Choosing the Right WordPress Theme

The choice is not as daunting as it might seem. The ability to keep in mind what the blog is trying to get across is paramount in selecting a theme. This is important, and can showcase the effectiveness of themes in regard to blog content, and layout.

The next thing to keep in mind is what the budget is for creating the blog because if you aren’t going with free then you will need to consider domain names and hosting costs.

Be mindful of the time it will take for research and development, as well as the cost. Many themes come with support or without support, and this should be considered when selecting a theme. When it comes to cost keep in mind the themes ability to be used again and again this will lend itself to versatility and functionality.

A very important decision to make for a blog is what it will look like. With WordPress there is a vast array of choices for the theme of a blog to take on.

Some things to consider when choosing a theme

• Theme cost
• Theme versatility
• Theme supported/unsupported
• Theme functionality
• Theme layout
• Theme effectiveness

These links have the information that this article was influenced by, and how I came to the conclusions about how to choose the right WordPress theme.

• Things to consider when selecting a WordPress theme in general.
• Things to consider when selecting a supported WordPress theme.

Choosing the Right Theme for Your WordPress Site

Choosing the right WordPress Theme for your site can be difficult. But with a few easy steps, you can easily choose the Theme that works best for you.

The number one thing that you should be worried about is does this Theme work with my site?

For instance, if you are looking to make a site for your corporation or business, you might look for something a bit more sleek and modern. If your site is promoting your daycare center, you might look for something more fun and colorful.

Installing WordPress on Amazon Web Services

Amazon Web Services  (AWS) offer a way to host your own WordPress sight with no hardware and little to no expense on a small WP blog site. This is ideal if you want to start working with a self hosted WordPress site for developmental purposes, monetization of your blog, or just good ol’ bragging rights.

In this article I will go into an overview of the EC2 service and the various Virtual Machines (referred to as instances from here on out) that are free and paid. Some may be free to download and initially spin up but may incur an additional cost to the AWS price tier even if you are in the Free Tier. Even though I discuss the free tier exclusively and micro-instances it should be mentioned that the AWS allows for scalability of your WordPress site so it can grow as your site(s) grow.

There are various pre-made instances for use with your AWS account that are configured for just about “one touch” configuration. Some are free, others are free to upload to AWS but incur a usage cost, and others cost for upload and usage. A few of the providers are; Bitnami, JumpBox, and Turnkey Linux. If you do choose to go with these “one click” solutions be sure to read all the print to verify if there are any charges for the instance or use of and how the charges are calculated.

Interview With Kaylee Allen Author Support And Web Developer

The following interview was obtained through conversation through a Skype SMS message conversation with Kaylee Allen.

Kayelle Allen is a published award winning Science Fiction Romance author. In 2006, she founded Marketing for Romance Writers and MFRW – Marketing for Romance Writers (on Blogspot), a peer-mentoring group open to the entire literary community. The site is now the largest online author group of its kind, and provides no-cost training in book marketing skills as well as promotional services.

In 2009, Kayelle opened her Romance Lives Forever blog (adult content warning) for authors, publishers, and blog tour companies. The blog has an online reach of over one million.

Domain Name Services: Postman of the Internet

Domain Name Services (DNS) is a service which exist to help us humanize the addresses of networked resources. Humans remember words as a whole easier than numbers representing octal based Internet Protocol addresses of those same networked resources be them across the Wide World Web or just an arms length away on our local network.

That was a mouth full. Essentially through DNS you can type in a URL into your favorite web browser and through the process of name resolution your system contacts a server acting in your behalf to find the correct IP address that matches the human oriented address you type in.

Sounds simple but a lot of chatter between various servers near and far may happen just to pull up that favorite site that you wish to view. First your own system will see if it has the particular IP/URL pairing locally in it’s own tables. On your computer this information will be kept in a host.txt file and depending on the operating system the location varies.

WordPress on the Road: Be a Road Warrior

According to the Oxford Dictionary, a person who travels, often as part of their job and does work at the same time, is considered a road warrior.

WordPress users are able to successfully work and travel at the same time while experiencing cloud computing made easy.

This article will address the issues of taking WordPress on the road and covers: supported mobile devices, post by email, writing offline, and shortcodes. 

Write Your About Page in 5 Steps

Congratulations! You have written something that has inspired your reader to say, “Wow! Who is this author? I want to know more!” Now you just need a fantastic biography for your About page so your readers can get to know you.

5 Easy Steps to Biography Awesomeness

Your About page should be an introduction to you. It should tell your reader about who you are and why you are an authority on your specific topic.

Your About page should specify your background, training, and overall proficiency on your subject. It should spell out for the reader why it is that they should listen to you.

If your website is professional in nature, you might want to take some time to consider branding before you write your biography.

