Blog Exercises: What Words Do You Abuse Redundantly?

So, it’s word check time. Well, time to check all the words we abuse. Specifically, all the words we abuse redundantly and unnecessarily. And I’d like us to focus on the little words we add to our content, words like like, and, so, because, cause, cuz, specifically, well, and so on. In the last two […]

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 […]

bbPress News, Tips, and Plugins

Recently, Matt Mullenweg has been fending off questions about bbPress, the popular open source, free forum platform. This past weekend at WordCamp Denver, and last month at WordCamp Las Vegas, audience members begged for an update on the status of bbPress. He joked in Denver that he felt he was being stalked by bbPress fans. […]

Blog Resources for English Language and Blog Writing

I blog in English and it behooves me to get it write – okay, at least once in a while. The challenges I face as a writer are not just generating ideas but finding the write way to convey those ideas. I frequently need to check the spelling or definition of words I come up […]

The Art of Smilies in WordPress Blogs

I recently 😉 ran across a blog 😀 that was stuffed with 😯 . You know, those yellow smiling faces 🙂 that grin, wink, blink and snarl at you from many blog posts? They are called emoticons by their proper term, but also known as smilies or smileys. Sometimes they work, and sometimes they don’t, […]

WordPress.com Blog Bling: Lines and Smilies

In part one of the WordPress.com Blog Bling series, we covered how to add graphic images to your WordPress.com blog. In this section, we’re going to cover how to add more visual images with lines and smilies. Exploring Horizontal and Vertical Lines One of the strongest visual elements in design is the line. In WordPress […]