Pop Critics Movie Database

Lately, I’ve been writing a lot about how to create custom taxonomies in WordPress. I still get questions every day about practical applications with them.

Usually, I’m asked, “I understand the definition of taxonomy, but what do I do with them?” This is what I will attempt to answer in this post.

At the end of last week, I managed to talk my cousin into helping me set up a movie database. I thought this would be a great testing ground for custom taxonomies and allow me to present an example of how they can be used.

Go ahead and take a spin around the database and see what we’ve put together. I think it’s a neat concept.

You should make note that some of the things explained in this tutorial assume that you’re running WordPress 2.8+.

If something in the design is a bit wonky, pay it no attention. I just quickly merged it with the main site design and it could use some work.

The custom taxonomies

I created six new taxonomies for my WordPress install: actor, director, genre, producer, studio, and writer. These taxonomies allow readers to find movies based on certain criteria. For example, you can view movies that Tom Hanks has starred in.

The idea here is to give readers the ability to navigate around your site. You want organized content. You want content that’s linked together in meaningful ways. Custom taxonomies allow us to group our content in ways that simple categories and tags can’t.

Creating the custom taxonomies

I recently covered how you can easily create taxonomies in WordPress 2.8. To understand the mechanics behind creating and using them, read that post.

To do this, I added this code to my theme’s functions.php file:

<?php 

add_action( 'init', 'create_pc_db_taxonomies', 0 );

function create_pc_db_taxonomies() {
	register_taxonomy( 'actor', 'post', array( 'hierarchical' => false, 'label' => __('Actors', 'series'), 'query_var' => 'actor', 'rewrite' => array( 'slug' => 'actors' ) ) );
	register_taxonomy( 'director', 'post', array( 'hierarchical' => false, 'label' => __('Directors', 'series'), 'query_var' => 'director', 'rewrite' => array( 'slug' => 'directors' ) ) );
	register_taxonomy( 'genre', 'post', array( 'hierarchical' => false, 'label' => __('Genres', 'series'), 'query_var' => 'genre', 'rewrite' => array( 'slug' => 'genres' ) ) );
	register_taxonomy( 'producer', 'post', array( 'hierarchical' => false, 'label' => __('Producers', 'series'), 'query_var' => 'producer', 'rewrite' => array( 'slug' => 'producers' ) ) );
	register_taxonomy( 'studio', 'post', array( 'hierarchical' => false, 'label' => __('Studios', 'series'), 'query_var' => 'studio', 'rewrite' => array( 'slug' => 'studios' ) ) );
	register_taxonomy( 'writer', 'post', array( 'hierarchical' => false, 'label' => __('Writers', 'series'), 'query_var' => 'writer', 'rewrite' => array( 'slug' => 'writers' ) ) );
}

?>

Creating term clouds with custom taxonomies

If you take a look around the movie database, you’ll notice I’ve made ample use of term (tag) clouds. Each represents a different taxonomy and will help you find movies in different ways.

A term cloud of movie genres

Built into version 0.6 of the Hybrid theme (will be released after WordPress 2.8) is a widget called Tags. Traditionally, this widget would allow you to show a tag cloud. In the new version, there’s a select box to choose a taxonomy, which allows us to create a term cloud based on any custom taxonomy. Pretty cool, right?

If you’re not fortunate enough to be using the Hybrid theme, you can hardcode a term cloud like so:

<?php wp_tag_cloud( array( 'taxonomy' => 'taxonomy_name' ) ); ?>

Displaying custom taxonomies in a post

Also covered in my previous tutorial was how to list taxonomy terms for a post. Simply replacing taxonomy_name in the below code with the unique name of your taxonomy will handle that.

<?php echo get_the_term_list( $post->ID, 'taxonomy_name', 'Taxonomy Label: ', ', ', '' ); ?>?

Here’s a look at the movie page (single post view) of Turner & Hooch:

Custom taxonomies on a single-post view

Notice how each taxonomy’s terms are listed. It gives you a view of the actors, genres, directors, producers, studios, and writers for the individual movie.

Displaying taxonomy terms in a page

When dealing with the vast amount of movies available, there’s no good way to show off everything in a sidebar and other small areas. I needed a way to show off each taxonomy on a separate page. So, I created six page templates to handle this:

• Actors
• Directors
• Genres
• Producers
• Studios
• Writers

In each template, I used the wp_tag_cloud() function (shown above) to show off a particular taxonomy. If you’re unfamiliar with creating page templates, read this tutorial on how to create your own.

Taxonomy term templates

Taxonomy terms get their own templates just like tags, categories, and other archives. In keeping with the Tom Hanks scenario, we’ll take a look at the Tom Hanks archive.

There are several things we have to do to make this happen. First, one useful bit of code I appended to my theme’s functions.php file allows me to add any XHTML to my term descriptions:

remove_filter( 'pre_term_description', 'wp_filter_kses' );

Once that was done, I found Tom Hanks under my Actors taxonomy in my WordPress admin (a sub-menu of Posts). I then added an image and short description of the actor. This shows up at the top of the Tom Hanks archive:

View of the Tom Hanks actor archive

Not all themes’ archives are equipped to handle this. Instead of hacking up your theme’s archive.php template, copy and rename it to taxonomy.php. You’ll want to add these two code snippets to this file, replacing other code that might be in the way. Theme authors: You should take note of this.

