What are Tag Clouds?

This may seem like an easily answered question to many of you in the bloggosphere, but many others are not familiar with the concept of tag clouds.  I thought it would be a good idea to give some of you quick explanation of the concept of tag clouds.

So what are tag clouds and why are they important? I want you to look at it this way:

Every bit of content added to a site, be it videos, images, blog posts, articles, can be "Tagged" with keywords. Take this for example.   I upload a photo to my "wall."  There will be a field called Description which allows me to enter the description of the photo. 

For example: I upload a picture of a red rose.  I can type in the description: "This is a hybrid red rose grown in my science class."  Also on the screen would be a field called "Tags."  It is here that I can type in short keywords "classifying" this photo.

In this case my tags would be: flowers, science experiments, hybrid

Next, I can write a blog post.  This post will have some elements tied to it.  For example, a title field which is the title of the blog post, the story field; which is the whole blog post, and the Tag field, which I can type in short keywords classifying this blog post.

For example: I write a blog post titled "How Hybrid cars can save the world"  and the story would be something about hybrid cars and how they work and how they are good for the environment. Now and can add Tags to classify this blog post.   In this case I could tag the story with "hybrid, electricity, green, cars"

Here is an screenshot from my Wordpress Add New Post screen…notice the Post Tags section to the right:

So now, with this added content, my tag cloud would display ALL of the tags  "flowers, science experiments, hybrid, electricity, green, cars." BUT since there are more tags for hybrid, the tag cloud would display all of the tags, but the tag Hybrid would display in a larger, bolder font.  The more content that is added and tagged with the keyword Hybrid, the bigger and darker the word Hybrid would get.

This gives visitors an indication of what is popular on the site…the bigger and bolder tags indicated the most popular content.  Here is the tag cloud from tonyrocks.com:

When you click on any of the tags in the tag cloud, you are presented with a list of all content associated with that tag (similar to a Google search engine result). My blog tag cloud says that Twitter and SEO are the most popular content items on my site.

Pittsburgh Drupal Meeting August 26!

This Wednesday the 26th will be the next Pittsburgh Drupal user group meeting at Brillobox!  I hope to see all of you there, going to be a good time.  Link Clark puts on an awesome show. 

The tentative schedule is this:

6:00-7:00 Food, Drinks, hanging out
7:00-7:30 Discuss developments in Drupal Pittsburgh planning
7:30-8:00 Show and tell
8:00-9:00 Presentations

If you have any questions, feel free to visit the Drupal Group Pittsburgh site to learns a bits more.

Configuring Drupal to Use an External SMTP Server

Many of you Windows folks who are already running Drupal already know how to use SMTP with Drupal…mostly because Windows hosted servers typically don’t run Sendmail.   So why Tony, why, even though you are running a Linux box, Drupal and sendmail, do you want to use an external SMTP server?

Simple…it seems that not all of my emails get delivered.  Why is this? You know how when you create a contact form in PHP and you have to Spoof the headers to say the email is coming from that person…even though it is not? Well, a ton of spam destroying boxes out there don’t really like that.  In fact, chances are PLENTY of your emails being sent are not evening making it to the intended recipient.

What I really need is a reliable email delivery service that I can extend off of Drupal so i know that my emails are being delivered. I ran across (thanks to a good buddy of mine) DNS Exit with provides a slick mail relay outbound service. *The service can be also used as Smart Host for your MS Exchange server that having problems to send emails to AOL/Yahoo/Hotmail addresses.

So anyways, the service cost some money, but it is worth it in the end if you want to be sure that your emails are getting delivered.

So now that is ready to go, the next step is to turn on SMTP Authentication Support in Drupal.  The module allows Drupal to bypass the PHP mail() function (and also doesn’t require you to configure sendmail to use SMTP instead of sendmail).  This module requires you to also grab a copy of Phpmailer, which contains all of the classes needed to send an smtp message.  All of the instructions are in the readme file…but as an overview here is what you have to do:

1.  Copy the files included in the tarball into a directory named "smtp" in
    your Drupal sites/all/modules/ directory.
2.  Download the PHPMailer package (the URL is listed in REQUIREMENTS section f the README.txt file) and place it in a directory named "phpmailer" in
    your <drupal-root>/sites/all/modules/smtp directory.
3.  Login as site administrator.
4.  Enable the SMTP Authentication Support module on the Administer -> Site
    building -> Modules page.
5.  Fill in required settings on the Administer -> Site configuration -> SMTP
    Authentication Support page.

