What you can do with WordPress
In response to a few questions by Mary on my post about using WAMP to install WordPress on your Windows Machine, I’ve decided to write a post and see if I can help her (and anybody else who needs it).
First, an introduction.
Everybody should have a website
I FULLY believe that everybody should have a website. Even more so if you run a business.
In South Africa, if you’re technically inclined (or, can just follow a few simple instructions) you could have your own website up and running in about 4 hours for about R1000 a year.
If you’re not really a technical person and you’d need to hire somebody to help you, then it may cost anywhere from R3000 for setup, and R1000 a year after that. Of course, this depends on the complexity of your website and your requirements.
With it being so easy, you really have no excuse for not having a site.
Why you should use WordPress
WordPress, in my opinion, is the best software for running anything from very simple websites to sites of medium complexity.
You can use it if you only need a couple pages containing the following information:
- Home page
- About page, with info about you and your company
- Contact page – NEVER forget to have one of these
But, thanks to a whole lot of WordPress plugins (or just using some extra built-in functionality), you can use your WordPress installation to do the following:
- Have a built-in forum
- Create a mailing list to keep people up to date with your product listings, perhaps
- Have a website with more than one user contributing to it. For example: a news website
- Create a blog – you KNOW it’s all the craze now
What will my site look like?
OK, so Mary’s first question was: “I’m not sure if (and how) I can integrate my own design as I am not willing to use any ready-made templates”.
What ready-made templates is she talking about? Well, one of the benefits of using WordPress is that a LOT of people have created free templates that you can just upload to your installation to change the way your website looks.
As an example, just do a search in Google for free WordPress Templates or for free WordPress themes.
Of course, because they ARE available for free on the internet, you might not have a unique looking website.
To combat this, you could hire a WordPress template designer to design a custom look for your website, or, you could download one of the free templates and customise it to make it look unique.
Another option is to design your own theme however you normally do it, and then convert it for use with WordPress. This is obviously the route that I would recommend to Mary.
But, how do you do that? Well, if you’re OK with basic programming in PHP, you could take a look at the WordPress guide to coding WordPress themes and templates.
Or, you could hire somebody (like me 
) to take your website layout and create a template that is compatible with WordPress.
How to publish your WordPress website
So, now that you’ve tested your WordPress website using the guide to install WordPress on your computer, and then you’ve gone through and created your own theme, you need to upload it for the world to see.
To do that, you need to do the following things:
- Get a web host – I recommend the on I use for my South African sites -> www.anno.co.za
- Ensure your web host allows MySQL databases and PHP websites
- Follow the instructions for Installing WordPress (it’s a little different to installing it on your computer)
- Change the settings of your site as appropriate
- Upload your WordPress theme and enable it
- Write all the pages you need!
It is that easy.
Of course, as I mentioned before, you could hire somebody to do all the technical stuff for you. Then you can rely on them to set up your site and lay it out correctly for optimal search engine crawling (which could help rank you website higher, helping you get more visitors).
So, Mary, hopefully you found this article interesting and helpful as a starting guide.
If anybody has any questions, post them in the comments section below, and I’ll see if I can answer them.
Read MorePlease Link 2 Me WordPress Plugin
Introducing my next WordPress plugin: Please Link 2 Me
I’ve personally wanted this for quite a while, and I’ve seen it on other blogs before, but when I looked for it, I just couldn’t find it.
So i created it myself… That’s the beauty of WordPress
What does this plugin do?
This plugin adds a little text box below each post on your WordPress blog containing the code required for somebody to just copy and paste it to their blog or website, and create a link back to your article.
This means the reader doesn’t have to know how to get the URL of the article, or even have to know how to make a link out of it.
An example?
Here is a screen shot of this plugin in action (just in case I’ve disabled it on this site for whatever reason, like testing something):
And, here’s a screenshot of the admin page (in WordPress 2.8.5). Click on it to see the full shot…
Where can I get it and what do I do?
You can just go to the plugin repository to download this plugin. Here’s the link: “Please Link 2 Me Download”
Then, just upload the zip file into your “plugins” directory, unzip it, and activate it…
Then all that’s left is to enter the settings in the plugin’s admin page.
Updates?
To get notified of updates, just subscribe to the comments feed of this specific blog post. If there are other comments here as well and you decide to unsubscribe, then you’ll still be able to see the update requirements via your admin “Plugins” page…
Read MoreWordPress SEO Title Tag for Theme Designers
Everybody knows that H1 tags are supposed to “highlight” the most important heading on the page.
