What is the best way to create #RSS feeds for categories and tags in #WordPress?
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How to create image-heavy blog posts in WordPress Twenty Eleven
In a train from Helsinki to Turku, on a WLAN connection that is slower than tar, trying to figure out what’s the most economical way to create an image-heavy blog post.
Apparently, WordPress 3.3.2 offers an improved ‘Drag-and-Drop Media Uploader’. You can upload several images simultaneously and they will be collected in a gallery that can be easily inserted into a blog post. That’s nice.
When creating a blog post and clicking the Upload/Insert icon, after uploading an image using the uploader or after selecting one from behind your Media Gallery tab you can select one of several sizes before you click ‘Insert into Post’: Thumbnail, Medium, Large or Full Size. If the original image is smaller than one or more of the the standard Thumbnail, Medium or Large sizes, those options will be greyed out.
What I’m hoping to find out is: if at this point I select a size that is smaller than the Full Size, e.g. if I select Thumbnail, will WordPress insert the thumbnail into the blog post such that when clicking the image, the Full Size will be presented?
[Two minutes later:] Answer: yes, apparently that’s how it works.
Next: What is a gallery? How to create one? How to insert a gallery into a blog post such that each image is presented as a thumbnail but doesn’t load the full size file (which takes ages on a post with multiple images) into the thumbnail space – and still links the thumbnail to the Full Size?
I’ll be back when I’ve found out. In the meantime, don’t hesitate to spoil it in the comments. 
[5 minutes later:] OK, this works for me: I uploaded a couple of large images using the uploader. After the upload I clicked ‘Show’ for each image to select the size ‘Thumbnail’. Then I inserted the gallery into the blog post. The result is a blog post with light-weight thumbnails that link to their respective Full Size originals.
[A lunch meal later:] Now, can you also compose galleries from the Media Library and then insert them into blog posts? (no time to test now, will later)
[16 days later:] I found a blog post that explains how to create galleries, associate images with posts and re-use images from the Media Library in different galleries. Mica Wood, the author, warns tho that it may be advisable to re-upload an image for a new gallery instead of re-using it from the Media Library. That way, if you’d delete an image from a gallery later, you wouldn’t unintentionally delete it from multiple galleries.
New question: Can I change the gallery settings so that the images would appear as landscape rather than square thumbnails?
Upgrade and design tweaks
Today I upgraded to WordPress 3.3.2 and worked a bit on this site’s design.
The backup documentation seemed a bit intimidating at first, but it turns out that my hosting provider offers an option to automate backups via FTP to a server in a different location. We’re doing that once a day now.
So I just pushed the upgrade button and that was it.
Then I created a Child Theme which I dubbed ‘Twenty Eleven Schuurmudgeon’. Continue reading
Learning to run WordPress “on the job”
(Image: Creative Commons Attribution: Joi)
Clay Shirky was recently quoted as saying that publishing is not a job anymore but a button and that all it takes to publish these days is a WordPress install.
Well, I’ve been learning to install WordPress instances on a hosted Apache server via the Ubuntu terminal. I was actually merely following written instructions tho, but learning nontheless.
Lots of passwords involved, which prompted me to start using a handy password manager called KeePass.
On the topic of “on the job” learning, Joi Ito remarked in a recent post:
“(…) My sister calls me an “interest driven learner.” I think that’s code for “short attention span” or “not a good long term planner” or something like that. (…)
Although reading the dictionary and the encyclopedia from cover to cover may seem a bit extreme, it often feels like that’s what we’re asking kids to do who go through formal education. (…)
I wonder whether we should be structuring the future of learning as online universities where you are asked to do the equivalent of reading the encyclopedia from cover to cover online. Shouldn’t we be looking at the Internet as an amazing network enabling “The Power of Pull” and be empowering kids to learn through building things together rather than assessing their ability to complete courses and produce the right “answers”? (…)”
I must agree; I’ve been learning a good deal of WordPress configuration and CSS design lately by looking up what I need to know as I go about the project.