That is pretty much it.  Now that will cover all core emailing tools, but you know how Drupal is…so easy to let you write your own PHP code.  You may be using a custom form that doesn’t use the core Drupal mailing routines.  If that is the case, well I’ve come to your rescue.  Below is a quick and dirty SMTP mail doo-hickey (some call it a mailing class…this one is from Sendmail:

function SendMail($ToName, $ToEmail, $FromName, $FromEmail, $Subject, $Body, $Header)
{
$SMTP = fsockopen("yourdnsrelayprovider.com", 25); <–Sometimes port 25 is blocked

$InputBuffer = fgets($SMTP, 1024);

fputs($SMTP, "HELO mydomain.com\n");
$InputBuffer = fgets($SMTP, 1024);
fputs($SMTP, "MAIL From: $FromEmail\n");
$InputBuffer = fgets($SMTP, 1024);
fputs($SMTP, "RCPT To: $ToEmail\n");
$InputBuffer = fgets($SMTP, 1024);
fputs($SMTP, "DATA\n");
$InputBuffer = fgets($SMTP, 1024);
fputs($SMTP, "$Header");
fputs($SMTP, "From: $FromName <$FromEmail>\n");
fputs($SMTP, "To: $ToName <$ToEmail>\n");
fputs($SMTP, "Subject: $Subject\n\n");
fputs($SMTP, "$Body\r\n.\r\n");
fputs($SMTP, "QUIT\n");
$InputBuffer = fgets($SMTP, 1024);
fclose($SMTP);
}
?>

So now, all you have to do for it to work is call the function like this:

$ToName="To Name";
$ToEmail="To@email.com";
$FromName = "My Name is…";
$FromEmail = "MyFrom@email.com";
$Subject = "I’m testing emails with PHP";
$Body = "Hi Strongbad, this is just a test message.";
echo $ToEmail;

SendMail($ToName, $ToEmail, $FromName, $FromEmail, $Subject, $Body, $Header);

Pittsburgh Drupal Group

I’ve been a strong proponent of using either Joomla or Wordpress as the basis of any content management platform.  I’ve done some work in the past with Drupal but found it to be a little clunky and cluttered for my taste.  However last night I was able to attend the Pittsburgh Drupal Group held at Brillobox and I’ve gotta say that Lin Clark, possibly the smartest girl in Pittsburgh,  really showed me some cool stuff that has got me thinking…maybe i should dabble a little more.

Out of the box, the Drupal administration section is hard to grasp.  So many options, so many links, so much terminology.  However after attending the meeting i was able to see that there are quite a few modules that can be plugged in to change the look and feel of the administration section of Drupal.

If you really want to see what Drupal has to offer AND you life in the Pittsburgh area, I strongly suggest heading to the Pittsburgh Drupal User Group (Meet Up) website to keep updated.

I think the next step for me, obviously is to see how I can take Drupal and run with it to be an SEO powerhouse to promote my chiseled jaw secrets :)

Self Aggregating Wordpress Tool

As you know, I don’t promote many products. Frankly, most aren’t worth the time. But, every now and then one comes along that REALLY blows me away.  Ok, maybe I lied just a bit, because you know I DO promote quite a few products…this one however is stinking awesome.

Many of you are in the business to blog for profit, but can’t find the time to post those articles.  Well, this tool does it for you.  All you need is a Wordpress blog, a few affiliate links and blammo, you’ve got instant aggregate Wordpress blog, complete with your plugged in affiliate codes…on autopilot! This is easily the most profitable tool I’ve seen all year.

BlogProfitz was launched a month ago to a select group of marketers. These marketers ranged from total beginner to genuine expert. I’ve been using it over on http://japanese.emailfriends.com to supplement my posts with affiliate links and I’ve got to say that it is working!

If you have a blog:
BlogProfitz enables you to add a completely new level of monetization to your blogs – earning more the traffic you already have.

If you’re an affiliate marketer:
BP is the fastest way I’ve EVER seen to develop new traffic/revenue sources.

As you’ll see on their site, BlogProfitz takes 5 minutes or less to fully monetize and build an affiliate blog. Literally. This is not a flagrant misrepresentation or a statement to just sell you on the system. It really is that fast.

BlogProfitz will…

1. Add thousands of targeted affiliate products to any Wordpress blog, fully monetizing your site in less than 5 minutes.

2. Display targeted videos, articles (from our private database of 15k) and news to your blogs for more content and reader value.

3. BP is integrated with with CommissionJunction, Clickbank, Affiliatebot, Amazon, eBay, YouTube, Regnow, Overstock, Paydotcom, and more.

4. BlogProfitz can be used on any blog, new or existing.

I’ve never seen any tool so easy to use, of such a simple concept, that makes such a profound impact on its users’ businesses.

BlogProfitz is helping its users earn more right now. They’re earning more from the traffic they already have, getting more and better search engine rankings, increasing their websites’ value, increasing readership, increasing retention, increasing traffic, giving their readers more and making more money because of it. They’re doing ALL of this with 1, simple service. It’s happening right now. And it could be happening to YOU.

Grab your copy today and see how quick and easy it is to automatically post articles to your blog and to make the cash you’ve been expecting with it from affiliate marketing.