Or, How to Fix that box999.bluehost.com Thing

This tutorial will tell you how to install the Comment Reply Notification plugin on your blog, as well as, how to ensure that when those notifications go out, they indicate the proper FROM email address, rather than whatever the crazy default is.

Things you’ll need:

• 1 self-hosted WordPress blog, regardless of whether it’s hosted by Bluehost, HostGator, whatever
• 1 cup of coffee (because I just like coffee, don’t you?)

Why Use Comment Reply Notification?

Since WordPress does not automatically notify commenters that their comments have been replied to (which is the ONLY reason I ever used Disqus but now that they hijack your blog with their own advertisements, links to other people’s posts, etc., I dropped them like it’s hot.) So I installed a plugin called “Comment Reply Notification”.

Why Do I Need to Do More Than Add the Comment Reply Notification Plugin?

When comment reply notification goes out, it uses the default admin email address from one of your WordPress files, which is whatever your host has decided that “root@localhost” means. Bluehost has decided that it’s the very first domain I set up with them. Which was a stupid test domain (“sactopuz”, if you must know – see? stupid name).

Therefore, the FROM email address that goes out to my readers is something like sactopuz@box242.bluehost.com. Blech! What does that have to do with Sticky Readers? For all I know, my readers totally ignore it, or stomp on it and trash it.

Install Comment Reply Notification Plugin

On Your Dashboard, Click on Plugins, then Add New, then search for “Comment Reply Notification” in the search box. Install the plugin by the author named “denishua” (It will probably be the first one listed). Alternatively, you can download it from the WordPress.org Plugin site.   It may warn you that it hasn’t been updated in 2 years, but it still works.

Configure Plugin Settings

On your WordPress dashboard, go to Settings, then Comment Reply Notification. This is where you can decide how to notify commenters, as well as configure the email text that goes out. Here’s what mine looks like:

Create an email address called wordpress@yourdomain.com.

WordPress will look for this email address and if it doesn’t exist, then you can’t control notifications. I’m not sure if this is just for notifying you whenever you get a comment or if it’s also used when commenters get replies. Regardless, you’ll want this email address set up.

So go create an email address called “wordpress@whateveryourdomainis.com” already!

For example, I created one called wordpress@stickyreaders.com

Modify WordPress mailer php file.

Yes, this means going into your cpanel and editing code – eek! Don’t worry, I’ll hold your hand.

Locate wp-includes/class-phpmailer.php

Here, I’ll show you how I get there:

On my Bluehost cpanel, I scroll down to the Files section and click on File Manager.

Then I select my stickyreaders domain which takes me to my domain directory.

Then I double click on the wp-includes folder.

After opening up the wp-includes folder, scroll down until you find the file called class-phpmailer.php and click on that and then click the edit button.

Modify class-phpmailer.php to use proper email address.

Quick Instructions:

Change the $From and $Sender variables to your email address.

Detailed Instructions:

Scroll down (about 50-70 lines or so) until you find the code that declares the $From variable:

 /**
   * Sets the From email address for the message.
   * @var string
   */
  public $From              = 'root@localhost';

Change the lines for $From, $FromName and $Sender from ‘root@localhost’ or ‘Root User’ or maybe even blanks, to your particular admin email address. For example, my email address is margaret@stickyreaders.com so I changed the lines to this:

  /**   * Sets the From email address for the message.
   * @var string
   */
    public $From              = 'margaret@stickyreaders.com';

  /**
   * Sets the From name of the message.
   * @var string
   */
    public $FromName          = 'Sticky Readers';

  /**
   * Sets the Sender email (Return-Path) of the message.  If not empty,
   * will be sent via -f to sendmail or as 'MAIL FROM' in smtp mode.
   * @var string
   */
  public $Sender            = 'margaret@stickyreaders.com';

I didn’t notice a difference changing the $FromName variable to be honest, but since it was there I changed it and it didn’t break anything, so whatever.

Be sure to save your changes and do a comment and reply test to see if the emails you get come from the right FROM address.

