WordPress Q&A | WordPress Websites, WordPress Help

12:28 AM

#17

@Christy – I see you are using Blix theme on WordPress.com. This theme supports the new WordPress 3.0 navigation menus. Go to Appearance > Menus in the Dashboard and create a menu. Then select that menu under “Theme Locations”. Here’s one example: Example WordPress Menu. I think this is shown in the tutorial I mentioned above.

Phil

12:53 AM

#18

I’m currently workin gon a website for on online, peer-reviewed journal for a university. I have never used WordPress before and am wondering if it would be a good tool for this application. The site need to be basic but visually appealing (since most professional journals are bland and boring), have the ability for writers to submit their articles to be reviewed, and a searchable index of reviewed and accepted articles to presented. I have begun making this as a site, but looking at a WordPress site or two it seemed as if this may be another way to go. is it worth a shot, or should I simply stay with the usual website creation for this project?

Mark McLaren

1:26 AM

#19

@Phil – WordPress is better than any “traditional” or “static” HTML website. I’m biased, of course, but the power and flexibility you get with WordPress without having to know any HTML or PHP are reason enough to switch. Check out the tutorials at http://wp101.com There are different levels of access, from subscriber to administrator. That will make your job easier. You can let people publish only with approval or without.

I’m sure you want to focus on the publication and not on administration of the website! In such cases, WordPress is pretty darn great, if not ideal. You can start a test site for free at http://wordpress.com in about 10 minutes and see what you think. Be sure to register your own domain name whether you host on WordPress.com or on a third party WordPress hosting service.

See if you can find other similar online publications that might steer you one way or the other. WordPress is used in lots of ways. I’d be surprised if someone hasn’t done something similar already. You could learn from their experiences.

Christy

2:45 AM

#20

Thank you! Thank you! Thank you!!!! Your tutorials are helpful and easy to understand. I can’t tell you how much I appreciate answers to questions instead of automated voices that don’t help me get to the right place. I’ll be referring you.

Oh, one question. The “home” page no longer shows up since I created the custom menu. Is there a way to have it show up again?

Mark McLaren

4:12 AM

#21

@Christy – You can add a Home link using Custom Links, as I did in the Example WordPress Menu above. Make the URL your home page URL and the Label “Home”. Then click the Add to Menu button.

Christy

4:33 AM

#22

Got it! Thanks so much!!!!

Donna

Dec 4, 2010

9:26 PM

#23

I get a “can’t establish a connection to the server at localhost” msg.” when using http://localhost/wordpress. Please help.

Mark McLaren

Dec 4, 2010

10:45 PM

#24

@Donna – Where are you hosting your site, and what steps did you take to install WordPress? You need a URL like http://yourdomainname.com or a temporary URL that points to where your WordPress installation is on the host server. It’s not localhost. That’s not a URL. Can you call your web hosting company?

Kita

Dec 10, 2010

10:42 PM

#25

Hi I am glad I found this website. I have a question I do not have a wordpress blog but I do have a website and I am using wordpress to set it up. My question is I can post things on my home page and everyone will see all the posts but lets say i start a new page tab at the top about books I have to erase and edit everytime I want to do something new how can I get my other pages to be like the post pages and be continual so that people can see all the stuff that I put on that one page.

Mark McLaren

Dec 13, 2010

7:54 PM

#26

@Kita – The easiest way is to create blog posts and assign them to a category. You can have a custom page that shows only posts from that category. Many premium themes have built-in support for custom pages like this. See http://www.studiopress.com/ http://www.woothemes.com/ http://www.themeforest.com/

The Church theme from StudioPress has both pages and categories in the top navigation menu. Look at the Demo and rollover “Community Events” in the top nav to see what I mean. These are categories and subcategories. Great stuff.

Jenn V.

Dec 13, 2010

10:54 PM

#27

I don’t know the correct language to explain this but here goes:
On my blog (dishragdiaries.com), as soon as you click on a post the address redirects to the address my host uses (for example: http://03254f7.netsolhost.com/WordPress/reader-question-how-do-you-boil-and-peel-an-egg/). This is how I have to send links, which I don’t like, AND because of this my Google AdSense application was denied. I talked to NS, my webhost, and they told me this is beyond their scope of support and I need to fix it in WordPress. Please help! Basically, I just want to use my domain name that I paid for, and not have it redirect to NS! THANK YOU!

Mark McLaren

Dec 13, 2010

11:36 PM

#28

@Jenn V. – I’m surprised your host won’t help you with this. Is your host Network Solutions? Since they are forcing you to basically reinstall WordPress and move your site to your root directory without their support, I suggest you try one of the hosts here: http://wordpress.org/hosting/ One of them may be willing to help you move your site. Even if not, you could take the opportunity to move to a new host. You will need to go through the same steps to get your site to do what you want on your current host. By switching hosts you’ll be able to get better support if you have trouble in the future.

Jenn V.

Dec 14, 2010

12:12 PM

#29

Thanks so much for the response. On my third phone call to NS (total wait time, 1 hour and fifty minutes all told) I found someone who actually did help me. Actually, he logged in as me and just fixed it. I would have rather learned what the problem was but I was really tired of them at that point. I should consider switching… just not sure I have it in me right now, lol. But I definitely wouldn’t recommend Network Solutions for WordPress hosting!

Mark McLaren

Dec 14, 2010

5:06 PM

#30

@Jenn V. – Thank you for letting McBuzz.com readers – and me – know how things turned out. Keep us posted! Depending on where you live, there might be a WordPress meetup near you. In Seattle, we recently started a Seattle WordPress Meetup and have gotten a very enthusiastic response from users and developers at all levels. That would be a nice way to get more exposure to WordPress and get some questions answered.

Shannon

Jan 9, 2011

1:18 AM

#31

Hi! I’m having trouble with my template and I really need some help! I’m using the brave-zeenat template on my site shannon-rae.com and it’s supposed to have a slider on the front page that scrolls through posts. The text is showing up fine, and the animation scrolls the way it’s supposed to, but I can’t get the images to show more than a question mark in a box!

The help file said to use a custom field called “Thumbnail” that links to the image. I tried emailing the author and, 4 days later, still no response and I’ve got posts on every free help forum I can find and nobody’s responded there yet either. I’ve tried everything I can but I don’t know what to do anymore! Please help!!

Peter O.

Jan 9, 2011

7:53 PM

#32

How can I stop the spambots from signing up as users? I am diligent about looking up new users to see which are spambots (they pretty much all are) and deleting them immediately, but I am under seige. They don’t seem to do any damage, and none have even left any comments, but… I am afraid that once they are registered on my site they are poised to mess me up. How can I stop this? I get several each day. Do I just have to disable allowing comments? I hate to do that. Thanks Mark.

Mark McLaren

Jan 10, 2011

11:28 PM

#33

@Peter O. – Do a Google search for “hide login page wordpress” and see if there is an easy way to keep bots from getting to your login page. You should also set Comments (Settings > Discussion) so that those who want to comment on your blog do not need to create a username / account, i.e., uncheck the box next to “Users must be registered and logged in to comment”.

Peter O.

Jan 11, 2011

3:02 AM

#34

No one is trying to log in – that I know of – they are just registering. And I would think that if I set it up so that the offenders don’t need to even register, then they will just make a “comment” on whatever they are spamming about and I will have to approve or disapprove – which is sort of the same as deleting the user spams. Am I missing the point?

Mark McLaren

Jan 11, 2011

4:37 AM

#35

@Peter O. – If you let them comment without registering, then Akismet will take care of the spam for you. Do you have the Akismet plugin activated?

Peter O.

Jan 11, 2011

4:04 PM

#36

Thanks Mark I will try that! I do have Akismet.

Chana Schwartz

1:30 PM

#37

Message: Hi Mark:

I really want to thank you for emailing me the other day after I almost panicked about my site disappearing. It was restored by Godaddy that day, which made me so happy.

Anyway, I have a question about my 13 posts listed on my site. I set up my site as a static site, but each time I send my posts to the network page they look as though there are way too many posts listed. I decided on creating two pages such as Network 1 & Networks 2 because I would like to display half of the posts on one page, then the rest on the other one. I am trying to figure out a way to display a few at a time. What is the best way to approach this?

