Hello, Sara here. I’m probably better known as “ses” or ses5909 in my circles. Instead of having a typical “About Me” page, I decided to have a page where visitors could ask what they want to know instead of me telling them what I think they should know. I’ll give you a little bit of info to get you started.
I’m a complete computer geek and I love to build websites. I’m somewhat of a nomad, moving all over the states and now living in Belgium and traveling Europe when I can. I’ve got an awesome family who I adore. I think music can tell a lot about a person so you can check out my music profile. The rest is up to you to find out!
If you want this on your site, please download the Ask Me plugin. I am in the process of updating the plugin!
So go ahead, ask me a question. Of course these questions are moderated, but pretty much anything goes (within reason).
Have you ever asked yourself a question on this form?
I have asked myself a question Josh. The very first question as a matter of fact.
What do I type here?
To which I also responded:
You can ask any question you would like. I am moderating these questions so if I don’t LIKE your dumb question, you won’t see it. Make it good dammit.
Jaems is too lazy to google. Hey Sara:
The Ask Me plug-in is awesome. Exactly what I was looking for. Working on implementing a near real-time Q&A or Organic-FAQ type of page. Any suggestions on how to make it work well for a user-generated FAQ system?
Glad you like it Jaems. So are you wanting to let users ask AND answer questions? To me that sounds more like a forum type of solution.
Robin thinks Google sucks and instead asks Sara:
Hi Sara, I came across your blog through search-this. I was surprised to see you’re currently living in Belgium. I hope you like your stay over here. Great to see that people travel around for fun and their profession (I guess you do). I visited the USA this year, and noticed that both cultural and architectural differences are significant, even though they’re both refered to as “the West” and we (Belgians) see the US on everyday television. So I wondered, what was the thing that surprised you most when living in Belgium?
Very good question Robin and I could write a book about it. The thing that surprised me the most that affected my life most was I had been told that everyone speaks English here. That’s not the case in the South where everyone speaks French. Up north we have found people much more accommodating. Another thing that surprised me was how neat and culturally diverse the country is. Because of its past being passed back and forth between the french and the germans, and the industrial work here, the population is very culturally diverse which I like! Where in the US did you visit?
Sara,
I have two questions if I may?
One of my consulting businesses teaches Realtors to blog, how to find content, how to set up, and shows them an outline to follow to be successful. 99% of Realtors believe that writing a story everyday is their biggest “push back” to adoption.
In reality the technology curve ie widgets, code, understanding how to navigate the blog platform and other issues are the biggest problems.
1. What do you believe is the simplest method to teach a NON tech, scared of the internet
Realtor how to navigate the technology issues surrounding blogging?
2. A number of Realtors, must have fancied themselves designers or frustrated architects, own MACs. How can I convert them to windows and PC software/equipment?
Thanks Sara,
dean of deansguide.wordpress.com
Hi Dean and thanks for the questions. I actually had to teach a realtor to blog, so I can give some solid input here.
1. The first thing I did was gave him homework and told him to open up the backend and have a look around. Then I sat down and walked him through everything. If you can’t be there in person, I recommend creating a video tutorial.
2. I wouldn’t say you need to get them off macs and onto PCs. Different things work for different people and if they are more comfortable on Macs, then I would let it be otherwise you will find yourself teaching a whole lot more than just a blog platform!
Would you trade my eternal gratitude for a zip of the plugins you have modified?
What plugin are you looking for specifically Joey? I can’t even remember half of the things I have “tinkered” with
What do you like to do for fun? Excluding anything computer or technology related.
I love to travel. I like to get outside (hiking, camping, etc.) as much as possible and also enjoy taking pictures. My ideal vacation would be camping with my laptop
I was wondering is there a way to have a time date stamp?
You can definitely have a datestamp, you would need to modify the code. Maybe I can put that in the next version.
Have I already said how much I like the Idea of this plugin?
Thanks Guilherme! Hopefully the next version is even better!
Jenny lies awake at night and wonders:
What plugins do you use on your site?
Let’s see here!
- Ask Me
- Akismet
- DoFollow
- php-exec
- Feedburner Feed Replacement
- Subscribe to Comments
- WP Database Backup
Haha, do you get cybersexual requests from middle aged trailer park guys often?
