Ask MetaFilter posts tagged with blogging

Customizing a Wordpress function

adamrice — Mon, 30 Jun 2008 06:36:19 -0800

Wordpress/PHP question. I'm working on a Wordpress theme and want to use an algorithm to alter some of the HTML it emits. I've got a general idea of how to do this, and could probably manage a brutish implementation on my own, but my PHP-fu is weak and there is probably a better way. Here's what's going on. I'm using the blueprint css approach for a gridded layout. And I've got a "bottom-bar" of widgets, laid out in three columns. With blueprint css, the div for the third column needs class="last" added to it in (in addition to class declarations that apply to all divs) order for everything to line up right.

What I want to do is get the count of widgets each time a widget is emitted, and if count mod 3 = 0, insert 'last' into the class. Barring that, if I could insert class="widget-N" (where N=count) in all divs, I could manage, although it would be less elegant. Ideally, all browsers would magically support CSS3 and obviate this problem, but I'm not holding my breath.

Obviously I don't want to touch the core code. I don't mind inserting an altered version of whatever function is necessary into my functions.php file; but if there's a callback that lets me avoid doing that, so much the better.

Is there a way to show all my blog posts?

jejune — Thu, 26 Jun 2008 07:46:42 -0800

Is there a script that will show summaries of every post from my blog, using a feed from a Blogger blog? I use this widget to display the first 100 or so characters from each post from a feed of my blog. When you copy & paste the code from that webpage into a Blogger blog post, it displays headings from your blog posts along with a summary for each one.

But the problem is that there's a limit: it only displays your 25 most recent posts. Is there any kind of widget that will show all the posts, with no limit?

It would be sufficient if there were a script that would let me specify: "Display posts #1-25," then separately, "Display #26-50," etc. That way, I could just combine them.

How to be a better citizen journalist?

Unsomnambulist — Mon, 23 Jun 2008 13:39:19 -0800

Looking for websites and podcasts with tips on being a better citizen journalist/blogger. I'm giving a presentation this weeking for budding citizen journalists about writing basics, and will be focusing on the differences between writing for online and conventional print.

While there are numerous books available on becoming a better writer and journalist, I'd like to suggest a handful of free, online guides, geared towards bloggers and community journalism.

At the top of my list are Copyblogger and the Grammar Girl podcast.

Both of these are great because they offer nuggets of advice on different aspects of writing every few days.

Alas, I'm looking for similar sites that help with grammar, creating better headlines, interview techniques, etc... suggestions?

CSS and WordPress woes.

reductiondesign — Sun, 22 Jun 2008 21:04:56 -0800

CSS, WordPress Themes, HTML: Trying to custom-design my new blog's design; only three images out of ~10 appearing. As you can see by the above link, my WordPress header is messed up. All that is visible (at least on my end; Mac OS 10.5, Safari) are the 'Portfolio,' 'About,' and 'Contact' buttons. I'm trying to get my header to look like the one on my new Web site (I want the top three bars--light, medium, dark--to be the same, and then the content of my blog.)

At first, those were the only images that were being accessed through a .css file (as rollover links); however, I've since changed the other images to do the same, but still only the first three show up.

What am I doing wrong? Web designers, help!

CSS Document.
Header.php (for use with WordPress).
Right-click --> Save As..., I guess.

Contact: reductiondesign@gmail.com

Thanks.

MY EYES MY EYES - help me avoid the WordPress interface and still post to my blog.

jessamyn — Wed, 18 Jun 2008 13:48:15 -0800

I don't like the WordPress 2.5 look and feel. I am not interested in switching CMSes. What are my options for basic postings to my blog with minimal interaction with the WordPress interface? The suboptimal things include having to scroll to choose categories and add tags, the "3D" look to the buttons, all the extra headings and colors, the small "publish" button and all the nagging (I know 2.5.1 is available, I'd like to dismiss that message). I'd like to not have to scroll to write and publish a short post with tags and categories. I think this must be possible.