To get the proper name of the taxonomy term (usually the archive page title), use this code:

<?php $term = get_term_by( 'slug', get_query_var( 'term' ), get_query_var( 'taxonomy' ) ); $term->name; ?>

To show the taxonomy term description, use this code:

<?php echo term_description( '', get_query_var( 'taxonomy' ) ); ?>

Try creating custom taxonomies for yourself

I hope this helps explain how taxonomies can be used on a site. I wanted to give everyone a real-world example to better understand the concept.

I didn’t go into complete detail on each bit of code because the post was getting much too long. In order to better understand how the code works, read over my tutorial on creating custom taxomies. There’s a lot of great information in that post.

As always, feel free to ask questions and discuss. I’ll be happy to help out. Heck, go rate a few movies on the movie database. It could be fun!

Today you’re going to learn 10 things you can do with WordPress besides blogging, and whether you’re a WordPress newbie or longtime veteran - I guarantee that you will learn something after reading this post!

While WordPress is the world’s most popular self-hosted blogging solution, it’s also an open source CMS (Content Management Solution). WordPress is known for it’s blogging capabilities, but being a CMS as well it can do nearly anything that can be done within a web site. Like a Forum, photo gallery, web directory, classifieds site, jobs board, news site, and more! The advantage of doing these kinds of things within WordPress are that you can use it for either blogging or other features in as well!

Imagine being able to create a web directory, but use WP RSS, comments, pingback, plugin, and theme features? Consider the ability to add a blog within a subsection of a web site without having to install a separate instance of WordPress there (because WP runs your entire site!).

There are probably hundreds (if not thousands) of things you can do with WordPress that aren’t blogging, but here are the top 10 ones I could think of to get the gears turning inside your head!

1. Create a Static Web Site

I’m amazed sometimes when people don’t understand why I would want to create a static web site using WordPress. There are 3 reasons this is the best solution I can think of:

1. Sheer speed of Setup
2. Plugins and Themes
3. Future Growth

I can setup an entire WordPress web site including database and initial setup options in about 10 minutes. I can customize it very quickly with a theme. I can add a very detailed contact form in about 5 minutes with a simple plugin. With another plugin I can generate an XML sitemap to register with the 3 major search engines. To do the same with static HTML (even Dreamweaver) would take soooo much longer, and would require extra scripts for a contact form and XML sitemap.

In addition if I created a 10 page static web site for a client using WordPress, I could create a login account for them and they could update their own web site (or add pages) in the future without needing my assistance. You certainly can’t do that with a static web site!

If you create a static web site in the future using WordPress - here’s what you need to know:

As soon as you setup the site, change permalink structure by going to settings -> permalink in your dashboard. Change the default date based permalink to /%postname%/ like this:

Next, since you’re building a static site you need to assign a static home page. In settings -> reading in your dashboard assign a static page to display for the home page. If you’re going to use the blogging function as well, you can assign it to a sub-page of your blog here as well:

Last, turn off comments. You can turn these back on for any invidual pages (or posts if you use the blogging feature later). Go to settings -> Discussion to turn comments off by default:

2. Build a Directory

Web Directories are old school Internet! A Directory is just a listing of sites, categorized in some way. There are blog directories, business directories, web design directories - just about any niche you can think of is available. To this day people still like directories because unlike a search engine (with millions of results), a good directory usually has great sites categorized by exactly the topic you’re looking for. From a web site owner point of view, directories are usually viewed as a great way to build links, traffic, and authority for your site.

Most web directories are built on some custom PHP script developed specifically for that purpose. Many directories I’ve seen had a script running the main web site, and then WordPress installed in a sub-folder running a blog. You don’t need to do that, because you can actually easlily build your own directory right in WordPress.

You could of course just build a static site, and then create your own pages building a directory by hand. But that would be a lot of work! Why not use a free plugin to automate the process a bit.

Build a Link Directory:

With Sean Blueston’s WP Link Directory Plugin you can build little directory of links with features like categories, search, reciprocal link detection, and the ability to allow paid premium links for a fee via paypal.

Category pages contain pagerank info, link, and description:

If you’re looking for something a bit more complex (that you could scale a bit), you need to check out Open Directory Links. You could definitely build your own open directory in WordPress with this:

It’s got great style and layout and even RSS feeds available at the category levels. It even has pagerank, refer to a friend, and add bookmark for each link:

Maybe you have more of a business site and a “business directory” for your niche would add great value for your client. The difference between a business and link directory is that a business directory has name, link, and description attributes, but also the ability to support phone number and physical address as well:

An advanced type of business directory might be one where you have an event that people have to register for, and you want to feature all the companies they work for online. In that case the Social Events and Registration Directory Plugin is exactly what you’re looking for. People can register for an event, get a confirmation email, and it can even support social networking links, RSS feed links, and custom fields.

3. Start a Classifieds Site

Maybe you’d like to start a classifieds site for your group, organization, commnity, or business. The coder of the open directory links plugin also makes a WP Classifieds WordPress Plugin!

It’s fully featured with post dates and view counts, and a fully featured submit form. Users can add contact information an image, and they have an wysiwig editor for ads! Users don’t have to create an account at all to submit ads, spam is controlled by captcha, and all category pages gave RSS links available for visitors.

You can also add classified to a WordPress site with Another WordPress Classifieds Plugin. It has nice layout, but support the ability to charge for listings.

