WordPress Bootcamp

First off, thank you to everyone for your patience.  I took two weeks off of the bootcamp.  One week due to lack of perceived interest on my part and another because I… erm… forgot.  Whoops!  But I’m back this week with talk of that most mystical feature of WordPress, the one that more often than not draws people over from their safe cocoons on Blogspot… PLUGINS.

They’re at the same time scary and exciting.  Exciting because they allow you to do all sorts of fun things from displaying blog post titles in fancy custom fonts to inserting pictures right from your flickr account without ever having to leave your “Write Post” screen to beating down nasty spam comments so you never even have to look at them.  Plainly put?  Plugins can do virtually ANYTHING.  (Well, maybe not wash your dishes for you, but that might feature in an upcoming WordPress version.)

First… the basics.  You need to have an ability to upload files to your blog directory on your server.  This means plugins aren’t a part of WordPress.com.  Whether you use FTP or your host’s file manager upload utility, it doesn’t matter.  Just as long as you can upload files.

Next, you need to find plugins that will work best for you and your blog.  You can find a lot of awesome ones at the WordPress Plugin Directory.  The bonus to this site (other than it being “official”) is that when the developer releases an update for the plugins you downloaded from here, you’ll have the ability to “automatically” upgrade your plugin.  But I’ll get into that later.  Another good place to look for plugins is googling “best wordpress plugins”.  You’ll get tons of results for blog posts that discuss favorite plugins.  After a while, you’ll see the same 10 or so plugins discussed and you’ll know those are ones you probably want to have.  Just beware: some of these posts may be several years old and may discuss plugins that don’t exist anymore or don’t work for the most recent version of WordPress.

Once you have a plugin you’d like to add to your blog, download it to your desktop and then (since most plugins come in .zip format), unzip the file using your favorite zip utility.  You’ll most often have a folder so if you use FTP, chances are you can just upload that entire folder as is to your “wp-content/plugins” folder on your blog server.  This article over on WordPress.org explains far better than I ever could the basics of installing plugins, so check it out if you need more assistance (or feel free to contact me, if I’m not busy I could lend a hand).

Once your plugin is uploaded, go to your “Plugins” page in the admin interface (hint: it’s next to “Settings” on the righthand side in the latest version).  You’ll see a page that looks something like this:

Down at the bottom of the page, you’ll see your new plugin listed and there’ll be an “Activate” link to the right of the plugin title.

Click it and voila!  Sometimes plugins will have their own settings that need to be tweaked, so just look under “Settings” in your admin panel and the plugin should be listed there.  As always, refer to the plugin’s webpage (often the name of the plugin on the Plugins page links to the plugin webpage) for support if you need help with anything.

All that said, I have an even EASIER way to install plugins (which is probably I have so many of them on this blog).  I use a plugin called the One Click Plugin Updater.  It requires some fiddling with folder permissions as well as the standard upload I detailed above, but it is WORTH IT in the end.  What it does is makes it so you don’t have to FTP or upload another file again in order to add plugins to your blog (themes too, but we’ll cover that in another Bootcamp).

Once installed, you just go to your “Plugins” page (like you see above) and select “Install a Plugin” from the submenu.  On the page you’ll have the option to “Install From URL” or “Install from File”.

For the first option, you just need to copy the link to the zipfile you wish to to install in the “URL” field and click “Install” (obviously, this is a plugin not a theme so you can ignore the “Type” field).  That is all.  You will then see a message like this:

You can either click the “Activate the plugin” link there or go activate it fron the Plugins page like I showed above.

The other option on the “Install a Plugin” page is to install from a file.  It looks like this:

In this case, you can take a plugin zipfile that you have downloaded to your computer and browse to it.  Once selected, click install and voila!  After that, it’s the same process as above to activate the plugin and you’re on your way.

BUT, it can be even EASIER.  If you use Firefox, there is an add-on that goes along with this plugin called the “One-Click Installer for WP“.  it allows you to right click on a plugin download link and install directly to your blog, avoiding even the “Install a Plugin” page.

After you click on that, a window open in your browser displaying the “Install a Plugin” page and this message:

Once you select “Yes, Install It”, the rest of the activation process is the same as above.  COULD IT BE ANY EASIER?  I really don’t think so.  So run, do not walk, and get this plugin for yourself.  If you need another reason?  It gives you messages when a plugin has an update available a la WordPress’s annoying update reminder with one important difference:  there is a link to automatically download and install and activate the updated plugin all in one click.  NICE.

