Drew Broadley's Bottomless Pit of Rambling.

An awesome morning taking the dog to the beach and for a jour down the waterfront

Wordpress, I hate it but I use it.

There are two things I do with every new Wordpress install, and they both exist in the wp-config.php file.

What you're going to achieve via this is per host settings for different environments (dev, test, staging, live...) and never have Wordpress force the hostname stored in the wp_config table.

First, remove the DB settings lines and put them into a new file wp-config-localhost.php. These will be used later.

Now add this set of lines into your wp-config below the WP_DEBUG line:

// Checking to see if host-specific config exists
$host_config_file = (ABSPATH . 'wp-config-' . preg_replace("/[^a-z0-9\-\.]+/","", $_SERVER['HTTP_HOST']) . '.php');
if (file_exists($host_config_file))
{
require_once($host_config_file);
}

This will search for a wp-config.php file corresponding to the hostname you request the Wordpress site through, i.e. http://www.mywordpresssite.com will transfer to wp-config-www.mywordpresssite.com.php. This allows you to set DB and other settings per host. Note: you cannot redefine constants, so you may want to pull anything you want to change into these hostname specific config files.

And directly under what you've just put in, put these two lines:

define('WP_SITEURL', 'http://' . $_SERVER['HTTP_HOST'] . '/');
define('WP_HOME', 'http://' . $_SERVER['HTTP_HOST'] . '');

This will tell Wordpress to use the hostname of your site as the Wordpress home and site base url. This stops you installing it on a machine that had the Wordpress site accessed through http://localhost/ no longer try and throw the other person who is working on the site to http://localhost/, when they may have the site setup to be viewable through http://wordpress.mydomain.com/ etc.

I hope this helps someone, somewhere, out there, over the rainbow....

Strapped in and ready to go to doggy daycare

Wellington people - do you want some free in-house help with your misbehaving dog ?

• Wont come, but you've been through obedience ?
• Gets possessive over things, and growls when you try to take them away ?
• Scared you'll get your hand bitten off if you try to take their dog bowl away ?
• Barks/shows teeth at strangers ?
• Aggressive towards other dogs ?

Or any other behaviour you really don't think your dog should be doing, I'm keen to help Hey all, I've been around dogs all my life, I've often found a bond with almost all dogs that I've met and my love for dogs has caused me to really want to understand them.

I've been studying dog behaviour/psychology for over a year, and am by nature a self-taught person. I've read most books on the subject and have taken a point of view of different approaches and it's really a dog-by-dog assessment on what's the best approach.
I took on a very special case SPCA dog (Border Collie mix called Sassy) who has some very severe trust/anxiety issues and am progressing very well with her.

• What I'm keen on now, is to give myself eth other dogs that are not through family contacts.
• Here's a summary of what I'll offer (usually will take 30min-1hr):
• I will not hurt your dog, I will use little to no physical contact.
• I can offer clicker training, but prefer an alternative method. It just depends how well you can control the emotion in your voice so we'll take it as it comes.
• I will not offer help on person-aggressive and attacking dog cases, sorry (ask me in a few years). This is beyond my experience.
• I will provide education to the owner(s) and a summary of the assessment in an email/pdf afterwards for you to take away and work with.
• I am especially keen on working with post-adoption SPCA dogs.

Your dogs confidence is paramount, if your dog is feeling uneasy, I will not push them. I don't work with suppression or flooding techniques, I work by modification of behavior.

If you're interested, please email drew@broadley.org.nz or reply here with the following details:

Dogs Name:
Dogs Breed:
Dogs Age:
Where you got the dog:
If you're not the original owner, how long have you owned it:
Describe the problem:

I'd appreciate it if you could pass this onto people who it may come to help.

Marketing Idea #13 - Woof woof

Sick of those damn dogs barking throughout the day/night ? Ready to complain to the council, but knowing that it's going to take a fair bit of action before the owner really takes hold of how annoying their precious pooch is ?

A great community marketing scheme, due to people adopting a four legged friend and being ignorant to its needs, it causes a build up of frustration and stress which causes side effects of barking, tearing up the back yard and chewing to relieve this.

Currently when you complain to the council, they take the complaint and file it with a friendly "Thanks for getting in touch" reply. Second complaint gets a bit more action and a letter sent to the offending owner. Third complaint usually ends up in similar grounds of the result from the second complaint.
Nothing is being achieved, the owner isn't paying attention and most likely laughing at the letters. Here's where a better approach of the problem comes in. Education, and reasonable consequences...

Setup a council funded dog walking/dog care scheme, with a one/two representatives per region with animal behavioral training and dog obedience knowledge.
When a complaint comes in to the council they handle it as they normally do with one exception, the representatives do a quick check on the property. This allows them to assess the frustration and stress of the dog. What this achieves is two things:

1. Assesses the dog is not maltreated in anyway (within reason)
2. Confirms the problem at the indicated time(s)

Council records situation, and writes a reply letter to the owners property sharing the findings of the animal, and confirming if they also identified the problem and suggestions to educate the owner on why their dog may be causing disruptions. This gives a mediation type approach. A letter also goes out to the complainant stating what has happened, and what allocated duration they have before following up the complaint and any suggested non-confrontational methods they could use to communicate with the property owner.
Second complaint comes after the conditions haven't been met, and the owner is contacted stating their dog is still behaving in a manner as per the first complaint. They are notified that they will be visited in the evening of their choice so the council can initiate a dog walking service initially sponsored by the council to reduce the frustration of their dog and see if this improves the dogs behavior. Additional education is supplied to the owner on the system and introduction to the dog to the representatives who will be walking their dog.