Thank you so much again!
Chana Schwartz

jeanne

1:45 PM

#38

I am a newbie to wordpress and while i was setting up my pages. when you publish them they come up on the top of the ‘header’ part of the screen at the top of my homepage as well as in the sidebar.
Is there anyway that i can try to get my pages to just come up on the sidebar.
I used the pages widget to make certain pages ‘invisible’ but when you do this they disapear from the sidebar too of everypage.
I also can’t get my pages to come up on particular subpages,they always come up on the frontpage and everywhere else; but i’ve designed my webpage around this problem.
I dont know if the problem is to do with the theme i am using, i hope not as i really like it otherwise. I TRUELY THANK anyone who can help me. If u look at my site you’ll see what i mean – snowboardandsnowboots.com Thankyou again for any help…………Jeanne(UK)

Mark McLaren

5:40 PM

#39

@jeanne – That’s a lotta links you have up there. You need to edit your theme’s style.css file to remove them. You can use Appearance > Editor in the dashboard. Click on style.css and scroll until you find #header_nav (around line 632). Right now it looks like this:

#header_nav {
float: right;
margin: 0 0 0 0;
position: relative;
}

You need to add “display: none;” so that it looks like this:

#header_nav {
display: none;
float: right;
margin: 0 0 0 0;
position: relative;
}

Then click the Save/Update button. See how the page looks now. There will be a gap at the top of the page between the top of your browser window and the “SNOWBOARD & SKI NEWS…” To remove that you need to find “.blogtitle” (around line 89):

.blogtitle {
color: #FF7E00;
float: left;
font-size: 85px;
font-weight: bold;
line-height: 58px;
margin-top: 55px;
overflow: visible;
position: relative;
text-transform: uppercase;
}

Change “margin-top” from 55px to 10px. Click the Save/Update button.

Mark McLaren

5:56 PM

#40

@Chana – You can set the number of posts that show on your blog’s front page in the dashboard under Settings > Reading > “Blog pages show at most…” You can also limit the length of the posts using the “More” button in the editor (shown here: http://en.support.wordpress.com/splitting-content/more-tag/ ).

If you want to have the appearance of more than one blog on your site, you can assign a category to each post. I would use something more descriptive than “Network 1” and “Network 2”, but that’s up to you. Then you can create a category page for each one. You will need the new WordPress custom menus (under Appearance > Menus) to create links to those category pages where you now have links to “Network 1” and “Network 2” pages. It looks like you have custom menus in your theme. But, ideally, with the Reading setting and the More button, you won’t need to separate your posts.

jeanne

6:34 PM

#41

TO MARK MACLAREN:

I just wanted to give a big THANK YOU. I changed the code and it
worked. My site looks MUCH better!!!!
from Jeanne(uk)

Chana

6:59 PM

#42

Hi Mark:

Thank you so much for your help with this. I fixed my posts and static settings now. It seems to work much better with the “more” button and other things you mentioned. Slowly, but surely I will keep learning and plugging away.

Have a wonderful day!
Regards,
Chana

Peter O.

http://www.techmynd.com/protect-wordpress-login-page-plugins-and-hacks/

9:14 AM

#43

Hi Mark,

Regarding the spambots – I did change my set-up so that you don’t have to be logged in to leave a comment, but I’m still getting tons of spam subscribers (Akismet is catching a lot of comment spams now though too). As for hiding the admin log-in page – I don’t think these people/bots are trying to log in as the site administrator, they’re just signing up as subscribers. I think you get that but I just want to be uber-clear. I did do a google search as you recommended but I didn’t come up with any obvious solutions. Take a look at this and see if you think it has what I am looking for (if you have a moment):

Thanks very much Mark.
best,
Peter

Mark McLaren

5:24 PM

#44

@Peter O. – You are allowing people and bots to register on your site. I see. I have never used this feature. I don’t think many people do. It’s not the same as allowing them to subscribe to your RSS feed, though. (You probably knew that.) But – so I can understand – why do want people to register?

Peter O.

6:05 PM

#45

Why do I want people to register? I have no freaking idea! I did not set it up that way; it just defaulted to that. I don’t really know what it does. I used to think it would send them an e-mail every time I posted but that does not seem to be the case. So, knowing that, I presume there is some way to disable the feature? I will look for it.

Thanks as always.

Mark McLaren

6:12 PM

#46

@Peter O. – Under Settings > General – find “Membership” and uncheck “Anyone can register”. That should solve your problem.

Peter O.

6:12 PM

#47

I just unchecked the box “anyone can register” under General Settings. I’m thinking that will take care of it. I feel dumb – I’m sorry to have wasted your time but in the end you solved the issue for me so, thanks again! Maybe others can learn from my ignorance…

best,
Peter

Jenn V.

6:18 PM

#48

I’m back again with another question. You are a lifesaver.

After activating WP Super Cache I got this warning message. Please advise:
Warning! /data/19/2/14/55/2340707/user/2569946/htdocs/WordPress/wp-content is writeable!

You should change the permissions on /data/19/2/14/55/2340707/user/2569946/htdocs/WordPress/wp-content and make it more restrictive. Use your ftp client, or the following command to fix things:chmod 755 /data/19/2/14/55/2340707/user/2569946/htdocs/WordPress/wp-content/

Any idea what I need to do? (And pretend you’re writing to a 6 year old.)

Mark McLaren

6:21 PM

#49

@Peter O. – You haven’t wasted my time at all. Nobody knows all this stuff! What I really need on my site, or somewhere, is a forum – maybe – where it’s easier to search for questions that have been answered. (Yours had not been until now, by the way.) The forums on wordpress.org are pretty good because you can frequently find answers there using Google instead of their internal site search, but it’s still hit and miss. See my rant at the beginning of my most recent WordPress SEO presentation video for my take on finding information in forums.

Mark McLaren

6:28 PM

#50

@Jenn V. – That’s a little advanced. If you have a good web host, you can call them and ask them to sort it out for you. The wp-content directory has to be writeable, but permissions can be 755. That’s what the message is telling you to use. Normally they don’t have to be higher than that, but some hosts need to make them 777 for WordPress to work right. Call your host and ask for their help. If you have FTP, you can try setting permissions on wp-content to 755 yourself – or check to see what they are now. But that’s really something your host should help you with. Let me know who your host is and how that works out for you.

Peter O.

Jan 15, 2011

8:40 PM

#51

Oops! Yes I think that took care of it – except that now I can’t figure out how to log in and get to my dashboard. Because of course the log-in/register button is gone! Is there a tag at the end of my home address that I can add to get to the admin log in page?

Mark McLaren

Jan 17, 2011

7:36 PM

#52

@Peter O. – It’s http://www.example.com/wp-admin But bots usually know that, so I’m not sure that’s going to do much to deter them. I think there are more sophisticated ways to hide the page, but I haven’t used them. The point is that once you turn off the “Anyone can register” feature, you don’t need to hide the login page anymore.

Peter O.

Jan 18, 2011

12:13 AM

#53

Problem solved (knock on wood). And now I know how to get to my log-in page. Thanks once again Mark! Next time you’re in New York let me buy you a drink!

best,
Peter

Helen

Jan 23, 2011

5:14 PM

#54

Thank you for taking the time to answer questions. That is very kind of you. My
question is: How do I upload software to my site? I would like to give simple software away on my site, but don’t know how to upload it. I tried using the different upload/insert icons, but nothing seemed to work.
Thanks,
Helen

Keith Davis

9:25 PM

#55

Mark
I have been sent a guest post in word format, which I want to publish on my wordpress site.

If I publish the post it will have my name at the top as the author, which I don’t want.
In order to publish it for someone else, and have their name appear as the author, do I need to create an account using their name i.e. with username and password, even though they will never use the account.

I’m just trying to avoid creating an account, which they will never use.

Mark McLaren

9:27 PM

#56

@Helen To be honest, I have not tried uploading either a .zip file or a .exe file, which would probably be the two file formats you would have for simple software. I’m almost certain that WordPress will not let you upload a .exe file, and if the .zip file is a compressed .exe file, WordPress would probably not let you upload that either.

Have you seen my tutorial on how to upload and link to various files in WordPress? If not, try that and let me know if it works. If it doesn’t, you can use FTP software to upload your files. Create a specific folder on the server for those files, like “downloads”. If you create a downloads folder in your root directory and upload a file called “your-software-example.exe”, your file will be located at http://www.example.com/downloads/your-software-example.exe. You can then put that link into a WordPress post or page. If you need help with FTP, call your web hosting provider. They can point you in the right direction.

Mark McLaren

9:44 PM

#57

@Keith Davis – This is a good question. It depends on how intent you are on avoiding ambiguity. It’s probably easiest to go ahead and create a new user for that purpose. Just use a different email address (that belongs to you) and create a new user. Since the author will not have the password, you don’t have to worry about security issues, and it will make it obvious that this is a different author. Your site has a very prominent banner above each post with “Posted by” in front of the author name. Sites that don’t have this don’t have to worry so much about confusion in this regard. But I think it’s usually best to make it clear when you have more than one author on your blog.