NOTE: You may or may not need reapply the changes to your class-phpmailer.php file when you update/upgrade your WordPress theme. The last time I upgraded (12/14/2012 to WordPress 3.5) I did not have to make those changes.

Good luck!

The post How to Change Admin Email Address on Comment Reply Notifications (WordPress) appeared first on Sticky Readers.

If you’re like me, and you’re probably not because I’m a weirdo, you are constantly flip-flopping on your stance on that whole Whales of War issue. And because of it, every time you start typing something on your iPhone or iPad, you rethink the whole thing and know you’re going to regret what you said so you need to undo it.

Or worse! You have just typed a whole manifesto about why refrigerators belong on every street corner and just like that, you hit one button accidentally and the whole thing disappears – GAHHH – how do you get it back?

Easy.

Three easy steps, actually. Because this is a tutorial and everything should be in steps.

1. Make an undoable mistake

First, make a mistake that you wish you could undo on your iPad or iPhone. (NOTE: This does not include hitting the SEND button.) Let’s say you have just lost your mind and decided to assassinate the President.

2. Shake, shake, shake

Let’s also say that you have come to your senses and decided not to assassinate the President. And you want to UNDO the addition of it to your ToDo list for the Day. You simply shake that device. Shake it like a Polaroid picture.

No, don’t shake it like a Polaroid picture. You might drop it. Shake it more like a rattle. Or in the case of an iPad, shake it like an Etch-a-Sketch. Shake it until you get the option to undo your horrible unpatriotic  mistake.

Here you have the option to undo what you did, or, you can flip-flop and decide that you want to assassinate the President after all by hitting the Cancel button. Your choice.

3. Select Undo or Cancel.

Personally, I think we should hold Apple accountable for allowing people to choose to assassinate the President. Shouldn’t Siri be ratting us out to the Secret Service or something? Don’t they have an app for assassinating the President by now? What kind of company enables this kind of behavior, I mean, really.

So, anyway, regardless of your murderous ways, that is how you undo stuff on your iPhone or iPad.

The post How to Undo Anything on Your iPhone or iPad appeared first on Sticky Readers.

Did you even know you could schedule Facebook posts?

First, you should know that you can schedule Facebook posts on both your personal wall and your admin fan pages, and you can schedule for the future as well as the past. Because who doesn’t want to post stuff in the past so no one will read it, am I right?

Also, while you can schedule down to the minute on your admin pages, you can only schedule a specific day on your personal Facebook wall.

And to quote Montell Jordan, this is how we do it:

Let’s say you want to tell everyone about that new elephant farting video, or perhaps something slightly less gross, a helpful “how to” article. The superquick instructions are to tell you to use the little clock icon to schedule your Facebook posts.

The longer and more thoroughly explained version is here:

Post on Facebook as you normally would

Say something awesome and paste the link of the article you wish to post in that status window. Then look for the clock icon in the lower left corner.

Schedule Your Facebook Post

Click on “Add Year” and select a year.

Schedule your Facebook Post Down to the Minute

Select the future year, month, day, hour and minute of when you’d like your post to appear. It’s kind of a painful process, selecting your post time this way, one unit at a time, but what do you want for free?

Click the “Schedule” button and you’re off to the races. You can always edit your scheduled posts in your activity log (from your Admin panel, click on “Edit Page”, then “Use Activity Log”.

If you hate my instructions, try Facebook’s fabulous How To on this very subject.

One more thing about scheduling Facebook posts is that as you can see, Facebook only allows you to schedule in ten minute increments.

The post How to Schedule Facebook Posts from Facebook appeared first on Sticky Readers.

Did you install anything on your blog to make your site more mobile or tablet friendly? Did you know these tablet friendly tools like OnSwipe could be stealing traffic and page views away from you?

I spent several hours yesterday developing a tutorial explaining how to make your blog tablet friendly, only to discover that these tools, such as OnSwipe and WPTouch were hijacking page views.

And for all I know, creating duplicate content. Yikes!

Maybe you’re okay with someone else stealing your traffic because at least people are reading your content, but the duplicate content thing? That’s a Google penalty.

OnSwipe makes your blog all pretty in a magazine style format but also redirects tablet and mobile devices to their own site to see your content, so you don’t get the page view.

