Blog Struggles: When Spelling, Grammar, and Punctuation Interferes With Your Blogging

Discussing the challenges associated with blogging, a participant in a program I presented recently told me about how she tends to obsess over punctuation. My friends tell me I need to read that book, Eat, Shoots, and Leaves about punctuation. I’m obsessed with commas and ellipses. I love using them. I like how they sound […]

Gosh Golly Grammar Giggles

The Lifewriter’s Digest’s Don Nylin of Illinois wrote “Ain’t Grammar Fun: Words to the Wise (or is that, Wise Words?)”, a humorous look at grammar gaffs and reminders of how we should, or shouldn’t write in English. Here are a few of my favorites: 1. Verbs has to agree with their subjects. 6. Always avoid […]

The Secret Recipe of Comment Spam Comments

Mr. Louis Vuitton just sent me a message in my blog comments I’d like to share with you. I share this touching message because it is highly educational when it comes to the art of spam comments, and serves to remind us of why we love having Akismet, the best comment spam fighter, on our […]

Blog Exercises: Sex Changes and Age Matters

I often get comments that say “Thank you, sir” or emails through my contact forms addressed to Mr. Lorelle. In France, “Lorelle” is a last name as popular as Johnson in English countries. I understand that “Lorelle” is a tough name to identify with a sex. Not the point. I live online in a world […]

Blog Exercises: Preview Posts

Do you preview a post before publishing? If not, consider adding this extra step to the publishing process. Why? I’m human. So are you. We mess things up. No matter how careful you are, you will make mistakes. That’s life. By double checking what your post will look like before you release it to the […]

Blog Exercises: Polls and Surveys Follow-up

In Blog Exercises: Polls and Surveys I asked you to create a poll on your site asking for input from your readers. Today’s exercise is on creating a follow-up poll. In that exercise, I invited readers to respond to the question, “What publishing platform are you currently using?” The answers to that are typical, skewed […]

WordPress Codex Night Success and PDX Saturday Codex Party

Last night’s PDX WordPress Meetup Group: WordPress Codex Night was a resounding success. In just under two hours, 130 changes were made to the WordPress Codex, the online manual for WordPress Users. On the informal WordPress Documentation Team Task List, 49 “things to do” were added which will become deleted files and pages, redirects, new […]

PDX WordPress Meetup Group: WordPress Codex Night

The WordPress Meetup Group in Portland, Oregon, has invited me to tonight’s meetup at the US Bancorps Building in downtown PDX to talk about the WordPress Codex, the online manual for WordPress Users, and how to contribute. I’ll show them some basics about the Codex and we’ll spend a couple hours working on maintenance tasks […]

Prove It: What Makes You Trust a Website?

What makes you trust this site? What makes you trust me? What makes you trust any website you visit? What is it about the site that earns your trust? I’ve asked this question at most of the conferences and keynotes I’ve given over the past seven years: What makes you not trust a website? The […]

Prove It: It’s Starts With Defining Who You Are

Who are you on the web? How do you describe yourself? What words do you use to tell the world who you are, what you stand for or represent, what you do, how you do it, and why they should want to get to know you and work with you? Preparing to teach my WordPress […]

Basic Facts and Resources You Need to Know Now About Web Accessibility

Last night I gave a presentation for an amazing group of web designers and developers in Portland, Oregon. I spoke about web accessibility, a long time passion of mine. My co-presenter was Winslow Parker from the Oregon Commission for the Blind who has been teaching screen reading and computer techniques to the blind. He’s also […]

Blog Struggles: I Need an Eraser for My Old Posts

Online Diary: May 20, 2010 I’d like to go back and erase my old posts. Don’t you feel that way sometimes? Maybe all the time? As I think about talking to the telephone poles out there and reassessing where I am, the urge to purge is overwhelming me. I want to go through all my […]

Blog Struggles: How Do You Know When to Stop Writing a Blog Post?

As I prepare for my meeting with Alan Dean Foster, one of the world’s most prolific and famous science fiction authors, I’m not the only one inspired by the whole concept of making dreams come true. Robyn Seaton introduced Alan Dean Foster to me after she and I met at WordCamp Phoenix, and PodCamp Arizona […]

Blog Struggles: Trackbacks Count

At a blog conference recently, I overheard the following exchange over a laptop as part of a blog review exercise: “For your blog to be successful, you need more comments on your blog posts.” “I have plenty of comments on my blog. See, this one has 14 comments.” “That post has only one comment. The […]

Blog Struggles: I Just Need Two Seconds of Your Time

How often have you been asked for “two seconds of your time” in purpose, email, or chat? I’m asked every day for those precious two seconds, and every day I struggle to say no. My day begins at five in the morning. I used to make time for exercise but more and more my work […]