The other thing you can do, whether you create a new user or not, is to include an introduction at the beginning of the post saying something like, “The following is a guest post by (author name), a widely respected speaker, writer, (etc.) on the subject of….” Whatever you want. But take the opportunity to let readers know right from the start who the author is, whether you plan to feature the author on a regular basis (if you want), your motivation for having guest authors (serves your readers!), etc., etc. – as much or as little detail as you like. There’s no question that readers will appreciate the heads up.

Keith Davis

9:57 PM

#58

Thanks Mark
Appreciate your help.
Read some of your stuff ages ago but not been over for some time.

Once again many thanks.

Valerie

6:52 PM

#59

I am helping with a website in WordPress and I have an image aligned to the left and the text wraps around the image. How can I get the text to unwrap and just be in a straight line to the right of the image?

Mark McLaren

7:08 PM

#60

@Valerie – Can you show me what you mean? An image flush left with text wrapping around the right would (I think) be the same thing as text “in a straight line to the right of the image” as you describe it. So I must be missing something. Thanks!

Valerie

8:02 PM

#61

Here is the link: http://www.tajrohr.com/?page_id=678

Instead of having the text wrap around the image how can I get the text unwrap? Or do I just have to live with it?

Mark McLaren

8:57 PM

#62

@Valerie – In the Visual editor, click on the image and then click on the picture icon to edit the image settings. You should see the text wrap option. Click the option marked None, and then click update/save. Now you will need to put a hard return after the image so that the text doesn’t start at the same line the image ends on. You can also use the HTML editor to insert a <p> in front of the text. This will do the same thing, i.e., start the text on a new line below the image.

Valerie

http://www.tajrohr.com/?page_id=98

1:23 PM

#63

Is there a way to remove the boxes from around the different products in the store? I looked in the eShop code but I wasn’t sure on what to take out or change.

Mark McLaren

8:54 PM

#64

@Valerie – You need to edit your WordPress theme’s style.css file. Let me know if you don’t know how to do that. You can use Appearance > Editor in the Dashboard. Open the style.css file and find (around line 240) the following:

#content .entry-content ul li {
border: 1px solid #222222;
}

Change the 1px to 0px (that’s a zero px) so that it looks like:

#content .entry-content ul li {
border: 0px none;
}

Be sure to save your changes. See how that works. Note that other elements might be affected by this change if there are some boxes that you do not want to get rid of. If that’s the case, you’ll need to do a little more modification of the code.

Keith Davis

9:13 PM

#65

Hi Mark
Question on using a caching plugin.

Came across “Quick Cache” plugin, which is super veasy to install and activate, compared with W3 total cache and other caching plugins.

Do you have any experience with this plugin?
Or would you recommend another caching plugin.

Thanks Mark

Mark McLaren

10:07 PM

#66

@Keith Davis – Caching is one of the areas I’m not up to speed on. I don’t use caching on any of my sites. They are all fairly small and I have found caching gets in the way of other things I’m trying to do, like pushing out quick updates.

Still, I know it’s valuable for large sites. The reviews that appear in the right column on WordPress.org plugins pages are usually very informative. You can see how many people have used the plugin and how many are having problems.

Sorry I can’t be of more help. Definitely let me know what you find out. I’m sure other readers will appreciate it.

Keith Davis

10:30 PM

#67

Thanks Mark
I’ll get back to you when I have more info.

Leah

12:42 AM

#68

I am a beginner at WordPress so instead of using links in my widgets because I did not know how…I have used the image widget but the only way to connect to the page where I want it to go is to click on the photo.

I tried using the text widget and actually copied the html code from your tutorial and inserted my specific information copying the links however the photo isn’t there …I just get a white box with the red X and the link went to my 404 page…for the life of me…I can’t figure out what is wrong…I have tried it numerous times to make sure I was not leaving out and adding something and it will not work.

I even thought I might just insert the link html into the image widget and I wouldn’t have to worry about the photo link…but that did not work either…I still got the 404 page…I did try several times to make sure it was accurate.

Specifically what I want to do on my site is to use the text or image widget and be able to highlight words in the text to link to another page. I can’t get it to work. I am only using the image widget and you have to click on the photo which is not that user friendly.

If you have time could you shed some light on this situation…could it have anything to do with my Artisteer theme?

Amanda

9:18 PM

#69

Hi Mark,
I’ve got a problem with the “add new” media admin page on one of my client’s computers, only in firefox. It functions using IE on that computer and on all others it is functioning as expected in Firefox. (e.g. upload options and can choose from flash or browser uploader) I checked the options settings in firefox and they seem to be the same as those on other computers. The trouble child is running the most recent version of firefox (like all of them) and using Windows 7. I tried (and failed) to duplicate the problem on two different computers. I must be missing something rather obvious. I don’t want to have to have the client use a work-around (ie using IE for uploading). I am hesitant to implement the one solution I did find since it involves editing my .htaccess file. I’m not familiar enough with the .htaccess file and it’s purpose to just go editing it willy-nilly based on a youTube tutorial. Any suggestions would be appreciated. Thanks!

Mark McLaren

9:39 PM

#70

@Amanda – Without looking at your settings, it’s hard to tell what the problem is. I have not run into any trouble – that I recall – with Firefox, but I don’t have Win 7. You are smart to try to reproduce the problem on another machine/browser. Eventually you will find what is different between them. In the meantime, I encourage you to give .htaccess a try. Keep the original and put it back and delete the new one if something fails. The .htaccess file is very powerful. It’s great to be able to use it when you need to. More .htaccess resources here: http://www.delicious.com/mcbuzz/htaccess Especially http://www.freewebmasterhelp.com/tutorials/htaccess/1

Mark McLaren

9:46 PM

#71

@Leah – Start by inserting a simple link into your widget to see if that works, like

<a href=”http://google.com/”>Go to Google</a>

You need to copy and paste the whole thing into your text block. Images work the same way except you use the image tag rather than text.

Mark McLaren

10:22 PM

#72

@Amanda – Hard to say! Can you use the HTML uploader instead of Flash in the Add New Media in WordPress? Have you upgraded Flash or maybe it’s Win 7 and Flash that’s the problem. All machines are using IE 8 right? Sorry I can’t be of more help. Do you get an error message? Put that into Google and search. Otherwise, I would continue using Google to see if anyone else has the problem. And I would try .htaccess, but it sounds like you don’t want to take any chances.

Leah

4:59 PM

#73

Mark…

Thank you so much for your response…but it does not work. When I copied the code you gave me there for Google and saved the widget. I refreshed my site and clicked on the link in the text widget and it sent me to my 404 page. As I hovered over the link in the text widget it showed in the address bar at the bottom of the page –
http://leahdudley.com/%E2%/80%9D:/google.com/“http://google.com/”

Please advise.

Mark McLaren

5:33 PM

#74

@Leah – Your WordPress theme is doing something funny with the link. Can you show me a page with that link in the widget so I can try to figure out what’s going on?

Leah

6:45 PM

#75

Thanks Mark…I thought that might be the problem….

This is specifically one thing I want to do:
The first widget is an image widget but I would like to link the words Leah’s Kitchen with this page:
http://leahdudley.com/leahs-kitchen/cooking-classes-and-workshops/

Mark McLaren

7:44 PM

#76

@Leah – Okay. I looked at your source code. It looks like your theme lets you put text into a caption or text field that goes under the image. That’s different. So my guess is that it does something funny with a link if you try to paste it into that text field. You want this to appear in your HTML. So paste this into the text field. I will send it to you by email, because you may need some special characters in place of the < and >

Come visit <a href=”http://leahdudley.com/leahs-kitchen/cooking-classes-and-workshops/”>Leah’s Kitchen</a> to register for cooking classes and delicious recipes!

You can also see if there is Help for your theme that explains how to insert a link. Or you could go with a text widget instead – if that’s available in your theme.

Mark McLaren

9:35 PM

#77

@Leah – Okay. I see that. What happens if you paste this into the same text area?

Come visit <a href=”http://leahdudley.com/leahs-kitchen/cooking-classes-and-workshops/”>Leah’s Kitchen</a> to register for cooking classes and delicious recipes!

Note that you may need to retype those quotation marks. Highlight them and type the quote marks using your keyboard so that special characters aren’t used instead.

Is there another way to make a link? Can you highlight text in the text area and then click the chain link button in your editor like you would with text in the Visual editor (of the WordPress Dashboard) for the main body of the page?

Leah

10:01 PM

#78

Mark ….I tried that as well and it looks like it made no difference. In the main body I have no problems with links…it ‘s just in the widgets that I can’t make it work.

Mark McLaren

10:09 PM

#79

@Leah – I haven’t used Artisteer. It looks like you need to do something specific to get a link to appear correctly in a widget. I suggest checking their documentation or forums – or write to them directly once you have tried those. Sorry I can’t be of more help.

Leah

10:55 PM

#80

Thanks Mark…I will try that!

