If you host your own WordPress blog, it is important to make sure you have the latest security updates installed and also to make sure you maintain a fairly tidy backend. The reason is simple: performance and data integrity. For a few plugins that can help with this, check out this article. Outside of the automatic update and backup (very cool), these plugins...

If you are looking to deploy a professional looking website quickly, then the way to go is using an established template based web platform such as Joomla or WordPress (just to name a few). The reason is simple, these platforms have established developers and graphic designers which produce high quality, ready to use templates. Plugging one of these into your...

Whenever a platform is widely used, it is a big target for attacks. Take Windows, it is by far the most widely used OS so it makes sense there are more attacks on it than anything else. The same holds true for browsers and web platforms. So for those of you who use the popular WordPress platform for your blog, security should be a consideration. To help with...

If you have a blog, you have probably gathered that posting consistently and predictably is very important for maintaining your reader base. To help accomplish this, one thing you can do is schedule your posts to publish at a specific time. Even though you may enter several different posts at once, they will not become available on your site until the time you...

OK, this is a bit of a technical post, but one which will come in handy for somebody down the road. Windows Live Writer is, so far, the best blog client I have found for either Mac or Windows. If you are running Windows and are a blogger, I highly recommend you download Live Writer. It is a freebie.One of the things Live Writer will do is detect your...

On Day 6, I talked about using social media as the spokes of a wheel and at the center of that wheel is your blog.The fact that I made a blog the hub of the wheel should tell you that, yes, the blog is important. Even if your business centers around an online ecommerce store, you should still have a blog. Why? As I also said in Day 6, anonymity and impersonal...

There is an old saying: “If you build it, they will come”. Well, that is just plain NOT TRUE when it comes to a website. It takes work to get people to your website. The good news is that a blog is an ideal platform for promoting and, just by having a blog, you’re already on your way. In this video, I’ll give you 10 tips to start driving...

Simply put: You’re going to want some plug-ins on your blog. A plug-in is your way to extend the functionality of WordPress beyond that it can do “out of the box”. Plug-ins are what make WordPress such an awesome platform to run your website on. In this video, I’ll show you how to install a plug-in. I will also present you 10 plug-ins...

OK, time to get a bit more technical. In order to customize your WordPress theme, you will need to understand enough PHP to do a few basic things. WordPress (and the themes it uses) are entirely based on the PHP scripting language. In this video, I will show you some basic PHP – concentrating on those concepts you’ll need most often in your WordPress...

In order to make any changes to your WordPress theme, you’re going to need to understand the basic structure of your theme. In this video, I will show you how your theme is put together and which file goes to what. Video Length: 10:42 [hidepost=1] [flv:http://pcmech.s3.amazonaws.com/wordpress/wordpress8.flv 610 366] [/hidepost] [hidepost=2] Download Now To...

Permalinks are the structure of the web addresses used to access pages and posts on your blog. It is usually best to modify these from the default for search engine purposes. In this video, I’ll show you how to do that. Video Length: 8:18 [hidepost=1] [flv:http://pcmech.s3.amazonaws.com/wordpress/wordpress7.flv 610 366] [/hidepost] [hidepost=2] Download...

In this video, I will walk you through the various settings and configuration options available to you in WordPress. Video Length: 17:17 [hidepost=1] [flv:http://pcmech.s3.amazonaws.com/wordpress/wordpress6.flv 610 366] [/hidepost] [hidepost=2] Download Now To download, right-click the link above and choose “Save Link...

When you make a blog post, you will be organizing them using categories and tags. There is a difference between a category and a tag. In this video, I’ll explain the difference and show you why you might want to use both. Video Length: 10:48 [hidepost=1] [flv:http://pcmech.s3.amazonaws.com/wordpress/wordpress5.flv 610 366] [/hidepost] [hidepost=2] Download...

Now that we have WordPress installed and a theme set up, it is time to start actually using WordPress. In this video, I’ll give you the basics. Video Length: 14:14 [hidepost=1] [flv:http://pcmech.s3.amazonaws.com/wordpress/wordpress4.flv 610 366] [/hidepost] [hidepost=2] Download Now To download, right-click the link above and choose “Save Link...

Your WordPress theme is going to be the design of your website. There are LOADS of free and very nice WordPress themes available for your new blog, but you need to know how to install them to your blog. In this video, I will show you were to find a theme for your site and how to install it to your blog. Video Length:...

In this video (and the first part of our series), I will introduce the concept of a blog and why it matters. Video length: 8:37 [hidepost=1] [flv:http://pcmech.s3.amazonaws.com/wordpress/wordpress11.flv 610 366] [/hidepost] [hidepost=2] Download Now To download, right-click the link above and choose “Save Link...

People see PCMech.com and sometimes wonder what is the “engine” behind the magic, so to speak. Well, it’s no secret that PCMech uses WordPress. If you were thinking about trying WordPress for yourself there are completely free ways to do it (as in without the requirement of a domain and web host). See video below for details. Also remember that...

In order to write blogs you need a blog engine (the CMS software). Over the years I’ve used several and this includes but is not limited to MovableType, b2evolution, Drupal, Serendipity and several others. The “big two” I’ve used most are MovableType (abbreviated MT) and WordPress (abbreviated WP). For several years I was a die-hard MT...

Both Dave and myself use Windows Live Writer to post blogs with (it connects to WordPress blogs very easily). Even though Dave uses Mac OS X he uses the Live Writer in a virtual XP session in OS X; it’s that good. One feature in WLW is the ability to add a map easily. For example, here’s Tampa Florida:All I had to do to add this map was click...

Today I am doing something a little different for PCMech. I am releasing a WordPress plug-in. To those not familiar with it for some reason, WordPress is blogging software. It is open source and free, which has resulted in it being VERY popular. We use WordPress to power PCMech itself. PCMech is now running LIVE on PCMech Live, using the platform provided by the...