Semiologic Reloaded Video Tutorials

Semiologic Tutorials & Skins Move

Maxx — Wed, 06 Jan 2010 07:30:09 +0000

We have changed the site to a new domain. The reason for this is because we were getting a mystery robots meta tag that had a "noindex,nofollow" directive. We could not understand why this was occurring. We eventually came to the conclusion that it is either a bug or the developer of Semiologic placed a directive in the API call to insert this meta tag into the header for both http://semiologictutorials.tv and http://semiologicreloadedskins.com. I am leaning towards the latter, as we have had a few battles with the developer.

Now that we have changed the URL the meta tag is now gone (surprise, surprise). But let's wait and see how long before it returns. I have disabled membership, as we have more than enough members for Semiologic Video Tutorials. We have incorporated Semiologic Reloaded Skins into this site, so they are both under the same roof. We have permanently lowered the prices of all skins to $39.95!

Happy New Year 2010!

Maxx — Wed, 30 Dec 2009 22:28:06 +0000

2009 has been an interesting and successful year. The response to Semiologic Reloaded Video Tutorials has been overwhelming and a major success. I would like to thank everyone for becoming members and discovering the advanced features of Semiologic Reloaded.

I would personally like to wish everyone a very Happy New Year for 2010 and may your business and websites prosper like never before. I hope that Semiologic Reloaded Tutorial Videos remains strong and expands. We are, in fact, going to expand Semiologic Reloaded Tutorial Videos to something very special in 2010. We have a lot planned for this New Year, that we are confident that all members and those thinking about becoming a member, are going to benefit from.

We hope your Christmas season went well with loved ones and that the coming New Year is full of great things. Happy New Year Everyone!!

Yet Another Upgrade Coming!

Maxx — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 17:04:03 +0000

With WordPress and Semiologic, there is always an upgrade happening. This never ending story of constantly upgrading is taking its toll on those of us with more than a handful of websites. It currently takes me around half a day to just upgrade all of my WordPress/Semiologic sites!

There has been a recent lull in the upgrade department, but just when you thought it was safe to assume there would not be another upgrade for awhile. Bam! There is now, yet another upgrade! This time it is something the guys at WordPress decided to do, not because of a security issue, but a "just in case", issue.

So, we all need to dust off the FTP agents for another round of upgrades to bring our sites up-to-date to the latest WordPress 2.8.5. But I would not be jumping on the line to upgrade, as there is going to be a 2.9 release in the not so distant future. But there is no use griping about it all, after all, it is the nature of the beast using WordPress and Semiologic.

Design & Photoshop Tutorials

Maxx — Fri, 02 Oct 2009 11:29:51 +0000

I have had some requests to do more advanced website design and Photoshop tutorials. If there is enough interest, I will certainly add a separate section to teach these advanced methods.

I can provide whatever video tutorials people are interested in, whether it be web design or Photoshop. I can even cover CSS tutorials, covering basic and advanced techniques.

If you would like to see more basic and advanced tutorials, then leave your comments here. I will leave the comments open for a month, and decide after that, whether it is worth the effort or not.

Protecting Images

Maxx — Mon, 28 Sep 2009 19:09:36 +0000

When we publish images on the internet, to show the world, or just some friends or family, our skills and memories, there will be those who come along and steal those images. We have spent a lot of time creating our images and present them in the best possible manner. The question I am always asked is, how do I protect my images? The short answer is, you can't. The long answer is, you can't, but there are some methods you can use to make it difficult for those who want to pilfer them.

There are several ways to protect images….

You can disable right-click for your site, so people cannot save your images to their computer, but this is easily defeated.

You can use a transparency image to overlay your image, so when someone saves it to their computer, all they get is the transparency. But this is a pain to implement and involves tables, plus you can get around this fairly easily, too.

You can watermark your images, which can be removed, but is difficult.

Convert your images into flash. If you only use images occasionally, then this can be time consuming. But if you are putting up a gallery or portfolio of images, then this would be your best option. You can get around flash, but it is extremely difficult.

So, converting your images to flash is your best protection. People are put off by flash because of load times for those images. To get around this lag is to use a gallery that is XML driven, plus you can optimize those flash images with flash optimization software, that can reduce the size by up to 70%, without deterioration of the image. However, bear in mind, that flash cannot be optimized if there are filters and such in the file.

But if your images are that valuable to you, then simply don't put them on the internet, because there is no absolute way to protect them.

Protecting Files & Zip's

Maxx — Sat, 26 Sep 2009 05:08:42 +0000

There are a few applications that will effectively protect your downloads, including zip's. These products can be expensive for the average person. Amember will do it, for $179 or DLGuard for $127 and you can only use it on one site or with DLGuard for two sites maximum.

