blogging crew » WordPress

Ignore snow and get Blogging

admin — Wed, 06 Jan 2010 17:09:07 +0000

One of the best things I like about blogging is being able to write about anything, at anytime, from (almost) anywhere.

Today, January 6th 2010, the UK has been gripped by ’snow fever’. The main TV news, tabloids, social media networks, everything and everybody has had just the one subject to talk about – snow!

The image accompanying this article is of my koi pond and garden, taken with my Nokia N95 mobile phone at 8.00am. Looks pretty doesn’t it?

Due to the weather (we’re talking snow here of course) I was forced to stay at home. This gave me the opportunity to do all kinds of online tasks – including writing for various blogs and websites and also updating the keywords on my ‘main’ website – www.davcomedia.co.uk -though to be honest, they were all labours of love.

I could just have easily done all of it from an internet cafe, the local library, McDonalds or a thousand other places with free wi-fi hotspots.

Publishing content to the internet is now so easy and I strongly recommend anyone who is thinking about blogging to stop thinking and start blogging.

All you need is a blogging platform (WordPress is my preference), a subject to write about and access to the internet. That’s it.

What are you waiting for – get blogging.

Ian Davies
Editor

18 Resources for Christmas

admin — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 12:32:29 +0000

Like it or not, Christmas is less than 8 weeks away! Is your website or blog ready to make the most of the festive season?

We have 18 tools and resources to help you give your site a Yuletide boost.

Have fun!

WordPress Installation Service

admin — Wed, 07 Oct 2009 21:43:27 +0000

Are you considering the ‘full fat’ version of WordPress for your blogging platform?

Regular readers of Blogging Crew know we are evangelical about using WordPress. Frankly, we love it! However, although downloading the core files is pretty easy, setting up everything else can be a little daunting, and more than a little time consuming when all you really want to do is start writing!

Thankfully, Davco Media can take all of that hassle away from you. They are now offering a new service, which includes hosting, installation and setting up WordPress for you.

The cost of the package is only £24.50. That’s a special offer price until December 31st as it usually costs £39. It really is a brilliant offer!

You can find more information about the package here and let Davco Media set up your WordPress blog in no time.

10 More WordPress Plug-ins

admin — Tue, 15 Sep 2009 13:14:37 +0000

Lists are always popular with bloggers, so it’s time for another one!

Following on from our “25 WordPress plug-ins” post here’s another 10 for you to take a look at:

PollDaddy:
Create and manage polls on your website to gauge your visitor’s opinion and develop interaction.
http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/polldaddy/

WPtouch:
With a single click, WPtouch transforms your WordPress blog into an iPhone application-style theme, complete with ajax loading articles and effects, when viewed from an iPhone, iPod touch, Android or BlackBerry touch mobile device.
http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/wptouch/

Sociable:
Pick and choose from 99 social bookmarking site links to add to your posts and pages
http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/sociable/

WP eCommerce:
The WP e-Commerce shopping cart plugin for WordPress is an elegant easy to use fully featured shopping cart application suitable for selling your products, services, and or fees online.
http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/wp-e-commerce/

TweetMeme:
The TweetMeme button easily allows your blog to be retweeted. The button also provides a current count of how many times your story has been retweeted throughout twitter.
http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/tweetmeme/

LifeStream:
Stream your social networking activities on your blog
http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/lifestream/

Featured Content Gallery:
Featured Content Gallery creates an automated, fully customizable rotating image gallery anywhere within your WordPress site.
http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/featured-content-gallery/

After The Deadline:
Add spell checking to your visual editor
http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/after-the-deadline/

Page Link Manager:
Pick and choose which posts and pages are included in your site navigation
http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/page-link-manager/

WordPress training in Milton Keynes

admin — Thu, 20 Aug 2009 14:03:57 +0000

WordPress specialists Davco Media are holding a one-day training course in Milton Keynes on Wednesday, February 3rd.

This course, costing £175, is perfect for those looking to master the basics of WordPress within the minimum amount of time and expense.