Rant like a Rock Star

Modern society downplays the importance and legitimacy of a good rant, and they forget that even Shakespeare was a fan of the rant. The first known use of the word rant was in 1601. Today rants are widely seen as annoying, self-indulgent complaining, and are not generally recognized as important or legitimate pieces of writing.

There are 3 types of rants found in web publishing.

How to Write Post Titles in WordPress

Post titles can be a great way for people to find your post, it can attract people through search engines, that is if they are used properly.

Post Titles and Themes

Most Themes restrict post title length to two lines, however this might not be the case for all WordPress Themes. If you would like to write long post titles, test out multiple WordPress Themes an check the single post pageview as well as the front page as they may look different.

When looking for a Theme for your site it is advised to look at every aspect of the Theme, and not just the home page, there might not be support for some headings, or there may be issues with images.

Interview with Jean Zimmerman, Author

Jean Zimmerman ia a writer with an MFA as an honors graduate of the School of the Arts, Barnard College of Columbia University, New York, New York. Her first solo work, Tailspin: Women at War in the Wake of Tailhook (1995), focused on the Tailhook Association scandal and the link between sexual harassment and the role of women as warriors. Jean’s recent book, The Orphan Master (2012) has been optioned for a movie. She presently resides with her family in Westchester County, New York, where they live with their dog, Ollie.

I conducted this interview about how how she uses WordPress as an author for her work via Facebook. Jean has been using WordPress since 2012.

How did you find out about WordPress and what was your experience?

My friend who has had some experience with web design suggested it. My prior experience with WordPress or with blogging was zero. I had no idea about other platforms and lacked knowledge in general about the internet aside from doing research.

Interview with Troy Uyan: Developer in the Making

Browsing ClarkWP Magazine you have surely ran across a good few articles by Troy Uyan, but do you know Troy past his profile pic and awesome articles? A student here at Clark Collage, he is studying web development, but leaves in his wake much more than required assignments.

A primary example of Troy’s contributions to the web is his work helping develop Shulnak Village, a project that supports education and literacy in rural Tibet. Though his is contributions alone make a grand statement, you would be amazed to discover that this site boasts many hidden features supplied by Troy. These features include not only a fully responsive layout but also use of WordPress as a CMS. He accomplished all of his work for Shulnak Village before even finishing his classes on responsive design or WordPress.

Troy finished those classes on responsive design and WordPress and put his new found skills to work immediately. He created his own personal site, Troy Uyan, and had this to say about the process:

Interview with Kate Ringland: Grad Student

Copyright Kate Ringland

WordPress can be utilized by more than just businesses and passionate bloggers. As WordPress community member Kate Ringland demonstrates, the content manager can be used as a virtual resume and a means to network with current and potential business associates. Kate says:

Overall, WordPress makes building and maintaining my website easy…WordPress is also the choice of most academics I’ve been involved with, so it’s easier for everyone if we’re all using the same system.

Kate is a Ph.D. student in Informatics at University of California, Irvine. She studies human computer interaction, Assistive Technology, and technology for people with autism.

WP Weekly Podcasts: An Untapped Resource

If you’ve been looking for a fun and informative source for WordPress news and info checkout WordPress Tavern: WP Weekly Podcasts, a great resource for WordPress news, reviews, and interviews. Contributor Jeff Chandler is the host of WP Weekly Podcasts provides community members with great advice from WordPress developers, contributors and other web based companies, who provide insights that you would not have access to anywhere else.

Release of BuddyPress 2.0

You will see on wpTavern a post about the release of BuddyPress2.0. If you don’t know what BuddyPress is, it can me best described as,

FaceBook in a box for WordPress

Meaning, BuddyPress gives the users the ability to indulge in chatting with one another just as you would on FaceBook!

This is exciting news for any one that has or will use buddy press. The new version has many things it is bringing to the table, including important security fixes and added improvements to WordPress menus integration. Expect to see things like synchronization of comments and conversations as well as a better hierarchal indicators.

Don’t settle to just know a handful of what is to be expected, there is much more to be offered! The article on wpTavern goes into much greater detail. Take a look to not only learn more about what BP2.0 is bringing to the table, but also what the BuddyPress documentation team has planned for the near future.

Interview: Who Are the WordPress Users in Your Neighborhood?

Riddle o’ the day…  What do tea parties, a former humanitarian worker to Africa, custom greeting cards, and craft retreats all have in common? Why, you can find them all on WordPress, of course!

With over 76 million WordPress sites in the world, the  variety of subject matter to be found among them is as diverse as the people who use WordPress. As a new user, myself, I thought it would be interesting to talk to some of those users to learn more about their experience with WordPress and why they count themselves among those millions of users.