Robert

6:13 AM

#81

Hey Mark: Hope things are well. I have a new blog and I’m running a Socrates theme on it- but for some reason there is no way for anybody to post comments on the posts. I’ve checked setting–> discussion..and I don’t see where there is a setting checked that would be making this happen. Nor do I see anything in the theme section in the admin. I did a search and found a WP post that mentioned changing code- seems kind of silly. Any ideas?

Mark McLaren

6:21 AM

#82

@Robert – I looked at the New Real Estate Strategy site and I see a comment form at the bottom of your posts. Did you find a fix already?

Valerie

http://www.tajrohr.com/?page_id=98

5:20 PM

#83

Is there a was to make products show up in rows and columns? Now they just show up on the left hand side and I would like to have 4 columns and have 4 rows of products on the page.

Robert

6:16 PM

#84

Hey Mark: Yes I see it now… the only problem is that someone has to know to click on the title link in order to comment. On your blog here one only scrolls down to the comment box to post a comment because the way you have it set up to display the actual thread- and not the list of recent posts. Am I displaying my posts in the wrong way in order for comments to be openly displayed and obvious for the visitor? Is there any way for the recent blog entries to have a dividing line in between them? Here is a format I’m trying to emulate:
http://www.sovereignman.com/
There is a obvious link to comment as well as social media links, ect.
If it’s left to people to click on the link to comment I might be sol…..
what do you think?
thanks
PS How can I link to your site?- Any affiliate relationships available?

Donald O'Donovan

Feb 18, 2011

9:15 PM

#85

My dashboard is gone. Please tell me how I can get my dashboard back so I can post to my blog.

Thanks,
Donald

Mark McLaren

Feb 20, 2011

4:52 PM

#86

@Donald O’Donovan – If your site is hosted on WordPress.com and your dashboard is no longer accessible, try getting on WordPress.com support and if that doesn’t help try the WordPress.com forums. If you can’t find an answer, you can post your question, but I suspect you’ll find the answer you need. You can also write to WordPress.com support directly. See the WordPress.com support options here.

Donald O'Donovan

Feb 20, 2011

5:58 PM

#87

Thanks Mark! Very helpful.

Brad Peters

Mar 3, 2011

5:03 PM

#88

We are building a new site using wordpress, how do we create a sing up here form, ie we are offering life coaching and need to have a way for people to apply by submitting their contact info and a comment about their issue>
Thanks
PS the current site is old and will be gone soon

Mark McLaren

Mar 3, 2011

5:59 PM

#89

@Brad Peters – This is loosely known as “Customer Relationship Management” or CRM. I don’t have a lot of experience with the tools available – and there are plenty of them, many are not just for WordPress.

One way to go is with a paid service like Constant Contact. I haven’t used it myself, but many WordPress users I know do. I does more than just email lists or email newsletters. It’s powerful and fairly easy to use, with a huge community of users. They also have special rates for non-profits. Definitely worth checking out.

For WordPress CRM specifically, see this WordPress CRM post on WPMU.org or Google “WordPress CRM”.

Brad Peters

Mar 4, 2011

2:15 AM

#90

thanks, next question, how do I un-attach (to a specific page) a picture with out deleting it?

Mark McLaren

Mar 4, 2011

4:05 PM

#91

@Brad Peters – I’m not aware of a way to un-attach an image without deleting it. The fact that it is attached to a page or post does not mean you can’t use it in other pages/posts. If you delete the attached image and upload it again from you computer using Media > Add New, it will then be un-attached, but as soon as you put it in a post using the WordPress Insert image button in the editor, it will be attached to that post. If you want it to remain un-attached, you can insert it manually using the URL for the image and the HTML editing window. Why do you need the image to be un-attached?

Peter O.

Mar 5, 2011

11:36 PM

#92

Hi Mark (again),

I recently went to my dashboard and it was suggested I update to the latest version of WordPress. It also recommended I update my theme (Yashfa), and some plug-ins. Aksimet wouldn’t update (couldn’t remove old version), and same with my THEME. Now my website is a BLANK WHITE PAGE. In the dashboard it says “The active theme is broken. Reverting to the default theme.” Should I just try re-installing the latest version of the theme? I’m afraid it’s going to screw everything up. But there;s nothing there now, so, I have literally nothing to lose I guess. Unless you know what’s going on here and have a surefire fix.

Thanks!

Peter

Mark McLaren

9:37 PM

#93

@Peter O. – Sorry to hear that. If you updated to the latest version of WordPress and that’s what caused the site to break, my first thought would be to restore the earlier version of WordPress – whatever you were using before. Then put a clean set of files for your theme back into the themes folder. But you might not need that. You might just need to put up the previous version of WordPress you were using. You should have a copy, but you can get one here if not. http://wordpress.org/download/release-archive/

This assumes you know how to use FTP software and you understand how to do a manual install of WordPress. Be sure to backup your database and all the files in the wp-contents folder first.

Also, before doing any of that, I would go to the forum for your theme, if there is one, and see if someone there can help.

Chris

10:01 PM

#94

I have just started our travel blog and am learning WordPress as I go! thank you for all the tips. However, I want to be able to create posts that are retroactive – for trips that we’ve made in the past. How do I do that?

Mark McLaren

10:27 PM

#95

@Chris Urick – When you create a post or edit an existing post, you’ll see the Publish feature box in the upper right of the editing panel. That’s where you click the “Publish” / “Update” button to publish or update the post, and you will also find there a “timestamp” that says “Published on:” with a date and time. Click the “Edit” link next to this and you can set the date to whatever you want. I haven’t tried back-dating posts by more than a few days. There may be a limit as to how far back you can go. I don’t know. Let me know what you find out.

Keith Davis

10:34 PM

#96

Hi Mark
I never knew that you could backdate posts.
Worth knowing.
You’re doing a great job here Mark.

Mark McLaren

10:48 PM

#97

@Keith Davis & @Chris Urick – I should have mentioned it, but you can also future date them and they will be published automatically on whatever date you select.

Keith Davis

10:56 PM

#98

Cheers Mark
Worth knowing.

Gavin

Mar 10, 2011

10:47 PM

#99

Hi Mark,

I recently did a video presentation using Camtasia that i want to embed on my webpage. I have tried publishing the Camtasia file in both .WMV and .MP4 format. The video looks fine when i view it on my computer, but when i embed it on my webpage it is really fuzzy and barely readable. Do you have any ideas what might be going wrong?

Thanks,
Gavin.

Mark McLaren

12:57 AM

#100

@Gavin – Unless you are opposed to hosting on YouTube, I recommend that you upload the .MP4 to a YouTube account so that you can embed the video using the YouTube URL. (I can’t tell from your question if you tried that or not.) See my post about YouTube video hosting for online marketing for reasons this is a good idea. I’m not really up to speed on ways to embed video that don’t use a third-party service like YouTube or Vimeo. There are video player plugins for WordPress, but it’s so much easier to use a third-party service, you need to have a really good reason not to do so.

Sebastian

3:47 PM

#101

Hi,

I have been searching the Internet for an answer to ” How to change the title tag in WordPress” for a few weeks now, but havent found a good answer. All I found was very confusing for me. What I would ask you for is a kind of step-by-step instruction how to do that.

Thank you in advance

Michael Enriquez

5:53 PM

#102

Hi,

The subpanel Editor is missing under the Appearance tab in my Dashboard sidebar. I would like get access to my css/php files and I can’t at the moment. It just disappeared randomly..

I have tried the following fixes:

– Updating the site from 3.0 to 3.1
– Deactivating my plugins using the plugins tab
– Deactivating all plugins by using phpMyAdmin
– Changing the theme to see if it is theme-related

Could you help?

Mark McLaren

6:18 PM

#103

@Sebastian – Some themes have search engine optimization features built in. It sounds like yours does not, but you might want to check the website of the designer/developer to be sure. If not, you can install an SEO plugin like All In One SEO Pack. There are other SEO plugins like Headspace and Platinum. I like All in One SEO Pack because it is easy to use, there are frequent updates and you know what you are going to get from it. It’s not fancy. It does what 95% of WordPress users need.

Here is a tutorial on how to use the All In One SEO Pack plugin. You can use it to change HTML titles on WordPress pages and posts.

If you are not sure how to install a WordPress plugin, here’s a tutorial for that.

Mark McLaren

6:41 PM

#104

@Michael Enriquez – Are you certain the Editor was there under the Appearance tab before? If it was and it disappeared, that’s very odd. It would make more sense if it was never there to begin with. In that case, I wonder about the permissions on your WordPress files. I know it’s possible to see files using the Editor but not be able to save changes unless the theme files are “writable”. (See “File Permissions” here.)

