Nur Ahmad Furlong

Islamic Experience Designer

Writing

WordPress Media Management Overhaul in 3.5

By Leave a Comment

I’m super excited to see the new developments planned for the 3.5 release of WordPress. People have been requesting a more user friendly experience in the WordPress Media Management department for some time and rightly so, considering the platform is used so much nowadays for managing all kinds of web media. Have a look at the user flow slides below.

A Much More User Friendly media popup

I’m specifically looking forward to a much more intuitive image editing interface which helps control thumbnail cropping and image sizing better for working with featured images in custom themes which require this.

WordPress 3.5 Is earmarked for release in Early December, so the year looks set for a fantastic ending in the WordPress department. New Year’s resolution my side – Blog Much Much More!

I Spotted this on WPCandy, a Site Dedicated to following WordPress developments quite closely. WPCandy is a great resources for Tips, reviews and other interesting news on WordPress.

Earn Cash by Referring WordPress Course Students

By Leave a Comment

I’ve got my next WordPress Course being planned in Cape Town but just for the life of me can’t find the time to work on marketing, so I’ve decided to offer referal commissions for anyone referring paying students. I’ve used the nice little Affiliate plugin for setting up a simple affiliate program.

The plugin allows for the creation of affiliate accounts where each affiliate user get’s their own link ID which they can use to promote your product or service. You can then use their built in widget to track leads through a contact widget on the referred page. It tracks clicks(hits) to the page and also referrals for those who complete the contact form.

I’ve got some pretty good results from just a few affiliates already who have sent me some healthy traffic to my course page and for each completed and paid signup I’m offering a 15% commission, which is quite a nice percentage for just sharing a link.

Become an affiliate and earn some cash

If you’d like to help us promote WP BootCamp sign up as an affiliate and we’ll send you your unique affiliate link. Click here to register.

Strategic Communications Consultant The-Colab.com (Present)

By Leave a Comment

Period: 2008 – Present

www.the-colab.com

The Colab, currently registered as Colab Communications is an Ethically Focused Communications Agency which helps you develop people friendly communications strategies. Using Design, On and Offline Media, and a collaborative approach, I help bring people and companies closer together. I want to help create healthy web brands and a positive society.

I founded The-Colab.com after spending 8 months on a Business Development Program Known as VeloCITI hosted at the bandwidth Barn in Cape Town. The Colab stands for Communications Lab and is a play on the word collaboration because of the approach we use in collaborating with complimentary skilled individuals and companies in order to produce the products and services we create.

I’ve just recently hosted my own WordPress & Web Development Course which ran over a period of about 6 weeks and saw a group of individuals with little or no web skills through the process of learning to build their own websites from complete scratch.

WordPress Super Survival Skills Course Cape Town

By 2 Comments

My First Independent WordPress Course – Cape Town

I’ve finally mustered up enough motivation to launch my own independent Public WordPress Course in Cape Town. I’ve been wanting to do this for ages since I’ve been teaching WordPress Development since 2008 privately, within companies and on behalf of Friends of Design Cape Town.

It a litte, ok maybe alot of prodding from Faye Elliot, one of the delegates who attended my WordCamp Cape Town Presentation last year. I have to say a big thank you to Faye as I was making up all kinds of excuses why now wasn’t the right time. It’s amazing what an enormous effort it can be to get a small little course up and running especially when you have to find an additional 4 or 5 hours in an already jam packed schedule.

Lot’s of Interest in the WordPress Course

I hosted a Free Introductory Presentation to the course this evening at my favourite Coffee Spot, Escape Caffe in Bree Street Cape Town. We has a few people attend, not massive turnout but everyone present registered to take the course so it’s starting off with a bang already.

We’ve secured a great venue at 200 on Main Claremont. Appropriately at the Executive Wellness Centre’s Gym Studio so I’ll be putting the WordPress students through their paces. There’ll be a few punching bags lying around when the code starts getting to your head.

A Quick Outline of Course Modules:

WordPress Newbie Bridging Session Date: April 12 1 Session R350
WordPress Site Administration Dates: April 16,19 2 Sessions R600
HTML & CSS Dates: April 23, 26, 30 & May 3, 7 5 Sessions R1600
WordPress Theme Coding Dates: May 10, 14, 17, 21, 24 5 Sessions R1600

Venue

200 on Main Building, 198 Main Road, Claremont, Cape Town – (Executive Wellness Centre Studio)

Times

6pm – 9pm

You can tell your spouse you’re going to gym and you won’t be lying

For Full Details & Registration Visit the Course Info Page – http://www.the-colab.com/wordpress-course-survival-skills

Selling my Web, Strategy, Creativity, Productivity Books

By 2 Comments

I’m not a big reader when it comes to novels and function in general, I just find the fantasy a bit of a waste of time to be honest. But when it comes to books covering practical knowledge on the stuff that matters to me, I’m a bit OCD.

So i’ve been trying to clear out some of the books I haven’t been using in a while and I found a set of real gems from my Web, Strategy, Creativity, Productivity collection. Each of these books has played a major role in helping me get to grips with the range of subjects I need to keep myself informed on as a Web & Creative Professional.

These books cover a wide range of subjects from Coding & Coding Standards, to Productivity, Time Management, Marketing & Communications Strategy, Web Strategy, Usability, Creative Thinking. The information contained in these books should be enough to get any web novice up to speed with the principles and methods needed to dive straight into the web industry. They’re also a great resource or reference for anyone working in this industry or teaching/presenting on these topics.

  1. The Open Brand: When Push Comes to Pull in a Web-Made World
  2. Six Thinking Hats – EDWARD DE BONO
  3. Lateral Thinking: A Textbook of Creativity – Edward De Bono
  4. The 4-Hour Work Week and Timothy Ferriss
  5. The Truth about Email Marketing – Jenkins
  6. rework – 37 Signals
  7. don’t make me think – Steve Krug – New Riders
  8. building findable websites – New Riders
  9. Introducing HTML5 – Lawson Sharp – New Riders
  10. Designing for Web Standards – Second Edition – Jeffrey Zeldman
  11. The Ultimate CSS Reference – Sitepoint
  12. A Designer’s Research Manual – Jenn + Ken Visocky O’Grady
  13. eMarketing eXellence – Chaffey Smith – Third Edition
  14. Starting & Running a Successful Consultancy – How To Books
  15. The Art & Science of CSS – Sitepoint
  16. Logo Lounge 2 – Rockport

I’m planning on selling this entire stash to the highest bidder to make space for some new material.