(Reading time: 4 – 6 minutes)

Ok, so. I wrote a little article last Saturday featuring Darren Rowse’s story of a Secret Blog Alliance. In which I did or did not admit to anything. The discussion that erupted was really interesting… so much so that I’m delighted to present the first of three, possibly four follow-on articles. Here’s the first, from Kelly Diels.

Not-So-Secret Blog Alliances

-by Kelly Diels

Psssst…I’ve got a secret.

You might know me as a writer who bares (almost) all my tawdry tales of failed romance on a demure blog that appears to be named for my breasts.

From that, you might suspect that my life is a roller coaster.

Put those suspicions aside. Not all is as it seems.

Most of my days are about packed lunches and laundry, birthday parties and baseball games, and pony-tails and paying bills.

And just between you, me, and some search engines, I’m not sure which role is my cover and which one requires a cape, tights and knee-high boots.

This is what I do know: neither identity is a secret.

So when Dave Doolin wrote that we need to find our entrepreneurial Quartermains, Mina Harkers and M’s to form a League of Extraordinary Bloggers, and then asked who was (or was not) in secret blog alliances, I wondered:

Do these alliances have to be secret?

I’m out there with my people and my passions.

I promote my friends’ products (if they’re good, and they fit) – and I buy them, too. I comment on their blogs (sometimes). I retweet their posts, talk about them, shout them out, quote them, link to them, and buy advertising on their sites. I love them and I spread the love.

I’m not terribly quiet or discreet about any of this and I might be missing why I should be.

I’ll say, 

He’s my friend, and not only that, he’s ridiculously smart and you should definitely buy his e-books and whitepapers and pay him to teach you about Blog Post Engineering. He helped me. He will help you, too.

(I might be talking about Dave. Go on – buy his stuff and his time. You won’t be sorry.)

And I’m willing to bet that kind of recommendation weighs more than any other kind.

In fact, I know it.

In November I had lunch with some heavy-hitting social media women and Lianne Raymond said something that landed with me.

Lianne said that because she liked Danielle LaPorte’s site, perspective, and aesthetic, she was always interested in what and who Danielle liked.

Danielle’s recommendation was the cool-woman-seal-of-approval.

That’s how Lianne and I found each other – Danielle was our common point – and now one of my pieces is in Lianne’s new e-book. More importantly, I have a new friend to adore.

And that’s what all this tweeting and blah-blah-blogging is about: we’re building communities and connections around shared ideas and complementary personalities.

If you like me and my world-view, you’ll probably like my friends. You might like the books I recommend. You might find the info-products I buy useful, too. So I’ll tell you who and what I like and I hope you’ll do the same for me.

Groups of like-minded people who lift each other up aren’t new or clandestine.

Isn’t that what we do offline – in business and in life?

Secrets are way too hard to keep (please, don’t tell me yours because I’ll accidentally blog it) and they aren’t safe with social media. The Internet is just a fancy way to gossip.

If you really want to know I’m in cahoots/love with, it is easy to trace the links. Watch my twitter stream and read my blog comments.

Just like Superman, wannabe blog-heroes are changing clothes in the phone booth – which, FYI, is not the most private of places. Blog alliances are an open secret.

One more secret: when I’m chit-chatting with parents, teachers, non-blogging colleagues and potential suitors, I say “I’m a writer” and let Google fill in the blanks.

Then, second meetings are always interesting – for both parties. I find out who was intrigued enough to Google me (which tells me a LOT) and they get to ogle my online moxy and my boots.

Because in my extraordinarily ordinary world(s), tights and knee-high boots are appropriate for any occasion.

Capes and cabals? That’s your call.

Kelly Diels plots World Domination from her secret lair in the wild suburbs outlying Vancouver. She Is A Force Of Nature. Visit her blog Cleavage for the best writing on sex, money and meaning.

Apropos of absolutely nothing at all, did you know: when you’re counting your shoes, boots don’t count. Isn’t that cool? – Dr WordPress
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• Caressing Alien Species, and, a (late) Valentine… Take cover! It’s two Weeks in Review

Post from: Website In A Weekend

Not-So-Secret Blog Alliances – Kelly Diels bares (almost) all

(Reading time: 2 – 3 minutes)

In the last two DIY WordPress articles we examined the basic structure of registering an activation hook for a plugin, and we found out what, exactly, comprises a minimal WordPress plugin.

Next, we’re going to step it up, and show one way plugins built using PHP classes register activation functions.

We’re going to do it with two files, a driver file and a class file. Let’s take a closer look.

Plugin driver file

The driver file:

1. loads the class file;
2. instantiates the class;
3. registers the functions for activation and deactivation (hooks).

Here’s what the code looks like:

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<?php
/*
 * Plugin name: A Class Activator
 */
include dirname(__FILE__).'/class.php';
$myclass = new MyClass();
 
/* Make the class works first */
if (isset($myclass)) {
   register_activation_hook(__FILE__, array($myclass,'activate'));
   register_deactivation_hook(__FILE__, array($myclass, 'deactivate'));
}
?>

Let’s take a look at the class next.

