WordPress.com Resources – Tips, Tricks and Tools

This is my collection of tips and tricks for running a WordPress.com blog and programs/scripts I have written to make blogging easier.

See the full list of free software I have created.

You can get frequent updates about all of my new software, tools or blog themes by subscribing to IDT Labs by RSS or by email. Or you could just subscribe to my main blog, Internet Duct Tape.

Tips and Tricks – Table of Contents

• General Blogging Tips
• WordPress.com Specific Blogging Tips
  • Using Widgets on WordPress.com Blogs
  • More Information About WordPress.com Upgrade Features
• WordPress.com Theme Review

Tools – Table of Contents

WordPress.com does not allow installation of plug-ins (or themes) so it can only be modified with 3rd party applications running on your computer.

• Downloadable Programs
  • Tag Cloud Generator – build tag clouds or heat maps without a plug-in
• Greasemonkey browser extensions for Firefox
  • WordPress Category Resizer – three column layout for add categories
  • Akismet Auntie Spam – resize the view of the Akismet spam box to see more spam per page
  • Find Wide Images – find images that are too wide and break the box model of your theme
  • Search the WordPress.com blog – it was missing a search field

Blogging Tips

• How NOT to be a Successful Blogger — What I Did Wrong
• 5 Habits for Writing for the Web
• 20 Tips for Blogging
• Building an Audience / incoming links
• Understanding Tagging
• 3 Surefire Ways to Advertise Your Blog on a Shoe String
• 5 Reasons Blogging Leads to the Unemployment Line (You’re Fired!)
• The Biggest Mistake a Blog Can Make is Not Owning Its Own Name

WordPress.com Tips

• Getting Started

• For Those Who Are New to the WordPress.com Support Forums
• The WordPress.com FAQ

• Tricks

• Insert line breaks in compose mode with Shift-Enter.
• Check stats quickly at m.WordPress.com
• Creating a digest post

• Spam

• Reduce Spam by Blacklisting .info and .biz
• Too much Spam – Akismet Auntie Spam for WordPress.com (Greasemonkey Script)

• RSS

• Why you should use FeedBurner instead of the default blog feed

WordPress.com Widgets and Sidebars

• >> WordPress Widgets Wizardry – how to use sidebar widgets
• Installing the MyBlogLog widget to see who is reading your blog
• Using Splashcast multimedia sideshow widgets (text, sound, photos, video)
• Create a link to random posts on your blog
• Display your Technorati rank in your sidebar using an RSS widget

WordPress.com Upgrades

• Domain Name registration

• WordPress.com domain registration explained
• Why you should own your own domain name
  

• CSS Upgrade

• CSS Tip: Building 3D Buttons with CSS for the Sandbox Theme
• CSS Tip: Design for Sandbox Theme in a sandbox

---

Other Blogs About WordPress

These blogs cover WordPress and WordPress.com.

• Lorelle has an amazing blog full of WordPress information
• Mark’s WordPress Pages

---

WordPress.com Tag Cloud Generator

• Want to display all of your categories/tags on a single page as a tag cloud? You need my Tag Cloud Generator for WordPress.com program.
  
• Tag Cloud Generator connects to your WordPress.com account, downloads information about your tags/categories and generates HTML code you can cut-and-paste into a blog post or a blog page. It’s not as simple as running a plug-in, but it is the only solution available for WordPress.com bloggers who want a tag cloud.

---

WordPress.com Theme Review

• Tired of switching themes only to find out days later that there’s a bug with it, or it doesn’t support some feature that your depend on in your writing? You need to take a look at the WordPress.com Theme Review.
• 
  • It lists all of the features (and bugs) of the various WordPress.com themes.
  • 4 themes are reviewed each week.
  • At the end, an Excel spreadsheet will be released with all of the information.

---

WordPress Category Resizer (Greasemonkey)

• Too many categories getting you down? Tired of only being able to look at 10 or 12 categories at once? You need the WordPress Category Resizer.
  • It is a Greasemonkey script for Firefox that moves the category list when editting/creating posts.
  • The categories are moved underneath the text box.
  • Three columns are displayed at once with no scrollbar.
  • Adding new categories still works.

---

Akismet Auntie Spam (Greasemonkey)

• Is your Akismet inbox filled to the brim with spam? Do you ignore it instead of checking for missed comments? You need Akismet Auntie Spam for WordPress.com.
  • It is a Greasemonkey script for Firefox that greatly reduces the amount of text displayed on the screen.
  • Moves navigation bar to the bottom instead of the top.
  • Reduces text size.
  • Truncates long comments.
  • Click to open a popup with full comment.
• With Akismet Auntie Spam you can go from 3-6 comments per screen of text to 17-20 comments per screen of text.

---

Find Images that are Too Wide and Break your Blog Theme (Greasemonkey)

• Does your blog theme break in Internet Explorer 6 because of images that are too wide? You need a script to find images that break your theme.
  • It is a Greasemonkey script for Firefox that warns you if your blog theme will break in Internet Explorer 6.
  • Warns if images are too big and will break your blog.
  • Suggests dimensions for resizing images so they will fit.

7 Day Referrer Log parser (unsupported, Perl)

• This is how I parse the WordPress.com 7-day referrer log into stats like I used in “I Digg It“.