New P2 Prologue Theme on WordPress.com

P2: The New Prologue is out for WordPress.com bloggers to play with. Based upon the Prologue WordPress Theme that has been called Twitter-Meets-Blog, this is a form of social networking microblogging WordPress Theme.

The announcement offers more information and a video, but this is not a WordPress Theme for everyone. It is designed for multiple contributor blogs or groups, allowing people to communicate Twitter-style with each other. The WordPress Development Updates blog uses Prologue. WordPress developers tweet their patches, collaborate, share what they are working on, and boost each other through the process, though recently it has also been used as a general blog, breaking the one-line-per-post rule, which shows the flexibility of the Theme.

The features include:

• Live notifications.
• Easy participation by multiple contributors.
• Posting from the front page of the blog – without using the WordPress Administration Panels.
• Comments on the front page of the site with in-line editing (no page refresh) with AJAX.
• Threaded comment display on the front page, as well as on single post pageviews.
• Live tag suggestion.
• Show/hide feature for threaded comments.
• Keyboard shortcuts for faster posting and navigation.
• Feeds for the blog, comments, authors, tags, searches, and more.

Some may want to activate the P2 WordPress Theme on their current blog, which is a fairly dramatic change. It’s currently a plain white page with the focus on the content. User’s comments are highlighted in the sidebar with their Gravatars next to their name and the post title they commented on.

This is a great Theme to use in addition to your main blog, especially if you are working with a group of people and you want to set up a group only discussion and collaboration system.

Or if you are into microblogging, this could be your new WordPress Theme.

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Copyright Lorelle VanFossen, member of the 9Rules Network, and author of Blogging Tips, What Bloggers Won't Tell You About Blogging.

ScotBlog – WordPressMU and BuddyPress Social Networking Site

According to a news story in Net News Daily, two teenagers from Scotland have created a social blogging platform on WordPressMU and BuddyPress called Scotblog.

Scott Campbell and Nathan Adam, both 13, decided to launch the site after they spotted a gap in the market.

“The internet needed a cool new social blogging site,” said Campbell, who lives in the North East of Scotland, “We provide a user friendly, fun, safe interface, which is easy for anyone to use.”

Scotblog.net is free and not restricted to those living in Scotland, though it’s welcome states “celebrate your heritage by connecting with family and friends across the globe…The ScotBlog way.”

They also call ScotBlog the first Social Blogging site. Although that definition is unclear, it is a well-developed online community site that uses the social functionality of BuddyPress with the power of multiple blogs and emphasis on social media tools and networking.

The front page greets you in the fashion of a blog, with “most recent published posts” in chronological order from among all the bloggers, and showcases the groups the members “belong” to including Bebo, Twitter, Young Entrepreneurs, Photographers, and Scottish History, the types of community groups long anticipated on WordPress.com. The group pages showcase the group members and their most recent “group wire” comments.

When you click on a member’s link, like the example page of the administrator, ScotBlog Page, their page showcases the avatar/gravatar, blogs, the latest activity, groups, friends, and wire comments, similar to a Facebook wall. This is the equivalent of a Facebook page that links to their blogs and social networks.

Like WordPress.com and other WordPressMU, blogs are set up by domain names. Scott Campbell’s blog is set up as a test site but does feature advertising, which other blogs do not. There currently isn’t a Terms of Service form or page in the sign up so it’s unclear if they will allow advertising on a per blog basis or what restrictions there are to commercial blogging or spam blogs, the bane of such free hosted blog services.

Currently, the blogs are styled with interesting WordPress Themes but the member page is still fairly bland and not reflective of their blogs. Hopefully in time, there will be a branding connection between the two, bluring the edges between blog and social media networking tools.

Scotblog is off to a good start and a fascinating example of the integration of BuddyPress and WordPressMU to build a community network of blogs and social groups.

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Copyright Lorelle VanFossen, member of the 9Rules Network, and author of Blogging Tips, What Bloggers Won't Tell You About Blogging.

Firewalling and Hack Proofing Your WordPress Blog

Blog Security is one of the top security blogs out there keeping an eye on all things blog security and WordPress. They’ve just released two great articles WordPress fans need to check out.

First is news of a video and blog post by Guvnr called “10 Tips to Make WordPress Hack Proof. The effort involved tips from BlogSecurity’s popular WordPress Security Whitepaper, inspiring them to update and improve it soon.

The second is “How to Firewall Your WordPress Blog” by Jaimie Sirovich of SEO Egghead guest blogging on BlogSecurity. He covers options to help you make your WordPress blog more secure with a variety of WordPress Plugins.

