I have worked on Link To Us in order to allow downloads of link buttons, logos and banners. I have included a new logo but am still to work on a banner. The logo is seen in the Link To Us menu on the left sidebar.

When using the code to download the logo, the file logo.gif in Link To Us needs to be changed to Logo.gif (capital L)for the image to show. ASAP, I will try and iron that out.

The third link 80x15 link button:

Made the second simple 80x15 link button as shown:

In the previous post I expressed concern over the fuzzy way the thumbnails came out. It seems all I had to do was check “Force GD2 conversion” which converted the thumbnail to TrueColor. Now the thumbnails looks much better. “Yep, good to go!”

MyAlbum thumbnails are showing the photos fuzzy. When opened in a larger view, they showed ok. Tried installing a different version of the program but had the same results. I’ll have to try and fix this bug or change to a different imaging program as the thumbnails are the first thing viewers see. If the thumbnails don’t look good, they will assume the picture also doesn’t look good.

Made the first 80x15 Link button which is shown here:

This is the first of several choices for users to download and link directly to MyJamBlog.

My next task will be adding more buttons and make them downloadable.

Have been working on the basic questions in the SmartFaq Q&A. I did a general category for questions related to the site’s operations and specific categories for the different modules (News, WordPress and MyAlbum to begin with).

Still struggling to find a suitable WYSIWYG editor to work with this Wordpress module. The available Spaw editor only works ith IE 5 and up. Many persons like myself use Firefox, Opera and other browsers. I’ll just have to find one that works with most browsers.

I just wasn’t satisfied with the theme I chose so I didn’t stop until I found a suitable yellow/gold theme. A site featuring Jamaican blogs should be in the country’s colors (or colours as we write in Jamaica. I did a quickie logo in photoshop in the other two colors of our flag (green & black) and i’m good to go with this theme.

Got off to a late start today due to a little unforeseen problem. I just could not login to my administrative account. I got to the welcome screen but came right back to the login screen each time. I went through this forum post that dealt with the same problem I have, but only met success when I reached post #16:

I took this advice and successfully used both Internet Explorer and Opera. Any other Xoops user having this problem had better try changing browsers first and save yourselves time and a possible headache.

Well…. next step is to work on a WYSIWYG editor.

Today, I wrote my first article using the news module. It was simple to use except for adding images. The upload function is a little tricky so I had to upload via Ftp and input the url. Ill have to find a simpler way to do it, as it will be difficult to have users contributing articles if posting is problematic.

I have been unsuccessfully trying to install xoopseditor with it’s WYSIWYG editors. After installing the news module, I realize I’ll really need them. I’ll also need a WYSIWYG editor for WordPress ME as not everyone has knowledge of HTML and the applications have to be user friendly. That is my next task, getting the WYSIWYG editor(s) to work.

Thanks to my friend Sherwin Wilson (Uncle Al) for his contribution of the logo image which is actually a photo of our hometown, Falmouth,Jamaica. I have settled on this neutral theme (no green, gold or black). The site is coming along nicely and now only needs fine-tuning and content.

Its been only about four days since I’ve started working on this my latest web project. This is a community site of Jamaican blogs…a one stop repository and top 10 list. Voting will determine who gets the most exposure and will serve as a site for Jamaican bloggers to meet; indeed… a directory for persons wishing to read Jamaican blog content.

The idea is that users may submit links to blogs or start their own blogs here. Users may rate and comment on blogs or blog posts, have their own user pages, and post their own news articles. I also plan to add a module to allow users to communicate with each other without leaving the program.

I planned to log each step of my introduction to Xoops, but learning pains ensured that I had to be totally immersed in understanding this new platform. When I finally got the hang of it, I realized how perfect it was for this project.

Still, I haven’t decided on the name but the problem is that all the good names are taken; mostly by cyber squatters who buy the domain name and inflate the price for resale…not a bad idea, but mi naw pay no more dan $10 fi domain name (I am not paying more than $10 for a domain name).

I had particular difficulties including a blog module so that any registered user can post and have their own blogs hosted. My first choice was Weblog but installation problems meant I finally settled on WordPress Me 0.5.0 which is WordPress integrated in Xoops.

The only thing I don’t like about Xoops is finding a theme to suit my needs. The perfect one would be something in any combination of green, white, yellow, gold or black, or black and gold. The most attractive ones available are in green, but some Jamaicans ironically find green an offensive color even though it is one of the three colors of the national flag. The reason is that it is also the color of one of the 2 major political parties in a country that is highly polarized along political lines. I will keep searching, if not it will have to be green.

Just testing the WordPress ME.

Welcome to WordPress. This is the first post. Edit or delete it, then start blogging!