Guide To Blogging

Archive for the ‘Blog Odds And Sods’ Category

For the longest time now I’ve been a user of Firefox for my web browsing - I love it and recommend it to others etc, I honestly didn’t think I’d ever need another browser. Until now.

As part of the Thirty Day Challenge, I’ve just taken a look at and installed Flock - and from what I’ve seen so far it’s pretty damn cool. For those of you who like the security of Firefox, but also do a lot of social stuff like Facebook, Digg, Twitter etc etc then Flock might be right up your alley, even things like Yahoo mail can be added to your browser so it can all be there right in front of you (visible in a separate pane if you want)

Through the Thirty Day Challenge I’ve been able to watch videos on setting it up along with adding a really cool extension ( this extension really has no benefit in regards to online marketing -it’s just cool and fun) like Firefox though, when it comes to online marketing other extensions can and will be added through the challenge.

For the videos check out the Thirty Day Challenge (Pre-season) or go straight to Flock

For as long as I’ve been blogging (which isn’t long compared to some, but awhile in my mind) I’ve never actually upgraded any of my blogs. If/when I set up a new blog I generally upload whatever the latest version of WordPress happens to be and leave it at that.

However…

I recently had one of my other blogs hacked and in all honesty it was only a fluke that I discovered it. It’s a blog I don’t tend to very often but I went to log in the other day and other than the dashboard I couldn’t get any of my other admin pages to load, after swearing and cursing at it for awhile, I left it and came back to it at a later time - I did eventually manage to get into my manage posts page and went to edit a post (the reason I wanted to login to this blog in the first place) it just so happened that I hit the code tab (I generally use the visual tab when doing my posts unless there’s a reason I need to put in actual code etc) while I was in the code pane I happened to notice that underneath my original post was all this other code - linking to adult sites and the like (this was hidden code - that is it doesn’t show up in the actual post where it can be seen but is hidden inside - or however the hell that type of stuff works - it’s way beyond me) anyway I went on to discover that a large number of my posts all had this hidden code crap in it - which as you can probably imagine didn’t impress me all that much.

I fixed all that - got onto my hosting account and told them - they fixed stuff for me too - really quickly I might add - and changed passwords etc which leads me to today…

I logged back into that blog and I’m still having trouble getting pages to load - though as far as I can see there’s nothing out of the ordinary there. So I figured what the hell - this blog doesn’t do much anyway, if it comes to it I’m not going to lose anything by deleting it entirely so I’ll go for an upgrade and see what happens.

Now while I haven’t done it on that particular blog yet I did just upgrade a test blog - just to see how it’s done. I actually came across a plugin that did it all for me - WordPress Automatic Upgrade Plugin - It worked really easily - just click some buttons and your done so for the most part that makes life pretty easy. Though I have a couple of things to point out.

This automatically upgrades to the latest version of WordPress and considering all the fuss around at the moment about WordPress 2.5 if you don’t want that version - don’t use this plugin (I just had a quick look at it on my test blog and it looked okay to me - but I don’t really post on that blog so I’m probably not the best judge) also I didn’t have any plugins installed on that blog so I’m not sure how that will affect things - according the the instructions - this plugin automatically deactivates the plugins and then activates them again afterwards.

You can use this automatic upgrade plugin either manually - where I guess you follow each step - so you can double check etc - or automatically (which I did) where you click a button and it just goes off and does it. For my next attempt I will probably try it manually - but due to my first go being on a test blog with few posts and no plugins the automatic seemed the way to go.

Less Than 10 Minutes Later 

I’ve just come back to edit this post to add..

Using the plugin recommended above I just upgraded my other blog (that has multiple posts and plugins etc) using the manual method and it worked quickly and easily - as far as I can tell there’s no problems - everything is where it should be though it didn’t re-activate my plugins so I have to go and do that manually - thought that’s probably a good thing as no doubt some of them won’t work with 2.5.1 or will need to be upgraded etc

Well since we’re now a couple of days into the new year (at least here in Aust.) and I’m sick as a dog at the moment (not a good way to start the year off in my opinion) I thought now was as good a time as any to go back over some my favourite plugins and posts here in this blog along with any other blogging related stuff.

