Changes coming for Blogging Expertise

Posted on November 27, 2007 by sarah

As you have probably already noticed, postings have been sparse around here lately. There’s a good reason for this, though, and here it is:

Blogging Expertise is going to be changing from a blog design firm to a resource for experts trying to figure out how to blog (and blog better). It’s been heading this way for a while, but I’m now working on a new-and-improved tool to make the process easier.

When it’s ready, the new Blogging Expertise will be a one-stop, step-by-step guide to help you in every stage of blogging, from thinking about a topic to getting set up to marketing and promotions.

We’re still a month or two out from having it completely ready to go, but in the meantime, we’re still doing design (and will continue to do so under another brand).

If you’d like to know when the new Blogging Expertise launches, use the “Subscribe” form on the right sidebar to get updates.

WordPress Updates – 2.1.1 and 2.0.9

Posted on February 21, 2007 by sarah

Sometimes you just can’t wait for a new version of WordPress in order to get rid of the bugs and errors you’ve found in the current one. Now, WordPress really doesn’t have a lot of these bugs, and most aren’t even noticeable, but when you want to do “exactly that one thing” and can’t because of a certain bug… that’s when it starts to become annoying.

Luckily updates are never too far away and now two new versions are out for all you WordPress users. It’s recommended (of course) that you update as soon as possible; otherwise your blog will miss out on the new features and be susceptable to the old bugs. The support on older versions, which basically means older than 2.0, is slowly fading out and all fixes are only going to apply to the newer ones. WordPress is committed to provide these updates for 2.0 until 2010, but to be on the safe side you should get 2.1 anyway (you’ll like it better to boot).

This time it’s 2.1.1 and 2.0.9 that’s out. What’s enhanced? Well, mainly the fixes have to do with the security issues it had before. Version 2.1.1 includes about 30 bug fixes, mostly minor things around encoding, XML-RPC, the object cache, and HTML code. It’s available for download here.

Version 2.0.9 only includes the security update, which centers around the code we use to prevent cross-site scripting (XSS), a way that malicious users can hack into your site. You can download it here.

Good luck with these updates and make sure to make it even cooler with some amazing new themes available as well:

Natural Essence is a two column, light brown and white, fixed-width widget-ready theme. Very nice looking with great design and layout but clean. Perfect match.

JD Sky is a two column, fixed-width, widget-ready theme for WordPress. If you like it simple and you’re in a happy mood, you’re probably going to like this.

WordPress plugin and theme releases

Posted on February 14, 2007 by sarah

Always as exciting when new plugins are released for WP, isn’t it? New functions that can make the look of your dear baby smoother. Yes, blogging is more than a cold site, it’s your own site that you take care of. You feed it, you update it, you gain from it. Your baby.

So what’s out there this time?

Plugins

Let’s begin with some handy plugins. Add Related Posts to Your Feed is something I’ve seen in some sites already and really like it. New readers arrive all the time and few take the time to read everything previously written. They just enjoy the current ride. That’s why by adding related posts to the feed of a new one can help readers notice older posts and you get more page-views. It requires Ultimate Tag Warrior though, so make sure to install it before.

For you that want to get some extra income through all possible ways, there’s AdSense Attachment. It works like this: if you have images in your posts that are “linked to page”, they’ll be shown with ads around them when clicked. Great for blogs that mainly compile and add information from the net.

If you don’t like tabs in your admin interface, try Tab-U-Later that ought to eliminate those.

Themes

Two themes are also floating around. The first one is Reality tales, a light colored, 2 column graphical theme, with clean coding by Ekta Paneri. If you’re interested in my personal opinion, it’s a beautiful theme. A blog should be thin, clean and different, which “Reality tales” is.

The next one is called Green Grass, a two column theme featuring green grass in the header. Nothing very new, nothing very special, still very nice. It has a great color-theme and font. Very clean as well.

So that’s about all, the new updates of WordPress. Pick your favorites and implement them—it will certainly freshen up the site.

Time to upgrade WordPress

Posted on January 22, 2007 by sarah

WordPress released a fairly major upgrade today, WordPress 2.1. It includes some nifty features like auto-save, spell-checking (I know many people will be excited about those two!), and loads of other improvements, some that you’ll see and others that are behind the scenes.

If you’re running WordPress 2.0.x or (egads!) 1.5, take this opportunity to install the new version (or have us do it for you!).

New site: Fun Family Videos isn't your typical blog

Posted on December 21, 2006 by sarah

I just wanted to take a moment and tell you about the newest site we’ve created: Fun Family Videos. The goal of the site is to present the best viral online videos (YouTube, Google Video, etc.) while filtering out the garbage.

From a blogging perspective, this site is interesting because it is built on WordPress in order to take advantage of the flexibility of blog software. For instance, each video is a post, which makes it easy to add new videos (and easy to keep the site fresh and current) and also allows people to subscribe via email or RSS and leave comments. The blog software also makes it easy to have multiple “community editors,” a feature that is central to how the site will make money.

As you see, there’s no reason a “normal site” can’t take advantage of the goodness of blogs to do new and different things. What other sites come to mind that are doing this?

New WordPress plugin: WordPress to TypePad or WordPress to Movable Type exporter

Posted on December 13, 2006 by sarah

It’s great that most of the blog software allows you to import from another blog; this makes it possible to switch software or test different platforms. However, it’s not always easy to get the right format for importing.

I’ve recently uploaded a tool for WordPress that lets you export your blog posts from WordPress in a format that can be read by Movable Type and TypePad. More details are available on the download page.

WordPress 2.0.5 is available

Posted on October 31, 2006 by sarah

That’s right, the new version of WordPress is out. From the looks of it, it’s mostly a bug-fix release, with a few of those bugs being security-related. A lot of the fixes are kind of “under the hood” changes, so you might not notice a difference, but the system should be subtly faster and more stable with a variety of browsers.

Upgrade instructions are available, or get in touch if you’d like us to do your upgrade for you.

New design, new direction

Posted on October 30, 2006 by sarah

If you’ve visited this blog in the last few days, you’ll notice that it looks a little different. Over time, my business has been slowly changing directions, driven by client requests, so I finally got around to updating the site to reflect it.

From here on out, the site will be a whole lot more dynamic, focused on the living, breathing art of blogging. While one of the purposes of the site is obviously to entice you to hire me, the blog in particular will be focused on all aspects of blogging, with the goal of being useful to anyone interested in blogging. I’m also going to be offering some great freebies and handy resources over time.

I’m off to work on the lingering to-do items, but check back soon (or subscribe to the feed) for an interactive ode to blogging.