WordPress Tips « Lorelle on WordPress

Blog Exercises: Backups and Alternatives

May 20, 2013 – 11:06 pm

I didn’t expect to return home after a meeting this morning to find I have no telephone or Internet access on this bright sunshine, calm weather May day. I’ve got classes to prep for, sites to review for students and clients, article deadlines, these blog exercises to publish and keep to my year long commitment, […]

By Lorelle VanFossen | Posted in Blogging, Blogging Tips, WordPress Tips | Tags: access, backup, backups, blog exercises, Blogging Tips, cloud, cloud storage, connections, electricity, google drive, how to blog, internet, notetab, notetab pro, scrivener, software, text editor, wifi, WordPress Tips | Comments (2)

Blog Exercises: What Are Your Reference Articles

April 11, 2013 – 4:15 am

What are the articles that drive people to your site? What are the posts that help people understand and benefit most from what you publish on your site? What articles represent you as an authority on the subject? These are your reference articles. We all have them, the articles that explain who we are, what […]

By Lorelle VanFossen | Posted in Blog Exercises, Blogging, Blogging Tips, WordPress Tips, Writing | Tags: article series, articles, blog exercises, Blogging Tips, guide, information, instructions, link list, links, lists, reference articles, references, resource, resource guide, resource list, resources, table of contents, web publishing, web writing, WordPress Tips, Writing, writing for the web, writing tips | Comments (5)

Blog Exercises: How to Add Headings to Your Post Articles

April 10, 2013 – 4:48 am

I’ve mentioned using headings in your post articles throughout these Blog Exercises. Let’s look closer at these HTML tags that help you structure and increase the readability of your blog posts. Headings are HTML tags used to set the section or subsection titles within your blog posts. They divide your content into sections, but they […]

By Lorelle VanFossen | Posted in Blog Exercises, Blogging Tips, Web Design, WordPress Tips, Writing | Tags: accessibility, blog exercises, Blogging Tips, content, content organication, h1, h2, h3, h4, headings, headings tag, how to blog, how to write a post, html, post format, post structure, readability, seo, Usability, web publishing, WordPress Tips | Comments (9)

The Secret Recipe of Comment Spam Comments

April 4, 2013 – 3:05 pm

Mr. Louis Vuitton just sent me a message in my blog comments I’d like to share with you. I share this touching message because it is highly educational when it comes to the art of spam comments, and serves to remind us of why we love having Akismet, the best comment spam fighter, on our […]

By Lorelle VanFossen | Posted in Blogging, Blogging Tips, WordPress News | Tags: WordPress Tips, akismet, spam, comments, comment spam, evil, spam comments | Comments (33)

Fight Against Trackback Death

March 27, 2013 – 12:25 pm

I’ve heard the many threats of trackbacks and pingbacks dying over the years, going the way of the virtual dinosaur, but I’m terrified to hear from Andraz Tori that Typepad is killing pingback functionality and stating that WordPress might be considering it, removing the joy of getting a notification that someone online is talking about […]

By Lorelle VanFossen | Posted in Blogging, Blogging News, WordPress News | Tags: backlinks, comments, death of trackbacks, interaction, pingbacks, protect trackbacks, spam, spam comments, stop trackbacks, trackback spam, trackbacks, typepad, wordpress, WordPress Tips | Comments (21)

Blog Exercises: Check Your Site Title Tag

March 14, 2013 – 4:40 am

Do you know what the title of your site is? Not the name of your site or the title of your post, but the HTML <title> tag for your site buried in the source code. In HTML, every website is required to have the <title> tag in the <head> of the source code HTML structure. […]

By Lorelle VanFossen | Posted in Blog Exercises, Blogging, Blogging Tips, Web Design, WordPress Themes, WordPress Tips, Writing | Tags: blog exercises, blog title, Blogging Tips, code, html, html title, html title tag, post title, seo, site title, tags, title tag, Web Design, WordPress Themes, WordPress Tips | Comments (10)

Blog Exercises: Know Your Pageviews

March 13, 2013 – 4:28 am

In this Blog Exercise, it is time to learn some website jargon, specifically, what are all the web pages of your site called. I teach web publishing with WordPress and web design courses at two colleges, and I’m stunned that students don’t know at the lack of proper names for all the parts of a […]

By Lorelle VanFossen | Posted in Blog Exercises, Blogging, Blogging Tips, WordPress Themes, WordPress Tips | Tags: author, blog exercises, blog names, Blogging Tips, categories, database, design, front page, generated web pages, jargon, modular, multi-post pageview, multiple posts, names, pages, pageviews, php, posts, single post pageview, tags, template files, template tags, terminology, Web Design, web design names, web pages, wordpress, WordPress Themes, WordPress Tips | Comments (2)

