Wikipedia - The Bloggers Dictionary and Encyclopedia

Need a definition? Want to help your reader understand a concept a little more? Need just a bit more information?

Wikipedia, the free online encyclopedia, is a one stop dictionary, encyclopedia and linking ground for just about anything you want to know. And bloggers help make it what it is today.

Millions of bloggers link to Wikipedia to help their readers understand a concept or term, keeping things in context and providing more resources for information from their site. Just about anything you want to know about is found in the Wikipedia. Into astrology or astronomy, or don’t know the difference? Want to know more about how search engines work and how they search your site? What about global warming? Or political figures like father and son Bush, a foreign minister of Russia, or current president of Latvia?

Wikipedia also establishes a warehouse of information and resources dealing with current events. Hurricane Katrina, Hurricane RitaEnron, Halliburton, and Worldcom debacles, even more than you could ever want to know about California star and governor, Schwarzenegger. Or popular stars like Britney Spears, Barbra Streisand, Michael Jackson, Mike Myers, Justin Timberlake, Elizabeth Taylor, and many more.

The Wikipedia is available in many languages with ongoing translations coming in almost daily. English is still the largest and most popular but other languages are growing quickly such as German, French, Japanese, Italian, Polish, Swedish, Dutch, Portuguese and Spanish. There is even a Chinese version.

Wikipedia is a volunteer effort, so anyone can contribute. There is even information on WordPress.

Website Development - Search Engine Submission Preparation

After you have produced amazingly worthwhile material and resources, and spent time optimizing your web pages, adding tags and categories, and making sure your site is as search engine friendly as possible, it’s time to begin the process of submitting your site to search engines.

BUT, there are a couple more things to do before you start your site submissions.

What, even now you won’t tell me to start submitting my pages to search engines? Soon, my friend, soon. There are still a few more tests that need to be done. After all, you want your page to look and respond at its best before the search engines grab hold of it.

Start Spreading the Word

Start a word-of-mouth and email campaign of your own to tell all your friends, relatives, co-workers, and people on the street that you have a new web page up. Remember, word-of-mouth is still the best advertising. Tell friends and business associates that you have updated your site and ask them to check it. Telll them to call or email you after checking, to let you know what they think. Be willing to accept their criticisms. Remember, your closest friends and family members, unless you have trained them otherwise, will only say nice things because that it what they are trained and expected to do. Take their comments lightly, and ask others to really tell you the truth.

Don’t take your web page design personally. The goal is to create pages that are user-friendly and easy to access, allowing everyone to enjoy reading them, not to win a “pretty” or “popularity” contest. These pages represent you and your business, so make sure they don’t suck. If you have a cluttered web page, then people think you are a cluttered person. If your web pages are clean, easy to use, and enjoyable, users and potential clients will look upon you as someone they can work with, a true professional. Make sure they pass the professional test.

If you are really serious about having the best site and blog possible, then consider submitting your WordPress site or blog for critique on the WordPress Forum in the Your WordPress section.

After you’ve had some people review your pages, and you’ve made more changes and revalidated, then it is time to start the search engine submission process.

Search Engine Web Page Submission

After all this work, your pages are ready and deserving of inclusion on search engines. Now, if you are using any version of WordPress, then search engines have probably already found you. You can still submit your site, especially to smaller search engines and directories, especially blog and tagging search engines and directories. WordPress comes ready from the box with built in pinging services, which send a “note” to search engines and directories to let them know you’ve posted and activated your site. A little follow through won’t hurt, if you are seriously into search engine optimization and page ranking.

Our site is packed with information on website development, helping you to understand how search engines work and what they are looking for. It’s also important to validate and check your website or blog feeds to make sure they are working as many search engines and directories accept site feeds for submission as well as the site URL.

The Website Submission Report Forum

Most search engine and directory submission forms will ask you the same basic questions. Some will only ask for your site URL or feed link, but others will ask for the site name, description and keywords. You need to be ready with that information before you begin, so you have them figured out and your submission information can stay fairly consistent.

Write or type out the following information about your site and keep it handy as a reference when you submit your site manually. For an example of how this might look, here is our main site’s reference information:

URL (web page address):

Website Name or Title:

Site Keywords:

Website Description (200-250 charaters max.):

Categories:

My List of Articles on Submission to Top Search Engines, Directories, and Contests

• Search Engines: Top Search Engines Listing
• Search Engines: Directories and Indexes
• Search Engines: Specialty Search Engines and Directories
• A Winner: Awards for Websites
• Guinness World Book of Records and Other Blog Score Cards
• Winning Blog and Website Awards and Contests
• Secret Out How Google Ranks Websites
• Submitting Your Sitemap and Feeds to Google Blogsearch

Site Submissions Services - Free

• Excellent Free Website Submission at Selfpromotion.com
• Enginemage’s Free Search Engine Site Submissions
• Ineedhits.com Free Site Submission
• Scrubtheweb.com
• Submit Corners Site Submission
• Submit-it.com

Site Submission Information and Resources

• Jessett’s Submission Tips
• Searchenginewatch’s Major Search Engines and Directories and How to Submit
• Searchenginewatch Site Submission Tips and Tricks
• Article on Site Submission

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Site Search Tags: blog administration | blog | feeds | search engine | site submission | tags | technorati | web pages | website administration | website development | website | wordpress
© Reprinted with Permission

Site Optimization: Checking Loose Links

The three biggest complains by Internet users are speed issues, broken links, and slow ads. Let’s tackle the number two complaint: broken links. Few things are more frustrating than tracking down the information you want, and you click the link and get the famous “404 Page Error - Page Not Found”.

The term “web” came about as a visual image of how the Internet and web pages work. Through a process of links within a web, each web page connects with another web page which connects with another, and another, and so on and so on, all connecting the strands of the web together. When one of those strands is broken, the web weakens.

A web page features two different types of links: internal and external. External links take the user to another site, leaving yours behind. Internal links are the links that connect one page to another within your website.