Don’t forget that the best line of defense protection for your WordPress blog begins with a strong password, followed by regularly upgrading your WordPress blog, especially after mandatory security alerts.

There is a lot of misinformation on the web about blog and WordPress Security. Many will tell you that CAPTCHAs and their paid services will protect you and your WordPress blog. They will give you a lot of out-dated steps to take. Don’t be fooled. Get your information from the official and reputable WordPress resources. WordPress is inherently secure. It should be. It is used by some of the top government agencies in the United States and around the world.

The current version of WordPress is very secure with no critical security vulnerabilities reported since its release. There are, however, some security issues with WordPress Plugins so make sure you check in with your favorite WordPress Plugin authors and your Plugins Panel for updates on a regular basis.

Here are some reliable articles on blog and WordPress security:

• Lorelle on The Blog Herald – Protect Your Blog With a Solid Password
• Smashing Magazine – 10 Steps To Protect The Admin Area In WordPress
• Vladimir Prelovac – Improving security in WordPress Plugins using Nonces
• Matt Cutts – Alerting Webmasters to Webserver Vulnerabilities
• WordCamp Toronto 2008 – WordPress Security with Mark Jaquith
• Weblog Tools Collection – Maximum WordPress Security
• Weblog Tools Collection – Fake WordPress Site
• Technorati – Vulnerable WordPress Blogs Not Being Indexed
• Mark Jaquith – US Government Agencies Using WordPress
• Lorelle on WordPress – WordPress Security Prevention, Reactions, and Scares
• Blog Security – WordPress Security Predictions in 2009
• Arachna – Fear, Uncertainty and Disinformation About The WordPress Exploits and Spam
• Lorelle on The Blog Herald – WTF Blog Clutter: The Death of the CAPTCHA
• Daily Blog Tips – Make Sure Your WordPress is Not Hacked
• Donncha – There’s Never Been A Better Time To Upgrade WordPress
• Blog Security – Interview of a WordPress Hacker
• Noupe – WordPress Security Tips and Hacks

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Copyright Lorelle VanFossen, the author of Blogging Tips, What Bloggers Won't Tell You About Blogging.

Watching Launch of Kepler Space Mission Live

Kepler Space Mission - Ready for Launch, NASA TV

I love the Internet. As I write this, I am watching the launch live of the Kepler Mission on NASA TV from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida.

The Kepler satellite will be launched into an Earth-trailing solar orbit to get above the Earth’s atmosphere for a clearer view of outer space with its telescope and camera.

Called the Kepler Mission: A Search for Habitable Planets, of the recent missions by NASA, this is one of the most exciting as this satellite will observe the brightness of over 100,000 stars over 3.5 to 6 years to detect planets by the transit method, a method of measuring the intensity of the light from the star as a planet moves across the surface and blocks the light from the star. It’s goal is to not only measure the planets but look specifically for planets closer to the size of Earth, which possibly might be more Earth-like.

Kepler on launch pad - from NASA TV

You can watch it on the NASA Portal for Kepler, and listen and watch NASA Kepler webcasts, podcast, and videos, and get more information on their Kepler Launch Blog, and follow their tweets on @NASAKepler.

Kepler Mission launches - from NASA TV

Beyond the Cradle is a blog on WordPress.com by Rui Borges, a successor to spacEurope, both covering the “fight of promoting space exploration efforts worldwide.” The coverage of the Kepler Mission includes correspondence by some of the mission leaders and reports on preparation for the mission, including:

• Kepler Mission – Aiming at a New Earth – With Edna DeVore
• Kepler Mission – Aiming at a New Earth – With Alan Gould
• Kepler Mission – Quick Note from the Cape by Gibor Basri
• Kepler Mission – Harvester of Worlds – By Rui Borges
• Kepler Mission – Quick note from the Cape by David Latham
• Kepler Mission – The Future Starts Here – With Stuart Atkinson
• Kepler Mission – Yielding an Answer – With Jon Jenkins
• Kepler Mission – Launch in 60 minutes
• Kepler Mission – Aiming at a New Earth – launch post

Kepler Mission Launched leaving Earth - from NASA TV

I took a few minutes while awaiting the launch to find some other blogs discussing the Kepler Mission. Unfortunately, I found a lot of sites scraping the few original blogs and news sites. These are the few blog posts I found discussing and providing more information on the search for habitable planets with Kepler in our galaxy and beyond.

