WordPress
WordPress is the software I use for this and several other sites. It’s traditionally considered blogging software, but can be used as CMS (Content Management Software) as well. It’s a powerful platform with a wide variety of publicly available themes and extensions to extend functionality. It’s also dead-easy to use and it makes it very easy to add content to your sites (as the thousands of posts/pages here are testament to.) (Of course it can’t help you with writing your blog content….)
In short if you’re wondering “how do I start blogging?” Then wordpress is a good starting point. In fact, wordpress makes it extremely easy to create a blog.
I’ll use this page to get a round up of wordpress related links (main site/forums/themes/plugins).
For starters, you can download and install wordpress yourself from WordPress.org.
Do you want to create wordpress templates? Then you might be interested in Artisteer. It can be used to create wordpress templates.
Calendar Plugin – this displays a calendar on a page and let’s you insert events through the admin panel.
On wordpress.com they’ve integrated the polldaddy plugin to all wordpress.com blogs which enables you to add polls and surveys from polldaddy.com (looks pretty nice as polls go.)
I’ve never been big on web site based polls of course, mainly because if it’s a poll on a controversial topic people can easily game it and tell all their friends to go and vote, but…. that can have it’s advantages too…. (traffic.)
Here’s one that took me a bit of searching: I wanted to have a page with a slightly different template file. I copied the file to a new name and made the changes to the template and thought that would be enough, but it wasn’t. It still didn’t show up in my drop down list of templates in the page editing screen. So, I found this:
After you’ve done all that, go to the very top of the bio.php page and insert the following code above the call for the header:
<?php
/*
Template Name: Bio
*/
?>Once you get this code at the top of the template, save your file and upload it to your server.
From this site.
WordPress Plugins
About the same time I was looking to replace the built in wordpress search with Google’s custom search.
I found this good guide. That guide suggests the mightysearch plugin. Essentially I made a new page for the search results (stripped out contextual ads to make room for googles “stuff”.) I also put the search box code from google in the searchform “page” in my template. I then installed and configured mightsearch. (You need to add the search box and results form script to the correct place.) Then you can insert it easily in your template with the following:
<!–-mightysearch–-> - to call both search form and search result on the page <!–-mightysearch_form–-> - to call only search form on the page < !–mightysearch_result–> - to call only search result on the page
(There should be two hyphens before and after mightsearch in each of the above.)
I’ve also found a great List subpages plugin. It’s called Xavins List Subpages. I don’t know why, but many theme editors seem to devalue pages. I love the pages because they exist outside the date based post hierarchy and I feel like they have better visibility. I say many theme makers devalue pages because they’ll give enough space in their template for 3 or 4 pages without breaking the theme and requiring a bit of surgery or they’ll limit it to only viewing one level of pages. My problem with that has always been how people can find the sub pages.
So… what this plugin does for you is it let’s you put a left bracket xls and right bracket in any page and it will automatically generate a list of sub-pages. This is a great timesaver for me because I have many pages with many subpages and each time I create a new sub-page I have to go back and add a link in to the parent page. This will do it automatically even if you forget which is nice. I still like to get a link in the context of a paragraph in the parent page, or at least write out a description, but this way I can filter the page list to one or two levels deep and then won’t have an orphaned page in my layout. (As long as I remember to insert the subpage code in each page.) It is also possible to use code in the template to do the same thing, but I prefer it in the page content show that its more easily found.
Along the same lines, here is the homepage of the plugins author with more detail on the subpage plugin. Also, more info on the wp_list_pages function in wordpress. The sub pages plugin supports all of the options of wp_list_pages with one additional option.
You might also be interested in this listing of top wordpress plugins.
If you’re looking for How to Market Your Blog, you might be interested in some of my SEO Tools for traffic building.
Utility Links:
There’s a great walkthrough of moving your wordpress blog to a new domain that may come in handy someday.
Of course there’s also this tutorial on the wordpress codex for restoring your database from a backup.
And this page on backing up your wordpress database.
Finally here is a guide for installing/setting up a wordpress database and database user using the mysql cli client (command line interface client.)
I also ran across this interesting WordPress Remix that makes wordpress look more like a standard cms than blog.
If you’re looking for a wordpress magazine theme that link has quite a few highlighted that look fairly slick.
If you’re looking to make money with adSense on your wordpress site you may want to look into a theme like bluesense.
