The Spinning Donut

I have a confession - I love WordPress.  It’s just so cool.  Anyway, I stay up with the changes by downloading them at http://svn.automattic.com/wordpress/trunk/.

I don’t actually browse there and download the files with a web browser but I use Subversion which is a code control system for developers who are - developing systems and need a way to keep track of program code changes.  Think of the tracking changes feature in Microsoft Word.  Kind of like that but not exactly the same.

You can read about how I setup the newest WordPress stuff on my PC to test in my article Running and Reviewing WordPress 2.5-beta1.  Although that article might be WordPress 2.5 beta 1 specific you can pretty much do the same for any version of WordPress.  I set up a folder called WordPress27 as well as a database called WordPress27.

After I install Subversion, I download and install TortoiseSVN, a Subversion client for Windows.

What TortoiseSVN does is allow you to right-click on a folder where you want to download the latest code for WordPress by selecting the menu choice “SVN Update” after you’ve configured TortoiseSVN to look at http://svn.automattic.com/wordpress/trunk/.  TortoiseSVN will go out and download the changes from the last time you downloaded.

On to WordPress 2.7 - Hemorrhage.  After updating the latest version below is a screen shot of what the dashboard looks like.  They’ve changed things up for the better in my opinion by using a sidebar menu structure to navigate WordPress 2.7

First, here’s the screen shot of the version at the bottom of the Dashboard in WordPress 2.7.  That’s how I got the title of this blog post.  Kind of funny.  I didn’t even know they called it that until I scrolled to the bottom and saw it.

The dashboard:

If you’re a WordPress user you’ll notice the sidebar menu as oppossed to the horizontal menu currently in WordPress.  However, this is way, way early WordPress 2.7 and things might change drastically before it is final.  So hold on, come back here to check out more new features and screen shots of WordPress 2.7.  If you’d rather receive updates by email subscribe to my email updates.

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A couple of months ago I was trying out the PicLens WordPress Plugin.  After installing it and trying to activate it I received a message that said, “This plugin requires PHP 5.1 and you have 4.x.  So what to do?

After investigating a bit using Google and instant messaging my host provider, the solution was to add this line:

AddHandler application/x-httpd-php5 .php

to the .htaccess file. I know this gets rather techy for some folks but I use cpanel and cpanel has a File Manager that will allow you to click on the .htaccess file in your public_html folder under your WordPress instal.  After clicking once on .htaccess a there are file actions you can take to change it, view it, delete it, etc.

I edited the file, added the line above and saved the file.  That magic line tells the server to use PHP 5.  Pretty cool.  All was well after that.

So, if you run into an error like that where you want to be upgrading to a different version of PHP you can do it by editing your .htaccess file or by getting a hold of tech support at your hosting provider.  Again, which can be rather scary for some.

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When you first start blogging in WordPress it can be a daunting task just to pick a theme.  Themes are what makes your blog look somewhat unique or completely unique.  WordPress itself started its theme directory back up with some pretty nice free themes. However, there are also free themes scattered throughout the Internet as well, all you have to do is a Google search for “free wordpress themes”.

There’s also professional themes that you can buy.  Some of these themes include options that don’t come with the free themes like support from the theme developer, forums where you can discuss the options of a theme, specific optimizations that might help your blog and you so you don’t have to worry about certain details of your blog.

Thesis Theme

I recently bought the new Thesis Theme for WordPress by Chris Pearson.  This is a professional theme that’s been optimized.  That means they’ve spent time making it look professional as compared to a lot of the free themes you’ll find, as well as providing quite a bit of functionality so you can mold the theme into what you want it to be.  There’s also built-in features like SEO-optimization that you don’t have to worry about while blogging.  With this increased functionality comes a bit of complexity that can be daunting for non-techy-type folks.

But that’s okay, if you’re a new blogger and it all seems like you’re in a haze right now, just pick a theme from the WordPress Theme Directory and get blogging.  Don’t fall into the analysis paralysis trap that stops people cold from making a choice and moving forward.

