Wordpress Exposed: Part 1 - Overview

So you’ve been toying around with the idea of setting up your own blog. Your own little space on the internets to spread your ideas, share inspirational thoughts, make observations about the bizarreness of life, the universe and everything or maybe you just want to have a good old rant about the recession.

Whatever your reasons, the end goal is the same – to establish your own web presence where you can express yourself freely to just about anybody on the planet. The purpose of this series of articles is to help you achieve that goal.

Over the next few weeks we will take an in-depth look at the world’s most popular blogging platform and see how you can take advantage of it to create a unique and functionally rich weblog from the ground up.

We will cover such topics as:

• Why you should choose Wordpress
• How to install Wordpress on your own domain
• Tour of the Wordpress control panel
• Themes (Changing, using and creating your own)
• Plugins
• And more…

What you will need:

• Your own domain name (such as www.mydomain.com)
• Hosting package with a web hosting company
• Time and patience
• I’ll hopefully provide you with everything else you need

I’ll update this post with links as new Wordpress Exposed articles are published on this site. Part 2 should be coming very soon. I hope you find the articles useful and have fun creating your own Wordpress powered blog.

Wordpress & Twitter Tutorial

The report goes on to say that while only 9.5% of this traffic is driven toward commercial sites almost 56% of it goes to other social networking sites, media sites and blogs. It’s clear to see from this that Twitter can be an important source of traffic to your blog.

One of the easiest ways to allow people to share your blog posts on Twitter is by allowing them to tweet directly from your site. There are a number of plugins available to help you do this. However, here we will look at one quick and simple method that does not require any plugins to be installed on your blog.

Adding the Link to Wordpress

Step 1: Open the header.php file of the Wordpress theme you are currently using. Locate the closing </HEAD> tag and insert the following lines just before it.

<?php if ( is_single() ) { ?>
   <script type="text/javascript" charset="utf-8"
            src="http://bit.ly/javascript-api.js?version=latest&login=tweettrackjs&apiKey=R_7e9987b2fd13d7e4e881f9cbb168f523"></script>
   <script type="text/javascript" charset="utf-8"
            src="http://s.bit.ly/TweetAndTrack.js?v=1.01"></script>
<?php } ?>

Step 2: Open the single.php file of the Wordpress theme you are using. Insert the following lines below the_content() function.

<a href="#" onclick="return TweetAndTrack.open(this, '<?php echo get_permalink();?>');">
<span style="display:none;">Reading: <?php the_title();?></span>Tweet This Post on Twitter</a>

Of course you can modify the final line of code to display whatever text you want your visitors to see. You can even replace the text entirely with an image file if you wish.

Getting back into the Russian

Being an Irishman I should by now be fluent in at least two languages – English and Irish. Unfortunately things don’t always go to plan and I wasted my younger years quietly plotting world domination while I should have been paying attention to my Irish lessons. At the time I always wondered what was the point in learning a dying language. It’s only now that I ‘get it’ and regret not being able to say more than “An bhfuil cead agam dul go dtí an leithreas?” in Irish. This was one phrase you had to learn if you wanted to make it through the day in school – “Can I go to the toilet?” – If you didn’t master this phrase the consequences could sometimes be dire!

While the Irish ship has passed me by (it may sail again in the future) I have set myself a goal to learn another language (beyond the basic French that I vaguely remember from my school days). In the last two years I’ve dabbled in Japanese and Russian, but everytime I made progress with one I jumped ship and moved to the other. So as of today I am focussing all my attention on developing a proficient knowledge of Russian.

I’ve invested in a number of teach yourself books, audio files and iTouch applications, so this time I mean business. I’ll keep this blog updated with my progress so as to give me a goal to reach on a regular basis.

до встречи
(see you later)

Philip Norris
(Филипп Норрис)

<< Yesterday | Tomorrow >>

At the time of starting this post I am 25 years, 11 months, 27 days, 16 hours and 41 minutes old. Which unfortunately means that in just over seven hours I will be 26 years old. At 7:30am on Friday 25th March 1983 Phil was inflicted upon the world. I am now officially on the wrong side of 25!

