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My nofollow comment status is coming down.
Dofollow Comments as a Linking Philosophy
A good conversation is worth fistfulls of gofollows or nofollows or any kind of follows. Why? Because people who have participated in or read a good conversation on a blog are likely to come back and do it again. Unlike Search [...]

Whenever WordPress sends out notice that an update includes a security fix, I install it on my own blog right away, for two reasons.

That phrase security fix
I want to know how it acts on my blog, before I need to use it on someone else’s

The folks at WordPress are telling us that WP 2.5.1 includes [...]

Yup. That’s me. Empty nest and all, I am forever “Mom.”
::waves to a certain grown one who sometimes reads this blog::
I, the Mom afore mentioned, mentioned in my 101 Day Round Up earlier this month that I was up for doing a little documented WordPress theme redesign, starting with the WordPress default theme [...]

Yesterday WordPress 2.5 became the latest stable release. I upgraded, and it was good.
If you want to get a sneak peek before performing the deed yourself, head on over to the WordPress 2.5 announcement. You’ll see that wordpress.org has a fresh new look, and that fresh new look is also the look of [...]

This tutorial will walk you through creating a single widgetized sidebar container filled with individually styled widgets that can span a wide sidebar or float to either side to create the appearance of columns.
An alternative strategy was covered in Part I.
There are two general approaches to styling a wide, widgetized sidebar: fill one dynamic_sidebar with [...]

There are two general approaches to styling a wide, widgetized sidebar: fill one dynamic_sidebar with individually styled widgets, or fill a sidebar container with several instances of dynamic_sidebar. Though perfectionists and geeky control freaks will appreciate the control of individually styled widgets, for pure speed and simplicity the multiple dynamic_sidebar path is hard to [...]

This tutorial will cover adding several “sidebars” to sidebar.php using simple “if” statements, and where to place unwidgeted content in the same file. This is a first step to my next tutorial, which will present some ideas for how to style a wide, widgetized sidebar.
Mixing widgetized and unwidgetized sidebar content can be confusing. [...]

Two days ago WordPress announced an urgent security update.
WordPress 2.3.3 is an urgent security release. If you have registration enabled a flaw was found in the XML-RPC implementation such that a specially crafted request would allow a user to edit posts of other users on that blog. In addition to fixing this security flaw, 2.3.3 [...]

So, it’s time to install an important security upgrade. You back up your database, but forget to back up your customized version of a theme that comes with WordPress. When performing the upgrade, the new Default files overwrite the old ones, and your work on WordPress Default is lost.
There are two [...]

This tutorial will walk you through how to widen Kubrick, the WordPress Default Theme, without losing the ability to use the theme’s custom header image coloring. The result will be wide enough for a second sidebar, or for one of the extra wide sidebars that are increasingly popular.
I added 200px to the WordPress Default [...]

The WordPress Default Theme measures about 220 pixels from the top of the screen to the bottom of the header image, with a 760px wide by 200px high header image. Many popular sites have only between 100 and 150 pixels between the top of the screen and the bottom of the header area. [...]

This is the tutorial I wish I had found when I first wanted to know how to add a second widget-ready sidebar.

Step One: Create a second sidebar file

1)a: Add content to sidebar2.php
1)b: Upload sidebar2.php

Step Two: Add the new sidebar to your WordPress layout

2)a: Find the code that calls the original sidebar
2)b: Add your own includes

Step [...]

What do the top search marketing blogs not have at the top of their sidebars? More often than not, they don’t list just exactly what I’m going to tell you about here: lists of recent posts, popular posts, recent comments, top commentators…
Of course there are exceptions, but the top spots are more likely than [...]

A couple posts ago I wrote about at-a-glance features that help me get a quick sense of what’s going on with a blog. For the next few posts I’m going to chip away at adding some of those features to my own blog. My first target will be some sidebar links devoted to [...]

Yesterday was odd. I had pretty good readership according to FeedStats, but MyBlogLog, Google Analytics and the stat thingy that comes with my server told me I had two visitors on January 12th, aside from myself. Two! Not kidding! Also yesterday, one person added themselves to this blog’s MyBlogLog Community, and [...]

My 100 posts project needs a home. I want all 100+1 in their own group, with easy navigation between them, and I’d like some sort of countdown widget.
For a countdown I chose KB Countdown Widget.
KB Countdown Widget
KB Countdown is a sidebar widget that comes with nice documentation and several pre-configured options. You can [...]

There’s nothing like a search for meaning to plump up one’s to-do list. I committed to making 100 posts in 100 days, as I feel out the values behind how I want to brand this site. Four posts in and my to-do list is about a mile long. The basic run down on [...]

As promised yesterday, here are some brief reviews for plugins that will add author Gravatars or avatars to comments. A Gravatar is a globally recognized avatar. To get a Gravatar, users must register with Gravatar. MyBlogLog users can upload an avatar when registering their blog with MyBlogLog.
Some Gravatar and Avatar Resources

Article [...]

When I started my blog last month I had planned to fairly quickly add three custom graphic elements. Category avatars were at the top of my list.
Category avatars are a nice way to automatically add visual interest to a blog that is mostly text. Author avatars help, but are not practical for a [...]

Are you disappointed with the inaccuracy of Google’s blog search for examining incoming links? Here’s a quick way to add links to other services to your WordPress dashboard.
First, go to the root level of your WordPress installation. Find and open the file /wp-admin/index.php. Use a text editor.
Next, find these lines:
 
<div [...]

One of the neat things about WordPress is that a non-programmer can add personalized tweaks fairly easily, with a basic understanding of nesting. The trick is to find what something is called and simplify goals. Simplification is often a matter of not requiring special treatment for specific situations, unless that is something you [...]

I am a plugin junkie. Here are a few that I like to install right after setting up WordPress.
Akismet
The quinessential WordPress comment spam stopper, Akismet is part of a WP base install. In addition to installing Akismet, go to Options > Discussion and decide how much control you want over comments.
By Matt Mullenweg.
Go [...]

I finally got my site out of tables and into WordPress.
I started with Bruce Gardner’s Blue Zinfandel Squared Enhanced theme, because I am learning WordPress and I like his detailed approach to CSS. I’ve found that working with other people’s code is a good way to learn, and both Blue Zinfandel Enhanced [...]