WordPress Theme Frameworks

To begin, you will need to understand what is meant by WordPress Theme Framework. Technically (according to the WordPress Codex) any stand-alone Theme can act as a Framework. This is in the sense that any stand-alone Theme that allows you to make alterations to it, can be used as a framework.

What is a WordPress Framework?

There is a bit of confusion when it comes to the term WordPress Theme Framework. While the concept is that a Theme Framework is a bare bones, well-designed WordPress Theme for a developer or designer to build many client sites upon, some people think that a WordPress Theme Framework is an ultra-basic theme that has next to no formatting. When someone refers to WordPress Framework they may also be referring to the archive of code used to create Parent Themes.

WordPress Plugin: Hello Darth

This is a simple little WordPress Plugin that will appeal to all you Star Wars fans out there. It is called Hello Darth and it displays a random quote from the Darth Vader IMDB page. If you are familiar with the popular Hello Dolly WordPress Plugin, then you will know what this little Plugin is all about.

This plugin is not going to serve you very well in a productive role, but it sure will provide a certain amount of entertainment during the drudgery of the dashboard.

In all honesty I was a little disappointed in this plugin, because most of the quotes are from Anakin Skywalker, NOT from when he was Darth. I think old Darth would have an issue with this. When told by Luke that he knew that Darth was really Anakin he said, “That name no longer has any meaning for me!”

There are enough really cool quotes from Darth as Darth, I like this WordPress Plugin but I think it could be better.

Interview with Jolene Wright: Hypnotherapist

Jolene Wright is an accomplished hypnotist and self-hypnotism instructor, with and impressive list of credentials behind her name. She is very active in her continuing education, and in her business life she uses WordPress like a professional Web designer.

How and when did you initially find out about WordPress?

I discovered WordPress in 2007 after a miserable attempt at creating my own website using a program that came with my computer’s operating system. A client of mine offered to give my sad site a make over and they used WordPress. It turned out wonderful and they taught me how to use it so I could manage most of my content.

Email Alerts for WordPress Topics

If you want to keep you ear to the ground on certain topics, you can use two popular methods, RSS feeds or email alerts. Email alerts can be fairly annoying when they keep going off every few seconds, I think we have all been there. But what if you want to stay in the loop but don’t want to get buried in superfluous information and postings? WordPress has you covered on that.

In WordPress you can set up email alerts for not just whenever an author posts, but when there is a certain sting of words used anywhere in the WP.org universe. There is a great tutorial over at WP Tavern on how to set up these very dynamic alerts.

Query Monitor gets an upgrade

Query Monitor is a very popular debugging WordPress Plugin. When using Query Monitor there was a blind spot for two popular Plugins, bbPress and BuddyPress. If your using Query Monitor previously you will be pleased to know that you can now see the if the page you are looking at is using bbPress or BuddyPress.

Change Your WordPress Theme, Keep Your Data

With more and more capability of being packed into individual WordPress Themes, changing a theme might actually be a down grade and you may loose some functionality. Developers are putting more emphasis on Plugins rather than trying to put everything they think you might want into a blanket theme. This trend, mentioned on WP Tavern, will improve the user experience by providing a more modular interface, and not shackling them to a specific theme.

Have You Ever Read the WordPress.com Terms of Service?

Every website should have some kind of guidelines; WordPress.com is no exception. The WordPress.com Terms of Service for WordPress.com members aren’t all that long when compared to other Terms of Service such as iTunes. It starts with “The Gist” section and gives a good overview of what the terms cover and what WordPress is about.

The Terms of Service are broken down into 20 sections; each is not overly large and is worded in simple English.  There is a long note informing the reader that you can reuse these terms of service for your own use but to remember to change references from WordPress to refer to yourself or whoever is appropriate.

The first thing you need to know is that these are the terms of service for WordPress.com and WordPress.com users. If your site is hosted on WordPress.com, you must comply with these rules and legal policies. The do not apply to those with the self-hosted version of WordPress. Those people have to comply with the terms of service for their web host companies, which may or may not be similar.

By posting on a WordPress blog, you have agreed to adhere to these rules; so make it a point to get familiar with them.

Why No Holiday Celebrating Bloggers?

Despite the many different roles involved in creating and maintaining content on the web, there are only a handful of holidays that actually celebrate them.

Have you ever heard of Programmers Day? Programmers Day is celebrated the 256^th day of each year, or September 13^th and September 12^th on leap years. There is also System Administrator Appreciation Day, which, for 2014, will be celebrated on July 25^th  and is a celebration of not only system admins but all IT workers as well.

Are there any holidays to specifically celebrate bloggers or blogging in general? A few in fact. The major one you may have heard of before is World Bloggers Day which is celebrated on the second of May and is simply a day to recognize all bloggers worldwide who tirelessly spread relevant information online.

A day you may have not heard of but probably should have is Blog Action Day which is celebrated on October 15th or 16th every year. Blog Action Day is when all participating bloggers write about a particular subject to gain social awareness on the topic. This is a great example of how blogging can bring about social change.

Due to the overwhelming variety of subjects covered by the millions of blogs out there, this isn’t a bit surprising. With this massive well of content and all the changes and inspiration that have sprung from the myriad of blogs, one would think people would recognize blogging, as a platform for social change and enrichment, with at least a few holidays.

The closest thing to a holiday celebrating blogging in such a way is the celebration of internet freedoms. There is an unofficial celebration of the defeat of the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) on January 18th organized by Internet Freedom Day. The Internet Freedom Day website is a great way to see how people are embracing this idea. Also, the #InternetFreedomDay posts on Twitter are a great example of people excited about this holiday.

Although they are not recognized officially, there are a few holidays celebrating IT workers. There are none celebrating bloggers or even the blog itself, though, which I think is a shame. If we were to have a day for celebrating the blog, I would suggest December 17th as this was the day in 1997 that the term “weblog” was coined. Or, perhaps late April or early May as this was the time of year when the term “blog” was created by breaking the word “weblog” into two words “we blog” by Peter Merholz in 1999.

It would be nice for the whole blogging community to have a day to think and write about the blogging experience itself since it has been such a cultural milestone.

Tax Day Release: WordPress 3.9 to Drop

There is a new version of WordPress being released on, wait for it… tax day! That should make it easy to remember the release date of the eagerly awaited WordPress 3.9, April 15th, don’t forget! There are new widgets and everything, so don’t miss out The new versions coming out in mid August and early December, so don’t wait for 4.0 and 4.1, to come out, jump on the bandwagon now!