Plugin class file

For this example, the class is simple, just the activate and deactivate function.

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<?php
Class MyClass {
 
   function activate() {
      add_option('a_myclass','Activated');
   }
 
   function deactivate() {
      delete_option('a_myclass');
   }
}
?>

These functions can be named anything you want, say, “foo” and “bar.”

Simple, right?

This isn’t the only viable pattern using classes. There’s many more, experiment a bit, find your own pattern that works.

More plugin activation coming

And stay tuned, because next week concludes this series with a short article giving you three necessary and sufficient conditions for register_activation_hook. It’s easier than you think, and you’ll see why we needed to take a look at how WordPress deals with named plugins last week. Once you understand these three conditions, you won’t have to experiment, you can just design.

As it should be.

If you have any questions, please leave a comment. Alternate techniques? Leave a comment as well. I’ll clean up the formatting if necessary, or just add it in here with a link to your website.

Finally, I’ll give the first person who can guess why I named the plugin “A Class Activator” and the option “a_myclass” an hour of blog post engineering.
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• DIY WordPress: Styling The Author’s Byline In WordPress Journalist Theme In 3 Steps

Post from: Website In A Weekend

WordPress Plugin Activation using PHP classes

(Reading time: 5 – 8 minutes)

Josh Kohlbach found a hole in the Website In A Weekend curriculum: no article about installing themes manually. Granted, the new theme mechanism largely renders this procedure obsolete… but it’s good information to have on hand. If you manage a WordPress site, you should probably learn how to do this – if you don’t already know.

A Simple Guide To Wordpress Theme Installation

-by Josh Kohlbach

This article will take you through the specifics of manual Wordpress theme installation.

So you’ve found the perfect look for your new blog? Great! Now since not all themes can be installed via the Add New Themes button in Wordpress 2.8+ it’s handy to know how to do it the old fashioned way.

Tools

The main tool you’ll need to download for this job is the FileZilla client, a great free FTP client, or an equivalent. This is how we will get your new theme onto the web server so we can choose it in Wordpress.

For simplicity, I’m going to assume you know how to setup FTP with your hosting provider. If not, search their website as they will have information on it in their frequently asked questions and help indexes.

Download And Extract Your Theme

The theme I’m going to demonstrate this with is called Lacenenta. This is a great little free theme that’s got a good administration back end for customizing the look and feel of your site.

Whichever theme you end up choosing, download it to your computer now. It should come in a .zip file compressed to save space and provide a nice little package.

We’re actually after what’s inside the archive to upload to our web server. Unzip the theme’s archive as shown below.

Extract The Theme Archive

Transfer The Theme

Open FileZilla and navigate the left pane to where your extracted theme is stored on your computer. In the right hand pane, navigate to the wp-content/themes/ directory. See the picture below, this is how your FileZilla client should look:

Login to your FTP server

Instead of transferring one file at a time (that would be tedious), transferring the theme is best achieved by going up one directory on the left hand side and left as shown above and clicking and dragging the theme’s directory to the right hand pane. Just drop the directory into the whitespace on the right hand pane and your transfer should start:

Transfer the files

Select Your Manually Installed Theme In Wordpress

Once your transfer is complete you’ve done all the hard work.

Close FileZilla, open a browser window and navigate to your administration panel for your Wordpress website.

Goto the Appearance menu and click on Themes.

Our new theme should be installed and will appear in the available themes section underneath the current theme.

Selecting your new theme

To preview what your theme will look like on your website simply click on the image of the theme, or click on Preview and another window will popup with a mockup of your new theme.

Preview the theme

To activate your new theme and start using it, choose Activate “Your Theme” in the top right hand corner of the preview screen.

Once the activation is complete, navigate your browser to your website’s address and you’ll see your new theme in action!

Check out your blog’s new theme

Conclusion

This is a great skill to have because there are lots of fantastic themes out there, as well as custom designed themes, that aren’t in the Wordpress.org archives.

I hope you’ve enjoyed this quick tutorial on how to manually install a Wordpress theme the old fashioned way.

Josh Kohlbach, is a professional freelance programmer and web designer based in Brisbane, Australia. Josh’s blog Code My Own Road is packed with small business tips and technical tutorials for Do-It-Yourself entrepreneurs.

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Post from: Website In A Weekend

A Simple Guide To Wordpress Theme Installation

(Reading time: 3 – 4 minutes)

Are you tired of blogging? Finally ready to throw in the towel? But all that work you did… you feel ill about all your work going to waste. You don’t want to lose that work! Well, why not find a fast, easy, inexpensive way to keep every word you wrote?

Your writing is solid. Your web pages will gradually increase in value over time, so long as Google can find them when it comes to visit.

I know the temptation is strong, “Just walk away,” people say. Easy for them to say. They don’t have several hundred thousand words poured out of their hearts. And too easy for you.

Just walk away, abandon all your hard work?

No!

Don’t do it…

Years ago, when people wore wool and used things made of wood, clothes were stored with mothballs to prevent being, well, motheaten. Clothes were carefully cleaned, then hung in a closet with mothballs or folded and placed into a cedar chest. (Cedar putting the double whammy down, moths hate cedar too.)

