So Wordpress 2.5 doesn’t come with the ability to auto-update the whole installation after all. It also has a tendency to eat your posts if it doesn’t like the way you click publish. Gah!
I’ve found a plugin that upgrades your install automatically, but it’s got some bugs. Plus, one that I found - but there’s [...]

Posted in Blogging, Tools No Comments »

There are tons of articles talking about just how far Twitter, Facebook or your blog can or can’t take you. Is it worth your time to become a high profile Digg user? Delicious user? Etc.
I think it all depends on whether you know what to use social networking for. Namely, the online equivalent of word [...]

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I’ve talked a lot recently about negative reactions to video blogging. This post is more neutral, and addresses a couple of distinctions my other posts didn’t make.
Reaching new visitors
Will video blogging introduce new visitors to your site? It sure can! If you post the videos in the right place for the audience you’re seeking, and [...]

Posted in Affiliate Marketing, Tools No Comments »

NOTE: if you’re sticking with Wordpress 2.3.3, do not upgrade Lighter Admin Menus! Stick with version 2.3 of the plugin.
If you are moving up to Wordpress 2.5 and using patches to fix where it took a few steps backward (but so many steps forward), say hello to Lighter Admin Menus version 2.5.8. This is a [...]

Posted in Blogging, Tools No Comments »

MaxBlogPress writes some great plugins. I use Different Posts Per Page to control how many posts my visitors see on various types of pages (10 for archives, 4 or 5 for home page, etc.). I use the Ping Optimizer because to this day no one at Wordpress will confirm whether or not future posts ping [...]

Posted in Blogroll, Tools No Comments »

I recently decided to change the permalink structure on one of my blogs. The Permalinks Migration Plugin promises to do that seamlessly for you by giving 301 redirects from the old links to the new, so the search engines update (just like they would if you carefully went through and made htaccess redirects for every [...]

Posted in Blogging, Tools No Comments »

There’s only one thing I don’t like about StumbleUpon: when someone Stumbles your site and you start getting lots of traffic, there is no way in hell you can see who Stumbled you. Because the page that winds up in your referrer stats just takes you to a landing page urging you to launch an [...]

Posted in Tools 2 Comments »

I’ve never been great with graphics. My usual banner consists of an image I’ve bought from someone else and some neat-o text I’ve applied. I can do drop-shadows, too, woohoo! My logos were always rectangular and separated from the site. Never any flow.
Yesterday I sat down to make a new template for one of my [...]

Posted in Development & Design, Tools No Comments »

Mark’s ShowYourAdHere has opened (yeah, I’m a couple days late to break that news). This is a third-party service to let you set up your own ad zones and sell ad space to customers. Mark is only taking a 25% cut, which I feel is quite fair considering (a) how much the other guys take [...]

Posted in Tools 1 Comment »

TanTan’s Simple Spam Filter plugin for Wordpress works with Akismet to stop comment spam before it gets into your Akismet moderation queue. I’ve been getting hit with tons of comment spams a day on a couple of sites, so I installed this to try it. It reported that it had caught 191 spam comments on [...]

Posted in Tools 1 Comment »