The Art of the Fan-Based Blog: Content, Content, Content

By DB Ferguson of the No Fact Zone Content. Ah, now we’re getting to the fun part in our series on The Art of the Fan-Based Blog. After all that technical mumbo-jumbo, we finally get to talk about the one thing we want to talk about – our fandom! Before you jump into the deep […]

Blogs Offer Communication, Information, and Connections During Disasters

Jonathan Bailey of Plagiarism Today just called me from Northern Louisiana to report that he and his family have survived the evacuation from their home in Shreveport, Louisiana, though Hurricane Gustav appears to have done more damage where they evacuated to rather than where they left from. Jonathan and I were both victims of Hurricane […]

Layered Technologies Special Event: Meet Matt Mullenweg, Barry Abrahamson, and Me in Vegas

Many of you know that I’m a geek at heart. I go nuts over all things geeky. Secretly, I adore Barry Abrahamson, the server guru of Automattic and WordPress.com, especially when he starts talking numbers for WordPress.com: 2,638,958 file uploads About 1,074 gigabytes of new files. 417 terabytes of content transferred from our datacenters. 1,134,796,234 […]

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 […]

Blog Resources: Researching the Research, Finding the Facts, and Seeking Supporting Evidence

As part of my ongoing series on blog resources, covering the many online resources I use to help me blog, you can tell that I don’t deal with rumors or guesses. I like facts. I don’t mind a few estimates, but I like being right when I make a claim or statement, so I work […]

Blog Struggles: Surviving Offline Downtime

I travel a lot as part of my work and there are many times when access to the Internet just isn’t possible. Currently, our temporary residence in Oregon is on a farm over 30 minutes from “civilization”. The farm has satellite Internet, so snow, big storms, freezing fog, power outage, or a glitch in the […]

The Sharing and Caring of the WordPress Community Shines

In Why Giving Away Your Code is Not Dangerous, Abhijit Nadgouda of ifacethoughts looks at the issue of “sharing” and Open Source from an interesting perspective: Imagine you run a transport service, ferrying passengers to destinations they want. A part of your job is to follow maps, find out new routes and build your knowledge […]

Staying on Track with WordPress 2.4 News

Curious about the upcoming WordPress 2.4 release coming in January? Peter Westwood of Westi On WordPress reports every week, usually by Wednesday, on the status and development of the next version of WordPress, due January 24, 2008. This week, he reported on fixes, development, and features for WordPress 2.4 such as changing the verb “Login” […]

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 […]

The Art of Smilies in WordPress Blogs

I recently ran across a blog that was stuffed with . You know, those yellow smiling faces that grin, wink, blink and snarl at you from many blog posts? They are called emoticons by their proper term, but also known as smilies or smileys. Sometimes they work, and sometimes they don’t, but they certainly help […]

Customizing Your WordPress Theme Footer

UPDATE: WordPress now has custom menus. At the bottom of the article, I explain how to customize your WordPress Theme’s footer using Custom Menus. Yesterday, I covered the basic code found in the footer of the WordPress Default Theme, and gave you some ideas on how to add some impact and navigation to your WordPress […]

5 Most Useful Administrative Plugins For WordPress

By John Pozadzides (An Amish goat herder.) This is just a quickie to share what I’ve found to be the most useful plugins for administering stand-alone WordPress installs: WP Admin Bar Reloaded – Sorry to toot my own horn, but I – and many other people – use this plugin more than any other. People […]

Banning a WordPress Spammer With .htaccess

By John Pozadzides (“How the heck is that pronounced?!?”) Uugh. I’ve got this problem comment spammer. Today alone he posted over 1,000 comment spams on my blog. You can imagine how I felt about that. Did I mention I am a Marine (Semper Fi)! So, even though Akismet was doing it’s job, I was about […]

Weekly Digest: WordPress Tips, Guest Bloggers Party On, and More WordPress and Blogging Fun

There are less than three weeks left as part of the two months of guest blogging fun celebrating the two year anniversary of WordPress.com and this blog. This month is dedicated to WordPress tips. This is the Weekly Digest from Lorelle on WordPress. To subscribe to the Weekly Digest category of Lorelle on WordPress, you […]

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 […]