Wishing for Some Development

I wanted to renovate Blogleafs.com. I wanted to make a home page and and a separate blog page. I also wanted to add another page to show the feeds of my friend’s blogs plus typical pages such as contact page, about, etc. But after mulling over the idea and trying some stuff for two days, I realized that my knowledge of HTML and CSS is not that broad yet.

The same goes with ViennaLopez.com. I wanted to make the homepage to a personal page then another page for the blog and one more for a gallery. I have been looking around for ready made website themes but I cannot find something that has a personal page, a blog page, and a gallery page. Maybe what I want is too complicated. But I have seen a great website (LarissaMeek.com) that has these so I am sure that it is possible. It has a gallery page, artwork page, and blog page. The homepage is the blog not a personal page like what I want but something similar to this is what I have in mind for ViennaLopez.com. I want a separate gallery for the selection of photos I’ve taken.

But these are not yet possible at the moment. I have to either learn how to design my own pages or hire someone to do it for me. The first one will take time and the second one will need a lot of money and I don’t have both.

Wordpress 2.5 is Here!

Finally, the long awaited latest version of the world’s best blogging platform is now out!

You may download Wordpress 2.5 here and you may read the installation guide here. If you are updating from older version of Wordpress, it’s advisable to read the upgrade instructions here.

I will definitely upgrade all my wordpress blogs to WP 2.5 as I have heard that there are very cool features but for now, I will start with ViennaLopez.com and experiment with it a little bit.

Don’t be the last one, get your Wordpress 2.5 now.

Writing Your Posts

Given that you’re new with Wordpress Blog Platform, I have listed things to remember when writing your post.

1. Create your draft in Microsoft Word. MS Word corrects your grammar and spelling. Although it is not 100% right, it’s better to have some thing to warn you about our typographical and grammatical errors.

2. Now copy and paste your article from Word to your blog’s editor. This is very important—click on the “CODE” tab and paste your article there. DO NOT paste your article directly on the “VISUAL” tab. Why? Because when your copy something from MS Word, you also copy it’s formatting which will later on cause problems within your Wordpress pages and posts. Pasting your article from Word to the “CODE” tab is the way to do it because this strips out MS Word’s built-in formatting.

3. Don’t forget to give a title to your post.

4. If you want to further edit your post, click on the “VISUAL” tab and edit it from there.

5. Categorize your post. Tick the category your post belongs to. You may add categories by typing it and clicking the Add button.

6. Give tags to your posts before hitting the publish button.

How to Get Your Own Domain Name

I have nothing against starting your blog in free blog hosting sites like Blogger and Livejournal but getting your own domain name and getting a paid hosting for your blog is advisable specially if you want to be taken as a serious blogger. Having your own domain name and a paid hosting also gives you full control of your blog. You have more options on what platform and template to use and you also have the freedom to monetize your blog if it becomes successful in the future.

Here’s how to get your own domain name:

1. Think of a good domain name. Make sure that it is related to what your intended blog is all about. Example: “parentlove.com” is a good choice if your blog is going to be about parenting.

2. Think of good alternatives. It could happen that your choice is already taken so it’s advisable to have equally good alternatives.

3. Find a domain name registration site and do a domain name search.

4. Register a domain name. Given that your chosen domain name is free, you can then register button, pay, and viola! You now have your own domain name.

Is Wordpress 2.5 Here Yet?

Since its published released date, March 10, 2008, Wordpress 2.5 is still not out!

Its released date was moved to March 17 but to this day, it is still not launched and a lot of people are getting dismayed. When will Wordpress 2.5 be finally released? When will we get finally enjoy its claimed new features which include the following:

1. customizable dashboard
2. multi-file upload
3. built-in gallerie
4. one-click plugin upgrade
5. tag management
6. built-in Gravatars
7. full text feed
8. faster load times

The sneak preview looks amazing and I personally cannot wait to get my hands on it. I just hope that the guys behind WP 2.5 can polish the platform immediately and stop the all the suspense.