I have not used the Thesis Theme yet because I’m looking through it on my PC.  I like to dig deep into theme code to see what makes it tick.

Fresh News Theme

Another WordPress theme I bought is the Fresh News Theme by WooThemes.  Again, I admire theme developers and I’ve heard of these guys before and follow what themes they’re creating.  Again, I like to dig.

Cool Free Themes

I also ran into the WordPress Fun Theme at Smashing Magazine.  There’s a bit of configuration involved but worth the extra time it takes to make it work correctly.  I think this is just a great theme right down to the unisex-looking cartoon character.  

While at Smashing Magazine check out the Fervens Theme.

Two WordPress Plugins

While installing and playing around with the WordPress Fun Theme above I disovered two plugins that were in the instructions.  One is the WP-Most Commented Posts by Ja, RAFi and the other is the WordPress-Ready Contact Form v. 2.0WP by Mike Cherim.

Both plugins are not unique and there are other plugins that provide the same functionality.  The contact form plugin has a lengthy configuration page which makes it both nice for the more experienced WordPress users and at the same time it can be again, daunting for a beginning WordPress user.

photo credit: ground.zero

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While working in the latest version of WordPress and trying out different themes I noticed they implemented a theme previewer that shows you what the theme you’re about to select will look like before applying it.

This is great because in previous versions of WordPress you could only see a thumbnail view of the theme, click on the thumbnail and it changed your theme.  Now you get an almost full-sized screen that includes your posts with the new theme which allows you to see what your blog will look like with the new theme but not actually having to apply the theme.

While previewing a theme your about to apply, you can either cancel or click on “Activate <theme name>” in the upper right-hand corner of the preview screen and the new theme will be applied.

Below is a screen shot of the theme previewer.  I show the Design screen first and then the theme preview screen that pops up allowing you to preview the theme you just selected.

Click on the theme you want which in this case I clicked on the middle theme called Simplifi Dark (Grey).

Another point on this is that you can scroll through your blog posts to not only see what they’ll look like but you can also select a blog post to view in the preview window.  One way this can be helpful is to view images you’ve used in the past and what they’ll look like with a different theme - are they too big, etc.

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Matt Mullenweg creator of WordPress released a neat little plugin called Random Redirect.  It allows your blog readers to randomly discover your blog posts. Matt says the Random Redirect plugin:

Allows you to create a link to yourblog.example.com/?random which will redirect someone to a random post on your blog, in a StumbleUpon-like fashion. You can also specific in the URL random_post_type or random_cat_id.

Now, I love StumbleUpon and actually spend time stumbling for fun.  So, I think other folks like it as well, after all there are over 5 million Stumblers who use StumbleUpon.  The Random Redirect plugin allows your readers to stumble, in a sense, the posts on your blog.  Here’s one way to do it.

Create a widget in your sidebar like the screen shot below or some other globally visible area on your blog like your header or footer.  Make a link that says something like “For a good time read my blog randomly.”

I placed the link code below in a Text widget in WordPress:

For a good time <a href=”http://localhost/wordpress27/?random”>randomly read</a> my blog.

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Below you will find the most popular articles of the past month. Check them out if you missed any.

• Social Networks Will Make You Cool - Another context you can benefit from using the social networking sites is building traffic to your blog, promoting your blog posts and gaining subscribers.
• How To Create StumbleUpon Content - For those of you that have never heard of StumbleUpon, it’s a website that allows you to randomly “Stumble Upon” websites.
• Creating in Firefox - The title of this blog post could certainly be Working in Firefox. However, Creating fits much better since that’s what we want to feel like when we’re “working” and it has a more positive connotation than Working does for some people.
• 22 Terrific Tweets - In my previous post 21 Terrific Tweets, I noted how you can find some good stuff in twitter. This time, here are 22 terrific twitter tweets. I’m tellin’ ya’ - There’s gold in them there tweets.
• WordPress Tags Explained - If you’ve been wondering about WordPress tags and how to use them, then browse over to Ninja Blog Setup where Jon Symons has a free ebook on What Every Blogger Ought to Know About Tags.

photo credit: tristrambrelstaff

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