Complete source files for this picture gallery available for download:

A couple days ago I noticed a TMobile commercial that was taking some shots at Apple and the iPhone 4. Basically the new marketing campaign is “look what the HTC MyTouch 4g can do and what the iPhone 4 can’t do”. Now as far as I’m concerned I do not like Apple for many reasons including their stance on Adobe Flash. So to say the least I am not an Apple fan, that being said it’s a little interesting how TMobile is going about pitching the new MyTouch from HTC. I mean honestly the reviews from Sprint’s 1st 4G phone (HTC EVO) has been good but many are sayin the 4G coverage is sporadic at best and with this we know that 4G coverage isn’t quite there yet, a work in progress I would say. So what I’m basically trying to say is that TMobile’s marketing campaign is kind of silly and they should work on their own network before making commericals like these. How about working on 3G coverage; making it great then step it up to 4G. It’s just an idea, or better yet make the 4G coverage what 3G was never CONSISTENT! How many of us use the TMobile 3G coverage and see it go to Edge. It’s not much of a complaint at this point because I’m so use to it but I think TMobile should take a look at themselves before they go mentioning other companies like Apple about how great one of their products are.

As someone who has always used Google Analytics I was a bit curious to know more about Google webmaster tools. The free service offered by Google allows developers and anyone else with a website for that matter to look a little closer at the site they own or manage. Now if your currently using Google Analytics you might feel you don’t need this.  Let me explain how Analytics works. Google Analytics service runs off a snipet of javascript that is provided by Google. For this to work javascript needs to be enabled on the users computer, then the site picks up the visit to your site. So what happens if the person doesn’t have that enabled on their computer or has it blocked? In short, Analytics will not calculate a person’s visit under these circumstances. Now with webmaster tools the data received is not based on any javascript coding. Setup is confirmed with Google via adding a meta tag provided, a separate html page, or DNS record. You can choose any one of the three options to enable this and confirm ownership of your site.  Once that’s done your ready to use webmaster tools to view a number of statistics regarding your site.  Keywords, links to your site, search queries, crawl errors, amongst other information is available.

With webmaster tools you can also monitor how Google views your site after it’s crawled. You can go even further by managing what you don’t want Google to see. Furthermore you can control how often Google bots visit your site. It all depends on your needs and the site that your working on. An added bonus to the tools is the sitemap submission. Yet another way for you to control how Google views your site. You can visit the Google webmaster tools page here. I’ll see you guys in the next post.

It’s been pretty interesting integrating Facebook with the WordPress 3.0 software. As I explained in a previous post I started out with the Facebook fan box in the sidebar. After this  I read up on Facebook’s Open Graph Protocol and thought this would be a great addition. The first thing I did was locate a Facebook Like plugin that was capable of both an iframe and XFBML. The XFBML portion to all of this was important to me. The idea behind XFBML and the open graph protocol is to allow a websites content to be delivered to Facebook when someone clicks that like button. In a blog post or article an image,description, and meta information gets delivered to Facebook. In return the person who liked the article will receive this information on their Facebook page. The power of this is really the space you obtain and the meta information associated with it. With the Open Graph Protocol your getting more than just a liked piece of content. You now enter into the Facebook graph where your content exists with some searchable features. Already people are yelling that Facebook wants to own the internet, take over search. Not really, the idea behind this is still to like different things and connect with people that feel the same way.

For myself the Like button I had chosen originally had Open Graph Protocol integration. Although the process wasn’t too difficult you can run into some issues using XFBML  with your Like button. I found out XFBML can conflict with your use of the Fan box on your page. I believe this has to do with how Facebook’s API is configured with the iframe. After much testing I removed the fan box from the sidebar on my blog and after looking at the settings returned it to an iframe(which is optional). After doing this I configured the XFBML for the like button and cross brower tested it, everything was working properly. I also took additional steps to have Facebook check my coding by using the Facebook URL Linter; a tool that analyzes coding being used with the Facebook API.I also read the notes with the Like plugin. The notes recommended running using PHP5. I then went back to more reading on XFBML and read that it would work with PHP5 as well. The next step was to upgrade my server to PHP5 as it was running four at the time. This part was just personal preference, but from what I read I felt this would bring some stability.

Regarding Facebook’s Open Graph Protocol I would have to say I found some things to be inconsistent. Documentation states about a day turn around for Facebook to see any updates such as meta info. I found the time period to be a bit annoying as most of the updates being made to this are on the fly. With developing a site issues like these add to the problems especially when you have various elements at work. I also found that Facebook was not acknowledging all the meta info but did the day before. That being said, these new features were released in April and I’m sure more changes are coming. Still some cool developments and just another tool to expand your reach with your website and/or blog.

Not too long ago I decided to create a fan page for my AdobEasy Tips YouTube channel. Adding a Facebook fan box to your WordPress blog isn’t that big of a deal but the information is a little scattered when it comes to dealing with Facebook. To explain a bit better I decided to lay out a short guide to what you have to do to get it up and running. Let’s get started…

1. Download a Facebook plugin of your liking from the WordPress.org plugins search. I selected this one titled “Facebook Fan Box” If your not familiar with uploading a plugin, you need to download the zip file and extract it on your computer. Then take the folder and upload it into your blog/wp-content/plugins folder.

2. Next let’s visit the dashboard in our WordPress blog. On the left click Plugins and activate the Facebook Fan Box plugin.

3. We can now view the newly create widget which will appear in the sidebar. Click Appearance on the left while still in the dashboard of your blog, then click widgets. You should now see a new widget called Facebook Fan Box. Drag that widget to the area of your sidebar you would like it placed in. Now click on the arrow on the widget so you can a see it’s options. Here you will need your fan page’s id number and an API key number. To obtain your Facebook fan page profile ID number just click on your fan page, look at the link and take notice of those numbers at the end of the link. The numbers at the end are your page’s ID number. Copy those numbers and paste them in the profile ID number field in the widget.

4. Now your ready to obtain an API key from Facebook. This will give permission for your website/blog to communicate with your Facebook page. Visit the developers section on Facebook. Here you will have a button on top to create a new application. Click that button and proceed. Give the application a name and click create application. Now you’ll be on a page where you can view the API key. Copy that group of numbers, save the application by clicking save at the bottom of that page. Go back to the widget in your WordPress blog and paste that API key in the API key field of the widget. Now save the widget and close it.

5. That’s it, go to your blog and check out your new Facebook fan box! Those were the basic instructions to get this going. If you want you can play around with the appearance of the widget, even set up a css doc to format all of the visual stuff. Good luck and happy blogging!