These new upgrades allow me to make the most of a common admin interface for all my plugins as well as checking for news related to the plugins straight from the admin panel of the WordPress plugin.

The No More Frames plugin for WordPress is an awesome plugin that helps websites avoid spam and content theft by breaking the frame when other websites attempt to load content into a frame based web browser.

Theme Updates

You can always find links to all my themes in the theme directory, but here’s a run down of some of the changes:

Great Chefs Great Restaurant Web Theme
New! This is a completely new theme for my website and hopefully will be my first contribution to the WordPress directory. It’s designed for restaurant owners and chefs who are looking for a perfect theme for their restaurant but could easily be used for any variety of websites.

One Night in Paris
I recently updated the One Night in Paris theme and redid a significant amount of the front end including a redesign of the index.php file.

Community Friendly Theme
Minor changes to the code designed to make the theme more compatible with 2.8

Plugin Updates

Get Image from Post, a Free WordPress Plugin
New! This is a simple plugin which allows users to return an image from the related post.

Get Better Excerpt Plugin for WordPress
New! The Get Better Excerpt plugin works almost identical to the built in get_the_excerpt() and the_excerpt() functions except it returns whole words.

You can of course see all my plugins in my plugin directory on thisismyurl.com or by visiting the official WordPress website at http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/profile/christopherross where I sincerely hope you’ll download and vote for my plugins.

For a bit of shameless self promotion today, I’d love to remind everybody that I’m available to develop custom WordPress themes and plugins for your organizations. Sponsoring a free theme giveaway is an easy way to dramatically increase links to your website and give back to the community.

I wrote the plugin for my new theme and use it here on thisismyurl as part of the new magazine style format.

Download

Support forums are now online! If you have any questions, please visit http://forums.thisismyurl.com.

The forums can be found online at http://forums.thisismyurl.com, I still have a lot of work to do on them but for now if you have any questions about my plugins please feel free to visit.

Chris

Easy Technorati Tags for WordPress

I’ve added a new menu and improved instructions for how to include the Technorati tags in your blog posts.

Easy Popular Posts

There’s a new admin menu for the plugin, and I’ve fixed an error in the documentation which incorrectly labeled echo as an option.

Easy Random Posts

There’s a new admin menu for the plugin, and I’ve fixed an error in the documentation which incorrectly labeled echo as an option.

Easy Scheduled Posts

There’s a new admin menu for the plugin, and I’ve fixed an error in the documentation which incorrectly labeled echo as an option. I’ve also added a new option to the function which allows you to control wether to link to the scheduled post or not.

All four plugins are available for free download and are compatible with WordPress 2.0.x -> 2.7.1, if you have any questions please feel free to drop me a line.

I feel that way about making money online here at thisismyurl.com, which is why I don’t believe asking for donations is the right way to go when it comes from receiving support from people who read my blog. In fact, I’m going to go out on a limb and say that I think most bloggers feel that way. So how can you say thanks to somebody for a blog post you’ve really enjoyed? Here’s a few ways that I can think of off the top of my head:

Support their sponsors

One of the easiest ways to say thanks for a job well done is to simply take a couple seconds and look at who’s buying ads on your favorite blogs and if there’s something being marketing which interests you, click through to check it out. The act of clicking an affiliate link doesn’t put money in your bloggers pocket but it does reinforce with the affiliate company that the blog has pushed traffic to their website and this act alone is valuable to both the blogger and the advertiser.

Support their commenters

One of my favorite ways to support a blog is to read their comments and click through to supportive, helpful commentators. Again, this doesn’t make the blog owner any money but what it does do is prove to the person who left the comment that the time they spent leaving a comment was well received. I get to learn a lot from a lot of great bloggers this way but it also helps encourage people to leave helpful comments which is the best way to support a blog.