I recently read a shocking statistic. Apparently 100% of those who live past 25 will have already turned 26 or will do so within the next year. Or to put it another way that’s a 0% chance of staying in your mid-twenties. That’s right folks, zero, nadda, no hope for anyone! So as I sit here, feeling myself shift from mid to post-mid twenties a sense of nostalgia bestows my aging brow. In not so quite contemplation I muse over my life so far, increasingly aware of the big 30 looming just a stones throw away.

Seven years ago during the initial interview with my current employer I was asked the standard thought provoking question – “Where do you see yourself in five years”? A question that conjures up a multitude of imaginary timelines racing through the mind’s eye, each one as exciting and mysterious as the last. I remember pondering this question for what seemed like hours as the inquisition sat on in anticipation of a mind-blowing response that would nail me the job. Being 19 and naive at the time no such response was to escape my lips. The future was a blank canvas with faint lines emerging to form countless crossroads, each stroke leading to an endless supply of possibilities.

Although I didn’t produce a life inspiring answer, I still got the job. An outcome I put down to the impromptu wink I cringingly threw the HR representative as I shook her hand and hastily departed the room. And so the first crossroad had been decided and I embarked on the path that led me to where I am today. Figuratively speaking of course. It was the N4 and my trusty car, Eddie that literally got me to where I am today, sitting here at my computer.

Granted I am nowhere near ‘over the hills’ yet, but I am at an age where I feel compelled to slow down and take stock of my life thus far. I wonder, if I could fiddle around with my mobile phone network and manage to send a text back through time to my 19 year old self about where I am today and what I am doing, would he be happy? Would he be excited and eagerly look forward to the years mapped out before him? Or would he be disappointed and feel cheated out of the hopes and dreams he imagined as his future?

Alas my mobile carrier does not allow such temporal texts yet (although if they did I’m sure the price would be extortionate). As such I must resort to asking myself how I feel I have treated my younger naive version. Did I stay true to his hopes or did I waiver his dreams and compromise his future in return for undemanding short term resolutions that were easier options at the time?

Indeed as O’l Blue Eyes once crooned, “Regrets, I’ve had a few”. However, I try not to place too much weight on these compunctions (my new word of the week. Need to keep the aging brain ticking). Decisions aren’t always easy to make. We approach crossroads from a less than favourable vantage point and it’s not always easy to see where each path will lead. The destination is often concealed by overgrown vegetation, blind corners or an utter lack of proper road signage! And as anyone who knows me will attest, my sense of direction leaves a lot to be desired. I’m lucky to make it the right way down a one way street half the time.

For now I shall resign myself to the fact that the past has been written and the roads taken have been travelled. Until Apple unveil their iTimeTravel upgrade for the iPhone there isn’t much that can be done about that. In the meantime I can anticipate an onslaught of nostalgic reflection striking again when I hit 30 in four years time. In preparation for this most frightful of occasions I have decided to make the most important purchase of my life. That’s right. I’m going to invest in a SatNav device! No more shall I be duped by confusing crossroads and unmarked walkways. From now on I will be guided by a voice emanating from Eddie’s dashboard (as opposed to the ones in my head that usually lead me astray). It may take some time to adjust to an American or English accent constantly telling me what to do and where to go, but I will place my trust in the little electronic man or woman and have faith in them to guide me along the right roads running throughout the remaining days of my twenties.

I may be on the wrong side of 25, but so far I’m on the right side of 30. Here’s to the years of the late twenties and the experience and secrets they hold.

Addendum
My mate just sent me a text saying “Ah ure only as old as u look so dont feel too bad cause u look about 12″! Now there’s the boost I needed to help me through the day. Cheers dude (I can still say ‘dude’, can’t I?).

In the words of another very good friend of mine, “Whose got two thumbs and still got it? This guy”!!

In the Beginning

… There was nothing. But I’m working on it and hope to have the site up and running shortly.

Currently a major work in progress I’m using a free wordpress template until I have my own design ready to upload. Watch this space!

- Phil