Recent Updates RSS Toggle Comment Threads | Keyboard Shortcuts

  • Kathleen McDade 7:56 pm on March 9, 2010 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: ,   

    March 18: Multisite features and more in WordPress 3.0 

    Join us March 18th at 6:00 p.m. as Aaron Jorbin demonstrates the new multisite, custom post type and menu management features coming in WordPress 3.0. This will be an opportunity to see some of the biggest changes to WordPress in quite some time. Some of the things Aaron will go through include:

    • What the multisite features mean to both users and developers
    • How to enable Multisite once you’ve upgraded
    • How to add and customize custom menus on your site
    • How to add a custom post type

    This talk will be aimed at both users and developers. Even if you don’t know a thing about coding, Aaron will show you the basics to help you understand these three changes. If a beta version of 3.0 is released before the meeting, we will work off of that. Otherwise Aaron will use the latest trunk version of WordPress. As this will be a development version, things can and will change before 3.0 is released, but this should give you an idea of what to expect. If you have any questions or suggestions on specifics that you would like to see covered, please comment on this post. See you on the 18th!

    http://aaron.jorb.in
    twitter: twitter.com/aaronjorbin

    ———
    As always, we’ll meet at Webtrends (851 SW 6th Avenue) from 6:00 p.m. to 7:30 p.m.
    RSVP on Upcoming.

     

  • Kathleen McDade 7:57 pm on February 11, 2010 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: ,   

    If you missed Aaron Hockley’s talk on how to launch a new blog, you can find an outline at http://bit.ly/bloglaunch.

     

  • Kathleen McDade 7:41 pm on February 11, 2010 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: , , stats   

    February 18: WordPress and Statistics 

    Join us Thursday, February 18 to talk about statistics: what programs can you use, what are the benefits and drawbacks of each, and what can they tell you that’s really useful?

    Chris O’Rourke will join us to talk about Mint. We’ll also look at the WP-Stats plugin, Google Analytics and Woopra. Do you use any of these, or something else entirely? Bring your expertise and/or your questions, and let’s talk!

    As always, 6:00 p.m. at Webtrends, 951 SW Sixth Avenue, Suite 600. You may need to have the security guard enter an elevator code if you arrive after 6:00. RSVP on Upcoming.

     

  • Betsy Richter 11:30 pm on January 12, 2010 Permalink | Reply  

    PDXWP Site Backed by Network Redux! 

    I used the Network Redux-hosted gathering at Beer & Blog a few months ago to secure a free lifetime account for the Portland WordPress user group so I could move it off of my own paid hosting plan. While it took me a while to get the site actually migrated, we’ve been running smoothly here for a month or so now.

    When I made the announcement here, I threw in an offhand reference to the upcoming domain registration costs for the site as well, hoping to get some kind soul(s) to kick in for renewal costs. Frankly, I figured I’d just hit up the user group attendees in January, collect a few bucks, & call it good.

    Not so — instead, I received an unsolicited email a week or so ago from Network Redux’s CEO Thomas Brenneke in response to this earlier post: “We’d like to take care of your domain registrations for the two years. Can you tell me what domains you need registered/renewed and my team will get you squared away?” And they did.

    So, to Thomas, Damien & the rest of the Network Redux team — thank you on behalf of the whole PDXWP user group!

    (I can also unequivocably recommend Network Redux, as they’re now providing the hosting for OurPDX & a few other sites I manage. Yes, I’m now a paying customer of theirs & very happy with both the service & support.)

     

  • Kathleen McDade 8:44 pm on January 5, 2010 Permalink | Reply
    Tags:   

    January 21: Aaron Hockley On How To Launch a Blog 

    UPDATE: If you missed the meeting, or if you’d like to review an outline of Aaron’s talk, you can find it at Another Blogger. Thank you, Aaron!

    Actually, the name of Aaron’s talk is “After Launching a Couple Dozen Blogs, I Figured Out how to Do it Right.” Aaron presented this talk at WordCamp Seattle, and has done several blog posts around this theme as well. Aaron is experienced at starting new WordPress blogs, including his highly successful SocialPhotoTalk site. Even if you’re an experienced blogger, if you’re thinking about starting another blog (and who isn’t?), Aaron Hockley has great information for you.

    We’ll also have time for networking and socializing. If you’ve got questions about WordPress 2.9 (actually, we’re already up to 2.9.1), someone might be able to help you!

    As usual, we’ll be at Webtrends, 851 SW 6th Avenue on the 16th floor. We usually get into Webtrends right around 6:00, but if you come later than that, just let the security guard know that you’re coming to the WordPress meeting and he’ll punch in the elevator code for you.

    Hope to see you there! Please let us know on Upcoming if you’ll be attending.

     

  • Betsy Richter 11:06 am on December 11, 2009 Permalink | Reply  

    Site’s Been Moved to a New Host 

    Our thanks to the people at Network Redux for providing free lifetime hosted service for the Portland WordPress User Group! (I’m especially grateful ’cause that’s one less thing for yours truly to have to cough up…)

    Speaking of – the domain names (.com, .net and .org) for the site are set to expire in mid-January. Contact me at betsy@ourpdx.com if you’re interested in helping cover that cost for the next year.

