Computer Chit Chat

Archive for the ‘Wordpress’ Category

Ever searched for something on a blog and didn’t find it? It’s awful to see that 404 message and not have anywhere to go from there. Have you tested your blog’s 404 page? Try testing it out by trying to go to yourblog.com/testpage or some other page you know isn’t there. If you only see Not found go into your dashboard now and get to work. It only takes a few minutes to customize a 404 page and it might keep someone on your sight longer. You can include a number of things on your 404 page including categories and monthly archives, a listing of all your pages and an offer to subscribe to your feed. So rather than seeing “page not found” a visitor could now see something like ” the page you requested wasn’t found but feel free to browse the pages listed below for what you’re looking for”.

To customize your Wordpress 404 page, log in to your dashboard and click on presentation. Click on Theme Editor and then click on the 404 Template link on your right. Find the message you just saw when you tested your 404 page and replace it with a customized message. You can even include the php code to show your categories, pages and archives. Click update and you’re finished. As always, go one step at a time and test, that way if there’s a problem you can undo your last step. And always backup your files.

• How to turn off the Wordpress visual editor
• How to update Firefox automatically.
• How to change the author name in Wordpress

If you’ve never installed a theme for Wordpress, don’t worry. It’s pretty straightforward and easy. The hardest part is finding a theme you want to use. Once you find it, download the theme to your computer. Unzip the files and upload them to the themes directory of your Wordpress blog. In the Wordpress dashboard click on presentation and activate the theme. That should be it, you should be all set!

• Review of Blog Oh! Blog
• How to install Wordpress using cpanel 11 on your own domain
• The winner ofthe Chick Wordpress Theme giveaway is

Did you ever see a widget within a post that had a + and said bookmark this, add this or share this? And when you rolled over it a bunch of different social bookmarking sites were listed? You probably have. If you’ve seen the one I’m referring to it’s a free Wordpress widget called Add This. There’s a regular version and a dropdown version of the widget.  To use it first download and unzip the folder. Then upload it to your Wordpress plugins directory. Activate it from within your Wordpress dashboard and you’re all set. There’s nothing to configure, although the ability to make a minor change is available if you want your stats included in the widget. I’ve included a screenshot of the dropdown in action on valmg.com. Do you have a  social bookmarking widget on your blog? I’d love to hear which one, feel free to leave me a comment.

• Blogatiser social bookmarking
• Why Socialspark is great for Mommy bloggers
• How to adjust what appears in the content of your rss feed

Did you ever see links in the comments of a blog? Ever wonder how to get them to appear there? If you want to show the last post of people leaving a comment on your blog, use the plugin Comment Luv. The plugin tries to visit the feed of your commenter’s blog and grab the title of their last post. If successful, when the person’s comment appears so will the name of their last post, along with a nice little link. The plugin is easy to use. Download and extract the plugin. Upload the file to your Wordpress plugins directory. Activate the plugin in your Wordpress dashboard and you’re ready to go. There’s no picture for me to include with this one, because there’s nothing to configure. It couldn’t be any simpler to use. I use it on almost all of my blogs and I love it. Do you use Comment Luv? What do you think of it?

• Want to show your blog visitors some love?
• How to thank first time commenters
• How to show the top commentators on your blog

I’m writing this review for a contest being held on Blog Oh! Blog. The prize is a PS3 and a game of choice. I’d love to win this because my twelve year old would give his left arm and his left leg for a PS3 but we don’t have the money to get one. Truthfully, I would gladly write the review anyway, as some of my favorite themes (BOB) were created by Jai, the person behind Blog Oh! Blog. I’ve never had a problem with the BOB theme I use on Val’s Views, or the BOB theme I use on this blog. I recommend BOB’s themes highly, I’ve played with many of the free themes and found them all easy to work with and pleasing to look at. I’m actually hoping to see a four column theme soon, that would make my day. Back to my review.

When you first go to the Blog Oh! Blog website you might notice the flames in the right margin, which are pretty sharp, or you might notice that it’s design isn’t just like everyone else’s. The site is easy to navigate, and has a very neat and organized appearance. One of the things Jai does is create themes. If you doubted me when I recommended the themes, take a look at the theme portfolio. You’ll find both free and premium themes available on Blog Oh! Blog, as well as the opportunity to request a customized theme. But that’s not all. Also offered are tips, tools, tutorials, plugins, resources, information and well written opinions on various blogging and internet related topics. Jai welcomes interaction with visitors and has made a contact page, an online chat feature and forums available and accessible from every page.

I suggest anyone who is looking for a quality theme and some good articles go and check out Blog Oh! Blog. You won’t be sorry.