Whether this really helps with a site’s SEO is still up for debate, but in my opinion, having a good document structure can only help.
In most (if not all) WordPress themes, it’s the Blog’s Title/Name that gets the honour of wearing this badge. But your Blog’s Name shouldn’t necessarily have this honour on page’s that have a “main topic”. i.e.: Single Post pages.
So, what I recommend that all WordPress theme designers do is use H1 tags for your post’s Title on the post’s page, and use H1 around your Blog’s Name for all the other pages.
Here’s the code I use to do this:
For the Blog’s Name
a.k.a. bloginfo(‘name’) – This is usually in the header.php file, just replace the “H1″ before and after the Name with the following:
<?php echo (!is_single()) ? "h1" : "h2"; ?>
So, your Blog Info tags might look like the following now:
<<?php echo (!is_single()) ? "h1" : "h2"; ?> class="blog_title">
<a title="Home: <?php bloginfo('name'); ?> " href="<?php echo get_settings('home'); ?>/"><?php bloginfo('name'); ?></a>
</<?php echo (!is_single()) ? "h1" : "h2"; ?>>
(Of course, this doesn’t take into account that you’ve replaced the php calls to your Blog’s Name and URL with hardcoded versions once you’ve implemented a theme on your site).
Replace the H2 tag for your Post Title
And now, of course, you need to do the opposite for your post titles.
You need to replace the H2 tags that normally surround the Post Title (a.k.a. the_title()) with the following:
<?php echo (is_single()) ? "h1" : "h2"; ?>
This is usually in the index.php file, unless you have a template page specifically for single posts, in which case it will be in “single.php” (and then, you could probably just put “H1″, as this template will only be used for the Single Post pages).
So, you might have something that looks like the following now:
<<?php echo (is_single()) ? "h1" : "h2"; ?> class="title">
<a id="post-<?php the_ID(); ?>" href="<?php the_permalink(); ?>" rel="bookmark" title="Permanent Link to <?php the_title(); ?>">
<?php the_title(); ?>
</a>
</<?php echo (is_single()) ? "h1" : "h2"; ?>>
CSS Styling your titles
If you’re using a theme designed by somebody else, it might not be as simple as just replacing the H1/H2 tags with the above code, because you might find that the H1 tag has it’s own specific style, as opposed to the Blog Title/Name having a style class.
Now, I’m no designer, so this might not be the best advice, but here’s what I’ve done to work around it.
In the H1 tag (well, the Blog Name tag as it stands after the changes above) you can see I added a class=”blog_title”. And in my style.css file, I changed all the references to “H1” to “.blog_title“.
I hope this makes sense. Let me know if you agree or disagree with me.
Read MoreInstall WordPress on your Windows Machine
Whether you downloaded WordPress 2.5 or you would just like to test your theme or plugin on your own machine before uploading it to your site, I feel having an instance of WordPress running on your machine is a must.
Anyway, I’m sure there are quite a few tutorials for this out there, but I’ll write it here for my own reference, as well as yours…
Download WAMP
WampServer, in short, lets you run a webserver and database (which obviously WordPress needs), on your Windows machine. If you’re lucky enough to be running Linux or an Apple OS, then you can skip this step.
So, anyway, go download WampServer, install it, and you can accept all the default installation settings.
It should install to “c:\wamp”, which makes things nice an easy. If it doesn’t install there, just make a note of where you DO install it…
Once it’s installed, start it by clicking the shortcut. You should see that it’s running by the icon in your task bar next to the time, as seen in the screen shot below:
Create a Database for WordPress
We’ll use phpMyAdmin for this step, which is a a Database (DB) admin tool that comes with WampServer.
Click on the icon that I showed you above and you should see the following menu:
Click the “phpMyAdmin” option to open the application up in a new browser window.
In the window that opens, click on the “Add a new User” link, as shown in the screen shot below:
On the next screen, in the section “Add a new User” fill in the following information:
1 – A user/database name, like “wordpress25” (without the quotes)
2 – Change the “drop down” to say local, and it should populate the field with the value “localhost”
3 – Choose a password for your user to access the database, like “wp25”
4 – Select “Create database with same name and grant all privileges”
5 – At the bottom of the page, click on “Go”
You can use the following screen shot for guidance:
If this was successful, you should see the following screen:
Download WordPress
Now that your Database is setup, you just need a copy of WordPress to install. You could either download a test version of WordPress 2.5, or download the latest stable version of WordPress.