Browsing ads is a breeze with the very flexible layout which shows image, location, date posted, and views. It’s very easy to change categories with the dropdown at the top of each page and the ability to change how many ads are listed per page:

4. Create an Article Repository

Maybe you’ve seen all those great article repositories online and thought it would be a great idea for a site of your own! It’s a great way to get free content and traffic, and there are lots of scripts and programs out there that make setting one up a breeze! With these plugins you can create your own article directory right in WordPress, and use all the normal WP features and functions available!

Using the Article Directory Plugin you can easily setup an aricle repository in your WordPress powered site. It allows you to accept articles submissions, and you can even get targeted content from the article dragon network (you have total control to accept or reject articles). You can quickly build an article repository with this plugin.

5. Make an Image Gallery

Are you a photographer? Are you the “tech guy” of your family tree? Are you in charge of the web site for a local group or organization? Having a baby or wedding? I can’t believe the amount of times I got an email with a link to somebody’s Yahoo account for pictures to a corporate event or small business picnic. I can’t count the number of photographers paying big amounts for online photo managers when there are free tools that would allow them to manage photos within their own web site. There are incredible free plugins available for WordPress for showcasing and displaying images.

NextGen Gallery is the end-all be-all of plugins for photo management in WordPress.

Some of it’s abilites are random pics in the sidebar:

It has the ability to manage hundreds and thousands of pictures in sortable and categorizable galleries. You can upload an entire zip file with pictures for inclusion, and it boasts a fully integrated flash slideshow.

You have complete control of home many galleries are displayed per page, you can have an index page listing all galleries, and you control how the galleries are shown, from the size of the images to the attributes beneath them (title, description, link, etc.).

Another plugin worth mentioning is the Page Flip Image Gallery. If all you need to do for yourself or your client is display some sample work, show a portfolio, or just a simple image gallery - this is awesome! It features full screen mode, and you can even use either JPG files or SWF flash files for gallery display! It has batch upload, upload from URL, and zip file upload.

If you just need something basic and simple, then the Lazyest Gallery Plugin might be just the right one for you! It offers automatic thumbnail and slide creation, and you can add comments on images and folders. It has widgets for random pic and folder list, and you can add captions to all folders and images:

If you’re really lazy, maybe all you want to do is just include your already existing photo galleries. If that’s the case you might want to check out the plethora of Picasa Plugins or Flickr Plugins for WordPress.

6. Build a Review Site

Another great idea is to build a “Review Site” in WordPress. Let’s face it, the bulk of the blogs online are talking about something and giving an opinion (review). There are many sites that review products and services, and there are countless ways of displaying them. I had said that all 10 of my ideas in this article would be alternatives to blogging, but reviews can be done in pages, but also in running blog fashion with individual posts. It just depends on how you decide to setup your site and which plugins you decide to utilize.

One way to do this is with the Review Box plugin. By using a simple shortcode, you can add a “review box” to any page or post in which you can summarize up pros, cons, and then set a percentage rating:

There are also tons of premium themes and plugins for sale so you can create a “review site” in WordPress, but if you want to do it on the cheap, in my opinion the best plugin for that is GD Star Rating.

If you want users to be able to rate or review pages or posts, one of the best plugins for that is WP Post Ratings by Lester Chan. It allows live ratings by users, and shows vote counts, and average rating:

7. Start a Discussion Forum

A discussion forum is probably one of the greatest sources of content you could ever ask for! It’s the epitomy of give and take online, usually people asking for help, and experts answering questions to give their expertise (and signature links) greater exposure.

There are countless hacks and plugins for integrating a “stand-alone” forum or bulletin boards into WordPress, but most people I’ve talked to don’t know that you can can actually create an entire forum inside WordPress itself!

Simple:Press Forum allows you to create an entire (and fully featured) threaded discussion forum within WordPress itself. It has as many (if not more) features than most standalone forums I’ve used. It has search, user registration, rss feeds, pagination, breadcrumbs, full stats, fine grained user control. I’ve used this plugin several times, and I haven’t setup a standalone forum script since.

Another plugin available to create a fully-fledged forum in WordPress is WordPress Forum. It’s last update is Sept 2008, but it does appear to work with WordPress versions 2.02 or higher.

8. Aggregation

I hope I don’t catch a lot of flak for this one, because WordPress aggregation is probably the single most abused feature available. It’s true, there are so many autoblogging plugins available it’s not funny - plugins that sploggers and spammers use to create sites with automatic content hoping to get indexed in search engines and make money for free on autopilot.

Aggregation can be used for good, and I don’t see that many web sites using it that way anymore. RSS feeds are available for readers to subscribe to your content. They are also available to keep track of the most recent updates, and you can aggregate the titles, links, and short excerpts of these updates on your web site for your readers (or even just for you). In addition, there are RSS feed available for things besides blogs you may not have even thought about, AND there are some plugins that provide aggregation without RSS at all - maybe they use an API!

Let me give you some examples….

Are you a twitter-holic? You could use a plugin like Tweet Blender to aggregate tweets from multiple users and / or specific hashtags:

Next I’ll show you some great uses of RSS feeds (first) and then directly after I’ll show you how to “aggregate” these feeds into WordPress using a plugin…

Nearly every category on Craigslist has an RSS feed you can use. Maybe you belong to an organization, group, or even a band that could benefit from including such a feed on your web site. A real estate site could list the latest Craigslist rental listings, a musician site could list the latest gear for sale, etc.