You can do this with your blog as well.

Break from blogging

If you need a break – for any reason – wind down your blog and put it away for awhile. You never know, a few months, or even years later, you just might find your spark blazing again. You will be really glad you didn’t just walk away.

Here’s the backstory.

A blogging acquaintance of mine, S____, who I first met through Yaro Starak’s Membership Mastermind, is taking a leave of absence as a result of a health issue. It’s not a stupendously major health issue, she just needs to reduce her responsibilities and reprioritize. I can definitely relate. Blogging can be extremely consuming, body, mind and soul.

I’ve offered to help her “mothball” her site so that her existing work remains an asset increasing in value, rather than road kill on the Information Superhighway. I would ensure her WordPress is up to date with versions and plugins, ensure her hosting is secure for the next year, get backups run on a monthly schedule, turn comments and pings off, and whatever else needs to be done.

When she is ready to jump back in, everything will be ready to go, and she will pick up where she left off.

Would you like help mothballing your blog?

If you’re about to take a break for a while, let’s help you get “ended” in a powerful way, such that you preserve (or increase) the value of your work, and be able to return to it any time.

I’m game to help up to three people mothball blog over the next three months. I’ll do it for free, fitting it into my schedule as needed. This will also fit into the upcoming Blog Maintenance Month. Once I mothball 3 blogs, I’ll write my experience up as a free Whitepaper. It’s not difficult to wind down a website, and everyone should have this information.

Pass the word!

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• Saturday Morning Surfing: Programming Is “Actionary” Blogging Is “Reactionary”
• Website In A Weekend: Friday Evening – Off to the Races
• Getting started — finding a web hosting provider
• The WordPress 101: I’m in a bind, and you benefit!
• Top 5 Biggest Lies About Blogging for Money

Post from: Website In A Weekend

Don’t Abandon Your Blog! Mothball it to preserve your asset value

(Reading time: 2 – 3 minutes)

Watch over the course of Sunday, March 14 2010, as this article, the very first article published on Website In A Weekend, gets revised and updated. You can help with suggestions and comments.

Did this article appear in your RSS reader, and if so, which RSS reader are you using?

Finding a web hosting provider is the absolute first step for implementing your WordPress web site. You have two choices:

1. Hosted: you allow someone else or a company administer all of the administrative details in return for giving up control of capability and being subject to the host’s business conditions.
2. Self-hosted: you have a high degree of freedom (limited mostly by statute) to use your hosting account for whatever purpose you choose.

If you’re really serious about getting on the web, you’ve probably made the decision to use a self-hosted account. Since you’re here, you have also made the decision to use WordPress as your website technology.

Good choice.

Nearly all web site hosting providers now support WordPress, and most of these all have very easy-to-use installation scripts allowing to install your WordPress web site very quickly and easily.

There are many hosting services, including Siteground, GoDaddy, Dreamhost and Bluehost, but I like Bluehost well enough to give it an unqualified, 100% recommendation and to become a sales affiliate. Bluehost’s terms of service will not allow affiliates to provide any financial incentive, otherwise I would – personally – provide a money-back guarantee for your satisfaction. I feel Bluehost is that reputable. Since I can’t provide such guarantee, here’s both affiliate and non-affiliate links:

• Signup at Bluehost (Help support Website In A Weekend!)
• Signup at Bluehost (WIAW makes no commission).

Choose the link you feel most comfortable using.

You’re free to choose any other hosting service as well. If your choice of hosting services provides a cPanel administrative interface, that’s even better.

After you purchase hosting

Once you purchase hosting, you will get one or emails to:

1. Confirm your purchase.
2. Confirm your administrative username and password.
3. Provide details for FTP accounts and other necessary services.

Save all of these emails! Label or tag them so that you can find them in the future. Print them out if you must, and put them into a folder or a binder.

Ready?

Great, let’s get started installing WordPress.

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Post from: Website In A Weekend

Getting started — finding a web hosting provider

(Reading time: 2 – 4 minutes)

You need a League of Extraordinary Bloggers. People you can look out for, support, and lean on. If you don’t already have a blogging alliance, you need to build one.

So check this out…

I was wading through tall stacks of paper this week, and I found a bunch of articles I printed out last year.

Blogging articles.

I saved these web pages as PDF files, then printed them out.

I don’t print out articles any more. Decided printing was a waste of time. Finding a couple of dozen of these in a stack of old bank statements made me laugh.

But I’m glad I printed out Darren Rowse’s article on building a Secret Blog Alliance. I wasn’t ready for any alliances then, secret or otherwise; I’m game now.

Finding your natural alliance

We all want to work with people we like, but sometimes liking someone is not enough.

Like any relationship, there has to be more.