It might also be something specific to your web host. The easiest way to test it would be to create a new WordPress installation on the same server for test purposes only. See if the Editor panel is there in the fresh install on the Twenty Ten theme. If it is, load your plugins one by one and see if that makes the Editor go away. Then try switching to your custom theme. (Or you could try the theme first, then the plugins. It doesn’t really matter as long as nothing else changes.)

If the site is hosted on your university’s servers, there may be IT issues or server restrictions that you aren’t aware of, and they might change without notice. If a fresh test install is not an option because you are not the one responsible for files on the server, then you may want to check with the system admin / webmaster. You might also ask around to see if others using WordPress have run into similar problems.

Michael Enriquez

6:56 PM

#105

Hey,

Thanks for responding. That’s the thing. I am the webmaster and I have been using the editor subpanel to change my css/php files up until recently.

I could do a repeat install of 3.0 if you think that will change it, and it is hosted on a third party (i believe) .

How would I do a fresh install with the Twenty Ten theme? Could any other theme work out (right now I have two installed themes, twentyten and the one I am using).

Mark McLaren

7:36 PM

#106

@Michael Enriquez – The theme you use should not matter as far as whether the Editor works or not, but you should test it to be sure. Twenty Ten is the default them for WordPress 3.0 and 3.1. You probably knew that. By “fresh install” I just mean a new installation of WordPress that has no plugins or custom themes activated.

I would try installing 3.0. See if the Editor is there. This is the critical test. Depending on your host, this should take just a few minutes. Who is the host? Some hosts like Bluehost and Hostgator are quite good about supporting WordPress. You can usually call them and tell them your problem and if they have heard of it or seen it they can tell you what to do.

I doubt plugins or the custom theme is causing the problem. Then try upgrading to 3.1 using the auto update – which I think you already did on the current site – but do it again on the new installation. Then activate plugins one by one. Then your custom theme.

Let me know what you find out.

Robert Smith

Mar 13, 2011

4:42 PM

#107

While trying to install the plugin Cimy Header Image Rotator I had to insert some generated code into the header file of my blog-WP-Ver 3.1 Theme twenty 10.When the plugin did not respond I tried to remove the code and messed up something.Now if you view my blog the following shows;Parse error syntax error,'<' in/—-/——–/public_html/———.com/wp-content/themes/twentyten/header.php on line 26.I'm not very technical so I was in over my head from the start but I love the concept of this plugin and want to use it.For now I would settle for my blog to be visible again.Any help would be greatly appreciated.
Thank you for your time,
Robert E. Smith

Mark McLaren

Mar 13, 2011

11:20 PM

#108

@Robert Smith – Ah, the dreaded “syntax error” message. I have seen that many times. Never fun. First, deactivate the plugin. If you still get the error message, then delete the plugin. If that isn’t enough, I’d recommend deleting the plugin “manually” using FTP or your web host’s File Manager. You can call most web hosts’ tech support and they will explain how to do that if you haven’t done it before. If that does not make the error message go away, you will need to put the original header.php file back, replacing the one that you modified. (You should probably do this regardless.) You need a clean version of the header.php file from the original files for the theme. Copy that header.php file to the folder for your theme so that it overwrites the file that you modified.

That should definitely make the error message go away, but it does not address the question of whether you can use the plugin with your theme. There’s a chance that you broke the header.php file when you added the new code. Try adding the special code again to a copy of the original header.php file, being sure to do exactly what the directions say. Do this before you activate the plugin. I’m not a plugin whiz, but your site should be able to run with that new code in place even if the plugin is not activated. But, if you get the error, go ahead and activate the plugin and see if it works. Keep the original header.php file handy so you can put it back if you get the error message again after activating the plugin. Put the original header.php back. You might also need to deactivate/delete/remove the plugin.

For more help, try WordPress Support Forums, the forum for your theme, if there is one, and good old Google in case someone else has had the same problem.

One nice thing about the syntax error message is that you can put part or all of it into a Google search and you will usually find some very specific discussions related to the problem.

Peter O.

12:40 AM

#109

Hi Mark,

In regards to my last question (website disappearing with WP update), it came back, a few days later, but with the theme gone and replaced by another one I had installed but not activated. There was a note that the style sheet was missing from the theme, or something (don’t quote me). Anyway, I reinstalled my original theme and all seems amazingly fine now!

But I do have a new question: at some point, a horizontal scroll bar appeared at the base of my site, and it screws up the appearance if you happen to slide it right. It never used to be there. How can I get rid of it? Is there a bit of code in themes editor I can just delete?

Thanks! Best

Mandy

12:36 PM

#110

Hi Mark, I am in the procces of making my website under wordpress, my problems is under my categories. For example.. I post 6 recipes under food recipes but when I click that category I only see 1 recipe at a time and I must click that said recipe before I can see the next recipe and next recipe. I think it should be like this, when I click food recipes, the name of other recipes will roll downward so people can see and only choose what they like to see right? what should I do? do I need to make a static page or what can of page? my other problem is the search widget on the top of my site is not functioning!
Hoping you can visit my site and tell me how can I arrange it. Thanks and God Bless-Mandy

Mark McLaren

6:49 PM

#111

@Mandy – I’m not sure why your theme shows only one post on a category page. Is there a way to change that? Maybe under Appearance > Theme Options or something like that. Otherwise, you need a static page or improved navigation or both. You could try a different theme. Look at some of the themes from StudioPress. They create navigation for category pages. Or you can add a static page with a list of your posts. That’s the quickest solution. I have done something like this on my Business Blogging 101 site by creating a list of all tutorials.

Another alternative is to use a plugin like this Sitemap Plugin for WordPress. It creates custom lists of pages and posts.

Mark McLaren

6:51 PM

#112

@Peter O. – I can’t see the horizontal scroll bar. Did you figure out how to get rid of it? I can see one if I size my web browser window to be narrower than your web page, but I’m guessing that’s not what you are referring to.

Keith Nymark

1:34 AM

#113

Hi Mark: I just watched your video on inserting images. I just upgraded from WP 2.1.3 to 3.1. I am using Chris Pearson’s Neoclassical 1.1 theme which I like because the header picture changes and it is three columns. My problem is that the text doesn’t wrap around the pictures. It wraps in the edit page. (I use pages for column writers for my seniors paper) but it doesn’t wrap once it is saved. So everything looks ok until I save it. I’m not real comfortable with code although I think this might be a pretty straight forward fix which I could do if I knew the code and where to insert it. At least I hope it is. Any suggestions.
thanks
Keith

Peter O.

1:04 PM

#114

No it’s still there, below the last post and just above the footer, comments and recent posts lists. I checked both Safari and Firefox, my browsers expanded to full screen width. When you scroll left, it hides part of the post title, and the right sidebar gets superimposed over a sort of page edge line.

Mark McLaren

5:46 PM

#115

@Peter O. – I see it now. Here’s one way to fix it. You will need to see if this solution messes up anything else on your site. In your theme’s style.css file, find the following around line 135.

#thebg {
background: url(“images/bg/sidebar.jpg”) repeat-y scroll right 0 transparent;
overflow: auto;
}

Change “auto” to “hidden”, so you have:

#thebg {
background: url(“images/bg/sidebar.jpg”) repeat-y scroll right 0 transparent;
overflow: hidden;
}

Mark McLaren

http://judyscreativedesigns.com

5:53 PM

#116

@Keith Nymark – Try this WordPress text wrap “howto” solution on my Business Blogging 101 website. Note that you can modify your theme’s style.css file using Appearance > Editor. You don’t have to use FTP. But be sure to Select All when you view the style.css file, then copy and paste it to a text editor like Notepad (on a PC) or TextEdit (on a Mac) and save it so that you can paste it back into the style.css file in case something breaks. Let me know if that doesn’t work.

Judy Schneider

Mar 21, 2011

9:50 PM

#117

Hello
I’m Judy Schneider of judyscreativedesigns.com
I was working on my web site and all of a sudden the WordPress log-in appeared. No big deal, so I tried to log in. The password and username would not be accepted. I tried about a dozen times. It even said once that my e-mail address was not registered. Then it sent an e-mail to reset password. I tried many times, but it said that the address does not exist. So, I can’t get into my own website.
An additional problem: When you type in judyscreativedesigns.com you get two links. One just says “It can’t be found.” So, visitors cannot even get to the web site.
I need to have both problems solved. I’m losing money possibly every minute and can’t have/afford a web site I can’t log into myself and visitors can’t get into my site using one of the links provided.
Thank-you in advance of your service

In a message dated 3/21/2011 8:34:04 A.M. Mountain Daylight Time, wordpress@judyscreativedesigns.com writes:
Someone requested that the password be reset for the following account:

Username: judyscr1

If this was a mistake, just ignore this email and nothing will happen.