Delegates attending this course will have a WordPress website up and running by the end of the day.

You will find more information, including a full itinerary, here.

25 WordPress plug-ins

admin — Tue, 18 Aug 2009 15:04:38 +0000

With hundreds (if not thousands) of plug-ins for WordPress to choose from, and going through them all is really hard work!

After a trawl through them, these plug-ins could provide your WordPress powered website with the added functionality to make it even better.

Take a look at these selections:

Google Analytics for WordPress:
One of the essential downloads, this plug-in will automatically add your Google Analytics tracking to all your blog’s pages.
http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/google-analytics-for-wordpress/

Easy AdSense:
Use your blog to make money with Google AdSense. This plug-in allows you to customise how your adverts are displayed without having to manually add the code to every page.
http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/easy-adsenser/

AdRotate:
Show multiple and/or random banners on your website to maximise revenue.
http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/adrotate/

Contact Form 7:
Customisable contact form with the option to add CAPTCHA’s
http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/contact-form-7/

GD Star rating:
Allow your blog’s readers to rate your post (or anything else) out of 10 with this highly customisable star rating.
http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/gd-star-rating/

Twitter for WordPress:
Display your latest Tweets on your blog.
http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/twitter-for-wordpress/

Subscribe2:
Automatically sends your blog’s subscribers an email when you add a new post to your site.
http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/subscribe2/

NextGEN Gallery:
Add some colour to your blog with a slick Flash-based image slideshow.
http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/nextgen-gallery/

WP-Print: Creates a printable version of your blog pages.
http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/wp-print/

Smart Youtube:
Insert YouTube videos without any messy formatting.
http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/smart-youtube/

Events:
List upcoming events in your sidebar or on a separate page.
http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/wp-events/

Breadcrumb NavXT:
Automatically generate breadcrumb navigation on your blog to aid usability.
http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/breadcrumb-navxt/

WP Forum:
Add a simple forum to your blog fully integrated with WordPress.
http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/wpforum/

Who is online:
Display how many guests and users are currently viewing your blog.
http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/who-is-online/

AmazonFeed:
Sign up as an Amazon affiliate and display their adverts quickly and easily using this plug-in.
http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/amazonfeed/

Article Templates:
Create post templates if your posts commonly follow the same format.
http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/article-templates/

MP4 Player Plugin:
Add MP3 files to your site for people to easily listen to and enjoy!
http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/mp3-player-plugin-for-wordpress/

Vote It Up:
Adds voting functionality to your posts for readers to vote for or against your posts.
http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/vote-it-up/

404 notifier:
Get informed by email or RSS if a visitor to your site is shown a 404 error.
http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/404-notifier/

WP to top:
Add a “Back to the top” link in to your posts.
http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/wp-to-top/

Get Recent Comments:
Shows the most recent comments on your blog in a side widget to help encourage further comments.
http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/get-recent-comments/

PayPal donations:
Take payments using PayPal.
http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/paypal-donations/

GravatarGrid:
Displays the Gravatars of all your commenters as a mosaic in the sidebar of your blog.
http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/gravatargrid/

My Page Order:
Change the order of your pages with a drag and drop interface.
http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/my-page-order/

Google XML Sitemaps:
Create a Google XML-compliant Sitemap of your WordPress blog.
http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/google-sitemap-generator/

Have fun!

Intaglio: free Wordpress theme

admin — Thu, 25 Jun 2009 16:36:17 +0000

I came across a free Wordpress theme today I really like the look of.

Intaglio is one of the first free premium wordpress themes from FlyThemes.

It features excellent graphics with plenty of tools and options to back it up, including integrated flickr, twitter, gravatars and feedburner.

All of these features are editable from the theme’s options page.

I really like the ‘classy’ 2-column layout and the widgetized sidebars. Itaglio definitely gets a thumbs up from me!