You could do the same thing with eBay. Maybe your client has a business that lists things on eBay. Do an advanced search and the bottom of that page has an RSS feed you can use. Maybe you have a sewing club, you could use an RSS feed from product searches you wanted to track, like fabric sewing machines, patterns, etc.

On ANY eBay search page after the auctions:

scroll down to the bottom of the page and find the RSS link:

You can search on nearly topic using google blog search, and every search there has an RSS feed as well. For example, my could could benefit from a page with an aggregation of the lastest blog postings about WordPress!

Now that I’ve given you some RSS ideas, let’s take find out how to aggregate them into WordPress in a usable fashion. I’ve used a few RSS feed aggregator plugins over the years, but the only that seems to still exist (and be updated frequently) is Feed WordPress.

By using Feed WordPress you can “aggregate” RSS feeds and publish them as WordPress posts. You can see where this can be highly abused by unscrupulous bloggers who want to steal content from other places so they can profit at the original author’s expense. There’s also no reason why you can’t use this for good, and aggregate simple titles and excerpts of posts that might be useful to your visitors. In that regard it’s no different than what a search engine or news compilation site does anyway. If you’re worried about duplicate content, you can go as far as to add an entry into your robots.txt file for noindex, nofollow, and you could even manually remove it from your XML sitemap.

Post can be configured any way you like, giving linkback attribution (or not), and web sites can even be listed as authors (contributors) in your blogroll. You choose what tags and categories are assigned to them, and where the permalinks point. For the most part, the posts you aggregate just look like regular blog posts.

Maybe you want something a little bit simpler than turning RSS feeds into actual blog posts, and you just want to take that Craigslist RSS feed, or eBay RSS feed and list the contents onto a paged page. WordPress already has the ability to parse RSS using the included magpie library.

By using this simple bit of code in any WordPress theme page:

<?php include_once(ABSPATH . WPINC . '/rss.php');
wp_rss('http://example.com/rss/feed/goes/here', 20); ?>

…you can parse any Worpress feed into a list of simple linked titles. This is an incredibly simple way to add value to your blog, and you could add as many different feeds (or numbers of posts) per page as you want. Just keep in mind that this is live (nothing is cached) the more feeds, or more posts per feed you add, the slower the page might be to generate.

9. Membership site

There are bunches of reasons you might want to have a closed “members only” web site. Maybe you need something only your family can access, or a private site for your business or club. Maybe you want to sell access to content, and you need part (or all) of your site walled off from public view.

Memberwing is a WordPress plugin that allows you to setup a membership site. Like many plugins there’s a free and a “pro” version. While the paid versions have all kinds of bells and whistles, the free version does exactly what most people would need, by using special tags it separates “teasers” from premium (paid) content. In this example you can see how content is hidden and users have options to either login or “become a member”.

If you like to keep things a bit simpler than that, you could use the WP Private plugin to restrict access to certain content to registered users. This plugin only hides the content, it doesn’t managage any payment options - so it would be better for a business to use for internal employees, private family content, etc.

Honorable mention goes to the Private RSS Plugin, that would go well with a private membership site.

10. eCommerce Site (online store)

There are plugins that allow you to simple sell single items using PayPal, that’s exactly why the ArtPal Plugin was developed (to sell art). You create a post with a few custom fields and voila! you’re selling art! You could of course use this plugin to sell just about anything using paypal, it doesn’t have to be art.

Maybe your blog accepts donations, or you have a very simple service that you charge for. For that I suggest the Easy Paypal Payment or Donation Accept Plugin:

If you want a solution even simpler than that - I offer you the Paypal Shortcodes Plugin. It doesn’t even have an admin interface - once enabled it allows you to add paypal buttons automatically in posts by using simple WP shortcodes:

You could use Fat Free Cart if you want a bone simple actual shopping cart - but you still want to sell on your blog and accept payments through paypal or google checkout. This plugin is very similar to ArtPal.

There are several plugins that go well beyond the “basics” of selling something through paypal. The eShop Plugin is packed with features such as several payment options, automatic email on successful purchase, multiple options for products, stats, and various shipping options. It seems quite mature, and there are many example stores to view.

By far the most popular though seems to be the eCommerce Plugin for WordPress. It boasts social networking hooks, payment options like paypal, google checkout, Authorize.net and more. It has one page checkout, and lots of documentation and community support. I have to admit, the example sites that use the eCommerce plugin look nearly identical to any of the big box retailers online storefronts:

Conclusion

Well, your’re probably exhausted now - but I’ve definitely lived up to my word and showed you more ways to use WordPress (that aren’t blogging) than you can shake a stick at! I hope this gives you some great ideas for both your own blogs and web sites, as well as your clients!

About the Author

JTPratt writes about being a WordPress Consultant, and has recently launched his newest site - WordPress Directory.

In this post we’ll review how to write a PHP function and go over the basic idea of how you can use Action Hooks in your WordPress Theme. We’ll take a look at a practical example of injecting a Welcome Blurb into your Theme without touching the existing code and we’ll also look at how to remove existing content being injected into Theme Hooks.

Packing Up A Function

Action hooks are in a lot of WordPress Themes nowadays. There’s a good reason for that but you’re probably wondering what the big deal is right? They’re such a big deal because firstly, they’re incredibly easy to use and secondly, because they’re extremely powerful.

If you want to get started with them we’re going to have to take a look at how to write a PHP function again. Don’t worry, we’ll keep it pretty simple.