• Wired – Live: Planet-Hunting Space Telescope Blasts Off
• TreeHugger – NASA Kepler Mission: The Question of How Alone We Really Are is About to be Answered
• Discover Magazine Bad Astronomy Blog – Reminder 1: Kepler to launch Friday night!
• Astronomy.com Blog – Kepler satellite launches successfully
• The Plummet Onions – NASA’s Kepler mission to look for other planets capable of sustaining life
• Kepler to hunt for terrestrial-size exoplanets
• Cosmic Diary – Up, up and away! (Warning: Video in post plays automatically)
• Engadget – NASA’s Kepler spacecraft ready to begin searching for other, cooler “earths”
• Nasa Space Flight – LIVE: Delta II launches with Kepler Planet-Finder Launch
• NPR On Point – Kepler and the Search for Life
• Asymptotia – Kepler Ready!
• Scientific Blogging – 5 Quick Facts About The Kepler Mission To Find Earth-Sized Planets
• Spaceflight – Kepler Status

While I was excited about the various NASA projects to Mars, and upcoming exploration of the moon, the Trekie within me is eager to be a part of the search for intelligent life in the universe, and to go boldy where no one has gone before.

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Copyright Lorelle VanFossen, member of the 9Rules Network, and author of Blogging Tips, What Bloggers Won't Tell You About Blogging.

Exploring Social Media Tools Series

In October of 2008, I started a series called “Exploring Social Media” on the Blog Herald. The challenge was to dig into the myriad choices and options to dance the social dance online, to network, share, inform, and educate with the various tools available.

I began by asking people to define social media, since it is often hard to explain as well as define. What is it really? Do you know? Or do you just think you know?

We use the word “social media” like a favorite trendy phrase. This past year at Blog World Expo, instead of being a room full of bloggers and web consultants, it felt like every other person I met specialized in social media. It was the buzz word of the conference, and all the conferences I’ve been to for the past year. Everyone’s talking social media, but few understood what it really is.

The best definition came from a comment by Alistair Shaw:

Tools that help connect people.

Social media tools connect people. The challenge is which one to use. Which social media tool will connect you to the “right” people – the people you need to know and who need to know you.

Some people rely solely upon their blog and Twitter, but Twitter doesn’t reach everyone in the world, only those using Twitter, and then only those who follow you or someone you know. Over the past few months, I’ve started to explore what other options are out there besides Twitter, as well as explore tools which help you use Twitter better, such as the article I did recently on creating future tweets with TweetLater like I rely upon future posts in WordPress to keep this blog running without me.

In “It Starts With One,” I wrote about how a community doesn’t start with millions. If your goal is to reach out to the masses, you are using social media wrong. It starts with one. If you serve the one, the one will tell one, who will tell two, who will tell six, and your community will begin to build. If you don’t serve the one, and each one after that, bye bye community.

In “Start With the Basics” and “One Size Does Not Fit All,” I wrote basic introductions to help you get started thinking about what social media tools you might use to meet your personal and professional social media needs.

It begins with having a “name” be it your domain name, business name, brand name, or whatever name that represents who you are on the web, how to develop a web presence, how to be found on the web, visual brand identity with avatars and/or Gravatars, how to track your social media success, and more basic tips on how to start building your social media network and tools. From the basics, it’s about learning what tools are available and how to build your community – in other words, which tool is the best for your specific needs aud audience.

I’ve covered a wide range of topics, from the how to use social media tools to current events tracked or influenced by social media and what we can learn from them, such as the “The Motrin Moment Impact of Social Media” and “Live Citizens Press Conference on Twitter.”

In “Shortening Those Links,” I offered tips on how to create tiny or shorter URLs. Other social media tips articles include “The Power of the Link Needs Content” and “Promoting Your Link Backs to You.” I also had fun reporting on the trends in cussing and swearing on Twitter in “Measuring the Curse of Social Media Tools.”

The latest article in the series asks if it is time to create a web apps matching service, that helps us find the right social media and web application tool that matches our specific blogging and business needs, in “Exploring Social Media: Time for a Web App Matching Service.”

I hope you enjoy the series so far. Coming up next, I will be exploring a wide range of Twitter third-party apps which help you use Twitter better and learn how to track and understand your social media network with Twitter. I am testing and researching a wide variety of social media tools, checking out the communities and understanding how they work differently from each other and testing their demographics.

I’ve been speaking at a variety of social media functions, meetups, meetings, and conferences, and including social media tools in my various workshops and training programs for the past few years, helping participants understand all the options for connecting online. The feedback on how people are using the web for their business and social needs is amazing, which I’ll share more in future posts. I’ll also be writing about the various social media groups and associations that have started up in the past two years. The face-to-face of social media is often the most powerful networking you can do, and I want to encourage you to get involved with your local social media group or tech meetup, especially the many WordPress events such as WordPress Meetups and WordCamps.