And they don’t tell you that they are doing a redirect. I don’t know about you, but this is something I’d want to know.

The fact that OnSwipe is misleading and sneaky about this whole redirect thing is disturbing. For example, they claim there will be a huge “page view increase”. Yeah, for THEM.  Also, if you use the WordPress plug-in, the browser URL is disguised so that the reader still thinks they are on your site, when in fact, they are not. (And yes, I realize by linking to them, I’m giving them yet another page view).

Maybe they intended this tool for big revenue generating, full-on ad-filled, high-falootin’ online magazines more than us lowly blogs. Maybe I was all starry eyed by the thought of making my blog all tablet friendly without the sidebars and stuff getting in the way of my content. That’s what I get for trying to play with the big boys, I guess.

By the way, you can see this hijacking evidence by looking at your stats. I enabled OnSwipe and visited my site on my tablet and it didn’t show up in StatCounter or Google Analytics. Then I disabled it and visited my site on my tablet and what do you know….it showed up in my stats.

I did the same thing for my mobile friendly tool, WPTouch, and the same thing happened. And this is acceptable why?

I asked OnSwipe about it and haven’t received a response, so what gives?

Here are my two (no wait — three) main gripes to OnSwipe (and anybody who looks and smells like OnSwipe):

• If you are going to redirect page views away from my site onto yours, tell me. And don’t tell me in the fine print. Tell me up front. (This is in case they told me in the fine print.)
• If you do take away my page views, give me some access to a reporting tool THAT I CAN FIND that tells me just how much traffic you are “increasing” for my content.
• Assure your clients that you are not duplicating content which would therefore be penalized by Google.

I tried researching this issue and nobody seems to be talking about this. Am I alone? Or am I just a mutt barking up a pure-bred tree?

Are you concerned about mobile or tablet friendly tools like OnSwipe stealing traffic from your blog? Do you have a better alternative for creating a tablet friendly site? I’d love to hear it.

The post Are Tablet Friendly Tools Like OnSwipe Stealing Traffic From your Site? appeared first on Sticky Readers.

What Is Google Authorship?

Google Authorship tells Google that the blog post you just wrote and published belongs to YOU, not that other guy who is out there scraping and stealing content for their silly auto-botted, keyword stuffed, backlink-riddled piece of fraudulent crap, pardon my French.

Have you been hearing the equation rel=”author” bandied about? Ever noticed people’s pictures appearing on Google search results these days?

That’s because they have implemented Google authorship.

Why Do I Need Google Authorship?

“Need” is such a strong word, don’t you think? It’s also subjective. Maybe you don’t need it. Maybe you don’t need to protect your content from thieves and plagarists. Or maybe you don’t need your profile picture to appear in Google search results. Or maybe you don’t need Google, period.

But, if you do, and you add it soon, you will be ahead of the pack, and don’t you want to be out there leading the way? Many Google search results indicate very little Google authorship happening yet, which means YOURS will stand out from the rest because YOURS will have a picture if you add this little nugget of SEO goodness.

How Do I Add Google Authorship To My Blog?

What You Will Need:

• 1 Google+ profile
• 1 WordPress or Blogger blog
• 1 cup strong coffee (actually, the coffee is for me, not for you. Don’t forget to add cream, no sugar. Thanks, you’re a doll.)

Combine all ingredients into a blender and… nope, wrong recipe…

But seriously, you will need a Google Plus account.

Add profile links to your Google Plus profile

1. Go to the About tab on your Google Plus Profile page and click the Edit Profile button near the top.
2. Click Add Custom Link
3. Add your blog’s About Me page name and URL to the Other Profilessection.
4. Save your changes.
5. Click on the Contributor To section and add a custom link for your main blog URL.
6. You can see where I’ve added these things for Sticky Readers below:

Adding Google Authorship to Your Blog

Add the following link element HTML code to the <HEAD> section of your blog near the top, where you may see other link elements:

<link rel="author" href="https://plus.google.com/YourGoogle+Number/posts"/>

What is YourGoogle+Number? It’s that big ‘ol long number you see in the URL box at the top of your browser when you go to your Google Profile page.

