Great RSS Feed Icon Generator

I have yet to try this out, but it looks great -- create a nice looking RSS Feed icon for your blog with this tool

clipped from www.smashupgraphics.com RSS Feed Icon Generator Here's a new smashup that generates a RSS feed icon. Choose the color scheme, size, and whether you want a drop shadow and glassy effect. This is the standard web icon used on websites and blogs to show users how to subscribe to receive the latest content. RSS feeds make it easy to stay up to date on the latest stories and articles from your favorite blog or website. Read more about what RSS feeds are and how to use them here. Feel free to use any of the feed icons that you generate here on your website or blog so that users know how to subscribe. Here's an earlier post about how to use smashups on your own website. How To Use These Graphics On Your Website Try it out. Simply click "Create" to make a new RSS feed image that looks like this: If you need a smaller button, just decrease the size. For example, here's what the icon looks like with size=60:

Great Wordpress Tutorials

clipped from www.wpdesigner.com How to Use Wordpress as a Membership Directory Do you want to create a moderated membership directory that showcases your member’s information? Do you want it to be flexible, be very little work after initial setup, and use a world-class open source platform that you are already familiar with? Your first thought might not be to use Wordpress for such a project, but since it already has an extremely easy way to accept, moderate and update registrations – it’s a perfect candidate. In this tutorial I will show you how I built a successful membership directory using nothing more than a standard Wordpress 2.3+ install and 2 very powerful plugins. (more…) clipped from www.wpdesigner.com How to Create An Archives Page In another effort to de-clutter the sidebar and begin your initiation for The Organization for the Organized, here’s how to create an archives page for archive links listing by categories and months. First of all, check out the Wpdesigner’s archives page to see what you’ll be adding to your blog.

Top 10 Wordpress CMS Plugins

clipped from www.blueprintds.com Top 10 WordPress CMS Plugins For moderately sized sites (including simple e-Commerce sites), WordPress does a pretty good job as a CMS, making it easy to maintain your site, and update your content. Of course, it does this best with the help of a good theme, and some great plugins. The strength of WordPress is the community of developers who have already done almost anything you can think of with it. Here are the best plugins we’ve run across, the ones we install for nearly all of our client’s sites. Cforms II - This is far and away the best contact form plugin there is. The reason? configurability. You can easy build literally anything with it. We’ve built out employment application forms, wedding checklists, and more for clients. It also drives our own quote form. There’s also built in spam protection, via question and answer or captcha. by delicious days

Google Sitemaps Generator

Sign up for Google Webmaster Services (do a Google search) and then download, install and use this plugin.

clipped from www.arnebrachhold.de Google (XML) Sitemaps Generator for WordPress This plugin generates a XML-Sitemap compliant sitemap of your WordPress blog. This format is supported by Ask.com, Google, YAHOO and MSN Search. More information what XML-Sitemaps are and how they can help you to get indexed by the major search engines can be found at Sitemaps.org and the searchenginewatch blog. If you have questions about XML-Sitemaps or run into problems, have a look at my Sitemaps FAQ. Note: The XML-Sitemap format was introduced in 2005 by Google and adopted in 2006 by YAHOO, MSN Search and Ask.com so thats why it’s often called "Google Sitemaps". Features: Available for all WordPress versions since 1.5 No PHP skills or file changes needed User interface to customize all parameters like priorities etc. Available in many languages Generates automatically a sitemap for all types of WordPress pages Calculates a priority for each post, based on the number of comments

31 Tips to being a better blogger

Great source of articles from Problogger on how to build a better blog.