Tweet about them

People blog for a number of reasons but regardless of why a blogger takes the time to write posts on the web, telling your followers on Twitter is a great way to help encourage them to continue writing great comments. You can also Digg them or list them on Stumble Upon if you’ve really enjoyed their content.

By ads on their website

A lot of bloggers sell ads on the side of their sites, why not help them out by promoting your own products and services?

Post a link to their story on another website

If you enjoy reading something on one blog and think it could help support and article on another, why not take a few minutes and share the link there? I often post supportive, helpful links in the comments of a blog to help the owner know about other great blogs. It helps both blogs become stronger, better and more co-operative!

Send money

If there’s no other way for you to say thanks, sending the blogger a couple dollars to help keep them infused with coffee is always nice. 

Support their plugins and themes

If your favorite blogger writes plugins or themes for something like WordPress, take a few minutes and download it, comment on it or rate it on the public directories. A lot of bloggers get significant portions of their traffic directly from these directories and your supporting their plugins helps build visitors to their websites.

Leave comments

I can never stress enough how much a great comment encourages a blog owner. If you’ve taken the time to read a blog post and found it helpful, spending just a couple seconds to leave a thank you note and encourage the blogger to continue writing is a great way to say thanks. If you can add to the conversation, correct a glitch or improve the bloggers understanding of the subject matter … all the better!

Post a link to their blog

The holy grail of compliments to a blogger? Posting a link to their content! If you run a website of your own and find something a blogger has written to be helpful, post a link and tell your visitors why you liked what you read. It’s amazing how much this helps a blogger build a bigger audience and how easy it is to do.

Usage

To use the Easy Technorati Tags for WordPress plugin, simply download and install onto your WordPress website. You can then add it to your theme by inserting the code <?php echo timu_technorati_tags() ;?> to your blog theme files or to a sidebar widget.

Output

The tag generates a comma separated list of tags complete with Technorati links. I choose to return it as a value rather than write it directly so that if you’d like to make changes or process the results, you can do it easy.

You can download the plugin directly from the WordPress Plugin Directory. Don’t forget to rate the plugin if you’ve enjoyed it.

How You Can Help

I love developing plugins for WordPress and do my best to always keep them free but of course it take a lot of time and effort to build these plugins so if you’d like to say thanks, the best way is to take a few moments and write about the plugin on your own website, include a link to my website from your posts or download and rate the plugin on the official plugin directory.

Support forums are now online! If you have any questions, please visit http://forums.thisismyurl.com.

One of the things that I do is offer content for those users in the form of a contest or promotion which only appears in my RSS feeds or often appears in my RSS feed days (or weeks) before it appears on the main site. This allow allows me to test content, get feedback from regulars etc. before it’s live.

Now there are a few plugins and tutorials on how to do this (Creating Posts That Appear Only In RSS) but I prefer to do it in a much easier way.

1. I create a category in WordPress where I’ll post items for the RSS feed.
2. I’ll exclude that category from results pages

That’s it .. very simple really.

For example, on my archives.php page I simply add the code ‘exclude=X’ (where X is my category ID) from the results, which ensures that any article found exclusively in my RSS feed is not published anywhere else.

The only problem is … this method forces me to add and remove items from the list in a method similar to how we used to have to place sticky posts in WordPress.

What do you guys think? Is there an easier way for me to do it?

I follow five simple rules that I believe helped me build a successful website, five rules that everybody can follow.

1. I posted simple, honest content. Most the content on my website is designed for people with little technical expertise who need to solve a problem. This is an easy way to generate traffic, find a problem and help people solve it.
2. I posted content often. While I was building my website traffic I often posted content twice a day to help establish new visitors, then once I knew people had taken the time to read my posts I began posting less frequently but with more focus on content.
3. I posted what people wanted. I spend a lot of time looking at the stats for my website and I know what articles people read and which are worthless. The articles people read inspire me to write more (better) content on similar subjects while the less popular posts are reviewed and improved.
4. I posted different kinds of content. When I started out I made a lot of mistakes (and still do) but by testing different content styles, I’ve learnt the proper length for many posts and how to make them more readable for the audience.
5. I posted what I knew about. Instead of trying to chase trends or break news stories, I posted content designed to help business owners make better websites, a lot of it is still pretty technical but it’s getting more ‘people’ friendly everyday.