If you are in the market for and application that is a plugin for WordPress (and Semiologic) that will send encrypted download links that can be time limited (you set the hours before it expires) and shows no address in the browser, then WP eStore is just the right thing. Plus, you can use it for as many websites as you wish!

WP eStore is designed as a shopping cart that gives you the ability to encrypt and time limit download links that you send to your customers. But you do not need to use the cart, you can just use the encrypting and time limiting functions to do the job. Customer support is excellent and the price you are not going to believe. For only $20, you can have the ability to encrypt and time limit your downloads! Yes, only $20! The good thing about this software is that it is a plugin, has great customer support and simply does what it needs to do, no bells and whistles.

I use this plugin on www.semiologicreloadedskins.com and can give it my highest recommendation. For $20 compared to over $100 for other products, it is not that difficult to realize which is the better option. Check it out for yourself. WP eStore is here.

Semiologic & SEO

Maxx — Sun, 13 Sep 2009 08:38:33 +0000

A lot of people, including some of the people at Semiologic .com, seem to think that SEO is all about getting a high page rank from Google. They think, by playing the popularity contest, that it will help them succeed. This wayward reasoning shows those peoples ignorance about SEO. Sure, Semiologic Reloaded can help in SEO, but it is not the final solution, just part of the bigger SEO picture.

In my opinion, SEO is about driving targeted visitors to your site, that are willing to buy what you have to offer. Isn't that what we all want? We have a business and we want as many people as we can get, to come to our website and hopefully buy our product or service. Creating a site and implementing SEO tactics to drive targeted traffic to your site is essential to succeeding online. Page Rank from Google does little, if anything, for giving us targeted traffic. I know of websites, that have no or low Page Rank, yet get thousands of visitors a day, so it is not that difficult to see which is more important.

Getting targeted traffic to your website is not as simple as some might suggest, as there is no secret formula. There are on-site and off-site factors, as well as keyword research, that need to be implemented. I do not profess to know all the answers, but I do know that getting people to my websites, who are willing to buy what I have to offer, is the most important thing I can do. I will not be concerned about whether Google gives me a gold star or not for being popular. Targeted traffic=financial income, Google PR=Your Mr Popular for this quarter. You choose.

Semiologic Site Mobile Compatible

Maxx — Mon, 07 Sep 2009 16:37:16 +0000

With technology as it is, more and more people are browsing websites with Mobile devices. And more times than not, most sites do not render nicely in mobile screens, in fact, they look horrid! Most webmasters have no idea how to make a website look nice in a mobile device, and/or are just too lazy to implement it.

Getting your Semiologic site to show in a mobile is a fairly simple process, and can be completed within 5 minutes. To do this, you need to follow these simple steps:

Create two blank CSS files. Open Notepad or similar, File>Save As, mobile.css (and screen.css) and save as type>All Files.
Upload the blank mobile.css and screen.css to your root directory.
Add the following two lines of code to your header (change the "domain.tld" to your sites domain name) – In your admin panel go to Settings>Scripts & Meta and add the two lines of code there .

1 2	<link rel="stylesheet" href="http://domain.tld/screen.css" type="text/css" media="Screen" /> <link rel="stylesheet" href="http://domain.tld/mobile.css" type="text/css" media="handheld" />

That is all there is to making your Semiologic website (or any WordPress site) render into a mobile device, that is readable. Enjoy!

No Support!

Maxx — Mon, 31 Aug 2009 10:55:13 +0000

Everyone knows that the support for Semiologic is disgusting. This is no secret about this and is always voiced on the forums. There is no basic documentation about how everything works, and everyone is left to work it out for themselves. And even when there is an explaination, it is usually written in jargon and you cannot understand it and spend most of your time Googling the jargon to get definitions!

This is THE reason we started Semiologic Video Tutorials, to provide Semiologic users with useful and indepth information about how to use Semiologic Reloaded and get the most benefit from it's SEO power. To stress the point, we noticed a long time Semiologic forum user complaining about the lack of basic information. Here is a screenshot of the thread (click the image to enlarge).

Not a member of Semiologic Video Tutorials?? Sign up now and get ALL the information on Semiologic Reloaded you require, when you want it and in large video format.

Cover Action Pro

Maxx — Thu, 27 Aug 2009 23:24:02 +0000

There is a new kid on the block for Photoshop Actions, called Cover Action Pro (CAP) created by Photoshop Expert, Mark Monciardini.

Mark is the creator of Photoshop Secrets course. Mark has created Cover Action Pro V2 that is just unbelievable. These actions are so professional, simple and easy to use, one just needs to see it first-hand, to appreciate the quality and simplicity. These Photoshop actions would certainly assist Semiologic Reloaded users create great product presentations. Checkout the video…