clipped from www.problogger.net Archive for 31 Days to Building a Better Blog 98 Blog Tips for a Lazy Sunday The 31 Days to Building a Better Blog is over and it’s time to post the final reader tips. In today’s batch there are 98 tips in total which means that I’ve now posted links to 626 reader blog tips on the central 31 Day Project Page. Please note - submissions are now closed. Run a SWOT Analysis on Your Blog Today is the last day in the 31 Days to Building a Better Blog project and as a result I want to make your last task a little reflective and forward looking. Your task today is to run a SWOT Analysis on your blog. A SWOT analysis is a strategic tool that has been used for many […] Explore a Social Media Site Today’s task in the 31 Days to Building a Better Blog Project (this is the 2nd last day) is to explore a social media site (whether it be a networking site or a bookmarking one) that you might not have seen or explored previously. I’m not going to tell you which one to choose to […]

Video Tutorials on How to Best Use OpenID

Here are a number of video tutorials on what OpenID is, how to use it and how it can help you.

clipped from searchmarketingcourses.com What is Open ID, How do You Use It and Why Should You Care (in 4 Short Videos) Problogger just ran an article about a new service called OpenID (it’s actually a guest post by Yunching of YC’s Ramblings). The short story of OpenID is that it simplifies the log-in process in our busy internet lives (i.e., you don’t need to keep creating new accounts for each new website that you want to use). The long story of OpenID is, well, longer. That’s why Problogger ran an article about it and that’s what these videos are for. So, go check out the Problogger article to learn how how OpenID can help you blog commenting and check out our videos to learn what OpenID is, how to use it and why you should care. What is OpenID and How to use it The first two videos are nice, clear demonstrations of what OpenID is and how to use it. Our first video is called OpenID Show from Simon Willison [Note: Simon has a number of posts about OpenID on his website which you may want to check out].

OpenID and Wordpress.com

Your OpenID URL on your Worpdress.com blog.

clipped from faq.wordpress.com What is OpenID? OpenID is an open standard that lets you sign in to other sites on the Web using your WordPress.com account. This means less usernames and passwords to remember and less time spent signing up for new sites. How do I get an OpenID? If you have a WordPress.com blog, you have an OpenID already! An OpenID is a URL, and your OpenID is the URL of your blog, for example: http://matt.wordpress.com/ How do I use my OpenID? Look for sites with sign in forms that look like this: Enter your OpenID - that’s the URL of your weblog: Click the button, and you will be redirected to WordPress.com. If you are already logged in, you will be asked if you want to pass your identity to the site: Click “Yes; just this time”, or “Yes; always” if you don’t want to be asked this question again for this site. You will be redirected back to the site and logged in, all without using a username or password! What if I’m not signed in to WordPress.com?

The Implications of OpenId (Simon Wilson Speaks at Google Tech Chat)

Here is a talk on OpenID by Simon Wilson. It's long (51 minutes), but for anyone who is interested in the implications of OpenID then you'll want to check this one out.

clipped from www.youtube.com The Implications of OpenID OpenID is an emerging standard that provides simple, decentralised authentication for the Web. OpenID follows the Unix philosophy, solving one small problem rather than attempting to tackle the many larger challenges posed by online identity. This talk will explore the implications of OpenID, and explore the best practices required to take advantage of this new technology while avoiding the potential pitfalls. Speaker: Simon Willison Simon Willison is a consultant on OpenID and client- and server-side Web development, and a co-creator of the Django Web framework. Before going frelance Simon worked on Yahoo!'s Technology Development

OpenId on Wordpress

Here is a short video on how to integrate OpenId with your Wordpress blog. It demonstrates a plugin called WP-OpenID.

Again, I added some comments from YouTube after the video.

clipped from www.youtube.com OpenID on Wordpress In this video, I discuss openid on the Wordpress blogging engine. I would not force people to log in to post a comment... You can use the plugin and people who have openid-enabled their blog, will log in with openid while commenting, others won't notice anything. The first kind of commenters who have logged in with openid will have the openID logo in front of their comment (that is, if your theme doesn't prevent that - if so you need to tweak your theme). The openid logo will indicate to readers that that comment is _really_ from that user from that website.

