Taking Action on Blog Action Day October 15, 2008

Blog Action Day 2008 is October 15th this year and the topic up for bloggy discussion is poverty. The site offers a lot of suggestions on ways to blog about poverty including technology blogs exploring poverty fighting initiatives, a political blog comparing candidate positions on the issue, and a sports blog covering charity activities by […]

WordPress Security Prevention, Reactions, and Scares

Matt Mullenweg spoke out recently on the recent bogus “SecurityFocus SQL Injection” fear spreading across the web. There is a huge perception today that WordPress is a security risk. This is not true. As Matt discussed, fears of SQL server vulnerabilities and other security issues have gotten out of control, for WordPress as well as […]

Content Theft from Feeds – It’s Time To Take Action

The Blogging Herald reports that content theft is on the rise via feeds and it is time to do something about it. How timely since I recently posted What Do You Do When Someone Steals Your Content and The Growing Trend in Content Theft, which includes feed thieves. There is a reference in the post […]

Internet Interaction and File Sharing May Explode With AllPeers

The news is everywhere. There is a hot new Firefox Extension that may take the Internet by storm for Firefox users. AllPeers Firefox Extension may just revolutionize social interaction on the web, so says Tech Crunch and many others including Slashdot. AllPeers is a simple, persistent buddy list in the browser. Initially, interaction with those […]

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 […]

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: Do You Teach or Lecture?

Do you teach or lecture on your site? We all write with a specific “voice” and “style,” representing our perspective on the information we are presenting. On this site, I’m a teacher, sharing with you lessons to help you blog, use WordPress, and publishing on the web. You may share your expertise or your experiences […]

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” […]

Blog Exercises: What Are Your Reasons For Blogging

We all have our reasons for blogging. Having our say, sharing our experience, teaching, learning, creative outlet, money, reputation, because they told you to…all of these are good reasons to blog, but to keep blogging you need something more. In this blog exercise, I want you to consider the more. It is the answer to […]

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 […]

Blog Exercises: Increase Your Thank You Ratio

As a teacher, trainer, social media expert, and advice giver on many blogs, I don’t want to hear your excuses in response to my advice. “Well, if I only had the money…” Really? Since WordPress, the tools I recommend, and the advice I offer is free. What does money have to do with anything I […]

Blog Exercises: Does Your Site Look Spammy?

Does your site look spammy? How would you know whether or not your site looks spammy? It’s time for a spam check. Web design is hard, especially if you aren’t an expert. Yet, in many ways you are an expert if you are a fan of the web. You’ve seen enough sites to know the […]

Blog Exercises: How to Respond to a Trackback

In the first blog exercise on trackbacks I explained how trackbacks work and how to respond to trackbacks. It’s time to revisit the concept of how to respond to a trackback. In the exercise, I described the unique quality of trackbacks for tracking conversations across the web. You publish something, someone likes it and publishes […]

WordPress Anniversary: WordPress and Evil

As I look back on the ten years of WordPress, there is a dark side to blogging. While many blamed WordPress for the evil, like guns, WordPress doesn’t cause evil, people cause evil. In fact, WordPress, Automattic, and the WordPress Community has fought longer and harder against the evil doers in the world than most […]

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 […]