Here’s the top ten traits to look for in people when building a blogging alliance:

1. Interesting: Nobody wants to read boring junk.
2. Consistent: Blowing in and out like a hurricane makes readers evacuate.
3. Improving: Same old, same old gets stale.
4. Resilient: When they fall down, do they get back up?
5. Marketable: Can they sell themselves?
6. Networkable: Loners aren’t helping themselves, much less you.
7. Product: Do they have something people want to buy?
8. Skilled: Can they do something anything unique?
9. Style: Is there a good personality fit?
10. Direction: Are you moving towards the same goals?

In the end, you have to go with your gut. If someone looks good on paper, but just doesn’t mesh, find someone else.

What’s your secret?

I have to tell the truth here… if I were in a secret blogging alliance, I wouldn’t say one way or another.

So that’s boring.

Let’s talk about you instead.

Are you in a secret blogging alliance? If so, how long, and with whom? Is it working out? Why or why not? How did you build your secret alliance? Was it deliberate, or did it come together organically?

Or maybe you’re not in a secret alliance, maybe your alliance is all out there in the open. Same questions.

For you wonky types, or students, discuss how CommentLuv, DoFollow and good spam control induce self-organizing blogger alliances. Self-organizing blogger alliances is a topic worth at least 3 long articles, and could easily form the basis for a spiffy little Master’s project in MIS… or a senior thesis that absolutely crushes it… I already wrote mine. Who’s game?Similar Posts:

• Not-So-Secret Blog Alliances – Kelly Diels bares (almost) all
• As The Internet Evolves – Anonymity Go Bye Bye
• Blog World Expo Recap: Blogging Success Requires Passion and a Lot of Writing
• Saturday Morning Surfing: Programming Is “Actionary” Blogging Is “Reactionary”
• Consistency – A 7th Characteristic of Trust Building (Everyone can do this)

Post from: Website In A Weekend

Top 10 Traits for Finding Your League of Extraordinary Bloggers – Saturday Morning Surfing

(Reading time: 3 – 5 minutes)

You those people who always seem to get it right, the first time? I know a blogger like that, and his name is Antti Kokkonen.

I first ran across Antti when following up on some material on permalinks. The backstory is the SEO crowd gets better luck with permalinks one way (use keyword-friendly categories), but the performance crowd insists the SEO way is stupid, because looking up named slugs in WordPress takes too many queries (that means it’s slower).

The discussion in the WordPress community seems to hinge around an implementation issue, but it doesn’t look like it’s going to be addressed any time soon.

In any case, Antti did something over the course of two articles which is too rare: he did research, got numbers, and published his data. In fact, he examined the permalink structure for the top 100 blogs. He found that there is no one best way to construct permalinks. Bummer!

In a second article he explains exactly how WordPress handles permalinks. While this second article is a bit more advanced, I recommend it to anyone serious about mastering permalinks. Antti also makes a definite recommendation for permalink structure, and I’ll be changing my permalink structure as a result.

Antti hasn’t posted in a couple of days. I’m getting worried. He’s working on an article on blog post SEO. My guess is it will be epic. Having written a series of articles on WordPress SEO myself, I’m very curious to see how my work compares.

You can follow Antti on twitter as zemalf.

hRecipe donations

Many thanks to these donors for hRecipe development:

• Donation from Anne B. (http://anneonline.com/)
• Donation from Branson Sparks (http://bransonsparks.com/)
• Donation from Lizzy R. (http://mpdcooks.com/)

Week in Review

• Saturday Morning Surfing: Programming Is “Actionary” Blogging Is “Reactionary”. Programming and blogging seem to be hard to do at the same time. What’s your experience? Join the conversation.
• Atahualpa Theme – Pixel Perfection, No Inca Required. Get a feel for the Atahualpa theme, and what it’s like to use for WordPress blogging. Killer guest post from Dave Thackeray.
• DIY WordPress – World’s Shortest Plugin. If you need to know exactly how WordPress handles registering plugins, you need to read this very short, 3 point article. With screencast.
• Maintain Draft Queue with Practical WordPress Tips 1 – 12. These twelve tips will quickly speed you on your way to WordPress mastery. Pick and choose what’s most useful, each tip takes about 5 minutes.
• Carlos Velez Prewriting Throwdown: Blog posts by the pound. Carlos Velez Prewriting Challenge: can you write blog posts in advance? It’s not hard, but it takes commitment. Find out who’s in, and why.

The Week In Review Series

Last WIAW Week in Review

iPhone Blogging – Writing is so last millennium (& the Last Week in Review). Personal dictation is becoming a reality for everyone, talk right into your cell phone. But efficient dictation takes practice. Find out more…

Next WIAW Week in Review

Stay tuned…

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• Pre-Writing Is Your Friend – With Benefits (Part 2)
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• Lurkers, Saboteurs & Gauntlets… it’s Two Weeks in Review!
• Carlos Velez Prewriting Throwdown: Blog posts by the pound

Post from: Website In A Weekend

Antti Kokkonen – When it has to be done right

(Reading time: 14 – 23 minutes)

I’m weighing into Carlos Velez’s prewriting challenge a little over two weeks late.

As it turns out, my challenge isn’t so much the writing, it’s getting everything scheduled correctly.

