May
6
I Dofollow Comments
Filed Under Blogging, Wordpress | 15 Comments
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 [...]
Apr
26
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 [...]
Apr
25
Mom Remodels WordPress
Filed Under Content Development, Wordpress | 4 Comments
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 [...]
Mar
30
A Quick First Look at WordPress 2.5
Filed Under Wordpress | 4 Comments
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 [...]
Mar
5
Styling Wide, Widgetized Sidebars Part II
Filed Under Tools and Tutorials, Wordpress | Leave a Comment
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 [...]
Feb
13
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 [...]
Feb
11
WordPress Sidebar Widget Sandwich
Filed Under Tools and Tutorials, Wordpress | 1 Comment
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. [...]
Feb
7
WordPress Urgent Upgrade
Filed Under Wordpress | 2 Comments
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 [...]
Feb
6
Protecting Customizations to WordPress Default
Filed Under Tools and Tutorials, Wordpress | Leave a Comment
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 [...]
Feb
5
Wide Sidebar and Header for WordPress Default Theme
Filed Under Tools and Tutorials, Wordpress | Leave a Comment
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 [...]
Feb
4
Reducing Header Height - WordPress Default Theme
Filed Under Tools and Tutorials, Wordpress | 2 Comments
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. [...]
Feb
1
WordPress: Add a Second Widget-Ready Sidebar
Filed Under Tools and Tutorials, Wordpress | 7 Comments
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 [...]
Jan
21
A Few Blog Navigation Plugins
Filed Under Wordpress | Leave a Comment
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 [...]
Jan
18
Blogrolling My Footer
Filed Under Blogging, Tools and Tutorials, Wordpress | 10 Comments
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 [...]
Jan
13
Feeding the (feed)Reader
Filed Under Blogging, Wordpress | Leave a Comment
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 [...]
Jan
10
A Defined and Navigable Space
Filed Under Tools and Tutorials, Usability, Wordpress | Leave a Comment
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 [...]
Jan
8
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 [...]
Jan
7
Comment Avatar Plugins
Filed Under Wordpress | 2 Comments
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 [...]
Dec
19
WordPress Post Category Icons
Filed Under Tools and Tutorials, Wordpress | 3 Comments
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 [...]
Dec
14
Adding Technorati Blog Search to the WordPress Dashboard
Filed Under Tools and Tutorials, Wordpress | Leave a Comment
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 [...]
Dec
7
Adding Post Author Avatars
Filed Under Tools and Tutorials, Wordpress | 3 Comments
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 [...]
Nov
27
Plugging Plugins
Filed Under Wordpress | Leave a Comment
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 [...]
Nov
21
A New Look
Filed Under Wordpress | Leave a Comment
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 [...]



