How to Get Started With the Ghost Blogging Platform

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If you’re looking for a new way to publish your content, you might want to consider using Ghost instead of other, more featured blogging platforms. It doesn’t try to be a jack-of-all-trades. Instead it focuses on publishing and displaying content – which offers some benefits for a savvy blogger.

What is Ghost?

The Ghost blogging platform is the brainchild of John O’Nolan. Ghost was first conceived in 2012 in a blog post while O’Nolan was working for WordPress on the User Interface team. He felt WordPress had moved away from its blogging roots to focus more on its functionality as a content management system. Something simpler and more elegant seemed like a solution that was increasingly needed as WordPress became more than just a blogging platform. [Read more…]

2017 Most Unique and Friendliest CMS for Small Businesses

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Content Management Systems (CMS) are very critical to the management of contents on small business websites. The friendliest CMS for small businesses are not just designed to upload and manage contents, they are more flexible and offer much better customized support for business owners. The best small business friendly CMS brands online today include the following;

#1: Opencart

Beginners will definitely enjoy this open source CMS because of its incredible simplicity. You don’t have to be a technology guru in order to start using this open source CMS, there are lots of plugins that has been designed to handle all complex procedures and you can start operating your store without the knowledge of coding. The simplicity of this CMS makes it one of the best for newbie online store operators. You may want to click on https://www.magenet.com/best-cms-2017/, to learn more about this open source. [Read more…]

Blogger’s Guide to Creative Commons: In Pictures

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Bloggers are inevitably obsessed with the topic of creative commons, and if they aren’t yet, they will be soon. Why? Well, if you have ever seen the cost of subscriptions for stock photo sights, you wouldn’t have to ask that question. They are expensive, often offer nothing special and in general don’t cut it for most casual bloggers that don’t want to spend cash on what is essentially a place for their thoughts.

Using public domain or CC licensed content is the perfect way around that. You can use photos and videos as you like, not worrying about the cost or being sued for copyright. Which is ever bloggers wost nightmare, thanks to the many horror stories we are subjected to on the web. [Read more…]

WordPress MU, GPL and Paywalls

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It started with a 16-word comment, a reply to a commenter on Weblogs Tools Collection that had lamented not being able to afford a WordPress MU plugin that was being offered as a premium service by WPMU.org for $79. The comment simply said the following:

It would be nice if someone entered in the contest plugins that do everything theirs do.

However, the comment came from WordPress founder Matt Mullenweg and that caused a hailstorm of controversy, including a blog post from James Farmer the founder of Incsub, a WordPress MU community, Edublogs, a blog hosting platform based upon WordPress MU and WPMU.org, a WordPress MU community site with free and premium elements.

Farmer accused Mullenweg of wishing that the company would “bust” and the heated exchange continued in the blog comments.

The case shows exactly how heated and volatile the mixture of open source and business cane be sometimes. When community-driven projects meet with business interests the relationship is rarely smooth and perfect, even though the two need each other to survive. [Read more…]

The GPL and Your Work

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HeckertThis is final part of the Blog Herald’s Guide to the GPL License series. You can read part one, part two and part three here.

Over the course of this series, we’ve taken a look at what the GPL is, why using GPLed blogging software is important and how the GPL impacts some of the more common peripherals and add-ons to most blogging software. However, one of the most critical aspects of the GPL remains to be looked at, what is one’s own requirements under the GPL when they use such licensed code.

Of all the elements of the GPL, this is perhaps the most important. The idea of free software means little is users are unable to use GPLed code or build upon it. However, with those rights does come responsibilities that must be addressed.

An understanding of this is especially vita with blogging software as changes are more easily made, even by novice programmers, and the desire to customize and improve ones blogging platform is almost ubiquitous among those managing their sites. This combination leads to a large amount of tinkering, but by those often unaware of their obligations under the GPL.

However, in this post we’re going to talk about what your obligations are under the GPL and, make it simple to follow both the letter and the spirit of the license. [Read more…]

The GPL and Themes/Plugins

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HeckertThis is a continuation of the Blog Herald’s Guide to the GPL License series. You can read part one and part two here.

One of the more common misconceptions about the GPL is that it is “viral” in nature and can “infect” any software that touches it.

While it is true that the GPL does have a viral component, it is only to ensure that derivative works based upon GPLed code are also released to the GPL. It is possible, and even common, for GPL applications and proprietary ones to co-exist side by side. For example, there are many proprietary programs, including Skype and MyDropBox, that run on Linux, which is GPLed.

However, when one delves into plugins and and themes, something of a gray area begins to emerge. Though a WordPress theme, for example, might not be based upon a GPL theme, it relies upon a GPL application to function. As such, it has been widely held that they are GPL-licensed, even if they haven’t been explicitly licensed as such. [Read more…]

Why GPL Blogging Software is Important

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HeckertThis is a continuation of the Blog Herald’s Guide to the GPL License series. You can read the first part here.

It is easy to see why GPLed software would be of great interest to developers. GPL software, though not always free in terms of the money charged, always has to come with its source code and the ability to edit and customize the work.

This means that, if a developer obtains a GPLed application and needs to fix a bug or add a feature, they can do so. They are then free to distribute the fix under the same terms and, in doing so, are ensured that all future modifications are treated the same way. [Read more…]

The Basics of the GPL

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HeckertThere has been a lot of talk and a lot of confusion in blogging circles, especially among WordPress users, about the GNU General Public License or GPL as it is more commonly known.

When most people think of the GPL, they immediately think of Linux, Firefox (which actually uses several licenses, including the GPL) or other well-known programs that use it. However, several blogging platforms are also GPL including WordPress and Open Melody, a fork of Six Apart’s Open Movable Type project.

Over the next few weeks, we’re going to take a look at the GPL, what it is, what it means and, most importantly why it is important to bloggers and those who are running Web sites on open source platforms (including, for example, phpBB).

To start off, we’re going to talk about some of the basic premises of the GPL, what the actual license says and what your freedoms and rights are with GPLed software. [Read more…]