As a result of this exercise, I’ve adopted a publishing formula which will run on Website In A Weekend through April 12, 2010. No, I don’t have every article written, nor will I by the end. But I will have every day scheduled, with at least an article title and some bullet points.

Normally I schedule in the WordPress “Edit Posts” interface. I like keeping everything in one place. Easier to keep track of it all. In this case, the WordPress interface isn’t nearly powerful enough, so I used a custom, highly modular system allowing me to rapidly change the schedule and the content, and providing external checklisting for the WordPress interface for more than 40 articles.

That sounds pretty cool, doesn’t it?

So, check out my modular system:

Using B5 size paper for scheduling blog posts.

B5 paper.

Awesome, right?

Here’s how it works:

• Top row: each paper is a week.
• Middle row: each paper is a day of a week.
• Bottom left: Specials, partly explained below.
• Bottom right: notes for approximately 6 articles not yet in draft.

I use each piece of paper to cross check the Edit Posts interface, where every post scheduled correctly is in “pending” status.

I can’t imagine attempting this exercise using just a computer. I would need dedicated document scheduling software. Not even a calendar application works. I know this because I use Google Calendar for handling weekly guest posts, and that’s about as much as it can conveniently handle. It’s fine until you have to change dates, then it’s a lot of work.

Paper is easy. Just swap pieces.

Website In A Weekend goals for prewriting

• Get at least one month outlined and in draft, being 1 week ahead when I finish.
• As you will see when I outline the posting schedule, I’m building a sort of “magazine,” with regular features running on regular days.
• Have all the Website In A Weekend ecourse modules scheduled in advance for the next 24 weeks. These are all evergreen, and I intend on round-robin updating each article twice yearly.
• Top secret cool stuff implemented for announcement at the end of the challenge (Hi Gabe.). I don’t know if I will have the energy to accomplish this. We’ll see.

One difference between me and other people in the challenge is that I’ll use my week’s buffer immediately to get some coding done on hRecipe plugin for WordPress.

I’ll also be working hard at getting the next version of Blog Post Engineering released during this time.

The Weekly Website

About here, the scanners are going to drop out. Too much to read. Good bye scanners!

But disclosure is important. Anyone who actually reads through the posting schedule will find out I’ll be starting to sell more stuff on a regular basis. My prediction: Anyone this offends will have bailed out the article by now (too many words).

• Sunday: Repost article from Website In A Weekend course. This is harder than it seems because of how Google reader structures it’s cache. The details are boring, I’ll be posting everything I learn for Weekenders.By the way. I purchased an unlimited license for Wishlist Member. As you may (or may not) recall, newsletter subscribers are grandfathered in. For free. I’m going to charge what the market will bear for the same membership level. I don’t know what that is yet, but it won’t be free.
• Monday: Guest posts, on an unbroken run since early November, not counting the denial of service attack a couple of weeks ago. Topic is more or less wide open, as long as it fits into Website In A Weekend holistically, but I’ve been leaning towards “softer” inspirational or motivational pieces.
• Tuesday: Technical, or DIY WordPress. Boring for most people, Google seems strangely fascinated with terms like “register_activation_hook.” I aim to please. Readers and Search engines. You can set me on “skip” for Tuesday’s if code isn’t your thing.
• Wednesday: Quite likely, I’m going to explain – exactly – how some software or information helped me out, and suggest you consider being helped out in the same way. Using my handy affiliate links, of course.

  I’ve discovered I really enjoy getting money in email. I really like it. I wake up in the morning, and some mysterious stranger has decided to become my customer.

  If you’re one of those mysterious strangers, thank you!

• Thursday: The business aspects of blogging, including time management, scheduling (per this article), account management (yes, Quickbooks), and more. I have a load of stuff stashed on another website that can be rewritten and dropped in. I’m stoked!
• Friday: The non-review week in review. I’m still going to link through the week, that seems to be important for SEO, and it probably helps retain readers. I’ll very likely spotlight a blogger too. We’ll see. These articles get very little traffic, and cost a lot of time to write. No profit there.
• Saturday: The Saturday Morning Surfing will continue. I have a lot of great material stashed for these, some of which is controversial (no partly nekkid ladies though, sorry Anne . However, I might actually be surfing during the morning, so carry on the conversation and I’ll weigh in once I get out of the water.

So that’s what to expect through April 12, 2010. If I miss a day, I won’t be catching up, I’ll just continue where posting left off.

Occasionally you might see two articles in a day, likely a Tuesday or a Wednesday. But we’ll see.

I could be open to guest articles on any particular day, let me know if you have something you think I need.

Who are these people?

I’m not the only inmate in this asylum. Here’s the rest of the crew:

Author: Carlos Velez

Pre-Writing Challenge Page: Conscious Me | A Personal Development Journey

Bio: Carlos Velez is a writer with a full-time job on the side (for now!). He blogs about achieving goals and making change. Carlos’ blog, Conscious Me, allows readers to not only observe a journey to success in progress, but to participate and grow themselves.

Goal: “I normally posts 2 times a week, and many of my articles are 1500+ words, so I will count those as 1 and shorter posts as 1/2 a post. I will have 4-6 posts (depending on length) by the end of the challenge.”