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function pretty_basic() {
 
   // This is a PHP comment.
 
   // PHP "stuff" goes here.
 
}
 
function still_pretty_basic() { ?>
 
   <!-- HTML comment now -->
 
   <!-- Notice how I "broke out" of writing PHP? -->
 
   <!-- I added closing and opening PHP tags just inside the curly braces -->
 
 
 
   <?php // I can even write more familiar-looking PHP here ?>
 
<?php }

So that’s how you write a PHP function. It’s pretty easy. It’s a little package of “stuff” like more PHP or HTML that you can write in 1 place—like your functions.php file—and call in another place like so:

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   <?php pretty_basic() ?>
 
   <?php still_pretty_basic() ?>

You’ve seen the same thing before with WordPress functions like wp_list_pages() or the_content(). These functions are packed with “stuff” deep in the bowels of the WordPress core and output wherever they appear in your template files.

The Basic Idea Behind Action Hooks

A lot of really smart theme developers have started adding what are essentially empty functions to their themes ready to be filled up with stuff. We call these Action Hooks. I first noticed them in the Tarski theme and Tarski theme developer Benedict Eastaugh does a really good job of explaining why you’d want to use them and how to add them to your theme. But you’ve probably already seen them before.

WordPress Themes use a pair of default hooks called wp_head() and wp_footer(). If you know what those are you know what we’re doing here. Those two function calls are for adding “stuff” to your WordPress theme without editing the template.

In a nutshell here’s what Action Hooks will mean to you if your favorite theme uses them: you can add any content you like—extra WordPress functions, plugin calls, singing and dancing jQuery-powered sliders—simply by adding your function to an existing action hook. You won’t have to edit the original template files. And your additions will be safe from any upgrades the theme author makes.

Adding Content To An Action Hook

Let’s do something practical we’ll add a “Welcome To My Blog” blurb just below the header of the Thematic Theme using the Thematic Action Hook, thematic_belowheader(). Place the following code snippet in your Child Theme functions.php file.

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// First we make our function
function childtheme_welcome_blurb() {
 
// We'll show it only on the HOME page IF it's NOT paged
// (so, not page 2,3,etc.)
if (is_home() & !is_paged()) { ?>
 
<!-- our welcome blurb starts here -->
<div id="welcome-blurb">
<p>Welcome to <?php bloginfo('name'); ?>.</p>
</div>
<!-- our welcome blurb ends here -->
<?php }
 
} // end of our new function childtheme_welcome_blurb
 
// Now we add our new function to our Thematic Action Hook
add_action('thematic_belowheader','childtheme_welcome_blurb');

Make sure you read the comments in the code snippet. It’s easy as cake! Want to add something to a WordPress Theme without touching the files and making a headache for yourself when it comes time to upgrade? Just find out where the Action is!

Removing Existing Content From Actions

In some themes, like Thematic, some of the Action Hooks are already partly filled up with stuff. This might look a little unusual if you’ve never seen it before but it’s insanely powerful. You can basically unplug parts of your theme.

Here’s the basic syntax for removing content from your Theme that’s already being hooked-in.

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// Unhook default Thematic functions
function unhook_thematic_functions() {
    // Don't forget the position number if the original function has one
    remove_action('thematic_hook_name','thematic_function_name',postitionnumber);
}
add_action('init','unhook_thematic_functions');

And as an example, here’s a code snippet that will remove the entire main navigation menu from your Thematic Theme. Just pop it into your Child Theme functions.php and let it rip.

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// Unhook default Thematic functions
function unhook_thematic_functions() {
    // Don't forget the position number if the original function has one
    remove_action('thematic_header','thematic_access',9);
}
add_action('init','unhook_thematic_functions');

Combine these 2 concepts with a hooked-up WordPress Theme and you can do practically anything.

How To Modify WordPress Themes The Smart Way

This post is part of the series How To Modify WordPress Themes The Smart Way.

1. WordPress Child Theme Basics
2. Modular CSS in WordPress Child Themes
3. Using Filter Hooks in WordPress Child Themes
4. Using Action Hooks in WordPress Child Themes

• Using Filter Hooks in WordPress Child Themes
• Custom WordPress Hooks and Filters in Thematic 0.6
• Wpazo: The Best WordPress Stuff

Below are the links to the research that has been going around the blogosphere this weekend. The original research was done by Mark Thompson and then taken on by another blogger. The research takes all the MPs implicated by The Telegraph (the list from the Telegraph used was the version updated at 3:00pm Sunday – 94 MPs in total) and then looks for patterns by comparing it with the list of MPs ordered by their majority from the 2005 election.

The main findings are: that the safer the seat, the more likely the MP is to be implicated.

Here, the list of MPs ordered according to majority has been split into 4; with the highest majorities in the top quartile. The other numbers refer to how many MPs written about in The Telegraph fit into each quartile. The pattern is very clear.

There is further number-crunching done on the blog. And then some statistical analysis to show what has been found isn’t a fluke. In fact, on two tests it is either 1 in 1000 or 1 in 3000 that the effect witnessed (ie correlation between safe seats and expenses) would have arisen by chance. So fairly robust we feel.