Verify Authorship is Actually Working

Use Google’s Rich Snippets Tool to verify that your changes actually worked. Because, after all that work, if your picture doesn’t come up, that would kind of suck, wouldn’t it?

Enter any URL from your blog, whether it’s the main page, or a specific post, and click the Preview button.

You should get a bunch of happy information including your profile picture and a green message that says: Authorship markup is verified for this page.

Warning: This might not happen immediately. So it’s possible you did something horribly wrong or you have to wait. I will tell you that I had to wait. A few days, actually. Patience is a virtue, they say. Remind me to go smack “they”.

Another way to check is to simply Google the name of your blog, like this:

FAQs

1. Do I have to dig into my HTML code? Isn’t there an easier way?

Why yes. Yes, there is. If you have the WordPress DIY Thesis theme, or if you are using the WordPress SEO plug-in by Yoast. Either way, you still have to modify your Google Plus profile. These steps below replace having to add HTML code in your <HEAD> section.

The WordPress SEO plug-in way:

1.  In your WP Dashboard, click on Users | Your Profile.
2. Add your Google Plus URL in the spot where it says: “Google +”.

The Thesis theme way:

1. Go to Your WordPress Dashboard and click on Thesis | Site Options | Document Head | Additional Scripts, and add that same rel=”author” code:

   <link rel="author" href="https://plus.google.com/YourGoogle+Number/posts"/>

2. I have a Blogger blog and your instructions suck. Can anyone else help me?

I’m sorry you feel that way, but yes, you can try this guy’s instructions for adding Google Authorship to Blogger Blogs.

3. Where did you hear about this fabulous feature?

I have to sing the praises of Dennis Goedegebuure of The Next Corner for pointing this out to me. He held an extensive SEO session at a conference I recently attended and I can’t say enough good things about how helpful he was. He’s also a big proponent of that Yoast WordPress SEO plug-in I mentioned earlier. I would follow him if I were you.

4. Is your Twitter handle really nannygoats?

Yes. Man, you sure ask a lot of questions.

The post How to Add Google Authorship to Your WordPress or Blogger Blog appeared first on Sticky Readers.

One of the things that your blog must absolutely positively must MUST MUST have (in my humble opinion) is ease of access to your social media platforms for your reader. If you have a Facebook page (or a Twitter account or a Pinterest account, etc.), make it super easy for your reader to connect with you on these platforms.

This tutorial explains how to add social media icons to your WordPress header (as opposed to your sidebar)

People out there will come to your blog specifically to follow you on Twitter or whatever, so its imperative that all your connections are out front and up top for them to find you within SECONDS or else you’ve lost that potential connection.

Therefore, you should provide these means of access above the fold on your blog. “Above the fold” means that they don’t have to scroll down to find your Twitter profile. Out front and up top means they don’t have to go to another page to find your Facebook fan page. Or your Pinterest profile. Or whatever.

So let’s get those bad boys on your blog, shall we?

The first thing you need to do is find you some social media icons.

Where to Get Free Social Media Icons

As of press time, this blog is using the Glossy Waxed Wood social media icon set from ICONS, etc. You can shop the whole catalog on their main page. Here is a list of places to shop around (including the one I just mentioned).

ICONS, etc. (these do not currently include Pinterest or Google+)

Standard looking icons from position:relative

Coffee cup icons from Kat’s Cafe

More coffee cup icons from The WordPress Chick

Colorful icons from Carrie Loves

Upload Individual Icons to Your Server

Add each icon to your WordPress Media library and make a note of the URL of each one. To add an icon to your library, select the Media option on your dashboard menu, then Add New. Upload each icon and save. For each icon you upload, copy and paste the URL somewhere so you can copy it again later. You’re going to need it.

The remainder of this tutorial depends on whether or not you use the Thesis theme. If you do, skip down to the next section entitled Add Social Media Icons to Blog Header (Thesis Theme). Otherwise, see the next step entitled ?????