What I’ve learnt over the past five months is that people love free stuff. My post popular page by far is Fundraising Thermometer Plugin for Wordpress a free plugin for WordPress designed to help charities display their current fundraising level. My second most popular post is another WordPress plugin called WordPress Plugin to automatically update the copyright notice., a simple post to allow the display of copyright details on a post. Other popular posts on my blog have been:

1. How to center content with CSS and HTML
2. No More Frames Plugin for WordPress
3. Code Free Pong
4. How to make awesome 3d icons in Adobe Fireworks
5. How to create a reflective website image in Photoshop

As a website owner, the best way for you to increase your website traffic is to understand what people want and give it to them. This might sound like common sense logic but often times we as business owners (because my website really is a business) forget that serving content is about the reader, not the writer.

Happy five months of reading my website, I look forward to another great month writing.

a circular movement of water, counter to a main current, causing a small whirlpool.

By definition the web is a fluid medium, it ebbs and flows like a river. In fact, when I formed my first web development company I pondered a wide variety of names and first settled on Eddy as my company name. Eddy is both a persons name (informal for Edward) and also a circular movement of water, counter to a main current, causing a small whirlpool. Exactly what I wanted my company to do. To be honest, the company was ready to be launched, we had brochures designed, logos ready and then one night at dinner I was speaking to my wife about the launch when my five year old son asked “Do I know Eddy?”.

That stopped me dead in my tracks and made me take a step back. I stayed up late that night looking at the company and realized that I had been too close to the problem, I’d become blind to the obvious and my attention was so focussed on the details that I’d not looked at the larger picture. The old expression “you can’t see the forest for the trees” came to mind but in this case, it wasn’t just about some vague concept it was about money. Eddy died that night but Rodonic was born.

Rodonic web design services, Ottawa

Rodonic was a funny company name, it was intentionally designed to mean nothing. In fact, when Rodonic was launched there was no other uses of the word in the Google database. That was great for branding and helped ensure the company was a success.

Where with Eddy I focussed only on my desires for branding, Rodonic was all about others. The name, selected in part for its vagueness was a perfect software company name. We tested the name to ensure it could work with various titles such as Rodonic WordPress, Rodonic DRAW, etc. and it stacked up as well as Corel, Microsoft or Adobe (I was young and had big dreams). What it lacked however was a passionate team behind it and eventually the business closed.

Why Redesign thisismyurl.com?

Just like Eddy, I was so close to the old design that I’d forgotten to check if the visiting public could find things easily on the website and just like Rodonic sometimes you have to take a deep breath and accept that  changes are needed. The top navigation of the old design had bugged me for some time but more importantly, I had to ask myself what the purpose of my website is (remember, that’s one of the ways to make a successful website). This is what I came up with:

1. Provide quality, informative posts related to the space between design and technology.
2. Provide easy access to downloads.
3. Inform the public about my technical and creative skills.

Oddly, my website structure of the old site was too cluttered and confusing for most people to find my most popular WordPress plugins easily. So I took a bit of time and redesigned the layout. Some of the new features of the site are just to show off but others are designed to make using the website much easier to use.

Automatic highlighting of key posts

Key posts are now highlighted

One of the big improvements to the website is for navigation and highlighting of critical posts. Throughout the website downloads are now automatically highlighted in the listings with icons to represent the categories they belong to. So far, I’ve highlighted:

1. Free downloads
2. WordPress downloads (as well as Plugins and Themes)
3. osCommerce downloads
4. Macintosh downloads
5. Windows downloads

Automated content additions 

To further assist users to find key content such as downloads, I’ve added an automated piece of text at the bottom of key articles, designed to help users find other related downloads much faster. 