Mark’s initial post is here: http://markreckons.blogspot.com/2009/05/has-our-electoral-system-contributed-to.html

and an update which includes some more detailed statistical analysis from another blogger here:http://markreckons.blogspot.com/2009/05/mps-expenses-and-safe-seats-correlation.html

There are two caveats to the research – two factors that may have an effect on the result. Firstly, the longevity of the MP’s service. It may be the case that he less marginal an MP, the longer-established they are and the more bad habits they will have. Secondly, The Telegraph may have chosen to run first with MPs who are more high profile (ministers, opposition spokespeople, senior backbenchers) and these people tend to be ones who are in safer seats. But in both cases the lack of marginality and accountability is key. You’d expect MPs to have served longer if in safe seats; and why should ministers etc be promoted on basis of how secure their seat is, especially as that makes it harder for people to hold them to account?

Please make use of this data and analysis however you feel most appropriate. It is already out there on the blogosphere (even Iain Dale is linking to it), but the wider we can push this link the better.

I have also posted on Saturday about the early stages of the connections between expenses and wider electoral reform http://www.makemyvotecount.org.uk/blog/archives/2009/05/rope_for_mps_bu.html

Plus in the Observer yesterday:

Such arguments are music to the ears of mainstream proponents of electoral reform. Malcolm Clark, of Make Votes Count, says the expenses row has exposed the weakness of a system that guarantees MPs in safe seats a life tenure, regardless of what they do. "If there is a strong feeling against some people because of what they've done, why should it be so hard to ditch them?"

There is a lot of traffic on libdem blogosphere esp (their activists’ passion for campaigning on electoral reform has been strengthened) but also wider – in tweets, blogs and other mentions that aren’t connected to LibDems. As one of the MVC supporters entitled an email to me today: “Opportunity”. Exactly.

Mungo photo credit goes to Steintrikes

Steintrikes look mighty impressive…and they were out in full force recnetly at Spezi, a large European bike Show (in Germersheim, Germany).   Distributed by Bike Revolution, take the Mungo for example…this new model features full front and rear suspension, disc brakes all around, Shimano components, a very comfy reclined seat, No Waste Design, and much more…all for around 42lbs.  

Ready for touring…photo credit goes to bike-revolution

There are a few Steintrike models to choose from, and if you prefer to switch it up depending on riding season…they are down with that too.  If your wondering how much weight a trike can carry, Steintrikes can carry a double load, up to 45 kg (100 pounds).  Steintrikes also have a hidden feature called no waste design.  What that means is the cyclist won’t have to fight against the suspension while pedaling…putting more power towards your goal.  According to Steintrikes, 

Our frames are made from raw material we chose.  It’s a cold drawn precision seamless tubing with only 1mm thick wall.  We use the same material for all the frame parts.  And we hand build it.  We measure, clean, cut, and weld every single piece to make a frame.  It’s really hand made in the best meaning of the term, but it’s not just that.  We used someone else’s invention and made it simpler.  Some years ago in the electronics industry, someone started building “modules” and started plugging them into the motherboard.  We did that with our frames.  We made a design with a specific wheelbase, track, tested it, refined the steering design and we got ourselves an excellent trike model.  It had a flaw: it wasn’t good for everyone all the time.  So, we took the same front end, kept the wheelbase and changed it’s rear end, and we got the first modular trike.  Then came the others.  Today, you can make choice, small or big wheel, hard tail or suspended, it’s all up to your preference.  And even better, if you decide you want a change for the Summer or Winter, touring or racing, you can “pimp your ride”… AND it doesn’t require a surgery on an open wallet…

Photo credit goes to bike-revolution

Need a trunk on your whip?  Yeah, they got that too…

Steintrikes

Kinda related posts

• Extra Wheel Voyager (2)
• Two Go (1)
• Taga (1)
• Ride The Lightning Update (0)
• Ride The Lightning (2)

Photo credit goes to Extrawheel

Unlike most bike trailers that employ the use of two wheels, the Extra Wheel Voyager bike trailer only uses one…thus reducing weight and width.  Extra Wheel trailers claim to be the lightest on the market, and apparently will also detach in the event of a major collision.  In case of emergency, you can use the wheel of the trailer to replace a flat or damaged wheel on your bike.  

Photo credit goes to Extrawheel

Having only one wheel does come at a load-hauling price though, as the Extra Wheel can only haul up too 75lbs (while the Burley Nomad can haul up too 100lbs).  For 345EU (about $465usd) you can pick up the Voyager…price includes fastening fork, quick release lock, and 2 waterproof Cordura panniers.  Wheel sizes range from 26″-28″.  A 29″ model is purportedly in the works, and should work perfectly with the Pugsley…the SUV of bicycles.  There are also more cost effective setups available, check them out here

Extra Wheel Voyager

Kinda related posts

• Two Go (1)
• Taga (1)
• Steintrikes (0)
• Ride The Lightning Update (0)
• Ride The Lightning (2)

If you look at the top of your SLR camera, you’ll probably find a little round dial, which has a whole load of different settings on them. Some of them are automatic settings (like the green square), some of them are ‘creative automatic’ settings (like the little runner), and others are the modes that let you do the heavy lifting yourself (P, Tv, Av and M).

This little dial is called your mode wheel, and it’s your mortal enemy, the destroyer of creativity, and the root of all evil in the world including, but not limited to, wars, swine flu, and stepping in chewing gum with a new pair of shoes.

In this article, I’m going to show you the error of your ways (if you’ve been using it), or I’ll show you what each of the settings means, what it does, and how to recreate the effect by using the manual shooting modes instead.