Do you still need somewhere to start?  Then I’m going to list out the Plugins I Cannot Live Without.  These are plugins that I always make sure will work with new versions of WordPress before I upgrade because I cannot fathom having my blog without them.

• One Click Plugin Updater (duh)
• Flickr Photo Album
• Akismet
• TTFTitles
• WordPress.com Stats
• WordPress Database Backup
• Comment Email Responder
• TinyMCE Advanced
• Twitter Tools

And these plugins are new (and some old) favorites of mine that are quickly becoming some of my favorites:

• Commentluv
• Instant Upgrade
• Ozh’ Admin Drop Down Menu
• WPtouch iPhone Theme
• Simple Tags

And there you have it.  Plugins!  God bless them.  They’re just fabulous.

Next week I’ll probably cover Designing WordPress, unless you all would rather I cover another topic first.  So tell me: 1) What’s your favorite plugin? (or if you don’t have a WordPress blog, what kind of plugin would you like to have?) and 2) What would you like to see me cover next time?

Class dismissed!

There was virtually NO response (except for Casey, thanks Casey!) to the WordPress Bootcamp last week so I have no idea what you guys are interested in hearing about this week (or if you’re even interested at all, for that matter).  So in lieu of that, I won’t be doing a WordPress Bootcamp this week.  See, I’m sure you’re all just HEARTBROKEN, aren’t you?  (*crickets chirp*)

I didn’t even get a lot of response on my review blog when giving away yogurt (YOGURT, people!  Nectar of the gods!) this last weekend.  And I don’t want to hear any “But it was a holiday weekend,” nonsense either.

I feel I must point out that I’m being goofy here.  I don’t really care if anyone entered my yogurt giveaway (thanks to the THREE people who did, though) or if you think my WordPress Bootcamp is a waste of internet space (is there finite internet space?  Something I’ve always wondered…).  It is what it is.  I myself have been rather distracted the last couple of days.  I’ve got about a billion things spinning around in my head and I have the distinct impression that I’m dropping balls right and left.  I know I’m forgetting things that I should be remembering.  But I can’t remember them long enough to, well, remember them.  I think my underactive thyroid is starting to attack my brain cells.

Also, I feel I should tell you that I’m now drinking the kool-aid:

As you can see, I’m not terribly far into it yet.  I only have time to read about a chapter a day, and that’s just on weekdays because there is ZERO time for reading on weekends (at least this last weekend, which was uber-busy).  And so far I sorta want to punch Bella in the face.  Actually, scratch that, I REALLY want to punch Bella in the face.  And I think I want to punch Stephenie Meyer in the face too.  So I’m hoping it gets better.  Because I’m finding I’m constantly distracted from the story by wanting to punch people.  Is that normal?  Tell me it gets better!

***

You’ve seen this “meme” that has been going around where bloggers expound on things that they believe are the “tits”.  I know you have.  I have.  And on more than one blog.  And since I’m a nerdy follower, I’m going to give you all a little list of Things Marilyn Think Are The Tits.

• “Jack’s Big Music Show“
• my new iPhone
• toasted cinnamon raisin bagels with cream cheese
• that new mayonnaise that has olive oil in it
• Fall (as opposed to Summer)
• Obama
• Rockstar
• did I mention the iPhone (how did I ever live without it?)
• getting unexpected goodies in the mail
• getting expected goodies in the mail
• snuggling at night with Evie
• rainy days
• snowy days
• Simply Apple
• for that matter, Starbuck’s Caramel Apple Spice is pretty rockin’ too
• my minivan

Whew.  I’m all “titsed” out for now.  I better go feed my children some breakfast before it becomes lunchtime.  (oops)  But tell me, what’s on your Tits List these days?

First of all, I want to thank everyone for their enthusiastic reception of last week’s WordPress Bootcamp.  This is something I’ve been meaning to work on for months now and I have just put it off and put it off and seeing how much everyone really enjoys and NEEDS the information, well, it just makes me glad that I finally got the lead out and got working on this.

As I promised many of you, I plan to cover moving from Blogger, Typepad and WordPress.com this week.  Last week, as you may recall, we learned how to get a domain name and a hosting account and set up WordPress.  This is the logical next step if you’re moving from another platform.

I can understand being nervous.  For many of us, our blogs are our lives (or is that just me?).  And the fear of losing all our posts and comments and categories and tags… well that can be rather daunting.  But this is why we backup everything first, so that we can “fix it” (or pay someone else to fix it) if something goes wrong.  Not that anything will because moving to WordPress is SO EASY.  So lets get started, shall we?

