All Posts, Blog
This morning at the Florida Blogger Conference, the opening speaker was the Senior Vice President of the Orlando Magic. While I’ve never met him before, his name was familiar. His keynote was really inspiring and transparent to some personal struggles in his life that people normally don’t share. While I wont dive into that, believe me when I say that I have a great respect for him, where he’s been, and his aspirations for where he is going.
He provided his 10 Step Foundational Building Blocks to making your dreams come true. (Unofficial Title). Check them out below:
- Think the right kind of thoughts (what you think about all day will eventually become a reality in your life)
- Say the right kind of words (The words that we speak also have a way of becoming reality)
- Be specific in-goal setting (You need short, mid, and long-range goals) They need to be written down, reviewed often, revised often, and deadlines set.
- You are responsible
- Seek out the right kind of friends
- Take your hurts, pain, setbacks and disappointments and turn them into strengths. It’s through the tough times that great advancements are made.
- Go the second mile. Do twice of what is expected of you. (What else… can I do, contribute, offer)
- Never give up. (read about the life of Walt Disney. Went bankrupt 12+ times) #sticktoitivity – a word created by Walt meaning simply to never give up.
- Character counts. Honesty, integrity, humility, courage
- Live your life by the faith phenomenon
Bonus: Practice these everyday!
So after reading all of these are you ready to print them out and post them on your cubicle wall or bathroom mirror? I think the key to this actually working is practicing these steps every day. Want to hear more about Pat, check out his book Leadership Excellence. You can see his other books on Amazon here as well.
Free Stuff, Photoshop
Get this scalable PSD file from our friends at GraphicsFuel today. This is actually part of a full UI kit from PixelKit.com
Follow this link for more details and download.
How to, WordPress
When WordPress 3.6 came out a few weeks ago, there were a lot of plugins that also made their own coding upgrades. While most were good and seamless one in-particular didn’t fair so well with older versions. Here at Design Theory, we had a few client websites using some older (pre NexGen v2.+) that were working just fine until we updated WordPress to 3.6 and then we either received error messages or the galleries weren’t showing up at all.
Error Messages:
Fatal error: Out of memory (allocated 58458112) (tried to allocate 16 bytes) in …/wp-content/plugins/nextgen-gallery/pope/lib/class.extensibleobject.php on line 1291
or
‘Error 404 – page not found’
While the galleries were intact when you log into the Dashboard and view or manage the galleries, the photos and settings all still there, they just weren’t displaying at all or displayed errors on the site. We created the video below to show you how to easily restore your plugin version back to 1.9.13 and get back your gallery views.
Instructions
- Visit the NexGen plugin site here, then download either your previous version (prior to your upgrade) or select the 1.9.13.
- Download and unzip the folder on your computer.
- Select all the files from the unzipped folder and copy them
- Navigate to your WordPress site files on your computer (Documents/YourWebsite/WP-Content/Plugins/Nexgen-Gallery)
- Paste the files into this folder/directory. Yes you must overwrite the existing files
- Upload that folder (Documents/YourWebsite/WP-Content/Plugins/Nexgen-Gallery) back to your host/server via FTP.
Blog, Marketing, Product Reviews
Yes it’s here – the apple of everyone’s eye yesterday and today, is Apple’s new iPhone 5S and 5c. And once again, Apple gets an gold star for creating strong marketing buzz and panting anticipation in the mobile device marketplace. Radio, TV, or Internet – news media outlets across the globe are all busy buzzing around Apples latest technological appendage and its new iOS7. Just when you think they’ve outdone themselves with the iPhone 4S operating system and the introduction of Siri, they one up (if not ten) themselves. So let’s look at the multifaceted dimensions of the Apple’s winning marketing strategies.
Marketing the Technology and Software: Apple refuses to be put in a pile of seconds (fruit picking term), knowing their consumer base well and leading this campaign with the technological improvements. Offering a synchronized and integrated user experience across all features, the new iOS7 takes multitasking to a whole new level! Techies and mobile junkies are going to love the new A7 64-bit chip, making the device’s CPU and graphics 2x faster than the iPhone 5. For the snappy Instagram’er, the iOS 7 is designed with multiple enhancements to take advantage of the best photo ops. They even upgraded Siri – I wonder if she sounds like Beyonce?
Marketing the Esthetics – Apple has gone above and beyond in marketing the beautiful color options, as well as, the structural elements. Almost all media outlets have spoken about the product and technology, and as well, the beautiful color options and sleek design. As soon as you log into Apple’s site, you are hit with this on-screen color explosion that causes one to pause. I did – it was just that engaging! What you also see is a link to the key-note speaker which after just a few seconds – you can tell that the company is hearing its consumer groups. Much fun also, is this video, where you get the whole life cycle of the product in a comprehensible, down-to-earth manner.
Marketing the Security: Although the Fall may be Macintosh picking season, Apple has seemingly found a solution to its own Apple picking problem and it’s WOW’ing the digital marketplace. Thievery of its iPhones, commonly referred to as “Apple Picking,” has been a big problem over the years for this mobile technology powerhouse. So Apple has implemented Touch ID, a new fingerprint authentication feature (also known as biometric coding) into the iPhone 5S, making it less appealing and almost worthless to those with sticky fingers. They get my thumbs up, knowing that a fingerprint can also approve purchases from iTunes or the App Store.
Marketing the Price Points: The bean counters have taken notice and Apple is now marketing to everyone – siding with consumers who want the product but are limited economically. Who can beat the 4-inch Retina display, 8-megapixel rear camera (front facing too) and A6 processor with 16GB for only $99? This is smart marketing for all those on limited budgets and feeling the economic pinch. As for those who want Gold Member status, you’ll love the sleek gold tone version that’s just a month’s worth of Starbucks runs. Apple has done a great job marketing both mobile phone options simultaneously, to widen the net for capturing potential and faithful consumers with a strong economical hook. Thanks Apple for advancing mobile technology once gain and giving us better technology for less.
Marketing to the Following: By offering 2 options, Apple captures not only its faithful following who could care less about the price, but also those who haven’t bitten the iPhone apple just yet. Despite the global recession, historically Apple has made no apologies for their high-end products. However, offering a cheaper alternative, one could surmise that the time and sales reports may be reflecting an undeniable truth. Build it better, offer it cheaper and more will come. Kudos to them for acknowledging this and casting a wider net beyond just their faithful following to the soon-to-be’s.
So, as you can see, Apple is strongly considering its consumer’s input and is addressing those needs esthetically and technologically. It’s obvious that they have the fingers on the pulse of their marketplace and following. They continue to be pioneers and leaders, again setting a gold standard in strong, strategic planning and successful implementation.
