So you'd like to try the full version of WordPress but don't want to commit to paying hosting fees until you've actually gotten your hands dirty. Why not install WordPress on your computer? There are several reasons you might want to do this aside from the aforementioned such as maintaining a fully functional backup of your live blog or creating a development and testing environment. WordPress is not... continue reading
A question I see pop up from time to time in the WordPress Support Forum is how do I stop people from viewing my plugins folder? There are several ways to go about this - all of them easy. The first method involves placing an empty index.HTML file in EACH folder you want to protect. If you prefer you can include a brief message in that file rather than using a blank one. Two important things to remember... continue reading
As I mentioned in a previous post the popularity of magazine-style themes appears to be growing by leaps and bounds. And for good reason. The main advantage of this type of theme is the layout. A blogmaster can display his content in various blocks throughout the page as opposed to the standard blog format which displays content in chronological order. So I thought I would showcase (in alphabetical... continue reading
Magazine-style WordPress themes seem to be the latest craze spreading throughout the community and why not? Instead of presenting your posts in the standard blog format (chronological order) you can pick and choose which sections to display and how many entries from each section. Most if not all magazine-style themes contain a "featured" section or some such thing highlighting a post from a category... continue reading
A recent visitor to the WordPress Support Forum asked if is possible to increase the length of excerpts when using the the_excerpt tag. Yes it is. The default value is set to 55. The file that controls this is located at wp-includes/formatting.php. Look for excerpt_length and adjust accordingly. Having said that altering core files is never a good idea unless you know what you're doing. A better option... continue reading