You can save it in the WAMP directory (see the first section of this page) in the “www” directory. For example: “C:\wamp\www”
Then, just unzip it. If you downloaded the WordPress 2.5 copy from this site, then there should be a directory called “wp25“, otherwise it will create a directory called “wordpress“.
Install WordPress
Go into the directory, and edit the following file with notepad (or any text editor): “wp-config-sample.php“.
Replace the following “words” with the ones you used above in when creating the database:
putyourdbnamehere -> wordpress25
usernamehere -> wordpress25
yourpasswordhere -> wp25
If you look at the file, the 3 lines you changed should look like the following (I made the changes bold for ease of reference):
define(‘DB_NAME’, ‘wordpress25‘); // The name of the database
define(‘DB_USER’, ‘wordpress25‘); // Your MySQL username
define(‘DB_PASSWORD’, ‘wp25‘); // …and password
Then save the file as “wp-config.php“. Note that you took out “-sample” from the file name. You can do this by clicking on “File” then “Save As…” and taking out “-sample” from the file name.
Logging into your new WordPress Installation
In your browser, you will now go to the WordPress installation page by going to the following URL/link:
If you’ve been doing everything above while you read, then you should just be able to click the link and you’ll see the following screen (though the screen below is from a WordPress 2.3 installation):
Just enter a blog title, like “Local WordPress Test”, enter an email address (not that you will really need it to be real) and click on “Install WordPress”.
You should see the following screen:
And, you should have a working copy of WordPress on your Windows Machine.
Just a note, make sure you write down the password that you are shown (or change it straight away in the admin section of WordPress). You won’t be able to recover a lost password via email (without a bit more hard work)…
I really hope this has helped you in some way. If it has, let me know.
And, if you have any questions, let me know as well!
UPDATE:
Shane left a link to his video on this process in the comments below. Here’s his video, which I think is excellent because of how thorough it is.
Another Update:
I was contacted by Hendry from blogbuildingu.com saying he had a tutorial for installing WP under nginx on your windows machine. Here’s what he had to say:
Recently, I’ve written a tutorial on how to install WP under Nginx, soon lighttpd and other options as well, including virtual machines.
The benefit is, nginx only takes 2MB of computer memory, which is much more friendly for desktop environment.
Go check out the article here: http://blogbuildingu.com/wordpress/install-wordpress-wemp
Read MoreTry out WordPress 2.5
In my post entitled WordPress 2.5 Admin Theme Preview I thought I’d give you a bit of a preview of WordPress 2.5′s new Admin Theme.
Of course, it’s better to touch than just to look, so for people who’d like to try installing it somewhere, I’ve got a zip file containing the latest version of WordPress 2.5 from SVN.
Click here to download WordPress 2.5 test!
Matt has just announced a Release Candidate that’s available for download here: “Download WordPress 2.5 RC1“
If you’d rather download a version from WordPress’ SVN site, then for Windows users I recommend TortoiseSVN. If you’d like help using this software, let me know in the comments below…
UPDATE: I’ve written a tutorial on installing WordPress on your Windows Machine. Go check it out!
Read MoreWordPress 2.5 Admin Theme Preview
I’m not sure why I never thought of it, but I finally decided to download a test version of WordPress 2.5 so that I can see the new WordPress Admin theme that people are talking about.
It is DEFINITELY a lot more modern than the current look and feel of the Admin section, even if it is a little chunky for my liking. But, I think it’s “pretty”.
You can click on the thumbnail below to open the images for viewing…
WordPress 2.5 Login Screen
Dashboard
Write Post
Plugins Screen
Design – Template Screen
Settings Page
Your Thoughts?
So, what do YOU think of the new look?
Read MoreNew blog using Prologue WordPress Theme
Well, I just killed 2 birds with one stone…
1st bird – Useless Knowledge:
Anybody who knows me knows that one of my favourite sayings is “useless knowledge dot com”. I say it after I’ve given a fact that I think might bore some people, but I find extremely interesting.
