Welcome to another edition of Around The Community. Today’s post features tips and tricks, snippets and hacks, all about WordPress. A great guide on WordPress and Facebook, some freebies and how to make the most out of your spare time. Enjoy the links!
If you install, move, add WordPress Themes, Plugins, or just rearrange things on your server, you are going to run into the challenges associated with file permissions with WordPress. If you are concerned about security, protection from hackers, viruses, and other evil, get familiar with file permissions in WordPress.
In general, file permissions are variables set on server files to control access and usage of the file for individuals, browsers, code, and programs. Consider them the firewalls to your WordPress website, dictating who can do what with each file and folder.
All these folder and files permissions can be confusing in WordPress. Recently, I had a site offline for three hours, going through a variety of tests to figure out what was causing the problem. It boiled down to a single folder being set to the wrong permissions. I had to go through every file and folder to figure out which one was set wrong, so take care when changing file permissions. Read more…
With the brand new Jetpack, Automattic is bringing more WordPress.com features to WordPress.org self-hosted blogs than ever before.
Currently, eight popular WordPress.com features are being offered for free, with more free and paid options coming soon. Let’s take an in-depth look at what you get with Jetpack. Read more…
Reports from around the world show few issues with upgrading to WordPress 3.1, and fewer than previous releases. This is fantastic and kudos to the WordPress Development Team for taking the extra time to test this release throughly.
However, due to the multitude of complex installations, server configurations, and WordPress Plugins and Themes in the wild, there will be issues.
Ipstenu has started the Troubleshooting WordPress 3.1 – Master List on the WordPress Support Forums. It is a list of how to resolve issues you may encounter with the WordPress 3.1 upgrade.
Here is a quick overview of some of the issues, explained more fully in the WordPress 3.1 – Master List, and from other resources we’ve found.
Remember, BACKUP FIRST. And if you have a cache Plugin installed, clear the cache first and consider turning it off during the process to keep things clean and fresh. You can re-enable it afterwards. Read more…
As blogs continue to shift from text-only articles to multimedia publications, alternate display options for video, audio, pictures and other types of content are becoming more important than ever. Sites like Tumblr led the charge, allowing users to select what kind of content they were publishing to format the articles appropriately. Now, the same functionality is available in your own WordPress blog.
As of version 3.1, WordPress includes post formats, which gives users this flexibility. In this tutorial, we’ll take you step-by-step through the use of WordPress Post Formats, and how to get started with them on your WordPress site.
WordPress 3.1 is here, bringing the much anticipated “post formats” option to sites around the world. You will now be able to specify what type of content you want to publish whether it be a standard text article, image, video, audio clip, quote, link, and more.
Get excited. This will not only increase the functionality of publishing posts, it will revitalize the entire WordPress Theme community.
Here at WordCast, we couldn’t wait to show off some of the innovative ideas that designers around the web have come up with. We’ve compiled a showcase of designs for WordPress and Tumblr that are taking advantage of post formats in unique ways. While many aren’t yet using the extremely new post formats feature, their ideas will apply beautifully. Read more…
The more content you write, the more you find yourself repeating things you’ve already said. Bloggers are constantly linking back to published posts for reference and backstory for readers. It’s always been a time-consuming experience, hunting within the WordPress administration interface, or Googling around to find your own content.
WordPress bloggers rejoice! Gone is the painful and time consuming experience. No more the hunt for old posts. WordPress 3.1 now includes internal linking, making it easy to cite those references to posts of old. Read more…
One of the most common laments of WordPress bloggers around the world we hear at WordCast is how annoying it is to embed videos from YouTube, Vimeo and other web video sharing sites.
By default, a YouTube embed code looks a little something like this:
<object width="640" height="390"> <param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/C9NnpyOdYlU?fs=1&hl=en_US"></param> <param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param> <embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/C9NnpyOdYlU?fs=1&hl=en_US" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="640" height="390"> </embed></object>
Notice the set width and height that may or may not fit the WordPress theme in use. Also, the complex code can easily get garbled in the embed process. However, there’s a much simpler way. Read more…
WordPress superstar Joost de Valk released an infographic that explains the entire anatomy of a WordPress theme.
Explaining the header, loop, sidebar, footer, loop and every file inside a WordPress theme, there is now no excuse not to get your hands dirty and create that first WordPress theme that you have been wanting to create since 2005.
The loop is perhaps the most powerful part of your WordPress them. If starts with a query (which determines which posts or pages to grab), and ends with a php “endwhile” statement. Everything in between is up to you. You can specify the output of titles, post content, metadata, custom fields, and commenting all within the loop, and each element is output for each post or page until the query is done. You can set up multiple loops and queries on a single page; for example: on a sing.php you could have the loop showing the entire content of a single post with a loop outputting just titles and thumbnails for related posts below it.
Inspired and ready to create your own WordPress Themes? Use WordCast’s Theme Header Creator to get a head start.
UPDATE: The top Trending Topics for Twitter now features Yoast De Valk’s Infographic called How WordPress Themes Really Work as “WordPress Themes Actually.”
In late 2005, 21 year-old Texas native Matt Mullenweg left CNET Networks to start working on WordPress full-time, eventually starting Automattic, the company behind various Internet properties such as WordPress.com, Akismet, Gravatar, bbPress, IntenseDebate, BuddyPress and more.
Fast forward to early 2011 and the humble WordPress platform now powers a staggering number of websites, content management systems and blogs all over the world, touching on so many lives and empowering millions of people with a voice, and a platform to enable themselves to get heard.
WordPress is a part of who I am. Like eating, breathing, music, I can’t not work on WordPress. The project touches a lot of people, something I’ve recently begun to appreciate. I consider myself very lucky to be able to work on something I love so much. – Matt Mullenweg
WordPress founding developer Matt Mullenweg celebrates his 27th birthday today and the team here at WordCast sends Matt a gigantic happy birthday with many happy returns of the day.
All the best Matt and we wish for you an incredible 2011!
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Managing File Permissions in WordPress 
Django Reinhardt: A Look Behind the Namesake of WordPress 3.1 
WordPress Post Formats Tutorial: Add Tumblr Style Features To Your Blog with WordPress 3.1 
How to Import Text Into WordPress 
Mandatory Security Update: WordPress 3.0.4 California Bans Online Impersonations 
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