     

  • Kathleen McDade 6:26 pm on November 12, 2009 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: child-themes, ,   

    Using Child Themes – November 12, 2009 

    Sites we mentioned or looked at in our discussion of WordPress child themes.

    On ThemeShaper:

    How To Protect Your WordPress Theme Against Upgrades

    How I Used a WordPress Child Theme To Redesign My Blog

    How to Modify WordPress Themes the Smart Way

    Devin Price’s website: WordPress Theming

    Michael Fields is working child theme support into his Platypus Theme, and offered a solution to a problem he had: TEMPLATEPATH for Child Themes

    We also discussed upcoming features in WordPress 2.9: 10 Things You Need to Know About WordPress 2.9

    Aaron Jorbin offered the following 2.9 advice on Twitter post-meeting: “add_theme_support( ‘post-thumbnails’ ); is what’s needed to add post-thumbnails support in 2.9.”

     

  • Kathleen McDade 9:47 pm on November 8, 2009 Permalink | Reply
    Tags:   

    We’re Meeting This Week! Let’s Talk Child Themes. 

    We had a more developer-focused meeting in October, and a great discussion with Aaron Jorbin, Eric Curtis, Michael Fields, Kevin Peoples and Devin Price. We discussed bugs, taxonomies, wp-ecommerce, themes, svn, git, and more. Don’t know what all of those things are? Me, either. But if you come to a meeting, maybe someone else can explain it to you.

    Our next meeting is on Thursday, November 12 at 6:00 p.m. (still at Webtrends). Yes, that is the second Thursday of the month. This month is Ignite Portland, and you know you want to be there on November 19, so we’re doing our meeting on the 12th.  This month’s topic is using child themes, so that you can customize a theme without losing all of your changes when you upgrade to a new version of that theme.  We don’t have a speaker, so I’m currently crowdsourcing. Do you use child themes? Can you be there to help us learn about them? Contact me using kmcdadepdx at gmail.  You can also RSVP on Upcoming.

    UPDATE!  Devin Price is a child-theme-user, and will be at the meeting to share his knowledge. Thanks, Devin!

     

    • Devin 2:02 am on November 9, 2009 Permalink | Reply

      My site uses a child theme of Thematic. I’d be happy to share the process and learn what other folks are doing.

    • Michael Fields 3:01 am on November 9, 2009 Permalink | Reply

      Actually, I wish that I did know more about child theme’s. The articles that I have read regarding them seem to make customization a nightmare even for the most savvy CSS wizards… perhaps I have been misled? Would love to be proved wrong… Would love to learn more :)

  • Kathleen McDade 12:08 pm on October 23, 2009 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: , , upgrades,   

    WordPress 2.8.5 and All In One SEO Pack 

    If you’ve logged in to your admin screen lately, you should have see a notice that “WordPress 2.8.5 is available! Please update now.”  It’s not a major update. WordPress is calling it a “hardening” release; it’s basically a security update.

    I updated plugins at the same time I updated to 2.8.5 on TechnoEarthMama, and  All in One SEO Pack was one of those with an update. Some people have gotten 502 errors recently after updating this plugin; I got one when I tried to go to the plugin’s admin screen to update options. I simply deactivated and reactivated the plugin, and everything was fine after that, but if it’s still not working for you,  Devin Price tweeted a post on the WordPress.org forums which offers another solution. It does require editing the plugin. Also, don’t forget that there’s a radio button you need to click on the All in One SEO Pack settings page to enable the plugin (in addition to activating the plugin through WordPress).

    Finally, if you’re interested, you can find out more about the changes coming in WordPress 2.9 over at ShanKrila (thanks to Kelly Guimont for the tip).

     

    • K 6:44 am on October 26, 2009 Permalink | Reply

      Kathleen,

      Thanks for the tip on the All in One SEO Pack plugin issues. Plus, a huge hi-five for a link to my WP 2.9 post. Glad you liked it!

    • Holly 10:47 pm on October 29, 2009 Permalink | Reply

      i am still looking for a good SEO plugin for Wordpress. my blog is not ranking high enought for the keywords that i wanted to rank.

    • Florida SEO 10:35 am on December 19, 2009 Permalink | Reply

      I would like to recommend the Platinum SEO Pack, it has more useful options than the all in one seo pack. There are more nofollow selections, additional post, page and home headers, you can nofollow all of the outgoing links on just the front page, you can add the noydir meta tag, the noodp meta tag, you can use the option for noindex on sub pages and my favorite option of all is all of the options that it gives you on each individual post and page of your wordpress blog.

      Those are just a few of the things that I can think of off the top of my head. The fact of the matter is that I have used both and have found that I am in greater control of my websites on-page seo than when I was using the All in One SEO Pack.

  • Kathleen McDade 8:11 pm on October 13, 2009 Permalink | Reply  

    Yes, We Are Meeting October 15! 

    It’s time for our monthly third Thursday user group meeting! We don’t have a speaker or special topic planned, so we’ll have some open discussion and Q & A time.  Feel free to share something you learned at WordCamp Portland, ask questions about something you didn’t understand, or get help with a problem on your blog.

    As usually, we’ll be at Webtrends at 6:00 p.m.

     

Older Posts →

c
compose new post
j
next post/next comment
k
previous post/previous comment
r
reply
e
edit
o
show/hide comments
t
go to top
l
go to login
h
show/hide help
esc
cancel