I am fairly tech-savvy. I want to post a blog entry with maybe a category and some tags, nothing else fancy (this is for my "work" blog, not my personal blog). I can write my own HTML, don't need WYSIWIG. I'm okay using the admin interface for more complicated things or for editing. I like what WP does, just not how it looks.

I had a nice custom admin section before I upgraded; my fallback plan is just to hack away at the CSS like I did last time. I have tried a few things that have not worked so well.

- ScribeFire and Deepest Sender addons for Firefox both kick back errors that I don't quite understand. (I get through installing/configuring them and see my categories but can't post. DS returns "TypeError: node is null" SF returns "The server returned a malformed response. Please check that your blog and API URLs are correct." If this is a chmod problem, I can chmod). If I could get either of those to work my problem would be solved. I have command line access to my account and a medium level of comfort with command line Unixy stuff.
- I have installed a few plugins that claim to make WP easier on the eyes including Retro-Dashboard Admin Theme, Admin Menus, Dashboard Lite and a few more that I may have already deleted. They are fine but don't solve these specific problems.
- I do not want to install an older version of WP just to fix this.
- I have searched the WP plugins admin section and Google for something that seems to do this and tried many things and didn't find anything that looked good.

I'd be happy to hear if you've found something that works but please don't direct me to the WP site (unless there's really something you think I've missed) or to a Google search. Any ideas would be appreciated, thanks!

Joining the corporate blog crowd

O9scar — Tue, 17 Jun 2008 10:28:57 -0800

I work for a small company. The idea of having a blog (outward-facing, not internal) has come up a couple of times. I'd like to a) find some good examples of existing company blogs as a model, b) figure out issues of upkeep/best practices/etc. The company I work for is small - about a dozen employees, plus a few contractors. A few people said they're willing to write for it, but to me the biggest fear is it dying after only a few posts - so how do I make sure we at least have one weekly post, if not more?

Other people have concerns about giving away trade secrets. I don't want to complicate posting to the blog, but do we need to have someone OK things before they get posted? Do we need blog guidelines/ a blog czar? If so, I have a feeling it'll probably be me.

The main objective for the blog as I understand it is to have a non-press release way of putting news/updates/insights out there. And also to establish our expertise in our area of work (rich media/online product demos). You can mefimail me if you're dying to know the exact company in question.

Blogging To Get A Job? Advice?

Spurious — Sun, 15 Jun 2008 16:48:33 -0800

Blogging To Launch A Career Outside Academia? Advice? In a previous life I was in business. However, a few years ago I switched careers and entered a prestigious research PhD program in a semi-hard science while my SO got a professional degree.

I have a few more years until I graduate and while I love my education, school, colleagues, & life, I do not plan on staying in academia after I graduate. Why? Because I am drawn to public policy (related to my field), not erudite ivory tower research. I find the latter interesting, but the former riveting.

The problem is that the faculty and students in my school are ivory-tower folks (nothing wrong with that) and have few connections with people doing actual policy work. To get around this problem, I want to start a blog mixing the research and public policy in my field. The goal of the blog is to learn about policy through writing and social network with people doing policy work.

Ideally, I would blog for the next few years (in addition to my research) and, after graduating, get a job through someone I met through the blog or knew me through the blog.

1.Does anyone have advice on using a blog to launch a career?
2. Know of examples of this type of thing?
3. Got advice of networking through blogs?

A world made by hand, or a proprietary solution?

Bora Horza Gobuchul — Wed, 04 Jun 2008 11:49:30 -0800

Blogging software vs. roll-your-own? I have begun to experiment with a personal portfolio / travel website that will likely include some kind of blog. As a web developer, I would like the site to be something of an experimental testbed, so I plan to use CSS2 and 3, as it becomes better supported.