Add Social Media Icons to Blog Header (non-Thesis Theme)

On the left-hand side of your WordPress Dashboard, click on Appearance, then Editor.

The default file that comes up is style.css. If it’s not, select it from the template file list on the right-hand side of your dashboard.

Modify your Stylesheet (style.css)

Add the following css code to the bottom of your style.css file.

#header_icons {     
    float:right; 
    padding-top:5px; 
    width:40px; 
    z-index:-9999; 
    padding-bottom:10px; 
} 

#header_icons img { 
    float:right; 
    height:40px; 
    width:40px; 
    margin:0; 
    margin-left:10px; 
}

SAVE your changes.

Modify Your Header File

Select header.php from the template file list on the right-hand side of your dashboard. Add the following code right after the div id=header tag in the <body> section of the code.

<div id="header_icons">

<a href="https://www.facebook.com/yourfacebookpage" target="_blank">
<img src="http://www.yourdomain.com/wp-content/uploads/your-uploaded-fb-logo.png" width="40px"></a>
<a href="https://twitter.com/yourtwittername" target="_blank">
<img src="http://www.yourdomain.com/wp-content/uploads/your-uploaded-twitter-logo.png" width="40px"></a>
<a href="http://yourrssfeedURL" target="_blank">
<img src="http://www.yourdomain.com/wp-content/uploads/your-uploaded-rssfeed-logo.png" width="40px"></a>
<a href="mailto:you@yourdomain.com" target="_blank">
<img src="http://www.yourdomain.com/wp-content/uploads/your-uploaded-mail-logo.png" width="40px"></a>

</div>

If you have an identifier of “id=branding“  in the header code, insert the above div tag in that branding section.

For example, the Twenty-Eleven theme has a branding section that looks like this:
<body <?php body_class(); ?>>
<div id=”page”>
<header id=”branding” role=”banner”>

Add Social Media Icons to Blog Header  (Thesis Theme):

You’ve just uploaded all the social media icons you need. Now you need to add two bits of code to your custom CSS and functions files:

Modify Your custom CSS File

On your WordPress dashboard, select Thesis, then Custom File Editor. You have a choice of at least 2 files to edit, your CSS file or your custom functions file. Select the CSS file (mine is called custom.css)

Insert the following code into the bottom of your custom CSS file and SAVE your changes.

/*   added  6/16/2012  for social media icons added to header  */
.social {
margin-left:76em;
margin-top: -23em;
}

The first line is a comment and you can put whatever you want in there. Just be sure and keep the slash asterisk delimiters at he beginning and the end (that’s what makes it a comment). I always add comments to every change I make because I will forget why certain code exists where it does.

The margin-left and margin-top values position the icons up and down and left and right. You can play with the numbers to move it around until they are where you want them to be.

Be sure and SAVE your changes

Modify your Custom Functions File

Now in that same Thesis Custom File Editor, select the custom_functions.php and “edit the selected file”.

NOTE: Be super D duper careful while editing this file. An error could cause your site to blow up. Not to scare you or anything. But pay attention to that warning they give you when you go into this file. The life you save could be your own.

Add code to the bottom of this file that looks a lot like the following, only with YOUR information.

/*  Add social media icons to header  */
 function social_icons() {
 ?>
<div class="social">
<a href="https://www.facebook.com/yourfacebookpage" target="_blank">
<img src="http://www.yourdomain.com/wp-content/uploads/your-uploaded-fb-logo.png" width="40px"></a>
<a href="https://twitter.com/yourtwittername" target="_blank">
<img src="http://www.yourdomain.com/wp-content/uploads/your-uploaded-twitter-logo.png" width="40px"></a>
<a href="http://yourrssfeedURL" target="_blank">
<img src="http://www.yourdomain.com/wp-content/uploads/your-uploaded-rssfeed-logo.png" width="40px"></a>
<a href="mailto:you@yourdomain.com" target="_blank">
<img src="http://www.yourdomain.com/wp-content/uploads/your-uploaded-mail-logo.png" width="40px"></a>
</div>
 <?php
 }
add_action('thesis_hook_header', 'social_icons');

You’ll need to customize this code to fit your situation. You’ll only need to change the lines that contain the href and img tags. Change the href= values to the desintation URL where you want your reader to be taken when they click on the icon. Change the corresponding src= values to the URL of each social media icon you uploaded to your server. You can also change the width= values if your logos appear too big or too small.

