multi-million dollar sum for it…

Vote for Explore With Me!

// November 24th, 2008 // No Comments » // Projects

Explore With Me is one of 37 WPMU Award Nominations for 2008! The WPMU awards are organised by WordPress MU focused website WPMU.ORG.

The idea behind these awards is to be an opportunity for site owners to get respect and feedback from showcasing their work and for the rest of us to draw inspiration from their achievements.

Explore With Me has been nominated for an award so we need your help! All you have to do is visit the WPMU.ORG voting page and vote for Explore With Me!

VOTE NOW!

Working with WordPress MU

// November 9th, 2008 // 4 Comments » // Projects

I have been spending a lot of time this weekend on the backend of Explore With Me trying to find the best plugins and widgets possible for my soon to be users.

Hosting other peoples blogs is going to be a massive task, not only will I have to provide support, I will also have to make sure that users have access to the best themes, plugins and widgets.

As the hosting will be aimed at travellers wanting to create their own blog, I have to find themes and plugins that appeal to that niche.

A few weeks ago I found and implemented 30 travel themes that I found at a website called WordPress Travel Themes. This was a great find as all I had to do was upload the themes and then activate them all. Anyone who signs up for a blog at Explore With Me can now choose any of the 30 travel themes.

Once I found the themes the next step was to find plugins that would be suitable for a travel site. I have only implemented a few of them at the moment, however below is a list that I would like to offer travel bloggers.

• Flickr Sidebar Widget: This is a sidebar widget to allow bloggers to show their latest Flickr photos from their recent travels.
• Twitter for WordPress: This widget allows you to display your latest tweets on your WordPress blog. This is great for travellers as you can keep everyone up to date with your travels.
• YouTube Widget: Allows your users to show their latest YouTube videos on their sidebar. Great for all that travel footage!
• Travel Map: I have yet to find a Travel Map plugin that I can use for WordPress MU. I’d like to find something that would allow the blogger to plot their travels – something similar to “Where I’ve Been“
• Current Location: Another plugin I have yet to find, though I think it would be good for the bloggers to be able to show their current location on a map.

I think these are the main features I would like the bloggers to be able to use. Smaller plugins such as weather, timezones and travel itinerary would also be a nice touch.

What else do you think a travel blog should have?

Creating a Social Community with WordPress

// October 28th, 2008 // 1 Comment » // Projects, Wordpress

When the initial idea of Explore With Me was discussed, we wanted to create a travel blog as well as allow other travellers to sign up and create their own travel blog. This is when I discovered WordPress MU. After we figured out we could host other blogs, we then decided we should create an online social community for travellers.

This is when I said “OK, good idea, but how the hell do we do that!?!”

I then turned to my trusty friend – Google. I searched for “WordPress + social community” and to my surprise it actually brought some good results.

This is where I met BuddyPress.

BuddyPress is currently in development. It was created by a guy called Andy Peatling who started the development earlier this year. Since then Andy has landed a job with Automattic – the guys who develop WordPress, WordPress MU and anti comment spam plugin Akismet.

BuddyPress is a plugin designed to work with WordPress MU and allows people like me to turn their WordPress MU blog into a social community with functionalities such as adding Friends and Groups, sending Messages and writing Comments.

At the moment the plugin is still in development. The final version is due out at the end of this year.

I am currently running a beta version of the plugin on Explore With Me. Please feel free to sign up and test it out.

Check out BuddyPress.org for more information and don’t forget to visit Explore With Me!

Explore With Me & WordPress MU

// October 26th, 2008 // No Comments » // Projects

After getting Explore With Me up and running a few weeks back I pretty much had to start all over again when I decided I wanted to use WordPress MU instead of the standard version. WordPress MU has the ability to host endless numbers of blogs on the site – the way sites such as WordPress and Edublogs works.

We had the idea to allow our audience to create their own travel blog through Explore With Me. We thought it would be a good idea to host blogs created by other travellers and then later on we will setup a social community type environment so travellers will be able to connect with one another.

In our quest to be the “one stop shop” for everything travel related we thought it would be a good idea to setup a social community specifically for travellers. There are a few sites that do this already, however before Facebook there was MySpace and before MySpace there was Bebo – so if done properly we aim to be better than everyone else offering this type of service.

The configuration of WordPress MU meant that we had to export everything we had already done and then import it back into the WPMU database.Though if we started from a fresh install it would have been much easier to setup and configure. The setup is a little different to the standard WordPress, however anyone with basic knowledge of web hosting and web site configuration should be able to manage.

Not only do we now have to take care of our own blog we have to make sure that our members have the latest and greatest themes, plugins and other WordPress hacks that will enable them to create a professional looking travel blog.

We will also have to create a support forum and a few “How To” guides so our members can learn how to use WordPress and if they come across any problems they can share it in the forums.

The configuration of Explore With Me is nearly done, so now it is working the backend making sure members have themes, plugins and anything else that I can think of.

The social community plugin won’t be available until the end of the year so that will be the next big phase of the site. Though we will aim to launch in a few weeks and then add the social community when it becomes available.