These new additions to each page are found on all pages that share a common category. For example, if a post is included in the Free downloads category, a paragraph and link to free downloads is included on the bottom of each post. The text is automatically applied from a central repository and increased the displayed count as I add downloads to the specific category.

Improved header

By far the biggest addition to the website is a new, cleaner header. The new header is designed to show the key navigation and highlight sub navigation quickly.

I’ve used standard CSS layers to highlight the active page as well as to focus attention on mouseover states. The key advantage over previous designs is that I can now help surfers find downloads and blog posts much faster.

Ongoing changes

There’s a lot more to come over the next few weeks, and as always I would love to hear back from you so if you’re having a problem finding content on my site, confused by navigation or just want to say hi, I’d love to hear from you. – Chris

Make Your Content Accessible

Use the SEO Checker I built to see what Google can see. This tool will also help you understand what visually impaired people in your community can see … they make up almost 10% of the population, so can you really afford to only appeal to 90% of the market? 

Use Valid xHTML Markup

xHTML is the language web pages should be built in. If you write your page in sloppy code, it’ll be harder for web browsers to display it properly so just like a Word document, you have to save it in the right format for your audience to read it.

Translate Your Content

thisismyurl.com is available in 20 languages, 40% of my traffic comes from outside the US and Canada and is viewed in a language other than English using a free online translation service, I know it’s flawed but it’s the best I can offer and people learn from my postings.

Understand Keywords

Keywords are the heart and soul of the Internet, they’re like fresh pasta in Italian cooking or eye shadow to drag queens … if you don’t understand the value and application of keywords, get off the Internet.

Build Relationships with Other Websites

Almost half my traffic comes from Google, the other half? Came from other websites and referrals from great people that I taught something to and in turn taught me a lot.

Add a Google Sitemap

Google want’s nothing more than to know about you, it’s the companies only goal in the universe, so help them to help you.

Help People

Speaking of helping, help people. When you see a website with an error or run into a problem on a site, let them know. If you can fix a glitch, tell them how … I’ve picked up countless readers and sources of inspiration by simply being supportive.

Use Analytics

Back to Google for a second, they have a tool called Google Analytics. It’s free, it’s powerful and it’ll help you understand your audience.

Join Social Networking Sites

Websites like LinkedIn and Facebook are powerful tools to help people. Helping people leads to trust, trust leads to prospects and prospects lead to clients.

Add Fresh Content

Ask yourself, why do people come back to your boring old stale content? They don’t. If you ran a restaurant you’d have daily specials right? Well I think running a restaurant is easier than running a website, so make sure you have fresh content served daily.

Know Who’s Better Than You

There are a lot of web sites out there that are better than me:

• Andy
• Chris
• Ben
• Ashley
• Yan
• Heck, even Lorelle is pretty awesome.

Know who’s better than you and read them every day. The best way to learn is to know you need to learn. (btw, if you didn’t make the list don’t be sad I have hundreds of sites I read every week, these are just the first ones I though of)

Respond to Criticism

There’s a lot of things that I write on my blog that are not as well researched as they could be, and when I’m corrected I love it. You’ll notice if you pan through my comments that I don’t remove the negative … in fact I relish them. If people take the time to point out your flaws, thank them and you’ll grow.

Write Good Content

The best way to build traffic to your website? Make people want to come back. It’s harder to get new visitors than to keep your old ones.

Be Timely

Write about things that you know will be timely but don’t chase trends, it’s not relevant what others are writing about … only what your readers are reading about.

Get to Know Yourself

The past five months of blogging have taught me a lot about myself, I look back at some of the early pieces I wrote and know that I’ve changed. That’s part of what blogging is, it’s about growing not only as a business but also as a person and learning new things.

Make your Title Tag Valuable

Your title tag is a critical piece of the organic marketing puzzle, if you don’t understand how or why to use it properly … excuse my french but vous êtes vissé. 