The above code inserts icons for Facebook, Twitter, RSS Feed and email. If you want to see what my specific href code looks like, it’s this:

The post WordPress: How to Add Social Media Icons to Your Blog Header appeared first on Sticky Readers.

Blogger calls it a “jump break”. WordPress calls it the “more tag”. Potayto, potahto.

Maybe you don’t want your whole article taking up all that precious real estate on your front page. Maybe you think you get an extra page view if you make your readers click to another page. I don’t know that that’s true, but whatever the reason, here’s how to add that “read more” thing to your blog posts:

Creating a More Tag in WordPress

On your WordPress dashboard, put your cursor where you want the “read more” text to go and click on the Insert More Tag button (or click Alt + Shift + T).

Easy, right?

You can also add the following HTML code if you are in HTML mode

<!--more-->

Creating a Jump Break in Blogger

On your Blogger dashboard, put your cursor where you want the “Read more” text to go and click on the Insert More Tag button (or click Alt + Shift + T).

You can also add the following HTML code if you are in HTML mode

<!--more-->

Jump Break not working on Blogger?

If simply using the “jump break” button on Blogger does not work, it may be that you are using an older template or that you’ve mucked around too much in your template HTML and need to reset your template, as described on The Real Blogger Status, or you can scream for help in the “Something is Broken” Google forum.

I tried it on an old Blogger blog of mine and it didn’t work (the blog is over 5 years old and so is the template that I probably futzed around with). So I created a brand new test Blogger blog (called Paradigms and Nickels), using the “Simple” template and it worked fabulously.

Creating a More Tag via HTML

You can create a more tag on any blogging platform by going into the HTML of the post and inserting the following HTML code wherever you want your post to break and jump to another page:

<!--more-->

The post How to Add That ‘Read More’ Thing to Your Blog (WordPress, Blogger, HTML) appeared first on Sticky Readers.

There are millions of blogs out there on the internets. Which means that there are billions more to be made, if everybody wanted one. Which means some of you haven’t created a blog yet. It’s really easy. Here’s how:

WordPress.com offers a free platform for you to create a blog. Free means you don’t have to pay for hosting and you don’t have to pay for your own custom domain name. WordPress hosts your blog, which means your blogs resides on wordpress.com. They also provide you with a domain name that includes “wordpress.com” in the URL.

To have a WordPress blog, you must have a WordPress account, so the first thing you need to do is register one.

Register for a WordPress Account

Go to the WordPress signup page to register. You’ll need to already have in mind what your blog URL will be. For example, I’m going to create a blog called Paradigms and Nickels. So when it asks me what my blog address will be, I’ll say “paradigmsandnickels”.

Your blog NAME and your blog URL do not have to be the same. I could just as easily have picked “whatupcuz” and still called my blog Paradigms and Nickels. Your blog URL has to be unique from the rest of all the other WordPress blogs. Your blog NAME (aka blog TITLE) does not.

My username is nannygoats. You cannot pick nannygoats as your username. Pick something else and fill the rest of the information out. Click the CREATE BLOG button at the bottom. They’ll tell you to check your email to activate your account. Click the ACTIVATE BLOG button in the email. This will take you to the site where you can choose a theme. After you choose a theme, your WordPress dashboard will appear.

All manners of help and support will appear before your eyes the first time you hit your dashboard, but my goodness where do you begin? Feel free to tour around and learn, but here are a few basic things you probably want to do and know:

Set Up Your WordPress Profile

On your dashboard menu (on the left-hand side), click on Settings, then General.

Enter or change your Site Title. Add/change the tagline if you wish. Verify your email address. You can upload a blog picture that will be used as your icon whenever you’re logged into your wordpress.com account. Select your timezone. Save your changes.

