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Setting up a Webcomic on WordPress

Code

As I mentioned earlier, I recently helped my friend Jake set up a website for his comics. I decided to use WordPress, and it is working really great.  I thought some other people might be trying to do something similar, and wanted to share what worked and hasn’t worked so far for me.

Why WordPress

I chose WordPress because I wanted something that would be simple to post, could handle images well, had a good editor and would be easy to customize. At the end of the day, wordpress was the best choice because I could get a very customizable site in a fraction of the time it would take me to write it by hand, especially when you start looking at more advanced features.

Advantages

Image Handling (One click resizing)
Archiving
Design Options (Easy to change with themes)
Built in RSS
Lots of Plugs Ins, especially for Social Media
Ease of use

Now on to the good stuff:

The Plug-ins

Plug-ins are probably the best thing about WordPress, here are the ones that I found particularly useful:

Askimnet
Hands down a must for any blog, does a great job of filtering spam easily

All in One SEO Pack
Again, a standard install for any wordpress site I set up, decent SEO out of the box and makes customizing per post very easy.

FeedBurner Feedsmith Extend
A nice plug-in for redirecting your various default feeds to your feedburner feed.

Google Analyticator
I like this over other plug-ins because it gives you a little preview in the wordpress admin of your recent stats.

Quick Cache
With all of the images that a webcomic is going to be serving up, any help you can get performance wise is great.  This plu g in also makes flusing the cache really simple, which is great for when you are developing with it.

RSS Image Feed
By default, WordPress doesn’t include images in your RSS feed, a bit of an issue for a webcomic. This fixes it, although if the entire post is just an image, it can be a bit flaky.

Share and Follow
Give you a ton of options for adding share this buttons and badges. Mix and match to your hearts desire, I settled on Facebook and Twitter at the bottom of every post, but you could add a lot more.

Simple Facebook Connect
Again, lots of options, I used it to auto post to the webcomic’s Facebook page using the publisher option.

Twitter Tools
Auto posting to twitter, integrates nicely with bit.ly as well.

Misc. Tips

Analytics

The gold standard here is Google analytics, really simple to set up and a ton of useful information.

RSS

Feedburner is great because you can track subscribers and also add neat features to your rss feed, like social media and contact links.

Copyright

This is really up to the artist, but I really like the creative commons license. After all, you are putting it on the web so people can enjoy it right?

Scheduling

If the comic is going to be a daily or even if it is only weekly, scheduling comics in advance is the way to go.  It can take a little work to make sure everything (Facebook, Twitter, RSS) is playing nicely, but it take a huge amount of pressure off of you to have the week done ahead of time, in case something comes up.

 

That’s it for now, I’ll try and come back to update this as http://www.jakerohdy.com matures and changes.  So long for now!

 

September: New Workout

Random

For September, I am really going to focus on getting back into the swing of working out.  Since my triathlon back in June, I haven’t really done anything as far as working out goes, at least not consistently.  Well, it’s finally starting to get to me, and the scale has been saying some very mean things to me lately.  So, this month I am going to find a new weekly workout schedule.  I am still a little burned out on the whole swim/bike/run thing, so I am going to be trying some new things.  I’m hoping to try weight training, yoga, kettle bells, and possibly Krav Maga.  I’m hoping Krav Maga works out as I have definitely missed Muay Thai since the class I used to go to shut down about a year ago, but am not sure quite what to expect.

August Update: 5 posts a week (aka miserable failure)

Random

Well, as you can tell my plan to write 5 posts a week in August was basically a miserable failure. I wrote 5  posts the first week, but after that I think my grand total was about 9, with a few more sitting in the draft stage.  Oh well, nothing I can do about it now, look for a few more to come out next month as I finished up those drafts.

Introducing – Jake Rohdy Comics

Code

As part of my new year’s resolutions, I wanted to create at least one new website. Last night I launched Jake Rohdy’s Comics.  While technically I have created a few sites this year, this is definitely the biggest, and I have enjoyed working on it. It’s nice working with a “creative type” (he hates being called an “artist”, even though that is totally what he is…) because then they can come up with all of the images instead of me struggling with them. I also was able to learn a lot about WordPress, and I will probably share some of what I found that worked / didn’t work in a later post.

Anyways, I just wanted to announce the site, you should check it out….http://www.jakerohdy.com

My First Triathlon

Random

Back in June I finished my first triathlon. It was the Olympic distance (1500M swim, 40K bike ride, 10K run) of the first Grand Rapids Triathlon, and I had a blast.  I ended up finishing with a better time than I thought I would: 3hrs 11min. It was really an interesting experience, and something that I think just about everybody could enjoy. I wanted to share some of the things I learned along the way.

1. Make a training plan:  This seems like a no brainier, but I found it really helpful to have every day planned out.  That way there was no, I’ll do it tomorrow, I don’t need to today. I started with one from beginnertriathlete.com and went from there.

2. Make it public: Tell people what you are doing. A triathlon is something that most people are curious about, and it really helps keep you motivated knowing that everyone you know is expecting you to finish it.

3. Have fun:  I’m not going to sugar coat it, the amount of time you need for training sucks, especially at the end.  Do whatever you can to mix it up.  Bike really early one day and watch a sunrise.  Run really late at night after the rest of the world has gone to sleep. Go swimming on a lunch break.  Anything you can do to break up the monotony.

4. Don’t be hard on yourself: If you miss a day, or a week, or even most of a month of training, don’t just give up.  Accept that you can’t go back in time and change it and just do your best to get back on track, starting today.

5. Get good shoes: I tried putting off getting new shoes even though my old ones were really worn out and it made me miss two weeks of training because I hurt my knee. As soon as I got the new shoes it stopped.

6. You don’t need a new bike: They are expensive and anything with tires will work.  What you should do at a minimum though is get non-mountain bike tires.  You could do it on them, but it would suck

7. Body Glide: Use it, enough said.

8. Enjoy the moment. During the race, don’t stress about finishing last, or not making it. A triathlon ins a really fun experience, one that the vast majority of the world will never experience. The buzz in the air, the wind in your hair, enjoy it. You’ve worked hard, now reap the reward.

Well, that’s just a few of the things I think would be helpful.  The one other thing I can say, if you are thinking about doing on, is just do it. It’s not that scary. You won’t die. You won’t drown. I talked to a lot of people who were in far better overall shape than I am who said they wanted to, but they were worried about one part or another. Finishing a triathlon (especially a sprint distance) is not some magical thing only super-athletes can do, it just takes a little dedication. If you want to do it, just go for it.

-brent