Not too often actually Joey! I think I scare most of them away
How much wood would a woodchuck chuck, if a woodchuck could chuck wood?
2.5 cords!
Jenny thinks Google sucks and instead asks Sara:
How do you get the random question to show up on your main page?
The random question is coming in the next version of the plugin Jenny. If there is anything else you would like to see in the plugin, let me know!
I downloaded your ask me plugin and I can’t seem to get it to work right, the code at the end idn’t doing what it needs to be doing. Can you help? Here is my ask me page. http://lillybug.org/main/?page_id=128
Hi Lindsey, sorry for my delayed response. Are you still having issues with this?
Holly is pondering:
Do you find that there is not many of us female computer geeks in the world? (I am one, and don’t know too many others)
We are definitely still in the minority Holly, but there are more and more every day! What do you do with computers?
den needs to know:
i wann know
who make gaffer faster? woman or man and why bpz if u know wrote what do u thonk
I have no idea what this question means but that’s okay. Thanks for stopping by anyway
I have two options in front of me to further my career - I could either do a course on Java or one on .NET - which would you recommend? Considering I can find my way around C and PHP.
Well, it all really depends on what kind of jobs are in your area. knowing php and C won’t make it any easier to learn Java over C#. If you learn .net, you aren’t really learning a language, but a framework which several languages use. If you got to pick a language I would choose C#. Most programmers come out of school knowing Java so learning C# would give you an edge over them in a sense for beginner C# jobs. Also, Java and C# are very similar so if you learn one, you could easily learn the other.
I wonder what plugin you’ve used, or how did you create the “Link this post” and “bookmark this” on the footer of each post, i’ve seen a lot of plugins like this but they all seems to be very massy, yours seems so clean.
Hey Rea. I used the “SubmitIt” plugin but I cleaned it up a little bit to what i felt was most important. If you’d like I can send you the files I used. Just shoot me an email and let me know!
Hi, I was wondering how did you get your ask me answers to appear as if they were in a blockquote?
I just gave it the same style as I have in my blockquote
In the readme file you should see some styles that you can define. The one you will want to make sure to define is askme_answer.
So, woman, seriously: when will you visit me?
Whenever you tell me you’re going to come visit me too
please help, how can ( I need to make an extension) I make firefox to spit out the url every time the user load a page. Thanks
I’m sorry alan, but I have no idea. I’m still a firefox extension n00b! Google is your friend!
Nick is bugging Sara to know:
Hi, so, I want to add “Ask Me” to my blog site,
but when I click to download the file,
it download then when I click “extract”
it says it is corrupted? What do I do?
Hey Nicholas. Can you try again? I reuploaded the zip. Thanks!
Elaine lies awake at night and wonders:
Hi, can you give me a little career advice? I’ve been in DB development for 10 years, have done some ASP development with success. Currently job hunting and I want to demonstrate that I can build a web app with .net because I have no “direct” job experience with it. I already have my development environment set up at home. Any thoughts on what might impress them and get me hired?
Have you started playing with it at all? If your background is asp, vb.net might be easier for you, although I would recommend c# if you can. The best way to learn it is to really start getting your hands dirty. Start making yourself a website, maybe on a topic that interests you.
I downloaded your AskMe plugin and everything has gone fine except for the fact that I don’t know how to:
a. Disable the WYSIWYG rich editor within the user options (at the bottom of the page)
b. Disable “WordPress should correct invalidly nested XHTML automatically”
Because there is no options page for Exec PHP version 3.2. Or am I just missing something?
And is there a different Exec PHP program that I could download?
Thanks!
Hey Megan. The option is actually in the user profile not the exec-php. Edit your user profile. It looks like there is a check box at the top that says “Use the visual editor when writing”.
Why do people ask stupid questions?
You tell me
. Seriously though, who am I to say what’s stupid or not? I’ll try and answer every question I can.
Master D lies awake at night and wonders:
I’m only interested in the ‘ask me’ questions about Sara. Not the ‘ask me’ questions about the ‘ask me’ plugin. Have you considered separating the personal Q&A from the technical Q&A?
Hi Dean. This is the first time someone has asked for that, but that is a good suggestion. Possibly letting people create categories for the questions they are asked and then allowing people to filter the results by category or topic. Brilliant idea!
Feeling Nosy?
