Wigley and Associates » Technology

My Google profile

Griff Wigley — Sun, 03 Jan 2010 05:44:20 +0000

I’ve compiled all my web-based info about me using Google Profile. See it at google.com/profiles/griffinjay. (People who are in my Google Contacts can see more info about me than the general public.)

My griffinjay profile comes up at the bottom of the first page of a Google search on my name, Griff Wigley. The word Griff is currently third in a Google search on the word, linking here to my business site, Wigley and Associates. The word Wigleys, currently 1st in a Google search, links to Wigleys of Mendota.

The civic blog site I work on, Locally Grown (aka LoGro and LoGroNo and LGN), is currently 1st in a Google search.

Optimizing WordPress for mobile devices

Griff Wigley — Wed, 16 Dec 2009 05:21:00 +0000

I’ve been installing the WordPress plugin WPTouch on all my blogs and many client blogs lately. It “deliver a fast, user-friendly and stylish version of your site to your iPhone, iPod touch, Android, Opera Mini mobile, Palm Pre and BlackBerry Storm visitors without modifying a single bit of code (or affecting) your regular desktop theme.”

The photo on the right shows my T-Mobile G1 (Google Android phone) displaying the home page of my community blog, Locally Grown.

Comments are visible after clicking on any post. You can add a comment as well. The best way to keep track of comments, however, is to use an RSS reader app on your mobile device and subscribe to the blog’s comments RSS feed. Then if you see a comment that you’d like to comment on, click the link to the comment. It will activate the mobile-optimized view of the web page and position you for typing in your comment.

WordPress under attack; sites hosted by Tiger Technologies have been protected for 3 weeks

Griff Wigley — Mon, 07 Sep 2009 01:50:33 +0000

Most of the blog sites I’ve set up for my clients run on WordPress. Late last night, I spent a couple of hours checking and upgrading sites to Version 2.8.4 ASAP because there’s a nasty worm making the rounds this weekend:

WordPress blog: How to Keep WordPress Secure
Lorelle: Old WordPress Versions Under Attack
Mashable Social Media Guide: WordPress Attack Underway: WordPress Users Must Upgrade

I wrote to my favorite web host, Tiger Technologies in California, asking them if they knew about it the worm and whether they could tell if any sites had been compromised. The owner, Robert Mathews, wrote me back within a few minutes:

We were actually the ones who detected this new worm about three weeks ago, notified the WordPress people about it, and urged them to make a public announcement:

(See the "In addition to that, we’ve discovered something else interesting…" section.) Would have been nice if they’d given us some credit, but oh well.

Anyway, all our customer sites have been protected against this attack since August 12, because we saw exactly how it worked and added server-wide rules against it. Your sites won’t have been compromised (by this, anyway).

That said, the general tone of those posts is correct. You should always upgrade WordPress (or any software you use) the day a new version becomes available.

From painful experience of watching how thousands of customers manage their sites over the years, we can categorically say that if you do that with all software on your site, you will almost certainly never be compromised; if you don’t, you will almost certainly be compromised one day.

But we hope that helps set your mind at rest about the possibility of having been infected by this particular new worm.

Please let us know if there is anything else we can do. Thank you again!

– Robert Mathews, Tiger Technologies

Social network update: Students Speak Out

Griff Wigley — Thu, 27 Aug 2009 20:43:00 +0000

As I noted in a May, 2007 blog post, the Citizens League contracted with me to set up, launch, and run the Students Speak Out (SSO) social network, part of their MAP 150 Project. Over the 5 months of my involvement, Erin Sapp, Lars Johnson, Stacy Becker, Kim Farris-Berg, Sean Kershaw and others working on the project gradually assumed more and more responsibilities for the social network until my work on it ended in the fall.

The project flourished, including an expansion to Students Speak Out: Milwaukee. Much of this is chronicled in several articles in the July/August 2009 issue of MN Journal, the Citizens League’s newsletter.

