The posts that we’ve written and the comments that have been left on this site will remain as an archive. Although quite a bit of this information is out-of-date, there’s still enough useful information to keep it available. Comments for all posts, however, have been closed so no new comments can be posted.

Both of us continue to use, write about, and provide training material for WordPress. If you’re interested in getting up-to-date WordPress materials, we recommend that you visit us at our other Web sites.

For Maria Langer:

• Maria’s Guides (http://www.MariasGuides.com) provides how-to articles about topics covered in all of Maria’s Books and video training materials.
• An Eclectic Mind (http://www.MariaLanger.com) is Maria’s blog, where she sounds off on a wide variety of topics.
• Lynda.com (http://lynda.com) publishes Maria’s WordPress training videos.

For Miraz Jordan:

• The KnowIT bookstore is the home of a new series of practical ebooks for WordPress users. Currently available:
  • How to backup your WordPress website
  • How WordPress is put together
• KnowIT (http://knowit.co.nz) is where Miraz publishes a wide range of how-to articles for using WordPress and other software products.
• MacTips (http://mactips.info) provides a new practical Tip each week for users of Macs, iPods, iPhones and other Apple products.

We’d like to note that the demise of our book has nothing to do with the popularity of WordPress. It remains one of the most popular blogging platforms out there, with millions of bloggers using WordPress.com or self-hosted WordPress installations. It continues to be updated regularly with new features and interface improvements. Both Maria and Miraz use WordPress for all of their blogging and CMS needs and highly recommend it to others.

If you bought our book, thanks so much for your support. We hope you’ll continue to let us help you get more out of WordPress — and your computer — by visiting us at any of the above-listed sites.

After arriving at your blog, visitors may want to search for specific items you have written about. Make sure visitors have easy access to Search and that results are useful to them. This article, based on WordPress 2.6.1, shows you how to make sure visitors find what they’re looking for on your blog.

Search is such an important part of any website. Use this article to really help your visitors.

Friendly text and useful links in the 404.php file give your confused visitors a much more pleasant experience when visiting your site. They will stay, rather than go, and they may even come back again.

Make your blog just a bit friendlier.

If you’re looking to embed a YouTube video in your website’s code and want to retain your validity, … use the following

<object type=”application/x-shockwave-flash” style=”width:425px; height:350px;” data=”http://www.youtube.com/v/7_6B6vwE83U”><param name=”movie” value=”http://www.youtube.com/v/7_6B6vwE83U” /></object>

[Via : Embedding YouTube Videos as Valid XHTML 1.0, Bernie Zimmermann.]

Of course, you need to substitute the correct URL in two places.

In my new blog I fixed up a few other coding errors, used the above technique for the youTube videos and soon had the thrill of seeing the green ‘valid’ ribbon.

Last night I was messing round exporting a WordPress blog and importing it into WordPress on my own Mac so I can play around with the design.

The MacTips blog I exported has almost 900 posts (ie 900 Tips). The downloaded file was 2.1Mb. That’s not particularly large, but it was enough to cause a problem when I tried to import it into the blog I’d set up on my Mac.

Maria Langer and I wrote in Chapter 10 of WordPress 2 Visual Quickstart Guide about exporting and importing between blogs.

When I came to import that 2.1Mb file I received an error message: The uploaded file exceeds the upload_max_filesize directive in php.ini. That upload limit is set at 2Mb, so I needed to change it.

It seemed obvious that the file php.ini was the one to edit, but where and how? Some Googling brought me to Enabling PHP and Apache in Leopard by David Powers.

First I had to create php.ini by copying another file, then it was a simple matter to locate the 2Mb limit and change it. I changed it to 8Mb.

David’s instructions are clear and easy to follow. You need a decent text editor such as TextWrangler (free) or BBEdit, and to paste in a few lines of code in the Terminal.

After amending the upload limit I went to the Sharing System Preference, turned Web Sharing off and then on again. That done, the import went smoothly. Now I can experiment with blog designs, with real content, but without disrupting the public blog.

As shown in the following illustration, the a note in the Plugin Management administration panel indicates that the Bad Behavior plugin (which I rely on to keep the spambots off my blogs) has been updated.