As a search engine moves through your site, it relies upon the internal links to move through your web site from page to page, gathering information. If there is a break in any of these links, or you have pages that are not linked to from within other pages in your site, that page won’t be found by the search engines.

If you use site statistics programs to monitor your website or blog visitors and access, check to see how often your 404 page is being accessed, or how often a 404 error is reported. If frequently, thoroughly check how up-to-date your internal links are to keep people inside your site on the right content.

Keeping up with “dead links” can feel like a full-time job. There are several link checking software programs available to help you organize and check your links, as well as free online link checkers to help those with only a few links on their pages. Blogs and pages come and go rather quickly. Or administrators change their linking structure so broken links are found even though the site is still functioning. While link checking programs can identify broken links, you still have to manually check to see if the link is really dead or just moved.

If you have a small business or site, schedule link checking about once every three to six months to keep your external links updated.

WordPress Users

Check with your web host to find out what site statistics and logs they have and learn how to use them to check for broken or dead links. There are also some WordPress Plugins you can use to monitor your site’s activities which also log your Page Not Found errors.

StatTraq offers full site statistics for your WordPress site. ShortStat is a condensed version of statistics added to your WordPress Dashboard.

Bloggers using wordpress.com can track their 404 Page Not Found errors through the Referers tab on your Manage panel. The link on the left shows the incoming source for the link and the link on the right shows the 404 error. Monitor this to keep track of potential page not found errors on your intrasite links.

No matter which version you use, be sure and check your outgoing links on a regular basis. Go through the list of 404 errors and check out the bad links. Fix the link or delete it in the post.

Link Checking Resources

• DMOZ’s Link Management Links
• Siteowner’s Link Checker
• Link Valet
• Webthing’s Free Link Checker
• W3C check link free utility
• AnyBrowser’s Link Checker
• HTMLHelp Valet Link Checker
• Icehouse Designs Link Checker
• NetMechanic’s Link Check
• Poisontooth’s Free Link Check
• RelSoftware’s Link Checking Software
• Squarefree’s Bookmarklets - javascripts for checking links
• Link Checker for Firefox

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Site Search Tags: site optimization, seo, search engine optimization, broken links, checking links, dead links, 404 page not found error, link checkers, testing links, blog maintenance, site maintenance, blog administration, taking care of your blog, blogging tips, blog tips
Copyright Lorelle VanFossen, member of the 9Rules Network Subscribe

IRS Tax Relief and Help for Victims of Hurricane Katrina

The US government and federally funded programs are available to help hurricane, tornado, flood, earthquake and other disasters, and there is also tax benefits and relief for victims. You can find more information on tax benefits and relief from the IRS Tax Relief in Disaster Situations.

As one of the millions of victims of Hurricane Katrina, because I had to do the research, you get to share in the benefit of what I found. I am not a tax expert, but I’m slowly becoming a disaster expert ;-). This is just a list of what I found - you have to do some of the work to find out if and how it applies to you.

If you are a victim of Hurricane Katrina or Hurricane Rita, here are some things you need to know from the IRS.

• Deadlines for affected taxpayers to file any returns, pay any taxes and perform other time-sensitive acts have been postponed to February 28, 2006. In Alabama, Louisiana and Mississippi, this relief applies to any return due on or after Aug. 29, 2005. In Florida, where Katrina hit first, the date is on or after Aug. 24, 2005. Both individuals and businesses qualify for this special relief.
• In the hardest-hit areas — those designated by FEMA as “individual assistance areas” — the tax relief will be automatic, and taxpayers won’t need to do anything to get the extensions and other relief available.
• In areas where FEMA has determined damage is more isolated — designated as “public assistance areas” — or for other taxpayers outside the impacted area, people will need to identify themselves as hurricane victims when filing with the IRS.
• In the hardest-hit areas — those designated by FEMA as “individual assistance areas” — the tax relief will be automatic, and taxpayers won’t need to do anything to get the extensions and other relief available. In areas where FEMA has determined damage is more isolated — designated as “public assistance areas” — or for other taxpayers outside the impacted area, people will need to identify themselves as hurricane victims when filing with the IRS.
• To get a copy of any past tax reports or papers from the IRS, call 1-866-562-5227 from Monday through Friday from 7:00 am to 10:00 pm local time, or send in a Form 4506, Request for Copy of Tax Return, with “Hurricane Katrina” written in red in the top margin of the form.
• By calling the above number, you can also request Disaster Tax Loss Kits to help you understand your tax situation and what you can do.
• To determine which level of federal and tax benefit you get, and what you need to do, see IRS Updates Hurricane Katrina Tax Relief Guidelines for Taxpayers in Four States, Relief Workers and Others Impacted and the list of states and counties affected.
• Tax relief assistance payments are usually not taxable. People in a Presidentially-declared disaster area who receive grants from state programs, charitable organizations or employers to cover medical, transportation or temporary housing expenses do not include these grants in their income.
• If your home, property, business, or rental property was damaged by the hurricane, you may be able to deduct some of your loss. Only losses not covered by insurance or other reimbursements are eligible. See Tax Topic 515 for more information about losses and theft.
• If you are awaiting a tax refund, being audited, or awaiting any other information from the IRS, and they are unable to contact you because you have relocated, call the IRS disaster hotline at 1-866-562-5227 or refund hotline at 1-800-829-1954. The IRS will ask for authentication by providing information from your last tax return, including name, address, taxpayer identification number and filing status, and a current mailing address and phone number.

Here are more forms, news, and information to help victims of Hurricane Katrina and Hurricane Rita.