Why do they upset you so much?

Good question. The creative automatic modes make me angry because they take important decisions out of your hands, but that’s not the worst of it: People who are using the creative automatic modes might, in the short term, be able to take photographs of a technical quality beyond what they would normally be able to, but if you resign yourself to letting your camera do the work and make the creative decisions for you, the problem is that you don’t understand the underlying theory behind what you are doing, and despite getting better results, you’re not becoming a better photographer.

Imagine, say, that you had an oven that would automatically detect what you put in the oven, then calculate how big it is, what you’re trying to do with it, and select the right temperature and time, before beeping at you when your Sunday roast / cake is finished or your socks are dry. (What? You don’t dry your socks in the oven? Hmm, just me, then.) Either way, the result would be perfect every time, but where’s the satisfaction in not knowing what your oven did to bake this cake? And more importantly, what if you want to take creative liberties - say, you might prefer your cookies a little bit American-style; gooey inside - or you might want to make them crispier, for example…

The purpose of this article, then, is to ensure that if you want gooey or crispy photographs, you know how much heat you need to turn on, for how long, and if your cookie tray needs to go in the top or the bottom of the oven.

Okay, enough of the dodgy similes already, let’s have it!

Right, in the picture above, starting from the top, going counter-clockwise, the modes are:

Suppress Flash

Photo: Into The Warmth by me on Flickr - no flash needed here, it would have ruined the effect.

Why this is even a mode to itself I have no idea - depending on why you want to shoot without a flash, the easiest thing to do is to use Program mode (but also see Tv and Av, below), which means that the flash will only come on if you tell it to.

If you’re in a low-light situation, pick a higher ISO speed - this will create a bit more digital noise in your photo, but it means that you reduce the need for using a flash. If possible, select a bigger aperture so your shutter speed becomes lower.

Remember the general rule that you can hand-hold a camera at a shutter speed which is the same as the focal length of your lens: So if you’re shooting at 300mm, you should use 1/300 second shutter time or faster. If you’re using a sexy little 50mm prime lens, you can hand-hold at 1/50th of a second. Zooms are the same: if you’re using a 17-35mm zoom, you can hand-hold at about 1/10th of a second at full wide angle, and about 1/30th of a second at full zoom.

Of course, it’s possible to bend these rules, but if you adjust your ISO speed and shutter time to stick with them, you generally get a good, blur-free exposure without having to resort to using your flash gun.

Night-time portraiture

Photo: Electric Light Afro by me on Flickr - By combining flash and a longer shutter time, you get the foreground sharp and the background bright enough to see.

Night-time portraiture is the only of these settings which actually has any merit, in my opinion - not because it’s that difficult to do, but until someone has explained to you how you can get good night-time portraits, it can be a little bit counter-intuitive.

Imagine you’re in Paris with a loved one, and you want to take a photo of them, at night, with the Eiffel Tower in the background. You take a photo with a flash, and you can’t see the tower. You take a photo without a flash, and you can see the tower just fine, but your friend, who naturally is unable to stand still for more than a microsecond at the time, is all blurry and hazy. What to do?

Actually, Av is your friend: In Programme and Tv modes, the flash and shutter time will combine to try to expose your foreground correctly. In Aperture-priority, however, your camera will measure the light that is available to you, and then fire the flash to ‘fill in’ the foreground.

What, in effect, is happening, is that your camera is taking a ‘normal’ photo - exposed for the background - but then also uses the flash to expose the foreground correctly.

For further control (you might decide, for example, that the full 3-second exposure to get the ‘right’ exposure for the background isn’t necessary, and that the background looks OK after only a second, or fraction of a second), you can use full manual mode. On most D-SLR cameras and some external flashguns, you can also set the flash output manually, or adjusting it up or down. This differs from camera to camera (on the Canon, you’re looking for Flash Exposure Compensation, or F-EV), so check in your manual.

Top Tip: For creative effect, try to take a photo in AV mode, but move the camera or use the zoom while you’re taking the photo. Because of the flash your foreground will be static, but you get a hugely dramatic and awesome swirling, moving streaks effect because of the lights in the background.

Sports

Photo: Skate-Zo-Phrenia by me on Flickr

Sports mode is a complete fraud: Use Tv mode, set to a fast shutter time (’fast’ in this case depends on the sport you’re trying to capture. For snooker, fast isn’t very fast, and 1/60 of a second should do, but for horse racing, you need a much faster shutter time), and see what your camera comes up with.

If the pictures are too dark, it’s because your camera needs to use an aperture which is bigger than your lens can do (say, it’s using f/5.6 but needs f/2.8 to do the correct exposure). This is signified by a blinking aperture in your viewfinder, and can be solved by either using a lens with a larger maximum aperture, setting a higher ISO speed, or using a flash gun (although, say, darts players don’t really like it when flashes are going off in their face when they’re trying to throw A HUNNNNDRED AND EEEEEIGHTYYYYYYYY).

Macro

Photo: Coloured Paper (macro) by me on Flickr

I know a couple of things about macro photography, and I genuinely can’t see a single good reason for that Macro mode being on a SLR camera. For a compact camera, sure: It puts the lens into a ‘focus close to the camera instead of in the far distance’ mode, which means that it’s not wasting its time trying to focus far away. On a SLR, if you’re savvy enough to have bought a macro lens, you probably will be fine with Programme mode, and if you haven’t got a macro lens, then you’re basically out of luck (unless you build your own, of course, but that’s a different article altogether).