WordPress Course at PCC-Rock Creek in Beaverton

March 6, 2013 – 5:44 am

I will be teaching a WordPress Introduction college course at Portland Community College in Beaverton, just west of Portland, Oregon, starting April 3 – June 12, 2013. The course is a hybrid online course meetings Wednesdays from 6-9PM with a minimum of two hours online per week. Called “CMS Website Creation: WordPress,” this 3 credit […]

By Lorelle VanFossen | Posted in Announcements, WordPress Events, WordPress News, WordPress Tips | Tags: blogging, blogging lessons, Blogging Tips, classes, college, education, learn wordpress, pcc, portland community college, training, Web Design, wordpress, wordpress classes, wordpress development, wordpress help, WordPress News, WordPress Plugins, WordPress Themes, WordPress Tips, wordpress training | Comments (2)

Update WordPress Now: Reuters Hacked

August 26, 2012 – 10:04 pm

It is an old song. I’ve sung it for years. UPDATE WORDPRESS NOW! Reuters was hacked recently and many blame WordPress, though most honest reporters are quick to state that it is the webmaster/site owners fault for not updating. Seems they were running a version from over a year ago. According to PC Magazine’s Security […]

By Lorelle VanFossen | Posted in WordPress News, WordPress Tips | Tags: malware, security, update wordpress, upgrade wordpress, viruses, wordpress hacks, wordpress security, WordPress Tips, wordpress update, wordpress upgrade | Comments (12)

What You Most Need to Know About WordPress

August 24, 2012 – 6:48 pm

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 […]

By Lorelle VanFossen | Posted in Blogging Tips, WordCamps, WordPress Events, WordPress News, WordPress Plugins, WordPress Themes, WordPress Tips, Writing | Tags: blog writing, Blogging Tips, headings, how to blog, how to blog with WordPress, images, links, multimedia, post content, seo, what you most need to know in wordpress, wordpress, wordpress and seo, wordpress essentials, WordPress Plugins, WordPress Themes, WordPress Tips, Writing, writing tips | Comments (16)

WordPress 3.4 Green is Good to Go

June 15, 2012 – 2:26 pm

WordPress 3.4 is out, named “Green” in honor of jazz guitarist and composer Grant Green. Green is a great nickname for this hot release of WordPress, bringing with it some excellent new features and improvements. As with all WordPress upgrades, it is recommended you backup your full WordPress site, database and all files, before upgrading. […]

By Lorelle VanFossen | Posted in WordPress News, WordPress Tips | Tags: upgrade wordpress, wordpress 3.4, WordPress News, WordPress Tips, wordpress trac, wordpress updates, wordpress upgrades, wordpress versions | Comments (15)

WordPress Codex Night Success and PDX Saturday Codex Party

May 22, 2012 – 2:52 pm

Last night’s PDX WordPress Meetup Group: WordPress Codex Night was a resounding success. In just under two hours, 130 changes were made to the WordPress Codex, the online manual for WordPress Users. On the informal WordPress Documentation Team Task List, 49 “things to do” were added which will become deleted files and pages, redirects, new […]

By Lorelle VanFossen | Posted in WordPress Events, WordPress News, WordPress Tips | Tags: codex, volunteering for wordpress, wordpres documentation team, wordpress, wordpress codex, wordpress community, wordpress docs team, wordpress documentation, wordpress manual, WordPress Tips | Comments (6)

Do Not Delete Comment Spam. Mark Spam as Spam.

May 10, 2012 – 3:16 pm

Is comment spam one of the things that gets you down? Are you taking it personally? Are you confused by comment spam and how to handle it? I’ve been speaking at a variety of meetups lately on web publishing, blogging, and podcasting, and the topics often turn to managing comments and comment spam. “I’ve started […]

By Lorelle VanFossen | Posted in Blogging Tips, WordPress News, WordPress Tips | Tags: akismet, akismet wordpress plugin, captcha, comment spam, comment spam help, comment spam plugin, comment spammers, comments, spam, spammers, wordpress help, WordPress Tips | Comments (35)

201 WordPress Books

April 26, 2012 – 12:01 pm

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 […]

By Lorelle VanFossen | Posted in WordPress News, WordPress Tips | Tags: books, books about wordpress, books on wordpress, how to use wordpress, wordpress, wordpress advice, wordpress books, wordpress codex, wordpress design, wordpress development, wordpress help, WordPress Plugins, wordpress techniques, WordPress Themes, WordPress Tips, wordpress writing | Comments (23)

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

April 23, 2012 – 12:48 pm

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 […]