First, you’ll have to choose the images you want for your flash header slideshow. In Photoshop, you will need to create a blank document, at the size you want your flash slideshow to be, then place each of the images on their own layers and lay them out whichever way you want. So in this example, boxes A, B, and C are on their own separate layers. Create separate jpeg banners (at the same dimension), turning layers on and off as necessary. Box A is visible through the entire slideshow, so it’s always on.

In banner #1, only Box A layer is on:

In banner #2, Box A and B layers are on:

In banner #3, Boxes A, B, and C are on:

This is the end result: (I added a blank banner to clear all the boxes at the end)

As a photographer, you can use your creative imagination to spice up your flash header. For examples of some really fun flash headers that use this technique, you can visit Pinkletoes Blog and Mariah Gale Blog.

Keep in mind that when you hire me to set up a flash header for your blog, it is up to you to create the banners to go into them. I will give you dimension guidelines and will ask you for ONE banner to set it up. After that, I will give you instructions on how to upload the rest of the banners.

Why don’t I design the banners for you? Well, the main reason is that I want to empower YOU to be able to change your flash slideshow whenever you want to, so you don’t have to hire me every single time to do so. If you’d like, you can also hire a graphic artist to help you design the banners, but it’s pretty easy to do it yourself. What I do on my end is to set up the flash plugin, code it into the header section, and make sure it works with all browsers.

Hopefully this tutorial is helpful to you! Please comment if you have any questions.

August 1 thru 4:  accessible by e-mail, limited internet

August 20-27: accessible by e-mail, no internet (woohoo Hawaii!)

Feel free to e-mail me, I just don’t know how fast I’ll get back to you because I’ll be having too much fun. ;)  But wait, how can I get e-mail, but have no internet?  I have an iPhone now, which has both e-mail and internet, but there’s no way I’m going to work on designing blogs on it.

Along with the new version comes updated services.  If you turn to the Pricing and Sign-Up page, you’ll notice a few changes.  I’ve added the “Ground-Up” custom blog package to the list, which includes 3 months free support and customizations, as well as having added the Wordpress Automatic Upgrade plugin and a Statistics plugin to the basic installation package.  All packages will have these plugins included with your new blog now!  If you have a current blog and would like these plugins installed, they will be charged at the basic customizations price.

As the list of completed blogs grows (100+!!), I’ve needed to find help from an assistant, which I have in the way of Pam Biasotti.  Not only is she a very good friend, she’s got mad skills in the customer service department from her networking days.  If/when you sign up for one of the installed packages, she will be the first person to respond to your request.  Because of this additional help, I have changed my payment policy to include a $45 up front payment for her technical services in installing your blog.  The remainder will still be charged to you after customizations are complete.

All in all, I’m really excited about the changes and have really come to enjoy my “second” job since its fruition in the beginning of this year.  Stay tuned for some awesome featured custom blogs that I’ve been working on!

Secondly, if any of you are having trouble inserting images into your post using Firefox, make sure to have your admin panel open in its own separate window, rather than a tab with other tabs open. So far I haven’t found a fix for this bug, but this work-around is nearly painless. I’ve only had one client complain of this issue happening in IE, and unfortunately I’ve had to recommend using the separate-window-in-Firefox method to her. I’ll keep you posted if I found out anything new.

Thirdly, someone has informed me of a plugin to automatically upgrade Wordpress (thanks Mohammad!) and if you’re interested in doing it yourself, just go here to download the plugin: http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/wordpress-automatic-upgrade/
I have not tested this plugin yet, so do so at your own risk and please contact the developer if you have any problems. One issue that you may need me to resolve once you upgrade it yourself is the maximum image size issue. You can go ahead and fix it yourself as well by reading the documentation I mentioned in that post, but it would be a pretty quick fix for me to do it if you contact me.

LOL…I know…I just realized I title this “couple updates” but it’s actually 3.

Barb has paved her own brand and style of children’s portraiture and she channeled that talent into designing her blog, which she graciously allowed me to help her formulate. Hers is the first real “ground-up” blog that I’ve designed, basically meaning that the look and layout was completely designed from scratch. I did incorporate the Jillij theme for the menu. The main focal point is the framed post image, which showcases Jinky’s beautiful work. I convinced her that she just HAD to start doing comments again, so I came up with the hidden inline comments that I think came out pretty slick. It was a wonderfully collaborative effort that I enjoyed working on.

To see it live, visit http://jinkyart.com.au/blog

Ok, so you’re probably wondering, is it worth it? Well…yes and no. If you have 2.5 and have had no problems with the uploading media and posting them on your blog at the size you want them to be, you’re probably ok. 2.5.1 has fixed some bugs in the media script (although I still had to edit some stuff out for the size thing to work) and supposedly there are some security issues that are fixed too. From what I’ve read, the security fixes are for those people with registered users, and I’m pretty sure 99% of my clients either don’t have registered users or only have admin users.

With the upgrade though, you get a pretty slick media upload tool that pretty much does away with the Flexible Upload plugin that I normally install for the same purpose. Now, with just one upload, you have the choice of inserting a thumbnail, medium size, or original full size version of the same file into your posts. You do have to specify under Settings–>Miscellaneous what sizes you want for your thumbnails and medium size photos first though. After that, it’s pretty easy and pretty slick. You’ll have to be sure to edit the maximum size allowed setting also though, whether it’s something you did yourself or if I did it for you, it’s important to make the changes to the media.php if you’re going to be posting large image sizes in your blog.

If you are one of my clients and currently have 2.5 installed but are having trouble with uploading image files and getting them to post at the correct size, contact me and I’ll upgrade you for free.