To replicate this mode in the real world, use programme or Manual mode, use a macro lens, and snap away.

Landscape

Photo: Freedom in Black and White by me on Flickr

Landscapes, glorious landscapes. Set your lens to manual focus, and turn it to the little ∞ (infinity) symbol. Note that it IS possible to focus past infinity - that’s because when you’re working with infrared photography, the light is refracted slightly differently, and you may actually need to focus past what is ‘infinity’ for daylight.

Anyway, your lens at infinity, set your mode dial to Av, and select a large-ish aperture. f/8 or f/11 is a good starting point.

Select as low an ISO mode you can get away with (bearing in mind the rule about hand-holding your camera, above, or just go ahead and use a tripod), and bob’s your uncle.

If you want to get advanced, and you need a very deep depth of field - say, for example - you want a person in the foreground, but you also want the background in focus - read up on ‘Hyperfocal distance’ and prepare to be amazed.

Portraiture

Photo: Shaken, Not Stirred by me on Flickr

I can’t believe they created a separate thing for portraiture - do a search on Flickr for portraiture, and see what comes up. How can they possibly assume that one single mode fits all styles of portraiture?

Anywhoo - for getting good portraits, start with a reasonably long lens (130mm or so is perfect), stand back a little, use a large-ish aperture (f/4 or so) to throw the background out of focus, and start from there.

Full automatic

This mode will select whether you use a flash or not, your ISO speed, your shutter speed and your aperture for you. It reduces your nice, expensive dSLR camera to nothing more than a big point-and-shoot. If I ever catch you (yes, you, I’m looking at you) with your camera set to the fully automatic mode, I’m afraid I’m going to have to ban you from visiting this site ever again.

Go on, live a little, flick your mode dial one notch clockwise, and enter the world of Program mode. The camera still does most of the thinking for you, but at least you are controlling it, rather than the other way around.

P - Program mode

Is one step up from automatic mode - and I confess to using it on occasion: The photographer selects everything except the aperture and shutter time, which the camera calculates for you. If it comes up with a combination of the two you don’t like, use your index finger wheel to change them - turn one way and you’ll see the aperture get smaller and the shutter speeds get faster - and vice-versa for turning it the other way, obviously. Use EV compensation to over- or under-expose your images a little, etc.

Program mode is great if you just want to get the right exposure, and you’re concentrating on just getting the photo, without worrying too much about depth of field etc. I know quite a few news photographers (!) who decided that manual mode was too finicky for them, and are shooting in programme mode most of the time. If it’s good enough for the national press, it’s good enough for me.

Tv - Shutter-speed priority AE mode

In Tv-mode, you dial in a shutter speed (say, 1/200 second), and the camera will attempt to get the ‘correct’ exposure by using the aperture to compensate for varying lighting situations.

… Interestingly, I very rarely use Tv mode, but that’s mostly because if I find myself in a situation where I want to actually control the shutter speed directly, I’m already shooting in fully manual.

One situation where it might be handy is if you’re shooting sports - say, rally racing - where you know you want a fast shutter speed, but the light can change quickly. The other situation I can think of is if you’re panning (i.e. a bicyclist comes flying past you, and you want to get them in focus while the background is out of focus), and you need a slightly slower shutter speed.

One thing to be aware of is that most lenses have a far more limited aperture range than your camera has a shutter time range. Think about it: your camera can do from several minute exposures to a fraction of a second, while your lens will only usefully span a much lower range. If you’re shooting in Tv, keep an eye on which apertures your camera is selecting for you, because if it’s getting too big, some of your photos might come out over-exposed

Av - Aperture priority AE mode

Av mode is the opposite of Tv mode, above: You select the aperture, and the camera calculates the right shutter time. Generally, I shoot either in Av or in fully manual, because for most of my photography, the depth of field (i.e. how much of the photo is in focus) is more important to me than whether the motion is frozen or not.

You get a deep depth of field by selecting a small aperture (f/22, f/32), or a shallow depth of field by selecting a big aperture (f/1.8, f/2.8).

When shooting in Av mode, still keep an eye on your shutter times - if they are very fast without you needing them to be, you may be able to use a slower ISO (switching from ISO 400 to ISO 200), which gives images with less noise. If they’re very slow, your photos might be coming out blurry, and you may want to ramp up the ISO or use a slightly larger aperture.

M - Manual

Go on. Try it for a week. You’ll love it. This is photography at its most control-freakishly delicious.

A-DEP: Automatic depth of field

Is just plain weird. The idea is that you focus on the point that is furthest away, then on the point that is closest to you, and the camera will then focus and select the aperture you need for you. Basically, it’s using the Hyperfocal Distance (mentioned above, under landscapes), but in an automatic way which is actually more complicated to wrap your head around than just doing it yourself in the first place.

I think I can honestly say that I’ve never, ever used A-DEP before in my life, and that I don’t think I ever will. Give me manual exposure and a bit of guesswork any day of the week :-)

Go forth! Prosper!

So, in summary, what I would love for you to do is to reduce your photography to only 4 of the modes above: P, Tv, Av, M. if you’re feeling particularly hardcore, limit yourself to Av and M only.

And if you are a truly epic photographer with skillz beyond my wildest dreams, set your camera to M and pry the button off altogether. Chuck it away. You’ve graduated. Nothing’s gonna stop you now!