January 31, 2012
You may have noticed on January 18th that plenty of big websites participated in an Internet blackout as a protest of the US government’s proposed SOPA legislation. Despite the SOPA plans being dropped for now, there are still numerous similar acts of legislation being proposed. If you’re planning on supporting future protests, you might like to know what Google recommends you do.
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January 17, 2012
When you set out to write your personal blog, you'll realize that there are a variety of different writer's hats that you can wear. You may want to make a personal blog with your thoughts and records of your daily life, but on the other hand, you may want to make something a little more unique than that. Today, I've put together a few blog types that you may or may not want to avoid.
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January 1, 2012
If you haven’t logged into your dashboard lately, you probably should. Wordpress 3.3 was released about a few weeks ago, and as a major release it brings some fairly significant changes which I’ll outline today. The underlying theme is accessibility for new users.
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December 6, 2011
The world of blogging is an odd place, but at the same time, it's a beautiful paradise full of free speech and a variety of personal views. Granted, it could also be considered the graffiti of the Internet, but that's just someone else's opinion. It seems like every blog has a theme or a running topic. However, there are a few topics that you might want to reconsider blogging about.
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November 30, 2011
I recently had the opportunity to become part of a podcast which I’m sure you’ll hear about soon enough - and it's all fairly new ground for me. As the only one with enough bandwidth to host, and clearly the most experienced of the group in Wordpress ninja-ship, I also took it upon myself to setup the necessary protocols that make an actual podcast, as opposed to being just audio files posted on a blog.
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November 25, 2011
Growing a blog takes years, and a whole lot of pain and struggle. Then there are the major transitions, when you realize that you have to make some major changes, and it's going to take a whole lot of work. There are a number of major changes I've had to make on my own blog, but one of the most difficult was that I had used a certain manual method to insert Google ads into my blog articles.
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October 27, 2011
Most of you probably already know that WordPress powers a large amount of websites that we look at every day. With the large userbase and support, you can do a lot of cool things with it. While WordPress even offers one-click upgrades to the latest WP versions, some people simply can't use it because their server doesn't support it.
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October 26, 2011
Having created quite a few blogs, I'd like to think that I have a good system down for those essential first steps, and I hope it can be of use to you too. By following these you'll get a good head start in the world of blogging and hopefully an influx of traffic to give you the motivation to carry on. If you've already started, think of this as a checklist as I'm sure there's a few you haven't done yet.
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October 20, 2011
When it comes to keeping your website or your blog healthy and strong in search engine listings, regularly checking for broken or otherwise bad links on your website is a very good idea. Not only is it good for your site's overall standings in search listings, it's also good for your visitors. No one wants to encounter broken links on a site - it's a sign of a poorly cared for website.
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October 19, 2011
If there is one thing that really annoys me about working with a remote web server is the fact that it is still a bit inconvenient to explore and edit those files remotely. Commercial servers offer a much more user-friendly, graphical interface to remotely access your web files. So, it's high time you start upgrading those servers with a few bells and whistles.
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October 14, 2011
Tumblr is fast becoming one of the hottest communities on the web, having grown exponentially in the past year. But it's not just for angsty teenagers. Although there are many of those, it's also a great way to display blog posts visually and connect to like-minded people. Most of the best Tumblrs stick to their topic religiously, sticking to great photos, video and pithy quotes only so that audiences don't get bored.
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October 14, 2011
For most of us, the amount of digital content we produce is staggering - Twitter, personal blogs, professional blogs - but bringing all of that in to one central place is a real challenge. Having recently purchased my own vanity domain of jamesbruce.me to act as a central hub for my articles and web content, the task fell upon me to find a suitable way to aggregate it all - commonly called a life stream.
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October 12, 2011
Being the most versatile blogging system ever, it’s no surprise that developers have twisted and pulled Wordpress into becoming so much more through the clever use of plugins. If you thought Wordpress was only for blogging, think again. Here’s 5 others ways you can use the Wordpress system, with free and premium choices where available.
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October 5, 2011
This weekend, my website got hacked for the first time ever. I figured it was an event that was bound to happen eventually, but I still felt a bit shocked. I was lucky that I had a backup of my website but it made me realize just how dangerous it is to make such infrequent backups. It also made me realize the extent of the damage that could have occurred if the database itself had got hacked.
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September 28, 2011
Getting comments on your blog is a great motivator to keep you going on with the long haul that is blogging. Just knowing that someone is out there, appreciating your work feels great, but not everyone is willing to comment or even has something to say. Let’s take a look today at 3 ways to encourage users to comment through the clever use of plugins.
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