The new AJAX Edit Comments has been released, and the creator has remade it from the ground up. The interface has changed, it’s cleaner and now the double-click to edit comments has gone, you get 3 nice options.
The new design has also been redesigned to work really well with Wordpress 2.5, rather than the old one that seemed a little ,, antique, in my opinion. The new one looks awesome 
I’ve got it running on GPearce and I might possibly put it up here too, I’m not sure yet.
Popularity: 39% [?]
We’ve got a blog setup and working. All good. Now, you need to choose a look for it.
If you’re blogging in a niche, it’s important that you select a theme that fits into this niche, there’s no point having a blog about the latest technology, and using an olde style theme, it just doesn’t make sense. If you’re making a personal blog, then go for a theme you like. It doesn’t matter if anyone else likes it, it’s for you to use for your blog.
When I started out, I used a free theme from wpthemesfree.net, browse through there and see if anything catches your eye.
The major limitation of free themes is that thousands of people use them, which means that they aren’t unique. However, if you don’t want to spend too much money, they are often the only way. Whatever happens, don’t go for ripped premimum themes, you get found out sooner or later. Pick a free theme, install it, and then customize it as you go along (or get someone else to help).
As a guideline, you should go for a theme with at least one sidebar, which is widget enabled and not too heavy. Load up the theme demos on websites, and browse around - don’t just choose by the screenshot
Once you’ve chosen, upload the theme files to your wp-content/themes directory and activate them through the Design tab.
Popularity: 29% [?]
Okay, well we’ve got a domain. We’ve got hosting. We’ve chosen Wordpress, because it’s the best. Now for the setup phase.
Installing Wordpress itself is pretty simple. You download the file, change wp-config-sample.php to wp-config.php, and then open it up in notepad. Then make a database using cpanel or similar, make a username, put them together (this is very self explainitory), and put the information into the wp-config.php file. Then upload the whole lot to your website, and navigate to it. The install process does the rest.
However, once you’ve got your blog installed, there are some things you definitely should do.
The first of those things is to setup permalinks, because a blog with ?p=44 links looks ugly, to be frank. There is a complete tutorial on how to do this here.
Next up, you should do your about page. Don’t worry about the theme for a moment, that’s in the next post. Your about page should contain information on what subject the blog is written on, and if it’s a personal blog, maybe a bit about you. Everything counts.
Now setup some categories. This can be done while posting, but I think it’s better to have pre-defined categories to work with, its simpler. Head over to manage >> categories and add a couple here and there, depending on what you feel like.
And that’s it. You’ve now got a nice blog with nice links, categories and an about page. Next up, a theme.
Popularity: 100% [?]
This is an important decision to make at the start of your blogging adventure - what script are you going to power your website with? I reccomend using Wordpress - It’s free, open source, amazingly fast, light and infintely extendable with a huge range of plugins. Wordpress powers this site, and every single other blog that I run or contribute too.
However, just saying Wordpress won’t help you at all. Let’s look at the other options.
MovableType
MovableType is a much heavier blog publishing tool written in a totally different language, which has it’s ups and downs. The primary advantage of MovableType is that you can host multiple blogs from the same installation, with no fuss and no mess. MT also publishes all posts as actual html files in the site directory, because this means that far less, if not no connections are made to the database when the page is called, making it very fast (supposedly).
The primary disadvantage of MovableType is that, although there is a free version, it’s closed source, and there are all sorts of licensing limits on that free version. Opensource is definitely the best.
There are also various other blogging platforms, like b2 and flatpress, but they aren’t really worth mentioning. Wordpress is the best.
Popularity: 21% [?]
Choosing a host is very difficult, because you have to weigh in the cost of the hosting with the profile of the host, their reliability and credibility. After all, you don’t want them to vanish overnight, do you?
For hosting your own personal blog, you should choose a big host, which has a reputation and has been around for a few years, so that you know your data is safe. Pay a little more if you have to, it’s worth it to find a reliable host. IW2B is hosted with HostGator because they have been around for about 5 years, and their massive.
It’s worth shopping around, and finding a host that fits your exact needs. For a blog, there aren’t many needs - you need a mysql database, FTP access and PHP running on the server and about 100mb space, as a minimum. This allows you to host your blog, theme and have a fair few posts before you run out of space.
If you’re running a blog where you’ll be uploading photos, you’ll want more space. Don’t compromise.
You shouldn’t trust the host reviews websites (apart from webhostingstuff.com) because they tend to big up the companies that pay the best to them for referring you, rather than the company that is actually the best.
I reccomend HostGator completely - it’s cheap, reliable and very fast. What else do you need? You can also use the coupon code “Wordpress” to get the first month on one of the plans for a cent.
HostGator isn’t good for everyone though. Browse the websites of places like DreamHost, HostNine, Fasthosts and suchlike (Google them) and find what’s best for you.
Popularity: 9% [?]
Choosing a name for a blog is definitely tricky, and it’s something you should think about for a while. Picking the wrong name at the start, and then realising a month in is a disaster. You either have to put up with the substandard name, or try and move to the new one, which can be very tricky.
When choosing a blog name, bear in mind it’s purpose. If it’s a personal blog about your life, then try yourname.com. However, if you are writing about cars, you might want to include a car keyword in the title, like ilovecars.com.
When choosing the domain, you should normally go for a .com domain, because everyone remembers them, and they look best. If you’re really not able to get a .com domain you like, try .org or your local extension, like mine is .co.uk.
Normally, I would advise to pick a relatively short, catchy domain that can’t be confused with anything else.
Now, where to register? If you’re going for a .com, I would advise that you register at GoDaddy, and if you’re going for a local extension, try a local registrar, they tend to be cheaper. Choose somewhere you trust, that’s the most important thing.
Popularity: 18% [?]
The question of what to blog about is one which pops up all the time when blogging, for new and experienced bloggers alike. Not everyone has something amazing to write about every day, or even every week.
As this is to help people new to blogging, I will assume that you don’t have a blog and are seeking something to write about before you start, in which case the best advice is to write about something close to your heart, be it sport, games, your own life, the news or anything similar. It doesn’t have to be an amazing topic, you can just about guarentee there will be someone out there who will find whatever you’ve written is useful.
Try to brainstorm what you plan to be writing about, and give yourself a rough idea of a plan - it makes deciding exactly what to write at the time much easier.
If you have no idea, why not write a personal blog? That’s what I do personally, and I write about pretty much anything that comes to mind, over a massive range of subjects which wouldn’t fit into a “niche focused” (set on one topic) blog. I would also advise against going for a niche like “Make Money Online” because there are thousands of blogs saying the same thing out there, and you’ll a) get barely any traffic and b) run out of things that actually work to write about pretty quickly.
Popularity: 9% [?]
Hello and welcome to GoBloggin, a website by George Pearce. This website aims to create a sort of blogging hub, possibly a community in future, posting blogging news, tips, releases and a weekly featured blogger.
Right now, the project is ‘being created’ and won’t ‘technically’ be open to the public for at least another month. Please check back again then
Popularity: 8% [?]
