Blogging With the Best of Digg on WordPress.com

In “WordPress.com Snobbery”, General Disarray brings up their opinion that most of the top blogs cited on Digg are WordPress.com blogs: It’s safe to assume that pages that make it to the Digg front page are sufficiently interesting and well-written to attract a lot of attention from a large, educated and tech-savvy audience. What kind […]

Best Websites for Writers from Writer’s Digest

Writer’s Digest released their “Best Websites for Writers” which is a great resource for the serious writer or person who wants to learn more about writing and writing skills. Here are a few highlighted websites from their list. Absolute Write – Freeland Work and Guidelines Author Mania – Fiction craft building Bartleby – Quotes and […]

The Best EVER Set of Instructions on How to Start Your Own Blog

When this first came out, I thought it was cute. A couple weeks later, it was still with me. I couldn’t get it out of my mind and I wanted to blog about it. I searched and searched and searched to no avail. Well, today, you are the lucky ones and so am I because […]

Annual 46 Best Free Utilities from Tech Support Alert

Tech Support Alert offers its annual “Best 46 Free Utilities” list this year with few surprises, but it still is a great resource if you are looking for solid and excellent software for no or low prices. Open source software is really leading the pack, sometimes ahead of its commercial brethren, for top quality programs. […]

Best Blogging Tools for Mac

Mac World’s Best Blogging Tools for Mac gives WordPress high marks as a blogging tool for Mac users. These five tools range in power and complexity from simple-but-limited (TypePad, Blogger, and Blogspot) to do-pretty-much-anything-but-may-require-coding (WordPress). Movable Type is somewhere between these two extremes… …WordPress – By contrast, WordPress is known for its easy setup. But […]

Best of the Web from Business Week

Business Week’s Best of the Web is on and they are looking for the best of the web in six different categories with dozens of subcategories, including Home Blogs, Work Blogs, Tool Box Blogs, and Blog Services. If you are catching this after they’ve counted up all the viewers’ scores, it still will be interesting […]

RSSTop55 – Best Blog Directory And RSS Submission Sites

There are more and more ways of promoting your blog or website than just submitting to search engines. There are new directories and methods popping up everywhere. RSS and Feeds are gaining ground for monitoring web pages and there are many services available which collect information on website and blog feeds to promote to users. […]

Blog Exercises: May Random Editing Day

May. It’s starting to warm up outside in the north, and growing a bit chilly down under, but it’s that time again. It’s the May Random Editing Day. In this Blog Exercise you will need to edit five random posts from among your thousands – okay, maybe dozens of published articles. What should you look […]

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: Fall in Love with Words

There are certain clues that tell you how much a restaurant will cost. If the word “cuisine” appears in the advertising, it will be expensive. If they use the word “food,” it will be moderately priced. However, if the sign says “eats,” even though you’ll save money on food, your medical bills may be quite […]

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: 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: The IKEA Effect for Bloggers

The Ikea Effect was coined by researchers who found out what we all know but rarely admit, we put too much ownership into our own brainchild ideas and concepts. In other words, we tend to fall in love with our own ideas and creations. If you have ever been around kids, you’ve probably had that […]

Blog Exercises: How to Link to Comments

Do you have brilliantly intelligent and thoughtful commenters? I do. I often find something someone’s left in a post comment worth writing a blog post about and quoting. In this Blog Exercise we’ll look at how to link to comments on your site and how to properly reference them and cite the original author in […]