WordPress

Learn WordPress.com

learnwp

WordPress is a great bit of software, and by far the easiest way to get up and running with it is to use the usually free hosted version at WordPress.com.

It’s even easier to get started than ever, with Learn WordPress.com – a cool new site taking you through all the features in 10 simple lessons.

I am sorely tempted to switch this blog over to WordPress.com myself. Currently I self hosted, meaning I downloaded the files from WordPress.org, paid for some web hosting, installed the software and then added all the plugins and themes I wanted.

I’ve done this for the last five years, but over that time WP has become more and more complicated and a bigger challenge to keep on top of. Hosting your own site is still worth it if you are desperate for a stylish custom template, or a load of cool functionality. But to be honest, DavePress is just a blog, and so could easily be hosted at WordPress.com.

I’ll let you know what I decide!

Look and feel

If you visit this site in a browser, rather than just getting the content via your RSS reader, you’ll notice it looks a bit different. I have reverted the site to the new default theme for WordPress whilst I figure out how I want the site to look in the future.

Previously I was using the Thesis theme for this site. However, various issues, neatly encapsulated in this post, mean I don’t feel terribly comfortable with that choice any more.

Hopefully I will have something permanent sorted out soon enough.

Update: this is another good summary of the situation.

WordPress 2.9

Bit of a late one this, but WordPress 2.9 came out before Christmas. Well worth the upgrade – especially for the image handling stuff and the ease of embedding flash content like YouTube videos.

More information in this video:

WP Sauce

I threw this together this morning, it’s called WP Sauce:

WP Sauce

It simply pulls together the stuff people are bookmarking in Delicious about WordPress.

I have added pretty much zero value to this, however, all the hard work was done by Steph and released by his department for folk to use. The script is called Bookmarklist.

The best way to use the site is to dig down in the results with the tag cloud in the top right of the screen. So, if it is WordPress themes you are after, just click themes in the tag cloud. Likewise with plugins, or maybe tutorial.

Hopefully this will be a useful resource, not least because it will keep itself updated more or less automatically. After all, no-one’s going to stop bookmarking WordPress stuff for a while, are they?

Upgrading WordPress

With the release of WordPress 2.7.1, I realised it is about time I upgraded this blog to the latest version – not least since having played with it on some other sites I work on, I have realised how awesome it is.

I’ll be following the excellent instructions provided on the WordPress codex.

Things might be screwy round here for a little while as I get everything reconfigured. Bear with me.

Load more posts!