Lorelle’s Family History Blog Featured in the Everett Herald Newspaper

I was recently honored with an article about my Family History Blog in the Everett Herald newspaper serving Everett, Snohomish County, Washington. The article, “Blogger digs into her roots: Snohomish County native works to uncover her family’s history,” quickly describes some of my family’s history related to the Snohomish County area on the Knapp and […]

Cooking Up a Story: NPR Explores Web Businesses

Today, National Public Radio (NPR) will feature a story on unusual businesses working on the web featuring Rebecca and Fred Gerendasy of Cooking Up a Story, a Portland, Oregon, area internet video production company. Their successful video blog, Cooking Up a Story and Cooking Up a Story YouTube Channel, produce a wide variety of film […]

Blog Challenge: What’s Your Blog’s Story?

Everybody has a story. About their life. About their work. About how they got their current job. About how they want out of their current job. About their parents. About their childhood. About their schools. About…well, everything. This week’s blog challenge is to blog your blog’s story. What is the story behind your blog? I […]

Blog Challenge: Who Would You Like To See Blog From History?

Kate Blogs asks us who would you like to see blogging from the past: The blogging world contains everyone from politicians to tea-ladies, best selling authors to paper-boys. In a way, having access to such a wonderful new technology makes one feel a little sorry for people in the past. At one time, if someone […]

Blog Challenge: Personal Blogging – Tell Us a Story

Here’s another Blogging Challenge for you this week. There are all types of blogs from highly technical to wildly biased political. This week, I want to focus on the personal blog. A personal blog is more of a diary or journal, a collection of personal writing about a person’s life, be it day-to-day stories or […]

Using Your Feeds for Story Ideas

After a couple months of incredible productivity, I hit a dry spell. There was plenty I should be writing about, but shoulds don’t motivate very well. So I went hunting. I’ve written about the many resources available for story ideas, but here’s a trick I do to get me back on course. I call it […]

Tell Your Story: Have You Had Your Content Stolen?

Call it stealing, call it copyright infringement, call it damned annoying, but answer the question: Have you had your blog content stolen? I’ve written a lot recently about what to do if your content is “violated” by others using it without permission, about the growing trends in content theft through feeds and other methods, how […]

Blog Exercises: Excerpts and Continue Reading

Encountered the front page of a blog where the posts ran on and on and on and on, stretching across the length of the page? Do you ever wish you had more control over the length of your posts on the front page of your site? This Blog Exercise explores the use of the “more” […]

Blog Exercises: How Long Are Your Paragraphs?

How long are your paragraphs? Have you measured them lately? One of the telling differences between traditional writing and writing for the web is the length of the paragraph. Look at the example below. Which is easier to read? On the left, the paragraphs are huge, long blocks of text. On the right, the paragraphs […]

Blog Exercises: Dissecting Post Categories

In a recent article, Noah Weiss shared his struggle to figure out categories and tags on his personal site. I know many of you following these Blog Exercises have also struggled to figure out your categories, so I thought Noah’s site would be a perfect example, He has gratefully given me permission to rip his […]

WordPress Anniversary: Comment Spam Lessons

It’s hard to believe that I’ve learned much from comment spammers over the years. I’ve learned that they are among the most hated folks in the world, yet you have to respect them as well. As I look back on ten years of blogging with WordPress on this 10th Anniversary year, I realized that comment […]

Blog Exercises: Who Changed Your Life?

This is one of the special Blog Exercises this year, a chance to really celebrate who you are and those who helped make you. As we travel through life, people change our lives on a daily basis as well as for a lifetime. Today’s exercise is focused on those who stepped in your path and […]

Blog Exercises: Writing Poetry and Recipes in Your Blog

Do you publish poetry on your site? Feature many quotes? Share recipes? Addresses? If so, you may need to learn how to publish content with single lines instead of double. In WordPress and other publishing platforms with a WYSIWYMG interface, hit the Enter (Return) key and a wide or double space will appear. Each line […]

Blog Exercises: Own Your Site and Protect Yourself

I hear it every day. A webmaster, developer, or designer does the site owner wrong and the site owner is victimized, helpless, and frustrated with what to do next. I’ve gotten calls in the middle of the night from people around the world trying to get help recovering their WordPress password because their “web guy” […]

The Brute-Force Password Attack on WordPress Sites

My mother emailed me and asked if WordPress was under attack. With all the news of last week’s attack of the Boston Marathon, the attacks on WordPress and other PHP-based web publishing sites was low on the priority list for myself and others, but this is something to take seriously. As we get back to […]