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UpcomingDiscs.com: WordPress conversion complete

4,620 DVD reviews, Blu-ray Reviews, HD DVD Reviews, Hardware reviews, Blog Posts, and Game Reviews have been (more or less) successfully converted to WordPress blog posts, and are now live on UpcomingDiscs.com.

If you have a moment, stop by the site - I’d love to hear you’re feedback.

The switch was made for a number of reasons:

- SEO - better page formatting, URL’s, etc etc.
- Consistent platform maintenance (as opposed to the cobbled together nightmare that ran the sight before
- Easier writing and editing (for the reviewers)
- Better commenting and community-esque features (this isn’t fully realized yet)
- Plugins!
- Themes!
- Trackbacks, easier RSS management, automatic link pinging!

Basically, a million and one awesome things. I’m loving it already, and the UpcomingDiscs team is coming around to it quickly too.

I’ve written two posts about the conversion experience so far:

Part One - Category Hierarchies in the WXR Import/Export format
Part Two - Custom Fields

…with more to follow.

That’s it in a nutshell - a big relief to get done! I’ll be resuming more regular posting here on TechFold in the next day or two as the last of tweaks are made to UpcomingDiscs.

-R

upcomingdiscs wordpress

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WordPress Expert - Part Two: Doing cool stuff with Custom Fields

As part of the ridiculous effort to transition UpcomingDiscs.com from custom CMS to WordPress, one thing I’ve had to do is figure out to replicated a bunch of custom coded functionality - things like DVD Review Ratings for instance - UpcomingDiscs rates discs across a number of criteria (audio and video quality, film quality, etc.) - how to get those to show up in WordPress?

Here’s how the ratings look on UpcomingDiscs right now:

Option one is to just hand code the rating graphics into every review posted on WordPress. But that seems like a colossal PITA, and will add time and complexity to the process of posting a review. Given that the UpcomingDiscs reviewers are not a specifically technical bunch, this isn’t really an option.

Continue Reading…

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Part One - Dissecting the WordPress Import/Export Format: Categories

I’m working hard in my spare time on transitioning my longest running project - DVD review site UpcomingDiscs.com, which I co-own - from hand-built CMS to WordPress.

What I’m trying to do is move 3000+ reviews (including comments, screenshots, rankings, and DVD metadata) from my clunky, work-around riddled data architecture to nice clean blog posts. What this means is shoehorning the complete contents of UpcomingDiscs into the WordPress Import/Export format so that I can pull the whole site into a WordPress install - i.e.: I’ll be generating a fake WordPress export file from UpcomingDiscs and “importing” it into a real WordPress install. This is no simple task given the legacy complexities of UpcomingDiscs - but as I’m discovering with a lot of investigation, can certainly be done.

Continue Reading…

blogging, export, import, wordpress xml

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WordPress Tip - Schedule your posts

I just discovered a great thing about WordPress - you can schedule the publishing of your posts in the future. This means that I can start posting at 7:00 AM (well before I wake up), so that the east-coasters have something new in their RSS reader first thing in the AM. It also means that I can set up a bunch of posts for my Banff, Glacier Park, Montana roadtrip next week, and hopefully not have a total traffic die off.

The basics: on your “write” page, in the right hand column, check off the “edit timestamp” box and enter the date and time you want your post to “go live.” Hit publish, and that’s it! Better, detailed instructions are here.

howto, tips wordpress

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Another Suggestion for Google Analytics - “Link Event” Alerts

Yes, sharing Analytics would be great, but that’s not my only suggestion.

As a new blogger, I’m particularly attuned to “Link Events” - those anomalies where traffic spikes like crazy due to a mention on another site, getting Dugg, or whatever. Often I don’t find out about these till the next day when Google Analytics has updated; that’s a big missed opportunity as I try to capitalize on link events by putting out a custom message targeted to visitors from a specific page.

So - here’s what Google could do for me: based on Analytic’s knowledge of my average daily traffic, send me an SMS and an Email when there’s a link event and traffic is surging. Tell me:

1. The time it started.
2. The referrering domain and page.
3. How much traffic I’m getting per minute.

Do this in real time. I don’t care if the main analytics readout doesn’t update for a few hours, but use your datastores to make time-sensitive info available when its needed.

Theoretically other services could provide this as well - whos.amung.us, for instance, or MyBlogLog, or the WordPress Stats plugin. Maybe this service is being offered already somewhere? If so, please let me know.

analytics, google, linkevent, mybloglog, suggestion., techfold wordpress

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Shout out to Solucija.com - provider of the TechFold template

I just wanted to take a quick moment to shout out my appreciation to Luka Cvrk - the designer behind the template used here, and many other gorgeous options. Thank-you!

EDIT: I forgot to give credit to Eric at ericulous.com who made Luka’s design into a Wordpress theme - thank-you Eric!

luka cvrk, solucija, templates wordpress

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