Tag Archive for Online Seminars

SEO and Speed for WordPress

by  • February 18, 2013

Ycademy Seminar February 2013 The upcoming Ycademy Online Seminar will focus on Search Engine Optimization and Loading Speed of self-hosted WordPress based websites, and particularly on sites powered by Semiomantics developments. While WordPress remains one of the most popular platforms for online publishing, the way it needs to be configured for optimized impact has changed over the years. Important changes on the Google algorithm in 2012 and the resulting consequences have been felt by many webmasters. In order to help customers to get the best out of their websites, it is important to understand the way Google perceives and evaluates websites and their content.  The Purpose of the WP SEO Seminar The purpose of the Ycademy WP SEO Seminar is to Learn about the most recent modifications of Google’s evaluation criteria. Learn how to set-up, structure, organize and optimize a new WordPress website Improve SEO on existing websites Implement basic SEO features Implement advanced SEO features  Basic Optimization Optimizing Titles Optimizing Permalinks Optimizing Meta-tags Optimizing Media Sitemap Theme Optimization We are looking specifically at Semiomantics XO for WordPress. As the theme contains basic Optimization elements, we will just look at some optional advanced features which are part of custom optimization at Semiomantics. Advanced SEO Duplicate content Strip [...]

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Ycademy Seminar January 2013

by  • January 21, 2013

Mobile Apps Apps will be the big topic of 2013, mainly because there is a major shift of web traffic towards the mobile web and consequently traffic harvesting will be more efficient through apps than through browser based websites. The Ycademy January Seminar will focus on Apps Basics and different ways to convert WordPress blogs to hybrid and native apps. Apps Workshops The Seminar will be composed of a variety of Workshops dealing with Mobile Apps and namely on the conversion of a WordPress driven site to mobile apps for different platforms. You will learn about the differences between hybrid and native apps, HTML 5 apps and the different architecture imposed by platform owners, such as Apple, Google, Microsoft and RIM. While there are costly and complex developments available, this seminar will focus on basics and the most simple ways of making WP available on mobile; the solutions we will implement will be appreciated by many customers, while for others they will just constitute a starting point for more sophisticated and efficient developments. More information will follow. All materials will be provided. Tools needed: Photoshop and FTP Client. Schedule January 26 -27, 2013 as usual starting at 1 pm London Time each day [...]

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Ycademy Seminar December 2012

by  • December 11, 2012

Application and Applications For the year end, we have a special idea summing up our work; 2012 has been a busy and intensive year indeed. Having learned to use important Applications, such as Illustrator and InDesign and having evolved in Photography and photo editing for web and print, we will look into some practical application of all the new knowledge. We will not forget Camtasia and WordPress nor our own branding. Traditionally the December Seminar is a one day event and we will make sure that it will be a useful one, with a dense schedule and loads of solutions for more or less common problems and issues. Word, Illustrator, InDesign, Photoshop We will create a calender for 2013 in print quality using Photoshop, Illustrator, InDesign and why not Word? The monthly 12 page calender will require 12 large size images for the basic layout. Please prepare your images before the seminar and make sure you edit them in 300 dpi. Besides the calender we will look into branding issues: stationary, business cards, logo, other printed matters such as post cards, greeting cards and much more. Camtasia for easy video editing A lst issue we have to resolve before year end: an [...]

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Ycademy Seminar October 2012

by  • October 24, 2012

WordPress and Blurb Semiomantics is ready with an XO release candidate for WordPress 3.5. We will therefore look into the latest WP developments and the theme updates. Also Blurb has released the integration software for InDesign, which provides smashing professional editing features for off and on line book publishers. Here is the Schedule for the October Seminar: Blurb on Saturday October 27, 2012 Blurb is expanding fast and adding new features and tools rapidly. New high quality paper, covers and integration tools namely for Word and InDesign provide all we need for prestigious publications. But there is more, such as Facebook book publishing … We will give an overview over the recent developments of Blurb and Blurb ProLine before integrating Blurb with InDesign. Creating a book with InDesign and Blurb Creating a book is a bit like developing a Website in as much as planning is required and some important decisions should be taken before starting the editing job. Title or Topic of the book Content (example Photos, Images and Text, etc) Approximate number of pages Format of the book Paper (type, weight and color) Cover Layout Fonts Eventual color scheme We will go through each of the above with [...]

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Ycademy Seminar September 2012

by  • September 24, 2012

Marketing with WordPress and Adobe CS6 Seminar The Ycademy September 2012 Seminar will focus on Marketing with WordPress and Adobe CS6. We will also spend some time on the Photobook we started working on at the July Seminar. Marketing with WordPress Making money with your blog or WordPress based website is function of multiple elements we have explored in the past. This time we will resume some of the criteria which are of paramount importance on the Path to Profitability and add some new ideas, namely the most recent techniques of mixing content from two or more sources into single new original posts. The interest is in the fact that ‘commercial content’ can be mixed into editorials automatically and in a contextually relevant matter. In fact, if our author blog uses as main categories say, ‘home and gardening’, ‘yoga’, ‘photography’ and  ’my cat’, then contextual commercial content (ads for example) can be prepared for each category to be mixed in to the posts. The ads are set up as custom posts based on commercial feeds or contents originating from affiliate programs (merchants) or from our own shops. Th suggested technique will make life easier for publishers and produce feeds including commercial [...]