• Bloggers Choice Awards nominations
• Review of Married Melody
• Review of Blog About Your Blog

Have you ever seen a post on a blog that has a little checkbox at the end that said subscribe to comments? For anyone who isn’t sure what that means, I’ll tell you. If you check that box you’ll get an email notifying you when new comments have been made on that post. It’s a neat way to promote interaction with readers and other blog visitors. If you’ve wanted to offer the ability to subscribe to comments on your Wordpress blog, it’s easy to do. All you have to do is offer the Subscribe To Comments plugin by Mark Jaquith.

To install it, unzip the file and upload it into your wordpress plugins directory. Activate it. Go into the Options section of your Wordpress dashboard. To get it working right away all you need to do is fill in the name you want the subscription messages to come from and the email that should be shown as the sender. You can customize the messages, but the default ones make enough sense to me as they are. That’s it, you’re all set. Let me know how you like it if you try it out.

• Wordpress comments, trackbacks and pingbacks
• Google reader handles a feed you subscribe to read
• Want to better manage your Wordpress comments?

If you have a blog and you sell ads of any type, you should check out OIO Publisher if you haven’t already. I wrote a review of this Wordpress plugin about a month ago. I recommend it highly, it’s an invaluable tool for managing ad sales directly right from within your Wordpress dashboard.

Recently the OIO Publisher plugin was upgraded to version 1.6.0 and added some great new features including the addition of an ad queue so people can buy ads in advance, an upgrade alert system, the ability to use html, integration with the ViralBlogAds network, and the capability to place ads on any website by using a javascript code.

This plugin is regularly $37 but for a limited time, I’ve been given two coupon codes to lower your price of the OIO Publisher plugin.

This coupon is HOT! Use code QWERTY-17 to get $17 off of the OIO Publisher regular price of $37, bringing the price down to $20. This coupon expires in the next two days (@ 05/05/08) so take advantage now. At $20 this plugin could pay for itself within one or two sales, so if you’ve even thought about buying it now’s the perfect time to do so.

If you can’t buy within the next day or so you can still save some money off of the regular price. Use code QWERTY-5 to get $5 off of the OIO Publisher regular price of $37, bringing the price down to $32. This coupon expireson 05/20/08.

If you’re serious about selling your own ads this plugin is a must have, so hurry and take advantage of the coupon codes before they expire.

• Affiliate program question
• Surpass Holiday Magic Sale
• How to manage the ads on your blog

Have you ever wanted or needed to know how many words you’re written in a post on your blog? It’s easy to check at any time if you use the Wordpress plugin Leprakhaun’s Word Count. To use it, just unzip and upload it into your plugins directory. Then activate the plugin in your Wordpress dashboard. After that, whenever you write a post you’ll see a box that has a button that says calculate words a little bit below your post. Click it and it tells you how many words you’ve written. There’s a screenshot below of what the Word Count button and box look like within a new post. I really like it and recommend it highly. It’s a really helpful little plugin worth checking out. If you try it, let me know how you like it.

• How to insert random text in Office documents
• How to embed a video in a Wordpress post
• How to clean up your blog archives

Have you ever gone into the plugins section of your Wordpress dashboard only to see that several of your Wordpress plugins have been updated? They don’t appear in the dashboard tab to see when you first log in, which I think would be really helpful. So, in order to keep up with my plugins I schedule one day a month on my calendar to do list to log into each blog and go into the plugins tab. I know it might not sound like a big deal to some but some plugins are updated rather frequently.

So. Anything I’m not using regularly I deactivate. If I see the words “there is a new version of whatver plugin available” I go to that page and take a quick look at the notes on it and upload the new version to my plugins directory and activate it. It’s just an easy way for me to remember to be sure I am running the latest stable version of the plugins I use.

• How to keep notes in Wordpress
• How to show the top commentators on your blog
• How to install a Wordpress plugin

A couple of weeks ago I came across a plugin that organizes your archives on a page of their own. This easy to use plugin is called SRG Clean Archives and can be downloaded for free. The plugin will lists the years, months and days that you’ve posted in. The listings include the post permalink and the date the post was published. They can be configured to include post and comment count. The months can be set up to collapse and expand, which is nice because it saves room.

To install it just download it from the author. Unzip the package and upload it to your plugins directory of your blog. Next, activate and configure the plugin. Then all that’s left is to create an Archives page and install the piece of code to make the plugin work. What you see above is a screenshot of the admin panel with the Wordpress dashboard. If you want to see the plugin in action, visit A Contest Blog and click on the Archives page. I’m really pleased with it. If you try it let me know what you think.

• Want to better manage your Wordpress comments?
• Who sez your comments
• How to let your readers subscribe to comments of a post