• Disaster Loss Kit for Individuals - GET THIS
• Disaster Loss Kit for Businesses
• Preparation for Disaster Loss Kit Materials: Publication 584, Casualty, Disaster, and Theft Loss Workbook, Publication 584B, Business Casualty, Disaster, and Theft Loss Workbook, and Publication 547, Casualties, Disasters, and Thefts
• Around the Nation - IRS disaster relief or tax provisions news specific to local areas and states
• IRS Grants Tax Relief for Alabama Hurricane Victims of Hurricane Dennis
• Deadlines for Taxpayers Affected by Hurricane Katrina Extended Until Feb. 28 - IR-2005-112, Sept. 28, 2005 — New law gives taxpayers affected by Hurricane Katrina until Feb. 28, 2006, to file tax returns and pay any taxes due
• IRS Updates Hurricane Katrina Tax Relief Guidelines for Taxpayers in Four States, Relief Workers and Others Impacted - IR-2005-109, Sept. 21, 2005 — New details help ensure those impacted by the storm get the tax relief they’re entitled to
• IRS Announces Additional Agreements to Assist Disaster Victims - IR-2005-108, Sept. 21, 2005 – NAEA and AAA-CPA join with IRS to assist taxpayers affected by Hurricane Katrina
• Retirement Plans Can Make Loans, Hardship Distributions to Katrina Victims - IR-2005-105, Sept. 15, 2005 — Victims of Hurricane Katrina and their families can take out loans and hardship distributions from their 401(k) and similar employer-sponsored retirement plans
• Katrina Relief Workers Have Until Jan. 3 to File and Pay Taxes - IR-2005-103, Sept. 14, 2005 — Hurricane Katrina relief workers have an extension of time to file their tax returns and pay any taxes due.
• 5,000 IRS Telephone Operators Register Hurricane Victims for FEMA Benefits - IR-2005-102, Sept. 14, 2005 — IRS operators are helping FEMA answer telephone calls from Hurricane Katrina victims
• IRS Increases Mileage Rate Until Dec. 31, 2005 - IR-2005-99, Sept. 9, 2005 — Optional standard mileage rates increased for the final four months of 2005
• Treasury, IRS Announce Special Relief to Encourage Leave-Donation Programs for Victims of Hurricane Katrina - IR-2005-97, Sept. 8, 2005 — Special relief supports leave-based donation programs to aid Hurricane Katrina victims.
• Katrina Victims Will Have Until Jan. 3 to File and Pay Taxes - IR-2005-96, Sept. 8, 2005 — Victims of Hurricane Katrina will have until Jan. 3, 2006, to file any returns, pay any taxes or make any deposits due
• IRS and AICPA Announce Agreement to Assist Disaster Victims - IR-2005-94, Sept. 7, 2005 — Partnership to provide assistance with tax issues at FEMA disaster recovery centers in the wake of Hurricane Katrina and other disasters
• IRS Expedites Charity Applications, Urges Use of Existing Charities - IR-2005-93, Sept. 6, 2005 — Review and approval process for new organizations seeking tax-exempt status expedited in order to provide relief for victims of Hurricane Katrina
• Treasury and IRS Expand Availability of Housing for Hurricane Victims - IR-2005-92, Sept. 2, 2005 — Waiver of low-income housing tax credit rules expands the availability of housing for Hurricane Katrina disaster victims and their families
• IRS Expands Relief Area for Katrina Victims - IR-2005-91, Sept. 2, 2005 — IRS expands tax relief to victims in certain areas of Florida, Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama
• IRS Grants Relief Regarding Certain Employee Plan Contributions - IR-2005-90, Sept. 2, 2005 — Relief provided in connection with certain employee benefit plans because of damage caused by Hurricane Katrina
• IRS Creates Disaster Relief Toll-Free Number - IR-2005-88, Sept. 1, 2005 — Special toll-free telephone number is for taxpayers affected by Hurricane Katrina - 1-866-562-5227, Monday through Friday from 7:00 am to 10:00 pm local time
• IRS Urges Citizens to Seek Qualified Charities for Katrina Help - IR-2005-86, Sept. 1, 2005 — Citizens seeking to make donations to help Hurricane Katrina victims should seek out qualified charities.
• IRS Grants Tax Relief for Hurricane Katrina Victims - IR-2005-84, Aug. 30, 2005 — Taxpayers generally will have until Oct. 31, 2005, to file tax returns and submit tax payments.
• Notice 2005-73 — Summarizes and clarifies the relief previously granted to taxpayers affected by Hurricane Katrina (pdf)
• Announcement 2005-71 — Optional Standard Mileage Rates (pdf)
• Announcement 2005-69 — Disaster relief for issuers of tax-exempt bonds affected by Hurricane Katrina (pdf)
• Announcement 2005-70 — Hurricane Katrina Relief (relating to loans from retirement plans and hardship distributions) (pdf)
• Notice 2005-60— Relief from minimum funding requirements for employee benefit plans (pdf)
• Notice 2005-65 — Announcement of Rules Relating to the Temporary Operation of Ships in the Domestic Trade as a Result of Hurricane Katrina (pdf)
• Notice 2005-66 — This notice under section 7508A postpones the deadlines for certain acts performed by the Internal Revenue Service with respect to certain taxpayers affected by Hurricane Katrina (pdf)
• Notice 2005-68 — Treatment of Certain Amounts Paid to Section 170(c) Organizations under Certain Employer Leave-Based Donation Programs (pdf)
• Notice 2005-69 — Relief from Certain Low-Income Housing Credit Requirements Due to Hurricane Katrina (pdf)
• FAQs About Your Tax Relief as a Victim of Hurricane Katrina

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site search tags: hurricane, hurricane rita, hurricane katrina, katrina, irs, taxes, tax relief, hurricane victims

Help Me Find a WordPress Theme

Tips Apply to the Full Version of WordPress.

In our WordPress Tips, we cover a lot about WordPress Themes, editing, tweaking, and changing the layout, as well as developing them from scratch. Here are a few more tips and issues you need to consider when choosing and editing your WordPress Theme.

There are now more than 300 WordPress Themes available to choose from. From among those, there are many variations on a theme, changing colors or number of sidebars. This number is growing rapidly as more and more people experiment with WordPress Theme designs.