It was early in 2007 that I really got stuck into blogging - very late in 2006 I discovered WordPress - first through WordPress.com then on free hosting providers and then I took the plunge and actually got my own domain and hosting - and once I did that I never looked back. While it’s just my opinion and preference for those out there that are thinking about starting a blog or considering moving their blog(s) to the next level - getting your own domain and hosting is certainly the way to go - mainly because you have so much more control over things (I had a  bad experience with one free host I used where my blog suddenly disappeared and linked to an adult site - though I do still have one of my old blogs on a free host and never had a problem with it)

My Favourite Posts:

Listed below are some of what I consider the top posts on this blog - either because I think they actually provide some useful information or they’ve received either the majority of comments or other sites have linked to them because they’re related/helpful etc.

Where to host your blog - covers free and paid hosting

Setting up your first WordPress blog - covers using fantastico or ftp etc with a quick video guide

Editing Your WordPress 404 page - shows how to quickly edit your default page not found message. A continuation of that post is how to create your own 404 page if your template doesn’t come with a default 404.php file

Backing up your blog - there’s several ways to do this - this post covers a couple of them - and it’s something we should all do regularly - I know I’m slack and should do it more often

My Favourite Plugins

Listed below are a few of my favourite plugins

First and most important is Akismet - while it comes standard with a WordPress installation you can find out more about it here a must have when it comes to spam

Adding Amazon Products to blog posts - sometimes adding an Amazon product is a lot easier said than done - particularly when it comes to WordPress as the code can often make things go all wacky - well this post covers a cool plugin that makes it really easy - though the one downfall of it is that you only get three products per category (at least as far as I know)

All In One SEO - great when it comes to optimising your blog posts for the search engines

Vipers Video Quick Tags - I wrote a post awhile ago showing how to add YouTube etc videos to your blog, not long after that I came across this cool plugin that allows you to add YouTube, Google videos etc with the click of a button

CommentLuv - a plugin that helps you to appreciate those that take the time to comment on your blog. After the commentor has left a comment it automatically adds their most recent blog post to their comment

Comment Relish - while on the subject of commentors this plugin allows you to send a one off message to those that have commented on your blog for the first time - a great way to say thanks

There are of course plenty of other great plugins around the place - some of which I’ve written about already, some of which I’m yet to write about and some of which I’ve either not used yet or haven’t discovered (feel free to let me know if you think I’m missing some important ones)

Well that’ll probably do for my round-up - hope you all have a great and productive 2008

I’ve been cruising around the place and come up with some more interesting little bits and pieces so I thought it was probably time to share again.

You know that old saying - you learn something new every day? well it’s true (at least for me - it’s possible many of you already know this, but I figured I’d share anyway - just in case). This post -  Secret ‘Blogging Traffic Booster’ In WordPress - taught me a nifty little trick that could go a long way to helping the search engines rank your posts on your targeted keywords.

Don’t think you’re creative enough in your blogging? take a look at this post: Be Extraordinary: How To Tap Into Your Amazing Creative Power and while you’re on that blog  How To Write More, Worry Less, And Create Great Content in fact just take a look around there’s plenty of cool bits and pieces to read.

And finally from a little more technical side want to display posts on your homepage only from a particular category? then maybe this will help Retrieving Posts from a Particular Category 

That’s all for now

I’ve been keeping pretty busy with real life lately so I haven’t had much of a chance to do any playing around with my blog, but that hasn’t stopped me from my regular reading and searching on the internet.

I always come across some great informative posts in my travels and as such I’ve decided to start sharing them ( 1) because they are good and 2) because they usually explain things a whole lot better than I ever could)

So with that in mind I bring you the first in what I hope will be a regular series of cool blog tips and other interesting odds and sods.

Blog Oh! Blog offers an easy to follow guide on how to add an extra sidebar to your WordPress theme. Should prove useful to those that love a particular theme but need that extra space.

While on the subject of codes for your blogs - WordPressGarage has a section that covers a variety of useful code snippets so you can make your own changes to your theme
Snoskred - from Life In the Country  - has a great html guide - I really liked the information on scroll bars and now use it a lot (thanks) you can find that and more here: Basic Html For Bloggers

Looking for some ideas on what to post about in your blog? you can try these 101 blog posting ideas

I’m a Bloglines fan when it comes to subscribing to my favourite blogs, so for those that might be interested in switching from Google Reader then this guide might be just what you need: Move From Google Reader To Bloglines