How to Toggle between your Blog and Your Dashboard

At any time you can switch between your dashboard and your blog. To go to your blog, click on your blogs name in the upper left hand corner. To go back to your dashboard, hover over your blog name in the upper left-hand corner and click on Dashboard.

Here is what your blog might look like right now:

As you can see, I haven’t changed the tagline. So I’m going back to my General, Settings page and changing it to “money, money, money”.

You may want to insert your own header image and get rid of that sample Hello World post, right? Let’s do that.

Go back to your dashboard (you know how to do that, right? Hover over your blog name in upper left hand corner and click Dashboard)

Add Your Own Blog Header Image

On your dashboard, hover over Appearance and select Header

Ideally, you’re going to want an image that’s 1000 pixels wide and 288 pixels high. Or at least as close as possible to that. You can crop an image to that size before you upload, or WordPress will allow you to crop it afterward. Click on the Browse button to get the image from your computer and click Upload.

Crop as needed and click the Crop and Publish button

You can view your modified blog by clicking on your blog name at the top.

Now let’s get rid of that sample Hello World post.

Remove Sample Hello World Post and Create Your Own

On your WordPress dashboard, select Posts (in the left-hand sidebar). One sample post called “Hello World!” will appear. If you hover near that title, other options will appear, click on the Trash option to remove it.

Create your very own first post by clicking Add New under “Posts” in the left-hand sidebar.

Enter a title, such as “Money is the Root of All Evil”.  Enter your blog post text in the big box below it. At any time if you want to see what it would look like on your blog without publishing it, click the Save Draft Button, then click the Preview button. Get in the habit of clicking on the Save Draft button periodically. Your sanity will thank you for it. When you’re ready for the whole world to see what you have to say, click the Publish button.

WordPress Posts vs Pages

WordPress allows you to creates blog posts, which appear in reverse chronological order on your website. You can also create pages, which do not appear in your blog feed, but can be accessed with their own URLs separately, often times via a menu.

WordPress has established one example page to begin with, your About page. You probably want to change that since it’s already on your blog’s menu and isn’t really about you or your blog.

Change Your About Page

On your dashboard, Select Pages, then All Pages. This will display all your pages. You only have one so far. Your About Page. Hover over the title “About” and select Edit.

Change the About text to be more about you and your blog and less about example about pages. Don’t forget to save it and view your blog’s about page.

Ta Da! You’ve got yerself a blog.

Before you go celebrate, make sure to bookmark your Admin Dashboard page, so you know where to come the next time you’re inspired to write your second blog post. The URL will be your blog’s domain plus “/wp-admin.” So if your blog URL is moneymoneymoney, then your blog’s admin Dashboard would be http://moneymoneymoney.wordpress.com/wp-admin. Your blog itself would be http://moneymoneymoney.wordpress.com. Alternatively, you can simply login to wordpress.com and get to your blog and dashboard from there.

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Here we show you how and where to get public domain photos legitimately without having to worry about copyright infringement.

There is so much highway robbery and plagarism and thievery and a whole bunch of other negative nouns to describe copyright infringement when it comes to blog post photos. However, you can use other people’s photos, as long as you do it legally. There is a right way to use other people’s photos and there is a wrong way.

Non Public Domain Photos: The Wrong Way to Steal Images for Your Site

Grabbing any image you see and like on the internet and plopping it into your blog post without any attribution to the original photographer whatsoever. Not cool. Use public domain photos. Or your own.

Public Domain Photos: The Right Ways to Steal Images for your Site.

1. Get Permission

This means when you see a photo you like, you ask the author of that blog post if you may use it on your website and that you will “attribute” them, meaning, you will give them credit as the image source and link back to them.

2. Use Images that are in the Public Domain

How do you know if images are in the public domain? You search sites that are specifically dedicated to warehousing public domain images. Here are a few places you can go:

List of Public Domain Photo Resources

Note: If you’re not sure about how to credit photos, check the individual website’s policy (try their About page). At a minimum, say “Image Source:” followed by a link back to the page where you got it.

Every Stock Photo

A search engine for free photos. These come from many sources and are license-specific. Click the license tab or icon to determine how you are allowed to use it.