Unfortunately, uselessknowledge.com is already registered and has been for as long as I’ve been saying it. Which is MANY years…
But, for some reason, I’ve never thought of registering UselessKnowledge.co.za
I am now going to change my phrase to “Useless Knowledge dot Coza“.
I’ve set up a WordPress site that I can easily update every time I have a new little “interesting fact” that I’d like to share…
Which leads me onto…
2nd bird – Prologue WordPress theme:
The Prologue WordPress theme is a GREAT, simple looking theme that I decided to try out as the theme for UselessKnowledge.co.za.
My main reason for this is because the facts that I would post would be too small that any other theme might drown them out…
Matt Mullenweg gives his ideas on what the theme’s main use would be, but of course it’s not restricted to twitter type use…
So please let me know what you think…
Read MoreSomething Interesting for Week 5 of 2008
Ask.com and your custom skin
I’ve mentioned before that I think Ask.com has the nicest UI out of all the Search Engines, and now you can make it look a whole lot better.
Well, you could if you had skills… You can now “skin” your personal version of Ask.com by uploading a photo and using it as a sort of “desktop background” to Ask’s search home page.
Here are a couple of examples using photos that I took:
I took this photo of an Elephant in the Kruger Park last year. One of my favourite photos of all time.
A photo of Basil Flowes growing in my herb garden… I’m quite proud of this one as well…
Thanks to InsideGoogle for this
XKCD Comic for geeks
XKCD. A webcomic of romance, sarcasm, math, and language
Well, that’s what they call it. I prefer to call it by what it really is.
XKCD. A comic for geeks.
I’ve been reading this comic strip religiously for about 3 months now. The humour is super dry, yet hilarious. Here’s a strip from this week:
Just a note: I use vi. That’s what REAL programmers use 
Make a mobile friendly version of your webpage
Digital Inspiration have a cool post on making a mobile version of your blog with Google Reade.
I’m a GREAT fan of Google Reader, as I read about 30-100 blog posts a day, depending on how long it takes me to eat breakfast and lunch… I REALLY appreciate the mobile version of Google Reader as that’s how I get a lot of my blog reading done, because I’m not always in front of a computer (believe it or not)….
Found via GoogleTutor
Get 12 months advertising and only pay for 6
Lee Dodd stumbled on an interesting take on calculating advertising rates.
It seems that Red River Moms has a media kit for their website (available here: http://www.redrivermoms.com/media/RedRiverMoms_Sales_Brochure.pdf) that gives cheaper rates for a 12 month package than it does for the 6 months package.
I wonder if that was intentional, making people get 12 months advertising because they thought they were scoring!
WordPress SEO plugins
If you use WordPress for blogging, then Vinny Lingham has an interesting post for you to go read entitled “WordPress SEO Plugins“.
I’ve always been thinking of coding a plugin similar to what Vinny says “Landing Pages” does, so it’s a great find if it does what I need. Going to check it out when I get a chance…
Read MoreMicrosoft trying to buy Yahoo! for $44.6 billion
Thanks to Danny Sullivan and Search Engine Land, we hear that Microsoft is going to buy Yahoo!.
According to Microsoft’s Press Page:
Transaction valued at approximately $44.6 billion in cash and stock; provides 62 percent premium to current trading price for Yahoo! shareholders; combined entity to create a more competitive company, providing superior value to shareholders, better choice and innovation for customers and partners
REDMOND, Wash. — Feb. 1, 2008 — Microsoft Corp. (NASDAQ:MSFT) today announced that it has made a proposal to the Yahoo! Inc. (NASDAQ:YHOO) Board of Directors to acquire all the outstanding shares of Yahoo! common stock for per share consideration of $31 representing a total equity value of approximately $44.6 billion. Microsoft’s proposal would allow the Yahoo! shareholders to elect to receive cash or a fixed number of shares of Microsoft common stock, with the total consideration payable to Yahoo! shareholders consisting of one-half cash and one-half Microsoft common stock. The offer represents a 62 percent premium above the closing price of Yahoo! common stock on Jan. 31, 2008.
“We have great respect for Yahoo!, and together we can offer an increasingly exciting set of solutions for consumers, publishers and advertisers while becoming better positioned to compete in the online services market,” said Steve Ballmer, chief executive officer of Microsoft. “We believe our combination will deliver superior value to our respective shareholders and better choice and innovation to our customers and industry partners.”