If you have a specific question or topic you would like me to cover on the Blog Herald in the Exploring Social Media article series, let me know. I’ve just scratched the surface.

Exploring Social Media Series

• Define Social Media
• Exploring Social Media Series
• Social Media Tools
• It Starts With One
• Start With the Basics
• One Size Does Not Fit All
• The Motrin Moment Impact of Social Media
• Social Means Personal
• Do You Know How to Use the Social Web?
• Establishing Your Online Credentials
• Learning About Social at the Goodwill Outlet
• Shortening Those Links
• The Power of the Link Needs Content
• Promoting Your Link Backs to You
• Live Citizens Press Conference on Twitter
• Measuring the Curse of Social Media Tools
• Defining Twitter Demographics and Interests
• Twitter Adoption Stats and Demographics
• LeVar Burton Passionate About Social Media
• Twestivals in 175+ Cities Around the World Thursday, February 12, 2009
• Do You Need The Best Things in Life to be Free?
• Twitter Wins $35 Million in Funding
• Twitter is Broken, Now What?
• Future Tweets with TweetLater
• Time for a Web App Matching Service

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Copyright Lorelle VanFossen, member of the 9Rules Network, and author of Blogging Tips, What Bloggers Won't Tell You About Blogging.

bbPress News, Tips, and Plugins

Recently, Matt Mullenweg has been fending off questions about bbPress, the popular open source, free forum platform. This past weekend at WordCamp Denver, and last month at WordCamp Las Vegas, audience members begged for an update on the status of bbPress. He joked in Denver that he felt he was being stalked by bbPress fans.

In a way, he is – from several directions.

bbPress was developed by Matt in the early days of WordPress, at a time when forums held their own and blogs were still new online publishing platforms. The assumption was that bbPress and WordPress would easily integrate since they were designed by the same person(s). Unfortunately, they didn’t play well together at first.

As the WordPress forums grew with bbPress under the hood, bbPress was tested to it’s full capacity, leading to a variety of customizations and tweaking to accommodate the growth and evolution of WordPress into a world-wide acclaimed blogging platform. With that growth out pacing bbPress development of the platform for the public, frustration within the WordPress Community also grew. This was highlighted recently by long time WordPress Support Forums volunteer, MichaelH, who reminded the WordPress Community, developers, and staff that the support forums need improvement to keep up with the demand upon the forums and the volunteers and staff who run them, requesting they improve the functionality of bbPress.

There is a lot to be said for a program technically not out of beta development that is capable of handling the sheer massive volume of traffic and forum posts every day for two of the most popular blogging platforms in the world, WordPress and WordPress.com, but more needs to be done to help it meet that demand.

From the user perspective, bbPress has been too silent too long in development. More and more bloggers want to add a forum to their blogs, and naturally turn to the sister product of WordPress, bbPress.

For those using WordPress and bbPress forums, the hassle of merging the two is frustrating and tedious. They want bbPress to recognize that WordPress is installed and automatically configure the two to work together seamlessly.

Those dependent upon bbPress for their forums long for a few feature improvements, more bbPress Plugins, and improvements in bbPress documentation.

With recent announcements from the bbPress blog and forums, it looks like all parties will begin to see some light at the end of the tunnel.

bbPress Development

Within the last few months, a lot of activity is going on around the popular forum program. Matt admitted that he’s ignored bbPress development over the past few years, but this year, with renewed energy from developers like Sam Bauer, bbPress is revitalized with two new bbPress releases and improvements for integrating WordPressMU and bbPress.

WordPress News Summary: WordCamps, WordPress Meetups, WordPress PowerPoint, FeedBurner and Flash Warnings

This week’s Blog Herald WordPress News covers “Can You Spot a WordPress Blog? WordPress 2.8 News, Plugin Directory Searchable, iPhone App Tested, and More” including:

March is WordPress month with more WordCamps and WordPress Meetups than ever. Will April beat it? Lester Chan makes a WordPress PowerPoint Template for presentations. WordPress wins the Best Irish Blogs Awards. FeedBurner transfer deadline is this weekend. Adobe Flash security vulnerability found, impacting many Plugins and WordPress blogs. And a lot more WordPress news coming your way.

The following are a few of the highlights and the WordPress news you can use.

