You can show ads in your sidebar through a simple plugin called WP125. This plugin allows you to add and manage a collection of 125 pixel graphic ads. One note I forgot to mention in the screencast is that each ad must be exactly 125 x 125 pixels in size. Otherwise you'll end up with strange looking spaces in your sidebar images. See more WordPress Tips.
Listen here: In this monologue podcast, I answer a student's questions about the field of technical writing, including how I fell into it, what kinds of projects I work on, and other details. Her questions are as follows: What did you study in college and where did you attend? What degrees/certificates do you have? Did you know what you wanted to do before you graduated? If so, what was it? Is it what you're doing now?&...
In this WordPress tip, I show you how to make elements overlap. You have to add a position and z-index declaration in each of the styles that are overlapping. I also explain a tip for making the overlapping image fit seamlessly on top of the other element, without a white border. See more WordPress Tips.
One way you can eliminate spam (besides activating Akismet) is by removing all the spam that shows up in comment threads on specific posts. This is because spam attracts spam. So if you can cut out spam from a post, you're less likely to get more spam on that same post.
Shannon had baby Molly on September 1, just a couple of hours before midnight. Molly is 8 lbs 15 oz and about 20 inches tall. She is healthy and has brownish hair. Before we went to the hospital, Shannon was about a week and a half overdue. Every extra day seemed like an eternity and we were glum with anticipation waiting for the contractions to start. After 12 days, at her checkup the midwife noted a slight deceleration in the baby's heart r...
Findability / organizing content 1.0 New Series: Organizing Content [Organizing Content 1] 1.2 Introducing Project Swordfish [Organizing Content 2] 1.3 Things Fall Apart, The Centre Cannot Hold [Organizing Content 3] ...
You can configure your home page to show the full content of each post or an excerpt. You can also configure your archives to display the content or an excerpt. The excerpt strips all HTML formatting, but the content doesn't strip any formatting and will display all content up until your Read More tag. See more WordPress Tips.
In this WordPress tutorial, I show you how to measure your blog's loading speed, and then tweak your theme to strip away the content that is dragging down the load time. The site I use to measure loading speed is webpagetest.org. See more WordPress Tips.
Students at Missouri State University asked me some questions about technical writing as a career. To provide a balance of opinion and perspective, I opened up the questions to my Twitter followers and asked them to respond as well. What is your job title? Eileen Potter: Senior Product Content Specialist (in June I changed positions within my company, previous title was Senior Technical Writer) Richard Rabil, Jr.: Technical Writer III Sus...
A career in technical writing is a sedentary, almost motionless desk job. The greater endurance you have to sit still and keep your hands on the keyboard or mouse pad, the more productive you'll be. I am starting to miss working with my hands, and walking around. During the past few weeks, the "Mr-Fix-It" section in my brain kicked in. A while ago, I had the idea of fixing everything that is broken with my house. To list what I've been do...
100 Rejected Summit Proposals The call for STC Summit proposals is now open. Below are 100 Summit proposals that were rejected in the past. They may be helpful as you prepare your own submission. 100 Mistakes I Made During My First Hour as a Technical Writer Technical Writer Versus Technical Communicator Versus Technical Who Are We? Who ARE We? Robohelp Versus Flare: The Final Showdown, This Time the Matter Will Be Settled Physically Pr...
Findability / organizing content 1.0 New Series: Organizing Content [Organizing Content 1] 1.2 Introducing Project Swordfish [Organizing Content 2] 1.3 Things Fall Apart, The Centre Cannot Hold [Organizing Content 3] ...
Findability / organizing content 1.0 New Series: Organizing Content [Organizing Content 1] 1.2 Introducing Project Swordfish [Organizing Content 2] 1.3 Things Fall Apart, The Centre Cannot Hold [Organizing Content 3] ...
In working with clients on WordPress projects, I routinely run across people who forget their WordPress username and password. Fortunately, if you still remember the FTP username and password, just upload this "emergency.php" script from Yoast to your root directory, go to http://yoursite.com/emergency.php, and voila, you can change your WordPress username and password. You may need to download the wp-config.php file to grab the database ...
Findability / organizing content 1.0 New Series: Organizing Content [Organizing Content 1] 1.2 Introducing Project Swordfish [Organizing Content 2] 1.3 Things Fall Apart, The Centre Cannot Hold [Organizing Content 3] ...