To reset your password, visit the following address:

I have tried at least 3 dozen times. There is always the message that the addxress does not exist.

In a message dated 3/21/2011 9:47:59 A.M. Mountain Daylight Time, wordpress@judyscreativedesigns.com writes:

In a message dated 3/21/2011 3:27:57 P.M. Mountain Daylight Time, wordpress@judyscreativedesigns.com writes:
Someone requested that the password be reset for the following account:

http://judyscreativedesigns.com

Username: judyscr1

If this was a mistake, just ignore this email and nothing will happen.

To reset your password, visit the following address:

A note: I have worked on this all day and lost business all day also. This must be resolved today or cancellation of the web site is no question. I have another one on VistaPrint anyway and if customers -or myself-cannot access me, there is no reason to keep this site.
Thank-you in advance of your service.

Mark McLaren

Mar 22, 2011

6:07 PM

#118

@Judy Schneider – Hi Judy. Sorry you are having trouble. I want to be clear about the fact that I am not affiliated with Automattic (creator of WordPress software and parent company of WordPress.com). WordPress is free, open source software that anyone can use. If you use the “self-hosted” version, which it looks like you do, then you must pay for web hosting, but that is provided by a third party like HostGator or BlueHost. Self-hosted WordPress does not come with any warranty, service agreement or support, other than what your web host might offer. Your web host can explain this further if you call them directly.

You can pay someone like me to provide support, but that is completely independent of WordPress or Automattic. As I say, I do not work for WordPress.

If you submit a question/problem on mcbuzz.com in the comments on one of my help pages – like the one above, or this one (the most current help page) – http://www.mcbuzz.com/2011/free-wordpress-help/ Then I will try to answer as soon as I have time. This is a free service. Since it’s free, there are no guarantees that your problem will be solved. I do my best, but I don’t always have an answer.

The WordPress support forums are pretty good. Have you searched those?
http://wordpress.org/support/

If you don’t find someone with a similar problem that has been answered already, you can submit your question there. However, taking a quick look at the following search results, it looks like many people have had this problem, and that you will find a solution here:
http://wordpress.org/search/cannot+login+password?forums=1

Gavin

Mar 24, 2011

12:12 AM

#119

Hi Mark,

Thanks for the tip about You Tube, that worked a treat!

Can you please explain to me exactly what Pingbacks are and should i be approving them?

Thanks.

Sarah Kuehne

3:07 PM

#120

Hi Mark,
wondering if you could help – I am working on a new site for a client on corporate generosity: http://www.sarahkuehne.info/themoreyougive/
Under the banner to the left of the Welcome text – I would like to add a join tab – which allows companies to back the concept and also subscribe their interest. Ideally I would also like to include a box which shows how many people are ‘backing’ it and which company they’re from – with the numbers increasing everyday so it shows it in real time…are there any widgets or tutorials that show you how to do this? Tried to have a look on the internet but couldn’t find anything relevant – but did come across your site and thought that you might be able to help Many thanks for your time! Sarah

Peter O.

4:43 PM

#121

Mark,

RE: the horizontal scroll bar – just wanted to let you know (it was a while ago) your fix worked! Thanks once again.

best,
Peter

Mark McLaren

5:22 PM

#122

@Sarah Kuehne – This is a fairly specific set of requirements, which, on the one hand, is great, because you know exactly what you want to do. But, on the other hand, my hunch is that there is no existing plugin that will do this for you because, at this point, demand has not been great enough for someone to create this kind of widget/plugin. Sorry to say, I don’t know of any.

If there were such a widget/plugin, it’s certainly something that other designer/developers like you would want to use, so you might be able to convince a developer to create one. Also, it doesn’t have to be made for WordPress. You can easily insert code into a sidebar that will display a signup form and results. So you might want to broaden your search outside WordPress. I suggest looking at some of the Customer Relationship Management (CRM) services out there like Constant Contact or MailChimp. A service like these might offer a way to collect signups and display results. Check out these related services.

Other thoughts: Facebook (and maybe LinkedIn) offer widgets similar to this. The “Like” button lets you show in a sidebar how many people “support” your cause, etc. But it’s not exactly what you want. I wonder if someone has created a custom version that you could use.

Since this is a kind of advanced CRM functionality is something nonprofit organizations are using more and more these days, you could look to some of the leaders for ideas. See the featured projects here: http://groundwire.org/services/social-media-email and here: http://www.webcollective.coop/portfolio And others like this here.

Mark McLaren

http://www.addthis.com/home

6:30 PM

#123

@Gavin – Thanks! Good pingback question. I answered in a blog post: What is a Pingback and Why Should I Care?

Kate Moore

Mar 30, 2011

11:21 AM

#124

Hi,
I have found your tutorials very valuable in my handling of WordPress but right now I am at screaming point with it!!!
a) How do i add in an extra line/space between sections? It seems to ignore everything I do including which appears in the HTML a lot when I look at it and would seem logically to imply division… too simple perhaps!
b) How do I put text in and around pictures, I have understood left, centre and right formatting but the text moves around at random, is there any text-box type thing that allows you to place text precisely?
c) Some of the pictures have a grey border which I am fine with as it allows me to number the images but two of the 11 have extended grey borders that go behind the others and seem to offset those in front of them so that they are annoyingly not quite centred! I have delved into the HTML but found nothing that I can identify as telling it to do this on some but not others. And I have looked on W3schools tryit to see if I can figure it out, but no luck so far!
HELP!!!
Thank you
Kate

Mark McLaren

Mar 30, 2011

6:01 PM

#125

@Kate Moore – Looking at your site, I can’t find examples of what you are talking about. Did you solve the problems you are referring to? If not, please let me know a URL to look at.

Even if you solved your problems in this case, I highly recommend checking out and installing the following “add-on” to Firefox. If you don’t use Firefox, install it first. The Web Developer add-on for Firefox lets you to view and edit live HTML and CSS. It does not change the actual code; it changes the code your browser sees, so it’s an excellent way to make a change to a page and preview what it would look like if you were to change the actual code. This helps you (usually) to quickly identify the source of problems like text that won’t wrap. It’s an excellent way to learn HTML and CSS.

Install the add-on, view a page and press the F12 key, and you get a window showing HTML and CSS for the page. You can make edits to the code right there in the code window and the page you are viewing will change accordingly.

Peter O.

Apr 1, 2011

3:35 PM

#126

Hi Mark,

Do you have Twitter and Facebook button plugins you like? I have a “find us on Facebook button but would like a share on Facebook button that would show up under each post. Similarly, I need a “follow me on Twitter” button for my sidebar, and a sort of “tweet this” button for the posts. Thanks…

Mark McLaren

Apr 1, 2011

5:18 PM

#127

@Peter O. – I use ShareThis on my blog. It has nice custom options and if you create an account you get stats about what is shared on your site. That will give you a “Share this on Facebook” and Twitter. You might want to add a “Like” button for Facebook. Here are two posts that show how to do that. Mashable WPRecipes There are so many kinds of these out there it’s hard to keep up. Let me know if you find others you like.

Peter O.

Apr 2, 2011

7:55 AM

#128

RE: Facbeook buttons etc.

I tried Share This but I didn’t like the look of the buttons… and it wouldn’t show up in my settings menu/control panel to allow me to change the appearance, as it’s supposed to. So I came across this:

and that worked for me. Thanks again again…

Mark McLaren

Apr 2, 2011

8:43 AM

#129

AddThis is also very popular. Last time I tried it, it did something googfy with URLs in Twitter: they weren’t shortened properly. So I went back to ShareThis. ShareThis is pretty good about responding if you contact them via Twitter. Not sure why you are having trouble with seeing it in the dashboard.

Kate Moore

Apr 2, 2011

9:40 AM

#130

Hi Mark
Thanks for your suggestions about Firefox, am going to tackle that next week when teccie son returns from Uni!
The grey border problem is not visible at the moment on the site as we have hidden it while sorting it out (although the page of text on the Home page entitled Hassel Smith in the West Country has a border that I would like to get rid of). Will come back to you if firefox doesn’t solve that problem and will make the other pages visible so you can see what I am talking about.
Many thanks
Kate

Dave

Apr 7, 2011

11:32 AM

#131

I have problems with certain plugins (currently awcp) that they install and when I try to use the settings to customize the plugin I get taken to a page that states: You do not have sufficient permissions to access this page.
Can someone help?
thanks

Mark McLaren

Apr 7, 2011

12:46 PM

#132

@Dave – I haven’t seen this specific permissions issue before, but in general you need to make sure that your wp-content directory (part of the WordPress files on the host server) permissions are set to 755 or higher. The easiest way to do this is to call your hosting company’s tech support and have them do it. Most good hosting companies will. If you know how to use FTP software and you have access to files on the server, you can do it yourself.