If you would like to help us out and test the site – please sign up as a member and create your own blog. Any suggestions are welcome as I am new to this so I am bound to be missing a thing or two!

Explore With Me Update

// October 19th, 2008 // No Comments » // Projects

Just a quick progress update on explorewithme.com. We had a productive weekend and nearly finished the design of the site and are continuing the add articles to the site.

Explorewithme.com hits have been very very good considering the site has not even launched yet. I am embarrassed to say, but it received more hits last week than this blog did! We even have users who have added the site to delicious.com and subscribed to the RSS feed.

We added a forum over the weekend to attempt to build a bit of a community among travellers and we have another idea that we hope will take off – though I can’t discuss that with you yet and probably won’t be able to until the end of the year – but it is very exciting.

Before we officially launch we need to add more articles and tidy a few things up. A logo needs to be designed, redesign the forum, fix the contact forms, create an about page and a lot more! Then it is just a matter of getting the word out and drive traffic to the site.

If all goes well we will launch in the next week but definitely by the end of the month!

Sneak Peek!

// October 8th, 2008 // No Comments » // Projects

I don’t normally do this – but I will for those interested in websites, blogs and WordPress. I have started to work on my new project “Explore With Me” and have decided to leave the site open so you can go in and have a look at the progress made while I am building it and getting everything looking perfect.

I am normally one to hide the site away until it is exactly how I want it, however I have decided to leave the site open so you all can follow the development of the new blog and the configuration of the WordPress theme.

I have downloaded the Arthemia theme by Michael Jubel. I think it is a fantastic looking theme for what I want to do, however I am going to change a few things around just to get it how I want it. I am a bit of a perfectionist when it comes to my websites so I won’t be happy until I like what I see.

You can check out Explore With Me at http://www.explorewithme.com

Explore With Me

// October 4th, 2008 // No Comments » // Projects

I mentioned a few days ago that I was about to embark on a new project – a travel blog which documents all our travels around the world in the hope to educate want to be travellers and maybe teach them a thing or two.

Ruth and I have been trying to come up with a few names to represent the blog as we don’t really want something like “danielandruthstravelblog.com” and so on.

We decided on a name yesterday and I registered the domain name just in case it is the one we choose. Before we decide whether to use this name we thought we would sit on it for a while and see how we feel about it in a week. Sometimes what sounds good one day doesn’t seem to the next. It has been a few days and I seem to like this one.

At the moment our blog will be called “Explore With Me” – www.explorewithme.com. This is what we are going to call the blog unless we find another name that we like better – however I want to get it up and running by the end of this month so we will have to make a decision soon.

What do you think?

After doing 70-620 and 220-601, many professionals state that going for 70-649 before the advanced SY0-101 is a smarter move.

My New Project

// September 30th, 2008 // No Comments » // Projects

I have been thinking for a while about starting another project in the wake of NameSeek. The success of my NameSeek project has inspired me to give it another go and hopefully something will become of it.

Me and my girlfriend Ruth have decided to start a travel blog. We are planning a 3 month trip next year and have already travelled a good bit of Europe over the past 2 years so we should have plenty to write about between now and when we start travelling in about a years time.

This will be more a personal diary of travel experiences in the hope to educate future travellers or those planning a big trip around the world. We have been in enough planes, buses, trains, hotels, hostels, taxi’s, pubs and clubs to have learnt a trick or two, so hopefully we can pass on this information to wanna be travellers.

We are still in the planning stages at the moment and are trying to think of a smart and witty name. I don’t want to call it something like “DanandRuthsTravelAdventures.com” – I want something smart, clever and funny.

There is no aim to make money off the site as yet, the goal for now will just to build some solid content and generate some traffic.

Hopefully we will have the blog up and running by the end of October so stay tuned!

NameSeek and Pacific Octane Join Forces

// September 6th, 2008 // No Comments » // Projects

It was announced earlier this week that Pacific Octane have acquired my domain name aftermarket website NameSeek.com.au. The site has been up and running for 3 months now and is performing very well – getting stronger and stronger every week. There are currently over 2500 domain names listed on the website.

I think this is the best move for NameSeek if we want to be serious about making sure it survives and competes with the big boys. There are currently two other domain marketplaces competing with NameSeek and they both have serious backing from very influential businesses within the Australian domain name and web hosting industry, and then there was NameSeek with little old me.

I think I did very well considering NameSeek was a one man show up until now and these other marketplaces have industry experts behind them. We did compete and were seen as competition to both of these websites. The site still doesn’t have its first sale, but the other websites only have a handful so we are not that far behind.

It will be exciting times for NameSeek in the next few months with some changes planned. I have my own big ideas that Pacific Octane are keen on, and they have some that I think are great also. They have the industry knowledge and contacts that I lacked, so together I think we will be an unstoppable force.

NameSeek originally started as a small project of mine that I announced in May and now it has turned into a business venture that could easily be the start of a new career for me and also open up other doors within domaining and website development.

It is amazing what one small idea can turn into…