FeedBurner Transfer to Google FeedBurner Deadline is Now

As reported by Weblog Tools Collection’s Mark Ghosh, FeedBurner has been taken over by Google and FeedBurner users are required to transfer their FeedBurner feeds, or check to ensure they have indeed been transferred, as he found out recently that his weren’t. Feed must be transferred as of February 28, this weekend, to the “new” version of Google FeedBurner.

WordPress 2.7.1 Released

WordPress 2.7.1, a maintenance release, is out. If you are using WordPress 2.7, take advantage of the automatic built-in upgrade. If you are not, then consider upgrading to WordPress 2.7. Sixty-five files were modified with 68 bug and feature fixes and improvements, and I covered more details about the release on my blog.

WordPress 2.8 News

Ryan Boren reports that development for WordPress 2.8 is underway. Articles worth noting on WordPress 2.8 development include:

• Optimizing Script Loading
• Optimizing script loading part 2
• Optimizing script loading, implementation
• Preparing for WordPress 2.8: Using JavaScript in WordPress Plugins
• Change your WordPress Theme on …
• WordPress 2.8 body_class, automatic_feed_links
• What a body!

Flash Security Vulnerability Warning

F-Secure reports there is a security vulnerability with Adobe Flash, specifically a Adobe Flash Player remote code execution vulnerability which impacts several versions. Many WordPress Plugins rely upon Flash, as do many WordPress blog. It is recommended you upgrade Adobe Flash accordingly.

WordPress Events

I report on a lot of various WordPress events including WordCamps and WordPress Meetups around the world. Check the Blog Herald WordPress News for a WordPress event near you.

WordCamp Denver News

WordCamp Denver is this weekend and for the most part, is sold out. I’ll be attending and working with Dave Moyer of the WordCast Podcast to do live podcasting and video interviews during the event. Hope to see you there!

WordCamp Toronto Logo Design Contest Winner

The Logo Design Contest Winner for WordCamp Toronto 2009 is Paul Morrison, a student at Seneca College Digital Media Arts student. This is a great way to involve the community in a WordPress event.

WordPress Meetup or WordCamp Near You?

February 2009

• WordCamp Denver 2009 – February 28, 2009 (Facebook)
• Dallas/Fort Worth WordPress Meetup – Dallas, Texas – February 28, 2009
• Atlanta WordPress Users Group Meetup – Learning WordPress 2.7 – Atlanta, Georgia – February 28, 2009
• The Chicago WordPress February Meetup – February 28, 2009

March 2009

• Austin, Texas – Installing Full Version of WordPress – March 3, 2009
• New Jersey – The New Jersey WordPress March Meetup – March 4, 2009
• Mobile, Alabama – Gulf Coast WordPress/Blogger WordPress Meetup – March 5, 2009
• Las Vegas WordPress Meetup – March 5, 2009
• Los Angeles WordPress Users Group – March 8, 2009
• Southern California WordPress Meetup – Long Beach – March 15, 2009
• Ft Lauderdale – South Florida WordPress March Meetup User Group – March 11, 2009
• Las Vegas WordPress Meetup – March 12, 2009
• Austin, Texas – SXSW 2009 – March 13-22, 2009
• Arizona – The Scottsdale WordPress March Meetup – March 15, 2009

If you are putting together a WordPress event, please email me so I can publicize it here. If there is a WordCamp near you, go. If you are interested in setting up a WordCamp, stay tuned for news and information on to bring a WordCamp event near you.

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Copyright Lorelle VanFossen, the author of Blogging Tips, What Bloggers Won't Tell You About Blogging.

The Year of Original Content: I’ve Declared War

Last week on the Blog Herald, I declared this is to be the “Year of Original Content“.

I ranted about my ongoing battle to educate you and protect myself and others from content theft. This isn’t an issue that impacts the few and famous. Everyone is being scraped and having their content stolen.

It is so frustrating to find a fascinating article, blog about it, only be told that it is scrapped content used without permission. A lot of time is wasted and I look bad for having not verified the original source of the content.

The fact that billions of dollars are made from blog scams, scrapers, and abusers just in the United States alone, infuriates me as many of those are abusing our content – our hard work – without compensating us or even asking permission.

So this is the year I’m declaring war on the those who use our content without permission and declaring this:

The Year of Original Content

In a follow up article, “The Year of Original Content: How to Fight Back Against Abusers,” I’ve listed the tips and basics you need to know to help fight back and join me in this cause.

Let’s celebrate the unique and original voices in the redundant content of the web. Let’s honor those of us who work hard to bring you news, information, history, lessons, entertainment, and the tips you need to know to make it through the day. Let’s give credit where credit is due – to the amazing artists who publish their content on the web.