I have looked at a few blogging systems - MoveableType, WordPress, etc - but they appear to be "all in one" systems that impose their own template language and themes (although some give options for customising the latter). I am comfortable enough in my XHTML, CSS, PHP, MySQL and JavaScript skills that I can create my own back-end for dated blog entries, search functions, RSS feeds and the like, and I'd enjoy doing so. Is there something I'm not seeing in the blogging systems: some technical advantage or difficult-to-code feature that would make Blogger or one of its competitors a better choice than building a solution by hand?

Many thanks in advance for your answers!

What's the best way to geotag blog posts?

ascullion — Fri, 16 May 2008 06:06:10 -0800

What's the easiest way to geotag a blog post in MT4? Are there any decicated plugins, or any map-based technologies, that could make it easier for people who want to do it?

Group blog - how to get individual post count?

TheTelf — Tue, 13 May 2008 14:50:37 -0800

If I've got a Blogger-hosted blog with multiple contributors, is there any way to easily see how many posts each person has submitted, short of counting them all manually?

What are some good blogs for discovering new blogs? (explanation within)

kingtaj — Sat, 03 May 2008 13:15:24 -0800

What are some good blogs for discovering new blogs? (explanation within) Because great writers come and go in the blogosphere, one must be constantly vigilant to stay abreast of the highest quality blogs (of all genres). Some bloggers have a habit of referring to other good blogs consistently.

Do you know of any? What are the best blogs for discovering new blogs?

Is Habari any better than WordPress?

devlin — Wed, 23 Apr 2008 19:15:19 -0800

Blog systemFilter: Is Habari any better than WordPress? I'm currently running a WordPress website, and am contemplating converting to Habari. I've been hearing very good things about Habari, are there any benefits to it?

New write-once, post-many blogging software??

jouster — Wed, 23 Apr 2008 15:04:38 -0800

Somebody recently developed a write-once, post-many piece of software that will take the same blog copy and post to blogger, wordpress, twitter, facebook, etc. all at once. But who? And what's the url?? Thanks, hivemind...

horse:water::visitors:comments section?

Anonymous — Sat, 19 Apr 2008 10:32:54 -0800

Is it ethical to fake conversation in your own blog's comments section? I don't mean stirring up controversy for the sake of it or setting up straw-man arguments. I mean chucking some "model" comments on to the end of a batch of posts to let readers know the comments are there and easy to use. As a codicil: Has anyone done this and found that it effectively enticed discussion? My target audience isn't necessarily the most web-savvy (OK, they're old). Though I have more visitors than on any of my past blogs where community interaction was a good in both quantity and quality, now I get none. I just want to prime the pump here, nothing more nefarious than that. I know you can lead a horse to water and all that, but sometimes don't you have to get down and show them how it's done?

What are the best online publications for submitting articles about web design and project management?

deern the headlice — Sat, 19 Apr 2008 10:04:23 -0800

What are the best online publications for submitting articles about web design and project management? I've been doing web design, development, art direction and client relations for about ten years, but due to a bit of shyness, have only been blogging about these issues recently. I was an English major years ago and am excited to be rediscovering my love for writing, esp in the technical realm.

Anyway, I'd like to get greater exposure by either guest-blogging or submitting articles -- any suggestions?

WordPress Plugin to Highlight Best Comments?

jdroth — Fri, 18 Apr 2008 19:18:36 -0800

I run a couple of WordPress blogs. Sometimes a reader will leave an excellent comment. I would love to find a plugin (or an easy method) to highlight these great comments, similar to the way AskMe highlights best answers. I can't figure out how to do this. Do you have any suggestions? Just to be clear, I'm not really looking for a "karma" type plugin in which users choose best comments. I want to choose the best comments, which would then create some sort of flag that would trigger alternate CSS formatting. If there's a karma plugin that allows this (while disabling user karma), that's good.

Collaborative Wordpress!

