A: with the very awesome Wordpress MU blogging platform and the even more awesome WPMUDEV site that makes professionalism so very easy…
Homeschool HUB is a very new, very exciting venture for me and, potentially, homeschoolers nation wide here in South Africa. After starting the Homeschool Western Cape group in Facebook, I felt frustrated that it was only open to people who were actually on Facebook. There seemed to be no sites open to the public that were interactive, informative and completely devoted to homeschooling. Which is where the idea of the HUB arose.
The trick, however, was building a website with my very limited knowledge. I do not know code. The very little I do know I’ve kind of figured out over time, like learning a foreign language simply by being immersed in it. So, how was I going to build the website of my vision?
This is where WPMUDEV comes in. The Hayes Happenings blog is built on the Wordpress platform. And I knew that I could work with this blogging platform to make a halfway decent site that could represent my vision. But, I didn’t know how close to my ideal it could be, until I stumbled upon WPMUDEV.
Suddenly my fledging attempts were blown out of the water and I was presented with a whole new world of excellent themes, plugins and (very important) support! WPMU have excellent, slick, professional "out-of-the-box" themes that work, beautifully.
It didn’t take much persuasion for me to sign up for a 1 month membership. Since the HUB is a sideline community service, I can’t afford to throw tons of money at it. Actually, truth be told, we can’t afford to throw money anywhere! But, because WPMUDEV impressed me so much, I decided to see if I could use them to build a site from scratch to "live" in less than one month.
And I succeeded! Thanks to WPMUDEV’s awesome themes and plugins, and VERY prompt support forums, I was able to build a website in my "after hours" and have it ready for launch in just under a month. It’s not perfectly user-friendly yet – but that is mostly due to my inexperience and a couple of server issues.
Why am I telling you all this?
Well, aside from dispelling any false idea that I am some kind of tech guru (wahahahah!), I’ve just heard of a great competition that WPMUDEV is running. To celebrate their 98, 99 and 100th plugins, WPMUDEV are giving away annual membership subscriptions worth over $400! Yip, I can score a year’s membership with WPMUDEV just by outlining my favourite plugins…! So here goes…
The HUB is built on the Buddypress Scholar theme. Every theme from WPMU has a really easy user interface to change things like fonts, colours, links, social 
media links et cetera.
Plugins
But, even better, are the really exciting plugins. What is a plugin? Quite simply, it’s an extra tool that enhances the functioning of the website. You simply download the "plugin", pop it into the plugin file and wallah – a new feature is enabled on your site. The HUB has plenty! From enabling people to send their posts to Facebook (facestream plugin) to having an Events Calendar to which any member can add an event … the HUB quickly became closer to my vision than I even dreamed to envision!
Here is the lowdown on 3 of my favourite plugins…
Events Calendar: every group in the members’ section of the HUB has its very own Calendar. That means that all members can be easily made aware of every outing, homeschool event, new show in town et cetera. All members can add or edit events and all events are linked to a widget (similar to a plugin, but it is specific to the information one can see in the sidebars and footers). The Calendar widget then displays all the latest events on the website’s sidebars.
Mailchimp integration: Mailchimp is a really great mailing programme that allows you to set up classy looking, spam-free newsletters to send to your mailing list. It’s all strictly regulated and no one is opted on without their knowledge. WPMUDEV has developed a great plugin that integrates my website with my newsletter mailing list. I love it!
Forums: The HUB has a place for people to chat, just like any regular forum. They’re linked to groups and, yet, are also independent. It was so incredibly easy to set this up. No fancy tech language needed. Plug it in – there we go!
There are just short of 100 plugins that will enhance any Wordpress site – from the simplest blog to the most content-heavy media sites, you will find essential plugins at WPMUDEV, including site-wide SEO; making money; tracking code and much much more!
Check it out here, maybe you too would like to win a year membership with these guys!
Stop by and say hi!
by Taryn on 29. Aug, 2010 in blogging, opinions
A couple of days ago, I added the feedjit widget again, now that it actually works a little more accurately than before! And then the curiosity bug bit again (it did a while ago when I realised that there were a bunch of Safrican regulars whom I just did not know). This time, I’m super curious to know how people land up here at our blog and what they’re reading/enjoying/not enjoying/etc.
Sometimes I post a craft that I hope someone else may benefit from. Sometimes it’s a product review that I notice gets a few hits from google searches. Sometimes I worry that I’m coming across as got-it-all together and wonder if that’s how it is being received.
In each circumstance, I’m curious to know what you, the reader, is thinking. So, this is THE post – appealing to you all to drop a comment if you stop by here at Hayes Happenings. For whatever reason, for example…
Whatever your reason for landing here, I’d love to "meet" you or hear more about how you came to stop by here. So, take a moment or two, click on the blue comments link at the end of this post and say hi!