January 29th in Wordpress Books by Wordpress Jedi .

I still remember the very first day that I got started with WordPress. I had found the open source platform online and decided to get my feet wet with it. At the time, I wasn’t really aware of the true power of WordPress content management system. That’s just it. WordPress is not just a CMS but a community of people dedicated to making it better. Folks behind WordPress have given bloggers a platform to express their ideas easily, free of charge. But the community has pushed WordPress to newer heights by creating thousands plug-ins and themes for WordPress.

Learning how to use WordPress is not that difficult. There are many books out there that you can use to get started with WordPress. But learning how to write plug-ins for WordPress platform could be a tricky affair. First off, you need to be technical enough to code in PHP. You also need to know the base code behind the WordPress platform. If you are dedicated enough and have a lot of time on your hands, you can probably find resources online to teach yourself WordPress programming. But for the rest of us, I recommend WordPress Plug-in Development: The Beginner’s Guide.
Wordpress Plug-in Development guide is the newest WordPress book that targets folks who are technical enough to get started with plug-in development with WordPress. Developing free plug-ins is one of the best ways to drive traffic to your sites, and if you have the skills to pick it up quickly, you can gain a competitive advantage over most of your competitors. And let’s not foret that by creating plug-ins for WordPress, you help make the platform even better than before. WordPress Plug-in Development is hands on and shows you how to write 6 cool plug-ins for your WordPress blog:

• Digg-this: Adds a Digg This button to each post.
• Live Blogroll: Adds a recent posts popup for each blog in your blogroll.
• The Wall widget: Displays comments on the sidebar without reloading the page.
• Snazzy Archives: Presents your site archives in a unique visual way.
• Insights: Access your articles and Flickr images from within the WordPress edit page.
• Post Types: Provides pre-defined post templates to quickly add a photo or a link to your blog.

What I like about this book is the fact that the author doesn’t assume that you are an expert when it comes to WordPress code base. The plug-in architecture and the ins and outs of WordPress platform are all covered here. WordPress Plugin Development also covers different APIs that you can use to enhance the functionality of your WordPress site.

The book will be released on January 30th by Packt Publishing (who else?!). If you want to get your feet wet with plug-in programming for WordPress or you are just a programmer looking to pick up an in demand skill, you should definitely check this book out. But you probably want to read up on your PHP if you are rusty or fairly new to it.

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November 5th in Wordpress Books by Wordpress Jedi .

Amazon 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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October 13th in Wordpress Books by Wordpress Jedi .

WordPress is a wonderful CMS built with a wonderful technology. Unfortunately, there are not many books and training programs that address more advanced WordPress issues such as custom fields and how to program them. For instance, I read somewhere a while ago that you can make your posts expire by using custom fields but nobody had proper explanation on it. Of course, it is not difficult to do once you figure it out or somebody tells you how to do it.

WordPress for dummies was first published a year ago and received massive amount of coverage and praise from WordPress experts and publishers alike. However, the book was a bit thin on more advanced techniques and the author has promised to cover those areas in the 2nd edition of this book. The author talks about a wide range of WordPress issues, from the very basic stuff to more advanced WordPress theme issues and even WordPress Mu. The book is not going to cover everything but it is going to cover a whole range of issues that WordPress bloggers face on a daily basis.

This excellent book was supposed to be released in October but was probably pushed back to November due to the new changes in the WordPress platform. But I personally can’t wait till this book is released. Now if Wiley publishing did something about the horrifying title of WordPress for Dummies.

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October 7th in Wordpress Books by Wordpress Jedi .

Packt publishing is pretty much known for creating the best books for Open source software such as WordPress, Elgg, and Joomla. They have done it again with WordPress for Business bloggers. This book is not about technical usage of WordPress. It doesn’t show you how to run an automated blog, and it does not tell you which plugins are the best for your WordPress blog. However, it does tell you how to get started with business blogging.

Business blogging is very much different than personal blogging., The rules of the game are very much different, and it’s not “everything goes” rules anymore. Think about it. If you are asked by HP to run their blog, you simply can’t talk about that silly picture that you took from your cat nor can you talk about how your Grandma’s food tastes awful. Depending on the nature of your company’s business, you will have to change your tone or refine it to reach their audience.

Business blogging is more about fostering solid relationships with your company’s customers and less about having fun and things like that. If you are working for a non-profit anti-AIDS organization, your goal is rally the troops behind your cause and raise the most money to support your cause. If you are working for a credit card company, your goal should be to address the concerns of customers about their rates or maybe answer some frequently asked questions, so you see, a geek like me wouldn’t have a chance at landing a job like that. But of course, I was offered to take on a project like that by a friend of a friend. Naturally, I was going to go in and go down with all guns blazing, but I picked up this book to give me the right mentality to approach the project. Now here is when I tell you that I read this book and became a master of corporate blogging. But in reality, I decided not to pursue the job because I find corporate blogging boring for my taste. The money is good. Don’t get me wrong, But I am not the type to follow a set of rules when it comes to blogging. I think the more limits you put on yourself, the more you hinder your innovative ways.

Nevertheless, WordPress for Business bloggers teaches you the basics about business blogging. It does have chapters on SEO and blog marketing, which I found useful, but in general, it suits business bloggers,

Verdict: I was going to give this book 4 out of 5 for costing me that job, but in reality, this is a good book for business blogging. Business blogging is too difficult for a lot of us, but for those brave souls who can handle it, this book can serve as a good reference guide.

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September 6th in Wordpress Books by Wordpress Jedi .

You may have seen this book already, but I just came about it when I was surfing through a list of books that Amazon was recommending I should take a look at. It’s amazing the gems that you can find using the Amazon’s recommendation system. Well. After finishing up this book, I can tell you that this book is indeed a gem.

You have probably seen all these books that claim to teach you something unique. But when you are done with them you feel cheated as they show you only the theory but nothing pragmatic. Well. WordPress Theme Design shows you how to build a custom design WordPress theme from scratch. That’s right. It’s like having someone walk you through the code, showing you how WordPress themes are designed. If you are familiar with PHP, but don’t know your way around WordPress, this book is a must read. In fact, it’s the shortest way to finding your way to WordPress mastery. And if you know programming but don’t know PHP, you can pick it up fast by reading this book. I do recommend you getting one of those PHP in 24 hours books to get you started, but you can certainly follow the code provided in this book and proper explanation is giving as well. Regardless of your level, after rading this book, you will understand the anatomy of a good WordPress theme.

After reading this book, there is no doubt in my mind that Packt Publishing is the best publisher for Open Source technologies out there. They are the best.

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