With all these variations and choices, most WordPress Support Forum volunteers can’t keep track of which Themes look like what, so many times this question goes unanswered, or poorly answered.

If you are looking for a WordPress Theme, here are some tips to help you decide. Also see more extensive information and tips on choosing a WordPress Theme.

Look Past the Frosting

For the most part, there are only a few variations on layout and the rest of the look is “paint”. To learn about the core layouts that are most commonly found on the Internet, read Mezzoblue’s Web Page Layouts: Columns and Grids. Basically, you have a header, content area, sidebar, and footer. There are themes with no sidebars (1 column), one sidebar (left or right), two sidebars (one right or left, or two side-by-side on the right or the left), or three sidebars, or even the rare four column, which is more of a newspaper style. Some have a prominent header, some smaller, or none. Some have a footer, some don’t. Everything else is just frosting.

Look For The Architecture

To find the one you want, first decide the layout architecture you need and forget about graphics and color. Do you want the sidebar on the left or right? Do you want a fixed layout or flexible or elastic, stretching the full width of the screen?

All WordPress Themes are Simple

The WordPress Support Forum gets a lot of requests for a very simple Theme layout from which people can play and develop their own Theme. Reality is, most WordPress Themes are simple once you take away all the colors and pictures. In theory, most of them house the same core structure and reference selectors. Most of the modifications happen in the style.css style sheet. There are some Themes that you can completely change the look by only replacing the style.css from another Theme. Can’t get much simpler than that.

Use WordPress Codex Theme List Sorted By Column

Once you have decided upon the layout you want, you can use the WordPress Codex WordPress Theme List which is sorted by column layouts. That will narrow down your search.

Colors, Fonts, Graphics, and Styles Can All Be Changed

Remember, all the colors, graphics, fonts, and titles can be changed from within the style sheet. Ignore the pretty or garish use of colors and concentrate on what you want the site’s layout to appear. After you find a good layout, then you can go through and style it any way you want.

If you need more information on the different parts and pieces of how a WordPress Theme works, read First Steps With WordPress. It will take you through the default and classic WordPress Themes right after your installation, helping you learn what each thing is and how it works. The more you understand about how WordPress works with your site’s content, the better you can style the page to maximize those uses.

• WordPress Approved Themes
• WordPress Theme Viewer
• Blogging Pro WordPress Theme Category
• The “official” WordPress Theme List
• Alex King’s WordPress Theme Competition
• WRC: 1.5 Themes List

A World Domination Project Coming Your Way - Google World

Over $7 Billion US in the bank. Major real estate holdings in the largest cities around the world. The largest advertising and media company in the world. The hottest brains in IT being dragged through courts on their way to their own personal offices. First stop: US. Second stop: Europe. Third Stop: Russia. Next stop: China.

Nope. I’m not talking about Microsoft. And sorry, Matt, I’m not talking about you, either. I’m talking about Google.

News is all over the place about Google building an alternative Internet, and taking over control of world wide communication, Internet access, and VOIP. Here are some highlights:

• WebProNews - Google Building Alternative Internet
• Search Engine Journal - Google Building Alternative Internet
• Internet Search Engine Database - Google Building Alternative Internet

I’m impressed with the idea of Google buying up tons of dark-fiber, redundant fiber-optic lines spread throughout the world in the largest cities during the technology boom in the 1990s, and coming up with a possible use and solution for all that stuff lying around. That’s brilliant thinking. Use what already exists to make things better.

But what fasincates me more is how this 7 year old company has risen up with little or no news about the who and what that drives its clean front page and search engine algorithms, which push and pull website administrators and advertisers in every direction, to become this monster company with so much money, assets, and future plans for world domination. And do we really know what and who is behind the wheel?

Everything about Google is appealing. They seem to work overtime to be likeable and useable and very user friendly. They set a great example for good customer service in a dog eat dog Internet world. While some still view blogs as fodder, Google announced Google Blogsearch, allowing users to search through blogs for topical information. Again, they looked at what users wanted and needed and provided it, often long before others get around to it.

When they have screwed up, they’ve gone public and put a stop to the action. While there have recently been some bumps in the road, I have to say overall that they are doing amazing things.

But then everyone thought the same thing for a long time about Microsoft, and now while they continue to do amazing work that changes the face of the computer and Internet, people just love to bitch about the corporate controlling giant.

Well, Google, I have a warning for you. World domination comes with a price.

Designing a WordPress Theme From Scratch

A lot of people are martyrs and want to get their hands in the dirt and design their own WordPress Theme from scratch. That’s okay. I did that, and then got smarter. Let’s start with the smarter choice.

• First, find a WordPress Theme architecture that you like, be it one or two sidebars, or no header, or whatever you want. Forget about the colors, graphics, and fonts. Just concentrate on the layout. If nothing pleases you, then I recommend you try the new Sandbox Theme, another great way to start your WordPress Theme from scratch.
• Download a couple of Themes you like and put them through their paces on your test site. Do you like the way the single post looks different from the front page, category, and archive pages? If not, try another. If yes, then it’s time to start to work.
• Copy your chosen Theme to a new folder with a different folder name under your wp-content/themes folder. Open the style.css style sheet file in a Text Editor and rename the header section at the top to something different, like “My Test Theme” or “Ripping and Tearing”. Just give it a different name. Depending upon how much you will end up modifying the Theme, you can either leave the author credit inside or not, it’s up to you and the copyright terms of the WordPress Theme.
• Upload the new Theme Folder to your website. From within the Administration Panels, under Presentation, find the new Theme and activate it. You now have a test Theme to work with.

If you aren’t worried about bandwidth on your website or your Internet connection, you can style your site right on the Internet. If you are worried, then use the “Sandbox” method.

Get familiar with your site’s layout and structure by checking the source code and the style sheet, and begin your modifications one at a time.