I have two options for bringing my blog up to date:

• Download version takes me to the Bad Behavior page on the WordPress.org’s Plugin Directory so I can read about and download the update. This functionality has been around for a while — at least since WordPress 2.3 — with all plugins that support it.
• Upgrade automatically takes the update process a step further. When I click this link, WordPress automatically downloads, uncompresses and installs the new version of the plugin for me. It displays its progress as it works, as shown here, and confirms that the upgrade has been successful.

I’ve been using this new feature for a few weeks now and it’s worked like a charm. It’s a heck of a lot easier than upgrading the old fashioned way.

After upgrading from WordPress 2.3.3 to 2.5 the first, most obvious difference is in the Dashboard. The screenshot on the left above is from my Oddity59 blog, not yet upgraded, while that on the right is from TiKouka.

The colour scheme has changed, information and links have been moved around, fonts reduced in size, and some previously ‘fixed’ items have been made mutable. Overall things seem slicker and sleeker, more efficient and more compact.

A nice touch is the summary of your blog — how many posts and pages and so on. Here’s what mine says right now:

You have 2,325 posts, 12 pages, 2 scheduled posts, contained within 34 categories and 558 tags.

You are using Neoclassical theme with 13 widgets. Change Theme This is WordPress version 2.5.

Immediately below that are lists of Recent Comments and Incoming Links.

Very obvious are the buttons to go straight to write a new Post or a new Page.

Changes continue through each individual Admin screen. New features include a Media Library that displays all the images and other media you’ve uploaded, and tells you which posts they’ve been used in.

WordPress 2.5 is a new version, rather than a minor point upgrade. If you’re not a confident WordPress user, I suggest you do some reading before you upgrade, and maybe watch the 4 minute screencast.

The footer may be the last thing visitors see on your blog. It leaves a lasting impression, so you should use it well. In most themes, a separate file called footer.php contains this part of the site. In this article, you’ll learn how easy it is to edit the footer to display exactly the information you’d like your blog’s visitors to see.

[Via : Peachpit: Web Design Reference Guide > Customizing WordPress: Make a Lasting Impression.]

While I sometimes use the web editor for my WordPress blogs, especially when I need to include an image from my online photo albums (MacTips screenshots, personal photos), I’ll always use Mars Edit when I can.

What’s more, I seldom use Safari; OmniWeb is my main browser of choice, though I also use Flock quite often for browsing.

WordPress and the web editor

If you do decide to write WordPress posts in your web browser, the first thing to do is turn off the stupid Visual Rich Editor, or you’re likely to go postal. Maria and I wrote about how to do this in our book WordPress 2 Visual Quickstart Guide. Look at pages 26 and 27 to get started.

I also avoid using Flock for writing posts as it seems to just mess up what I write, whatever I do. OmniWeb works nicely though. But the best choice of all is separate software, such as Mars Edit or Ecto. Daniel Jalkut, author of Mars Edit, explains more of the web editor problem, in The Broken Web Editor:

Recently there has been an increase of new MarsEdit buyers who cite as their motivation a frustration with the WordPress web editor. I respect and admire the WordPress team. In fact, their web interface is among the best out there. But even in the best of circumstances, it’s hard to compete with the usability of a desktop app. And when something goes bad, it becomes downright impossible.

Currently the situation is especially bad for people who use WordPress with Safari. For whatever reason these two pieces of software have fallen slightly out of accord. It’s common to hear tale of people who use Safari for “everything but WordPress.” In short, WordPress has a reputation for messing up or even eliminating parts of your post when using the web-based editor in Safari. I know, because I see the comments of my customers and would-be customers on the web. There is a chorus of confirmation for this problem.

I look forward to WordPress and Safari to ironing out their differences.

[Via Red Sweater Blog: The Broken Web Editor.]

Ways to solve the web editor problem

So, if you’re working with WordPress, which is, after all, about the best blogging platform, here are some steps to take to make the experience even better:

• if writing posts via the web interface, turn off the Visual Rich Editor, and use OmniWeb rather than Flock or Safari
• use Mars Edit instead of the web interface
• use some other stand-alone editor.