Add an RSS Feed

I don’t care what type of business you are … if you can add an RSS feed to your web site do it! Let people know what you’re up to if they want to know. Same goes for Twitter, use it to exploit your interests.

Give Stuff Away For Free

I love giving things away for free. I have website templates, plugins and artwork people can download for free as well as over 600 pages of advice here on my website. Guess what? It cost me nothing and it put me on Alexa’s radar without having to do anything complicated.

Respect Your Audience

There’s only one thing more important then you on your website, your audience. Take time to get to know them and help them.

Know Your Goals

Why do you own a website? You’d be surprised how many people have no idea why they want to run a website … it’s a little sad really.

Use a Content Manager

Websites that are build on a content management system (I use WordPress) make it easier for people to update their websites. Websites that are updated more often get more traffic.

Read Matt’s Articles

Matt Cutts is Google. Actually he’s not but he’s the face of Google, the man who talks to all of us and tells us what Google is thinking, explains what they’re up to and helps lowly web masters to interact better. His job … to help the public make the most of Google, so why don’t you read his blog?

Join Forums

Forums are a great place to generate free traffic to your blog. They help you build relationships with other bloggers, build respect in the community and get into endless conversations about topics that interest you.

Comment on Other Websites

One of the most overlooked methods for building traffic to your website is to simply comment on other peoples websites. Remember my point about helping others? Point out flaws or add to the conversation and you’ll be generating great traffic back to your website.

Analyze and Adapt

Finally … the most important point … look at your analytics often and improve your website to help your audience make the most of your content.

Basic Security

Plugin Directory

Step One of any WordPress security installation is to hide the contents of the plugin directory. By default, WordPress ships with the directory exposed (it can be found by typing http://[yourwebsite]/wp-content/plugins/) but this allows the bad guys to see what plugins you’re running and possibly take advantage of them. To solve this, simply upload an empty file named index.html or index.php into the base plugin directory.  Another very easy way to do this for your entire WordPress site is to simply add Options -indexes to your .htaccess file. This tells your web server to never list directory contents.

Quick Note: .htaccess files are funny things, they don’t have a filename in the traditional sense so when you download them, all you download is the extension (filename.extension). This can make working with them tough. What I like to do is rename the file -.htaccess or something similar before downloading it, which allows Windows computers to properly interact with the file.

Limit Access to the Admin

Step Two of the basic plan of attack is to limit access to your administration tool. An .htaccess file is a server level control file, meaning that it interacts with the web server before it interacts with a web browser, what we want to do is limit the IP addresses of computers to your wp-admin directory. Need a more basic explanation? Each computer on the internet has a unique Internet Protocol (IP) address made up of four numbers ranging from 0 to 256 for example, 123.456.123.456 this number reflects your unique signature on the Internet. What we want to do is control which computers can access your account.

To do this, first we need to know what your IP address is. Luckily there’s a website for that at http://whatismyipaddress.com/ which will tell you what your current IP address is. After you have that, create a new file called .htaccess on your desktop and add the following code to it:

AuthUserFile /dev/null
AuthGroupFile /dev/null
AuthName “Access Control”
AuthType Basic
order deny,allow
deny from all
allow from [paste your IP address here]

Once you upload that code to your wp-admin directory only computers from the IP address you specified will be able to access your WordPress admin directory. You can add multiple allow from lines to ensure you can access your site from work or home. If you ever need to access your admin panel from outside the IP range, simply comment (place a # symbol) before the deny from all line and you’ll be able to access it normally.

One final note here, since many people have dynamic IP addresses (they change whenever you reboot your internet connection) you might want to check with your Internet Service Provider to determine their IP range. For example, once you know that your IP address is always 142.167.66.[0- 255] you can use the allow from address of 142.167.66.* so anybody in your local subnet group (the last octal) can access your admin directory. A little less secure but still better than allowing the whole world to access it.