I recommend that you backup your test Theme folder frequently as you go, in case you make a big mess and you need to go back, but not to start over.

Determined to Start from Total Scratch

If you are determined to redesign your WordPress Theme from scratch, you probably already know how to do this. Still, I’m here to help WordPress users and so here are some things you need to know if you are going to design your WordPress Theme from scratch.

One of the best tools recently developed for web page designers is found in the Firefox Internet Browser. Called the Firefox Web Developer Extension, it allows amazing WYSIWYG on the screen live editing of the style sheets of any web page. And a whole lot more. You can learn more about how to use this to style your WordPress Themes and find your problem CSS troublemakers in the article here on The Secret of Successful Editing of WordPress Themes.

You will also need a good text editor to edit the WordPress Templates. For a list of those recommended by WordPress users, see Text Editors in the WordPress Codex.

Also, seriously consider using the “Sandbox” method for designing your style sheet and Theme.

Here is a very simple step-by-step process to start to design your own WordPress Theme from scratch.

• Using either the Default or Classic WordPress Themes, generate a test post in your browser.
• Copy the ID and class selectors and HTML tags from the top to the bottom of the site into a Text Editor page. This is the list of the architectural features you can change, also known as your style sheet. You can also find a fairly complete listing of all the styles in most WordPress Themes on the WordPress Codex in Site Architecture 1.5.
  • If necessary, add selectors to the sections lacking them, like each of the template tags that generate different lists within the sidebar and/or footer. These need to be added to the various modular template files within the test Theme folder.
  • Different tags may appear on different views of your test Theme. Be sure and check the pages generated by the front page, category, archives, search, single, and Page views to find more selectors and tags.
  • When you have your list finished, then save it and call it style.css, replacing the style sheet that came with the Theme.
• Start applying styles to the various structural HTML tags, ID and class selectors within the style.css.

WordPress Theme Design Help

Here is a list of articles and resources you may find helpful when designing your WordPress Theme, from scratch or just for tweaking.

• WordPress Lessons
• Finding Your CSS Styles
• WordPress Blog Design and Layout
• Using WordPress Themes
• WordPress CSS Information and Techniques
• Creating individual Pages
• Stepping Into Template
• Template Files
• Stepping Into Template Tags
• Template Tags
• Using WordPress Themes
• Developing WordPress Themes
• Template Tag Layout in simple to read form
• The Loop in Action
• Anatomy of a WordPress Theme
• WordPress Templates and the is functions
• Secrets of WordPress Themeing
• Secrets of WordPress Themeing Part 2
• 10 Steps to Valid HTML
• Validating the Code Behind the Page
• Meet Them - Benefits of Compliance with Web Standards
• My WordPress Theme is Broken
• Secrets of Successful Editing of WordPress Themes
• Designing a WordPress Theme - Building a Sandbox
• WordPress Tips and Tricks for Style Sheets
• WordPress Tips and Tricks for Template Files
• Attention WordPress Theme Designers: Designing Themes for WordPressMU
• Designing a WordPress Theme - Building a Sandbox
• Choosing a WordPress Theme
• Starting With a Purpose and a Plan
• What’s the Difference Between a Genealogy Blog and a Normal Blog?
• Who, What, Where, and How Questions for the Plan
• Determining What Features I Want in My Blog
• The Blog Budget - How Much Does a Blog Cost?
• Building a Genealogy Blog: The Fast Method
• Choosing a Blog Title and Domain Name and URL
• Blog Contributors - Wanted Dead or Alive

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Site Search Tags: blog building, developing a blog, blog development, wordpress theme, wordpress theme from scratch, designing a wordpress theme, wordpress theme design, wordpress theme development, wordpress css, wordpress styles, wordpress design, wordpress themes, wordpress help, wordpress tips, web design
Copyright Lorelle VanFossen, member of the 9Rules Network Subscribe

Need Help? The wordpress.com FAQ

There is a new resource for help in town for wordpress.com users. http://faq.wordpress.com. Run by the brilliant minds behind WordPressMU and wordpress.com, this FAQ offers frequently asked questions to help you understand how wordpress.com works and what you can, and can’t, do.

Recent answers to frequently asked questions about wordpress.com include How do I send out update pings, what is free and what is going to cost money, can I edit my templates, and how do I change the title of my blog.

To ask a question, either post a comment or use the Feedback button in the WordPress administration panels to send a note to the developers with your question.

Who The Hell Are You?

Who are you? What do you do? What are you talking about? What will you be talking about? What gives you the right to talk about anything? What are you doing here? Why are you doing it here? Who the hell are you?

These are the many questions I ask myself when I visit a website or blog. I want to know who is the person behind the words, what are their qualifications, why are they bothering to waste their time and mine, and why should I trust anything they have to say.

Don’t you?

If you have a site or blog, take a moment RIGHT NOW to check and see if you have included an About and/or Contact Page on your blog or website. This single page can help people decide whether or not what you have to say is worth of reading and writing about and linking to. It doesn’t have to be your resume, but it needs to be something that gives us a clue as to who you are.

If you are using wordpress.com, the odds are high that the WordPress Theme you have chosen already features an About Page. Look in your sidebar or in the header for a link to About. If it is not there, you can add it by clicking Manage > Pages and adding an About Page of your own.

Part of the fun of blogging is anonymity. No one has to know who you are. But they do need to know something about you in order to trust what you say. You don’t have to use your real name. You don’t have to hand out your email address, or even the URL of other sites you run. What you choose to share is up to you. Just share a little bit about who you are and what makes you qualified so we can get a peek behind the mask of your blog and trust you just a little bit more.

It helps us to understand, too, what you are writing about. If you are writing about everything on the planet, then tell us that you are and tell us why. If your focus is very narrow, then share with us a little of the rationale and experience you have that qualifies you to write about this subject.

You got a blog because you had something you wanted people to read, and you work hard to get attention to your site through trackbacks, pings, search engine submissions, and spreading the word, so why not give a little attention to your blog and your qualifications.