Gideon — Fri, 18 Apr 2008 15:15:29 -0800

I've recently moved my blog to a collaborative environment and we're using Wordpress (and I have been for over a year now), but I'm having trouble figuring out a way for us to work that is as seamless as possible with the Wordpress install. I need some help figuring out what tools to use! We need the following: a way to communicate privately which includes a way to quickly share links and other post ideas. But what I'm wanting is something rather organic and streamlined, not perpetual drafts and such as a way to communicate.

Wordpress has a nice "editing" feature but that's where it ends. Unfortunately, I've not had any luck finding any plugins that can help this process and currently I'm using Ning as a backend to the site. I'd really prefer to keep it all in one place, however.

Thanks!

Blogger without a blog service

jejune — Wed, 16 Apr 2008 18:31:20 -0800

Is there a blog service that has all the features I need? I've tried Blogger, Livejournal, and Wordpress.com, but none of them seems like quite the ticket. See inside for the 3 features I'm looking for. I'm trying to start a blog. It seems like every service I try is about 90% of what I need, but missing some key feature.

Here are the features I'm looking for:

1. The ability to have a private blog with well over 100 readers. I could see myself picking up a bunch of readers from my list of Facebook friends, and on top of that I'd like to feel comfortable mentioning the blog to people I meet in the future and casually inviting them to read it without worrying about exceeding the limit. (I'm not willing to have a public blog because I'm paranoid about a prospective employer googling my name one day and being offended by something I say about a controversial issue.)

2. A blogroll that allows well over 50 links. I have over 50 links to put in various categories of my blogroll (not just blogs but also individual articles, favorite Metafilter posts, etc.), and I want to be able to add more as I come across them.

3. Easily customizable templates, or at least a very tasteful default template. I care a lot about the appearance of the blog, and I'd like to have a distinctive combination of greys, blues, and a bit of purple. I don't have programming skills beyond some basic HTML, so I can't create a template from scratch. (I want something sleek and minimal but also with a bit of color and character. Most templates I've seen are either minimal to the point of looking like something from the '90s, or overloaded with color and graphics in a way that seems geared toward 16-year-olds.)

Here's what I've gathered based on trying 3 different services:

- Blogger has nicely customizable templates and plenty of blogroll capacity ... but is limited to 100 private readers.

- Livejournal lets you have 1000 private readers (or more with a paid account) and has so many templates that I can find a palatable one if I really try ... but limits you to 30 with a free account or 50 with a paid account. (I've tried this del.icio.us tool and it doesn't seem to work on LJ)

- Wordpress.com lets you have unlimited private readers for $30 (which I'd gladly pay for), and seems to have good blogroll capabilities ... but there are just a few boringly tasteful templates, they can't be customized at all (nor can you import one from a third party), and the main column is too wide anyway.

I'm willing to pay a reasonable amount of money, but free would be ideal, needless to say.

I've looked through AskMe tags, tried Googling for feature comparisons, and looked at help/FAQ pages from Blogger, Livejournal, and Wordpress. Of course, this turns up tons of information about different features offered by different services, but I'm not seeing a big-picture solution to my problem. (And I'm suspicious of the blog services' official help pages because they seem to try to conceal their limitations.)

Am I missing some way to have everything I want, or is this just not available? If not, then what do you think would be the least-bad option? I realize that the answer might simply be that I'm right -- none of the services work for the above reasons. But I wanted to run this by the hive mind to see if there's either some workaround for the above problems or some other service that offers what I want. I'm honestly on the verge of giving up blogging because there doesn't seem to be a viable service out there.

This post will become a breadcrumb.

Netzapper — Tue, 04 Mar 2008 18:01:12 -0800

How do I promote a pseudonymous blog? I have a blog. I don't want it associated with me by any casual observer. Problem is, I also want people to read it.

Normally, I'd tell my friends to check out my blog, call in favors with other folks to pimp it, and it might spread. Obviously not going to work here.

So, how can I possibly promote it?