Author:  Justin Matthews

Pre-Writing Challenge Page: Catharsis of the Bogue

Bio:  Justin is a 35 year old stay at home dad. He started blogging in December 2009 to help himself practice writing. In January 2010 Justin decided to get serious and make his little blog something that will make him money. He has been learning and writing ever since. Justin has 3 kids with one due in July. He love fishing and working out with Kettlebells. He also loves to write, saying “It is one of the only things I have ever been really good at. I will have 10 posts by the end of the challenge!”

Goal:  “I normally publish 5 times per week and fiction on saturday.  I have Saturdays taken care of so my goal in the challenge will be 10 posts.”

Name:  Bert Padilla

Pre-Writing Challenge Page: Cite-Technologian

Bio:  Bert Padilla is a 23 year old part-time blogger, blogging about technology, internet, and social media. He has a full-time job at Teradyne, Philippines. He started blogging in late 2008, and finally put up his main blog in March 2009. He also writes articles for Cebu Bloggers Society, a local group in the Philippines geared toward a civic and social awareness.

Goal:  “My average post per week is 5, normally 400-500 words, except for product reviews.  I don’t spend much time on my computer during weekends, so my goal is to post 10-12 articles per week by the end of the challenge.”

Pre-Writing Challenge Page:  Limitless Living – Open Yourself to the Possibilities

Bio:  Megan Potter is a Spiritual and Intuitive Coach and Speaker and strives to be a general, all around inspirer (is that a word?) of people – aka a Muse. And that doesn’t even include all her normal girl jobs! Her blog at Limitless Living is meant to inspire all the normal, everyday women, just like her, to believe that they are really Gorgeous, Brave women who can change the world and live a life with no limits. She’s all about Spirit and Passion and Living Your Purpose with Creativity and Joy; even if she is learning as she goes.

Goal:  “My goal is to post three time a week (one of which is a Meme I’ve been running) so my goal would be six posts plus the ones I have to blog in the interim.”

Updates:

February 26 – I decided that I needed to look at this challenge as the entire 6 weeks of writing (18 posts) rather than just the 2 weeks of pre-writing (6 posts) otherwise I would be so focused on the 6 post topics I’d forget to think of things for the others. So this is where I stand on all of them.

I have, at least, an idea for something like 13-15 of the 18 posts. Three are now in draft format (fully written and linked, waiting for editing and finalizing), and three have either been posted or are already scheduled to post.

I’ve written at least two of the six around midnight when I should be in bed – or at least not working. I just can’t stop writing! Although, I imagine there’s a good chance I’ll crash and burn in about three days  .

Yours,
Megan

Author:  Amanda Farough

Pre-Writing Challenge Page:  Violetminded | Code & Creativity

Bio:  Amanda Farough is a web rock-star, currently peddling her wares in web design and development; in a previous incarnation, she was a bad-ass software developer. Her blog is a smattering of various topics: design, development, literary debauchery, freelancing, tasty creative non-fiction about her life, love letters, and various other bits and bobs of geekery. On her off hours, she designs (and plays) video games, writes novels that may never be published, and dances in the rain.

Goal:  “I’m completely erratic in my posting. This should force me to be a bit more disciplined. Most weeks, I’m anywhere from 1-3 times a week. I’ll shoot for 3 times a week during this challenge.  Goal: 6 posts.  Rock on. Let’s get this party started.”

Pre-Writing Challenge Page:  Bad Deacon Design | Fine Art Woodblock Printmaking

Bio:  Deacon is an artist, a mechanical engineer, and is rather handsome and charming (or so he will tell you). Deacon’s Woodblock Printmaking Studio is in the heart of Downtown San Francisco, blocks from Union Square. He writes about the art he makes and sells, printmaking, and pursuing a career in Fine Art while maintaining a DayJob to pay the bills, and what all that stuff has to do with life.

Goal:  “Well, I usually publish 2 to 3, but I’d like to publish 4 to 5.  Since this is a challenge, we’ll make 9 posts my target.”

Author: Antti Kokkonen

Pre-Writing Challenge Page: The Blog of Antti Kokkonen | Tips, Guides, Reviews and Resources to Help You Unleash the Power of Online Media

Bio: Antti Kokkonen is an IT Specialist by profession, a blogger by heart, from Finland. Antti shares his expertise and enthusiasm for all things online by writing articles, blogging and helping others. Antti has a down-to-earth approach to both his personal and business life. In addition to helping the largest companies in the world to reach better results, he helps people and their businesses to become more effective and more profitable online by focusing on all aspects of online media, including blogging, social media and online marketing.

Goal: “I post 3-4 times a week, so for this challenge I set target at 8.”

Author: Dustin Evenson

Pre-Writing Challenge Page: Professor Budget | Financial Budgeting, Debt Reduction, Wealth Building

Bio: Dustin Evenson considers himself a theologian and philosopher first, and a financial coach second. He knows about the theory and practice of budgeting money, and draws on his experience and knowledge of theology and philosophy to bring this to others.