An Extra Level of Password Control

Just like the .htaccess file can be used to limit access from specific IP addresses it can also be used to force a server level username and password check before prompting you to input your WordPress username and password. You can do this fairly easily if you’re hosting with BlueHost or if you’re using another hosting company you can create a secure login using an .htaccess file and .htpasswd files or the AskApache Password Protect plugin. This process is a little more complex but a great extra layer of security.

Change Your Admin Account

By default the most powerful account on your WordPress website is called admin, since everybody in the world knows this they only need to guess your password but if you change the admin account name, you make guessing both your username and password infinitely harder. One other point here, since your password is case sensitive (A and a are different letters) you should always use long, complex passwords that mix uppercase and lowercase letters, at least one number and if possible a symbol such as an ampersand (&) or dollar sign. The more complex you make your password, the less chance somebody will guess it.

WordPress Version

Some WordPress themes include a line such as <meta name=”generator” content=”WordPress <?php bloginfo(’version’); ?>” />  in the header.php file. While this is great for WordPress it’s a security blunder since you’re announcing to the world which version of WordPress your using and if it’s not the most recent … which security holes your website is vulnerable to. Simply remove this line from your header and you’ll be more secure.

WordPress displaying security issues

The next step when it comes to security with regards to versions is to always upgrade to the most recent version promptly. I recommend upgrading your website (and your plugins) as quickly as possible after a new release has been updated.  You’ll see from the graphic to the right that my hotel web design company Getaway Graphics hasn’t had some of it’s plugins or base code upgraded in weeks, this is a major security flaw which could lead to hackers gaining access to my files. Luckily, I did this to demonstrate the potential flaws and the site is actually perfectly safe.

Always upgrade your website and your plugins to the most recent version after you have done a backup of your site files and data. As a bit of shameless self promotion, let me pipe in here that for a fairly reasonable fee, I can do this for you on a monthly schedule or train you how to maintain and monitor your website.

Secure Your .htaccess file

I think we’re now all aware how powerful the .htaccess file is correct? Great, so let’s secure it simply by adding the following code to the very bottom of the file:

<Files wp-config.php>
Order Deny,Allow
Deny from All
</Files>

This simple piece of code makes it impossible for people to see all the security customizations you’ve done to your blog.

Report Issues

WordPress is, at it’s heart a community project. If there’s something wrong and you discover it, send a bug report immediately so the team can fix security holes. This will make the software more secure both for you and the rest of the WordPress users.

Security Plugins for WordPress

Beyond the common sense security steps outlined above, there are several plugins related to security which every WordPress website should be running:

• Login Lockdown – records failed attempts to access your WordPress admin panel. Frankly, if you don’t know people are knocking on your door … how do you know to protect it?
• WP Security Scan – tests your website for common security holes.
• WP Database Backup – backs up the content of your database regularly. Not really a security tool but it will allow you to restore to a previous version if you ever need to.
• AskApache Password Protect – add a password to your wp-admin directory.

Other Great Sources

While I was putting together this article, I had help from some other sources on the net including:

• Matt Cutts
• Velvet Blues
• Make Tech Easier
• Wordpress Security Whitepaper
• Ross McKillop
• Christopher Heng
• WordPress Codex

One Final Note …

The steps I’ve outlined in the above article are all fairly straight forward and necessary to ensure a strong, safe WordPress blog but I appreciate some people simply lack the technical confidence to perform the steps effectively. I’m available as a WordPress consultant and can generally perform all the necessary upgrades to your WordPress website quickly, effectively and easily so why not give me a call?

The website is powered by WordPress which gives the staff at the organization the ability to quickly update content, it features the hugely successful theme iNove with a few minor changes and small army of plugins designed to optimize the experience for non technical staff.

Thanks again to everybody who helped out this year, I look forward to running the promotion again this year!