Remember, if you don’t care that anyone is using your content anywhere and any way they want, then tell them. If you want to restrict usage, then tell them. It’s your responsibility to inform the public of how you want your content to be used.

Come join Jonathan Bailey of Plagiarism Today, myself, and others in educating yourself and your readers about plagiarism and content theft.

This one is going to take all of us. Come join our celebration of the year of original content!

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Copyright Lorelle VanFossen, the author of Blogging Tips, What Bloggers Won't Tell You About Blogging.

WordPress News: LiveJournal Migration Improved, WordPress Plugin Search Improved, bbPress Updated, and More

I’ve just posted this week’s WordPress News: Can You Spot a WordPress Blog? WordPress 2.8 News, Plugin Directory Searchable, iPhone App Tested, and More on the Blog Herald.

Can you spot a WordPress blog? Are you sure? WordPress 2.7.1 released. Improvements on the WordPress Plugin Directory search functions. Help for those transferring from LiveJournal to WordPress.com, and WordPress in the future. WordPress 2.8 development on track. WordPress iPhone app in testing for next release. WordPress.com gets a new data center. More WordPress Tattoo news. WordCamps in Miami and India this weekend, Denver next. Singapore starts its first blogger meetup, including WordPress fans. WordPress jobs, and tips for WordPress Plugin and Theme authors.

Here are some highlights of the WordPress news you can use.

Improvements in the WordPress Plugin Directory

At long last, the WordPress Plugin Directory now has a new and improved search function using Sphinx open source SQL full-text search engine to help you find the Plugins you need in the directory from the site as well as the WordPress Plugins panel.

Improved LiveJournal Migration

For those looking to migrate from LiveJournal to WordPress.com, there is now an even easier LiveJournal migration process that the WordPress.com team has come up with to help the ever increasing number of people moving to WordPress.com from one of the oldest blogging platforms in the world.

The new technique is a step by step approach that improves the importing from importing by the month without comments to now include comments, handle “friends only” posts, private posts, improvements in tagging, link back to LiveJournal blogs, and connection to the LiveJournal API to download all posts and comments in one pass. One LiveJournal users helped test the importer which handled over 3,700 posts and nearly 200,000 comments. That’s impressive.

The new importer will be included in the next major release of the full version of WordPress.

WordPress.com Maintenance Downtime on Sunday, February 15, 2009

WordPress.com warns that the free blog hosting service will be down for maintenance starting Sunday, February 15, 2009, at 20:00 GMT (noon PST, 3PM EST) for maintenance and upgrade improvements. This should only be a few seconds to a couple minutes. This does not impact full version and self-hosted versions of WordPress.

The maintenance probably involves upgrading to WordPress 2.7.1, server improvements, and possibly the reported news of some “cool gallery features” that may add navigation links for image pages, and other small improvements. Do not expect any major changes to the interface or functionality.

They warn that unsaved work with be lost and you may have to log in again once the system is restored. This means that if you are in the middle of blogging something, it will not be saved and auto-save will not kick in to backup your posts.

I recommend that you save everything you are working on at least two hours before the maintenance down time begins, just in case. If you “need” to blog something, write it up in a text editor or (at the very worst) a word processor and save it there until you can copy and paste or paste using the Word quicktag button in the Visual Text Editor. This is a worst case scenario warning just to be safe.

These maintenance “moments” are rare with WordPress.com. According to Barry in the comments below, expect WordPress.com to be back fully active in less than two minutes.

While waiting for WordPress.com to come back online, consider checking out the I <3 Blogging Design Contest and entering your graphic design to define why you love blogging and WordPress. If your graphic design wins, it could be printed and sold on laptop and iPhone skins around the world through the Infectious store.

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All Alone in the Comment Box: 12 Hours of One-to-One With Experts

In an ongoing attempt to break the rules on how a blog works, Liz Strauss of Successful and Outstanding Bloggers turned yesterday into an open comment day on her blog with some of the world’s top bloggers and social media experts.