“Our lives, our businesses, and even our society have been progressively transformed by the Web, and Yahoo! has played a pioneering role by building compelling, high-scale services and infrastructure,” said Ray Ozzie, chief software architect at Microsoft. “The combination of these two great teams would enable us to jointly deliver a broad range of new experiences to our customers that neither of us would have achieved on our own.”
The online advertising market is growing at a very fast pace, from over $40 billion in 2007 to nearly $80 billion by 2010. The resulting benefits of scale along with the associated capital costs for advertising platform providers make this a time of industry consolidation and convergence. Today this market is increasingly dominated by one player. Together, Microsoft and Yahoo! can offer a competitive choice while better fulfilling the needs of customers and partners.
“The combined assets and strong services focus of these two companies will enable us to achieve scale economics while reaching R&D critical mass to deliver innovation breakthroughs,” said Kevin Johnson, president of the Platforms & Services Division of Microsoft. “The industry will be well served by having more than one strong player, offering more value and real choice to advertisers, publishers and consumers.”
The combination will create a more efficient company with synergies in four areas: scale economics driven by audience critical mass and increased value for advertisers; combined engineering talent to accelerate innovation; operational efficiencies through elimination of redundant cost; and the ability to innovate in emerging user experiences such as video and mobile. Microsoft believes these four areas will generate at least $1 billion in annual synergy for the combined entity.
Microsoft has developed a plan and process that will include the employees of both companies to focus on the integration of the combined business. Microsoft intends to offer significant retention packages to Yahoo! engineers, key leaders and employees across all disciplines.
Microsoft believes this proposed combination would receive all necessary regulatory approvals and expects that the proposed transaction would be completed in the second half of calendar year 2008.
Microsoft is also committed to working closely with Yahoo! management and its Board of Directors as they, along with Yahoo! shareholders, evaluate this compelling proposal.
Below is the text of the letter that Microsoft sent to Yahoo!’s Board of Directors:
January 31, 2008
Board of Directors
Yahoo! Inc.
701 First Avenue
Sunnyvale, CA 94089
Attention: Roy Bostock, Chairman
Attention: Jerry Yang, Chief Executive OfficerDear Members of the Board:
I am writing on behalf of the Board of Directors of Microsoft to make a proposal for a business combination of Microsoft and Yahoo!. Under our proposal, Microsoft would acquire all of the outstanding shares of Yahoo! common stock for per share consideration of $31 based on Microsoft’s closing share price on January 31, 2008, payable in the form of $31 in cash or 0.9509 of a share of Microsoft common stock. Microsoft would provide each Yahoo! shareholder with the ability to choose whether to receive the consideration in cash or Microsoft common stock, subject to pro-ration so that in the aggregate one-half of the Yahoo! common shares will be exchanged for shares of Microsoft common stock and one-half of the Yahoo! common shares will be converted into the right to receive cash. Our proposal is not subject to any financing condition.
Our proposal represents a 62% premium above the closing price of Yahoo! common stock of $19.18 on January 31, 2008. The implied premium for the operating assets of the company clearly is considerably greater when adjusted for the minority, non-controlled assets and cash. By whatever financial measure you use – EBITDA, free cash flow, operating cash flow, net income, or analyst target prices – this proposal represents a compelling value realization event for your shareholders.
We believe that Microsoft common stock represents a very attractive investment opportunity for Yahoo!’s shareholders. Microsoft has generated revenue growth of 15%, earnings growth of 26%, and a return on equity of 35% on average for the last three years. Microsoft’s share price has generated shareholder returns of 8% during the last one year period and 28% during the last three year period, significantly outperforming the S&P 500. It is our view that Microsoft has significant potential upside given the continued solid growth in our core businesses, the recent launch of Windows Vista, and other strategic initiatives.
Microsoft’s consistent belief has been that the combination of Microsoft and Yahoo! clearly represents the best way to deliver maximum value to our respective shareholders, as well as create a more efficient and competitive company that would provide greater value and service to our customers. In late 2006 and early 2007, we jointly explored a broad range of ways in which our two companies might work together. These discussions were based on a vision that the online businesses of Microsoft and Yahoo! should be aligned in some way to create a more effective competitor in the online marketplace. We discussed a number of alternatives ranging from commercial partnerships to a merger proposal, which you rejected. While a commercial partnership may have made sense at one time, Microsoft believes that the only alternative now is the combination of Microsoft and Yahoo! that we are proposing.
