So after changing a spare domain’s name servers to my Bluehost account and installing a fresh WP via cPanel I was ready to go.  It took about an hour’s time, which really is a testiment to the quality of themes available freely on the web and how great WP just is out of the box.

1. Change nameservers
2. Install WP
3. Cleanup the default info
4. Create the requisite pages (contact, about, gallery, services)
5. Upload some media for use in the galleries and in posts (I just used the images that come default with Windows 7, they look nice and professional so it’s a good proxy for a professional photographer’s style/quality)
6. Find a good theme: I settled on AutoFocus 1.0.1 by Allan Cole which I’m really digging.  It creates a really snazzy landing page for more recent posts.  Something I’d be stoked to see landing on a photographer’s website.  After adding a few (10) posts to fill out the landing page it was on to the next step
7. Creating/installing a nice “gallery/slideshow” type app for the Gallery page wasn’t necessarily required, but many of the peers in the course seemed to be adding some nice slideshow features so I figured I should take a crack at it too.  I chose the Portfolio Slideshow which didn’t require any additional installation of code and could be configured right in posts/pages.  It was simple to setup, though I’m not a fan of the way it requires each image to be listed if you don’t want to display all of them (time-consuming…) “[portfolio_slideshow include="sample19,sample18,sample17,sample16,sample15,...lastimagename"]” in face I couldn’t get that to work correctly so I just deleted the images I didn’t want in the show and voila.  Mission accomplished: http://www.woople.org/gallery/
8. That’s it!  Check out the sample site I created at www.woople.org.

If one thing is obvious, I like really simple/spartan site design:

you have every reason (except a good one) to keep what you can for yourselves

Michael O’Hare, A letter to my students

“One of the saddest days of my life was when my mother told me Superman did not exist,” Canada says in the film. “I read comic books and I just loved ’em …’cause even in the depths of the ghetto you just thought, ‘He’s coming, I just don’t know when, because he always shows up and he saves all the good people.’ ”

Then when he was in fourth or fifth grade, he asked, “Ma, do you think Superman is actually [real]?” She told him the truth: “ ‘Superman is not real.’ I was like: ‘He’s not? What do you mean he’s not?’ ‘No, he’s not real.’ And she thought I was crying because it’s like Santa Claus is not real. And I was crying because there was no one … coming with enough power to save us.”

From Thomas Friedman’s “Steal this Movie, too” from the NYTimes (quoting Geoffrey Canada, founder of the Harlem Children’s Zone)

As a result, without much thought, we’ve applied a binary mindset to education: elementary and secondary students are children; if they fail, it’s the fault of the schools. College students are adults; if they fail, it’s the fault of the students.

Ben Miller and Phuong Ly from the Washington Monthly article “College Dropout Factories”

our aim is not to defend the questionable practices of for-profit colleges, but rather to draw attention to the fact that colleges of every stripe are soaking up tons of societal resources and saddling students with excessive debt loads in the face of dubious job prospects.

“The Red Herring Crusade Against For-Profit Colleges” by Daniel L. Bennett and Zac Bissonnette @ Forbes.com

In the early 20th century, Europe decided that a high school education would be wasted on the masses. The United States instead made high school universal, and its newly skilled work force helped build everything from the hugely productive factories of the Midwest to modern Hollywood to the world’s most innovative retail and technology sectors.

Over the long term, the best response to the current downturn, by far, would be for the country to regain the global lead in education.

Of course, that will take years, maybe decades.

David Leonhardt, “For Those With Jobs, a Recession With Benefits“, NYTimes

Textbooks, with or without the bundled DVDs, are…”The Hummer of higher education.”

Judy Baker and Anya Kamenetz “The Real Cost of College Textbooks” NYTimes online.

70% of the freshman class is likely to end up not with a diploma but a pile of debt.

USA Today, “Is college overrated?” by Patrick Welsh

All I have to say is, “Boooooooo!!!!”

In the zeal to get students, [colleges and universities] are going after them on the basis of recreational amenities.

Richard Vedder, from the NYTimes article “Study: Colleges Spent More on Recreation Than Instruction” by Sam Dillon