If you are a photographer and uploading some of your photographs to the web, you may be interested in how WordPress handles EXIF, IPTC and XMP metadata.

Metadata is information about an image, and can be included in JPEG image files.

EXIF metadata is information about the image recorded directly from the camera – for example, the exposure time and the date the photo was taken.

IPTC (and more recently XMP) metadata is information about the image from the photographer, for example, captions or copyright information.

If you are using a Mac you can see this metadata by selecting the file in the Finder and using Cmd I (Get Info). If you are using Windows you can use this excellent online tool (which can be used on images from your hard disk or from any website):
Online EXIF Viewer.

WordPress preserves EXIF information in full size images loaded to your website. It will also extract the Exif data to make it available for plugin developers (for example, if someone wanted a plugin to display Exif information in a certain way).

When WordPress uploads images, in addition to uploading the Full Size image it automatically creates several differently sized versions of the image:

• a Large version
• a Medium version
• a Thumbnail version

These different sized versions are used in different places including in your Gallery display – this displays the Thumbnails (in the scrolling list to the left) and the Large image (the single image display to the right), and clicking the Large image displays the Full Size.

The EXIF data is not carried across by WordPress from the Full Size image to the Thumbnail, Medium and Large versions of the image.

I’ve been using the Safari4 beta since it first came out and it is brilliant. Mainly because it is just so damn fast.

But if you use WordPress you may have come across a very annoying bug. If you use the WordPress Visual Editor, whenever you try to create a link (or do anything that invokes the TinyMCE pop up window), the whole screen greys out.

All you can do is press the back button. Losing any changes you had made on your page or post in the process.

Unfortunately the problem is within the TinyMCE editor used by WordPress. The problem has been fixed and will be available with the WordPress 2.8 release.

Until then, if you use the Visual Editor with WordPress you are probably best off using Firefox until WordPress 2.8 comes out. It can be hard to remember *not* to click any of the TinyMCE buttons.

While a copyright statement in the footer of your website is not strictly required to have copyright protection, it can stop someone claiming in their defence that they didn’t know.

When showing a copyright statement, you should show the Copyright symbol followed by the first date of publication (to the current date, if your site is being updated) and the name of the copyright holder.

Well, in late 2008 we passed the first year anniversary for OM4, and for many clients this year is the first year their Copyright statement should show a date range, rather than the first date of publication.

James has added support for a [currentyear] shortcode to make it easy to automate this.

To get this copyright statement (where the current year is automatically set to the current year):
© 2007-2009 OM4. All rights reserved.

you include in the Footer Text section of your Site Design:
© 2007-[currentyear] OM4. All rights reserved.

If you aren’t using an OM4 website and want to do this in your footer, you can see Lisa Sabin’s article on how to update your Wordpress template file.

When business owners head out to buy a website, they often don’t understand what is important and what is not.

That isn’t surprising – there is no one size fits all approach to running a business online, and there are so many different tools and techniques it can be overwhelming.

Mike Moran, in his post The Most Important Part of a Website points out that the most important feature is being able to update it yourself.

Early generation websites relied on coding the website in HTML and then uploading the website files to the web server (and this technique – while dwindling in popularity – is still used today in varying forms).

Content management systems store the information on the web server. When content management systems were first released, they were often expensive and you paid a special license fee for them.This is no longer the case.

Open source content management systems are available – free of charge – that let you update your own website in a user friendly way. We use Wordpress, but you can also get a website based on Drupal, Joomla or many other open source software platforms that won’t come with a hefty licence fee.

If you can’t update your website yourself you are at a big disadvantage.

A lot of businesses want their own website, but have put it off because they don’t know how.

At OM4 we have put together a system that allows you to create your own website quickly and easily. Importantly, when you have created your site you can:

• update your own content – add new pages, add blog posts, change information any time you want
• update your own design – either follow our instructions to do this yourself, or you can use any graphic designer to do a custom design for you
• use your own domain name – just register with any domain name registrar and we’ll help you with the rest
• add images, YouTube videos, audio, links to Google Maps
• add contact forms to allow visitors to contact you with enquiries
• add your own BuyNow, Add To Cart and Donate buttons to accept payments direct to your PayPal account
• full integration with Google Apps so you can have free email at your domain

We’ll send you regular emails giving you instructions on how to use your site. While we have lots of information that you can read all at once (if you are in a hurry), most of our clients find it easiest to get instructions bit by bit.

You’ll be learning to maintain your website using the industry leading Wordpress platform. Every time Wordpress issues a patch or an upgrade, we apply it for you. You don’t need to use FTP or anything more complex than the Wordpress dashboard, which is used by millions worldwide.

You’ll have access to a very useful set of Wordpress plugins for you to use, and keep these up to date as well. While anyone can download and use Wordpress, in practice you may find upgrading the software can be a bit tricky. As can selecting the right mix of plugins to support a business website. With OM4, this is all taken care of for you.

And what does it cost? [updated]$45 AUD/mth (hosted in Australia) or $35 USD/mth (hosted in US)

Wordpress plugins are really useful for all sorts of business purposes. We support plugins that:

• let people subscribe to your blog posts using RSS or email
• enter client testimonials and have a randomly selected one display on every page
• maintain a collection of quotes and display a random one each page
• integrate an email autoresponder such as Aweber or iContact so visitors can sign up to your email list direct from your sidebar
• integrate your website with Google Analytics so you can see exactly how many visitors are coming to your website, which keywords they are using to find you from search engines, which websites are referring visitors to you, and which pages they are reading

If you have any questions, just log on to our OM4 forums and ask a question – no charge for forum answers.

See you on board!