In February 2007, I received a letter from your Chairman indicating the view of the Yahoo! Board that “now is not the right time from the perspective of our shareholders to enter into discussions regarding an acquisition transaction.” According to that letter, the principal reason for this view was the Yahoo! Board’s confidence in the “potential upside” if management successfully executed on a reformulated strategy based on certain operational initiatives, such as Project Panama, and a significant organizational realignment. A year has gone by, and the competitive situation has not improved.
While online advertising growth continues, there are significant benefits of scale in advertising platform economics, in capital costs for search index build-out, and in research and development, making this a time of industry consolidation and convergence. Today, the market is increasingly dominated by one player who is consolidating its dominance through acquisition. Together, Microsoft and Yahoo! can offer a credible alternative for consumers, advertisers, and publishers. Synergies of this combination fall into four areas:
Scale economics: This combination enables synergies related to scale economics of the advertising platform where today there is only one competitor at scale. This includes synergies across both search and non-search related advertising that will strengthen the value proposition to both advertisers and publishers. Additionally, the combination allows us to consolidate capital spending.
Expanded R&D capacity: The combined talent of our engineering resources can be focused on R&D priorities such as a single search index and single advertising platform. Together we can unleash new levels of innovation, delivering enhanced user experiences, breakthroughs in search, and new advertising platform capabilities. Many of these breakthroughs are a function of an engineering scale that today neither of our companies has on its own.
Operational efficiencies: Eliminating redundant infrastructure and duplicative operating costs will improve the financial performance of the combined entity.
Emerging user experiences: Our combined ability to focus engineering resources that drive innovation in emerging scenarios such as video, mobile services, online commerce, social media, and social platforms is greatly enhanced.
We would value the opportunity to further discuss with you how to optimize the integration of our respective businesses to create a leading global technology company with exceptional display and search advertising capabilities. You should also be aware that we intend to offer significant retention packages to your engineers, key leaders and employees across all disciplines.
We have dedicated considerable time and resources to an analysis of a potential transaction and are confident that the combination will receive all necessary regulatory approvals. We look forward to discussing this with you, and both our internal legal team and outside counsel are available to meet with your counsel at their earliest convenience.
Our proposal is subject to the negotiation of a definitive merger agreement and our having the opportunity to conduct certain limited and confirmatory due diligence. In addition, because a portion of the aggregate merger consideration would consist of Microsoft common stock, we would provide Yahoo! the opportunity to conduct appropriate limited due diligence with respect to Microsoft. We are prepared to deliver a draft merger agreement to you and begin discussions immediately.
In light of the significance of this proposal to your shareholders and ours, as well as the potential for selective disclosures, our intention is to publicly release the text of this letter tomorrow morning.
Due to the importance of these discussions and the value represented by our proposal, we expect the Yahoo! Board to engage in a full review of our proposal. My leadership team and I would be happy to make ourselves available to meet with you and your Board at your earliest convenience. Depending on the nature of your response, Microsoft reserves the right to pursue all necessary steps to ensure that Yahoo!’s shareholders are provided with the opportunity to realize the value inherent in our proposal.
We believe this proposal represents a unique opportunity to create significant value for Yahoo!’s shareholders and employees, and the combined company will be better positioned to provide an enhanced value proposition to users and advertisers. We hope that you and your Board share our enthusiasm, and we look forward to a prompt and favorable reply.
Sincerely yours,
/s/ Steven A. Ballmer
Steven A. Ballmer
Chief Executive Officer
Microsoft Corporation
Microsoft will host an analyst/investor conference call at 8:30 a.m. Eastern Time/5:30 a.m. Pacific Time to discuss today’s announcement. If you want to participate, you may do so by dialing (866) 610-1072 or (706) 634-9230 (toll/international); the conference ID number is 33470390. Please dial in at least 20 minutes in advance of the call. Accompanying slides and the conference call Webcast will be available at http://www.microsoft.com/presspass. Playback of the conference call and the webcast will be available for replay through the close of business on Feb. 5, 2008. The replay can be accessed by dialing (800) 642-1687 or (706) 645-9291 (toll/international); the conference ID number is 33470390.
About Microsoft
Founded in 1975, Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT) is the worldwide leader in software, services and solutions that help people and businesses realize their full potential.