The dog will go on a trial for two weeks, seeing if there is any immediate improvement. If there is improvement, then the council will supply the owner with enough education to complete their knowledge of animal behavior and why walking their dog is important. If there is no improvement, then owners are referred to a dog behavioral specialist.

If a third complaint arrives, then the council sends out a fine for the dog and the dog walkers come in and carry on their service until the fine value is reached. After each duration of dog walking has been completed, the council will reassess the situation with the owner.

This can also be offered as a subsidised dog walking service by the community council to reduce dog nuisance complaints to people who don't have time to walk their dog.

The dog walking service may not be feasible, but education and communication with the dog owners is a must.

Potential Clients:
Dog owners

Potential Mediums:
Interactive, Website, Print

Ugh, so busy

The lack of updates reflect it, but I'll be back on top of the Marketing ideas this week....

Marketing Idea #12 - Cops and Robbers

Imagine you're racing around the tarmac, tires squealing, a cop on your tail with lights blazing. Is this a video game ? No. Sounds a bit too cliche ? Sure! But this is the appeal...

Put yourself up against the best on the NZ Police force. Setup on an open race track where you can backtrack on sections of the race track and the goal of the cop is to perform a pit maneuver and spin you 180 degrees to win. Identical cars are setup with bumper sections on the front/back to reduce damage and absorb impact. Cops have cars in the NZ Police force branding, and the "robbers" have cars in Dukes of Hazard or similar stereo-type paint jobs.

This can be used as training for NZ Police in the public eye to demonstrate how safe their apprehension methods are, and lets every person who has the want to see how good they are up against the people in blue. National qualifying events that boil down to a final at a defined race track.

This can become a community fundraising event and a great spectator sport annual event, with sponsorship from a car manufacturer. Potential to become a short life-span TV show or a recruitment drive styled event.

Potential Clients:
NZ Police, Defensive Driver Education (AA), Driver Training Companies (Holden, BMW, etc.)

Potential Mediums:
Interactive

Marketing Idea #11 - Design the perfect garden

Building a garden is easy, or is it ?

When creating the garden of your dreams, or even just digging out a section of your current landscaping it's always hard to know (unless you're an avid green finger) about what plants go well together, how they will survive in the position with exposure and sunlight hours a factor.

Building a garden simulator that uses basic CAD overview and taking into consideration plants that work well together, or don't work well, are hardy, last all year around, flower at certain times, you can offer the novice green fingers an insight into how their garden will look all year around.

A simple overhead layout, with ability to position a house, designate north/south/east/west, any shady spots, will give the to-be landscaper a chance to experiment their ideas. Allow them to chose from a large array of plants, they can place them in arrangement that suits them.
Using a seasonal timeline slider, and time of day slider, you can simulate how the plants will work together all year around. Show when each will flower, drop leaves, if they wont suit the shady area they've been placed in and if any of these factors don't work well with the plant it will die.

This will save people from making mistakes, and also allow the offering of advice by submitting your garden and suggestions can be received in return by experts to how they could better their intentions.

This would be a great interactive piece to place a large plant retailer behind. They can offer garden design competitions, even make a game of building the best all around garden from selected templates.

This could also be put in store as an interactive piece that people can select stock from the shop and place it in a landscape layout that is similar to their home. In-store experts can offer advice on the spot, and they can have it emailed to them or printed out at the store with the names of the plants and can place an order at the counter.

Potential Clients:
Palmers, other plant retailers

Potential Mediums:
Web, Interactive

Swimming with the Dolphins

On our South Island trip of adventure, we had planned on doing swimming with the dolphins in Akaroa. Unfortunately the Chile earthquake that caused a tsunami warning closed the whole village down, and we were left there with no where to go and our adventure cancelled. We had to re-arrange plans to swing back around after cruising the West Coast. We managed to fit in time, and went swimming with the dolphins at Kaikoura, but to my dismay lost the DVD with all the videos from the encounter! Alas, when we thought all hope was lost, we found it embedded in our bungy photos.

I cannot recommend this enough, easily the highlight of our trip. Enjoy.

Marketing Idea #10 - Strange Dogs

With the rise in awareness recently, and always subdued knowledge of dog attacks, there needs for user education to people who are afraid of dogs (previously or a little anxious with the news of stereotypical aggressive dogs attacking).

There's a common approach many people do, is walking towards a dog with their hand out. This is quite a highly dangerous manner to approach a dog, as they work by scent, then sight, then sound, and finally touch.

A TV/Radio/Internet campaign to educate people that the best thing to do is stand tall and still, avoid eye contact and let the dog sniff you. When the dog wants to interact with you, it will rub up against you, or give you a nudge or other playful signs. Most dog behaviorist can be used as reference and research for the campaign.

The aim is to stop people being afraid due to not understanding.

Potential Clients:
Councils, SPCA, Dogsafety.govt.nz

Potential Mediums:
TV, Radio, Web, Mail drop