learn how to use WordPress

This just isn’t as important as I thought :)

I dumped Blogger and am now at my own domain using WordPress.

Well, I wouldn’t say I’m actually using WordPress… heh ;)

In any case, I’m on the hunt for very visually-based WP tutorials. My best friend has been very sweetly allowing me to lean on her genius, but I don’t know when she’s going to get sick of me. I’m starting with these: http://www.ohmystinkinheck.com/category/wordpress-wednesdays/

well…this isn’t actually done yet, but i do have enough skill now to do most of what i want to do. i supposed i could make a separate entry for mastering wordpress. a separate goal i already have is creating my own wordpress template. i haven’t done that yet, but i’m on my way.

this could be going better. i screwed up one of my sites the other day. i had to reinstall. now i have to figure out how to transfer a database backup from another site into the re-install for this site. oy. i have no idea how to correct the links in the backup so that i can integrate the backup into the re-install of this other site.

i’ve been using wordpress for about a year now. i’ve learned to do a lot with it, but there’s a lot more that i’d like to learn to do. for example, i’d like to eventually be able to write my own template from scratch. that means learning a bit more php and a lot more about wordpress.

i have ‘create a wordpress template’ as a separate goal, but these two goals are closely tied together.

I’d wanted to learn about PHP and MySQL as well, since I used to use the old “web 1.0” technologies like Perl, CGI, JavaScript (not AJAX).

Not only is WordPress a nice package for blogging, it makes it easier to learn a little CSS, PHP, and MySQL. Some people feel there are now a bunch of cookie cutter looking sites out there based on the popular blog tools. The thing they forgot or never knew is how ugly these same sort of sites were back in the day, about 10 years ago. At least if you have a cookie cutter Theme, your site is probably not butt ugly, and CSS is making it faster, too.

Some other goals: Ruby on Rails, start using Drupal, AJAX, make a mash-up, find some good free, open source e-commerce packages and use those.

I have enjoyed Wordpress very much. Is is actually fairly easy to set up, and even easier to use. The best way to start with it would be with http://wordpress.com, where you can open a free account. Later on, once you cath the drift of things, you can move to your own server. But that is a different goal…

I’ve set up a Wordpress blog for my Distributed Action Research project and I’m pleased with it so far. I particularly like the dynamic link list and the ability to have sub-tags.
Problems to be resolved:
Blogging direct from flickr and 43things.

Another thing I’ve learned is that when you set a password for a page, if people try to visit without cookies enabled, they can’t get in even after entering the correct password.

That seems to be a faulty approach taken by wordpress, to insist on write access to somebody’s computer just for a one-off visit. I’d like to find out how to modify the installation to not do this.

It’s more organized than Blogger. I got a lot of help from my community host so the move was easy for me!