RIGHT NOW, answer the question in your About page. Who the hell am I?

And to answer the question you are probably wondering yourself right now, who the hell are you?

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Blog Site Search Engine Submissions

I’ve talked before about submitting your blog to Google’s sitemap and feed search engine submission service for inclusion in Google and Google Blogsearch, and our Web Wise category covers a lot of what it takes to prepare your blog or website for submission to search engines and how to create a search engine friendly site, so I was thrilled to start to run across more and more lists of blog submission sites that will allow you to submit your feed to their directories and search engines.

The RSS Top 55 - Best Blog Directory and RSS Submission Sites is probably the most comprehensive. The list didn’t stop with the Top 55 but now includes more than 100 feed blog directories and search engine submission sites.

Yahoo offers feed submissions, but you have to choose one RSS format and publish only one version of each separate content feed.

Two other popular feed search engine submission sites are RSS Specifications - RSS Search Engine Submissions and All RSS - RSS Search Engine Submissions, with a lot of duplication between them, so take care not to repeat your submissions.

Feed Submitter allows submission of your blog feed to multiple sites, though I found it had a moderate fail rate. There is a list of the sites your feed is submitted to, and a good example of what neglected comments look like - someone in need of the latest version of WordPress.

Ari Paparo’s List of International Blog Search Engines is slightly dated, but may help you submit to some international blog search engines and directories.

You can also use ping services to let search engines and directories know you’ve updated your site. Pingomatic is one of the most popular. Or you can manually set up your pings from lists such as Ensight - Services to Ping or 56 RPC and RPC2 Services to Ping.

More Resources on Search Engines and Directories Feed Submissions

• Taming The Beast - RSS feeds - Subscribing, Sreating, Submitting a Web Feed
• Feedforall - Create and Promote RSS Feeds
• Yahoo Publishers Guide to RSS - Distribute Your Content on Yahoo
• Marketing and Promoting Your RSS Feeds

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technorati tags: blog administration | blog | feeds | RSS | search engine | site submission | tags | technorati | website administration | website
site search tags: blog administration | blog | feeds | RSS | search engine | site submission | tags | technorati | website administration | website

WOW! Image Browsing and Uploading Feature on wordpress.com

Owen Winkler, plugin author of Exhibit Preview has been working on an addition to the next version of WordPress to improve access, uploading, and viewing of images within the WordPress Write Post administration panel, as has Andy Skelton. Well, whether they are working alone or together, and Donncha says it is Andy, we are on the right track. Thank you!

For those of you on wordpress.com, you have another surprise waiting for you on your Write Post administration panel. It is called Image Uploading.

Below a banner of thumbnail views of your uploaded images, there are buttons that navigate you through the images in your files folder, and a button for Upload New and Browse All. I assume that sorting by folder and searching might be in the near future.

To use the new Image Uploading feature, click Upload New. This will cause the menu area to change to a menu for finding your image and adding the title and description. Click Browse to dig around on your hard drive to find the image. You can use the Menu View menu or button on your browse window to switch the view to a Thumbnail View, allowing you to see the images as you search.

Find the image you want to upload and click it, then click Open. The link to the image is entered into the Image input form. You then type in the Title and Description and click Upload.

Your image will then be visible as a thumbnail view in the Image Uploading viewer. To use the image in your post, click on it and drag it to where you want to put it in the post. It should go in beautiful if you are using the Rich Text Editor feature. If you are not, the link to the image and the image title will appear, but they will not be in an HTML img tag. I expect that to be fixed soon. You will have to put it in your own tag until that is fixed or use the img quicktag.

This is a very cool feature and I see a lot of possibilities for it in the future, but right now, it is new and it has a lot of bugs and limitations.

One major bug that will probably be fixed within the next couple hours is a funky conflict that loads the Theme Preview into the Image Uploading panel section after clicking Save and Continue Editing. Opps! It happens after the page is almost finished loading. You see the Image Uploading browse panel, and then just at the last second, it pops in with the Theme Preview.

This creates an immediate problem as the Upload tab is now gone, so if you run into this problem, you can no longer upload images to your site until this is fixed. Hey, guys, leave the Upload tab as a backup until this is fixed!

The lack of HTML tagging in the non-Rich Text Editor view is one problem. The images can be clicked and dragged into place, but no options for alignment are given. You have to enter that manually, or click on the image and set the alignment. While it asks for the title and description, is that description stored? How would we know since it isn’t evident when adding the link to the post.

The link to the image comes in as a full absolute link rather than a relative link. I much prefer the latter, so I hope that this will be changed in the future. Another annoying part about the link is that it is sorted automatically into the year and month you are posting. So an image uploaded today goes into /files/2005/9/ instead of just into the files folder or a folder of my choice. Since I tend to reuse graphics from time to time, finding in which month I put which graphic is horrid. For those who post their photographs and graphics once, then it doesn’t matter.

You can’t delete or rename images, which is a bugger. I haven’t tried uploading a duplicate, so hopefully the same features on the original Upload will apply, allowing you to overwrite or rename any image you add a second time with the same name.

If you already have images in your blog, these will not be viewable, as of right now, in your new Image Uploading panel. Only images uploaded through this feature are currently visible.

I hope the ability to create subfolders to organize images and to grab Flickr and other sources for images will be available, since so many people enjoy Flickr’s benefits and easy use.

The image uploading feature is NOT available for Pages. Any graphics you want on Pages, right now, will have to uploaded via the Write Post panel and then the link copied into your Page.

The title of the section is Image Uploading, and I haven’t tested for podcasts, MP3 and other file uploading possiblities. According to Donncha, that is coming. The project that Owen Winkler has been working on is ready to go for a variety of file types, including Flickr. Having seen his image handling efforts at work, WordPress users could really benefit from the easy and powerful features.

