The Freedom in Freedom of Speech

Before and after WordCamp Whistler 2009 in Whistler, BC, Canada, I took advantage of the good graces and lovely home of Glenda Watson Hyatt of Do It Myself Blog (@GlendaWH) and her husband, Darrell Hyatt of Enabling Abilities to Appear in Vancouver, British Columbia. Spending time with Glenda and Darrell is filled with laughter and […]

Web Design for God’s Audience: Learning from Church Web Development

Part of my joy in being an advocate for WordPress is showcasing how WordPress is used around the world. In a fascinating discussion with Darren Hoyt, Interviews with Church Designers looks at web design and WordPress blogs from a unique perspective: Christian churches, specifically American Christian churches. Like me, Darren admits he didn’t understand the […]

Glenda Watson Hyatt: How WordPress Changes Her Life Daily

I was so thrilled when Glenda Watson Hyatt of the Do It Myself Blog volunteered her story of how WordPress changed her life for my WordCamp Portland keynote presentation. I’ll be sharing the videos and pictures of the program in the next few days, but I wanted to share with you Glenda’s personal story. As […]

What Are Those Unknown Characters in My Blog Comments?

Little squares, boxes, lines, and funky symbols are often found in blog comments. A friend new to blogging called me about these wanting to know if her blog had been hacked or her computer had a virus. “It looks like alien writing from Star Trek!” Those strange symbols and characters in your blog comments are […]

Woopra Pre-Approved Invites Selling on Ebay

Someone is selling Woopra invites on ebay. Announced recently at WordCamp Dallas, this new web analytics program called Woopra was the talk of the conference. Word spread like wildfire as it was by major tech blogs and everyone wanted access. Unfortunately, since the program is still in development, while sign ups were overwhelming, approvals were […]

What Inspires Your Readers to Interact With Your Blog?

By Rachelle Chase Static content that talks to readers is not enough today, especially with the meteoric rise in popularity of online communities and social networking. Good content is still the key to attract and compel people to return to your site, however giving them more than static content and blog comments for interaction gives […]

Stripped Down Naked to Honor Web Designers and Developers

In honor of April 9, 2008, as CSS Naked Day, my blog is going naked. I discussed this a few days ago with details on how to strip naked your blog if you would like to join in the celebrations. By going naked, my blog stands with thousands of others who recognize and honor the […]

Whooping Woopra Blog Statistics Program

I’m rarely totally and completely blown away by anything, and yesterday at WordCamp Dallas, John Pozadzides blew the whole crowd away with his new blog statistics program, Woopra. John is a blogger, author of the popular One Man’s Blog, and an experienced web user, web company owner and business man. He understands the importance blog […]

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 […]

Blog Challenge: Testing Your Blog’s Accessibility

I’ve talked a lot over the years about how important it is to design your website or blog to be accessible. There is a growing number of bloggers and blog readers who are reading your blog right now with a screen reader which reads your blog to them, or some other magnification or screen customization […]

Define Blogging

CSS For WordPress Unofficial defines blogging as: To me blogging is the passionate expression of a persons thoughts, ideas and creativity to list a few. A bloggers main objective is to entertain and stimulate other individuals minds through the process of writing. Blogging provides an outlet for a somewhat shy person like me to share […]

Copyright and Translation: Help Your Community Yourself

It is my copyright policy to not permit literal translation of my content into another language without permission. And in general, I rarely give permission. Whoa! Does this sound like it goes against Lorelle’s policy of open, transparent, fair, and equal communication and breaking down the language barriers? Nope. It is within my policies. Translation […]

Protecting Cultural Heritage With Blogs

The World Intellectual Property Organization presents the Creative Heritage Project: IP Guidelines for Documenting, Recording and Digitizing Intangible Cultural Heritage, a project to help cultures around the world preserve and protect their history and traditions in a digital world.

Spinning Spammers Steal Our Blog Content

Last week, an article I wrote for the Blog Herald, Blogging Outside of Your Community By Not Blogging in Your Native Tongue, caught the attention of more than just the readers. It caught the attention of the staff of the Blog Herald by attracting a very unusual trackback from a new kind of copyright violating […]

Blog Struggles: The Blog Focus

In a comment recently on this article series on Blog Struggles, Lindsey asked: I have been blogging for a couple of years. I started blogging because I thought it would be a fun thing to do, and I still find it fun. However, my blog doesn’t really have much of a focus, so it doesn’t […]