Show Featured Image After Shareaholic - WordPress

Placing a featured image before the first content paragraph but after the Shareaholic social sharing links plugin. This is pretty simple, but just in case someone needed a quick solution, here is the code. In my case, my theme didn't support this, and I created a child theme so I could update without overwriting my custom changes. It's always smart to create a child theme.



My other Github code.

Link to image here.

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No Longer Haunted By The Question

Vague title right? Jason Alba at JibberJobber used an old post, "A Question That Haunts Me Wherever I Go", to make some points today about being able to communicate what you do, and who you are. At the time I wrote that post, I really was struggling with an identity, and an ego. "You should know me!" I exclaimed. Wow was I wrong. It was all my fault, and I finally solved the problem.

Elevator pitches are hard to construct, and most people pitch the wrong thing. I'm probably doing the wrong thing in a few eyes, but here is what I finally came up with and it seems to have been working pretty well.

When someone asks me what I do, or who I am , or you know, wants to know what my expertise is, I give them three words "I'm a coder." Not vague, and it does something very important for me. If you're not interested in coders or coding, you say cool and move on. However, it's been my experience that those three words lead to a broader discussion, even if it's short-lived. Usually, the next question is, what is a coder or what do you code? See, now I have the chance to give the person a little more information, and I might be able to frame my answer based on my location, or who is asking the question.

I don't need to sell you on a company or a service if our time is short. I can hand over a business card or tell them to Google my name, Thom Allen, Thom with an H, and say let's chat if you have any coding needs. My website gives them more than enough information. Hopefully I can get their card or name, and now we can start a networking relationship, or better yet, a business relationship.

I've tried the 30 second elevator pitch: "I do this and that, or this and that, and I can do this or that." Some elevator pitches actually derail the opportunity to do business with someone. If your pitch doesn't contain something they are interested in, they just say cool and move on. Lost opportunity.

Again, I'm not claiming this to be perfect, or that it would work for anyone else. All I know is it works for me, I'm not painted into a corner, and I don't feel the need to inundate the person asking with TMI, too much information.

Picture from Robert

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Can We Build Something Besides Social Software?

OK, I have to ask, have we, as a technology industry, boiled ourselves down to who can develop the most unique social network software? I mean, it's about all I see in the news anymore.

Even Salesforce, according to Robert Scoble, could go after a large part of the social sphere. Why would a company like Salesforce do that? Will that help me as a sales professional do a better job? As a business owner I would question that.

With quick wins, and superficial products, is anyone, any company, developing technology with substance?

Who's building killer educational software and getting recognized for it?

Who's building medical software to help us find cures and eliminate disease?

Who's building technology that helps us better design and implement green communities?

Who's building technology that helps us discover and tap into cheaper forms of energy?

Who's developing technology that will help us find more water sources and build better distribution systems?

With all the worlds resources, we are doing something more than building platforms to show ourselves off, right?

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5 Tech Stories Worth Reading

1. Hauppauge Digital Broadway Box Streams Live TV To Your Mobile Devices
Hauppauge have this week launched their new Digital Broadway Box which has been designed to provide an easy way to watch live TV on your mobile devices, such as smartphones and tablets whilst on your home network or while travelling. All you need is access to a Wifi connection.

2. Yahoo Is About To Spin Off A Billion Dollar Business
Yahoo is going to spin off its Hadoop unit this week, a Giga Om report says.

Hadoop is an open source software framework pioneered by Yahoo that's useful to handle tons of data in the cloud, which is exactly the type of thing that is really hot these days. We wrote previously about Yahoo's impending Hadoop spinoff; it's a potential billion-dollar business that's not in Yahoo's core, and so would be best spun off with Yahoo retaining a stake.

3. How NextDrop Is Using Cell Phones, Crowdsourcing To Get Water To The Thirsty
In cities where the water coming from pipes is anything but reliable, a new service alerts people so they don't have to sit at home all day waiting for the tap to turn on.

4. All-You-Can-Watch MoviePass Brings Netflix Model to Theaters
MoviePass, a new $50-per-month service for film fans, will let subscribers watch unlimited movies in theaters using their smartphones as tickets.

Using an HTML5 application (native smartphone apps coming soon), MoviePass will let users search for a film, find a local show time, check in to the theater and go straight to the ticket-taker.

5. Top 10 Reasons Geeks Should Love the Tour de France This Saturday, the 98th edition of the Tour de France starts in Province of Liège, kicking off three weeks of bicycle racing. Twenty-one teams of nine riders each will have to endure 3,400 kilometers of racing and 23 mountain passes to reach the finish line on the Champs-Élysées in Paris. It’s an event full of incredible human achievement and endurance. But it’s also full of geeky goodness. I decided to update my article from 2009 encouraging you to enjoy the race.

BONUS

6. Apple “steps up its game”, new iOS 5 firmware to block downgrades
Apple has started to introduce new security checks in its new iOS 5 software that could possibly restrict owners of an iPhone, iPad or iPod from downgrading the firmware on their devices, the iPhone Dev-Team has revealed.

7. Companies Are Erecting In-House Social Networks
What would Facebook look like without photos of drunken nights out and tales of misbehaving cats? It might look a lot like the internal social network at the offices of Nikon Instruments.

8. Take that Netflix, HBO Go app sees big growth 
If you don't believe cord cutting exists and that there isn't any competition between Netflix and cable programmers, then you needn't read on. If on the other hand, you at least see the potential for Netflix to some day snatch customers away from the cable guys, then take note: this weekend HBO expects to see the 3 millionth download of the HBO Go app, which debuted on May 2, a company spokesman told CNET. There are 28 million HBO subscribers in the United States so the 3 million downloads would indicate that roughly 10 percent of the company's audience has tried out the app.

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Communities Do Matter For Developers

The guys over at Lonely CEO pointed to a blog post of mine where it mentions I'm a Utah Facebook Developer. First, as I've said before, there was a reason I mentioned I develop Facebook applications and I live in Utah. But second, it is extremely important people know what community you live and work in. Do I expect being from Utah will make a difference, perhaps not, but I am trying to help build a community and I want people to know where I am. Does a company in New York or Florida care I'm in Utah, probably not, but companies in Utah care, and so its important they know I'm here.

One thing I've learned over the years is building a network is very important to a successful business. You may have killer technology but if you are unable to find the right investors it will be a short lived venture. Utah has a growing tech community. There are a number of companies who look for skilled workers with various new media and social media backgrounds. Are they finding you?

The truth is, as my friends at the Lonely CEO say, you can build software anywhere. So what we really need to do is market our services as Social Software or Community Software Developers. If your focus is on Facebook, or MySpace, or any number of other platforms, people that need your services will be searching for it under those terms, so its important search engines find you there. But I think it's equally important companies in your own backyard know you're there and are capable of fulfilling their needs.

So whether its important or not I'll continue to make sure my neighbors know I develop Social and Community Software and consult on other new media technology, and I'm right here in Utah.

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