With codecademy, on the other hand, I got stuck learning javascript because the exercises were not driven by my immediate practical needs. And those emails trying to lure me into “building my own blackjack game” don’t really…
Or then it just means that, like Joi, I’m a just an “interest driven learner”.
Nokia N97 browser crashes on WordPress comments
On my Nokia N97, when I read a WordPress blog post and scroll down to the comments section, the browser crashes. Is that just me?
Getting into WordPress child theme creation and CSS modification
A few months back I had my blog moved from WordPress.com to a self-hosted WordPress installation, running the theme Twenty Eleven. I’ve carefully started tweaking some of the very basic design properties, such as some of the colors.
While getting a feel for the possibilities, I’m also developing a few ideas for new functionality and improving the site’s design. This journey could be quite good fun and so this post is just to share some of the ways I’ve been going about it, for what it’s worth and for my own reference.
Continue reading
Found: ‘Schedule WordPress Database Backup to Dropbox Account’
“(…) I use Wp-db-backup plugin for scheduling the database backup. There is a feature in that plugin that allows you to send the scheduled backup to your mentioned email address as attachment. (…)
Storing your database backup in Dropbox will assure you about the availability of your important data as it will synchronize that files automatically to your computer. (…)
All the workaround is to arrange your Dropbox such that you can upload the email attachments to your Dropbox automatically. Send to Dropbox is a great application that allows you reach the above goal. So, go to “Send to Dropbox” and allow the access to your Dropbox account. (…)”
via Schedule WordPress Database Backup to Dropbox Account.
Would you like to host my WordPress blog?
I’m looking at hosting my own WordPress.org installation for this blog. (At the moment it runs on WordPress.com.)
Why?
(1) To follow Dave Winer‘s suggestion that we should run our stuff on our own infrastructure:
It’s important that people learn to manage their own infrastructure. It’s going to happen, we can do it. We can make servers much easier to set up and maintain, and do more stuff that’s meaningful to people like the people in Egypt fighting for freedom. By spreading out we’re harder to stop.
(2) To “own” my own data;
(3) For more freedom (“as in speech” and “as in beer”) in domain mapping, css design and deployment of widgets.
Do you have experience in running self-hosted WordPress.org installations? If you do, would you like to host mine as well?
(I’m just thinking, there may be synergies…)
Why to run a linkblog á la Dave Winer’s ‘Protoblogger’
Dave Winer has an experimental WordPress rendering of his linkblog, Protoblogger.
“(…) Protoblogger is an experiment in linkblogging.
Background — when I started scripting.com in 1997 it was a linkblog, but gradually over time it changed into a hybrid, with links and longer stories, and finally became a place for essays. I transitioned to using Twitter as the place I publish links.
If this experiment works, I’ll still push links to Twitter, but they will publish here too. (…)”
via About « Protoblogger.
Dave’s been working like forever on ways to keep/make the Internet more distributed, and thereby less vulnerable to attacks by centralized power, such as corporations or governments.
In recent episodes of his Rebooting the News podcast with Jay Rosen, the two have been discussing the risks involved in surrendering our communication and our data to Big Corporate Silos.
Dave also wants us all to run our stuff on our own infrastructure. So that next time someone wanted to shut off some part of the Internet, the only way to do it would be for them to shut down the Internet entirely.
Twitter is effectively running the current global iteration of the news system or, let’s say, the 140-chars system of news. With a view to making that particular 140-chars news system more distributed, Dave’s idea of a linkblog which lives on our own infrastructure but can feed into services like Twitter makes a lot of sense.
So I feel encouraged to do something similar: next to my WordPress blog for the long form, I’ll set up a linkblog. But first I’ll learn from Dave how his experiment pans out.
Can I get the Disqus widget on the ‘Contempt’ theme on WordPress.com?
…or do I need to host my own WordPress.org installation in order to be able to add widgets which are not readily included in a theme?