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Vintage Photography with Photoshop

by  • August 22, 2012

Vintage Photography with Photoshop So, you want to give your brand new images that vintage look found in your grandmother’s photo album? No problem, just fire up your Photoshop and start playing with textures and blending modes. Here some examples:  

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Ycademy Seminar August 2012

by  • August 20, 2012

1. New Marketing Concept with Semiomantics XOMS The Ycademy August Seminar will focus on the new Marketing Concept using WordPress Multi-Site structures developed by Semiomantics. The new developments implement the most recent groundbreaking ideas when it comes to WordPress based semantic website development. Why a new Marketing Concept Recent changes of the Google algorithm as well as the developments of WordPress to more flexible taxonomies open new perspectives for developers who aim for high impact on Google search. Semiomantics is specialized in excellent semantic exploitation of WordPress as well as of Google. WordPress Multi-Site for advanced Marketing and high Impact While WP custom taxonomies allow for better structured content and CMS like flexibility when building customized site structures, the resulting canonical permalinks do not always satisfy Semiomantics high standards of optimization. For this reason we have been running performance tests since April to measure the impact of various set-ups and alternatives. Interestingly, the Multi-Site concept offers better overall performance than structures with complex custom taxonomies. Seminar participants will convert an existing site into a Multi-Site site testing the Semiomantics XOMS Theme and script. 2. Advanced Photo Editing with Photoshop CS6 With the release of Adobe’s Photoshop CS6 a bunch of [...]

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Ycademy Seminar July 2012

by  • July 27, 2012

Photography, Photoshop and Publishing This month’s Ycademy Online Seminar is divided into 3 sections: Digital Photography Photo Editing with Photoshop Publishing Photos Digital Photography This time the focus is not on the camera and the technicalities but the composition, framing and style of your photos. A great picture depends less on the technical means than on the educated mind, eye and creativity of the photographer. You can shoot a great pic using a mobile phone, while your Leica M9 exploit may not even impress a monkey :-) . The principle is: stop taking pictures, create images. We will focus on composition and styles to improve our skills. Having said that, depending on the kind of photos you are shooting, you will need the appropriate gear; sports photography require long focal length lenses, street photography is done best with fast lenses up to 50 mm and so on. However, if you shoot in normal light conditions, even a low end digital photo camera will do … Seminar Participants will get the latest literature and press pertaining to digital photography. Of course improvement is always possible and to compensate partially for the shortcomings of your camera, you may want to use some post [...]

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Ycademy Online Seminar June 2012

by  • June 25, 2012

Adobe CS6 and Semiomantics for WordPress This month’s online seminar will focus on two main areas: Adobe Photoshop CS6 and OnOne Photo-tools New Pro Plugins for Semiomantics WordPress Developments Photoshop CS6 and OnOne Photo-tools With the release of CS6 Photoshop has come back with some smashing upgrades namely for photographers. We will go through the new features and test them in our hands on workshops. If you are not yet in possession of Photoshop CS6 Extended, get the trial version from HERE Besides the Plugin series for Photoshop, OnOne provides a standalone suite of photo editing tools. This suite traces a perfect workflow for photo editing outside Photoshop. We will work with the tool and test out some of the smashing features. If you don’t have this program, you can download a 30 day trial version from HERE New Pro Plugins for Semiomantics XO on WordPress Fed up by the vulnerabilities and bugs caused by free plugins? There is some great stuff available out there with clean code provided by professional developers. At Semiomantics we have selected a series of professional plugs for the purpose of the seminar and further developments which we will implement. Also, in view of the [...]

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Ycademy Online Seminar May 2012

by  • May 21, 2012

Building Apps for mobile devices becomes crucial for online success as an increasing number of web users shift to mobile devices and as the usage stats of mobile users has already passed web usage by desktop and lap-top users in many countries. Learn how to Build a Mobile App for iOS, Android and Windows The Ycademy May Seminar will focus on App Building namely on: Types of Apps App Building Standards App Building Publishing Requirements App Building Workshops Two days are a short time to become familiar with programming language and developer kits. For this reason we will be using what we believe are the two most powerful App building software packs available for Windows to build and test our Apps. Participants can test also some of the apps directly on their mobile device. The seminar will take place on May 26 -27, 2012 from 1 p.m. till 9 p.m. London Time on each day. Seminar tickets are available with the usual discounts; get your discount code from bianca(at)ycademy.com. More details during our calls and mails from Bianca.  

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