I already have it listed in technorati.

Posting One Thing to Many Blogs?

davidstandaford — Sun, 02 Mar 2008 23:56:19 -0800

What is the best way to share my blogging when I have different friends on myspace, livejournal, blogspot, facebook. etc. I currently have a myspace blog, a livejournal, and a blogspot blog where I triple post my content. I also sometimes will write facebook notes with the same post.

I'm wondering if people have advice about how to streamline this process and have one application do this for me. Either XP or OS X is a possibility. Is there an easy (free?) way to write something once and have it show up everywhere?

Secondly, does anyone have any experience with trying to integrate multiple blog services into one location. Ideally, the people who like to read me on facebook or myspace or livejournal would all just visit a single blogspot blog and make things easy for me, but I'm not sure they actually will (and these are people who don't know what RSS readers are). Checking their livejournal friends page is probably easier than clicking over to my own separate blogspot blog once a week (if they remember), so I want to keep all the readers, I just don't like having to triple post what I write in all those places.

I'm having issues with my AddThis button on my blog.

bamassippi — Sat, 01 Mar 2008 12:13:49 -0800

I'm having issues with my AddThis button on my blog. So I'm trying to add the AddThis button to the front page of my blog so that readers can email/save/send individual blog posts, though it continues to save my homepage and the AddThis.com website is very unclear as to how to adjust the code.

I know that other readers may have experienced the same issues... how did you solve it? How should I adjust my code? (I'm using WordPress by the way.)

Should I blog under my real name?

Dr.James.Orin.Incandenza — Sun, 24 Feb 2008 09:14:22 -0800

To be, or not to be? The benefits and costs of blogging under your real name. Is it worth it? Swarm,

For the last several years I've been blogging using a pseudonym (guess which one) but am considering establishing a new blog using my real identity. I recently moved overseas and would like to start writing about political and economic developments in East Asia (something I have a background in) using my real name.

What are some of the pluses and minuses of blogging openly?

Thankie thankie,
James

Make w.bloggar play nice with Wordpress categories?

freudenschade — Thu, 21 Feb 2008 21:03:40 -0800

New blog at Wordpress.com. Would like to use w.bloggar as my desktop editor for posts. Everything's configured properly and looking great, except for this error I get when I start up w.bloggar: "w.bloggar: 401 / Your blog server returned the following error message: / Sorry, you must be able to edit posts on this blog in order to view categories." I'm sure there's a simple explanation, but googling and FAQ digging turn up nothing. What gives?

Blogging from the future - forcing wordpress to show future dates

Happy Dave — Sun, 27 Jan 2008 04:12:49 -0800

How can I get wordpress to show a post as though it had been published in the future? So, in a bid to stimulate both regular writing and generate some ideas for longer form work, I've come up with the idea of writing a blog that appears as though it's coming from twenty or thirty years in the future. Wordpress has a future-dating feature that lets you put a future date on a post, but as far as I can work out, that means it will hold that post until that date and time is reached.

Am I missing something, or is there a simple method (or plugin) that will let me publish a post now, today, but have the calendar and date show as a date in the future? For example, I post an entry today, Sunday 27th Jan, at 5pm GMT, but I want it to show up on the blog as, I dunno, Thursday 27th Jan 2028, 5pm GMT. How would I do that?

Multi blogg solution or platform?

jmitchell — Thu, 24 Jan 2008 07:11:32 -0800

We're a small daily paper out in the west. The boss wants us to host blogs, i.e. something where any user can come to our website and sign up for a blog, hosted by us. However, as the only mildly technical person in the office, it would fall to me to run and administer and frankly I'm not sure if that's possible, given the other duties, like laying out the paper and building ads. But I'd be remiss if I didn't investigate the possibilities, so can anyone recommend a multiblog platform (where anyone can sign up to get a blog) that's fairly easy to administer? I've looked at WordpressMU, but it looks like a headache to maintain.