Feed your WordPress Demons!
WordPress 2.7 beta has finally been released. There is no question that WordPress 2.7 is going to be a significant step up over the current 2.6 we have at hand, but it will take time for the WordPress folks to release the new edition to the public.
The bugs with wp-mail and autosave have been fixed along with a bunch of other small fixes. Here is a complete list of changes.
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Folks often ask me, “what can I do to learn WordPress fast and to a level that I can be dangerous?” In reality, there is a lot to learn by just installing or playing with a WordPress.com account. WordPress is an intuitive content management system that is designed to make it convenient for folks with minimal technical knowledge to run sophisticated blogs. In addition, there are tons of plug-ins out there that do almost anything you want to do to yor WordPress blog.
In addition, there are a lot of books out there that teach you the ins and outs of different flavors of WordPress (MU, .com, .org). I personally don’t believe you should go for those books. The book that I usually recommend for folks who are looking for a crash course is WordPress Entrepreneur.
WordPress Entrepreneur is designed with entrepreneurs in mind. When you start your own business, you can’t afford to waste too much time on matters that are not a part of your core competency. An Entrepreneur is not a programmer, and the goal is not to learn WordPress inside and out. You want to know enough to be dangerous. WP Entrepreneur is a book that teaches you how to install, run, and optimize your WordPress plug-ins without too much fuss. You can literally finish the book in less than a couple of hours and know enough about WordPress to be dangerous. This book shows you how to install themes, plug-ins, and also how to import and export posts with your WordPress site. At the end of the day, it does what it promises. It provides a crash course for folks who do not have the luxury of time. Should you get it? It really depends. If you are an entrepreneur, and you want to learn WordPress fast, then you should try this book, but if you want a write a thesis on WordPress, then you may want to look elsewhere.
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Continue ReadingAmazon has finally released the 2nd edition of WordPress for Dummies. It took them a while but the book WordPress fans have been waiting for some time is finally here. I personally was not impressed with the first book as it didn’t go too deep into more advanced areas of WordPress, but the 2nd edition delves deeper in MU and other advance WordPress topics. If you are in a hurry, try the Kindle edition. It’s cheaper and gets delivered in less than 30 seconds 
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Continue ReadingSearch engine optimization is one of the issues that folks who are new to WordPress grapple with in their early days of experiencing the WordPress platform. I can’t tell you how many times I have read in forums about how folks are looking for a simple way to change the title of their home page. It’s not really that hard, but I am going to show you an easy way to do it without having to program at all: SEO Title Tags WordPress Plug-in.
SEO Title tags is an amazingly simple yet powerful plug-in that allows you to change the title tag of your pages, your posts, everything else. Once you install and activate SEO Title tags, then you can go to your settings page in your Dashboard and define a title tag for your home page + you can optimize the description tag as well.
You can also customize your titles for each and every post using the title tag section that is added under each post once you activate the plug-in.
So as you see, you don’t need to be a PHP or HTML programmer to optimize your blog for organic search. For everything SEO, there is always a plug-in, thanks to the good folks behind the WordPress Open source community.
P.S. this plug-in is a free plug-in.
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Continue ReadingIf you are running a WordPress blog, you are probably familiar with the pain of blog spams. Some folks make a living by acting like leeches and writing automated robots that post comments to WordPress blogs. These comments are often garbage and are designed to send a link back to the site owner’s site. WordPress spamming is a big issue, and unfortunately too many folks are in the business of spamming.
For long I have used Akismet to manage spam comments on my blog, but WordPress does not come with captcha which means if you leave your comments open, there is a chance that folks will use that to their advantage. But the good thing about WordPress is the fact that there are a lot of folks who dedicate their time to making the platform better for everyone. That’s how Cryptographp has come about. This plug-in adds a captcha piece to your comment template, which means folks can’t just spam your blog with automated software. Don’t get me wrong. Cryptographp does not end the issue of WordPress spamming. However, it can reduce your blog’s spams significantly.
Cryptographp is a free WordPress plug-in and is very easy to install. Combined with Askimet, you can expect folks to have a hell of a time trying to spam your WordPress blog. You can download Cryptographp here.
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