Holywebmaker's Blog

Jot A Bit

holywebmaker — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 23:44:44 +0000

JotABit.com is a community writing website.

The title is a simple play on words. Jot means to scribble or write down. It can also mean a tiny mark. A bit is as simple as the word little. Scribble down a little, write a little, make a little mark. I found it to be a little catchy so I grabbed the domain name.

Now, you want to learn more About the website and what makes it tick. . .

The Jot A Bit website was inspired by a writing friend that wanted to publish some of her works. While I have no idea how to publish a book yet I plan to figure it out. As part of the writing community the long term goal will be to help writers get published. The short term goal, actually a permanent goal, is to have fun and inspire writers to be creative.

There are simple monthly writing contests that the registered users judge. The writing contest rules are simple and may evolve with the community as it grows. The basic mission is to have fun, keep it simple and inspire writers to write and share.

Jot A Bit is build on WordPress. Right now, it is a simple site with a growing writing community. JotABit uses the TweetMeBlue Theme.

A list of installed WordPress Plugins:

Akismet – A must have plug-in to help control comment spam.
All in One Adsense and YPN – add some small Google ads on each page. I customized the color to fit the website theme.
All in One SEO Pack – This plug-in helps optimize much of WordPress to make it even more search engine friendly.
Google Analytics for WordPress – I always track statistics for a website. If you don’t track your traffic, changes, keywords, etc. it is hard to determine where to make improvements.
Google XML Sitemaps – Create, update, and publish sitemaps automatically.
FeatureMe – Adds rotating featured articles to the top of the theme.
PageNavi – Adds page navigation to the bottom of the page.
Privacy Policy – It is always a good idea to add a privacy policy. Tell your visitors exactly what you do and do not do with their information.
Redirection – I always install this plug-in. That way if I choose to change a URL I can fix it and make sure I don’t miss any incoming traffic.
Register Plus – Add some extra information to the registration process. For JotABit, I tell the users about our terms, gather a real name, and may add information as the community grows.
Sociable – Add simple buttons to leverage many of the social networks. Make it easy for your users to tweet, digg, and share on Facebook.
Twitter Tools – Automatically publish tweets on each new article post and add a twitter feed to your sidebar.
WP-Polls – The poll feature is part of the core of this site. I use this plug-in to record the votes for each monthly writing contest. I configured this to only allow registered users to vote and allow only one vote per person.
WP Super Cache -This cache tool creates a static version of the whole site and speeds up the load times.

Over time I plan to add some Amazon integration to help users find author related books. I may consider adding a forum but the articles and comments might be sufficient. We’ll see what the community wants as it grows.

Race Pro Products

holywebmaker — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 23:42:32 +0000

Race Pro Products Company is a full service manufacturing and distribution company dedicated to serving the needs of Supermarket Chains, Convenience Store Distribution, Automotive Distributors and the Economy / Dollar Store Markets.

Race Pro Products Company offers a complete line of professionally formulated “Oils, Lubricants, Window Wash, Antifreeze, Coolants and Additives “in dynamic packages for maintenance and enhanced performance of motor vehicles, marine vessels and industrial machinery.

Now, you want to learn more About the website and what makes it tick. . .

Race Pro Products is build in the foundation of WordPress. The SimpleX theme, built by WPshoppe provides a clean and simple interface without any distractions or unnecessary graphics. The plugins Akismet, All in One SEO Pack, Contact Form 7, Google Analytics for WordPress, Twitter Tools, and WordPress Database Backup add simple, yet powerful, features. Twitter Tools integrates the Race Pro Products Twitter Account with the website. Each time an article is added twitter is updated. And each time twitter is updated the website shows the latest tweets in the sidebar.

Kardio Kickboxing

holywebmaker — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 23:41:25 +0000

Kardio Kickboxing is a resource with kickboxing information. With regular article and video along with a Kickboxing directory it is a helpful online resource.

The website is based on wordpress and built with the Time Theme. The plugins used so far include Akismet, All in One SEO Pack, Google Analytics for WordPress, Twitter Tools, and WordPress Database Backup. These standard plugins add features that every website should have. The business directory is based on zelist.

Fellowship Baptist Church Olathe, KS

holywebmaker — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 23:38:34 +0000

Fellowship Baptist Church of Olathe, Kansas.

The FBC website is built with WordPress and based on the theme Revolution Code Blue 2.0 by Brian Gardner. The plugins Akismet, All in One SEO Pack, Contact Form 7, Google Analytics for WordPress, MapPress Easy Google Maps, and WordPress Database Backup were installed to add standard enhanced features. The addition of Sermon Browser provides a great teaching resource to list sermons, associated bible verses, printable worksheets, and the corresponding audio and video files for each teaching. The Events Manager adds a full featured events list with registration and RSVP options.

Check back often as more features are planned and new content is being added weekly.

Free Church Website

holywebmaker — Wed, 15 Jul 2009 01:13:53 +0000

If you are a small church, we want to create a free church website for you.

Why are we creating a free website?

Have you searched for a local church? You will quickly see that it is a mess out there! So many websites are inadequate, broken, and outdated. It is our mission to help build a solid online foundation for smaller organizations.

What will we create for you?

We will create a professional website with up to 5 pages. One of the pages must contain your organization’s contact information. Each page can have text and/or images. You can update each page using an easy-to-use online editor.

We will create your website using the latest version of WordPress.

WordPress is a state-of-the-art publishing platform with a focus on aesthetics, web standards, and usability. WordPress is both free and priceless at the same time.

