Happy Fav Five Friday!

Masters of Social Media are putting “Social” into Media while personalities shine!

I am writing this because I realize that sometimes I forget basic social graces when communicating in the social media world.  A few days ago my close friend emails me a message.  A few minutes later she emails me again.  About an hour later she calls me and asks me if I saw her email.  I told her that I thought I saw something in my inbox that looked like it might of been for me from her email address.  The body of the two emails were never addressed to me.  There was nothing toward the top like “Good morning Dan”, “Hello Dan”, “hi dan”, matter of fact, my name was not there at all.  No “Hey, how’s it going?”,  just plowing right into the announcement, like spam mail.  No signature toward the bottom.  I barely pay attention to my email because of social media, especially tools like Twitter.  I believe if it’s really that important, I will get an instant message, a tweet, or a phone call, just like this day.  I am using email less because I am committed to social media.

I am amazed with the people I have met in the social media world

I have the social graces of a backward 12 year old, but I’m learning.  I have surrounded myself with mentors, I read something to improve these skills everyday, and I talk with people to get all the help I need.  Here are some resources that will help you on your successful path to understanding social media.

Fav Five Friday’s Resources for tapping into your personality for improving the social side of social media

1. Get on the Clue Train! I never get tired of reading this over,  I discover something new every time.
2. Connect with Warren Witlock @WarrenWhitlock | http://twitterhandbook.com/ He is a great guy and has helped me with some great tips on Twitter.
3. Connect with Mari Smith @MariSmith | http://whyfacebook.com/She puts “Social” into Social Media.
4. Connect with Lorelle VanFossen @lorelleonwp | http://lorelle.wordpress.com Take your blogging skills to the next level.
5. Connect with Chris Brogan @chrisbrogan | http://www.chrisbrogan.com Find your voice in business.

Bonus

If you would like to add social media buttons & badges to your site, then you may want to take a look at these http://www.10e20.com/blog/2009/02/17/ultimate-how-to-social-media-buttons-tools-and-badges-resource/

Bonus Video about being more social

We would love to hear from you, please share your social media experience here.

Tags: Blogging, Social Media, Twitter, Web Strategy, WordPress

Getting Dreamweaver to open template files

Adobe Dreamweaver makes coding easier with it’s color coding and auto-complete features. I use the Zend Framework on many of my projects and I wanted to take advantage of features in Dreamweaver for my template files that have an extension of .tpl that are basically PHP files. Here’s how I added the file type to Dreamweaver.

• Open Dreamweaver
• Open Edit>Preferences
• Select “File Types / Editor”
• Add .tpl to items in “Open in Code View”
• Click “OK”

Updating your Dreamweaver Extension File

Open Extensions.txt in the Configuration directory where you installed Dreamweaver. Adobe Dreamweaver default install directory is “/Program Files/Adobe/Adobe Dreamweaver{version}/Configuration”.

Open Extensions.txt with your text editor (notepad). You should see a line towards the top of the files that ends in “:All Documents”. Update this to “,TPL:All Documents”. Note the extension is added in uppercase without a period. Now look for a line that ends with “:PHP Files”. Update this to “,TPL:PHP Files”. Save this file.

Updating your Dreamweaver Document Types

Open “Configuration\DocumentTypes\MMDocumentTypes.xml” in your text editor. Update the documenttype section with the id of “PHP_MySQL”. Add “tpl” to the winfileextension list. Add “tpl” to the macfileextension list. Save this file.

Zend Template files treated as PHP files in Dreamweaver

Open your template files (.tpl) in Adobe Dreamweaver. Now Dreamweaver will treat these files as PHP files and give you the proper color-coding & PHP auto-complete features.

Using this technique with Smarty, Drupal, Zend, & other file types

You can use these same steps to help Dreamweaver understand your other file types. I have other file type associated with PHP in Dreamweaver. I use .phtml files for a template engine and other special extensions for a wide variety of Content Management Systems.

Associating these file types with the right tools has improved my work flow and I hope it helps you. Please feel free to share your tips here.

Tags: dreamweaver, Frameworks, smarty, Zend Framework

Zend Demo Videos: Fav Five Friday

Happy Friday!  I have been helping people with web-based solutions for years.  Some of my projects have included simple brochure type of web sites, others have been dynamic, database driven web sites with a huge number of people rapidly accessing components while expecting instant responses from the application.  Most of this code has been written in PHP with tools like Adobe Dreamweaver.  A while back I posted an article about installing the Zend Framework and a quick article about “New Zend Demo – Developing Rich Internet Applications (RIAs)“.  Zend has an endless amount of tools, training, education, & resources to help you with your social media platform development, which should be part of your Enterprise 2.0 strategy.

Using Zend Studio to develop your Social Media Platform for your Enterprise 2.0 Solution

When developing PHP Solutions for Social Media Platforms, I prefer a robust toolset to help create exciting user interfaces, especially in the Enterprise.

I found these videos very helpful and I just wanted to share them with you to hopefully help you in your quest for developing rich internet applications for your social media platforms.

Zend Demo Videos

• Unlock the Value of Your PHP Applications
• Zend Studio for Eclipse – Getting Started
• Zend Framework and Ajax Webinar
• Zend Framework and Dojo
• Zend Framework Google data PHP Client Update

Happy Fav Five Friday!

What’s your favorite Zend?

Tags: Enterprise 2.0, Web Strategy, Zend, Zend Framework