SSO is featured in a paper by Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute professor Satish Nambisan titled Platforms for Collaboration (PDF), published in the summer 2009 issue of Stanford Social Innovation Review. The RPI press release on the paper, A New Way to Look at Innovation: Rensselaer Professor Outlines Blueprint for Social Change, summarized SSO:

Nambisan cited Minnesota’s nonprofit Citizens League and its successful use of exploration platforms for its Students Speak Out project, which was launched in 2007 to identify and tackle student issues. The Citizens League invited students to participate in a Web-based forum where bullying emerged as a key concern. The discussion quickly expanded beyond the Web and the students. Parents, journalists, education researchers, school board members, legislators, and city government officials all came together, both online and in offline venues including teacher training programs, student workshops, student video contests, and an annual convention.

The Citizens League developed an issue brief and white paper, and the Minneapolis city government incorporated the students’ feedback in policies to reduce youth violence. In perhaps the greatest indication of SSO’s success, Milwaukee launched a similar initiative in 2008.

Tutorials and a YouTube Channel for the Trials Training Center

Griff Wigley — Tue, 30 Jun 2009 16:58:52 +0000

I’ve been building a series of “How to Ride Motorcycle Trials” tutorial pages for the Trials Training Center (TTC) in Sequatchie, TN.

Many of the pages have video clips and I’ve created a TTC YouTube Channel to house them all.

Each video has a description, several tags, and a link back to the specific how-to page to help drive traffic from the TTC YouTube Channel to the TTC’s site.

A blog for our neighborhood and townhouse association

Griff Wigley — Thu, 19 Feb 2009 13:24:26 +0000

Last week, my wife Robbie and I set up a blog site for the Valley Pond Townhouse Association where we’re members. The townhouses surround Hidden Valley Park in Northfield, Minnesota on three sides.

Using Twitter for a geographic community

Griff Wigley — Mon, 10 Mar 2008 13:39:01 +0000

What is twitter?

Twitter is a service for friends, family, and co–workers to communicate and stay connected through the exchange of quick, frequent answers to one simple question: What are you doing?

Like my colleague Michael Fraase, I tried Twitter a few times when it was first introduced but it didn’t ‘take hold’ for me.

But after reading Howard Rheingold’s reasons for why he’s hooked on Twitter, I’m ready to give it another try, only with a local, Northfield twist. I plan to focus my Twitter posts on Northfield-related ‘stuff’ – my whereabouts in my hometown, as well as miscellaneous other Northfield-related musings. I’d like to ‘follow’ (that’s a Twitter term) other Northfield-area citizens doing likewise with their Twitter accounts.

I’ve got my cell phone and Google Talk (IM) account hooked up to my Twitter account so that I can send and receive messages with both.

follow Griff at http://twitter.com

I’ve added the above Twitter badge to our Locally Grown (LoGroNo) sidebar, about halfway down the page, right after the comments section).

I’ll consider switching that badge to one like this (the above image is recent screenshot, not a live view) that tracks all the people I’m following who’ve likewise committed to focusing their Twitter posts on Northfield-related activities.

Screencasts on community blogging

Griff Wigley — Fri, 21 Sep 2007 04:18:37 +0000

I’ve created eleven screencasts for the Northwest Area Foundation’s Horizons Community Blogging Project.

The topics:

Why blog
What to blog
How to blog effectively
How to promote a blog
How to use WordPress basics
How to embed images
How to embed video
How to customize a blog
How to manage blog comments
How to set up new bloggers

Although these community blogging screencasts are specific to the Horizons project and to WordPress MU (Multi-User), those involved with community blogging projects might still find them helpful.

They vary from 6 to 20 min. in length. I used Camtasia Studio 4 to create the screencasts for the web, as well as to burn them to a DVD-ROM.

Basecamp and 37 Signals in Time magazine

Griff Wigley — Sat, 26 May 2007 13:12:00 +0000

I was delighted to see 37Signals and their flagship product, Basecamp, featured in Time Magazine last week in an article titled Small Is Essential.

This tiny crew, only three of whom graduated from college, has built software that many in the world of Web 2.0 consider the best for small-business collaboration.

I’ve been using Basecamp with my clients and volunteer projects for almost two years now. Not only do I like the service, I like it that they have both a company blog and a product blog.

Is your web host carbon neutral?

Griff Wigley — Mon, 26 Feb 2007 07:01:32 +0000

Michael Blaha at Organic Arts told me last week that my favorite web hosting company, Tiger Technologies, is carbon neutral.

See their environmental policy for more.