Displaying RSS in a WordPress post or page
There are a number of ways to draw from rss feeds to display their output in your worpdress site. Feedforall is a way to do that with any php page (including wordpress.) There is a builtin method though. Here’s a good writeup on it. It’s called the wp_rss function and if I recall there is a newer method as well. (As I said there are several ways.) fetch_rss is another method and this writeup details the use of both.
Autoblogging Plugins
Autoblogging can be a controversial topic – but there are good uses for autoblogging plugins (autoblogging is not necessarily a scraper site.)
wp-robot – cost varies depending on what features you are looking for.
wp-o-matic – free plugin with a good range of features.
“wordpress” – Google News
Malware Assault Targets WordPress – SPAMfighter News
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Malware Assault Targets WordPress
SPAMfighter News M86 Labs the security company states that the infamous 'Phoenix' attack toolkit was recently found exploiting vulnerability within WordPress version 3.2.1, published V3.co.uk dated January 31, 2012. As observed, during the past days, … |
 PR Web (press release) |
Create Professional-Looking Landing Pages With Premise For WordPress â Review …
PR Web (press release) WordPress, today's most popular blogging tool is best known for its powerful features and its ease of use. Because WordPress is so popular, independent innovators from all over the world have come up with simple-to-use add-ons and plugins that … |
Web companies beg Congress to âstep backâ from IP legislation – VentureBeat
 VentureBeat |
Web companies beg Congress to âstep backâ from IP legislation
VentureBeat Hoping to amplify the voice of the Internet, web companies including Mozilla, Reddit, and WordPress have banded with public interest and human rights groups to urge Congress to stop its work on intellectual property laws. |
How WordPress, Facebook, and Photoshop Elements Kill Internet Businesses – Business 2 Community
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How WordPress, Facebook, and Photoshop Elements Kill Internet Businesses
Business 2 Community You work hard every day to develop great products or services, but free tools like WordPress, Facebook, and Photoshop have been conspiring against you. How you ask? It's fairly simple, technology has become so inexpensive, even free, … |
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IDX Broker software revolutionizes online real estate search process for …
RealEstateRama (press release) In addition to the primary web-based software, IDX also provides an integrated WordPress widget for use in WordPress based blogs and websites ( IDX Broker WordPress Plugin ) as well as a dedicated mobile application available for the iPhone and iPad … |
 PR Web (press release) |
Comprehensive Building Websites with WordPress Tutorial – From InfiniteSkills
PR Web (press release) The 9-Hour WordPress training video course goes through the entire web development process using the CMS, from planning and wire-framing to graphic design and theme customization. Software training developer InfiniteSkills has announced the … |
One WordPress Dashboard to Rule Them All: ManageWP – Business Insider
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One WordPress Dashboard to Rule Them All: ManageWP
Business Insider Probably the two most popular platforms right now are WordPress and Tumblr. Though WordPress is far more robust, one of Tumblr's key features makes it extremely attractive: A unified dashboard. Now, WordPress does, too. WordPress expert Vladimir … |
Hackers Infect WordPress 3.2.1 Blogs to Distribute TDSS Rootkit – PCWorld
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Hackers Infect WordPress 3.2.1 Blogs to Distribute TDSS Rootkit
PCWorld By Lucian Constantin, IDG News Hackers are compromising WordPress 3.2.1 blogs in order to infect their visitors with the notorious TDSS rootkit, according to researchers from Web security firm Websense. It's not clear how the websites are being … |
Nexcess Announces WordPress Cluster Hosting – PR Web (press release)
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Nexcess Announces WordPress Cluster Hosting
PR Web (press release) Nexcess, a Michigan-based managed hosting company with specialized solutions in Magento and WordPress hosting, has announced a new enterprise line of managed server clusters that are uniquely optimized for WordPress-based web sites. |
TwitPic, WordPress to go dark for online SOPA protest – USA TODAY
 UPTOWN Magazine |
TwitPic, WordPress to go dark for online SOPA protest
USA TODAY By Yamiche Alcindor, USA TODAY Mozilla, Word Press and TwitPic have joined a growing list of websites that plan to go dark Wednesday to protest the proposed Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and the Protect Intellectual Property Act, CBS News reports. Wikipedia, WordPress shut down to oppose censorship Google and WordPress protest anti-piracy measures in US Congress WordPress, Tucows Among Sites Going Dark for SOPA and PIPA Protest |
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