NASA Images

The NASA Images site contains everything from classic photos to educational programming and HD video. In general their content is not under copyright and so can be used without express permission. I got the above photo from NASA and gave credit according to their About page.

National Oceanic & Atmospheric Association

You can get images of tornados, hurricanes, ocean creatures and other fun stuff from here. Most of the 32,000+ photos in the The NOAA Photo Library are in the public domain and cannot be copyrighted. Credit must be given to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration/Department of Commerce.  Where a photographer is noted, please credit the photographer and his/her affiliated organization as well.

Morgue File

Morgue File is a public image resource (aka FREE!) for creatives by creatives. Donate your own photos while you’re there.

Open Clip Art Library

This is a great resource for those little cartoony illustrations when you need one. The Open Clipart Library (OCAL) is the Largest Collaboration Community that creates, shares and remixes clipart. All clipart is released to the public domain and may be used in any project for free and with no restrictions.

Wikimedia Commons

A database of 13,000,000+ (that’s 13 million!) freely usable images. Wow! The USA’s National Archives and Records Administration has contributed over 100,000 historical photographs and documents from its archives.

New York Public Library

Great for finding vintage photos, the NYPL Digital Gallery provides free and open access to over 800,000 images digitized from the The New York Public Library’s vast collections, including illuminated manuscripts, historical maps, vintage posters, rare prints, photographs and more.

U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s National Digital Library is a searchable collection of selected images, historical artifacts, audio clips, publications, and video and that are in the public domain. You are free to use them as you wish – no permission is necessary. They do ask that you please give credit to the photographer or creator and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

Flickr.com

Flickr has many photos that are okay to use, but to save yourself some grief and time, look for those that are under the Creative Commons license. It’s not strictly “public domain”, but you can use them with little restriction. After you enter your search terms and hit enter, there will be a results page with a link to “advanced search”. Click that link.

On the Advanced Search screen, scroll down to the bottom, check the Creative Commons checkbox and click the SEARCH button.

Select a picture and verify how you can use the photo by clicking on the link under “License” in the right side bar.

This will tell you what you are allowed to do with the photo, whether attribution is required, etc.

For an excruciatingly long list of public domain image sources, go to the Wikipedia Public Domain Image Resource Page.

(Image Source: NASA)

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Having a “mobile-friendly” site simply means that your blog has been configured to appear differently on mobile devices. Better, theoretically. For example, a mobile format won’t have all your fancy schmancy banners and sidebars and such.  If your site is mobile friendly it is easier to read and easier on the eyes. Making your site mobile-friendly will not affect how your blog continues to look on a full size computer screen.

This tutorial shows you how to make your blog mobile friendly through the use of a plug in so that it is easier to read on mobile devices.

Here’s a screen shot of this blog on a mobile device before going mobile friendly.

See how it’s just a miniature version of the web page with teeny tiny teensy weensy letters? How are people supposed to be able to read that?

Here it is after going mobile friendly.

It’s a simpler, easier to navigate, and easier to read format.

How to Make Your Blog Mobile Friendly

To make your blog mobile friendly, just install the WPTouch plug-in, which can be found here, or you can install it from your WordPress dashboard by searching for “wptouch”.

Not sure how to do that? Read on.

How to Install the WPTouch WordPress plug-in

In your WordPress Dashboard, highlight Plugins and click on Add New.

This will take you to a page for you to search the plug in database. Enter wptouch, and click Search Plugins.

This will take you to a list of plugins, WPtouch is probably listed first. Click on Install Now for WPtouch.

This will install the WPtouch plugin on your site.

Click the “Activate Plugin” link.

Now, if you go to your mobile device, you will see your blog in the WPtouch mobile friendly format.

Ta Da!  How easy was that?

There are also different options and settings regarding WPtouch if you wish to customize it a bit rather than settle for the default options. You can access these settings in one of two ways from your WordPress Dashboard:

1. Go to Plugins (on the left-hand side of your dashboard), then Installed Plugins, go to WPtouch and click on “settings”.

2. Go to Settings (on the left-hand side of your dashboard), then WPtouch.

(Top photo was modified by me from this original source via this CC license)

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