Still, this is a dramatic improvement in how WordPress works and handles images and media. It also makes WordPress 1.6 even more worth of anticipation. The easier it is to handle images and media within a blog, the more people will flock to its use. Good work all. Congrats!

Website Development - Make a Schedule and Calendar

Part of keeping a viable website is to keep it current and updated. To keep up with all the tasks associated with running a website or blog, here are some tasks you need to aded to your calendar to help you keep track.

Checking Your Site Statistics

Who is visiting, where they are visiting from, which pages are the most visited, and so on. Information from your site statistics gives you a lot of information. You need to know how users are using your site and how to cater to their needs. You should check your site statistics at least once a month, biweekly if you have a serious interest in SEO.

Check Your Linkability

Using the various link checking tools, look up who is linking to you. This should be done monthly, or at least four times a year. If you don’t see a rise in your link popularity, then it is time to take some action.

Check for Dead Links

You should check for broken links about two to four times a year, unless your external links are critical to the success of your website. The more important the external links are to your pages, the more frequently they need to be checked and updated.

Add and Update Pages

Set a schedule for deadlines on adding new pages, or changing the old, on your site. Each site should have a schedule unique to its user’s needs and your business. Google scores higher points for sites which add consistently changing and new content, resulting in higher page ranks. A static website that doesn’t change is fine for a single store front and a small business with limited resources and information and targetting a narrow audience. If you are actively seeking clients and want people to return to your site frequently, consider adding and updating content on a regular basis. Once a day or week might be too much, though for some it is too little. Only you can decide what the right schedule is for your site or blog. Keep your web pages fresh and invite people to return for more.

Review and Update Description, Title and Site

At least once a year you should review your website description and title. The goal is to make your site work for your users, not for you. Consider updating your website look, meta tags, keywords, and description, and maybe even the title. Our main site used to be “VanFossen Productions” but we found using our business name was useless for helping people find us. So we changed it to “Taking Your Camera on the Road”, which is the name of one of our upcoming books. It works well with the content, explains what we do, and helps people remember what we do. We also took more time to review and update our subject matter. It makes a difference in your search engine rankings to fine-tune this information at least once a year. Twice would be better.

Update and Change Titles, Headings, and Links

According to recent information about how to maintain your web page rank in Google, and how to improve it, Google evaluates the historical changes to titles, headings, and links. If they show changes over long periods of time, it seems to indicate the site is being maintained and updated, showing continued enthusiasm and credibility. You don’t have to update them all, all the time, but one in a while tweak a few to maintain appearanced.

Update Tags

As you started adding tags to your site or blog, you might have treated them like keywords instead of tags, or you started generally when you should have been more specific. Make time to review your tags and check them against tagging directories to make sure they are “found” in their lists. And check to see that you aren’t over or under tagging your posts.

Submit Your Site

Just because you have submitted to the major search engines doesn’t mean you shouldn’t try again. Don’t just submit your entire site or index page, try for specific pages and sections of your site. If you have an educational or informative section about your product or service, submit the address to target people with an educational interest in your topic, not just those who are buying what you have to offer. Also, why limit yourself to only the top search engines. Google was once a tiny player in the search engine market. Check with Searchenginewatch and Cyberatlas and others to find out who is up and coming in the search engine market and submit to them before they get crowded. And don’t forget the new tag technology as another method of spreading the news about your blog or site. You can easily submit your site feeds to many search engines now. Try the smaller search engines to diversify your market. Schedule time to spread your page around search engines at least every three to six months.

Check for Web Design Updates

HTML, CSS, and other web page coding is changing and evolving over time as browser software becomes more sophisticated. Schedule at least once a year to spend a few days reviewing the new methodology and techniques behind web pages to make sure you are best utilizing the technology. Remember, the more up-to-date and versatile your coding behind the pretty web pages, the more people can browse your pages with ease. If you are using WordPress or another blogging tool, make sure you have the latest upgrade to keep up with their improvements and security fixes.

Improve Intrasite Links

As you add articles or posts, its should now be a habit to link to past posts from the current ones. But what about your old ones? Shouldn’t they get links to the appropriate new posts? Go back through your archives and look to ways to include intrasite links from your old posts to your new posts. Links connecting your posts together help users navigate to more content on your site, thus staying longer, and it helps search engines crawl through your site connecting all the pages.

Scheduling the Website’s Calendar of Events

We’ve put together an example of a website’s calendar of events, scheduling link checks, submissions, and other maintenance required by a website. The schedule of adding new content is up to you and the Website purpose. Some sites require frequent updates and new content, while others are okay for a year or two without checking. It’s up to you to set up your own schedule, and the following calendar may help your website planning stradegies.

Calendar for Website Maintenance and Submission
January	February	March	April
• Site Submission • Check Site Statitics	• Check Link Popularity • Verify Links	• Check Site Statitics	• Site Submission • Add New Content
May	June	July	August
• Check Site Statitics • Update Headings and Tags	• Check Link Popularity • Check Tags	• Site Submission • Check Site Statitics	• Verify Links • Add New Content
September	October	November	December
• Check Site Statitics	• Site Submission • Check Link Popularity • Add New Content	• Check Site Statitics	• Review Web Standards and Update

Here are some of our routine maintenance tasks associated with our website to help you fill in the calendar and schedule for your Website:

• Keyword Review and Update
• Check Link Popularity
• Review New Technology
• Review Web Standards and apply
• Check Site Statistics
• Add New Content
• Check Links
• Validate Code
• Submit Site to Search Engines
• Check Web Page Descriptions
• Check Web Page Titles
• Review Meta Tag Standards and Update
• Check Website with Other Browsers
• Check Website with Other Computers
• Check Website with Various Screen Resolutions ideas)
• Review Top Searches from Search Engines (potential new content ideas)

Digg | Del.icio.us | BlinkList | Furl
Spurl | Reddit | Simpy | RawSugar

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site search tags: blog administration, wordpress version, website design, website administration, web page design, wordpress help
© Reprinted with Permission

Volunteering on the WordPress Codex

For the past few months I’ve been overcoming my guilt over using WordPress for free by volunteering in the WordPress Forum and by editing and writing on the WordPress Codex, the official site for documentation on using WordPress. I thought I might tell you about it a bit.