He wishes to teach through his blog and inspire others.

His blog provides practical information and opinions about budgeting money, debt reduction strategies, and wealth building.

Most articles revolve around simple ideas and practical use.

Dustin would eventually like to comment on budgeting spirituality and philosophy into one’s life through his blog.

Goal: “I normally post three times a week, but want to push towards publishing every weekday, so my goal is 10 posts.”

Author: Aaron Pogue

Pre-Writing Challenge Page: Unstressed Syllables | Writing advice for everyone

Bio: Aaron Pogue is a Technical Writer with the Federal Aviation Administration. He has a degree in Writing and has been working as a Technical Writer since 2002. He’s also a creative writer with nine novels, a dozen short stories, and countless essays and poems under his belt.

Most recently, he’s a writing professor at Oklahoma Christian University where he teaches Technical Writing to a bunch of people who aren’t writers. That experience became the foundation of his website. While Aaron brings decades of training as a writer, he is more and more convinced that everyone can learn to write better, with less effort.

Goal: “I post two articles and two writing exercises every week, so my goal would be eight posts total.”

Author: Eleanor Edwards

Pre-Writing Challenge Page: GiveABrick.com | Give A Brick (i.e. just £1) then ask your friends to do the same

Bio: Eleanor writes for UK registered charity, Give A Brick. Give A Brick think they are the first charity to ask all their friends to give just one brick (£1) and then ask them to ask their friends to do the same. Your £1 will buy bricks (and roof tiles, concrete and slabs) to provide a place for children to play, young people to hang out in safety and older people to meet. All deserve to feel valued and loved. That’s what Give A Brick is about and you make the difference.

At Give A Brick, Eleanor is building an online community of people helping each other out, listening and being listened to. That aspect of Give A Brick doesn’t cost a penny 

Goal: “I normally post twice daily; one a short motivational piece designed to be actioned in about a minute and the other, a slightly longer piece around 500 words in length. Therefore, I’m aiming to pre-write 28 posts by the end of the challenge *gulp* This might be slightly insane but given that these are short posts compared to some, I believe this can be done  ”

Author: Ralph Carlson

Pre-Writing Challenge Page: Ralph Carlson Blog

Bio: Ralph Carlson is on his second blog and just retired for the second time. He has no interest in moving on to number three in either category. The intent of the blog was to establish a web presence for Ralph Carlson. In addition his goals include making money using the web whether that means using his blog or not. “In short,” he says “I don’t know what I am doing but I intend to do it with gusto.”

Goal: “I post 5 times per week for ’serious’ posts and one on Sunday for fun. I intend to double that output for four weeks to provide a one month cushion of posts to refine or give me time to work on other key areas like making money.”

But wait! There’s more…

Stay tuned for Blog Maintenance Month

Some of these same kooks are going to roll right into the next challenge: Blog Maintenance Month. We’re going to systematically work our way through a host of annoying blog chores for 4 weeks. Stuff like:

• Fixing SEO metadata. For our entire blogs.
• Checking broken links.
• Fixing image SEO alts tags.
• Internal linking to tie articles together.
• More. Much, much more. I misplaced my list, but it doesn’t matter, more information is coming.

If, on the vanishingly remote chance you want in, watch for details in a week or two. It will be committing, and it helps to be slightly crazed to even consider attempting it.Similar Posts:

• WIAW Week in Review: September 5 – September 11, 2009
• Distributed Denial of Service Attack is Over – Back in the saddle
• Blog World Expo Recap: Blogging Success Requires Passion and a Lot of Writing
• Pre-Writing Is Your Friend – With Benefits (Part 2)
• Antti Kokkonen – When it has to be done right

Post from: Website In A Weekend

Carlos Velez Prewriting Throwdown: Blog posts by the pound

(Reading time: 3 – 5 minutes)

Learn something new about WordPress in 5 minutes. That’s about as long as each of these practical tips take to learn. That’s I call them practical, they are easy to do.

These tips form a series of articles. Note how each one is linked (you will have to click through). As explained in Blog Post Engineering ebook, each tip also has a specific structure allowing you to grab what you need, quickly.

The Practical WordPress Tips series started way back in mid-2009, so it’s likely many new readers haven’t stumbled across one yet.

If this looks like it might be leading up to sales copy for a future product, let’s just keep those suspicions to ourselves.