Importing from Blogger

They honestly couldn’t have made this any easier.  First, from your WordPress Admin panel, locate the “Import” tab.  It’s under “Manage”.  Go ahead.  I’ll wait.

Click on “Blogger” and you’ll see a screen that looks something like this:

The only real caveat you need to be aware of here is that you need to have a Google account.   But since Google ate Blogger, chances are you have one.  And if you don’t, you really should have one because JEEBUS, Google is pretty important to bloggers.  Somewhere along the way, you’re going to want to use their services.  So just get an account already.  The importer also tells us you want to have an upgraded blog account on Blogger or a custom domain (not FTP).  I’m pretty sure that’s almost everyone but then again, I don’t know much about Blogger.  So when you’re ready to go, just hit the “Authorize” button.  You’ll see a screen like this:

You get an authorization screen.  Basically it’s asking you if you’re sure you want your WordPress blog to be able to access your Blogger account.  The answer is yes, so go ahead and click “Grant Access”. Then you get a screen like this:

You’ll see your Blogger account listed and it’ll also give you a count of all the posts and comments that will be imported.  Good to know!  When you’re ready, just click the “Import” button underneath “The Magic Button” column.  And voila!  Now, if your browser locks up (which isn’t unheard of if you have a ton of posts and comments), just hit the “Clear account information” button to restart.  You’ll want to go back to square one and start over, but the good news is that the importer will skip posts and comments that have already been imported so a) you won’t have duplicates and b) maybe it won’t take as long.

And that is it.  SERIOUSLY.  That is all you have to do.  EASY.

Importing from Typepad

Now, I have less experience with this, seeing as how I’ve never had a Typepad or Movable Type account to import.  The good news is, the importer makes it easy.  So back at the “Import” screen that I showed you up in the “Importing from Blogger” section, you want to click on the “Import from Movable Type and Typepad” link.  You’ll see a screen that looks like this:

This importer requires you to do one of two things.  Well, actually first you need to do one thing and then you need to decide which of the two things you want to do.  The one thing is: export your entries from Movable Type or Typepad (whichever you’re using).  Now, I can’t tell you how to do that.  But I bet if you Google “export from Typepad” or the like, you’ll find some instructions.  The important thing is that when you export, you’ll have a text file called “mt-export.txt”.

Either save this file to your computer (remembering where you saved it to, of course, I generally save things to my My Documents folder since that’s easy to remember) or upload it to your shiny new webhost using FTP and save it to the “/wp-content/” folder of your new WordPress install.  If all that FTP stuff is greek to you, don’t worry.  Just save the text file to your computer.

If you saved the file to your computer, just click the browse button to locate it and then hit the “Upload file and import” button to start the import.

If you FTP’d the file to your “/wp-content/” folder, then click the “Import mt-export.txt” button.

Both do the same thing, so don’t worry about the other button if you have already chosen to do the import one way, okay?  And like with the Blogger import, sometimes the browser might lock up if you have a lot of entries or comments.   NEVER FEAR.  You upload and import the “mt-export.txt” file multiple times without fear of duplicate entries, the importer will just pick up where it “left off”.  Just keep at it until everything is uploaded.

Importing from WordPress.com

This is also a very easy task.  And the good news is that EVERYTHING will be imported.  Not just the posts and comments, but categories, links, pages… you name it.   First, from your WordPress.com account, you want to go to Manage and then the “Export” tab.  You’ll see a screen like this:

Don’t pay attention to the “Restrict Author” part, unless it’s part of a group blog.  But most of us don’t have to worry about that, so just go ahead and click hte “Download Export File” button.  You’ll have a “.wxr” file saved to your computer.  Then, you want to go to the “Import” screen in your new WordPress install (as I pointed out in the “Importing from Blogger” section above) and at the bottom of the screen is a link that says “WordPress” for importing from WordPress.  Go ahead and click it.  You’ll see a screen like this:

Browse to the file you downloaded from your WordPress.com blog and then click “Upload file and import”.  Should be as easy as that.  (Can’t say as I know as I’ve never had to actually do it, but everything I hear is that it’s a piece of cake.)

So there you have it.  If you have any questions, feel free to ask them in the comments and I’ll see if I can help you out.  Also, if you have any suggestions for what you’d like me to talk about next week, let me know in the comments as well.  Otherwise, I’ll find another fun WordPress topic to talk about (there are a lot to cover!).  I hope this helps some of you who are wanting to move to take the final plunge.  If you want someone to hold your hand, let me know.  You can do it!