We will also include several popular WordPress plugins. We feel these are great tools to make WordPress even better:

All in One SEO Pack -Make your website easier for search engines to find.
Google XML Sitemaps -Submit your site to Google and make it easier for search engines to crawl your pages.
Google Analytics for WordPress -Track your website traffic to plan for future optimization.
Akismet – Reduce spam on your website.
Sociable -Make it easy for your visitors to share your pages with their friends on Facebook, Twitter, Myspace, etc.
Contact Form 7 – Allows us to create a simple contact form for your contact page.

What do you need to do?

Buy a domain name. Use our service to register an inexpensive domain.
Choose a website theme. See our Free Church Website Demo for some examples or visit the WordPress Themes Directory for hundreds of choices.
Identify your foundational pages. Review our information on essential website pages where we describe the elements of a good website foundation.
Gather the website content. Create the content for each page and identify the images that support the text.
Send us the information requesting the website.
Review the web site and change your DNS settings.

Use our Free Website Request Template to gather your website information.

What happens after we receive your request?

After you send your request we will:

Review your information.
Create your website.
Send you the draft website link to review.
Provide simple directions to change your Domain Name Server settings. If you already have a domain name you should transfer it to an account at HolyWebHosts.

Feel free to ask us questions at any time. We are here to help!

SisuCare – Financial Pet Aid During Tough Times

holywebmaker — Sat, 02 May 2009 11:48:27 +0000

SisuCare provides financial aid for people in need. As funds are available, they support stray animals and provide aid for senior citizens by selling SisuCare logo items and pet products. SisuCare also has online contests to help increase awareness. They recognizes that in this uncertain economy, senior citizens may need assistance with the costs of pet medication, prescription pet foods, or other veterinary services for their companion animals. The hope at SisuCare, is to be a resource for those in need. A companion pet can be an important part to the well-being of people — As pet lovers, SisuCare recognizes this.

The first pet contenst is to guess Sisu’s breed. With a recently completed canine DNA test, Sisu’s owner was surprised to find out the canine breed of Sisu. The first correct guess will win a Wal-mart gift card.

They also have a button of the month club. If you can draw (or want to create an image) enter a button drawing where the rest of the SisuCare visitors will choose the winner. The contest winners receive gift cards and will be featured as the button of the month!

Now, About the site….

This site is built on WordPress. The simplicity of WordPress makes this a great choice. SisuCare staff wants to focus on helping pet owners and their pets rather than learning a complex content management system.

The site makes use of:

The standard WordPress pages and posts.
Akismet to control Spam comments.
Contact Form for standard contact forms and the contest submissions.
Google Analytics for WordPress to manage traffic statistics and help optimize the site keywords
Google XML Sitemaps to manage sitemap creation and submission
My Category Order and My Page Order to organize the navigation structure
Register Plus to help build a community and control the website registration process.
Sociable to be a part of the best social networks including Facebook and Twitter.
WP Shopping Cart to manage the logo products and pet products.

The Wasteland Theme by The Cloisters is slightly modified and the whole web site is built and hosted by HolyWebMaker.

Lesson Plan Source

holywebmaker — Sat, 25 Apr 2009 12:20:59 +0000

We will begin a monthly teacher contest at lessonplansource.com in the month of May. Ya, we know it is the end of the school year already, but we want to get a jump start on next years planning and continue to build our free teacher resource into a community created lesson plan directory. If you have lesson plans that you wish to share you can win great prizes. The first round of prizes will be a handcrafted pen from holywoodworker.com. These are really nice wooden pens that sell for $35 and up. Read the contest rules, register at lessonplan source, Share your lesson plans, tell your friends, and get ready to win some great gifts.

Lesson Plan Source – Resources for Teachers

holywebmaker — Mon, 23 Mar 2009 23:55:29 +0000

Find help for teachers, by teachers at LessonPlanSource. This is a free online teacher resource. Learn from helpful articles covering lessons and articles in the following topics (and more):

Art
Books
Center Ideas
First Days of School
First Grade
Kindergarten
Math
Reading Tools
Science
Second Grade
Social Studies
Teaching Aids
Templates
Thoughts to Ponder
Writing tools

Look through the articles to find helpful books ranging from advanced classroom management to zoo field trips. Enjoy numerous tips written by other teachers.

Join our online teacher community. Share some lesson plans. Give advice and help a new teacher. Encourage each and tell others “Why I am a teacher.” This is an online community for teachers and by teachers. Create your own personal blog and share the following with your fellow teachers:

A great day as a teacher
A challenging day as a teacher
The greatest lesson you’ve learned
Your favorite lesson to teach
Rant about the negative trends
Describe how to make things better
Any other thought that comes to mind

A website for Moms

holywebmaker — Mon, 23 Mar 2009 23:22:42 +0000

Mommyship is a website for moms. It is where new mommys, expecting moms, and experienced mothers share and learn from each other. As a community website, each mom can write articles and have a personal blog. The helpful tips posted by other mothers is a great way to learn. As our mommy community grows, we will create a forum and enable moms to fellowship and enjoy virtual conversation.

Currently, we have a book study in progress. This is a weekly group study covering the Biblical Figure David. Come join us and post some comments on your progress. If you have a suggestion for the next study, let us know.

Along with group book studies there are many topics with helpful articles:

Stop by…register…subscribe to our RSS feed…and take part in the Mommy Fellowship at Mommyship.com

Hello world!

holywebmaker — Sun, 08 Feb 2009 22:06:02 +0000

Hi Ya’ll. Why do I have this WordPress site when I am perfectly capable of building and hosting my own? Good question. It is the cool thing to do. It also has some cool benefits:

By using this WordPress site I can automatically trash any spam comments on my personal WordPress sites.
This is another way to increase my search engine ranking. As I write here and link back to all my other cool sites they both become more popular.
I like to write random things and random times. What’s another place to jot a note or two.
I am sure there are many more benefits but I don’t want to get carried away right now.