Blog Exercises: Define Freedom

In an NPR Radio news story, people submitted their definitions of freedom as related to the recent overthrow or change of government or whatever you wish to call it in Egypt. Two of the definitions caught my attention. Freedom is when you can do whatever you want. Freedom is when you cannot do whatever you […]

Blog Exercises: Stand Up For Freedom of Speech

There are 400,000 words in the English language, and there are seven you can’t say on television. What a ratio that is! 399,993 to 7. They must really be baaaad. They must be OUTRAGEOUS to be separated from a group that large. “All of you words over here, you seven…baaaad words.” That’s what they told […]

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 […]

Michael Crichton – Freedom of Speech vs. Patented Speech

In a very unusual and interesting editorial in the NY Times, Michael Crichton reports that “This Essay Breaks the Law”: Actually, I can’t make that last statement. A corporation has patented that fact, and demands a royalty for its use. Anyone who makes the fact public and encourages doctors to test for the condition and […]

Just a Reminder About Freedom: Blogging Comes With a Price

It is common knowledge that China has spent billions of dollars on creating the “Great Firewall of China”, known in official circles as the “Golden Shield”. This is essentially the blocking, mostly by keyword, of information the Chinese government feels is “unhealthy” for its citizens. This can range from political dissent to pornography. Within the […]

Freedom of Speech – Bloggers Legal Rights

Bloggers have rights. Did you know that? You do. Bloggers also have limits to those rights and freedoms. The Electronic Frontier Foundation – Bloggers Legal Rights outlines what your rights are and what work is being done to protect them. Like all journalists and publishers, bloggers sometimes publish information that other people don’t want published. […]

Donate

By donating generously to Lorelle on WordPress you are doing more than just saying thank you for many years of ad-free helpful advice to WordPress users and bloggers around the world. You help keep the Lorelle engine running. Even before 2003 when WordPress was born, Lorelle VanFossen helped people have their say on the web […]

Research on the WordPress, Web Development, and Web Design Job Market

In 2012 and 2013, I did extensive research for the grant program to develop and rewrite the Web Developer degree program at Clark College. This research included an analysis of current and future job opportunities for students graduating with that degree with a solid understanding of WordPress. Now that the program has completed its first […]

Code Standards Project to Take WordPress Into the Future

WP Tavern reported recently that WordPress Developers are organizing a community initiative to standardize common post types, taxonomies and meta data. Led by Justin Tadlock, popular WordPress developer and author of Professional WordPress Plugin Development, the goals of the community project are to name these common parts of WordPress to create a more stable and […]

It’s About Access

If you have a few minutes today, watch this. Oh, watch it anyway. And share it. It won a Webby, the equivalent of the Oscar for the web world. And I have to admit that at the end, I cried. Seriously. Like those in the satirical episode, I don’t live in the wildest woolliest of […]

Russia’s Bloggers Under Attack

If you haven’t been paying attention to one of the largest countries in the world is persecuting bloggers. I’ve written up a summary in the ClarkWP Magazine site produced by my Clark College WordPress students, “The New Blogger’s Law in Russia.” In December 2013, the Russian parliament passed a law to allow the blocking of […]

WordPress For Writers

I will be speaking this year at several workshops and conferences on the subject of “WordPress for Writers.” The workshop covers the basic elements of WordPress content structure and organization, then adds the complexities of a site for writers and authors. This is one of a series of articles on WordPress for Writers and Authors. […]

Blog Exercises: Debate Ethics

A premie baby is causing debates and controversy about medical research projects. A debate on plant ethics questions over the humane treatment of plants opposes yet is related to the debate on ethical treatment of animals as food sources. Advanced research on stem cells and human cloning is debatable on all sides, especially when news […]

Blog Exercises: August Summary

August is done, and so is the summer for most of the world north of the equator. Summer is on its way down under. This is the end of eight months of celebrating the 10th Anniversary of WordPress with a year of non-stop blogging about blogging, focused on using WordPress as your publishing platform. In […]

The Giant Blog Exercise Check List Part 1

July is the midway point of these Blog Exercises and time for a Giant Blog Exercise Checklist to help you keep score of the exercises you’ve done, and what’s left undone. I’ve arranged the blog exercises by similarity, tasks related to each other, rather than chronologically. If you are playing catch up, you might wish […]