I can’t find any good explanations of how to change permissions. There must be some! See this post on wordpress.org (way too much info) but scroll down to “Using an FTP Client”. In your FTP client, you just need to right click on the wp-content folder. Select “Properties” and then set permissions to 755, similar to the way they are set to 666 in the post above on the WordPress codex.

Dave

Apr 9, 2011

11:21 AM

#133

I had the hosting company reset all permissions and the classified plugin still doesn’t work. Hosting company suggested that another plugin could cause the issue with this plugin. Could that be possible?

Mark McLaren

Apr 9, 2011

3:20 PM

#134

@Dave – Yes. The more plugins you have, the greater chance of conflict. You can test by deactivating one plugin at a time to see if the classified plugin will work after you deactivate each one. If you find a single plugin that seems to be the culprit, you can reactivate the others to be sure. There might be a fix available. If it is a plugin conflict and you find the one that conflicts, it will be easier to look for a fix. Let me know what you find out.

Gavin

3:01 PM

#135

Hi Mark,

I have an SEO question. I have my main site, and i also contribute to another site in the same niche. If i write an article for my site, and then a week or so later also publish the EXACT same article on the other site, will Google penalize this duplicate content? If so, will they penalize:

1) My site
2) The other site that i contribute to
3) both sites

thanks.

Mark McLaren

3:17 PM

#136

@Gavin – Thanks for the SEO question! I would like more of these, so tell a friend. The short answer is that you are both penalized. What does “penalized” mean in this context? It means that Google wants to send a searcher to the best source of information based on a lot of factors, one is uniqueness, another is authority.

If the exact same content appears on different pages, those pages compete. You are forcing Google to choose one or the other. In other words, because there are two very similar pieces of content in different locations, both pages appear less unique. Both appear less authoritative. The best solution would be to write a unique summary of the post, and put that on the second site with a link (using keywords in the link text) to the post on your site.

UPDATE: To get a sense of the importance of avoiding duplicate content, check out this post about the latest Google algorithm update, “Panda”, aka the content farm update. There is no question that sites that “scrape” (copy and paste) content from another site without attribution are low-quality sites. It’s fair to say that, even with some form of attribution, sites that reproduce content that can be found verbatim on another site are of little value to searchers. There’s no way Google wants to put both pages on the same SERP (search engine results page). It doesn’t serve the searcher’s best interests, so it doesn’t serve Google’s interests. Searchers want to see more than one result, not the same result in sheep’s clothing.

Kash

10:05 PM

#137

Complete novice posting here. VERY new to wordpress.
I am considering using wordpress.org to build a website for my new business venture. Need to establish if it will suit my needs so I have 4 questions:
1) can I create a wordpress site and load the content before I have the domain/web hosting organised. Or does the latter have to come 1st?
2) my site is membership based with members paying an annual fee – is there a plug-in that would allow this to happen?
3) members would upload their own profile and photos – is there a plug-in that would allow this to happen?
4) in wordpress can I create email templates – with a view to this having fresh information sent to members daily.
Any help much appreciated

Mark McLaren

10:44 PM

#138

@Kash – 1) WordPress requires a database so you need to host somewhere, but if you know how, you can even host on your own computer with LAMP or XAMPP. But you can easily get hosting with a “one-click” WordPress installation. Here are good hosts. Here’s how easy it is to install WordPress. Keep in mind that if you build a site on a temporary domain, you will need to “move” it later.

2) I haven’t used any membership plugins, but there are some good ones out there. I’ve heard Wishlist Member is good.

3) Same as #2 but I’m sure there are plugins for this if something like Wishlist Member doesn’t already have it integrated.

4) Not sure about this. Take a look at MailChimp or Constant Contact. It’s better to go with an established provider when managing an email list. However, what you are asking is a reasonable requirement as far as integration goes, so maybe there is a plugin that will do it. Remember that it’s good for SEO to get your newsletter content onto your website somewhere. Don’t keep an “archive” of newsletters on someone else’s domain.

Dave

Apr 12, 2011

1:58 PM

#139

I am not sure I have the confidence to correct my permissions problem, but i believe I have found the answer here:
http://wordpress.org/support/topic/plugin-publish-2-pingfm-plugin-uses-bad-add_menu_page-arguments
I might just try to find a similiar plugin, because I am a code coward

Mark McLaren

Apr 12, 2011

2:12 PM

#140

@Dave – First of all, big kudos for finding this solution. Something like it will probably solve your problem. Here’s my two cents on changing code in a plugin. Don’t sweat it. This is code for the plugin, not for the core WordPress installation. If something goes wrong when you change this piece of code, you can simply put back the original file (in the example it’s called “admin.php” in the folder for the specific plugin) – or change the code back to what it was and upload and copy over the file that you modified. If this does not work and you cannot access your WordPress login/dashboard at all, you can go to wp-content/plugins and delete the entire plugin. You can install the plugin again if you need to after that. Chances of screwing up the WordPress installation itself, or your theme, are slim to none. That said, before you try this, make a backup of your database and your theme files. You should be doing that regularly anyway.

Kate Moore

7:47 AM

#141

Hi Mark, Thank you for the plugin advice and we have now followed it but I am still unable to move things around at will. For instance on the page forthcoming events http://silkmillstudios.co.uk/?page_id=337 I want to put the item ‘Hassel Smith in the West Country’ down below the images, but a normal space doesn’t seem to be recognised. What is the HTML for line space?
Also I now have some images with a red box around them and some without and don’t seem able to control them. I used images at the top and went to outline images but there seems to be no opposite command.
When I look at the pages in Safari the outlines are not there is this normal?
Many thanks
Kate

Mark McLaren

11:03 AM

#142

@Kate Moore – Welcome to the wonderfully aggravating world of web browser display inconsistencies. It can sometimes be true that things like borders will not appear around images in one browser, like Safari, and they will appear around images in another browser, like Firefox or Internet Explorer (IE). Sorting this out can be a major headache for even the most skillful designer.

Different WordPress themes use different CSS techniques. So the more you want to modify the way things like images display, the more you need to know about how CSS works.

If you want to modify your theme, I recommend that you use Firefox to edit the site and that you install the Web Developer add-on for Firefox. Install this add-on and press the F12 key on your keyboard. You’ll see the HTML and CSS for whatever page you are viewing, and you can edit the HTML and CSS in real time and view the results. This does not change the actual page. It changes what you see in your browser, so that you can find the code that affects elements on the page, like images and borders around images. It’s an indispensable tool.

Regarding line breaks. You can insert <br /> to insert a break. Sometimes this will disappear after you update the page, but it will still be there. You just can’t see it. Annoying, eh?

Also, you may want to insert the following to create a more universal or complete break after an image or some other page element when the <br /> does not work: <div style=”clear:both”></div>

The latter is what’s known as a hack, i.e., something that I have found useful but that may not be the best solution. Like the <br /> it will sometimes disappear after you update the page, except – even more annoying – you may have to insert it again whenever you edit the page.

If you haven’t checked out w3schools.com you should do so. It’s probably the best CSS tutorial resource I have found.

Keith Davis

11:17 AM

#143

Hi Mark
Is “Web Developer add-on for Firefox” better than the Firebug addon?
For checking CSS that is.

I’ve been messing around with Firebug and I’m impressed, but if this is better….

Mark McLaren

2:20 PM

#144

@Keith Davis & @Kate Moore – Oops! I meant to recommend Firebug. That’s actually the more useful and versatile of the two. The Web Developer add-on is good, but I find myself using Firebug more often. Now if I could just learn which one was which …

Keith Davis

Apr 19, 2011

9:14 AM

#145

Thanks Mark
I’m really beginning to like Firebug.

AliMH

May 18, 2011

11:01 AM

#146

Hi, i already programmed my own site with wordpress and now wanna add to cart options to my posts. Which is the best e shop plugins for wordpress?

Mark McLaren

May 18, 2011

11:54 AM

#147

@AliMH – For WordPress eCommerce – wp ecommerce plugin and Shopp are two of the most popular. http://sixrevisions.com/wordpress/top-5-excellent-e-commerce-plugins-for-wordpress/ Justin Sainton is an authority on wp ecommerce. You may be able to contact him for resources http://twitter.com/js_zao or find his presentations online at http://wordcamp.tv

Dave

Jun 15, 2011

2:19 PM

#148

I have started to experience a problem with certain posts that when published, they do not stay with the margins cutting off a few characters or even words. Can anyone suggest how i can correct this?
thanks…

Mark McLaren

Jun 15, 2011

2:36 PM

#149

@Dave – You can try adding margin or padding to the content block in your style.css file. Technically, you should create a child theme style.css file for this. That’s a little complicated, but worth the effort. http://codex.wordpress.org/Child_Themes If you add changes to a theme’s primary style.css file, those changes will be eliminated when you update WordPress (if the theme is based on the default WordPress theme).

