Over the last few weeks, I’ve had the very fun experience of building a social network using BuddyPress. I was pleased to find that it all comes together easily and, with the help of some great plugins and custom code, it’s a very good option for any client who wants to create a niche social network. It’s also a great solution for internal networks - I can see how it would work well for a college, or any organization that wants to have a central meeting place for its members. If you haven’t heard of BuddyPress yet, head on over to BuddyPress.org to check it out.

I thought I’d share some of the plugins I used as well as some tips for creating the best user experience. (All of this assumes a good working knowledge of WordPress.) Read the rest of this entry »

I have two Twitter accounts - one for the design business and one for a more personal nutrition blog. I’ve been noticing that people in the nutrition community talk to each other on Twitter all the time - they respond to tweets and actively participate in the community. However, the design community posts seem to be mostly self promotion and link-sharing (often not to original content) just to maintain a certain frequency of posting. There’s very little communication. Tweets with questions tend to go unanswered and I don’t see nearly as many @ reples. I think we in the design community need to balance things out a little more and remember the “community” part of the picture. I’m guilty of it too. On a busy day it’s much easier to just put a link up than it is to talk with others, write something original, or help someone troubleshoot an issue.

Personally, I think it’s better to tweet less frequently and put up quality content than it is to post a link to something that’s already been tweeted 500 times. Self promotion has its place. It’s important to share what you’re working on, post launch announcements, and share your excitement when you land a new client, but it’s also important to share some knowledge or advice when another developer is lost and asking for help or suggestions. We all tend to be very busy and our work is stressful, but the value of human exchange is worth the time and effort.

This is just one of the tools I’m excited about in CS5. I can’t wait to play with it! I’m also looking forward to the Content-Aware Fill in Photoshop and CSS Inspect Mode with Live View in Dreamweaver. From what I’ve seen so far, this looks like an exciting release.