Another great video on how to use OpenId

This is perhaps the best one yet. Clear, easy to understand. No worthwhile YouTube comments, though.

clipped from www.youtube.com How to login to sites using OpenID How to login to votay.com using OpenID

Great video demonstration of OpenId

This is an excellent video which clearly shows how to set up and start using OpenID. Again, I included some comments from YouTube users at the end of the video.

clipped from www.youtube.com OpenID Show Explains how OpenID works This is a really great explanation! I'm just in the process of enabling OpenID authentication for my site. I can't believe it took me so long to understand the real power of OpenID. I suddenly want to become an evangelist and get the whole world to understand it! :) @drakasx - It has been thought of before - Remember Microsoft Passport? This system is better, because it is open, and not reliant one one company. Great explanation, now I understand how OpenID works. However, I don't onderstand why it is so long until they made something like this? I had thought of this idea about 6 years ago, and, well, it is nothin gtoo special for me! You still didn't answer the question about losing your OpenID :|

Video on OpenId

Here is a clever, helpful video on OpenId - a new technology designed to make it easier to sign into websites (watch the video to see what I mean).

Below I clipped some of the comments from YouTube (it seems that not everyone is enamored with the idea.

I guess we'll just have to see if this takes off.

clipped from www.youtube.com OpenID According to Dave A short video explaining OpenID, brought to you by myVidoop.com the authentication part is fine but the email part is wrong, I don't want to use the same email for every site I sign up for. There are many solution to the too many users and passwords problems. this soluiton requires sites to implement it, that's never going to happen with enough sites to become a real solution for the user (and the big ones will not want to do this at all) isn't this like cardspace? (or whatever it was called) I'd rather use a plug in that saves my passwords locally This is a disaster. There exist several ways to gain access to any server that checks with an IDP : One way that is not impossible is by using DNS poisoning so the service asks a fake IDP about "is this dave ?" ( or anyone else you wanna gain access for ) and always get yes answer. Superb explanation for noobs. I'll stick it in my blog so I know where to find it! Thanks, myvidoop.

Wordpress for Dummies - recommended by Amazon users

Here is one of the more popular books on Amazon.com on how to use Wordpress. Worth checking out for those of you looking for a good introductory guide.

You can read all the reviews by clicking here!

clipped from www.amazon.com WordPress For Dummies (For Dummies (Computer/Tech)) (Paperback) WordPress For Dummies (For Dummies (Computer/Tech)) (Paperback)   (13 customer reviews) clipped from www.amazon.com Most Helpful Customer Reviews 9 of 10 people found the following review helpful: Best Wordpress book thus far clipped from www.amazon.com 4 of 5 people found the following review helpful: Practical how-to manual clipped from www.amazon.com 7 of 8 people found the following review helpful: Excellent for beginners and some tips for later clipped from www.amazon.com Editorial Reviews Book Description Are you a wannabe blogger? A seasoned pro migrating your blog to WordPress? Looking to do more cool stuff with your existing WordPress blog? Then this fun guide is for you! WordPress for Dummies is a veritable smorgasbord of WordPress information, ideas, tools, resources, and instruction on everything you need to create and maintain your dream blog.

Top Blogging Forums Part 1

Here are the first 3 of 10 forums recommended by Newest on the Net. Find the forums you like best to help you be a better blogger.

clipped from newestonthenet.com 10 Forums to Make You a Better Blogger 1. Authority Blogger Forum: The Authority Blogger Forum is a forum created by Chris Garrett, the author of Chrisg.com. This Forum is pretty new, but I am finding it to be a great community of bloggers. It is also great for new bloggers. 2. Blog Traffic School Forums: The Blog Traffic School Forums are forums provided by Yaro Starak. Yaro is the author of Entrepreneur’s-Journey blog. In addition to this blog, Yaro runs the Blog Mastermind blog mentoring program. If you are interested in being a professional blogger, I highly recommend join the Blog Mastermind program. I have been a participant since Yaro started it. 3. The Blog Experiment Forums: The Blog Experiment Forums are an extension of The Blog Experiment, but the forums are the focus of the community. This is an excellent community of bloggers. The forums are very active and very helpful.