At any rate, here’s what you need in your style.css file. Be sure to include punctuation exactly as shown.

.post-content,
.featured-page-content {
padding-right: 12px;
}

Here’s how to do that in your current theme:
http://www.mcbuzz.com/2010/wordpress-qa-more-answers-to-wordpress-questions/#comment-1750

Dean

Jun 16, 2011

4:05 PM

#150

Hi Mark, This question relates to an opt-in page. Basically I wish to know how to put an image into my blog attached to a free giveaway. You know, get this free download by placing your first name and email address to get the download. The other queation is what are your thougts on the importance of a site map for a blog.
For me your’s is the go to blog.
cheers
Dean

Mark McLaren

Jun 16, 2011

5:13 PM

#151

@Dean – I recommend that you look at Gravity Forms for WordPress. This will help you build a form that leads to a download page. Gravity Forms is excellent and well worth the cost, which is minimal.

There are two meanings of “site map”. One is the sitemap.xml file you can use to tell search engines which pages you want them to crawl. Here’s Google’s info about sitemap.xml. Here’s a very popular plugin for WordPress that creates a sitemap.xml file for your site. Here’s a great free tool to create a sitemap.xml file for any website. In my experience, you don’t need a sitemap.xml file for a small to medium-sized WordPress site. These sites are easy for spiders to crawl. You are better off making sure that pages deep in your site are linked to by other pages or navigation on your site. That’s a matter of human usability as much as spiderability. Make it easy for people to find the content on your site, and you won’t have to worry about a sitemap.xml file.

Along those lines, some sites use a “Site Map” page (the other meaning of “site map”) to make it easy for people to find all the content on the site, especially when there are lots of blog posts. I use a site map page to help users find blog posts and pages on my site. Here’s another example on a Real Estate Broker-Lawyer website (one of my clients). There’s a WordPress sitemap plugin you can use to generate the site map page by Dagon Design. It’s awesome and free – but consider giving a donation if you use it for a business site.

Jill

Jun 29, 2011

8:19 PM

#152

I want to add in a new plug-in but the plugin button does not show up on the backend although I have an administrator access. Would the super-admin have restricted my access to this function?

Mark McLaren

Jun 29, 2011

10:42 PM

#153

@Jill – If there is no “Plugins” menu in the dashboard navigation, and there is someone with “super admin” access, then it is likely that they have the ability to add or delete plugins but you do not. There is no “super admin” level of access with the standard WordPress installation, so they would need to be using a special plugin for that. I haven’t heard of a plugin like that, but it’s quite possible one exists.

Brian

Jul 2, 2011

8:29 PM

#154

On a couple of my wordpress sites, including songwritersguide.com, some published pages have been repeatedly disappearing for no apparent reason. When they disappear, I can’t find them anywhere, including the database. (And, unfortunately, I have to re-create some of them from scratch because they hadn’t even been indexed yet by Google).
Before this began happening, I had updated the wordpress versions on both sites to 3.1.4, and installed W3 Total Cache. The following plugins are activated: Akismet, FeedWordPress, Google XML Sitemaps, Official StatCounter Plugin, Privacy Policy, Platinum SEO Pack, and W3 Total Cache as already mentioned. Any ideas would really be appreciated!
Thanks,
Brian

Mark McLaren

Jul 3, 2011

10:47 AM

#155

@Brian – I don’t have experience with this kind of problem, nor have I heard of posts that are created in WordPress disappearing from the database. If it’s happening on more than one site, and you use the same plugins on all of them (I think you are right to think plugins could be the cause), then on one or more of those sites – or on a test installation of WordPress – I’d suggest that you turn off the plugins one by one to see if the problem persists. Start with W3 Total Cache.

Dean

Jul 9, 2011

11:32 PM

#156

Hi Mark, On numerous occasions I have had bloggers ask if I can sent them an affiliate link. I am not sure if this is a good thing or not or if infant how to provide an affiliate link if I wanted to. I also have requests from bloggers to copy some of my content so that they can use it in there blog. What is your opinion on this. Is there an advantage helping out and or is there a good way to do this.
cheers
Dean

Mark McLaren

Jul 10, 2011

10:45 PM

#157

@Dean – Affiliate marketing is not my expertise. It’s nice that people are courteous enough to ask if they can use your content. I’d say 99% of the time people use my content without asking. If they are willing to ask you, they might be good affiliates. I don’t think there is too much harm in their using limited amounts of your content. If they are willing to give you credit by including a link to the page on your site where that content appears, that will be good for you.

For other ideas about affiliate marketing, check out http://www.hasoffers.com/ and http://www.cj.com/ (I make no endorsement of either one.) Here is some good information about building inbound links using affiliates. As you probably know, there are lots of plugins for WordPress that facilitate affiliate programs. You can find those by googling “wordpress affiliate plugin“. Beyond that, I’m sorry I can’t be of more help.

Dean

Jul 11, 2011

1:04 AM

#158

Hi Mark, don’t be sorry, I really appreciate you taking the time to reply. I will follow up on your suggestions though.
Cheers
Dean
ps are you open for me to place a link from my site to yours. Graphic link maybe?

Linda Naylor

Jul 15, 2011

12:09 PM

#159

I have tried numerous times to create a link and, while I’m sure I’m executing the simple process correctly, the link doesn’t go live.

Please help.

Mark McLaren

Jul 15, 2011

1:26 PM

#160

@Linda Naylor – Without being able to see the steps you are using, it’s hard to know where things are going awry. You are doing the step here, correct? http://en.support.wordpress.com/links/

Here’s my tutorial on how to create a text link in WordPress.

Try looking here: http://en.support.wordpress.com/topic/links/ and if that’s no help, I’d suggest posting on the forums. http://en.support.wordpress.com/contact/

JS

Jul 18, 2011

4:41 PM

#161

Hello Mark!

Your help is greatly appreciated!

I am using the atahualpa theme on my blog. Love that theme, it is so customizable. Having a HUGE problem tho. My blog is FINALLY getting comments, but they are not showing up.

I have tried checking these settings: Discussions, making sure comments/discussions are allowed on every post, checked the theme options, approved the posts, to no avail. The posts and replies show up in my dashboard. I have spent so much time googling I am going to go blind or insane! I can’t figure it out for the life of me! All of the suggestions on the atahualpa theme site doesn’t help my situation.

Theme and wordpress are updated. If I use a comment widget that does not work either.

Plugins activated:
All in one SEO
Broken link checker
Fast secure Contact form
Google Analyticator
Google XML stie map
Pages links to
Subcategory widget
Tiny MCE Advanced
EZPZ One click backup

If you use firebug, would you be able to tell what’s wrong?

Thanks so, so much.

JS

Mark McLaren

Jul 18, 2011

4:50 PM

#162

@JS – To debug, start by deactivating each plugin one by one to see if comments show up. See if you can isolate the plugin that might be fouling up comments.

Next I would try activating the default WordPress theme instead of Atahualpa. (Check on the Atahualpa forums to make sure this won’t mess anything up.) Do comments show up on the default theme?

Let me know how those two things work for you.

JS

9:00 AM

#163

Mark,

Deactivated plugins one by one-did not work. Activated the Twenty One theme-did not work. I am at a loss!

JS

3:05 PM

#164

Mark,

I think I may have found something. In the theme options:

NOTE: On single post pages the %comments(‘…’)% link won’t display anything because the comments are on the same page. If you still want to link to the comments, the comment section and the comment form start with named anchors, so you use something like this:
<?php echo 'Skip to comments‘; ?> or <?php echo 'Skip to comments form‘; ?>

It is in the “kicker” section..not sure what that is, but I think I am close. I could email the whole page, it is so long, it would fill up too much of this page.

Thanks!

Mark McLaren

3:35 PM

#165

@JS – Okay, but I thought you said that comments would not display even if you activated the default theme. If that’s true, you may want to make a new WordPress installation in a subdirectory – using the default theme – so you can be sure there is nothing wrong on the sever. If your comments work on that new installation, then see if you can add your custom theme to check if comments will work. That will help to isolate the cause. (Which sounds like a real pain in the butt, by the way! Sorry you’re experiencing that. It’s quite unusual.)

JS

4:12 PM

#166

After changing a whole HOST of things, I added the bfa comment widget and FINALLY are seeing some comments YAYYYY

JS

4:26 PM

#167

I think the theme is set up to have “links” to posts? Anyway, so glad I finally have some comments showing. Would like to see them under the post, but maybe more tweaking…..

Your time in helping people with their wordpress problems is appreciated and not taken for granted. Thanks!!!

Ray H