Each hour from 11AM Central Time until the end of the day, a blog post and open comment forum was posted. They included:

• 11:00 – Liz Strauss on Building a Personal Development Network
• 12:00 – Mark J Carter on Saving the World with Social Media
• 1:00 – Lucretia Pruitt on Twittering the Way that Works Best for You
• 2:00 – Andy Sernovitz on Amazing Word of Mouth for Your Blog
• 3:00 – Mary-Lynn Foster on Podcast and Blog Interviewing Tips
• 4:00 – Easton Ellsworth on Visionary Blogging Improvements
• 5:00 – John Haydon on Social Media and Trust Online
• 6:00 – Vicky H on Writing for the Web
• 7:00 – Becky McCray on Successful Entrepreneurship
• 8:00 – Shannon Paul on Internet People and What They Do
• 9:00 – Angela Maiers on Literacy and Learning in the 21st Century
• 10:00 – Terry Starbucker on Pitching Social Media to Clients — 5 Key Questions for Potential Clients

Liz closed the day with “Liz Strauss: When the Tribe Has Spoken, How to Find Your Voice and Own It,” a brilliant piece that talks about how reality is distorted when you give yourself and your identity away to a company and the company slaps you back, turning you out of the tribe, so to speak.

As Liz shows the world, the power of having your own voice is showcased by the tremendous line up of guest bloggers and participants on her blog, as well as in the upcoming Successful and Outstanding Bloggers Conference (SOBCon) in Chicago, May 1-3, called the Biz School for Bloggers.

Successful and Outstanding Bloggers Conference (SOBCon2009)

Every year, SOBCon leaves me speechless with it’s powerful lessons and fantastic participants. I learn so much and meet the very best people striving to become the best they can be. I’ve so enjoyed watching people grow from the lessons learned at SOBCon. Some of the top bloggers today found their way at the first and second annual Successful and Outstanding Bloggers Conference, and are now returning to share what they learned with others.

The list of speakers for this year’s event include:

• Stephen Hopson
• Geoff Nelson
• Chris Aarons
• Julien Smith
• Lorelle VanFossen
• Saul Colt
• Chris Cree
• Brian Solis
• Denise Wakeman
• Chris Brogan
• Brian Clark
• David Bullock
• Glenda Watson Hyatt
• Stephen Smith
• Melissa Pierce
• KD Paine
• Karen Putz,
• Michael Martine
• Wendy Piersall
• Liz Strauss
• Kali Evans-Raoul

The topics are just as electric as their presenters. ROI of relationships in social media business techniques such as negotiating relations with new clients, products, and intellectual property; communication networks and competition in the SocialSphere; transparency and visibility; working with corporate sponsors and partners; multimedia production; accessibility and publishing for the disabled audience and SEO; branding and marketing strategies; social networking tools; publishing techniques; and more.

SOBCon usually sells out fast and there is limited space as this is an intimate hands-on training camp, not your normal conference. Participants are put into MasterMind groups to work on the lessons learned by each workshop and presentation, so you take away an actionable task list and plan for your blog and business. Register now to be a part of this exciting event.

And check out the Q&A from many of the speakers and key blogging industry leaders on Successful and Outstanding Bloggers.

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Copyright Lorelle VanFossen, the author of Blogging Tips, What Bloggers Won't Tell You About Blogging.

WordPress 2.7.1 Released

WordPress 2.7.1, a maintenance release, is out. If you are using WordPress 2.7, take advantage of the automatic built-in upgrade. If you are not, then consider upgrading to WordPress 2.7. Sixty-five files were modified with 68 bug and feature fixes and improvements.

Some of the fixes and feature improvements include:

• Post and Page revisions do not respect time zone offset
• Invalid comment feeds
• XMLRPC returns category name instead of category description
• Theme preview fails when theme in subdirectory
• Tag cloud order priority
• Hierarchy issues with wp_list_categories
• Namespace missing in Atoms-Comments Feed
• Canonical redirect of feed URLs
• Contributor level users could delete all spam
• Allowing Word 2007 to retrieve categories
• “Selected” argument doesn’t work for “none” and “all” options in wp_dropdown_categories template tag
• Draft Saved current time doesn’t match timezone while editing
• IE7 bug fixed for approved and unapproved comments in All Comments list
• Multiple categories feeds repaired
• Empty feeds for MT imports
• Post drafts published in the past

Some additional security measures were taken in this release to make protect it from future vulnerabilities as part of the ongoing work by WordPress to make it as safe and secure as possible.

According to the WordPress Download Counter, WordPress 2.7 has been downloaded 1,872,184 times since December 10, 2008.

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Copyright Lorelle VanFossen, the author of Blogging Tips, What Bloggers Won't Tell You About Blogging.

Last WordCast Podcast Co-Hosting Gig: Is That WordPress on Your Wrist

My final guest hosting gig with WordCast is called “WordCast 45: Is that WordPress on your wrist?” is out.

We talk about the first EVER WordPress tattoo, Justin Tadlock desire for new ideas for WordPress Widgets, Andy Skelton gets married, BuddyPress about the release from beta, how to choose a WordPress Consultants, and Vladimir Prelovac asks for help choosing his book cover for his book on WordPress Plugin development. We also announced the release of WordPress 2.7.1 RC 1, just before the WordPress 2.7.1 final maintenance release.