Intaglio Feature List:

Columns: 2

Widget Ready: Yes

XHTML Valid: Yes

CSS Valid: Yes

Browser Compatible: IE 6.0+, FF 2+, Safari 2.0+, Opera 9.0+

SEO Optimized: Yes

Gravatar ready: Yes

Flickr ready: Yes

Twitter ready: Yes

Theme Options Page: Yes

WP Version: 1.5+

You can take a look at the demo page here. The theme can be downloaded there too.

Ian Davies
Blogging Crew Editor

Striptease Wordpress plugin

admin — Tue, 23 Jun 2009 10:24:59 +0000

I have previously written about how useful the Wordpress “read more” teaser is. It enables the reader to “scan” the first few lines of the article and then make the decision to read the rest of it or not.

WordPress makes it easy to break up long posts so you can save space on your home page. Simply insert the ‘more’ tag while editing a post, and WordPress will display the text that comes before it as a “teaser” followed by a link to the rest of the post.

By default, when a reader follows the link, the single-post page is loaded and the browser “jumps” to the next piece of text. This jump can be disorienting, and some bloggers prefer to link their teasers to the full post instead of the anchor. I certainly prefer to do this.

Unfortunately, the only way to avoid this “jump” is to hack the WordPress source code. Even if you’re comfortable with hacking your source files, you’ll have to remember to do it every time you upgrade your WordPress installation and that’s a real pain.

Thankfully, I recently came across a brilliant plugin called StripTease which makes this task a sinch. It does all the code hacking for you!

The StripTease plugin is a simple filter that changes WordPress’s default teaser links so that they link to full posts.

Installation is a doddle:

1. Download and unzip striptease.zip file. You can get it here.

2. Put the striptease.php plugin file in your WordPress plugin directory.

3. Activate the StripTease plugin on your WordPress plugins management panel.

The StripTease plugin doesn’t require any configuration. Once it’s activated, it will immediately begin stripping the “more” fragments from your teaser links and anyone clicking on your “read more” teaser will see the entire post.

This plugin gets a glowing endorsement from me!

Aperture theme

admin — Tue, 12 May 2009 10:18:40 +0000

Premium WordPress themesters WooThemes have added another gem to their portfolio.

Aperture is a multi-functional photo-blogging theme with a unique home page, consisting of a latest posts slider, a visual category display, a blog module and lots of stylish widgetized spaces.

With 12 alternate styles and a very visual archive system any keen ‘photography blogger’ should be able to house their photos/portfolio in a theme that specifically caters for their needs.

UNIQUE FEATURES

These are some of the more unique features that you will find within the theme:

Home page slider displaying latest posts

Home page visual category boxes with javascript hover effects

Attractive category archive template with images with javacript hover effects

Dedicated blog category template and home page module

6 widgetized areas (4 footer modules and 2 sidebar modules)

7 custom Woo widgets

12 great colour schemes

STANDARD FEATURES

These features are probably just as special as the one’s above, but you’ll find these standard features within most of Woo’s range:

Integrated Theme Options (for WordPress) to tweak the layout, colour scheme etc

Automatic Image Resizer, used to dynamically create the thumbnails on the home page

Threaded Comments for WP 2.7

Trendy drop-down menu’s for your main navigation

Custom Page Templates for Archives

Built-in Gravatar Support for Comments

The price of this outstanding theme is only $70 (for a single user licence). That’s approximately £46.50 at the time of writing this post. However, WooThemes have an excellent “themes club” with substantial savings for members.

For non-members, Woo offer a 2-for-1 deal. That’s a real bargain for two professional themes.

Hosting bargain

admin — Sat, 02 May 2009 23:43:28 +0000

This is a VERY short post!

I am delighted to offer my readers blog hosting for only £1.95 per month!

Buy now and get 12 months for the price of 10. That’s only £19.50 for a full year’s hosting with NO hidden extra charges to pay. I will even throw in a free .co.uk domain!

You can host a WordPress, Drupal, Geeklog or Joomla blog. It doesn’t really matter. The choice is yours.

Full details of the package can be found here.