blogging

Work

Manage WordPress Comments From Windows Live Writer

1:00AM Kevin Purdy | Windows Live Writer stands out among Microsoft’s Live Essentials pack for being a convenient multi-platform blogging tool. The Live Writer team made it even handier for WordPress users by adding comment moderation powers to their desktop app with a plug-in. More »
Work

The Beginner’s Guide To Tricking Out Your WordPress Blog

2:00AM Gina Trapani | You took the leap and installed WordPress to host your own blog because you want complete control over how it looks and works. Now, it’s time to power it up, lock it down and make your blog completely yours. More »
Work

Move From Blogger To WordPress Without Losing Google Rank

1:00AM Jason Fitzpatrick | Your experiment in blogging has really taken off, so you’re itching to move from Blogger to a self-hosted WordPress installation. Luckily, you can do so without losing the traffic you worked so hard to build. More »
Work

Blogger Adds Support For Jump Breaks

7:00AM Dustin Luck | Google’s weblog publishing platform Blogger announced a new feature bringing built-in support for jump breaks (the “read more” links on most blogs’ front pages). Jump breaks make for a visually cleaner front page by hiding the bulk of each post in the main view. More »
Design

Geek Chart Graphs Turns Web Activity Into A Pie Chart

5:00AM Jason Fitzpatrick | If you’re looking for a novel way to represent and visualise your online persona, Geek Chart takes your activity on popular sites and turns it into an interactive pie chart. More »
Work

One Hundred Words A Day Encourages You To Write Exactly That

3:00PM Angus Kidman | While you not think it from the size of the blogosphere, many people find it hard to get motivated to write regularly. The One Hundred Words A Day Blog has one simple idea: anyone can post to say that they’ve written 100 words that day. (That might not sound like much, but do it every weekday for a year and you’ll have half a novel.) Whether the time taken posting to the blog might be better used to write another 50 words, it’s a motivational technique worth considering if your ambitions keep dying whenever you get near the keyboard. One Hundred Words A Day More »
Work

Top 10 Tools For Your Blog Or Web Site

2:00AM Kevin Purdy | Having your own hosted web domain has never been cheaper, or easier, with the vast array of free resources out there. Here are our ten favourite tools to help anyone launch and maintain their internet presence. Photo by Jasison_Judd. More »
Communicate

Why Your Blog Should Be As Simple As Possible

9:05AM Angus Kidman | Modern blogging software is so sophisticated that it’s possible to add kinds of features, from elaborate commenting to complex video widgets. While that can make a site more appealing, it can also increase your level of risk. One of the most rapidly growing problem areas in security is malware which attaches itself to otherwise innocuous web pages. Security software developer Sophos estimates that one new page is infected every 4.5 seconds, and interactive sites like blogsare a major part of the problem. As Sophos’ AP head of technology Paul Ducklin explained to me in a recent interview: If you’ve decided you need a certain level of modern interactive style functionality web site, you should aim to achieve just what they require and no more with the absolute simplest code base you can. The more ancillary features you have lying around, the more things there are to go wrong. Try to restrict yourself to what it actually needs. Look at how you can install the 5% that you need on the grounds that the less you have lying around, the less you’ll need to patch when there’s an update. Let’s not try and impress everybody — let’s impress people by having just as much as they need. That’s an important thing you need to remember when AJAX-ifying your Web presence. Something to think about the next time you’re working on that new blog idea. More »
Communicate

2008 Weblog Awards Nominations Close This Week

4:30PM Angus Kidman | The 2008 Weblog Awards, which acknowledge blogs across the globe in a range of categories, close their nominations this Friday. Of particular note for Lifehacker readers is the category for Australian and New Zealand blogs; if you want to nominate your favourite blog, or your own work, get in quick. (Of course, if you want to nominate Lifehacker Australia as well, I’d be pleased and grateful.) The 2008 Weblog Awards More »
Communicate

Intersquash Optimizes Your Blog For iPhones

6:30AM Lifehacker US Edition | If you have a web site with an RSS feed, like a blog, you can quickly create an iPhone-ized version with Intersquash. Simply input the RSS feed URL and a title for your site, upload a 57×57 thumbnail if you like, and then copy the automatically generated Javascript code. The code detects the user agent string from your iPhone’s browser, and redirects visitors to a version hosted by Intersquash. (You can preview the output in any browser with the URL included — for instance, you can check out my home page as reformatted by Intersquash in any old browser). The thumbnail ends up as the icon if a user bookmarks your site by hitting the + button on their iPhone. After the jump, a quick demonstration video explains the process step-by-step. More »