While the WordPress Codex is based upon wiki, the open source, do-it-yourself, encyclopedia style software, the editors behind it have raised the bar on the “free for all” style wiki to make it a serious source of documentation for using WordPress. It started slowly, but it is growing like mad, stuffed with tremendous articles on how to use all the different features and functions of WordPress, from the very simple to the complex.

The people volunteering on the project, helping to develop and write, edit and fix all the documentation, are serious about what they are doing. Not so serious as to not welcome every one who contributes, but serious about making sure the documentation is RIGHT. Everyone checks everyone’s work, as much as they can, to keep the grammar and spelling right, but also to make sure every bit of code is right and works. Sure, it’s all volunteer work and there are slips of the hinger on occasion, but everyone strives to make sure that the WordPress user of any level has access to the documents they need to understand a particular feature or function.

Hanging Around the WordPress Codex

I test drove WordPress for a couple of months, and then decided to convert my entire site over, a major undertaking. There was so little I knew and so much that I had to learn, I decided that I would start hanging around the WordPress Codex to read what there was to read and to learn more. Unfortunately, my second document featured the word “seperete” over and over and over, throughout the entire document, until I wanted to scream. I did some checking and found out that anyone could edit the Codex. So I went in and fixed every one of those missed-spellings to “separate”.

Over the next few weeks in my spare time at lunch and late in the evenings, I started fixing more and more. Slowly I got the hang of it. Then someone told me that I needed to make a User Page for myself. I read up on it and did so, and now I had a page of my own on the Codex. For what, who knows, but at least if I really screwed things up, the editors now had a place to leave me a message.

As I came to understand more about how WordPress worked, I started asking questions, clarifying the documentation. I was using the Codex for technical support, but I knew I had to go to the Forum for true support. I approached it as “if I don’t understand what you are saying because I’m a newbie, then other newbies won’t understand either, so let’s fix this.”

I then signed up for the mailing list of the Codex volunteers. This is the email list where people talk about what they want to do and where the Codex is going and get their questions answered regarding their work on the documentation. During one of those chats, it was clear that there needed to be a document specifically for new users, one that would hold their hand, introduce them to the terms, and link to all of the technical articles in the Codex. Since I’m as new as they come, I volunteered.

First Steps With WordPress was born. It was a chatty style document that offers step-by-step instructions on how to spend your first few hours with your newborn WordPress site. It peels back the layers so we discover how it works together. That got high praise, and high praise encourages more work…so things started snowballing.

Then came the long awaited release of WordPress version 1.5 and the Forums were filled with users struggling to upgrade to this dramatically improved version. Almost everything changed with 1.5 from the codes to the way the presentation of a WordPress site was styled with Themes. Now familiar with the Codex, I didn’t have the knowledge to really help some of those people, but I knew what documents might help them, so I started posting links to the documents on the forum.

I was surprised that so few people even knew there was such a documentation site. Visits to the Codex started increasing and people were welcoming this new access to information.

Then The WordPress Codex Broke

It was one week into the release of version 1.5 and the main documentation site was down and the developer was at a conference, unable to be reached for four days.

People were desperate for help and the Forum volunteers were working overtime to help them, but many of those hadn’t installed the new version themselves, so they did the best they could. I wanted to help, so behind the scenes I talked to a few of the volunteers and decided to start WordPress Lessons on the Forum to bring the Codex to the Forum. I started with a couple of Lessons on styling and layout, because many people were faced with the challenges of styling their new WordPress sites. This is something I know a lot about, so I could help here.

I made a big announcement, with instructions on what a “Lesson” entailed and how to post it, and then we started a list of what needed to be written about. I posted my little lessons on CSS and others started jumping in. Before we knew it, we had five, then six, soon a dozen different lessons within that weekend to help educate people and make up for the breakdown of the Codex site.

WordPress Lessons

Like many things I do by starting out naively and boldly going forth, the idea of WordPress Lessons took off. I had offers to turn these into an independent website stuffed with tips for the WordPress user, and people who wanted to turn these into articles on their site. I gave it some thought and realized that these were meant for the Codex.

It’s important to WordPress to have everything under the same umbrella. Already people were starting their own WordPress named sites for Themes, Plugins, and tips. I saw the future and the future is unity not scattered diversity. I said no.

I then talked to the editors/documentation team for the Codex about turning these into lessons for the beginner users of WordPress. I would take my postings on the Forum, along with other people’s comments, tips and advice along the various Lesson threads, and turn these into documents.

With the help of Carthik, one of the leading editors of the Codex, and many others, I created WordPress Lessons. People loved them. Now there was documentation for the novice. Soon, others wanted to write articles for the Lessons, but I realized that these needed to be written differently from the rest of the Codex, so I wrote up guidelines for the new articles.

Basically, writing technical documentation means writing command sentences. Do this. Do that. Open this. Close that. There is no you nor I in these technical documents. And there shouldn’t be. But when it comes to hand-holding, to writing documentation that helps the beginner go through the process, it has to be friendlier. “You put this here”, “you can type in”, “go to your folder”, and more third person references. There is no “I” when writing these things either, as they aren’t editorial articles, either, that ramble on about how “I did this” and “I did that”. It’s about the “you”, the beginner, and “I” the writer is talking to you, showing you and telling you how it should be done.

It also opened up the Codex in an amazing way. Instead of stuffed with technical how-tos, these boring technical documents could now be linked to from a friendly face that said, “hey, this is how you do it, step by step, and if you want to know more, check this out”. With articles like Stepping into Templates, Stepping into Template Tags, using template tags in WordPress wasn’t terrifying or overwhelming any more. Template tags had