This communication does not constitute an offer to sell or the solicitation of an offer to buy any securities or a solicitation of any vote or approval. In connection with the proposed transaction, Microsoft Corp. plans to file with the SEC a registration statement on Form S-4 containing a proxy statement/prospectus and other documents regarding the proposed transaction. The definitive proxy statement/prospectus will be mailed to shareholders of Yahoo! Inc. INVESTORS AND SECURITY HOLDERS OF YAHOO! INC. ARE URGED TO READ THE PROXY STATEMENT/PROSPECTUS AND OTHER DOCUMENTS FILED WITH THE SEC CAREFULLY IN THEIR ENTIRETY WHEN THEY BECOME AVAILABLE BECAUSE THEY WILL CONTAIN IMPORTANT INFORMATION ABOUT THE PROPOSED TRANSACTION.
Investors and security holders will be able to obtain free copies of the registration statement and the proxy statement/prospectus (when available) and other documents filed with the SEC by Microsoft Corp. through the Web site maintained by the SEC at http://www.sec.gov. Free copies of the registration statement and the proxy statement/prospectus (when available) and other documents filed with the SEC can also be obtained by directing a request to Investor Relations Department, Microsoft Corp., One Microsoft Way, Redmond, Wash. 98052-6399.
Microsoft Corp. and its directors and executive officers and other persons may be deemed to be participants in the solicitation of proxies in respect of the proposed transaction. Information regarding Microsoft Corp.’s directors and executive officers is available in its Annual Report on Form 10-K for the year ended June 30, 2007, which was filed with the SEC on Aug. 8, 2007, and its proxy statement for its 2007 annual meeting of shareholders, which was filed with the SEC on Sept. 29, 2007. Other information regarding the participants in the proxy solicitation and a description of their direct and indirect interests, by security holdings or otherwise, will be contained in the proxy statement/prospectus and other relevant materials to be filed with the SEC when they become available.
Statements in this release that are “forward-looking statements” are based on current expectations and assumptions that are subject to risks and uncertainties. Actual results could differ materially because of factors such as Microsoft Corp.’s ability to achieve the synergies and value creation contemplated by the proposed transaction, Microsoft Corp.’s ability to promptly and effectively integrate the businesses of Yahoo! Inc. and Microsoft Corp., the timing to consummate the proposed transaction and any necessary actions to obtain required regulatory approvals, and the diversion of management time on transaction-related issues. For further information regarding risks and uncertainties associated with Microsoft Corp.’s business, please refer to the “Management’s Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations” and “Risk Factors” sections of Microsoft Corp.’s SEC filings, including, but not limited to, its annual report on Form 10-K and quarterly reports on Form 10-Q, copies of which may be obtained by contacting Microsoft Corp.’s Investor Relations department at (800) 285-7772 or at Microsoft Corp.’s Web site at http://www.microsoft.com/msft.
All information in this communication is as of Feb. 1, 2008. Microsoft Corp. undertakes no duty to update any forward-looking statement to conform the statement to actual results or changes in the company’s expectations.
I personally think that this will make the internet a more interesting place, as a combined “Yahoo!/Microsoft” online company will definitely give Google a run for their money.
Read MoreProductive Browser Homepage
Based on the post “Make about:blank Your Homepage” I thought I would share my own productivity tip that you can use your browser’s home page for.
I agree with Ionut Alex Chitu in that having a browser home page that connects to the internet is not a great thing. Especially in the following (my) situation:
VPN
Depending on day and time, I might be on a VPN, so I’ll need to enable my proxy.
When the browser starts, it will try and go to whatever home page you have set, and if you haven’t enabled/disabled the proxy, it fails, and that’s annoying.
Slow Internet
I’d LOVE to set my home page to a page like iGoogle with a whole bunch of gadgets giving me all the info I need.
But, the internet here in South Africa can be quite slow, even on a “broadband connection“.
So starting FireFox and sitting and waiting for a home page is not something I enjoy doing. My whole reason for USING FireFox is so that I can multi-task!
What homepage do I use?
I created my own home page. All it is is a local .html file containing all the links I need to get to the sites I use the most.
Here’s a screenshot of my home page:
As you can see, I’ve divided my links into different categories.
For example, the left column is all devoted to the app I support, and there are categories for the Production, Test, Dev and Local versions…
It loads just as quickly as about:home, but it makes my bookmarks easier to click. And I’ve set FireFox to open my home page when I open a new tab, so they’re always there.
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