May 18, 2009
I think more blog inches have been expended discussing commenting than any other aspect of blogging - and perhaps rightly so. Commenting was, when it first started, revolutionary: it turned the internet from a broadcast medium into something so much richer. I don't think it's overstating the case to say that existence of the Web 2.0, post-Cluetrain internet-as-conversation many of us take for... Read more
May 2, 2009
What's a feed and why would I want one? A feed is, simply, another way for people to read your blog posts that doesn't require them to actually visit your site to do so. If you read a lot of blogs and news sites, clicking through to all of the websites to see if there's anything new can get tedious. Feeds allow your readers to "subscribe" to your blog: that is, add your feed to a feed reader -... Read more
April 19, 2009
Today I want to take a quick look at WordPress users: how to change how your name appears next to your posts, and how to add new users to your blog (and make sure they can't do anything you don't want them to). If you've got a brand new install of WordPress, you've probably just got one user, and that user is probably called something like "admin". Which is all very well for signing into the... Read more
April 3, 2009
Perma- what now? For every post you write, WordPress generates one single page just with that post on it. The URL of that page is commonly known as its "permalink"; it's short for permanent link, the link where that post will always be found, even when it's moved off your blog's front page. By default, WordPress permalinks look like this: http://blogmum.com/?p=16 This is both bad and... Read more
March 3, 2009
What is a custom field? A custom field is simply a way to add the same type of information to some or all of your WP posts. Just as all posts can currently have a title, category and tags, as well as content, you might choose to add custom fields to show your mood, the music you're listening to, the deal of the week on your ecommerce website or the filename of a thumbnail picture you want to... Read more
November 18, 2008
We've looked at how to install WordPress and how to make it pretty; today I want to look at making WP do more. Plugins are additions to the basic WordPress functionality, which allow you make it do just about anything you can imagine, from adding polls to your posts to controlling banner ads. Find them in the official WordPress plugin directory. Like themes, they're extremely easy to add to... Read more
November 18, 2008
Last week, we looked at installing WordPress's blogging software. If you're playing along, you should have a WordPress install that looks something like the screenshot on the left. As well as starting writing, one of the first things you'll probably want to do is to change the look of your blog. This is done with something WP calls "themes". A theme is a collection of files which modify the... Read more
November 18, 2008
because there are no dummies or complete idiots around here. 
I've assumed some basic knowledge of t'internet and web hosting here, including how zip files and FTP work. If anything needs more clarification, leave me a comment. Why WordPress? There are lots of blog management systems, and not all of them take effort to install like WordPress does. If you use BlogSpot, for example,... Read more