1. Practical WordPress Tip #1: Use the “View” link for URL shortcut. Find out how to use the “View” link on your post admin page to rapidly extract URLs useful for linking to your content… which increases search engine ranking!
2. Practical WordPress Tip #2: Make Your Draft Queue Work For You. Find out an easy way to leverage WordPress built-in post editing work for you.
3. Practical WordPress Tip #3: Keep A Few Spare Posts Handy. Keeping a few spare posts handy for emergency situations is slightly different than scheduling in advance. Find out how you can use this technique.
4. Practical WordPress Tip #4: Use inline styling for testing CSS. Use this simple procedure to help you make small changes in your CSS styling… without killing your website.
5. Practical WordPress Tip #5: Keep rough drafts ready to publish at any time. Use these simple techniques to keep your article queue full of easy-to-publish drafts… save time and never run out of material ever again!
6. Practical WordPress Tip #6: Limit word count per post to create article series. Here’s an easy procedure for creating series of articles practically compelling people to return again and again to your website.
7. Practical WordPress Tip #7: Use Redirected URLs to help build traffic. Simple, easy URLs are easy to type and remember, making it easy to promote individual posts and driving traffic. Learn 3 different ways to make simple URLs.
8. Practical WordPress Tip #8: Have your profile URL point to other blog. Drive traffic from one blog to another using different URL’s in your profile. This easy tip explains all.
9. Practical WordPress Tip #9: Use Sitemap page for fast URL. Find out how you can speed up your deep linking chores to help improve your SEO results… get more work done faster!
10. Practical WordPress Tip #10: Rename your modified themes. 4 simple steps to preserve all those little tweaks you put into your customized WordPress theme. It’s easy and you can save your skin with 5 minutes work.
11. Practical WordPress Tip #11: Spot check your posts. Use this Practical WordPress Tip to improve all of your SEO metadata on your blog for getting better search engine results.
12. Practical WordPress Tip #12: Use date ranges to control “Edit Posts” page. Here’s an easy and practical 4 step procedure for better blog post scheduling… key for increasing productivity for dedicated and serious bloggers.

Here’s a complete list of all the Practical WordPress Tips. As noted in Blog Post Engineering ebook, each is tagged with “Practical tips,” so each is stored in a virtual index. Click on the tag, you get them all!

Please leave a comment or three on any of these tips you find useful, and I’d love to have your questions or suggestions as well. Please leave a comment here in any case.

Similar Posts:

• WIAW Week in Review: September 5 – September 11, 2009
• Practical WordPress Tip #17: Use the tail of your Drafts queue for “notes”
• WIAW Week in Review: August 29 – September 4 2009
• Practical WordPress Tip #7: Use Redirected URLs to help build traffic
• Practical WordPress Tip #8: Have your profile URL point to other blog

Post from: Website In A Weekend

Maintain Draft Queue with Practical WordPress Tips 1 – 12

(Reading time: 3 – 4 minutes)

This little article isn’t for everyone, but if you have ever wondered exactly what a WordPress plugin is, it’s for you. Also, I have an ulterior motive for this snappy little article, but you’ll have to wait for a couple of weeks to find out.

The short answer is this:

A WordPress plugin is it’s “Plugin name,” which must be in a file where WordPress can find it when WordPress scans for plugins.

As long as you have at least this, WordPress will activate and register your plugin:

1

<?php /* Plugin name: A Minimal Plugin */ ?>

One line, can’t get any shorter than this.

How WordPress plugins work

1. WordPress scans the plugin directory.
2. Files in the plugin directory are parsed for “Plugin name.”
3. Plugin state is stored in options table

Disclaimer: this is based on 1. common sense, and 2. cursory inspection of the WordPress source code. I’ll be doing more digging later into the scanning and parsing code.

Screencast!!!

Uh, no. Youtube is down. Can’t upload. Can’t link. Bummer. Maybe later.

See how easy that is? Here’s the script:

1. Introduction and explanation of minimal plugin. Why I always seem to have a cold when I make these screencasts is beyond me.
2. The plugin name is “A Minimal Plugin” and it’s located in wp-content/plugins/minimal.php. You’ll see the file name when we look at the active_plugins key in the options table in the WordPress database. In any case, we activate the plugin here.
3. After activating A Minimal Plugin, we take a look at the source code. It’s really just one line, but the WordPress editor reformats for display, something you need to know about if you take on any programming in WordPress. (It’s also intensely annoying and will screw up your escape codes.)
4. Next we examine the options.php page which lists out the keys and values for the options table in the WordPress database. The data containing plugin names is serialized, not shown in this display.
5. Lastly, a quick check of the active_plugins key using an SQL browser shows, indeed, that the minimal.php file name is stored.

In a couple of weeks, I’m going to show you why this is important when you’re building plugins for yourself. (Weekenders are going to get why you should consider building (or having your web team build) your own little plugins too.)

Your turn

Implement this plugin and take a screen shot, I’ll link the first three here:

1. First up is Ricky Buchanan, posting her screenshot example on Skitch. Very cool!
   
   

   Ricky's Minimal Plugin

2. Second isn’t bad… here’s Marshall’s:
   

   Marshall's Minimal Plugin

   Visit Marshall & family at Real Off Grid Living.

3. Third, could be worse.

Seriously, this takes about 5 minutes to do, and you will get something out of it. (deliberate practice)

Similar Posts:

• DIY WordPress: 5 Ways to Speed Up Slow WordPress Blogs
• Install Plugins to Extend Your WordPress Blog’s Functionality
• Technical Tuesday: Another Look at WordPress register_activation_hook
• WordPress Plugin Activation using PHP classes
• Monitoring File Downloads in WordPress Using Drain Hole Plugin

Post from: Website In A Weekend

DIY WordPress – World’s Shortest Plugin