API stands for Application Programming Interface and is a set of protocols and functionality, implemented on an internet connected system, which allows other software (usually apps) to request information and calculations from it. Essentially, APIs help build applications, and function similarly to plugins or widgets for WordPress–they add functionality, but without having to be in a CMS framework. you can plug code right into html–with some javascript and jquery to help, to install APIs into your website or application. They are often the go-betweens in the communication between people and services.

For my Capstone project I chose to do a cookbook, as I’ve been accumulating recipes I’ve made on little pieces of paper in a huge stack in a bookshelf in my kitchen. I took the plunge and coded my project in PHP using the artisan framework Laravel. Laravel for PHP is like JQuery for Javascript–it’s not a language, per se, but a complex library of functions that one can hook into to create applications more quickly and securely–Laravel does some heavy lifting, but has a large learning curve, especially as it is all object-oriented. I could (and probably should) devote a whole blog to Laravel.

Plugins are a big reason why WordPress has gotten as powerful and as popular as it has, for they extend the functionality of WordPress in many different ways, including adding shopping carts, boosting SEO ratings, adding widgets and calculators to make conversions, etc.

Some companies have been resisting addition of social media for marketing, but change is inexorable, and it is better to get ahead on the emergent paradigm than to rest on laurels–trust me, I’m a print designer. I know all about letting change and technology progressing and turning a blind eye until suddenly, the market has changed. It’s not pretty. “It’s easier to keep up than catch up” the old adage goes, and all of the old marketing dogs are busy learning new tricks to keep up with the business.

Whole Foods was largely established by John Mackey, CEO and co-founder, mainly because he was passionate about food and eating healthy, and wanted to offer healthy eating choices to people, for he, himself, had grown up largely on TV dinners. Now, that’s a great personal perspective to come from, and usually he would be a great proponent of his own store, except that when you combine his “hippie demeanor” with extreme, right-wing libertarianism (Ayn Rand is one of his role models) you have a complete disconnect with many of the potential market who would shop at Whole Foods, which has a largely liberal, left-wing customer base.

When you look at a webpage, you see it as one page, with various elements (masthead, footer, content area, sidebar, etc.), and in straight html, you code it as one page, with the DOCTYPE declaration at the top, opening and closing tags for various parts of the page. With themes, though, these parts are divvied up and each one becomes their own page, functioning under a model similar to the Model View Controller.

When landlords of older houses hear the phrase “up to code,” they shudder, because if the City singles them out to pass inspection to make sure their rental property is up to code, it often means some expensive or tedious repairs within a short timeframe. But luckily, good coding doesn’t involve expensive materials or labor (unless you’re hiring someone else to do it), but organization, logic, and attention to detail (and of course, knowledge of the language in which you’re coding). It also helps to use which language is most appropriate for the task. For instance, avoid writing a lot of styles into the HTML–save that for the CSS, which is much more powerful at styling.

This blog article looks at server-side install for three different content management systems: WordPress, Drupal, and Concrete-5. The process for each CMS was the same, starting out. Create a database (this can be set up through Cpanel with MySQL databases or through PHP MyAdmin, depending on how your Cpanel is set up, security-wise). Create a user-admin for that database. Make a note of the user and password you used to create the database, and store that somewhere–you will be using it later! Download the CMS from whatever web page hosting it (i.e. drupal.org, wordpress.org.) and uncompress the zip file.

Facebook is tremendously popular, having over 1 billion users and 55% global penetration rate as of mid 2013.1 With that exposure and audience, your business can’t afford NOT to be on Facebook, if only to increase brand awareness in a popular medium. There are nearly 700 million users on Facebook every day, with an average of 645 million weekly local business page views. Once you build an audience, your impact increases.