Consider This Before Getting a Custom Blog Design

Today I’ve received an email that made me think about this subject. Somebody asked me to confirm that a design agency that I’ve never heard of before, has done the design you see on Blogsessive. Obviously, I replied and told him that Blogsessive is a custom design done by yours truly, and any agency (with one exception) that would proud themselves with Blogsessive’s theme would be a fraud.

After hearing the price for which that agency was going to create something similar, the following thoughts started taking shape:

• Why would you proud yourself with the work of someone else?
• Why think these things would not surface?
• Why roll out a low-ball quote for something that’s worth much more, or that you cannot deliver, but still state you can.

Before getting a custom design for you blog, here are some things you should consider.
Click here to read the full blog post!

WP Plugin: Latest Posts by Category Archive

After posting the Latest Posts by Category Archive tutorial, I’ve received requests to transform the code into a WordPress plugin.

Update: Version 1.2 has been released. Read about the changes below, in the “Version History” section.

The Features of ‘Latest Posts by Category Archive’ WP Plugin

Here’s the list of features currently available:

• Can be used via hard-coding inside page templates;
• Can be used as a widget in your widget-ready areas;
• Can be used via shortcodes inside pages’ or posts’ content;
• Can be used either inside or outside the loop;
• Can limit the archive to certain categories, or exclude certain categories;
• Can display or hide post dates;
• Can display or hide post excerpts and adjust their length in words;
• Can set the number of listed post from 1 to ‘all’.

Version history

Version 1.2

• The plugin is now available as a widget for your blog’s widget ready areas;
• The widget’s output can be easily customized using a few newly added CSS classes. Information about the widget is available in the plugin documentation, which is also included in the download package;
• Fixed the dashboard area that notifies WP 2.7+ users on the latest plugin version available.

Version 1.1

• Added option to display post dates;
• Added dashboard widget for plugin version tracking (Only available for WP 2.7+ users).

Documentation

The plugin documentation is available for download in PDF format: LPBC Documentation (3185)

For further information and plugin updates, please refer to this page, as it will be edited with further improvements.
Click here to read the full blog post!

Jennyfer, I Won’t Follow You! Ever.

I’m a moderate Twitter user. A couple of tweets a day, sometimes announcing new blog posts, sometimes engaging in conversations. This evening I managed to finally get some free time to enjoy my Twitter account.

The minute I started tweeting, in other words became active, I received 3 fried request. 2 out of these 3 requests were made by new accounts under the name “Jennyfer”, following about 2000 users.

Every account like this has one or two tweets maximum and all sound like this:

• I’ve made $6000 last night with ‘Some name’;
• $15.000 overnight. Click here to find out how.

It’s easy to see that these are spam accounts, and yet they average about 10 followers.

So, when I get a request from one of these accounts, what are my choices? Let’s see:

1. Ignore the request;
2. Block the user.

But what about my desire to actively fight spam accounts? What if I don’t want to “block” the user and protect myself? What if I want to report the user and protect everyone else?

I really think that Twitter needs a “Report spam” button and some text filters as most of the phrases these spam accounts use are standard presets.

So, Twitter, will you help the community actively defend itself?

Update: Until such options will be – if they will ever be – integrated, the one alternative is to follow Twitter’s spam dedicated account @spam, and report spam to them.

Domain Names for Bloggers (15)

Time for a new list of hand-picked available domain names that you can use to start a new blog or website. Without further ado, here are today’s shining stars:

Available Domain Names

• AnnoyingNews.com
• AnnoyingRumor(s).com
• SolidGossip(s).com
• HelpfulGift.com
• PresentAdvice.com
• BrainyGadget.com
• GlamorousGadget.com
• GlamorousShop.com
• TripAdvising.com
• OutstandingWriter.com & OutstandingWriters.com
• OutstandingWriting.com

Today’s Specials

• FemaleWriter.com
• MaleWriter(s).com

For further help, please read the How to Register a Domain Name for Your Blog article on Blogsessive.

Also, if you find this post helpful and you register any of the domains above, please leave a comment with the registered domains, so that I can erase them from the list, and it would be nice to know that one of my readers registered them.

WordPress How To: Latest Posts by Category Archive

One technique that is most common with WordPress magazine or news style themes is the display of an archive of the latest posts by category, as simple titles or with post excerpts. This is useful for the previously mentioned theme styles, but not only. It can be used to set up custom blog homepages, 404 pages, landing pages or even a special archive page.

This tutorial will help you build a ‘Latest Posts by Category Archive‘ in a very easy way. The widths in the CSS styling presented below have been calculated based on the default WordPress theme, assuming that is the most common theme available to anyone.

If you are looking for a plugin to generate such an archive, please check out: WP Plugin: Latest Posts by Category Archive.

Setting up the page template

Open up you favorite code editor and create a blank document. Save the document as ‘category-archive.php’ (or any other name you’d prefer) in the default WordPress theme directory (wp-content/themes/default).

The first step is to asign our new template a name and a page-like structure, so based on the default theme’s page template, the code you should paste in your new document is:

< ?php
/*
Template Name: Category Archive
*/
?>

< ?php get_header(); ?>

<div id="content" class="narrowcolumn">

	< ?php if (have_posts()) : while (have_posts()) : the_post(); ?>
	<div class="post" id="post-<?php the_ID(); ?>">
	<h2>< ?php the_title(); ?></h2>
		<div class="entry">
			< ?php the_content('<p class="serif">Read the rest of this page &raquo;'); ?>

			< ?php wp_link_pages(array('before' => '<p><strong>Pages:</strong> ', 'after' => '</p>', 'next_or_number' => 'number')); ?>

		</div>
	</div>
	< ?php endwhile; endif; ?>

	<!-- Category Archive Start -->
	<!-- Category Archive End -->

</div>

< ?php get_sidebar(); ?>

< ?php get_footer(); ?>

The template above will make sure to display the page name you set up, and also, any additional content you might want to add before the archive, from you WordPress page editor. We will be adding our ‘latest posts by category’ code between the ‘Category Archive Start’ and ‘Category Archive End’ comments.
Click here to read the full blog post!