Exploring the Alignment of the Planets in the Night Sky

In anticipation of the planets alignment, I went digging for some cool Android apps to see the stars, and some awesome astronomy blogs to keep myself updated. Let’s start with the awesome astronomy bloggers. Blogging the Stars When I think about those blogging the stars, I don’t think Perez Hilton. I think about those truly […]

Writing Tips: The Art of the Product Review

The social of shopping continues to delight me as I come to depend more and more on what others say about a product before I hand over my money. Aren’t you? It’s not just purchases. I depend upon the ratings and comments on WordPress Plugins and WordPress Themes. Part of my fascination with social shopping […]

Banned, Blocked, and Censored Bloggers

According to the American Library Association, September 30 through October 6, 2012, is a salute to Banned Books week. Banned Books Week is an annual event celebrating the freedom to read. Typically held during the last week of September, it highlights the value of free and open access to information. Banned Books Week brings together […]

DuckDuckGo: The Search Engine You Need to Meet

Recently, DuckDuckGo has been turning up in my referrers list. Curious about the name, and thinking it was a spam site, DuckDuckGo needed investigation. Seems I’ve been missing out on what could be the major competition to Google as a search engine. Here is a quick summary of what I learned about DuckDuckGo. It is […]

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 You Most Need to Know About WordPress

At the recent WordCamp Portland 2012, I was asked by several attendees to cover the basics of WordPress and we came up with What You Most Need to Know About WordPress. Here are the “notes” from that unconference presentation. The Difference Between Categories and Tags I hear this question at WordCamps, from readers, students, and […]

7 Blogging Steps Even Veteran Bloggers Forget

Originally published in Blogger and Podcaster Magazine and updated. I write for a variety of online and offline magazines. They’ve graciously permit me to republish my articles. Participating in a recent multiple guest blogger event, I edited and review posts by many top bloggers before publishing. I was rather stunned to find that even veteran […]

WordPress Theme Panel at WebVisions 2012

Webvisions is in Portland, Oregon, May 16-18, 2012, and I’ll be there presenting “Crank WordPress to 11” featuring four top WordPress designers and developers showcasing how they have pushed WordPress beyond traditional limits and taking your questions about how they do it and if WordPress can take it. Friday, May 18, at 1:30PM, I’ll be […]

201 WordPress Books

As part of my project to bring WordPress into colleges nationally, I did a quick survey of how many books have been published about WordPress. I was asked by several major publishers to publish the first book in English on WordPress but had to decline due to my traveling schedule and work load, so it’s […]

How to Set the WordPress Twenty-Eleven Theme Showcase Slider to Auto-Advance

Using the fantastic and flexible Twenty-Eleven WordPress Theme and its showcase template front page and slider? Wish the showcase slider would slide automatically? I’ve found the answer. The Twenty-Eleven WordPress Theme features a pseudo-static front page template called “showcase.” When set as the “home” page template with the blog as “blog,” you have the option […]

Prove it! Kym Huynh Bio Reloaded

In my Prove It! campaign article series recently, by request I ripped apart the personal and professional site of Kym Huynh in “Prove It: Kym Huynh Exposed.” Using my advice, he’s updated the two key pages I attacked on his site, the front page and about page, and the results are spectacular. The goals of […]

Help Needed with WebVisions WordPress Theme Developers Panel

Webvisions is in Portland, Oregon, May 16-18, 2012, and I’ll be there again this year leading an awesome panel of WordPress Theme designers and developers, and I need your help. For over eleven years, Webvisions has been the go to conference for exploring the future of design, content creation, user experience, and business strategies on […]

WordPress Stats and Numbers: Breaking Their Own Records

Working on developing a core of WordPress classes for Clark College and preparing for the next “Introduction to WordPress” college course in a couple weeks, I’ve put together some statistics on WordPress you might find helpful – and stunning. WordPress continues to break records set by others, but more often lately, break records set by […]

What My First WordPress College Class Taught Me

As the last day of class approaches for the world’s first WordPress College Course at Clark College in Vancouver, Washington, and the next one begins in a couple weeks (filling fast), I’d like to share some lessons my students taught me about WordPress – and teaching. They taught me humility and pride. I stand truly […]

Prove It: What Makes You Trust a Website?

What makes you trust this site? What makes you trust me? What makes you trust any website you visit? What is it about the site that earns your trust? I’ve asked this question at most of the conferences and keynotes I’ve given over the past seven years: What makes you not trust a website? The […]