We also covered the Twestival this Thursday, February 12, 2009, in cities and communities around the world. I talk about attending the Portland Twestival with my friends from Cooking Up a Story, a sustainablity food documentary and video blog. I also talked about going to the Portland WordPress User Group at CubeSpace Thursday night, creating a day long blogging and WordPress event.

The other podcasts I hosted and was featured on include:

• WordCast 44: Blubbery Muffins
• WordCast 43: The Bikini Job
• WordCast 29: I’m Your Fairy Blogmother!
• WordCast 28: Liez Stross?
• WordCast 20: We *heart* Lorelle

I love WordCast and not long ago, they used Wordle to create WordCast Wordle word art which featured me in the center! How fun!

Regular co-host Kym Huynh is hopefully recovered from a bad car accident and back in Australia ready to take over again next week. You better be, Kym. I’ve done your work long enough. It’s your turn to get tortured by Dave Moyer.

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Copyright Lorelle VanFossen, the author of Blogging Tips, What Bloggers Won't Tell You About Blogging.

First Ever Permanent WordPress Tattoo

Over the last month, I’ve been telling everyone in the WordPress Community about my friend, Ed Morita, in Hawaii whose been running a contest asking “Where Should I Put My WordPress Tattoo?” He’s putting a permanent tattoo on his body (forearm) because blogging with WordPress changed his life and he wants to honor it by adding to his tattoo body art collection.

The deadline was January 30 and he’s getting the tattoo put on him right now as I blog this.

Update: Ed has finished getting his tattoo while we twittered it live and he captured images on his iPhone, so the images are upside down. There is some color distortion due to the resolution but also the antiseptic wash on his arm. Here are the latest series of pictures.

The originals are on Twitpic: Black and White Outline, First Color Applied, Final Version.

Update II: My WordPress Tattoo is Ed’s description and story behind the first WordPress permanent tattoo (and it’s the right logo. Matt Mullenweg agrees.). He wanted to reveal the geeky part of personality. Like Data from Star Trek Next Generation, and other androids and cyborgs throughout television and movie history, he wanted the tattoo to look like the skin was torn off his arm to reveal the circuitry beneath, of which the WordPress logo is a chip in the circuit board. It is Ed Morita’s inspired design that led the tattoo artist down the path to the tattoo’s design. Kudos to both for the modern artistic approach to an age old art form.

We twittered the event live on my Twitter account and his, @NctrnlBst.

Come join us on Twitter for the fun, and the pain, of the first WordPress tattoo permanently inked onto a fan’s body.

This is the final version right side up, as you would view his new WordPress tattoo if you were shaking hands with him.

Remember that tattoos have been around before modern religion as art, identification, and branding. They are respected around the world. Just because you don’t like them doesn’t mean they aren’t valued by others.

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Copyright Lorelle VanFossen, the author of Blogging Tips, What Bloggers Won't Tell You About Blogging.

Celebrate Twestival and Water Around the World

On Thursday, February 12, 2009, I will be joining my fellow Portland, Oregon, blogging, social media, and Twitter fans in the Portland Twestival, part of the international fundraising and social conciousness-raising for water sustainability with 175 plus communities around the world participating in Twestival.

I describe it more in “Twestivals in 175+ Cities Around the World Thursday, February 12, 2009.”

The international event will help raise money for charity: water, a non-profit organization that works to bring clean, safe drinking water to developing nation citizens by funding sustainable clean water solutions. I’ve talked to a lot of people within the WordPress Community who will be participating, in person at the social events, video blogging, podcasting, and just blogging about them, or will be participating from a far by the different online and social virtual activities and blogging about water sustainability and conservation issues.

Will you be participating?

For those living in the Pacific Northwest of the United States, you can join me and others at the Twestivals in Portland, Vancouver, BC, and Seattle, or jump a plane and join my dear friends in Honolulu or San Francisco.

PDX WordPress Fans: Thursday night is also the Portland WordPress User Group at CubeSpace. It should be a rocking party! The topic is WordPressMU, but expect a lot of talk about Twestival, social media events, blog networks, and more!

I will be reporting on the event here and on the Blog Herald, along with millions of others.

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Site Search Tags: twitter, social media, portland, pdx, portland oregon, oregon, event, events, twestival, charity, charity water, fundraiser

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Copyright Lorelle VanFossen, the author of Blogging Tips, What Bloggers Won't Tell You About Blogging.