Backing Up Your WordPress.com Blog

A lot of people have been worrying about how to backup their WordPress.com blog. While WordPress.com has daily server backups, you might want to keep your own backup copy of your blog. UPDATE WordPress.com bloggers can now backup their WordPress.com blogs through the Export panel. Export your WordPress.com blog as an XML file for easy […]

Backing Up WordPress

UPDATED The recent challenges of dealing with Hurricane Katrina brought up the issue of bank security and record keeping. While many banks were destroyed and access to people’s money and accounts were limited temporarily, their money is still secure. Banks are required to backup all their information and store it offsite. One bank was described […]

Blogrolls Gone in WordPress. How to Save Your Links.

For the past few months, rumors were flying that WordPress was going to remove the Links/Blogroll feature of WordPress. As of August 2012, it is now gone from many WordPress.com. MacManx, Happiness Engineer at WordPress.com, recently stated: The Links section was removed from the core WordPress.org software, which means that it will probably be removed […]

What are the Essential WordPress Plugins You Can’t Live Without?

In my WordPress session at Barcamp Portland this past weekend, one of my favorite questions started the discussion: What are the most essential, must-have WordPress Plugins? My answer? None. Okay, not really. My honest answer is one: Akismet. Spam is the bane of our web experience. It comes in our emails and site comments. While […]

Firefox 5 Crashes: What is Causing Them and How to Fix It

If you are one of the thousands suffering constant crashes from the June update of Mozilla Firefox 5, realize you are not alone. Literally thousands have reported on Firefox 5 crashing across all platforms, including Windows and Mac. UPDATE: The crashes were clearly not a result of problems with Firefox but with Adobe Flash. Crashes […]

Is Your WordPress Blog at Risk from the Epsilon Email Theft?

I’ve just published news and tips on how to respond to the recent announcement and news about the Epsilon email theft on WordCast, “Epsilon Email Lists Breached: How to Protect Yourself.” I’ve included a list of the companies involved and tips on how to identify email phishing scams, deal and respond to them, and advice […]

Help and Tips for Windows Live Spaces Bloggers: Modules, Albums, Widgets, and Lists

I’ve been reading about a lot of the challenges facing Windows Live Spaces bloggers transitioning to WordPress.com. I feel for you all. You’ve done great work on your Windows Live Spaces blogs and now Microsoft is ending the program. Fortunately, instead of just shutting things down, they are giving bloggers six months to change and […]

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 […]

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 […]

WordCamp Israel WordPress Tips Talk

The following are my tips and recommendations to help you get the most out of WordPress, be it on WordPress.com or the full version of WordPress as presented to hundreds of WordPress fans at WordCamp Israel (English) recently. This is a fleshed-out version of my program notes outline, with links to more tips and recommendations […]

Protecting Your WordPress Blog

I’ve written extensively about the choices you have in responding to negative comments and bloggers. You can respond or ignore, but never retaliate. However, a few months ago, Darren Rowse of Problogger was the victim of a spammer and hacker and it made me want to jump up and hit back, as I’m sure it […]

Celebrating Two Years: A Month of WordPress Tips

As part of my two month-long party celebrating the two year anniversary of WordPress.com and this blog with guest bloggers, we’re just finishing up month one of non-stop blogging about blogging, and tomorrow begins a whole month of non-stop WordPress tips. To help get you in the mood, here are some of the tips for […]

Liz Strauss Looking for Independent Blogger Books

SplashPress and The Blog Herald Announce the Independent Blogger Book Quest is an announcement by the Blog Herald contributor Successful-Blog’s Liz Strauss about the hunt for independently published books by bloggers. Every week, I’ll be reviewing a book published independently — without the backing of a major publisher. In keeping with our mission at the […]

WordPress Plugins To Help You Administer Your Blog

Running a blog, whether for yourself, to make money, or with multiple bloggers, is work. Sure, blogging is fun, but there are a lot of things you need to do with your blog to keep it in top working order and shape. Let’s look at some useful WordPress Plugins that will help your blog stay […]

How to Install, Configure, and Use WordPress Plugins

WordPress Plugins come in two styles: drop-in and mess with. Those are my terms, not the official ones. Drop in WordPress Plugins are Plugins you upload, activate, and then interact with only through the WordPress Administration Panels. Mess With WordPress Plugins are the ones you install and interact with through the Administration Panels, but they […]