Early in the year, Race-Dezert.com was approached for the purpose of initiating an advertising campaign. A fraction of the initiative was unconventional and something I had yet to see upon the web. I wanted to park a brand's Facebook and Twitter widget in the direct line of site and embed it above the fold of editorial and community-created forum content. The conventional banner ad was a no-brainer. But the direct engagement social widget advertising was a request that seemingly fell upon death ears.

Perhaps a bit premature or perhaps not. One thing is for certain, I'm not the only one looking to get integrate the best blogging software into one of the greatest photo gallery scripts. That would be integrating Gallery3 into Wordpress via a simple Wordpress Plugin. As it stands, such a powerful combination of capabilities has yet to emerge, but there are several forums that have have emerged that may be worth watching.

Last night I had an interesting conversation with a friend whom I had not previously spoken to regarding his career. He's got a day job since moving from the East Coast to Southern California and it has nothing to do with his background as an opera singer and web developer. As a vocalist, he's phenominolly gifted. As a website designer and developer, he's garnered some interesting experience.

I absolutely love the topic of news and how it has evolved with the onslaught of social media and the web in general. Hacks have earned the accolade of online news sources. Seasoned news hounds from the stuffy print newspaper newsrooms have been scooped and charge around with chips on their shoulders. Print editors who have allowed stories to slip in favor of allowing someone to slide have been greeted with pink slips. And infotainment editors who charge their way into the Google News feed serve as little more than the day's muckrakers of sensational and sometimes fraudulent headlines who often perform as nothing more than human aggregators or regurgitators. Well, the first link of the lot is not necessarily focused upon the specific subject of muckrackers but is an interesting piece on user-led content and the terms breaking news. Also in the mix is audience targeting when crafting SEO content for your blog or other social media outlet. Conversion rates and followup are also covered. Get your business on.

Got links? Here are some good reads. Perhaps the best of the lot is the 10 free social media tools every public relations (PR) pro should master. And if you're a small businesses and looking for some insight on how to increase the eyeballs landing upon your good name when conducting local business searches, then there's a great link for optimizing your business listing. For those looking for domains for an existing business or a startup, there are five tips to get you started. Got content? There's an excellent strategy for those charged with developing a web content strategy. In my experience, especially for those working as contractors, you'll want to maintain an open stream of communication between client and client assets. Social media strategy, tactics and success is yet another link worthy of a read.

DVS Shoes is hip. Any association with the action sports shoe manufacturer garners a certain amount of recognition. A mere mention of the name upon any website will earn amiable attention in the form of web traffic.

This race photo is the second shot in a four-shot sequence captured at the 2010 SNORE Mint 400 desert off-road race and features the Orange County Motorsports Trophy Truck. The truck is seen dropping down from a hairpin turn that quickly developed into a silt bed. Much of the race course, which was located just north of the Las Vegas Strip, consisted of rough rocks and deep silt beds.

I had mentioned I squeezed the trigger on a Gallery2 open source photo gallery install. Installing Gallery2 was quite simple. Though, integrating Gallery2 into the Joomla CMS was a bit more difficult but not like pulling teeth on a angry bear. I used the JFusion bridge component.

Numbed with the effects of a novocain-like spell. It must've been the easy-to-use user interface or perhaps the intuitive administrator interface. Maybe it was the search engine optimized capabilities or maybe even its overall extensibility.

It's late. It's me. And I'm tired. I have another site that generally serves to host all my off-road racing photos. It used to turn a profit on them and retail e-commerce sales. That is why I was long deserting the idea of hosting a photo gallery here. Why do so when the photos were contributing to my bottom line and double up on the work for nothing.