Contact forms on blogs or web sites

I noticed that my Contact plugin was looking a bit odd on the ‘new’ blog so I decided to look at the page source. I found some malicious code there!!!! Usually it is an iframe like this <iframe…..www.somethingnasty.com……..iframe>

So I deactivated that contact form plugin and got another one. That code went away. If you see it on a web page, delete from web page, but in this blog it wasn’t with the theme but with the wordpress upload. I found it too difficult to find the malicious code.

The latest contact forms with Catcha and so on seemed to require too much configuration for my liking, so I have one which wordpress recommends. Much better.

I finally managed to create navigation across the top of the page, so I’m now happy.

I am going to use a photo here to check out this feature.

O………I have found a bug in this theme. The title is picking up my first category name, rather than my extra tagline.

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Modern word press themes

You know, if you are prepared to pay a little money, word press layouts and themes are now so good they can be the platform for a web site. Content management systems like WP are so easy these days and global changes are easy too.

I’ve been searching for quite a while for a new template because I attempted to add my Twitter and Facebook logos so you could find me there. Well you seem to have to pay for these. There are really excellent themes out there but I recommend this one from Woo.

They come with the ability to change text and graphics, without having to go into the PHP pages to change them. That reminds me. There is a spot for Google analytics which I’ve forgotten to fill in yet.

These new and modern word press themes also come with SEO embedded and the ability to emded videos.

I haven’t finished this blog layout by any means but I thought I’d give you a little look. I got this one for free, but there is no support for it. So I’m having to work out how it works, because one has to add one’s own information in different places with this one. I cannot add menus to the top just yet, but I have added my flickr photos and altered the heading graphic which came with this theme.

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Everything the web designer needs

I came across a web site which performs a similar function to my own but lists so many more things. It’s a simple site design with links under categories such as web design, web site maintenance, tutorials, css generators, colours, affiliates, web site validation and much much more.

It’s called agency tool

Great site even though it is in competition to mine.

Great blog with many blogging tools

weblog tools collection

What first strikes you about this blog is that it has many very nice templates for wordpress blogs.

It also has an extensive collection of resource links to useful blog enhancements such as widgets and plugins.

Word press themes lag behind word press upgrades

I’ve just upgraded my wordpress to 2.5.1 as advised. Luckily the theme I have at the moment is working.

But I’m still waiting for some of the themes I like to become compatible with 2.5.

Although, this upgrade is meant to be a security fix, I can’t see much that’s different from 2.5 just yet.

WordPress Theme Generator

I don’t know about you but I wouldn’t have a hope of making my own word press theme. There are so many free ones out there too. However, I just found this generator and if you can make a theme, your name and designs will become known in the word press world. That’s worth a fair bit of traffic
This online generator creates your own custom unique WordPress Theme. Without any need for HTML, JS, PHP, or CSS knowledge.

Change the colors, settings, layout, preview live, click “save” and download your unique WordPress theme zip-file. Extract, upload, set, and you are done! If you have any questions or need additions visit the forum.

Based on WordPress 2.1 to 2.3 with Yahoo! UI (grids, tabs & fonts) to support all A-Grade browsers and valid XHTML 1.0 Transitional. Theme supports Widgets & Tags.

Compatible plugins and themes for word press

Once word press 2.5 comes out and we all upgrade, there will be a lag between the compatible plugins and themes. WordPress.org does have a list of those compatible with each version of word press. I have just had to upload my commentluv plugin again as the old one wasn’t working. This plugin allows the commenter’s last post to appear with his/her last feed item.

Graphic headings for blogs or web sites

The header you see above is my own photo, taken when I was in NY at the Guggenheim Museum. I cropped the photo so that only a section of it appears here.

Now you too can customize your blog with your own header at least.  For word press, I copied the graphic which was there and in a graphic editor I worked out its size.

I then cropped my own image to the exact same size.

Then you simply upload via FTP to header.jpg or gif. In my case I substituted 4 headings with the same graphic, but you can override that later with other graphics you like.

By the way, I’m happy for anyone to copy my header and if you want me to make another type from more of my photos, just contact me with the dimensions you need.

How to upgrade your word press blog

I’m no expert on this but I did read the advice on the word press forums. Firstly they suggest you should back up all of your blog. Now if your server has a back up feature that would be great. But my server used to have a back up service and now no longer does, so I downloaded all my files via FTP to my hard disk. Takes ages.

There is a back up plugin available from word press.

I then uploaded the latest word press version 2.3.3 and followed the install instructions only to find that there were errors and there was nothing on my page. I forgot to upload a  theme, although there is always a default theme in word press.

So I went on a few forums and found out about this .htaccess file which you can’t access on FTP but you can on your server’s file manager. I didn’t delete this file the second time round, even though by then I had backed up my posts manually by copying and pasting.

I tried again. I deleted all my files, except .htaccess from my server’s file manager and it took a second rather than hours. I uploaded the new version of word press and although there were errors (I don’t know why) it worked. I uploaded the new compatible theme and all the posts were still there. No need to copy and paste every post.

But there was much to do. All the plugins disappeared. I uploaded those I wanted and some worked and some didn’t. My new theme has tags and I had to go back and add those in. Some images were still there but others weren’t and my ability to upload pictures had disappeared, so I tried uploading to wp-content/uploads. Still no success. I found out one has to make writable ‘wp-content’ and ‘uploads’ and then it worked. So I had to go back and upload my images.

My widgets were still there. Don’t ask my why.

My You tube video embeds had distorted the format again so I had to re-insert them. To do this I followed my own instructions

All the categories were still there too.

Now someone tells me that in a few days version 2.5 will be released from word press. This time though it will be much easier so I thought I’d share my experience.

The other thing to be mindful of is that although themes usually work on upgrades of word press, some plugins won’t. There is a bit of a lag between the developers of plugins and word press.

Any php file you have altered in the past will have to be redone, so I had to add my Feedflare code and my navigation code again.

If you had a better experience that can make it all a lot easier, it would be terrific to hear from you. Although my blog is working, I still do not understand why or what I should have done.

Upgraded word press and theme

After much anguish and research, I have here an upgraded word press version and a new cutline theme. The new cutline theme for this version of Word Press doesn’t seem to have 2 sidebars however.

Much to do to fix it up again. But wanted to see what a new post provided. Tags for one thing. But I will have to go back to old post to build up the tag cloud.