I choose to use a very easy to use tool called WordPress as the content manager for his new website, it’s fast and easy to learn with a lot of great online documentation and a wonderfully supportive community. It also happens to be a tool that I know very well, so I felt comfortable offering it to Mark.

His photography website is designed to be used by photographers interested in displaying images, as opposed to running a photo business.

It’s an original, custom WordPress theme which doesn’t use any of the available gallery plugins to ensure compatibility. The website has a rich SEO base for organic online marketing, easy to use navigation and a very clean design used to highlight his pieces. As with most of my sites, it’s hosted with BlueHost.

What do you think? Do you know any photographers that you’d recommend me to? Are there other great photography websites built in WordPress you’d like to share?

It works by placing a small JavaScript in the header of your document.

=== Plugin Name ===

Contributors: christopherross
Plugin URI: http://www.thisismyurl.com/wordpress/plugins/no-more-frames
Tags: frames
Requires at least: 2.0.0
Tested up to: 2.7.0
Stable tag: 0.5.1

Many websites try to load your content into their own frame, to help sell ads on their sites. This simple plugin ensure your site is protect from this using a simple piece of code in your document header.

== Description ==

Many websites try to load your content into their own frame, to help sell ads on their sites. This simple plugin ensure your site is protect from this using a simple piece of code in your document header.

== Installation ==

To install the plugin, please upload the ourprogess folder to your plugins folder and active the plugin.

== Updates ==

Updates to the plugin will be posted here, to [thisismyurl](http://www.thisismyurl.com/plugins/no-more-frames)

== Donations ==

If you would like to donate to help support future development of this tool, please visit [thisismyurl](http://www.thisismyurl.com/)

How You Can Help

I love developing plugins for WordPress and do my best to always keep them free but of course it take a lot of time and effort to build these plugins so if you’d like to say thanks, the best way is to take a few moments and write about the plugin on your own website, include a link to my website from your posts or download and rate the plugin on the official plugin directory.

Support forums are now online! If you have any questions, please visit http://forums.thisismyurl.com.

This plugin automatically generates a copyright notice from the first post in your blog to the current year. The Auto Copyright notice plugin fetches the first and last year of posts from the database and displays the results as a copyright notice on your website.

This process allows blog owners to add content retroactively, knowing that the  website will automatically find the first date a post is published as well as the last published date or the current year (whichever is later).

To use the plugin, simply download it and add the code  <?php echo  autocopyright();?> to your website where you’d like the copyright notice to appear.

How You Can Help

I love developing plugins for WordPress and do my best to always keep them free but of course it take a lot of time and effort to build these plugins so if you’d like to say thanks, the best way is to take a few moments and write about the plugin on your own website, include a link to my website from your posts or download and rate the plugin on the official plugin directory.

Support forums are now online! If you have any questions, please visit http://forums.thisismyurl.com.

This got me thinking however, maybe there’s a lot of people out there who want to run their own website, maybe they even want to do it for only a $100 (or less) but are terrified of the technology so I’ve decided over the next few weeks to post some fairly entry level tutorials for WordPress, my more regular readers might roll their eyes but bear with us while we delve into some of the less technical aspects of WordPress and help new users learn the system.

Today, I’d like to look at installing a plug-in. I think this is one of the most terrifying endeavors for a new WordPress blog owner but honestly, it’s one of the easiest especially with the new WordPress 2.7 installer.

• First, log into your administration area and click the Plugins link on the left hand side.
• Next, follow the link  Plugin Browser/Installer at the bottom of your page.
• Honestly, you’re almost done.
• Find a plugin that you like. I recommend searching for the WordPress.com Stats plugin, it’s amazingly cool, easy to use and free.
• Once you search, you can read about the plugin and click the Install button to the right.
• Yep, that’s all there is to it.

With the new version 2.7 of WordPress, things are getting so easy that just about anybody can setup and operate a WordPress website without needed a web developer at all. :(